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C OPYRIGHT Ó 2017 BY T HE J OURNAL OF B ONE AND J OINT S URGERY, I NCORPORATED

AOA Critical Issues

Leadership, Communication, and Negotiation Across


a Diverse Workforce*
An AOA Critical Issues Symposium
Denis R. Clohisy, MD, Michael J. Yaszemski, MD, PhD, and Joanne Lipman
Investigation performed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Abstract: The current workforce in the United States is rapidly changing and is increasingly inclusive of individuals from
a broad range of ages, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Engaging and leading a diverse workforce creates great
opportunities for innovation and adaptation in our evolving medical economic and clinical care delivery environment. For
optimal engagement of employees and partners, orthopaedic surgeons must develop the necessary skills for executing
change inside complex organizations and across teams composed of a variety of providers and skilled workers. Im-
portant skills include leadership, effective communication, and negotiation within an ever-changing employee milieu.
Understanding generalizable differences between age-based generations can increase the effectiveness of one’s
strategies to execute change and increase organizational performance. One of the greatest impediments to effective
communication and negotiations that all leaders face is unconscious bias. For leaders, even the tiniest unconscious
biases have an outsized impact. Common domains that harbor unconscious bias include sex, race, and ethnicity. Ad-
dressing unconscious bias begins with developing awareness and then deploying various tactics that might include equity
in compensation, promotion, and “being heard.” Effective negotiation skills also are essential to lead a diverse workforce
and develop a successful organization. The most basic goal in any negotiation should be to establish a relationship (or
deepen an existing relationship) while seeking an agreement that provides win-win opportunities for all parties. To ef-
fectively achieve a win-win scenario, leaders must recognize and address their tendency to interpret others’ behaviors,
values, and beliefs through the lens of their own beliefs and experiences. Finally, and fortunately, there is a set of leader
attributes that transcends the generational differences and diversity that is encountered in the workplace. These attri-
butes include integrity, credibility, effective listening, having a vision of your destination, fairness, humility, and caring.

Peer Review: This article was reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and one Deputy Editor, and it underwent blinded review by two or more outside experts. The Deputy Editor
reviewed each revision of the article, and it underwent a final review by the Editor-in-Chief prior to publication. Final corrections and clarifications occurred during one or
more exchanges between the author(s) and copyeditors.

*Presented as a symposium at the 128th Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Association, June 25, 2015, in Providence, Rhode Island.

Disclosure: The authors indicated that no external funding was received for any aspect of this work. The Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest forms
are provided with the online version of the article (http://links.lww.com/JBJS/C882).

J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2017;99:e60(1-5) d http://dx.doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.16.00792


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The current workforce in the United States is rapidly changing Generational Differences
and is increasingly inclusive of individuals from a broad range Understanding generalizable differences between age-based
of ages, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Most medical generations can increase the effectiveness of strategies to execute
schools and orthopaedic surgery departments would report change and increase organizational performance. The majority
that the majority of individuals working to achieve the day- of our current workforce is composed of 3 generations5. These
to-day operations of their organizations are women, younger include Baby Boomers (Boomers), Generation X (Gen Xers)
than the age of 30, older than the age of 60, or part of a mi- and Generation Y (Millennials). Generally speaking, Boomers
nority. A recent publication from Forbes magazine summarized were born between 1943 and 1965, Gen Xers were born between
findings from a survey of 321 chief executives1. Those polled 1965 and 1978, and Millennials were born between 1978 and
were running companies with an annual revenue of ‡$500 2002. In the domains of work ethic, views on authority, and
million, with 40% of the chief executives running organizations work-life balance, the Gen Xers and the Millennials are similar,
with an annual revenue of >$5 billion. Participants were asked but distinctly different from the Boomers. Boomers are often
to evaluate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that a workaholics, are uncomfortable with authority, and are willing
diverse workforce was important for achieving future innova- to sacrifice work-life balance for professional advancement. In
tions in companies; 48% strongly agreed and 85% somewhat contrast, Gen Xers and Millennials tend to work only as hard as
or strongly agreed that a diverse and inclusive workforce was needed, are comfortable with authority, and place a high value
crucial to drive future innovation. In addition, it is interesting on work-life balance. Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials tend
to note that census data projections predict dramatic changes to have different views on the need for supervision and to whom
within the workforce. Specifically, by 2050, there will be no they are loyal. In general, Boomers are insulted by supervision
racial or ethnic majority in our country, and 83% of the growth and are loyal to the company, Gen Xers expect intermittent
in the working-age population will originate from new immi- supervision and are loyal to people, and Millennials expect con-
grants and their children5. tinuous supervision and are loyal to ideas.
Diversity among orthopaedic surgeons has increased
substantially over the past 40 years. Diversity among resident Unconscious Bias
trainees is the best measure of past and future workforce trends. One of the greatest challenges facing the orthopaedic community
A recent report found that 20% of orthopaedic residents repre- is unconscious bias. Everyone (physicians as well as patients) has
sent minorities, with the highest numbers being Asian (11.7%) biases that are buried so deep inside of us that we are unaware
and African American (4%)2. Growth in the percentage of mi- that they exist. These biases may be against any “outsider” group,
nority residents has increased for Asians (4.5% per decade) and, including minorities, women, the disabled, the obese, and the
more gradually, for Hispanics (1.4% per decade) and African elderly. Understanding and adapting to our biases will improve
Americans (0.68% per decade)2. Between 1970 and 2016, the effectiveness as one leads across a diverse and inclusive workforce.
percentage of female residents increased from 0.6% to 13%, and It is important to note that implicit bias is not inherently
recent data identified a higher rate of women (96%) matching bad; it is a survival mechanism. Scientists estimate that we are
for orthopaedic fellowships than men (81%)3,4. bombarded with 11 million bits of information every second.
While engaging and leading a diverse workforce creates However, the human brain can process just 40 pieces of infor-
great opportunity for innovation and adaptation in our rapidly mation simultaneously6. Therefore, the subconscious takes
changing economic environment, it also highlights the need shortcuts. This can be extraordinarily useful. Our ancestors,
for leaders to be effective communicators and negotiators in- for example, had to react immediately if they were confronted
side a complex, ever-changing employee milieu. Fortunately, by a tiger or a hostile member of another tribe7.
there are several basic sets of principles and areas of knowledge But unconscious bias manifests itself whenever one sees
that can help to guide leaders and assist in the adaptation of someone who is not in their “tribe” (e.g., if you’re a man, that
their styles and strategies to be more effective in the future. might be a woman; if you’re white, that might be someone who
Understanding the various age-based generational divisions is black). An implicit association test developed at Harvard
represented in the workforce can provide definition of and University has found that the vast majority of people have some
clarity around the need to consider generational differences unconscious bias, in particular against women and blacks8,9.
when developing employee-targeted leadership strategies. In For leaders, even the tiniest unconscious biases have an
addition, there is clear evidence that unconscious bias is present outsized impact. A Rice University researcher created a com-
in all of us, and understanding and adapting to these biases will puter simulation of a company with an entry-level workforce
improve effectiveness as one leads a diverse workforce. Fortu- that was evenly divided between men and women. Each worker
nately, when we study leadership attributes that effectively mo- was assigned a randomly generated performance score that was
tivate and inspire employees, there is a set of attributes that programmed with a miniscule 1% bias against women. The
transcends generational differences and diversity encountered result? The top level of the organization was 65% male10.
in the workplace. Finally, given the complex composition of In medicine, this kind of subtle bias helps to explain the lack
our workforce, it is helpful to apply basic tenets of negotiation of women in the top ranks. A study published recently in the
to advance the various strategies and missions that leaders pur- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that elite male
sue either with large organizations or individual employees. faculty members in the biological sciences, including several dozen
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Nobel prizewinners, train up to 40% fewer women than either less- Awareness is the critical first step to effectively manage
distinguished or female faculty. It concluded that bias against biases. In the United Kingdom, new legislation will require
women was at the heart of the problem, and, as a result, women companies to publicly publish the wage gap between male and
“are vastly underrepresented at the faculty level in the life sciences.”11 female workers18; in the U.S., some companies have pledged
In another study, led by Yale University researchers, sci- to do so voluntarily19. But even leaders who do not make those
entists were asked to evaluate resumes for a laboratory job. The figures public can perform an annual comparison of salaries to
resumes were identical, except some applicants were named make certain that compensation is balanced among different gen-
“John,” and others were named “Jennifer.” The scientists believed ders, races, and ethnicities.
that they were making impartial, evidence-based assessments, but A third step leaders can take is to reevaluate the promotion
the results showed otherwise. The scientists judged the male ap- process and whom they are choosing to promote. Medical schools
plicants to be more competent, and offered salaries that averaged often lament about the lack of diversity in the top ranks. Leaders say
$4,000 more than those offered to the identical female applicants12. that they want more women in top jobs but there are not enough
If we consider race, the impact is even more pronounced. qualified women. In reality, the problem is not at the top—it is at
The identical-resume experiment has been conducted using the bottom, where there is a greater representation of women and
black-sounding names (e.g., Jamal) and white-sounding names minorities. Why are white men more likely to be promoted up
(e.g., Greg), with the same result. In one study, resumes with through the ranks? Unconscious bias is one issue, as the Rice Uni-
“white” names received 50% more callbacks than those with versity computer model illustrates. But social scientists also have
“black” names13. This experiment pitted average resumes with identified another reason: women do not put their hands up for
“white” names against highly skilled resumes with “black” promotion unless they feel they are 100% qualified for a position,
names. The white-sounding names received more callbacks13. whereas men will raise their hands when they are 60% qualified20.
Furthermore, in an experiment pitting black male job applicants There are several interesting experiments for counteract-
with clean criminal records against white male applicants with ing this trend. At eBay, executive recruiters are required to
felony convictions, the whites got as many or more callbacks14. present diverse slates for every job opening. Google has begun
We cannot eliminate our implicit biases, but we can take sending out what it calls “nudge notes” to remind women to
steps to counteract them. Organizations are actively applying raise their hands for promotions. The tech giant has a system in
methods to identify and neutralize unconscious biases. The which engineers can nominate themselves for promotions, but
first step for leaders is awareness. Some companies have put it noticed that men did so far more frequently than women. By
programs in place to remind leaders of their own biases. For sending out simple nudge notes (basically saying, “we’ve no-
example, Google and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), both ticed that women aren’t nominating themselves, but hey, you
very male-dominated industries, have introduced what they should”), they reversed the trend.
call “bias cheat sheets” that leaders can refer to when hiring The fourth way in which some organizations are combat-
or considering whom to promote. The cheat sheets ask various ing bias is by changing the way that meetings are run. Women
questions: Do I typically hire the same type of person or per- and minorities often find themselves overlooked or ignored in
sonality type? When I say a candidate isn’t the right “fit,” what meetings, or they make a suggestion that no one seems to hear
do I mean? Whom do I encourage to speak out at meetings? until a man repeats it and then gets the credit. Additionally,
When it comes to recruiting at the entry level, the RBC women are frequently interrupted: one study found that male
also designates 1 person on each college recruiting team to play technology executives interrupt women 3 times more frequently
devil’s advocate to try to identify bias, such as whether a can- than they interrupt other men21. The solution for this is simple:
didate is the best qualified or simply has something in common everyone in a meeting, regardless of status, should be empow-
with the interviewer (e.g., rowing crew or belonging to the ered to call out those incidents (i.e., to recognize Susan, Shakoya,
same fraternity). Google encourages its employees to call out or whomever it was that was interrupted or shut down, or whose
any examples of bias in other employees, even in a boss. Other contribution was co-opted by someone else).
companies are trying more subtle approaches. Cardinal Health It is important for leaders to bake diversity into the incen-
has changed its approach to career fairs, staffing its booth with tive system. At Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex, Kotex,
female pharmacists rather than male, to send the message that and Huggies (among other products), most of the executives
female applicants are welcome. have been white men, while the vast majority of customers are
A second step that leaders can take is to even the playing women. So, the chief executive officer (CEO) made a concerted
field when it comes to compensation. A Carnegie Mellon econo- effort to hire and promote more women. Many of the steps that
mist has found that men are 4 times more likely to ask for raises, he took were geared toward making the company more family-
and that when women do ask, they ask for 30% less15. That is one friendly (e.g., building lactation rooms for new mothers). But
reason that there is still a substantial pay gap: according to the perhaps the most crucial step that he took was changing the
2016 U.S. Census figures, women earn just 79 cents for every incentive system for executive bonuses. Employees are judged
dollar a man earns16. In the medical profession, a new study found on 4 “buckets” regarding bonuses, and 1 of those buckets now
that even though nursing is overwhelmingly a female profession, includes not just hiring, but retaining and promoting women.
male nurses earn an average $5,100 more per year than female Substantial effort has been applied to manage uncon-
colleagues in similar positions17. scious bias in the field of medicine through education. These
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efforts include educational programs within medical schools, verse and inclusive partnerships can be achieved through prin-
universities, and health systems22. The Association of American ciples that transcend a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Medical Colleges (AAMC) has played a leading role in educating A basic goal of any negotiation is to establish a relationship
about unconscious bias23 by providing single-day workshops and or deepen an existing relationship, while seeking an agreement
4-day courses on the topic24. The AAMC also has provided sum- that provides win-win opportunities for all parties. Different view-
mary suggestions from the literature, which can be applied dur- points, conflicting goals, and high stakes can cause deterioration
ing the hiring process to mitigate some effects of unconscious of negotiations, from focusing on the relationship and a win-win
bias when evaluating applicants24. These include asking mem- outcome to focusing only on the details of a contract. Dialogue
bers of selection committees to take an online “Implicit Associ- and actions that fail to develop or deepen the relationship between
ation Test” (http://implicit.harvard.edu/); provide an objective, the parties may create an “I win and you lose” end point. Estab-
structured interview process; acknowledge that assessments of lishing an “I win and you lose” negotiation atmosphere is not
candidates (including letters of recommendation) may present recommended if the end product requires a durable partnership.
skewed representations; recognize that cultural differences can To effectively achieve a win-win scenario, leaders must
affect first impressions; and commit ample time for interviewing recognize and address their tendency to interpret others’ be-
and evaluating candidates because sex bias emerges more when haviors, values, and beliefs through their own lens of beliefs
evaluations are performed under pressure. and experiences. This type of bias (conscious or unconscious)
may serve as an obstacle to trusting your counterpart (and vice
Universal Leadership Qualities versa), and may inhibit your ability to understand how you can
In the rapidly changing culture of delivering musculoskeletal benefit by helping your counterpart to achieve his or her goals.
care, all surgeons will be positioned to accept and excel in Another critically important potential pitfall in negotiations is
leadership roles, ranging from leading a small team of care the presence of stereotypes (conscious or unconscious), which
providers to leading care delivery and/or academic activity in- limit, or in the worst cases, distort (or make inaccurate) one’s
side large health systems and multispecialty groups. ability to understand a counterpart’s expectations and inten-
Fortunately, there is a set of leader attributes that tran- tions. Without self-reflection and consultation to address the
scends the generational differences and diversity that are encoun- inaccuracy of one’s own “lens” and preexisting stereotypes, the
tered in the workplace. These attributes include integrity, outcomes of negotiations will not reach their full potential.
credibility, effective listening, having a vision of your desti-
nation, fairness, humility, and caring. Integrity is achieved Conclusion
through actions that engender trust and competence. Cred- Leading across a diverse workforce provides unprecedented op-
ibility is gained through actions that lead to both success and portunities for success. Achieving success will require the devel-
failure. Credibility demands honesty, humility, and compas- opment of strategies and tactics that are based on understanding
sion during times of victory and defeat. Effective listening generational differences and recognizing and managing biases.
requires hearing and learning through dialogue that is re- Leadership attributes, including integrity, credibility, effective lis-
spectful, challenges ideas, and assimilates the views of all tening, having a vision of your destination, fairness, humility, and
individuals at all levels of an organization. Leading requires caring, will resonate with and attract productive and innovative
both a vision of where your organization is headed and the employees. The growing diversity of our workforce and the inter-
ability to motivate others to execute the vision because they national economy may initially add complexity to successful ne-
are passionate about it. The softer attributes of fairness and gotiations, but striving for a win-win outcome and understanding
caring are essential for leaders. Leaders with high emotional behaviors, values, and beliefs through the lens of others will po-
intelligence are self-aware, caring, and fair. They manage sition leaders to be successful in challenging negotiations. n
relationships in a manner that is persuasive and not coercive.
They create agendas and visions that attract and do not ma-
nipulate others. Leaders who achieve or continuously pursue
these attributes will observe that a diverse and inclusive
workforce will follow them, execute a shared vision, and Denis R. Clohisy, MD1
2
Michael J. Yaszemski, MD, PhD
enhance the likelihood of industry-leading innovation. Joanne Lipman
3

Successful Negotiations 1
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Minnesota,
Leaders in orthopaedics participate in negotiations at many Minneapolis, Minnesota
levels, ranging from high- stakes organizational negotiations 2
to negotiations with an individual employee. Organizational Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
negotiations can involve an academic department, a service 3
Gannett Co., Inc., McLean, Virginia
contract, a university, or a health system. Individual employee
negotiations can involve a high-impact, visible organizational E-mail address for D.R. Clohisy: clohi001@umn.edu
leader or an employee who provides a straightforward but E-mail address for M.J. Yaszemski: Yaszemski.Michael@mayo.edu
needed service. Fortunately, successful negotiations across di- E-mail address for J. Lipman: joanneblipman@gmail.com
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