Doctor of change

Dr Lester Levy, photographed with his childhood hero Sir Edmund Hillary in 2004. Photo / Brett Phibbs

To look at Dr Lester Levy's business pedigree (he's currently chairman of Auckland Transport, Auckland and Waitemata District Health Boards and other private companies, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Auckland), it would be easy to assume he had a plan for getting to the top.

But he admits that his career wasn't planned, saying many of his best professional moments "happened by accident".

"Almost every job I have had has come to me rather than me applying for it," says Levy.

He believes the one thread running through his varied career choices is that he's always become as involved as he could in whatever job he was doing, and aimed to do the job as well as he possibly could.

"People say the way to get noticed is to network," says Levy, a self-confessed introvert who shies away from networking. "But I think to get noticed in the business world, and in life, you just need to do your very best and be persistent to achieve outstanding results. That's my advice."

Hailing from South Africa, Levy became a doctor and completed post-graduate studies in pathology. He later worked in the pharmaceutical industry, where he stumbled across the business side of the health world for the first time.

"I hadn't ever contemplated the business side of the health industry.

It was quite a surprise to find out there was such a thing as management, marketing and finance. It was a blind spot for me," says Levy.

"My world view was quite narrow - very much focused on the scientific and technical, with healthcare the centre of gravity for me."

Arriving in New Zealand aged 24, Levy took to the business side of the industry with the same passion he had to the clinical side and completed an MBA, which he says was transformational.

His lightbulb moment came when he picked up a project that everyone else had given up on.

"I picked it up and tried to breathe life into it and it was successful," says Levy. "The lightbulb moment for me was the idea that people give up too soon, too easily.

If you press on, are determined and go beyond where other people would go, it's amazing what can happen."

He suggests the margin between success and failure can be quite narrow and talks about his time as CEO of South Auckland Health (now Counties Manukau District Health Board), where he went back to the basics in the early 1990s.

"The environment was incredibly challenging when I started," he says. "There was very much an institutional focus rather than a customer focus."

To understand the problems, Levy took a trip to Middlemore Hospital with a patient. After circling the carpark for 45 minutes, the patient said at that point he usually would give up and go home, missing his appointment.

This sparked Levy to transform the region's healthcare and open a day-surgery clinic in a purpose-built environment in Browns Rd - the first in New Zealand. This time, there was plenty of parking spaces.

"There was antipathy towards it from almost everyone, even doctors, who didn't want to travel between the two sites," says Levy. "Now, it's a huge success and everyone loves working there.

"It wasn't what people anticipated and the underperforming organisation has been transformed against every element from finance to patient safety. The degree of change was dramatic and unexpected.

It stands out as a definite career highlight for me."

Levy has held many high-profile roles and was a founder of Ascot Hospital.

He talks of his idea to merge Ascot with Mercy Hospital, the two private surgical hospitals in the region.

"Mercy Hospital was our major competitor and not for sale. It took 21 months for me to work my way through developing good relationships with the Sisters of Mercy and we did eventually acquire it in 2001," says Levy.

"Everyone said it was impossible, they sniggered at my idea, but I just kept going.
"When it comes to leadership, perseverance is another form of genius, really.

Many people declare victory too soon, or give up tooeasily."

Since childhood, Levy hasadmired Sir Edmund Hillary, who shared his qualities of determination and perseverance.

"I always admired Sir Edmund's authentic qualities and lack of ego.

I was drawn towards his humility of leadership more than any other style of leadership.

"In my own working life, I try to invert my world to keep in mind who I am serving in my role. That's the person I'm interested inpleasing."

"You just have to keep achieving over a long life and not become too enamoured with yourself," says Levy, who prefers to focus on research rather than intuition when making important decisions.

Rather than business heroes, he respects and admires most the people working in the research field of the business world. It is their research papers, rather than a book, that you'll find on his bedside table. His current reading is around collaboration.

His career advice is for people to be more exploratory and adventurous about what they do, rather than slavishly sticking to a plan, which he says would be more about the destination than the journey.

When looking back on his career and life, Levy says he can't quite believe how it has all turned out.

"I wake up in the morning with fantastic challenges and organisations to work with and I can't believe it - it's so exciting, so daunting, so much fun."

What does the future hold? He says he has no definite plans, just a desire to work on projects he cares about and that have the capacity to make a difference to people's lives with large-scale effect.

"As long as the work matters and I'm learning, then I'm pretty interested," says Levy, who believes that 80 per cent of what he knows he learned in the past two to three years. "It's all about renewing what you know: recency and currency."

Whatever the future holds for Levy, it will be about getting people to think differently and to showcase a leadership style that connects rather than rules.

"My empathy lies with the people I serve, the ones who are on the front line. They are the ones who make the real difference."