The Uncommon Leader Podcast
Are you ready to break free from mediocrity and lead an extraordinary life? Join us on The Uncommon Leadership Podcast as we explore the power of intentionality in personal and professional growth. Our podcast features insightful interviews with inspiring leaders from all walks of life, sharing their stories of overcoming challenges and achieving greatness.
Discover practical strategies to:
- Think positively and cultivate a growth mindset
- Live a healthy and balanced lifestyle
- Build your faith and find inner strength
- Read more and expand your knowledge
- Stay strong in the face of adversity
- Work hard with purpose and passion
- Network effectively to build meaningful relationships
- Worry less and focus on what matters
- Love always and make a positive impact
In each episode, we'll dive into relevant leadership topics, share inspiring stories, and provide actionable steps you can take to elevate your life. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, The Uncommon Leadership Podcast offers valuable insights and practical guidance to help you achieve your goals and live your best life.
The Uncommon Leader Podcast
Balancing Leadership and Personal Growth: Insights from Mark Henderson Leary on Healthcare, Creativity, and the EOS Framework
Discover the secret to balancing leadership and personal growth with the inspiring Mark Henderson Leary, a renowned leadership coach who joins us to share his unique insights. Mark's compelling journey from his early days as the "man of the house" to becoming a transformative figure in healthcare leadership provides invaluable lessons for leaders across industries. We explore the multifaceted dimensions of success, including financial and cultural health, and how intentionality in leadership can create lasting change. Listen as Mark reveals how his experiences fostered a humble confidence that drives effective delegation and accountability in private practice healthcare.
Gain a deeper understanding of creativity's role in personal and professional development through Mark's touching story of his father's influence. This episode highlights the balance between structured approaches and creative expressions, using the metaphor of Lego building to explore how these dynamics play out across generations. Mark's reflections on loss and growth underscore the importance of understanding one's higher purpose, offering inspiration for those seeking to align their personal stories with their professional journeys.
Finally, we delve into the power of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and its impact on healthcare leadership. Mark shares how EOS helps leadership teams achieve alignment, accountability, and a thriving work environment. The conversation shifts to the challenges faced by physician leaders who juggle individual contributions with organizational responsibilities. With actionable insights on creating healthy organizational cultures, this episode provides a roadmap for fostering environments that empower teams and eliminate toxic behaviors. Join us as we uncover ways to achieve significant growth and fulfillment in the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare leadership.
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Did you know that many of the things that I discuss on the Uncommon Leader Podcast are subjects that I coach other leaders and organizations ? If you would be interested in having me discuss 1:1 or group coaching with you, or know someone who is looking to move from Underperforming to Uncommon in their business or life, I would love to chat with you. Click this link to set up a FREE CALL to discuss how coaching might benefit you and your team)
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A lot of my clients want to know how they compare to others, and so I've learned how to share that, and there's three dimensions that people succeed on Financial health, cultural health and intentionality. Financial health is obvious in terms of revenue, profit, whatever your goals are. Cultural health is sort of happiness, morale, right people, right seat. And intentionality is very important because it is how much of the success you're enjoying is a result of you actually setting those goals and following through on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, common Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher, today. I'm excited to bring you my conversation with Mark Henderson Leary. In today's episode, mark and I dive deep into the challenges faced by leaders in private practice healthcare. We'll discuss real-life success stories, the importance of humble confidence and how principles like delegation and accountability can reshape your organization. So this episode is not just for healthcare leaders. If you're looking for ways to make your team more effective, then this episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories. So let's get started. And inspiring stories. So let's get started, mark Henderson. Larry, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1:How are you doing today? I'm really fantastic. Thank you so much for having me Look ahead.
Speaker 2:We just did this, we talked about it. We're kind of trading podcasts here a little bit, so we've already had a chance to chat on your podcast prior to this hit and record button for the Uncommon Leader podcast.
Speaker 1:So we'll be tired of talking here by the end of this, but that's okay. No, we won't. I'm looking forward to our conversation. If it were that simple, we could talk all day, so the hard part is going to be shutting it down.
Speaker 2:This is true. All right, so I'll start you off Same way. I start all my first time guests, though, and that's to ask you to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.
Speaker 1:You know, I think a lot about it was a great question and I know everybody says that I just heard myself. I listened to your podcast. That's a great question. I did it. I'm super self-aware now.
Speaker 2:I know why we say that, but we could talk about that too.
Speaker 1:You know, being a business guy, being a coach, doing what I do, helping people get what they want from their business so much of the stories are in that context and occasionally, 90% of the time, I say, well, this is what happened in the business, I sold it. This was the crisis and the issue and the resolution and on a couple different occasions, doing deeper work just really stopped me in my tracks in terms of how important it was and I think there were two real massive impacts on my life with my dad. My dad and my mom divorced when I was six, and that's essentially where the story starts. It was um, at age six, he was out and I was left with this. I think it was like a consolation prize type of state statement which was and now you're the man of the house, and I think I took that with some pride.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you, every time I've told a psychologist or a therapist about that, they go, oh, and I'm like what do you mean? Oh, and it's like you know you were six, right, like yeah, and so my son is actually six, and so looking at my son at age six and thinking about, what does that mean when you're expected to start making decisions, and so my dad as I love my dad my dad loved me, and I knew that, but he didn't have a great model for being an engaged father and so did the best he could, which was not that much engagement, involvement and so I didn't spend as much time around him as I wanted, and so what came from that is this is the instructions I get, and I've got to go from here, and so that created a very inquisitive person, and it's led to my passion of understanding how things work, and I have the ability to do that, and I am a very systematic person. I watched I get. With a very small amount of information, I can figure out how things work. I don't have to ask a lot of questions. Very often, in fact, I was sort of socialized in that sense of like I don't even know if it was output, but I've always tried to ask a few questions as possible and know the answers, and that's just my MO, which I've had to work really hard on.
Speaker 1:So, fast forward, though, over the next many years, I started to get closer with my father and realized that my father and I were very, very similar and began to be very excited that I could learn a lot about myself, and this was like early college and I started realizing that every conversation I had with him was this unpacking of my future self and I and I would literally feel like I. When I hung up the phone with him, I was like I, I felt like I was. I mean, I was. I can't overstate how literal I felt.
Speaker 1:Like I'd been talking to my future self, like he was me, and then he died in a plane crash and again he was gone, and that has left me in a constant state of I want guidance, I want guidance, I want leadership, I want to be taught how to make sense of this damn life, but it's not there. I have to go find it, and I believe that that is what creates this thing for me and the gift I can offer people with, with a great deal of humility. When I say this, I start to feel some degree of like arrogance. When I say my passion and talent is figuring out how things work. My purpose, what I offer people, is I can help you understand how those critical things work that are keeping you stuck, so you can get to what you want most, what you need most, your higher purpose, and so that's how it shaped me, and everything and everything goes back to that in terms of all the emotions. If you want me to cry on the podcast, let's go talk more about my dad podcast before.
Speaker 2:that's really what gets to be telling and connecting to some of these first stories on the podcast. Again, we both are coached by an organization that says we're most powerfully positioned to help that person. We used to be so. When you're working with others, I sense in your conversation that you now have empathy with what they're going through, but that you were in search of something we can talk about that in terms of how your business come up, and you know the system helped you having the steps to figure it out. So I'll ask this as, whether you liked it as a kid or maybe as you got older, were you a Lego? Do you like Legos as a kid? A little bit.
Speaker 2:I was more of the book or the was more of a builder off the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw a book.
Speaker 2:Or the picture on the front of the box.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, so I got to follow the instructions and so I guess I have some creativity in me, and so I just talked about a lot. I'm a musician. I like to play guitar and sing, and I always try to write. I'm really not a writer, I'm more of a performer. I was always taking things apart and putting them back together, and less of the creativity, uh, side of that. So I I like to know the steps and, and I like things to make sense and, and so that that's when things don't make sense, things don't feel right. Yeah, I want to know how things fit together it's funny.
Speaker 2:I say that for couple reasons. One is I had two sons and they were totally different. One was like the book had to be there to go through every step. They're now 27 and 27, 25. And the youngest was like, oh, you just dump them out on the table, mix them all up together. And I'd be like what are you doing? No way, you can't do that. I'm getting stressed out just thinking about that. I know, right, it just leaves this feeling.
Speaker 2:And now my nephew is seven years old. He's coming to visit this weekend and he texted me through his iPad and said Uncle John, can we have a Lego building time on Saturday morning seven o'clock? So he scheduled a time with me. I don't know how to take that exactly, but I told him. I said I got to know when we're going to do it. And he doesn't have a book. He has the iPad that actually tells you how to place everything together. Every step takes you through the book. So I'm looking forward to that time. But he's a little kid too. He likes to just go grab the people out of the Legos. Again, it doesn't really matter. That's some of the differences that we have. So your desire, actually, your passion, your gift and being able to see things in the step of the process then makes sense in terms of you are an EOS expert, you're an EOS coach. What is EOS for those listeners? I mean, I have leaders that kind of go through different systems. What is EOS and how do you help businesses use that to succeed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. It's a system system. It's a system of tools and what you know we talk about systems and why systems matter to me. Uh, simple problems, complex problems. Simple problems need answers. Complex problems need systems because they're too dynamic, and so a business is, to a large extent, your life. Uh is a complex problem, and so EOS is a system of tools simple tools, designed for the whole business, that create three outcomes in particular vision, traction and health.
Speaker 1:And vision is, at least initially from a leadership team perspective, getting your leadership team on the same page with where you're going and how you're going to get there. Traction is that accountability and discipline for that leadership team to make that vision real. And health is getting that team to come together as a healthy, functional team, cohesively, right person, right seat, because all too often we don't have that. We're not working together as efficiently and effectively as we could be, or not even enjoying the stuff we're doing. And so, as goes that team, so goes the rest of the organization. We have to lock that in, but once we do, we can take it to the entire organization where everyone is crystal clear in your vision, everyone's accountable and disciplined and everyone is part of a healthy culture where they love being there. They love the work they do and they're adding tremendous value and feel it the way you do, or at least in a way that makes sense for them in their role, and that's what the system does.
Speaker 2:Back to first of all. Again, I think about this. You just got two real nuggets listeners. Simple problems need answers, complex problems need systems. Love that. And then the framework that you talked about vision traction, health. You mentioned in your bio as well that this system is one that you use to help you overcome problems, and that's how you in your businesses, and that's how you then teach others to do that as well. So what were some of the problems that you ran into in your businesses, that you ran into in your businesses that you had to overcome utilizing this three-step framework vision, traction and health?
Speaker 1:Oh well, man, there's so much to that. So I cobbled together. It wasn't even as elegant as that, because I was the classic flavor of the month CEO. I had a new system, a new toolkit, a new book, a new, something new seminar under my arm. Every single week, oh guys, you know what I figured out?
Speaker 1:The reason we haven't exploded as a business is that we don't have a sales system. Okay, and so we got a sales methodology. So I keep using the word system, but you know, and so so that would work for a week, and then we hit the next ceiling. Well, you know what the issue is. Now I realize it's more about marketing. And so let's, let's use this marketing toolkit, and okay, well, that's didn't work either, so let's, let's. It's a hiring thing, oh no, it's a culture thing, it's a project management thing, it's. And so every single week it was like this sets of answers, sets of little, you know, you know tools, processes, seminars, and you know that was seven short years, we'll call it.
Speaker 1:And so over that, three quarters of a decade, I did put together kind of my own system. I had a system that was working and I was able to sell the business. And when I did sell the business. They trusted me enough, even though I wasn't a shareholder, to run the growth strategy and we grew that from $7.5 million in services revenue to under $20 million in services revenue using this sort of cobbled together system I had and I thought, well, this is great. Simplifying the business using a system was so important. It was actually after that that I found EOS and I had friends say you know, you have a talent for this Mark, you should implement EOS. It's a great system. I was like I got a system, it's great. And then finally I read the book and when I read the book it was like damn it, it might have seven years ago right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, if I'd had this 10 years ago, I'd have a totally different tried to create it, did a decent job and I was smart enough to realize that Gino nailed it and I've pressure tested it. Like I love to challenge, I love to find the better way and it's like nope, the principles they work and uh and so that's been. That's been the better part of eight years since I did that and it's just been an amazing journey to help people skip that seven years. Like let's get you into the seat you need to be in. Let's let you lead, because so much of what I was doing was I was doing wrong jobs.
Speaker 1:It was a big stew of roles and obligations, unclear messages. What does the culture need to be? I want to be fun and happy and take care of everybody, but I need to drive accountability and I don't know how to do it at the same time and it was just this mess and so fast forward, I don't know people can lead. What do you? What do you want the organization to be? Just tell me. Answering the question of what the organization to be, that's a hard enough question. Don't. Don't try to figure out how to run a meeting Like we got a way to do that. I could tell you how to run the meeting. Just go home and answer the question what do you want the culture to feel like when you come in and when it's at its best? That's the stuff that I want people working on at least experience in your work background.
Speaker 2:But you have kind of niched down and you found this group that you really have been helping us private practice in terms of healthcare. You're the host of the Practice Freedom podcast, learning and scaling your private healthcare practice. How did you really find that as the niche you wanted to serve inside of the utilization of systems thinking, eos and what you did?
Speaker 1:Well, it kind of found me, and it was an accident of two things that kind of. The first one, this was not intentional at all. I found myself getting frustrated with how healthcare was running and I found myself sort of not as a hobby, but anytime there would be the new mindset of care conference you know we're doing it a different, better way and I would talk to these entrepreneurial health care leaders. I would show up there and I'm like I love what you're doing, I want to help in some way. I don't know how and it never went anywhere and I would just like I'm so excited about what's going on in that space, the next generation of health care leaders and what they're doing, and it was just. It was truly felt like hobby type level of interest. And then in my practice it just sort of collected various different types of healthcare businesses and I was looking for a way to specialize. I didn't want to be sort of a generalist. I was like I bet I can add more value if I go deeper and just sort of realized one day that I had a bunch of healthcare clients and there was a lot things that in healthcare I don't think translate as directly, obviously, if you read the book Traction, you read things that make a lot of sense to a plumbing company, to a manufacturer, distributor, and it's just intuitive there. And when you read it as a healthcare provider, you're like, well, it's a little bit different. We got nurses, we got doctors, and leading doctors is a little bit different. And I was like I've been working with clients. I'm like, well, it's not different at all in principle. And they'd be like, well, show me this I have, the picture looks different. I understand the picture looks different, the principle is not different. And so I started learning that there was different words we could use in different ways.
Speaker 1:The challenges manifested and and one of the biggest ways was the identity and role of the founding physician or the founding healthcare provider leader. Because in a traditional business, the leader rises up to be someone who's either accountable for the execution of the organization or somebody who's really driving the emotional vision. And so in EOS we call it the visionary or the integrator. And it's way outside of EOS. If you look at very successful businesses, there's almost always a duo of leaders. Disney had the same thing, you know, honda's had the same kind of thing. There's lots of people. If you look at this historical. There's somebody who runs the inside of the organization and somebody who pulls it into the future at the top two leaders. And so in healthcare we have this kind of the same thing. We have to have somebody who administers the practice, drives the numbers, drives accountability, and there's somebody who really understands that the impact we're trying to make, really emotionally motivated and impatient, and so we want to call those two leaders out.
Speaker 1:But there's also this unique phenomenon because in a plumbing company the guy who started that organization or gal, rarely at the board meeting says you know what I? I like this meeting but this is kind of impinging upon my time of plunging toilets. I need to go unclog some drains and put some faucets in because that's my life's passion and so that's. That's not the concern. But in healthcare it. You know I am the world's number one surgeon in this particular surgery. I am such a high value individual contributor that I can move the needle in profit and revenue by 20% just by being in surgery.
Speaker 1:So we have to really recognize that these founding physicians are struggling to find their identity amongst three full-time high value roles the visionary leader, the practice administrator or integrator and this individual healer. And hopefully that if people are listening to this who haven't thought of this, or going mind blown oh my gosh, I'm doing three full-time jobs or two of them. That's the help. So we got to figure out a path out of that and it's not exactly a light switch, but that is the way through this because it is not sustainable and it does not lead to happy leadership life balance, because the more successful the practice is and the more you hold onto those three roles, the more it sort of rips you apart. That's just one example, but yeah, that was one of the biggest first epiphanies. It's like I've really got to help people through this and there's a bunch of other things, that sort of tactical language that helps people understand how to delegate better and organize a practice way better with the same principles.
Speaker 2:Hey, listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.
Speaker 2:It's a great analogy as you go through there, because, as I watch the larger healthcare systems not the private healthcare practices but as I've seen them promote leaders by title inside of the organization, it's been that third person, it's been the one who's been the rainmaker, they've been the most successful cardiologist, they've been the most successful dermatologist or ophthalmologist, and they must then going to be a good leader and can lead our organization in the future. And many of them don't have either the visionary skill or the integrator skill to execute it and or think about what the future may look like, and that's how some of them. It takes them a long time to get some traction inside of their space. And so when you go in and I would imagine even some of these leaders, these physicians that are setting up their own practice, how do you get them to think about those three things? What's the gift that you have that gets them there?
Speaker 2:Because, mark, I remember I mean I shared the story on your podcast. I just, I was just an engineer from you know, west Virginia. What physician was going to kind of give me the credibility that I needed to be? Help them improve their practice? Improve their practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it manifests in two places. One is sort of that leader founder. And if they're a leader founder type, most of the time I explain this to them and they're saying okay, well, I clearly can't do three of these. And so most common scenario is well, I'm not the practice administrator, I really don't love this stuff, I, but when? How do I balance the time between individual healer, surgeon, doctor, and and this visionary leader? And this is relatively easy to explain um, do you think your biggest contribution to the world is through your craft? Because it might be. You might be the only one in the world that can do this you, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1:The most famous architects in the world, the most famous designers in the world these are high value individual contributors, the inventors of the world, not managers, not even my leaders. That's fine, like, like, I don't know what kind of leadership ability Einstein had, I'm suspecting not great, but super huge impact. Right, that's not a problem. So if that's your approach, then let go. But if you're thinking that's high value, one patient at a time, but what's more high value is 20 patients at a time, because I can cultivate doctors and a group of associates and I can create an organization that operates at a high level, that can not only do one patient at a time, that can solve lots more problems as a community than that's starting to pull you into the visionary leader, and in reality there's almost always a balance of, like I'm in clinic, I'm in the visionary leader, and it varies dramatically based on the specialty right.
Speaker 1:So an optometrist is going to be a lot less associated or, you know, ego associated with refracting eyes, chiropractic, same kind of thing, anesthesiology, plastic surgery. They're like look, no, I got us here, everybody knows me, I'm the guy. And there has to be a sort of a different balance in that that same model translates to the associates, though, and that's oftentimes where I'm getting, like the associate physicians, like do you really want to lead the organization or you just want to be a craftsperson? And very often it's like oh, that's choice. Yeah, I just want to see patients to go home, yes, and we got a place for you in many organizations.
Speaker 2:No, you think about it, you think about the time they invest and it's just outside their way, outside their comfort zone. It puts them into their panic zone. They just don't have a desire to learn. They invest enough time trying to learn how to master their craft right In terms of understanding. So I think what you're doing is so important with regards to that private practice and helping those physician executives see the blind spots inside the organization and make sure that they have all three of those pieces that are there.
Speaker 1:I want to add one little piece to that, one of the biggest mistakes that I and it's such an obvious tactical mistake. A doctor has a stature and they're in an operating room or they're in an exam room and there's nurses, surgical assistants, medical assistants, writing room, or they're in an exam room and there's nurses, surgical assistance, medical assistance, medical assistance by visual proximity the leader manager is the doctor. That is the worst idea ever and so we have to say that okay, they are, they are a consumer of the services of nurses, mas and essays and whatever, and other mid-levels, and the manager is someone else. We need to lead those associates. We need to lead physicians. It's a whole other thing. We can talk about that if there's time, but there's a lot of resistance to leading leaders, but it's critical that we do it. But if we've got nurses who need a manager, it's not the doctor. I mean, these great surgeons, these great doctors are not rarely good managers at all. Now, occasionally you find one and if you have one, there's a really good use for that person, because you need oftentimes one person to lead that group.
Speaker 1:But let's just get out of this habit of like ego, association and status is a manager. It's not at all. The manager of the nurses is the manager of the nurses, not the doctor. It might be the director of nursing, the DON might be something like that. But we really got to understand who's the boss, who's the reporting structure and what replaces.
Speaker 1:That. Is this sort of customer service model. The consumer of the service is the doctor, and they need to be happy, that's true, but don't expect them to manage Very different. So we go back to our managers and we say like hey, it didn't seem like the doctor was so happy. And the doctor's complaining, complaining about this. Our process isn't fitting this and let's solve for this through proper channels and provide kind of a customer service model and get out of this idea, because the last thing you want is somebody who's an amazing craftsperson trying to muddle their way through management and doing very bad damage along the way because they don't know how to do it yeah, we talked about this a little bit more because you um, it's this required.
Speaker 2:Your influence as the consultant, as the teacher, as the coach inside of this space is so important. Influencing physicians, physician leaders, is often challenging. How do you grow your skills to be able to influence them in the space that you work in as well?
Speaker 1:How do I grow my skills? Yeah, Well.
Speaker 1:I've always got coaching, I'm always learning, I've always, you know, approaching this with humble confidence. Um, it is so important to go into. I mean, I honestly, when I first had my few clients who were pushing back, I had people saying things like well, we can't leave the doctors. And, um, in all truth, it was like, well, I don't know this, like my first one where I was dealing with, well, we can't leave the doctors, like that, we're not going to put them on the accountability chart, they're just, they're just going to sort of be out there and they're going to, you know, answer to the visionary. Everybody knows what the doctors do. And I'm like, ah, it doesn't feel right. You might know, but it doesn't feel right. So I just kind of charged in like we're going to chart, we're going to try the principle of race approach, we're going to, we're going to use the idea that everyone needs a leader. If it's only God, you're everyone easily. Everyone must be led in some direction. Everybody wants direction and we need clear accountability. And so we're going to push through the principle of delegation and clear expectations.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of this was like let's take a risk on this, let's take it, let's experiment and see if this follows the principles. And guess what? It follows the principles. And so, in reality, every client I work with has a slightly different scenario and they're the ones that have to deal with the consequences.
Speaker 1:And so when I come in, I'm not prescribing outcomes, I am bringing up principles and saying this is what I've seen work and this is what I've seen not work, or not even that. It's almost like this is the outcome. When this is the other outcome, when this other thing happens and you choose which direction you want to go, and you're going to have to live with the consequences. And if you go against kind of what the principles are saying, with the consequences and let's. And if you go against kind of what the principles are saying, I'm on the journey with you and we'll learn this together and you might be right, and if so, I've got a new nugget, and if it doesn't work, then we're going to course correct and so it's. It's a system where we're constantly moving these things forward and learning things and figuring out the best imperfect outcome along the whole way.
Speaker 2:Without throwing anyone under the bus Mark in terms of sharing too much information, because physicians never want to share. Tell me a success story that you've had in working with a private practice or working with a leader and helping them to succeed.
Speaker 1:You'll love this story.
Speaker 1:Uh, one of my clients, uh, I've been working with him a while and they were really serious about improving and uh, they were struggling a little bit because, like so many financial or so many healthcare organizations making plenty of money, and so a lot of my clients want to know how they compare to others and so I've learned how to share that and there's three dimensions that people succeed on financial health, cultural health and intentionality.
Speaker 1:Financial health is obvious in terms of revenue, profit, whatever your goals are. Cultural health is sort of happiness, morale, right people, right seat, and intentionality is very important because it is how much of the success you're enjoying is a result of you actually setting those goals and following through on it, or how much of it is accidental, or how much of your failure is accidental. So, really understanding, are we setting proper goals, doing proper prediction, following a lot of the stuff we do in the system? So this particular annual it was I don't know if they asked if I just said it like I gotta like you guys are making money, but I gotta tell you you are the least healthy, most toxic culture I'm working with and they were just like wow, ouch, and and it was a moment where I had to have bravery to say that, because I don't like saying those things, but I knew that they would.
Speaker 1:I had to tell them something this is not going the right direction and it began a journey, one at a time. Start making better, more difficult choices about the core values of the people. Because in healthcare it is so easy to rely on resume and prestige and a unique skill set and say like this person is the only one that can do this and they're horribly toxic. But we got to keep them and the discipline required to look at any critical seat on the leadership team or in the in the doctors and one by one, say that's not acceptable or we're going to replace them and commit to that. And it is an absolute act of bravery because it doesn't move quickly. It's not like I mean. Sometimes when you send somebody out the door, it's a breath of fresh air, but particularly in those difficult to fill seats, it's. It's a long journey leading up to the guts to say they're out, and then it's a long journey to get the seat filled and then and then you don't always get it right. And so when the somebody has the guts to do that over the course of two years, which is when, if you're going to turn your culture over, it might be a two-year journey to have someone come back around and say now it's our time to shine. We have the team. Now we have a great administrator, integrator who is capable. We have all of our critical seats filled.
Speaker 1:It talks about their times in the past of having so much stress, drinking a full bottle of whiskey every night, to when I started working with them, very controlling, very frustrated outbursts of anger at every little thing to like. I trust you guys. I trust you guys. I don't have to do any of that stuff anymore. Running the exercise of delegate and elevate what are my superpowers, what are the things? I don't have to do any of that stuff anymore. Running the exercise of delegate and elevate what are my superpowers, what are the things I don't like doing? This guy wrote this. You know the things I don't like doing. Oh yeah, I don't do this anymore. Haven't done them in forever. It was about a year.
Speaker 1:But getting somebody to go through that journey and coach them through this sort of brutal awareness of creating something great that has a lot of cancer in it and to clean it out to the point where, no, I live the life, I have the right people and I can trust people to do this work. Not only does it affect them, but there's 80 people in the organization who are now on the path to growing and living better. And it's imperfect. They still got lots of people issues they got to work through, but again, the leadership team getting there, it's so powerful to empower those people and eliminate that hyperdependency that is so common in healthcare because they can do it all so much more than a plumber. A plumber cannot plumb their way out of an unprofitable month, but a plastic surgeon can. A plastic surgeon can actually change the profitability by going back to a couple more days of surgery and so taking all of that hyperdependency off. It's a massive weight lift.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You just touched on it really really well. I mean, first, the courage that you had to display to give them that cold bucket of water in the face, because that success, especially in some of those higher revenue areas, higher profitability practices, it can be done financially, you're exactly right, but with the culture not being there to grow the organization and or to sustain that success over the long haul is nearly impossible. You'll have intermittent success just because of being able to muscle your way through to your point and being able to make a couple more surgeries happen to make it a profitable business. But to create something that's lasting, to create something that's fulfilling in your work, to do it takes that courage to put that in their face and say your culture is going to have to change as well. You're going to have to change the leaders, especially those revenue generating leaders that are really bad.
Speaker 1:Exactly and you hit on a couple of things that make that lasting impact. I occasionally encounter practices and practice leaders where I say, well, three years from now, what do you want to look like if you get what you want? What does that look like? And sometimes it's like I don't even want to think about that right now because I don't. I don't even have the guts to dare to dream right now, because I just. It just hurts so much right now to work with these people who I don't understand why we hired them? Why are they doing this work? I don't, I don't like going there and we've stubbed our toes so badly for so long. I just want the pain to go away. Never mind. Dream something amazing and self-actualized.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to thank you for what you're doing, Mark, because the space that you're working in, the space that you've chosen to niche down into in terms of private practice health care, is so important for many reasons in our economy, in the health of our communities Just really cool and so what you're doing is very important. I appreciate that. How do folks learn more about you, Mark, if they want to learn more about EOS and get in touch with you? Two different ways.
Speaker 1:Well, the easiest way is practicefreedomcom. Check that out. You can get to my other web properties from there. Practicefreedomcom is all the podcast episodes and information and contact is the easiest way, for sure.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, I've enjoyed our conversations today two of them and look forward to both of these going out to our listeners. I know the listeners. The Uncommon Leader podcast is going to find value on what you talked about with regards to systems and vision and creating traction and the different types of leaders, aptitudes they must have with regards to visionary and integrators to be successful, and even the pragmatic tips that you have in terms of getting in there and getting started, as well as being courageous and letting them know when it's not happening. It's very important. I'll finish you off, mark, with the same question that I always ask to kind of give you the last word here that I have on first-time listeners, that's, to tell me what message you would put on a billboard so you can put that billboard wherever you want to, but it kind of limits how much you can put on it so folks can read it. What's the message you'd put on a billboard to get out to those that you want to hear it, and why would you put that message on there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought about this one, and where I'm going to go with this is it feels a little risky to be from departure, but maybe not. What I would say is love is enough. And now this wouldn't work. I think it wouldn't work to do this, but the reason I'm answering the question the way I do is that because if I could put that billboard up, no one would get it.
Speaker 1:The reason I say that is when we're trying to grow an organization and we're trying to be the best leader, oftentimes we get ego associated with I make this much money and someone at the front desk makes that not that much money. How there's? You know, if I knew how much I made, they would be really jealous and and I'm like that. That's not the case. Like these people know they're not plastic surgeons or whatever. They know what their job is uh, they do want to grow.
Speaker 1:And if you're feeling like you're running out of resources and you're not there's nothing to give you always can love. There is always a way to love somebody and give something. You are never out. That's the one resource you will never run out of. And so on your worst day, when there's nothing left, just know that there's always a way to love somebody and give somebody a gift to help them grow, to be there for them and having that as sort of your backstop to parents, to lead to grow your organization. If it's on hard times, if you're feeling over-regulated or under-profitable or understaffed, there's always some love to give and that's enough.
Speaker 2:I love that and so it's not love that. No pun, it's not out of line, it's not beyond. It's very spiritual and understanding that you know one of the best attributes that we can have is love others. That's just my opinion. You know, the infamous people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care about them and you can influence them in a much bigger way. So I appreciate you sharing that message Absolutely and I like that, and you can put your website underneath so if they're curious about what it really means, they can go and find out more about it. Make them curious and go get it. Yeah, that's a good idea. It's been a blast having you on. It's been a blast chatting with you today.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you investing the time with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Wish you the best going forward. Thank you, John. It's been such a pleasure. I'm so grateful for us meeting and the time together.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, and that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.
