MISSION : IMPACTFUL | KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2021

Author: Noel Benno Joseph

Intro: Noel Benno talks to the CEO of Jubilee Mission Medical College, Hospitals and Research Institute, Trichur, Dr. Benny Joseph Neelankavil. 

1. Do you mind giving our readers a quick overview of your life and career?

Let me start with my family. My father, the Late Chev. Prof. NA Ouseph was a retired English professor from St. Thomas College, Trichur¹, and my mother, Mrs. TJ Mary is also a retired teacher. My wife Dimple was a faculty member at Bharat Matha College, Ernakulam², but resigned that job a few years after our marriage to prioritise my ageing parents and our children. We are blessed with four children – three daughters and a son. 

As for my career, I did my post graduate education from Christ University, Bangalore³, a one year management programme from IIM Ahmedabad⁴ and continued to pursue my doctorate in competency building leadership under the guidance of a professor from IIM Ahmedabad. I was a faculty member under the UGC at Rajagiri Management School and later joined UST Global, based out of California. My last role there was Global Head and Director of the Leadership Competence Center until 2014, when I got a call to join my current missionary organisation, Jubilee Mission Hospital Medical College, Hospital and Research Institute. Money alone did not satisfy me and seeing the opportunity to make a larger impact, I joined Jubilee Mission healthcare institutions as the CEO. We have at present, seven distinct healthcare institutions under Jubilee’s umbrella. 

2. Being at the helm of one of South India’s healthcare industry pioneers, what is your leadership philosophy?

There are two aspects to my leadership philosophy. The first aspect is that of servant leadership, inspired by Jesus Christ and the second aspect is that of impact, influence and transformation. I strongly believe that leadership involves application of both these aspects, like two sides of the same coin – being impactful, influential and transformative on the philosophical, and being deeply rooted in value exposition or demonstration. The overarching approach is servant leadership.

3. How does your life as a practicing Catholic influence your role as a CEO? How does that influence the functioning of Jubilee Mission institutions?

Id’ say it is not just an influencing factor of my life and career, it is the influencing factor. I always say that our institution has three alayams (abodes) – Devalayam (Church), Vidyalayam (our colleges) and Athuralayam (our hospitals). 

I start my day at the perpetual adoration chapel, the epicenter of our institutions. I wouldn’t go to my office without first visiting the adoration chapel. Most days, I’d start off by attending Holy Mass. My team knows that when challenging situations arise or when tough decisions need to be made, I take a break and go to the adoration chapel. That's my energy source and in areas of key decision making, I always put on the shoes of a servant leader. 

I always feel that a true leader's responsibility is to see that his/her team/s are successful. If subordinates / teams are successful / faithful, and the success criteria is a shared vision, the leader automatically becomes successful. If you look at Jesus Christ, he was looking at only one point – whether the Word of God, the larger vision was being met by his followers. So as a true leader, Jesus’ goal was to see his followers being successful / faithful in their roles following the Word of God. Translating that to our business leadership, my goal is to ensure my team members succeed in their respective roles. 

4. With all this discussion on leadership, I’m curious to know – who is that one leader whom you look up to for inspiration?

That would be my father. One thing I forgot to mention when I spoke about leadership is the aspect of Nerivu (right thing to do) that is essential to leadership. If someone from my team were to consult me regarding a situation that needed handling, I’d ask two questions. First, what would you do if you were the muthalali (owner) of this institution? Second, what is the nerivu in this decision making process? These two ideas I’ve imbibed from my father, who was a professor for most part of his life, apart from being a true missionary and committed and faithful Catholic. This is also strongly tied to my faith, which I’m grateful for to my parents, siblings and well-wishers; and today, my next level of faith formation is from my family, especially my wife who also brings in commitment and faith-fullness.

5. Moving onto healthcare, I learned that Jubilee Mission Hospital has an emphasis on healthcare affordability. Given the times that we are in, what is the role of Catholic mission hospitals in ensuring affordable healthcare for all?

This is my favourite topic! One of the main objectives I aim for in Jubilee Mission Hospital is to look into affordable healthcare. Affordability is one of the biggest challenges faced by the Indian healthcare scenario. With the pandemic impacting the economy, affordability is one issue that Kerala and India will have to grapple with. Sometimes healthcare delivery is too dependent on technology driven diagnosis and that technology intervention ups the costs of healthcare. Technology should enable healthcare outcomes but not replace our conventional healthcare wisdom. No technology should intervene in healthcare delivery unless it significantly improves clinical outcomes, otherwise impossible for the doctor. The second reason for spiraling costs would be the entry of corporate hospitals where patient experience is prioritised over clinical outcome. When we were redrafting our vision and mission, we consciously  reiterated that our priority should be clinical outcome and that patient experience would be secondary. But let me reiterate that I'm not against technology, and we at Jubilee are equipped with some of the most advanced equipment in the industry. 

With all these challenges in place, the role of Catholic mission hospitals is to use technology in the context of improving and prioritising clinical outcomes to create sustainable and affordable healthcare models that will benefit the common man. Healthcare and education are two main missions of the Catholic Church and a lot of rural healthcare delivery is still made possible through Catholic institutions. So we play a key role in ensuring that these services are affordable and sustainable at the same time.

6. Given the kind of responsibilities you have at work, I assume you have your days packed with meetings, not to mention the stress involved in healthcare. What is your daily/weekly routine that gives you enough time to unwind and spend time with family?

I think it's about the quality of time that we spend with family. There are definitely pressing demands for me to be at the office, but I never would want that to affect the quality time I spend with my wife and children. I’ll share with you our normal routine. We are up around 5am, all of us including the children except the youngest. First up is a minute or so of reading the Bible in our prayer place followed by some physical exercise. Then we go for Holy Mass. When we’re back we have our morning family prayer. I’ll then be off to work and the children to their online classes. Normally I come back from the office at 6pm or so to spend some time with the family over dinner and family prayer, some days I go back to office after that. So whatever time I spend with the family, I make sure that it is quality time. 

7. I learn that your family is pro-life. Do you mind sharing thoughts on being pro-life?

God blessed us with four children. All of my wife’s deliveries were Caesarean section surgeries. Immediately after the second pregnancy some doctors advised us to go for sterilisation, which we were against. There is an active pro-life ministry in Jubilee and my wife Dimple was one among its pioneering team members. We also participate in the prayer gatherings of LOAF (Legion of Apostolic Families), an organisation by the Archdiocese of Trichur, which promotes pro-life activities. 

8. For those who are in leadership positions, do you mind sharing some thoughts on how to win as leaders?

There’s only one thing I’d say – follow servant leadership. Make your followers successful / faithful and those around you cry. Remember people crying at the airport arrivals. That's the cry of happiness and hope! Your leadership presence should be so impactful that you become a bundle of joy for them. I tell my people at Jubilee that you shouldn’t come to Jubilee only to work, but come to Jubilee to meet other passionate people, enjoy relationships and in between that contribute significantly. I’m not yet fully successful in enabling that, but what I’m trying to say is that if we can bring in that kind of demonstration at work – that's where you become impactful.

A former William J. Clinton Fellow and TEDx speaker, Noel Benno is a Technology Strategy Consultant and enjoys cooking fish and meat while not busy with charts and excel sheets.