Game-Changing Leadership with Larry Keiter

This podcast focuses on human performance optimization for young medical professionals

Dr. Chris Myers: The views expressed by myself and the guests of this podcast do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, Department of Defense or the us government. Welcome to White coat Warriors. I’m your host, Doctor Chris Myers. And on this podcast we talk about human performance optimization and training paradigms for you, the young medical professionals and how you can use it in your own professional practices to help yourselves and your clients. Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of White Coat warriors. Today on WCW, we have a great one. We’re going to be focusing on leadership. This, is one of the most important domains when it comes to professional and human performance optimization. We’ve, talked about this a little bit in the past, but today we’re dedicating an entire episode on it. And we are very lucky to have with us today Larry Keiter of Larry Keiter coaching. But before we get into it, give us, you know, if you like what we’re doing, give us a, like, give us a five star rating, tickle that bell. Doesn’t matter. Whatever platform you are, if you like what we’re doing goes, hit us. Like it will really help us out. And let’s get on to it.

Larry Keiter spent 20 years with Walmart before becoming a coach on his own

Larry, welcome to the show.

Larry Keiter: Great to be here, Chris, thanks for having me.

Dr. Chris Myers: No problems. So, you know, I’ve got your intro. but you know what I’ve learned? It’s better to come from the person. yeah, you’ve got, I mean, you’ve got a rich history. what? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Larry Keiter: Sure. there’s too much on there from a standpoint of does your audience really want to hear all that crap? But I would say the best ride in my life is 20 years with a company called Walmart. from, 85 to 2006, we, grew that company. And that’s really what brought me here in front of you today. So that’s the pinnacle. and then, I work for an insurance company as head of their talent for about 13 years. And now I’m here in front of you coaching different companies, on my own. So brings, us here today.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, definitely.

One of your specialties is executive coaching, which is leadership

And one of your specialties is executive coaching, which is leadership.

Larry Keiter: Absolutely. Yeah. that’s the sweet spot. that’s the piece where you think, well, leaders got it together. Yes, they do for the most part. But there’s a lot of things that trip us up. we’ll talk about imposter syndrome. We’ll talk about the experiences. we’re human beings. yeah, we’re leaders, but we’re human beings.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

How do you define leadership? That’s a great point. It depends on the task

So I guess, before we get really into it, how do you define leadership?

Larry Keiter: That’s a great point. The leader is not the person at the top of the organization. The leader can be found wherever you’re planted. There are informal leaders everywhere. And it’s amazing, because I have leadership stories about people who informally led me in the right direction and leaders who took me in the wrong direction. So all of us can be leaders anywhere throughout the organization. And instead, if you want to build a really strong team, you want to build one that you can’t tell who the leader is because they’re all leaders. So that when I define leadership, it’s really. It depends on the task, and it depends upon what that team has going for it, because, there’s a lot of different formal definitions, but really, one, it’s when in charge, take charge and do the right thing. That’s what a leader does.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah. It’s interesting you mentioned that. That’s 100% true, especially with my military experience, you know, as a, you know, going through the officer ranks of military police corps. Yeah. The running joke is I learned more from bad leaders than I did good leaders. And that.

Larry Keiter: Amazing. It is. That’s phenomenal. But, yeah, I bet you did. And I bet you had people with the title, and you looked at them and you said, really? You’re the leader?

Dr. Chris Myers: M. It happens.

Larry Keiter: I will tell you, it’s funny. With your military background, you’ll appreciate this. But I had a chance in those 20 years with Walmart. We had such great speakers, access to it, because there was a lot of dollars involved with Walmart. and so we were able to attract some pretty impressive people. Well, one of them, I remember, was Norman Schwarzkopf, and it was a few years after Desert Storm, and he came and talked to us about leadership, and he was telling us all about the surprise inspections and the helicopter readiness, and it was very compelling. but what he said at the end, he looked at us, a group of us district managers, and he said, okay, put your pieces of paper. I want to give you the most important piece about a leader. He said, there’s two rules, 13 A and 13 B. And he looked directly at me and he said, put your paper away. And I’m like, I’m not going to miss this. He goes, I’ll take it from you. And I’m like, I’m good, Norman. I’ll drop it. But he said, rule 13 a, when in charge, take charge.

Dr. Chris Myers: Ah.

Larry Keiter: And 13 B, do the right thing.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yep.

Larry Keiter: Sounds pretty simple to be a leader. But coming from a man like that, who obviously was tested, tried and true, it works.

Dr. Chris Myers: It does, yeah. So, I mean, and that a lot of his leadership styles comes from, you know, his time at West Point and all that, and just how built through you, know, and, you know, the service academies do. They do build leaders of character. That’s what they’re originally, that’s what they’re originally designed for. And that’s where you get kind of this rich cultural leadership when you start seeing leaders, you know, especially like Norman Schwarzkopf, and everything going on.

Larry Keiter worked for Walmart for 20 years, helping grow it from start

So, you know, within that, before we kind of get into, like, a little bit of the science and the modeling of, your approach to teaching, leadership, talk to us about some of your experiences at Walmart, especially help growing it from that little business area. I think that when they started in Georgia.

Larry Keiter: Arkansas.

Dr. Chris Myers: Arkansas, that’s right, yeah.

Larry Keiter: Yeah. So Bentonville is really where, store number one. And you can go down there and still see the museum, but no, so, yeah, a little town, in Arkansas could mean so much to so many. And you, know, I’ve been through the gambit of when people loved Walmart and then when people hated Walmart. So those 20 years spanned a lot of learning. But one thing I learned is, you know, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And being a boy from Nebraska, farm kid from Nebraska, going to work for Walmart, I remember my brother saying, you want to do that? You want to work retail, that’s really, that’s what you’re going to do. After college, you know, he was an architect, so I understood what he was looking at. Is that a professional career? But I had a friend who worked for the company, and he was doing whatever he was big enough to do. And that was the precursor for really, strengths. And what I use now to coach people is really do whatever you’re big enough to do. And I remember the first time meeting Sam Walton, and I said, sam, my name’s Larry. You got a great company. And he stopped, put his, knife, and fork down, turned over to me, and he said, larry, nice to meet you. I’m Sam. This is my wife, Helen. We’ve got a great company. And I thought, yeah, he was always doing that. He was always, praising in public, coaching in private. And I will tell you, I’ve met so many stories where he could have thrown me under the bus with some stupid things that I did because I always wanted to execute. But he saw the potential, and he didn’t throw me out because I was a person. But he might have taken my ideas and said, yeah, probably not. Do. Don’t do that one, Larry. But that’s the way the man operated, and that’s what led me to follow him through four different states. I have four children born in three different cities. yeah. Just because when you find somebody like that true leader who says, how big do you want to be? And could we do this? And, Larry, how would you do it? When they make you, the owners in a company, look out, it’s unstoppable. So that was really what drew me to be in front of you here today, Chris, is the power that a person can have when they really let go, to let grow.

Larry Keiter talks about Sam Walton’s leadership style and what he learned with that leadership

Dr. Chris Myers: Talk us a little bit more about that, about his leadership style, what you learned, I guess, get to the heart of the matter. What are some of the traits and some of the actions that you saw that really spoke to you?

Larry Keiter: Yeah. So, you know, when Norman Swarzkopf talked about the inspections of the helicopter. Right. You know, in the earlier days before Desert Storm, they would do these, surprise inspections that everybody knew about. And the helicopters weren’t flight ready.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: So he turned the wheels and he inspected without, notice, and then the readiness rate went up to 98%. And that’s why Desert Storm kicked butt. So Sam Walton had that same thing. He would drop into a store unannounced, unexpected, not to catch you doing things wrong, but to catch you doing things right. And we began to learn that, you know, that does make sense. Why would you want to catch somebody doing something wrong and create another negative? You know, it just, it just doesn’t make sense. So we built that company looking at what was right about people. And one of the stories. Pardon me. Well, they take a drink of water, because I got to share with you the story about the Mandev and the mission who caught us doing things right. So Sam drops in to, grand island, Nebraska, unannounced, just drops in there, flies his airplane in, calls the store and says, hey, I’m out at the airport. And we’re all like, holy crap, the chairman’s here. And so we go out to get him, show him around the store. The first thing he does is gets on the pa and says, hey, customers, associates. Sam Walton, glad you’re here. If, you got anything you need, let me know. And that’s just the style that he was. Well, about two weeks later, I get invited down to Bentonville, Arkansas. And we’re sitting in this big room. It’s leadership academy. I’m wearing my best, my, jacket and coat, and I’m sitting in front, you know, getting ready for the chairman to come talk to us. And he’s telling us all about, you know, buy the company’s things. When you got a chance, talk positively about your company. Catch your people, he said, telling us all these lessons. And then he looks at me and he said, larry, that’s a nice jacket. Is that one of ours? He comes up, and I kid you not, he comes up, and he lifts up the lapel and looks at it. And I’m sitting there just gaga, right? Chairman’s coming and talking to me. I just saw him two weeks earlier to my store. And Sam looks at that jacket, and all my buddies are looking over the shoulder. All these high potential, want, to run store leaders behind me, right? They’re like, did Larry wear the right jacket today? And Sam sees that, pats me on the lapel and said, yep, it sure is one of ours. And he keeps going. And I’m thinking to myself, as the blood returns to my face, crap, no, that can’t be one of our, It’s a hagger. I bought that when I was in college. That’s JC Penny sells that jacket. And so I’m thinking, does Sam know that? And as we continued on and wrapped up Sam’s greeting us as we leave, you know, good luck to you guys. Keep up the good work. We got a great company. I’m walking out the door. He leans up and he whispers to me just so I can hear. My wife buys me those, too. Not only did he know, but look what he did. He protected me from those guys behind me, rather than saying, hey, good job, Larry. You’re the man. You wore the right jacket. To distancing myself, an awkward m moment. Ooh. Larry didn’t wear the right jacket. He had a chance to throw me under the bus. Do you see the power of that? So that’s just one of the stories. And that was the culture of calling people out, not because did something wrong, but to coach them and praise in public, coach in private. And when I learned that, I realized why we grew so fast is because people wanted more of that. They were attracted to people that thought that way. Let’s build something greater than ourselves. And that’s a hard thing to do, because as a leader, we’re emotional beings. We could get into the whole, fight and all those things, Chris, that make us respond a lot of times negatively because our brain receives those negative thoughts all day long. We can spin them right back out without thinking it through as a leader and saying, is that the right thing to say? So the power of that is what grew that company. And we had some great leaders in there. And I will tell you, we also had some tough ones when we became super centers. we had a gentleman that bragged about only getting 4 hours of sleep a night, and he was brutal. And eventually Sam let him go, and that solidified. Okay. That’s not our culture. That’s not who we are. We care to about our people. So, that’s the why. That’s the why Walmart was so impactful to me, and that’s why I’m here today. Because knowing that, it’s not a secret. But I think sometimes it’s so simple that people overlook it and leaders say, well, it can’t be that simple. Just treat your people well. That can’t be simple. No. You have to be honest with them. You have to praise them m in public, and you have to coach them. You have to reach down and help them up when they make a mistake.

Dr. Chris Myers: So, so that’s an important thing.

One of the things you talked about was coaching. So what are, what are some of the coaching skills

so, you know, the teach coach mentor aspect of leadership is, you know, train down to train up one. It’s one of the things that we, it’s very military, but, you know, so one of the things I want to kind of catch on was what you talked about was the coaching. And that’s an aspect of, at least with military leadership, is the teach coach mentor aspect of it, where you trained out two and you learn one up. So it’s training in depth. Yeah. So what are, and what are some of the coaching skills that you learned as part of being an executive at Walmart that you currently use to kind of help train teams, teams today.

Larry Keiter: Absolutely. So one of the first things is self awareness. So I love Goldman’s model on emotional intelligence. Right. Because that. Do I know myself? And I will tell you where people, when I am called in because there’s some noise and that noise is simply, there’s, you know, people’s not getting along or a leader is having challenges with his own team or her own team. When there’s noise in there, usually I come in and it’s lack of self awareness. They don’t see themselves the way the world sees them. So the tools that I use, and I really believe some of these assessments are important because, you know, we used to say, Nebraska nice. Where I’m at right now. Chris is in Nebraska, and sometimes that’s tough, especially with the annual evaluations, where sometimes those are checked box. And I don’t want to upset Larry today. It’s tough sometimes to truly coach as a coach should, and a coach is meant to make you better, not comfortable. And so I go in there with that mindset that I may need to help, not the executive I’m coaching, but the board, the CEO, possibly, for that. That coaching happens just through my actions. Like, I’m sitting here. I would speak the same way, very direct, and leave that relationship, not with that executive, knowing exactly what to do, but improving that relationship with where do they get feedback next, when Larry’s gone. So I believe in opening that door and that awareness, because awareness is the gateway to change. So if there’s noise, we bring in the assessment. The first is a self assessment, a psychometric tool. I use, Clifton strengths, but you could use any kind of tool out there for somebody to say, oh, that’s why I’m not comfortable with that, or that’s what I’m really good at. Okay. And then a 360 assessment is another tool that I feel is vital, because that gives a safe way to give honest and open, unvarnished feedback, to really give that person what I call a gift. And I’ve delivered some of these. And the executives looking at me like that’s some kind of gift. I just got there, you know, because they may get some real eye opening information about the noise. Oh, that’s why it’s happening. I’m doing some. I don’t want to say stupid stuff, but stuff that I didn’t realize. And, you know, the higher an individual goes up in an organization, Chris, you know this full well, it’s harder to get honest and open feedback the higher you go up in the organization. So that’s where I come in to aid that. Not to stay around forever, but, to bring awareness through those assessments, those tools. And then we work on leadership competencies. Maybe it’s the communication. Maybe it’s speaking straight, because that gets a lot of leaders in trouble, because if they can’t speak straight. And the funny thing is, what I find I is how people deliver critical feedback is how they were trained and got critical feedback in their careers. I was blessed with some brutal honesty as I came up to Walmart. And some people would use that brutal honesty, and they would coach in public, fine. okay. Don’t do that next time. But I get it. Thank you for that gift. I needed to know that it still is a gift, even if it embarrassed me. Yeah. That is crucial that somebody cares enough to tell you the truth. And again, the role of a leader is not to make their people comfortable. It’s to make them better.

Dr. Chris Myers: Mm It’s good. I’m glad to hear that. Yeah. It reminds me of a, when you talk.

The military structure is very hierarchical. And you can get lost in that

Anyway, you mentioned about you may have to speak to the board sometimes, the CEO. It reminds me of kind of a fable. I kind of put that in air quotes, those who are not listening, from one of the. One of my leaders. when I was a young captain, colonel, Mack, he was my tag commander, soon to. He was my brigade commander when I took command. He, used to tell a story about these monkeys. And you had a monkey up in a tree. Yeah. He’s looking down, and he’s always seeing it. All the other monkeys employees running around smiling or doing the work. He’s up there happy, blah, blah, blah. But you know what all the other monkeys saw when they looked up into the tree? I saw nothing but an ass in a tree. you know, and that really opened my eyes because, yeah, it is, the military structure is very hierarchical.

Larry Keiter: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Myers: And you can get lost in that. And that really got me thinking, you know, it, to be a follower leader, which is something that we learn at the academy, is you have to be with your people day, in and day out. And that is something that we can get lost in, in our day to day stuff, because we get. You have to manage stuff like that. You gotta spend time with your team, with, your department, and just get to just let them know you’re there. I guess that’s the big. That’s one of the big elements, too.

Larry Keiter: You were blessed with that commander that led you. And to get the stories. That’s another way the culture, is passed down through those stories.

One of the challenges that I see in companies today is that leader learning their role

I still remember, Chris, the challenges that I see in companies today is that leader, as they’re learning their role. And think about this, with the workforce the way it is, we’re putting some pretty short term people into those high level responsibility roles. They haven’t maybe had all the turns, the leadership pipeline turns that they should have. And here they are managing a, group of people. And sometimes we forget when we get to that level that what you just said, how does that leader mesh with the people? How do they relate? And I will tell you, the most recent that I worked with and had a lot of success with was a company in Lake of Nebraska emeritus, that CEO Joanne Martin she talked about creating a leadership academy and creating one language. And the only reason that works so well is whenever we rolled out the assessment for self awareness, she was the first one who took it. You did a 360 assessment. She was the first one who took it. You see what happens when the leader does that? And she learned, and she wanted to learn. It wasn’t just check the box. I remember walking through her 360 and she was wondering, hm, that’s interesting. You know why that is? I’m not going to ask people, but I’m going to be aware of that now. And I’m thinking, this is beautiful. This is more than I had hoped and more than I expected. But guess what? The rest of the team realized that this CEO was serious. By example, to me, is the key right there. And a lot of times we miss that because, people are going, yeah, develop my team, Larry. We want them to do it. And I’m looking at that CEO going, you’re starting this, buddy, because otherwise I’m never going to leave you guys. It’s never going to fix itself. It’s never going to be right without your support.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, I know we’re covering a lot here, but for our young medical professionals, kind of the one thing I want you to take out of this portion of the conversation is get to know your teammates. you know, don’t just, yeah, you’re going to spend a lot of your time with them. They’re in the hospital and on the floor. Get to know them. build, build relationship. You may not have to like each other, but respect each other. Get to know each other. that’s how you start and go to build. That’s how you’re gonna work better together. You never know. You may eventually become that leader of that group, and it helps you to know who you’re working with. That’s, the first thing I want you to take out of this conversation. Sit back, shut up, listen, and get to know your people. Work with them. build that relationship. Because relationships are the crux of everything.

Larry Keiter: Great advice. You know, Chris, we used to say, no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the people business first. Yeah. And no matter what industry, I work with, legal firms, I work with, boutique medical firms, I work with, insurance companies, I work with, an agricultural industry that’s international. And the people from Mexico sit in on these workshops with their own language, but they understand the direction and the why. Yeah. Development. No matter what business you’re in, no matter what language you speak, you’re in the people business. And there’s that language of how you treat people with respect. So, well said, chris. And I think your listeners out there, how you do anything is how you do everything. So I remember leaving as a store manager, for the evening and going to work out, and there was one of my direct, not my direct report, indirect reports was a young man who had just started, and he was so enthusiastic to be there. He sees me on the treadmill and he comes over and he said, hey, mister Carter, you know, I had an idea for this. And he’s talking and talking and talking. And all of a sudden I’m like, okay, I can’t concentrate. I’m trying to get my miles in and my cadence is off. And I look over at Mark, and that’s his name. He knows I tell the story. And I said, mark, can we just save this? Because I’m trying to concentrate. And the kid walks away like a dejected ballplayer. And the next day, he would not look me in the eyes. He would not look at me. And I’m thinking, you know what? When you’re a leader, you never take off that leader name. It’s never lost on you. I came up to Mark and I said, mark, I’m sorry. I was trying to focus, and he looked at me and smiled. He goes, that’s okay. But here’s what I was thinking. We should do this and this and this. He was back again because I apologized as a leader. I said, I’m sorry I hurt you, and I didn’t mean it. So, as a leader, you’re never off the stage. You are always there. People see that and they want to believe in you. yeah, they don’t pay you 24/7 but guess what? You have to be aware that 24/7 you’re still that leader in the people’s eyes. They want you to be.

Dr. Chris Myers: That’s excellent, because that’s another point, note, point number two. I would love for the audience to take away from this. Admit when you’re wrong, you know, you are human, you know, and if you make a mistake, own up to it and make the corrections.

Larry Keiter: You know, amen. Right the wrongs. You know, there’s a great book out there. Covey’s, son wrote this one on speed of trust, and it is a great. But, you know, speak straight. But then right wrongs is one of the things, the 13 behaviors to build trust. And I love that because there’s self survey in there that your audience can grab that, take a little survey and do that I use that with teams sometimes in conjunction with that because it’s so simple. M if I can understand it simply, then I understand it well. So I look for those tools that state things simply, just like what you said there, right your wrongs and be that leader, be that person who, you know, you may not be perfect, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.

And so we’re talking my other questions about your coaching ability and some of the elements from that. One of the you know, you talk a lot about the circle of life and to me you know, that a lot of that is very similar to a human performance, you know, domain we would call the five domain model. And for, you know, within your model you have five domains as well. You got career, social, financial, community, and physical. why don’t you talk to us about your performance model and how do you apply it and teach it, within your coaching platform?

Larry Keiter: Absolutely. When you get ready to do a task, when you get ready to build anything, the work area around you, it’ll go much better if you’re organized and clear. It’s like anything in life when you try to do something but you’re, you know, like say you’re going to work out at the gym, but you’re carrying a 50 pound weight on your back for no reason other than I don’t know where to put it. Right. It’s another story about monkeys, right? I got a monkey on my back. What do I do with that? So when you have clients and you sit and look at them, you see what they do, right?

But you don’t see who they are below the surface. So by looking at the wheel of life or looking at that, that full 360 view of a person, in front of you, you have to take into account the things they’re going through that aren’t visible, that aren’t in front of you, their health, how are things going with their family? I even throw in that religious component and I ask them that. I coached a gentleman one time who was an atheist, and he said your will doesn’t work for me because I don’t have that spoke on there that’s religious. And I said well how, what’s your level of satisfaction on your belief? He goes 100%. Well then we’re not going to mess with that. Let’s talk about your physical. How would you rate yourself on one to ten? So we do, Chris, we rate and I have them apply that. And when I hear somebody is because we know we’re working on business. There’s either noise or there’s potential. There’s opportunity to go wherever they want to go. Yeah. But I ask them, how’s that platform? How’s that foundation? And a lot of times I see people saying, you know what? I wish I had a better. I ate healthier. I wish I, worked out, I wish my social network was better. And so what we’ll do on those lower spokes, on that wheel, we’ll set a goal, just a simple goal. and while we’re working on business and while we’re talking about competencies and all those wonderful things, we follow that goal. How are you doing? I had a gentleman one time. It was great. So he was an executive in a university, and his boss called me. The president called and said, hey, Larry, getting some noise here. Just promoted this gentleman. He’s struggling a little bit. Would you talk to him? And I said, I’d be glad to. So I went in there, and his desk was full of busy stuff. And I said, hey, how do you stay organized? He goes, I got a Franklin Covey plan around here somewhere. And he pulls it out from another, flips it back. It’s like four weeks back, and the page finder and dust it off and brings it in front of me and sets it down. And I said, good, that’s great. Let’s talk about the wheel. And he said, I, This new promotion, I’m traveling to California all the time. He goes, I used to play tennis every Tuesday night, and I don’t do that anymore. And so I started to get really where he was coming from. And my first question was, they don’t have tennis courts in California. And he looked at me like, you smart. You know what? So we set a goal, okay, maybe you can’t play every Tuesday night with your buddy from the other facet of the college that you work alongside, but there’s somebody in California. Can you go out there pretty regularly? That pipeline to that university? Could you find somebody that would play tennis with you on Thursday nights? Or. And he did that. He set that up every two weeks. And eventually it became more hopeful, because that’s really what development is. Development is give me hope. And it’s not always the obvious thing. I’d hope, give me hope. For me, as a human being, I can do more than I’m doing. But something’s changed, and it’s just. It was Chris, it was just that self awareness. Maybe tennis is a bigger deal than you think it is, it’s freedom, it’s physical health, it’s camaraderie. And all those things, he had left those behind for this promotion in his mind, but he didn’t have to. And once he grabbed that, he realized, you know what? I can do this job. And he did it very well.

Dr. Chris Myers: Excellent. Glad. Yeah.

It’s all about the balance. How do you, with the emotional and social stress

It’s all about the balance. you know, we kind of covered this in a couple of our episodes, trying to find that balance, find what works for you. biggest one is trying. How do you, with the emotional and social stress, with this, being a young medical professional, how do you work through that to be able to get optimal sleep or how work off that physical stress with being able to work out, even though you just come off a 30 hours shift, little things like that. It’s all trying to find some semblance of a balance. It’s easier said than done.

Larry Keiter: A lot of times, though, it’s interesting because, as I said, I work with a lot of different industries, but I have a connection to the medical industry. My wife is a nurse, and her three sisters are doctors, one in Yankton, South Dakota, one at Grand island, and one in Houston. And all different, focuses on their, medical profession, but all of them are very driven, you know, graduated with accolades. And so, you know, sometimes they exhaust me, just thinking about raising their families. Yeah, you talk about balance and boundaries and protecting that. You know, we, I love to talk to them about their teams and their staff and, you know, the medical profession has changed since they even started now. And, yeah, you know, where they work for the hospital and not their own practice. I mean, it’s. It’s an interesting dynamic, but the neat thing is, people, they’re still in the people business. Yeah. And so when we talk about this, we still talk about the assessments and we still talk about awareness. We talk about the same things, even though, you know, they are actually, with telehealth, they’re helping patients everywhere else, but they’re still people and they’re staff. And it’s just like Dylan here. He’s still a person that’s coordinating this with Chris. You and I, a world apart. He is still a human being that we depend on, and how we treat him is how we’re set up so perfectly. Right. It all goes together. Yep.

Dr. Chris Myers: So those who don’t know, Dylan’s our producer out there. He’s the man behind the scenes, has made this, show successful. And, yeah, I do want to say on air, Dylan, thanks for all you’ve been doing for us. for this season. shapeless plug for him there. Right there. I’d love to see his face right now. but with that being said.

Larry Keiter: Right.

One of the things you’ve been talking about are these assessments

Dr. Chris Myers: So, yeah, we’ve, yeah, you’ve definitely, you’ve been met talking. One of the things you’ve been talking about are these assessments. So really getting to know yourself, getting, to know your team, whether if it’s a five person, ten person, or 100 person department. Right. What is the next step after that? So you’ve gone through, you’ve done self awareness, you’ve delivered the gift, whether good, good or bad, what is the next step you do after this? So, assuming they’ve had the critique, had the awareness, which is the first step in learning, what do you do after that? Typically when you coach these teams?

Larry Keiter: Yeah, great question. every situation is different. I did a workshop with assessments for a women in leadership, an erg ah, group in a large company. And, these women, they came to me and they said, hey, we really want to gain self awareness, but we want to gain confidence in our business. And they had vetted a number of people and I didn’t think anything about it. As a guy. Here I am talking to these women, but I was simply articulating the process, very simply. Awareness is that gateway to change. And so as I was sharing this with these 50, plus leaders from all across the world that were in here, that we were doing this some virtual and some in the room, there was that lights going on about, you know what, knowing myself and educating myself is really the basis for where I want to go. And we talk about imposter syndrome and all these different things change, how to deal with change. They all channel back to that one important thing, and that is the human being right in front of me, the person who’s in front of you, how you receive feedback, how you gain awareness and how you keep that coming. So being a learning individual and organizations that bring in data continually to educate, give, them awareness continually because things change. And if you’re not agile in that learning, you’ll be back to square one, once I leave or once it doesn’t become the focus point of other people. So we really set up a process of, okay, how are we going to revisit this? We create an individual development plan. We talk with the leader about, you know what, we’ll come in and do a refresh in six months, those types of things to keep it alive, because this is just the beginning. Understanding the gift, right?

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: A lot of people and, Chris, it’s amazing. The gift really is, you know, 50% of development is awareness. Yeah. And the other 25%, if you think of a pie chart, 50%. I don’t know what? I don’t know. And anything. A technical competency, a leadership competency, if self awareness, emotional intelligence, I don’t know. Then the 25% says, m what do I do? What’s the skill that I need to build to get better? And then that other 25% is, am I motivated? Do I want to do it? I can’t make somebody be motivated. I can give them all the tools. When the student is ready, the teacher appears kind of thing. But I have a situation, Chris, that it was so dire. I had two individuals, a 35 year old, not a 35 year old, a 35 year, leader managing a 25, tenured year person in this organization, a large organization. And there was noise coming between these two very prolific, talented individuals. Made a lot of money for this organization, but they could not see eye to eye. I couldn’t even get them in the same room to start the conversation. I went to their organization, and we were video conferencing. He was in this room, and this other person was in this room, and it was awkward. But what was happening is they were speaking two different languages. And once we made them aware that, you know what, you guys operate differently, that was the beginning. Then the accountability starts. It’s like, okay, how do we get. Eventually, we said, we want to get together. And they said, yes, we want to fix this. We got them in the same room. Do you see how it progresses? I mean, little goals, steps, and over time, you get there. But there’s got to be accountability. There’s got to be commitment. you know, when I look at a person and they say they want coaching, I’m like, do you really? You really want coaching? You know, because a lot of times people say that, but it’s going to be uncomfortable. Sometimes it could.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: Okay. That setting them up for success is one of the things. But sometimes, you know, you see all these, you know, I think of celebrity chef. I think of these, bar rescue and all these things where somebody goes in and awakens the people. It’s like, do you see what you’re doing? I’m not quite that dramatic, but sometimes that’s necessary. But here’s the other thing. It could be an awakening of what. You’re a pretty good leader. Think about that. You are doing 90% of the things right. But we have such a fear of failure. We have imposter syndrome, that not knowing and not having an outside party or not having a coach who comes in and says, you know what? You are all that you are the things. It’s okay for you to be that leader in your mind now because you’re doing it on the floor. People see that. I’ve had people get to 360, and I’m like, that’s amazing. And they’ll be like, oh, I can’t believe it. Because they’re so hard on themselves, Chris, we kick ourselves in the butt harder. Sometimes these professionals out there, sometimes they, they may not be aware and they may do dumb things, but a lot of times, they’re doing some great things and they’re not aware.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: Oh, yeah. So that’s the other benefit of that, gaining that self awareness. And then again, the next steps is, what skills do I need to build? And, ah, there’s a lot of best practices out there. That’s the 25%.

Dr. Chris Myers: Okay, that’s good to know. Yeah. And let. Yeah.

The questions kind of evolved, you know, thinking about this, I’m trying to put myself in some of our young medical professional shoes, so focused on the human, human systems, the other human body. It’s just a big system of subsystems learning the trade crafts. And probably one of the questions they had might be, our audience might be thinking is like, why is this important to me? Why should I know leadership where I am? Yeah, I’m just in charge of trying to help make people better, from illness and stuff like that. What some advice would you have to kind of stave off that question?

Larry Keiter: That is a fabulous question. And when I was with that insurance company and we created a leadership academy, one of the things that we did is we had, we had a good budget. So we met where one of our, offices were out in Cincinnati. Children’s hospital is out there, and the CEO of the hospital at the time was on our board. And so we were able to go into that hospital and really learn what was going on there. And at the time, he was doing some amazing things at that hospital, where he was empowering not just the doctors, but anybody who had a hand in the patients, giving feedback, the nurses, etcetera. So when you think about that, you don’t know what you don’t know as a medical professional. People look to you because you’ve had years of work and training. It’s admirable and sometimes almost untouchable from the standpoint of, I couldn’t tell you what to do because you have done so many things. You’ve published so much information, you’ve saved lives. Who am I to tell you that you might be making a mistake? Or who am I to tell you that? Wow, that was kind of rude. Who am I to give you those things? And I think in the, I don’t want to say this for all medical professions, but in any situation where there’s a real hierarchy, and you know this, in the military, Chris, sometimes keep your mouth shut. Right. You know, say something and people look at you like, what the hell? Why do you disagree with the leader? You know, so it’s a tenuous situation. And so as a medical professional, sometimes we think, well, we, we’ve got to, everybody just know this is important. And we forget, that what we do is not who we are. We are in the people business first. Yes. saving lives is paramount. That’s ultimate people business. But here’s the thing. The people that you depend on, the Dylan’s of the world, the people who are supporting everything, that without them, we wouldn’t be able to operate, right? Yep. They are critical and they make things happen. And by the way, how you do anything is how you do everything. So how I’m treating that person in front of me is probably how I’m going to treat my next patient. And it’s just congruent and aligned, which brings back the leaders.

Think about the best leaders they’ve ever worked for

When I reflect on it, I would ask your audience to think about the best leaders they’ve ever worked for, to think about the best people in their profession they’ve ever worked for. Think about that and reflect on it. And if you had to put those behaviors down on a piece of paper, were they, diligent? Were they, compassionate? Were they pathetic or whatever, the words that you use would be exactly how I would work with you. You’re describing to me how I would best motivate you with those same words. When you looked at that person and said, wow, that’s an amazing leader. But then you think about the people that work with you. They may use different words, they may not have those same thoughts. And that’s why we have turnover. Sometimes we have conflict. We, have misinterpretations, or body language even turns us the wrong way because we’re human, emotional beings. I heard something just amazing. I was today, years old yesterday, years old, when I read this from Goldman’s work that, you know, your eyebrows, when somebody shocks you, your eyebrows go up. And I didn’t realize this, but our body, our physiological makeup, our body is saying, hey, I want more data. They open their eyes. Right. Yeah. And so we physically respond to stimuli like that. Well, it’s no different than we interact with people. We close down, we, you know, don’t hear what’s being said anymore, because I don’t think you care about me, and I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care. So that’s why. That’s why, no matter what the profession, to, be that person that genuinely wants that person that works with you to be all they can be.

Dr. Chris Myers: Excellent.

Larry Keiter: That’s an army slogan.

Dr. Chris Myers: It is. I think we just brought it back, actually.

Larry Keiter: Hey, it works.

Dr. Chris Myers: It does. It’s, what got me to join. So, you know, with that.

Are leaders made or are they born? I love this one

Yeah, we’ve kind of covered a lot. I want to ask the. Probably. You probably heard this rhetorical question before, but I got to ask it. Are leaders made or are they born?

Larry Keiter: I love this one. Yeah, I love this one. So I. Beyond a doubt. Right. if it’s true, my grandson, just yesterday, he was asking me, he’s nine years old, and he said, grandpa, do you. I have some of your DNA. They must be studying that in school, right? Yeah, I must have some of your DNA. So does that mean that I’m going to drive this car and do these kind of things? And. And I said his name is Thor. I said, thor. Yes, you have my DNA. You have grandma’s DNA, you have your father’s on your father’s side, etcetera. but yes, my daughter, your mom, has carried the DNA forward. But Thor, I. It’s not the DNA that matters as much as what you do with the DNA that you’ve got. That’s the key. And so that simple explanation is what I have come to terms with from leadership. You can grow. Through awareness, you can grow. But like anything, having those natural abilities really helps some leaders. And when you, see people with the propensity and some of those natural abilities, they may have an easier time of getting there. But it doesn’t exclude anybody from being a leader. where they were born, how they. What DNA they have, but what they do with that DNA.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah. Excellent. That’s a great point. Well, you know, we’re starting to get short on time, and it’s been great conversation. We. I mean, there’s just so much we can appeal with this. we didn’t even get a touch on imposter syndrome. That’s one thing. You know what? Let’s take a few more submit. You know what? We’re going to go a little bit longer.

Let’s talk imposter syndrome. You’ve talked about that a few times

So let’s talk imposter syndrome. You’ve talked about that a few. You, mentioned that a few times. I think, honestly, this is a kind of a very important point. how do you define impostor syndrome?

Larry Keiter: Sure. So first of all, when I think about this, the studies of the brain, right, you can look at the, through, you can google anything on studies of the brain especially, and you will see that we have x amount of cognitive thoughts, some 6000 to 40,000 thoughts. It’s all over the board. We have these hitting us every day. Well, 95% of those thoughts, Chris, as you know, happen almost exactly the same yesterday as they will today. We’re creatures of habit. We have those synapses, those 100 quadrillion, that’s 20 zeros, synapse ready to go. But typically they fire in a path and they make connections. Because as human beings, we like to, to predict those things. 95% of what happened yesterday will probably happen the same way today. That’s how we are as human beings. But get this, 80% of those thoughts, those 40,000, those 6000 cognitive thoughts are of a propensity to be negative. To be negative. And I’ve asked audiences this, can you believe that? And some people will say, I think it’s higher. And some people say, that’s too high. But, we all acknowledge that we have negative thoughts. And here’s why I, we’re human beings. We live to be m 80 some years old. Hopefully we die. That’s not very comforting, right? That’s reality. We’re going to die. We’re going to leave this earth. And in the meantime, we deal with wars, famines, political uprest, upheaval, stickiness, etcetera. So we’re fallible. And when we live our lives, we realize that we got to look out. Well, guess what happens? That slides over into the work we do. And we tend to prepare for things that are the worst. And the imposter syndrome is there, right there, saying, be careful. You haven’t been here before, by the way. Successful people do things before they’re ready. They’re still scared, they’re still unluckily and easy. But they say, what the heck, let’s go for it. And they end up being successful. Yeah, they fail a lot of times. But the imposter syndrome, 99% of us deal with this at times. And, you don’t practice maybe enough in our craft to feel that, okay, I’m not an imposter. And your audience would probably relate to this from a standpoint. Of, I have gone through that procedure so many times in my mind. I have read that medical dossier so many times, I can tell you in my sleep exactly what needs to happen next. Right? So preparation is the enemy of that imposter syndrome, right? That’s how you get through it. But not everybody has to do that, right? if you don’t have to do it, you may never get through your imposter syndrome. You may just go to the next thing that you know, and you see how that permeates the imposter syndrome. For some people, they don’t attack it. They don’t find out if I can really do it or not. I don’t have to. And to me, that good is the enemy of great. I’ll never get there, never find it. So, yeah, the imposter syndrome, I love talking about that, because once a person starts to understand, well, that’s why I do dumb things. Or you know what? I didn’t realize I was good at that. That’s why I love working with people and giving them hope. Development truly is hope, Chris. It’s, how can I get better? That’s what going to the gym is, right? It’s hope for a better body. I’m going to look better. I’m going to feel better. So is self development, personal development, reading books, having a steady stream of data coming in. Here’s, the other challenge with that imposter syndrome. There is so much data out there, Chris. Now, with AI, I could say, hey, how, chat GBT, tell me how to be a great leader, and it’ll give you 20 steps with substance on how to be a great leader. The problem is, it’s so easy to get that data. Is that right? For me, that I need. And we start to take some chances with that, and we get overwhelmed with data that we never take a step. We have analysis paralysis. So that’s the danger of having all this access and all this. So we have to be careful. And I will tell you, some of the best things I’ve done with organizations is taken out this big library and put the one or two things, whether it’s a book or whether it’s a procedure, and said, let’s all go through this together, and let’s talk about what we learned from it. Oh, m my God. All of a sudden, this energy of a human being beside me, sharing their experience, all of a sudden personalizes it. And that impostor syndrome starts to go away for the organization, okay? Because I know my people are trained on that one thing.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah. Interesting. It builds that confidence and what, that they know the box, and then they start thinking outside the box, and then eventually, with that data, even though you may not have all that data, may only be 78% of it, take the risk to make the decision.

Larry Keiter: Yes, yes. And I just. That action. If you could teach grit, if you could teach moxie, well, guess how you teach it by doing it yourself. And so these organizations that have these wonderful libraries, one of the first things I say is, what’s your expectation, CEO? what matters most? And they’ve never really thought about it. They’ve checked the box because they’ve got the world class learning.

Give a child a wide open canvas, social media, to become whatever

What are they learning?

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: What do you think is important? And all of a sudden, you start to realize, could it be that simple? Because if you give a child a wide open canvas, social media, to become whatever they want to be, you know, says social media, they’ll go whatever direction. You have to set what matters most. You have to set boundaries, you have to set goals, you have to explain, you have to demonstrate. And then all of a sudden, that child says, okay, I see this isn’t helpful, but this is so I love, I love all these platforms that are out there now. It’s just amazing what’s out there. But without guidance, direction, purpose, what’s your. Why? Why are you doing this? it gets so complicated. And then that’s why people feel insecure. That’s why they look at it, and they say, you know, I don’t think I can do this because I don’t have that specific skill. I haven’t trained on that skill.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: And the other thing that drives me nuts is professional athletes. They perform, you know, 10% of their, you know, their time, and they practice 90%. Right.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Larry Keiter: In business, working with people, we just go to work and we deal with people, and we expect them to behave a certain way, how we behave. And so it’s flipped. That model is flipped. We train, maybe, and develop ourselves with people 10% of the time, and we put it to action 90% of the time.

Dr. Chris Myers: yeah.

Larry Keiter: So setting aside a day, an afternoon, even busy people will find the reward of kind of flipping that model. Our professional athletes, a lot of money, because they’re really good at that craft, that they practice, practice, practice leaders can do that percentage of time. They work at it.

Dr. Chris Myers: That’s good. So let’s.

Larry Keiter shares his advice on developing leaders in the workplace

Yeah. So we’ve covered a lot. and so trying to sum up a few things. So we’ve already kind of identified two points already. One, you know, really get to know yourself, to, you know, know your team, build those relationships. Third one is, it’s really interesting, and I think it’s multifaceted. But really, really summed up is educate yourself. Pretty much get to know the box, and then don’t be afraid to take some risks. I’m not saying do a risky medical procedure, but, you know, take some risks, you know, try to expand your horizons a little bit, and go from there.

Larry Keiter: Absolutely. You know, trust your people from a standpoint. you know, I know some of the, offices out there, you know, have family get togethers and do dinners and all those things that are kind of expected. But what about asking an office associate or a support staff, hey, what development do you think would be good for all of us? And can you learn about that and what it would take, you know, to bring it in, to empower them to bring something in, and then them looking at you saying, you know, I want you to take this first, you know, truly let go, to let grow. And that may not be an easy thing to do. and if it sounds simple, well, it can be. But you, you know, find the right person that’s willing to do it, that has that why that wants to grow with their teammates and empower them. Do it, try it, fix it.

Dr. Chris Myers: Perfect. And that’s a really good note to end on. I love it. Yeah. There we talk all day on this. I love it. This is a great topic. Yeah. So, but, Larry, thank you so much for your time. Really, some really, actually very good words of wisdom here, this past hour. appreciate your time. Continue to do what you’re doing, continue, to fight the good fight, develop the next bunch of leaders. appreciate your time. Time to our audience out there. thanks for taking your time. Spend with us. Listen to what we are chat today. and keep on keeping on. thank you, everyone. Take care. Have a great day.