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June 18, 2026

The Most Expensive Meeting in Healthcare Is Probably Useless

The Most Expensive Meeting in Healthcare Is Probably Useless

Most leaders believe the purpose of an all-hands meeting is to communicate information.

Larry Benz believes the opposite.

In this episode of The Operator, Larry explores why many all-hands meetings fail to accomplish their most important objective: helping leadership learn what is actually happening inside the organization.

The conversation examines how organizations create the appearance of transparency while avoiding uncomfortable conversations, why employees stop asking questions, and how leaders can accidentally mistake silence for agreement.

Larry also introduces a simple metric leaders can use to evaluate whether their all-hands meetings are generating real dialogue or simply broadcasting information.

Topics Covered
  • Why most all-hands meetings are ineffective
  • Communication vs information gathering
  • Psychological safety and organizational trust
  • The danger of pre-screened Q&A sessions
  • Why leaders become disconnected from reality
  • Feedback vs confirmation
  • The role of discomfort in leadership
  • How employee trust is built—or lost
  • A practical KPI for evaluating all-hands effectiveness
Key Quote"The discomfort is information."About The Operator

The Operator is hosted by Larry Benz and explores leadership, culture, incentives, communication, growth, and the realities of building healthcare organizations.

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https://benzoperator.substack.com/p/your-all-hands-has-the-largest-audience

WEBVTT

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All right, this one feels personal.

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Most healthcare organizations have an all

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hands meeting.

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I've been to one, you've been to one.

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The CEO comes on, smiling,

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gives an update.

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The CFO comes in, spreadsheets and graphs,

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gives numbers.

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And then a few carefully selected

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questions get answered.

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Hopefully.

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Then everybody logs off and claps.

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The leadership calls it communication

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because you say it's done.

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But on the operator,

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the latest article makes a pretty

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uncomfortable argument.

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The all hands has the largest audience in

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the company,

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but maybe often produces the least

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learning.

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Because when leadership spends an hour

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talking and five minutes listening,

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the platform, everybody else,

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learns almost nothing about itself.

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So...

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Larry, let's start there.

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How'd the all hands become a broadcast

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instead of a conversation?

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More one way and less two way.

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Over time.

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It didn't happen in one bad decision.

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And that's the thing people probably get

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wrong.

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I mean,

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nobody ever stands up in a meeting and

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says, you know,

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let's make this quarters all hands safer

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and more boring, right?

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What they say is let's make it more

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focused, more polished, more on message,

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more on point.

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And every one of those words is the

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same word, just wearing a different suit,

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right?

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So it happens sort of one safe decision

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at a time.

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The gravitational pull is toward a real

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curated, professionalized version,

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when that's exactly what you don't want on

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these kind of meetings,

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pre-screened questions,

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slightly less likely to surface the real

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hard questions if they're pre-screened.

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I mean, people are scared of them, right?

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And none of those feels like sort of

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corruption in the moment.

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Each one is responsible again over time.

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But within about, I don't know,

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a couple of years, a few quarters,

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the meeting that's supposed to be the

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platform's most open conversation has

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become quarterly press conference.

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And the best analogy is like during COVID,

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Many companies went to daily, weekly,

00:02:10.456 --> 00:02:11.657
multiple times a week,

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all hands on deck type meetings.

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And they were very transparent and

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vulnerable.

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And then when we sort of went back

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to doing them quarterly, it changed.

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And that's not just a health care problem.

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It's a gravity problem.

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I mean, look at Google.

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They invented the meeting, TGIF.

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Fifty percent of it was live Q&A.

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you know you could ask anything and google

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couldn't keep it alive and if they

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couldn't who could right so the company

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you know they built the model and yet

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they had the gravitational pull and so the

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average multi-site you know healthcare or

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dental platform is not going to resist it

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you know just by accident

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But the exact moment it tips is

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identifiable.

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It's the prep meeting where somebody says,

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why don't we just collect the questions

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ahead of time so we can be ready?

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This happened in our Q&A meeting the other

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day.

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We didn't allocate enough time.

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and by the time we got to q

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a we had gone through the powerpoint deck

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and it was very very frustrating for me

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and i'm like you know okay so i

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put the meeting through my you know ai

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generator to tell me what went wrong in

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all hands and you know here i am

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trying to preach it but it's so easy

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to default into an incorrect way of doing

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the meeting and and that's what i'm that's

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why i'm writing about these

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Will you start this article off on your

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Substack, the operator,

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from the other side of the spectrum,

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from the other side of the camera,

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from the viewing angle,

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in the perspective of a dental hygienist,

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sitting through one of these meetings,

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hearing the numbers, all the updates,

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all the growth,

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while she's or he doing something,

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doing the actual work or charting or doing

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some other things,

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but they're hearing none of the answers

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she actually cares about.

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Why is that the right place to start?

00:04:04.712 --> 00:04:09.854
yeah so um the entire failure you know

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the open you know the all hands-on is

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really invisible to the ceo um or this

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you know executive team but it's

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completely obvious for those that are in

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operatory four if you're a dental

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hygienist for example or in the clinic if

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you're a technician or a physical

00:04:27.742 --> 00:04:28.281
therapist

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You know, from the stage, the CEO,

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we think it's a triumph,

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but that eight hundred people attended at

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the meeting ended at a time that the

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slides look professional.

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Every dashboard says it worked.

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But from the operatory,

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from the PT clinic,

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they see a meeting that answered exactly

00:04:47.516 --> 00:04:49.017
one or, you know,

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they answered none of the questions that

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they really walked into the room with.

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And oftentimes what you find is the people

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that attend these meetings are your folks

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in your back office,

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not the people who you really want to

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hear,

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which those are your frontline clinicians.

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And so they just stopped attending because

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they feel it's a waste of time.

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And when we take attendance,

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we look at numbers,

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but not the people on the front lines.

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So every instinctively,

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every operator reads the company from the

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top down,

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but the whole argument of this series,

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the entire basis is the truth lives on

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the floor.

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If you can't feel the meeting from the

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operatory, from the clinic,

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from the back room of seeing a patient,

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you can't fix it in the boardroom.

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And you'll keep optimizing the things that

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most people have tuned out on.

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And notice that the two questions that the

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hygienist, for example, wants to know,

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her pay and a person she cares about,

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such as her coworker or best friend,

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the people that people actually talk about

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at work, compensation and colleagues,

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right?

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That's what people talk about at work.

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Never,

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ever do any of them make it to

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one of the slides in your deck,

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and they should.

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And so you have to be intentional about,

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you know,

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I want to start out this meeting by

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talking about this clinician and that

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clinician.

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That's what you should be talking about,

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not your volumes and not your EBITDA,

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right?

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So we build, you know,

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an hour or half hour long meeting about

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the company and systematically leave out

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the only two subjects that everybody who's

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on the front floor wants to talk about,

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their compensation, their benefits,

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and their coworkers.

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I've been at large enough organizations.

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Someone asks that question.

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They quietly get shushed out of the room.


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I've been at organizations that you're

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describing where if someone from the

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audience,

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if the hygienist or the physical therapist

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were to ask questions about colleagues or

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compensation,

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I've seen this happen.

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You get a polite answer, non-answer.

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Then that question is moved on.

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We move quickly on.

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And then in the background,

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there's find out who that was,

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who their manager is.

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We got to have a talk with them.

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So the people in the audience understand

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after very, very quickly, like you said,

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faster than the leadership team,

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what this is and what this isn't.

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So you wrote that at all hands is

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actually supposed to be the moment when

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the platform talks to itself and

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So what's the all hands goal?

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How do you know if you've succeeded?

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Because eight to eight hundred people,

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you know,

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attending is not it should not be the

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goal.

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Cannot be the goal.

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Correct.

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It is the one venue in the entire

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operating meeting stack,

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as I've been calling it,

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where the floor meets the leadership at

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scale, at volume,

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at ubiquity with everybody participating.

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Think about how information normally moves

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in a hierarchy or a platform.

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It's filtered, right?

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It goes up through the site leads,

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through the regionals,

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through kind of whatever clinical

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hierarchy you have, the clinic director,

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team manager, etc.

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and every layer sands the edges off.

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By the time it reaches the top,

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it's a summary of a summary of a

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summary.

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The all hands is the one moment

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that filtering is supposed to be removed.

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Eight hundred people get an honest look at

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the people running the company and those

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people get an honest look back.

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So counterintuitively,

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the more professional that you look,

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unless you act that way,

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twenty four seven,

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I don't know anybody that does,

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the more disingenuous you're going to come

00:08:53.509 --> 00:08:53.788
off.

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And when it works,

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when you show vulnerability,

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when you answer questions honestly and

00:09:00.212 --> 00:09:01.913
admit you don't know things,

00:09:02.013 --> 00:09:04.953
it's the single highest leverage hour that

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you've spent on your operating calendar.

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I'm speaking from a CEO or an operator

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perspective.

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There's no other moment where the entire

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nervous system over the organization is

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assembled at one place and at one time.

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When it doesn't work,

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It's the most expensive meeting you can

00:09:22.274 --> 00:09:23.515
ever imagine.

00:09:24.677 --> 00:09:26.077
Because you're spending an hour,

00:09:26.138 --> 00:09:28.100
the whole platform's attention,

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which is the scarcest resource that you

00:09:31.743 --> 00:09:31.903
own.

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It's the only thing you produce is a,

00:09:34.706 --> 00:09:35.907
if the only thing you produce is a

00:09:35.986 --> 00:09:37.548
CEO or CFO update,

00:09:37.628 --> 00:09:40.169
everyone could read that in an email in

00:09:40.210 --> 00:09:41.191
about four minutes.

00:09:41.451 --> 00:09:43.753
Or the way I like to communicate those

00:09:43.773 --> 00:09:45.455
things is by Loom or video.

00:09:45.495 --> 00:09:46.936
So they don't have to read anything.

00:09:47.662 --> 00:09:49.722
If they could have listened to a

00:09:49.783 --> 00:09:51.124
two-minute video of me,

00:09:52.384 --> 00:09:54.284
that should not be what I have in

00:09:54.304 --> 00:09:56.225
the all-hands meeting, right?

00:09:56.985 --> 00:09:58.047
And I tell operators,

00:09:58.106 --> 00:09:59.886
this is the one-hour quarter you can feel

00:09:59.927 --> 00:10:02.207
the whole body at once.

00:10:02.327 --> 00:10:04.428
Most of them used to take the body's

00:10:04.469 --> 00:10:07.049
temperature with a slide deck and never

00:10:07.130 --> 00:10:07.951
actually touch anything.

00:10:08.749 --> 00:10:09.288
the patient.

00:10:09.308 --> 00:10:09.789
Yeah.

00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:12.010
And so you have to think of it.

00:10:12.312 --> 00:10:14.373
These are clinicians working on patients.

00:10:14.734 --> 00:10:17.296
You have to be management working with

00:10:17.316 --> 00:10:20.538
your clinicians and you have to think more

00:10:20.697 --> 00:10:22.620
in a clinical realm than in a

00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:26.101
professionalized business sense.

00:10:26.142 --> 00:10:26.322
Yep.

00:10:26.422 --> 00:10:28.403
You brought in cost as well.

00:10:28.583 --> 00:10:30.846
I was I was taught early, you know,

00:10:30.865 --> 00:10:32.527
I needed permission at one of my jobs

00:10:32.567 --> 00:10:34.469
to spend more than a thousand dollars,

00:10:34.749 --> 00:10:36.129
but I didn't need any permission to waste

00:10:36.210 --> 00:10:37.291
twenty five people's time.

00:10:37.730 --> 00:10:38.272
for an hour.

00:10:38.312 --> 00:10:39.852
When you start looking platform wide,

00:10:40.113 --> 00:10:42.014
eight hundred people's time for one hour,

00:10:42.054 --> 00:10:43.056
everything stops.

00:10:43.115 --> 00:10:44.618
Nothing's being produced.

00:10:44.977 --> 00:10:47.480
It's an opportunity for waste or success

00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:48.221
or connection.

00:10:48.561 --> 00:10:49.942
So that was one of the strongest lines

00:10:49.982 --> 00:10:50.763
I thought in the article.

00:10:51.163 --> 00:10:53.426
The platform learned nothing about itself.

00:10:53.745 --> 00:10:56.989
So how can eight hundred employees attend

00:10:57.009 --> 00:10:58.350
a meeting and the organization just

00:10:58.471 --> 00:11:00.773
doesn't learn anything?

00:11:02.748 --> 00:11:04.369
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's math here,

00:11:04.408 --> 00:11:04.669
right?

00:11:04.750 --> 00:11:06.331
Eight hundred people times an hour of

00:11:06.370 --> 00:11:09.153
salary equals one big expense.

00:11:09.413 --> 00:11:09.573
Yeah.

00:11:09.673 --> 00:11:12.096
And in some ways it's actually worse than

00:11:12.115 --> 00:11:12.817
that framing.

00:11:13.177 --> 00:11:14.918
It's not just an hour of salary.

00:11:14.938 --> 00:11:16.659
It's an hour of the entire platform's

00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:19.842
attention and attention and trust.

00:11:19.903 --> 00:11:21.484
And it's more expensive than payroll

00:11:21.524 --> 00:11:23.066
because you can't get it back and you

00:11:23.105 --> 00:11:24.106
can't stockpile it.

00:11:25.488 --> 00:11:27.068
Here's how you produce nothing with it.

00:11:27.089 --> 00:11:28.470
You design the meeting to flow in one

00:11:28.509 --> 00:11:28.909
direction.

00:11:29.470 --> 00:11:31.091
Slides go out, nothing comes back.

00:11:31.211 --> 00:11:33.092
And an organization only learns something

00:11:33.432 --> 00:11:34.913
when information travels up.

00:11:35.254 --> 00:11:36.894
When a question gets asked that leadership

00:11:36.975 --> 00:11:38.456
didn't already know the answer to.

00:11:38.856 --> 00:11:40.217
That's the entire mechanism.

00:11:40.518 --> 00:11:41.578
That's the learning.

00:11:42.820 --> 00:11:44.500
And now look at what pre-screened Q&A

00:11:44.681 --> 00:11:45.041
does.

00:11:45.822 --> 00:11:47.403
The question about compensation gets,

00:11:47.442 --> 00:11:47.724
well,

00:11:47.764 --> 00:11:50.745
we annually do a compensation survey and

00:11:50.785 --> 00:11:52.947
we look at the market and everything is

00:11:53.028 --> 00:11:56.091
vetted to be comfortably answered,

00:11:56.130 --> 00:11:58.032
which means it was vetted to contain

00:11:58.173 --> 00:11:59.854
nothing leadership didn't already know.

00:12:00.413 --> 00:12:01.495
So by design,

00:12:02.596 --> 00:12:04.778
nothing crosses from the floor to the top.

00:12:04.817 --> 00:12:06.198
You've engineered their learning out of

00:12:06.239 --> 00:12:06.639
the meeting.

00:12:07.261 --> 00:12:08.582
and you've kept the attendance.

00:12:08.722 --> 00:12:10.063
Eight hundred people showed up.

00:12:10.403 --> 00:12:12.164
Participation could have even been a

00:12:12.225 --> 00:12:13.105
hundred percent.

00:12:13.525 --> 00:12:14.826
Learning was zero.

00:12:15.267 --> 00:12:17.107
And the CEO measures the thing by

00:12:17.148 --> 00:12:18.408
attendance and runtime.

00:12:18.769 --> 00:12:20.188
The two numbers that have absolutely

00:12:20.288 --> 00:12:22.630
nothing to do with whether anybody

00:12:22.831 --> 00:12:24.091
actually learned anything.

00:12:24.172 --> 00:12:25.351
It's a green dashboard,

00:12:25.371 --> 00:12:26.232
but a dead meeting.

00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:28.091
Now, what some organizations do,

00:12:28.630 --> 00:12:30.011
it's very difficult for a multi-site

00:12:30.052 --> 00:12:31.432
provider because you can do it at lunch,

00:12:31.451 --> 00:12:33.232
but people have clinic during lunch.

00:12:33.253 --> 00:12:33.913
You can do it early.

00:12:33.933 --> 00:12:34.953
It's going to eliminate some.

00:12:35.234 --> 00:12:36.235
You can do it after hours.

00:12:36.254 --> 00:12:37.836
Some people want to be paid for it.

00:12:38.296 --> 00:12:40.017
If you're going to invest that much money,

00:12:40.076 --> 00:12:41.397
you want participation,

00:12:41.758 --> 00:12:43.759
but you want active participation,

00:12:43.818 --> 00:12:44.698
not eyeballs.

00:12:44.979 --> 00:12:46.360
You're not streaming video.

00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:50.081
You're streaming across exchanged in a

00:12:51.121 --> 00:12:51.903
conversation.

00:12:52.143 --> 00:12:53.583
And that's what the all-hands meeting

00:12:53.604 --> 00:12:54.144
should be called.

00:12:54.163 --> 00:12:56.304
It should be an all-hands conversation.

00:12:57.984 --> 00:13:01.027
You identify three potential failures.

00:13:01.086 --> 00:13:01.826
This is what people like.

00:13:02.347 --> 00:13:04.208
This felt a little like, you know,

00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:05.070
pick your poison.

00:13:05.791 --> 00:13:08.932
EBITDA theater, the pre-screened Q&A,

00:13:08.972 --> 00:13:10.374
which you've mentioned a couple times,

00:13:10.413 --> 00:13:12.096
and then audience mismatch,

00:13:12.135 --> 00:13:13.956
either clinical operations and mashing the

00:13:13.976 --> 00:13:14.197
two.

00:13:14.977 --> 00:13:17.080
Which one's doing the most damage in

00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:18.100
healthcare today,

00:13:18.160 --> 00:13:19.841
or is it sort of just a little

00:13:19.861 --> 00:13:20.423
bit of all three?

00:13:21.738 --> 00:13:21.977
Yeah.

00:13:22.018 --> 00:13:23.339
So the way I think about it,

00:13:23.458 --> 00:13:24.899
EBITDA theater is the most common and

00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:26.881
that's ridiculous because your folks don't

00:13:26.902 --> 00:13:28.322
even know what EBITDA means.

00:13:28.363 --> 00:13:29.903
And most of the people on executive teams

00:13:29.923 --> 00:13:31.384
don't really know what EBITDA means.

00:13:31.926 --> 00:13:34.086
The audience mismatch is probably sort of

00:13:34.106 --> 00:13:34.927
the most structural,

00:13:34.947 --> 00:13:36.408
but the one that's the most damage in

00:13:36.448 --> 00:13:38.811
my opinion is the pre-screen Q&A.

00:13:39.191 --> 00:13:40.172
It does the most damage.

00:13:41.293 --> 00:13:43.134
And let me be sort of precise,

00:13:43.214 --> 00:13:44.294
which is sort of the whole point of

00:13:44.335 --> 00:13:44.836
the article.

00:13:45.375 --> 00:13:47.336
I rank these by what they cost you.

00:13:47.957 --> 00:13:49.499
EBITDA theater costs you attention.

00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:50.139
You bore them.

00:13:50.820 --> 00:13:52.621
You bore them with same-store comp.

00:13:53.182 --> 00:13:56.884
You bore them with phrases that have never

00:13:56.924 --> 00:13:58.567
been spoken between clinicians in the

00:13:58.606 --> 00:13:59.768
history of the company, right?

00:14:00.168 --> 00:14:02.629
The audience mismatch causes you

00:14:02.750 --> 00:14:03.210
relevance.

00:14:03.230 --> 00:14:06.513
You try to serve operators and clinicians

00:14:06.552 --> 00:14:08.434
together in one shapeless agenda,

00:14:09.034 --> 00:14:10.736
and they end up serving sort of neither.

00:14:10.777 --> 00:14:14.559
But the pre-screening costs you belief,

00:14:14.580 --> 00:14:14.860
right?

00:14:15.900 --> 00:14:18.842
Okay, audience is damaging,

00:14:19.302 --> 00:14:21.745
the mismatch costs you attention,

00:14:22.424 --> 00:14:25.326
the pre-screen costs you belief and trust,

00:14:25.647 --> 00:14:27.187
because when you stage a question,

00:14:27.227 --> 00:14:28.187
you answer that,

00:14:28.568 --> 00:14:31.070
it's effectively a press conference.

00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:32.711
The floor is not full,

00:14:32.750 --> 00:14:34.532
they know exactly what they just watched,

00:14:34.951 --> 00:14:36.633
and it teaches them that something is

00:14:36.734 --> 00:14:37.134
permanent,

00:14:37.153 --> 00:14:38.995
that this venue has been engineered

00:14:39.554 --> 00:14:41.056
to prevent a real exchanges.

00:14:41.416 --> 00:14:43.635
It also does a damage from what I've

00:14:43.676 --> 00:14:44.496
talked about before,

00:14:44.537 --> 00:14:46.096
which is psychological safety.

00:14:46.716 --> 00:14:48.837
Is this a place where I am safe

00:14:48.857 --> 00:14:50.038
bringing things up?

00:14:50.458 --> 00:14:52.418
And when you get pre-screened answers,

00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:54.519
the feedback you get is no,

00:14:55.240 --> 00:14:56.321
I'm asking a question,

00:14:56.421 --> 00:14:57.520
I'm at a press conference,

00:14:57.640 --> 00:14:58.941
I'm not seeing vulnerability,

00:14:59.081 --> 00:15:00.142
I'm not seeing trust,

00:15:00.701 --> 00:15:03.143
all I'm seeing is pre-screening.

00:15:03.643 --> 00:15:05.984
And it's boring and you don't recover from

00:15:06.024 --> 00:15:06.264
that.

00:15:08.615 --> 00:15:09.196
Irrelevance,

00:15:09.216 --> 00:15:12.018
you can fix over time in a segmentation.

00:15:12.097 --> 00:15:13.979
Cynicism, you do not get back.

00:15:14.099 --> 00:15:15.740
Lack of trust, you do not get back.

00:15:15.760 --> 00:15:17.581
Psychological safety is too hard to build.

00:15:18.062 --> 00:15:19.602
And once the floor decides that the

00:15:19.643 --> 00:15:21.403
meeting isn't real, it's inauthentic,

00:15:21.784 --> 00:15:23.166
they stop bringing you anything.

00:15:23.466 --> 00:15:26.227
It's not an all-hands meeting anymore.

00:15:27.609 --> 00:15:28.408
It just isn't.

00:15:28.428 --> 00:15:29.470
And so you've trained the whole

00:15:29.509 --> 00:15:31.432
organization to really stop talking to

00:15:31.471 --> 00:15:31.672
you.

00:15:32.032 --> 00:15:34.413
That's the most expensive outcome on the

00:15:34.453 --> 00:15:34.714
list.

00:15:35.198 --> 00:15:35.698
Yeah.

00:15:35.739 --> 00:15:36.919
Well, you stuck on that for a while,

00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:40.221
that pre-screened Q&A section.

00:15:40.841 --> 00:15:42.222
You basically argued like you just did

00:15:42.263 --> 00:15:42.462
there.

00:15:42.523 --> 00:15:43.844
Many organizations have created that

00:15:43.884 --> 00:15:46.004
appearance of openness while carefully

00:15:46.065 --> 00:15:48.405
preventing anything uncomfortable

00:15:48.546 --> 00:15:48.905
happening.

00:15:48.966 --> 00:15:51.187
And it has that negative effect.

00:15:52.148 --> 00:15:54.089
That feels like it's even worse than

00:15:54.129 --> 00:15:55.690
having no Q&A at all.

00:15:55.750 --> 00:15:57.912
We can get to that mathematical formula,

00:15:57.951 --> 00:15:59.692
which you actually say there is at least

00:15:59.732 --> 00:16:00.552
a guideline of.

00:16:00.592 --> 00:16:03.634
So why is this fake one, fake Q,

00:16:03.654 --> 00:16:06.277
pre-screened Q&A worse than having nothing

00:16:06.297 --> 00:16:06.616
at all?

00:16:07.812 --> 00:16:08.432
Yeah, and Jimmy,

00:16:08.493 --> 00:16:09.692
you've been on the comp side,

00:16:09.712 --> 00:16:11.734
so you already know where the room gets

00:16:11.813 --> 00:16:13.813
built and where it's framed.

00:16:13.874 --> 00:16:15.995
It's just deceiving, right?

00:16:17.495 --> 00:16:19.754
And you're trying to protect the principal

00:16:19.794 --> 00:16:20.034
here.

00:16:20.375 --> 00:16:21.916
You're trying to protect the CEO and the

00:16:21.936 --> 00:16:22.696
executive team.

00:16:23.155 --> 00:16:24.755
And you want to make sure that everybody's

00:16:24.796 --> 00:16:25.657
not blindsided.

00:16:26.096 --> 00:16:27.616
Everyone in the room thinks they're doing

00:16:27.636 --> 00:16:28.756
their job, and they are.

00:16:29.037 --> 00:16:31.077
But here's why it's worse than nothing.

00:16:31.457 --> 00:16:32.038
No Q&A...

00:16:33.956 --> 00:16:35.037
is just an omission.

00:16:35.057 --> 00:16:36.158
There's no Q&A.

00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:37.960
Everybody knows there's no Q&A.

00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:39.341
Nobody's pretending otherwise.

00:16:39.380 --> 00:16:42.543
It's honest by just being present.

00:16:42.663 --> 00:16:46.006
The pre-screened Q&A manufactured

00:16:46.587 --> 00:16:47.788
appearance of openness,

00:16:48.288 --> 00:16:49.971
specifically engineered to prevent the

00:16:50.051 --> 00:16:51.711
openness that it's advertising.

00:16:52.072 --> 00:16:52.293
Okay,

00:16:52.312 --> 00:16:53.614
so one thing is not having any Q&A.

00:16:53.653 --> 00:16:54.654
That's just an omission.

00:16:54.715 --> 00:16:56.817
Pre-screened is actual damage.

00:16:56.836 --> 00:16:58.158
It's the absence of something.

00:16:58.217 --> 00:16:58.998
It's counterfeit.

00:17:00.844 --> 00:17:02.085
The tell is in one sentence.

00:17:02.125 --> 00:17:04.085
The CEO never says, he never says,

00:17:04.144 --> 00:17:04.625
I don't know.

00:17:04.704 --> 00:17:06.385
He never says that's a fair criticism.

00:17:06.425 --> 00:17:08.425
He said, I hadn't thought about that way.

00:17:08.807 --> 00:17:10.186
He's never shown any sense of

00:17:10.227 --> 00:17:11.747
vulnerability.

00:17:11.787 --> 00:17:15.147
That's not a conversation.

00:17:15.268 --> 00:17:16.189
It's man reading.

00:17:17.509 --> 00:17:20.070
a room and responding to a curated input

00:17:20.111 --> 00:17:20.510
stream.

00:17:20.851 --> 00:17:22.992
And the part that's unfair to the comms

00:17:23.012 --> 00:17:24.554
team, to folks like you,

00:17:24.574 --> 00:17:26.275
is that nobody in that prep room is

00:17:26.315 --> 00:17:27.776
assigned to represent the floor,

00:17:28.056 --> 00:17:29.376
to represent the commission.

00:17:29.777 --> 00:17:31.837
Everybody's representing the CEO.

00:17:32.118 --> 00:17:33.940
They're kowtowing to the CEO.

00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:34.619
So, of course,

00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:36.981
the meeting comes out optimized for one

00:17:37.041 --> 00:17:39.202
person in a building of about eight

00:17:39.242 --> 00:17:41.224
hundred.

00:17:41.285 --> 00:17:42.685
Yep.

00:17:42.806 --> 00:17:44.446
One thing I kept thinking when I was

00:17:44.467 --> 00:17:44.807
reading this,

00:17:44.866 --> 00:17:46.048
I jotted this down was

00:17:47.230 --> 00:17:49.211
What do leaders actually want?

00:17:49.270 --> 00:17:51.432
If everyone's just there to support the

00:17:51.472 --> 00:17:53.233
CEO from the production side,

00:17:54.054 --> 00:17:56.134
what do leaders actually want?

00:17:56.234 --> 00:17:57.435
What are they looking for?

00:17:57.695 --> 00:17:59.998
Do they want feedback or do they want

00:18:00.117 --> 00:18:01.377
confirmation?

00:18:01.858 --> 00:18:03.859
Because your article suggests those two

00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:08.021
things are very different things.

00:18:08.061 --> 00:18:08.643
No, it's great.

00:18:09.742 --> 00:18:11.503
I think what they really want, Jimmy,

00:18:11.624 --> 00:18:12.285
is honesty.

00:18:13.660 --> 00:18:16.083
They want, most want really, you know,

00:18:16.143 --> 00:18:16.963
confirmation.

00:18:17.023 --> 00:18:18.164
A few want, you know,

00:18:18.184 --> 00:18:19.787
a few people just want airtime, right?

00:18:20.928 --> 00:18:22.088
And generally, you know,

00:18:22.128 --> 00:18:23.851
there's those that want feedback.

00:18:24.392 --> 00:18:25.893
And the beautiful thing is that you can

00:18:25.932 --> 00:18:27.775
tell which one you're dealing with inside.

00:18:28.615 --> 00:18:29.317
You know,

00:18:29.336 --> 00:18:30.897
I would say within about the first ninety

00:18:30.958 --> 00:18:33.499
seconds of a real Q&A, you know,

00:18:33.538 --> 00:18:35.559
but watch what happens when a hard

00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:36.681
question lands.

00:18:36.740 --> 00:18:38.241
And I've been in this seat before.

00:18:38.781 --> 00:18:41.003
The leader who wants feedback leans in.

00:18:41.044 --> 00:18:44.286
They get visibly curious or interested,

00:18:44.526 --> 00:18:44.685
you know,

00:18:44.705 --> 00:18:46.987
because a real question is the most useful

00:18:47.027 --> 00:18:49.148
thing that can that's happened all hour.

00:18:49.368 --> 00:18:50.229
So it's exciting.

00:18:50.269 --> 00:18:51.990
And the leader who wants confirmation gets

00:18:52.029 --> 00:18:52.651
defensive.

00:18:53.411 --> 00:18:55.252
Or worse, they demur.

00:18:55.573 --> 00:18:57.013
Or my favorite is they say, well,

00:18:57.034 --> 00:18:58.615
I'll flip that over to HR.

00:18:58.635 --> 00:19:00.357
I'll flip that over to our general legal

00:19:00.778 --> 00:19:01.077
leader.

00:19:01.598 --> 00:19:02.779
Or one of the lines that you like,

00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:03.980
but we'll talk about it offline.

00:19:04.401 --> 00:19:06.103
Yeah, we'll talk about it offline.

00:19:06.123 --> 00:19:06.262
I mean,

00:19:06.303 --> 00:19:08.204
the question I put to operators is simple,

00:19:08.404 --> 00:19:10.567
and it also makes them squirm.

00:19:11.708 --> 00:19:14.530
When's the last time somebody changed your

00:19:14.590 --> 00:19:15.971
mind in a meeting?

00:19:16.509 --> 00:19:18.351
It's a mentoring question I ask.

00:19:18.790 --> 00:19:21.351
When did you admit that the data that

00:19:21.391 --> 00:19:25.712
you were feeling or seeing, inculcating,

00:19:26.833 --> 00:19:29.614
conflicted with what people were telling

00:19:29.653 --> 00:19:32.234
you and you literally changed your mind?

00:19:32.255 --> 00:19:34.234
If you can't relate to a specific

00:19:34.295 --> 00:19:34.815
instance,

00:19:35.816 --> 00:19:37.215
you haven't run into the very

00:19:37.256 --> 00:19:39.017
conversations as a leader that you should

00:19:39.057 --> 00:19:40.217
be having with your folks.

00:19:40.777 --> 00:19:42.278
What you're running is broadcast.

00:19:42.298 --> 00:19:43.298
You're running spin.

00:19:44.622 --> 00:19:46.384
And you've been making mistaking the

00:19:46.503 --> 00:19:48.806
silence in the room for agreement and

00:19:48.865 --> 00:19:51.548
consensus when it's actually people who've

00:19:51.608 --> 00:19:52.569
just checked out.

00:19:52.690 --> 00:19:55.252
They've just stopped trying.

00:19:55.333 --> 00:19:57.095
Yep.

00:19:57.134 --> 00:19:57.275
Yeah.

00:19:58.817 --> 00:20:01.759
You proposed a pretty radical idea for

00:20:01.818 --> 00:20:03.059
healthcare companies anyway.

00:20:03.681 --> 00:20:06.102
Take live questions.

00:20:06.522 --> 00:20:07.762
Don't screen them.

00:20:07.804 --> 00:20:10.345
Let the audience sort of upvote them and

00:20:10.505 --> 00:20:11.625
answer them in real time.

00:20:11.885 --> 00:20:13.928
What the floor is actually thinking about.

00:20:14.847 --> 00:20:17.369
Why are so leadership teams in twenty

00:20:17.410 --> 00:20:19.270
twenty six so uncomfortable with that?

00:20:19.811 --> 00:20:21.833
And then what is that discomfort?

00:20:21.972 --> 00:20:23.594
Actually, that feels like a data point.

00:20:23.614 --> 00:20:24.434
What does that tell us?

00:20:25.287 --> 00:20:25.969
Yeah, it's interesting.

00:20:26.088 --> 00:20:28.232
I've been at real meetings where they do

00:20:28.252 --> 00:20:28.433
that.

00:20:28.453 --> 00:20:30.017
They have all these questions and they

00:20:30.076 --> 00:20:31.740
vote on the questions through all these

00:20:31.881 --> 00:20:33.765
various tools that you've seen that all of

00:20:33.785 --> 00:20:35.509
the meeting software have.

00:20:37.278 --> 00:20:39.759
but the discomfort's the single most

00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:43.122
honest point in the entire exercise.

00:20:44.442 --> 00:20:46.164
I want to say that even harder that

00:20:46.204 --> 00:20:46.765
in the article,

00:20:46.805 --> 00:20:48.465
if your leadership team is uncomfortable

00:20:48.506 --> 00:20:50.048
taking live on screen question,

00:20:50.087 --> 00:20:52.730
that discomfort is information.

00:20:53.390 --> 00:20:55.551
And here's the part that people miss.

00:20:55.592 --> 00:20:57.794
The audience also gets uncomfortable too.

00:20:58.314 --> 00:20:59.755
You're not the only one with something at

00:20:59.775 --> 00:21:00.194
stake in there.

00:21:00.355 --> 00:21:01.536
You've been in meetings where somebody

00:21:01.616 --> 00:21:03.157
asks a question, you're just, you know,

00:21:04.089 --> 00:21:06.240
You're getting all uncomfortable in your

00:21:06.300 --> 00:21:06.943
own seat too.

00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:10.500
And the leadership is uncomfortable

00:21:10.520 --> 00:21:12.722
because live questions remove the one

00:21:12.762 --> 00:21:14.704
thing that the entire meeting was

00:21:14.765 --> 00:21:15.945
organized to protect,

00:21:16.446 --> 00:21:17.768
controlling the narrative,

00:21:18.188 --> 00:21:19.588
controlling the spin.

00:21:19.910 --> 00:21:21.451
You cannot pre-write the answer to a

00:21:21.490 --> 00:21:22.711
question that you haven't seen.

00:21:23.352 --> 00:21:25.875
And for a leader who's used to a

00:21:25.954 --> 00:21:26.755
scripted room,

00:21:26.775 --> 00:21:28.977
that loss of control feels like free fall.

00:21:29.458 --> 00:21:31.159
When that loss of control,

00:21:31.459 --> 00:21:32.700
you have to normalize.

00:21:32.740 --> 00:21:34.662
And normalizing discomfort is a saying

00:21:34.682 --> 00:21:35.282
that I love.

00:21:36.202 --> 00:21:37.243
to say in our company.

00:21:37.624 --> 00:21:40.626
But to turn around and win the discomfort,

00:21:41.267 --> 00:21:44.229
it should feel useful because fear has a

00:21:44.308 --> 00:21:44.749
shape.

00:21:44.769 --> 00:21:47.050
And there are three or four specific

00:21:47.090 --> 00:21:47.872
questions, by the way,

00:21:47.912 --> 00:21:50.513
that you're hoping nobody stands up and

00:21:50.814 --> 00:21:51.193
asks.

00:21:51.814 --> 00:21:53.836
And here's the move I give every operator.

00:21:54.076 --> 00:21:55.817
It's the most important thing in this

00:21:55.856 --> 00:21:56.958
entire episode, Jimmy.

00:21:56.998 --> 00:21:58.558
The next time your comms team wants you

00:21:58.578 --> 00:22:00.220
to prescreen, let them.

00:22:01.101 --> 00:22:02.983
but make them tell you which specific

00:22:03.023 --> 00:22:04.526
questions they're screening out.

00:22:05.527 --> 00:22:06.769
Don't argue with them.

00:22:06.828 --> 00:22:08.171
Just write the list down.

00:22:08.951 --> 00:22:10.673
That list is your real agenda.

00:22:11.034 --> 00:22:13.217
Those are the conversations your platform

00:22:13.297 --> 00:22:15.240
really needs to have and has been

00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:15.780
avoiding.

00:22:16.396 --> 00:22:18.557
The discomfort was never reason to skip

00:22:18.597 --> 00:22:19.459
the live Q&A.

00:22:19.499 --> 00:22:22.119
It's the map to really the meetings that

00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.080
you should be trying to run all along.

00:22:24.201 --> 00:22:24.381
Yeah.

00:22:24.580 --> 00:22:24.740
Yeah.

00:22:24.840 --> 00:22:25.902
Show me what you're scared of.

00:22:25.922 --> 00:22:26.761
Show me what you're avoiding.

00:22:26.781 --> 00:22:28.363
And I'll tell you what we should lead

00:22:28.403 --> 00:22:29.683
with right out of the gate.

00:22:30.564 --> 00:22:31.964
And that should be the intro.

00:22:32.045 --> 00:22:33.205
Here are the things we are going to

00:22:33.226 --> 00:22:33.726
talk about.

00:22:33.786 --> 00:22:35.066
And if the audience doesn't lean in,

00:22:35.467 --> 00:22:36.906
you got the wrong group of people or

00:22:36.926 --> 00:22:38.107
you're avoiding the real problem.

00:22:40.531 --> 00:22:42.673
You end the article on your Substack with

00:22:42.692 --> 00:22:43.413
a line that I loved.

00:22:43.953 --> 00:22:46.976
Ending sixty one seconds early was never

00:22:47.016 --> 00:22:47.596
the achievement.

00:22:47.717 --> 00:22:49.518
Eight hundred people out of eight hundred

00:22:49.538 --> 00:22:51.939
and sixteen attended is not a goal.

00:22:52.500 --> 00:22:53.901
It was the sound of a room with

00:22:53.961 --> 00:22:56.342
nothing left to say to each other.

00:22:56.922 --> 00:22:59.364
So if a CEO or a director or

00:22:59.463 --> 00:23:00.404
someone who's on the.

00:23:00.904 --> 00:23:02.726
camera side looking into the camera for

00:23:02.766 --> 00:23:04.406
meetings like this right now and listening

00:23:04.846 --> 00:23:07.208
wanted to met what wanted one measure to

00:23:07.248 --> 00:23:08.729
determine whether they're all hands is

00:23:08.788 --> 00:23:11.630
working or not what's a you know for

00:23:11.670 --> 00:23:15.051
their language what's a KPI I think it's

00:23:15.172 --> 00:23:17.153
what I would call the Q&A ratio one

00:23:17.212 --> 00:23:17.472
number

00:23:18.282 --> 00:23:20.284
And you can calculate it very easily.

00:23:20.403 --> 00:23:22.505
Take your last all four hands meetings,

00:23:23.326 --> 00:23:25.247
add up the minutes leadership spent

00:23:25.267 --> 00:23:25.707
talking,

00:23:25.866 --> 00:23:27.367
then add up the minutes of the real

00:23:27.407 --> 00:23:28.509
live Q&A.

00:23:28.548 --> 00:23:30.028
And the real is doing a lot of

00:23:30.068 --> 00:23:30.890
work in that sense.

00:23:30.950 --> 00:23:33.330
It means unscreened questions answered in

00:23:33.351 --> 00:23:35.152
the moment with the CEO occasionally

00:23:35.192 --> 00:23:36.553
saying, man, I don't know.

00:23:36.613 --> 00:23:37.614
I haven't thought about that.

00:23:38.054 --> 00:23:39.375
That's a fair criticism.

00:23:39.654 --> 00:23:41.516
That's a perspective that I hadn't thought

00:23:41.556 --> 00:23:41.675
of.

00:23:42.135 --> 00:23:44.616
Then divide the second number by the

00:23:44.656 --> 00:23:45.057
first.

00:23:45.178 --> 00:23:45.978
Google, by the way,

00:23:46.018 --> 00:23:47.519
their original target was fifty five.

00:23:47.618 --> 00:23:49.840
Two to one, yeah.

00:23:49.861 --> 00:23:50.642
Yeah, Slido,

00:23:50.682 --> 00:23:51.942
which is another organization across

00:23:52.143 --> 00:23:52.603
companies,

00:23:52.663 --> 00:23:54.184
recommends at least twenty percent.

00:23:54.845 --> 00:23:56.646
The health care platforms I watch run it

00:23:56.686 --> 00:23:57.887
closer to five percent.

00:23:58.188 --> 00:23:59.048
Under ten percent,

00:23:59.068 --> 00:24:00.349
you're running a press conference and a

00:24:00.390 --> 00:24:02.131
broadcast and you're controlling the story

00:24:02.151 --> 00:24:03.372
and you've got spin control.

00:24:04.192 --> 00:24:05.534
But just to be honest, you know,

00:24:05.614 --> 00:24:06.894
if that's the case of what you're going

00:24:06.914 --> 00:24:08.215
to do and you're going to do prescreen

00:24:08.236 --> 00:24:09.576
questions, don't take any questions.

00:24:09.738 --> 00:24:11.038
Just call it quarterly update.

00:24:11.459 --> 00:24:12.079
Another one,

00:24:12.259 --> 00:24:13.861
it's just not an all hands meeting.

00:24:14.340 --> 00:24:15.521
If you're under five percent,

00:24:16.262 --> 00:24:17.804
It's probably because your floor stopped

00:24:17.864 --> 00:24:19.465
asking questions because, you know,

00:24:19.506 --> 00:24:21.307
they've stopped expecting the same old

00:24:21.366 --> 00:24:21.728
answers.

00:24:22.528 --> 00:24:23.749
And on the line that you quoted,

00:24:23.788 --> 00:24:25.711
ending sixty one seconds early was never

00:24:25.730 --> 00:24:26.432
the achievement.

00:24:26.892 --> 00:24:28.732
The executive mentions it with pride

00:24:28.752 --> 00:24:30.214
because they think they finished early.

00:24:30.375 --> 00:24:32.576
They think that signals discipline and

00:24:32.616 --> 00:24:34.538
efficiency and respect for everyone's

00:24:34.597 --> 00:24:35.078
time.

00:24:35.318 --> 00:24:38.320
Oh, that line where they say,

00:24:38.340 --> 00:24:40.042
we'll give you that sixty one seconds back

00:24:40.063 --> 00:24:40.623
in your day.

00:24:41.064 --> 00:24:43.065
Man, if anything needs to disappear,

00:24:43.105 --> 00:24:43.586
it's that.

00:24:44.758 --> 00:24:46.020
No, that's exactly right.

00:24:46.060 --> 00:24:50.152
And here is the interesting thing is it

00:24:50.192 --> 00:24:52.798
goes to the basics of efficiency versus

00:24:52.898 --> 00:24:53.721
effectiveness.

00:24:54.655 --> 00:24:57.397
With efficiency, be a systems thinker.

00:24:57.577 --> 00:25:00.099
With effectiveness, be a people thinker.

00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:02.300
In all hands is meant to be an

00:25:02.340 --> 00:25:03.862
effectiveness meeting,

00:25:04.143 --> 00:25:06.663
which means time should not be

00:25:06.723 --> 00:25:07.444
constrained.

00:25:07.845 --> 00:25:11.106
The best all hands meetings run eleven

00:25:11.146 --> 00:25:13.528
minutes or so longer because the questions

00:25:13.608 --> 00:25:16.371
wouldn't stop and the CEO refused to cut

00:25:16.391 --> 00:25:17.412
them off and said, look,

00:25:17.451 --> 00:25:18.551
I'll be here as long as there are

00:25:18.571 --> 00:25:18.992
questions.

00:25:19.012 --> 00:25:21.114
I can remember this during the COVID days,

00:25:21.153 --> 00:25:21.374
man.

00:25:21.453 --> 00:25:21.974
It just was

00:25:22.575 --> 00:25:23.996
I remember getting over a hundred

00:25:24.036 --> 00:25:25.355
questions during one of the COVID

00:25:25.375 --> 00:25:25.776
meetings,

00:25:25.816 --> 00:25:27.237
and they were tough and painful and

00:25:27.277 --> 00:25:27.797
vulnerable.

00:25:28.537 --> 00:25:30.778
And we made the decision way back then

00:25:31.238 --> 00:25:32.897
that we weren't going to lay anybody off,

00:25:32.978 --> 00:25:34.719
or if we were going to balance the

00:25:34.778 --> 00:25:37.180
part-time with whatever dollars we were

00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:37.559
going to get,

00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:39.780
because at that time we weren't able to

00:25:39.820 --> 00:25:42.922
take the dollars because we had some PE

00:25:42.961 --> 00:25:43.422
investment.

00:25:44.021 --> 00:25:45.583
And man, we didn't lose anything.

00:25:45.623 --> 00:25:47.224
We didn't have shortages and those kind of

00:25:47.265 --> 00:25:47.505
things.

00:25:48.185 --> 00:25:49.646
We just kept everybody together.

00:25:49.686 --> 00:25:51.067
And I think it was because in those

00:25:51.127 --> 00:25:51.469
meetings,

00:25:51.509 --> 00:25:52.930
we just tried to make everybody feel

00:25:52.970 --> 00:25:53.390
secure.

00:25:53.410 --> 00:25:54.570
And if we didn't know something,

00:25:54.671 --> 00:25:55.352
we didn't know it.

00:25:55.771 --> 00:25:57.973
Who knew what the heck the next stage

00:25:58.034 --> 00:25:59.675
was in COVID after the first week,

00:25:59.776 --> 00:26:00.675
after the second week?

00:26:01.237 --> 00:26:01.616
And by the way,

00:26:01.696 --> 00:26:03.598
nobody thought about bragging that I'm

00:26:03.638 --> 00:26:04.980
giving time back to you, right?

00:26:05.401 --> 00:26:07.261
Nobody cared that the meeting went long.

00:26:08.403 --> 00:26:09.884
They were just too busy talking and

00:26:09.903 --> 00:26:11.546
engaging with what you were saying.

00:26:12.300 --> 00:26:13.261
You also had something,

00:26:13.301 --> 00:26:15.323
I don't have the exact quote,

00:26:16.284 --> 00:26:18.645
pay attention to your last four all hands

00:26:18.665 --> 00:26:18.945
meetings,

00:26:18.986 --> 00:26:20.646
the questions that were asked but not

00:26:20.767 --> 00:26:21.147
answered.

00:26:21.488 --> 00:26:24.250
If they keep showing up, that's a trend.

00:26:24.549 --> 00:26:25.770
And if they're not, if the audience,

00:26:25.790 --> 00:26:29.374
the floor is continually asking and you're

00:26:29.413 --> 00:26:30.894
uncomfortable answering,

00:26:31.214 --> 00:26:32.596
that's a good thing for now.

00:26:33.016 --> 00:26:34.596
But once they stop asking,

00:26:34.698 --> 00:26:36.499
that's the real loss.

00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:37.799
No, that's right.

00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:39.760
Avoidance is not a good strategy in

00:26:39.800 --> 00:26:40.162
business.

00:26:41.038 --> 00:26:42.779
You know, problems, as I like to say,

00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:44.021
grow in weeds.

00:26:44.102 --> 00:26:46.585
Your job as an operator is to get

00:26:46.605 --> 00:26:48.847
as much water away so that the weeds

00:26:49.189 --> 00:26:49.669
drown out.

00:26:50.680 --> 00:26:52.902
And that should be intuitive in those that

00:26:52.961 --> 00:26:53.623
are in health care,

00:26:53.663 --> 00:26:55.964
because do we ever say to a patient

00:26:56.464 --> 00:26:58.006
who comes in complaining about their

00:26:58.066 --> 00:26:59.367
problem, do we ever say to them,

00:26:59.847 --> 00:27:01.548
don't ever bring me a problem unless you

00:27:01.588 --> 00:27:03.330
can bring me a solution?

00:27:04.211 --> 00:27:06.973
We are paid to help with solutions by

00:27:07.034 --> 00:27:08.836
having conversations that are meaningful

00:27:09.435 --> 00:27:11.278
and that create psychological safety.

00:27:11.698 --> 00:27:15.058
And the more you can be proactive about

00:27:15.138 --> 00:27:17.599
addressing uncomfortable conversations,

00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:20.300
the better as an organization you are and

00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:21.902
the more you'll grow and the more you'll

00:27:22.001 --> 00:27:22.862
trust you'll have.

00:27:23.261 --> 00:27:25.442
And the conversion for that will be KPIs

00:27:25.502 --> 00:27:26.243
like retention.

00:27:26.824 --> 00:27:27.584
Yeah.

00:27:27.604 --> 00:27:29.125
You want to give a forward tease?

00:27:29.345 --> 00:27:31.105
This was the end of the meetings series,

00:27:31.164 --> 00:27:32.625
right?

00:27:32.766 --> 00:27:34.166
What's on the chopping block next or

00:27:34.186 --> 00:27:34.967
what's been bothering you?

00:27:35.597 --> 00:27:37.719
We have one more.

00:27:37.838 --> 00:27:38.759
We have the audit.

00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:41.321
So the sixth article will be on how

00:27:41.342 --> 00:27:45.284
to audit the meeting stack with checklists

00:27:45.324 --> 00:27:46.085
and other things.

00:27:46.105 --> 00:27:47.645
And so it's just kind of a summary

00:27:47.685 --> 00:27:48.605
article, if you will.

00:27:48.945 --> 00:27:50.126
But I'll tell you what's been on my

00:27:50.186 --> 00:27:50.827
mind, Jimmy,

00:27:50.847 --> 00:27:52.749
and that's those companies that recruit by

00:27:52.808 --> 00:27:54.609
saying they have mentoring programs.

00:27:54.630 --> 00:27:55.750
Ah, yes.

00:27:55.770 --> 00:27:57.751
So we're going to talk about mentoring and

00:27:58.011 --> 00:27:59.472
retention and turnover.

00:28:00.276 --> 00:28:02.897
And it's interesting what the data and the

00:28:02.938 --> 00:28:05.500
research say about all of this.

00:28:05.579 --> 00:28:06.361
And I think, again,

00:28:06.421 --> 00:28:08.382
it's this whole idea we use words to

00:28:08.442 --> 00:28:10.584
recruit mentoring.

00:28:10.903 --> 00:28:12.965
Then they get on and ninety to one

00:28:12.986 --> 00:28:14.747
hundred and twenty days later, you know,

00:28:14.767 --> 00:28:16.508
where's this so-called mentoring that I

00:28:16.548 --> 00:28:16.909
had?

00:28:17.368 --> 00:28:18.829
And so that's been on my mind a

00:28:18.890 --> 00:28:19.790
bit lately as well.

00:28:20.310 --> 00:28:21.252
buyer beware,

00:28:21.292 --> 00:28:23.958
the words that we use to get someone

00:28:23.978 --> 00:28:24.578
to show up,

00:28:24.719 --> 00:28:26.563
but where's that thing when we want them

00:28:26.583 --> 00:28:27.163
to stick around?

00:28:27.805 --> 00:28:29.248
I'm going to give you one more,

00:28:29.268 --> 00:28:29.989
by the way, Jim.

00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:31.873
The other thing that's been on my mind

00:28:31.972 --> 00:28:32.113
is

00:28:33.123 --> 00:28:34.443
What we have seen in the economy the

00:28:34.463 --> 00:28:37.185
last several weeks is there has been in

00:28:37.226 --> 00:28:39.647
health care a slowdown in new patients.

00:28:39.708 --> 00:28:42.390
And, you know,

00:28:42.750 --> 00:28:44.891
I'm not saying this in a specific sense,

00:28:44.931 --> 00:28:46.112
but in a universal sense,

00:28:46.172 --> 00:28:48.513
less new patients are accessing dental and

00:28:48.554 --> 00:28:50.474
health care services and physical therapy

00:28:50.515 --> 00:28:51.036
services.

00:28:51.556 --> 00:28:52.436
Part of that is copay.

00:28:52.497 --> 00:28:53.958
Part of it is probably the economy, right?

00:28:53.978 --> 00:28:56.358
When you're paying more money for

00:28:56.398 --> 00:28:58.240
gasoline, you have other kind of things.

00:28:58.580 --> 00:28:59.821
And so then everybody looks at their

00:28:59.862 --> 00:29:00.721
marketing department,

00:29:00.741 --> 00:29:02.182
says they're not doing their job.

00:29:02.243 --> 00:29:02.604
And so, yeah.

00:29:03.144 --> 00:29:04.969
I've got a whole series I'm looking at

00:29:05.130 --> 00:29:07.256
on how marketing is your company's

00:29:07.455 --> 00:29:09.582
responsibility or is it the clinician's

00:29:09.622 --> 00:29:10.443
responsibility?

00:29:10.871 --> 00:29:12.771
yes there's an element of both but the

00:29:12.853 --> 00:29:15.013
real healthcare practitioners the real

00:29:15.074 --> 00:29:17.875
dental professionals assume the

00:29:17.915 --> 00:29:19.958
responsibility of building their practice

00:29:19.998 --> 00:29:22.279
their practice and they assume it by

00:29:22.579 --> 00:29:26.962
referrals that reveal not by gimmicks and

00:29:27.042 --> 00:29:29.605
lead generation and purchasing and more

00:29:29.644 --> 00:29:33.708
google ads but by conversations and care

00:29:33.907 --> 00:29:35.229
and consistency

00:29:36.109 --> 00:29:38.154
you know, clinical excellence,

00:29:38.255 --> 00:29:39.257
customer service,

00:29:39.336 --> 00:29:40.720
care and compassion excellence.

00:29:41.240 --> 00:29:44.468
Those will reveal referrals that you don't

00:29:44.508 --> 00:29:45.549
even ever have to ask for.

00:29:46.332 --> 00:29:48.152
right well subscribe to the uh the sub

00:29:48.172 --> 00:29:50.232
stack the operator for how much larry how

00:29:50.272 --> 00:29:51.813
much does it cost to subscribe to the

00:29:51.833 --> 00:29:55.374
sub stack zero it's free uh this month

00:29:55.394 --> 00:29:57.575
uh fifty percent off of that as well

00:29:57.694 --> 00:30:00.095
if you subscribe yes uh most leaders think

00:30:00.174 --> 00:30:02.556
you're a friend if you're a perfect a

00:30:02.635 --> 00:30:04.115
lot of a lot think the uh the

00:30:04.195 --> 00:30:06.176
all hands exists to communicate

00:30:06.257 --> 00:30:08.836
information larry would argue it exists to

00:30:08.936 --> 00:30:11.478
gather information just as much as it does

00:30:11.518 --> 00:30:12.157
to communicate it

00:30:12.498 --> 00:30:14.319
Because when leadership spends an hour

00:30:14.359 --> 00:30:15.901
talking and five minutes listening,

00:30:16.142 --> 00:30:17.102
as grandma said,

00:30:17.442 --> 00:30:19.525
you got two ears and one mouth.

00:30:19.845 --> 00:30:20.846
Use them proportionately.

00:30:21.226 --> 00:30:23.769
The platform learns almost nothing about

00:30:23.808 --> 00:30:25.691
itself unless you listen.

00:30:25.730 --> 00:30:27.412
Your grandmother is a smart lady, Jimmy.

00:30:27.432 --> 00:30:28.113
Yeah, she's quick.

00:30:28.633 --> 00:30:30.654
If today's conversation made you rethink

00:30:31.115 --> 00:30:33.337
how your organization is communicating and

00:30:33.357 --> 00:30:34.259
made you a little uncomfortable...

00:30:34.819 --> 00:30:35.059
Good.

00:30:35.099 --> 00:30:35.882
That's sort of the point.

00:30:36.102 --> 00:30:38.067
Subscribe to that operator on Substack.

00:30:38.468 --> 00:30:40.211
Until next time, keep operating.

00:30:40.271 --> 00:30:42.096
Larry, thanks for the time.

00:30:42.115 --> 00:30:42.416
Thank you.