Corporate Culture Matters Most
Chief executives who listen to their employees prepare the ground for success.
Turning around a health-care giant like Aetna is no easy task. When Ron Williams took over as chief executive, the company had been a perennial underperformer, with disappointed shareholders and a neglected staff.
Williams began his tenure at Aetna with a “listening tour” of all the company’s constituencies: doctors, patients, technical and clerical workers. When asked why anyone should believe he would be different from any of the previous five CEOs, it started an honest but painful discussion — one that Williams credits with helping to save the company. Aetna would go on to be named Fortune’s most admired health-care company three years in a row. Williams made it profitable, and eventually the firm was sold to CVS for $69 billion.