Dr. Patricia Ryan Recupero, a psychiatrist and CEO of Butler Hospital, believes her success as a businesswoman rests on three factors: knowledge of her field and its future; a vision for where Butler should be headed and development of a team of inspired workers.
“Having a strategic vision is one of the more important things,” said Recupero, followed by assembling managers and getting them to embrace the vision.
“I am blessed because I have a great team,” she added. “I see my role as being able to say ‘Yes’ to them, at making them able to do what they want to do.”
The management team at Butler Hospital, the state’s only private, nonprofit psychiatric and substance abuse hospital, has plenty of goals for the coming years. Recognized nationally as a clinical and research facility, Butler is moving into futuristic treatments for psychiatric problems for patients of all ages. One example, said Recupero, is a cutting-edge treatment called deep brain stimulation for problems that include Parkinson’s disease, obsessive compulsive disorder and intractable depression.
In collaboration with major medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic, Butler is “creating brain science of today and clinical treatments of tomorrow,” Recupero said.
If this sounds like deep science, Recupero points out that her job requires the skills of business, including leadership and goal-setting, imagination, collaboration, problem-solving and persuasion. It is easy to see how all three of the factors she mentions up front are inter-related. Still, she comes back to giving credit to the quality and attitude of her staff.
“We look for people with ideas that are bigger than themselves,” she said. For instance, she said Butler’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer, among others, are “profoundly committed to the development of our field.”
Recupero, 59, said that being a woman has not hampered her career, partly because she came of age in an era “when there was a recognition that equality for women was legally mandated and also an important value.”
A characteristic that is possibly heightened in women and also is an asset in business, Recupero said, is skillful observation of people. “Something that many women bring to the business arena is that we tend to be good observers of other people. It is the ability to observe and respond to people where they are at rather than considering where we want them to go. That ability has stood me in good stead.”
Dr. Marilyn Price, a psychiatrist who has worked at Butler, said Recupero earns the respect of her colleagues through various time-honored practices. “She puts the patients first,” Price said. “Ethics are important, and they guide her decision-making. She has taken some tough stands on equality for mental-health funding.
“She never asks anybody to do anything that she would not do herself,” Price continued. “She works on the wards, and she never loses contact with the people the hospital is serving.”
Also, Price said, Recupero is skilled at getting people to cooperate with each other. “It is something that men don’t do as well as women,” Price said. “[Recupero] certainly has opinions and she explains her views, but she allows and encourages discussion. She is very loved by people in the organization.” •
