March 5, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of the MGMA Member Spotlight podcast, host Daniel Williams sits down with Jason Raidbard, Executive Administrator for the University of Chicago's Ophthalmology and Visual Science Department, to explore the critical challenges of employee engagement in today's hybrid work environment. Drawing from his extensive experience in healthcare administration, Raidbard shares invaluable insights on building trust, maintaining team productivity, and creating a supportive workplace culture that transcends physical boundaries.
Key Takeaways:
Employee Engagement Strategies
- Achieved a high engagement score through servant leadership principles
- Focus on individual team member needs and work-life balance
- Normalize conversations about mental health and workplace flexibility
Communication in Hybrid Environments
- Use technology (Teams, Zoom) to maintain connection
- Be genuinely present during interactions
- Quote: "Be present, listen to your people, ask them for feedback"
Preventing Burnout
- Recognize signs of stress
- Encourage breaks and health prioritization
- Avoid guilt-driven overworking
- Quote: "You're no good to yourself, your family, and your workplace if you're coughing and stressed"
Building Trust
- Ask about team members' personal lives
- Be transparent
- Offer help proactively
- Quote: "There's no hack. It's being just a genuine, good person"
Resources:
- Member Community Live - Connect with fellow MGMA members and subject matter experts to discuss topics that matter to you and your practice
- Connect with Jason Raidbard on LinkedIn
- University of Chicago's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science - visit here
This episode is brought to you by Zoll Data Systems, software and data solutions for healthcare financial professionals. Zoll AR Boost is the comprehensive automated RCM optimization suite that automatically finds, corrects and verifies patient and payer information to capture more revenue, reduce administrative burden, and improve the patient financial experience. The number one Black Book-rated insurance discovery tool can discover active, billable coverage for more than 40 percent of claims. Visit https://www.zolldata.com/healthcare-financial-data/arboost to learn about the complete Solution suite.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:49):
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Podcast Network. We
are back with another MGMAmember spotlight podcast, and we
have a return guest. He was somuch fun to talk to the last
time we had him on here. We'rebringing him back.
So it's Jason Radbard. He's anexecutive administrator for the
(01:12):
University of Chicago'sophthalmology and visual science
department. Jason, let's justwelcome you back in here first
to to say hello, and then I'mgonna read a little more stuff
about you.
Jason Raidbard (01:25):
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate you
bringing me back. I guess I didsomething right the first time.
Daniel Williams (01:30):
That's true. Now you were telling me
something really interestingoffline. You just went on a
pretty cool vacation. What telltell our audience about that.
Just to get out of Chicago inthe winter, what'd you go do?
Jason Raidbard (01:46):
Surprisingly, it's 55 degrees today in
Chicago.
Daniel Williams (01:49):
Okay. Okay.
Jason Raidbard (01:51):
My family and I, my wife and daughter, we went to
Turks and Caicos. It wasactually, was it the thirteenth
through the eighteenth.
Daniel Williams (01:58):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (01:58):
And it is if you have never been there, I would
encourage everyone to go there.The people that live there, work
there are wonderful, veryfriendly, very warm. It is
different than the rest of TheCaribbean. It's a drier climate.
It's 80 degrees and sunny everyday in the the fall winter
months.
I think it gets closer to 90 inthe summer months, but I've
(02:20):
never been there. I've only beenthere in the winter. Grace Bay
is the main attraction, at leastwhy we go, many people go. It's
considered one of the mostbeautiful beaches in the world.
I've traveled some.
I have other folks that I knowin work and and personal life
that traveled more than me, butI I've been to a few places,
Patagonia, Tahiti, and and inEurope. By far, this is the most
(02:43):
beautiful beach I've ever seen.Wow. And it's just turquoise
blue water. Yeah.
And depending on the angle ofthe sun, of course, it looks a
little more turquoise, a littlemore aqua, but, I mean, it
doesn't matter. It's cloudy.You're happy.
Daniel Williams (02:56):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (02:56):
It's a wonderful island. Again, we loved it
there. I came back to Chicago onthe eighteenth to, one degree
weather.
Daniel Williams (03:03):
Good. Good. Well, it it's so yeah. I'm I'm
just happy you came back. Imean, you might have just stayed
there in that 80 degree weatherforever.
You know?
Jason Raidbard (03:14):
You know, they've come a long way with
their their Wi Fi servicesthere. It still has some work to
be done, but it's nice to kindasemi disconnect. But, yeah,
maybe I'll see if I can I canwork remote from there?
Daniel Williams (03:25):
Yeah. Just do a hybrid thing. You know? Well,
it's so good to have you backhere and back on the podcast. So
you and I connected because youhave been a part of our MGMA
member community live programs.
You reached out to me, let meknow about something you'd been
(03:47):
involved in. Just share a littlebit how you got involved with m
MGMA CommunityLive and what yourrole was there.
Jason Raidbard (03:55):
Sure. Well, Dylan Kelly, who I think is one
of the individuals at MGMAthat's kinda spearheading these
community of lives, I I thinkit's a a good product offering
from MGMA for its members. Sojust to give your your listeners
kind of background, it'srelatively new. I believe it
started last fall.
Daniel Williams (04:15):
That's right.
Jason Raidbard (04:15):
There's been a few of them over I think there
was an AI segment I got a chanceto listen to a couple weeks ago.
There was one on eClinicalWorksa month or so ago. Mine was on
culture and engagement. When Iget a chance to whether it's at
I I actually sit on the board ofthe Illinois chapter of, the,
Medical Group ManagementAssociation. So whether I'm
(04:37):
going to their conferences andspeaking, Becker's hospital
review, Scott Becker will haveme speak at his conferences.
Sometimes I'll do webinars andparticipate, like in this format
with MGMA. And there's ASHA andother organizations. I like to
talk about culture andengagement, improving not just
productivity in the workplace,but, you know, ever since COVID,
(04:59):
everything's been just very,different Yeah. I would say in
society. Right?
And then a lot of things havereturned back to pre COVID norm,
but not everything. Right? Farstill far more people are are
working with motor hybrid thanthey were before COVID. Right.
It's changing for certain partsof sectors in The United States,
but but it's still prevailingcompared to, say, 2015, if I
(05:22):
will go back ten years.
These member community lives arenice because we had a fairly
robust group, close to a hundredmembers.
Daniel Williams (05:31):
Wow. That's incredible.
Jason Raidbard (05:34):
And I serve as a content expert and moderator.
Daniel Williams (05:38):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (05:39):
And believe it or not and you can ask Dylan.
You can listen to it. I'm sureit's safe somewhere. It went
smooth. So folks will sign upbecause they wanna hear about
the subject.
In this case, it was culture andengagement, you know, workforce
development, team development,things of that nature. Whatever
it is the subject that MGMA is,sponsoring for that given week
(06:01):
or month, that gives members achance to not only listen to
their colleagues throughout TheUnited States, and some maybe in
other parts, even the world,about said topic, but then they
also have an opportunity toshare their stories and their
content expertise. So the ideais not that in this case, Jason
Raybard is the only contentexpert in culture engagement. I
(06:25):
can work with this group of ahundred people that I don't
know, that I've never met, andfoster just a large virtual
roundtable discussion. So theidea that we call it member
community is a very, perfect wayto describe it.
It's a community of membersgetting together to talk about
something, that is important tothem. And, you know, Dylan does
(06:49):
an excellent job of managingthese, and there's a lot of work
that goes into it beforehand.There's a list of questions that
he and I in this instance workedon, and I think we maybe got
through half the list. We hadabout dozen questions because
the conversation evolved intoother members sharing, and it
was not just me. So if you dohave a chance to join them,
(07:12):
they're good.
I love listening to them. Youcan listen in the background.
You can participate. You can doboth. Whatever it is, it's very
easygoing, very casual.
And I think a lot of members, atleast some of the feedback he
got was positive. People enjoyedthe conversation. They enjoyed
the topic. I think it's a topicthat is, for me, always top of
(07:35):
mind because it sets the tonefor any organization, any team.
And I mean, you can eventranslate it into one's personal
life with your own family.
Daniel Williams (07:45):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (07:46):
So it's an important topic. And I was glad
I had the opportunity to speakand and happy to do it in the
future. So I think Dylan and Iare working on some things for
either the spring and or thefall. One might be a two point o
of it. The other idea is justfocusing a little bit more on
leadership.
Daniel Williams (08:04):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (08:05):
But that's to come.
Daniel Williams (08:06):
Yeah. And I'll just add on a little bit. It it
really is this community liveengagement is part of MGMA's
broader efforts to really putthe MGMA members at the center
of the content that we create. Ithink a lot of y'all know that I
I host or moderate most of thewebinars we do, about 40 to 50
(08:30):
of those a year, And that's thecommunication's a little bit
different because there's apresenter, and people can type
in some comments, but it's notreally community led. It's led
by outside experts or otherpeople that we get to speak.
This, as Jason was describing,is just a great way to really
(08:51):
put all of you at the center ofthe conversation where you can
share your friction points, yourchallenges in the practice,
whether it be related to cultureor anything else. So before we
move on, anything else you wannashare about that? Do you think
we've got it covered, Jason?
Jason Raidbard (09:09):
I I think we we have it covered. I would say,
you know, the nice part abouttwo is depending on your
particular practice ororganization's budget, you may
or may not be able to attendconferences in person or be able
to attend some of the moreregional conferences. This gives
you an opportunity to stillnetwork and learn, but not
(09:33):
having to leave your office oryour home office, wherever
you're working from. Yeah. Sofor me, you know, some folks
can't get to national MGMAleadership conference, which is
coming up at the September, ifI'm not mistaken, in Orlando.
That's right. Shameless plug.But I I think it gives you an
opport it also gives you anopportunity of what are the
(09:53):
folks that you're gonna meet atthese conferences and what are
some anticipated topics thatyou're we're gonna get a little
bit more involved in when we areat these conferences. And the
nice part about the membercommunity is I had people reach
out to me through email andLinkedIn direct, wanting me to
speak at a chapter, whether it'sACH or MGMA, they were a chapter
(10:15):
member wanting me to speak onthat subject or a similar
subject, or say, Hey, I havethis problem. Do you know other
people, in addition to yourself,that could help?
So it fosters really a communityof resources. Now, MGMA has a
fantastic assortment ofresources when it comes to the
data dive, when it comes to alot of the volunteer work,
(10:37):
mentoring programs. I thinkAmanda runs and things like
that. And other work, I thinkNikki does, I'm working on a
committee with her, a joint taskforce with, improving and
enhancing the, ACPME testing andcertification, right?
Daniel Williams (10:53):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (10:53):
But this is, like, just another extension.
It's very personable.
Daniel Williams (10:57):
Mhmm.
Jason Raidbard (10:57):
So I think that's something that when I
would go to MGMA conferences,people wanted, and MGMA
listened, and here we are.
Daniel Williams (11:05):
Yeah. Yeah. So we've been talking a lot already
about engagement. We've beentalking about how to engage the
MGMA members, but we also wannatalk about employee engagement.
So talking to your peers outthere, Jason, the ones who are
practice administrators, mayhave teams out there.
As you've alluded to, if we goback just ten years, the
(11:28):
workforce, it looks a lotdifferent in a lot of places
because there is remote work.There is hybrid work. There are
different ways of doing things.So when we talk in terms of
employee engagement, where whereare you finding success at your
practice where you can reallyengage your team and the rest of
(11:49):
the employees there, and helpthem feel like they are part of
a team even though they mightnot be showing up Monday through
Friday in the office? What'sgoing on there?
Jason Raidbard (12:00):
Yeah. You know, every place I've ever worked,
and I've been in health carenow, what, twenty two years. I
think after a while, I've lost alittle little bit of track. You
know, one thing I I learnedeventually, and took me a while,
is that you may have a playbookof things that you think are
going to work. But what Ilearned once I hit my mid to
(12:23):
late thirties and I had someexperience under my belt and had
really tried to reallyunderstand my craft as far as
interactions and really tryingto understand the concepts of
servant leadership, which we'llget to in a second.
You really have to understandthat every place you go is a
different culture. Every placeyou go has a different set of
(12:45):
norms, values. The mission,vision, value statement is gonna
be different everywhere. Theremight be some similarities. But
how people actually practice itand preach it and what they do
and how they interact with eachother, whether there's a robust
respect level systematicallyfrom the top down or from bottom
up, or it doesn't exist at all,kind of dictates the culture.
(13:07):
Certainly, there can be littledepartments can have their own
subculture, right? But you wantto be part of an organization
that organizationally agrees. Iam very fortunate that I work at
the University of Chicago, and Iwill have been here three years
this April. And I'm not justsaying this because I work here.
This is a robust think tank.
(13:28):
People get along. They help eachother. They share. We have a I
have a wonderful chair in seniorHarry Persaud, who's been chair
now for a couple of years, fullchair. He was interim before.
And then Dean Anderson, came ina couple years ago and and
revamped the mission, vision,values. It was a great place
when I walked in, and then hecame in six months later and
(13:48):
revamped, you know, theenterprise. But there's just so
many good people that work here.That makes a leader's job very
easy. But within your team and Ihave a hybrid team.
So I have people that areremote. I have people that come
in all the time. I personallyprefer to come in as much as I
can. Mhmm. I just work better inthat environment.
(14:10):
I like to have the routine. Callme old fashioned. However, one
thing that and I can say thiswith pride because collectively,
as a group, we worked hard atthis. I recently got my
engagement scores, and I wastold and and I'm not trying to,
pat my own back. But I'm doingthis because I'm gonna explain
(14:31):
to you what I did with my teamand how it works.
Daniel Williams (14:33):
Sure.
Jason Raidbard (14:35):
And I think this is fairly universal. I ended up
with a score of 4.79 out offive, the highest in the
enterprise. Okay. And the yearbefore, it was pretty much the
same. And there's otherorganizations I've worked when I
was at Cook County Health twoyears.
I two years, they measured methere. They didn't measure me
all five. And that was a very,very different culture,
(14:56):
completely union, five point oto five point o. My scores
weren't always that way in mycareer. But what I learned over
time is that you have to adjustto what makes people sing,
what's important to them.
Yes. The organization is goingto have certain goals, certain
cultures. Right? But you alsohave to make sure that your
(15:18):
people's needs are being tendedto. They have to be heard.
You have to listen to them.Rounding seems so simplistic.
Okay. But how do I round if noone's here and I'm the only one
in the office? Let's just say.
Right? And that happened to meyesterday. The couple people
that were remote, one was onvacate or was supposed to be a
person, and and one fell ill.Okay. How does that alright.
(15:40):
Well, we have technology. Wehave teams. Yep. We have text.
We have email.
Right? We have Zoom. We have aphone. I still love to talk to
people on the phone. But what Ilearned with my team is they
loved using Teams.
Daniel Williams (15:55):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (15:56):
The messaging system, but also the impromptu,
can I call you?
Daniel Williams (16:00):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (16:00):
Can I see your face? Yeah. Right? Or maybe they
don't wanna see my face or theydon't want you to see their
face. Whatever.
I leave it to them to be adultsand be professionals.
Daniel Williams (16:11):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (16:12):
You wanna have hybrid work as long as I can get
ahold of you during reasonableoffice hours. I'm not gonna call
you at 09:00 at night.
Daniel Williams (16:19):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (16:21):
The hybrid will work fine. The remote will work
fine because we're all gettingeverything we need to get done.
We're all communicating witheach other. The only difference
is we're not in the samesetting.
Daniel Williams (16:31):
K.
Jason Raidbard (16:31):
Now do I like it when we have team billing? I I
do call people in. We do, like,quarterly things where where I
take them out to lunch, or wehave coffee in the conference
room, and we all get together. Ithink there is some merit to
that. But do I need to have thatfive days a week for my team to
be effective based on, you know,our at least our department
metrics, quality financial,otherwise, no.
(16:53):
We don't. And I can prove itjust because I've lived and
breathed it the last threeyears. I get a lot of people who
say, I just don't think we'revery productive as we were
before COVID. Okay. Well, showme the money, so to speak.
Right? Show me the numbers.Let's let's see.
Daniel Williams (17:09):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (17:11):
And and I think it's the most important thing
with listening and and andtrying to be a good leader is is
is that that principle ofservant leadership that I
learned from, a mentor of mine,Rick Beyer, who's, CEO of
Barrington Orthopedicscurrently. And this was over a
decade ago when I worked for theAdvent Health System, which
(17:32):
turned into AMITA. And I learnedfrom him what it meant. And we
could talk for an hour or twoabout it itself, but you have to
put your people and their needsin front of yours. Mhmm.
You can't go to people and say,I need, I need, I need, I need.
(17:52):
There's nothing worse than goingto a meeting, and your your next
up gives you 10 things that theyneed, and you came in with one
problem you needed help with.
Daniel Williams (18:02):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (18:02):
It's demoralizing. Right? So if you
understand those cues of what isimportant to people you know,
some people like hybrid workbecause they're able to pick up
their kid on Tuesdays andThursdays and not have to pay
for aftercare. Okay. That goes along way.
Aftercare is not cheap, by theway. I have a child. Okay.
Daniel Williams (18:21):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (18:22):
So you have to kinda put those things in
perspective of what's importantto people, and you can still get
everyone to agree on what'simportant for your department,
for your medical group, for yourhealthcare organization,
whatever the case may be. Youcan still meet your goals. You
can still exceed your goals. Butit has to be a two way street.
And I think often youngermanagers, like myself when I was
(18:45):
younger twenty years ago, missedthat opportunity of thinking
that, okay, we have these goalsand we have to hit them and it's
scorched earth to get there.
And that's not how life works.If you want sustained results
and you want a healthyworkforce, a workforce that is
not burnt out, a workforce thatlikes coming to work, I think
(19:07):
we've all at one point workedsomewhere we loathed. Right?
David Trainer (zero fiftyseven:thirty seven):
Daniel Williams (19:10):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (19:10):
Anthony Vaughn (zero fifty seven:thirty eight):
Think about how awful thatexperience was and what either
the organization culture and oryour boss or bosses, if it was a
matrixed environment, did to you
Daniel Williams (19:23):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (19:23):
And how that played out. Everyone's had a bad
experience. Maybe it was whenyou served ice cream at the
local pool when you were 16, butall the same, the principles are
the same.
Daniel Williams (19:35):
Yeah. How do you then encourage open
communication and feedback? Soyou're describing a situation
where it could be in office,remote, or hybrid, so you've got
a mixture of people there. Andas you were just describing, you
(19:55):
know, yesterday or the daybefore, there was, it was just
you, so you were gonna have somemore face to face communication.
But what do you do?
How do you go about reallyopening up that line of
communication? Because we've allbeen there where, the boss is
(20:16):
the boss. Even though you mightbe a servant leader, sometimes
it can be difficult to getpeople to speak up. And even
when they're going through toughstuff, you know, they're really
challenged by something theymight not wanna, you know,
quote, look stupid, and so theydon't speak up, and then you're
left trying to motivate them. Sohow do you go about this?
(20:39):
Somebody who's got that twentyplus years of experience, how do
you bring that team around whereyou can have it's one thing, as
you might know, to say I have anopen door policy, but then
nobody's walking through thedoor, and you're going, come on,
team. Let's, get it going here.What does Jason right here do?
Jason Raidbard (20:59):
Well, you know, anytime you enter a new
organization, it's anopportunity to start a clean
slate. Right? Yeah. But even ina current organization, you
could still do the same thing.And it's I keep it very simple.
Be genuine.
Daniel Williams (21:14):
Be
Jason Raidbard (21:16):
a genuine person. Right? If you let's say,
Daniel, you were, in thisinstance, you work for me, and
maybe you're a coder that I workwith, or maybe you're a business
analyst or finance analyst,whatever the case may be. If I
ask you how your weekend was, orwhere you went on vacation,
(21:36):
people love it when other peopleask them questions about
themselves and inquire, right?People don't like people who
just talk about themselves,Right?
Yeah. And you want to dobusiness with people you either,
one or both, trust and like.Yeah. Well, you have to build
(22:01):
the trust first. Maybe you maylike them, but you don't know
them.
Mhmm. How do you get to know it?Well, you've gotta find some
kind of common ground, somecommon interests. Start by just
getting to know someone first.When you're sitting at your desk
and you say you have an opendoor policy, as an example,
someone says, do you have aminute?
Can I come in? Well, don't keeptyping emails and responding to
(22:26):
text messages, because that'sjust not genuine.
Daniel Williams (22:29):
Oh.
Jason Raidbard (22:29):
And yes, technology has pushed us as a
human race to a point,particularly in this country,
but in other modernizedcountries where we can multitask
great with technology. But Idon't think human beings were
necessarily designed originallyfor that. We've sort of evolved
with the technology, and we'restill so many people are still
adjusting to it. Right? It canbe overstimulating and
(22:52):
overwhelming for people betweenthe buzzes and the, you know,
some people get triggered byhearing certain buzzes from
certain different platforms thatwe use every day.
Right? And you gotta askyourself, why is it triggering?
It's gotta be associated withsome kind of bad moment or bad
memory, right, or series ofthem. So how do you undo that or
try to as a leader? Well, bepresent.
(23:15):
Listen to your people. Ask themfor feedback. Another great way
to just get to know and get totrusting people is if you have a
problem as a leader and you needa solution, you can look to your
team for help. They sometimeshave the best ideas to fix
issues and sometimes relativelyquickly and in a cost efficient
(23:38):
manner. And if you give them anopportunity to participate and
you see that whatever was brokenis now fixed, and you recognize
them publicly and in private, itgoes a long way to boost morale.
And as long as you're genuineabout it, and you're helpful
about it, people will rememberthem. I still have people from a
(24:02):
half dozen decade, decade and ahalf ago that will follow-up
with me and say, I remember whenI was going through something
really rough, and you sat andlistened to me for twenty
minutes and then got me to asocial worker, whoever it was.
And this was an individual thatwas in a really bad spot with
some stuff going on at home. Andit can be that kind of
(24:24):
conversation, or it could belike, I'm having an issue with
my computer today, and IT saysthey need you to get involved
because it's beyond me, and it'sa bigger Whatever it is, you
have to be present and be there.When you work with physicians in
particular, their job isincredibly tough.
It doesn't matter what specialtyit is. I work with optometrists
(24:46):
and ophthalmologists, butwhether it's working with
radiologists, cardiologists,gastroenterologists, primary
care physicians, pediatricians,doesn't matter. You can be
visible. When they're lookingfor help or answers, help them.
Yeah.
Be proactive. Right? That's howyou build trust. If that phone
(25:06):
has been broken for five years Isay this all the time. That
phone over there on their deskhas been broken for five years,
and all of a sudden you hearit's broken, and you offer to
help, and you actually help, andit gets fixed, they'll remember
that.
Daniel Williams (25:18):
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that.
Jason Raidbard (25:21):
It's little things. It's not and I can't
tell you, Daniel, that, like,it's some brand there's a lot of
people that brand a lot ofthings, and, oh, there's a hack
to do this and a hack to dothat. To me, there's no hack.
It's being just a genuine, goodperson.
Daniel Williams (25:34):
Mhmm. Mhmm. We've been talking about how to
make that connection no matterwhere you meet someone in the
workspace now, whether it's inperson, through Teams, through
Zoom, through some otherplatform, But there can be a
downside to, you know, workingremotely or working in that
(25:58):
hybrid environment, and this isone related to burnout where it
can be a situation where there'snot an off switch, Right? Where,
okay. I get out of bed.
I walk 10 steps. I'm in front ofthe computer, and now I'm going.
I am working. And I have fallenprey to that at times when I've
(26:18):
got a major project going on,and I really have to set timers
or something, a notification toremind me to get up and go get
some fresh air for ten minutesjust to get away from it. How do
you encourage your team toreally build a work life
imbalance, you know, if notimbalance, but a work life
(26:38):
balance there?
Jason Raidbard (26:40):
Yeah. No. That's that's a great question. I mean,
I think talking about it Mhmm.Normalizing it Yeah.
Is very important. Because as aleader, whether you're a leader
of a department, leader of a alarge health system that's over
multiple states, wherever, maybeyou're you're a leader of a
privately owned medical groupin, you know, wherever in The
(27:01):
United States. It doesn'tmatter. Normalizing the
conversation. It's okay that Ihave to step away from my desk
because I have to pick up my kidat school the day that I'm
working remote because I willcover that fifteen minutes that
was lost and then some.
Right? Now to your question orto your comment, how do you
(27:23):
address the off button? Becausethere can be a lot of guilt
associated with I hear that allthe time. I I need to leave a
half hour early to go to thedoctor. They only had a 04:30
appointment.
Okay? Your salary. Okay? You getyour work done. Okay?
You need to take care of yourhealth. I normalize the
conversation about people makingsure that they take care of
(27:44):
their health. You're no good toyourself, you're no good to your
family, and you're no good atthe work place if you're
coughing and you're stressed,you have hypertension and all
that. There are leaders thatdon't care. They'll squeeze
every bit of whatever they canget out of you and then toss you
aside.
I don't operate in that space.There are other folks no
(28:07):
different than me that don'toperate. That's the shift. When
you ask me, like, how thingshave shifted, that's the shift
I've seen over the last tenyears. And I I'll be honest with
you.
I think it's in part, in somerespects, generational shift of
of how we approach work and andand what we value. And that's
not to say that I love where Iwork. I prioritize it. Right?
(28:30):
But I've got a kid.
I've got to take care of her,right? I've got to what? Gotta
take care of him. I can worklate. I have worked late.
I've been there on a Sunday allday trying to get a budget
presentation done for the nextday because there were glitches
in the system. We've all been ina situation like that. I always
say we wanna limit those tothose instances of when we need
(28:53):
to push that energy. You as ahuman, over a year, two, five,
ten, twenty years, you cannotsustain that. Certainly not
without the aid of some otherdrug, which may be illegal to
keep you going.
Right?
Daniel Williams (29:08):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (29:09):
Because there's no coffee in the world that's
gonna keep you going. You haveto look at it this way. What
seems right and normal to youthat everyday humans would talk
about? Talk about their familylives, talk about things that
are going on, being honest,being transparent. But as a
leader, sometimes your peoplewill mask and they'll hide that
(29:34):
sometimes by just working more.
Because maybe they do have a badhome life, right? And they just
work more to cover it up. Youhave to, as best as you can, and
I think this is very differentthan leadership probably from
fifteen, twenty years ago, youhave to recognize things that
leaders from twenty years agomay have not not recognized, but
(29:55):
it just wasn't talked about fromfrom a mental health
perspective. And if you noticesomeone is normally happy and
seeming down, and you noticesomeone is just lagging, there's
something going on. And ifyou've built up that trust,
you'd be like, hey.
Is there anything I can help youwith? You don't have to say,
hey. Something must be wrong athome. You know, you don't wanna
do that. Right?
But just inquire. And you mayfind out that people maybe are
(30:20):
stressed, feeling guilty aboutworking from home. I've had that
happen before where they feelthat they need to work more.
Whether you're working from homeor or not, you have to come up
with a balance that still getsyour work done. Generally, my
people are always putting in,you know, seven, eight, nine
hours a day.
Sometimes they do ten. I don'ttell them to do 10. I tell them,
(30:44):
you have a set of work thatneeds to get done, and there's
certain things that need to getdone, and you need to contact me
or your coworkers if we can helpyou. Because I don't want that
to be fifteen hours.
Daniel Williams (30:55):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (30:56):
That's just it's too much. And I think if you can
just have honest, robustconversations and just be real
honest and real real, as theysay, it's gonna more collegial
environment. And when you talkabout, like, people staying on
the goals and the missions ofthe organization department,
that's how it works. When peoplefeel that they can value they're
(31:19):
valued and that they can trustyou, that's how, if you ask for
help, they'll help you becauseyou've helped them.
Daniel Williams (31:28):
Yeah. In the remaining moments here, is there
a final thought, like your yourelevator pitch, your one minute
little outro you'd wanna sharewith, other leaders out there
that maybe maybe they have ateam they're having trouble
getting connected to? I mean,what's something you would wanna
leave them with in this lastmoment or so?
Jason Raidbard (31:50):
I would say, I think one of the things, there's
a couple things. When you'rehaving trouble with a team, or
you're having an instance wherethings are just not going well
and not working, the first thingyou wanna look at is yourself.
You want to look in the mirrorand you want to ask yourself,
are you being true to yourself?Are you being the leader that
(32:12):
you want to be? You can even askyourself this, is this the right
fit?
Am Am I in the right place?Because you may be a fantastic
leader, you're just in the wrongplace. And no matter what you
do, it's not working. And Ithink that's really important
too, because I've seen a lot ofleaders burn out, leave
healthcare because of it. And itreally wasn't a function of
them.
It was a function of just theculture they were in. There was
no, they were one combating athousand. There was no way that
(32:34):
they were going to change it.And I've been there before too.
And you just have to askyourself, Okay, am I doing
everything that I need to do?
Are there things that I canimprove upon? I got better when
I questioned myself and said, Ican be better. That's when I got
better. When I really lookeddeep inside and said, You know
what? I don't actively listen.
(32:56):
I assume. I don't pay attentionwhen people come in my office.
I'm sitting there texting on myphone. Start there. Because it's
so easy in today's society tojust point and blame.
This is why this is wrong. It'sbecause of he or she or it or
that. And that just leads totoxic relationships and
(33:17):
toxicity. And that's not a valueadd to anybody. I think if you
get past that point, then it's,all right, what is it within my
team that I need to work on andimprove and try and help with?
And hopefully, you have, duringthis time, built trust to the
point that people will tell you.You may have indications of
(33:39):
what's going on, but it's bestwhen your people actually tell
you. And when you get to thatpoint, even when things are bad,
and I've been there before. Ihad a group of managers. I
remember my score was, like, 2.4out of five.
And we just had a heart theyliked me, but I wasn't I was a
hard charging leader at thetime. And I said, I'm like,
okay, just be honest with me.And they were very honest. And
(34:01):
they are the primary reason whyI turned into, in many ways, the
leader I turned in today becausethey shared with me. They're
like, hey, we need you to dothis and this and that, be here
for this.
And so I think if you could justbe honest with yourself of where
you need to improve, people willsee that. They'll see that
you're trying. They'll see thegenuineness. And if something's
(34:24):
working well, you can alwaysask, like, what are some things
that are is going well that wewanna continue doing?
Daniel Williams (34:31):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (34:31):
Because you wanna celebrate the wins. You
don't wanna always look at itthrough a half glass full. You
wanna look at it like, this isthree quarters full. This is a
full glass of water. Yeah.
And I think if you can celebratethe wins, focus on the good
things and build off of them,things will just they may not
always be easy, but they'll beeasier than if you don't do
(34:52):
those things.
Daniel Williams (34:53):
Right. Alright. Well, Jason Raybard, thanks for
joining us yet again on the MGMApodcast.
Jason Raidbard (35:00):
No. Thank you for having me.
Daniel Williams (35:02):
Yeah. Well, everyone, do wanna just remind
y'all, MGMA member communitylive, it is a great way to go
peer to peer to hear your haveyour voice heard out there and
to hear the voices of your MGMApeers out there. It's a great
way to do that in addition tothe webinars and podcasts like
(35:23):
this one. So until then, I'mgonna put all this information
out in the episode show notes.We're also gonna develop an
article for it on mgma.com.
But until then, want just wannathank all of you for being MGMA
podcast listeners.
Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams,
senior editor at MGMA and hostof the MGMA Podcast Network. We
are back with another MGMAmember spotlight podcast, and we
have a return guest. He was somuch fun to talk to the last
time we had him on here. We'rebringing him back.
So it's Jason Radbard. He's anexecutive administrator for the
(01:12):
University of Chicago'sophthalmology and visual science
department. Jason, let's justwelcome you back in here first
to to say hello, and then I'mgonna read a little more stuff
about you.
Jason Raidbard (01:25):
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate you
bringing me back. I guess I didsomething right the first time.
Daniel Williams (01:30):
That's true. Now you were telling me
something really interestingoffline. You just went on a
pretty cool vacation. What telltell our audience about that.
Just to get out of Chicago inthe winter, what'd you go do?
Jason Raidbard (01:46):
Surprisingly, it's 55 degrees today in
Chicago.
Daniel Williams (01:49):
Okay. Okay.
Jason Raidbard (01:51):
My family and I, my wife and daughter, we went to
Turks and Caicos. It wasactually, was it the thirteenth
through the eighteenth.
Daniel Williams (01:58):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (01:58):
And it is if you have never been there, I would
encourage everyone to go there.The people that live there, work
there are wonderful, veryfriendly, very warm. It is
different than the rest of TheCaribbean. It's a drier climate.
It's 80 degrees and sunny everyday in the the fall winter
months.
I think it gets closer to 90 inthe summer months, but I've
(02:20):
never been there. I've only beenthere in the winter. Grace Bay
is the main attraction, at leastwhy we go, many people go. It's
considered one of the mostbeautiful beaches in the world.
I've traveled some.
I have other folks that I knowin work and and personal life
that traveled more than me, butI I've been to a few places,
Patagonia, Tahiti, and and inEurope. By far, this is the most
(02:43):
beautiful beach I've ever seen.Wow. And it's just turquoise
blue water. Yeah.
And depending on the angle ofthe sun, of course, it looks a
little more turquoise, a littlemore aqua, but, I mean, it
doesn't matter. It's cloudy.You're happy.
Daniel Williams (02:56):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (02:56):
It's a wonderful island. Again, we loved it
there. I came back to Chicago onthe eighteenth to, one degree
weather.
Daniel Williams (03:03):
Good. Good. Well, it it's so yeah. I'm I'm
just happy you came back. Imean, you might have just stayed
there in that 80 degree weatherforever.
You know?
Jason Raidbard (03:14):
You know, they've come a long way with
their their Wi Fi servicesthere. It still has some work to
be done, but it's nice to kindasemi disconnect. But, yeah,
maybe I'll see if I can I canwork remote from there?
Daniel Williams (03:25):
Yeah. Just do a hybrid thing. You know? Well,
it's so good to have you backhere and back on the podcast. So
you and I connected because youhave been a part of our MGMA
member community live programs.
You reached out to me, let meknow about something you'd been
(03:47):
involved in. Just share a littlebit how you got involved with m
MGMA CommunityLive and what yourrole was there.
Jason Raidbard (03:55):
Sure. Well, Dylan Kelly, who I think is one
of the individuals at MGMAthat's kinda spearheading these
community of lives, I I thinkit's a a good product offering
from MGMA for its members. Sojust to give your your listeners
kind of background, it'srelatively new. I believe it
started last fall.
Daniel Williams (04:15):
That's right.
Jason Raidbard (04:15):
There's been a few of them over I think there
was an AI segment I got a chanceto listen to a couple weeks ago.
There was one on eClinicalWorksa month or so ago. Mine was on
culture and engagement. When Iget a chance to whether it's at
I I actually sit on the board ofthe Illinois chapter of, the,
Medical Group ManagementAssociation. So whether I'm
(04:37):
going to their conferences andspeaking, Becker's hospital
review, Scott Becker will haveme speak at his conferences.
Sometimes I'll do webinars andparticipate, like in this format
with MGMA. And there's ASHA andother organizations. I like to
talk about culture andengagement, improving not just
productivity in the workplace,but, you know, ever since COVID,
(04:59):
everything's been just very,different Yeah. I would say in
society. Right?
And then a lot of things havereturned back to pre COVID norm,
but not everything. Right? Farstill far more people are are
working with motor hybrid thanthey were before COVID. Right.
It's changing for certain partsof sectors in The United States,
but but it's still prevailingcompared to, say, 2015, if I
(05:22):
will go back ten years.
These member community lives arenice because we had a fairly
robust group, close to a hundredmembers.
Daniel Williams (05:31):
Wow. That's incredible.
Jason Raidbard (05:34):
And I serve as a content expert and moderator.
Daniel Williams (05:38):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (05:39):
And believe it or not and you can ask Dylan.
You can listen to it. I'm sureit's safe somewhere. It went
smooth. So folks will sign upbecause they wanna hear about
the subject.
In this case, it was culture andengagement, you know, workforce
development, team development,things of that nature. Whatever
it is the subject that MGMA is,sponsoring for that given week
(06:01):
or month, that gives members achance to not only listen to
their colleagues throughout TheUnited States, and some maybe in
other parts, even the world,about said topic, but then they
also have an opportunity toshare their stories and their
content expertise. So the ideais not that in this case, Jason
Raybard is the only contentexpert in culture engagement. I
(06:25):
can work with this group of ahundred people that I don't
know, that I've never met, andfoster just a large virtual
roundtable discussion. So theidea that we call it member
community is a very, perfect wayto describe it.
It's a community of membersgetting together to talk about
something, that is important tothem. And, you know, Dylan does
(06:49):
an excellent job of managingthese, and there's a lot of work
that goes into it beforehand.There's a list of questions that
he and I in this instance workedon, and I think we maybe got
through half the list. We hadabout dozen questions because
the conversation evolved intoother members sharing, and it
was not just me. So if you dohave a chance to join them,
(07:12):
they're good.
I love listening to them. Youcan listen in the background.
You can participate. You can doboth. Whatever it is, it's very
easygoing, very casual.
And I think a lot of members, atleast some of the feedback he
got was positive. People enjoyedthe conversation. They enjoyed
the topic. I think it's a topicthat is, for me, always top of
(07:35):
mind because it sets the tonefor any organization, any team.
And I mean, you can eventranslate it into one's personal
life with your own family.
Daniel Williams (07:45):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (07:46):
So it's an important topic. And I was glad
I had the opportunity to speakand and happy to do it in the
future. So I think Dylan and Iare working on some things for
either the spring and or thefall. One might be a two point o
of it. The other idea is justfocusing a little bit more on
leadership.
Daniel Williams (08:04):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (08:05):
But that's to come.
Daniel Williams (08:06):
Yeah. And I'll just add on a little bit. It it
really is this community liveengagement is part of MGMA's
broader efforts to really putthe MGMA members at the center
of the content that we create. Ithink a lot of y'all know that I
I host or moderate most of thewebinars we do, about 40 to 50
(08:30):
of those a year, And that's thecommunication's a little bit
different because there's apresenter, and people can type
in some comments, but it's notreally community led. It's led
by outside experts or otherpeople that we get to speak.
This, as Jason was describing,is just a great way to really
(08:51):
put all of you at the center ofthe conversation where you can
share your friction points, yourchallenges in the practice,
whether it be related to cultureor anything else. So before we
move on, anything else you wannashare about that? Do you think
we've got it covered, Jason?
Jason Raidbard (09:09):
I I think we we have it covered. I would say,
you know, the nice part abouttwo is depending on your
particular practice ororganization's budget, you may
or may not be able to attendconferences in person or be able
to attend some of the moreregional conferences. This gives
you an opportunity to stillnetwork and learn, but not
(09:33):
having to leave your office oryour home office, wherever
you're working from. Yeah. Sofor me, you know, some folks
can't get to national MGMAleadership conference, which is
coming up at the September, ifI'm not mistaken, in Orlando.
That's right. Shameless plug.But I I think it gives you an
opport it also gives you anopportunity of what are the
(09:53):
folks that you're gonna meet atthese conferences and what are
some anticipated topics thatyou're we're gonna get a little
bit more involved in when we areat these conferences. And the
nice part about the membercommunity is I had people reach
out to me through email andLinkedIn direct, wanting me to
speak at a chapter, whether it'sACH or MGMA, they were a chapter
(10:15):
member wanting me to speak onthat subject or a similar
subject, or say, Hey, I havethis problem. Do you know other
people, in addition to yourself,that could help?
So it fosters really a communityof resources. Now, MGMA has a
fantastic assortment ofresources when it comes to the
data dive, when it comes to alot of the volunteer work,
(10:37):
mentoring programs. I thinkAmanda runs and things like
that. And other work, I thinkNikki does, I'm working on a
committee with her, a joint taskforce with, improving and
enhancing the, ACPME testing andcertification, right?
Daniel Williams (10:53):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (10:53):
But this is, like, just another extension.
It's very personable.
Daniel Williams (10:57):
Mhmm.
Jason Raidbard (10:57):
So I think that's something that when I
would go to MGMA conferences,people wanted, and MGMA
listened, and here we are.
Daniel Williams (11:05):
Yeah. Yeah. So we've been talking a lot already
about engagement. We've beentalking about how to engage the
MGMA members, but we also wannatalk about employee engagement.
So talking to your peers outthere, Jason, the ones who are
practice administrators, mayhave teams out there.
As you've alluded to, if we goback just ten years, the
(11:28):
workforce, it looks a lotdifferent in a lot of places
because there is remote work.There is hybrid work. There are
different ways of doing things.So when we talk in terms of
employee engagement, where whereare you finding success at your
practice where you can reallyengage your team and the rest of
(11:49):
the employees there, and helpthem feel like they are part of
a team even though they mightnot be showing up Monday through
Friday in the office? What'sgoing on there?
Jason Raidbard (12:00):
Yeah. You know, every place I've ever worked,
and I've been in health carenow, what, twenty two years. I
think after a while, I've lost alittle little bit of track. You
know, one thing I I learnedeventually, and took me a while,
is that you may have a playbookof things that you think are
going to work. But what Ilearned once I hit my mid to
(12:23):
late thirties and I had someexperience under my belt and had
really tried to reallyunderstand my craft as far as
interactions and really tryingto understand the concepts of
servant leadership, which we'llget to in a second.
You really have to understandthat every place you go is a
different culture. Every placeyou go has a different set of
(12:45):
norms, values. The mission,vision, value statement is gonna
be different everywhere. Theremight be some similarities. But
how people actually practice itand preach it and what they do
and how they interact with eachother, whether there's a robust
respect level systematicallyfrom the top down or from bottom
up, or it doesn't exist at all,kind of dictates the culture.
(13:07):
Certainly, there can be littledepartments can have their own
subculture, right? But you wantto be part of an organization
that organizationally agrees. Iam very fortunate that I work at
the University of Chicago, and Iwill have been here three years
this April. And I'm not justsaying this because I work here.
This is a robust think tank.
(13:28):
People get along. They help eachother. They share. We have a I
have a wonderful chair in seniorHarry Persaud, who's been chair
now for a couple of years, fullchair. He was interim before.
And then Dean Anderson, came ina couple years ago and and
revamped the mission, vision,values. It was a great place
when I walked in, and then hecame in six months later and
(13:48):
revamped, you know, theenterprise. But there's just so
many good people that work here.That makes a leader's job very
easy. But within your team and Ihave a hybrid team.
So I have people that areremote. I have people that come
in all the time. I personallyprefer to come in as much as I
can. Mhmm. I just work better inthat environment.
(14:10):
I like to have the routine. Callme old fashioned. However, one
thing that and I can say thiswith pride because collectively,
as a group, we worked hard atthis. I recently got my
engagement scores, and I wastold and and I'm not trying to,
pat my own back. But I'm doingthis because I'm gonna explain
(14:31):
to you what I did with my teamand how it works.
Daniel Williams (14:33):
Sure.
Jason Raidbard (14:35):
And I think this is fairly universal. I ended up
with a score of 4.79 out offive, the highest in the
enterprise. Okay. And the yearbefore, it was pretty much the
same. And there's otherorganizations I've worked when I
was at Cook County Health twoyears.
I two years, they measured methere. They didn't measure me
all five. And that was a very,very different culture,
(14:56):
completely union, five point oto five point o. My scores
weren't always that way in mycareer. But what I learned over
time is that you have to adjustto what makes people sing,
what's important to them.
Yes. The organization is goingto have certain goals, certain
cultures. Right? But you alsohave to make sure that your
(15:18):
people's needs are being tendedto. They have to be heard.
You have to listen to them.Rounding seems so simplistic.
Okay. But how do I round if noone's here and I'm the only one
in the office? Let's just say.
Right? And that happened to meyesterday. The couple people
that were remote, one was onvacate or was supposed to be a
person, and and one fell ill.Okay. How does that alright.
(15:40):
Well, we have technology. Wehave teams. Yep. We have text.
We have email.
Right? We have Zoom. We have aphone. I still love to talk to
people on the phone. But what Ilearned with my team is they
loved using Teams.
Daniel Williams (15:55):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (15:56):
The messaging system, but also the impromptu,
can I call you?
Daniel Williams (16:00):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (16:00):
Can I see your face? Yeah. Right? Or maybe they
don't wanna see my face or theydon't want you to see their
face. Whatever.
I leave it to them to be adultsand be professionals.
Daniel Williams (16:11):
Okay.
Jason Raidbard (16:12):
You wanna have hybrid work as long as I can get
ahold of you during reasonableoffice hours. I'm not gonna call
you at 09:00 at night.
Daniel Williams (16:19):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (16:21):
The hybrid will work fine. The remote will work
fine because we're all gettingeverything we need to get done.
We're all communicating witheach other. The only difference
is we're not in the samesetting.
Daniel Williams (16:31):
K.
Jason Raidbard (16:31):
Now do I like it when we have team billing? I I
do call people in. We do, like,quarterly things where where I
take them out to lunch, or wehave coffee in the conference
room, and we all get together. Ithink there is some merit to
that. But do I need to have thatfive days a week for my team to
be effective based on, you know,our at least our department
metrics, quality financial,otherwise, no.
(16:53):
We don't. And I can prove itjust because I've lived and
breathed it the last threeyears. I get a lot of people who
say, I just don't think we'revery productive as we were
before COVID. Okay. Well, showme the money, so to speak.
Right? Show me the numbers.Let's let's see.
Daniel Williams (17:09):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (17:11):
And and I think it's the most important thing
with listening and and andtrying to be a good leader is is
is that that principle ofservant leadership that I
learned from, a mentor of mine,Rick Beyer, who's, CEO of
Barrington Orthopedicscurrently. And this was over a
decade ago when I worked for theAdvent Health System, which
(17:32):
turned into AMITA. And I learnedfrom him what it meant. And we
could talk for an hour or twoabout it itself, but you have to
put your people and their needsin front of yours. Mhmm.
You can't go to people and say,I need, I need, I need, I need.
(17:52):
There's nothing worse than goingto a meeting, and your your next
up gives you 10 things that theyneed, and you came in with one
problem you needed help with.
Daniel Williams (18:02):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (18:02):
It's demoralizing. Right? So if you
understand those cues of what isimportant to people you know,
some people like hybrid workbecause they're able to pick up
their kid on Tuesdays andThursdays and not have to pay
for aftercare. Okay. That goes along way.
Aftercare is not cheap, by theway. I have a child. Okay.
Daniel Williams (18:21):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (18:22):
So you have to kinda put those things in
perspective of what's importantto people, and you can still get
everyone to agree on what'simportant for your department,
for your medical group, for yourhealthcare organization,
whatever the case may be. Youcan still meet your goals. You
can still exceed your goals. Butit has to be a two way street.
And I think often youngermanagers, like myself when I was
(18:45):
younger twenty years ago, missedthat opportunity of thinking
that, okay, we have these goalsand we have to hit them and it's
scorched earth to get there.
And that's not how life works.If you want sustained results
and you want a healthyworkforce, a workforce that is
not burnt out, a workforce thatlikes coming to work, I think
(19:07):
we've all at one point workedsomewhere we loathed. Right?
David Trainer (zero fiftyseven:thirty seven):
Daniel Williams (19:10):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (19:10):
Anthony Vaughn (zero fifty seven:thirty eight):
Think about how awful thatexperience was and what either
the organization culture and oryour boss or bosses, if it was a
matrixed environment, did to you
Daniel Williams (19:23):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (19:23):
And how that played out. Everyone's had a bad
experience. Maybe it was whenyou served ice cream at the
local pool when you were 16, butall the same, the principles are
the same.
Daniel Williams (19:35):
Yeah. How do you then encourage open
communication and feedback? Soyou're describing a situation
where it could be in office,remote, or hybrid, so you've got
a mixture of people there. Andas you were just describing, you
(19:55):
know, yesterday or the daybefore, there was, it was just
you, so you were gonna have somemore face to face communication.
But what do you do?
How do you go about reallyopening up that line of
communication? Because we've allbeen there where, the boss is
(20:16):
the boss. Even though you mightbe a servant leader, sometimes
it can be difficult to getpeople to speak up. And even
when they're going through toughstuff, you know, they're really
challenged by something theymight not wanna, you know,
quote, look stupid, and so theydon't speak up, and then you're
left trying to motivate them. Sohow do you go about this?
(20:39):
Somebody who's got that twentyplus years of experience, how do
you bring that team around whereyou can have it's one thing, as
you might know, to say I have anopen door policy, but then
nobody's walking through thedoor, and you're going, come on,
team. Let's, get it going here.What does Jason right here do?
Jason Raidbard (20:59):
Well, you know, anytime you enter a new
organization, it's anopportunity to start a clean
slate. Right? Yeah. But even ina current organization, you
could still do the same thing.And it's I keep it very simple.
Be genuine.
Daniel Williams (21:14):
Be
Jason Raidbard (21:16):
a genuine person. Right? If you let's say,
Daniel, you were, in thisinstance, you work for me, and
maybe you're a coder that I workwith, or maybe you're a business
analyst or finance analyst,whatever the case may be. If I
ask you how your weekend was, orwhere you went on vacation,
(21:36):
people love it when other peopleask them questions about
themselves and inquire, right?People don't like people who
just talk about themselves,Right?
Yeah. And you want to dobusiness with people you either,
one or both, trust and like.Yeah. Well, you have to build
(22:01):
the trust first. Maybe you maylike them, but you don't know
them.
Mhmm. How do you get to know it?Well, you've gotta find some
kind of common ground, somecommon interests. Start by just
getting to know someone first.When you're sitting at your desk
and you say you have an opendoor policy, as an example,
someone says, do you have aminute?
Can I come in? Well, don't keeptyping emails and responding to
(22:26):
text messages, because that'sjust not genuine.
Daniel Williams (22:29):
Oh.
Jason Raidbard (22:29):
And yes, technology has pushed us as a
human race to a point,particularly in this country,
but in other modernizedcountries where we can multitask
great with technology. But Idon't think human beings were
necessarily designed originallyfor that. We've sort of evolved
with the technology, and we'restill so many people are still
adjusting to it. Right? It canbe overstimulating and
(22:52):
overwhelming for people betweenthe buzzes and the, you know,
some people get triggered byhearing certain buzzes from
certain different platforms thatwe use every day.
Right? And you gotta askyourself, why is it triggering?
It's gotta be associated withsome kind of bad moment or bad
memory, right, or series ofthem. So how do you undo that or
try to as a leader? Well, bepresent.
(23:15):
Listen to your people. Ask themfor feedback. Another great way
to just get to know and get totrusting people is if you have a
problem as a leader and you needa solution, you can look to your
team for help. They sometimeshave the best ideas to fix
issues and sometimes relativelyquickly and in a cost efficient
(23:38):
manner. And if you give them anopportunity to participate and
you see that whatever was brokenis now fixed, and you recognize
them publicly and in private, itgoes a long way to boost morale.
And as long as you're genuineabout it, and you're helpful
about it, people will rememberthem. I still have people from a
(24:02):
half dozen decade, decade and ahalf ago that will follow-up
with me and say, I remember whenI was going through something
really rough, and you sat andlistened to me for twenty
minutes and then got me to asocial worker, whoever it was.
And this was an individual thatwas in a really bad spot with
some stuff going on at home. Andit can be that kind of
(24:24):
conversation, or it could belike, I'm having an issue with
my computer today, and IT saysthey need you to get involved
because it's beyond me, and it'sa bigger Whatever it is, you
have to be present and be there.When you work with physicians in
particular, their job isincredibly tough.
It doesn't matter what specialtyit is. I work with optometrists
(24:46):
and ophthalmologists, butwhether it's working with
radiologists, cardiologists,gastroenterologists, primary
care physicians, pediatricians,doesn't matter. You can be
visible. When they're lookingfor help or answers, help them.
Yeah.
Be proactive. Right? That's howyou build trust. If that phone
(25:06):
has been broken for five years Isay this all the time. That
phone over there on their deskhas been broken for five years,
and all of a sudden you hearit's broken, and you offer to
help, and you actually help, andit gets fixed, they'll remember
that.
Daniel Williams (25:18):
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that.
Jason Raidbard (25:21):
It's little things. It's not and I can't
tell you, Daniel, that, like,it's some brand there's a lot of
people that brand a lot ofthings, and, oh, there's a hack
to do this and a hack to dothat. To me, there's no hack.
It's being just a genuine, goodperson.
Daniel Williams (25:34):
Mhmm. Mhmm. We've been talking about how to
make that connection no matterwhere you meet someone in the
workspace now, whether it's inperson, through Teams, through
Zoom, through some otherplatform, But there can be a
downside to, you know, workingremotely or working in that
(25:58):
hybrid environment, and this isone related to burnout where it
can be a situation where there'snot an off switch, Right? Where,
okay. I get out of bed.
I walk 10 steps. I'm in front ofthe computer, and now I'm going.
I am working. And I have fallenprey to that at times when I've
(26:18):
got a major project going on,and I really have to set timers
or something, a notification toremind me to get up and go get
some fresh air for ten minutesjust to get away from it. How do
you encourage your team toreally build a work life
imbalance, you know, if notimbalance, but a work life
(26:38):
balance there?
Jason Raidbard (26:40):
Yeah. No. That's that's a great question. I mean,
I think talking about it Mhmm.Normalizing it Yeah.
Is very important. Because as aleader, whether you're a leader
of a department, leader of a alarge health system that's over
multiple states, wherever, maybeyou're you're a leader of a
privately owned medical groupin, you know, wherever in The
(27:01):
United States. It doesn'tmatter. Normalizing the
conversation. It's okay that Ihave to step away from my desk
because I have to pick up my kidat school the day that I'm
working remote because I willcover that fifteen minutes that
was lost and then some.
Right? Now to your question orto your comment, how do you
(27:23):
address the off button? Becausethere can be a lot of guilt
associated with I hear that allthe time. I I need to leave a
half hour early to go to thedoctor. They only had a 04:30
appointment.
Okay? Your salary. Okay? You getyour work done. Okay?
You need to take care of yourhealth. I normalize the
conversation about people makingsure that they take care of
(27:44):
their health. You're no good toyourself, you're no good to your
family, and you're no good atthe work place if you're
coughing and you're stressed,you have hypertension and all
that. There are leaders thatdon't care. They'll squeeze
every bit of whatever they canget out of you and then toss you
aside.
I don't operate in that space.There are other folks no
(28:07):
different than me that don'toperate. That's the shift. When
you ask me, like, how thingshave shifted, that's the shift
I've seen over the last tenyears. And I I'll be honest with
you.
I think it's in part, in somerespects, generational shift of
of how we approach work and andand what we value. And that's
not to say that I love where Iwork. I prioritize it. Right?
(28:30):
But I've got a kid.
I've got to take care of her,right? I've got to what? Gotta
take care of him. I can worklate. I have worked late.
I've been there on a Sunday allday trying to get a budget
presentation done for the nextday because there were glitches
in the system. We've all been ina situation like that. I always
say we wanna limit those tothose instances of when we need
(28:53):
to push that energy. You as ahuman, over a year, two, five,
ten, twenty years, you cannotsustain that. Certainly not
without the aid of some otherdrug, which may be illegal to
keep you going.
Right?
Daniel Williams (29:08):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (29:09):
Because there's no coffee in the world that's
gonna keep you going. You haveto look at it this way. What
seems right and normal to youthat everyday humans would talk
about? Talk about their familylives, talk about things that
are going on, being honest,being transparent. But as a
leader, sometimes your peoplewill mask and they'll hide that
(29:34):
sometimes by just working more.
Because maybe they do have a badhome life, right? And they just
work more to cover it up. Youhave to, as best as you can, and
I think this is very differentthan leadership probably from
fifteen, twenty years ago, youhave to recognize things that
leaders from twenty years agomay have not not recognized, but
(29:55):
it just wasn't talked about fromfrom a mental health
perspective. And if you noticesomeone is normally happy and
seeming down, and you noticesomeone is just lagging, there's
something going on. And ifyou've built up that trust,
you'd be like, hey.
Is there anything I can help youwith? You don't have to say,
hey. Something must be wrong athome. You know, you don't wanna
do that. Right?
But just inquire. And you mayfind out that people maybe are
(30:20):
stressed, feeling guilty aboutworking from home. I've had that
happen before where they feelthat they need to work more.
Whether you're working from homeor or not, you have to come up
with a balance that still getsyour work done. Generally, my
people are always putting in,you know, seven, eight, nine
hours a day.
Sometimes they do ten. I don'ttell them to do 10. I tell them,
(30:44):
you have a set of work thatneeds to get done, and there's
certain things that need to getdone, and you need to contact me
or your coworkers if we can helpyou. Because I don't want that
to be fifteen hours.
Daniel Williams (30:55):
Right.
Jason Raidbard (30:56):
That's just it's too much. And I think if you can
just have honest, robustconversations and just be real
honest and real real, as theysay, it's gonna more collegial
environment. And when you talkabout, like, people staying on
the goals and the missions ofthe organization department,
that's how it works. When peoplefeel that they can value they're
(31:19):
valued and that they can trustyou, that's how, if you ask for
help, they'll help you becauseyou've helped them.
Daniel Williams (31:28):
Yeah. In the remaining moments here, is there
a final thought, like your yourelevator pitch, your one minute
little outro you'd wanna sharewith, other leaders out there
that maybe maybe they have ateam they're having trouble
getting connected to? I mean,what's something you would wanna
leave them with in this lastmoment or so?
Jason Raidbard (31:50):
I would say, I think one of the things, there's
a couple things. When you'rehaving trouble with a team, or
you're having an instance wherethings are just not going well
and not working, the first thingyou wanna look at is yourself.
You want to look in the mirrorand you want to ask yourself,
are you being true to yourself?Are you being the leader that
(32:12):
you want to be? You can even askyourself this, is this the right
fit?
Am Am I in the right place?Because you may be a fantastic
leader, you're just in the wrongplace. And no matter what you
do, it's not working. And Ithink that's really important
too, because I've seen a lot ofleaders burn out, leave
healthcare because of it. And itreally wasn't a function of
them.
It was a function of just theculture they were in. There was
no, they were one combating athousand. There was no way that
(32:34):
they were going to change it.And I've been there before too.
And you just have to askyourself, Okay, am I doing
everything that I need to do?
Are there things that I canimprove upon? I got better when
I questioned myself and said, Ican be better. That's when I got
better. When I really lookeddeep inside and said, You know
what? I don't actively listen.
(32:56):
I assume. I don't pay attentionwhen people come in my office.
I'm sitting there texting on myphone. Start there. Because it's
so easy in today's society tojust point and blame.
This is why this is wrong. It'sbecause of he or she or it or
that. And that just leads totoxic relationships and
(33:17):
toxicity. And that's not a valueadd to anybody. I think if you
get past that point, then it's,all right, what is it within my
team that I need to work on andimprove and try and help with?
And hopefully, you have, duringthis time, built trust to the
point that people will tell you.You may have indications of
(33:39):
what's going on, but it's bestwhen your people actually tell
you. And when you get to thatpoint, even when things are bad,
and I've been there before. Ihad a group of managers. I
remember my score was, like, 2.4out of five.
And we just had a heart theyliked me, but I wasn't I was a
hard charging leader at thetime. And I said, I'm like,
okay, just be honest with me.And they were very honest. And
(34:01):
they are the primary reason whyI turned into, in many ways, the
leader I turned in today becausethey shared with me. They're
like, hey, we need you to dothis and this and that, be here
for this.
And so I think if you could justbe honest with yourself of where
you need to improve, people willsee that. They'll see that
you're trying. They'll see thegenuineness. And if something's
(34:24):
working well, you can alwaysask, like, what are some things
that are is going well that wewanna continue doing?
Daniel Williams (34:31):
Yeah.
Jason Raidbard (34:31):
Because you wanna celebrate the wins. You
don't wanna always look at itthrough a half glass full. You
wanna look at it like, this isthree quarters full. This is a
full glass of water. Yeah.
And I think if you can celebratethe wins, focus on the good
things and build off of them,things will just they may not
always be easy, but they'll beeasier than if you don't do
(34:52):
those things.
Daniel Williams (34:53):
Right. Alright. Well, Jason Raybard, thanks for
joining us yet again on the MGMApodcast.
Jason Raidbard (35:00):
No. Thank you for having me.
Daniel Williams (35:02):
Yeah. Well, everyone, do wanna just remind
y'all, MGMA member communitylive, it is a great way to go
peer to peer to hear your haveyour voice heard out there and
to hear the voices of your MGMApeers out there. It's a great
way to do that in addition tothe webinars and podcasts like
(35:23):
this one. So until then, I'mgonna put all this information
out in the episode show notes.We're also gonna develop an
article for it on mgma.com.
But until then, want just wannathank all of you for being MGMA
podcast listeners.
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