Healthcare Facilities Network
The Healthcare Facilities Network podcast highlights the essential role of facilities
management in delivering high-quality patient care. Hosted by Peter Martin, this show brings you expert insights on the issues, trends, and solutions shaping the future of healthcare spaces. Learn from industry leaders and discover ways to drive positive change in your facility.
Healthcare Facilities Network
Soft skills for the healthcare facility professional
High Reliability welcomes Lamar Davis to the podcast. Lamar is the Director of Facilities Engineering & Support Services at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago, IL.
High Reliability, The Healthcare FM Podcast is brought to you by Gosselin/Martin Associates. Our show discusses the issues, challenges, and opportunities within the Facilities Management (FM) function.
Lamar has had a lengthy career in healthcare facilities management in the Chicagoland area. In addition to the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Lamar has worked in facility leadership roles at Access Community Health Network, Provena Health, and Advocate Health. Lamar has volunteered nationally and locally with the American Society of Healthcare Engineering. He has mentored individuals throughout his career.
Our far-ranging conversation speaks to the soft skills needed in healthcare facilities management, to which Lamar offers several insights. Additional topics covered include:
- About the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, and unique challenges directing a facility located in America's third-largest city;
- Working with staff to find and cultivate interpersonal skills (13:00);
- The Great Resignation, and creating an Apprenticeship program to help alleviate (23:00);
- Lamar's strategic career path, and having fun while navigating it (27:30);
- The changing nature of the facilities discipline, and Lamar's thoughts on the balance of soft skill versus hard skills needed in leadership positions (44:00);
- Mentors, taking on a mentoring role, and overcoming the thought that I will be replaced if I share what I know (47:00).
Thank you for listening to the High Reliability podcast. To learn more about the Ability Lab, please see https://www.sralab.org
Coming Attractions
Please stay tuned to our website for our latest job promotions. In the next week, we will be promoting:
- Director, Facilities for Griffin Hospital in Connecticut
- A Vice President opportunity
- A Director, PDC opportunity
While you wait for these roles to appear, check out our new website, our Partnered Search Program, and the revamped Gosselin/Martin Career Hub.
Hello, and welcome to the High Reliability Podcast. I am your host, Peter Martin, president of Gosselin Martin Associates. If you've listened before, you know that the High Reliability Podcast is focused on the discipline of healthcare facilities management. So I want to thank you for listening. Before I introduce today's guest, I just want to once again point out we have our new redesigned website. That's livegosselin-associates.com. Two programs in addition to the jobs that we're recruiting for, but two programs I wanted to point out to you is our Career Hub program, which is fully integrated two-year personal career development program. That's the Career Hub. And the second program I wanted to mention is what we're calling the Gostin Martin Associates Partnered Search Program. which is an innovation in healthcare facilities management recruitment. So I'd like to point you to both of those programs, which are listed on our new website. With that done, I would like to introduce today's guest, Lamar Davis. Lamar is the Director of Facilities Engineering and Support Services at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. Lamar has been with Shirley Ryan since August of 2016 Shirley Ryan was formerly known as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Lamar has a lengthy career in healthcare facility management in the Chicagoland area. Prior to joining Shirley Ryan, Lamar was the Deputy Administrator Facilities Planning, Design, and Construction for the Access Community Health Network. The network provided preventative and primary care services in the Chicagoland area, with 35 joint commission accredited community health centers. Lamar has also had facility operations experience for some of the bigger systems in that area. He has served as the assistant vice president at Praveena Health, and he also spent 10 years with Advocate Health in a director of facilities management support services capacity. Lamar is also a part-time life safety surveyor for the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Healthcare. He has his Master's of Science in Safety Engineering and a Bachelor's in Healthcare Leadership. Lamar also has his CHFM, CHC, and CHSP. Lamar, welcome.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Peter. Definitely a pleasure and an honor to be here. Well,
SPEAKER_02:thank you. I appreciate that. And, you know, we'll get into this in the questioning, but as some of you, if you were listening a Brittany talked frequently about Lamar, and we will talk a little bit about that. And when she was talking about Lamar, I'm like, I got to have Lamar on. So I am appreciative of him joining us. As we talked about in the intro, Lamar has a great deal of experience in healthcare facilities management. But let's start first with where he is now. Lamar, tell us, if you would, a little bit about the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. Just as a little bit of background for some of our folks who are listening, Shirley Ryan, last July, Shirley Ryan was once again the national leader in physical medicine and rehabilitation, topping the U.S. News and World Report for the 31st consecutive year. It's a long time. On the website or on the Shirley Ryan website, it says it is the first ever trans... Translational Research Hospital, where clinicians, scientists, innovators, and technologists work together in the same space, applying research in real time to physical medicine and rehab. So, Lamar, sounds extremely interesting. Tell us about it, please.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, Peter, it is. And again, it's an honor to be there and to be a part of that healing that we do for our patients. So, You know, just to kind of summarize the organization, we provide rehabilitation care, long-term care. We help folks recover from strokes, amputees. We even do cool stuff with robotics and bionic medicine. We have seen people literally can't walk into the hospital. and they walk out and it's a wonder to see. We have patients from all over the world. We had a map up a few months ago that shows where our patients come from. And if it's a corner of the globe, we probably have a patient that we service from that area. And as you mentioned before, we are the best at what we do. We've been at it for 31 years doing that. And as it relates to facilities, my job is to make sure that those providers, if they're providing a top-notch care, we need to be making sure they can do that in a top-notch facility. How big is the facility, Lamar? Sure. It's 1.2 million square feet of space. And for those of you who don't know about rehabilitation hospitals, we don't have things like emergency rooms and ICU and surgeries, but we do have patient rooms. We do have a couple of floors of outpatient care that's very busy. We also have a parking garage that's inside the building from the first to the eighth floor. And we also have about 200,000 square feet of offsite space scattered throughout the Chicagoland area. So we do something called day rehab and outpatient services there. So not only do we have the main campus to be concerned about, but we also have all the offsites. And then, of course, we have a lot of smaller physician office practices that are kind of scattered throughout the Chicagoland area as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you're accountable for those off-site locations as well?
SPEAKER_00:That's correct. Now, some of the off-site locations, we're the owner of the buildings. Some, we are the tenant of another organization. And some, we're even the landlords. So all various types of situations.
SPEAKER_02:So for those who don't know, Lamar's location is really close to Lake Michigan in the city. Third largest city in America. Great city, Chicago. Love going out there. Tell us though, you know, I didn't tell us about, are there challenges for you and your staff getting out to those offsite locations and dealing with it? Just given where your location is and traffic and people, how is that a challenge for you? And if so, how do you and your staff manage that?
SPEAKER_00:That's a great point. Actually, your timing with that question is perfect. We just had a snowstorm last night.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I heard about that. I was... I went to school in Milwaukee at Marquette, and I was talking to one of my buddies last night who was trying to get to the DePaul game, which I guess was at the Wintrust Arena. Yeah. And he said, I'm not going because it's snowing. So he didn't go to it.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. So, yeah, we just had a snowstorm. You know, our winters here can be pretty brutal. Yeah. To be expected in the Midwest. So, yeah, you got to get to downtown Chicago, you know, our– our employees live, you know, throughout various parts of the city, suburbs, even some in nearby Indiana. We maybe have some that come as far as almost Milwaukee, you know, to come to work. So expressways, you know, the expressways, you know, the local municipalities do the best they can to keep the roads clear. But something we do, and I'm sure it's not just unique to our hospital, but We provide sleeping accommodations for our employees. So in situations like a storm, there are sleeping cots, you know, not five-star accommodations, but definitely better than trying to navigate a snowstorm getting back and forth to work. We also provide childcare services for those days where it's inclement weather and schools are closed. We open up our auditorium and we even did it through COVID. When COVID first started, there was issues with the schools. We have someone, our therapist at do activities, which is run in their wheelhouse to keep kids entertained. So they love doing that. So, and when it's not a storm, we just, you know, get to our places, you know, on about the highways and byways. And we have company vehicles in which, you know, we can do that in. And also those who, you know, want to drive, we always, you know, reimburse them for that mileage. But so we have a lot of options to, you know, get to and from.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you almost have to, given that location, right? It's not like you're out in a suburb where travel is easy. You have to factor all that in.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. Yeah, it takes, you know, get anywhere around the city, you always say 45 minutes to an hour.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. How do you deal with, I mean, parking is always an issue at every hospital in America. It's an issue in every city. How is your parking system? situation
SPEAKER_00:wow it's funny you should mention that so i just got off a meeting for parking and i'm glad i'm glad you brought that up because those of you in our in our field i do not want you to feel like you're fighting that parking battle alone yeah i mean we have 800 and 850 parking spaces in our garage. We have, and you can just do some simple math, we almost have 2,000 employees. So maybe 1,000, maybe 1,500 of those or so work at the main hospital. So if you just do some simple math, you see you don't have enough parking spaces for all the employees,
SPEAKER_01:right?
SPEAKER_00:So not everybody drives, of course. We encourage other ways to commute. Parking is always an issue. Our patients, especially with us having patients that have different physical needs, sometimes they are transported in these huge vans with the wheelchair and so forth. So you've got to have spaces for them. And then also their families are part of therapy. You're in therapy. You need your family there to encourage you. So guess what? They need parking too. And then the last part of parking, I mentioned that we have folks come from all over the world. Well, their family comes too. So family rents a car, or the family drives in from Wisconsin. And guess what? They need parking as well. So we rent parking spaces from other nearby garages. so we can kind of accommodate all of that. But, you know, if somebody could solve the parking problem, you know, they'll be a bazillionaire. You know, it's just, you know, kind of part of our daily life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is. I mean, it's a horrible existence to constantly be chasing parking. But as you said, you're not alone. I mean, it's everywhere with that. For as much as we try to have people– commute and there's all these alternative, I mean, try to commute via Lyft or whatever it happens to be. It just never seems to work. It's just an issue and probably always will be, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And funny, you should mention, I was just talking about parking. One of the hospitals I worked at, we sat on 60 acres and you would think, oh man, you're sitting on 60 acres. No, we had to do a parking lot expansion on our land. And then it came the battle of who gets the park closer to the hospital. So, you know, still, you know, a parking problem. So, you know, leadership, you know, we parked further away, of course, you know, we leave by example. That was a complaint. Why am I at the park so far away?
SPEAKER_02:It's never good enough. It's always something. I was going to say that. You said you were parking far away. I was going to say, I'm sure that you and your staff weren't up to those closed parking spots.
SPEAKER_00:No, not at
SPEAKER_02:all. It's an interesting point you bring up. I wanted to kind of question you about that or ask you about it, where you work, the Ability Lab and everything you've just described relative to people coming in from all over the world and bringing their families with them and the mission of what you do, is your facilities and support services staff, do they need to be a little bit more forward, outward facing, kind of like also ambassadors? Is that accurate? And if so, how do you work with your staff members who may not be comfortable with tapping into that interpersonal side of their personalities?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, great, great, great question. So, yes, you know, our hospital feels more, and in fact, for those of you who can Google our hospital, see what it looks like, but it doesn't even look like a hospital.
SPEAKER_02:It's very nice. Yeah, very beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:It looks like a, you know, kind of five-star hotel. And that was done intentionally. You know, our president at the time, you know, she was a visionary, Dr. Joanna Smith. She was a visionary and she did not want it to look like a typical hospital. She wanted it to be a place where you wanted to come and and receive care, but not feel like you're in a typical hospital setting. So that being said, the customer service needs to go along with that. right? So when we interview employees, uh, you know, it's great that they have great technical skills and things like that, but we do kind of ask some of those personal questions, you know, Hey, how, how, how do you feel about interacting with the public? How do you feel about, you know, interacting with your teammates? Uh, what do you do, you know, when you're not at work, you know, what kind of fun do you like to have? Um, you know, are you, uh, you know, comfortable talking to people, you know, different kinds of backgrounds. So, um, That's kind of part of the culture from day one. And then we, of course, supplement that with customer service training, as I'm sure all hospitals do, you know, once they're employed. But, yeah, we look for that personality factor, too, as well, because it's so important. I mean, people are coming to our place at, you know, some of their lowest points in their life, most challenging times in their life. And, you know, they need that. They need that type of support as well.
SPEAKER_02:Do you find as you're interviewing, excuse me, as you're interviewing prospective employees, do you find, and I don't know that you're able to quantify it, but the folks who are strong technically, how many of them tell you kind of upfront before you have an opportunity to work with them that they're also comfortable with the interpersonal side? Is it 50-50 or do you find some who are like... I don't like that. Or what's kind of that? What is your experience, Ben, talking to prospective facilities employees when you ask them that question? What's usually the answer you get back?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a great question. Oh, if I had to quantify it, I would say roughly 50-50. 50-50. Yeah, roughly half. will say that they are comfortable with personal interaction and then the other half will say, I kind of want to stay in the boiler room and don't bother me. Yeah, it's about half, but I will say to their credit, even thinking about a couple of my staff members now that are not really personal, they know how to turn it on when they need to. I commend them for that. I've seen them in action. They turn it on when they have to. And that's huge. And we appreciate them for that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. That's funny. I was just thinking when you were saying that, it reminds me of when my kids were young. I would always say, listen, they can do whatever, you know, at home. If I have to discipline them, I have to discipline them. But I just want them to be able, when they go to their grandparents' house or when they go to a friend's house, that they're respectful, that they can turn it on. I don't know why that popped into my mind. Maybe it's because of what we were talking about earlier. But, you know, that's right. As long as you have that capability to turn it on and turn it off, then that's what you look for. Have you had people, Lamar, who've either said, ah, I'm not going to join or left because of that? you know, the duality of expertise that you need in this role? Are there folks who walk away?
SPEAKER_00:No. No, they haven't. Not yet. Unfortunately, some people in my career have exited the organization because they just couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, but, you know, in the interview, you know, people always try, you know, to say, yeah, yeah, I think I can do that. And... You know, so it comes out later, you know, through it. Right, right, yes,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. Now you, you know, through your career, variety of experiences, you know, working with Ashi, you're gregarious, you're personable. easy to talk to. Is that, and I'm thinking about those people who can't turn on, were you always that way? Did you have to work on it or did it come naturally to you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it came natural. Yeah. It came natural. You know, I was that baby that, you know, when family came over, I just kind of got in the middle of the room and kind of. Yeah, I think it came natural. However, you know, in a professional setting, right? It's a little different, right? It is, yeah. So, you know, as I matured in my career, you know, I learned how to kind of just fine tune that. And I think what's important to me is to establish a rapport with people, all kinds of people, right? You know, from the president, you know, all the way to the, you know, to the greeter at the door, right? Establish that rapport with them and let them know that they as employees are also my
SPEAKER_01:customer.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate them. I think that's important. People respond a lot better when you're engaging.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah. How do you go about stuff? Somebody said, geez, I want to be able to establish rapport. How would you tell folks to go about trying to establish a rapport with, you know, from the president to the, to the greeter at the door? How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Realize that you, you're going to have something in common with that person. Right. It's going to be something. Right. And you all, I always try to find that. Right. So, you know, uh, you know, as we were talking, you know, before, before this, uh, meeting, you know, we just generally talking about, you know, whether, you know, told you I was going on a trip and so forth. So, you know, you just kind of start there. Right. Right. And, you know, sometimes it's tougher with some people. Right. You don't want to give up
SPEAKER_01:anything.
SPEAKER_00:No, I know. You know, I would try to find that common thing. You know, sports is always easy. Right. It
SPEAKER_01:is.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, did you see the game yesterday? Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or, you know, hey, that's a really cool looking, you know, shirt you're wearing. It's something, you know, just try to find something. That's usually how I try
SPEAKER_02:to do it. That is, that's so true. And once you find that commonality, it's kind of like peeling that onion, right? I mean, you just kind of go further and further. Yeah. Is there, you talked about the person that you can't crack. How do you, like, if you're dealing with... If you're dealing with an employee, or dealing with whomever it happens to be, who you find a little bit difficult, or not difficult, because it doesn't mean you're difficult if you're not able to open up, but how do you keep at it with folks like that? Do you just keep trying to find that commonality and eventually wear them down, or what do you do in those instances?
SPEAKER_00:Try to wear them down. Like the tide. Yeah, try to wear them down. And again, maybe it's not in that encounter, right? So maybe it's the next encounter. Maybe it's the next one. Or maybe it's the next one, right? But I'm not going to let them get away, right? I'm still going to do that. So I can think of an employee on our team now that's like that. And he recently had a baby. So I found out he had a baby and went and got him a gift card and gave that to him. Saw him in the hallway and gave that to him. And the look on his face was just, you know, was worth it because, you know, he was probably saying in his mind, man, I barely say three words to him. Yeah. So, you know, I purposely, you know, wanted to do that. And again, just to show him, hey, you know, congratulations, you're part of our team. I know it's rough for you to interact, but I wanted to break that, you know, I wanted to break that ice. So now I get a little bit of a crack of a smile. But yeah, he was shocked.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I mean, you know that these days people, you know, those little things really do matter. You know, sometimes people are looking for the, you know, the grand slam where the singles and doubles work better than that.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I've always, I'm always interested in, you know, folks who are in these big city hospitals, Chicago, as we said, third largest city in America, you have a great location. You talked about some parking challenges that you obviously have. Are there other unique challenges that you face currently? due to your location in a large American city with lots of people?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the great resignation right now is, you know, even before this, it was hard to find good talent because you're in a big city, it's so competitive. In our complex, in our medical campus, there are two or three other world-renowned hospitals right across the street. So, I mean, literally right across the street from us. And, you know, you go, you know, five miles to the south, there's another one. So it's a very competitive market. And then with wages going up and so forth, you know, you got to keep up with your competitors' wages. And, you know, it's just a mad fight for talent. So we've gotten creative and created an apprenticeship program. where we take anybody that wants to get into the facilities field. We have something called a maintenance tech and a painter apprentice. Then we also have one for clinical engineering or some people refer to as biomed. So we do six months of you work with us one day a week. some classroom training, some, some hands on. And after six months you graduate from our apprenticeship program. And if we have a job for you, you know, job opening, you get first crack at it. So far we've hired two out of our apprenticeship program. So again, it's an example of something we did to get creative, but yeah, you know, we need to do more because, yeah, it's tough to fill positions right now.
SPEAKER_02:When did you begin that program, Lamar?
SPEAKER_00:Two years ago. Yeah, two years
SPEAKER_02:ago. Wow. I mean, that's, you know, given the time period that you're operating under, you know, with COVID and with everything going on, that's, you know, that's good. So, you know, as you're describing the program, and I think you said they come in But how do you find, and I'm sure you have people helping you, but relative to time and everything else you have going on running the building and your multiple departments and support services and FM, how do you find the time to do that as well?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it's tough.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'd imagine it is, right? Because it's got to be intensive in a way, right?
SPEAKER_00:It is. And I definitely cannot take all the credit. My leadership team is on board with this. They're equally as passionate. They're doing probably most of the heavy lifting. We make the time because we know it's important.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it is tough. If I had a magic wand right now, I would... pass it off to someone else to hit up and do some other things. And in fact, I, you know, I'm going to talk to Ashley about it because I know there's a, it's not just us. There's other hospitals that are doing something similar to this cross country, but, you know, getting some help from Ashley, maybe some support to see if we could, you know, use some type of regional and national strategy to kind of help up with this. But yeah, Yeah, it's tough to find the time for it, but it's worth it, and you have to. You have to make this time investment. You don't have any choice.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I mean, what's the alternative? The alternative is nobody, right? It's kind of that dire at this point. That's an interesting program. Do you find that the mission of Shirley Ryan– Does that help to sell that, or does it come down to dollars and cents these days?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, these days it's dollar and cents.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There probably are, and I don't want to sound negative, there probably are some folks that come to our organization just for admission, right? But, you know, dollars and cents is definitely part of it, too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, that's the reality, and you've got some competition around you, so that doesn't make it any easier, I guess.
UNKNOWN:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, your career path, just transitioning a little bit away from, you know, where you are now, but you have an interesting career path. You know, you transitioned from years of acute care to the Community Health Network and then to Shirley Ryan, now coming up, what, five and a half years now, six years. From your career perspective, you know, what was your thought process as you left the acute care hospital environment that had marked your career to that point and transitioned to the community network, and then to Shirley Ryan. How did you plan that or how did you determine it? What was your thought process, I guess, as you made these moves?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love healthcare. It's all I've done all my career. I wanted to be a healthcare expert. I wanted to say that I've worked at almost every type of healthcare facility there is. And I really wasn't thinking because I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Excuse
SPEAKER_00:me, I'm very passionate about it. So when the opportunity came up at Access Community Health Network, which, again, is a network of primary care, you know, docking the boxes, right? Go see your primary care doctor. I said, yeah, I want to do that because I knew their mission. You know, I knew they provided care to a lot of folks that needed it. They have facilities that... Needed a lot of upkeep and remodeling. And I even built a couple of new facilities there. And, you know, it was their mission that attracted me, too. And it was health care. And they were Joint Commission accredited. So, you know, that was another set of Joint Commission standards that I was exposed to. that I didn't know about. So then when the opportunity became available at Shirley and Ryan, again, same thing. I said, okay, this is long-term care. This is rehabilitation, different part of healthcare, but still healthcare. So that's what attracted me to it because I always knew I wanted to stay in healthcare no matter
SPEAKER_02:what. Do you find... One of the things, and you've stayed in healthcare, you haven't transitioned out. Occasionally, with the recruiting part of what we do, we'll talk to folks, they transitioned out of healthcare and say they went to higher education, college or private school. And the pace, and we tell people all the time, the pace is going to be very different and the urgency is going to be very different when you go from healthcare to education. Now, you didn't do that. You stayed in healthcare. But did you feel a different... pace and different challenges moving out of the acute care environment?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it slowed down a little bit. Not a lot, though, I will tell you. Not a lot. Not a lot. So, and a lot of my friends asked me that. They said, oh, boy, I bet you, you know, things are a lot slower now. I said, not really, because it's still health care. It's, at least as surely right now, we're still a 24-7 operation.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:We
SPEAKER_00:still provide, you know, very critical care for patients, right? So, you know, so all of that's still there. Our mechanical systems and things like that, life safety systems, you know, still the same as they are in acute care, right? It's still the same system. So, and then things go wrong, just like they do in acute care, right? You know, things happen, so... Um, so without having the, the ED and the surgery, um, and ICUs, you know, yeah, a little bit slower. Um, and some days I do miss that, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I do kind of miss that hustle and bustle, but, um, Yeah. I would, I would not say, you know, you're not, your golf game is not going to get any better. Right. It's not like much more time on my hands.
SPEAKER_02:And you know what, if your golf game is going to get better to that extent too, you probably have to move out of Chicago, right?
SPEAKER_00:Pretty much. Go South. Not enough weather for it. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. You know, you, we talked a little bit about, and I, I do want to transition over to kind of mentorship and, and issues like that, but, um, Talking about everything that's done at Shirley Ryan and the innovation and the care, is it fun for you in dealing with kind of the researchers and those people who are, you know, people in healthcare are usually at the top of their game anyways, but how is it dealing with and solving for the needs of those researchers and those clinicians who are able to make such great leaps in the care they provide? Have you found that to be a challenge or what is that like?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I'm glad you asked that. That's probably been one of the most rewarding things I've experienced since coming to Shirley Wright. Having those researchers there and the translational care, and I'm really oversimplifying what the researchers do, but any justice, but they, in real time, are looking at the patient, analyzing what's going on, and then they're making modifications like right there on the fly with the care team, right? The things they can do. And the things that they're doing in bionic medicine, you know, are phenomenal. Things that they're doing on the neural side are just phenomenal and mind blowing. These researchers are incredibly intelligent, credentialed you know, beyond belief, double PhDs in engineering. And I mean, just, you know, just phenomenal people. Super smart, you know, to talk to and super passionate about what they do. And then now they tell me that they need to make sure that the CO gas that I'm delivering to the research project never fails or they'll lose 20 years of research.
SPEAKER_01:Oof.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, some of those in healthcare, you know, you know, pressure. So, you know, having that kind of pressure, you know, it's kind of tense. You know, we deal with it because you know how important in their research that they're doing is. And, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, nothing that the facilities team did, you know, hurt that, but only helped that. So, but yes, the researchers add a whole nother level of very important customers. And then of course, you know, our nursing and therapy teams are outstanding, right? You don't get to be the number one hospital without, you know, having an awesome clinical team. So, yeah. Pretty typical to acute care, you know, same kind of issues that come up, you know, so that's pretty, pretty much the same. But yeah, that research group was a surprise to me, pleasant surprise.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. I always, you know, I'm not probably like you, I'm not the smartest guy around. And when you hear, but you're worldly, you know, you can figure things out, you can relate to people. When I hear, you know, when you're talking to people who are just so smart, I always kind of shake my head. I was like, that's so far beyond. It's a good thing we have a mix of everything, right? Because every, you know, a guy like you can help facilitate that brilliance and put it into action because brilliance without, you know, people who can translate that, it doesn't help, you know, it doesn't work for us all.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:You've had a, you know, as you said, you made those conscious choices to stay in healthcare and then experience different areas of healthcare. What would young Lamar say to this Lamar in 2022 about that journey?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So like if young Lamar would listen. Would he really? If he would listen, you know, I would have told him, and he probably did most of these things, but I would tell him to keep an open mind always. Find good mentors. Give as much education as you possibly can. And when I mean education, not just scholarly education, but worldly education. And make sure I'm having fun. I would say that's what I would tell you, Uncle Mark.
SPEAKER_02:Having fun. What does that mean, having fun?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so, you know, I know that this is what most people want to do, and that is don't go to work, feel like you're going to work. Go to work and feel passionate and enjoy what you're doing. I understand work pays us, pays the bills, feeds our families. I get that. But never have I went to work and said, oh, God, I'm going to work. I hate this job. You know, I've never done that in my career.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:I wish that for everybody. Right. I do. Whatever that is, whatever you do. Right. You know, it doesn't have to be anything super complicated or whatever. But if you enjoy that work, then I'm happy for you. So make sure you're at a place where you can still have fun at work, where you feel like you are contributing to a bigger good. Right. And it's also fulfilling you inside. And I know that's a tough one. Yeah. You know, that's that's. one I would hope for everybody and one that I try to look for.
SPEAKER_02:That's a great hope, you know, and it's funny. So as I was listening to you talking about having fun, but then what that means for you, I was just thinking back to some of my experiences and I was thinking of you, how lucky that is because I've had some roles where, and I'm sure you've heard, you might've had it in school. I had it in school and sometimes in my job where you have that pit in your stomach You know, when you wake up on Monday morning or that pit in your stomach as you, you know, you watch the last football game on Sunday night and 60 minutes comes on and that means, oh, you either got to get studying for your next day of school or you got to go to work.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's called Sunday depression.
SPEAKER_02:And I just, it's just that pit in your gut. And that's what you're describing. That's very fortunate. That's great to hear. I wonder how many people, I wonder how many people could say that they've always had a role like that. I'll bet you not many, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. And again, you know, do I still get that pit on Sunday morning? Oh, absolutely. Because, you know, I'm dealing with parking or I'm dealing with, you know, for the listeners, I don't, you know, be disillusioned, you know. However, when I come home, I say, okay, I've done something today.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Got something accomplished today. Something, you know, something that we were able to fix, we were able to do some way, you know, a patient had a better experience, you know, just because that light bulb would change, you know, was working, you know, whatever it was. You know, I try to, you know, as I'm coming home, you know, try to focus on that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, absolutely. Do you, do you, do you have a union staff? Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Is
SPEAKER_02:that difficult to manage them? Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. It is. People ask me, they say, how in the world do you do that? I mean, how does that work? And it's engaging, right? So, again, my thing is to engage people and say, hey, I think we all want the same thing, right?
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:So, um, and I'm not going to ostracize and I'm not going to demonize union employees. And I mean, that's just not right either. Right. So they're human beings. They made a choice to belong to the union for whatever reasons they are. So, okay. So this is where we are. So here's what we need to do. We still need to provide care for these patients. Right. So, right. So, um, I would say, um, It's a model that, you know, is probably not common.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And Lamar, that's union staff within your facilities department. Some are union, some are not. Wow. I was thinking, you know, when you first said that, I was thinking maybe your support services, maybe your housekeeping staff is non-union and your facilities guys are union. But that's a split within the department. That's wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And yeah, it's, again, not all me. My leadership team helps make that happen. My chief engineer makes that happen. Again, we treat everybody equally with respect. We have the same accountabilities for everybody. Everybody has the same uniform. You know, everybody's part
SPEAKER_01:of one
SPEAKER_00:meeting. So, you know, it's really, if you came to our place, you wouldn't really know. You know what I mean? Really, you know, where's that, you know, on their shoulder, like, you know, I'm a union person, you know, it's just, that just doesn't.
SPEAKER_02:That's great. That's gotta be a challenge though. You work hard at
SPEAKER_00:it. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02:It doesn't just happen. And one last question about that. And then I do want to flip over a little bit, um, within your staff, does, does your staff differentiate or are they all one team, you know, amongst themselves?
SPEAKER_00:One team,
SPEAKER_02:one team.
SPEAKER_00:One team, you know, when we get little rumblings about that, I mean, we shut that down so quick. One team.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Now, I'll even complicate this even more. We have half contract services through a third party. Then we have half in-house Shirley Ryan employees. So, yeah, there you go. How
SPEAKER_02:much of your, again, it's always hard to quantify because you're always going, but relative to like personnel management, does it, you know, I'm just thinking throwing your education on top of split staffs and outsourced relative to the people component of it. How much of your time is, is people focused as opposed to kind of the technical stuff?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:99% people. Yeah. And honestly, there's some younger folks in my office that watch me and see people getting out of my office. And one of the gentlemen told me the other day, he said, I can't do your job. Yeah. He said, because you don't get a chance to do any of the technical stuff. You are dealing with personnel issues all day, every day. I say, yeah, but if I don't, then we can't do the technical stuff. It's all fine. Right? So I try to explain to them. But, yeah, even myself, I'm dealing with a couple of technical issues now, and I get excited. You know, I'm like, all right, because that's, you know, really, that's what the facility is for, right? Yeah. Let's be honest. That's what we do. You know, we like figuring out stuff and fixing stuff. That's right. Right.
SPEAKER_02:As you were talking, that's what I was thinking to myself. You probably love when you're able to go out to like an air handler or a boiler. I
SPEAKER_00:love it. I love it. I love it. I said, we're dealing with a couple of cool, cool things, technically some challenges, but I'm loving it. I wish I could do more of it, but you got to do the people part. Yeah. In
SPEAKER_02:one of the questions I'd wanted to ask you, I don't even know if I, had written it down, but I was, how have you seen, you know, over the course of your career, what changes have you seen and is the move away from kind of the technical competencies to the people competencies? One of the, one of the biggest ones. So how has the discipline changed in your eyes over the years through your experiences?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. When I first got into this field, I wanted to be the ultimate technician, right?
SPEAKER_01:right,
SPEAKER_00:ultimate technical expert that quickly morphed into now I have to be the ultimate people person. Yes. You know, counselor. And I will tell you, you know, I've interviewed, you know, a few places over the last few years. And, yeah, it's more on the soft skills now. And I think you guys have done classes and things on that, and I think it's been spot on. you have to have the soft skills now. And I dare say this, and there may be some people that disagree with me, but I'm almost leaning towards the soft skills need to be more intact now than the technical skills.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There might be people that disagree, but I'm just seeing that, though.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's one of the questions I do like to ask, what people think that balance is on soft. And lately, I think maybe if 10 years ago, five years ago, you might hear 50, 50. Now I think, as you just said, it's creeping up. I'll get some guy, you know, some guys and females will say 55, you know, 55, 45 on the soft. Even someone will say 60, 40 soft over technical.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. So as other people did agree.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Yeah. Not, not, but it's hard to, cause we'll still, you know, we'll still have some recruitments where, um, We'll go to our clients, and that's what I kind of like about it is the ability to interact. And they'll say, no, we need somebody who's technical. I need a director who knows how to fix the boilers. And we'll have that conversation about that, as you just said, because most of it, you're dealing with people. You have to know the technical, obviously, right? I mean, that needs to be foundational. But relative to what you're putting into play on a daily basis, you're dealing with your consultants or your staff or whomever it happens to be. And you have to be able to work within that because if you can't communicate, you can't do much.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then you have to, and I mean, we've been talking about this for years. You have to be able to talk to the C-suite. Yes. You have to be able to communicate, you know, and if you're a super technical person and don't really like to talk to people and so forth, that's just not going to work. I mean, you know, my job is constantly selling. selling our services and what we do to the C-suite. It's constant sale every day. You need to be comfortable with that.
SPEAKER_02:You just brought up selling to the C-suite. I could go down and start to ask you questions about selling to the C-suite, but I'm not going to. That could be a podcast and a class. All by itself, right? I mean, because that's a skill set that is needed. And again, not everybody's comfortable having. So I do. I'm going to write that down and maybe we can follow up and talk about that. But I also want to get to another topic. So I am speaking with Lamar Davis and Lamar is the... Director of Facilities Engineering and Support Services at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. As those of you who may have listened to one of our earlier podcasts, I had on Brittany Remick. She was on the podcast in January. And Brittany reported to Lamar when she was at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. And she talked frequently and very complimentary about your mentorship. And I congratulate you on that because, as you know, That's not a legacy that everybody can claim, right? Mentorship. And as Brittany was saying, I want to talk to Lamar about that. And the first question, Lamar, relative to mentorship, not everybody can do it because not everybody is comfortable sharing what they know, really comfortable in their own skin, right? And they're not comfortable putting themselves out there to mentor. Did mentorship come naturally to you? Was it a process as you went along in your career? You had those good mentors and said, I want to do that. What was that mentoring evolution like for you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I have to tell my story, just a short version. Right. So when I started out in this field, I was in safety. I was the safety officer for a medical hospital. Were you in
SPEAKER_02:Chicago? The Chicagoland area?
SPEAKER_00:Suburbs? Yep, Chicagoland area. So, you know, young, fresh out of college, you know, very green. You know, so I'm looking at safety data sheets, you know, I'm doing fire drills, you know, stuff that a typical safety officer does. And it caused me to interact with the guys in facilities a lot. And at that time, we were called plant operations, right? And, you know, I just thought that those were the coolest guys in the world. They had the tools, you know, they were, you know, just like really cool. Just all this stuff. And I started hanging around them. I mean, literally, I'm just like, you know, they would go and fix stuff and do stuff. And I would go with them and they go to the boiler and I'll go with them when they're changing out pumps. And, you know, they say, you're a safety guy. You don't even need to be there.
UNKNOWN:I'm just...
SPEAKER_00:I said, I think I want to do this. I said, I think I want to do this. And they said, what? Be an operating engineer? I said, no, maybe not. I'm not that good with my hands, but I want to just be in facilities. I want to be in plant operations. So they sat me down in front of the director at the time and very seasoned, very seasoned director and said, okay. Um, I'm going to give you some assignments. I'm going to have you, um, work with our staff. Now, true story. I was, uh, you know, working nine to five or eight to four 30, whatever. He said for six months, I want you to come in and work with our even engineer, uh, from 11 to 7 PM. Wow. True story for six months. I did that. Wow. Best education I could ever get. I wouldn't recommend it for anybody else. But I was young at the time, you know, I was not married. So, you know, I had time to do it. That was the best six months of my life. So that's how I got into my position through mentoring. You know, I felt like if those individuals did not see something in me and did not, you know, give me the time, right? I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here on this podcast. You know, who knows what I'll be doing
SPEAKER_01:right
SPEAKER_00:now. So I am ever, ever so thankful for them. So I feel like I have to pay it forward. So I had to give it back. So that's kind of my answer to your question.
SPEAKER_02:That's great. That's a great story. And, you know, that's why I enjoy, I've said this a couple of times, you know, relative to this podcast, just talking to people. Everybody has an interesting story. They've got a unique path. And I think everybody can learn from everybody else relative to– somebody will take something from what you just said, right? And that's a fantastic story. And when did you– you said you were younger. You weren't married. That obviously makes it easier. But you were pretty much working from, what, 8 to 11, right? or what did you,
SPEAKER_00:how'd you sleep? I got sleep. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So yeah, I went, I, you know, worked, you know, eight, eight to four 30 or whatever. I go home, eat, you know, take a nap and yeah, I'm back up 11, 1130, you know, later than 12 and about four or five, I'm heading back home, shower, right. take a couple of winks and get back up. Take a couple of winks. You know, a couple of nights a week, you know, I didn't do it every day. I couldn't, you know, I definitely couldn't do it every night. Sure. But, you know, I picked towards the end of the week, you know, Thursdays, you know, not Friday because I still need to party a little bit, right? Absolutely. Right. So, yeah, but it was, it was awesome. It was an awesome experience. Very awesome experience.
SPEAKER_02:So, That is a great evolution into mentorship. And I think foundationally, people who mentor, they really need to be secure in themselves. So do you find that to be true that good mentors usually aren't threatened? And I don't mean threatened in a negative way. They're not threatened by others professionally. Is that true? And if so, what advice would you give to somebody who might want to be a mentor who But they just can't get that out of their way, that feeling of, shoot, if I tell them what I know, I'm going to be replaced. Because you know those folks are out there, right? How do you tell people? How can you overcome that? Or how can you help people overcome that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a tough one, Peter. But it's real for a lot of people. So what you're saying is very real. I've heard that. I can understand from my personal experience. And that, you know, I'm one of those type of people, I never take myself too seriously, right? To be obvious, right? So, you know, I don't mind sharing what I don't know. I don't mind, you know, showing vulnerabilities. And if that can help you, then even all the better. I know you're, you know, as you tell Brittany, you're going to make your own mistakes, but if I can help you make it from making something of mine, then that's great, right? And if those guys that felt that way about mentoring didn't do that to me, then I wouldn't probably be here. So, again, I know that's maybe not answering the question directly, but I can only, you know, speak for
SPEAKER_01:myself.
SPEAKER_00:It's just, you know, mentoring was valuable to me. I got better, you know, as I was mentoring people, you know, it helped me be better. So. I would just hope that people could see that aspect of
SPEAKER_02:it. Do you find... Have you had staff over the years where you yourself have thought, you know what, this person could make a good manager, could make a good director, but they haven't approached you? They haven't seen it in themselves? Do you identify folks like that and try to bring them out of their... Not their shell, but make them... or allow them to see that potential and work them along the way? Does that happen as well in mentorship?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it does. I have not been successful yet, though.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. To your point, I've realized a couple people in my career I can think of that I wanted to bring them to the management side, and they just said, no, it's too hard. Wow. They said, we see what you go through. We see what, you know. other leaders in the hospital go through, I want to go home at four o'clock.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:I want to go home. I want to kick my feet up. I want to watch TV and enjoy my family and not have that at the time, you know, we had pagers, you know, or have that phone go off. You know, when I'm at home, I want to be at home. And how can you argue with that? You can't argue with somebody. You know, you can't argue that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Try to tell them the other sides, but it's tough because it's got to kind of be in you, right?
SPEAKER_02:It does. Yeah. Well, and that's a really good point. That's instructive if the person, relative to moving through their career, knowing what they want, what they don't want. We talk to people about that quite a bit too, relative to... going to organizations or what kind of roles do you want? Because you can work within an environment. You can't necessarily change it. So you really have to know your strengths, your weaknesses, what you want and what you don't want because otherwise you're fooling yourself, right? And you'll find yourself moving on if you're just not ready for that.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I didn't expect that answer from you when you said I haven't been successful. That's great self-awareness on their part. And, you know, as you said, you can't change. You know, you can't change that. Right. Are there mistakes, you know, and this kind of goes along with that. Are there mistakes that mentors can make or is all mentorship good mentorship?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think mistakes you can make as a mentor. But. all mentorship is good mentorship too. So I think a little bit of both. You know, there's probably books on mentorship. I probably should read them.
SPEAKER_02:You sound like you're doing well.
SPEAKER_00:There's probably books on it. You probably should read them because there is a right way to do it. And, you know, who's to say, you know, the way I do it is even worse. But I would say as a mentor, sometimes you get so invested in that other person's success. And then if they're not progressing the way you think they should, it gets very disappointing for you and you take it personal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I say it's one of the mistakes you can make. You know, you got to realize that, you know, I did the crazy thing by working across the midnight shift, but some other people were like, man, you're crazy. I'm not doing it. So I had to accept that. Right. Except that, you know, maybe they want to do it a little different way. Right. So that's the first thing that comes to mind. You know, you just got to meet people where they are with mentorship. And, you know, it's good to be engaged in their success, but just understand that, you know, different people are going to have different paths and you need to kind of help them along their path their way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, you mentioned some of the books and maybe you should read them, but I always think whatever that line of work is, you're certainly this way. I just think that authenticity has to be at the core of it, right? I mean, you can read books, but if you're just not genuinely authentic, no book is going to help you, right? No book is going to– if you're not authentic, this is going to make Brittany Remick said, hey, this was a great mentorship opportunity for me. So I think we can read a lot, but as you– and it's almost underscored through everything you've said– That person who's utilizing the reading, they have to be authentic because it won't work, I don't think.
SPEAKER_00:No, absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:We kind of have a hard break coming up, but I do want to ask Lamar. A final question, and again, I appreciate Lamar Davis joining me today on the High Reliability Podcast. Lamar is the Director of Facilities Engineering and Support Services at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago. Lamar, we've talked a lot about your experiences and how you got into healthcare and some mentorship, but for you, in your career, what's been most fulfilling for you and i guess i would ask that question relative to mentorship or your career path that's taken you into so many different areas of health care as you reflect on your career and you're certainly not retiring and you're still working and you're still involved but what's been most the most fulfilling experience for you i
SPEAKER_00:would say a few things um uh brittany would be a perfect example uh you know seeing how she's flourished and uh throughout her career um and then i have a couple other uh folks out there that i've mentored and they're all doing so well so just seeing them be successful right now i would say it's number one uh number two uh giving actually a commercial here just being a member uh, so many years and being recognized, uh, as an emerging leader in 2010 and some other, uh, accolades, uh, gotten through Ashy and, and being a part of committees and things like that. So, you know, I got to give that commercial out for Ashy right now, for those of you listening. You know, if you're not a member, you need to be a member. It is probably one of the best choices I made. And, uh, I look back on my career so far that it's, that's up there with, uh, being so successful. And the last thing is, people might think this is strange, but my performance reviews just over the past few years, just some of the things that my bosses have said about me. have been really nice. I've saved some emails, you know, just being recognized, you know, and to say, hey, you know, you're doing a great job. You know, thanks for getting through, getting us through this and that. And I mean, I saved those emails. I saved those notes. You know, they're important to me. So those are probably kind of the top three things I can think of as I look back on my career. I'm really proud of.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. Well, I appreciate the conversation today. Maybe we didn't get to selling to the C-suite. Maybe down the road we can reconvene again, but I know that you have things going on, so I don't want to keep you too much longer. Lamar Davis, thank you so much for joining me today on the High Reliability Podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Peter, for having me. I appreciate
SPEAKER_02:it. Thank you. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. I thank all of you for listening to the High Reliability Podcast. This is Peter Martin from Gosselin Martin Associates. We will join you again. Thanks for listening.