If You Don’t Define Culture, It Defines You - with Kurt Defenbaugh

Mike talks with Kurt Defenbaugh about why culture is not a slogan or a perks program, but the lived DNA of a clinic that either gets designed on purpose or assigned by default. We walk through a concrete method for defining core values, then use those values to hire better, develop staff, align physicians, and build a team that trusts leadership. 

• culture as alignment rather than happiness 
• defining core values by identifying real role models and extracting shared behaviors 
• narrowing values to a small set people can remember and use 
• hard work authentic care innovation as an example of values that guide decisions 
• hiring for values alignment using behavior-based questions and process signals 
• moving fast on fit issues while staying compassionate and consistent 
• addressing physician outliers by involving doctors early and connecting values to staff treatment 
• revisiting values as the business changes rather than clinging to outdated language 
• psychological safety as the foundation for growth learning and innovation 
• coaching and parenting parallels including trust empowerment and meeting people where they are 

Find Kurt on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leaderkurt/

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show on your podcast app and share it with someone who would value the content. I also invite you to subscribe to my HR newsletter for Eye Care leaders. You can find information about that at seasoned-advice.com. 

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This episode is brought to you by Seasoned Advice HR, where I help eye care clinics to hire, retain, and manage better — helping you get Better Results Through People. Learn more at seasoned-advice.com. 

Contact me directly at mike@seasoned-advice.com 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Greetings and welcome to iCare Leadership Live. This is the podcast for iCare leaders who want to level up their leadership, create better cultures, and improve the financial results of their clinics. Now, let's join the show. My guest today is the irrepressible Kurt Netanla. Kurt is uh the leader of Ally Retina, which is part of Ally GPO. Kurt, welcome to iCare Leadership. You too. It's been a while. Um, thanks for being on the show. You know, um, I don't know if you've listened to the show, and it's okay if you haven't, but uh, iCare Leadership Live is all about it's for iCare leaders, right? The practice admins, the managers and stuff. And today we're gonna talk about culture. And I think that's I'm so glad we I don't know that we've really talked about that and or heard from a practice administrator, a former practice administrator, um, such as yourself. So I think you're gonna have so much to contribute on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and culture certainly certainly applies to where I am today. Okay. Uh with my own business and my own team. So it it's it's never never a topic that loses its importance no matter what you do or where you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

So okay, awesome. Well, I love that. Um, you know, starting out, I'm gonna throw you a curveball, didn't mention anything about this.

Life Outside Work And Curiosity

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Um, I always like to ask a personal question. So yeah, personal. Um, I don't know, but aside from work, what is something that you're like is on your mind that you're really fascinated and fired up about, like maybe it's a book or a show, or I don't know, something going on outside of work that has got you excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Um, you know, the season of life that I'm in is all things kids. So I've got a seven-year-old that just started playing softball and all school activities, and I've got an 11-year-old whose baseball team I coach. Oh, and so um, you know, I don't have a lot of time for hobbies and thoughts outside of uh my kids and all the all the activities that they're in in school. Um, but if I did have time, I like to play golf. I think a lot about golf, and I've played golf since I was about seven years old. So unfortunate, unfortunately for me, it's part of my DNA, and I don't think I could not think about it if you paid me to. So um that's where I'm at. Haven't been reading as many books as I used to read. Um, but one of the things I love um is following military stuff online. Fortunately or unfortunately, uh a lot of that's happening right now. So I've been, you know, talking to my old military buddies and just kind of talking about all things that are going on geopolitically.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, there's a lot to consume there.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, there's maybe, maybe too much to consume there for sure. Not not healthy. I don't advise anyone to go down that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yes. Well, thank you for your service. You're an Air Force veteran, I believe, correct? Yeah, yeah, that's right. But here's a great here is a great question for us to kind of get started.

What Culture Really Means

SPEAKER_01 3:25

When you think because culture means a lot to different people. When I say culture, it might mean different things to different people. What is yeah, what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, so this, you know, this is a problem, I think. I I actually think that people throw around culture and they fail to define it. Okay, and anytime you fail to define a culture, my saying was always that if you don't uh design a purpose, a purposeful culture, one will be assigned to you. Right? That's an old military saying, right? If you don't design a culture, one will be assigned to you. Um and I think a lot of folks fail at this because they they don't design a culture and communicate specifically what they're aiming to achieve, that it becomes this ambiguous thing, right? And they grab a little bit out of their mission and a little bit out of their purpose and a little bit out of here and a little bit out of there, and they kind of just say, This is who we are. Well, if I tried to explain who Kurt is by just saying, This is who I am, every single person I encounter comes away with a different experience, and they label me a different way, right? Like one of the things I've I've often got in first encounters when I meet someone is that I'm overconfident, or I'm people have said he's pretty cocky, or whatever. You know, and I learned this as I build a relationship with them. When I first met you, you were this way.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And and I would always tell them, well, that's not that's not who I am. You know, I'm um I'm actually a really lighthearted guy. I like to have fun, I like to joke with people. Um, and and they get that, but they need longer-term exposure to Kurt to figure it out, right? So um I think I think cultures in general, people don't define them in the front on the front end, right? And so in my experience, one of the things I've done is been very clear about what the culture is. And I and the the root of of you know me, like I would if you ask me, Kurt, what are your um you know, what are your core values, Kurt, I would say that I'm an optimistic person. I'm uh I have humility and I operate from a perspective of abundance. Those are the three most important values to me. And the reason I know those things are because when I encounter people that are negative, that think they know everything, and that operate out of scarcity, it like triggers me. I get annoyed, I just don't like it, right? And so I if you were to ask me, you know, what are your three pillars? I would say, well, I'm optimistic, I have humility, and I operate out of abundance. So when you design a culture, right? And and there's ways to do this that I can get into, but like you have to start out with three common things.

A Practical Way To Define Values

SPEAKER_00 7:04

You know, you may have a list of 10, but people don't memorize lists of 10 and they're hard to adopt. So we narrow them down to three, right? Because even even Kurt has more principles than those three, but the three that I really gravitate to are those are those three of optimism, humility, and abundance. In the practice setting, I took my group through an exercise and I said, I want everybody to list five people at this organization right now, today, that you think embody everything we're about. And I left it at that. I said, if if this person embodies who you think we are, even though you don't really know who we are and we haven't designed it, you're just gonna pick these five people out. And they write five people down, and then the next part of the exercise is to say, okay, now you've got five people. With each person, I want you to write three words that you believe capture what make them who we are. And so now you've got five people and three values or principles, or whatever the word is, it doesn't really matter, and you don't have to give them you know any guidelines around that. So now you got 15 words, and you multiply those 15 words times the 10 people in the room. So now you've got 150 words. Okay. Okay. So you take those 150 words, you put them into a word cloud, and you find the overlaps. And what comes out of that is the shared meaning behind the you know 150 words, or the what did we have? We had five people, so 50 people, and there may be some overlap with the people. So you had 50 people, you had 150 words describing them, and then you find this overlap and this connection. And it's it's it's a way to quickly get to an agreement around the principles that you believe make us who we are. And it's super powerful because once you narrow it down in a word cloud, you may not love the words, but when you talk to the group and you figure out what do these words actually mean at the root of this word, is there a better word that means something better, but that we all agree still embodies this thing? Right. And so at our practice, we decided that the that out of these 150 words, we got hard work, we got authentic care, and we got innovation. And this is what made up the core of who we were. Hard work means that people aren't afraid to stay late, to think harder, to take the bad days, to take the long hours, the holidays, the, you know, when when you drive by, you know, all these retail stores on Christmas, there's no no cars in the parking lot, no employees are working. But when you drive by our clinic, we may have an emergency add-on. We may have somebody that needs to be seen post-stop, right? And so in our world, we felt like that takes hard work and dedication, right? When you think about authentic care, care is physical. Authentic care takes a soul. You have to have a soul behind the care you're giving. It means that when Mrs. Smith comes in to see us, you didn't ask her questions last time for the sake of asking her questions. You asked her questions because you care about Mrs. Smith. And those are two different care models. And when you asked her questions and she told you answers, you remember it the next time because you were listening and you listened because you care, you honestly care, and there's a soul behind that. There's something we can't really put our fit, you know, our hands on to really get to that. And then innovation just meant that we valued thinking out of the box and we valued change. And those things were really important because if we tried something new, the culture wasn't you know resistant to that innovation, they were open to it. We said, guys, this is in our DNA innovation and change, and trying things and breaking things and fixing them and trying something else, even though it worked just fine. Like that's in our DNA. That's who

Hiring For Alignment Not Happiness

SPEAKER_00 11:55

we are. And so, what's the application of this? Well, it's really nice because when you start to hire people, you tell them our values are hard work, authentic care, and innovation. Do you embrace change or resist it? You know, give me an example of a time when you embraced change. How do you react to things that change? And if you get the answers of, well, you know, I really prefer a rigid environment that's predictable that never changes. Okay, that's great. I appreciate you sharing sharing that with us. You're a terrible fit for this place. You know, you're gonna hate it. You like to work hard, not really. All right, well, you're not gonna like this place because we value people that really want to work hard and they feel good after they work hard, right? And so you you that a lot of people think that culture is supposed to mean happy, is supposed to mean, you know, uh feel good. That's not necessarily what culture means. Culture is like DNA, this is who we are. It doesn't promise happiness, it promises alignment. And when you're aligned to a greater goal, that's when your purpose starts to feel good, right? So, like when you're living your purpose, when you're aligned in your true purpose, that's when what you're doing aligns with who you are, right? Like you found your purpose in retina to be this guy that brings value and talks about these important issues. That's when Mike's his best, right? So your who you are aligns with what you do, and that's who we're trying to find when we hire people.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

I love that because that was like a wonderfully concise um point there about, you know, it's not the point is not to be happy, it's about to have alignment, right? And then everything good flows from that, right? Totally. A lot of good things happen. This show is sponsored by Seasoned Advice HR Services, where I help eye care businesses to make more money and save more money by hiring better, retaining better, and reducing your HR risk. If you would like an HR assessment or ongoing HR support, please reach out to me at seasoned-advice.com. Do you think that because you have gone through that exercise of really defining the values based on real people, you know, and real behaviors, do you think that that helped you overcome the challenge that a lot of clinics have of their values are just these boring words that everyone else has? Do you think it made it more real to the people in the clinic?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

And like, yeah, yeah, of course, of absolutely. And and there was such alignment around those things because we involved so many people in building them, right? So it's like you you can't just say you're honest, right? Because ultimately your values have to actually be values. Like you don't just get to pick three good words that you think the consumer wants to hear or that help you, because ultimately they have to reflect who you are. Like if I said I'm optimistic, and everyone around me is like, dude, you're the most negative nanny I've ever met. I'd be like, No, I'm not, I'm optimistic. You know, but the reality is I can't turn my optimism off if you tried. Like, it's just who I am. If somebody says there's a problem, I say there's a way to fix it and there's a better life ahead. It's just who I am. I can't help it, you know, and your values have to be like that for your organization.

Interview Signals And When To Let Go

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Do you think that do you is it would you agree with the statement that the moment of hiring is really your only chance to establish that values alignment, or can you kind of shape it? And how do you, you know, is there some, you know, it's 80% hiring and then 20% shaping? Like, how do you deal with that problem and that question?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, I think you know, the the tough part about hiring is that anyone can say they're a hard worker to get the job, right? Right. So you get really good at saying, give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond and it didn't matter to anyone but you that the work was done right. What how do they answer that question? Yeah, yeah, is it a stump the dummy moment? You know, and they're like, I don't have an example like that. Okay, well, you know, if somebody thought that was important to them, right, that the work gets done better than excellent because it matters to them. Like nobody's watching, right? But you did above and beyond because it mattered to you, that's a value. Yeah, I want that value here.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah, and you know, another thing I look for too is like you've got the interview questions for sure, and then the way everything that happens as part of that selection process communicates a lot too, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

How do they create their resume? How do they communicate in their emails? How do they when you ask for references, do they give it to you in a sloppy format or is it like super structured? They've prepared their references, pull it out of them.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Did they come prepared? Like, yeah, yeah, there's so much of that. The whole thing gives you feedback and you're trying, yeah, and and you should like nobody should discount that because I I always tell people like if you interview someone, that's the absolute best behavior you will ever see in your life of that person, right? Right. So if any little thing is off, it should be a red flag because that thing is way bigger when you pull the tarp off, yeah. Right? Yeah, so yeah, you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

I love that, yeah. So I think I'm of the mind that like the interview, yeah, the interview is maybe half, and everything else around it is super important, yeah, is equal to that interview, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

I I would totally agree with that, and sometimes, you know, I you can't interview someone enough, right? And unfortunately, where we fall short in retina is you know, we sometimes when you're trying, especially as a business owner, like you're trying to repair a return over a turnover rate, and so you're behind and you have to speed up because you need, you know, and and things start to fall apart. But I I always say, like, and you're an HR expert, so you you hire as slowly as you can, you fire as quickly as you can, right? And sometimes that's hard because you know, when you're building a culture, the last thing you want to do is not give someone another chance. And you have to build that into your structure. You have to build how, like, if we have to part ways, how do we do that the right way? You know, like how can you be compassionate and also terminate someone when you know they have, you know, all this crazy stuff going, you know, that they their family just broke up and they're on their own and they're they're in their lowest point in their life, and you're like, I hate to tell you this, but you're just like you're not a fit for us. Yeah, you know, yeah how we do that is you know, and and you you can't lose your core values in in bad times either. So, like authentic care and innovation and hard work also apply when someone's slacking off. Yeah, like what kind of team are we now? When someone when someone's got a broken ankle, but they still have to carry the log on the Navy SEAL team, right? Like, what how do we do that? Have they lost their core values just because you know they're limping? Like, I and I would tell my team this like, is this a you just don't like this person conversation? Like you guys aren't the right fit for each other in a supervisor role, or is this like a core value issue with the person? Because I'll keep any core value winner, I'll move them, I'll move positions with them. Yeah, like they can't be the point guard, they cannot be the coach, yeah. But can they be on a team? Is what we're here to talk about. And if they move seats and lost rank and lost pay, would they still believe in our mission? Are they still a core value fit? And so we had a designed, you know, do they get it? Do they are they a core value fit? Hard work, authentic care, innovation. Are all those boxes checked? They are okay. Now let's go to get it, want it capacity. Do they get it? I don't know if they get it. Okay, they don't get their job, but can they get a job here? Do they want it? Yeah, they want, they want this. They want to work here. All right, well, that's good. Do they have do do they have you know, get it, want it capacity? Capacity would be like the brains and the bandwidth. The brain are they smart enough and do they have the time? So are they smart enough for the role they're in? I don't think so. Okay, well, then we need to find a role for this. Them that they get and that they are smart enough to do well. Because the person in the role wants to succeed. We all want to succeed. Maybe they're not in the season of their life where they've had the experience to succeed in this particular seat. Right. But once you shift them into a new seat, all of a sudden it's like, oh, this person's great. Oh, they're so good. And it's like, yeah, that's that's what happens when you think through these problems. Like, you don't just treat people like commodities and and shave them off of your organization because you don't like what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

You kind of touched on this idea of like how you treat your team is going to send a message about whether you really believe in your values or not. Because like if you are mistreating your team or not being thoughtful or authentic in how you treat them, then how can you turn around and say, well, authentic care is really important to us?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you you the hardest part about core values is that you have to own them, you know, and that you you have to own them no matter what the situation. And that's you know, you can you can you can it's like you have to be you have to own core values 10 out of 10 times. And if you own them nine out of 10 times, you can lose the entire thing in that one time, and that's why that's why people have such a struggle building a culture because it's not it's not like hey, if we get this 80% of the time, we're winning. No, no, no. We have to get it 100% of the time, and if we miss one time, we've lost the entire thing, right? And that's you know, going back to the beginning, it's like that's why we don't pick shitty core values that aren't who we are. We don't promise riches, we don't promise perfection, right? Right? That's why you don't do that in the first time, right? You know, you know you're not gonna live up to it, you know. Compassionate care. Are we compassionate a hundred percent of the time? Like, I don't know. If an injection takes less than a minute and we don't talk to the patient, like, is that really who we are? Is that compassionate care? They have questions and the doctor leaves the room, you know, and and the scribe answers the questions and the person says, I'm not really happy about that. I had questions for the doctor. Well, he has to move on. I don't know if our core values are compassionate care at that point.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

So it's not that it's not that you can't live in that world. Like if the doctor needs to leave the room and the patients don't feel like there's compassionate care, then don't own the compassionate care. You know, like change your core values, it's not who you are. Yeah, that's fine. Just efficiency is great too. Efficiency is great. That's exactly right. There's a better core value that you can really own out there, but don't try to like invent core values that sound good, like you're gonna get extra patience, because from the patient's perspective, they didn't experience compassionate care. So now that's not congruent. So you're trying to be somebody you're not, and if Kurt was gonna be somebody he's not, like it doesn't feel good, right? So that's how I look at

Getting Physicians To Live The Values

SPEAKER_00 25:29

that.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

So this is making me now think of the physician, right? So, you know, as a practice administrator, and we can come up with all of these ideas of what we think this practice should be or what it even really is. But sometimes you've got a physician who's not on board or multiple ones, or you haven't involved them at all. So, how do you get the physician aligned with that? And how do you deal with a physician who maybe is the the outlier that isn't consistent with the the intended culture?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, it's and and this is very difficult. And it takes, you know, you have to have strong leaders that are willing to call the physician out, right? You have to have adoption in the first place and physicians in the room when these things are created. Like we didn't we didn't create hard work without physicians, we didn't create innovation without physicians, you know, and and when I think about those those physicians, you know, when when we went through the exercise, a lot of those core values came from physicians. So you have to tell the story to the great, you know, if there were physicians that weren't in the in the value creation exercise, they have to know how it was created. They have to know what what it is happening around them to say, like, hey, you know, you're you're this way too, Dr. So-and-so. Like, I see your hard work, I see your innovation, I see your authentic, sometimes clinical care. But what we want you to realize is that authentic care doesn't stop with your clinical care of the patient, it stops with how you treat your staff as well. And you're going to treat your staff with authentic care as well because you should care about them because without them, you don't get to treat any patients and care for those patients. So it's this it's this beautiful cycle that when it's all together, it allows you to care for the patient clinically, right? But again, you can't you can't have core values that don't embody the physicians. You know, like if our core values were always happy, right? We'd have half the physicians that would not align with that. Right? What is this utopia concept that you're sure that you're trying to drill into everyone? Just doesn't work. Um it's gotta all be congruent, Mike, is the point. Like right, the worst mistake is creating values for your company that do not actually align with who you really are. And I think the other thing that is important to note is like businesses change. And what at what point do you say these values don't work for us? It's not who we are. Let's go back and do the exercise. Right? Yeah, I gave you an exercise. Let's just go back and do it and see what happens. And may and maybe this is just a misalignment right now, but when we go back and do that exercise, like we come up with the same thing, or maybe something changed. It's okay to change your core values, right? Because the business is going to change. I doubt that your core values change, but it's important to do the exercise to find out, yeah. And be open to doing the exercise. Not many people want to do that.

Psychological Safety And Staff Growth

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Um, you know, one thing that we talked about a little bit and preparing for this show has to do with um growth, employee growth, you know, and you talked about innovation, and I think that that kind of ties in here, but you know, what is the role of staff growth, staff career development in a clinical culture, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Well, you know, in my opinion, there's there's a there's an important component of the organization that has to be intact for all this to work. I I would always uh ask everyone, I did quarterly town halls and I would give book recommendations. And one of the things that I built um trust around was this notion of psychological safety. And psychological safety came as as a concept in the workplace, came from a great book called Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. I love Simon Sinek. Anytime he posts anything, I eat it up because I think he's just like exactly right. We live in a world that the workforce has been shaped by layoffs and by you know just furloughs and you know all this stuff. And I think what that's created in the minds of the workforce is um psychological um uh you know danger or psychological insecurity. And so I think the the the pillar or the foundation of development starts with psychological safety. And what that means, so if you think about it, if someone's not does not feel like they are safe in their job, they are unwilling to make mistakes because to them, a mistake equals reprimand and possibly losing their income, uh their livelihood. And so you first build psychological safety. Hey guys, mistakes are fine. Like we may correct mistakes, we may help you understand the mistake, but the mistake itself is human. Like, you're not gonna accidentally hit the nuclear weapon detonation button here and blow up the whole company. Like that doesn't exist. Okay. So you're allowed to make mistakes. And once you build psychological safety, like mistakes do not equal termination or loss of your livelihood here. Mistakes are a result of trying things or not knowing things, right? So if you try something, well, what's inherently at the root of trying something? You're trying to do better or you're trying to do different. So we want to reward that because we're innovators, right? So you tried something and it didn't work out, but you tried it. Yeah, that's what we're all about.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

In that culture, yes. Um, so once you establish psychological safety and they've seen it demonstrated, they've seen where people have made mistakes and it's not a one-strike type of environment, they're willing to try new things. And at the root of development is uncomfort, right? Because you're you're literally pushing someone beyond their comfort zone so that they improve or develop themselves. And I think inherently, like development can't happen if the person's not open-minded enough to develop themselves. So if you develop yourself, that's you gaining skills and knowledge to improve yourself, right? And if you can improve yourself, you can improve at the workplace. So, you know, you start with psychological safety, you offer development, but you quickly realize not everybody's ready to develop. And you have to be open to that. Like everybody's in a season, you know. If you would have asked me at 16 if I was, you know, interested in developing, I would have said, like, no, I I like cleaning golf clubs at the local country club. This is like, this is the best. This is cool, and I make money. And and I might not have been open to your psychological development of my inner self, I would have known what that is. And I think you have to like really meet people where they are in terms of their the season that they're in in their life. You know, what are you what what do you want to do? Like, what do you want to be in your life? Well, I want to be a doctor someday. Okay. Well, if you sit and snap photographs every day and do that for the next five years, that's not on the right track. Okay. So if that's what you want to do, we got to get you into research. And are you open to that? Oh, I'm not really open to that. Well, then I don't know if you're really open to being a doctor. If you don't want to like develop outside of your comfort zone. So, you know, I think I think ultimately if you're starting in the right place with psychological safety, um, you find out really quickly who's open to development and and where they are in the season or the season of their life and what they want to do. And I think once the the development piece in and of itself is like that's easy. It's finding the right people that are open to development and that like are are comfortable in the uncomfortable, right? Leadership, yeah, of leaders, uh leadership roles with people who have never led. Right? You're the like the traditional model is like you're you're such a great tech, we should make you lead all the techs. Bad idea. Bad idea. Not every not every great tech equals a great leader, yeah. And not every great leader knows how to be a good tech. So those are two totally different jobs. So you can't fall into the trap of so-and-so knows everything, they've been here 10 years, and clinically they're the best. Yeah, but you're giving them 10 people to manage, and they they have no idea how to do that. Like that's a really bad idea.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

I'm wondering.

Coaching Kids As A Leadership Model

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Um, so uh before we go on, I we we're coming up at the one o'clock. Do you have because I have another question that I think is gonna be uh a hard-hitting question? Do you have I think we can maybe wrap up in 10 minutes, but but do you have a hard stop?

SPEAKER_00 36:06

No, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I can keep let me ask my hard-hitting question here.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Pun intended, possibly. So you coach baseball. So when you think about culture, how do you how do you what analogies or um similarities do you see between coaching a baseball youth baseball team and leading an ophthalmology, you know, clinical business that you think have would stand you in good stead regardless of the setting you are in?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Um you know, I I think about building trust, right? So, like in either example, I have to build trust with the people who are looking at me. And how do I do that? You know, whether it's 11-year-olds on a baseball field or you know, professional leaders that I'm leading, they have to trust me. You know, and so if they if they trust me, then I know that my communication improves, like my communication effectiveness improves, meaning that when I talk to them, they're listening because they care and they trust that what I'm saying might be important, right? So, like first day of baseball practice, they need to know that I'm a safe place. I'm fun. I'm not gonna yell at them, I'm not gonna judge them, I'm gonna encourage them. I'm gonna make them feel like, hey, this guy, he notices me, he sees me, right? And so I think either way, when you're coming into a new new organization, you have to build trust and let people know that you see them and that you're watching them and that you appreciate them and you're encouraging to them, right? And it and it's I I always said, you know, leadership is as simple as being a good parent because not all parents are good, but leadership's just like having kids, right? Well, how do you want your kid to turn out? Do you want to traumatize them? No, most parents don't want to traumatize their kid. Okay, well, then stop yelling at them all the time, stop making their amygdala fire up with you know anxiety every time you're around, right? And so, how do you do that? Well, you go out into the field, like in a in a practice setting. I go out to the field, I tell people, hi, how are you? What's going on? Love seeing you out here. Like, I loved going out into the practice and seeing people and and seeing how the sausage was made and talking to people and building friendships, you know, at every level. Like, I think too often leaders sit in their office and don't roll up their sleeves and get out into the field and let people know that you don't know the answers. Inevitably, when I would go into the field, like people would come up and say, Hey, how do we do this? And I'm like, honestly, guys, I have no idea what you're talking about. I do not know, but I know we have people here that are like PhDs in that subject. And so have you thought about talking to so and so at this clinic and seeing how they do it? You should do that, you know, and I think that that builds again, like this is a humility thing. It's like who I am, but you know, you can't be the person who knows everything, and it's a dangerous place to go because if you if you pretend you know everything, you get every question. And if you get every question and people are looking at you to solve every problem, then you're kind of sunk because you can't possibly or physically or mentally live in that world where people bring you all the problems and bring you all the all the questions. You have to empower people to find solutions and work together. It's the same thing on a baseball team, right? Like, I want to hear you guys talk to each other. I want to hear you tell each other how many outs there are. Like, this is your team, right? I'm here to manage the administrative portion, but you guys have to run the team, right? You have to encourage each other, it can't just be me. You know, there's there's 11 of you, there's one of me. Yeah, when your team gets excited about something you do, talk to each other and tell them that. Like I can't be the only one.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

I love that. I yeah, I love that analogy. I think there's a lot of brilliance there, parenting, coaching. Um, you know, people laugh and they say, well, managing is like dealing with kids, and it is, it's not really funny, it's like that's because that's human nature, you know, and so many great lessons there.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

So it's it's it's more the point of I like to say like managing is like having kids, but the root of having kids is love, yeah. That's what starts everything. You love your children. So does your staff feel like you love them? You may love them in a different way, but like they have to feel the root of your love so that they know that what you're asking them to do is good for them, right? We ask our kids to fold laundry. I ask my son to fold his laundry, not because I need the laundry done. I tell him, I want you to be a marryable man somewhere, right? If you want to be a marryable man, you have to you have to fold your laundry and and keep it neat in your room. You can't be a slob, that's not marryable.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

I'm gonna have to use that one with my 10-year-old son.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Oh, yeah, yeah. You got to. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah, so yeah, you're trying to say, hey, I love you. Uh, this is my intent. We have a good com we we're on common ground here. You know, I want you to be better, you want to be better, and that's why we're doing all these things. We're these ground ball drills, or these uh that's why we're I'm asking you to to be on time for work and all that good stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Yeah, I think there's there's inherently like a negative connotation, and I hear the same thing leaders say that like it's like having children, yeah. And and it's the negative part of having children, but the positive, again, optimist part of having children starts with love. Yeah, and that's that's why you have children at work, you know. And if you thought about it like that, like what do I what what is it I want from my my team at work? I want them to know that I love them and I care about them. Oh, well, how does that look? You know, what's their love language? Yeah, and and that's important, right? We do those exercises to find out like how does my team like to be communicated to? Like, what is their love language? Is it acts of service? How can I do acts of service? How can I do quality time? You know, um, we'll stay away from the physical touch because that might be a little weird, but um, I can certainly dab up my my guy at work.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Yeah, you know, if they like five, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, totally. Like dab them up and let them know you love them.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Yeah. Well, Kurt, we've we've we've talked through a lot of topics here. I

Allied Retina Work And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 43:41

think there's so many awesome gems here in this conversation. Um I would love to for you to be able to share with people listening um a little bit about what you do in your business now. Sure. And and how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about that?

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Yeah. Absolutely. Um, so I began uh a journey with Allied GPO in building their um retina GPO business. So we traditionally understand GPOs as the middleman between distribution and the practice. Um we're building something extremely unique here at Allied Retina that I would call more of a technology company. And we're going into areas of retina that your traditional GPOs have not served. And we're really trying to help practices be better. Uh, we're adding value via technology that I think is is certainly not in the market and will continue to grow. Um, we've grown by leaps and bounds. Just in the time that I've been here, um, more practices are waking up around how the big distributors own their own retina groups and we don't. And we find that that's a non-conflict and that they appreciate that and that they know our strategies and our technology is truly there to serve uh their needs and to make them a more profitable practice. And if they're profitable, they can grow, they can see more patients, they can fight more blindness, and that's why we're here.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Awesome. Well, um, how can people find you or connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, sure. Um, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way. Shoot me a message. Um, love to talk to whoever will listen. And I mean, you know, one of the things that I love most about my job is I'm back in these retina clinics. I'm talking to doctors, and I've got, you know, a lot of experience in the space, and I like to help them all all across the board. I mean, we one of the things I love talking about is is anything from operations to staffing to culture to you know technology to um you know payer contracts, all the all the things, right? So um it's certainly been uh a lot of fun for me to still be out there and talking to retina physicians about you know how to make their practice a better practice.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Awesome. Well, I'll put the link, I'll put your LinkedIn link in the show notes when this goes out. I really appreciate the conversation and super glad we're connected.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Absolutely, Mike. It's been a pleasure, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Well,

Subscribe Share And Final Charge

SPEAKER_01 46:33

that brings this episode of iCare Leadership Live to a conclusion. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show on your podcast app and share it with someone who would value the content. I promise to bring you more guests and content to help make you a better iCare clinical leader. I also invite you to subscribe to my HR newsletter for iCare leaders. You can find information about that at seasoned advice.com. Now go out there and lead with confidence.