My guest this week is Mike Farrar CBE, Chief Executive of NHS North West - the largest employer in the region with over 210,000 employees and seven million customers.

He and his team manage an annual budget of circa £11 billion - equivalent to roughly 15% of the region’s GDP.

In this week’s interview, Mike explains the role of NHS North West and its long term strategy to develop a ‘World class health service’ for the region.

Mike also offers some advice to leaders of large, diverse organisations:

• A business must have unity and clarity of purpose and it is essential that leaders communicate a compelling and inspirational vision that can be clearly understood by every single employee in the organisation
• Don’t be scared of the emotional side of management - logic is important, but don’t forget that very often it’s emotion that makes things happen. Great managers recognise that it’s not only minds that you need to convince, it’s also about hearts
• There should be a balance between what you do in your day job and what you do in your life - good managers, reflect and model that for their staff

You can find out more information about NHS North West by visiting www.northwest.nhs.uk

Mike and his colleagues at NHS North West also produce a video podcast that you can view by clicking here

Also, If you want to find out more about Mike Farrar, Google him or check out his Wikipedia entry by clicking here

Remember that you don’t need an iPod to listen to the show, you can play it live here, you can also download the file length 13:07 (MP3 9.0Mb) to your computer’s desktop by right clicking on the ‘Download’ link under the audio player above and selecting ‘Save Target As…’

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If you have any feedback or questions about how to listen or subscribe to the show email jon@businessears.co.uk or leave a comment at the end of the show post.