Your Ultimate Purpose: How A Personal Mission Can Make Your Work More Relevant To Society With Michael Rutgers
Nothing can make your work more meaningful than operating from your own personal mission. It is what keeps the drive in you, helping you see through the challenges that may come your way. In this podcast, Scott Wagers sits down with Michael Rutgers, the Managing Director of the Lung Foundation Netherlands, to discuss the importance of always having the ultimate purpose in mind, improving the lives of patients, and how that affects the decisions you make. It’s about moving the focus away from academic relevance to societal relevance. They also discuss the importance of having a personal mission and how being patient-centered can bring your focus to a different set of outcomes. Tune in to this episode to learn more from Michael’s mission to help others, along with his unique way of relating to his staff.
—-
Listen to the podcast here
Your Ultimate Purpose: How A Personal Mission Can Make Your Work More Relevant To Society With Michael Rutgers
In this episode, I have the honor of interviewing Michael Rutgers, who is the Managing Director of the Dutch Lung Foundation, which is a foundation that sets funds for research at the highest level across all of Europe. Michael has a lot of experience, not only with the Dutch Lung Foundation, but with other disease foundations and that comes across in the interview. You'll learn that he has an interesting way of interfacing with his staff.
Let me touch base on the whole concept of being patient-centered and how that can change your focus and the outcomes of your research, but most importantly, the core and most inspiring part of the discussion was we talk about health and staying motivated even in the face of what can be a very frustrating lack of progress when you're trying to achieve something important to improve the health and the lives of patients. Sit back and read. No matter what you do, you'll learn something about how difficult it can be to achieve things beyond simply publishing papers or doing the routine and how important that is in the end.
-—
I'm Michael Rutgers. I'm the Director of the Dutch Lung Foundation for several years. I'm a veteran in this field, and I enjoy having this talk with you.
-—
Welcome, Michael. I realized you probably became the Director of the Dutch Lung Foundation exactly when I moved to Europe. There's an alignment there somehow. Thanks for coming on and taking the time. You're often very busy so I've always been impressed with all the activities that the Dutch Lung Foundation engages in but I'd like to start by getting a sense of who you are. Can you describe something on the desk or in the room you're in?
There is something else but it's a conference room. I don't have an office anymore. Years ago, I've decided that I should not be in office. I can be somewhere between my colleagues and see what they are doing and how they're doing and be available for advice. I don't have an office. I don't have a table, which I often use. I don't have pictures of my family or objects which are dear to me. I have a cup of coffee and it's a latte macchiato and I just finished it. I bought it here at the station and a glass of water and that's it. Somewhere behind me are my colleagues walking up and down. They're wondering what I'm doing at this moment because the door is closed so they can't hear what I'm saying.
Ironically, you probably make them a bit scared as to why is he in a closed room. When I've been there, I've seen that you do that because I don't think I could do that myself. Do you think that's had an impact on the spirit or your awareness?
I've learned that you still have to be careful. If there's a sensitive issue, you shouldn't discuss it in a public space so you need to go out and walk or find a place where you can discuss the sensitive issues. There are always sensitive issues either on policy, money, staff or situations with people. I've learned to be careful. I have a loud voice so I shouldn't interfere with the work of others. I've learned to be a bit humbler in what I do than I naturally am.
That's an important characteristic of what you would say modern leadership but I want to begin by asking you what impact you intend to make in your current role.
The strange thing is that this is not just a job. It's an organization with societal relevance like Longfonds and Lung Foundation. I can change things for people who are at risk of getting lung diseases. Most things I do are directed. Most input I have or most influence I try to have on my colleagues or on partners with whom we work together is that we get there and achieve that there are fewer people with lung diseases or that people with lung diseases have a better life.
Some time ago, we had another discussion on a new policy plan. We discussed whether one of our aims should be to make people with lung diseases happier. The word happy is very strange in corporate environments but we are a corporation although not for profit. We are in the business of trying to do things where in the end people with lung diseases are a bit less unhappy or are as unhappy as the general population is. That is my aim and it guides me to do the things I do.
Personal Mission: Lung Foundation Netherlands is in the business of trying to do things where, in the end, people with lung diseases are a bit less unhappy or are as happy as the general population.
If I see something happening here, which has limited impact, I will try and stop doing that. I'll try and stop my colleagues from doing those things which are not relevant. I try to talk with my colleagues to help them to make the choices that make them do the most relevant things for that purpose, to make people with lung diseases as happy as the general population, which they are not at the moment.
Do you have a vision or a mission statement at the Longfonds?
We do have a mission. We do have things on the wall but not in this room so I can't repeat them. The mission statement is a made-up thing but in essence, our organization is here to prevent lung diseases and help people with lung diseases to give them a happier life.
Can you think of an example where people were like, "We're not going to do that?" How do you reach that? How do you put that into effect?
If you talk about prevention, we've been deeply involved and successful. In tobacco prevention, we have made a difference with our partners, the Cancer Society and the Hearts Foundation in the Netherlands, on that issue. I still think smoking is the biggest factor causing lung disease and many other diseases.
People with lung diseases like asthma suffer from all this smoking that goes on around them. Quality of life and prevention of death and disease is very relevant here. Prevention is a very important thing and we have made an impact there. On the other hand, we also used to do local meetings with people with lung diseases and we facilitated that. They talk to each other and with each other about issues they encounter in their life.
For those people who come to those meetings, it's very relevant but very few people come to those meetings compared to the large group in the Netherlands, which we have to deal with. For those 20 to 30 people who come to those meetings 8 times a year, they're very happy about this but we have 1.2 million people with lung disease in the Netherlands and only thousands go to those meetings. We've decided not to do it that way anymore, especially after COVID.
During COVID, we've decided to go digital. We had meetings where 40,000 people joined. The impact in the in-person discussion may be a bit less but the impact in numbers is so much higher. We've decided to move to digital. It's a difficult decision because we've done these physical meetings for many years but we've decided to stop us. It's not worth the trouble and not enough people are helping with that. That's a big decision for an organization that's been doing that for many years. We've gone digital and our reach has increased incredibly.
Those are two examples of thinking about what your mission and vision shape what you do and help you to innovate as an organization. It's very easy even on an individual level and says, "We've always done this so we continue to do it." That's impressive.
We are the 2nd or 1st big private lung research funded in Europe. We are the largest patient organization in Europe. I don't know why a small country like the Netherlands has achieved that but it's a fact. We've decided that unlike organizations like us in other fields that if investing money in research should have an impact then we shouldn't limit these investments which only is done in the Netherlands. We've decided that for research results, borders are not relevant. At this moment, we're funding three groups in the United States, which sounds crazy that a little country like the Netherlands does that. We've looked for the best researchers and we are helping them to achieve our goals.
This is under lung tissue regeneration. There's only 1 Dutch group in that consortium and there are 5 non-Dutch groups and even 3 American groups. That's very untraditional. That's one of the biggest differences between us and others. The Dutch Heart Foundation only funds research in the Netherlands and cancer and rheumatoid arthritis only in the Netherlands. We fund research in the Netherlands but also abroad because we think that we need to fund the best people to achieve the results we aim for as fast as possible. The targets are repairing lungs and preventing asthma.
That's another excellent example that your mission and your vision drive what you do, even though it may have created some waves if you will.
Not some big waves but I've closed the door and kept the waves out. I said, "This is what I'm going to do and we are going to do it." We've done it. The waves stopped and I could open the door again.
That's a nice thing to dive into a bit with this going beyond publication because it's nice. Writing publications or doing what you always do as a patient organization is comfortable. You don't have any waves. Everything goes fine but you're not going to make the big changes. Sometimes, you have to close the door and trust your gut feeling or instinct that this is correct because it fits what you're doing and it potentially has a big impact.
We are not in the business of funding publications. We're not in the business of a PhD ceremony with a black robe and a funny hat and a story for your friends. It's not what we want to fund. We want to fund results for people with lung disease. I'm not in the business of creating full of PhD theses. I care about what research can do for people with lung diseases. If you do what you say that you fund research, which leads to publications and are happy with it, I don't feel happy with that. I don't feel that's an impact.
It's interesting in the academic world but I'm not here to support or build a scaffold for the academic world. I'm here to get results for people with lung diseases or people who are at risk of getting lung diseases. That's another paradigm shift that we had to do in this organization before I came and what happened after I got to the office here.
One thing I've noticed in working with a lot of leading researchers over the years is that the ones that are very successful at a certain point, their publications and funding, they've had all that. They suddenly say, "Wait a minute. The field needs this. I'm going to get a consortium. I'm going to drive people doing this." It almost doesn't matter about the funding or the publications, although ironically when they do that, it opens up so many extra doors that the funding and publications come.
It's truly the ones that are most accessible, the ones that say exactly like you said, "What's needed in the field?" One of the good concrete examples I want to list is making your data shareable and reusable. That doesn't give you a publication but it makes that data extend its life. People need to see that it's important.
We are forcing our fundees or whatever you call them to use these open science rules. The impact of our investments is much bigger if it's used by more people. If you have the ultimate purpose always in your mind's eye that it has to be beneficial to people with lung diseases or people who are at risk of getting lung disease, then you make different decisions in your funding. You also make different decisions as a scientist in what you do and what you don't do.
“If you always have the ultimate purpose in your mind’s eye, that it has to be beneficial to people with lung diseases or people at risk of getting lung disease, then you make different decisions. ”
Money, funding and opportunism are still there but we should gradually move from academic relevance to societal relevance. That's also the way academia can keep public support. It doesn't mean you have to do what the public asks but it does mean that you have to have an open mind to what society needs. That should guide you as a scientist. It also guides us as an organization.
What I've experienced and maybe you have as well is when you take that focus, it opens up some things going back to the pure research side that you hadn't even thought about. There may be collaborations that form or you may be working on a different aspect. For example, people are interested in a symptom that patients have maybe the basic science of fatigue, which is probably not that well known could be a very rich environment for someone to learn even though they were focused on something else beforehand.
You mentioned fatigue, all chronic diseases have been taken up by another organization that I'm chairman of and it was brought forward by patients, researchers and doctors who didn't acknowledge that issue at all. There was hardly any research and awareness by the medical profession about that topic. It's very relevant for the quality of life. Therefore, being as happy as the rest of the population for people with lung diseases. Fatigue is one of the most influential symptoms of lung diseases and many other diseases. We didn't think of it. It came from the patients' perspective. We picked it up and it turned out to be a very broadly carried topic.
That's also not only societal relevance but patient-centeredness is an important theme there. I want to shift a bit and ask you what was the lowest point of your career. How did you get through it?
Years ago, I decided that my mission was to get the square in front of the station in the city, where our organization is based in Amersfoort to get it smoke-free. It was my mission to do it into the year after and that's in 2012. At this moment, it's still not smoke-free but I heard that finally mine and other people's time and effort are leaning to make this special plan, which is the station square, which tens of thousands of people go through it. Many people go to school, take the bus and children or youngsters are there and it's going to be smoke-free. It's going to be a very good example. I'm very proud that it happened.
The several years that it didn't happen, which I had promised myself to achieve at that time so I felt incapable, stupid and dumb that I wasn't able to achieve it. I always think that I can do everything. That's the target and aim that I wanted to achieve and I didn't manage to do it but that's not a low point in my career. It's a personal failure.
I have another personal failure, which is not so relevant but I have two sons and my youngest son started smoking at fourteen. That was before I worked with Longfonds and already then, I had a very big issue with smoking. My eldest son never smoked and he still doesn't smoke but my youngest son was more of a thrill seeker so he started smoking at fourteen. I considered that a big failure. It's my driver to help other young people not to step into that fall of the tobacco industry and to start smoking. The fight against the tobacco industry is an uphill battle but I have a motivation and it's based on that failure.
He stopped smoking after he met his girlfriend, a doctor, who convinced him differently, that it was not a good choice. He stopped smoking when he was 22. He smoked for eight years and that was it but I failed there. This is one of my drivers and why I'm so fanatic about this whole smoking issue. In my social environment, some people smoke. If I come to the terrace and some person is smoking, I see them hiding their cigarette. I'm the anti-smoking terror person in their social lives but many people have stopped smoking because I was around and they think, "There's this guy again."
How did you stay motivated year after year to keep pushing it, especially since you took it so personally?
The motivation for achieving that goal is I want the smoking levels in the Netherlands to go to 5% in 2040 or 2035. In 2022, it is in 16% or 17% of daily smokers. There's more than 10% to go. It's measurable. I can contribute to it. I've been the chair of the umbrella organization for a long time and I'm still on that board and we do achieve goals. Maybe it's also the success that helps to continue that you see that what you do helps. It's a matter of seeing, "Tipping point is nearby. " Years ago, we had to do everything on the ban smoking and all these issues.
Our organization for Cancer and Heart Foundation was the only initiator there but in the past couple of years, we've seen that all organizations do this. We don't have to do anything anymore. We can help them and facilitate them but it's not an uphill battle anymore in that sense. The Netherlands is a small country with about 100,000 signs in public areas which say smoke-free generation. We don't smoke in this place because we follow the lead of the smoke-free generation. We've established the smoke-free generation in the Netherlands.
You see these black hats and plates everywhere. We've done that. They're our plate and we distributed them to them for free and it helps so you see results. You see results and your friends, relatives and other people are like, "Something is changing." That's the same with that research funding that we've decided to go beyond the Dutch borders. That is applauded.
People reward you by saying that you've done something helpful, which also helps you to go on. If you see change, it's a reward. We do see a change in society. Nothing would have happened if I would've been gone for a long time and I wouldn't have kept this position because I don't like to be irrelevant. My input has been relevant for a real change in Dutch society on smoking and also in that research investment.
One thing you did mention in there is seeing evidence of change. It's the measurable goal.
You have to have a goal first.
Have a goal and be able to measure it because then you can see the progress. We often underestimate the power of that.
It's a very strong motivator. If you don't give yourself a name or a goal and it's not measurable, I don't think you should be in that position. For all my colleagues here, if you don't know what you're doing and going and you cannot measure that what you're doing has any impact on the issue that you decided to work on then you shouldn't do it. They'll say, "I think it helps." If you cannot prove it helps, don't do it because then you never know whether you're doing the right thing or not.
“If you don’t give yourself a name or a goal, and if it is not measurable, then you should not be in that position to work on it.”
This PDCA cycle, to plan, do it, check it and act again is important but you have to decide what your goal is and how you're going to measure it. You measure it and change it if it's needed to achieve that goal you've originally positioned. I've done that for most of my professional life and it has helped me to stay as motivated as I am. I'm still motivated and I will go on to be involved in these issues because I believe that we can achieve those goals and I see change.
What do you do to improve your leadership skills?
I listen to colleagues. I try to accept feedback. I make mistakes as everybody does. I cut corners where I maybe shouldn't. I'm trying to be open to criticism and advice from others but that's not easy. I follow my intuition, which is 80% of the time it's okay but 20% of the time it's not the right choice. I have to trade back on choices we've made. I've learned to trust my intuition more and more. Trust your intuition, deal with it and communicate about your intuition in a harmonious or advisory way, not in an authoritative way then it's a strong instrument in leadership.
I almost never give orders to people. The only order I remember is that one of the guys here in the facilitatory part of the organization was responsible for the safe where we keep some very good things and the safe was on the floor in a room. I ordered him to screw that safe into the floor because otherwise, it would be very easy to put a card on and ship it out of the building. That was an order I gave but normally I don't keep orders.
I help, advise and talk with people. I do management at Starbucks. I sit with them in Starbucks. I talk with them and they talk with me and they ask me things. Leadership is for me using my intuition in the right way, not being authoritative but being advisory, helping people to do better and acknowledging that many people, management and my colleagues know their business much better than I do.
Personal Mission: Leadership is using intuition in the right way, not being authoritative but being advisory—helping people to do better.
In the past, it used to be very different, not with me but with other leaders. This modern leadership or servant leadership thing, I have in me naturally but there's also a danger in that if you're with an organization this long then most people tend to use my words and think that it's true. I don't mean it to be an order, I mean it to be a consideration. I'm very careful when I say something. It's a consideration, not an order and not a truth because it's often not. It's an idea. The awareness of that is helpful in my leadership. What I say is not the law. What I say is a consideration of the topic, which is at hand.
Who are leaders that inspire you? It can be persons, types or whatever is easiest for you to think about.
I'm not much into that in the admiration business. What I admire is when there are leaders who have a talent for speech towards a group. If you listened to a speech by Obama, the way he says the words are very inspiring to many but it's a real talent. I have some friends here and there and colleagues who can speak openly and are very inspirational apparently without any preparation.
The quality of speech is very important for a leader. If you don't have it, you are two zeros behind. If you know how to convince others or take others with you on the trip towards the future in words, that helps. I'm not bad at that but I'm not the best at it. People who do that and can do that are the ones that I admire. Word of speech is very important in leadership. If you don't have it, you have to do better in other fields of leadership because you are behind. You need to compensate for that. The word of speech is very relevant and I admire people who have it.
I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. It's very fascinating because there was another CEO when he first came back to Apple and that other CEO gave a very horrible speech at one meeting. That was one of the reasons why they put Steve Jobs back ultimately into the position because of that speech.
He could take his whole workforce and others who are with him on this vision and that's valuable. People that have that capacity or competence are privileged. It's difficult to learn. You can learn to avoid big mistakes but being inspirational is not easy.
Personal Mission: It's difficult to learn. You can learn to avoid the big mistakes, but to be really inspirational, it's not easy.
How do you manage all your competing priorities?
Through intuition. I've decided not to read everything that gets passed my computer. I read it squarely and get an impression. In scientific articles, I read the summary and not the details. I'm leaving out details and trying to condense complicated matters to simple matters because then I can deal with more matters together. Sometimes I make a mistake and then I'm corrected because I've skipped the detail but I take that risk.
I try to make things easier for myself and my colleagues. Most of the time it works. In that way, I can manage many priorities together and I can shift from one to the other because I have a condensed version of the direction that we are taking but it's a risk. Sometimes I give speeches on topics I don't know enough about and then I fail. I decided several years ago never to say something in public anymore about something I don't know enough about or more about than its audience.
I stay within my broad limits. If I go beyond them then I'm at risk. Within those limits, I try to condense everything into simple words, steps and sentences of visions that are understandable for me and also for most of my colleagues, friends, relatives and business relations. Keeping it simple and stupid is one of the things I deal with. You should keep things simple. Where do we go? Why do we go there? What do we need to do to go there? For PowerPoints, use 7 slides, 7 lines, 7 words and not more. Keep it simple or only pictures.
Simplicity is your strategy for managing your priorities.
Otherwise, I couldn't do the many things I do. Far too often I say yes. That's a risk because you keep doing more and more but after I've said yes, I can then make it simple and decide whether to do it or not. My first answer is yes. "Come and talk." "Yes." "Let's have a chat," then I can consider it. When I was chairman of some board and a colleague of mine his essence was the details. What we used to do was go to meetings and call in the car and he had read everything and I had read only summaries. I trusted him.
He said, "There's a problem there," and then he couldn't explain it because he had far too many details in his head but then he explained it to me. I then made it simple and we could still get our things done because I could do what he had read. We had a good partnership and he trusted me that I would put it in the right words and I trusted him that he had found the right details. That's also a trick sometimes. You look for the right partner and play your role with the best competencies you have. Don't try to do the other thing which you can't do in which you're not the best.
“Sometimes, you have to look for the right partner and play your role with the best competencies you have. Don’t try to do the things you can’t do and you’re not the best at.”
That's also an excellent example of the diversity of thinking styles. An introvert likes to read and understand the details and that has its strengths. You have the simplicity.
If you teamed that up, then you're doing the right thing. Trust there is a very important instrument. You have to trust the other person. If you don't then you're alone.
What advice would you give a younger version of yourself?
In my line of business where we are societal organizations with a societal goal, give yourself the chance to follow the lead of that well-defined goal you have and open your mind to others. Learn from your experiences, trust your intuition, build up partnerships and relations with people who are different from you and develop a network.
It's very important to develop a network of people with additional competencies. In my iPhone, there must be 2,500 contacts listed there. I know or I've known them. There's always a fallback option. If I don't know, I can fall back on somebody who does know and then I can do my thing in a trusted way. I'm almost never wrong because I have organized my support team and support relation network.
Stay within your knowledge boundaries. Don't overstep. You can do it if do it willingly and with the idea that you take a risk and learn but not by excellence. If you step out into another field and you don't know enough, you can have a negative experience, which you put your back to other levels which you don't want to be at. You have to be courageous, use your intuition and relation network, build it up and have an open mind for others.
At the beginning of my early career, I was very bold. I thought had the truth and knew everything. Now, I know that I knew nothing. Don't think that you know everything because that will put people off. In my early career, I lost a position or the chance of a position because I was far too bold to people whom my bosses thought needed a lot of respect and service approach and I was very direct with them. It was in a certain academic field, where a professor was still the boss and I didn't feel that hierarchy. I was far too direct. A few years later, I had that position I could be direct and equal so then it didn't matter anymore. I had to grow a bit.
“Don’t think that you know everything because that will put people off.”
That's a perfect statement of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is that when you don't know a lot about a topic and you think you know more than you do. As you get to know more about a topic, you think you know less than you do.
It's a bit counterintuitive but it's true.
It's very important to keep that in mind, on either end. I want to get back to your point about the network. If you have a problem, challenge or something you don't understand, you'll get into your iPhone and go to the contacts and call somebody.
That's what I do. I'm not a researcher or a medical doctor. I often get asked questions on medical issues that the doctors or professors I work with don't deal with. I have another network, goal and work field than they have but sometimes I need that knowledge that I don't have. I then call one of my contacts and ask them, "What do you think about this? What's your insight on this?"
When we are going to US conferences, what I do is I ask my contacts who are there, "What's the most relevant thing you've picked up from this conference?" I take that and make that a part of my repertoire of conversations with other people. I don't go there myself. I ask the people who do know what they think is the most relevant. It's a trick but it's the only way that I can do so many things together as I do. Otherwise, I had to sit in all those meetings, listen, understand and research all that. I'd rather ask my trusted relations what they think and then I put it into my repertoire and use it for my purposes.
A relation network has different issues, fields and levels. I also use them reasonably. I have the mobile number of several politicians, ministers and secretaries of state or whatever they're called. As I call them for them, they will never pick up again. I have their mobiles but I don't call them, only if there's a real big emergency, which is never there. I do know them and they do know me but you have to be very careful with those relations as well.
That's not only for ministers but also for high-level academics. You have to be careful not to call them with a crappy topic. It has to be relevant for them as well. One of my other philosophies is giving is the new taking. You have to give before you can take. If you have a history of giving things, then something will come back. If you only take, then this relationship will not be sustainable so you have to give.
Personal Mission: If you have a history of giving things, then something will come back. If you only take this relationship, it will not be sustainable. So you have to give.
To draw it to a close, is there anything else you wanted to bring up or make a point about?
If there's anything I said which is interesting to somebody in the audience and if you want to discuss that further or ask about it, then I'm very open to them and let them get in touch. I like being in touch with young people who are in the early phase of their careers and helping them to progress. If some of what I've said triggered something with them, then let them get in touch.
There have been a lot of great insights here, and it's very interesting. I enjoyed it. Thank you for coming on.
You're welcome.
Important Links
About Michael Rutgers
Michael Rutgers has been managing director/director of the Longfonds www.longfonds.nl since 2006. Before that, from 2004 to 2006 he was director/director of the Brandwondenstichting, www.brandwondstichting.nl and the Euro Tissue Bank www.eurotissuebank.nl in Beverwijk. He was also director of the Johanna Kinderfonds www.johannakinderfonds.nl in Arnhem from 1996 to 2004. From 2002 to 2004 he was respectively Research Manager and Director of Operations of the European Neuromuscular Center www.enmc.org. From 1988 to 1996 he worked as Head of Medical Scientific Affairs at the Dutch Muscle Diseases Association (www.vsn.nl.) From 1982 to 1986 he worked in rehabilitation projects in Tanzania and Zambia for the Dutch government and the World Health Organization. In addition to training in physiotherapy at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, he holds a Masters Degree Community Health https://www.tcd.ie/medicine/public_health_primary_care/ from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Expertise Michael Rutgers is active in the world of prevention and health and is positioned in terms of knowledge and experience in the triangle between patients.
