Page 274 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

Dream, Believe, Dare, Do 255

will be even greater for tertiary care university medical centers where the focus
has never been on the patient experience or patient satisfaction, but rather
on medical research, medical education, and clinical outcomes. Most are not
good at ‘Creating the Exceptional Patient Experience.’”
With Patrick Charmel’s impressive leadership track record, Griffin Hospital
is sure to continue to be an industry leader in personalized health care. Last year,
Patrick was appointed to a three-year term on the National Advisory Council
for Healthcare Research and Quality. Recently, the Yale School of Public
Health honored Patrick as the John D. Thompson Distinguished Visiting
Fellow of 2006. Those Yale students, many of whom will be the next generation
of health care administrators, are the lucky ones who will learn from one great
leader how he guided his team through some turbulent waters and ended up
building one of the top “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America.

John Robert’s Spa

Dream
On their first date, John and Stacy dreamed of owning a hair salon. John
DiJulius says, “When I met Stacy, she was already a phenomenal hairdresser.
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At 19, she had a waiting list.” On that very first night, they discussed how
Stacy would open a salon and bring to life some of the many great ideas
John had for running a business. As John recalls, their first business plan was
drawn up on “a bunch of cocktail napkins.” Having worked for UPS during
college, John quickly discovered that he could make more money as a UPS
driver than as a corporate trainee with a marketing degree. As John told us,
“I went to work full time as a driver, hoping that I could put enough money
away to someday open my own business.”
Opening a hair salon, however, was not the sort of business John had in
mind when he first met Stacy. Sure, he thought it would be a nice little business
for Stacy, but John’s plan all along was to save his money for a “real” business.
Stacy recalls buying their first salon, “John saw an ad in the paper for a small
salon. He was always looking for opportunities. He called them up and before
I knew it, he had put an offer in. I was freaking out. I was 22 years old and
thought, ‘Oh My God! We don’t have any money.’ We took out a loan using
my Nana’s GE stocks for collateral. I don’t know how John talked her into it,
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but he did. She must have had her hearing aid turned way down that day.”
Their first employees were friends of Stacy’s who were also hairdressers.
With four employees and a base of over 1,000 clients, John thought the