Bodaken, Bruce

PERSONAL:

Education: Colorado State University, B.A.; University of Colorado, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Mill Valley, CA. Office—Blue Shield of California, 50 Beale St., San Francisco, CA 94105-1808.

CAREER:

Health plan chief executive officer (CEO). FHP International, CA, senior vice president and associate chief operating officer; Blue Shield of California, San Francisco, chairman, president, and CEO, 1994—. On the board of directors of the California Business Roundtable, America's Health Insurance Plans, and the University of California, Berkeley's Health Services Management Program.

WRITINGS:

(With Robert Fritz) The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance, foreword by Peter Senge, Free Press (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bruce Bodaken is an American health plan chief executive officer (CEO). Iowa native Bodaken earned a bachelor's degree from Colorado State University and went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Colorado. He later became senior vice president and associate chief operating officer (COO) at the southern California-based FHP International. In 1994, he started working with Blue Shield of California in San Francisco, eventually becoming the chairman, president, and CEO of the more than three-million-member not-for-profit health plan. Bodaken serves on the board of directors with the California Business Roundtable, America's Health Insurance Plans, and the University of California, Berkeley's, Health Services Management Program.

In 2006, Bodaken wrote The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance with Robert Fritz, including a foreword by business management guru Peter Senge. The book suggests a specific method for managers to deal with their employees to improve their performance: use the truth. Fritz and Bodaken say that managers should employ fact-based discussions with their individual employees or teams on the range of trouble issues and then follow this up with three actions in order to fix the performance problems or improve the quality of work. Bodaken recorded a twenty-five to forty-percent increase in organizational capacity with this method applied at Blue Shield of California.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2006, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance, p. 58.

Business Week, May 29, 2006, review of The Managerial Moment of Truth, p. 106.

Harvard Business Review, February, 2006, John T. Landry, review of The Managerial Moment of Truth, p. 70; September, 2006, John T. Landry, review of The Managerial Moment of Truth, p. 32.

Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2006, review of The Managerial Moment of Truth, p. 47.

ONLINE

Blue Shield of California Web site,http://blueshieldca.com/ (March 10, 2008), author profile.

Leadership Now,http://www.leadershipnow.com/ (March 10, 2008), author profile.

Wage Works,http://www.wageworks.com/ (March 10, 2008), author profile.