The Secret to Scaling: Stack Your Talent for Growth | Episode 229 | Scott Becker

In this compelling episode of The Uncommon Leader Podcast, host John Gallagher engages in a candid conversation with Scott Becker, the visionary founder of Becker's Healthcare and author of the impactful book, "Building Great Businesses, Create Momentum, Overcome Setbacks, and Scale with Confidence." Scott, an entrepreneur, investor, and attorney, shares his unique journey from being blocked out of industry stages to building one of healthcare's most influential media platforms.

This discussion is a must-listen for executive leaders, CEOs, and founders grappling with growth, talent management, and sustained organizational excellence. Scott unpacks critical frameworks for:

🚀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:

• Strategic Talent Stacking: Discover how to align your top talent with your core business objectives to avoid diluted efforts and maximize impact.
• Leveraging Strengths: Learn to identify and relentlessly double down on your organizational and individual strengths, driving exponential growth where the market responds most.
• Cultivating Future Leaders: Understand why the true measure of a leader lies in their ability to develop and empower other leaders, ensuring an enduring legacy beyond their direct involvement.
• Battling Complacency: Gain actionable insights into revitalizing teams, refreshing vision, and fostering a culture of continuous hunger and innovation, even at the peak of success.
• Purposeful Passion: Re-evaluate the common advice to 'follow your passion' and instead learn to cultivate passion in a way that is constructive, sustainable, and contributes meaningfully.

Scott's personal anecdotes, from his childhood experiences shaping his drive to the evolution of his publishing journey, provide a relatable and authoritative perspective on overcoming challenges and building truly great businesses. This episode is a blueprint for leaders committed to creating momentum, navigating setbacks, and scaling their enterprises with unwavering confidence.

📌 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 Scott Becker👇
➡️ LinkedIn (primary):  https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottbeckermw/?ct=1785210461241
➡️ Website: https://hubs.beckershealthcare.com/about?ct=1785210476447
➡️ Book: https://www.amazon.com/Building-Great-Businesses-Momentum-Confidence/dp/1637635400/ref=sr_1_1

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Transcript

Focus Beats Doing Everything

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So much about everything today is about focus and what are you trying to build? What are the core things you have to do? If you're building an organization, you want to stack all your talent around your two or three core objectives. So what I see so many businesses do, if you're a starting business, you got 10 employees, and so many people make this mistake of having 10 employees doing 10 different things. If I'm starting an organization from scratch, I want five of those employees doing product development, five doing sales, and I'll outsource everything else because I gotta get great in a couple of things that are important to the business.

Meet Scott Becker And His Book

SPEAKER_00 1:07

And while that's been a big part of him, we're gonna talk about something a little bit different today, and that's his book titled Building Great Businesses: Create Momentum, Overcome Setbacks, and Scale with Confidence. He's a USA Today bestseller, and I believe you know this book is gonna land there as well. If it hasn't already, I think Scott, actually, it's only been out for a little while, but it's gonna be there. He's built thriving businesses across media, private equity, venture capital. And you know, ultimately, I see that as kind of a traditional bio that you might see on LinkedIn. But what I what I see about this in terms of the conversation I'm looking forward to is a comment from the introduction in his book where the CEO of his healthcare company said this about him: a rare breed, someone who possesses the relentless curiosity and energy of a creator, balanced perfectly with the grit and discipline of an operator. That in and of itself is just a fascinating recognition of the uncommon leader and uncommon builder that Scott Becker is. So, Scott, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

John, great. Thank you so much for having me. What a great pleasure. I was saying it a moment ago how much I love your office setup and what you do. So thank you so much for having me. Thrilled to get to visit and can't wait to dig in. Uh, and thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, and you'll you'll see me look down because I I got pages of notes. I got four or five pages of notes sitting in front of me. I'll never get to that in the time that we have. And I'm gonna jump right in though.

Childhood Insecurity And Lasting Drive

SPEAKER_00 2:26

The first question I ask all my first-time guests on the Uncommon Leader podcast is really more about you, and that's to ask you to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a as a person and as a leader.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Sure. No, I think it's a great question. And so I always think about a few different things, you know, and so this is so embarrassing. So bear with me, John. So it's so there's different things I think about it. So there's always like, like I was, you know, well-liked kid, good kid, never the coolest, never the best athlete, never the best at this, but always solid, always trying hard, always working hard. And that sort of sticks with you throughout life. So, like somebody will say to me, Well, you've been successful at this, you've been successful at that. If you grow up, there was a period of time in my, you know, 12, 13, where there's a clothing store near us, and I was shopping in the husky section, which means you're a little chubby, you know, not horrible, but a little chubby. And so, no matter how much success you've had in life, you you never get too ahead of yourself or too comfort yourself because you always remember yourself, and your self-image is always one where you're growing out of, you know, this is who I am. You know, always a good athlete, not a great athlete, a good this, not a great athlete. The kid who shopped in the husky section at one time, you know, always sort of like a really good student, but not the best student. One of my best friends was Val Dictorian. I was in the top 5%, whatever, not like, but but, you know, all these things where you're good, but you know, there's some sort of driver energy that it drives in you. You know, also grew up in a family that lived nicely and periodically went bankrupt or broke, you know, and was always, you know, trying to, you know, my dad lost his job when we were in high school. And there's a lot of things like that that always shape your view of the world that lead to you to have a little anxiety, a little insecurity. And the positive of that is it causes a lot of drive too. You know, it's that, it's that mix of things. So I'd say it's that sort of mix of that little bit of cultivated chip on your shoulder, and not in a bad way, but that causes some drive and energy because there's always a little insecurity in and anxiousness to go with wanting to do great things or wanting to make a contribution. So I think, you know, when you ask me what shapes me, I always go back to like, you know, my mom taking me to the husky section in the sh in the store. And this was not a not embarrassing thing. And I wasn't like, like, you know, I wasn't like huge, but it was like just a little bit chubby, and you always felt that way. So, like, you know, I remember one tennis thing one year I came back, plus mid fourth or fifth grade, and the tennis coach says, You got a little heavy this winter. You're like, what? You know, it's but it's and it's all okay, but you remember those things like yesterday. So when you think about things that shape your drive, I know this isn't pretty, but you think about the things that led you to being that maybe led you to push yourself a little bit further. You know, you never escape those things. You never escape those things. You live with them, you sort of, you know, you know, you you know, and you you you get you end up finding the people that you're comfortable with, you find the group you're comfortable with, you know, it's it's it's never the coolest guy. It's but but but always friendly with everybody, you know, always friendly with the guy that was the star wrestling art team or the star quarterback, whatever, but but never the coolest guy. And and always having a little bit of that sort of like, you know, a little bit of that constant, you know, need to be something, you know. You know, it's so embarrassing and vulnerable, John. But how about you? I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

That's the that's the good part about this. Yeah, right. I mean, they the the embarrassing and vulnerable part is there uh that exists. And you know, I follow an author and a CEO now, and and and you know, to a certain extent, calling friend Rory Vaden, who says, you know, you're most powerfully positioned to help the person that you once were. And it really is. Like those stories help to frame who you are most effective at helping. Look, I raised my hand when you talked about the husky. I remember the husky section as well uh when I was growing up as a kid. And you know, if there's any blessing in going to a Catholic school where they just came and measured you for your uniforms, you didn't have to worry about that shopping and worry about the clothes and what existed or kids checking your tags to say husky on. They were just ones that were made. But yeah, I remember that story well and uh all those different pieces of

Blocked From Stages Then Built One

SPEAKER_00 6:23

what you had. And I know it's positioning you and it really feeds me into what I want to talk about before I even jump into your book. But one of the stories that was inside of that that I saw is that look, a very successful attorney, law firm, partner inside of a law firm, and you are really trying to find a niche inside the healthcare industry, and you're getting blocked out. This is the story that I recall right outside of your book. You're getting blocked out of something that you uh wanted to be able to do in terms of getting to conferences and getting on stages, and you made a decision about that and how you were working. But in terms of the first one that caught my eye inside of your book was a story about when you were, I mean, very successful as an attorney, a partner in a law firm, and you're trying to get on stages to talk with healthcare executives in a certain space, but you're getting blocked out of those stages with conferences, and you did something about that. What did you do? Tell me about that, and that kind of informs about how you overcome some of those things.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Sure. No, so I love that, and I love the question, and I've seen a couple other people that I know really well have done this just tremendously well, and we'll talk about that too if we get a chance. But so we were at a spot, I was trying to build a practice, a legal practice, and that meant building a client base. And building a client base meant being in front of people that were it at the time I was trying to build a client base, particularly around the surgery center area. And the National Surgery Center conference was so tightly tied to a different law firm that was on their board, that was sponsoring them, doing different things with them, that for the life of me, I couldn't get on their stages. And they were very nice people. They just were like, we're very close with this firm, McDermott Will. We can't do it. We we'd like to, you know, there's a guy there, Mike Romanski, who in the long run I became quite close friends with over the years, but I was just blocked out. So rather than whine about it, at some point, we started our own small conference. And that small conference, which was a really small conference for years and years, and we started the small newsletter, ended up being this great situation where it put me in the center of the industry that I was trying to position myself as a leader in in the surgery center industry, ended up being a great, great thing. We we have a very, very close colleague, a Dr. Paul Summerside. And Paul was an emergency doctor with a group in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And it's it at some point the hospital systems got really tough on the ER groups and were saying, you know, we're gonna kick you out of your contract. And Paul, rather than whining about it, at some point organized 100 physicians and they built their own hospital. You know, an ER doctor without a hospital is not an ER doctor. You know, it's it's somebody with doesn't know what to do with themselves. They actually had the grit to build their own hospital that ultimately became a partner with Aurora, then advocate, and became one of the most successful hospitals in Wisconsin. But but they literally was sort of like he got blocked out, built their own hospital. Something similar, he was blocked out of the original country club or golf club in Green Bay, and Dr. Summerside and some other people built their own country club. And I sort of love stories like that. And that's truly the story, the evolution of Becker's healthcare. We were blocked out of getting on stages and the ability to be in front of our potential client base, so built our own conference. And it wasn't until years later that we moved that into truly becoming a media and conference company that became the predecessor of Becker's healthcare. But back in the day, it was intended trying to build a practice, trying to be in front of, you know, people that own surgery centers, run surgery centers, doctors, physicians, companies. And I couldn't do it because we're just blocked out of, you know, the main trade association. The trade associate 20 years later, 30 years later, you know, the the person who ran it then, a woman Kathy Bryant, I loved, a terrific person. But she just had to be, they were running a business and had to deal with the fact that they were so closely tied to McDermott. And then going forward, Bill Prentice is now the CEO for the last 15 years. Both of them were tremendous people. I love both of them, but I couldn't get into in front of their audience that I needed to be in front of. So we ended up building our own, you know, surgery center conference, surgery center newsletter. Then years later, we expanded into hospitals and health systems, and that became the huge part of Becker's health care. But it was uh, you know, it was a it was a great motivator. You know, those things are great motivators. Not like you know, you don't you don't wake up saying designing, I want to build this, I want to build that. You end up something pushes you, drives you, and then you become compelled by it and passionate about it. And it was a great, great, it was a great, great run. But that was really the initial driver of I had to do it because of necessity, not because I was trying to build a a media company.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

I love that. It's a necessity that you know the the infamous is the greatest inventor kind of thing, necessity. But your book, so Building Great Business, you talk about that story inside the book and many other stories, which are really good that we're going to dive

Why He Wrote The Book Now

SPEAKER_00 10:52

into. But I I want to ask you, this is this wasn't your first book uh that came out, but why this book now and who did you write it for?

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Sure. A long time ago, when I was first building a legal practice, I wrote a number of healthcare books. And they were published by Matthew Bender, Lexus Nexus, true publishers, and they were, you know, different themes around healthcare, healthcare law, the practical guide, the physicians managed care success manual, a couple books around surgery centers. After I did that 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when I was first building a legal practice in healthcare, I promised myself I would never write a book again. Because writing a book is a serious effort. Um, I don't care what anybody says about the AI universe. I truly wrote this myself, three hours a day, 90 days last summer, and so a lot of work and energy. So why did I do it? So why I did it was this. This book is the third evolution of a business book that I did. The first evolution of that business book was something called blocking and tackling 60 keys to building a business. And it was sort of a mix of business and investing thoughts. This goes back about four to five years ago. That first book I did on the business side came out so poorly. You know, the publisher I was working with during the process went bankrupt. I ended up having to re-jigger, do it with a really small self-publisher. He did a great job of getting me from point A to point B, but the book came out and looked so not professional, I couldn't send it to anybody. It basically ended up being something that ended up in cardboard boxes someplace and essentially useless. So I went back about a year or two later, did a second evolution of that book, which was called The Entrepreneur's Edge. And The Entrepreneur's Edge was a better book. I've got a copy of it here for people gonna see it. I don't want anybody to buy it, but it's here. Don't go on Amazon and buy it. If you're gonna buy one of my books, build the new one. This was the first book was a D, D minus, D plus. You know, it's somewhere in that category. It's not something I could send to anybody. But the reason I had done it was I have so many of these things I work with that are the regular concepts I use in business and in thinking. They're both business thinking things, they're investment thinking things. And I was trying to put them in one place. So I did them in one place because I go back to them constantly and trying to, you know, categorize them, compartmentalize them, put them in a place. So that was the real purpose of the original book. The second book, which was The Entrepreneur's Edge, was it an effort to do that in a more refined professional way. That came out and was probably, you know, a B minus C, was certainly something that I was comfortable sending to a lot of people and and out there to a lot of people. We didn't make anywhere near the effort we made this time to try and actually move and sell and distribute lots of books. But we, but but it was the second of this type of book. So once that book was done, I I got feedback from a friend of mine, a close friend, who said, Look, I like the book, but what you do uh what you do, I don't know if you use the phrase poor job of, but what you don't do is weave enough into your real story of all this stuff to make it feel like it's a readable story, not just a book. And I also got very similar advice from a professional editor I hired to get advice on it. I spent several thousand bucks with a professional editor, wrote a memo for me saying, here's sort of like what I like and dislike about it. And so then I motivated to go back and redo the book around those two pieces of advice. And there was a second impact to me. The second impact that drove it, and you know, and I hope this isn't boring for your readers, but the second impact that drove it was about a year or two ago, before I wrote this, I had read a book by a guy named Kale Newport called Deep Work. And I love Kale Newport's book. And Kale Newport speaks about the modern world where we spend so much time going back and forth from Twitter to this to that to a million different things and doing a million different dopamine fixes, and that it's ultimately not great for our brain because we're not digging deeply into enough stuff in a structured, deep way. And between the commentary I got from the friend of mine, the professional editor, and Kyle Dilport's book, I thought, you know what, I ought to go back and try my hands again at doing something a little bit deeper. And that thinking has led me towards, you know, much more trying to do a little bit less stuff and deeper things. And part of going back and writing the book, I literally spent about three months, two to four hours a day writing the book. And it was a great exercise for me. I haven't done that type of exercise where I really dig into things and write like that in a long time. And partly it's helpful to prove to yourself that you could still do it. So we ended up between the Cal Newport book, the advice from a couple people, you know, going back and writing this book. You know, and there's, you know, it's it's I would say first and foremost, the second book was really to collect the first and second book is really to collect my thoughts in one place and share them with my kids, myself, the family, to make sure I've got them all in one place. This book we decided we would dig into more deeply, more intelligent work on it. So this book, again, it's not Jim Collins, it's not Peter Drucker, but but I do like it. And and I think it's much closer to an A minus, B plus, whatever you want to call it. If the first book was a D, the second book was a B, C, B minus. This I think gets to A minus, B plus in terms of my own judging. And actually, the the positive thing about it is, and this is really one of these things, you know, and you understand this. We ultimately probably through begging, asking, you know, a million different ways, have got 10,000 people to buy this book or you know, and some of them we help buy it, some of them are bulk sales, some are bulk sales for conferences, but but you always worry the first couple books, you know, three people read. So if it wasn't good, it didn't matter. Not three, but not many. But like, so this one, if 10,000 people got the book, maybe a thousand will make the effort actually dig in and read it, whatever the number it is. And then you have to make sure that it's actually good. That you're you know, you're always worried. And when you put something out like that, that there's always this very much nervousness that people can be like, this is too ego-driven, or oh, this is horrible, or oh, this is not readable, or why did he do this? And you know, you have to get through that. So I've been like, you know, like I'm I'm thankful to so many people, but I'm thankful to two categories in reality about this book. The first is those that bought the book, because you can't get anyplace without enough people buying the book to try and have it out there, to try and have an impact, to try and encourage entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, etc. But I but I'm more deeply thankful to whatever the percentage is that have spent the time to read the book or read parts of the book. And here's why. It's one thing to buy the book for 22 bucks. The most precious commodity all of us have today is focus, time, and energy. So, like when somebody tells me, like you told me earlier, I've outlined a bunch of pieces of the book, I've made a bunch of notes, I remember the story from it. To me, I have the deepest gratitude and thank you to those people because that's an investment of time. You know, we obviously wrote this, so it's a three-hour read, it's not a 30-hour read. I hate books today that are a thousand pages because I I just can't get through them, and that it feels daunting. But but my greatest thanks, yes, to people that bought it 100%, but 10 times more to those that have invested their own time and energy to read it, because that's the greatest, that's the greatest compliment in today's world that is so information overloaded. So a bunch of things that were the evolution towards writing it. It's been a great project for me. And now I sort of have to figure out you know, how much do I work with the subject center, the concepts in the next couple of years, you know, as we try and you know, further sort of grow myself outside of just being a healthier thought leader into a business thought leader and so forth. And it's you know, it's it's a great, it's been great fun. And it's great fun to have like to me get to spend 45 minutes with you. This is a billion times better than doing 30 different tweets, you know, talking about just go a little deeper, have a deeper conversation, get to know somebody, get to meet somebody, get to talk to somebody. You know, that is the short thing in our world today is getting to have deeper, longer conversations.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

That's that's the part I love too. Even about reading these books, the first things I'm doing, I jump in the introduction and I jump into the conclusion. Because to your point, I know that in between a lot of times it's very tactical, got a lot of things, but I'm looking for those stories. And the stories are often in the introduction when you're telling your story or in the conclusion and the acknowledgments of the other people who have made a difference in that space as well. I love the techniques that you're using inside of the book and the stories of different people that go along with it, but I also like the ending uh when it your appendix that has things like here's the I'm gonna call them Beckerisms. Here's my Beckerisms that I've just principles that I've lived on over the years when it comes to building businesses and advising businesses and part of my own business, which are really cool. And we'll talk about a couple of those that I just found fascinating, as well as sharing the influences that you've had. So listing the books that you've read or that have had an influence on you. And I can see that. You know, you had a list of I think almost 20 books at the back of it. I went and highlighted that there were seven that you and I have common in terms of working through, and certainly some of the ones that have influenced me the most Profit from the Core, Good to Great, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, classics uh in terms of in terms of business building and things like that. And so let's let's talk about that first. Like in in your stories and what you've seen, okay? So the listener that is listening, getting ready to buy your book, they're looking to understand. I mean, they're they know they have gaps. They wouldn't be listening if they're looking to grow and overcome some gap. And the organizations that you're working with, especially today, what are some of the big things that you're seeing that they're running into outside of AI, because we know that's a challenge, but what are some of the, you know, the you mentioned the blocking and tackling that they're not doing well that are keeping them from

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SPEAKER_00 20:17

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Stack Talent Around Core Objectives

SPEAKER_00 20:56

to the episode.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah, no, I think I think about a lot of things. I think so much about everything today is about focus and what are you trying to build? What are the core things you have to do? So one of the things I believe in is I'll give you two or three of them. One is that if you're building an organization, you want to stack all your talent around your two or three core objectives. So if it's if it's building a great product, okay, want great people there. If it's about building a great sales organization, I want to build there. And I got to be great at a couple of things. And so what I see so many businesses do, if you're a starting business, you got 10 employees, and so many people make this mistake of having 10 employees doing 10 different things. If I'm starting an organization from scratch, I want five of those employees doing product development, five doing sales, and I'll outsource everything else because I gotta get great in a couple of things that are important to the business. And if I'm in a larger organization, it's the same thing. What I don't want to do is have a hundred different areas that we're in. I want my best people stacked around the five most important areas, and I want to be great in. Deep in those areas. And people often make this mistake. You know, we we had obviously at some point we ended up with financial partners, private equity partners, all those kinds of things. So we needed full-time CFOs, we need a full-time financial department. But for 20 plus 25 years, we outsourced everything accounting wise, everything financial wise. We have, we outsourced from the from the get-go, me and my CEO, something as simple as the phone answering system. So if you call Becker's Healthcare, you generally get a phone answering machine that gets you to the right person and somebody calls you back because we didn't want a full-time 50,000 a year receptionist sitting answering the phone. And now as we're a huge organization, we still don't have that. Or at least I don't think we have it. We might have it today. I don't know, but we but we don't. As far as I know, we still don't have it. But the concept being, you're going to outsource everything but the very core things you're trying to stack around and recognizing what's important and stacking resources around that. You know, you and I have done a ton of work in healthcare. In the old days, when I started my career, I did so much work with surgery centers. Great surgery centers were built around, for example, an orthopedic group, a GI group, or an ophthalmology group. What they weren't built around was 15 different specialties. Because then, you know, there was this concept, which is a stupid concept of I want to have a little bit of everything, then we can take care of everybody and diversify everything. But then what that means is your nursing staff's not really trained around a certain thing. You're buying instruments for everything, you're buying devices for everything. And we view running companies very similarly. We'd much rather double and triple down around core areas and stack people around core areas than have this mindset that we have to be all over the place. The other thing that I think about is you know, there's there's all this writing around your strengths. Strength finders, building around your strengths, knowing you're 80, 20. And I agree with that writing. So for example, if I have a business and I'm doing three units of sales in one area, five units of sales in another area, one unit in this area, one unit in this area, I want to almost abandon the place I'm doing one unit of sales in and double and triple down the place where I'm doing five and three, where the market's responding to me. And so many leaders, especially as they get going, view it as okay, I've got five units here, three units here, only one here, one here. I really want to spend a lot of time on here and here, the one and one.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

On the ones.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

And that and that's that that's the absolute wrong way to take it. It's it's the same thing. If I got five people that I'm working with and two are fantastic and three are okay, I don't want to do anything negative with the three that are okay, but I want to spend 80% of my effort with the two that are excelling because there's just so much more that they can grow into and do, you know, and if the other three show that they really want to be great, okay, we'll invest more time with them. But it's constantly doubling down on what's working, your best people, your best businessers, your best customers, and really knowing your business and who you're working with. And we constantly come back to those thoughts and processes.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah, both of those things, I mean, so so good. Lack of focus, something that organizations, especially startups, are going to run into. They want to be good at everything. And you know, fact is we know that diluted focus will get you diluted results. You won't know what's not working. And then the second piece of that again is oftentimes not focusing on what you're good at. Now you're talking about the epitome of good to great, the hedgehog concept, andor profit from the core. Protect your core business with everything you've got and understanding it. And I know that even sometimes those two books, um, when you try to overlap them, they can talk against each other a little bit with regards to good to great, making sure, and Jack Welch saying, hey, be can you be the best in the world at it? The hedgehog concept is very simple. And you may have a really good core business, but you can't be best, and you got to make those decisions. So understanding what you got to do, I see those as two very important things.

The Leader Test: Build More Leaders

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Look, the other part that you touched on that I really appreciated inside of your book, there are many. Don't get me wrong, folks. There's there's there's concepts all through this that he takes you through up to, including how to behave with boards of directors. But you you mentioned that that leaders should be judged by how many other leaders they develop. Look, I believe this wholeheartedly. I gotta believe that you gotta develop yourself in terms of your own leadership style, and you better be developing your team, those individuals coming behind you. So, where did that philosophy come from with from you with regards to saying I'm gonna judge that leader by how many other leaders they developed? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

No, it happens is there's different places it came from. One of them came from, I worked really closely with two different companies for a long, long period of time. One of them had a lot of A plus people running around and driving the business. The other one had one A plus supernova driving the business. And what I found with the company that had five A plus leaders driving the business grew into a major company, really successful, really great. And you just there's only so and the company that supernova, a fantastic person, a fantastic entrepreneur, but ultimately very limited, ultimately had to sell and move on and did great, but but nowhere near what you could do with lots of people. But when I see people in business, I look at sort of three things. Do they deliver results? Do they build additional leaders? And then how are the results after they've left the building? So if I look at Steve Jobs, I look at Bill Gates, I think the biggest compliment I could give to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and there's so many, and you know, all kinds of complicated personal stuff, which I don't want to distract from this. But the fact is, Apple after Steve Jobs left, because he built up such an institution and built up so many other leaders like Tim Cook and others, has excelled beyond anybody's wildest dreams since Steve Jobs passed away, which is the greatest compliment of leader, really. You know, Bill Gates, very similar. He built this great, you know, business software empire with a lot of other pieces to it. But that company excelled and grew tremendously after he was gone. And I view that as an incredible, incredible, you know, that's an incredible accomplishment. It's not saying the results they didn't were doing there, but but I view it as in the law firm. We see people that build great one-off careers. I'm far more impressed by the lawyer, the partner that built lots of other great leaders that are thriving in the firm, you know, or or or the or the leader, like, you know, if I if I look at the two greatest things I ever did was I didn't build these next people, I recognize great people. So when I step down as leading a huge department at a billion dollar plus law firm and turns it over to Amber Wall, the greatest thing I ever did was step down before the firm was ready for me to step down and say, Amber is ready. She's ready to be in charge, and she was, and it's done a fantastic job as leadership. Now another person runs the department, Holly Buckley, who's also fantastic. And those are hard things as a leader to do to step back and say, I'm no longer the person, this is the person. Similarly, in the media company, at some point early on, I was running the law practice, I was doing a million different things. And at some point, as my name on the company and said Jessica Cole, my CEO and partner now for 20 years, she's going to be in charge. She's the CEO of really everything. I have my impact, I do what I do, but she's really the CEO and has been for a long time. You know, when she was present, then she became CEO and president. And it's not that I develop these people. I'm never a believer that somebody else develops somebody. What a leader can do is recognize talent, recognize drive, recognize the skills, and then sort of gently help encourage them and move them in the right direction or give them some direction. But it's really about them. You know, so so when I look at writing a book, we write look at holding posting conferences. I think my job, I'm not teaching people didactically. My concept is that I'm providing an avenue for people to learn and grow themselves. So people read my book. I don't want them to go and say, like, okay, I gotta do these seven things that Scott did. I want them to come away motivated and inspired to bring out the best in themselves. And it's the same thing at our conferences. There's only so much teaching that you could do. It's much more about inspiring and motivating because you know you work as an executive coach, you've actually got this brilliant reputation as an executive coach. You could tell somebody all you want about what they should do. And that has got a very short runway. But but if you inspire them and then encourage them, then there's a then you're not you're not a limiting staff, you're an encourager, an accelerator for them. And that's what I think leadership and development is about. It's, you know, and it and it, you know, there's this great concept with parents. Parents take much too much credit for the success of their children or the failure of their children. And there's been a billion things written about that. So much of it's about the peer group, not about the parents. You do the best you can to try and provide guidance, structure, and encouragement. But a lot of it, you know, if your kid ends up being the best tennis player in the world, the best rocket scientist, the best oncologist, a lot of it's about that kid and a lot of other influences besides you. You know, and in some ways, that kid ends up ends up struggling. Often a parent has too much egocentricity to three, they may have an impact in it, but it's not all about them. There's a lot of other things that go into these things. And I think it's the same thing with leadership.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

D, the idea behind that, I mean, certainly, as you said, it's not, you're not gonna be developing someone else. They they play a big part in that as well. I'm gonna come back to that in terms of a put a pen in and come back real quick about what you do to develop it.

Staying Hungry After You Win

SPEAKER_00 31:04

One more point I want to talk about kind of again, folks, the the book has got several frameworks in it uh that you really need to do to read and go through. I love the short chapters, I love the concepts that are there. But one of the things that you talk about is that it's incredibly, incredibly hard to stay on top once you get there. And you know, how do you ask a team to remain hungry in that space? Now, I would use the word how do we avoid becoming complacent inside of that? You mentioned we got to refresh and relax, but not for too long. So, how have you prevented that complacency in your organizations that you've built?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah, I think that's I think it's a great, great question. And again, you have to take a lot of the ego out of it. Because, for example, if I tried to be the main driver of Becker's healthcare for the last 33 years, I know one of our conferences this fall is in it's 32nd to 33 years. If I tried to be the main driver of that for 33 years, it's an almost impossible thing to do. So, so really what you have to do is, and this goes back to Jim Collins, good the great, you have to be constantly growing and refreshing and building teams because at the end of the day, there's only so much you can do. You could refresh yourself, but and you could periodically say, you know, I see we've got to make a course correction in this or that and have an impact there. And that happens periodically. But at the end of the day, I don't have the energy, nor do most people have the energy to really drive something to maintain the vibe for 30 plus years. The the real key is you've hired enough great people and they've grown, and and they're making sure that you're doing that and you've got that clarity of what you have to do. And we periodically, like in anything, have to course correct and say, like, oh my goodness, we didn't do this right at this event, we've got to fix that. We've got to again get back to doing this, whatever it is. And that's just that's part of business and anything you do. So I I I do think there's this uh you know, this constant need as an organization to revitalize, to refresh. It's never about it, it's it's about adding great people, inspiring great people. It's not about necessarily getting rid of people. That's not the concept. It's having great people and adding more great people and and and making sure you're finding lanes and growing lanes. I we we use the phrase, and this is so true, it's often hard to get rich, it's often harder to stay rich. And and we see this so much because you know, I had a friend of mine who sold a business for 100 million bucks, went broke. He was able to build another business and do great. But it was, I could never understand how he could possibly have gone broke having you know made whatever amount of money he made. And then one day we're looking at his, you know, $15 million house someplace and his boat someplace, and all of a sudden I'm like, I understand how he went broke. You know, you and I know enough people in business that have done this. It's it's obviously an epidemic amongst professional athletes, but it's an epidemic amongst a lot of people because there's so many things that you could get the dopamine fix from buying and spending, and sooner or later you find yourself, even if you're rich, getting broke. We say the same things in businesses. It's hard to get great, and you have to be very conscious about trying to stay great and continue to get great. It's very easy to get complacent. And I think it's it's it cannot be a one-person show because none of us, I mean, I like Judy Faulkner at Epic is one of the great examples of growing a multi-thousand-person organization where she could provide the vision. She had a great president for a very long time, but it's not all about her energy. It might be her direction and drive that we're constantly getting better, but she understood hiring lots and lots of really talented people. And I don't think there's a way to stay great without hiring lots of talented people.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Well, you touched on that, though, because you get in in the book, too, about great people. And again, so many frameworks, folks, won't be able to get to them. A third, a third, a third of regards to the people that you hire. You mentioned keeping it simple and the highlighter method. Folks, there's some really cool stuff inside of this book.

Where To Buy And Reach Scott

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Scott, building great businesses, create momentum, overcome setbacks, and scale with confidence. Been a great conversation today. I want to honor our time as we go through this. But where do you want folks to go to connect with you and to learn and get this book as well?

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Sure. So you buy the book any place. Amazon's often the easiest, but wherever you shop, it's it's in some bookstores. It's mostly online, but it's in a it's in some Barnes and Noble, some other places. But large are going to get it, at least right now, on Amazon or Barnes and Noble online, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it's it's an easy read. We hope people love it. We hope you leave a review on Amazon. But yeah, at the end of the day, if you want to reach me, two core ways. One is on LinkedIn is the easiest. I'm on LinkedIn constantly, but people can always text me, 773-766-5322. We respond. And, you know, if it and we're not really, you know, we do a number of different things. We're not particularly selling anything at anybody. You know, we hope you enjoy the book. We're we're happy to give anybody a few minutes of time to talk about the concepts and theories. We enjoy it tremendously. John, I enjoy visiting with you tremendously. What a pleasure and what a thoughtful conversation. Uh thank you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

I know that we could continue on forever. I'm going to give you the last word here in one second, but I do appreciate you sharing with the listeners, Scott, of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. As I said at the start, I've been looking forward really to this conversation and this introduction for several years, going back to seeing some of the great things you've done inside of healthcare and inside, you know, the media world in terms of frankly bringing so much attention. I mean, I've I often marveled at the speakers that you would get to come to your conferences and things like that. And we could talk about that forever as well in terms of the great speakers beyond greatness that came in, were a part of your conferences, which is really cool, also. Um, but I'm gonna give you the last question, the last word that I always give my first-time guests on the Uncommon Leader Podcast.

Cultivate Passion While Making A Living

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Taking those years of work that you have there, the 20 or so Scott Becker isms that are your favorite business concepts or whatever it is, or a book that you've read, um I'm gonna give you a billboard you can put anywhere you want to. Uh, what's the one message you're gonna fit on that billboard and why do you put that message on there?

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, no, it's a great question. And it's I think about this. I think about, you know, cultivating your passion, cultivating your obsessions. And so what happens is like there's this whole addict today in the world of follow your passion. So I can't even tell you in the last three days, I've had three different young people say, you know, somehow or another, they want to be in sports leadership or sports management or sports administration. And I, it's not that I discourage that, but but people have heard so much generatia from the parents, follow your passion, follow your passion, follow your passion. So I got a contrary of kids that played literally at one time that not want to be in sports management. You know, you know, but it's it's such horrendous advice. What I would say is cultivate your passion and make a living. You know, so if if you have a responsibility as an adult, as a parent, support yourself, support your family. So, you know, this concept of finding your passion by just grabbing it out of the air, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Like when one of my kids wants to start a business, I tell him, get a job for a few years. You can actually see what people need in the world. Don't start a business. First, get a job, and then you can figure out what's out there. But this concept of cultivate your passion, develop your passion, develop your energy, and make a living are sort of what I would say. You know, it's like it's the but this concept if I hear one more kid say, follow your passion, I might shoot myself.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

I mean, not that far, but I appreciate what you're saying because you can touch on this. You gotta make a living.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

But follow your passion and support your family, then fine.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

But this concept, if I get, if I get one more young person says to me, you know, I want to be in sports management, I played Little League, I'm gonna, I'm literally gonna take it. I'm not I'm not gonna shoot myself, but I just don't like that the concept. No, I know what you're saying of is like cultivate your passion and make a living, contribute. We say to our kids, there there are two things, you know, be a constructive adult and take care of yourself, mental and physical health. You know, you know, we start there with everything, be a constructive adult, which means, yeah, you you probably have to be able to help somebody or support your family or something, you know. But but like that's uh I don't know if that's billboard, if we could put that on a billboard, it'd be a it'd be a blurry billboard.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Cultivate your passion, you know, but but make a living as well, as a part of it. And you're you're really talking about the hedge-hedge con hedgehog concept for individuals. So, Scott, what a what a great conversation, what a great opportunity. I do appreciate it. I know you've added value to the listeners of the Uncommon Leader podcast today. Look, I wish you well with the book and uh whatever's next for you as well. Be well, okay?

SPEAKER_02 39:17

John, we're trying. We hope to stay in touch with you. What a total pleasure to visit with you. We would love to return the favor and get you one of our podcasts and talk with you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

I'm I'd be honored, Scott. That'd be fantastic.

Share, Review, And Final Takeaway

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Thank you all. What a great opportunity to learn from Scott Becker of Becker's Healthcare. It was an opportunity for me to get to know someone who I've followed over the years and understand some of the things that drove him in his business. I love chatting with him about his book in terms of some of the frameworks and concepts that are in there. I think we could have continued to chat on for a long period of time. I hope that you found value in at least one of the or two of the tips that he shared and encourage you to go out and get a copy of his book, Building Great Businesses. Hey folks, if you if you enjoyed it and you know somebody who needs to hear this as well, as always, I encourage you to share it with someone else, with another listener. That gets it into the hands of many more uncommon leaders. Please do that. And that you would also think about writing a review for the Uncommon Leader podcast. That helps to bring it up for more and more listeners to hear or see, also. So until next time, go and grow champions. Until next time, go and grow champions.