Rising Above: How Hard Work and Tenacity Create Opportunity

0:00 Coming up on this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Wise podcast. We as humans, we sometimes we want to move away from conflict and disagreements, but, but, but, um, but, uh, disagreements or issues are some are sometimes as, uh, as my current supervisor says, uh, uh, mountains of treasure. Um, because what it means is that. Welcome to the Healthy, Wealthy and Wise podcast with Dr. William T. Chalker. MDJD, this podcast will provide you with tools and actionable information you can use to help live a more healthy, wealthy, and wise life.

0:40 It's powered by the over 50 years of medical experience of this Yale university medical school trained surgeon, who is also a Western state law school trained attorney with executive experience being a former mayor of Walnut, California, as well as the current chairman of the nonprofit Servants Arms. Terms and as president of Choctaw Medical Group Incorporated, this is the Leadership Masterclass edition already in progress. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to our next episode of the Health and Wealth and Wise Podcast. We are absolutely delighted. To have one of our unique leaders.

1:21 Um, and we indeed, uh, view this podcast as an offshoot of the leadership masterclass. And one of the things that we try to do on a regular basis is have leaders in different levels of leadership and have them to stop by and share their words of wisdom with us. Uh, we are absolutely. Uh, thrilled, uh, to have, uh, Mr. Preston Choctaw. Now you may say, wait a second, wait a second, Choctaw? And I would say, yes, you heard that right. Uh, he is indeed one of my progeny.

2:02 And we will, we will have him, uh, to tell us about himself, but welcome Preston, welcome to the Healthy, Wealthy and Wise podcast. Well, thank you very much. Very glad to be here. Glad to be here. Give us your thoughts about leadership and what has been your experience over, uh, your, your, uh, lifespan, uh, in terms of, uh, what you think leadership is and, and how you've been involved with it. There's all these different, there's all these different goals that people have, personal goals, and, and trying to get them aligned and going in the same direction is definitely hard. Right. Okay. Because if it was easy, then, uh, then, I mean Well, no, I mean, I, I mean No, no.

2:47 Let, let me take, take that back. Um, because I, I, I wasn't gonna say if it was easy, then you would have a lot of managers, but you do have a lot of managers. But the problem is you don't have a lot of good, good manager. There you go. Because you have people who are managing people, but they're, but they're doing, you're, they're doing it in a way that is not sustainable. If you have a bad manager, most likely as a person who's working under that manager, You're either going to stick around to get the paycheck because the money is enough. But if it's, it's like a cost benefit analysis, if the value isn't there for you financially for you to stay, or if there's no other value for you, you're going to go.

3:33 And as a company, you don't want, if you have a lot of turnover as a company, then there's something wrong with, with your company and there's something wrong with the management that is over the people that keep leaving. Because it's a huge time suck because you got to train everyone and then it's a financial suck suck too because you know now you got to pay money to then keep training people and keep hiring people it's so you need to make sure that the people that are working for you are are happy or at least um feel like they're in a really safe environment and safe I mean Not just physically safe, but mentally safe, emotionally safe.

4:16 What do you look for when, when you're, let's say you're evaluating folks, you're trying to fill a couple of spots. What, what characteristics do you look for in those individuals who you're trying to hire, um, who, who you believe will be sustainable and, uh, help you and them to be successful in, in the business. Yeah. So, um, okay. So no. No matter what business it is, right? Um, there needs to be a basic core set of skills or learning that someone has. It's so basic for them to be able to do the job.

4:56 For instance, um, if, if I was, you know, if, um, if I was the manager of a of a, of a widget company. Uh, and if I was hiring for a specific job, like, Oh, I need a, a widget engineer, right? Um, the, the person who I'm looking for, they at least need to have an engineering degree or engineering certification or whatever, so that they know how to be an engineer. However, Um, I, I am willing and I would, and I think it's more important to take someone who's motivated and driven, um, in that capacity versus someone who has a lot of experience.

5:43 Okay. Um, to, to put it another way. Okay, so I'm going to fast forward a lot more. Okay. Okay. So, um, after I became a manager, um, and when I started hiring people, people, hiring people, um, you know, And, um, a lot of the stuff that I was hiring was not like, uh, you did not need to have a bachelor's degree. You know, you can be straight out of high school. Um, you just need to have some kind of call center experience or be comfortable on the call or comfortable on the phone. Um, so I, so I would be looking for, for, for people.

6:23 Um, you know, in that, in that area who had calls to an experience or at least had some, you know, comfort, comfortability, making, making, making phone calls. Okay. Um, There was one specific person who had maybe five, six years of call center experience versus there was another person I was looking at who was, you know, fresh out of school at a high school, had worked at McDonald's. I worked at a couple of fast food places. Right. Didn't have a lot of, a lot of call center experience. I think they may have. And maybe a couple of months somewhere, um, in that interview process, um, the person who, who, who had all the experience was talking about their experience, but then they, they kept, you know, um, they kept talking, they kept saying how, um, well, what was it?

7:15 What was it? Oh, how like where they were at the last, the last job that they had was really horrible. And, and they didn't like the people who worked there, um, because they were, they were all, you know, they were all kind of jealous of them because they were so good at what their job was. Uh, and I was like, okay, okay. And then this other person who's fresh out had maybe two months of experience, but they were like, Oh, you know what? I'm really excited to work here. You know, uh, I really want. Climb up the ladder. You know, I, I think, you know, I think the company's great, but, you know, I, I'm just, they were just really, really motivated. And from my perspective, when I'm looking for someone, look, experience is something that you can gain, you know, you can learn experience.

8:00 That's what the learning is. You learn how to do something and then you get experience from that. But someone who is motivated and driven. They're not only going to learn, but they're the ones that are going to have the capacity to excel. And I'd rather take someone who has the capacity to excel and who wants to excel than someone who can potentially be a quote unquote, um, I guess, issue amongst the team. Because see, when you're looking at managing or hiring someone to bring on to a team of other people who are around them, you need to look at how that team functions as a whole.

8:41 Right, because, because, because all those pieces, they have to work together. Like I said, they got to be rowing in the same direction. So what's the largest team you've had to deal with as, as a chief or director? So, uh, largest team would say would be when I was, um, I was a center director and I had about, so I had, uh, about, I don't know what, like nine or ten, uh, managers slash supervisors under me, and then under them, total of maybe like 70 people.

9:21 70 people, okay. Yeah, yeah. Um, And, uh, when, when you, well, see, now there's a difference between me and a manager, being a supervisor, a manager, and a director. Those three sections are, are a lot different. And the ones I'll talk about as being a manager versus being a director, because a manager, you know, you're, you know, you're more involved with the day to day with the work, right? Because as a manager, you are, uh, you're responsible for some goals, right? But you're responsible for keeping that, keeping your team going in the right direction, like I was saying.

10:04 But when you go up to being a director, now, it's more about guiding and mentoring and supporting the manager. See, some people think that directors are about kind of running everything, but that's not really the case. Directors are more about supporting and helping. The middle manager, who's then the one who's helping and guiding all their staff, right? So, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to go to like, to, to like the end really, really quick. When I said, we're on a path and I'm not, now I'm going to just get it, get into my thoughts on leadership and about being a director and leadership.

10:45 Okay. You know, you may have heard of what a servant leadership is, um, but servant leadership to me. And I think that's the direction that I think positive leadership is, is when you're a leader in a position to serve others. And I think that's what a leader is. A leader should be serving the people that, that life is about being of service to others. I completely agree. Exactly. And the only, and when you're a leader, a leader. essentially means that, you know, there, there is a goal. There is something that you aspire to, but you have people who follow you and you take them with you to this goal.

11:32 You're not so a lot of people think that a leader needs to be kind of like out. I mean, yes, there is some aspects of being out in the front in terms of, you know, um, uh, like, uh, doing presentations or just, uh, you know, interacting with the board of directors and stuff like that, you know, company and being on the forefront. Yes. That's, that's all the, the visual aspects to how you're, you know, Showing what the company is or what your organization is. But in terms of making the organization work, right, the leader needs to be.

12:15 like below lifting, right? God needs to be below everyone, lifting them up and being supportive of them. Yes. So, so, so it's two prong. One, there's guidance where you're helping to guide and there, and there's the, the aspect of guiding management and there's aspect of, of, um, being in the forefront for the organization To no external external facing, and then there's the internal facing, which is the. the support from below and being that impactful person that ensures that, that everyone knows what the goal is, that everyone knows, um, kind of how, what our plan is kind of to get there.

13:07 But also that, um, this is not, um, a directive relationship. This is a, uh, a, a, by directive relationship, whereas there needs to be communication and there needs to be discussions and there needs to be, uh, Um, uh, so one of the, one of the things that, uh, uh, when I was, um, uh, quality improvement director, one of the things that, that I told my manager and my staff, you know, when, when they asked me about why, why I always, um, I was always transparent with them about what was going on in, In the organization, I was always telling them what I would hear from leadership meetings or what I would hear from the director level meetings.

13:57 And I remember one of them asked me, Preston, why, why, I mean, I mean, thank you for always telling us what's going on, but, but they asked me, they're like, why, why do you, why do you, why do you tell us this? And I, and I, and I tell them, well, it's because, um, It's not just my brain that's working on this. I need all of your brains working on this. I only have one brain, but if I can connect with, you know, the seven of you and have all of our brains together, that's a big brain. So I'm going to bring with, I'm going to have my ideas about how I want to fix something, but I'm going to bring it to you all. You guys are out there doing the work. You guys can tell me if this is going to work or not.

14:39 Exactly. And then we can all problem solve together and come up with something that that'll actually, that actually makes sense. I call that, you can be good by yourself, but excellence comes from a team. Oh, you know, a thousand percent, a thousand percent, somebody on your team is going to view it differently from the way you do it. But, and that's going to be a benefit, you know, because you're going to say, I didn't really think about it that way or whatever, uh, but no, I, I, I completely agree with you. Completely. Yes. Yes. You know, some, some, some, sometimes we as humans, we, sometimes we want to move away from conflict and disagreements, but, but, but, um, but, uh, disagreements or issues are some are sometimes as, uh, as my current supervisor says, uh, uh, mountains of treasure, um, because what it means is that, but There's something that someone has a different perspective than you, than you do, or there's different perspectives there.

15:43 So therefore, we need to understand all of it because all of it is valid. And if you understand, if someone has a different perspective than you do, you want to understand their perspective because they're probably not the only ones. Who are thinking that also feel that exactly. Exactly. So if you can understand what that perspective is, and, and, and maybe that perspective is actually the right one or, or, or not, but you need to understand it. And then both of you can can work together to find to work that path that makes the most sense. Let me ask you just a quick question about that. You're a a young African American male.

16:26 I don't know if I'd say young, but yeah. Well, you're younger than me. Well, I mean, I should be, right? Exactly, exactly. Um, but, and you, you, you're working in management. You're a white collar. You're wearing the ties and the suits and the this and the that depending on the meetings and all that. Yes. Um, have you Have you found it to be a problem being a, uh, an African American male in management or at the executive level? How, how does that work from your perspective? It's a good, it's a, it's a good question.

17:08 Thank you for listening to the Healthy, wealthy, and Wise Podcast with Dr. William t Choctaw, MDJD. You can listen again to this and any of the previous episodes. Leave a comment or pose questions to the doctor by going to www.twp.com. That's www.th wwp.com and you've got it. It's also available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow, like, share, and subscribe. If you haven't already, then tune in for the next episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise podcast with Dr. William T. Choctaw, MD, JD, a production of Changemakers Communications, LLC.