"Change is the most constant thing" - John Harrison of WebMD Health Services

In this episode of the Land and Lead podcast, Dr. Josh Elmore speaks with John Harrison, President and General Manager of WebMD Health Services. They discuss Harrison's unconventional journey from theater to corporate leadership, the importance of well-being in employee performance, and strategies for navigating leadership transitions. Harrison shares insights on embracing change, building trust, and the power of improv in leadership. The conversation emphasizes the need for leaders to reflect, adapt, and continuously strive for improvement in their roles.

Transcript

Dr. Josh Elmore (00:00)

Welcome to the Land and Lead podcast, where we explore the real stories behind leadership transitions, the setbacks, strategies, wins, and moments of growth, all aimed at helping other leaders land well and lead effectively. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore of Court Street Consulting. 

Today we're speaking with John Harrison, President and General Manager of WebMD Health Services. as a member of the WebMD Senior Executive Leadership Team, John has been instrumental in developing and articulating the company's vision of empowering organizations and their populations to improve well-being through personalized and strategic partnerships. 

An expert in understanding and implementing corporate strategies for well-being programs, John has more than 25 years of strategic client and operational leadership, focused on driving strategic engagement in a multitude of market segments and customer groups.

As president and general manager of WebMD Health Services, he leads the division in developing and implementing new innovative digital platform solutions, award winning human-based services, and curated partner ecosystem that make a real difference in health and wellbeing of its users. 

The combination of his experience and passion for population health drives the philosophy on which the organization operates. John has helped empower organizations to create a well-rounded program that's built into their culture, offering their people the personalized tools and need to achieve real results, better health, better happiness, and well-being for all. A lifelong Oregonian, John is a passionate and proud graduate of the University of Oregon. In his free time, you will find him enjoying his family, a weekend adventure to the Oregon coast or Columbia River Gorge, or the latest Shakespeare play or Broadway show. 

Welcome to the show, John.

John Harrison (01:40)

Thanks, Josh. It's great to be here. yeah, I'm really excited to get into the conversation today. So thank you.

Dr. Josh Elmore (01:45)

Yeah, certainly. We're excited to have you. John, can you share a little your background and how you landed at WebMD Health Services?

John Harrison (01:52)

Yeah, so I have a very, I would sort of say a very unconventional background. You know, I have a theater arts degree from the University of Oregon and I did a lot of acting and teaching and directing and you know, I've often joked that I'm a pretty good actor still in my business life. in seriousness though, everything from my formative time of going through...

The theater program really taught me more than anything about how to really understand people and how to relate to people and how to really, really build teams and help create sort of a drive around trying to achieve a thing. The difference between putting on a play and a production isn't really that different than designing a product or a solution that you're wanting to bring the table. You're working with lots of different sort of functional groups and areas.

and expertise and it's all about what's the mission of what we're trying to achieve and how do we get there. And so that's sort of my formative time, but post college I started really on the product side. I worked for Symantec for a number of years. I worked in a different internet startups. I worked on the sort of B2B SaaS marketing side. 

I often describe myself not as 30 year health background veteran, but really a 30 year B2B to C SaaS background person. So I've worked in a variety of different industries, all with the common theme of B2B to C SaaS based experience. And I now 10 and a half years ago have been with the organization through a lot of different change and a lot of different growth.

I'm really happy to lead the health services team right now as we drive well-being solutions, holistic well-being solutions for large employers, health plans, and the public sector.

Dr. Josh Elmore (03:39)

Wow, yeah, so much of navigating the, I guess, from a theater improv, for instance, is an element of that work. I guess navigating change is also kind of part and parcel to being an actor.

John Harrison (03:53)

Yeah, one of the key lessons that you learn from improv very early it's probably the only rule in is that you basically, no matter what happens in the improv, everything that is presented to you is considered an offer.

Dr. Josh Elmore (04:09)

Hmm.

John Harrison (04:09)

Right? So when you're improving something, even if someone comes out and they have some crazy character or they have a crazy sort of way in which they interact with you, that is an offer to you. And you then get to choose how you respond to it and how you take it in. And if you take that same concept in the world of life and the world of business, that everything that comes at you is an offer and, your ability then to take that and take that in a, you know, a positive way and say, okay, maybe this isn't exactly what I expected. 

This isn't exactly what I wanted, but I can take this and I can use this and I can pivot from it to make it be a really exciting and a really additive thing for our business, for our organization, for our team. And I think that's really helped me a lot. I was actually talking with one of my colleagues earlier today about

You know, it's out of the saying of, you know, never get too high, never get too low, right? It's, it's that same type of sort of aspect that, that there's all these things coming at you all the time and, how you choose to interact with them and how you choose to react to them is in fact a choice. Um, it is a choice that you individually get to make. It's a choice that you get to make as a leader of a team. And, oftentimes, you know, the roles that we're in.

You know, people look to you for I should feel, how I should respond, how I should react. what, sort of feeling, you know, should I have around this and should I be afraid? Should I be scared? Should I, you know, should I be risk adverse or should I, you know, plow forward and, and charge forward and not lose track of what ultimately, you know, you're trying to achieve. 

And I think, you know, there's, ⁓ I say oftentimes that, you know, we may not necessarily know the way through what we're, the situation that we're in, but we've had so many situations historically or in the past where we have successfully navigated our way through. So while I may not know the way at this moment, I have confidence in ourselves and our team in our ability to find the way.

And, that changes your perspective dramatically with really, you know, there's kind of nothing that can really sort of put you off. Then it's like, all right, let's stay focused. Let's stay focused on what we know we're strong at. Let's stay focused on the end goal. and let's just work our way through it and we can get through it. We can find our way through.

Dr. Josh Elmore (06:27)

Yeah, wow. And it speaks to kind of the power of role modeling sharing one thing about I know about improv and folks use it a lot in the consulting world. Yes, and. 

John Harrison (06:36)

Yes.

Dr. Josh Elmore (06:46)

So that the invitation. Really great. And, know, I imagine that's going to come up in later around how that shows up for you, navigating transitions. But, can you tell us more about WebMD Health Services and your journey through various roles? You've been there for 10 and a half years.

John Harrison (06:52)

Yeah, I can. WebMD Health Services, we're a division inside of WebMD. I'm sure many people are familiar with and it's where you can go to get a lot of health WebMD Health Services is an organization that's focused on holistic well-being solutions that, of them not just as solutions that engage, think of engagement solutions as in our world, they're kind of empty calories solutions, but we're really trying to help transform lives. We're really trying to deliver measurable health gains. And we're really setting what I would consider a new standard driving peak employee performance. 

And you know, working with very large, you know, Fortune 1000 plus We work with large health plans. We work with large health systems. A lot of the organizations we work with are multinational, so they may have, know, employees in the United States as well as over across the world. We actually have, I think, across our client base, we support individuals in over 100 countries across the world. 

And then we also reference public sector primarily because we also direct work with ⁓ state governments, city governments, municipalities, large education institutions. and everything that we do is around really providing a digital holistic wellbeing solution that we then wrap around it, award-winning human services. And we have a whole curated partner ecosystem that can extend our capabilities into other areas that clients may have a need, desire for support. 

And really just a great organization to be a part of. I've worked for different organizations, all have had different sort pros and cons, waking up every single day with the focus of helping people strive to live a healthier seeing the results that come through those individuals, because at the end of the day, everything about well-being is personal. 

How you would define well-being, how I would define well-being. You know what I'm striving for, you're striving for maybe a friend, a spouse, a family member.

They're all unique and different. And, you know, we're really trying to help be supportive in that journey and really trying to help people transform their lives and in really impactful ways. And you hear different testimonials, which we get often. And one that stands out to me, through the years, through our part of our service offering includes one-on-one coaching that we provide to individuals. And we've provided over lifetime of the organization, over 6 million, individual, you know, coaching calls with individuals. 

And there was this one testimonial I'll never forget because it was a woman who was calling back and she wanted to thank our team for supporting her and her situation was one where she didn't get the support that she needed at the time. It might've really sort of gone a different direction for her. And she made a comment in the testimonial about how she really attributed our service to helping save her life. 

And it's not that many organizations that you can really point to and say, you know, I wake up every single day helping people take those steps that lead them to a better version of themselves and potentially do save lives. And so there's a real, aspect of what we do and, sort of an honor of being able to support and help people in that way. 

It's really a blessing, a lot of ways to work for an organization like this. And yeah, I did, I joined 10 years ago and it's been a ride. It's been great.

Dr. Josh Elmore (10:19)

Mm-hmm. and you know, thinking about that ride, thinking about that trajectory, can you give us a quick recap of, you know, what was your trajectory across roles and to where you are today?

John Harrison (10:31)

Yeah, so I joined the organization you know, in a lot of senior leadership level roles, it seems like you're either recruited in to an organization. Maybe you have a past colleague identifies you and recruits you in, or there's an external recruiter that's involved and they've identified you and they're recruiting you. So for me, was the latter. I was working for an internet startup company at the time. was really happy with what I was doing and, it was my second internet startup in my career where I'd worked for bigger organizations and wanted to go do an internet startup again.

And was contacted and there was something always about, I’m always attracted to transformative opportunities. So I was contacted and I was asked I was interested in coming and sort of considering a role really running the professional services part of the organization, we're basically supporting our clients. And so I started at the organization at a VP level role.

Kind of leading that part of the organization I was recruited in. And again, the hook line sinker for me was, a transformative opportunity where we feel know, what I was told is we feel like the team's great, we want to take it to the next level. We want to take it to, know that there's more that we can be doing in terms of value with our clients and we're looking for the leader to help us take that step. And so it was really, really exciting. You know, I joined, we kind of hit the ground running.

Did a lot of different things to kind of establish foundation for taking some steps forward in terms of some of the areas of focus and improvement that were really important at the time and then, as it often happens is organizations that you join, change. 

So I was hired in by  the CEO of this division and within, I think it was within the first three months of joining the CEO that hired me actually changed out and a new CEO was brought in. And I've been in that situation a few different times in my and I would say that I look back on different times definitely learned from how to be responsive and adaptive. 

Oftentimes when you have a new leadership change, one of the I think, very natural things is to have a sense of what's next and what does this mean and fear and things like that, which I would have had earlier in my career. But in this particular case, I was just ready for it. I was ready for, all right, this is what it is now and let's meet the moment with positivity. Let's meet the moment with sort of that art of possible of what we can do. so we had a new CEO that came in. I worked really, really closely with him for approximately maybe a year and a half, maybe close to two years. There were lots of different areas of the business that we, that he was wanting to focus on from a transformation standpoint.

So, I started very quickly stepping outside of my role into other areas of the business and helping in other areas with transformation that they were working through. And, know, as things would happen, he decided then to leave after a couple of years. And I was in a natural position at that point, mainly because I think of the, breadth that I had had of experience in serving a lot of different aspects of the business, understanding the business very deeply, but horizontally across all aspects of it and was given the opportunity to kind of move into his he left. And I've been in that role since 2018, late 18. I have to remember exactly. But through that time, since 18, we've acquired two other companies. 

We've grown tremendously. and we've, you know, whenever you're going through acquisition, because I've been on both sides of either being acquired or, my history here is WebMD at one point was a publicly traded company. So I was here when we went from publicly traded to private owned by private equity. but also, ⁓ have now, you know, been the leader of this part of the organization as we've acquired two companies and integrated those companies into our organization and really built a shared vision and mission for how the best of all of those organizations coming together have now made us who we are.

I'm a big believer that when you go through acquisition, it's really important to sort of honor and acknowledge that whoever you were as a company prior to that acquisition, really no longer exists the day the acquisition closes anymore. It doesn't exist because you're now fundamentally something more. And similarly, the company that you've acquired equally doesn't exist anymore. It's now something more. 

And if you can actually say that and say that to really both sets of, whoever we were before is wonderful and great and we are no longer that. We are now something different. And to start to paint that picture of what you are now with a vision and a mission of what that means and the value that that and the opportunity that it creates really gets everyone sort of forward focused really quickly, which is what you want in those situations. So, yeah, it's been a wonderful journey and path and very excited about where we are because I think you're never done, right? You're always evolving and you're always creating and market's always changing. so you're always kind of pushing yourself for what's next.

Dr. Josh Elmore (15:44)

Yeah, I want to pick up on a couple things that you mentioned there. One, in the change management world, there's ⁓ examples of organizations themselves having ceremonies to memorialize an end of an era even having full-on events that speak to, all right, we are done with this. Maybe it's a project, or an acquisition, and now we're moving on to that. So being able to give people also the space to have that moment of maybe mourning also gives them the ability to move on. So really interesting and powerful use case for helping people to kind of come together and kind of get that forward focus that you're looking at or thinking about. The other thing is, I just want to call back to...you came into the organization and immediately, three months later, got a new CEO. So how did you navigate that as you're new, the CEO's new, but you didn't come in under that CEO? How did you navigate that? 

John Harrison (16:39)

I think the, I, so I mean, I have a, I have a story that's probably very similar to many others, right? Is, you know, in some cases you may know that that change is going to happen. And in other cases, oftentimes you don't. And I certainly did not, you know, so, we were actually planning an on-site meeting kind of our main offices. you go in in the morning thinking you're going to an on-site meeting and you're not going to an on-site meeting. You're going to an introduction of a new CEO. so those things are real. They happen. 

Change happens, I think one of the things that can be, there's actually a really great doctor. His name's, I shared this in one of our, in our client forum earlier this year, and I'm going to do it as much as I can from memory. But his name's Dr. Price Pritchett, and he wrote a book on change and how people how people approach change and his general findings around change is that there's three different ways that people meet change. There are those that are advocates. So change happens. I'm an advocate for it. Yay. Change is here. Let's make the best of it. Let's do all the wonderful things. the other group of people that really will just sit on the fence, right? Like I'm not too sure about this. I'm going to, I'm just going to kind of stand pat I'm going to see how this plays out. I don't want it. I don't want to step in. I don't want to be, you know, negative. 

But I'm just I'm just gonna kind of wait and see right that kind of wait and see approach and then the third is actually those that are actually and be antagonistic. They are resistant, right? They may even try and sabotage the change and not really like, I don't agree with it. I don't we shouldn't make that change. And we got to go back to the other way. We're going to go back to a variation of that. And when you look at the percentage of people that fall into those buckets, only 20 % of people fall into the advocate for change, which means that you've got 80 % that are falling into either a wait and see or an actual antagonistic approach.

And I fortunately have been wired to never ever be anything but an advocate of change. And that change for me has always been opportunity. with change, obviously, you know the other, you know, sort of most famous saying is, right, what's the most constant thing? Change. Change is the most constant thing. 

And so I believe in all of those And so what I did through that time I really focused really quickly on one establishing credibility, because I think whenever you're in any sort of leadership role, and I know this also as a leader coming in, you know, when you join an organization as a leader or you're elevated at some level inside of an organization as a leader, know, you first thing that you are looking for is yes, you're doing some level of assessment you're trying to the lay of the land, where are the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, but everything comes down to people as well, right? 

You're honestly looking for are those that I can trust, right? Who are those that I can trust that I can build rapport with? are those that I can quickly put into a category of solid, you know, solid performers don't need to concern. I don't need to be concerned about this area, you know, of whatever your responsibility is. and knowing that that's the way leaders think, you know, the role that you have when you're not necessarily…I mean, many people are always in the leadership role. It's just a matter of what the scale of the leadership is that they have. Even, you know, every CEO has a boss, right? It's the board, right? So there's always some level of accountability that exists and what we're all reporting to. And so I think that no matter where you are in your sort of leadership journey,

You know, if when you find that you have new leadership, you know, think about the role that you would play if you were coming in in that same capacity. And the first thing you're wanting to find is, is who's credible? Who can I trust? Who can I build a relationship with? And knowing those things, then that's what I did when, when I had a new, you know, leader come in is I very quickly established credibility. very quickly said, you know, helped him understand. 

This is an area of the business that is solid, that is performing. That is not something you need to be concerned about. Certainly if you have curiosity, let's talk about all the things, but let's build a real trusting relationship. And then I also really kind of leaned into, you know, at the time my objective was very simple. I wanted the organization to be successful. How the organization needed to be successful, what that looked like. You know, I was open to any possibility that would lead to that outcome. That was my, you know, my North Star was, I want the organization to be successful. 

And I had confidence that, no matter what path that took, know, I could find opportunity through that path. So it wasn't about like, you know, my North Star wasn't I personally need to be X or I need to have this, or I need to do this. It was, I want the organization to be successful and let's figure out how we do that. And I want to be a part of the team that makes that happen. and just leaning in at that level, one, I quickly established credibility and trust. quickly became a confidant. quickly became someone who was asked to take on incremental levels of responsibility. it's about performance, right? It's about performance and how you deliver and the results that you drive. that has always served me, like that approach has always served me really, really well.

If think about it, if you know that 80 % of the people in the world are going to be adverse to change at some level, then why not be part of the 20 %? Why not sort of see change as the opportunity to evolve and make things different and better versus being fearful, which is a very normal human reaction, right? So it's okay to acknowledge those feelings. It's okay to be fearful.

But it's also okay to say, yes, I'm fearful back to your improv example. Yes, I'm fearful and I'm going to approach it in this way. I'm not going to let fear be or a bind that holds me back in some way. And that's, and that's that classic kind of in the middle, like wait and see, you know, you wait and see too long and everything has passed and the opportunity has been missed. those first few moments when you're building new relationships, new credibility, new trust. Think about it. It's first impressions, right? It's everything about, you you go to a dinner party and you meet somebody and the first impression is either good or it's not. And with someone new that you meet and that's true in life and everything. And so why not at least put forth an attempt to try and have a good first impression in all situations that you're in.

Dr. Josh Elmore (23:22)

Yeah, yeah, and I guess, you know, you having that appetite for transformation and maybe coming in fresh without maybe any history in the organization also gave you the ability to kind of raise your hand and be, hey, I'm an advocate, ⁓ use me, leverage me, and giving that new leader that sense of you're there for them. I mean, you came in thinking about a transformation, but maybe not as radical as you experienced when you went into that on-site and you said, okay, this is radical transformation.

John Harrison (23:49)

Yeah, it was definitely like I was expecting transformation in an area of the business, not the entire business. Right. And so that's certainly where the scope broadened and then it became more of, Ok, great, There's a lot of different, you know, and there's a lot of different opportunities. 

But I think though, the other thing that I've also really tried within my own leadership is that, you know, I'm a really strong believer in never being sort of never, I don't know, never resting on your laurels, never feeling like you've achieved, you know, all of the things, like constantly. a, I'm a big believer rhythm a business and planning.

How do you constantly challenge yourself and how do you constantly challenge your peers in the organization, those that are a part of your team to continually be looking for new and different ways to be better and to never be really satisfied with where we are? Because if you're striving for some level of greatness in what you're doing, the first thing you have to, I think, accept is that you'll never get there.

And, so it's always, it's not about getting to a point. It's about this constant journey of striving and challenging yourself that, things can be better. do something super simple and I've done this now for five years, but it forces me. It's a really simple like business hack. I've shared it with people before, but it's, think it's such a wonderful thing, especially in a leadership role. have all these meetings that you're responsible for. You have one-on-ones and different meetings. 

And one of the things I forced myself to typically at the end of the year because I, it's getting rhythmic with the calendar year is I will go into my calendar and I will delete every single meeting that I forced to reschedule.

And think through what are the meetings that I actually should be having and want to have. And maybe they're similar to the ones that I've been having. Maybe they're slightly different and nuanced because I want it to be more expansive. I want a different focus. It doesn't, I don't need to be meeting with this person at this level of frequency. 

And so it's just sort of this constant, like there's different ways to almost like hack yourself on, on, on how do you, how do you force that level of continual thinking and continual continual transformation. And that's like a super easy one for me that, you you think about turn of the calendar year, right? Going into January, I have New Year's resolutions. I have all this sort of like feeling of newness and it's naturally a part of our If you can bring some of that energy into the way in which you think about leadership, it can be really transformative. 

And there's nothing to say I couldn't do that tomorrow if I wanted to do that tomorrow because I feel stuck or I want to sort of jumpstart things and I feel like they're not moving in the direction that I want. But there's ways to push yourself to take that step back and have a perspective on, you know, do I, if I was to come in fresh, even though I've been here 10 years, would I do exactly what I'm doing right now the same way? 

And more often than not, no matter where you are in your career, every single time you do that, you will say, no, I'd probably change this a little bit. I'd I'd shift this a little bit. There's a little nuance here. Wow. I really want to support this person in a different way. I want, I want to involve people in a different and finding those layers of, of sort of advancement, I think for me, intellectually has been really, um, has really been really additive to my career and I think it helps a lot at a leadership level and it also creates a culture of continuous evolution and continuous change, which there's nothing wrong with any of that. Like that's a healthy, healthy part of an organization.

Dr. Josh Elmore (27:34)

And you know, super powerful practice, kind of keeping yourself agile keeping the organization agile through your role modeling and from the organization development hat that I wear I would say that you know, it's helpful to have these kind of you know buckets of metrics for you know 20% are advocates the rest are not. And, when you're in an organization where, you’re helping build that muscle and that culture of change you may, I would be you know curious to know and you should pulse your organization, but that readiness for change may be higher. You may have more advocates in your organization because you've built the muscle. So that's a really powerful practice kind of about your roles and gone through it sounds like three roles is that right?

John Harrison (28:20)

Here I've gone through, yeah, I've gone through three different roles. 

Dr. Josh Elmore (28:23)

So, what has been most kind of powerful strategies that have helped you navigate those transitions?

John Harrison (28:29)

Well, I think that one of the most important things, and make this recommendation for, again, kind of any level of leader that comes in, is I think the first 30 days inside of any role that you're in is oftentimes the most powerful because you're, comment that you made earlier in the conversation on. You know, being new and not necessarily being trapped to all of the biases the, reasons why, you know, we do things this way or that way, even the reasons why we can't do something, Those, those things don't exist in that sort of first 30 days when you start thinking in a broader. 

And so I think that there's, ⁓ there's a lot of power in forcing yourself not to draw too many conclusions in the first 30 days, we are naturally trained as humans and as leaders to have judgment in how we approach life and how we approach situations. And if you can hold back on casting too much judgment too quickly, a better...perspective. 

I have heard stories, to me this feels too long, but I have heard stories of some leaders joining organizations and not talking in meetings for 30 to 90 days as a, as a true like onboarding, I am here to just take it all in and not, be seen as, you know, sort of like a change agent and just really wanting to like 90 days feels like way too long to me personally. 

So I think that 30 days is really fresh because I also think in that 30 days, you, you will at the end of that 30 days, one have opinions and so for me, some of those key strategies have been take that first 90 days, really use that time to reflective and to learn and to listen and to be more taking in versus pushing out And then I think the most important thing, especially for whomever you're leading, everyone inside of that organization wants to what's the plan? What are we doing? What's changing? And your voice as a leader with your team is so know, day one, first 30 days, and everyone will give you a little bit of grace.

But I have found having done this multiple times now, even in other organizations, if you are not expressing some version of here's my priorities, here's where I want to really focus at the end of that 30 days, I think you, you start to lose trust, ⁓ for those people that you're leading. 

So I'm a big advocate of take the first 30 days, not to cast any judgment, build your, you know, your form of opinions of, of where focus is needed and, be very clear that, Hey, after my 30 days, I heard this. I learned this. think that we have three big areas of focus that I'm going to spend time on in the next 90 days. Right. And sort of, again, put it in a different time period that's longer, but is not the next year or not six months again, kind of a shorter timeframe. 

Cause I think what that does is it sets you up whenever you join, you'll have your day one or week one conversations of, hey, I'm here. I'm excited. You know, I'm really looking forward to joining the organization. You'll have your day 30. This is what I heard and this is what I've learned. there's, you know, three big initiatives that we're starting now to focus on these things. And at the end of 90 days, so we're now four months in to starting. You've now, you know, you've now made progress. 

You've actually made improvement. You've achieved something. And at the end of that, you know, four months, that's when you can sort of get back into that kind of normal rhythm of wherever you are on the kind of broader operating calendar and where, you know, we're getting ready for next year's planning or, know, we're really going to be focusing on, you know, execution for the objectives this year. And it gets you more into that normal rhythm, but it's a really easy way to kind of jumpstart yourself in. Cause the most important things is, is obviously that you learn and understand, but you've got to build trust. 

You've got to build trust and credibility with the I, I don't know how else to do that without being very, very communicative and being very open and honest of, you know, I have these impressions. Because oftentimes if you can express what your impressions are, like 90 % of the people are going to say, well, that's spot on, right? That's exactly right. I did do another strategy I did when I was here early on, the first role that I moved into.

I love start stop continue ⁓ feedback process. It's a great process to do. We actually use it for individual performance development. So when you're going through, you know, your annual performance review, have rather than a self review, we do an individual self assessment based on start stop continue. And then the manager does one back. But I think you can also do that not only at an individual level, but at a team or an organization level.

So, if you were to, again, to pulse your team when you come in and say, you know, what are the top two things we should start doing? are the top two things we should stop doing? What are the top two things we should continue doing? And if you do that across a broad enough organization, broad enough part of the organization, there will be thematic elements that are truths. 

And what you can then do when you have some of that information and data is you can then dive into that and say, help me understand why this is a theme with those people that have been there longer you know, learn, gain perspective, form your own opinions. But again, easy, easy tools really help you sort of accelerate your learning in a structured way. oftentimes when you're just doing conversations, it's helpful and you get nuance and context, but you don't necessarily get feedback in a structured way of do this, don't do this, like don't mess with this, this works really well, this is great. 

And you need that, you really, like you wanna be open to hearing those things and not be biased just by the four people that tell you what those things are, that there's more to learn from the rest of the organization.

Dr. Josh Elmore (34:35)

Yeah, and it also speaks to the power of kind of providing an open-ended forum to see what comes back to you and to triangulate and say, okay, this is what I'm hearing. I've heard it from multiple folks and it can help you prioritize. 

John Harrison (34:47)

100%. 

Dr. Josh Elmore (34:52)

So, thinking about your current role, been in the role for how long?

John Harrison (34:55)

I've been in this role since 2018, So it's been seven years-ish.

Dr. Josh Elmore (35:00)

So what makes your current role different from the past roles? And what are some wins and setbacks? And how do they manifest?

John Harrison (35:08)

Yeah, think so that I mean, the fundamental difference in my role is that I'm responsible for the whole organization. So I'm so the division of WebMD Health Services, I'm responsible for all aspects of it. ⁓ You know, certainly our top line revenue growth, our profitability as an organization, all departments within.

So I, you know, at the end of the day, you know, our success, ⁓ where we go strategically with the team. know, I'm, I'm responsible for leading that charge. I, I don't ever think of myself as singularly responsible because I'm part of a team. And, and while I may have the kind of ultimate responsibility and hat that I get to wear. know, it's really about forming the team that can work together to make those things happen. 

I think, you know, some of the biggest things that I've been most proud of in the time that we've…that I've been in this role is, you know, I referenced earlier in the conversation that we were able to do two different acquisitions of bringing in two different organizations into the fold. 

And sometimes you do acquisitions that are, maybe they add a new capability or they, you know, it's a new product line that you've acquired and you get to sort of integrate that in. And there's not necessarily a lot of overlap with your business. In our case, we actually acquired two companies that were ⁓ actually in our space providing very similar services. 

So was more of a consolidation of different companies doing the same types of things, supporting the same types of clients. And that has been incredibly rewarding because the integration approach that you go through, we've always prioritized the best of the best. And it's not about, oftentimes you'll use the word legacy this company that you acquired, legacy this company that you acquired as a way of referencing, like, well, it's the legacy part of the business here, the legacy part of the business here.

We go through that phase and I tend to try and use that legacy, even respect what the legacy part of WebMD pre-acquisition was this. And so we sort of try that and make it very equal across the board. But I've been very proud of the work that we've done to really bring the organizations together in a healthy way to focus forward and become something more and something more than we ever would have been able to be by ourselves, which I think is the whole purpose of an acquisition is to try and strive, to try and add something, to strive and push yourself to be something more that you can provide to everyone.

I think we've had normal challenges, you know, with market changes, we've had normal challenges you know, probably it's at times trying to do more things than, than, you know, maybe we should have been a little bit more focused and done a little bit less. ⁓ it's challenging because our, our focus is very, is very broad and we want to be able to provide a lot of value. 

And so with that. You know, there are times where we're pushing a lot of things up the hill at the same time versus pushing one thing up the hill at the same time. And, and that, that is something I think that, you know, the value of that for the clients that we support is we're continually adding layered value across a variety of things. challenge with it is, that you're not necessarily taking a leap forward in one particular area or the other. And, and I think, and that's, that's a hard, trade-off to make as, a leader and, not always.

No, maybe in reflection, you might do something slightly different in certain cases, but I think at the end of the day, ⁓ I'm very proud of the work that we do. I'm very proud of the impact that we make. very proud of the level of support that we can provide organizations across a wide spectrum of areas, not just a singular area.

You know, would never want to be a one trick pony, you know, so to speak. because I think at some level, if you're a one trick pony, then, you know, maybe I want a different pony one day, right? Maybe I, maybe I want to do, you know, I don't need a pony. need something else. And we're really trying to build lifelong relationships with the clients that we have. 

We actually celebrated earlier this year, a 40 year anniversary with one of the clients that we support. And we have many clients that we've worked with for 10, 20 plus years. And something that I take a lot of pride in and we want, you know, if we've celebrated a 10th year with somebody, we want to focus on what do we need to do to celebrate the next 10 years and how do we build upon that? How do we again, layer value in? And so there's a lot of things to be really, really prideful around that.

Dr. Josh Elmore (39:44)

Yeah, certainly. and I think going through acquisitions and having, you know, new minds various ideas, it would make sense that you would have lots of things cooking, right? And especially also when you have a variety of client needs, right? Like what's a feature? What becomes a core function to the business? you always have to find that middle ground, I find, with folks that I chat with.

A question I really like to ask all of my guests is, ⁓ in the 1980s, John Gabarro ran a few studies focused on general managers and presidents as they pursued new roles and wrote the results in the book, The Dynamics of Taking Charge. Gabarro explained that an executive has fully taken charge when they have mastered the new assignment in sufficient depth to be managing the organization as efficiently as the resources, constraints, and the manager's own ability allow.

Thinking about this definition where 100 % is having fully taken charge in your assignment, your role that you've been in for seven years now, what percent would you say you are at now?

John Harrison (40:48)

What's it's sort of a fascinating question because part of the, part of it is somewhat bound by what you think your capacity is. And I would like to think that my capacity and I know this from my own experience that my capacity is always evolving and growing. And, and so, you know, at some level, would say, I would say that I, I feel very confident that I am operating, you know, at a hundred percent efficiency with this huge caveat.

That my personal capacity can always be more and can always be growing. And I expect to be so in the sense of, so in the capacity that I have today, I feel that I'm operating a hundred percent efficient in that capacity. And I'm not satisfied with my capacity today because I always believe that there's ways of elevating or, or you know, being more efficient or finding, finding better ways to do things. so in that sense, you know, it's kind of like, it's probably that 80 20 type rule, right? Where, where I like, always feel like there's 20 % more that I could probably and get out of myself in different ways. but I think again, you have to kind of push yourself for, reflecting for, um, both being very honest with where your strengths are and where, you know, again, maybe you're spending time that you shouldn't be spending time.

And, and I think it's, it's really pushing yourself to focus on, you know, what would that better version of yourself look like? One my favorite techniques with people that I work with is you can go down a path and you can go down the path and you can say, gosh, Josh, I really think that you could work on, you know, your time management skills. And I think that here's a couple of tips and tricks and things that you could think about. And it's very directive. It's very specific. It's wonderful. It’s rights tailored, people would appreciate it, you know, that feedback. 

I try and take a different approach of imagining, and really kind of forward thinking and saying, Josh, imagine a world where, you weren't encumbered and feeling rushed. Imagine a world where, you know, you, ahead on deliverables and had time to reflect. Imagine a world that looks like, and sort of painting that picture of that area that you're wanting to focus on so that it doesn't become, you know, sort of, and I try and do this with myself, right? 

So how can I, what's a better version of me that I can paint for myself? Or what's a better version of you if I'm working with you, that I can paint for you and that we can almost have sort of a shared vision of, I think you could, I think I could be like this if I focused on these things and focused on getting there. And back to your question on capacity and efficiency, it's all the same thing to me because it's, think, I think there's a better version of who I am now.

That I'm always striving to become and striving to find. And I think that if I focus on it, if I spend the time to reflect on it, I can take the steps to get there and I can measure myself to it. I can feel accomplishment or I can push myself if I'm not maybe taking all those steps.

But again, it's that forward thinking view. And I think if you can do that at an individual level, you can then do it at a team level and then you can do it at an organization level and you can have that reverberation, you know, throughout an entire organization to be continually trying to examine in a thoughtful, you know, appreciative way of I believe in myself and I believe in you and I believe in us that we can be something more than what we are today.

Dr. Josh Elmore (44:20)

Yeah, yeah, super powerful. And it goes back to practice of, even you mentioned in the beginning of the conversation, right, acting, and then we went to improv and the culture of change and the example that you gave with looking at your calendar and deciding what to throw out and giving yourself that space to open up your capacity and have that time to reflect. So super powerful ⁓

John Harrison (44:43)

We did an exercise a while back and I'll share this real quick, I think it's very, very powerful. We were working with an organization that uses as a way of doing business is now probably five years ago, but one of the key concepts that we brought into this particular training that has stuck with our organization for a long time is this concept of invisible rules and that we all live with whatever role that we're in, whatever capacity we have, we all are in an organization and we build up these biases around certain things that are not possible or we can't do because of whatever the reasons are. And if you label those things, that's an invisible rule. It's something we don't even speak about. 

We don't talk about, we just know that, it, we can't do that because of X, Y, Z And if you can actually one, identify what those invisible rules are, challenge yourself on, are they real? Are they re and maybe they were real three years ago. Maybe they were real five years ago. It doesn't mean that they're real today. Right. 

And if you can continually challenge yourself on that thinking, what it does is it breaks your barriers and you're, and you're sort of these artificial locks that you've put in place around creativity, around innovation, around change. And it really says, well, you know what? That's, I used to think that, but that's actually not true. And why I find this all the time. I tell teams, I say, why would you choose to live in pain? Why would you choose to have this frustration? with this thing. 

What are the rules that you've created around why? That frustration has to be? Why can't we take a step outside of the box and go at this a different way to try and remove that feeling, those barriers, that pain, they're not real. Like there's no one else who's going to change those things but us. And we have all the power that we can change anything we want, as long as we work together and we strive to sort of create a better world. 

And I think that, sometimes again, it's like just finding those hooks that allow someone to take their, you know how your perspective can just like, put on a different pair of glasses and you've been seeing the same thing, but it's just like this shift, right? And it's like, if you can find those ways to create that perspective shift inside of your team, a normal regular cadence, it can be really, really powerful.

Dr. Josh Elmore (47:01)

Yeah, yeah, super powerful tool for unlocking potential. ⁓ So, you know, kind of wrapping up here, John, what advice would you share with leaders currently entering a new high stakes role?

John Harrison (47:05)

Well, I think the single biggest thing is I think it's really important to acknowledge all of the feelings that you have. Excitement, you know, fear. I think it's really important to be grounded in, and probably a lot of this is ties to what we think about every day with holistic wellbeing. 

It's like, you gotta be really grounded in yourself and grounded in what are the things that you're bringing into this high stakes situation and be honest with yourself about, know, like, wow, I'm taking on a new role with bigger capacity than I've ever had. There's, you know, lots of like amazing articles about imposter syndrome, all the things that, all these things that we like, they're very real. Like everyone has felt that at a different point in time in their life.

It's okay to feel that way. There's nothing, you're not unique in feeling that way. It's not abnormal to have those feelings, right? So I think it's really important to be grounded in your feelings. I think it's also really important to with enthusiasm, lead with passion, lead with joy. I think that more often than not, you know, we are not always looking for the possible. 

And if you're moving into a new role with expanded capabilities or transformative opportunities, there is a team there. There is maybe a group of clients there that have had whatever level of history, whatever level of frustrations, whatever level of successes are in play. And...They want you to lead and be successful. And they want to be a part of the journey and the direction that you're going to help take them through. And if you can be open, honest, communicative, lead by example, the role model that you want them to follow and represent themselves, I really think good things can happen.

And it's, know, every day is new, every day is different. You're going to learn different things. But of what we talked about earlier in terms of taking that first 30 days of, of non-judgment and really just trying to take in as much as possible. And the reality is, is you'll start forming opinions in a couple of weeks, but, but if you can force yourself almost not to put those opinions on paper until like that end of that 30 days and say, okay.

I'm going to go take an afternoon, I'm going to go take four hours and I'm going to, you know, it be a Sunday where you're just like sitting on your couch or in a chair outside, you know, with the sun and just like real reflection of what have I learned? What do I believe? Where do I need to spend time? What do I have concerns around?

We don't do that enough, you know, as leaders, we're constantly moving the next thing, you know, whether it's the next big opportunity or the next big fire that needs support. we're constantly pulled in different directions that can feel strategic, but are often tactical in terms of getting pulled into these things. And, and I think it's just really, really important to find your rhythm of where you get to reflect and you get to have real thinking time. And especially.

Especially in those beginning days, you know, you never set a first impression twice, you set it once. It's super, super important to be on, you know, during those first few moments and first few weeks and days. I think it's exciting, transformation is fun, change can be fun. If you bring joy, if you bring excitement, people... the old adage of people want to work with people that they like has never been true or at any point in time in our life, in our history. And not about being likable. It's just about, you know, being someone that people respect and people appreciate and people you can disagree, but you at least understand, right? The decisions and the direction that, ⁓ you know, is being made.

Dr. Josh Elmore (50:52)

Yeah, certainly. Super helpful. Thanks, John. Really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today and to share your wisdom across the roles and so many different moments of transformation that you had to ⁓ address and bring people along and build out those cultures of change for yourself and others. Really, really powerful. Is there anything you'd like to share about the company or what's coming up for you?

John Harrison (51:30)

Well, I think the one thing I would always share is we have the pleasure of working with a lot of organizations of all sorts of different sizes that are looking for ways to really help their employees on their own holistic wellbeing journey. And I think the most important takeaway around wellbeing is wellbeing is directly tied to employee performance. 

And if you care about, which I think most leaders do, about their employees' performance and how they're productive and whether they're available and are they performing at their highest peak level? You know, these holistic wellbeing programs are critical aspects of that. We all know that if you're not feeling your best self, whether it's because, you know, you have a physical ailment, you, you know, you haven't been able to get into a regular, you know, exercise routine, your diet's off, your mental health is off, you're with an aging parent, you know, you name all the things that sort of really fall into trials and tribulations of life. 

And there's ways to help. There's ways to be a part of helping people, you know, meeting them where they are and really helping them sort of find a better version of themselves. You know, we're obviously passionate believers and helping with that. And we'd be certainly very excited and happy to help anyone any of those challenges. So, you know, anyone can go to WebMDHealthServices.com. Love to support any organization out there that's looking for support.

Dr. Josh Elmore (52:52)

Love it, Yeah, great stuff. Well, thanks so much, John. Really appreciate you taking the time.

John Harrison (52:57)

You as well, Josh. Great conversation. Thank you.

Dr. Josh Elmore (52:59)

so much for listening to the Land and Lead podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Josh Elmore. Tune in next time for more stories from leaders navigating high stakes role transitions.