Joe Mello: A Master Operator Speaks on Human Capital and Performance Focus

In this powerful episode of Step Wise, host Dr. Foster Mobley sits down with Joe Mello, a transformational leader and the driving force behind DaVita’s remarkable turnaround. Joe shares insights from his decades-long career in healthcare, his work on influential boards, and his passion for developing leadership talent. From navigating organizational challenges in turbulent environments to fostering authenticity and alignment in teams, Joe’s experience and wisdom are invaluable. Tune in to discover his strategies for problem-solving, enhancing workplace culture, and helping leaders excel amidst today’s challenges.

• addressing today's organizational challenges with alignment on business goals
• the power of feedback 
• the importance of getting talent aligned with their worth through candor and feedback
• the new "80/20 rule"
• the importance of self-care and applying solid accountability to your health goals
• the power of a laser focus on purpose

Learn more about Foster at fostermobleymt.com or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Foster Mobley.

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To purchase Dr. Foster Mobley's book, Leadersh*t: Rethinking the True Path to Great Leading, click here.

Transcript

00:00:06:25 - 00:00:31:27

Foster Mobley

Welcome back to Step Wise one, to learn the secrets of operating a high performance business from one of the best. Today's guest, Joe Mello, is here to share. He was a co-architect of the stunning turnaround of the healthcare company DaVita, who in a very few short years went from three weeks from insolvency to the pinnacle of their industry in operational, clinical and financial metrics.

00:00:31:29 - 00:00:59:24

Foster Mobley

Today, Joe serves on a number of boards and mentors, up and coming leaders. Oh yeah. There's that. He's an exceptional developer of leadership talent, having played a prominent role in DaVita's evergreen program that has graduated many of the most sought-after health care leaders. Today. As you can tell, Joe is a leader I admire greatly. Having worked elbow to elbow with him since the late 80s, and full disclosure, he's one of my closest friends.

00:00:59:27 - 00:01:14:26

Foster Mobley

But that's not why he's here today. He is, hands down, one of the best operators I've ever experienced. An incredible thought partner to me on many complex issues. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Joe now.

00:01:14:29 - 00:01:38:21

Joe Mello

Well, my name is Joe Mello. I've spent the entirety of my career in health care services in a variety of different roles. Everything from early days a provider as an orderly early, and then a paramedic through college and then as an industrial engineer and worked my way into consulting. And then for the last 25 years or so, been in operations of scale health care organizations.

00:01:38:21 - 00:01:41:28

Foster Mobley

And your role in health care organizations today?

00:01:41:29 - 00:01:54:05

Joe Mello

I currently serve on four different health care company boards of varying sizes and scale. Most of them are multi-site and focus on, direct provider care.

00:01:54:06 - 00:02:01:15

Foster Mobley

You know, Joe, I'm curious because you are well sought out by organizations like that. How would you describe your superpower?

00:02:01:16 - 00:02:25:14

Joe Mello

I may have two superpowers. I'm not exactly sure. Two things that I do well. One is I can get to the essence of complex problems, and I have the ability to call them down into things that allow you to measure them, see progress on them, of course. Correct. And fix. And then the second thing is, I really get jazzed and enjoy helping leaders grow as people so they can be better leaders.

00:02:25:19 - 00:02:58:25

Foster Mobley

And I've seen both. And I will attest to the super power level, whatever that means. So let's start with the environment that in which we find ourselves today. You know, many have described this kind of meta environment as particularly chaotic, turbulent, complex, challenging and due to a variety of factors divergent age groups in the workforce dealing with millennials and pre millennials and post millennials and boomers and Xers and Y's all with different needs, all with different vantage points.

00:02:58:27 - 00:03:17:05

Foster Mobley

Social justice issues, you know, kind of divided society, loss of civility, uncertainty in the economy, all of those quiet quitting. When you think about all of that stuff from your context as a leader of leaders, what are the most important or most salient aspects today that really get your.

00:03:17:05 - 00:03:38:25

Joe Mello

Attention in almost 50 years in health care services? I can't remember a time that wasn't turbulent and bad stuff going on, etc. I think, you know, the fourth things that always jump out to me are you've got this macro economic instability and there's a bunch of cost pressure as a result of that, and that stuff creates a lot of stress.

00:03:38:28 - 00:03:58:03

Joe Mello

The second, and the one that everybody talks about these days, thanks to our Covid epidemic, is the remote work stuff. And what do you do about culture? What do you do about team? How do you teach and enhance interpersonal skills? The third one, we talk about a bunch. How do you get talent aligned with their worth, both self and actual?

00:03:58:04 - 00:04:07:12

Joe Mello

People have a high sense of what they're worth, and we as leaders have a sense of what they're actually worth. And I've never seen that gap be greater than it is now.

00:04:07:13 - 00:04:09:11

Foster Mobley

Overestimated self-worth.

00:04:09:11 - 00:04:34:23

Joe Mello

Overestimated self-worth. And you couple that with the remote work and the false empowerment that that's given people, it becomes, hey, I should be able to do what I want during the hours I want. And I'd be paid 1.5 times what everybody else should be paid, because I'm better at it. And so that that creates a whole bunch of different issues for leaders in terms of how they measure monitor to figure out what right looks like, etc..

00:04:34:24 - 00:04:57:19

Joe Mello

The fourth thing I'll bring up is it's sort of an overlay to everything, and I'm trying to get my own hands around it. I don't really understand it very well, but it's the intensity around, and I and I certainly understand it and I am a big believer that it needs to be fixed and improved, but we need to make it part of culture and get it away from being part of a program.

00:04:57:21 - 00:05:06:23

Foster Mobley

So what are the best leaders doing to, you know, in this environment with those, you know, kind of four levels or categories of of challenges?

00:05:06:26 - 00:05:28:03

Joe Mello

The people I think are doing the best right now are focusing on making sure they have great alignment on the business goals that they have, and they're moving away from being reactive. I think people right now are very much in a oh my gosh, this is different. I'm not exactly sure how to handle it. Talley's asking for more money.

00:05:28:03 - 00:05:58:08

Joe Mello

I've made her give her some more money or I'm going to lose her. And that's just a horrible place to to play to play by. The next thing people are doing is what I've been calling the the new 8020, which is the balance between personal and human contact versus sort of the business context. And so and when you have 90% of your meetings virtual or on zoom, you have to engage in what one of my CEOs is described as social foreplay.

00:05:58:10 - 00:06:19:20

Joe Mello

It's you just have to connect with people differently. And I've been thinking about this a whole lot to try to help coach people through it. And in one conversation I was having with our CEO, we were talking about the fact that imagine if you were the coach of a football team, but all your players lived in different cities, and then they came together one time a week to play.

00:06:19:23 - 00:06:23:01

Joe Mello

Yeah, you know, how the hell do you get them on the same page?

00:06:23:01 - 00:06:24:12

Foster Mobley

Go be great.

00:06:24:15 - 00:06:25:01

Joe Mello

Go be great.

00:06:25:02 - 00:06:27:09

Foster Mobley

You have the playbook. Go. Go do it.

00:06:27:11 - 00:07:02:00

Joe Mello

Yeah. And here's how you run this route. And you know, it's interesting. So the idea became it's become a very interesting metaphor for what it's like to run a company these days. And then the other subtext around that one in particular is, if you're in a company that's growing and you're hiring people particularly straight out of college, maybe sometimes in their first professional role, how the heck do you get them to be part of a team if they're never in an office with other people, or once a week they're in an office or whatever it is?

00:07:02:03 - 00:07:24:10

Joe Mello

I think that's a huge challenge right now. And the CEOs who are starting to solve that are doing it more with this change of balance, this new 8020, this making sure that they're spending most of their time literally on the personal interaction. How's it going with you? What's your family up to? What have you been doing on the weekends?

00:07:24:12 - 00:07:44:15

Joe Mello

Are you taking care of yourself? Are you exercising the way you want to exercise? Are you getting interaction with people that you need to have interaction with? You know, all this kind of stuff that we used to call fluff, you know, is that like, that's not that's not getting my work done. Well, I we've had to get our leaders to redefine that as their work.

00:07:44:17 - 00:07:46:21

Foster Mobley

Is that the 80 Joe.

00:07:46:24 - 00:07:56:00

Joe Mello

That's the 80. Yeah. And then the 20 becomes really straightforward as long as you do my number one, which is get really clear about your business goals.

00:07:56:03 - 00:08:00:01

Foster Mobley

Alignment, alignment, alignment. And then there makes the 20% a lot easier.

00:08:00:03 - 00:08:23:18

Joe Mello

Lot easier. Yeah. The other thing that's happening is and you've heard me use this metaphor in the past of being more of a basketball team than a baseball team, where everybody kind of plays all the positions, versus being highly specified and, and specialized. I think that that's becoming a real great skill for the leaders who are starting to succeed right now.

00:08:23:21 - 00:08:46:28

Joe Mello

You know, they are getting less focused on what their job description is and getting way more focused on goal alignment. Yeah. So what do I need to do? Let's really get clarity of purpose. Let's really nail that down and spend the time to understand what my expectations of you are. My expectations of the team are, and what success looks like at the end.

00:08:46:28 - 00:09:02:21

Foster Mobley

Well, in basketball you've got kind of core capability. Everybody's got to dribble, everybody's got to learn to set a pick. Everybody's got to learn to play defense. So what are those kind of core capabilities, if you will, of using that, that, metaphor that come to mind for you?

00:09:02:21 - 00:09:26:28

Joe Mello

Yeah. The first thing is, is probably the same thing you'd recruit for on a, on any team. You're on a basketball team or baseball or business, and that is people who honor and respect the concepts around team. What does it mean to be on a team? You know, are you selfless or selfish? Do you understand the dimensions of respect and reward and recognition?

00:09:27:01 - 00:09:54:07

Joe Mello

Right. Very basic stuff. But people that you sort of want to go hang out with and people that you would trust, right. And and that's, you know, that's when you start getting into what are the dimensions of a leader that's authentic and all, is stuff. The other thing that leaders are doing to help make this real, literally, I have meetings every other week with a couple of the CEOs where we just role play a meeting and trying to move them more toward inquiry and away from answering questions.

00:09:54:07 - 00:10:17:14

Joe Mello

So getting them to be great listeners, and it's really hard for our egos and for our efficiency to say no, here's the problem we're facing. What do you guys think? I don't have the answer here. I don't I don't have all the answers. This is the reason I put together a team with with you all on it is so that I can get to that and get that input, get engaged with.

00:10:17:14 - 00:10:20:14

Foster Mobley

You. Can you tell a story about a leader who does that really well?

00:10:20:21 - 00:10:47:23

Joe Mello

There's one leader I work with. They operate in 40 plus states. The people everywhere. His senior team is in four different states. So they don't get to see each other and run into each other very much. And and he has done some really good things as sort of, standard operating procedure. Anytime he has a meeting, it ranges from silly stuff like, what was the best thing you ate this past weekend, and where did you get it and who served it?

00:10:47:24 - 00:11:11:21

Joe Mello

Give me one example of what happened with your family this weekend that you're happy about, or sad about, and just literally go around the room and you talk about that 80, 20, you know, he was telling me the other day, he was had a call that they had scheduled for 90 minutes, and they had about 20 minutes to do the business because they got riffing on all this other stuff.

00:11:11:21 - 00:11:28:00

Joe Mello

And so I asked him, I said, so did you get the work done in the 20 minutes? He said, yeah, we actually did. The fact is, we do too many meetings. We spend too much time on it. And, you know, so maybe this is just the good proxy for trying to get to some of this complexity and, and work it through.

00:11:28:02 - 00:11:51:26

Foster Mobley

You're implying a couple of really seismic shifts. One is a leaders kind of mindset, moving from problem solver and answer broker to person who asks the best questions and is a skilled listener. Another one is this 820 balance that some people, let's say ten years ago, 20 years ago, would have been laughed out of their jobs, had they focused that much.

00:11:51:26 - 00:12:17:28

Foster Mobley

I recall a story from your old organization and, working with a very hard boiled operator, probably trained by you, no doubt. And this lady could, boy, she could make stuff happen and introduced her to this notion of the check in and getting people's emotions and presence in the room before you start the business thing. And she was the biggest naysayer.

00:12:17:29 - 00:12:35:05

Foster Mobley

No, that'll never work. We don't have time for this. We've got 60 minutes for meeting. You know, this is all fluff. I'll use your word. This is all fluff. And after she tried it a couple of times, got a call back within a week or two after this and said, we do everything this way now. It makes such a difference.

00:12:35:09 - 00:12:37:21

Foster Mobley

I mean, this is probably 20 years ago.

00:12:37:21 - 00:12:41:25

Joe Mello

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's it's funny. Most of the stuff's not very new.

00:12:41:26 - 00:13:01:26

Foster Mobley

The notion about bringing humanity, realness, authenticity, personal connection. It's not new, but it's not it's not been mainstream, is that an appropriate channel to deal with the complexities? We've got that. Especially the ones that you mentioned.

00:13:01:28 - 00:13:12:18

Joe Mello

Yeah. I take it a step further, foster and say that not only is it the right thing to deal with what we're facing today, it's the right way to run a business.

00:13:12:20 - 00:13:25:10

Foster Mobley

The ability to sit back and listen, ask questions, be present for people implies to me it kind of a greater level of authenticity when you think about that. Joe, what does authenticity mean to you, especially in the workplace?

00:13:25:13 - 00:13:53:15

Joe Mello

I'll start with what I already mentioned, which is core values, you know, and a leader who can espouse theirs. And, hopefully that you have a leader who can espouse her core values and get people to understand what's in their core. That's the definition of it. What they really believe in the that's a great way to start, because that creates this vulnerability and it creates the permission to have people hold you accountable to it.

00:13:53:17 - 00:14:13:04

Foster Mobley

So, Joe, the the importance of these core values, having a leader super clear on who they are and, how they operate, the way they view the world, that kind of thing. That's not, that's not anything they generally teach in business school. How did you develop yours? What was your process?

00:14:13:06 - 00:14:39:18

Joe Mello

When I first developed them, I was coming out of a really bad situation, and I had to come to grips of myself. I said, I can't wake up in the morning and parrot what they're saying and be in integrity with myself. And so I remember the day distinctly when I said to myself, I'm leaving this company, I'm going to do something else, and I will never work for another company that doesn't have their values straight.

00:14:39:18 - 00:14:41:05

Joe Mello

And I don't even know what that meant.

00:14:41:07 - 00:15:01:17

Foster Mobley

I it's funny, I'm going to leap forward to the, one of the final questions I have for you. And I'd like to get back to this notion of authenticity, but kind of the question was with what you know now in your life and in your path of growth, what would you have done differently or better earlier in your leadership career?

00:15:01:17 - 00:15:22:27

Joe Mello

Well, two things. One is, I would have stopped being an asshole. People who worked for me early in my management days would say that that was my core competency. It's a horrible thing, and it's something that I learned how to get out of my way through some very difficult feedback and experiences. The second thing is something I would be real honest with you, I still struggle with now, and that's the need to be right.

00:15:22:28 - 00:15:29:13

Joe Mello

I have a real problem with that. It shows up in my relationships, my marriage, and when I work on that and pay attention to it, I do better.

00:15:29:13 - 00:15:37:18

Foster Mobley

Speaking of authenticity, that's that's real stuff. When you think about authenticity in the workplace, what are the what are the barriers? What are the boundaries of that?

00:15:37:18 - 00:15:56:06

Joe Mello

I think the the first one, Beyond Values, because I think you got to start there, that sort of price of entry. If you if you can't talk about your own personal values, you should not be leading an organization. The second thing is holistic engagement, making sure that you're aligned in mind and body and spirit. I think about how do you talk to your team?

00:15:56:06 - 00:16:16:21

Joe Mello

How do you create goals that recognize the fact that you've got to be engaged on those three dimensions, the mind, obviously, it's got to be intellectually stimulating. It's got to be intellectually relevant for the people that you serve your body. How do you how do you bring that in a healthy way? Your mental health has to be in good shape.

00:16:16:21 - 00:16:33:16

Joe Mello

And, you know, so fortunately now we live in an environment where we can actually talk about that stuff, because 20 years ago, you started talking about your mental health and people ran the other way, and now they know we realize it's a true disease state. It can be fixed, it can be worked on and should be an in spirit.

00:16:33:18 - 00:16:55:22

Joe Mello

Do you have beliefs beyond what's happening here and you don't have to share that with people, but you better be grounded about who you are around your spirit. And, when I've worked with leaders around those three dimensions, the conversations start off slow and they're difficult. And then as we dig in, we dig in, we dig. We get to stuff that they can actually use as Guideposts.

00:16:55:24 - 00:17:06:16

Foster Mobley

And synonyms for spirit could be meaning, could be contribution, could be place in the world, it could be religion for some.

00:17:06:18 - 00:17:29:11

Joe Mello

You know, it ends up being so much around purpose. Because the other thing that good leaders do today, better than certainly in the past, is they get really clarity around it. Publicly traded companies, which I lived in that world for a long time, and even privately held companies, you can't stand in front of a group of your leaders or senior leaders and get them excited about hitting quarterly earnings.

00:17:29:11 - 00:17:58:03

Joe Mello

It's like, who gives a shit? But you've got to get the unreal focus of what's meaningful to the people into the business. And we we glommed on to one at DaVita. We got real focused on mortality in the dialysis population in 2020. When I first started at DaVita, the mortality rate for people on dialysis was about 20%. When I was able to stand in front of 502,003 thousand teammates at DaVita and say, we're going to reduce mortality from 20% to 10% in the next ten years.

00:17:58:03 - 00:18:14:12

Joe Mello

And then every month we'd show where we were. I mean, when I left, it was around 14%. And so I think about that 6% a lot. I could stand in front of that same group of thousand leaders and say, you know what? We got to rally behind getting ourselves out of technical bankruptcy. I don't think we'd have gotten a bunch of nurses psyched up about it.

00:18:14:13 - 00:18:25:26

Joe Mello

But when we start talking about mortality rate and doing something clinically relevant, boy, it was easy to get people. And guess what? I got more jazzed about it. And so so it's spirit and purpose I think has some overlap. To your point, people.

00:18:25:26 - 00:18:50:18

Foster Mobley

Are looking for more purpose from their business organizations for whom they work than perhaps any other time. Hey Joe, you've mentioned a number of things, all of which seem to be enablers of an authenticity, connectedness, all of that stuff. You've talked about curiosity, you've talked about kind of the balance of 80, 20. You've talked about a leader being really clear on who he or she is through, you know, kind of core principles.

00:18:50:18 - 00:18:57:13

Foster Mobley

While it is teachable, it's not a set of techniques as much as it is how that leader is showing up and who that leader is.

00:18:57:13 - 00:19:14:05

Joe Mello

I think it is. And there are some tricks of the trade. And so if you know a few of those things, like coming up with the list before a meeting, for example, or, or asking the silly questions at the start of a meeting to get the team talking about other stuff besides the business agenda that sort of thing.

00:19:14:05 - 00:19:41:05

Joe Mello

Those those things are useful kind of hints. At the end of the day, you've got to take the pulse of the team. You've got to get that feedback. And hopefully as you develop as a leader, you can get that feedback directly in a safe environment. I had a as you know, I had a couple of people around me that I would always keep in meetings, not because they were going to edit the meeting, but they were going to be great observers and coaches to me at the end.

00:19:41:07 - 00:19:58:22

Foster Mobley

Joe, last question I do. I appreciate your insights and your time, the generosity of your thinking and contribution. What's influencing you today? What are you listening to? Reading, paying attention to that is helping you continue developing, either as a leader or along your your path of understanding.

00:19:58:22 - 00:20:23:02

Joe Mello

I'm really trying to work on being focused around spirituality and not in terms of religious spirituality, but I'm trying to get an understanding of what's important at the higher dimension, and how that should be guiding me in a way that probably hasn't hasn't done right now.

00:20:23:04 - 00:20:43:05

Foster Mobley

That speaks to me of continuing this notion about continuing to learn, continuing to explore as a kind of critical dimension of leading, moving forward. We can no longer be kind of fixed in viewpoint. It's got to be a lot more fluid maybe than ever before. We, you know, constant learning because the stimuli around us are constantly changing. So, Jill, thank you for your time.

00:20:43:05 - 00:21:06:19

Foster Mobley

This is phenomenal. This is really phenomenal. For a deeper exploration of your own journey, you can find tools, stories and reflection questions in my book Leadership Rethinking the True Path to Great Leading, or by following me on Social media. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram as Foster Mobley. Until next time, step wise.

00:21:06:21 - 00:21:35:27

Jana Devan

Thank you for listening to Step Wise. Stepwise is brought to you by Doctor Foster Mobley, edited and promoted by his Zettist. You can listen to more episodes wherever you stream podcasts. Find out more at Fostermobley.com or follow us on social media at Foster Mobley. That's f-o-s-t-e-r-m-o-b-l-e-y we look forward to having an inspiring conversation with you soon.