The Dr. Doug Edge: Real Talk with Real Leaders
Across law, business, and finance, Dr. Doug Hirschhorn — advisor to the elite — goes beyond the surface to decode the strategies behind success. No scripts. No fluff. Just what works.
The Dr. Doug Edge: Real Talk with Real Leaders
The Surgeon CEO: From Operating Room Precision to C-Suite Leadership
What happens when a world-class surgeon steps into the C-suite?
That’s the story of Dr. Leo Spector, CEO of OrthoCarolina, who takes us inside his remarkable journey from the operating room to the boardroom—revealing both the stark contrasts and surprising similarities between surgical precision and executive leadership.
For over 20 years, Dr. Spector performed complex spinal surgeries where decisive, command-and-control leadership was essential. But when he became CEO of one of the nation’s largest independent orthopedic practices, that same leadership style became a liability. In our conversation, he candidly shares how he had to unlearn ingrained habits, adopt new ones, and fundamentally reinvent himself to succeed as a leader.
This episode of The Dr. Doug Edge: Real Talk with Real Leaders is especially meaningful for me. Leo isn’t just a guest—he’s one of my closest friends. We went to college together, stood by each other at our weddings, and have stayed connected for more than 30 years. Watching his evolution from gifted surgeon to high-impact CEO has been both inspiring and deeply personal.
Leo’s core motivation remains unchanged: “Why I get up every morning to do what I do is very clear—it’s to care for patients.” For decades, he lived that purpose through the hands-on art of spinal surgery. Today, he fulfills it by leading OrthoCarolina with vision, empathy, and resolve.
We explore his philosophy on building teams, where he draws on lessons from competitive rowing: peak performance comes not from a few all-stars but from the perfect synchronization of the entire crew. And perhaps most powerfully, Leo reflects on one of his hardest leadership lessons—letting go of a C-suite executive. In that moment, he discovered the difference between being nice and being kind: “Sometimes you can’t be nice, but it’s always important to be kind.” It’s a profound insight, echoing what leadership coach Kim Scott calls Radical Candor: delivering direct feedback anchored in genuine care.
This conversation is filled with leadership gems, but more than that—it’s a glimpse into the mindset of a leader who continues to evolve, adapt, and inspire. I’m honored to share it, and I’m confident you’ll walk away with practical, actionable leadership lessons from my friend, Dr. Leo Spector.
Leo, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm well, Doug. How are you doing today? Good to see you.
Speaker 1:I'm doing great. You know we just laughed. I've known you for 30 years. We went to college together and it's it's a. You're in my wedding, I was in your wedding, your kids have a nickname.
Speaker 2:You're making me feel bad, Doug.
Speaker 1:Well, we're, we're getting there, but you know, the one of the one of the greatest Exper there, but one of the greatest experiences emotional experiences for me is to have friends for a long time and then see them evolve into highly successful professionals. And while I never I've obviously followed your career and known about it, and while I've seen every step of it, I had the opportunity to recently see you in action as a CEO and I was like Holy crap, it's like that dude's legit, and it was. It was like a surprising. I don't know why I was surprised by it, other than to just know you as Leo, and so thank you for doing this. I really appreciate, I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:You're doing here so.
Speaker 2:I'll jump in.
Speaker 1:That was a fun experience by the way it was, and it was nice of you to do that, you know the for the benefit of the listeners. It was the uh, I guess you would describe it as young entrepreneurs. They were actually friends with my son. They have friends with my son, uh, in college and they had a uh, an idea, a business idea called Medibound, and I don't know about the space, but I said I know someone who will and you actually gave them a perspective that they would not normally get from what, from what I know, is a trusted source of someone you know who would just, and it was great and you brought your head of IT in and he, you know he was he's unbelievable, that dude, but anyway, yeah, he's fantastic and it's actually.
Speaker 2:It's fun for me to watch him in his space, cause I get to see how much, how much he knows, which makes me feel good about not firing him two years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay, All right, let's start. So you started your career spinal surgeon for many, how many years. How many years are you a spinal surgeon? How long has it been?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean in actual practice. It's been about 20 years of practice prior to that. You know, after leaving Colgate and my and my time with you, um, you know that was four years of medical school and then five years of resident training. So orthopedic residencies five years, and then did one additional year of subspecialized training called fellowship in spinal surgery. So I subspecialized in orthopedic spine. So I completed all of that training in 2006. And so I've been in practice roughly, roughly, 20 years.
Speaker 1:Got it. What are you known for?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, obviously orthopedic spine, but you know, within orthopedic spine surgery people have various niches. You know, my niche really has been adult, not pediatrics, and typically we kind of divide adult into kind of the big crazy surgeries. We call it deformity surgery, so that's kind of people have these big curvatures to their spine people call scoliosis or more we call degenerative. So you know, as the spine ages we get disc herniations, we get tightening around the nerve, spinal stenosis, so those tend to be smaller surgeries. And so what I'm known for is taking care of adult degenerative, and most of it through more minimally invasive. And so what I'm known for is taking care of adult degenerative, and most of it through more minimally invasive. And so there's newer techniques where we're using smaller openings to accomplish same things. That's probably at this point, and especially with my transition into this role as CEO, have really limited the scope of my practice to those areas that I feel are my strong suit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the interesting part. You know that I wanted to talk to you really about was I deal with. As you know, I deal with a lot of CEOs in a variety of industries. I'm always industry agnostic. I mean, I deal with CEOs and they deal with people. It doesn't matter to me if they're a technology company or a medical devices company or financial services, it doesn't really matter. But you and I have had conversations, because you recently how long ago did you become the CEO of OrthoCarolina? How long ago is?
Speaker 2:that Just over a year and a half ago. So I started the role January of 24.
Speaker 1:Got it and, if you don't mind, just tell. Could just in a couple of words tell us what OrthoCarolina is, so people understand the context?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of the largest independent physician-owned and, I guess, theoretically operated orthopedic practices. So we've got about 115 or so shareholders, all orthopedic surgeons, a few physiatrists which are non-surgical orthopedic specialists, and owned and operated by physicians. We have about 17, actually probably now about 1500 employees and we've got about 35 locations throughout the central Carolinas and, you know, I guess we'd probably be considered a mid cap company based upon top line revenue.
Speaker 1:Right. So I remember talking to you. I was. I was surprised at the size of the company, both people wise and, and when you talk about the footprint that it has cause. My clients, as you know, are private equity funds that back companies typically they'd be, and I'd be meeting a C. They'd say to me hey, can you evaluate this guy? What they would say to me is this guy was a surgeon for a long time. Does he have any idea how to run a business?
Speaker 2:That's what they would literally be Go find that out and you tell him, no, he doesn't have any idea but he's doing a good job.
Speaker 1:Well, he got his MBA from, you know, duke Fuqua. That doesn't mean any, you know, that's great. That's not like that up, doug.
Speaker 2:So when I was interviewing for the job to be the CEO, one of my partners because they put together a small search committee to interview myself and the other folks they were looking at and one of my partners and I don't think they were being glib about it, but it was really, really a great question they said so now you've got your MBA, are you ready to be the CEO? Ceo? And I said you know, I'm ready to be the CEO after getting my MBA, as you and I were talking to my colleague to be doctors after we got our MD, and I said, yeah, I've got the book learning, sure, but you know I'm going to do an internship and residency on OrthoCarolina. You know you're going to be where I do my real world learning of taking all that classwork and bookwork and theoretical work and putting it into into real life.
Speaker 1:Well, you're crushing it and I and I don't. I'm not saying that cause I love you. I'm saying that like just um, from from what you've described as far as the, the growth that you've had in the space and the and the impact you've had, but really also the thoughtfulness. I remember when you started out. You know your first, one of your first, one of your first things to me was hey, you know, I really I know, I know I'm in a new space here as far as being on the business side of things.
Speaker 1:Um, and you and you knew you needed help, support or expertise with someone to help you with that piece, and the great part about what I've seen you do and evolve is that, whatever skillset or master you had or have to, that's made you very successful in surgery. Some of it has clearly translated into the boardroom, into into dealing with on the other side. I know you still practice, but now you're also, you know, dealing with, with people and issues. Were there any parts of that that were surprisingly? I'd like you to talk about both that were easier than you thought. It may be more challenging than you thought If you can go for both those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's kind of interesting to think about, um, I think that being a surgeon going into this role, where I both had to run a health care, medical surgical practice from the business side but also dealing with the surgeons and the shareholders, I think you know, having that background as a surgeon, just understanding both the joys and the challenges of caring for patients, of doing what we do in healthcare, I think that was a huge advantage because it really made me and continue to be, because I do still practice part-time you know, I remain close to for lack of a better term the customer, right, the customers are patient, and so I'm so close to the customer and understand, and I'm also close to the folks that are delivering care to that customer, because I'm one of them, right, I'm a practitioner. So I think that kind of firsthand knowledge and understanding about what does your customer want and need and what are the challenges of delivering it and what does that take?
Speaker 2:I think that's huge. I think the other part about being a surgeon in this role you know, and not to over-dramatize, you know what it is to be a surgeon because I'm an orthopedic surgeon. Right, I'm not saving lives, I'm not a trauma surgeon that you see on these crazy shows or movies, but you know what we do as surgeons. It's not life, life or death, but it is life or limb Sometimes. You know we obviously do surgeries that can have a tremendously positive or negative impact on a patient, depending on how it goes, and so I think that gives you a tremendous amount of perspective. And so a lot of times, you know, sitting in that boardroom, you know, talking with my team again one being able to focus them on what does the patient need, what our practitioners need to be able to deliver that care. But then also help them understand like, guys, we're not making a life or death decision here, Like no one's going to, no one's going to die today because of the decision we make, right, no one's going to be paralyzed where. You know, when you operate, you know you do have those types of decisions. So I think that brings a certain level of perspective into those decision making experiences, which I hope and I think probably delivered a certain level of calm to the team, because none of them one of them also is a former practicing surgeon, but otherwise everybody else is not right they're full-time administrators, so I think that's definitely an advantage.
Speaker 2:You know, you kind of asked what's the flip side. I think the flip side is that and it's probably true for a lot of folks that are successful in their various prior lives trying to transition into the boardroom or becoming a CEO is sometimes what got you there, you know, won't get you there, or what got you here is not going to get you there, so to speak. And you know, as a surgeon I would say, the things that are not helpful as a ceo probably, I think, are probably the two things that stick out of my mind is one we're really trained in that kind of command and control leadership style. Right, because surgery is a hierarchy, it has to be, um, you know, if I walked into the operating room and I looked at all of my team that I'm in charge of in the operating room and said, hey, what do you guys think we should do today? You know they all look at me like what, right, you know? And so that's an environment where, like you are the captain of the ship.
Speaker 2:Buck stops with you. You know you're not going around the table asking everybody's thoughts and input than synthesizing it and then making a final decision. It's more old school kind of, like you know, 1980s, mad Men, you know kind of version. And I don't think the boardroom today probably in some industries it still probably flies maybe the private equity folks you talk to, but more and more right leadership is much more collaborative. It's different, and so I think the surgeon mentality, from that standpoint, probably does us a disservice and you're not used to delegating authority in the way that you have to, I think, to be successful in the corporate world today.
Speaker 2:You're used to really micromanaging folks. Obviously you let them do their tasks, but their task in the OR it would be like operating on a patient with five other surgeons and letting each of them take a turn doing the surgery right. That's the kind of delegation you have to do in the boardroom nowadays. That's not what we're taught to do as surgeons and I think the other part of it is as surgeons we are highly trained, right? I mean, I lost track of the number of years I shared with you, right, but in total it's like nine years of training and during those nine years it's repetition after repetition.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know it's like, and you can debate Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule whether, like you, believe in that or not, but it really falls into that 10,000 hour rule. Or if you're like Kahneman's, like thinking fast, thinking slow, right, it's much more of that thinking fast because it's such rote, trained behavior and so when I'm in the operating room I don't want to say I'm not thinking, but I'm not, I'm not thinking right, it's like an athlete, right, you've trained for it. You're not thinking about how do you all the mechanics of how do you take a shot, because you've done it so many times. You're just thinking I want to score a goal, I want to complete a surgery. So it's a lot of that 10,000 hours, as I've come to learn in business, like there's no 10,000 hours, right, every scenario, every situation, they're all different, they're all unique, correct, right. And so you can't, you can't, lean back on that muscle memory and just kind of say how to do it. You've got to be much more thinking slow, much more intentional about those decisions.
Speaker 1:And as a person you're not used to that.
Speaker 2:You're just used to kind of like problem fix go.
Speaker 1:Right, and you used the word muscle memory, which is what was came to mind when you were talking about that, and, yeah, you're right. So, as an executive, a CEO, you might have a clear goal of what you're supposed to achieve or accomplish as far as the business goes, but there are a variety of factors that are outside of your control, including, and probably most problematic, are the people right, dealing with managing people, egos, expectations. The boardroom is one thing's you know, but it's really you know. That's that's managing up, but managing lateral and down is where many ceos fail. Uh, the boardroom. You see once a quarter and you have a slide deck and you're prepped and you're and you're presenting. Uh, but that's different than how you were on a tuesday after you, you know we're in traffic all day and spilled coffee on your shirt and now you've got to come in and you know you're, you're having a bad day and you got to come in and be inspirational and motivating for everyone across the board on your team.
Speaker 1:Did you have difficulty? Well, it opened up so many, so many ideas of things that I wanted to ask you about. But did you have, do you have, do you find that you have difficulty empowering people Because I would imagine, as a surgeon, like you said, you're the expert in the room. You're not asking for hey, what do you think I should do here? It's like you know what you're doing. You're on muscle memory mode. But in the business world, as a CEO, sure, we can think of companies that maybe are successful or have been successful with the one person who called all the shots, but the reality is that it's a team game. Did who called all the shots? But the reality is, is that it's a team game? Do you find? Did you find that challenging when you stepped into the? You're shaking your head?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, incredibly so. In fact, I, even when I was in business school we were we're one of our leadership courses. We're kind of asked to write about that Cause when I was in business school at that point I was I had a very small, fractional role as our chief quality officer, so I was doing a little bit of part-time admin work and even there I kind of recognized that going from surgeon mode to administrative mode was totally different modes of thinking. The ability to delegate, the ability to you know, like you said, latterly manage and really realize that these people are your equals. I mean, yeah, as CEO, entitled, yeah, the buck stops with me, but like realizing that when you're sitting there with your, your C-suite, the reason you put those people together is their domain experts in, in whatever it may be, you know, finance for your CFO or legal for your CLO, and so, yeah, that was an incredible challenge, because you don't get trained that as a physician, as a surgeon whatsoever, it's definitely something. And what I found, that was probably one of the biggest surprises as a CEO was I knew my job was to manage people, but I didn't realize how much I would have to manage people. What I mean by that is like you know, just like, just show up and do your job. But you realize, like you're right, people spilled coffee on themselves, they had a fight with their spouse God only knows what's happening and they show up to work. And you got to deal with that Because, at the end of the day, like I realized, my job as CEO was not to be Michael Jordan on the court, right, my job is to be Phil Jackson. You know, my job is to coach.
Speaker 2:And how do you take a group of talented individuals and get them to function as a team? And so I really took the approach day one, of saying I don't want a group of all-stars, I want a team that wins championships. And so, really relating to each one of those folks, like I don't care how talented you are, I don't care if you're Michael Jordan or whatever it is like, I need you to be a team. And so one of the first things I did when I took over is I kind of relate to them the story of, you know, instead of the dream team, right, I related to them the story of the first U S menlympic basketball team that didn't win gold, and show them the picture of that team. You know, lebron was on it. I mean, the talent level is outstanding. If you look at the picture of them when they posed for their team picture, they were all kind of like doing their thing.
Speaker 2:And if you go back to the original dream team, I had jordan and bird and all these folks. They stood together as one team with a real goal, purpose mission to to win gold for the U S. And you look at this other team years later that didn't win gold for the U S. They're all a bunch of individuals and the team that beat them was a team from Argentina that had one pro basketball player in the NBA, but they were like they were a team. And so, yeah, that was the biggest surprise to me is how do you manage people? And, candidly, like, that's not something I had to do as a surgeon, right, because you walk into the operating room and if that nurse had a bad day like she had a bad day, but she knew that or he knew that you can't bring that into the operating room, that they've been trained not to do that.
Speaker 2:But, in the corporate world, in the C-suite and doing what we do, working with people in administration, like, yeah, they bring all those problems to work.
Speaker 1:Sure, they bring it to work. So you know, the expression that we use is talent wins games. Teams win championships and there are some really phenomenal examples where you know you mentioned the Chicago Bulls what made that team work was not Michael Jordan, it was actually Phil Jackson, like you said, Like he was the mastermind of the whole thing because he understood and appreciated that Dennis Robin had to be himself and that you know, Pippen had to have. You know, had a had a role but was willing to put his ego aside for Jordan and Jordan. When you see, if you see the documentary about it, they all say Jordan was a jerk Like, but they kept on winning and he just kept on pushing for the best and the best. But what made it work was the coach, the CEO of that team and getting that together.
Speaker 1:That's such a powerful concept. When people ask me, they say, oh, you do coaching. I was like well, if that's the word you want to use, that's fine, but think of me as like a basketball coach coaches a basketball team, Because to just work with one person in an ecosystem doesn't really get you anywhere unless you're working with that person on one specific thing, like their speaking skills or you know something very targeted to that person. But at the end day, if it's to improve the performance, you really have to um, see all the cards and be able to help all the moving pieces so that they can move forward. I've many, many times with executive teams have said look, I don't really care if you like each other. It'd be nice if you do, but I don't really care about that. What I care is that you all are in a boat rowing in the same direction, Like that I care about that's what's important because you'll win.
Speaker 2:You'll win, right. It's so funny you mentioned that, doug, because the slide I show at the beginning of every one of my meetings is a crew team rowing on the Charles River One, because I want to remind them I'm from Boston. But, most importantly, I love the analogy of crew eight individuals all getting in a boat and not just working in sync together right and pulling equally hard in the exact same direction, but nobody's looking around the boat to see what somebody else is doing. They're all trusting each other to do their part to do their jobs.
Speaker 2:And when that happens and it's only momentary cause I rode crew for one. It lasted for a year, but I rode for one year at Colgate and they call it swing. And when the boat swings it's effortless, it just flies through the water because every oar hits at the same time. Every oar pulls equally the same. No one's pulling against each other, so the boat goes perfectly straight to the water. It's like flying.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen often because you've got to be perfectly in sync eight individuals but I tried to. I use that image to say that's the image we need to have as a team.
Speaker 1:Right, that's what you strive for.
Speaker 2:You're right, it takes incredible trust and it takes everybody doing their job.
Speaker 1:Let me let me. Let me ask a deeper, more challenging question. So how do you, how do you deal with underperformers? When do you know it's time to kind of like, cut them and move on? How long? Do you have a philosophy or thought process of you, give the person X amount of time or X amount of chances, and then it's like if it ain't going to happen. How do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was honestly one of the hardest things for me as the CEO learning it, because I've never really had that role before I've had to fire somebody.
Speaker 2:That's never really something I've ever had to do before and six months into my job I had to let go one of my C-suite. Now, it wasn't someone I'd hired, I'd inherited this individual and that was probably the toughest decision and it was a really great learning experience for me. At that time there were clear issues going on. The performance was not there and it took other members of the C-suite coming to me in a closed-door meeting and saying we've got to let this person go.
Speaker 2:And leading up to that, I had been working on team building and talking about the concept of we're not going to have closed-door meetings behind people's back, right. And so the fact that they had to come to me and tell me that, you know, told me okay, we got to let this individual go. And you know, at the end of the day, that was a tough thing to do. But you know good conversations and leading up to that, I had tried to help him by taking things off his plate. I tried to help him in that way and when I had the interaction to fire him, you know, I really let him know that it's a great person like him, talented, individual, and at the end of the day, I think I told him I just think you've lost the locker room and you're not going to be able to get it back and you need to move on to a new team and start afresh.
Speaker 2:But what he shared with me, which was actually really helpful, is he said you know, I really appreciate the fact that you're having this conversation now and such, he said, but leading up to it, I really wish you had been a little bit more direct with me about my underperformance. And he said he told me you know. He said you're incredibly kind human being, you've got a great heart. He said. Don't ever lose. That, he said. But the difference between being nice and being kind, he said you needed not to be so nice to me, right, and that was really impactful to understand that, like I can continue to be kind, empathetic, you know, lead with my heart, but that sometimes you don't have to, sometimes you can't be nice.
Speaker 1:No, that's great.
Speaker 2:So when someone's underperforming, you've got to let them know it, and so I'm still working on it. It's been a year since that experience. I'm still not great at it, but it's something that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a communication matrix called radical candor. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but Kim Scott's model and I don't want to take our time to discuss the background story of it, but obviously anyone that is interested, after I describe what it is, please look up online and Kim Scott does a great job of explaining how it came about with her experience with Sheryl Sandberg and Google. But anyway, the premise of it is that if you're not doing someone any favors, if they know you care about them and you're being too nice and not direct, you're really not doing them a favor, right? Because they come back and say exactly that it's like I really wish you had told me more directly. I know you care about me, you're a kind person, you're nice, but I really would have preferred the direct feedback because I would have taken it the right way, because I know it was coming from.
Speaker 1:And that's the radical candor, where you have the combination of person knows you care about them and their career development and you're willing to be direct and communicative with them. That piece of that puzzle right there and it's a nice matrix that she lays out that puzzle piece right there I find to be incredibly helpful as a framework for communication In the world that I deal with. A lot of times with hedge funds, I say you know you guys are suffering from nice person syndrome. It's like you need to, it's not. It's great that you're nice, but be nice at home, like with your family and your friends, you know. But when you're managing people, put the time in so that they know that you care about them and then you can be very direct and give them feedback and they'll view it as helpful and developmental and then you're really being a leader.
Speaker 2:Then you're really and I think that lesson has been so important and I think it's one thing to read about it, to learn about that, but it's another thing to learn it on the job. And unfortunately, I had to go through that experience. But it crystallized that in my mind because someone could have told me hey, you know, leo, you can be kind, but sometimes you can't be nice. Okay, yeah, great, right. But actually, like having had that experience and understanding, like, oh yeah, I was both kind and I was too nice and I was. I was being nice by taking stuff off this plate, as opposed to saying you're not performing, here's where you're not performing and, as a result, I'm going to take things off your plate and if you can't start performing, I'm going to have to show you the door.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But it's really it's tough when you, when you have someone that that really is.
Speaker 2:they just don't have the horsepower, but they're working their ass off Like that's that's the toughest thing is he was trying hard, but it just didn't have to just didn't have it.
Speaker 1:And that's a tough one, that's like you know. I've coached enough sports teams and worked enough, been enough teams to know that it's like that's the player you got to cut, even though they're great for the team chemistry, but they just, you just don't need another person on the bench and they don't have the skillset to to to stay on, to take a seat anymore. And that's a hard conversation, it's. It's easy when someone's a jerk right, it's easy when they're. That's what.
Speaker 2:I told the guy I said I said if you were an asshole this would be easy. I had my chief legal officer with me when I fired him because you know, I felt like she afterwards she goes. That was the most compassionate firing I've ever seen. But I told the guy I was like I wish you were an asshole. This would be easy. You're not, it'd be easier yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and and you'll do great if you get on the right team that that your talent set, but this isn't the right team for you yeah, I think I think you said it right.
Speaker 1:you really, you're really never getting it back. You're, you're just not getting back. People have sticky memories, you know. There's an expression I said it might've I heard might've been Maya Angelou, and and short quote was is they? They might forget what you said, but they never forget how you make them feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it was Maya Angelou, if I, if I remember correctly. But oh my correctly. But oh my God, what a life truth. As a CEO and a leader of people, paying attention to how you're making people feel is critical to them buying into everything you want them to do as far as a leader, and your vision and all that stuff. And they could have talent, which is great, and all that stuff. And they could have talent, which is great.
Speaker 1:But I'm sure you'd be willing to say, look, if I have someone who can figure it out and is willing to work hard and take feedback and develop over time, then I'm less concerned with did they start with the best talent in the world? Because you know that they actually can evolve and grow into something that's a spectacular part of the team. That can evolve and grow into something that's a spectacular part of the team. So where I want to pivot here towards the end, here is what's some advice that you would give to someone that's maybe a highly skilled medical professional that wants to now move into more the business side of things. What's some advice that you'd look back and give them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think, specifically because we do see a lot of physicians, and I think it's great that are moving more into the administrative side, because I do think, you know, healthcare is, it's complex, it's it's a big industry, it's undergoing lots of challenges that aren't getting any easier, and I do think that that physicians, practitioners, need to play a role in solving the problem, because we are the ones, ultimately, that are caring for patients, and so I do think it's great. I think you know, first and foremost, I think that physicians should realize that the reason to go to administration is not because they're burnt out of being a physician. It's going to be easier to be an administrator. It's not. It's a wholly different challenge. I think they should also realize what we talked about before is that the skill set that makes you a great surgeon or physician is not necessarily going to make you a good administrator. They are different skill sets and you have to understand that.
Speaker 2:I think if you're going to be successful in that, I think you have to start by getting to know yourself, understand who you are, what makes you tick, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses. And if you're going to take on a new role, look at how do your strengths and weaknesses match what that role is going to expect of you and they're not. They're not going to line up perfectly. They never do so. Then go look and say, okay, here are my weaknesses and how am I going to go compensate for that? Am I going to get an education? I don't think everybody has to go get an MBA, although I'd recommend it to anybody. It was great, I loved the learning but you don't have to go get an MBA.
Speaker 2:I think having a coach if you're going to move into an executive role I can't emphasize, I think that's important. But if you got enough of a skill set to coach yourself, that's great. But I think I think everybody needs a coach, right, and so if you're going to be asked to coach a big team, you probably need a coach coaching you, and then you know. I think the other part of it is surround yourself with with really great people, right. Recognize where your blind spots are, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, and complement yourself with folks that fill in those those weaknesses, right, and you don't need six other view at the table. That's the last thing you need. You need six people that are, that are different than you, to bring different, diverse views, and I think the last thing about that is make sure you create an environment and you have the people that are willing and able to challenge you in a respectful way.
Speaker 2:And let them do their job, like let them do their job, which is really hard as a physician to let sure job because you're to doing all the job.
Speaker 1:And I'll give you a very similar comparison. When you said that, I thought to myself that reminds me of you got the. You know the SVP of sales, that now sales, that now CEOs. Typically, when they go through the pipeline, they either come from the CFO pipe or the sales pipeline right, and so when you have someone who was the former head of sales and now they're the CEO of the company, they never will find another head of sales. That, as good as they were, it's always like and they end up not. They end up either not being successful as a CEO or have a more challenging time because they're not empowering the new head of sales to do it their way, as opposed to the way that, and the same thing for the CFO. Cfo should be a co-pilot, not the CEO should not be telling the CFO how to do their job, and that when you start having that and when you put grownups in seats and professionals in seats, if you don't empower them, they end up being unhappy with where they are and then you get dysfunction and then the team falls apart. So I think that's that's probably the biggest takeaway that I didn't coming into this conversation, leo.
Speaker 1:I didn't. I didn't appreciate enough about the command and conquer mentality that surgeons are trained. I would like to say command and control, not conquer, sorry. Command and control mentality that you're trained to have, where you're not soliciting opinions about something in the OR. You're there to execute and do a job Right and you're highly trained to do it. And you're highly trained to do it, and you're highly trained to do it and you're the expert in the room to make that happen. And then transitioning to the business side of things. Now it's a great example, leo. It's like looking around saying to all the support staff in the OR what do you guys think I should do? Should I go this way, that way? Should we cauterize that?
Speaker 2:How do you want to?
Speaker 1:operate today? What kind of surgery?
Speaker 2:should I mean literally, they would call administration and have me escort immediately, be like, oh my God, spector's lost his mind today, like this patient's in trouble. But you're right, doug, you know it's interesting because you mentioned, typical way to the C suite is either CFO or head of sales In the healthcare world. You know more and more now we're seeing physicians right, which is which is a totally different role. And as my, my CAO, my chief administrative officer pointed out to me the day and I very much hired him because I wanted a bench coach, someone that could get behind a door, yell at me and tell me I was out of line you know and bench coach, the manager that you have.
Speaker 2:You know in baseball, but he said you know. He said no disrespect, dr Spector, you know in baseball but he said you know. He said no disrespect, dr Spector, he's. He's a foreign PA by trade so he can say this. He said there's two universal truths about, he said surgeons but I'd probably put this to doctors and to your point about the problem with them going to the c-suite he goes. There's two universal truths they all think they're the smartest person in the room and they all have opinions. And so if you take a physician and you put them in the role of CEO and they walk into the room and they take the mentality that I'm the smartest person and I've got to solve all the problems, that's not going to be conducive to letting your CFO and your COO and your CMO do their jobs.
Speaker 2:And so I think, when you take the physicians the background that they come from putting them into the c-suite they have to learn that that they're not the smartest ones in the room and to learn that that's okay, right, because we're we're taught as surgeons that you have to be the smartest one in the room it's not okay not to be right.
Speaker 2:You don't want your surgeon not to be the smartest person in that room operating right and so it's really hard for a doctor to be able to walk into that room and understand like no, I'm not the smartest person in that room operating, and so it's really hard for a doctor to be able to walk into that room and understand like no, I'm not the smartest one in the room when it comes to finance or marketing or operation. That's okay. I'm not there to be the smartest one in the room about that. I'm in the room to lead a team and you have to learn how to lead a team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and build a team. I mean building a team is such a critical which you've done a very Leo it's. It's impressive, it really is, and it's it's great to see you know here's a love fest part, it's great. I mean it's great to see you evolve. You were, you know, incredibly successful as a surgeon and now to see the next level of your career balloon is fantastic. Last question Sure, what's your edge?
Speaker 2:What do you see as your competitive advantage over other talented CEOs in the space? Yeah, yeah, I think we've talked a lot about it, but I think the edge and I think it does come with that background of being a surgeon, being a physician and I think anybody that really goes in this field if you go back to why you went into becoming a physician, it is a very mission driven. You've got you've got a purpose and it's to care for patients, and so I think the edge is your why, my why, why I get up every morning to do what I do is very clear it's to care for patients, and I don't know if everybody who becomes a CEO has that same why or knows what their why is, and so I really think that's an edge. And again, you don't need to be a physician, you don't need to be doing that to have that edge, but I think, knowing what your purpose is and being able to have that true north.
Speaker 2:I think that to me is a huge edge.
Speaker 1:That's great, leo. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it, I mean the way you laid, laid concepts out, made complex concepts seem very simple and user-friendly. It's, it's. It was amazing, it was effortless and amazing to watch. So thank you very much and, uh, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 2:Bye thank you be well.