The SECRET to Doubling Revenue in a Nonprofit

[0:00]  a fresh set eyes um Can can really lend value um the key is being objective um the key is being inquisitive and and more than anything try to understand why in those situations if you see something that that from your Vantage Point doesn't make sense try try to be before saying well quit doing that ask what are you doing with it and why are you doing and and make sure that you're not going to rock the boat in such a way that you're going to hurt the organization by by making a flip decision U because it's something that you see that doesn't make sense that there like anything there's always multiple sides try to try to figure that out before you act but um when you do then then go ahead and you know use common sense the other thing that I find is that um you create a pace

[0:49]  for the for the for the organization and um I'm a huge believer in energy and the energy that the leader provides people will feed off of that and if you go slow don't assume every don't assume that your team's going to go faster than you they're going to go at the pace that you set so I I very purposely I very purposfully um kind of have that mindset that I want to set the pace and have the energy to do that all right guys welcome back to the heart and hustle podcast now today's is an

[1:36]  incredible episode because we're sitting across from an amazing leader he is the epitome of heart and hustle now he spent 30 years in the manufacturing industry and found himself with a golden opportunity to take advantage of being at the right place at the right time to become the president and CEO of little friends INC now little friends Inc is an organization focused on empowering those with autism and other developmental disabilities and their families to live learn work and Thrive I've got Mr Mike Briggs across this digital table with me man welcome to the show Keenan thank you so much it's uh it's a pleasure to be here I'm looking forward to this uh opportunity to have an interchange should be fun this is going to be a blast I'd like to ask the question to kind of get started a level set now work is out of bounds how would Mike Briggs be described by the people closest to

[2:25]  him wow um you know it work in in a lot of ways you know in some in a lot of ways it kind of defines what you do especially when you've done it as long as I have um how would they describe me I think that they would say that um I'm a hardworking person I think that they would say that I'm really passionate about what I do um uh they would probably say that I'm pretty tenacious in terms of my approach to uh trying to get something done and um there would probably be a few that would say that I really don't like to lose that that's probably something that started when I was a kid and probably never went away um those are I would hope that there would some that would

[3:12]  say that um you know big picture you'd like to be recognized as Fair um you know you learn after running organizations for as long as I have that not everybody's going to love what you do but um they appreciate if you're honest and you explain why and um and that you're fair and explain those those kinds of things so I would hope that um that would be uh also that maybe somebody might sneak that in during the conversation if a bunch of people if a bunch of people answered the question you know one of the things that I love about you is you talked about how and this is you know you have a competitive nature and I'm saying this with all due respect but you really failed one time at an early retirement and it kind of brought us to where we are here today I want to give the audience a little bit of flavor about that Journey that you on

[4:00]  that kind of LED you to where you're at here so um I I'll tell a little bit background so I um I ran manufacturing companies for 30 years and the last manufacturing company that I ran um was uh located down in Central Texas it a great company and um I I really enjoyed the experience but it was just outside of uh just outside of Austin Texas and um my wife and I had made the decision because we had seven grandchildren and and um they were all up in the Illinois area that um it would be really hard for her to to take that out of her life and follow me down and so having traveled most of my life I assumed that I would just go ahead and um and just come back and forth you know you hear about other people doing it and um I thought well

[4:49]  you know I spent enough time on the road it's no big deal and I'll just work and then when time come home I'll come home on the weekends um what ended up happening was um that became harder than what I thought and um and in particular um what what I learned and grew to Value was were the connections that were outside of work and in particular um my wife my children my grandchildren my friends those were all things that um that really mattered to me and when you're alone um and all you're doing is working it's one thing that you can get a lot done but at the same time it's it's it's not a blast and so what ended up happening was I I retire Ed early um I was 58 at the time and I just thought well the kids are just going to have less in their inheritance fun because

[5:36]  I'm just going to go ahead and retire which I did and um when you're used to doing a whole lot of things and being in the middle of 400 to 500 emails and all these things and you're solving all these problems and then you go Cold Turkey um it's an interesting it's an interesting dilemma and um I found myself in the summer I was good because uh we we talked about common like for playing golf I could play golf in the summer and do all those things but in the winter it was rough and I uh I found myself kind of pacing back and forth and after I would go work out in the morning the afternoons were brutal and um I I thought what am I gonna do and uh I got to figure this out because you know I felt um if if it was on ESPN I could certainly talk about statistics and

[6:25]  things like that or if it was in the Wall Street Journal I'd read every article that was there but Keenan it wasn't much of a life and um all of a sudden uh I was on the board of directors and um it wasn't planned but there was a need for a leadership change and one of the individuals on the board said you know you're not doing anything why don't you do this and um and and originally when I was when I was asked that question I said that I would but I would do it only on a temporary basis and um I didn't really understand the magnitude of what I was being asked to do but I thought well this will just give me something to do that's really what originally what I thought and I would you know I would be doing some good and you know I would help keep the place a float that kind of thing what ended up happening was um I began to immerse myself and I realized how much

[7:14]  was needed I realized that the skills that I could bring to the dance I could apply everything that I'd learned in running for-profit businesses in a in a nonprofit social service organization and that there was really a need for this and so all of a sudden I found a niche where I knew what I could help with and and it became also somewhat painfully apparent is that we were in more trouble than we knew and so it became a challenge to do a turnaround and so the combination of all those things became something where I said I'm not going to do this on a temporary basis I'm going to do this fulltime and then it it began to feed um my own energies but also the the opportunity to begin to help other people and know that your work was um um something that really made an impact on the people that

[8:03]  you serve and the families and and in some ways parental as you look to protect your employees and when all that was said and done um keen and I've been um I I've been blessed to have the opportunity now to say that I'm in the middle of my eighth year with a an original plan to retire in two years and I've already extended that now to where I'm going to go to at least four and a half more so I feel really really lucky you know this is an interesting think that a lot of people who are listening and watching the podcast can relate to U my father tried to also retire at the age of like 46 and he found himself stir crazy because you can only play golf so many times you can only watch you know these movies and these Series so many times and there's a really cool quote

[8:50]  that I came across there Dan and I want your perspective on this it said the scariest experience is obtaining the life that you thought would make you happy but not not feeling what like you hoped it would how many times are we willing to make that mistake Mike wow um I think the thing that's really interesting about that quote and I'd not heard it is um when you when you feel that way and then you relive it and then you relive it again and when you're used to doing problem solving you ask yourself what did I do and um how am I going to how am I going to fix this um even when I got into going back to work I didn't I didn't know that that was going to fix it but what I did know

[9:39]  is that I I loved the process I loved the interaction I fed off of that I fed off the challenges that that represented and and for me personally all of a sudden I I found myself in in a bizarre way feeling needed and I think that's one of the the biggest things that retirees struggle with is they go from being in a position where they're where they're needed completely to not need it at all and and that's such a void that um all of us who who go through that have to figure out what's important and what's not a huge part of our ability to keep showing up and pouring passion into the things that we do is being a part of something bigger than ourselves and often I feel

[10:27]  like that's a really healthy piece of our ident identity especially when we're used to applying oursel to challenges and like you said falling in love with the journey which I think is so beautiful there was something that you mentioned in part of this earlier conversation which was you saw an opportunity for there to be a niche where a leader can lead the organization and Incredibly talented people in the social services space can do what they do best why do you think that's such an opportunity in this space today so you know there's a there's a there's an oldtime oldtime um management theory about um you invert the organization and you work for everyone else and um I've always kind of bought into that mindset um and and the way I look at it is first okay have I

[11:16]  eliminated all of the obstacles so that our people have the greatest opportunity to be successful at their at their job I just just frame that and so if you begin to look at whatever the role is and whatever the job is have we made the job easier have we made people more effective have we taken away the things that cause them um discomfort and frustration and all those things and what can we do from a process standpoint to help things and so you apply those things that you might in a in a for-profit segment or or a manufacturing environment um same principles same things if you if you do that what's really what's really interesting is it applies in Social Service too and and so what I would say is um and and how

[12:08]  and how it can work is that if you start to look at the things that that um create um lack of productivity or waste or you know stuff that nonv value added activities and you help people get rid of those things and you make their job easier so that they have more time to do the things that they're really most passionate about you make the organization better and and to me those same things apply from a practice standpoint those same things apply whether it's social service or for-profit there's a really interesting concept I was having a conversation with my mentor and she said Keenan you need to rethink your job as a leader of your organization and often we think CEO but you need to think about yourself as a chief constraint officer consistently evaluate and monitor the

[12:57]  things that are stopping your team doing what they do best and eliminate those obstacles what do you think that about that Chief constraint officer idea you know I I you can call it whatever you want but I think the same thing that I just said about eliminating the obstacles that um cause people the inability to U be effective be efficient um be happy um all of those things especially if they are processes or programs that are within your control that you can do eliminate those things and and you'll be surprised um how much better employees will feel I I'll tell you an example just in one of my first couple weeks there I was at a I was at one of our um homes and I was getting a tour and they were showing me where they

[13:44]  captured all the information and they put all of this information that they were they were monitoring a child for their activities and they had to keep track of if they did anything that remotely looked like disregulated disregulated Behavior then they had to put a check mark on it and they had to do that every 15 minutes and they didn't always have the sheet of paper so they'd have to kind of do it from memory then they would take that and then they would throw it into a they throw it into a binder now they were doing it every 15 minutes and I I said to the young lady who was showing me this I said I said that's pretty cool I said so how do you analyze this she said oh we don't look at it I said well why you do it then she said well we were told to I said guess what I said you stop today I said unless anybody's going to look at it and there's there's value in what you're

[14:31]  doing we're going to stop and it was a huge hassle that they had and and I know for some of the old managers who um who embraced that idea they thought it was a good thing but they weren't doing anything with it they weren't analyzing it they weren't they weren't turning it into Data that drove Behavior after the you know the next day so why do it and so to me those are that's that's kind of the principle of you know eliminating n value added activities and how you can how you can make a a change that makes a difference in how somebody does their job there's an amazing benefit to being an outsider because you have fresh perspective people are often too close to it and one thing I would love to bring up is something that popped into my head there was an experiment where there were a whole bunch of scientists

[15:18]  and they put four monkeys in a cage and every single time they would put bananas in the cage they would allow for the monkeys to climb up and grab a banana the second time that they did it when a monkey went up they would douse all of the monkeys with cold water the third time they put bananas in the cage they douse the monkeys with cold water the fourth time they uh monkeys went up to go grab the bananas the other monkeys started stopping them from doing this activity grabbing the bananas and then they replaced one of the monkeys in the actual cage with the new monkey the new monkey went up to go grab the bananas and the other monkeys tore it down and stopped it from doing it the analogy behind this experiment was often we do things as you continue to replace out the team members and these Traditions get passed along and we have no idea why we do these things other than the excuse

[16:07]  this is what we do here but there's no attachment to the value ad or the actual reason why we do a certain Behavior it's really interesting to think about how we're conditioned to do things and an outsider has a different perspective that can make all the difference uh your your spot on with the story because um a first set eyes um can can really lend value um the key is being objective um the key is being inquisitive and and more than anything try to understand why in those situations if you see something that that from your Vantage Point doesn't make sense try try to before saying well quit doing that ask what are you doing with it and why are you doing and and make sure that you're not going to rock the boat in such a way that you're going

[16:54]  to hurt the organization by by making a flip decision U because it's something did you you see that doesn't make sense that there like anything there's always multiple sides try to try to figure that out before you act but um when you do then then go ahead and you know use common sense I think there's a real advantage to you coming from the manufacturing space and now working in the social services element so as we talk about a little bit in this space 1 in 36 children today are being diagnosed with autism and other disabilities meaning there is a huge demand in our community for services and responses from organizations like yours how are you kind of thinking about the challenge that organizations like yours are facing when it comes to meeting the demand in the community compared to other people

[17:41]  who have been in this space for quite some time so um there there's a couple things I think that that I would share with you as to to how we're approaching it um when I when I started doing this you know seven and a half years ago the the um the number of children that were being being diagnosed the the ratio was 1 and 89 and then it and it dropped on another one and 60 something they 150 and then 40 something and now 36 um it became very clear that we were in if you want to call it a growing business and so the the thing that struck me was um you need you need scale to make an impact on your work but you also need scale to um to be able to lever um overhead and spread overhead across

[18:32]  multiple things and so um what we agreed was that we needed to get bigger to put oursel into position so that um our work mattered and we couldn't be easily replaced and um that that protected the people that we that we serve that protected their families and gave them Peace of Mind knowing that we were going to be around and it protected our employees to make sure that they were going to have a paycheck and um didn't have to wonder whether or not we'd be able to do that and so as we talked about what was necessary for us to be abled and to be in that position we chose the path of of of building infrastructure that enables us to help more people and so over the past several years we've been we've been on a journey

[19:20]  to um make incremental gains and in some ways we've made large gains but to be able to build uh the organization so that the we not not only could grow from within but also expand into new markets and expand into tertiary areas that um complemented the work that we did so we could lever our internal strengths without putting oursel in a position where if we got into something um we were we were doing it blind and we were going to fail no different than what you do in a in a for-profit business when you're looking at new markets and new products and services and things like that we just applied that methodology to how are we going to grow our organization and so um we've more than doubled um in terms of what our annual budget is we've added additional

[20:10]  resources we've added Services we've we've done a couple small tuck-ins we're uh assuming everything goes well it looks like we'll um have more likelihood that we'll add another business to the fold at another program you know in the by the end of the coming year so we're doing those kinds of things um to to position oursel to be able to serve more people bottom line is um even those being served and the number of folks there's still a whole latent demand out there where a lot of people that are that are at home that parents are still caring for individuals that they're not even getting services and they need services and so it's scary when you really look at um what the what the need is and the resources that are out there um we're we're just trying to make sure

[20:59]  we're um on the Leading Edge of getting bigger and trying to do more in terms of um support for the people that we serve being on the the Leading Edge often means that we have to have a culture in our organization that is not afraid to fail and I think failing forward is an incredibly healthy cultural element for organizations that do amazing things I was listening to a keynote by Jeff Bezos yesterday and he was talking about the huge failure that they had tied to the fir phone so they Tred to compete I'm not sure if people recognize this with Apple and Google and everybody else who produce phones by producing their own and he said that was a $690 million experiment that we ran to see what we could do in producing a

[21:46]  device now one of the things that we have here at Amazon is a culture of experimentation and failing forward what are some of the benefits of a $690 million failure Alexa and the Kindle which have been two our leading products that we've been able to leverage out of that experiment I want to kind of ask your leadership perspective on nurturing a culture of experimentation versus making decisions decisions and moving in a direction can seem very scary and high stakes but running experiments creates freedom and opportunity for failure that can be rewarded what do you think about that I think it depends upon the organization as to what you can do um it I don't know that this is the right formula but it's kind of how I look at stuff is that I try to I try to um work

[22:35]  with our team and create consensus on the goals and objectives that we're going to accomplish and um some of them are are if you will global in terms of the corporate overall organizational stuff and then some of them are very very um specific to the Departments and um you know that the goals states to do what the objective answers the question how much by when big picture what what I try to what I try to do then is um you know one of our values is treat people the way you want to be treated and uh if it were me and I were if I worked for me I would want the ability to figure out how to accomplish that goal and I would say what do I need

[23:24]  and I would look for support and I'd have an interactive dialogue and it's it's part of our communication process but um here's where the opportunity for failure occurs if someone comes to me and says this is my plan this is what I want to do go do it now what what are your what are your benchmarks how are you going to know whether you're working I mean I believe in failing fast failing cheap but that doesn't mean it failing fast failing cheap means you're learning and you're adapting and and you have to take that approach okay that didn't work so given that what's next and and so you know the road is never is never absolutely straight anybody says that is kind of crazy but the idea is to learn from it move and and just try to keep it between the

[24:12]  white lines that enables the organization to still be sustainable um we've done we've taken some risks and we've done some stuff and and sometimes it's it's worked really well and sometimes it's it's been slower to take take you know root than than what we thought but um if you if you believe in what you're doing then it's it's it's kind of like the old Sports analogy if you keep running an end run and you get stopped at every time you get to the line of scrimmage maybe you ought to think about running a different play and it's you kind of learn that playing sports and um when we when we talked before we we you know we said we're going to do this um there there's so much there's so much for sports that aligns itself with business and you you you got to look at it as a game you got

[25:00]  to look at it as a period of time and you got to say okay that didn't work so you adapt and and that's part of uh that's part of how it um I think it it works and should work in a in a business social service or for-profit navigating that Winding Road can sometimes be challenging in our previous conversation you said as you're navigating the landscape of business there's a real difference between great managers and great leaders leaders have an ability to emotion connect individuals to their environment and to the work that they do let's kind of Riff on that topic because I thought that was really amazing from your two cents oh um well thank you um I really I really believe that I think through emotional connection um creates if you will inspiration and it in the end it becomes

[25:50]  the why you do what you do um money's great and and money will drive you but if it doesn't feed something else if there isn't an emotional connection to what you do it's hard to stay with it on a long-term basis but if you get emotionally connected and you're financially rewarded and you have other things that you see man that's the that's like the more than a trifecta you know that's like hitting a bonanza of all sorts of things that you try to do but emotional connection and and feeling aart and and feeling needed and wanted and and recognized all of those things that get bundled up it's part of a Leader's job to acknowledge and recognize that the work that people do and the accomplishments um if you're really

[26:38]  really smart you you make sure you get out of the way so that all the accolades for the good things go to the people that do the heavy lifting and that you're in the way taking all the bullets in case something didn't work and and to say okay here's how you know you regroup behind me I'm just going to go ahead and take all the shrapnel and that's a that's a great way to to create loyalty from your from your Workforce because they know you've you've got them protected and that's a big deal now when we talk about emotion right A lot of people think that emotion equals softness it equals a lack of accountability in our previous conversation you mentioned a term called compassionate accountability kind of Riff on that a little bit so you know I I think I think the challenge is is is um is to try to get um

[27:28]  a way where you can communicate with people in in an honest in an honest way when you're talking about whatever the situation may be um to to make sure that you're able to disassociate the human from the behavior and then say okay where are we on this are you doing this how can I help you why are we not doing it this is really important are we on the same page how how can I help you all of those things that accountability those questions can be awkward especially if somebody hasn't achieved what they need to but if you ask the questions in in a way where you say okay what is it am I not providing what you need what is it that you need that that we missed and and be a part of that um there's a compassion there that says I'm trying to help you solve a problem and

[28:17]  um but I'm also holding you accountable for the results because I'm not backing off what's there um and you know it's kind of how you move an organization forward you know at least my my take um you you have situations where um sometimes you know you make major gains and sometimes it's very minor incremental but you identify those things that are the challenges and by asking about are you doing what you said you were going to do and if not what are we going to do to get there give them the chance to sell give them the chance to fix it and if if they need help Provide support and and I think that's compassion but I also think that that's good management because you're you're making sure that somebody knows exactly what they're supposed to do I have a little bit of a a personal question for you now one of the things that I

[29:07]  recognize about being a nonprofit CEO is we have immense levels of burnout in these spaces okay one of the bigger challenges that I think we have to recognize is appreciating all of the wins along the way when we're talking about combating some Rising issues of diagnosis and the demand for our community these can seem like daunting challenges now one of the things that I know is goals are a destination a Finish Line or an event but when we get them wrong they often turn into a horizon we take a step towards it and it moves one step further away how have you been able to stay grounded in the work that you do to appreciate how far you've come in pushing this organization forward without having the end goal be a horizon that keeps kind of creeping away on you

[29:55]  wellow that's an interesting question because I'm not so sure I've done that well um and I think I think from an organizational standpoint I think we've actually as a management team even had some conversations recently to say we have to figure out how to um improve our interaction with our employees that give us the opportunity to celebrate accomplishments better than we do now and and I'm acknowledging that um as we continue to push and try to do these things you you don't always have the systems in place to provide the interaction and the feedback and um and so you you you you never stop to celebrate we have Windows of time where um we have a board meeting and we we get

[30:44]  to tell our story we have an annual meeting where we we summarize what we accomplished over the Year big picture and make everybody feel good in those things but um it's more of an ongoing process that I think um I I'm acknowledging we can do better it's it's it's a challenge um you can sometimes get burnt out I'm not going to I'm not going to say to you that you don't have Windows of time where you're um you get burnt out but you need to kind of back away and and you know make sure you understand why you're doing what you're doing and and you need to help those that are feeling that make sure that they get those windows of time to rejuvenate and say why are you doing what you're doing and and then get get into into hey look at what you accomplished now I would I've your your comment in about you know what

[31:34]  you've accomplished and everything like that um I'm maybe I'm old school but I'm I'm I'm choosing not to keep score until I'm done and that's just how I feel um I'm I want to keep driving and I want to keep doing things and making things better and and the in the end I'll look back and say okay did I make things better than what they were when I got here and you know if you can say yes to that that's great if you want to you want to all of a sudden do a a a a tally that's great too but more than likely you're not going to remember all those things you just know that you made the organization better and you can feel good about that I think that's one thing that anybody that comes to any organization should have as their objective is that did my presence count and did I feel like I made a difference

[32:24]  and often times if if you can be told that you're doing that and you can feel that you're doing that you're going to like where you're at you're going to stay where you're at you're I mean there's a are a lot of incredible benefits that come with being able to answer that question in an affirmative way you know one of the concepts that I've tried to become better at myself to give myself more air cover if you will to accomplish my goals is to think on longer time Horizons the quickest way for me to lose 10 pounds in the next 10 days is dramatically different from how I would lose 10 pounds over the next year thinking about how we can extend our time Horizons I feel like is a really important lesson in business because the only objective especially when we're doing amazing work like you guys are is to keep playing this game do you think maybe subconsciously you've

[33:13]  adopted that idea of you're not going to tally the score until the end because it alleviates a little bit of pressure that you might put on yourself um no and and I'll I'll I'll I'll tell you why in in um so I'm old okay I'm I'm 67 and when I when I started this I was um I just turned 60 and and my thought process was um I had enough energy so I thought to give a minimum of five years a maximum of 10 and um there was an incredible lesson Keenan that that I got by putting a time frame on how long I was going to be in the gy job because I had never done that in anything I'd ever done I'd always looked

[34:02]  at it like I'm just going to be there and I'll figure it out and we'll navigate and kind of go what it created was a sense of urgency to solve the things that I saw and knew that needed to be done and I it was probably one of the greatest management lessons in fact I would tell you that um you know in some of the people that I don't know who's watching but if some of the people that worked for me years ago um thought well maybe I was slow to the draw because I was trying to feel my way through it and and this time around I said no we don't have time to do this because he I don't have time and and and we need to we need to fix what's going on and having a sense of urgency was one of the one of the most significant management lessons

[34:49]  that I learned literally from the fourth company that I ran and I thought to myself God I wish I'd have known this and and been able to lied in a way where I I thought that it had impact so no it's that's not that's not it um the other part is just me um being superstitious I I I when you're an old Jack and you do well you don't you know you don't keep track you try not to keep track of what the what the scorecard is or whatever that is you just keep playing you know you may wear the same things each each game but you just keep playing because you don't you don't want to jinx yourself and and um I've just kind of learned the minute you the minute you become um bragado docious about something is the minute bad things

[35:38]  happen and um call it Superstition just call it observation but it's also when you feel like oh you've accomplished something and you let your guard down then something bad happens so I think you gotta to that extent you got to have a little bit of an edge to where you you feel that and then you push yourself and you can keep track when you're done and then then maybe I will I don't know that I will but maybe I will maybe someone else will are you familiar with Parkinson's law uh I've I've heard it but tell me what it is again so Parkinson's law says that a task will take the amount of time that it is allotted so if I say I'm gonna do something over the next week it's going to take a week if I say I'm going to do something over the next two days it's going to take two days to get done and

[36:26]  that in itself is a way for us to frame that sense of urgency to get things done because if we give ourselves a certain amount of time if it's three five years we move with a sense of urgency that maybe that longer time Horizon doesn't benefit towards you know when you asked me the very first question how would people describe it you should probably have said I probably should have said impatient that would have been a that would have been another Fair adjective to describe because that that is probably uh um uh uh a lesson from what I've learned related to the importance of having a sense of urgency to get something done and it's it's really interesting when you approach your work that way get it done you know figure out how to get it done and the other thing

[37:14]  that I find is that um you create a pace for the for the for the organization and um I'm a huge believer in energy and the energy that the leader provides people will feed off of it that and if you go slow don't assume every don't assume that your team's going to go faster than you they're going to go at the pace that you set so I I very purposely I very purposely um kind of have that mindset that I want to set the pace and have the energy to do that I completely agree with that I think you know your team shows up as you do I had the fortune of sitting across from an executive team earlier in the week and uh I met the CEO through you know a connection and this guy is a bang up individual and he's grown his organization from 5 million to

[38:02]  50 million in the last six years and one of the things that he said was I set the tone for my team and I let them know how we get things done by establishing expectations when I got on the call with the team they said we've already done all the prep work we've looked at the materials that you've sent over to us don't you know that will is our CEO and they said if you know anything about will we're a reflection of him and that was one of the first times I've heard an entire executive team vocally say we are a reflection of our CEO and I love how you said you set the tone for your team because it couldn't be more true it it it is and and you know in the beginning it was there was um change and not everybody not everybody said I want to ride the bus that way and there were some folks that said I can't do this and got off but um there there the people Now understand where we're headed what

[38:52]  we're trying to do and um the support's awesome and their their engagement is awesome I want to I want to deviate a little bit from our framework that we kind of talked about here so one of the things I recognize is what got us here is not going to get us there so how are you kind of thinking about items like technology and Innovation to help you kind of meet the needs of the community for information and access to services and things maybe like even artificial intelligence how you thinking about that stuff Mike uh all the time um and technology is a huge part of what we do innovation um is is way from it for um operational performance um efficiencies um there are some incredible tools that are coming with uh AI with regard to how we provide

[39:41]  documentation on um clinical support and being able to say some things and being able to have it be transcribed where it's legit and works um there's some I mean there's some really really cool technology I would I I admit to being um novice even though we do stuff and are using Ai and don't even know it at the same time um there's just still so much to learn I in the meeting that I talked about today um there's a subcommittee that's being formed and um one of the things that was a takeaway for me is that I need to create a subcommittee within our organization that does not does nothing other that comes back and says here's how we're going to use Ai and let some people do some deep dives into it that that will it will touch them and do that on the technology side

[40:31]  um you know we went from we were almost solely paper based to you know almost everything is digitized now um the kids didn't have technology to every child has one to one technology all the teachers have stuff um all of our curriculum is all cloud-based all every major program we have is cloud-based and before it was either on a server or running on Excel and there was no interaction and things didn't things didn't mess you know mesh together um we're trying to figure out how can we get better information that that drives behavior and so what we're we're really looking at is um not that it's a New Concept but implementing data

[41:19]  warehousing and pulling data from different systems to be able to answer different questions about our performance and the outcomes that we that we generate for the people we care for and the families and things like that as well as customer sat stuff uh technology is a big thing right now that's going into homes and is a is a way to be able to um provide oversight to individuals who can be independent but still need access just in case and so there are some tools that you can put in place that can uh give somebody access to a screen and there's somebody on the other end that can say hey what's wrong what can I do can I can I help you and it gives them that peace of mind to know that they're okay and they're not alone um sensors on doors or sensors on rugs that if somebody gets out of bed you know that they're there without putting cameras in places that are

[42:07]  inappropriate and not the thing to do um all those things are all stuff that's you know in play and things that we're looking at or doing or have explored and um we'll continue to explore technology is a a big part of um quite honestly how we've been able to lower the number of fixed I should say full-time employees what while we we double the size of the organization we have less employees than what we had um eight years ago and a lot of that is because we eliminated waste and technology is the reason why Mike I get super excited when I sit across this digital table with leaders like you who demonstrate a healthy sense of curiosity because one thing I know is healthare in general has always thought that we could

[42:54]  do the same things over and over again and get different results and have to have a healthy sense of curiosity to get us to where we're going there's there's absolutely absolutely no doubt and and the reality is is that um one of the biggest things in in our world that's it's such a problem is that the people that we care for often have multiple doctors and clinicians and Specialists that um quite honestly they don't communicate with one another and so you've got information about an individual ual that's scattered all over and and it's not shared and when you start looking at what's efficient and effective and you start looking at the drivers of health care costs um the sharing of that information is really

[43:43]  critical to um eliminating redundant tests and um stuff that maybe they could quickly solve something if they knew that somebody else had done something but they don't do it um whole person care is a big phrase that's in our world um and figuring out how to do that and do that right um there are some that have got the right framework but um it it is a it is a real challenge um especially with uh the population of those that that we focus on as an organization you change the incentives you change the outcome and when we think about these massive ehrs and EMR systems that are all siloed and compartmentalized they don't have the incentives to can join and Inter create

[44:30]  or I would say integrate or interoperate their data which is a huge problem that stops us from getting to results quicker that's something that you know we continue to see in the healthcare space from an innovation perspective and I hope there's a day that we can get that interoperability done well there's a there's a there's a a conversation that's been going on for probably I'm going to guess 10 years about U value based care and um eliminating eliminating um expenses and then if you eliminate expenses sharing the rewards with those who are able to um help eliminate the expense by getting performance bonuses by doing things right um it's while it's out there it's still not in Mass implementation but it's it's it's a real thing and it's if

[45:18]  you just look at Health Care in terms of what's going on in in the world I mean it can't continue on the tra trajectory that it's on um there has to be some change because costs are escal escalating to the point where at some point business are going to go I just can't I can't afford to do this and then what then does it become the the the uh responsibility and the role of the government to do that and you know where's the cost going to come from that you know it's just it's it's a that's a really big question but it's a it's a challenge and that's something we have to be really aware of Mike you started leading organizations when you were 28 years old if you could go back to the 28-year-old Mike and give him a piece of advice for the next upcoming years of

[46:05]  his career what would you say to him oh my gosh um I I would I would say um I I always stayed true to my values and I'm so glad I did about how to treat people with respect and dignity and um be fair and um that I believe that that was the right thing to do and I would say keep doing that I would have said keep working hard probably work harder have a have a sense of urgency don't be patient if you see something that doesn't make any sense that would have been a huge lesson that I would have learned um I had the I had the um Keenan I had the the blessing of my first five years of work was with IBM data processing and um it was the most

[46:54]  incredible training back then that anybody could have had and um it was the foundation that that got me into so many different things I applied what I learned and how I was managed and um they did a lot of things right and it was a great thing to emulate and uh so from that standpoint that was that was a great thing um you know I I probably I took risks but um you know I I didn't understand about fail fast and fail cheap you know I was because I was so young I was afraid of what would happen if I I failed so I I probably wasn't as bold um and I knew that there were some things on the horizon in the first company that I was in where the products were becoming obsolete I should have been Bolder you know but I was a little bit older at that stage um maybe the

[47:42]  other thing was uh uh truth be known um uh it was a family business and one of the greatest lessons I learned was to remember um humility related to minority and majority shareholders and um you know uh you can be right but if you're the minority shareholder make sure you're you're careful as to how you said something that was a good lesson to learn as a kid you know our uh one of our Traditions as we end the podcast here as a previous guest Mike wants to ask you a blind question and their question was what does courage look like from your seat as the CEO gosh what does courage look like um uh the

[48:31]  conviction and um the willingness to do what you think is right when others um others are emotionally are are swaye to think otherwise but if you if you really strongly believe that this is the right thing to do for an organization and you're willing to stand behind it to me um you know not that that happens a lot but sometimes it does and and to have the courage to say I'm willing to take the risk and it's and if it doesn't work it's on me and I appreciate your feedback but but here's where I am and this is why and and sometimes that's unnerving you know that that that takes courage to say okay I really believe this is the case um but it's also takes it takes some smarts to go if it's not

[49:20]  working change adapt don't be don't be so stubborn that you put yourself in the organization in Harmon way so there's a there's I guess a second part to that but that's what came to mind when I thought about the the question I think the maybe the other thing on the human side is um the courage to know that um the work that you're doing is helping so many people and to continue to push to find resources even though sometimes people say oh we can't do more and have the courage to say well we got to figure out how to do more because people need what we do and so um uh I I I push for that I don't know if it's courage maybe it's just um believing in knowing what's important and knowing the impact of our

[50:07]  work for families and why we do what we do you sir are the definition of heart and hustle and I want to say for everybody who's tuning in watching and listening today Mike Briggs thanks for coming on the show man that's a wrap