Chapter 22: Transforming Facilities Management
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Description
In this segment, Mr. Daigneau discusses changes he brought to Facilities Management during his eighteen years at MD Anderson. He begins with an overview of his goal when he arrived: to combine all facilities management services into one management group. Mr. Daigneau explains that he created the Facilities Management Design Group to come up with a new plan for integrating Facilities Management services. The Group's first goal was to define the products that Facilities Management offers. They identified three core products: the creation of space (capital); the operation and management of that space; and management of all logistical details that make the campuses work. Mr. Daigneau next explains that the identification of products served as the basis to reorganize Facilities Management. He talks about how Facilities Management services were organized into two operational groups, Research and Education and Patient Care, to serve the unique needs of researchers and physicians. H
Identifier
DaigneauW_02_20131004_C22
Publication Date
10-4-2013
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - An Institutional Unit; The Administrator; Institutional Processes; Overview; Definitions, Explanations, Translations; Discovery and Success; Building/Transforming the Institution; Growth and/or Change; Obstacles, Challenges; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
That's great. Well, the next question I wanted to ask you was about how Facilities Management and Operations evolved as the department during the time you were at MD Anderson, because there was all of the expansion plus all of the complexity of the support that you began to provide, giving the new kind of approach to development and oversight that you were bringing to the institution. So tell me that story.
William Daigneau, MBA:
Well, as I said, when I arrived basically there were separate groups that had a part to play in managing facilities and the campus operations. So one of my tasks, as I said, was" challenges" was basically combined all of those into a cohesive management group that would talk to one another, cooperate with one another, and try to maximum benefits to MD Anderson. So as I told you earlier, I formed" one of the first things I did was I formed what was called the Facilities Management Design Group. Their task was basically to come up with a new structure for Facilities Management. Now, I gave them certain" we worked through certain key concepts. One is what" actually wrote a paper about this called product-based management. You can look it up. You can Google it. Basically, one of the things I asked them to do was" what are our core products? In other words, what" why does Anderson have a department like us? What do they expect from us? What do we specialize in? What's our product? So the group came up with what we call the three core products. Basically, it was the planning, designing, construction" the creation of space, which included renovation" taking old space, making it newly adaptable, creating new space" whatever it was, space was one of our products, and that's what they would" people would come to us for. I need some space." So that was one core product. Our second core product was basically the operation and management of that space" space assignments, utilities, lights, cooling, heat, finishes" whatever it is" to keep it operational every day. Every day you come into your office, you flick on the light" it works! My computer work! It's comfortable in here! It's safe! I don't feel like my life is at risk here. We have smoke detectors and fire alarms that work, and my trash is gone. The space is clean. It's a nice place to be. That was another core product. Another core product was all of our logistical things to make the campus work every day. Hey, I got my mail!" You know? Shoot, I think I need to go over and talk to so-and-so. Instead of getting in my car, trying to drive over there, find a parking spot, I think I'll get on the shuttle bus to go see him." All of those things that just" mail, hazardous waste, security" see a friendly face that's carrying a revolver to protect me, you know? So all of those things that just make a campus work was one of our core products. So we had the three core products: facilities and operations, capital development, and logistical services. So with that decided then" structurally, how should we organize ourselves? Well, one thing I've become a believer in" especially at the University of Rochester" was that there are different organizational models. You can read them in any text. One is along product lines. One is along geography. For example, Prudential Insurance" they had the southwest zone. They had the eastern division. They had the western division. That's a geographical alignment. Product lines are where you basically organize yourself around your core products. I decided we would combine the two, but primarily the product alignment. Basically to manage the capital portion of it" the space development part of it, we created what we call capital management, basically. It had a couple of different names over the years. It was basically organized" everything that had to do with the creation of space, whether it's renovation or new construction, all building records, all space records" anything" leasing, real estate, land acquisitions" anything that had to do with creation of space was assigned to that unit. On the facilities and operations, this is where I kind of combine the two, because I discovered" as I said, at the University of Rochester, there's really unique needs" different needs between a researcher and a physician. They have truly different needs in terms of space. So we basically split the facility operations side of things into two groups: One dedicated towards patient care, and one dedicated towards research. If you look at our organization, we have" now there were other parts of the mission, so I added prevention to Patient Care, and I added Education and Research. So now we have basically research and education facilities and patient care facilities, and those two groups are responsible for the day-to-day needs of space" operation for those four mission areas. So that was kind of a mix, even though they have" they share the same product line" as I said, geography was more mission division. That has worked very well over the years" created that back in '94, and it withstood even a different vice president. (laughs) So" and then lastly, we created basically what's called Campus Operations, which basically combined all of the logistical things" housing. Now besides those core groups" at the time in '94, there was one group they did report to directly. It was Campus Police. They reported directly to David Bachrach, my boss at the time. When David Bachrach left, they didn't know quite what to do with the police, so Dr. Mendelsohn assigned it to me.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Uh-hunh (affirmative).
William Daigneau, MBA:
Now I did have experience at Rochester and my other campuses with managing security and police, so it wasn't like it was something I hadn't done before. So I was comfortable with it, and Campus Police reported to me, as well. Of course, the last group, which has a specific mission, was Environmental Health and Safety. They were always a unique product line, so we retained them as a coherent group to manage all fire safety, hazardous material management, chemical safety, radiation safety, all of those aspects that go on. So that's" but when you look at the structure, you will see those three core services plus police. Police has now since moved from Facilities Management, but at the time I left, all the core services" with Research and Education sharing one of them" and Patient Care, and then UTPD and Environmental Health and Safety. So that was the structure. Over the years, we continued to fine tune it. For example, Capital Management and Development" I found was getting bogged down with small, minor remodeling products, so we reassigned small remodeling projects to the actual operations area" Patient Care and Research and Education. So you need a coat of paint, a couple of cabinets removed, a door moved" those kind of things that we'd just take care of, as opposed to going through the more extensive program in Capital Management and Development. But Capital Management and Development, over the years, basically has continued to" with some tweaks" for example, originally had real estate reporting directly to me. I reassigned that to Capital Planning Management. So there were some tweaks in that structure over the years, but basically it's remained intact, according to that original design.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
What are some big lessons that you learned from reorganizing and reintegrating facilities in this way at MD Anderson?
William Daigneau, MBA:
Well, the biggest barrier to really high-level performance in an organization is the organizational boundaries. It's not just the fact that the heads of those units don't talk to one another or won't share information, but everything through the organization does that.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Yeah, you were talking about the silos" yeah.
William Daigneau, MBA:
Yeah, when I first got to Anderson, Facilities Management consisted of 500 people. When I left Anderson, we were over 1,700 just because of the growth of facilities over the years. So when the organization started getting that big" I mean" Leon Leach would often kid that my budget was larger than the gross national product of many third-world countries. (laughs)
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Well, it's amazing, though" wait for" answering the phone. It is like a small city. It really is" and very self enclosed.
William Daigneau, MBA:
Yeah, fourteen million square foot. So anyway, so" so" that's always the challenge. So the silos get" when you don't report to the same person, the silos get more rigid, you know? Because there's nobody" one person standing there, saying, I want to hold you accountable for this." So the strength of an integrated Facilities Management function is that it reports to a single individual who sets the expectations and tone for cooperation and coordination. So whenever we're planning buildings or trying to decide how to solve a problem, all the major players responsible for some aspect of facilities were sitting at the same table with me. So it was a more comprehensive solution than if I had only controlled a little piece of it, where you rely on cooperation and good will. In an organization, you can rely on it, because the expectation people will share and will work together. So it really" it improves facilities outcomes by having everything under one roof, because everybody has to" nobody can say, Well, it was so-and-so's decision." Oh, no! We all sat at the same table together. If you didn't speak up, whose fault is it? So don't blame so-and-so. So it's that kind of reality of, Oh, my goodness. I guess I really need to work out a better solution here." (laughs) There's no finger pointing happening here.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
What were some changes that took place? You mentioned that basically the staff of Facilities Management more than tripled during the time you were there. What were some challenges that arose because of enormous growth within facilities management as well as enormous growth within the institution?
William Daigneau, MBA:
Well, I think I began this interview by saying that my objective was that there would be no more than three levels between me and the customer. I was one of those levels. As the organization grew, we were unable to maintain that ratio, because the organization was getting so big. So we started getting some middle management layers in there. Frankly, if I would have stayed at Anderson, I was probably going to try to track" tackle that problem, because what happens as the organization grew was that information starts getting" you get a lot of noise in the information channels. They start breaking down, so you get less connected with your customer. So in order to combat that, you had to do more delegation, and there has to be higher levels of training and trust so that people can make decisions lower down in the organization without necessarily getting approval and that you're comfortable making those decisions. That's where the training comes in. So larger organizations have more complex communication problems and have to begin" in order to make sure that there is" that is remains responsive and it correctly interprets the problem and applies its best resources to solve it, you have to compensate for that" those lengthy communication channels that start occurring. I believe the solution to that is you have to have greater levels of knowledge lower in the organization, and you have to have greater delegation" more empowerment of workers to make the right call and do the right thing without it moving for various approvals through an organization.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Uh-hunh (affirmative). Was that something you began to do as the facilities expanded? I noticed that you had some training programs.
William Daigneau, MBA:
Yeah. We had a program called High Performance Management.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Tell me about that.
William Daigneau, MBA:
It was basically designed to improve people's ability to basically manage themselves as well as manage others. It had a number of key components to it. One was a greater awareness of one's self" what your tendencies are, what you're inclined to do under stress" recognition that exists in every human being so that you're able to deal better with distraught people without feeling like they're picking on you. Yes, they may be upset, but there's a reason they're upset, and just like you get upset about things, there's a productive way to handle it, and there's unproductive ways to handle it. So there's" that program was basically just how to better manage one's own stress and reaction to things, as well as the recognition of when that's occurring in someone else, so that you have a more productive response to it. So what I was trying to do there was develop better levels within the organization of people that could" because of" normally when you contact facilities, something's wrong. If everything's right, you don't care. You're not getting on the phone just to say, Hey, Facilities Management? I just want to tell you I'm feeling good today." (laughs) You never hear that. Hello? It's too hot!" My light bulb ain't on. It's flickering!" There's a fire in this room." (laughs) That's when you call, right?
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
(laughs) Uh-hunh (affirmative).
William Daigneau, MBA:
So by its nature of our operation, we get complaints. Something's wrong! So if you don't know how to productively deal with that kind of environment, you're going to get all flustered. You're going to get upset, and those are all" I mean" well, they're natural reactions. They're" in our business" they really don't help get to a stress relieving situation, which is to solve that problem. So I was trying to teach the organization better ways to deal with that" more productive ways to deal with that, as well how to set goals. I told you earlier that I honestly believe that management" most management is faulty in that it believes it has to set goals for people, whereas in a truly high performing organization, people will set their own goals within some structure where those goals further the interest of the organization. It's called a two-sided coin. One side of the coin is my personal well being. On the other side of the coin is the organization's well being. That's the two-sided coin. What you want to do is you can't split that coin, so how your goals that improve your well being also improve the well being and performance of the organization? So I was trying to give people tools of how to do that" accept their own goals but make sure that they" those goals have something to do with the interest of MD Anderson Cancer Center and specifically the Facilities Management Organization. Then there were just some basic tools about problem resolution, time management, things that have to do with productivity. How quickly do you get to a solution, and is it a good solution? How do you use your time" what we call gold coins. The story is that on the day you are born" in a bank account is deposited so many gold coins. Those gold coins are a minute" the total minutes in your life. Nobody knows how many gold coins you've got deposited, but there's a deposit there. From the day you were born until the day you die, which is when you exhaust all those gold coins, you make the daily decision about how you use that" every minute, it's a conscious decision. Now as a baby, that decision is, I need some sleepy time!" (laughs) I need some feeding time!" As you get older, you can make better and wiser decisions about that. What we teach is every day you start out with" well" eight hours times sixty minutes" your work day. You can make decisions on how you use every one of those gold coins. Question is: Are you using" investing them wisely? So we teach things like that. My whole objective is to try to move to improve decision making, interpersonal management relations between customers as well as with one another" the teams, team management" all of that" better throughout the organization so it was less reliant on me or my direct reports and was basically pushed down in the organization, so that was the purpose of High Performance Management" was to try to resolve this issue of the large organization" making better decisions at lower levels in the organization that were consistent with the best interest of MD Anderson, all the time.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
When did you start this High Performance?
William Daigneau, MBA:
I first" I took a course when I was at University of Rochester, and when I moved to Anderson, I believe that some of its principles definitely could benefit that organization, and so I imported it from Rochester" the High Performance Management called Integrated Management Development or something like that. It was a small consulting firm that ran the course. So I had brought them down, had them set it up, develop it for MD Anderson. We had our" it was specifically designed around MD Anderson.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
Oh, interesting.
William Daigneau, MBA:
There's videos" there's a whole bunch of stuff to go on with it.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
So how did you evaluate the results and how this program was having an impact on people's performance?
William Daigneau, MBA:
Well, they're very big in that. You can't just" what is the return on investment in this? What we did basically was" we" you know" I mean" there's" if you know the balanced scorecard, there's four components to the balanced scorecard. One is financial. One is product. Third is process. Fourth is learning and development. So you look at your returns on four areas. Well, learning and development is how much have I invested in my people, and how much time have they invested in themselves enhancing skills? So that's one measure of it. In terms of process is efficiency. Cost per square foot. So if you look at our metrics" they still exist at Anderson. What is our cost per square foot? What is our energy" BTUs per square foot? So the ratio is efficiency based basically. On the product or customer, it's customer satisfaction. What's your scores? Are you moving up? Are you moving down? Now we used" the hospital uses" I can't remember the company that runs the patient satisfaction scores, but there's a component about the environment that we use, as well as" people get upset about that" we always send out these little"
Tacey A. Rosolowski, Ph.D:
How did I do kind of" ?
William Daigneau, MBA:
Yeah, because I expect everybody to measure customer satisfaction. I want to know" are we trending up or are we trending down? I don't care what the score is. I'm just interested in the direction of those scores. Of course, financial is always budget compliance. Finance used to create" it was plus or minus five percent was green light. We had plus or minus two percent, because how well have you been planned for the year? No, there were mitigating factors. A hurricane comes along. Hey, I missed the budget. Big deal. But I also used" besides" in terms of financial, besides the budget performance was also" it was part of goal setting" cost savings, either through revenue enhancement or through reduction in expense. Reduction in expense, dollar for dollar, drops the bottom line. Revenue enhancement may cost you more money in expense, but the idea is you're still making" there's still some contribution to the bottom line. Obviously, the biggest area of" for us" the biggest opportunity always is utility savings" energy savings, and patient care has been very successful in that. Fine tuning the facilities, reducing the costs. They've actually got an Energy Department award in terms of what they were doing to re-commission buildings, reducing cost" big dollars" a couple million dollars a year. So that's the biggest opportunity, but I also ask people to look at lease cost savings. Could we post audit the lease and make sure we're paying a fair amount? We generate saving there. So there are a lot of things we did over the years to try to reduce costs. My measure was always go back and look at what our cost per square foot was. Was it trending up or trending down? So that basically was our attempt to maintain highly satisfied operations at small cost. (laughs)
Recommended Citation
Daigneau, William and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 22: Transforming Facilities Management" (2013). Interview Chapters. 145.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/145
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