COVER
STORY
12
2nd QUARTER 2014
Wearing a crisp, pastel Polo dress shirt, he
looks every bit the experienced coach that he
is. Guinan says his basic technique is to ask
questions, not impart lessons. Like
Lieutenant Columbo, the quirky and
rumpled TV detective played by Peter Falk,
Guinan frames the dialogue with members of
his finance team or with customers or reps as,
“Help me understand.”
“I don’t know exactly where I picked that
[technique] up,” he says, but it has helped him
establish rapport, listen, and learn. He has
learned enough through engaging with the
company’s commercial leadership that he can
now talk to a sales rep about a new $10 million
account, suggesting appropriate deadlines
for moving from stage one to stage two of the
sales timeline. He’ll ask, “Can we push the
organization to try for two months? How are
we going to have to behave differently?”That
type of dialogue is occurring regularly now, as
part of the
restore growth
initiative—and it’s
coming fromQuest’s CFO.
“My belief is, I’ve learned so much from
other people and I’m a product of people
I’ve had the privilege of working for, working
with, and who have worked for me,” he says.
“When I see things that are really good, I
adopt them.”
Health Care’s Not Soft
and Fuzzy
Coming to work in a company that provides
patients with the information to prevent
or manage disease has to be rewarding for
Guinan. In addition to diagnostic informa-
tion services, Quest provides information
technology solutions (including MyQuest, a
mobile app that allows individuals to access
their own lab records) to improve diagnosis
and care. It also develops new diagnostic tests
such as one introduced in October 2013 for
women at high risk of developing breast and
ovarian cancer due to inherited mutations in
the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.
The company has a long list of honors,
including a decade on the Dow Jones World
Sustainability Index and recognition as a
“Best Employer” in numerous localities
around the country. Guinan says, “I’m proud
of what I do ... and certainly the space we’re
in here, diagnostic information services, a key
to reducing costs [by] early detection and
prevention, is a great place to be.”
There is, however, a national cynicism
about the health care field that’s sometimes
difficult to handle, he admits. He notes, for
instance, the public perception is of medical
providers’ and insurers’ taking large bites
from the average family budget. Because his
job is so much a part of who he is, Guinan
says, it can be challenging to hear the
negativity. “When my daughter was in
seventh grade, she came home from school
and said, ‘My teacher says that pharmaceuti-
cal companies treat things instead of curing
them because you can make more money.’”
He was CFO of the pharmaceuticals business
at Johnson & Johnson at the time, working
alongside people in R&D whose passion was
all about curing a devastating illness, “many
of them touched by the disease personally
through family or friends.”
In the diagnostic space, the beneficial
connection is not so easy for individuals
outside the medical field to appreciate, but
“to really focus people on the details of
their conditions and, therefore, lead them
to treatment options or hopefully to avoid
larger challenges by early detection,” Guinan
believes, is a “greater purpose.”
He says, “Yes, we’ve got to make money for
our shareholders, but at the end of the day
that’s not why we’re here. We’re really here
because of the greater purpose of what we’re
doing, and that’s where our passion is, and
maintaining that passion, and doing great
things for people, is how we best serve people
and our shareholders.”
He finds the best way to deal with negativ-
ity is by “reconnecting with the people you
work with. Then you see it. ‘Yeah, there are
good people doing good stuff. There are good
people getting excited about the difference
they’re making in other people’s lives.’”
Do you have to be a people person to find
that silver lining? No, but it helps. Guinan,
the CFO who believes in and practices
management by walking around, not only
finds that good, he spreads the news to just
about everyone with whom he engages in
the company.
C
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ON AQUEST
Guinan says he looks for cost
effectiveness, not just efficiencies
