Steven PLOCHOCKI

CEO of InSight Health Corporation

Growing up as a young boy in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit, my first role model was my father, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. Never earning more than $25,000 to support a family of five, he taught me early on about work ethic and values. He also showed me how the human spirit could prove to be incredibly powerful, when properly motivated and focused.

It was these humble beginnings that set the stage for the way I would later manage business and motivate employees. While growing up, I gained a distinct understanding for people spanning all walks of life, and I knew there would be no shortcut to success. I also knew that whatever I wanted to achieve professionally had to be earned through hard work, dedication, and by developing an affinity for the people with whom I worked.

As an avid athlete, I played a variety of sports my entire life—from grade school to college. I believe sportsmanship significantly contributed to my professional success and armed me with many of the tools necessary to head a large corporation. My passion for sports and my drive to win taught me the value of teamwork and setting and attaining goals. There could have been no better preparation for transitioning from the playing field to the health care field.

Today, as CEO of a large health care corporation, the lessons I learned early on—some the hard way and some through advice of wise souls, like my father, coaches, teammates, and former bosses—serve as the foundation for my progressive management style.

At the beginning of my career, I excelled as a salesman. When a boss asked me to move and take over a new territory, I was hesitant to make a change because I had built the best territory in the company. But he advised me that the only way to grow and succeed was to step out of my comfort zone. After thinking about this long and hard, I uprooted my family from Detroit—where I was comfortable and settled—to Kalamazoo, Michigan. And when I relocated my family again in 1992 to California to aid a company on the brink of bankruptcy, I strayed from my comfort zone again. These changes taught me how to take risks and overcome fear, and I realized that I should never settle. The more you embrace change and welcome challenges, the more you overcome fear. And, the more experiences you undergo, the less fear you have.

I try to teach this philosophy to employees every day. I work hard to foster teamwork and create solid, collaborative relationships between senior management members and different organizational ranks. I also strive to build bridges between various departments within the company and to remain a highly visible leader. My goal is to encourage, engage, and inspire across all levels of the company.

I have learned firsthand how this cohesive team approach and employee involvement can change the face of corporate America. By implementing systems that raise accountability among employees and offer incentives for good performance, we drastically motivated our team and took them all for a wild ride down the corporate restructuring path. A few years later, we all emerged better and stronger from it.

I often reminisce about the specific lessons I learned but welcome the fact that I am still learning. And teaching. If we can prepare the leaders of tomorrow today by offering sound, simple advice, then we are sure to have many great successes on the horizon.

Never stop striving, never stop learning, never stop teaching