44: Making Real Impact in Healthcare Leadership (w/ Charles Hall & Stephen Hartz)

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Naaman Creative Show. I’m your host, Josh Naaman, and today’s episode is a little extra special because we’re not in the studio. We are in Miami. I had the privilege of joining the team from H&H Leadership Solutions on their annual retreat, and it has been unforgettable, to say the least. What an exciting time.

Both of you invited me to learn more about your company, to meet your team, to kick off your podcast and a lot more. And so I just appreciate being invited here. I’m with Charles Hall and Stephen Hartz, and they know how to blend business leadership and a lot of fun, which I’ve discovered over the past few days. We’ve been doing some big planning, building together, and even kicked off their very first episode of their brand new podcast, H&H Impact. And last night, well, let’s just say it ended in a boat ride, a big boat ride, and us all jumping into the pool fully clothed back at the hotel.

And that was a pretty special time. But more pictures on that later. Charles and Stephen are the kind of leaders who don’t just talk. They actually walk their talk and they make transformation a reality from everything that I’ve gathered. And they’ve spent their careers, much of their careers, helping hospitals and organizations find the right people and building leadership that lasts.

And they’ve been now taking all of these, these skills to a new level with their vision for H&H Leadership Solutions. So I’m excited to be your strategic partner. I’m excited to be able to help H&H grow, to be a part of your journey, to learn about your vision and Ultimately, that’s what we’re going to dive into today. So both of you, you are extremely busy, so I appreciate your time coming on the show. No, it’s wonderful, Josh.

We, Charles and I enjoy the opportunity to get together and kicking off this, this new adventure in podcasting. It was something I don’t necessarily think either one of us were thinking about even a few months ago, but it’s, it’s a great forum to be able to reach out and connect with clients, potential clients, kind of tell our story and what we do. And we look forward to working with you as we move forward. And last night was an adventure. You know, it’s awesome to see an entire team jump into the pool and everybody get wet together.

It’s team building. Well, we’ll say team building before we got kicked out by the manager. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. Well, then the cops get called.

Yeah. Oh, they almost got- they were going to call the cops because we were making too much noise. Josh, thanks. Thank you for this opportunity. There is a story to tell.

For the last- well, since Steve and I have been working together the last several years, it’s a story of healthcare in America. It’s a story of many cases, the rural environment. We’re in the urban and the city environment as well, but it’s a story about how leaders lead and their styles. It’s how they overcome, how they support and embrace their communities. There are stories to tell, and our hopes are, as we dive into this podcast, those that listen grab some lessons from this and learn that there’s a hill to climb, and climbing that hill is just part of leadership.

I like that. Yeah, if you’re not climbing a hill, then you’re not growing. So you had mentioned story. Would love to set the groundwork on your story. So How did you come to meet each other?

How did you find yourselves in the healthcare realm? Maybe take us back to what, what led you there. I know that you both are veterans and I appreciate that. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually formally thanked you for your service, but I might have, but I’m putting it on the record now and it means a lot. And it’s also been exciting to learn about some of your stories.

Um, so maybe you can lay the groundwork for how we’re here now. Yeah. I, um, I think as I, uh, first appreciate, uh, your recognition, I think, uh, those of us who served really, we choose to serve because we wanted to do something greater. Uh, servant leadership is a big aspect of being in the military and we enjoyed that aspect. You know, Charles and I joke all the time, you know, everybody has a charity case and I’m Charles and Charles is mine.

Oh, wow. That- that- wow. Generally, we are each other’s charity cases. Wow. That’s beautiful.

And we are both our wives’ charity cases. That was deep. Yeah, it was. That was deep, deep thoughts with Steve Hartz. But Charles and I have known each other for quite some time.

We met many years ago when I was doing a placement for a search for a CEO, and Charles was one of the candidates, and we placed him in the hospital. Did you say the greatest? The greatest candidate ever. That’s what I was thinking. Of all time.

Yes. He was the greatest. Of course. Hands down. There it is.

He was the Peyton Manning of hospital CEOs. Why can’t that be Tom Brady? Yeah. You’re Peyton Manning. It’s like number 2 or 3.

So, um, but, uh, no, it was great. I got the chance to meet him and then while he was CEO, we worked on a couple projects, some leadership, uh, for his team. And then, you know, ultimately as I was continuing to get out of the service and retire and move on to the next thing, um, Charles was in this process of moving on to his next thing. And then we just started working together. We had an opportunity.

I think our first one was up in Alaska. Working to develop an assessment for a healthcare system. And then from there, it just kind of kept- we kept going from hospital to hospital. And I think it was our second time or third time up in Alaska that we met on a pier and we were talking about, you know, what does the future of this hold? And yeah, we’re like, let’s see where the journey takes us.

And, you know, It was, uh, it was awesome. We, we really have made a big difference. Uh, I think in the rural healthcare environment, the way we approach things, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our clients. We really focus on making sure that they have, um, the tools they need to, to get their jobs done, but also that we help them on their path because a lot of them struggle with the implementation part of what we provide. And that’s one of the things that we like to really help them with is understand that piece of it.

You know, it’s a good reflection. We often tell a story. There’s always a little bit of a spin to the story, much of it because there’s an audience and there’s a little humor to it. So, but the reality of it, it was, it was a discovery process. I think Steve was coming out of the service, had an idea of impact, and the field was healthcare.

And no doubt those are my roots as well. And so as we started, the keyword is discovery. That’s really what it is. We were discovering our partnership. I’m going to call it our brotherhood.

What goes into that brotherhood is caring, intent, balance, all those things that go into that camaraderie. And we discovered that early on. And no doubt there’s been some on the journey dead ends where we tried to explore one opportunity or one thought or, or one philosophy. And it’s been discovery of how we got to here. Alaska was huge.

I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a consultant. I think that’s not something that was in my vocabulary. It’s not something I was raised on. But as we started visiting more and more locations, it became very clear that there is impact in being the third party, in being able to communicate with the board and the CEOs and the staff, to be able to say things that maybe much of the leaders can’t say because of the political landscape or the power dynamics. And one opportunity led to another, and what we saw was transformation.

I think that’s another theme that we can attach to H&H is Transformation. When we get into organizations, it is a journey of transformation. And if that leadership team, if that culture is ready, that transformation begins, thrives, and gains that momentum, and the outcome is something different, positive, a year from now. Steve, your thoughts? No, I, I, I agree.

I think, you know, it- for a lot of hospitals, uh, when we go into an organization, you know, we have many divisions within our company. We have executive recruitment, we have leadership, we have advisory, marketing, and management. And when we get into a company, we may start off with a recruitment, uh, helping them find a new leader or an interim leader, or maybe it’s an opportunity, um, to help them with leadership development. And so as we bring all that together, um, we often find out there’s more that needs to be done, or, or they didn’t necessarily know there was more to be done. And so we just kind of keep adding into an organization, and our goal is to make an impact.

And we typically think of it in terms of how do we pay for ourselves, right? Because it’s an expensive process to use a consultant when you’re an outside- or when you’re an organization, you’re having somebody from the outside come in. And we work to pay for ourselves through efficiencies, through finding new opportunities, helping them grow revenue, sometimes helping them get out of bad situations safe. Accidentally put themselves into. And that’s been a big, a big factor in how we go about it.

And it’s awesome to see the change. And then I think one of our senior leadership advisors, Chris, was saying yesterday that he said one of the great things is like when you see the light bulb come on, like you can literally see like, oh, click, I get it. Yeah, exactly. Click. New leaders is a great one when we’re doing- we have a cohort program which is kind of unique.

Um, and there aren’t many like it. I, I’ve yet to see anything else like it in healthcare. But you have oftentimes people in hospitals that get promoted into a position. So you’re a radiology tech or you’re a phlebotomist and you were really good at your job, and so the administration wants to move you to a director role. Well, they haven’t ever had any formal education or training in leadership, right?

Budget building, crucial conversations, And so we have a cohort program meant for mid-level managers broken into phases. And the first phase is all teamwork. It’s our TriMetrix EQ assessment where we look at your behavioral-based communication. We look at driving forces, what motivates you to take action. We look at emotional intelligence, how well you handle stress, you know, what we would consider tactical empathy.

Understand that, understand their cohort they’re working with and how that combines with their leadership team. We get into crucial conversations, ethics, deep dive on communication, resiliency, burnout, leadership philosophy. What’s your why? Why do you do what you do? And then from there, we get into the individual coaching.

So each person gets time with us for about 4 months, almost every week, every other week, to dive into what are their challenges within their particular department, whether it’s a people issue. Is this a quality issue? Is this a metrics? You don’t know how to get your data to understand that to be able to provide to your senior leadership team, or maybe it’s you don’t understand your budget or how to get that for your team. And then we finish it with a 4-month capstone project, um, which is the organization will pick the top 3 or 4 big challenges they’re facing.

And then from there, the cohorts select one, or we, we really kind of manipulate that and have them work on ones in particular for them. And then it’s, it really is like a master’s level project. They have to do all the data, the research, and it culminates in a presentation to the senior leadership team and sometimes the board. That’s about 30, 40 minutes. And then there’s a 40-page white paper they have to produce.

All that is geared towards learning how to work together, one, as a team, how to solve problems when you don’t have all the information, ask the right questions, find the data. Maybe try and fail on your approaches. Because ultimately our goal as consultants, as leaders, is to work ourselves out of a job. We want to train you and teach you how to fish so that when you have these problems come down the path in the future, you’re not always having to go outside. Sometimes there’s technical expertise you need that’s beyond anybody in your organization.

Like, there aren’t a lot of architects who are also nurses in healthcare, so you may have to go outside when you’re building a new building. But in many ways, there’s a lot of problems they can solve internally if they are able to put the time and effort towards it. Yeah. So it’s a, it’s an interesting program. Many of them will tell you they get pretty stressed out about it.

But as we teach them is like, you know, that stress and time management is part of your everyday life. You got to get used to. And so it’s, there’s some really cool aspects to it. Yeah. I mean, that’s a special program.

And, you know, I know that you have been craving to scratch a particular itch within education. You know, I was just talking to your wife last night about that, and it’s an itch that I believe you guys are able to scratch among so many other things that you’re doing with your organization. That’s just an illustration of, of one of the many things. Real quick, I want to capitalize on Charles. You were a CEO at a hospital.

What was that like? I mean, people have seen like Scrubs or shows, highly doubt that’s accurate. Maybe some of the banter or whatever between team is, but what was that like? Can you just maybe like paint a picture of a day or a week as a CEO of a hospital? You know, the CEO’s a huge responsibility and the goal, is, as a leader, to meet people where they’re at.

There’s- it’s a house of cards to see a hospital or healthcare system. Lots of dynamics, regulatory dynamics, financial dynamics, power dynamics, people with agendas that may not be the organization’s agenda to deliver high-quality healthcare. And so it is a bit of a dance, but what an honor and what a great privilege it is to lead. And to wrap your brain around challenges, to partner up with your board or your board chair and your physicians, your team, your senior leaders, and organize a thought on how we want to move forward. That journey for me, I’m not sure that I ever wanted to be a CEO.

Over the years when I was young, it was healthcare. To be able to help somebody holistically, also a bit through prayer, which is a piece of the fabric on who we are, who our philosophy is. But I think over the years, as I was raised through the hospital, it became very obvious that my voice, my philosophy, a vision became a shiny star of, hey, this is something that other people are hearing. Have had some great mentors throughout the years, some CEOs, some just amazing nurse leader, nurse executive mentors who have paved the way to help me think about my possibility and journey. And so all of those lessons actually are lessons.

They’re, they’re our toolbox. It’s the ability to sit down with a CEO or a nurse manager or a supply chain manager, frontline staff, a physician, and to be able to relate and be with them in a rough moment or in a moment of celebration. Myself and my family are beyond blessed for this journey. Yeah, as you should be. And I think it’s safe to say that you’re Stephen’s shiny star now.

Yeah, well, yes, and there’s a lot there. Found him and had to adopt him. I think that’s a great way to explain it, George. Yeah. That was awesome.

I appreciate that. So it was good. You know, because I’m a little bit older than Steve, so he’s the little brother here in this, right? I see. That’s nice.

Your guys’ dynamic, I’ve learned over the time working with you, is something special. That’s why when you expressed interest in adding a podcast to the operation, I was like, oh, well, that’s going to be Absolutely no problem there. So can we step back again? I feel like we’re going to be doing forward and back, but that’s like a lot of storytelling sometimes. With your military background, are you both Navy?

Is that correct? Yeah. So what, what brought you to the Navy? What did you do there? And then a two-parter.

And then how does that- how has that informed in the most profound way to your adoption of bringing leadership to organizations? So how does that inform your moves? You know, I think the military, whatever branch that you’re in, have core values. How we all came into the military may be a little bit different, but those core values are there. And so as we went through our courses, whether it’s OIS that both Steve and I went through in a manner of the journey, I went through boot camp, so I started in the enlisted ranks.

As we dive into it, leadership and accountability and holding ourselves to the higher bar, relying on one another, that teamwork, leaving no man behind. Are all built in who we are today. And those values that we learned as we rose through the ranks, as we gained more responsibility, as our voice became the tip of the spear when it came to bringing people in a direction, all play in who we are today. Yeah, I think, you know, my background, I got into the military, you know, after the Cole bombing in 2000. I had been in the culinary world.

I was an executive chef in a bar and a restaurant and, uh, on the culinary Olympic team. And I would have never thought I was going to be in the military. My father was military, but it wasn’t something I felt connected with. After the Cole bombing, it, um, kind of changed my perspective and I decided to join. Originally went in to be a pilot.

I, uh, failed my flight physical. In OCS. Yeah, but that- there’s a little more purpose to that. That’s an easy statement. Yeah, because there’s, there’s a lot of requirements there, but that’s, that’s not totally true.

Yeah, I mean, so I, I, uh, I couldn’t get my eyes focused to 20/20 the day of my exam, and so I got hit with what they, uh, in the Navy we call the NAMI whammy. NAMI is the Navy’s, uh, Naval Aviation Medical Institute in Pensacola. So every pilot has to go through a really in-depth physical And when you’re OCS, you’re, you’re so new to the Navy, you don’t know how to combat it when you don’t pass something. You learn that as you get older. Uh, so I ended up going on- I was on ships.

I was on ships for 3 years. Uh, I was on a destroyer as a first lieutenant, which was my first dive into leadership. You know, you’re- at the time I was 25, um, and I had 50-some 18 to 23-year-olds that worked for me, and our job was to keep everything on the ship running in a direction. So all the, like, seamanship, all the, the, the, the ropes and the unrep and refueling at sea and small boat operations and aviation operations were all my guys. And it was awesome because, you know, and as a new guy, you think, you know, hey, I’m an officer, you know, you will follow my orders.

And then you learn quickly from typically a chief or senior chief. That’s a higher rank than the enlisted that they’re like, sir, slow your roll and listen. You gotta, you gotta build trust. You gotta learn your team. And, um, I really appreciate that.

I had some great leaders. I also had some very poor leaders that I learned I did not want to be like. You can learn a lot from bad leadership as well. Much of leadership is learned by the lack of leadership, right? True statement.

True statement right there. And, uh, and then I transitioned. Um, I got convinced my CO, if I passed the flight physical, if he’d allow me to do a lat transfer. And, um, very difficult in the Navy because they’ve already trained you to be the ship driver. I had my Warfare pin, I was qualified as an engineering officer, qualified as a tactical action officer, um, had already gone through 2 deployments for the start of, um OEF, which is Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

So they typically don’t want you to go and retrain on a whole new platform. But I got picked up and then I ended up going to be a helicopter pilot. And I did multiple deployments as a helicopter pilot in same theater of operations and what we call CENTCOM, which is the Middle East in that area., some in Southcom, which is down in Latin America. And, but my favorite tour, and which kind of led me to Charles, was a whole bunch of things happened. Did you say the highlight of your career?

Oh yes, absolutely. That’s what I heard you say. I heard that piece. Entire last 20-some-odd years. So, you know, went through some personal challenges, that led me to a different direction and I ended up getting to be, the equivalent of the commanding officer of a search and rescue unit, and they call it the OIC, officer in charge.

And I was running, you know, uh, I think we had 150 guys, we had 3 helicopters, and our job was to run search and rescue throughout the state of Washington. We’re predominantly there in case the Navy lost an aircraft. Um, so if somebody goes down, we would launch and our job is to go find them. Um, that area of Washington is surrounded by the Cascade Mountains, the Olympic Mountains, training ranges, and then the entire Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound. And so that’s our predominant job, but we have to train.

And one way to train is on the civilian population that oftentimes needs help because there aren’t civilian assets that can do some of the technical stuff that we did. And so we would average about between 60 and 70 trauma one medevacs a year. A guy falls off the side of a mountain, falls 300 feet., or, you know, we had a gentleman and his son, um, flew into the side of a mountain. They hit a 70-foot snowbank, survived, but, uh, they, they broke all the bones in their lower extremities and they had to be extracted. And, and, you know, um, and I, and the people that I worked with in healthcare, which were like paramedics, these are enlisted corpsmen who learned very special trauma skills to be able to stay with the patient even if necessary overnight.

And there were a couple times where we would land, or not even land, we’d have like a one-wheel on a rock. The guy would get out, or we would lower him via hoist, and the weather would come in so quickly and we couldn’t get him off the mountain. So we’re having to leave our guy there. Oh my gosh, overnight. I mean, and these guys were doing incredible things.

They were doing, uh, body-to-body blood transfusions because a lot of our guys were O negative, just happened to be that way. And, you know, and we joke about this all the time in the military, the line between being a hero or being court-martialed is like razor thin. And sometimes these guys are willing to take chances. And if it didn’t work out, they would have been out of the Navy. They would have been crucified for what they did, but they, they did it.

They survived it. They put their training in place, they calculated the risk, they save a life. And then that got me into healthcare. And between that, um, I found, uh, I would say a calling to a degree, but then I started doing some recruitment for my mother. She had a company doing executive recruitment.

So I started doing that side of it. And then fast forward, I guess now 9 years, um, We were able to develop it into a program and, you know, Charles and I balance each other out very well. You know, I’m, uh, I do more of the sales side. I do more of the people pillar. Charles is the process side of it.

Now we cross streams all the time with what we do, but we have our specialties and our lanes. And the two of us working together have really kind of been able to put our whole program, our whole company on steroids. It’s more awesome. Well, we would also say, as we kind of work together and our team comes in, that same philosophy happens with every one of our organizations. You know, we’re that partner component, and it’s- I think that’s where the value of where we are is, is that our stakeholders, our decision makers, our CEOs, our board, they know both Steve and I, and they’ve learned who we are and how we work.

That’s, that’s been a big asset for them and their organization as they take counsel, coaching, and mentorship from us in different ways. Interested in starting your own podcast, but not sure how? Let Neyman Creative help you. We offer a variety of options that can help you get started on your podcast journey with ease. Whether that is creating podcasts from your own written blogs or remotely recording episodes yourself from the comfortability of your own home or office, we can help you to reach your brand’s full potential.

Contact us at namancreative.com to learn more about how we can help you get started on a podcast of your own. It’s cool that you said, Stephen, you said Your People, Charles’s Process, and you have under your logo like a, a sub-tagline of people, process, and purpose. So maybe if I’m right, uh, Stephen’s People, Charles’s Process is purpose, the whole entity. Well, we breathe into every aspect of it. It’s- you have to look at actually what we do within the organization and with our with our clients, with our teams.

So we have to all be people. And I often say things like, if you’re going to be in healthcare, you have to actually like people. That’s the fundamentals. Sure. One would say that’s true.

And I appreciate your laughter in that. But the reality is not everybody likes people that is in healthcare. Yeah. And so there is a, a true people side of what we do for meeting people where they’re at. And then bringing them along to that next level, expanding their potential.

So I think we both do the people in many different ways. The process as well, the work that Steve does on the coaching and the development and the behavioral health assessments and that real intimate conversation one-on-one with some of the leaders is a process that seems to resonate very, very well. I live in the process. I live in hospital operations every day. I live in strategic planning and how to move an organization or a group of people from here to there and have benefit.

And benefit comes from culture or benefit comes from finance, a better position to it all. We often do exercises on purpose, like what’s your why? Why are you here? And not everybody can appropriately answer that question. And what I mean by that, why folks are here, of course they’re there for a paycheck.

We know that. I mean, people need to put food on their table and a roof over their heads. But the why, why are they connected to healthcare? And not everybody has that proper connection. Yeah.

It’s, you know, it’s interesting because I look at it slightly different than than Charles, when I think of purpose, I, I look at, um, the hospital. You know, we ask, what’s your mission, vision, and values in healthcare? And if I were to sum it up for most hospitals, it’s to provide great quality care for their community. That’s their purpose. So I look at their people and the process of, you know, every organization has people in it, and then their processes, how they execute that purpose, is to provide that great quality care.

And then Charles and I kind of add in certain aspects because we’ll go into some organizations and they have lost their purpose. They don’t necessarily know what their mission vision is, you know, or it’s changed over time, you know, whether it’s an increased demographic, you have an increased Latin American population in your community and now how do you shift from serving one population, but now you have to bring in people who understand the language and the culture and it’s different or, you’ll have issues with people where somebody’s been there for 30, 35 years and it’s like, hey, this is a mainstay, but they’ve also lost what drives them. You know, I’m a big believer, I really enjoy Simon Sinek’s podcast. I enjoy his philosophy and he makes a great point to say a paycheck is not a purpose, right? A paycheck is not your why.

A paycheck is a result of what you do. And in healthcare, there are few things that are more like healthcare because literally any employee can go to any hospital and probably get a job. I mean, I can tell you right now, I tell nurses all the time, if you are not happy at your organization, there are 7,000 other hospitals around the country that will take you, right? There is a huge nursing shortage. So what drives you to be in this organization?

It’s gotta be more than the dollar because we know you can do that anywhere. You know, and you hear some awesome stories. It’s, hey, an organization helped my father or my mother and that drove me to be a nurse, or I want to make a difference in my community and I know they need help here. If I’m not here, who’s going to do it? And those things are awesome, especially when you’re getting into rural healthcare and you’re an hour, and in some of our cases, 4 hours from the closest town.

You know, you start to- yeah, I’m gonna digress a little bit. I’m a squirrel, so I’m gonna bounce around the room. That’s okay. But it’s funny that I would say half of our hospitals, when they measure, you know, distance, it’s not distance to the biggest city, it’s the distance to the closest Walmart, right? So when you’re trying to recruit people and they want to know, well, how close is the Walmart, right?

And, and you’re like, oh, it’s 60 minutes. Oh, 60 minutes, that’s not bad. Who, you know, so now we look at it, some of them are 4 hours. Yeah. So you’re like, that’s nuts.

It, it, I mean, it is. And, and these are people they’ve learned over time, you know, if you forget something, I mean, all right, well, we’ll go back in 2 weeks to get it. So don’t forget the milk or the bread, you know, but it’s, it’s a different aspect of it, you know, to that same degree. A lot of our clients that we have, what they’ve liked about us is the fact that we will get into a car and we will drive out to them. We will go meet them where they’re at.

Many consultants who are working in those areas or those fields, everything’s done via Zoom. Happy to get on a phone call with you. They’ll get their picture up there. But I will tell you, when you go out to an organization and you can sit there and see, man, this is a beautiful place. Like the first time we went to Holyoke, Colorado, Charles and I are driving in.

There isn’t a lot on the internet on Holyoke, Colorado. It’s an eastern town. 40 minutes from the Nebraska-Kansas border. Around 2,000 folks. 2,000 folks total.

And we’re in there and we’re like, holy oak. I mean, it was beautiful place. Everybody’s grass is perfectly manicured, right? And I’m like, there’s like a competition on who’s got the nicest grass. The town was just beautiful.

It’s a cute little town. They didn’t have the traditional yard art. Yeah, no yard art. Yeah, it was beautiful. And it was just truly awesome to be a part of.

And then you get in the hospital and you get to see how much they care about it, how clean it is, how much everybody’s putting effort into every aspect of it. It’s a pride of ownership. Oh, absolutely. And then as a recruiter and trying to bring people in there, my job is to find what makes this town unique, right? And so you, you go and eat at the local restaurants, you meet the people in the community, you meet the superintendent of the school, and you learn like you know, hey, they’ve got a grant program to help kids get into college for STEM that other places don’t.

Or in, uh, in Holyoke, they have a barbecue place. The only downside of the barbecue place is it’s only open Wednesday through Saturday, and it’s a good barbecue place, but it is phenomenal. Oh my goodness, a pile of food. Oh yeah, and they have like 15 different meats. The first time we went in there, I was like, I’ll take 2 ounces of everything.

Yeah, there may have been some meat sweats. Yeah, a little bit of meat sweats. But it’s, um, I think that’s the stuff that makes our job fun, is like, we, we work in the rural, we work in critical access hospitals, that’s 25 beds or less, um, but we’re in big systems. We work the big side of it. I’ve, I’ve worked for organizations like, uh, Johns Hopkins, UT Southwest, Trinity Health.

I mean, Charles’ background, HCA, big big, big machine hospitals. But I think that teaches you how to go up and down the scope of healthcare, to be able to breathe in and breathe out. And, uh, like Charles’s processes that he has from HCA- what I love about his advisory stuff is when you go into an organization and we’re trying to understand where you’re at, uh, Charles developed this operational assessment, which is really a deep dive into the organization. Yeah. And so I, I think, uh, The journey is a pretty awesome journey when it comes to the work that we end up doing.

And as we occasionally get into the weeds and that shoulder to shoulder is absolutely phenomenal and the stories that we have to tell and the lessons that we, that we can share with folks about these journeys. I think this is why we’re doing those podcasts. It says a lot that you go into the towns, that you experience them, get to know them. I mean, it makes your job smoother, more meaningful that you’re there. They see you, you know, just like this retreat.

It was talked about quite a bit last night that the team being together, partners being together, that’s a huge deal. And so that I imagine people very much resonate with that unique quality that you guys are there and present. And it probably is a big factor in your success among, among other stuff. Yeah, I mean, we’re blessed that this is the second year in a row in a 2-year, almost a 2-year company. We’re 1 month shy of 24 months.

And because we are all remote and we travel to our clients to get together at least once a year in a meaningful way, strategic planning, roundtable discussions, you know, who are we today? Where do we want to be in a collective? Our folks have a voice. I think the last couple of days, and we have 2 more days to go on this journey, we have some amazing people on our team. And the only way I can say it is we’re just blessed to be able to offer those services with some great people.

Yeah, it’s clear. It’s been awesome to be a part of this energy this week. You know, I want to respect time. You’ve got another back-to-back podcast. I have a couple more questions, a special segment, and then we’ll wrap up.

But I want to know from each of you what you feel like the biggest need for leadership development is in today’s world. So like, obviously healthcare is vital to our wellbeing as a population, and that’s, you know, as far as like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you know, it’s food and shelter, safety, health, and so on, you know? So you guys are right at the base, but you know, aside from maybe helping healthcare and making sure that people are healthy and leading that, where, where are some holes that, you think that may be the biggest hole each of you recognize? I’m gonna use a key description word like resiliency and grit. Leadership is about being forged in the experience or forged in the fire.

And so when it’s in the fire, people may not understand how to manage their emotions or organize their mind. Some people run from the fire. We embrace the fire, get in there, go through the storm. When you come out the other end, you’re a stronger leader for it. And I think the one aspect in personal characteristics is leadership is tough.

You have to have thick skin. You have to be able to be okay with people looking at you as a target, but you have to lead and you have to own it. And too often we find leaders who don’t own it that pass the buck, that bring in others to support their, how would I put it, their philosophy of it’s somebody else’s problem. It is our problem. It is me as the leader.

I own it. And if you don’t have that characteristic of ownership, it’s hard to be a leader. Yeah, that’s great. Also, just a quick comment on like going through tough times and grit. You know, I think about my marriage.

I don’t think anybody would agree that marriage is like, oh, that’s really easy and it’s just smooth as butter all the time. Hold up a second. Oh, excuse me. You’re right. My wife is in the room.

Yes. Glorious. Glorious. I’m mistaken. Yeah, that’s true.

However, on the other side of that, you know, through this intensity or challenges, you are way stronger. I mean, and it doesn’t always work out, but if you can get on the other side, wow, now I know you better. Now we can problem solve better. And I feel like, you know, this conversation could have- we could just remove the word healthcare and it could be very valuable to other industries. And I know that we’ve kind of scratched a bit on that throughout this week, that what you guys are doing is setting up to something even potentially greater outside of healthcare.

But I don’t want to do any spoilers. Well, it does trans- our model transcends across all industries. I, I believe it does. I mean, I, I- leadership is something in every aspect. You know, my view on leadership is, uh, first of all, you never stop.

You know, to be a good leader, you don’t ever stop the training for leadership. Leadership is not just a necessarily inherent trait. There may be some people that are more outward and more communicable, or able to communicate is a better way to say it. Um, not me at the moment, but some. Um, but it’s, it’s also that willingness to- one, you gotta listen.

Uh, we call it generous listening. Uh, and, and you have to have empathy. You have to understand your team. You got to be humble enough to listen and understand where they’re at to be able to help them. And there are a lot of leaders that, uh, some are self-serving, some are from the back and like to push forward.

But understand it’s a journey, you know. You’ve got to learn to be nice, you know. And I, in healthcare, we have a gentleman named Quint Studer, uh, who’s phenomenal in his approach to healthcare leadership. And if I were to boil him down, he said, in healthcare, you You just gotta be nice sometimes. You gotta be nice to the patients.

You gotta be nice to your peers. You gotta be nice to your employees. And then you need your employees to be nice to your boss sometimes because you need to have a little bit of grace. You know, we have CEOs that we work with and one of their hardest things that they have to learn is when you’re a CEO of a hospital, you live in a glass house at the top of the hill and sometimes it’s lonely. Leadership is not all glory and, and excitement.

Yeah, one rock will crack the glass, but the leaders are the ones that are sitting there doing the extra work when somebody doesn’t show up. They’re the ones who often pick up that extra shift. They’re the ones who work harder. It’s not a 40-hour, 35-hour-a-week job where you get to sit there and just have a title. They’re often the ones working double, triple what the rest of the staff is, and most of them don’t see it because they’re not seeing the late-night phone calls with the board members or having to deal with some city council issue or something like that.

And so I think, I mean, there’s so many things that go into leadership. It’s tenacity, it’s building that thick skin, it’s learning who to go to, you know, who’s your lifeline, who’s your phone friend. You know, Charles is, I call Charles the CEO whisperer all the time because CEOs will call him 2 AM, 2 PM. He’s more 2 AM, I’m more 2 PM. Depends on which coast.

Yeah, it depends on the coast. But it’s having that capability to be able to talk to somebody and I mean, he had a CEO last night that said, hey, we got an issue, you know, when can you get here? And that’s the thing, that’s- we’re young enough, we’re nimble enough that we can kind of solve those challenges. Yeah, young enough. Uh, yeah, you guys are crushing it.

Oh yeah, no, you guys are young enough. The, the energy that you have proven that you have, first off when I met you remote, but now, oh, it’s, uh, it’s apparent., and I think that resonates through the entire team. So you guys have really, uh, done a good job of building a, an organization that has a lot of energy, which is needed in leadership, you know, whatever aspect. Um, I agree with the nice- there’s, uh, Parks and Recreation. There’s, there’s a great, like, scene.

Are we talking about the show? The show? Yes. Yes. And, uh, Andy’s like, you know, Chris, what do I, What do I do to, to be Aubrey’s boyfriend?

He’s like, well, what do- what are your great characteristics? He goes, I’m nice and I’m in a band. Yes. And he goes, okay, nice and band. And then the episode goes on and he like ends up having a date with Aubrey or whatever her name is, April.

And, and he like leans over, he goes, nice and band worked. Yeah, it worked. That’s right. Because nice goes a long, long way. It does.

Non-threatening. Is really something that we have to embrace as a characteristic when we meet our teams. Sure. That’s what I’ve noticed about when I work. I work with a lot of business leaders, a lot of CEOs and decision makers.

And I’m lucky enough to be able to choose who we work with. And everybody is nice who’s doing it right. And that’s clearly a sign. All right, we’ve reached a point in the show. It is called Rapid Fire.

Boom, boom. Bring it. Bring it. All right. So I’m going to go- since Charles is input 1, you’re going to go first and then Stephen, you’ll go second.

So everybody knows ultimately the goal is to try to keep your answers as concise as possible. But if you need to expand on it, it’s okay. You just lose points. Oh, you guys ready? The point system here.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Leaderboard. There’s everything.

Blue. He wins. Yeah, I win. All right, so that was a great episode, everybody. Thanks for listening.

I win, Charles. We say things like, okay, blue, but is it really blue? The pen is blue. Bring it, let’s go. All right, what is your biggest source of inspiration?

Well, that’s a loaded question right here. Um, I’ll just- right here, being a father and being a husband. Um, there’s nothing like it. There is nothing like it. It’s very inspirational to know what I’m doing as a dad is raising little, little beans to be adults in this world.

There is nothing like it. Husband and dad, number one, period. I love that. I call, I call them my little beans too. That’s funny.

Yeah. If they heard this, that’s a, that, that’s, that’s going to be some fun statements in our house. Yeah. Um, yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more on that. How about you, Stephen?

Uh, my wife, uh, you know, for me, uh, having met my wife, uh, we are both each other’s, uh, second marriage, but her story, her journey of her coming to this country and her willingness to just bring her and her daughter to the United States from Colombia and, and, and all the challenges that we face normally. And then to do it in a second language, to learn the language, to do all the things the right way, the way, you know, you would hope to have that American dream. I mean, that to me was super inspiring. I thought that was awesome to see. And that’s led us to the family we have now.

We have a Hers, Mine and Ours, and it’s just awesome to be on that journey with her. And, you know, it’s, it’s phenomenal. Yeah, that’s super special. And, you know, getting to know her as well, you guys You guys certainly click and, um, she’s super. So, and same with your wife, Charles.

Yeah, she rocks. It’s been cool being able to work with them. Remember at the beginning we talked about charity cases? Yeah. We are our wives’ charity case.

Sure. Yeah. We married well above our station in life. Oh, that makes 3 of us. Look better from afar.

Thank God she doesn’t have great eyesight. All right. How about this? The most impactful book you’ve ever read? I’m going to probably stay true to it all.

I’m a big fan of the Bible. It’s, it’s how my genetic makeup is made. I was raised in the, in the faith, and I have two primary themes of songs or genres of songs. Christian music is a daily moment for me. It feeds my spirit and I’m a country boy, so I’ll take country in a heartbeat.

But I’ll have to stick with the Bible. Has many books or many aspects of it. I’m going to stick with the Bible. All right. That’s fair enough.

That’s a pretty popular one from what I’ve gathered. How about you, Stephen? Well, it’s a tough one, so I’ll give Charles the Bible. All right. He got first lead in it.

Obviously a great book. Haven’t been raised in a Catholic school, very familiar, you know, with it. But in terms of for me, for, for business and the work that we do, I have two. I can’t pick one, so I’m going to go outside the box. I’ll allow it.

Lincoln on Leadership. I really like that book because I feel it’s a very clear, concise concept on how good leaders can lead. Some of the things that made Lincoln our 16th president such a great president and how he led. It’s written for helicopter pilots. It’s an 8-page chapter with a summary page on the back and a picture.

So it’s very easy to read. Big words. Yeah, big. Yeah, big words. And then Good to Great.

Charles introduced me to that book. Good. Classic. I love the, the concept of that flywheel. And, you know, as you start to go and that’s- we talk to teams about that all the time.

It’s you’re doing the heavy lift at the front of what we’re working on. But as it starts to come and the wheel starts spinning on its own, it becomes a little easier. And I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s easier. You’re still having to put in the work. You’re constantly keeping that constant pressure on, but it’s not as challenging as you thought it would be.

Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about the flywheel from that book. Yeah. I would throw in the other one that’s a second or third is Extreme Ownership.

Ah, yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard of that one. That’s come up on the show. I mean, that’s the accountability, that’s the ownership.

It’s setting higher expectations for oneself and going above and beyond. I think Those are probably the cornerstones of much of our philosophy. Yeah. I feel like that book is probably needed more. You were talking about it, Charles, when we were talking about gaps and what’s needed in leadership today.

It’s accountability, it’s ownership of our own actions, which our own actions are pretty much the only thing we have control over that ripples across the world. How about this? You can only listen to one music album or artist for the rest of your life, who is it or what album is it? I’m going to stay classic.

I have a favorite artist. There’s new music coming out on a regular basis, but I’m going to go with Michael W. Smith. Childhood artist, one of the first concerts I ever saw. It’s built in my genetic makeup. It’s Praise and Worship.

Boom. Love it. Right on. Okay. I’m not familiar.

I’ll have to check it out. Led Zeppelin, House of the Holy. All right, there it goes. So you, you’re holy as well in that. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. You gotta let the lead out. Last one. And I think this’ll be cool to hear from you guys.

How do you define success? Is it personal success or are we just saying it’s just a- General. So you could apply it across the board, personal, business. I think success is defined individually, and I think success is living up to your potential, in many cases living up to your maximal potential. Success looks like falling and getting up.

Success is climbing the mountain, knowing it’s a big mountain, and actually taking that journey. Success is living up to your potential. I like that. Yeah, I think for me, uh, success is, you know, it’s about the family. It’s being able to provide for the family, that the work that we do or whatever we’re doing, it’s geared towards a family.

Without them, without their support, we couldn’t be where we’re at. Uh, it’s a challenge every day with what we do, and sometimes the hill’s harder for them to climb than it is for us. You know, we, we get to be out there all the time doing our stuff, and then they’re back at home and I think part of that comes from our military service. You know, when we deployed, you know, we’re off to go do what we’re trained to do. And some of us, I mean, truly love that, but you’re leaving your loved ones at home to handle the day-to-day and you forget sometimes how hard that can be.

And so I think it’s for them. I think the success is how well the family understands what we’re doing and do they feel supported, loved, and needed. That’s a big piece of it. I, you know, I also think being able to do the things that we like to do, you know, when you have the resources to do what you like to do and to be able to take that downtime, I think that’s a big piece of success too. So 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn’t agree more with you both. Thank you for those answers. You both have won Rapid Fire, so congratulations.

Yeah. Did it. You did it. So real quick to wrap up, what does H&H look like in a year, 5 years, 10 years? What are your long-term goals?

Where are we headed here? We’re in a room, we’re in a conference room right now, and I look over at Steven and I think that vision evolves. I speak a little bit more in abstract. Steve is an amazing storyteller. But I think expanding that impact across the healthcare industry, I am confident that within the next couple years that healthcare won’t be our only focus in leadership, but I think it’s reaching further into the rural environment, into the urban environment, and really helping healthcare be sustainable and viable for future generations?

I think for me, 5 to 10 years, it goes beyond healthcare. Yeah, I think it’s moving into different industries and then outside of the confines of our country. I think a lot of what we do is needed around the world, whether it’s in Latin America, in Europe, Middle East, you we are already in some discussions for other entities and things that we’re doing outside of the US. And I think that’s the fun part of the job is how big can we make it? How do we scope everything and grow everything?

So I think there’s a lot of opportunity there and it’s gonna be a fun journey. Yeah, well, that’s clear. But you’re doing important work while having fun, which I love. It’s really cool that you guys are pretty much able to scale what you’re building across industry and across the world. Uh, so really no ceiling.

And, uh, you- where, where you are now is making a huge impact in healthcare, which is so important to all of us. So, um, Charles, Stephen, this week has been energizing and inspiring for me. Um, a lot of fun. There’s some team in the room as well. And so I thank you all for your energy and your partnership and what’s to come.

I’m certainly excited to be along for the ride and I appreciate it. And so with that said, just a quick note, if you’re listening, check out the H&H Impact and their new podcast. You’ll be able to listen to an episode as this one’s coming out. So check out what they’re doing. Maybe you know somebody in a hospital healthcare system that could use a boost in leadership, these are your guys.

And yeah, I just want to thank you guys again for your time. And until next time, please stay curious, stay kind, and keep on leading.