Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Toby Martini

In this episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm speaks with Toby Martini, Senior Instructor at The Leaders Institute.

Toby shares how he combined decades of improv performance with personal development to create facilitation and “improv for business” programs that help teams break down silos, improve communication, and prevent conflicts by understanding differing work styles. He explains the Leaders Institute’s balance of fun and practical learning to combat burnout and strengthen culture, argues that healthy competition can drive cooperation and performance, and says that despite AI and remote work shifts, soft skills and human connection will remain essential to effective teamwork.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website.

The views and opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of Quality Insights. Publication number QI-032026-GK

Transcript

 Welcome to "Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights," the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care. 

In each episode, Quality Insights’ Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys. 

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm. I am Dr. Jean Storm, the medical director here at Quality Insights, and today's guest is Toby Martini, a trained facilitator and team building expert who has spent his career helping organizations transform how people work.

Together. I have seen this firsthand and it is remarkable through engaging high energy experiences that blend strategy, collaboration, and humor. Toby helps teams break down silos, improve communication, and rediscover what it means to function as a true. Team. He is also closely connected with the work of the Leaders Institute, where leadership, development and intentional team building are used as powerful tools to combat burnout, strengthen culture, and improve performance, especially in high pressure environments like healthcare.

So we are going to be exploring how Toby found his way into this work. Why team building is much more than just boosting morale and how humor can unlock connection and where he sees the future of teamwork heading. Toby Martini, thank you so much for joining me today. Alright, well thank you for those kind words.

Nice to be here. I'm excited to jump in. So what first pulled you into the world of facilitation and team building and was there a defining moment when you realized that this work was where you were meant to be? Maybe there was a defining moment. I'm not a hundred percent sure. Let me tell you. I have always been sort of a personal development, human growth.

You know, I just am always interested in, I read a lot of books. I go to the seminars. I just want to know why people do what they do and then how can you change it? And then in another part of my life, I've done improv on stage for 26 years. I'm very good at just making stuff up on the fly.

 Let's just handle it. Whenever anything happens, it's okay. It's gonna work out fine. Let's just keep going. And I took. Improv and I was teaching it improv for improvisers for years to be good on stage. Then I was like, this is just good for people in their life. And I turned it into improv for people, improv for everybody, using all the personal development stuff that I'd learned over the years, and I guess that was the moment.

At some point I went, I'm gonna put these two unlikely things together and four. 16, 18 years now, I've done improv for business. It's how to make teams work together better, how to make people communicate easier, how to think sideways, how to think a little outta the box, how to deal with people who aren't like you.

All of those things come from improv because improv is magic. Yeah. And I, I love that you bringing magic from one industry into another industry and, and making it work there. And, and it does. Clearly I have seen many leaders see team building. Like they, they say it's nice to have, I've done some team building in some healthcare settings, but why, why do you believe it's an actually a strategic investment with real ROI for organizations?

So I think team building gets a bad rep for what you just said. And then also sometimes for participants  who think, oh, it's gonna be cheesy uh, I don't wanna jump around. It seems kind of foolish, but both things are incorrect When you have a good team building session, when you have a good team building instructor or company working with you, because team building is about getting people to.

Know each other a little better so they can see each other's strengths and weaknesses. They know how can I help somebody shore up something. You learn how people work and how they communicate, and then it makes it easier for you and better to make progress on a project. For example, often people. They want the same thing.

They're even doing the same kind of work, but they feel like they're at odds and they're not really at odds. They're just communicating about different aspects of the thing, right? And then you can learn, oh, I see what they mean. We are, we are moving in the same direction. She just thinks this needs to go first.

And I just think    she thinks of the tasks first, and I think of the people first, maybe. And so team building can be about communication. It can be about getting along. It's about the best conflict management in the world is preventing conflicts in the first place. So those are some of the reasons.

It's, it's not a nice to have. You want your people to, I say like each other. It sounds a little light, it sounds a little fluffy for people, but if. If you are working with somebody and they're having a hard time and you've liked them, you've done things together, you get along, you're more likely to help them.

Right? Yeah, absolutely. It's pretty simple.  Yes. Very simple. And I loved what you said. The best conflict resolution is to prevent conflicts from happening. It would be That's, that would be fantastic. Yeah. Also simple. Some things happen just because of communication problems. Yeah. Not because of severe disagreements in.

Structure or direction. Usually it's just you don't hear each other what the other person really needs to move forward. Yeah. So can you tell us how the Leaders Institute came to be and what makes it Amids approach to leadership and team development really stand out and be unique? The, uh, the Leaders Institute was started by, Doug Sand.

He's our president, our CEO. He runs this company and he started it by himself. He was a speaker and a trainer And about 22 years ago, he started this company and he is similar to me in that, we both have a business sense. We've worked in corporate America, but we're also  fun, kind of nerdly, divergent just a slightly different, and one thing he learned and I learned early was people learn better when it's fun, when it's light, when it's easy.

If I came in and go, here's 10 things you have to learn. You go, Ugh, I gotta learn 10 things. But then if you instead. Had a game or some great story or something, and then at the end you tell them they learn something, they look back and go, oh, I learned that. That was awesome. Now it sticks better, right?

There's all kinds of studies that will tell you, having some humor, having some fun, makes it stick better. And that is the biggest difference I think, from Leaders Institute as opposed to most other companies who are doing team building because they're either.  well, team building or leadership training.

They're either too dry and very cut and dried very, Here's the 10 things you need to know, or may, it could be the opposite, where they're too light. It's just fun. For the sake of fun, there's a value of that, but most leadership doesn't want to pay just to entertain their people.  Yeah. Yeah.

You have a really good balance. Yeah. We walk the line. Is it somewhere in between where it can be? Very educational and still it's really fun. You lose the time. Yes, agree. Yes. You, as I said in the intro, you work with a wide range of industries, but you know, I wanna talk a little bit about healthcare. Why do you think burnout is especially intense in healthcare right now?

And what do you see missing in how organizations address it? I can't claim to be an expert on healthcare because I, like you said, I'm, I'm in a lot of different types of industries, or I go to a lot of different companies and I'm very much, I pop in for a day, right? Two days you see me, I learn what I can, then I leave, but I don't see what it's like every day.

Boots on the ground.  But I do know by talking to people in healthcare, like most. Businesses, companies downsize, they don't replace people and then the people left have to do three people's jobs. It's, there's just an overwhelm of there's too much work and not enough people doing it. But then I think with healthcare even more, I think healthcare companies are kinda like banks in that they're very good at squeezing the last use out of a dollar.

And so that happens quite a bit too, right?  The budgets get smaller and you're asked to, to do more. And then I think this is just an opinion of mine, but in dealing with people who are sick or in pain and such, like, that is such an amazing extra piece of just mental load, right? Not only are you doing the work for three people, but if you see somebody who you wish you could help them more and you can't.

That hurts, right? Yeah, most definitely. Yeah. I've seen that firsthand. Yeah. Indeed. And I don't know what companies do to address it. 'cause I'm not there and I don't see it. I hear a lot of companies say, we are gonna change this, we're gonna do this and that. But when I talk to people who are there, those things don't change.

 Yeah. Yeah. A lot. Yes. Agree. So we talked a little bit about team building and I think some people are very skeptical of competitive team building activities. I was one. Why is healthy competition such a powerful way to strengthen collaboration rather than undermine it? Yeah. So people think of competition as divisive and it could be.

It could be. I definitely know people who try to play too hard and they don't care about the other people, but it shows up in a lot of the things that we do where it's kind of cooperation, right? It's competition. You're trying to win the thing, but you really can't win without the help of the others, so there is this thing where I want to win this, but I need your help to do it. So I will help you. You'll help me. We'll both do better. There's that, but also just in the world of competition in general, for sports, for anything, having somebody who's roughly your equal forces you to play harder, right?  Muhammad Ali wouldn't have been as good without Joe Frazier to fight three or five times, right?

He was a brick, he was exceptionally hard for him to beat. And so. Something like that. Having a healthy competition makes everybody play a little harder. Not everybody. There's always, you can't say a general everything about everybody, because some people, as soon as it's a competition, they shut down.

 And you have to be aware  that happens. But if you can build an environment of competition, like a, like sales teams do, it's a, this event is a competition, but the goal is we all sell more and the company does better. So it's cooperation and competition combined is what works. Yes, definitely.

And we talked a little bit about humor and you know, the line, I guess being maybe using humor and being a little bit serious, you intentionally use humor in your facilitation. So how does laughter change group dynamics and make teams more open to learning and connecting with each other? I, you know how they have said laughter is the best medicine?

Yeah. It's also the best social lubricant, which I know some people say that's alcohol, but  those things go hand in hand sometimes. But it is getting people in a light mood, getting them not laugh. It's hard to be stressed when you're laughing. And again, like I said earlier, people learn better when it's light, when they're having fun with it.

And so I used to do it entirely too much. Everything I had to bring laughs to. I was not a good guy At a wake, it was bad, right? Mm-hmm. I couldn't not make a joke. So I've learned it doesn't run me right, but I can use laughter in almost any situation to make it a little better, and especially in learning.

It is astounding the difference. Somebody, especially, like I said, if you, if you can train somebody, teach them something and they don't know that they're learning it until the end, and then you look back and you go, oh, I did learn a thing. That's amazing. Now, not only did you get the humor and the fun as you got there, but they have this frizza, this moment of, oh, look what I did right in that, that little.

Spark that awe makes it stick better too, right? So using a little laughter, uh, using a little surprise, most laughter is based on surprise anyway.  It really does make it easier for your brain to absorb the knowledge. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So from your experience, and maybe you can share a few success stories, you know, if, if you'd like, how do well designed team building activities actually improve day-to-day communication once people get back to the office in the workplace?

Yeah, I, I did touch on it just slightly earlier, but it's very much I think it's about communication styles. One of the biggest problems that people have because, and you've done this, everybody has done this. You have somebody you end up working with either on a, on a team for a small time or a long time, and there's just something, I don't know why we don't get along.

I don't know why. Why is it always so hard to work with that person? Now, they're not a bad person. Other people seem to work with them. There's just you two, right? Have a little something and then you find out. They are task-based. They're just so interested in what are the milestones, what are the steps? I need a budget.

I need a schedule. And then they get into business with me and I'm like  I hate schedules, I hate Excel. I just want to have a vision and I want to enroll people into playing along with me, who's gonna be on the team. We both want to make the project work, but they're focused on numbers and, and organization, and I'm focused on vision and people.

So we're both moving in the same direction. We're just looking at different things. Yeah. And once I realize, oh, I see what's important to you, it makes it easier for me to talk to you like that. And I'll give you an example of, say you had a bakery. And then one day you want to bring in  people, you, I'm gonna bring in some people to make my business better.

And you bring in an interior designer and they're like, oh, we gotta paint the walls. We're gonna get big fluffy couches. We're gonna put in some plants, nice pile big thick rug that make people really comfortable and wanna stay here longer and  you know, spend more money. Cool. Then the next day you bring in an accountant and they're like.

You can't afford new couches, don't. You don't need to redo all that. Here's what you need to do. Change the prices, do this, but don't spend money on painting everything. That's crazy. See, they both want the same thing for you, which is to make your business better and make more money. They're just looking at the whole thing differently.

Yeah. I love that. Yes. That makes sense. And I, yeah, I love the bakery analogy, right? Yes. So last question, as we look towards the future, everybody's talking about ai, ai, ai, and as workforces move evolved towards remote work, though, I maybe there there's a shift maybe to re return to work. Recently we're using ai, we're having generational shifts.

Where do you see the future of team building heading and what skills do you think teams will need most? Yeah, well. I fooled you. I am an ai, I am not really a person. You're the, the best ai, you're the, like, the most authentic AI I've I've ever talked to. I do hallucinate a lot though, so that's crazy. no matter the technology, when, whenever any technology's ever came out, they said, oh, this is gonna ruin communications.

This is gonna ruin the world and work when they came out with tv. It's gonna melt people's brains and they come out the internet, it's gonna melt people's brains. Right. Ai, it's not really gonna take over. It's gonna be tools that we use. Things are gonna change for sure, but people are still always going to need to talk to people.

People are always going to have to need to work together. That's always gonna happen. It's not gonna be, I'll have my AI call your AI  It for some things it might be, but you are always going to need some communication skills to get through. So that's I think why team building is always gonna be a thing, and I think the quote unquote soft skills are going to remain astoundingly important, even more than the hard skills of that we used to teach, right?

Here's how you use Excel, here's how you handle your networking cabling and all of that. The machines will handle that. The soft skills. How do I deal with people? How do I get them enrolled in a thing? How do we get people to move in a direction with me is always gonna be there. And so that's the direction.

It's, it's gonna go the same way it always has. I don't think it's gonna change that much. When they, when we had, uh, COVID and such, we moved online, but it didn't go away. We still had to learn to talk to each other. We just had to learn to talk differently through a video camera.  Yeah. So  it's always gonna be a thing.

Unless we grow up to be just individuals in a bubble who never talk to anybody ever, which we would all die a horrible death then.  Yes, I agree. Human connection is always gonna be needed. A hundred percent. Yes. So if individuals wanna learn more about you  or the Leaders Institute, how can they do that?

You can find Leaders institute@leadersinstitute.com. My name is Toby martini@tobymartini.com, TOBY. Martini like the drink and they can reach out to the you if they have some team building needs. Absolutely Perfect. Thank you so very much for being with us today. I really enjoyed the conversation. Indeed.

Thank you.

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you found value in what you heard, please consider subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, you can reach out to us on our website. We would love to hear from you.

So, until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep taking healthcare by storm.