Prescription for Excellence: Leadership Lessons for Creating a World Class Customer Experience from UCLA Health System

Joseph Michelli, author of The Starbucks Experience and The New Gold Standard, is among the world’s top authorities on the principles of creating an organizational culture dedicated to service excellence. In these bestselling books, he examines how leading service companies dominate their respective industries with innovative customer experience strategies.
Now, Michelli turns his attention to one of the most complex, controversial, and critical industries—healthcare.
In Prescription for Excellence, Michelli provides an inside look at an organization that has become the envy of its industry—and explains how you can dominate your own industry by using the same approach.
UCLA Health System is revered worldwide for its top-tier patient/customer care. Great physicians, nurses, researchers, and staff are only part of the equation; UCLA’s overall success is a result of organization-wide collaboration that is driven by leaders with a shared vision of unyielding excellence. Michelli breaks down UCLA’s approach into five simple principles:
- Commit to Care
- Leave No Room for Error
- Make the Best Better
- Create the Future
- Service Serves Us
From administrative offices to operating rooms to research centers, continued adherence to these five principles has guided UCLA to financial strength, social significance, and sustainability.
The best part is that these principles translate to any industry, so you, too, can achieve similar goals. Michelli gives you the tools to adapt UCLA’s ideas, systems, and leadership principles into your own best practices. Whether it is a healthcare organization, a financial institution, or a neighborhood hair salon, good business begins and ends with customer connection. When all workers in an organization focus on providing quality care for those they serve, success inevitably follows.
Business is always personal; UCLA’s leadership ensures that this simple truth drives every UCLA employee, every day. Apply the lessons Michelli spells out in Prescription for Excellence to create a system that ensures that your people take business personally, day in and day out.
“Like any business, a hospital must be true to its core values in order to succeed. ‘Trickle-down values’ start at the top with the best leadership, so that all the stakeholders understand and carry out the institution’s mission. That is the gift that David F einberg has brought to U CLA. I am in awe of his management skills.”
—Lynda Resnick, owner of Pom Wonderful, Fiji Water, Teleflora, and Wonderful Pistachios
“With clear purpose, unwavering principles, and steadfast leadership, the people at UCLA have established a new bar, a compelling promise, for what healthcare can and should be.”
—David M. Lawrence, M.D., former CEO, Kaiser Permanente
“An absorbing and educational account of a large institution’s astonishing transformation. The strong, courageous, and focused leadership of David Feinberg and his outstanding team is evident on every page. A tremendous lesson for all large enterprises.”
—William E. Simon, Jr., cochairman, William E. Simon & Sons
“Most leadership authors describe how to apply common-sense principles. Michelli is a notable exception. He artfully describes the compelling, uncommon leadership practices that transformed UCLA Health System. The resulting lessons are plentiful and powerful for today’s business leader.”
—Lee J. Colan, Ph.D., author of Sticking to It: The Art of Adherence