Siloam Hospitals Group network, reach and development managing director Kamaljeet Singh Gill believes in the power of permutation thinking to stimulate people’s creativity and innovation, crucial for advancing healthcare practices.

Making a difference in terms of leveraging the value of a company can be a great challenge for most business executives. But Kamaljeet Singh Gill, an expat executive at Siloam Hospitals Group, has found an effective tool to respond to the challenge: innovation.

 “I introduced a new strategy and new tactics. We do not just sit down here and do the same old things all the time, but innovate,” said Gill, managing director of network, reach and development at Siloam Hospitals Group. Gill is making the difference that the owner of the hospital group expected upon hiring him.

 “We want to be a market leader. We want to do this kind of work, the first in Indonesia, so that my team can be better people. That’s my primary objective,” said the 49-year-old Singaporean who was with Parkway Hospitals Singapore prior to joining Siloam Hospitals Group in April 2015.

 In nurturing innovation among people at the hospital, especially those in his department, he teaches, coaches and gives suggestions, input and direction.

 He quoted himself as saying, “Look guys, I am an expat and I am here to introduce a framework so you know how to get the job done,” to his team in his early days on the job at the hospital in Indonesia.  

 With each Siloam hospital in 16 cities having a marketing team, he decided to develop a marketing framework for efficiency and effectiveness. “I went to 23 hospitals and taught the marketing team about how to fill up the template and I tell them that when filling up the template we have to think carefully. Every rupiah that we spend we make sure that we are able to measure our return on marketing investment. That’s important,” he said.

 “With this framework, we are able to exclude activities that are not going to be effective,” he added.

 Under his leadership, he and his team in the department have an annual plan for a year and validate it every two months. “They submit their framework and after I look through it, I meet in person with those living in Jakarta and have a conference call with those living outside Jakarta. We discuss the plan, asking why we are doing this particular tactic. My suggestion is to really implement different kinds of techniques,” he remarked.

 With his working motto “be the best”, Gill applies a similar approach to marketing communication teams who play a pivotal role in developing Siloam into a trusted brand. “We have a close discussion because I need to stimulate their thinking to make them better individuals,” he said.

 He said his team had developed tremendously and “in fact, I could say that they are creative and have developed into an international standard. The creative work is done in house. My team only requires direction,” he said.

 At Siloam, Gill also introduced the importance of implementing service excellence that allows patients to feel the difference when all staffers, from nurses and doctors to admission officers, give their best service.

 On top of that, with his working motto, he and his team also conducted marketing research to find out what competitors were doing and offering.

Punctuality matters

Gill acknowledged that pursuing a career in healthcare marketing came about by chance. He did not join the marketing department until his boss at Gleneagles Hospital Singapore, where he worked as a laboratory assistant, summoned him and encouraged him to join the marketing staff upon his decision to resign.

 Since joining the marketing department, he said he had never looked back and had pursued the career consistently, something that has benefitted him greatly because it has enhanced his sense of adaptability to different situations.

 “The great thing when I worked in Singapore is that I learned to bring foreign patients to Singapore for treatment. We had patients that came from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Indo-China market, the People’s Republic of China, Bangladesh, etc. Dealing with so many nationalities gave me an understanding of their culture. They behave relatively differently because of their cultural differences,” he noted.

 It was through his previous employment that he came to Indonesia in 1994-1995, a time when he made a lot of friends with Indonesians.

 In implementing day-to-day operations, he said he tried to adopt what he called a “fusion leadership style” because “you cannot be a single-minded leader, it will depend on the situation”.

 “When they [the team] do well, I pat them on the back, but when they do not do well, then they sit down in front of me and we discuss what went wrong and how we could improve it.”

 He said he encouraged his staff and team to put on their permutation thinking caps, which basically means “if I face a situation or a problem, what are my options? When you undertake permutation thinking, you have the privilege to select the best options.”   

 For Gill, punctuality really matters as this is a part of how he works professionally. “I inculcate and indoctrinate [punctuality] into my staff when there is a meeting with me or with their colleagues. They must not be late. I practice what I preach and I always come on time,” he remarked.

 His working style is regimented and disciplined. “I get up at 5:30 a.m. and I am in the office at 7:45 a.m. In the evening, I work out after I finish work.”

 “I have my dinner at home and see if there is a project to be done. After that, I face time with my family. At least they know I am still connected with my family,” the father of three said.

  “I go home every Friday and come back to Indonesia on Sunday night,” he said.
(Sudibyo M. Wiradji)

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