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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Follow Brand
Podcast.
We're going to bring it back toMiami, florida, my home for 27
years.
Even though you can see me nowin the Omaha area, omaha,
nebraska area people are likewow, but you also see me in the
St Croix Virgin Islands as well,as I've expanded.
But I love bringing it to Miami.
I love talking to healthcareleaders.
(00:23):
We're going to talk aboutsomeone with such a story.
It made me stop and reallylisten to what he had to tell me
about his journey as ahealthcare executive.
I'm talking about Pedro ValdezJr.
He has a great story.
We're going to share that storywith all of you because I've
got a lot of people in thehealthcare world like, hey,
(00:44):
we're going to share that storywith all of you because I've got
a lot of people in thehealthcare world like, hey,
let's hear from what I call fromthe horse's mouth, the ones
who's actually living in thetrenches day in, day out, and he
has some goals that he wants toaccomplish and this is the
track for others to follow inhis footsteps.
So if you'd like to introduceyourself, pedro, go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Good afternoon.
Thank you very much, grant.
My name is Pedro Valdez.
I've been a practicing nursefor the last 22 years
approximately.
I started off as an LPN in anemergency room and then I became
an RN.
I worked there for about 13years, more or less.
Then I transferred to thetrauma OR, first as a bedside
trauma OR nurse.
Then I became coordinator forthree different service lines
(01:26):
trauma OR, pediatrics and ENT.
Then I became a mid-levelpractitioner.
I went to work in the primarycare setting.
I also did acute indicationsetting for infectious disease
and then I returned back tonursing as a leader, as a
manager in corrections an areacompletely new to me, novice to
me, and it has been a verygratifying experience.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I would say the least .
We worked together for aboutfour weeks or so just
understanding your story andhelping me understand what is a
health care leader like in asystem.
Like you know, when you're inwhat they call TGK, we don't
(02:10):
always like people like what isit?
Well, that's the city jail inMiami, but they also have health
care needs that are very, veryimportant.
But before we go there here'sthe question, because you
mentioned a lot of things, but Ididn't hear you say the ER, the
emergency room and yourinspiration for becoming a nurse
(02:32):
in the first place.
Everybody has an origin storylike that.
You were going in a certaindirection.
Then, boom, you went in thispivot.
Like you know what?
Aha, I want to go into nursing,and here's why.
What's your origin story inthat area?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I never wanted anything to do with healthcare,
actually, I wanted to be alawyer.
I wanted to be a lawyer and Igraduated high school.
I was going to college, I wasworking on my credits for my
liberal arts to then go on tolaw school and I remember I just
finished my AA and I read astory about a guy.
He got incarcerated, condemnedto a death penalty.
(03:06):
He unfortunately was put todeath and then he found out he
was innocent and the brand oflaw that I wanted to do?
I wanted to do criminal law, Iwanted to be a prosecutor.
And that specific story reallyimpacted me because I've always
wanted to help people and Ithought as a lawyer I could help
put away the bad guy, I couldtake care of the community by
(03:26):
making sure that there were nobad people on the streets.
But this particular person'scase, it really impacted me
because he wasn't a bad guy.
He was unjustly, incorrectlyincarcerated, condemned to death
and he was found to be innocent.
And I asked myself can I dothat?
Would I be capable ofincorrectly prosecuting somebody
(03:47):
?
And so then I pivoted and Ienrolled in a local vocational
nursing program at a hospital.
I became a licensed practicalnurse and then I became a
registered nurse in the ER.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Wow, I mean, that's a story, I mean that's
gut-wrenching to find out thathe was actually innocent.
And then you see that like, wow, you know.
So that gets the juices flowing.
Now you work in a very, I'd say, complex health care
environment, right, and you knowhe went from the OR to what we
call correctional health,high-stakes situation, a lot of
(04:25):
things that you know.
Normally in a hospital you'renot worried about other things
than someone who doesincarcerate.
That's a different thing.
So how have these situationscarried forth in these kind of
opportunities to teach you aboutleadership under pressure?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
My experiences in the ER and then my experiences in
the OR.
Those were all high stakes,high pressure environments, but
they were acute care, they wereinpatient and they had their own
very unique set of challenges.
The correctional system is avery specialized area.
It's not an acute care area perse like a hospital, but it has
(05:03):
just as unique, or even moreunique, challenges that really
impact how healthcare can bedelivered there.
So working in an inpatient areain an acute care area, it
taught me a lot of skills Timemanagement, prioritization,
teamwork.
It taught me a lot of thingsthat I was able to bring with me
and apply here.
The challenges here are moresecurity-based, they're more
(05:26):
safety-related as opposed to thehospital.
So it was a very, very bigpivot and I'm very glad that I
did it because I got toexperience, learn, appreciate
and grow to love a veryunderserved patient demographic.
Going through nursing school,you're taught that underserved
demographics are the homeless,the incarcerated, and I always
(05:48):
ask myself why the incarcerated?
Because I always heard thatthere was healthcare within
systems and then, when I beganworking here at Corrections
Health Systems, I realized thatit was very underserved because
we're dealing with people thatare incarcerated, so they're
99.9% of the time coming inhostile.
They don't want to be there.
A lot of them are really reallysick but they don't take care
(06:12):
of themselves, so they're verynoncompliant.
And a lot of them are reallysick and they don't know that
they're sick because theyhaven't had access to health
care.
So every single person that getsarrested and is brought to us,
we evaluate and we havediscovered quite a lot of things
.
We have discovered a lot ofillnesses, and not just in older
(06:33):
people but in younger peopletoo.
There was a young man, I wouldsay in his mid-20s, that our
chief medical officer wasactually doing a leaders in the
field event.
She was doing patient care inthe main clinic and she
encounters this young man whowas just reporting anxiety and
in the demographic that we serve, anxiety is a very common
(06:53):
complaint and often dismissedbecause they're incarcerated,
they're nervous, they're afraid.
But she evaluated this youngman, looked at him from the
perspective she needed to lookat him from and she discovered
that he had a very severecongenital heart issue, a
cardiomyopathy, that, ifuntreated, would have proven
fatal.
With any exertion he would havedied into an arrhythmia, would
(07:13):
have died that is.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean those kinds of stories, you know.
Stop people because no matterwhat, you're incarcerated,
you're a human being.
You're a human being first andyou, you know you have.
You have rights, human rights.
And you told me something Ijust didn't really comprehend or
think about that.
Some people intentionally go tojail because they get access to
(07:42):
care.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I don't think a lot of people realize that access to
care.
I don't think a lot of peoplerealize that they do, and that
was also something that reallyimpacted me when I first began
exposing myself in thisparticular system was the fact
that homeless people willpurposely get arrested to have a
roof over their head for thenight or for the weekend.
Some will get arrested, havehealthcare performed, go back
(08:04):
out into the community and thencommit some other crime to just
come back and continue seeingthe doctor and I was like wow
that's.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
we should never come to that.
I find that something we shouldthink about, that as a
community, like why, the realreason, why, well, why did you
do that?
Because it's like it's kind ofridiculous.
You just got out and you'regoing back in.
But the root cause of that?
Well, I needed.
My teeth are bad and I neededto get back to my dental
appointment.
You know, that's not even athought that people think about,
(08:33):
but something we need tocontemplate.
Now, when we worked together,we came up with a tagline for
Pedro Valdez you go by Peter,Some people know you as Peter as
well.
Right, so your brand tagline isPowering Vision, Promoting
Value.
What does that mean to you andhow do you live it out in your
(08:57):
day-to-day?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
leadership.
I actually love my brandtagline because it goes back to
my experiences in high stakesenvironments where I've faced
numerous challenging moments.
I've inherited broken teams.
I've had to learn processes andrebuild a team simultaneously.
I've had to guide team membersthat perhaps were never exposed
to those kinds of moments whereeverything's falling apart or
(09:19):
maybe they were too weak intheir roles to effectively lead
in their current role.
But I would always tell them andI would always begin it this
way don't worry, it'll get worsebefore it gets better, but it's
going to get better.
I would be very clear and layit out there very transparently.
(09:39):
And I love it because everytime you hear somebody say,
trust me, don't worry, youcringe.
It sounds like a con, like asales line, you know.
But I would tell them don'tworry, everything's going to get
better and it's going to getharder in the beginning.
Why?
Because we are rebuilding,we're sending you expectations,
we have a vision of where we'regoing to take the team to, and
this is what the vision is.
This is the end goal of thevision.
But we have to have themunderstand why we're doing it.
(10:02):
We have to explain to them thewhy.
Show them the value of whatwe're doing, make it relatable
to them, have them grasp it andown it, and help us achieve that
goal.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
This is important and what you were helping others
walk them through some momentsthat are challenging.
That is a test and you don'talways see the light of the end
of the tunnel because you're inthat dark tunnel.
Some people don't realize.
You know you are the light,that's why you're not, you know,
seeing the light in the tunnelbecause you are the light in
(10:35):
that tunnel.
Now you've been through somechallenging.
You know moments where you gettested.
Your medal gets tested.
You know, especially when yougo into leadership, you're just
like wow, I didn't see thatcoming.
And then boom, you've got to dosomething.
I want to know if you would beso kind to tell us a story
(10:56):
around what happened right andwhat did it teach you about
resilience and team alignment?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Sure, and this is when I was director of VOR.
I was a director of surgicalservices for Level 1 Trauma
Center and overnight I lost mynurse manager, I lost the night
shift trauma team, the entiretrauma team, and I lost some
essential personnel from the dayshift.
(11:25):
And I was just recently into mydirector role, so I wasn't too
familiar with payroll, theon-call schedule, staffing, all
the normal processes to have theunit run right.
And so when I lost the nursemanager overnight, I had to
rebuild all of those processesby myself and I had to keep the
(11:47):
team together.
So I remember when, whenhappened, the team was very
unsure, very uncertain of whatwas going to happen.
I had an emergency staffmeeting and again I started out
the same way.
I told them I understandeverybody's afraid.
I understand everybody wants toknow what's going on and things
(12:08):
are going to get worse beforethey get better.
But right now in this moment,is when we need to bend together
as a team and things are goingto get worse before they get
better.
But right now, in this moment,is when we need to band together
as a team and things are goingto get better and we're going to
make mistakes.
And I outlined exactly whatchallenges we're going to face,
what obstacles we need toovercome.
We needed to rebuild theon-call, the staffing, the
staffing preferences, payroll,making sure everybody got paid
right, making sure everybody gottheir hours.
(12:29):
I outlined it for everybody.
It was very transparent witheveryone and I told them.
If there's any challenges or ifthere's anything, please come
to me, let me know.
And I learned another valuablelesson in the midst of all of
this.
There was a lot of noise aboutthe on-call schedule not being
fair, about certain peoplehaving preferences, special days
not working enough, and Ithought to myself you know what?
(12:52):
I'm going to kill two birdswith one stone here.
I'm going to redo it, I'm goingto fix it.
It's going to come out right,it's going to come out perfect.
And so I tried, and I almost gotkilled for doing so because it
was disastrous.
The OR team it was real bad.
They came at me everybodycomplaining it just wasn't
working well.
And then I realized that Ididn't seek the feedback, I
(13:15):
didn't seek the knowledge fromthose on the front line.
For that specific process, Imay have known how the OR ran,
how it worked, but with theon-call, that was something
completely foreign to me becauseas a coordinator for the trauma
OR team I didn't have on-callresponsibilities.
So then I sought their feedback, I sat down with them, we went
(13:35):
over it, we restructured it, wewere able to get it to be how it
was before the team settleddown.
It worked, and then I madesubtle changes to make it a
little bit better.
But in the midst of all of that, I realized to myself not to
make any changes in chaoticmoments.
The dust settled, settle, letthe uncertainty go away, the
team feel safe, and then we canmake changes, keep the status
(13:58):
quo going that's true leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You don't always, you know, people think that you,
the leader, is always right.
It's always a positive outcome.
When it really is a windy road,you eventually get to the
positive outcome.
You will, because that is yourNorth Star, that's the direction
that you're heading in.
But having the willingness tostop, take off your title, your
(14:21):
hat, whatever is you know theimpediment.
Sometimes it's always you rightand say, hey, let me involve
the people.
Who is it affecting?
And I love how you said thatit's affecting all of us.
So let's.
If we have a collectiveagreement of what we're going to
do together, then everybody hasownership, everybody's
accountable, not just one person, and I like how you pull that
(14:44):
together.
Now, when we I take you througha process.
You went through my processbecause I can't just throw
something at you withoutunderstanding you.
First.
We went through a brandassessment, we went through a
skills gap analysis because Ihad to understand first what are
you trying to accomplish, whatis truly you're passionate about
, that you would take, you wouldbe accountable for, you
(15:09):
yourself would be responsiblefor self-responsibility and
self-aware around.
And we built momentum over time, from the assessment to the
skills gap analysis, to theactual brand blueprint strategy
to reach your North Star.
One thing that I foundthroughout all of that was that
(15:30):
health equity kept just beingthere, like you really are about
health equity, like at the sametime you just told that last
story, this was about thepatient outcome.
I want the patient, we wantthem to be served in the best
possible way.
So the question is why is itthat such a personal priority?
(15:52):
Why is health equity such apersonal priority for you?
And I don't know if that goesback to your origin story or not
.
You know, but you want to bevery helpful in that world and
how do you embed it into yourteams and systems that you lead?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I think it definitely goes back to my origin story in
the sense of always wanting tohelp people, and I really thank
God every day for the professionI chose to get into, because it
is a beautiful profession.
It shows you the good and thebad of the human nature and when
we study our profession, anyhealthcare profession we swear
(16:35):
an oath when we are going tobecome licensed to take care of
someone, regardless of what theydid for it.
If they're good, if they're bad, it doesn't matter.
We swore to take care of them.
And I remember as I beganworking as a bedside nurse, I
would treat every patient in thebed as a family member.
Whenever I would train somebody, I would train them.
(16:58):
This could be your familymember.
Treat them as if they were.
Imagine they are the most lovedfamily member you have in that
bed.
I myself will eventually becomea patient.
I want somebody to take care ofme will eventually become a
patient.
I want somebody to take care ofme.
I swear.
When I came to corrections, thiswhole concept was tested I
(17:22):
working as a trauma OR on theweekends there was a night shift
trauma OR nurse from the ERresuspect who I would cross
paths with and then, when I bebecame director of TGK, I got
the unsettling news that she wasmurdered by her husband.
Wow, she was murdered by herhusband and he self-inflicted a
(17:48):
gunshot wound on himself.
So he wound up in the samehospital where she was a trauma
nurse.
And the most chilling part ofthis story was that she was
actually on shift with a goodfriend of mine when she got a
call from her husband sayingcome home now, there's an
(18:10):
emergency.
So she went home and my friendthat was there working with her
that night told her don't worry,if anything comes in I'll call
you.
And so he my friend gets a callthat he's getting
self-inflicted gsw gunshot woundto the head a male patient.
(18:30):
The patient gets there, he'staking care of the patient.
He had already called the nurselike several times with no
response, and so he just wastaking care of the patient by
himself.
When the officer that brought inthat particular patient, the
male patient, saw the ID badges,he asked one of the other staff
(18:51):
members, do you know thisparticular person?
And she showed a picture of herID badge and she was deceased
on the scene.
So several months went by forhis rehab to be completed and
then he was brought to mycorrectional facility and even
though I was a director of thefacility, I am very hands-on and
(19:14):
I like to be there with thestaff assisting the staff.
Aside from doing what I'm doingbeing shoulder to shoulder with
the staff I like to know what'sgoing on in my area.
And when this particularpatient arrived, I knew he was
there and more than once I hadto assist taking care of him in
the infirmary.
And I would look at him and Iwould say to myself internally
(19:38):
do you know how many lies you'veimpacted, have done?
But I swore no, and this iswhat I need to do right now.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And I tell you I got chills when you said that that's
difficult.
I've talked to lawyers aboutthings like that.
How do you defend, you know, achild murderer or something to
that effect?
And they say you know you haveto shut a part of yourself down
and do the job that you'recalled to do, that you're called
(20:14):
to do, right, Obviously,justice is being served.
You don't know all thecircumstances.
You have a role to play.
If you play outside of that role, it changes things more right,
and some things are just outsideof your control.
And you've got to do what youneed to do at a high level that
showed true integrity and whatyou truly believe in, because
(20:35):
that had to be extremelydifficult.
Especially, you knew thisperson and I know that that's a
very difficult thing to do andyou worked with your team.
Now it's a team thing and youplay the role that you needed to
play.
Now here's the question,because the other thing that we
discovered, we vetted out duringour time together, is that you
(20:59):
were known for your ability totransform, change, management,
fragmented team.
You kind of alluded to thateven earlier, that you would
inherit a certain team and therewere challenges and then you
had to make it better, into ahigh performing.
You not just change it.
You know, try to get it tostatus quo, but you've made it
(21:20):
into a high performing unit.
So the question is what is yourfirst move when stepping into a
broken culture?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
it depends, because I've done it from both angles.
I've done it from being fromwithin In the OR.
I was trauma OR coordinator,peach coordinator, ent
coordinator for several yearsand then I returned as director.
But I was very familiar withthe processes, I was very
familiar with the staff and whothe players were.
(21:52):
But when I started incorrections I was hired from the
outside and it was a foreignterritory to me altogether.
It was an area that I had noexposure to and I wanted
something that I was unfamiliarwith to push me out of my
comfort zone and to learn andgrow.
And so, as I started as manager,to learn and grow.
(22:16):
And so, as I started as manager, I as manager at that time I
needed to speak to whateverprocess I was responsible for.
So I went and I got oriented asif I was a bedside nurse by the
frontline staff.
And that simple action in andof itself.
When I first proposed the ideaand I first I didn't know I
needed a staff member.
So I just chose the first RN,the first LPN, the first medical
assistant that I found and Istarted rotating.
(22:36):
The first reactions from themwere why is he doing this?
Never seen this before?
What does he want?
It was very suspicious and I wasvery upfront, open, honest and
transparent.
I told him I want to learn whatyou were doing, I want to see
what you go through.
And told them I want to learnwhat you are doing, I want to
(22:58):
see what you go through.
And so I learned the differentroles of different disciplines.
But I didn't just do it for anhour or two, I learned, and then
I did it on different shiftsand I did it for shifts, and I
remember that when I returnedback to corrections in my
current role that I touched baseupon my return, a lot of the
staff members would say the samething.
They were like oh my god, youremember when he would take
(23:20):
vitals, when he would do men's,when he would do assessments?
And I was like that's what Ineeded to learn.
I needed to learn and I neededto do because I was going to
speak for these processes.
At the same time, whilelearning and I was observing the
staff, I was learning who theplayers were, who were the hard
workers, who were the toxicstaff members.
(23:40):
And then I needed to dig evendeeper and find out why were
they toxic in this frontal?
Is this something, legitimately,that caused them to be this way
, or is this just theirpersonality?
Is this people that I can saveand salvage and, you know,
embrace as team members, or arethese people going to poison the
team I'm trying to build?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That is so important.
You know we call that in myprofession transcendent
leadership, because it moves inboth directions up and down.
Up and down You're the advocatefor your staff members to other
departments, other leaders intheir organizations, so you can
speak for them, like, hey, we'relimited in our resources,
(24:20):
whatever it may be, and then youhave an accurate answer
together so they're not tryingto fix the wrong thing, right,
and I like that.
I think your team, especiallywhen you're transparent, right,
and I like that.
I think your, your team,especially when you're
transparent.
It's OK, I'm going to bringthis upstairs and make sure
everybody's in agreement, like,yeah, we fix that.
You know we can, we can getcertain things out of the way.
(24:43):
But then you understanding theoperational side of it, like how
things are done or why thingsare done, and you can really get
going.
And I love how you just saidthat, even though you might have
what's so quote unquote a toxicmember on your team, but
understanding their why, what'sthe root cause around that.
A lot of times you find outlike you know what they're
behaving like that, becausemaybe the schedule is out of
(25:05):
whack and they have a home lifethat's affecting that, and then
they're just making it difficult, and if we could change that
around, they become a player onyour team and a true advocate
for you.
You talked to me aboutcourageous conversations, which
(25:26):
I was like, wow, I don't think Iheard that term the power of
courageous conversation and whatthat was about was like what
makes those two so pivotal?
You know in leadership and howthey change your outcome.
So that's conversations thatyou're having.
Talk to us about yourdefinition of courageous
conversations.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Courageous conversation to me is having a
conversation that might makesomeone uncomfortable, and it
could be for different reasons.
It could be for performanceissues, it could be for
behavioral issues or it could bejust for a personal matter.
If I know that you normally area jovial person and I see that
you are down and you've beendown for a couple of days, I'll
pull you aside and I'll ask youhey, what's going on?
(26:08):
Talk to me, let me know, isthere anything I can help you
with?
What's going on?
Talk to me, let me know, isthere anything I can help you
with?
And that entry could open upfor a real courageous
conversation, in the sense thatthey may be going through some
really impactful personal thingsthat they just cannot leave at
the door before they come intowork and it's affecting them
here too, and just the fact thatthey feel that they have that
(26:29):
support, that they can open upand vent and get it off their
chest.
To me, me putting myself intheir shoes would mean the world
to me, so I try to do the samefor them I tell you we need more
of that.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
We need to have courageous conversations today
with a lot of our co-workers.
Yeah, life is already stressful.
You, you mentioned a lot ofjust different scenarios that
you've gone through.
You know, and every day.
You know you went through thepandemic, you know.
That's just.
Everybody knows that was very,very stressful.
But if we don't talk aboutthese things like what's really
(27:05):
going on in life, and that youknow, especially in leadership,
you want to make decisions, youwant to make policy changes and
you need to understand how thisis really affecting people Right
now, there's a lot of people.
Right now there's a lot ofuncertainty, especially in
public-private health caresystems, like what is this
(27:26):
happening?
Is the US government changing?
You know how investments aregoing.
Are we going to have less money?
We're not going to have anymoney.
What is all this going to go?
At the end of the day, we stillgot to care for patients.
It really doesn't matter.
It becomes difficult.
But we have courageousconversations.
Then maybe better decisions canbe made that everybody again is
(27:47):
accountable for.
They're on board more or less.
They don't think they're beingtalked down to.
They're on board more or less.
I don't think they're beingtalked down to, they're being
spoken with as a team and we allcan get this done.
Because, I tell you, I don'tthink there's a more resilient
group of people in differentprofessions than healthcare
workers, healthcare people,healthcare leadership because
(28:09):
when you get hit by a hundredyear pandemic and there's no
cure that we know of at the time, and you've got to scramble and
you did that I don't think youcan throw a lot more at you like
no, we can handle that.
That was a big mountain, that'sa molehill over here.
We can do this, but we have totalk about it right.
Let's talk about it right.
(28:29):
I think you've got an uncannyability in those areas.
A lot of people don'tunderstand.
When they saw a lot of what I'mdoing online, they're like oh,
grant's doing personal branding,what is that all about?
Career development I don't know.
I see, I hear, but I don'treally know.
It is a process in which youdon't always see 360 degrees of
(28:51):
what you're doing, becauseyou're doing it Right, right.
Even right now it's like, hey,I can't see behind me, I can't
see, you know, in the far sidesof myself.
So when you get an opportunityto sit down, do some
self-awareness, someself-assessment, understand
where you fit in the market thatyou're looking to make an
impact on.
Then you can start to look atit strategically and tactfully.
(29:16):
I think it's a bit differentNow.
Looking forward for you.
What does an ideal chiefnursing officer role look like
for?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
you One where I can bring the skills that I've
learned not only from buildingfragmented and broken teams, but
to strengthening them and toreally driving forward the
culture of teamwork andcamaraderie of which I started
my nursing career.
To be able to bring that as thepeak of my career, I think that
(29:49):
would be the best thing that Iwould focus on.
Teamwork and camaraderie arebuzzwords that are used very
often, but I like to be veryobservant and I've been in
different health care systems asa visitor and I have just
watched the mechanics of theunits go by and I say to myself
a lot of people function insilos, even from the same
(30:10):
discipline.
They function in silos.
They're used to beingfragmented and one hand doesn't
know what the other hand isdoing.
So to be able to break thatdown and really drive forward
teamwork would be what I wouldwanna do as a CNO.
That's what I envision theoptimal CNO role for me to be.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, we did the work and we understand that you're
right there and I'm sure thatwith the right opportunity, the
right circumstances, you'll stepinto that role and you'll do
flying colors.
You've already got a tremendouslegacy that you yourself, in
your total career, that you'vehad.
(30:51):
And if you contemplate thisjust a little bit about legacy
legacy in the healthcare spacewhat would you want people to
say about your leadership andyour impact?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
When I returned to corrections, that I was touching
base with the different teamsthat I had worked with
previously, a lot of people and,ironically enough, a lot of
union representatives said thesame thing about me.
They all said the same thing.
They said we are so glad you'reback and I was like why?
Because you are firm but fair,and see that too often it's that
(31:34):
fine balance of being firm butfair, like with courageous
conversations.
Going back to that beingempathetic when you're having
that conversation, you may betalking to somebody about a
personal issue, but you may betalking to them about a
performance issue.
Being empathetic, understandingwhat they were trying to do,
what they failed to achieve, whythey did what they did, being
(31:55):
compassionate, as you'redelivering a message that the
performance is not just up tothe expectation, putting
yourself in their shoes of howthey're going to receive it All
of those things in combination,I would hope to be the legacy
that I leave To leave it betterthan how I found it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I think that's wonderful.
I'm going to ask you one ofthose courageous questions,
courageous conversation with me.
I want you to give an honestassessment.
I gave you an assessment overthe last three, four weeks.
What's your assessment of thisprogram?
How did you feel?
Did it get you to a differentplace?
Tell us about that of thisprogram.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
How did you feel?
Did it get you to a differentplace?
Tell us about that.
I think that this program isone of the most amazing
experiences I have ever done inmy profession, and it's a shame
it's only been four weeks,Because a lot of the things that
I've spoken about I havelearned through trial and error,
through experience, some of thethings I've had to study on my
own through different media, andwhenever you do anything
independently, you always askyourself am I learning the right
(32:55):
thing?
Am I applying the right thing?
And I like to reflect a lotabout myself.
So at the end of every day, asa good example, I'll ask myself
did I do it right?
Did I handle this situationright?
Did I get the outcome that Iwanted?
Could?
I have done it better.
This program has helped toredirect me in the right
(33:16):
direction.
It has allowed me to see thatI'm on the right path, and it's
identified areas that I had anidea I may have needed to work
on, but they have identifiedthem and now I have a strategic
blueprint on how to make itbetter identified them and now I
have a strategic blueprint onhow to make it better.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, that is wonderful.
First, thank you for being partof the program.
I want to thank Dr Carol Diggsfor selecting you to be a part
of this program.
We're going to conclude here,but you've got to tell the
audience how to contact you.
I don't know if we evenmentioned the fact that you do
work at Jackson Health System,but we need to probably get that
out there.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yes, no, I work at Jackson Health System.
My email is pedrovaldez, withan S valdezjr at jhsmiamiorg.
Please feel free to reach mevia email at any time, whatever
questions.
If you just want to reach outand say hi, I will most
definitely get back to you.
I really want to thank you, mrMcGaw.
(34:13):
This has been an amazingopportunity.
I really want to thank Dr Biggs.
This has been, like I say, oneof the best experiences in my
whole profession and it'spriceless.
There's really no price oneverything that we have done
together.
So thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh, you're welcome, and you got to go check him also
on LinkedIn.
I've been after all thesehealthcare professionals to
really up their game on theirLinkedIn skills and understand
that is your digital office andthere's an opportunity for you
to showcase your skill sets.
Tell the story that needs to betold because the community
needs to understand.
(34:47):
I understand so much more aboutwhat you're doing and why
you're doing it and I want tothank you for being a
participant, and I want to thankyour entire family because I
want them to tune into thisepisode.
They can see all of my episodesat five star bdm.
That is the number five.
That is star b for brand d, fordevelopment and for masterscom,
and I want to thank you againfor being a part of this program
(35:10):
, thank you.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Follow Brand
Podcast.
We're going to bring it back toMiami, florida, my home for 27
years.
Even though you can see me nowin the Omaha area, omaha,
nebraska area people are likewow, but you also see me in the
St Croix Virgin Islands as well,as I've expanded.
But I love bringing it to Miami.
I love talking to healthcareleaders.
(00:23):
We're going to talk aboutsomeone with such a story.
It made me stop and reallylisten to what he had to tell me
about his journey as ahealthcare executive.
I'm talking about Pedro ValdezJr.
He has a great story.
We're going to share that storywith all of you because I've
got a lot of people in thehealthcare world like, hey,
(00:44):
we're going to share that storywith all of you because I've got
a lot of people in thehealthcare world like, hey,
let's hear from what I call fromthe horse's mouth, the ones
who's actually living in thetrenches day in, day out, and he
has some goals that he wants toaccomplish and this is the
track for others to follow inhis footsteps.
So if you'd like to introduceyourself, pedro, go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Good afternoon.
Thank you very much, grant.
My name is Pedro Valdez.
I've been a practicing nursefor the last 22 years
approximately.
I started off as an LPN in anemergency room and then I became
an RN.
I worked there for about 13years, more or less.
Then I transferred to thetrauma OR, first as a bedside
trauma OR nurse.
Then I became coordinator forthree different service lines
(01:26):
trauma OR, pediatrics and ENT.
Then I became a mid-levelpractitioner.
I went to work in the primarycare setting.
I also did acute indicationsetting for infectious disease
and then I returned back tonursing as a leader, as a
manager in corrections an areacompletely new to me, novice to
me, and it has been a verygratifying experience.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I would say the least .
We worked together for aboutfour weeks or so just
understanding your story andhelping me understand what is a
health care leader like in asystem.
Like you know, when you're inwhat they call TGK, we don't
(02:10):
always like people like what isit?
Well, that's the city jail inMiami, but they also have health
care needs that are very, veryimportant.
But before we go there here'sthe question, because you
mentioned a lot of things, but Ididn't hear you say the ER, the
emergency room and yourinspiration for becoming a nurse
(02:32):
in the first place.
Everybody has an origin storylike that.
You were going in a certaindirection.
Then, boom, you went in thispivot.
Like you know what?
Aha, I want to go into nursing,and here's why.
What's your origin story inthat area?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I never wanted anything to do with healthcare,
actually, I wanted to be alawyer.
I wanted to be a lawyer and Igraduated high school.
I was going to college, I wasworking on my credits for my
liberal arts to then go on tolaw school and I remember I just
finished my AA and I read astory about a guy.
He got incarcerated, condemnedto a death penalty.
(03:06):
He unfortunately was put todeath and then he found out he
was innocent and the brand oflaw that I wanted to do?
I wanted to do criminal law, Iwanted to be a prosecutor.
And that specific story reallyimpacted me because I've always
wanted to help people and Ithought as a lawyer I could help
put away the bad guy, I couldtake care of the community by
(03:26):
making sure that there were nobad people on the streets.
But this particular person'scase, it really impacted me
because he wasn't a bad guy.
He was unjustly, incorrectlyincarcerated, condemned to death
and he was found to be innocent.
And I asked myself can I dothat?
Would I be capable ofincorrectly prosecuting somebody
(03:47):
?
And so then I pivoted and Ienrolled in a local vocational
nursing program at a hospital.
I became a licensed practicalnurse and then I became a
registered nurse in the ER.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Wow, I mean, that's a story, I mean that's
gut-wrenching to find out thathe was actually innocent.
And then you see that like, wow, you know.
So that gets the juices flowing.
Now you work in a very, I'd say, complex health care
environment, right, and you knowhe went from the OR to what we
call correctional health,high-stakes situation, a lot of
(04:25):
things that you know.
Normally in a hospital you'renot worried about other things
than someone who doesincarcerate.
That's a different thing.
So how have these situationscarried forth in these kind of
opportunities to teach you aboutleadership under pressure?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
My experiences in the ER and then my experiences in
the OR.
Those were all high stakes,high pressure environments, but
they were acute care, they wereinpatient and they had their own
very unique set of challenges.
The correctional system is avery specialized area.
It's not an acute care area perse like a hospital, but it has
(05:03):
just as unique, or even moreunique, challenges that really
impact how healthcare can bedelivered there.
So working in an inpatient areain an acute care area, it
taught me a lot of skills Timemanagement, prioritization,
teamwork.
It taught me a lot of thingsthat I was able to bring with me
and apply here.
The challenges here are moresecurity-based, they're more
(05:26):
safety-related as opposed to thehospital.
So it was a very, very bigpivot and I'm very glad that I
did it because I got toexperience, learn, appreciate
and grow to love a veryunderserved patient demographic.
Going through nursing school,you're taught that underserved
demographics are the homeless,the incarcerated, and I always
(05:48):
ask myself why the incarcerated?
Because I always heard thatthere was healthcare within
systems and then, when I beganworking here at Corrections
Health Systems, I realized thatit was very underserved because
we're dealing with people thatare incarcerated, so they're
99.9% of the time coming inhostile.
They don't want to be there.
A lot of them are really reallysick but they don't take care
(06:12):
of themselves, so they're verynoncompliant.
And a lot of them are reallysick and they don't know that
they're sick because theyhaven't had access to health
care.
So every single person that getsarrested and is brought to us,
we evaluate and we havediscovered quite a lot of things
.
We have discovered a lot ofillnesses, and not just in older
(06:33):
people but in younger peopletoo.
There was a young man, I wouldsay in his mid-20s, that our
chief medical officer wasactually doing a leaders in the
field event.
She was doing patient care inthe main clinic and she
encounters this young man whowas just reporting anxiety and
in the demographic that we serve, anxiety is a very common
(06:53):
complaint and often dismissedbecause they're incarcerated,
they're nervous, they're afraid.
But she evaluated this youngman, looked at him from the
perspective she needed to lookat him from and she discovered
that he had a very severecongenital heart issue, a
cardiomyopathy, that, ifuntreated, would have proven
fatal.
With any exertion he would havedied into an arrhythmia, would
(07:13):
have died that is.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean those kinds of stories, you know.
Stop people because no matterwhat, you're incarcerated,
you're a human being.
You're a human being first andyou, you know you have.
You have rights, human rights.
And you told me something Ijust didn't really comprehend or
think about that.
Some people intentionally go tojail because they get access to
(07:42):
care.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I don't think a lot of people realize that access to
care.
I don't think a lot of peoplerealize that they do, and that
was also something that reallyimpacted me when I first began
exposing myself in thisparticular system was the fact
that homeless people willpurposely get arrested to have a
roof over their head for thenight or for the weekend.
Some will get arrested, havehealthcare performed, go back
(08:04):
out into the community and thencommit some other crime to just
come back and continue seeingthe doctor and I was like wow
that's.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
we should never come to that.
I find that something we shouldthink about, that as a
community, like why, the realreason, why, well, why did you
do that?
Because it's like it's kind ofridiculous.
You just got out and you'regoing back in.
But the root cause of that?
Well, I needed.
My teeth are bad and I neededto get back to my dental
appointment.
You know, that's not even athought that people think about,
(08:33):
but something we need tocontemplate.
Now, when we worked together,we came up with a tagline for
Pedro Valdez you go by Peter,Some people know you as Peter as
well.
Right, so your brand tagline isPowering Vision, Promoting
Value.
What does that mean to you andhow do you live it out in your
(08:57):
day-to-day?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
leadership.
I actually love my brandtagline because it goes back to
my experiences in high stakesenvironments where I've faced
numerous challenging moments.
I've inherited broken teams.
I've had to learn processes andrebuild a team simultaneously.
I've had to guide team membersthat perhaps were never exposed
to those kinds of moments whereeverything's falling apart or
(09:19):
maybe they were too weak intheir roles to effectively lead
in their current role.
But I would always tell them andI would always begin it this
way don't worry, it'll get worsebefore it gets better, but it's
going to get better.
I would be very clear and layit out there very transparently.
(09:39):
And I love it because everytime you hear somebody say,
trust me, don't worry, youcringe.
It sounds like a con, like asales line, you know.
But I would tell them don'tworry, everything's going to get
better and it's going to getharder in the beginning.
Why?
Because we are rebuilding,we're sending you expectations,
we have a vision of where we'regoing to take the team to, and
this is what the vision is.
This is the end goal of thevision.
But we have to have themunderstand why we're doing it.
(10:02):
We have to explain to them thewhy.
Show them the value of whatwe're doing, make it relatable
to them, have them grasp it andown it, and help us achieve that
goal.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
This is important and what you were helping others
walk them through some momentsthat are challenging.
That is a test and you don'talways see the light of the end
of the tunnel because you're inthat dark tunnel.
Some people don't realize.
You know you are the light,that's why you're not, you know,
seeing the light in the tunnelbecause you are the light in
(10:35):
that tunnel.
Now you've been through somechallenging.
You know moments where you gettested.
Your medal gets tested.
You know, especially when yougo into leadership, you're just
like wow, I didn't see thatcoming.
And then boom, you've got to dosomething.
I want to know if you would beso kind to tell us a story
(10:56):
around what happened right andwhat did it teach you about
resilience and team alignment?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Sure, and this is when I was director of VOR.
I was a director of surgicalservices for Level 1 Trauma
Center and overnight I lost mynurse manager, I lost the night
shift trauma team, the entiretrauma team, and I lost some
essential personnel from the dayshift.
(11:25):
And I was just recently into mydirector role, so I wasn't too
familiar with payroll, theon-call schedule, staffing, all
the normal processes to have theunit run right.
And so when I lost the nursemanager overnight, I had to
rebuild all of those processesby myself and I had to keep the
(11:47):
team together.
So I remember when, whenhappened, the team was very
unsure, very uncertain of whatwas going to happen.
I had an emergency staffmeeting and again I started out
the same way.
I told them I understandeverybody's afraid.
I understand everybody wants toknow what's going on and things
(12:08):
are going to get worse beforethey get better.
But right now in this moment,is when we need to bend together
as a team and things are goingto get worse before they get
better.
But right now, in this moment,is when we need to band together
as a team and things are goingto get better and we're going to
make mistakes.
And I outlined exactly whatchallenges we're going to face,
what obstacles we need toovercome.
We needed to rebuild theon-call, the staffing, the
staffing preferences, payroll,making sure everybody got paid
right, making sure everybody gottheir hours.
(12:29):
I outlined it for everybody.
It was very transparent witheveryone and I told them.
If there's any challenges or ifthere's anything, please come
to me, let me know.
And I learned another valuablelesson in the midst of all of
this.
There was a lot of noise aboutthe on-call schedule not being
fair, about certain peoplehaving preferences, special days
not working enough, and Ithought to myself you know what?
(12:52):
I'm going to kill two birdswith one stone here.
I'm going to redo it, I'm goingto fix it.
It's going to come out right,it's going to come out perfect.
And so I tried, and I almost gotkilled for doing so because it
was disastrous.
The OR team it was real bad.
They came at me everybodycomplaining it just wasn't
working well.
And then I realized that Ididn't seek the feedback, I
(13:15):
didn't seek the knowledge fromthose on the front line.
For that specific process, Imay have known how the OR ran,
how it worked, but with theon-call, that was something
completely foreign to me becauseas a coordinator for the trauma
OR team I didn't have on-callresponsibilities.
So then I sought their feedback, I sat down with them, we went
(13:35):
over it, we restructured it, wewere able to get it to be how it
was before the team settleddown.
It worked, and then I madesubtle changes to make it a
little bit better.
But in the midst of all of that, I realized to myself not to
make any changes in chaoticmoments.
The dust settled, settle, letthe uncertainty go away, the
team feel safe, and then we canmake changes, keep the status
(13:58):
quo going that's true leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You don't always, you know, people think that you,
the leader, is always right.
It's always a positive outcome.
When it really is a windy road,you eventually get to the
positive outcome.
You will, because that is yourNorth Star, that's the direction
that you're heading in.
But having the willingness tostop, take off your title, your
(14:21):
hat, whatever is you know theimpediment.
Sometimes it's always you rightand say, hey, let me involve
the people.
Who is it affecting?
And I love how you said thatit's affecting all of us.
So let's.
If we have a collectiveagreement of what we're going to
do together, then everybody hasownership, everybody's
accountable, not just one person, and I like how you pull that
(14:44):
together.
Now, when we I take you througha process.
You went through my processbecause I can't just throw
something at you withoutunderstanding you.
First.
We went through a brandassessment, we went through a
skills gap analysis because Ihad to understand first what are
you trying to accomplish, whatis truly you're passionate about
, that you would take, you wouldbe accountable for, you
(15:09):
yourself would be responsiblefor self-responsibility and
self-aware around.
And we built momentum over time, from the assessment to the
skills gap analysis, to theactual brand blueprint strategy
to reach your North Star.
One thing that I foundthroughout all of that was that
(15:30):
health equity kept just beingthere, like you really are about
health equity, like at the sametime you just told that last
story, this was about thepatient outcome.
I want the patient, we wantthem to be served in the best
possible way.
So the question is why is itthat such a personal priority?
(15:52):
Why is health equity such apersonal priority for you?
And I don't know if that goesback to your origin story or not
.
You know, but you want to bevery helpful in that world and
how do you embed it into yourteams and systems that you lead?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I think it definitely goes back to my origin story in
the sense of always wanting tohelp people, and I really thank
God every day for the professionI chose to get into, because it
is a beautiful profession.
It shows you the good and thebad of the human nature and when
we study our profession, anyhealthcare profession we swear
(16:35):
an oath when we are going tobecome licensed to take care of
someone, regardless of what theydid for it.
If they're good, if they're bad, it doesn't matter.
We swore to take care of them.
And I remember as I beganworking as a bedside nurse, I
would treat every patient in thebed as a family member.
Whenever I would train somebody, I would train them.
(16:58):
This could be your familymember.
Treat them as if they were.
Imagine they are the most lovedfamily member you have in that
bed.
I myself will eventually becomea patient.
I want somebody to take care ofme will eventually become a
patient.
I want somebody to take care ofme.
I swear.
When I came to corrections, thiswhole concept was tested I
(17:22):
working as a trauma OR on theweekends there was a night shift
trauma OR nurse from the ERresuspect who I would cross
paths with and then, when I bebecame director of TGK, I got
the unsettling news that she wasmurdered by her husband.
Wow, she was murdered by herhusband and he self-inflicted a
(17:48):
gunshot wound on himself.
So he wound up in the samehospital where she was a trauma
nurse.
And the most chilling part ofthis story was that she was
actually on shift with a goodfriend of mine when she got a
call from her husband sayingcome home now, there's an
(18:10):
emergency.
So she went home and my friendthat was there working with her
that night told her don't worry,if anything comes in I'll call
you.
And so he my friend gets a callthat he's getting
self-inflicted gsw gunshot woundto the head a male patient.
(18:30):
The patient gets there, he'staking care of the patient.
He had already called the nurselike several times with no
response, and so he just wastaking care of the patient by
himself.
When the officer that brought inthat particular patient, the
male patient, saw the ID badges,he asked one of the other staff
(18:51):
members, do you know thisparticular person?
And she showed a picture of herID badge and she was deceased
on the scene.
So several months went by forhis rehab to be completed and
then he was brought to mycorrectional facility and even
though I was a director of thefacility, I am very hands-on and
(19:14):
I like to be there with thestaff assisting the staff.
Aside from doing what I'm doingbeing shoulder to shoulder with
the staff I like to know what'sgoing on in my area.
And when this particularpatient arrived, I knew he was
there and more than once I hadto assist taking care of him in
the infirmary.
And I would look at him and Iwould say to myself internally
(19:38):
do you know how many lies you'veimpacted, have done?
But I swore no, and this iswhat I need to do right now.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And I tell you I got chills when you said that that's
difficult.
I've talked to lawyers aboutthings like that.
How do you defend, you know, achild murderer or something to
that effect?
And they say you know you haveto shut a part of yourself down
and do the job that you'recalled to do, that you're called
(20:14):
to do, right, Obviously,justice is being served.
You don't know all thecircumstances.
You have a role to play.
If you play outside of that role, it changes things more right,
and some things are just outsideof your control.
And you've got to do what youneed to do at a high level that
showed true integrity and whatyou truly believe in, because
(20:35):
that had to be extremelydifficult.
Especially, you knew thisperson and I know that that's a
very difficult thing to do andyou worked with your team.
Now it's a team thing and youplay the role that you needed to
play.
Now here's the question,because the other thing that we
discovered, we vetted out duringour time together, is that you
(20:59):
were known for your ability totransform, change, management,
fragmented team.
You kind of alluded to thateven earlier, that you would
inherit a certain team and therewere challenges and then you
had to make it better, into ahigh performing.
You not just change it.
You know, try to get it tostatus quo, but you've made it
(21:20):
into a high performing unit.
So the question is what is yourfirst move when stepping into a
broken culture?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
it depends, because I've done it from both angles.
I've done it from being fromwithin In the OR.
I was trauma OR coordinator,peach coordinator, ent
coordinator for several yearsand then I returned as director.
But I was very familiar withthe processes, I was very
familiar with the staff and whothe players were.
(21:52):
But when I started incorrections I was hired from the
outside and it was a foreignterritory to me altogether.
It was an area that I had noexposure to and I wanted
something that I was unfamiliarwith to push me out of my
comfort zone and to learn andgrow.
And so, as I started as manager,to learn and grow.
(22:16):
And so, as I started as manager, I as manager at that time I
needed to speak to whateverprocess I was responsible for.
So I went and I got oriented asif I was a bedside nurse by the
frontline staff.
And that simple action in andof itself.
When I first proposed the ideaand I first I didn't know I
needed a staff member.
So I just chose the first RN,the first LPN, the first medical
assistant that I found and Istarted rotating.
(22:36):
The first reactions from themwere why is he doing this?
Never seen this before?
What does he want?
It was very suspicious and I wasvery upfront, open, honest and
transparent.
I told him I want to learn whatyou were doing, I want to see
what you go through.
And told them I want to learnwhat you are doing, I want to
(22:58):
see what you go through.
And so I learned the differentroles of different disciplines.
But I didn't just do it for anhour or two, I learned, and then
I did it on different shiftsand I did it for shifts, and I
remember that when I returnedback to corrections in my
current role that I touched baseupon my return, a lot of the
staff members would say the samething.
They were like oh my god, youremember when he would take
(23:20):
vitals, when he would do men's,when he would do assessments?
And I was like that's what Ineeded to learn.
I needed to learn and I neededto do because I was going to
speak for these processes.
At the same time, whilelearning and I was observing the
staff, I was learning who theplayers were, who were the hard
workers, who were the toxicstaff members.
(23:40):
And then I needed to dig evendeeper and find out why were
they toxic in this frontal?
Is this something, legitimately,that caused them to be this way
, or is this just theirpersonality?
Is this people that I can saveand salvage and, you know,
embrace as team members, or arethese people going to poison the
team I'm trying to build?
Speaker 1 (23:59):
That is so important.
You know we call that in myprofession transcendent
leadership, because it moves inboth directions up and down.
Up and down You're the advocatefor your staff members to other
departments, other leaders intheir organizations, so you can
speak for them, like, hey, we'relimited in our resources,
(24:20):
whatever it may be, and then youhave an accurate answer
together so they're not tryingto fix the wrong thing, right,
and I like that.
I think your team, especiallywhen you're transparent, right,
and I like that.
I think your, your team,especially when you're
transparent.
It's OK, I'm going to bringthis upstairs and make sure
everybody's in agreement, like,yeah, we fix that.
You know we can, we can getcertain things out of the way.
(24:43):
But then you understanding theoperational side of it, like how
things are done or why thingsare done, and you can really get
going.
And I love how you just saidthat, even though you might have
what's so quote unquote a toxicmember on your team, but
understanding their why, what'sthe root cause around that.
A lot of times you find outlike you know what they're
behaving like that, becausemaybe the schedule is out of
(25:05):
whack and they have a home lifethat's affecting that, and then
they're just making it difficult, and if we could change that
around, they become a player onyour team and a true advocate
for you.
You talked to me aboutcourageous conversations, which
(25:26):
I was like, wow, I don't think Iheard that term the power of
courageous conversation and whatthat was about was like what
makes those two so pivotal?
You know in leadership and howthey change your outcome.
So that's conversations thatyou're having.
Talk to us about yourdefinition of courageous
conversations.
What's that all about?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Courageous conversation to me is having a
conversation that might makesomeone uncomfortable, and it
could be for different reasons.
It could be for performanceissues, it could be for
behavioral issues or it could bejust for a personal matter.
If I know that you normally area jovial person and I see that
you are down and you've beendown for a couple of days, I'll
pull you aside and I'll ask youhey, what's going on?
(26:08):
Talk to me, let me know, isthere anything I can help you
with?
What's going on?
Talk to me, let me know, isthere anything I can help you
with?
And that entry could open upfor a real courageous
conversation, in the sense thatthey may be going through some
really impactful personal thingsthat they just cannot leave at
the door before they come intowork and it's affecting them
here too, and just the fact thatthey feel that they have that
(26:29):
support, that they can open upand vent and get it off their
chest.
To me, me putting myself intheir shoes would mean the world
to me, so I try to do the samefor them I tell you we need more
of that.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
We need to have courageous conversations today
with a lot of our co-workers.
Yeah, life is already stressful.
You, you mentioned a lot ofjust different scenarios that
you've gone through.
You know, and every day.
You know you went through thepandemic, you know.
That's just.
Everybody knows that was very,very stressful.
But if we don't talk aboutthese things like what's really
(27:05):
going on in life, and that youknow, especially in leadership,
you want to make decisions, youwant to make policy changes and
you need to understand how thisis really affecting people Right
now, there's a lot of people.
Right now there's a lot ofuncertainty, especially in
public-private health caresystems, like what is this
(27:26):
happening?
Is the US government changing?
You know how investments aregoing.
Are we going to have less money?
We're not going to have anymoney.
What is all this going to go?
At the end of the day, we stillgot to care for patients.
It really doesn't matter.
It becomes difficult.
But we have courageousconversations.
Then maybe better decisions canbe made that everybody again is
(27:47):
accountable for.
They're on board more or less.
They don't think they're beingtalked down to.
They're on board more or less.
I don't think they're beingtalked down to, they're being
spoken with as a team and we allcan get this done.
Because, I tell you, I don'tthink there's a more resilient
group of people in differentprofessions than healthcare
workers, healthcare people,healthcare leadership because
(28:09):
when you get hit by a hundredyear pandemic and there's no
cure that we know of at the time, and you've got to scramble and
you did that I don't think youcan throw a lot more at you like
no, we can handle that.
That was a big mountain, that'sa molehill over here.
We can do this, but we have totalk about it right.
Let's talk about it right.
(28:29):
I think you've got an uncannyability in those areas.
A lot of people don'tunderstand.
When they saw a lot of what I'mdoing online, they're like oh,
grant's doing personal branding,what is that all about?
Career development I don't know.
I see, I hear, but I don'treally know.
It is a process in which youdon't always see 360 degrees of
(28:51):
what you're doing, becauseyou're doing it Right, right.
Even right now it's like, hey,I can't see behind me, I can't
see, you know, in the far sidesof myself.
So when you get an opportunityto sit down, do some
self-awareness, someself-assessment, understand
where you fit in the market thatyou're looking to make an
impact on.
Then you can start to look atit strategically and tactfully.
(29:16):
I think it's a bit differentNow.
Looking forward for you.
What does an ideal chiefnursing officer role look like
for?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
you One where I can bring the skills that I've
learned not only from buildingfragmented and broken teams, but
to strengthening them and toreally driving forward the
culture of teamwork andcamaraderie of which I started
my nursing career.
To be able to bring that as thepeak of my career, I think that
(29:49):
would be the best thing that Iwould focus on.
Teamwork and camaraderie arebuzzwords that are used very
often, but I like to be veryobservant and I've been in
different health care systems asa visitor and I have just
watched the mechanics of theunits go by and I say to myself
a lot of people function insilos, even from the same
(30:10):
discipline.
They function in silos.
They're used to beingfragmented and one hand doesn't
know what the other hand isdoing.
So to be able to break thatdown and really drive forward
teamwork would be what I wouldwanna do as a CNO.
That's what I envision theoptimal CNO role for me to be.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Well, we did the work and we understand that you're
right there and I'm sure thatwith the right opportunity, the
right circumstances, you'll stepinto that role and you'll do
flying colors.
You've already got a tremendouslegacy that you yourself, in
your total career, that you'vehad.
(30:51):
And if you contemplate thisjust a little bit about legacy
legacy in the healthcare spacewhat would you want people to
say about your leadership andyour impact?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
When I returned to corrections, that I was touching
base with the different teamsthat I had worked with
previously, a lot of people and,ironically enough, a lot of
union representatives said thesame thing about me.
They all said the same thing.
They said we are so glad you'reback and I was like why?
Because you are firm but fair,and see that too often it's that
(31:34):
fine balance of being firm butfair, like with courageous
conversations.
Going back to that beingempathetic when you're having
that conversation, you may betalking to somebody about a
personal issue, but you may betalking to them about a
performance issue.
Being empathetic, understandingwhat they were trying to do,
what they failed to achieve, whythey did what they did, being
(31:55):
compassionate, as you'redelivering a message that the
performance is not just up tothe expectation, putting
yourself in their shoes of howthey're going to receive it All
of those things in combination,I would hope to be the legacy
that I leave To leave it betterthan how I found it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I think that's wonderful.
I'm going to ask you one ofthose courageous questions,
courageous conversation with me.
I want you to give an honestassessment.
I gave you an assessment overthe last three, four weeks.
What's your assessment of thisprogram?
How did you feel?
Did it get you to a differentplace?
Tell us about that of thisprogram.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
How did you feel?
Did it get you to a differentplace?
Tell us about that.
I think that this program isone of the most amazing
experiences I have ever done inmy profession, and it's a shame
it's only been four weeks,Because a lot of the things that
I've spoken about I havelearned through trial and error,
through experience, some of thethings I've had to study on my
own through different media, andwhenever you do anything
independently, you always askyourself am I learning the right
(32:55):
thing?
Am I applying the right thing?
And I like to reflect a lotabout myself.
So at the end of every day, asa good example, I'll ask myself
did I do it right?
Did I handle this situationright?
Did I get the outcome that Iwanted?
Could?
I have done it better.
This program has helped toredirect me in the right
(33:16):
direction.
It has allowed me to see thatI'm on the right path, and it's
identified areas that I had anidea I may have needed to work
on, but they have identifiedthem and now I have a strategic
blueprint on how to make itbetter identified them and now I
have a strategic blueprint onhow to make it better.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, that is wonderful.
First, thank you for being partof the program.
I want to thank Dr Carol Diggsfor selecting you to be a part
of this program.
We're going to conclude here,but you've got to tell the
audience how to contact you.
I don't know if we evenmentioned the fact that you do
work at Jackson Health System,but we need to probably get that
out there.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yes, no, I work at Jackson Health System.
My email is pedrovaldez, withan S valdezjr at jhsmiamiorg.
Please feel free to reach mevia email at any time, whatever
questions.
If you just want to reach outand say hi, I will most
definitely get back to you.
I really want to thank you, mrMcGaw.
(34:13):
This has been an amazingopportunity.
I really want to thank Dr Biggs.
This has been, like I say, oneof the best experiences in my
whole profession and it'spriceless.
There's really no price oneverything that we have done
together.
So thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh, you're welcome, and you got to go check him also
on LinkedIn.
I've been after all thesehealthcare professionals to
really up their game on theirLinkedIn skills and understand
that is your digital office andthere's an opportunity for you
to showcase your skill sets.
Tell the story that needs to betold because the community
needs to understand.
(34:47):
I understand so much more aboutwhat you're doing and why
you're doing it and I want tothank you for being a
participant, and I want to thankyour entire family because I
want them to tune into thisepisode.
They can see all of my episodesat five star bdm.
That is the number five.
That is star b for brand d, fordevelopment and for masterscom,
and I want to thank you againfor being a part of this program
(35:10):
, thank you.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
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