CEO Book Review – Two Rivers: The Power of Collaboration and Other Leadership Lessons

Aaron: 0:49

Sherry Roushry and Kelly Mack and Marble ignite the conversation once again with Jason and our special host, SHP’s very own powerhouses, Julia DiGiacomo and Ami Patel. They’re diving deep into the riveting world of their book Two Rivers the power of collaboration and other leadership lessons. Get ready for some powerful insights and inspiration as this vibrant conversation unpacks the invaluable lessons tucked within the pages of their book. Buckle up, folks, because this is just the beginning of an exhilarating journey through the realms of Two Rivers. Are you ready for this vital conversation? Let’s get started.

Jason: 1:30

All right, good afternoon everybody. Let’s go ahead and jump right in to the book, and we’re lucky to have with us a few folks as part of the panel, as we mentioned during the introduction. I’ll get us started and just, cherry and Kelly, if you will, maybe just from a higher level view, start with the overall flow of the book in terms of you know, we were pretty caught in terms of the back and forth, how you guys flowed throughout the book, but also the the intense depth from personal stories that really grabbed all of our attention and was just really sort of inspirational and just grabbed us right away. Talk us through how you arrived to the decision of just the flow of the book.

Kelly: 2:11

Yeah, I think you know. I would say that you know we had. We felt like we had a compelling story to tell and, having both Sherry and I having worked in similar and sometimes separate or different sectors of health care, we had different perspectives of what we experienced, but we felt like we had a compelling story to tell and I think as we began writing the different chapters and we did were some very clear leadership lessons. Right, there were experiences that we were having as leaders and I would also say as women leaders that we knew other women were experiencing, so why we didn’t want that to be what the book was about per se. It felt like an opportunity to weave that into the stories as we went through them.

Kelly: 3:27

I think the other thing that became clear as we were working through this is that, as leaders, sort of what got us to where we are today, sort of the root of how we managed some of the issues and our passion for some of the issues, absolutely came from our personal experiences.

Kelly: 3:51

And I think you know, just in general, as a leader and I and I know Sherry does a tremendous amount of coaching and mentoring others as well you know we all bring something to the table that you know, got us where we are today or brought us the interest that we have today in this work and so really leaning into that which is not easy to do, by the way, and it makes you very vulnerable, but it is why we are the people we are today and so thought it was going to be a challenge and difficult to do, to be that exposed.

Kelly: 4:33

We thought it was an opportunity for other leaders, other women leaders, to see those experiences and say, wow, ok, you know, I can, I can do this too. Right, I can, I can achieve, you know, whatever I want to achieve, regardless of life experience, and that it made us stronger and it made us better leaders and it made us better leaders. So we decided to weave that into the book as well and hopefully it helps sort of describe how we became who we are today and also, in some respects, how we responded to the situations the way that we did because of those experiences.

Shery: 5:15

That’s all very, very true what Kelly has just stated, in the way that we brought all of this together and we found, as we started writing or thinking about the structure of the book itself, that what chapters are we going to include, what experiences are we going to include? And it fell out very naturally and, as opposed to both of us trying to write for each of the topics, we found that each of us had an area. One of the topics appealed to one or the other of us more, and that’s really how we ended up with a structure of the back and forth with the chapters.

Ami: 6:01

This is Ami Kelly. You had mentioned in Chapter 8 how you immediately made cultural changes to a decentralized model. This is within a very large practice. Can you talk through how you arrived to that decision and how it was received?

Kelly: 6:20

decision and how it was received. Yeah, it was a challenging process. Independent physician practices always would say I’ve got 200 bosses and all with their individual practices and it was, in some respects, very decentralized. However, they had the same organizational challenges that every other organization has, which is all things related to culture and you know all of that. You know, if you have a healthy culture, that definitely directly impacts how healthy patient experience is and employee engagement, right. So it was something that needed to be addressed. So you know it initially was, as I brought this forward through physician leadership, I think, was referred to as the fluffy stuff and so I, you know, maybe not supported initially, but I will say we went through a process to create what we called core behaviors. We went through a process to create what we called core behaviors and as part of the physician peer review committee, they really saw the sort of culture change across the organization because they were leaders and owners, and so you know I would do town hall meetings with staff and we were going through these core behaviors and one particular staff very clearly said my doctor thinks this is nuts, we’re not going to do it. Very clearly said my doctor thinks this is nuts, we’re not going to do it. And I just smiled and I said understood, these are the values that we think are important in creating a healthy workplace. We’re going to keep moving forward. Eventually, we got that physician on board and soon board and soon physicians became, began to be held accountable for living those core behaviors, just like everybody else. It took a couple of years to get to that place. You know, we started with no and got to a place where it really did become part of the framework around physician behaviors and, you know, just review of complaints and issues related to clinicians, just like it did on the non-clinician side. And so it took a little while. But you know, we were just steady in our work to ensure that the physician leaders adopted the importance of the core behaviors and core values and once we got to that place, it really just, you know, continued to improve from there.

Kelly: 9:05

This is Julia. Can I jump in real quick and ask a follow-up question about that? Kelly, you mentioned accountability in this whole dynamic of, you know, building a new culture. What does that look like? Or what does that look like? Or what did that look like? How do you, how do you, keep people accountable while trying to enforce, you know, a positive culture? Yes, such a great question.

Kelly: 9:28

We initially started that transition by rewarding positive behaviors, right, rewarding when we saw a physician, a nurse practitioner, you know, a lab tech, whoever it was really living those core behaviors, right and so.

Kelly: 9:47

And then we had a group of culture ambassadors who were frontline team members, who were, you know, living those behaviors but also working hard to recognize when they saw them, and so we really started there. We didn’t want to start out with, you know, wanted it to be a carrot, not a stick, right, we wanted it to be a positive thing and say this is, this is what we’re seeing and this is, you know, amazing and this person is really living, you know, these behaviors and values that we put forward. We did eventually build them into performance reviews. So part of the performance review process included, you know, those core behaviors and that particular employee’s, you know, living those behaviors and really exhibiting those behaviors as well. And same on the clinician side, when there was a complaint regarding a clinician, whether it was from a patient or from a staff person. The core behaviors are part of the discussion. And so we started again from sort of a positive and then built them into how we assess performance and deal with complaints later.

Ami: 10:58

So yeah, you write a very powerful page on advice for young women in leadership. What would you advise young women to do to help shift the mindset of their counterparts when expected to do things like take notes in meetings, set up and clean up after meetings, sort of those types of examples? What would you advise them to do in that situation? To kind of those types of examples? What would you advise them to do in that situation to kind of be like, okay, I don’t need to be the person that cleans up or, you know, takes notes.

Kelly: 11:26

Yeah, so I, I still have to work at this, just to be honest, and some of it is just I don’t know, maybe it’s I’m a mom and I don’t know what it is. I still have to work at it. But my advice to new leaders or women leaders is the advice I got from an executive coach who was observing team dynamics and I was doing what I normally do, you know, cleaning up a table after a meeting, and she just looked at me and said stop. And I catch myself now when I start doing it in my head I just go, stop doing that. This is not your role. There are other people to do this work. Walk away, and I do that, and you don’t have to be really rude or overt about that.

Kelly: 12:15

I have still in my current role. I will get asked hey, at this meeting, can you, you know, take minutes or notes? Always happy to do that, but my answer typically is happy to do that. If I do that, I’m not able to really listen to the content of the meeting, which is important to me. I’m going to see if we can get somebody else to do that right. So I find a way to deflect it versus saying that’s not my job and so.

Kelly: 12:42

But I think the most important thing is just recognizing that. And I didn’t at the time, you know, I just didn’t see that that behavior was just adding into and supporting, I would say, unintentional bad behavior. Right, they just weren’t recognizing it wasn’t an intentional make the female leader in the room do this work, it was just a bias. It was a bias they didn’t recognize and so once there was, I was really aware of what I was doing to feed into that. It was more just making sure that when I was asked to, or when I you know started you know doing what I normally do, just stop, you know, not your job, it’s okay, take a step back. So and I do a lot of mentoring and I talk to women leaders about that and sort of the behaviors that we can display that lead into this bias that happens in the workplace. I didn’t know I was unintentionally adding to it or making it worse, and so that was part of my responsibility and also, you know I will say, in that particular scenario, helping reshape the thinking of the male leaders I was working with, because then we got to talk about it later and there was like wow, you know just literally didn’t recognize that’s what we were doing, so it was a good learning all the way around. Um, kelly, how did you, how do you navigate that internally with other male leaders and other women in the organization? Can you other male leaders and other women in the organization? Can you walk us through what, how you might start a conversation?

Kelly: 14:26

Yeah, one thing that I’ve gotten better at is I could be, uh, get older, um, and more comfortable in my own skin is, um, you know, just being willing to provide feedback. Um, you know, this one thing, I think is leaders, um, anybody, it’s just as people you know we’re not, uh, most of us, uh, you know, just come right out of the gate feeling really comfortable, uh, giving feedback, and so, um, and I think it’s so important, as I said, in the scenario, uh, that scenario that I write about in the book, the, uh, the men in that scenario, it was not intentional, right, it was just a bias, that unconscious bias, and so I feel like, you know, my role in the last several years is more about developing others and developing leaders, and so every time I see the behavior, I have an opportunity to call it out and talk about it. I see the behavior, I have an opportunity to, to call it out and talk about it. It’s not always super comfortable, but I have had conversation with you know, peers, male counterparts, to say, just a heads up when you ask the only female leader in the room to take notes, or to, you know, to get coffee or whatever it is. Here’s how that’s perceived, and you know I, whatever it is, here’s how that’s perceived.

Kelly: 15:41

And you know I had this opportunity through culture work in another organization where we learned how to give feedback in a way that is not off-putting, because it can be hard to do, but start with a positive and say, hey, I think you could even be more effective if you worked with your female colleagues in this way and it’s been well received, it’s been well received. And then I take the opportunity when I can, when I see it with some of the women that I support, to do the same. You know, hey, I noticed, and you know, just remind yourself that’s not your responsibility necessarily to always be the one to do this or that task and it’s OK for you to say no, I really want to pay attention to the meeting today. I’ll get some additional help for the team, right. Give them some tools to manage those conversations and that’s, you know, it’s worked really well. It’s worked really well. Well, it’s worked really well.

Kelly: 16:58

I you about if you’re an avid football fan or basketball fan or baseball fan. Often male colleagues aren’t comfortable having that conversation. They assume women are not interested in those things. So I do use that as an opportunity to mentor and coach a little bit, to say we’re here, yeah, we want to be involved, right? So lots of opportunities to get rid of old biases.

Aaron: 17:23

We’ll be back after this quick message.

Julia: 17:27

IPAs Independent Physician Associations unite independent providers, creating a collective voice in an evolving healthcare landscape. By joining forces, they negotiate better rates and fair contracts. Shp manages comprehensive IPA services, from contracting to practice enhancement and education for our members. Visit shplccom for details.

Kelly: 17:52

And call on you, sherry, to kind of a similar area in leadership. In the book you spoke about a couple encounters which you refer to as a sticky note manager and a VP who flew off the rails. Loved reading about these very, very telling and interesting situation that you were presented in and, reflecting on both of these, you maintained grace, composure, despite, you know, a hostile environment. In hindsight, would you handle it?

Shery: 18:27

differently. And with regard to the sticky note manager that I had, I really would. You know she was a good manager, she was a good person, very busy. She had not developed that skill in her coming up and her leadership development to effectively communicate with others, to effectively communicate with others. But I I think that the onus is on me and you know, I was the one who who would prefer to not be communicated with by sticking out, and you know, therefore, I really could have spent more time working and developing that part of the relationship with her, rather than her necessarily thinking that she perhaps should know how to do this. Maybe she didn’t know how to do it and just certainly it was expedient for her. Certainly it was before the time of what we have with emails and that sort of thing, but yes, in that scenario that we could have communicated over time. With regard to the flying VP, that’s a different situation With her.

Shery: 20:12

I think how I would have handled that one differently, handled that one differently, knowing now what I know about those types of personalities and working or trying to avoid working with those types of personalities, confronting that type of person is not recommended.

Shery: 20:37

So showing her what I was going to do was really not the right thing to do and just rather going ahead and doing what I had planned, which may not have resulted in a whole lot different scenario as to whether I would have stayed my last two weeks, worked out my notice or not, and likely would have been that I would have left early anyway, but it most likely would have prevented her anger from inflaming and coming across that desk at me. So I think I could have avoided her response just by. When you have someone who is that highly toxic in your organization, everything that I’ve read about that is to don’t try to confront them You’re not going to change them and try to figure out a way to work around them or to minimize your dealings with them. So that’s how I would have handled that one differently.

Kelly: 21:42

So now, from a different perspective.

Shery: 21:45

If that was, and, and in you know how, finding out what it is in their schedule that that’s not working so well, that that their communication style is one where they’re just sending off a quick note on an email rather than sitting down and talking with an employee and doing what I can to then help them find different strategies and ways of communication that would benefit them, benefit the employees, and perhaps help them set up times and schedules for rounding, for weekly meetings or that kind of thing, so that they can be much more effective for themselves and for their employees. With regard to the other one, my preferred choice would be to help them find another bus to be on, very gracefully and well put.

Ami: 23:09

This could be aimed towards you, Kelly. How did you navigate power structures earlier in your career versus later in your career?

Shery: 23:27

I think there are things that out and say we’re both milder in our approach than some of our, some of the people that we worked with and for there are. We’re quieter and and I think we, we both are thinkers, versus somebody coming in and saying you know, get me an answer right now or I need to produce an answer right now.

Shery: 23:53

I know for myself I need to process things.

Shery: 23:57

Early in my career, I worked hard to be that other kind of leader that would come in and you know I saw that they were what they were, um, what I perceive to be strong personalities and stronger people.

Shery: 24:14

Therefore, it made them smarter and better leaders and and those kinds of things I’ve learned over time. There are places for for both of us a quieter voice with a quieter position and demeanor. We do our jobs very well and we have an ability to generate trust, to generate camaraderie, and I think that’s a lot of what brought Kelly and I together in our ability to collaborate in the way that we did. We were competitors, our organizations were fierce competitors, but we both had similar enough demeanors and personalities to step back and say let’s think about this, let’s look at this, and you don’t have to be um, the meanest, the toughest, the, the, the top dog to be the top dog. So I think that’s, I think that’s one of the, the, the big things. That is very different from how I viewed leadership from early in my career to leadership later in my career.

Kelly: 25:31

Yeah, I would agree with what Sherry said and I will say, you know, this perception of what a leader looks like is a really interesting thing. And early in my career, similar to what Sherry said, you know I I mean I’m the same as I was, you know, 20 years ago. I’m never going to be the loudest person in the room. I will speak when I have something that I feel is important to say, but I’m mostly listening because I feel like that’s most important. There are times we have to step in and provide leadership, but several times in my career path, you know, that question has come up. You know how different, stylistically, you know, we are compared to this perception of what a leader is.

Kelly: 26:21

And I’ve had, you know, in fact, in my role in Indiana, I had a member of the executive team.

Kelly: 26:29

We were leaving a member of the executive team, we were leaving a negotiation with an insurance company and this person said you know, so-and-so previous, you know male CEO would have been screaming at them and, you know, demanding change.

Kelly: 26:41

And I said, if that’s what you think a leader is, you will never get that from me, because I feel like I can be just as impactful in a different, in a different approach, and so I do think that there is sometimes a perception that you know, a different style than a sort of loud command and control is weak, and my experience has been just the opposite. Now, in the beginning I was worried about that. You know I’m somewhat of an introvert, those kinds of things but I learned that and just watched as my own progression in my career is that I really did, was able to accomplish more, having being able to build relationships. People weren’t necessarily, you know they weren’t afraid of me. They knew they could come to me. You know we could have good conversations, and that’s not weakness, that is good. So I love the question because it really, I think, is something women deal with in leadership, not always, but to some, this idea of what a leader should look like and sound like, and it really just isn’t true.

Shery: 27:50

I agree, if I can add a little bit more to that.

Shery: 27:57

It seems to me that it takes more strength to give other people voice, so that it’s not always my voice, it’s not always my opinion, it’s not always my way that things have to be done to allow others to have some room to grow and some room to apply their ideas and creations.

Shery: 28:20

I think that’s a stronger leader than someone that has to have their way all the time, all the time, and there was a group of up and coming leaders that I had the opportunity to speak with a few years ago and sharing some of these things that Kelly and I have both talked about today in terms of how a quieter leader is really a strong leader. And there was a young man in the room who it was an audible. Oh my goodness, I have been really concerned about whether I actually can be a leader because I am introverted, because I am quieter, and it was over half the room that you would see the head nods, and so it was a very gratifying thing to see that there is an opportunity that people can hear, that they can be leaders and strong and still be the quieter voice in the room.

Ami: 29:24

That was great, great great advice, kelly. I read recently where the healthcare admin industry growth is expected to be 30 plus percent growth by 2029. In Chapter 9, you mentioned that balancing many tasks feels like spinning plates in a circus. There are some that are likely to crash. Do you feel like there is more work on administrators than there were in the past and how do you think it impacts new administrators coming into the role now?

Kelly: 29:54

That’s such a great question because there is the business and strategy of healthcare, where, which is so important, to really pursue all opportunities as we continue to figure out how we’re going to remain financially viable in a healthcare environment today where big health systems are struggling financially, and so it is quite a challenge. And then, on the other side of it, from a leadership perspective, being able to provide focus, you know, with your team, and make sure, once you’ve defined your strategic plan, that you know there’s that. This is, this is the focus. I’m a lean, trained leader in strategy deployment and the whole intent behind that is to define the most important and really focus and drive and drive towards those things. There’s always, though, I will tell you, always just this ongoing discomfort with adding another plate up in the air, and you know I am my, and you know I am my. I’m wired to like like having 10 things in the air all the time. I enjoy that. I can manage it. It’s awesome. However, I did learn, after some really good feedback along the way from others, that my style is is not everybody can do it. Not everybody has the ability to manage. What if?

Kelly: 31:34

And all these opportunities, along with this, is our focus in driving the organization forward, and so I’ve learned to dial that back and manage that. I’m not always successful. I do make mistakes on occasion where I push too hard and maybe have too many plates in the air. And so in my current organization this is something we talk about sometimes every day, and we have regular reprioritization discussions. And you know we, we talk about the shiny object, you know the opportunity. Sometimes it’s referred to as the shiny object or squirrel that comes along as an opportunity, and my coaching is always let’s assess the opportunity, we can decide whether it becomes a new priority, right. And so I feel like I’m always sort of coaching around that. But I want to encourage new leaders and up and coming leaders to never become so rigid that you can’t really assess a new opportunity because you could be pushing away something that would bring tremendous volume or tremendous patient service or whatever it is. And so that’s the. You know. The balancing act is always always look at it, always assess the opportunity, but know when it’s not a today right. Know when it’s not the priority today, it’s not going to take priority over something else. Maybe it stays on the list and we just constantly reprioritize, but it is an exercise. I have to work really hard at it again because you know I’m wired a little bit differently than many and recognize the capacity of the team that I’m leading is different than mine, and so you know that’s. That’s kind of how I approach that now. It mostly works pretty well. Once in a while I get a little coaching from my team, but it mostly works pretty well.

Kelly: 33:44

Piggybacking off of that, kelly, you’re talking about your team and coaching your team. Do you do any team building exercises? Yeah, we do. I’ve done several, I think, and I know Sherry has done similar work to this, but in a couple different ways. There’s different tools out there, but recently took this organization through all the leaders through this profile. There’s other tools.

Kelly: 34:13

I’ve used to do something similar and what’s really nice about that is it really the whole team sort of understands what each other’s sort of tendencies, communication style. You know just how they function, how they’re wired, so from a DIS perspective, how they’re wired. So from a DIS perspective, I’m a D and so my orientation is I move fast, got lots of ideas. You know it’s yeah strong. You know just sort of ambitious and I have a lot of team members that are opposite of that right. So it sort of teaches as we go through our profiles and really understands.

Kelly: 34:54

You know how do you communicate with somebody with a D profile. You know, do it quickly, don’t send me three-page emails, I might not be freedom. You know those kinds of things and we’ve done a lot of that kind of stuff just to get to know each other and really understand how to communicate better. So that’s something I’ve done with a lot of the teams that I have. And then the other thing that I’ve done I’ve done a lot of lately is we call it a book club but we sort of pick, depending on where the group is at, maybe a competency that we need to work on together and do that. So in this organization we went through an oldie but a goodie Speed of Trust and it was fantastic. Right, I was newer CEO to them. There had been some issues with psychological safety in the organization in the past and so we went through that together and we had some fantastic and hard conversations and we came out of that with better trust and better communication.

Kelly: 35:54

And then we picked some fun ones right to do. So those are a couple of things you know that I have done and I’m doing now with my teams. That’s awesome. And, sherry, I’m going to ask you the same thing too Is there anything regarding team building that you really like to do?

Shery: 36:13

Very similar to what Kelly was talking about the various types of profiles, and once you identify what each person is, you really can learn not only how you want to be communicated to, but how to communicate most effectively with another person. One of my favorite things in doing this and learning and teaching about communication among a team is that you put a drawing on a page that you’re looking at. You put a drawing on a page that you’re looking at and you describe that drawing to everyone in the room and they, on their piece of paper, do that drawing themselves, and what you learn is what you think you’re saying is not what you think you’re saying, and so you end up with multiple pictures that mostly don’t look like what you had on your page and as you share that, you can start to understand how I may need to explain something multiple ways and understand when somebody doesn’t understand what I’m trying to communicate. Understand when somebody doesn’t understand what I’m trying to communicate. Kelly and I did an interesting exercise when we were working on our merger, that we were trying to explain that this was a merger, it wasn’t a takeover, and what we found is that one of the organizations when, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much we communicated this because we communicated a lot at all levels of the organization that we were coming together. We were going to take ideas from each of the organizations and bring them together each of the organizations and bring them together. But when you’re the organization that’s losing your name, you automatically feel less than when you’re the organization that’s keeping the name. You feel like, oh, we’ve won and we’re going to do things our way.

Shery: 38:28

So Kelly and I went into this meeting once and we had all of the managers from both organizations in there and we said you know what?

Shery: 38:37

We’re six months into this process and we looked at everything and the decision has been made that we’re going to merge the other way, we’re going to merge under the other organization.

Shery: 38:54

And we watched visibly again and audibly could see the one organization just their chest expand, their heads come up, their eyes start looking at us in the eyes as we were talking, whereas the other organization started to pull within to themselves. And we continued on through this entire meeting with this in mind. At the end of the meeting we said oh, you know, just kidding, we’re not doing it that way. And now let’s talk about how that felt so as much as we, as leaders, can help people to understand how to communicate and how to, as Kelly said, listen and truly assimilate what the people are trying to tell you, and ask the questions and to try to understand more than be understood. And when you do that, you will come out of that dialogue, out of that conversation, with better understanding among both of you. Take as a leader, take the lead on understanding others rather than trying to force others to understand you.

Kelly: 40:27

When I was reading about that example in the book I was thinking to myself what would I do to be a fly on the wall when y’all did that role reversal, because I can only imagine it was kind of fun actually. Yeah, I’m sure it was fun and it was as Sherry said. You could just feel like the air gets sucked out of the room for a second and then you know a lot of the leaders that were in the organization that I better, more respect and understanding of their colleagues. So it was great Y’all’s perspective that you shared on that.

Kelly: 41:17

Really, just highlights the importance of I guess, sherry, how you were saying it how leaders need to encourage understanding and leading. That’s how you lead from that aspect. I’m going to ask one more question kind of along those lines, and for both of you, what’s been the hardest lesson learned as a manager, leader, executive, and what advice would you offer to those currently going through a similar experience?

Shery: 41:48

I think I have a lot of hard lessons that I’ve learned over time. You know, at the very basic of it there’s the plaque that you see right now that you’re stronger than you know. You are smarter than you think, and that is really, really true. And again, particularly for the quieter ones of us, trust your intuition, verify, trust, verify, but your instinct is strong. Learn from everyone in the organization, the people who are on the front line, who are doing the job day to day. They know more about how that job can be done better than the person that sits up in the C-suite who’s never actually done the job, but you person that sits up in the C-suite who’s never actually done the job, but you’ve read about it in the books. So find out information from those people. Allow yourself grace. Be kind to yourself as you’re being kind to others. Remember that you’re part of that grace that needs to be given.

Shery: 43:04

And as leaders, you know it’s our job as leaders to give credit and take blame. And while none of us really wants to take blame, the reality is is as we give credit and as we take blame, you start to build that trust within your organization that you’ve got someone’s back and then your team then has your back as well. So, to the extent that it really makes because bottom line is, everything stops with you as the leader so it’s also recognized when, when things go well, it’s recognized by your board that that, yes, you, you are the leader of that and so it does come back to you, but it’s also recognized by your board that when things don’t go well, that it comes back to you as well. So just start it in your career. When you’ve got people on your team who are doing things well or where you can give credit, give the credit, take the blame.

Shery: 44:14

And I guess one thing that is really difficult and challenging to reconcile is there need to be times where people need to blow off steam, particularly if you’ve got a lot of you’re going through a lot of change, and Kelly and I tend to live in that state of change where we’re comfortable there and, like she said, not everybody is and even in good change it’s very uncomfortable and there needs to be a pressure valve relief. We all have it, we all have best friends that we just need to say, oh my gosh, if that Sherry hadn’t done this, be comfortable in that space. We know we need to do it and then move on and encourage the people around you to find a safe place to do that, and then move on. You don’t want your organization to live there, you don’t want your other leaderships or your team to live there, but they do need to have a place to be able to do that comfortably.

Shery: 45:32

Some of that feeling of oh, I’m talking behind Sherry’s back or you know something along that line. And again you’re building trust within your organization. But going back to the first comment, trust yourself. You’re smarter, you’re stronger than you know.

Kelly: 45:53

Yeah, I love everything that Sherry said. You know, I would say that from a lesson, what was the hardest lesson? There’s just so many, um, but I think, uh, you know, when I look back at my career, I think, uh, hardest lesson um for me was just to get comfortable, uh, in my own skin. You know, we talked about that perception of a leader and, um, you know I I didn’t come into healthcare leadership in a traditional path, um path and worked with a lot of people that did, and so, you know I it took me a while to get the confidence that you know that that I needed. I had tremendous passion for the work and, you know, knew how to, knew how to do the work well and was being successful. But I still struggled with that confidence and I think a lot of leaders do, a lot of women leaders do, and so one of the best things, smartest things that I did was get a coach.

Kelly: 46:53

You know I had gone through an assessment and a role and gotten some feedback, and the feedback was a surprise to me and alarming, and I remember going home and telling my husband I just got this feedback and I, like my husband, literally said, oh well, you can see that right, and I’m like nope. And so then I was on like a personal mission after that and ever since, to have a coach to get feedback from, because and so seeking feedback right, get a coach helps you with confidence, helps you sort of work through where you’re struggling with that and also helps with a regular feedback loop, right, somebody that knows you that can say, no, that’s not your. And here’s what I would suggest, and I, you know, aspired in my role today. Last year I did four 360 feedback surveys and I love it. You hear things that are painful always and it doesn’t matter.

Kelly: 47:57

You know I love feedback and I still, once in a while you get a comment, you go well, that hurt a little bit, but I now I want to dig into that and learn more about it, right? So, you know, get a coach, always find ways to get feedback Right, because it doesn’t matter how good we are, we should be learning every day and getting better. And you know, I think along the lines of what Sherry said, being humble and kind, and you know we make mistakes. Be honest about that and your leaders will have so much. Your leaders, your frontline staff, the clinicians you work with, will have so much more respect for you if you do those things right, just be transparent and be a person. Right, just be who you are.

Jason: 48:46

Yeah, we’re at a full hour and I feel like we could literally talk for another hour and I didn’t even ask questions. Think about that. I mean you know Erin would tell you I’m the one that doesn’t shut up these ladies. I mean Julia did fantastic. They asked all the questions I couldn’t even think of. I even had notes that they actually asked them all myself. So wonderful job.

Jason: 49:08

Obviously, for those that are listening, two Rivers, the Power of Collaboration and Other Leadership Lessons came out last year, right about a year ago. Several of us read it. I’m not a reader and I read. You can’t see, but I’ve got little notes and stickies. You kind of almost brought me to tears with some of the stories. It was awesome, so highly recommend that to everybody. We’ve had a good full hour. I know everybody’s got stuff they needed to do and work to get back at, but this was some insightful information. The needed to do and work to get back at, but this was some insightful information. The book is awesome again for everybody to get. Really appreciate y’all’s time and thank you for joining us.

Kelly: 49:48

Thank you. Thank you Really quick while reading this, and to play fine in my career was just a guess.

Aaron: 49:59

This has been an episode of Beyond the Stethoscope Vital Conversations with SHP. If you enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to rate and share it with your friends. It sure helps the show.

Jason: 50:10

Production and editing by Nala Weed. Social media by Jeremy Miller.

Aaron: 50:15

And our co-hosts are me, aaron C Higgins and Jason Crosby. Our show producers are Mike Scribner and John Crew.

Jason: 50:23

Thank you for listening and we’ll see you next time. But while these were great questions, obviously you guys know there’s a more important question that takes a lot more thought, and I’m trying to decide which ones to ask. We actually may ask two. The first one is a hot dog or sandwich, see, I think yes. I’m in on the sandwich.

Kelly: 50:49

Okay, it’s usually bread a little different shape, right, if you have a bun with it, and honestly, I don’t even eat bread. Way too much information. But you asked, jason, we use low-carb tortillas and we just call them hot dog roll-ups. So not even sandwiches, but I’d go with sandwich, I’m in.

Shery: 51:12

Yeah, I have to agree. I think you’ve got a piece of well meat, maybe there that you’re going to add all the condiments you want and add anything you initially and anything else you want with it, and it’s on bread, I agree with Kelly, I think it’s a sandwich.

Ami: 51:39

Tortilla. Does it then make it into a burrito? I like where you’re going.

Kelly: 51:46

Right, exactly Awesome.