Greg Keilin and Mike on Good Hiring, Promotion and Staff Engagement

How do you match an individual's expertise with the demands of your organization or client? How transparent should you be in communicating with your team? Join us as we navigate these complex waters and discover why career development isn't always about promotions. We'll be sharing insights on the potential pitfalls of promoting people into roles they're not equipped for, and why it's essential to let your team members thrive where they excel. So buckle up and prepare for an enlightening journey into the heart of team dynamics and staff development!

Chapters

• 0:00 Importance of Conflict and Staff Empowerment
• 6:33 Navigating Career Advancement and Development

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Hatching Creativity. This isn't just another behavioral health podcast. This is the place where thought leaders converge to talk about real life challenges, breakthroughs and pivotal aha moments.

Speaker 2: 0:17

We had a management offsite a few months ago where we had a facilitator come in and help us with some team building exercises and things like that, because we have a bunch of new folks on our executive team over the last 12 months. One of the things that she said that really resonated with me was like if everybody on the team agrees, then that defeats the purpose of the team. Part of the point of a team is to have different opinions, different perspectives, people who are in conflict in friendly, professional, constructive conflict. But the conflict is part of the point because it gets you out of your comfort zone. It gets you from you know, keeps you from just settling into the patterns of thinking the same thing in the same way all the time.

Speaker 2: 0:52

I think, it's a really important part of growing and developing as a person, as a business too.

Speaker 1: 0:56

You know, it's funny you say that I got nothing but love for Chris Rivera, our CTO. We get in our executive calls and Chris is so intently listening to what's going on and what's happening in the conversations and you can always count on Chris to throw a. What if you know? What if this happens? How do you protect yourself? What if this happens? It adds so much value when he does that because if all you do is surround yourself with yes, people, right, you miss and you hit so many pitfalls that you would miss if you actually listen to other people and brought on people who have opinions, right, nobody wants just a pushover all the time. You know having those opinions is really important. So I agree.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Kind of reminds me of I don't know if you ever read the book Flat Army. Have you ever heard of that book? We run our company like that. You know which is really. It's a flat hierarchy. I hate when people say my boss. You know what I mean. Like because we're not boss. We're not boss employee, we're a team with the same goals. We've got different roles in that team but we're throwing in the same direction with the same goals. So you know boss, no boss, whatever, and what ends up happening when you kind of treat your people like that is. It inspires them to speak up and to offer dissenting opinions, and what ends up happening is you end up with something better. Right, because?

Speaker 2: 2:32

of that. Well, that's the thing, like it's so funny. I had this conversation with a client recently who was having an issue with one of our team members. He didn't feel like he was getting, you know, the answer that he wanted from our team member, because our team member was giving him the answer. That was true, right. So he came to me looking for a different answer and I said to him listen, I'm just going to go, I'm not the expert here.

Speaker 2: 2:54

The guy you were talking to before is the one who is doing the work and talking to the insurance companies, and you know like I'm just going to turn around and go ask him what he thinks about this. So you know you're coming to me is not helpful to any of us. It's just a waste of everybody's time because ultimately, this guy is the expert and it's exactly your point. He we have different roles on the team, but his role is so crucial and it's and it's the one that was the most crucial in the circumstance. I didn't have this information. My team member had the information and I was just going to go turn around and get it from him.

Speaker 1: 3:25

You know it's awesome about that is you empowered your staff. You said, hey, this guy is the expert. I'm not going to be able to tell you anything different than what he told you, and that's the kind of thing that makes a staff member a teammate, an employee, whatever you call it. That's what makes them feel valuable and I think that's one of the keys. You know, we talk so often about staffing shortages and hard to find good people. A lot of that comes around to treating the people that you do have very well. There was actually a quote that I heard recently and, as you know, I'm a quote guy and he was talking about he says what's more important to you getting new customers or taking care of the ones that you currently have? And the guy's response was yes, right, so it's the same thing.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Yes, do you take care of your staff or do you work to find new? No, you take care of the people that are taking care of you and it all works its way out. You know I talk a lot about staff because people, people get burnt out. You know, working in the facilities especially, you know it's so stressful. There's a lot of anxiety, dangerous. A lot of times you got to look out for the people that are looking out for you. That's awesome. I think that's one of the things we definitely have in common.

Speaker 2: 4:51

I totally agree with that, but I think you know it's interesting because it's something that has always been a focus for me personally.

Speaker 2: 4:59

A big priority for me has been and I think this comes from my earlier career experience where I spent a lot of time in institutions where I really wasn't happy coming to work every day, and so it was really important to me when I started my own business to make it a place where people could feel excited about coming to work, feel like they had a career path, growth opportunities, mentorship, and I think that even so, right like that was, that's always been a big priority for me personally.

Speaker 2: 5:27

And I think we have done and you know, I think we've done a pretty decent job of it at prosperity, but even so, I'm constantly being reminded or I'm constantly like finding ways that we fall short on that stuff. We like what we did was we were really great at identifying people who were great at their jobs and elevating them into positions where they could help other people be great at their jobs, but what we didn't do was to give them the training and the tools that they hadn't previously had around management how to be a supervisor, you know, how to step up into a leadership role. And so we're now you know we've now been implementing, you know, training and development tools around that to help our people in that area. From somebody saying somebody speaking up and saying, hey, you know, here's something. I've noticed that I think we could be doing better. And you know, we all looked around each other and we said, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 6:19

We could be doing that better. So you know I'm going to throw something out at you. Then Somebody's at a position, right, and you want to promote them, or you want to promote them from within. How do you know where to put them as the next step?

Speaker 2: 6:33

Well, we're now at a scale where we have started to have a pretty defined hierarchy for that, but earlier on in our organization's development, like, we didn't have that type of structure and it was always a question for us of trying to match people's capabilities and experience with our needs as an organization and the client's needs. I'm thinking of a few examples in our history where there was a person who was really skilled and, you know, energetic and like we wanted to figure out a place for that person to grow, but they were, they were capped in their department. Right, we didn't need a manager in that department, we didn't need, you know. And so Our approach was always then to talk to that person about, okay, hey, you know, our approach was always basically transparency. Start with transparency, right, like, we think really highly of you. You're super talented, we want to retain you, we want to develop you, but this obvious next position for you isn't one that we need right now as an organization. And so let's talk about what else can we work with you to do to you know, like, do you want to grow in a different direction?

Speaker 2: 7:43

You know, if you're in the AR department, do you want to learn about Vo bees? Do you want to learn about? You know utilization review. Do you want to learn about data and analytics? Maybe there's a way for us to help you develop a new skill set and move into another part of the organization. And there've been a few cases where we've had people who have just been, who have grown out of the role that they were in with us. We didn't have a place for them to grow into, and so we helped them find someplace else to to grow into a role Outside the organization, and I think that that's always for me. You know we have, we have lost a few people in our history who I wish we had been able to hang on to, but we just didn't have the right place for them. The thing that was more important was their personal and professional development, and so you know we always Celebrate when people go do some an exciting new thing.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Of course we're sad to lose a valued colleague, but I think that's great, you know so often we see people that want to promote from within but don't talk to the person about it or don't really align skills. I've seen situations where you may have a good Clinician and the clinicians really good at what they do and they move them into a clinical director role.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Oh, totally.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Yeah, because they say well, you're, you're a good clinician, this is the next step, or or something along those lines, where Maybe they don't want to be a manager, maybe they're just really good at what they do and like what they do and want to do that, and then you can speak with them about other paths or maybe just give them more money for For that and that's really good at the individual contributor role.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah, yeah. But so often we see people like I really like your answer there, because Oftentimes we see kind of that situation. You know, good clinician becomes clinical director, crashes and burns. Nobody's happy, right. We also see these Wild situations where I don't know if they want to, if it's because they want to promote from within or because it is a Lack of candidates, I don't know, but you see, a guy see good BHT end up as a human resources, right, or an office manager ends up doing compliance, and these are Extremely high risk positions and high level, high skill.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Yeah, yeah, that requires a lot of education that you just can't and if you botch that, right, you have a big problem, right. And I mean it happens and I remember several occasions Speaking with somebody doing a training, with somebody who was a tech, and then a year down the road they're the, the compliance person and I'm saying, wow, I can't imagine the level of stress that it puts on somebody, you know, and they're both stressful positions, right. A tech is a very high stress job, right, it's a different type of stress and it's, you know, and there's a whole lot of of knowledge Difference in what you're doing day to day.

Speaker 2: 10:44

So I think also, like to your point about stress, like, I think, the stress of being in a job that you don't know how to do, that You're not adequately supported, in, that you don't feel comfortable doing. You're right that being a tech is a super stressful job, but there are people for whom that is there right, like that's a great job for them, they love it, they exactly. And then to take that person and put them in a place where they don't have the skills or they have, they're not sure you know, they don't know exactly what's being asked of them or what they need to do to be successful, like that is a totally different kind of stress that I think is ultimately long-term, way more toxic.

Speaker 2: 11:23

When I used to work in investment banking back in the day, what I realized at a certain point was that there is only one way to make partner at an investment bank and that is to sell business. You have to, eventually you have to shift from being a Sort of an advisor, a financial analyst. You have to shift your skill set from being from the finance aspect, from doing deals and developing you know models, into essentially sales, cultivating relationships with CEOs and CFOs and getting them to sign you up to do your services. There were people who were phenomenal financial analysts and people who were so good at executing transactions but they didn't want to and they didn't know how to, and they didn't enjoy the sales aspect of the business and, as a result, those folks were never going to make partner. Their career was capped. These people are essential for the, you know, for the effective functioning of the institution, and you're not giving them an opportunity for career advancement because you only have this very narrow view of like what success looks like.

Speaker 1: 12:30

It's also interesting because, look, we work at behavioral health. A lot of times the staff has suffered, or suffers, or deals with similar issues to what the clientele is Right, a good fit can be very beneficial for the staff member, for their recovery, for their health, for their mental health, but a bad fit or a bad move could crash and burn everything.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Really good point, you know so it's super important that we're cognizant of these things and we could really make a big impact as an industry if we keep those things in mind. And a lot of times people are doing what is quick or what plugs the whole at the time that they need it, as opposed to planning. Thanks for tuning in to Hatchin' Creativity. We appreciate your support. Please don't forget to like and subscribe and tell all your friends about the show and remember it's never just about one thing.