A Day in the Life of an Administrator: Nikki Williams

‘There’s No Room for Being Dishonest in Health Care’

Welcome to A Day in the Life of an Administrator, our online column, where we sat down with Nikki Williams, RN, CNOR, executive director of Watson Clinic Surgery Center in Lakeland, Fla. Outpatient Surgery Magazine is posting these profiles to give the administrators, directors and other leaders in ambulatory surgery industry a voice — and to share, in their own words, what it’s like to walk in their shoes. Their stories offer a glimpse into the significant role these individuals play on the OR team and the challenges they face as they work alongside their colleagues.

Outpatient Surgery Magazine (OSM): In a single sentence, how would you answer this question, “What makes a great leader?”
Nikki Williams (NW): A great leader is somebody who will work in any capacity, who believes that no job is ever beneath them and who is always willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

OSM: How did you enter into the leadership role you are currently in?
NW: I was the circulator when our OR manager resigned, and they wanted to fill the position with someone in-house. Staff were like, “We want Nikki!” Better to have the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, right? As time went in and upper management retired or left, I moved into a directorship role — and I’ve been there for eighteen and a half years now. I feel like I’m part of the furniture. When we changed ownership, it was challenging, but as bad as the worst days were, I could never see myself anywhere else. I feel I’m making a positive impact, and I want us to succeed.

OSM: Do you and your staff have any lunchtime rituals or routines?
NW: In the back of our materials department, we added a table because people were ordering from DoorDash all the time — especially on payday. On payday, DoorDash gets a lot of business from our facility. The OR team will meet up, hang out back there and order from well-known places like Chick-fil-A or a local BBQ joint called Jimbo’s. Managers will also eat together most days, and despite attempts to avoid it, invariably they’ll start talking about work. Personally, during the busiest times, my GI manager always takes care of me and makes sure I have snacks and something to drink because I can go all day without eating or drinking just because I don’t want to leave my office and stop the momentum.

OSM: What is the best piece of unconventional advice you’ve ever received?
NW: One of the things I heard early in my career that always stuck with me is: “There’s no room for being dishonest in health care.” It may sound too righteous at first, but it’s something I have always tried to live by throughout my career. You have to be totally honest in health care because people’s lives are in your hands and your facility’s hands. In our business, mistakes have huge, life-changing consequences. I need to be completely honest with everything I do — from work performance reviews of staff to letting a patient know about a mistake that was made. You can’t put a dollar value on honesty, but it’s at the heart of everything. Open and honest communication levels the playing field. Even if patients don’t like what you’re telling them, the way they respond to pure, open and honest communication from their provider makes it all worthwhile.

OSM: What is strangest or whackiest thing you’ve ever done yourself or seen others do in the name of team building or morale?
NW: I did something called Leadership Lakeland. It’s a program run by our local chamber of commerce (Lakeland, Fla.) where leaders from a diverse group of organizations are selected to go around to local businesses to learn and bolster their own leadership skills. There were 25 in my class, and every Monday we met. Each member of our group was assigned a classmate and asked, for a lack of a better term, to spy on that person.

You had to find out unique facts and background information about that person by contacting spouses, friends and colleagues to learn as much as you possibly could. Then you had to literally act out [put on a performance] what you found for the entire class. My “person” promoted fundraising at colleges — including several well-known institutions — so I dressed up like a balding history professor, acted like he was around hundreds of years ago and put on a skit for my classmates. I was even graded on my performance! The exercise really took me out of my comfort zone, which is what it was supposed to do. After the program ended, we all became fast and firm friends, and we still keep in touch regularly. We learned a lot of valuable skills from each other. In fact, some of my classmates even changed their core beliefs about on leadership because of the program. OSM

Note: Outpatient Surgery Magazine would like to thank Nikki for sharing her life with us! On behalf of our team, we are sending a small token of appreciation to Nikki and her OR team. If you are an administrator, director or any type of surgical facility leader, and you would like to share your day and special insights for this online exclusive column, please contact our Editor-in-Chief Jared Bilski at [email protected]. Have a great day!