March 6, 2025 • 36 mins
Nick Destefano, Training Specialist at McLeod Health, shares powerful insights on leadership as leaving people better than you found them, emphasizing that true leadership transcends titles and is accessible to everyone.
• Developing 15,000 employees at McLeod through annual learning events that align personal and organizational values
• Creating authentic workplace culture where stated values match daily behaviors
• Hiring for cultural fit rather than just filling positions quickly
• Using values cards to help people identify what truly matters to them
• The importance of self-awareness and continuous growth in leadership development
• Asking better questions to unlock potential in others
• The "holy trifecta" of working hard, caring for family, and self-care
• Leadership as a practice rather than an event
• The "power of yet" as a mindset for continuous improvement
If you're interested in learning more about implementing these leadership practices in your organization, reach out to Nick Destefano at nickdestefano@mcleodhealth.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clemens
.
We are on with a special guesttoday, but before we get into
that, as I like to do, there's atheme of the show, spoiler
alert.
We have a theme and it goesinto how do you fancy yourself
as a leader?
Do you see yourself as a greatleader?
Do you think you're not aleader?
What do you think a leader is?
We're going to talk all aboutthat today because there's an
(00:47):
idea that I'm going to speakwith my guests about of leaving
people better off than where youfound them, and that's his own
line.
So this isn't Rob Clemenstalking, but he said leaving
people better off than you foundthem, and that got me to
thinking we want to do that witheverything in life.
Right, if I've got a garden, Iwant to leave it off better than
when I found it, and so why notwith people?
(01:10):
And what would that look likeif we could get that world of
leadership created?
So, with that being said, Ihave a guest.
His name is Nick DiStefano andhe's the training specialist for
McLeod.
He focuses a lot on theleadership and development of
people, and McLeod is a hugeorganization, so when he speaks,
I'm ready to hear someinformation.
So, nick, welcome to the show,my friend, thanks for having me.
Rob man, well, it's great tohave you and I met you before
(01:33):
and I kind of found out we cantalk for a very long time we can
.
Today we have about 30 to 40minutes to do it, so we're going
to stay on topic.
All right, game face, you know.
But well, nick, you're withMcLeod, a huge company, amazing
company.
Of course I'm on the board ofdirectors for the McLeod
Foundation and I got to know ofsuch an altruistic organization
(01:55):
that's looking out for people.
And then so many great leadersin the organization and people
like yourself.
Tell me a little bit aboutyourself and what you've been up
to lately.
Man, and people like yourself,tell me a little bit about
yourself and what you've been upto lately, man.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, man, we've been up to a whole bunch of amazing
things.
We could do a whole episode onwhat's happening at McLeod in
terms of growth, but I'll talkabout it from my lens, what I'm
up to.
So I get to work every day with, like you said, developing
people.
So we are day in and day out,either in person or virtually
via the screen, doing some typeof development of our people,
(02:31):
and a lot of times people thinkabout the healthcare aspect of
it and developing our ability totreat people and the quality of
care, and that is a massivepart of what we do as a system.
My area is all about how do weteach people the skills
necessary to take care of peoplenot just care for our people,
but care about them.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And when you're saying our people, you're saying
in the sense of your employees,our employees.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, yeah.
So close to 15000 totalemployees.
And we are doing we're in themiddle of right now we're in a
whole process of doing an annuallearning event.
We are doing it for everysingle employee, where we're
reflecting on our values as anorganization and then also
giving people opportunities toclarify their own values and
(03:17):
personal values.
One of the things I said topeople recently is have you ever
heard someone tell a joke andthe response is that's hilarious
.
Obviously, what you said andhow you said it don't go
together, and sometimes peoplework in organizations where you
have these values for yourself.
This is what's important to youas an individual and maybe it
(03:40):
doesn't go together with theorganization.
So we want people to be driven,we want people to be motivated.
When they show up to work, Ijokingly ask raise your hand if
you want to come to work andenjoy your job every day,
everyone raises their hand tothat.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
No, I want it to be terrible, I want it to be awful.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But if you don't want to come to work and enjoy your
job.
Well, I don't know that I canhelp you, and that requires you
to know your values and what'simportant to you, and so we're
doing a lot of work around thatright now, on top of just
specific leadership developmentand people who have those leader
titles.
Yeah, so yeah, we've got a lotgoing on.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Man, I think that's important.
You know, one thing that we'retalking about is sometimes
customers are so criticallyimportant, you know we have to
make sure our customers arehappy are so critically
important.
You know we have to make sureour customers are happy.
But sometimes theseorganizations and you and I
talked about this off the airhere but sometimes the
organizations are so employee,are so customer centric that
they're not taking that time tothink how are our employees
(04:36):
doing, how are they enjoyingthemselves?
Because, as we know, asatisfied employee will do a
better job than an unsatisfiedone, right?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Absolutely yeah.
Yeah, it's so important thatyou know you would never put it
on a billboard for yourorganizations.
But if you were to say, likecustomers, come second, the
reality is that they have tocome second and that's because
you have to take care of yourpeople first.
You've got to develop them andhelp them to grow.
And if you don't do that forall of your people, if you think
(05:04):
it's just for you only need toworry about your quote unquote
leaders or your managers or yoursupervisors and we do work
specific to that.
But if you don't providedevelopment of the rest of the
people, there's research showsand the generations that we look
at now show that people aren'tgonna stay and continue to work
at the same place.
They'll go find somewhere elseto work and it's it's, it's
(05:28):
extremely important that we takethe time to develop.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It's like all employers really need to stay
ahead of this, especially as weget a more and more competitive
workforce.
There's an interesting thingthat you mentioned there that I
think is is something you weneed to have a healthy balance
on there, right you?
You want your employees to cometo work and enjoy themselves,
enjoy and feel proud of going towork, but you also don't want
them coming in and just coastingeither.
(05:51):
Hey, I enjoy my job because Ican watch a movie all day.
So there's that balance ofmotivation along with job
satisfaction.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
How do you balance that.
So I would say the same thingto you that we say at every
single new employee orientationwe talk about this all the time.
If we say something is a valueand we put it on the walls but
there isn't behavior that youfeel in the halls, then it's not
a value.
Oh yeah, at our values, and welook at what are the behaviors
(06:23):
that are expected, that we canagree on, that are part of that.
Make that value come to life,make it real.
And so we have a set at theorganization of behavioral
standards that we say this ishow we treat each other, this is
how we treat our patients, thisis how we and one of them, we
you know it's funny, we have awhole, we have 10 of them and we
(06:45):
put a slide up during thisannual development that we're
doing that talks about here'sthe 10 of them, and really it
only has nine on there.
And that's because the 10th onethat kind of animates in at the
end of this section is personalownership and it's having that
ownership for your behavior, forthe way you show up, for the
attitude you have, for the wayyou show up, for the attitude
you have, for the way you treatyour patients, your friends,
(07:08):
your coworkers, I mean, andthat's really that's at work.
But I mean, if we all just tookmore personal ownership of how
all the things we did impactedthe others around us.
Again, getting back to thatidea of leadership is leaving
others better than you foundthem.
Maybe if we took personalownership for that world might
be a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's interesting.
I like it.
There's a couple of things Iwant to talk about, then, and
I'm going to tie togetherculture and I have some
questions for you.
I want to tie together culturealong with.
You mentioned something asecond ago and I believe it's
one of the reasons Trader Joe'sdoes such a good job with
customer service.
Trader Joe's literally in there.
(07:46):
If you go to their website,they say this is what we want a
customer to feel like when theycome to our store.
And you know, maybe some peoplethink, oh, that's not necessary
.
I think it's extremelynecessary.
I think it's very necessary tosay, hey, when we're looking at
values.
What are those values?
Because that's your culture,and if you hire people who come
in and they go, well, to mesaying hello with a smile every
(08:08):
day isn't really important in mylife.
Well, culturally they don't fitin, but also you guys as a
culture at a company may notcare about that, so you do need
to tell people this is what itlooks like, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, a culture is only as strong as the actions
and the behaviors are thatsupport?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Culture comes from things being passed down, from
people knowing what theexpectations are, what the norms
are, what it should look like.
When I first moved to the Southand I'm originally not from
here when I moved here, peoplesaid oh, people are going to be
so friendly and wonderful.
I remember the first time Iwent for a run in my
neighborhood and people are likewaving at me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'm thinking who the heck is this guy?
I don't know them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And now I'm doing the same thing because it's become
that expectation, sure, but eventhat Southern hospitality, you
can go from business to businessin the area and you might not
experience that everywhere yougo, and that's not because those
people aren't a part of theSouth, so to speak.
But what's the culture of thatorganization?
That's the behaviors that I'mexperiencing when I walk in
there and the people are likewelcome, hello, how are you?
(09:12):
Or they don't even introducethemselves.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
But there's an interesting thing.
So you're saying what we needto talk about, right?
You remember in the Seinfeldthere was the I think they call
him the soup, I don't even knowwhere I want to go into that,
but he was the guy and his wholeculture within the place was
that he would be mean to you andit became sort of like.
So if you went in there and hispersonal culture, however we
agree with or disagree with, itwas no, we, we, we treat people
(09:37):
like, like this, and you come in, mr Smiley, smiley, you
actually don't fit in with hisculture and you actually don't
fit in with his culture, and onecould say he hired the wrong
person in the first place, butyou also didn't understand what
was expected of you.
So we do have to talk about it.
Okay, awesome, well, andobviously we've both seen the
episode.
Hopefully people can relateCulture.
So I believe that one of ourfirst and most important things
(10:07):
in creating our culture isgetting people who represent the
brand of leadership properly.
Sometimes it's just hiring aperson that has the internal
culture and I'll tell you whyI'm saying this, and I think you
and I kind of agree on this.
If I bring in somebody whosepersonal culture doesn't match
up with my company culture.
Why would I do that?
Isn't that due to self?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Absolutely.
People do that because theyfeel like they need to have
someone in the seat, and I wouldrather take more time and get
the person that has the valuesand the culture that align with
ours than to just fill the bodyExactly.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah Well, I feel like too often both we as
employees and we as employers,you know, whichever hat you know
, you go in and you're like, hey, I like the fact that I can
make good money here, I can dothis or I can do this.
But did you ever ask thequestion of your culture
actually matched up with thecompany you're at?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And if not, you're probably going to find at some
point that bump is going to hitin the road, yeah, yeah, but I
think a lot of people don'toften reflect on it's very
natural for us to not thinkabout, even if it is something
that drives your life.
What is your personal culture?
Like I have, I have my valuescards here, so I've got like a
pile.
If I were to give someone thisstack of like six, 50 to 60
values and say you've got twominutes to sort through it and
(11:20):
put down anything that'simportant to you, like autonomy,
love, control, spiritual, Imean we could go through this
and like if I gave you twominutes to figure out what are
the like what's important to you, you'd probably give me can I
see one you want?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I'm kind of curious.
I'm kind of curious.
So you got these cards forthose who are listening on audio
and this card says values andon the back side it says
knowledge, facts and lessonslearned, understanding of
awareness and principles toorganize and explain.
Tell me, kind of, what are youtrying to elicit from this?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So what we're doing is I would give someone a stack
of these, of all these potentialvalues that you could have, and
I would ask you to think aboutwhat's important to you.
Put it into a stack.
So if autonomy is important tome, love is important to me.
Control might not be asimportant to me.
So you put them into the stacksof important or maybe not so
important to you and then lookat this pile of things and some
(12:10):
people when they do it and thisis what we're doing with people
right now Some people might havea stack of 40 of these, and I'm
thinking okay, well, if we have40, different values.
Do we really have values?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, right, right.
How do we value it all?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, yeah.
So then it's important to thinkabout all right, how do we take
it from 40 or 10 or whatever itis, and really look at it and
go okay, if I gave you of youand you had to pick your top
four or five, what would be thethings that you use to define
your life?
If someone said I just met Rob,and I would say this is how I
(12:42):
would describe him what arethree or four things that you
would want someone to say aboutyou?
I want someone to say that I'mkind.
I want someone to say that Nickis full of joy.
I want someone to say Nick issomeone that's courageous
courageous and chooses to dohard things.
So those are things that are mypersonal values and my culture
Love it.
So it's a really cool exerciseand it's a great way to get
(13:02):
people to think about, okay,what is this?
And then imagine if we bothhave joy as a value, but it
might look different based onwhat we do as our jobs or where
we have come from, and so it's areally great way to get people
committed to who they are andhow they show up to work as
their best self.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I'm going to say, if you're a hiring manager, even if
you're not a hiring manager,maybe you only have two people
at your company.
You're about to bring in thethird.
These people are so importantto your culture because if you
hire one that doesn't match yourculture, you're just setting
yourself back.
This is an important thing.
Whether you do something else adisc assessment, an Enneagram
test, whatever you do make sureyou're doing something and make
(13:42):
sure, hopefully, that the people, when they're doing these tests
, that they're being honest.
One problem I ran into and Idon't know how you handle this,
but sometimes people thinkthey're going to tell you what
you want to hear, you know.
So if one of these is like I'ma good teamwork guy, you know,
it's like, oh, I'm a teamwork,you know, and they're giving you
all the ones.
And the interesting part is ismaybe you're hiring for a
(14:03):
position where, not to say,teamwork's not important in any
position, but it's not thenumber one thing in a certain
position.
Right, If I have the top surgeonin the company, I mean, I guess
teamwork is again, I'm using abad example but you know, there
comes a point where I may havecertain roles sales maybe, where
I'm like, maybe teamwork isn'tquite as high as winning, you
(14:23):
know.
And so this becomes something.
And so I tell you, as peoplelooking for a job, you got to be
careful.
But what would you say as ahiring manager, how do you sift
through people who are fakingyou?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think that if you're as a hiring manager, it's
important that you and there'sa difference right your values
and then also your personality,right.
So something like DISC orEnneagram is going to tell you
more, or Myers-Briggs it's goingto tell you about the person's
personality, but theirpersonality is different than
their behavior, no doubt, and sopeople can.
I think people can kind of riga personality assessment and
(14:56):
pick what they want based onwhat they think, and there are
some organizations that do largeyou know personality
assessments.
To make the decision as to whoit is you're hiring, I think you
need to do an interview processthat allows you to truly get to
know the person and see what itis.
How do they act, how do theybehave, what do they say?
Not just the questions they'reanswering in an interview, but
(15:18):
do you take them to lunch andsee how they treat the people
that are the waiter or thewaitress?
Or do you see how they talk toyour administrative support
person?
What does that look like?
Because I can tell more about aperson from their behavior in
terms of what their values are,than if they were to say these
are my four values.
That's great.
I tell people all the time.
I'm glad you have these fourvalues.
(15:39):
But again, if you put it on thewalls but don't feel it in the
halls, what's the point Exactly?
Is this who?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
you want to be or who you are.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And that's a big deal .
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You know it's funny.
I used to do this thing whereyou know I I might be the
interviewer and you'd have theperson sit in the hallway
waiting to get interviewed.
I just walked through like Iwas a regular guy and I am a
regular guy, but you know I'mnot, like I'm the interviewer, I
might go in through and theydon't know, and hey, good
morning.
And you see how they react andsome people you know you'll get
an impression right off the batand then they come in and sit
down in and they tell you abouthow they love people.
(16:11):
So we've got to know something.
Man, I love talking thisleadership stuff with you and
people development and leavingpeople better than we started,
but, as I would say we couldtalk about this all day.
I'd like to know a little bitabout young Nick and how Nick
DiStefano got into his role.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Young Nick is a scary thought.
He was all over the place.
I told my parents when I was inhigh school I want to be a
motivational speaker and Iremember my parents going yeah,
nick, you can't go to school forthat.
That's not a thing Like that'sgreat, but you don't have like
some story.
You can't like you weren't bornwithout an arm, but there's
nothing.
You can't just go do Right,right, right, Okay, cool.
(16:55):
So I got to pick something to do.
So I said I'm going to go toschool for physical therapy and
I went to a small school inDallas, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh yeah, the famous Dallas Pennsylvania.
The pause is intentional.
I was like hmm yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I went to school for PT and I got actually really
involved in all sorts of thingsaround the school Everything
leadership development, withoutanyone calling it leadership
development.
Orient development, withoutanyone calling it leadership
development orientation studentorganization.
I did a million and onedifferent things and really
loved what I was learningoutside of the classroom more
than in the classroom.
(17:24):
Yeah, and was about to go intoreally into a.
It's funny I tell our physicaltherapists this now and they
laugh at me.
I said I was about to go into aclass where I was going to have
to dissect human bodies andthey're like oh yeah, human
anatomy, about to go into aclass where I was gonna have to
dissect human bodies and they'relike oh yeah, human anatomy
cadaver lab.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That was the best class ever.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I said that's when I said, nope, I'm out.
I changed my mind and I endedup majoring in interdisciplinary
studies.
I ended up getting my master'sdegree in org management and
really got into the world ofhelping people in organizations
to be the best that they could.
I did some of that in highereducation for a while.
I do some of it on the side inmy own business.
(18:03):
I do it full time at McLeod andat the end of the day it's how
can I inspire people, empowerpeople to be the best version of
themselves so that they canthen bring that to work and
bring that to their life?
And so it's funny, because nowI I tell people all the time.
I talk, every day.
I speak in front of people.
(18:24):
I get to be that motivationalspeaker that I never thought I
was going to be able to be.
And people you ever get tiredof talking.
No, I could talk in front ofpeople for days, but it's not
just talking in front of people,it's the connecting with the
people and the reflection anddoing exercises like the values
and facilitating conversationthat I just I love seeing people
(18:45):
have that shift in their mind,that paradigm shift of this is
how I always thought of this,and now I I appreciate that A
big part of it is you're doingthis and I appreciate you
sharing the story and how youhave a passion for helping
people.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
you know, self-awareness um is you know,
we almost talk about being tooself-aware sometimes as a bad
thing, and maybe it can be, butbut some people are so
completely self unaware thatit's hard for them to improve.
I mean so when you get intoyour situation where you're
trying to help person and youtalk about them clicking the
light on, how do you, how do youdeal with somebody that you
(19:20):
consider to be really lacking inself-awareness?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Honestly, I think we allexperience people that are
lacking that self-awarenessreally every day as we just move
through the world.
One of the things that I work onevery day in my job and in my
life is asking better questions.
So I think the person who islacking self-awareness or who
(19:47):
might not be where I might hopethey could be, or where I
recognize the potential in them,I think sometimes it's about
being curious enough to unlockthat potential for them with the
right questions, asking aquestion that might get them to
think differently.
And also, for me, it's aboutcreating the space where we can
(20:09):
have that conversation.
So if I've got a room of 50people and we're talking about
clarifying your values and I cantell that you're not fully
engaged in this, it's not goingto be all right.
Well, I'm not going to worryabout this one out of the 50.
It's going to be a follow-upconversation to say hey, rob,
let's talk about this.
Do you have time for coffee orlunch?
I want to sit down with you andfigure out, help me understand
(20:31):
where you're at and tell me more.
And for me, that's also mypersonal value, right?
one of my values is curiosity,and then with that, it's also
kindness and I think, if wetreat people and ask the right
questions in a way that makesthem feel valued and seen, which
sometimes it's all people want.
They just want to be heardabsolutely, and so if you give,
them that opportunity to tellyou.
(20:52):
Like you know, not everyonegets to come and sit on a
podcast and talk about theirlife story, but they still want
to be heard and just sometimesit's just the right question.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
That's great, great stuff.
And I'll tell you, I think it'sinteresting.
A lot of times when I'm talkingto people, I do a lot of sports
analogies, and the reason iseverybody doesn't love sports,
but they make so much sense.
Everything's so applicable.
I think about a person who'strying to become a better golfer
.
And what do you do if you get agolf trainer?
If you really want to get greatat golf and we can draw the
(21:23):
parallel do you want to getgreat at your job?
But if you want to get great atyour golf which is ironic some
people are willing to put inthat time, but they won't put in
time to be great at work.
What do you do?
You look at yourself your swingand they'll show you.
You're going through your swingand you know what you're doing.
A little bit, you're creating alittle bit of self-awareness.
You're seeing where the flawsare in your game.
(21:43):
You're, you're, you're.
Maybe start comparing whatyou're doing to what somebody
else might be doing.
It's a magical thing if you canjust get the people in the
right environment.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And it's also it's teaching people with that and
awareness as a piece of it ishaving that right mindset.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
My kid.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
My kid said to me, seven years old he said it to me
just a couple of weeks ago he'sgetting ready for bed.
He said, dad, do you know aboutthe power of yet?
I said what are you talkingabout?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
buddy.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
What is this?
And I'm thinking I have no ideawhere this kid is going and he
starts telling me about he saidwell, I learned in school that,
like, if you don't know how todo something, that you just need
to use the power of yet.
I said the power of yet.
He said well, if I can't hit ahome run in baseball, it just
means I can't hit it yet, andthat's a mindset- of I can't do
(22:30):
this thing.
Yet this person that I'm talkingto doesn't have the
self-awareness yet.
So for me it's about havingthat growth mindset, which is
the power of yet is how he saysit.
But it's giving people anopportunity to grow and
sometimes people have alwaysjust been told well, you can't
do this thing, you're not goodat math, you're not this thing,
(22:51):
and that's's very fixed mindset.
And you know.
The golf swing analogy is you'repracticing, you're becoming
aware, you're seeing it and tome, honestly, that's leadership
yeah, it is for sure the like.
Leadership is a practice, it'san art.
It is.
It's.
Like you know, they said yogais a practice.
It's constantly doing it andthinking about it and growing
(23:14):
and learning.
You say learning continuously,as part of leadership.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Leadership isn't an event.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
We do events at McLeod.
We do 300 people at a timetalking about what leadership
looks like.
That's not leadership,development Leadership
development is the work that weput in your mind for you to go
and think about and continuelearning.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Look, you said learningcontinuously is one, and the
other one is altruism, and Ibelieve great leadership has to
have altruism.
Now people could look back athistorical figures that they
consider to be leaders and say,well, that guy wasn't altruistic
.
And I think what the point ofthe altruism is is not so much
that you're God's gift toperfection In fact, most people
(23:54):
would say nobody's perfect it'smore about to me.
When I talk about altruism, Italk about I have to care more
about the environment around methan I do about myself.
I can't be completelyself-driven, because the person
who's self-driven?
All the time?
Everybody is just whatever tothem, they don't care.
So the altruism comes in withhey, how can I make people
(24:15):
better?
And sometimes kindness is apart of that, because, look, if
you give me advice, I just wantto know that you actually have
my best interest at heart.
It's like, hey, nick, should Iwear a bathing suit to work
today?
And you go no, it's a bad idea.
Yeah, exactly.
And you want to know thatyou're going to say you're not
going to go.
(24:35):
Yeah, that'll look good, right.
And I use that analogysometimes because I feel like
you do need that, that grouparound you Absolutely?
Yeah, nice, 100%.
Tell me something about McLeod.
Uh, mcleod, a huge organization.
How many employees are thereroughly?
I mean, is it 15,000?
I mean we're talking major size,so I want to spend a little bit
of time talking about thatright.
(24:56):
Number one when you have 15,000people, heck, it's hard enough
to have a good, strong companyculture where you're what you
say your values are, arepracticed in real life.
When you have 10 people.
How do you do it with 15,000people in?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
real life.
When you have 10 people, how doyou do it with 15,000 people?
That's a great question.
So it's again, it's continuous.
We're not perfect noorganization, no places but I
think we lean into our valuesright.
One of our values is integrity,so it's sharing when things go
right and when they go wrong,and being transparent when
(25:32):
things go right and when they gowrong, and being transparent.
I would also say that we'reconstantly adjusting and doing
new things and when you havethat many people, a lot of times
the development isn't on myteam, it's on the manager, the
leader the supervisor, and a lotof it is about trusting too and
being able to say you know what.
These are the resources we'regoing to give people and these
(25:54):
are the time and the energy andwhat we're going to pour into
people, but at the same time,you then have to trust that
they're going to go out thereand do the work.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And some of that is definitely an element of hiring.
If I hire wrong off the batthen I probably compromise the
system.
But you said the key wordcontinuous.
I feel like it feels like somany organizations the hire, the
motivational, come in for theday and then you never see
anybody again.
There's no continuous part ofit, it just becomes a fleeting
thought at a point.
(26:24):
So I'm going to speak to thatnext.
Next, mcleod.
On the other hand, mcleodHealth here you know, and
they're located, along for thoselistening, in other areas along
the coast of Myrtle Beach, butalso in Florence, south Carolina
, north Carolina locations.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Clarendon Dublin Sheraw.
We say Eastern North Carolinaand South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Did they make it to Dallas, pennsylvania, yet Not?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
made it to Dallas Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Not yet, but maybe one day.
But the thing is, mcleod hasactually taken the time as a
huge organization that couldeasily not spend the money doing
this, and they've said you knowwhat, we are going to invest in
having a person like you who'sfocusing on leadership and
training and developing people,and they're bringing in guest
speakers and doing these things.
(27:11):
What drives that kind of amethodology?
I mean, is that part of yourcompany values in itself, just
having that training, or what?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, One of our values is quality.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And it's.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You know, we say quality of science, quality of
service, quality of safety.
It's all these areas in termsof how we are driven as an
organization.
We've always been values driven, from the beginning, when
McLeod started back in 1906.
Some of it is the traditionthat we've had for so long.
But also, if we say quality,it's not just quality medical
(27:46):
care.
If we're the choice for medicalexcellence, we need to be the
choice for our employees and thechoice for our physicians.
And it's how do we create thatsame space where people show up
and they say I'm making.
And that's what we're doingright now in the middle of this
annual learning for all of ourpeople.
It's all about we're calling itthe McLeod choice and it's
(28:07):
about how can you show up everyday and make choices to put
yourself first, and when I sayput yourself first, I mean that
you take care of yourself sothat you can then take care of
the people that you'reresponsible for, and so it's a
part that's values-driven 100%.
We have amazing leaders thatjust truly drive where we're
(28:29):
going with it and support thework that we're doing, which
can't happen without that.
There's a lot of organizationsthat don't have organizational
learning or talent development,people that do the work that I
get to do and I think you seethe result of that, no question
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And the thing I think of when you're talking about
that is, first of all, I want togo back to what you said with
people.
Part of my belief is that in agreat organization, with people
who are purpose-driven andyou're really trying to care
about people with kindness, Ibelieve that we need to consider
the holy trifecta for the humanbeings who work for us.
(29:06):
One of them is work hard.
Yes, absolutely.
You can't come to work and nothave any goals to succeed.
You have to work hard.
That helps the whole engine.
It helps everybody around you.
But number two in your personallife are going to be the other
two parts of that, and one ofthem is take care of your family
.
Whoever your family is Look,maybe it's your dog at home and
it's the only one you havearound you.
(29:27):
But if you have kids, if youhave a wife, take care of them.
And number three is take careof yourself.
You know, at the end of the day, take that time to go to the
gym, read a book, do what you dothat brings you peace.
And if you're missing any ofthose and so many companies have
gotten into this work harder.
Culture, just work harder andI'm like, yeah, work really hard
.
That's a part of that trifecta,but, but, but it's at the
(29:47):
personal cost of your family, atthe personal cost of your
health.
Then what are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
man, absolutely, you know.
Yeah, it has to be balanced.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's the three legs of the stool, correct.
If you take one of them away,it's no longer a stool, it's
fallen over.
Yeah, and that's so importantthat we help people to be whole
people that's one of our othervalues is the person.
It's not the healthcare patient, it's the person.
It's who are you as a personyou know.
I look at my name tag.
The most important thing on itis my name, not the job.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
It's not anything else on it.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
It's who is this person as a whole person, their
overall well-being.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, I dig it.
I dig it.
Very cool stuff, man.
Well, we can talk about thisall day, for sure.
I think one of the bigtakeaways I have from you is
you've got to have leaders inthe organization, and my brand
of leadership anybody wholistens to the show knows this I
just believe your goal as ahiring manager should be to hire
the best leaders honestly.
And when I say the best leaders, I don't mean everybody can't
(30:44):
be the manager, everybody can'tdecide we're going to go right
or left, or and leadership to medoesn't mean you go right when
everybody else was told to goleft.
I think leadership is the traitsthat you show to make everybody
better around you.
And sometimes it might just bethat you did that thing that
helps somebody else grow.
And too often we, we pit peopleagainst each other when we're
trying to get to find out who'sgoing to be the next manager and
(31:07):
we say, well, it's between Nickand Rob, which one's going to
win, and we and now we'refighting it out it's like well,
no, it's all wrong.
Like, let's get the person whohelps each other.
Yeah, very cool man.
We could talk about this allday.
It's great talking aboutleadership, making people better
, but let's kind of leave offwith that idea.
You start off the show.
We were talking about leavingpeople better off than where you
.
You found them and I'd love toget your insight on if somebody
(31:30):
is a leader listening to theshow just what's a way that you
can go about doing just that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, that's such such an important thing for
people to to think about is howcan you leave others better than
you found them?
And the beauty is, anyone cando that.
So I would say the number onething that any leader can do is
really redefine what leadershiplooks like in your organization.
You need to make it a prioritythat everyone in your
organization understands thatyou can practice leadership
(31:59):
without the leader title.
So my kids can be amazingleaders.
They don't have a title of CEOof an organization, but they're
great at leaving people betterthan you found them.
Anyone can do that.
A volunteer in your organizationcan do it, the CEO can do it.
Your job title does not make adifference in terms of if you
(32:21):
can leave people better than youfound them, but that only
happens when you, as the leader,redefine what leadership looks
like.
So we need to teach people thatit's okay to do this, that you
don't have to wait for one day.
I've heard people consistentlysay I can't do that.
I'm just fill in the blank,like let's eliminate the word
just out of your organization.
(32:41):
There's nothing that anyone justdoes.
Everyone has value and purpose.
So the second thing I would say, after redefining what
leadership looks like and makingit everyone's business, is, I
would make sure that everysingle individual in your
organization knows their valueand their worth.
So you, as the leader, need tomake sure that you know about
your people.
You need to know what mattersto them.
(33:03):
You need to get to know themnot just them as an employee,
but take the time to learn aboutthem as a person.
And so the third thing I wouldsay with that is learn to ask
better questions.
If you're a leader, you have gotto invest in your skills of
coaching, interviewing,listening, recognition All of
(33:28):
those things are skills, it'snot.
Oh, some people are just greatat writing thank you notes.
No, like, that's a skill.
Let's invest in it.
That is.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
That starts with asking better questions so you
can see what's going on and thenrecognize the people for it,
because people just want to bevalued man you know, I think
with those three topics I cangive you a kind of a simple
story to tell where most quoteunquote leaders go wrong and I
would say if you're doing this,it doesn't mean you're not a
leader, but it just means thatyou're not showing great
(33:55):
leadership.
We all get busy and the thingwhere you walk through and you
go hey, good morning Nick, howare you?
And by the time you've prettymuch said how you're doing, I'm
walking off in the, in the, andwe go, sometimes even further.
I found this in leadershipSometimes.
Sometimes even further.
I found this in leadership.
Sometimes we go into people andwe go how's it going today?
And they go, it's going fine,and then we leave.
That's not a good question.
Back to your point Now.
(34:20):
A better question is well, isthe new system working okay?
Is it as efficient as you hadhoped it would be?
Now we're starting to ask somequestions, really starting to
learn what's going on, and it'samazing the answers you'll get
when you do actually ask thosequestions.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Very cool Well, nick, you talked about it.
You said redefine leadership.
Let people know their value andworth top to bottom.
They all have value and theyhave to understand that they are
important to your organization.
And ask better questions andyou can lead people better off
than where you found them.
Amen, very cool Well, nick man,very good having you on the
show.
So much great information.
How can people get ahold of youif they ever need to reach out?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, so if you need help with any of this work, like
we said, we're a largeorganization we do this work
with our organization and withothers, so just shoot me an
email.
It's nickdistefano atmcleodhealthorg.
Yeah Right, so it's just.
I'm sure you'll put it whereverthey can get that information.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
We're going to put it right up on there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Just just shoot me an email.
I'd be happy to just scheduletime and chat with whoever wants
to learn about how they canmake these things a priority in
their organization, because theworld needs kinder leaders who
are willing to do all of thesethings, and if I can help
someone do that, that's what I'mhere for that's a win, man.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, hey, thank you so much for being on the show
man, I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, we're going to have tohave you on again for sure,
because I feel like we're justscratching the surface for sure.
Well, listen, everybody who'slistening.
First of all, kudos to McLeodfor being such a great
organization.
Nick brought some great valuetoday and I hope, if you're
listening, the message is beingreceived.
There's no simple formula inthis life.
(35:52):
Anybody who's running a company.
There's no simple formula.
There's no answer.
That's going to be the oneanswer for the rest of your life
.
We have to be diligent in makingsure that we're running a good
company.
We have to be diligent inmaking sure that people are
getting treated properly, bediligent in making sure people
are providing customer serviceand, at the end of the day, it
all comes down to caring aboutpeople.
(36:14):
So I love that and with that, Ithink that's a good stopping
point for us.
Make sure to like and share uson Facebook and social media of
your choice.
We appreciate our viewers,thanks to our sponsors, carolina
Bays Real Estate andConstruction, and we will see
you all next time on the LeaderMentality Show.
We're Rob Clements.
Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clemens
.
We are on with a special guesttoday, but before we get into
that, as I like to do, there's atheme of the show, spoiler
alert.
We have a theme and it goesinto how do you fancy yourself
as a leader?
Do you see yourself as a greatleader?
Do you think you're not aleader?
What do you think a leader is?
We're going to talk all aboutthat today because there's an
(00:47):
idea that I'm going to speakwith my guests about of leaving
people better off than where youfound them, and that's his own
line.
So this isn't Rob Clemenstalking, but he said leaving
people better off than you foundthem, and that got me to
thinking we want to do that witheverything in life.
Right, if I've got a garden, Iwant to leave it off better than
when I found it, and so why notwith people?
(01:10):
And what would that look likeif we could get that world of
leadership created?
So, with that being said, Ihave a guest.
His name is Nick DiStefano andhe's the training specialist for
McLeod.
He focuses a lot on theleadership and development of
people, and McLeod is a hugeorganization, so when he speaks,
I'm ready to hear someinformation.
So, nick, welcome to the show,my friend, thanks for having me.
Rob man, well, it's great tohave you and I met you before
(01:33):
and I kind of found out we cantalk for a very long time we can
.
Today we have about 30 to 40minutes to do it, so we're going
to stay on topic.
All right, game face, you know.
But well, nick, you're withMcLeod, a huge company, amazing
company.
Of course I'm on the board ofdirectors for the McLeod
Foundation and I got to know ofsuch an altruistic organization
(01:55):
that's looking out for people.
And then so many great leadersin the organization and people
like yourself.
Tell me a little bit aboutyourself and what you've been up
to lately.
Man, and people like yourself,tell me a little bit about
yourself and what you've been upto lately, man.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, man, we've been up to a whole bunch of amazing
things.
We could do a whole episode onwhat's happening at McLeod in
terms of growth, but I'll talkabout it from my lens, what I'm
up to.
So I get to work every day with, like you said, developing
people.
So we are day in and day out,either in person or virtually
via the screen, doing some typeof development of our people,
(02:31):
and a lot of times people thinkabout the healthcare aspect of
it and developing our ability totreat people and the quality of
care, and that is a massivepart of what we do as a system.
My area is all about how do weteach people the skills
necessary to take care of peoplenot just care for our people,
but care about them.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And when you're saying our people, you're saying
in the sense of your employees,our employees.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, yeah.
So close to 15000 totalemployees.
And we are doing we're in themiddle of right now we're in a
whole process of doing an annuallearning event.
We are doing it for everysingle employee, where we're
reflecting on our values as anorganization and then also
giving people opportunities toclarify their own values and
(03:17):
personal values.
One of the things I said topeople recently is have you ever
heard someone tell a joke andthe response is that's hilarious
.
Obviously, what you said andhow you said it don't go
together, and sometimes peoplework in organizations where you
have these values for yourself.
This is what's important to youas an individual and maybe it
(03:40):
doesn't go together with theorganization.
So we want people to be driven,we want people to be motivated.
When they show up to work, Ijokingly ask raise your hand if
you want to come to work andenjoy your job every day,
everyone raises their hand tothat.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
No, I want it to be terrible, I want it to be awful.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But if you don't want to come to work and enjoy your
job.
Well, I don't know that I canhelp you, and that requires you
to know your values and what'simportant to you, and so we're
doing a lot of work around thatright now, on top of just
specific leadership developmentand people who have those leader
titles.
Yeah, so yeah, we've got a lotgoing on.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Man, I think that's important.
You know, one thing that we'retalking about is sometimes
customers are so criticallyimportant, you know we have to
make sure our customers arehappy are so critically
important.
You know we have to make sureour customers are happy.
But sometimes theseorganizations and you and I
talked about this off the airhere but sometimes the
organizations are so employee,are so customer centric that
they're not taking that time tothink how are our employees
(04:36):
doing, how are they enjoyingthemselves?
Because, as we know, asatisfied employee will do a
better job than an unsatisfiedone, right?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Absolutely yeah.
Yeah, it's so important thatyou know you would never put it
on a billboard for yourorganizations.
But if you were to say, likecustomers, come second, the
reality is that they have tocome second and that's because
you have to take care of yourpeople first.
You've got to develop them andhelp them to grow.
And if you don't do that forall of your people, if you think
(05:04):
it's just for you only need toworry about your quote unquote
leaders or your managers or yoursupervisors and we do work
specific to that.
But if you don't providedevelopment of the rest of the
people, there's research showsand the generations that we look
at now show that people aren'tgonna stay and continue to work
at the same place.
They'll go find somewhere elseto work and it's it's, it's
(05:28):
extremely important that we takethe time to develop.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It's like all employers really need to stay
ahead of this, especially as weget a more and more competitive
workforce.
There's an interesting thingthat you mentioned there that I
think is is something you weneed to have a healthy balance
on there, right you?
You want your employees to cometo work and enjoy themselves,
enjoy and feel proud of going towork, but you also don't want
them coming in and just coastingeither.
(05:51):
Hey, I enjoy my job because Ican watch a movie all day.
So there's that balance ofmotivation along with job
satisfaction.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
How do you balance that.
So I would say the same thingto you that we say at every
single new employee orientationwe talk about this all the time.
If we say something is a valueand we put it on the walls but
there isn't behavior that youfeel in the halls, then it's not
a value.
Oh yeah, at our values, and welook at what are the behaviors
(06:23):
that are expected, that we canagree on, that are part of that.
Make that value come to life,make it real.
And so we have a set at theorganization of behavioral
standards that we say this ishow we treat each other, this is
how we treat our patients, thisis how we and one of them, we
you know it's funny, we have awhole, we have 10 of them and we
(06:45):
put a slide up during thisannual development that we're
doing that talks about here'sthe 10 of them, and really it
only has nine on there.
And that's because the 10th onethat kind of animates in at the
end of this section is personalownership and it's having that
ownership for your behavior, forthe way you show up, for the
attitude you have, for the wayyou show up, for the attitude
you have, for the way you treatyour patients, your friends,
(07:08):
your coworkers, I mean, andthat's really that's at work.
But I mean, if we all just tookmore personal ownership of how
all the things we did impactedthe others around us.
Again, getting back to thatidea of leadership is leaving
others better than you foundthem.
Maybe if we took personalownership for that world might
be a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
That's interesting.
I like it.
There's a couple of things Iwant to talk about, then, and
I'm going to tie togetherculture and I have some
questions for you.
I want to tie together culturealong with.
You mentioned something asecond ago and I believe it's
one of the reasons Trader Joe'sdoes such a good job with
customer service.
Trader Joe's literally in there.
(07:46):
If you go to their website,they say this is what we want a
customer to feel like when theycome to our store.
And you know, maybe some peoplethink, oh, that's not necessary
.
I think it's extremelynecessary.
I think it's very necessary tosay, hey, when we're looking at
values.
What are those values?
Because that's your culture,and if you hire people who come
in and they go, well, to mesaying hello with a smile every
(08:08):
day isn't really important in mylife.
Well, culturally they don't fitin, but also you guys as a
culture at a company may notcare about that, so you do need
to tell people this is what itlooks like, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, a culture is only as strong as the actions
and the behaviors are thatsupport?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Culture comes from things being passed down, from
people knowing what theexpectations are, what the norms
are, what it should look like.
When I first moved to the Southand I'm originally not from
here when I moved here, peoplesaid oh, people are going to be
so friendly and wonderful.
I remember the first time Iwent for a run in my
neighborhood and people are likewaving at me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'm thinking who the heck is this guy?
I don't know them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And now I'm doing the same thing because it's become
that expectation, sure, but eventhat Southern hospitality, you
can go from business to businessin the area and you might not
experience that everywhere yougo, and that's not because those
people aren't a part of theSouth, so to speak.
But what's the culture of thatorganization?
That's the behaviors that I'mexperiencing when I walk in
there and the people are likewelcome, hello, how are you?
(09:12):
Or they don't even introducethemselves.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
But there's an interesting thing.
So you're saying what we needto talk about, right?
You remember in the Seinfeldthere was the I think they call
him the soup, I don't even knowwhere I want to go into that,
but he was the guy and his wholeculture within the place was
that he would be mean to you andit became sort of like.
So if you went in there and hispersonal culture, however we
agree with or disagree with, itwas no, we, we, we treat people
(09:37):
like, like this, and you come in, mr Smiley, smiley, you
actually don't fit in with hisculture and you actually don't
fit in with his culture, and onecould say he hired the wrong
person in the first place, butyou also didn't understand what
was expected of you.
So we do have to talk about it.
Okay, awesome, well, andobviously we've both seen the
episode.
Hopefully people can relateCulture.
So I believe that one of ourfirst and most important things
(10:07):
in creating our culture isgetting people who represent the
brand of leadership properly.
Sometimes it's just hiring aperson that has the internal
culture and I'll tell you whyI'm saying this, and I think you
and I kind of agree on this.
If I bring in somebody whosepersonal culture doesn't match
up with my company culture.
Why would I do that?
Isn't that due to self?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Absolutely.
People do that because theyfeel like they need to have
someone in the seat, and I wouldrather take more time and get
the person that has the valuesand the culture that align with
ours than to just fill the bodyExactly.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah Well, I feel like too often both we as
employees and we as employers,you know, whichever hat you know
, you go in and you're like, hey, I like the fact that I can
make good money here, I can dothis or I can do this.
But did you ever ask thequestion of your culture
actually matched up with thecompany you're at?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And if not, you're probably going to find at some
point that bump is going to hitin the road, yeah, yeah, but I
think a lot of people don'toften reflect on it's very
natural for us to not thinkabout, even if it is something
that drives your life.
What is your personal culture?
Like I have, I have my valuescards here, so I've got like a
pile.
If I were to give someone thisstack of like six, 50 to 60
values and say you've got twominutes to sort through it and
(11:20):
put down anything that'simportant to you, like autonomy,
love, control, spiritual, Imean we could go through this
and like if I gave you twominutes to figure out what are
the like what's important to you, you'd probably give me can I
see one you want?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I'm kind of curious.
I'm kind of curious.
So you got these cards forthose who are listening on audio
and this card says values andon the back side it says
knowledge, facts and lessonslearned, understanding of
awareness and principles toorganize and explain.
Tell me, kind of, what are youtrying to elicit from this?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So what we're doing is I would give someone a stack
of these, of all these potentialvalues that you could have, and
I would ask you to think aboutwhat's important to you.
Put it into a stack.
So if autonomy is important tome, love is important to me.
Control might not be asimportant to me.
So you put them into the stacksof important or maybe not so
important to you and then lookat this pile of things and some
(12:10):
people when they do it and thisis what we're doing with people
right now Some people might havea stack of 40 of these, and I'm
thinking okay, well, if we have40, different values.
Do we really have values?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Right, right, right.
How do we value it all?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, yeah.
So then it's important to thinkabout all right, how do we take
it from 40 or 10 or whatever itis, and really look at it and
go okay, if I gave you of youand you had to pick your top
four or five, what would be thethings that you use to define
your life?
If someone said I just met Rob,and I would say this is how I
(12:42):
would describe him what arethree or four things that you
would want someone to say aboutyou?
I want someone to say that I'mkind.
I want someone to say that Nickis full of joy.
I want someone to say Nick issomeone that's courageous
courageous and chooses to dohard things.
So those are things that are mypersonal values and my culture
Love it.
So it's a really cool exerciseand it's a great way to get
(13:02):
people to think about, okay,what is this?
And then imagine if we bothhave joy as a value, but it
might look different based onwhat we do as our jobs or where
we have come from, and so it's areally great way to get people
committed to who they are andhow they show up to work as
their best self.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I'm going to say, if you're a hiring manager, even if
you're not a hiring manager,maybe you only have two people
at your company.
You're about to bring in thethird.
These people are so importantto your culture because if you
hire one that doesn't match yourculture, you're just setting
yourself back.
This is an important thing.
Whether you do something else adisc assessment, an Enneagram
test, whatever you do make sureyou're doing something and make
(13:42):
sure, hopefully, that the people, when they're doing these tests
, that they're being honest.
One problem I ran into and Idon't know how you handle this,
but sometimes people thinkthey're going to tell you what
you want to hear, you know.
So if one of these is like I'ma good teamwork guy, you know,
it's like, oh, I'm a teamwork,you know, and they're giving you
all the ones.
And the interesting part is ismaybe you're hiring for a
(14:03):
position where, not to say,teamwork's not important in any
position, but it's not thenumber one thing in a certain
position.
Right, If I have the top surgeonin the company, I mean, I guess
teamwork is again, I'm using abad example but you know, there
comes a point where I may havecertain roles sales maybe, where
I'm like, maybe teamwork isn'tquite as high as winning, you
(14:23):
know.
And so this becomes something.
And so I tell you, as peoplelooking for a job, you got to be
careful.
But what would you say as ahiring manager, how do you sift
through people who are fakingyou?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think that if you're as a hiring manager, it's
important that you and there'sa difference right your values
and then also your personality,right.
So something like DISC orEnneagram is going to tell you
more, or Myers-Briggs it's goingto tell you about the person's
personality, but theirpersonality is different than
their behavior, no doubt, and sopeople can.
I think people can kind of riga personality assessment and
(14:56):
pick what they want based onwhat they think, and there are
some organizations that do largeyou know personality
assessments.
To make the decision as to whoit is you're hiring, I think you
need to do an interview processthat allows you to truly get to
know the person and see what itis.
How do they act, how do theybehave, what do they say?
Not just the questions they'reanswering in an interview, but
(15:18):
do you take them to lunch andsee how they treat the people
that are the waiter or thewaitress?
Or do you see how they talk toyour administrative support
person?
What does that look like?
Because I can tell more about aperson from their behavior in
terms of what their values are,than if they were to say these
are my four values.
That's great.
I tell people all the time.
I'm glad you have these fourvalues.
(15:39):
But again, if you put it on thewalls but don't feel it in the
halls, what's the point Exactly?
Is this who?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
you want to be or who you are.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And that's a big deal .
Speaker 1 (15:49):
You know it's funny.
I used to do this thing whereyou know I I might be the
interviewer and you'd have theperson sit in the hallway
waiting to get interviewed.
I just walked through like Iwas a regular guy and I am a
regular guy, but you know I'mnot, like I'm the interviewer, I
might go in through and theydon't know, and hey, good
morning.
And you see how they react andsome people you know you'll get
an impression right off the batand then they come in and sit
down in and they tell you abouthow they love people.
(16:11):
So we've got to know something.
Man, I love talking thisleadership stuff with you and
people development and leavingpeople better than we started,
but, as I would say we couldtalk about this all day.
I'd like to know a little bitabout young Nick and how Nick
DiStefano got into his role.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Young Nick is a scary thought.
He was all over the place.
I told my parents when I was inhigh school I want to be a
motivational speaker and Iremember my parents going yeah,
nick, you can't go to school forthat.
That's not a thing Like that'sgreat, but you don't have like
some story.
You can't like you weren't bornwithout an arm, but there's
nothing.
You can't just go do Right,right, right, Okay, cool.
(16:55):
So I got to pick something to do.
So I said I'm going to go toschool for physical therapy and
I went to a small school inDallas, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh yeah, the famous Dallas Pennsylvania.
The pause is intentional.
I was like hmm yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I went to school for PT and I got actually really
involved in all sorts of thingsaround the school Everything
leadership development, withoutanyone calling it leadership
development.
Orient development, withoutanyone calling it leadership
development orientation studentorganization.
I did a million and onedifferent things and really
loved what I was learningoutside of the classroom more
than in the classroom.
(17:24):
Yeah, and was about to go intoreally into a.
It's funny I tell our physicaltherapists this now and they
laugh at me.
I said I was about to go into aclass where I was going to have
to dissect human bodies andthey're like oh yeah, human
anatomy, about to go into aclass where I was gonna have to
dissect human bodies and they'relike oh yeah, human anatomy
cadaver lab.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That was the best class ever.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I said that's when I said, nope, I'm out.
I changed my mind and I endedup majoring in interdisciplinary
studies.
I ended up getting my master'sdegree in org management and
really got into the world ofhelping people in organizations
to be the best that they could.
I did some of that in highereducation for a while.
I do some of it on the side inmy own business.
(18:03):
I do it full time at McLeod andat the end of the day it's how
can I inspire people, empowerpeople to be the best version of
themselves so that they canthen bring that to work and
bring that to their life?
And so it's funny, because nowI I tell people all the time.
I talk, every day.
I speak in front of people.
(18:24):
I get to be that motivationalspeaker that I never thought I
was going to be able to be.
And people you ever get tiredof talking.
No, I could talk in front ofpeople for days, but it's not
just talking in front of people,it's the connecting with the
people and the reflection anddoing exercises like the values
and facilitating conversationthat I just I love seeing people
(18:45):
have that shift in their mind,that paradigm shift of this is
how I always thought of this,and now I I appreciate that A
big part of it is you're doingthis and I appreciate you
sharing the story and how youhave a passion for helping
people.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
you know, self-awareness um is you know,
we almost talk about being tooself-aware sometimes as a bad
thing, and maybe it can be, butbut some people are so
completely self unaware thatit's hard for them to improve.
I mean so when you get intoyour situation where you're
trying to help person and youtalk about them clicking the
light on, how do you, how do youdeal with somebody that you
(19:20):
consider to be really lacking inself-awareness?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Honestly, I think we allexperience people that are
lacking that self-awarenessreally every day as we just move
through the world.
One of the things that I work onevery day in my job and in my
life is asking better questions.
So I think the person who islacking self-awareness or who
(19:47):
might not be where I might hopethey could be, or where I
recognize the potential in them,I think sometimes it's about
being curious enough to unlockthat potential for them with the
right questions, asking aquestion that might get them to
think differently.
And also, for me, it's aboutcreating the space where we can
(20:09):
have that conversation.
So if I've got a room of 50people and we're talking about
clarifying your values and I cantell that you're not fully
engaged in this, it's not goingto be all right.
Well, I'm not going to worryabout this one out of the 50.
It's going to be a follow-upconversation to say hey, rob,
let's talk about this.
Do you have time for coffee orlunch?
I want to sit down with you andfigure out, help me understand
(20:31):
where you're at and tell me more.
And for me, that's also mypersonal value, right?
one of my values is curiosity,and then with that, it's also
kindness and I think, if wetreat people and ask the right
questions in a way that makesthem feel valued and seen, which
sometimes it's all people want.
They just want to be heardabsolutely, and so if you give,
them that opportunity to tellyou.
(20:52):
Like you know, not everyonegets to come and sit on a
podcast and talk about theirlife story, but they still want
to be heard and just sometimesit's just the right question.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
That's great, great stuff.
And I'll tell you, I think it'sinteresting.
A lot of times when I'm talkingto people, I do a lot of sports
analogies, and the reason iseverybody doesn't love sports,
but they make so much sense.
Everything's so applicable.
I think about a person who'strying to become a better golfer
.
And what do you do if you get agolf trainer?
If you really want to get greatat golf and we can draw the
(21:23):
parallel do you want to getgreat at your job?
But if you want to get great atyour golf which is ironic some
people are willing to put inthat time, but they won't put in
time to be great at work.
What do you do?
You look at yourself your swingand they'll show you.
You're going through your swingand you know what you're doing.
A little bit, you're creating alittle bit of self-awareness.
You're seeing where the flawsare in your game.
(21:43):
You're, you're, you're.
Maybe start comparing whatyou're doing to what somebody
else might be doing.
It's a magical thing if you canjust get the people in the
right environment.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And it's also it's teaching people with that and
awareness as a piece of it ishaving that right mindset.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
My kid.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
My kid said to me, seven years old he said it to me
just a couple of weeks ago he'sgetting ready for bed.
He said, dad, do you know aboutthe power of yet?
I said what are you talkingabout?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
buddy.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
What is this?
And I'm thinking I have no ideawhere this kid is going and he
starts telling me about he saidwell, I learned in school that,
like, if you don't know how todo something, that you just need
to use the power of yet.
I said the power of yet.
He said well, if I can't hit ahome run in baseball, it just
means I can't hit it yet, andthat's a mindset- of I can't do
(22:30):
this thing.
Yet this person that I'm talkingto doesn't have the
self-awareness yet.
So for me it's about havingthat growth mindset, which is
the power of yet is how he saysit.
But it's giving people anopportunity to grow and
sometimes people have alwaysjust been told well, you can't
do this thing, you're not goodat math, you're not this thing,
(22:51):
and that's's very fixed mindset.
And you know.
The golf swing analogy is you'repracticing, you're becoming
aware, you're seeing it and tome, honestly, that's leadership
yeah, it is for sure the like.
Leadership is a practice, it'san art.
It is.
It's.
Like you know, they said yogais a practice.
It's constantly doing it andthinking about it and growing
(23:14):
and learning.
You say learning continuously,as part of leadership.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Leadership isn't an event.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
We do events at McLeod.
We do 300 people at a timetalking about what leadership
looks like.
That's not leadership,development Leadership
development is the work that weput in your mind for you to go
and think about and continuelearning.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Look, you said learningcontinuously is one, and the
other one is altruism, and Ibelieve great leadership has to
have altruism.
Now people could look back athistorical figures that they
consider to be leaders and say,well, that guy wasn't altruistic
.
And I think what the point ofthe altruism is is not so much
that you're God's gift toperfection In fact, most people
(23:54):
would say nobody's perfect it'smore about to me.
When I talk about altruism, Italk about I have to care more
about the environment around methan I do about myself.
I can't be completelyself-driven, because the person
who's self-driven?
All the time?
Everybody is just whatever tothem, they don't care.
So the altruism comes in withhey, how can I make people
(24:15):
better?
And sometimes kindness is apart of that, because, look, if
you give me advice, I just wantto know that you actually have
my best interest at heart.
It's like, hey, nick, should Iwear a bathing suit to work
today?
And you go no, it's a bad idea.
Yeah, exactly.
And you want to know thatyou're going to say you're not
going to go.
(24:35):
Yeah, that'll look good, right.
And I use that analogysometimes because I feel like
you do need that, that grouparound you Absolutely?
Yeah, nice, 100%.
Tell me something about McLeod.
Uh, mcleod, a huge organization.
How many employees are thereroughly?
I mean, is it 15,000?
I mean we're talking major size,so I want to spend a little bit
of time talking about thatright.
(24:56):
Number one when you have 15,000people, heck, it's hard enough
to have a good, strong companyculture where you're what you
say your values are, arepracticed in real life.
When you have 10 people.
How do you do it with 15,000people in?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
real life.
When you have 10 people, how doyou do it with 15,000 people?
That's a great question.
So it's again, it's continuous.
We're not perfect noorganization, no places but I
think we lean into our valuesright.
One of our values is integrity,so it's sharing when things go
right and when they go wrong,and being transparent when
(25:32):
things go right and when they gowrong, and being transparent.
I would also say that we'reconstantly adjusting and doing
new things and when you havethat many people, a lot of times
the development isn't on myteam, it's on the manager, the
leader the supervisor, and a lotof it is about trusting too and
being able to say you know what.
These are the resources we'regoing to give people and these
(25:54):
are the time and the energy andwhat we're going to pour into
people, but at the same time,you then have to trust that
they're going to go out thereand do the work.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And some of that is definitely an element of hiring.
If I hire wrong off the batthen I probably compromise the
system.
But you said the key wordcontinuous.
I feel like it feels like somany organizations the hire, the
motivational, come in for theday and then you never see
anybody again.
There's no continuous part ofit, it just becomes a fleeting
thought at a point.
(26:24):
So I'm going to speak to thatnext.
Next, mcleod.
On the other hand, mcleodHealth here you know, and
they're located, along for thoselistening, in other areas along
the coast of Myrtle Beach, butalso in Florence, south Carolina
, north Carolina locations.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Clarendon Dublin Sheraw.
We say Eastern North Carolinaand South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Did they make it to Dallas, pennsylvania, yet Not?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
made it to Dallas Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Not yet, but maybe one day.
But the thing is, mcleod hasactually taken the time as a
huge organization that couldeasily not spend the money doing
this, and they've said you knowwhat, we are going to invest in
having a person like you who'sfocusing on leadership and
training and developing people,and they're bringing in guest
speakers and doing these things.
(27:11):
What drives that kind of amethodology?
I mean, is that part of yourcompany values in itself, just
having that training, or what?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, One of our values is quality.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And it's.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
You know, we say quality of science, quality of
service, quality of safety.
It's all these areas in termsof how we are driven as an
organization.
We've always been values driven, from the beginning, when
McLeod started back in 1906.
Some of it is the traditionthat we've had for so long.
But also, if we say quality,it's not just quality medical
(27:46):
care.
If we're the choice for medicalexcellence, we need to be the
choice for our employees and thechoice for our physicians.
And it's how do we create thatsame space where people show up
and they say I'm making.
And that's what we're doingright now in the middle of this
annual learning for all of ourpeople.
It's all about we're calling itthe McLeod choice and it's
(28:07):
about how can you show up everyday and make choices to put
yourself first, and when I sayput yourself first, I mean that
you take care of yourself sothat you can then take care of
the people that you'reresponsible for, and so it's a
part that's values-driven 100%.
We have amazing leaders thatjust truly drive where we're
(28:29):
going with it and support thework that we're doing, which
can't happen without that.
There's a lot of organizationsthat don't have organizational
learning or talent development,people that do the work that I
get to do and I think you seethe result of that, no question
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And the thing I think of when you're talking about
that is, first of all, I want togo back to what you said with
people.
Part of my belief is that in agreat organization, with people
who are purpose-driven andyou're really trying to care
about people with kindness, Ibelieve that we need to consider
the holy trifecta for the humanbeings who work for us.
(29:06):
One of them is work hard.
Yes, absolutely.
You can't come to work and nothave any goals to succeed.
You have to work hard.
That helps the whole engine.
It helps everybody around you.
But number two in your personallife are going to be the other
two parts of that, and one ofthem is take care of your family
.
Whoever your family is Look,maybe it's your dog at home and
it's the only one you havearound you.
(29:27):
But if you have kids, if youhave a wife, take care of them.
And number three is take careof yourself.
You know, at the end of the day, take that time to go to the
gym, read a book, do what you dothat brings you peace.
And if you're missing any ofthose and so many companies have
gotten into this work harder.
Culture, just work harder andI'm like, yeah, work really hard
.
That's a part of that trifecta,but, but, but it's at the
(29:47):
personal cost of your family, atthe personal cost of your
health.
Then what are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
man, absolutely, you know.
Yeah, it has to be balanced.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It's the three legs of the stool, correct.
If you take one of them away,it's no longer a stool, it's
fallen over.
Yeah, and that's so importantthat we help people to be whole
people that's one of our othervalues is the person.
It's not the healthcare patient, it's the person.
It's who are you as a personyou know.
I look at my name tag.
The most important thing on itis my name, not the job.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
It's not anything else on it.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
It's who is this person as a whole person, their
overall well-being.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, I dig it.
I dig it.
Very cool stuff, man.
Well, we can talk about thisall day, for sure.
I think one of the bigtakeaways I have from you is
you've got to have leaders inthe organization, and my brand
of leadership anybody wholistens to the show knows this I
just believe your goal as ahiring manager should be to hire
the best leaders honestly.
And when I say the best leaders, I don't mean everybody can't
(30:44):
be the manager, everybody can'tdecide we're going to go right
or left, or and leadership to medoesn't mean you go right when
everybody else was told to goleft.
I think leadership is the traitsthat you show to make everybody
better around you.
And sometimes it might just bethat you did that thing that
helps somebody else grow.
And too often we, we pit peopleagainst each other when we're
trying to get to find out who'sgoing to be the next manager and
(31:07):
we say, well, it's between Nickand Rob, which one's going to
win, and we and now we'refighting it out it's like well,
no, it's all wrong.
Like, let's get the person whohelps each other.
Yeah, very cool man.
We could talk about this allday.
It's great talking aboutleadership, making people better
, but let's kind of leave offwith that idea.
You start off the show.
We were talking about leavingpeople better off than where you
.
You found them and I'd love toget your insight on if somebody
(31:30):
is a leader listening to theshow just what's a way that you
can go about doing just that.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, that's such such an important thing for
people to to think about is howcan you leave others better than
you found them?
And the beauty is, anyone cando that.
So I would say the number onething that any leader can do is
really redefine what leadershiplooks like in your organization.
You need to make it a prioritythat everyone in your
organization understands thatyou can practice leadership
(31:59):
without the leader title.
So my kids can be amazingleaders.
They don't have a title of CEOof an organization, but they're
great at leaving people betterthan you found them.
Anyone can do that.
A volunteer in your organizationcan do it, the CEO can do it.
Your job title does not make adifference in terms of if you
(32:21):
can leave people better than youfound them, but that only
happens when you, as the leader,redefine what leadership looks
like.
So we need to teach people thatit's okay to do this, that you
don't have to wait for one day.
I've heard people consistentlysay I can't do that.
I'm just fill in the blank,like let's eliminate the word
just out of your organization.
(32:41):
There's nothing that anyone justdoes.
Everyone has value and purpose.
So the second thing I would say, after redefining what
leadership looks like and makingit everyone's business, is, I
would make sure that everysingle individual in your
organization knows their valueand their worth.
So you, as the leader, need tomake sure that you know about
your people.
You need to know what mattersto them.
(33:03):
You need to get to know themnot just them as an employee,
but take the time to learn aboutthem as a person.
And so the third thing I wouldsay with that is learn to ask
better questions.
If you're a leader, you have gotto invest in your skills of
coaching, interviewing,listening, recognition All of
(33:28):
those things are skills, it'snot.
Oh, some people are just greatat writing thank you notes.
No, like, that's a skill.
Let's invest in it.
That is.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
That starts with asking better questions so you
can see what's going on and thenrecognize the people for it,
because people just want to bevalued man you know, I think
with those three topics I cangive you a kind of a simple
story to tell where most quoteunquote leaders go wrong and I
would say if you're doing this,it doesn't mean you're not a
leader, but it just means thatyou're not showing great
(33:55):
leadership.
We all get busy and the thingwhere you walk through and you
go hey, good morning Nick, howare you?
And by the time you've prettymuch said how you're doing, I'm
walking off in the, in the, andwe go, sometimes even further.
I found this in leadershipSometimes.
Sometimes even further.
I found this in leadership.
Sometimes we go into people andwe go how's it going today?
And they go, it's going fine,and then we leave.
That's not a good question.
Back to your point Now.
(34:20):
A better question is well, isthe new system working okay?
Is it as efficient as you hadhoped it would be?
Now we're starting to ask somequestions, really starting to
learn what's going on, and it'samazing the answers you'll get
when you do actually ask thosequestions.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Very cool Well, nick, you talked about it.
You said redefine leadership.
Let people know their value andworth top to bottom.
They all have value and theyhave to understand that they are
important to your organization.
And ask better questions andyou can lead people better off
than where you found them.
Amen, very cool Well, nick man,very good having you on the
show.
So much great information.
How can people get ahold of youif they ever need to reach out?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, so if you need help with any of this work, like
we said, we're a largeorganization we do this work
with our organization and withothers, so just shoot me an
email.
It's nickdistefano atmcleodhealthorg.
Yeah Right, so it's just.
I'm sure you'll put it whereverthey can get that information.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
We're going to put it right up on there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Just just shoot me an email.
I'd be happy to just scheduletime and chat with whoever wants
to learn about how they canmake these things a priority in
their organization, because theworld needs kinder leaders who
are willing to do all of thesethings, and if I can help
someone do that, that's what I'mhere for that's a win, man.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, hey, thank you so much for being on the show
man, I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, we're going to have tohave you on again for sure,
because I feel like we're justscratching the surface for sure.
Well, listen, everybody who'slistening.
First of all, kudos to McLeodfor being such a great
organization.
Nick brought some great valuetoday and I hope, if you're
listening, the message is beingreceived.
There's no simple formula inthis life.
(35:52):
Anybody who's running a company.
There's no simple formula.
There's no answer.
That's going to be the oneanswer for the rest of your life
.
We have to be diligent in makingsure that we're running a good
company.
We have to be diligent inmaking sure that people are
getting treated properly, bediligent in making sure people
are providing customer serviceand, at the end of the day, it
all comes down to caring aboutpeople.
(36:14):
So I love that and with that, Ithink that's a good stopping
point for us.
Make sure to like and share uson Facebook and social media of
your choice.
We appreciate our viewers,thanks to our sponsors, carolina
Bays Real Estate andConstruction, and we will see
you all next time on the LeaderMentality Show.
We're Rob Clements.
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