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August 6, 2025 32 mins

In this episode of the MGMA Insights Podcast, host Daniel Williams joins Mark Noon, a retired US Air Force medical leader and founder of LEADERSHIPTEN to explore leadership challenges amid cultural adaptations in the post-pandemic workplace. With extensive experience coaching healthcare organizations, Mark shares critical leadership strategies for medical practice managers and administrators while offering practical approaches to team development and patient experience.

Key Takeaways:

[04:12] Career Evolution: Mark transitioned from military medical laboratory work to leadership consulting, demonstrating the importance of adaptability in professional growth

[10:00] Leadership Challenges: Four primary leadership challenges identified:

  • Communication
  • Motivation
  • Delegation
  • Culture building

[12:11] Workplace Flexibility: Embracing remote work requires trust, understanding individual work styles, and creating flexible communication strategies

[18:21] Cross-Role Understanding: Implement role-playing exercises to help team members understand each other's responsibilities and improve interdepartmental communication

[21:42] Accountability Strategies: 

  • Establish two-way accountability
  • Practice upward accountability
  • Take personal responsibility for commitments

[30:00] Employee Expectations: Employees want leaders who:

  • Are personally known
  • Demonstrate professional competence
  • Genuinely care about team members

Resources:

Additional Resources:

Email us at dwilliams@mgma.com if you would like to appear on an episode. If you have a question about your practice that you would like us to answer, send an email to advisor@mgma.com. Don't forget to subscribe to our network wherever you get your podcasts.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:02):
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Podcast Network. We
are back today with another MGMAInsights podcast. And I met our
guest through a mutual friendwho's a MGMA member in a medical
practice. And so I went, I gottatalk to this guy.

(00:24):
So our guest today is Mark Noon.He is a retired US Air Force
medical leader and founder ofLeadership ten. Mark's also an
executive coach. He's a speakerwho's worked with hundreds of
health care organizations. Someof you listening today may have
worked with Mark at some pointin your medical practice.

(00:46):
So let's just welcome him intothe show. Mark, it's good to
talk to you again.

Mark Noon (00:52):
Hey, Daniel, thanks so much. I appreciate the
opportunity and love being,know, say back in the medical
community. I don't thrive therewith my new business, but I
certainly have spent a lot ofhours, on-site with a lot of
medical practices, that are MGMAmembers. Glad to be a part of
the show.

Daniel Williams (01:08):
Yeah. It's so good to have you here. You and I
talked. I think it was a week orso ago. Time just kind of It was
fine.
It just sort of floats thesedays. Trying to keep things. You
said you were traveling today. Iwas telling you, I thought I'd
had maybe seven meetings totaltoday. Y'all have probably all
y'all listening have been haddays like that where we're just

(01:30):
going, I don't know if what timeof day it I don't know what day
it is.
So I

Mark Noon (01:34):
don't know what day it is. Exactly. I know. I've had
days recently like that. I haveno idea what day it is.

Daniel Williams (01:38):
Exactly. So let's just start with your
story. It's so interesting.Anytime I talk to somebody who
has maybe a military backgroundor has a background that might
be different than, I want to saytraditional, but these days
there's no traditional pathway.I guess the most traditional, if
we think about it, might be, Iwant to be a doctor, and you say

(02:01):
that when you're in fifth grade,and then you just go to college,
then you go to med school, andthen you're a doctor.
But other than that, there'susually so many permutations.
There's so many different waysto get to where we get in our
careers. So let's just hear alittle bit about your
background.

Mark Noon (02:17):
Yeah, I love to hear people's stories too. Why did
you become a nurse? Why did youbecome an anesthesiologist? And
there's always something in thebackground. It's not usually you
just woke up one day and went,I'm going go into this.
There's usually something thathappens. Me, was really, it was
joining the military many, manyyears ago, more than thirty
years ago now. I just needed ajob. I wasn't looking for a

(02:39):
medical profession. I wasn'tlooking for anything other than
I needed a job.
I had a wife, a young son, andwe lived in an area of the
country that not a lot of jobs.I didn't have no education. So I
said, you know what? Let's jointhe military. They gave me the
job in the medical laboratoryworld.
Didn't know anything about a labtech, didn't know what lab techs
did. So it wasn't like one ofthose dream jobs for me. That's
the one they gave me. Mostpeople who know me know that my

(03:02):
personality is not the typicallab person who loves to be quiet
in the back room kind of thing.I'm very much a people person.
But that's the job I got in. Andin that job, went through the
ranks, got an opportunity tofinish my four year college
degree, which took eight yearsto do. Got a commission as an
officer, began the second partof my career in the same career

(03:24):
field, clinical laboratory. Mydegree is medical technology.
And then was able to finish amaster's degree as well and then
finish out just a little overtwenty years in the Air Force.
And so that's where my medicalexperience comes from. In that
time, especially as an officer,a lot of executive experience, a
lot of time at the executivetable, lot of time in leadership
roles, not just clinical roles,but leadership roles within the

(03:47):
medical community. And eventhen, doing a lot of speaking
and a lot of talking aboutleadership.

Daniel Williams (03:52):
Yeah. That is so good.

Mark Noon (03:54):
That's the military part of that. That got up about
2012. So.

Daniel Williams (03:58):
Okay. So bring us up to speed then. I mentioned
it in your intro, Leadership 10.Tell us about this organization,
what it does, and anything elseyou might wanna share about it.

Mark Noon (04:10):
Yeah. So between 2012 and 2020, I worked for a company
called The Studer Group. Many ofyour listeners are familiar with
Quint Studer, one of the,probably the premier leadership
and clinical guys out there TheUnited States. And then, of
course, that became HuronConsulting Group at some point

(04:33):
in time in that eight years aswell. And I worked for them.
I traveled all over the countryand to Canada. I spoke at
probably more than two fiftyhealthcare organizations during
that time. I did a lot ofcoaching, a lot of leader
development because one of themain focuses was not just the
clinical elements of HCAPs andCGAPs and all those other
things. It was really about howdo we develop the leaders? Cause

(04:53):
we know the leaders leading wellis going to have great
employees, great employees aregoing to bring great healthcare.
And then in 2020, 2020 happenedand there was no traveling,
there was nothing really muchgoing on. And so it was a big
time when it was just time totransition. I made the
transition, a partner and Ideveloped Leadership ten.
Leadership ten is simply anorganization of the three of us,

(05:16):
three founding principals whowanted to develop leaders. And
we really started it as sort ofa side hobby.
And it just sort of blossomedfrom there. We're not
specifically in healthcare. Wedo all industries. I have
industries in government. I haveprivate sector businesses, large
scale industries, industrialplaces, real estate agencies,

(05:39):
all kinds of different elements,but still love to be in the
healthcare practice.
You're in and my mutual friend,Oscar, the one that sort of
partnered us together. I'mcoaching their practice right
now as a medical from aleadership and patient
experience perspective. Sothat's kind of how Leadership
ten came about, sort of a sidehobby that developed into this
business. And now it's sort ofmy full time travel around the

(06:01):
country and the world talkingabout leadership.

Daniel Williams (06:03):
Yeah. So one last question. What's the 10
represent? So I know whatleadership is.

Mark Noon (06:08):
What's ten? Know, it's interesting that that, we
came up with this name one day.In fact, some of sometimes the
three of us, my my two partners,Diane and Rob, we we think
about, where did it really comefrom? And and I think it was
just at lunch one day, one ofthem said it. I didn't come up
with it.
One of them did. We found outleadership ten ten is really
this. 10 is sort of the perfect.Right? We think of everything on
a scale of one to 10.
If we get a 10, even on HCAPs,CGTATs, all those, it's perfect.

(06:32):
We've done everything right. 10is complete in our opinion. One
of our core values is integrity.And integrity for us is not just
about honesty, it's aboutfullness and completeness.
And then interestingly, when westarted coaching, we ended up
with 10 sessions of coaching. Wedo four leader development times
with the organization and sixcoaching sessions. That added up

(06:53):
to 10 coincidentally. And thenthe word leadership has 10
letters in it, which wassomething we discovered after we
developed the name. Never eventhought about it.
Right? So, so that's really kindof how it came about. There's no
real meaning behind it otherthan than that.

Daniel Williams (07:07):
Yeah. I love the synchronicity of life. You
know? You're trying tobrainstorm for something. You
come up with this name, then youjust realize, well, there are
also 10 letters there.
So we didn't go with leadershipthree, so, you know, because
there were three of y'all, butyou went with leadership ten.
Some of your trainings are ingroups of 10. So that really is

(07:28):
synchronous there. That's reallycool.

Mark Noon (07:30):
Well, what's interesting too is we sort of
are nicknamed L10, just forshortening the term. But a lot
of our organizations that wecoach will develop their own.
Like we had one organizationjust recently, there's six
executive leaders on their teamand they decided to call
themselves the L6. So it's theleadership six because there's
six of them. It sort of morpheditself into some of our clients

(07:52):
as

Daniel Williams (07:52):
well. Okay. Let's talk about medical
practices and the leadershipfound there. You have talked, as
you said, our mutual friendOscar, he is leading a practice.
You're working with them.
You've worked with hundreds,maybe even thousands of
healthcare professionals thatyou've talked to over the years.
What are some recurring themesthat are challenges that medical

(08:15):
practices have as far as from aleadership perspective?

Mark Noon (08:19):
Yeah. You know, it was different before 2020. Like,
a lot of things in life were.You know, the the way we
delivered medicine, different.The way we deliver anything now
is different.
The way where packages aredelivered or, you know, or or
the way we conduct meetings aredifferent. But I think there's a
common theme in all leadership,and it's not just medical
practices, but there's somenuances to medical practice.

(08:40):
I'll talk about those in asecond. Truly, the challenges
for leaders are typically fourthings I find in every
organization. It'scommunication.
Imagine that, right? Everybodyhas communication, number one.
Motivation, delegation, andculture. So it's communication.
Yeah, everybody knows that one.
Motivation is learning how tomotivate your team. And a lot of

(09:01):
that is shifted with differentgenerations now. We've got four
or five generations in ourorganization. The difference
between a boomer and a Gen Z isthere's many, many differences,
but their motivations aredifferent. Delegation, it's the
ability to give up things.
In healthcare, we really, reallystruggle with delegation because
we have this need to nurture andtake care of people. A person

(09:23):
becomes a nurse because theywant to take care of people. So
then they become a nurse leader.And I will just tell your
audience this point blank. Ithink there's not a harder job
in the world than being a nursemanager in a hospital.
But a nurse leader who now isresponsible for all these people
and all these patients and theywant to take care of everybody,
and so they don't delegate. Theygo, I'll take care of that

(09:44):
because I don't want to burdenmy staff. And so delegation is
really, really a hard one for alot of them. And then culture is
that last one. And culture isnot a lot of people can do a lot
about the culture of theirorganization, but they sure can
within their department.
And even though they may havenot great leaders in the upper
levels of their area, they cando something about the culture

(10:06):
and creating that culture. Butthey struggle with that. They
struggle with it because theyfeel like it's not always their
responsibility. If you're myboss, it should be your
responsibility to help medevelop culture. Well, what if
you're not a great leader?
I need to still take good careof my people. And that seems to
be a struggle for a lot of them.

Daniel Williams (10:21):
Yeah. You were bringing in the context of 2020.
That is a really monumental yearglobally because of

Mark Noon (10:31):
the

Daniel Williams (10:31):
pandemic. We saw in a

Mark Noon (10:35):
lot of

Daniel Williams (10:35):
organizations people you know, we had the
lockdown, and people worked fromhome. Certainly clinicians, they
needed to see those patients. Alot of the administrative people
in health care, they might haveseen their work life, the way
they work, change. In thecontext of culture, how has
culture changed? You've beenconsulting with and working with

(10:58):
practices and otherorganizations, so you're seeing
it in other walks of life aswell.
How has culture changed overthese past five years?

Mark Noon (11:08):
I think a lot of organizations, especially large
health care organizations,really struggle with culture
because there's so many entitieswithin the system, if you will.
I mean, I've spoken at some ofthe largest healthcare
organizations in the country andsome of them eighty, ninety
thousand employees. How do youdevelop a culture in that? It's
really hard. Every individualbuilding or department has their

(11:29):
own culture.
Now it became even moredifficult when a lot of those
people went to their own homesthat are working and some of
them still working from home.And so it's that, how do I
incorporate them into a culture?How to create a culture when
you're sitting in your officethere on the other side of the
screen and I'm sitting in thisoffice and that culture is very
difficult, even more so now tomanage than it was then. But

(11:51):
there's ways to do that. Andthat's what I think I want to
encourage leaders is there areways to do that.
There are things that they cando. It may take a little bit
more work because you're notface to face in the sense of
live and in person. You're by ascreen. You don't know what's
going on all day long. I'm here.
I told you I'm visiting mydaughter at her house. She works
from home. She'll work for twoor three hours and then go take

(12:15):
care of her son for two or threehours and come back to work for
two or three hours or wheneverit's flexible. So you want to
meet with at 03:00. May notalways be a convenient time to
have a meeting because peopleare working real.
I love to get up early in themorning, 05:00 in the morning,
be at work, get everything donebefore the day starts. Who else
wants to have a meeting at 05:00in the morning? Nobody. So I'm

(12:38):
going have a meeting at 02:00when I want to take my afternoon
nap or whatever. Those are somestruggles, but they can be
accommodated.
They can they can be worked.Leaders just need to, you know,
sort of adapt, if you will. Ithink the needs for people are
the same. It's the adaptation ofhow we deliver that is a bit

(12:58):
different now.

Daniel Williams (12:58):
Right. I was thinking about that. I am also
an early bird. I use that fivea. M.
Time to have the me time,whatever it might be. I belong
to a gym, and once that day getsgoing for a lot of us, I can't
really turn it off. And so if Iwait to go to the gym at five, I

(13:22):
might find an excuse not to go,so I go there. So I get all that
out of the way, so then I canfocus in. What I love what you
were saying is that flexibility.
I think that's one of the prosthat has come out of that. Any
of us who's had, Zoom meetingsor other video type meetings, we
see our furry friends show up. Ihad one of my cats or my cat

(13:46):
jump into the screen two daysago when we were having a pretty
important business partnermeeting, but everybody, they're
so used to it. They said, well,I'm going go get my dog and
bring it. So we have that sort

Mark Noon (13:59):
of

Daniel Williams (13:59):
flexibility there, flexibility to maybe go
to that class or that go see ourchild perform in a performance
or compete in an athleticendeavor and then get back to
work. The thing that comes upthere is it is the trust factor.
Know, if you're the boss, can Itrust you? Can I give you this

(14:21):
much rope? You're to get get theflexibility to do some different
things during your day, but thenare you gonna be present when
you need to be present?
So is that something that youbuild in in some of the training
so that that trust is there, butwe gotta it's a two way street,
you know, for us.

Mark Noon (14:39):
It is. You know, there's a lot of statistics that
even show that work from home isis more productive. You know,
like I said, if I get up earlyin the morning and I hit hit my
computer, I go to the gym likeyou do it, but I get home and I
hit computer, I'm doing all mywork. I get more done in an hour
and a half than I would forthree hours at the office
because of interruptions or justthe time of day, whatever those
kinds of things. I think thatflexibility is absolutely

(15:00):
important.
I had to laugh when you weresaying, the cat jumped in. I was
on a Zoom call one time. I wasgoing to speak in an event and
we did like a pre call wherewe're talking about the event.
The young lady who was on thecall, she had to breastfeed her
child and she was doing thatwhile we were having it's all
covered up, of course, but she'sdoing that while we're having
the meeting. And I'm like,that's just the way we've
adapted.
And some leaders can't do that.They have a hard time making

(15:24):
that adaptation. And again, I'mnot saying that's maybe a little
extreme that we don't do that,but I don't have to go get the
dog to show you. But my dog'sgoing to bark on the other side
of the door times if the UPS guyhits the front door and I'm in a
meeting.

Daniel Williams (15:36):
Right.

Mark Noon (15:37):
We've adapted. Okay. How are we doing that with our
team? Are we allowing some ofthat flexibility? I think that's
a big key.

Daniel Williams (15:44):
Yeah. In reading about your company,
Leadership ten, your company'stagline is, I wanna get this
right, we challenge the thinkingthat shapes leaders. What do you
guys mean by that?

Mark Noon (15:57):
Yeah. There are absolute principles, I think,
when it comes to leadership. Ithink there's tried and true
studies. You read all the greatsof time, John Maxwell, Patrick
Winston, only different ones ofthose, our timeframe that have
there are things that areabsolute, but at the same time,
to challenge people to do thingsdifferently. That's where I go

(16:19):
to that adaptation.
I coach an organization up inUpstate New York, travel there
every month. It's a group ofguys who have never had any real
leader development before andhave led teams on their These
are underground constructionguys. They have led teams,
they've led people, but they'venever been challenged in their

(16:40):
leadership. What they thinkabout leadership is what they
were taught growing up in thebusiness. You yell at somebody
to get them to do what you wantthem to do.
Okay? Maybe that worked twentyyears ago. It doesn't work
today. So I'm going to challengethat thinking and say, okay,
what can you do differently?Challenging the thinking is,
what are you experimenting inleadership right now?
What are you doing and trying asa leader that you think might

(17:02):
work? What are you willing toput out there and be vulnerable
and say, I'm going to try this,see if it works with my team.
And if it doesn't, I'm going goback and say, Hey guys, I tried
this, it didn't work. Let's go adifferent route and let's make
it happen. That's challengingthe thinking.
It's getting them to actuallythink, critical thinking. We use
a line like this. If somebodywould come to me and say, let's

(17:23):
say you worked for me, Daniel,and you and James worked for me
and somebody came to me andsaid, Mark, do you guys are you
a good leader? And I'd say,well, I think I am. Okay.
And then they said, well, wouldDaniel or James say you're a
good leader? And I'd say, well,I think they think I'm a good
leader. Right? And then we goone step further. We go, well, I
think that they think that Ithink I'm doing a pretty good

(17:45):
job.
Right? So I want to challengethat thinking. I want people to
go, okay, maybe my thinkingisn't where it needs to be. How
do I and then the other side ofthat is critical thinking. I
want people to be good criticalthinkers.
Not just, okay, I got to putthis here because that's the way
we've always done it, but doesthat really make sense, or can
we do it a different way?

Daniel Williams (18:04):
That leads right into my next question.
Have coached and offeredtrainings to everybody from
physician leaders to officemanagers, everyone in between.
Does the training change? Do youhave it, depending on what your
person's role is in anorganization, do they go through

(18:27):
a different type of leadershiptraining? Or talk about that,
how you tailor Yeah,

Mark Noon (18:32):
it's going to be dependent on the practice,
dependent on the patientpopulation. Obviously, if you
have a pediatric clinic, is itgoing to be a little different
how you handle patients than itis with a geriatric clinic?
Yeah, absolutely. There's somedifferences because patients are
different. There's differencesbecause employees are different.
There's differences becauseroles are different. What I love
to do, especially in medicalpractices, I've done this for

(18:52):
many, many years, is do a lot ofrole play things where, okay,
let's say, we'll pick you andJames and I again. So James is
the provider, nursepractitioner, physician, whoever
he might be. You're the nurse inthe clinic. I'm the front desk
person.
Okay, does James as the providerhave any idea what I do at the
front desk? Maybe not. Hedoesn't know what I'm telling

(19:15):
patients. He doesn't know howI'm processing patients. He just
knows when the patient gets backto the room, they might be
tipped off or a little annoyedby something.
He has no idea why or whathappened. You might not even
know what I do at the frontdesk, but you come out and get
the patient who I may be upsetin some way or wasn't really
communicating really well to,and then you have to try to

(19:35):
explain things. Or you don't doa good job explaining. And then
they get back there and Jameshas to take all this time to
explain it. So I love to takepeople through the whole
scenario.
Patient walks in, how does Markinteract with him? What does he
say? What does he do? What kindof things does he lead up to? So
when Daniel comes out to bringthem back to the room to triage
him or do whatever, thatcommunication is already there.

(19:58):
They feel like you kind ofalready know what their concern
is or what they're there forwithout having to ask the same
questions over. And then whenJames walks in, the patient's
almost excited to see James asthe provider because they've
heard so much about him orthey've heard what this provider
has done for other patients.It's that kind of thing. Call it

(20:19):
concern, coordination andconfidence. There's three
elements and I walk through theentire clinic.
Everybody watches what Mark doesat the front desk and critiques
it. Everybody watches whatDaniel does in the triage part
and critiques it. Everybodywatches what James does as a
provider and critiques it. Thenyou come together at the end and
say, What did we learn? AndJames is like, Well, I learned

(20:39):
that Mark says this and I don'twant my patients to know that or
to think that.
Or we find out James is tellingsomething in the back and I've
told something opposite in thefront. I got to get those things
coordinated. That's what I lovedoing in clinics. Lunchtime,
workshop one hour, two hours,and we just walk through these
scenarios and people go, Oh mygosh, they had no idea these

(21:00):
kind of things went on in otherparts, especially if it's a
pretty large clinic.

Daniel Williams (21:03):
But that's

Mark Noon (21:04):
the fun part. I love going in places and doing those
kinds

Daniel Williams (21:07):
of things. Yeah. Yeah. Just for our
listeners, James is thesuperpower we have here. James
is our producer that puts thisthing together and makes people
like Mark and me look good oncamera and sound good on camera.
So if you're going, Who the heckis James?

Mark Noon (21:25):
Yeah, we just made his name up. No, but he's
actually part of he was in thebackground. I should have
probably said that.

Daniel Williams (21:30):
No, no. I just wanted to James has long been
the secret sauce here, and Ithink think people needed to
know who he was, so thanks forbringing him into it. Yeah,
good. Were talking about trustearlier, and this is sort of a
play off of that. Let's talkabout accountability.
So when you're talking to a highperforming medical team, what

(21:53):
does accountability look likeand what can they learn about
that or grow that accountabilityfactor within their practice?

Mark Noon (22:01):
Yeah, accountability is a two way street. A lot of
people look at accountabilityas, okay, you're Daniel, you're
the leader of the practice,you're the COO or the CEO or the
whatever role you have, the topperson. They think your
responsibility is holdingeverybody accountable. And it
is, absolutely is. But what do Ihave in responsibility and

(22:23):
accountability?
I have three or four people thatare under me that I supervise. I
have to hold them accountable,absolutely. I have to hold
myself accountable. My team hasto hold me accountable. I don't
think we do a lot of upwardaccountability.
You say to me, Hey, Mark, I'mgoing to do this and this for
your team. And I tell my teamthat, and then you don't do it.
What am I supposed to do? I needto go to you and say, Hey, you

(22:45):
said you were going to do this.You didn't do it.
Now, it should be upon you totake accountability and the
responsibility to do that. But Itell leaders all the time, if
your boss, your supervisor doesnot take accountability does not
take accountability forthemselves, you need to hold
them accountable. Well, in a lotof organizations, that's hard to
do. They don't have the culturethat allows that to happen. I

(23:07):
remember one of my first monthswhen I worked for the Studer
Group, I remember one of mycolleagues who I was supposed to
have some information to her ona Friday.
She was going to have a Mondaycall with my hospital CEO that I
was coaching and she was not mysupervisor. She was just a peer,
but she was going to help mewith some things. I was early in
her career and needed some help.I didn't get the material to her
on Friday. And she emails me onSunday.

(23:29):
She says, Hey, Mark, you didn'tsend me that stuff. One of our
core values in the organizationis commitment to our coworker.
When we say we're going to dosomething, we do it. And you
didn't. She called me on it.
Now, I could have blamed thesystem. I could have said, Oh, I
sent it on an email, unless itgot lost in the system or
whatever. You know what? I ownedit. I owned it.
I said, You know what? That willnever happen again. And it did.

(23:53):
It was the first even though I'dbeen in the military twenty
years, accountability was notthat strong. And it was one of
those lessons I went, I tookpersonal accountability.
I was wrong. I admitted it.Never happened again. And it has
now, it's been, I don't know,thirteen years since that point.
I still remember that as a verystrong lesson.

Daniel Williams (24:12):
Sure. And when you think about accountability,
you describing it in that way,reminded me of one of our guests
and authors that we've workedwith at MGMA, that's Owen Dahl.
And he has a saying, he teachesa course at MGMA on lean

(24:32):
leadership and has just writtena book for us on lean
leadership. And he has a sayingthat if you can't measure it,
you can't manage it. And so Ithink if you have a repetitive
project or a process, say it's amonthly report that goes out,
but if you were measuring thatand it somehow went off the

(24:54):
rails every month, you couldmaybe go back there and measure
that and see where thebottleneck was.
It might be Jim over there. Hehas that one aspect of it, and
you go, okay, so let's go backand coach Jim. So giving you
that scenario, what do you thinkabout that? Is that something
that you, teach in some of thoseleadership programs?

Mark Noon (25:16):
Yeah. There has to be a, sort of a checks and
balances. Right? There must besomething to measure again.
There has to be a standard tohold people accountable to.
And it can't be differentthroughout the organization. If
you have a standard for yourteam that's three points above
my standard and I'm holdingpeople to the standard, let's
say it's organizationalstandard, but you've changed the
standard, either raised it orlowered it, those people are

(25:38):
going to talk to my people andthey're going to say, Well, why
are we held to this accountablestandard and this one isn't? So
it's got to be measured. Yes.Healthcare, we say all the time.
If it's not measured, it's notit's not done. If it's not
measured, you can't manage it.But there has to be a
coordination of thatinformation. There has to be a
standard that's set that saysthis is where we're going to be.

(25:59):
Now, if I go to my team and Isay, I know the standard is this
and everybody is at thisstandard, but I want to raise it
two levels above and my teamsays, Yes, we want to do that.
Move forward, absolutely. Thenthere's no comparison in that
way. But if it's because I'm notholding my team accountable and
you are, they're going to talk.There's going to be some
grumbling and complaining. Andwhen that lack of standard is

(26:23):
there, it will ruin anorganization.
It will ruin a culture.

Daniel Williams (26:26):
Okay. Now, healthcare can be very localized
because you have your bricks andmortar space that patients come
into. But in reading about you,I did see something that was
really interesting that I justwanted to explore in front of
the MGMA audience, just so wecould get an idea of things. And
that is that you've worked withorganizations across five

(26:50):
countries. So when we talk aboutculture, leadership, resilience,
any of these things, have youidentified any similarities or
any differences when you'reworking in The US and these
other countries that you'veworked in?

Mark Noon (27:05):
Yeah, I've been in a few other countries. And in some
of those groups that I've spokento have been multiple countries
represented. A lot of times itwas a conference of multiple
countries. And A couple of thosehave been healthcare and a
couple of those have been otherindustries. People are people.
I used to get this asked in themilitary all the time, What do
military people like compared toothers? I said, People are
people. We have the samemotivations, the same desires.

(27:28):
The difference is in themilitary is could hold people
accountable to things because wehad absolute set standards and
we had processes for that. Inother countries, it's very
different.
I was in Thailand earlier thisyear and doing a conference on
leadership, and it was probablyone of the most difficult
audiences because of thedifferences in Far East. There

(27:52):
was Far East, a lot of peoplefrom the Far East, India and
other places. Just a differentmindset on how leadership is. I
also think that part of it is asan American, I talk very fast. I
think a lot of other countriesdon't talk.
I think that's part of mycommunication is I need to slow
down. Where I was in Dubai acouple of years ago, multiple
countries there, all publichealth officials. For whatever

(28:15):
reason, I slowed down everythingthat I said because a majority
of them English was like a thirdlanguage, not just second or
third. And so there was a lot ofI tailored the information
differently or how I presentedthe information differently
because of that audience. Sothere's things like that I think
that leaders have to be able todo and understanding even today.

(28:36):
Even in The United States, wehave people from multiple
different countries andlanguages and culture and
backgrounds, and they don't allsee things the same. I was
coaching an organization inFlorida, the Panhandle Of
Florida where I live. Andthere's a young lady there who
was originally from ThePhilippines. English was her
second language. Of course,Filipino people are very

(28:56):
Americanized just because of howmany Americans have been there
and them being so closelyassociated with us for years.
But she's also a very hardpersonality from behavioral
standpoint. She's a high B onthe DISC scale, which means
she's very direct and she's veryforward. In her country, that
worked. And what she realized isthat with the people that she
supervised in Florida, she hadto sort of tone down the way she

(29:21):
delivered her message. Should weget people, colleagues of hers
to read her email messages sothat they didn't sound so direct
and so sort of overbearing?
She knew enough about herself todo that, and I think that's the
cultural differences that wehave to look at sometimes.

Daniel Williams (29:36):
That is so fascinating. So I could talk to
you all day. I mean, you and Ihave already chatted a couple of
times now, and we just have areally good rapport. But for the
sake of time here, I want to berespectful to you. So as a final
question then, what would youwant to leave these MGMA
members?
These are practiceadministrators. These are
physician leaders. These arepeople on the front line that

(29:58):
are working with patients,either through the billing side
or the clinical side. What wouldyou want to leave them with
about leadership and how theycan grow their leadership
skills?

Mark Noon (30:09):
Yeah, let me give you three things, and this is
standard for everybody. In fact,you will find that this is
exactly what every employee inevery medical practice around
the country wants from theirleader. They want to know who
their leader is. They may wantto know them personally. They
want to know what their valuesare, what's important to them,
who they are as a person, theirbehavioral style, all those
things.
They want to know them.Secondly, they want to know that

(30:30):
they're good at what they do.And I don't mean being a good
physician or being a good nurse,being a good billing clerk. I
mean, are they good leader? Arethey a good leader?
Or are they trying to become abetter leader? Are they working
at becoming a better leader ifthey're new to the role or they
haven't had a lot of experiencein the past? And thirdly is do
they care? Do they care aboutthe people that they work with?

(30:54):
A lot of times in medicalpractices, we get hung up on the
processes that we have to try toget patients through and try to
get the billing done andinsurance and all those kinds of
things, but we forget aboutcaring about the people.
Now think about this from apatient perspective. What are
the three things every patientwants from their provider? They
want to know who you are. Theywant to know you're good at what
you do. And they want to knowyou care about them.

(31:14):
Same exact thing. So if we cannail those three things, we got
our employees taking care of, wegot our customers taking care
of, we got our patients takingcare of, everybody that we come
in contact with will be wellcared for in the medical
practice if we can get thosethree things across.

Daniel Williams (31:28):
All right. Well, Mark Noon, thank you for
joining us on the MGMA Itpodcast is a pleasure.

Mark Noon (31:34):
Thank you so much.

Daniel Williams (31:35):
Yeah, that was so much fun. So everybody
listening, I'm gonna putinformation in our episode show
notes. And as if y'all are loyallisteners to the podcast, you
know that we always createarticles as well. So we'll have
a lot of information about Markand his, leadership skills and
tools in our articles and theepisode show notes. But if you

(31:57):
wanna go out and learn moreabout Mark right now, go to
leadership10.org, And you'llfind a lot of tools and tips out
there as well.
So until then, thank you all forbeing MGMA podcast listeners.
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