The many roles of McKesson’s Mike Bird.
By Pete Mercer
Mike Bird is a delivery professional lead at McKesson Medical-Surgical, one of the largest distributors of medical supplies in North America. His team operates out of a cross dock, which is a location that receives finished orders from McKesson’s distribution center in Lehigh Valley. His team of eight delivery professionals delivers products throughout the state of New Jersey.
Repertoire Magazine sat down with Bird to discuss his career at McKesson, taking charge of a leadership role in his community, and the bigger picture of working in the healthcare supply chain.
Building a career at McKesson
Bird has worked for McKesson for just over 12 years (he hit his 12-year anniversary in July) and has held his current position for the last five years. While most of his time is spent organizing the schedules and routes of his team of drivers, he also has plenty of opportunities to make deliveries to help keep up with the sheer volume of products moving through their cross dock.
McKesson is driven by two core principles: ILEAD and I2CARE. ILEAD is a leadership-based acronym that stands for Inspire, Leverage, Execute, Advance, Develop, with the core idea being that everyone is a leader and all employees are committed to leadership excellence. I2CARE is an acronym that stands for Integrity, Inclusion, Customer-First, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence, which are foundational values of the way that McKesson operates.
Both core principles are a part of the everyday fabric of working for McKesson, inspiring employees like Bird to be the absolute best that they can be. “It’s a company culture, decision-making, how we lead, and it’s a whole standard.”
He said, “The ultimate goal is to service our customers, our patients, and these hospitals and doctor’s offices from every aspect of medical that you can think of – oncology, pediatricians, OBGYNs, surgery centers and more. We deliver everything from prescription drugs, vaccines, medical equipment and disposable items.”
Bird worked as a full-time delivery professional before he became the team lead, so he understands the needs and challenges facing the delivery professionals throughout the day. They offer white glove delivery services, which goes an extra step to ensure that customer service is the number one priority with each delivery.
For Bird, those relationships are foundational to one’s success as a delivery professional. It can be a physically demanding job, especially during the winter and summer months, but he says that it’s “not the hardest job in the world.” The best delivery professionals are the ones who stay safe on the road and provide excellent customer service, especially because they represent the company and build relationships with the customers.
“Once you load that truck, it almost becomes your own little business,” he said. “You deliver to the same customers, so you build a relationship with them because you’re seeing them on a frequent basis.”
The bigger picture
A unique thing about the healthcare industry is this idea of a bigger picture: everyone has an understanding that even the slightest slip up can have dangerous consequences for patients. While it’s easy to look at distribution as another job, Bird and his team understand that they shoulder a greater purpose to serve the clinicians and the patients.
There are plenty of times when Bird’s facility will get an email informing them of something important coming in the next day, which means that he might have to restructure his driver’s route to make sure it gets where it needs to go when it needs to be there.
“That’s not always the easiest thing,” he said. “One of our mottos is ‘what we do matters.’ Sometimes, it could be just a couple boxes of gloves. Other times, it could be something critical for a patient. But for us, we treat each package with the same level of care and importance.”
This is an industry where every touchpoint holds tremendous importance. If you order something from Amazon and it gets delayed by a day or two, it’s not the end of the world. But any delays for the kinds of products that McKesson is shipping can cause a dangerous domino effect, making the work at cross docks like the one Bird manages an integral piece of a greater puzzle.
Developing a necessary skillset
As a leader, Bird has considerable insight into the finer details of the job. In his 12 years working for McKesson, he said that one of the biggest lessons he’s learned is to be a better driver. Much like Bird’s approach to management and leadership, this is a very practical look at how McKesson has shaped him in his career – there is an entire program devoted to ensuring that delivery professionals are prepared and equipped with the training and resources they need to be successful on the road.
This experience has trickled down into his life outside of work as well. He taught his niece how to drive using the principles of the PACE program to discuss things like maintaining an appropriate space between you and the car in front of you, stopping a safe distance away from the car in front of you so that you can see the back of their tires, and a concept known as “stale green lights.” For most other drivers on the road, when they see that the light is green, they take the opportunity to keep driving through the intersection. For Bird, if he doesn’t see the light turn green, his instincts kick in to remind him that the green light might as well be a ticking clock. Eventually, that light is going to turn yellow and a good driver needs to be prepared for that.
When you have a vehicle full of precious medical supplies that are due at a facility in a timely manner, it makes you more cognizant of the nuances of driving for a living. This practical outlook at even something as seemingly commonplace as a traffic light is what makes Bird stand out as a leader for his team. By focusing on those kinds of details, he and his team are able to deliver better results for McKesson and their customers.
Hometown pride
In addition to his role at McKesson, Bird also serves on the Willingboro Township School Board, where he was just re-elected for another three-year term. Willingboro is the township that he grew up in, where he went to elementary school and graduated from high school. Bird has a deep sense of pride for where he’s come from and leverages that pride to serve on the school board and meet the needs of his community.
Public education is important to Bird, which is why he’s so heavily involved. Not only did he benefit from the education he received, but his son (who has earned a doctorate from the University of Hawaii) also benefited from public education. Part of the reason that he’s involved in this capacity on the school board now is because he has first-hand experience of what a good education can do for people.
This is a volunteer role that Bird is deeply passionate about, giving him the opportunity to give back to the community that he grew up in. “This little suburb in South Jersey is more important to me than almost anything else, aside from my kids and new fiancé, and I treat it as such. It’s an honor that when I get stuff done and people say, ‘Thank you for doing that.’”
Bird joked that people are asking when he’s going to run for mayor, which speaks to his involvement in the community. When he’s not on the clock at McKesson, he’s working to enrich his community through his volunteer work, whether that’s attending school board meetings, running fundraisers for the schools, coaching basketball, giving out scholarships through his nonprofit, or any one of the other hats he’s accustomed to wearing.
There’s a deeper generosity there that goes beyond a customer-centric outlook or hometown pride – Bird understands the value of community and why an investment in that community is worth all the time and dedication that it takes. That investment makes him an invaluable part of the community in Willingboro, giving him a reputation for his dependability.
“There’s only a couple of people on Earth that call me Michael,” he said. “Most people will say, ‘Mike Bird.’ It’s one word, eight letters long. They just say, ‘Hey Mike Bird,’ because they know I’m going to show up. I’m going to do everything I can to support my community. When I see a need, I’m going to find a way to fulfill that need.”