The CEO Swap (ft. Gil Peri)

0:00But oftentimes people only tell you a bit stuff. So you have to be really skilled at appropriately probing for the opportunities in areas where we're not good. You need to prioritize, but also I encourage your teams to tell you their truth and understand that the only way we can improve with an improvement culture is for people to share where they're operating. People may not remember what you said or what you did, but they're always going to remember how you make the feel. Any leader realizing that how you make people feel, making sure they feel seen, making sure they feel like they belong is 80% of the time. Welcome to Digital Voices. We're Healthcare and Life Science leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move Healthcare forward. Now you're host Ed Marx. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. I'm with my friend Gil Perry CEO of Wisconsin Children's. Gil, welcome to Digital Voices. Thank you for having me. This is actually the second time.

1:00It's funny. I have to confess, the first time we have 378 episodes, Gil, and we've lost the episode that you and I did together. It was, hey, this is a retake. It'll be better this time. Thank you so much for indulging me and doing this second time. I do remember the first time it was amazing. We talked a lot about basketball, so we'll have to figure out how to weave that back in. But we met, it was actually a year ago today, and I had the honor of coming to Wisconsin Children's and I did a tour and I was moved. I remember I was with probably 10 other people, some other local leaders in the community here in Milwaukee. And I remember we were crying. We saw the sacred work, I call it sacred work that your team was doing, and we were so moved. And what you do for the children, not just in Milwaukee, but your catchment area is much broader is amazing. I wish we had a Gil Perry in Wisconsin, and children too. I'm very kind of you. So thanks again for your time. And you know the most important question we asked last time is the same this time. And that's songs on your playlist. Like what kind of music do you like to listen to?

2:01A little bit everything. So on the way here it was Fleetfoot Mac. Later it's gonna be probably a little bit of Jay-Z and Rihanna. But depending on the mood, I have a little bit everything. Yeah, no, I love that. It's good to have a mix. What about life, message, and mantra? Are there words that you sort of live by? They sort of guide you? Yeah, I have a big passion for my angel, who really emphasize a big part of my leadership style, which is that people may not remember what you said or what you did, but they're always gonna remember how you made them feel. And I think especially in health care, but any leader, realizing that how you make people feel, making sure they feel seen, making sure they feel like they belong, is 80% of the time. 20% will figure out. And so I've tried to do that everywhere I've been. Yeah, and I've seen some of it like on LinkedIn, I know that you spend time rounding and spend time with your teams and all aspects of the hospital. I remember when we were all starting out in our health care careers,

3:01and to think that the CEO, let alone a manager, director, comes and engages with you, makes you feel special. And yeah, it's that, and I do this thing called a CEO swap. And literally, it is did last week. And I got to be the manager of 10 West, which is one of our floors, and she got to run the health system. The only thing she couldn't do is sell the place, but otherwise it was hers. And the opportunity to literally feel, not just typical rounding, but in her shoes. And I got to see an angle that I never got to see. And hopefully she saw the same from my shoes. Every single time I am amazed by how much she more could take to do health care. Literally, that's a through line. I've done this now 15 times since I've been here and ever since I'm off. It's one of those things that you realize this concept of one team, it's not just a phrase, it's how we save lives. And so that important to be there. Love it. Those 15 times, is there one memory that you have where someone made a decision that you're like, dang, that was a really good decision. I wish I would have thought about it. One was we had, I switched with the catering manager.

4:03And so one of the caterers, Diane was the CEO and I went to go into her role. And then during deep brief, she made some really good suggestions of things that she would do differently. And I'm adapting one of them. One of them is to really listen to our up-and-comers first year team members who are maybe under the age of 25 who think differently about social media and communication. And so it gives me a thought of how do I make sure I'm relevant to all four generations that we serve at Children's Wisconsin, not just the traditional. Yeah, that's cool, I love that. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Gil. What's your story? Where did you grow up? Let's start from the beginning. Yeah, I have an identical to when first of all. By the way, Ed's our point guard. My brother and I are six foot eight. As long as you throw the all you up, we're in the chair. We grew up Colorado, the younger brother as well. First generation graduates, both my parents did not go to college. So I learned about hard work early on in my life and how treating people for respect and hard work

5:04is a big part of how success happens. And so moved to Florida in high school. My dad's job transferred him and so we finished high school there and went to college. And as I've grown, I start off in adult health systems, but always knew I wanted to be in pediatrics. And so I had a personal family reason why that was important to us and have a look back. Again, nothing against adults. The kids are our future. It's gonna be our next technologist, our next bus driver, our next lawyer, our next doctor. And so every single time we impact 7.2 million kids across the state, those are our future. And so honor to serve at this organization. That's very cool. So let's not leave basketball so quickly though. So yeah, did you play in college? So my brother and I both walked on for two years and realized that I wasn't gonna be our future. But we still keep up with those 18-year-olds. As a matter of fact, we played about six months ago and it was a two of us and we picked up three scrubs and we called the scrubs. You know, we're not really great players. We won six games in a row. Not because we were better, but because we knew how to play together. So still try and have fun. Yeah, that's a big key and all the teamwork that's involved.

6:07Yeah, so you alluded to the catalyst to choose healthcare. And so you had this catalyst, you had this experience that happened. And you've gone to healthcare. And then how did you end up then focusing on children? I mean, you mentioned already that there are the future. But was there a catalyst for working with children? Yeah, so early on in my life, I'll give you the quick version. What happened was my brother and my twin and I were in college. Went to the same school. My parents called and said, hey, you gotta come home. You're young brother got pushed down the stairs. He has a spinal stenosis. He's literally in a halo, has shooting pains. Was you're all from school, et cetera? We didn't know anything. What to do. To who we thought was the best university Miami. Said there was gonna be a surgery through the neck, 40% risk. Then we finally found an expert who literally sees thousands of these cases. He walks in all of us, or in the exam room, really tight. We wanted here first day and we was going on. He said, take off the halo. We're not doing surgery. This will resolve a three week, three months or three years. I don't know, but we're not taking the risk. Wow. That was an early impression. Yeah.

7:07But what it means to have somebody who is an expert. Yeah. Confidence that he instilled. So I knew that if I were ever to work in healthcare, it was gonna be a task. Because I wanted to do that for other families. Yeah, no, that's super profound. So what are two things you're most proud of so far? Obviously you have a long ways to go still in your career. But today, what would you look back on and say, oh, that was pretty cool. I think I'll start off at Children's Wisconsin. I inherited a jewel. So Peggy Freud was here for 15 years before me. And then before her, John Biesel's 26 years. So I had a third CEO in 45 years. So what I inherited is a jewel. My job is to make it shine even brighter. And so we have a very, very strong culture. And one of the things I'm most proud of is we're taking steps even forward on that culture and creating a one team culture where that's our secret sauce. They can work anywhere, but they choose to work at children. And our retention rates in the number of team members who've been over 25 years is just unbelievable. I have a strategy background. And so we're developing a very robust strategy.

8:08It's going to be very, very focused on technology. It's going to really enable us. I think you like that. Yeah, yeah. It's going to enable us to think about being much more anticipatory instead of reactive. We've got the right team in place, Dr. Mansley, who's our chief information digital officers on board, his partnership with the physicians and the operators. We're not going to do a traditional model here. So I'm excited about that. And then historically, mental behavior has been really important to me as a leader. We know that unfortunately, kids are suffering. And we have to continue to be bold. And so I've built very aggressive plans on how we address that all the way from screening to inpatient care. Very cool. I like that. What about hardest decision to date? I mean, as a leader, you have to make some tough decisions. What's one that comes to mind? So early in my career, we had to close a program that was just not sustainable. And the program didn't mean that didn't have good intent, but it wasn't sustainable. And I'll never forget it was early in my career.

9:09So it was really impactful for me. I sat down with a physician leader and he said, this is what I've dedicated my life to and you're closing the program. And so that was the first time now. You get tougher skin than explaining the why. But the lesson to me there was you always have to start with the why. When you give context, they may not like the outcome. But when you give context to why things happen, sharing the data sets and the thoughts behind it, they may not like it, but they'll respect the decision. And so I've grown from that, but that was probably the most difficult one. Yeah, that's a tough one. Keele, there's probably people listening or watching now. So that's the advantage. The fact that we lost the first take is that now we're doing visual. And people are probably watching, thinking, man, I think I'd like to be a hospital CEO one day. What's one word of advice that you might give someone who's thinking about, maybe I should look at that as a career? It's, I think, one of the most rewarding careers you can participate in. I think the advice I would give you is spend the hours

10:11really understanding a health system. Hospital administrators on TV and kind of in general seem to be kind of the business people. Yes, we have to have that skill set. You have to be people people. If you're not a people person, that means connecting with patients and families in a meaningful way, connecting with team members who report to you, really connecting with the community. I just got done meeting with a legislator. I have to connect with people. And so it's very rewarding, as long as you get energy from connecting with people and really creating a vision for what could potentially happen for kids. Yeah, that's good. And the emphasis on the people part, because I think oftentimes we forget that. And that is sort of the key to all success. We've talked around Wisconsin Children's a little bit. Let's talk more in depth. Tell us one or two more things about the best part. You mentioned 7.2 million kids that you impact in the state. What else? What else is special about Wisconsin Children's? So we have, we're the only Children's Health System in the state of Wisconsin. And that's unique. Ohio has five, for example, that are free standing dedicated.

11:11We're independent Children's Hospital, which means that we report right to the board. And I can literally as an executive team make a decision on a Monday and execute on Tuesday. Ah, nice. All capital 100% dedicated to kids. So you don't have to worry about arguing over who gets what capital and we can be as bullish and bold as possible on what kids need. The other thing I'm really proud of here at Children's is we don't only focus on in patient care or outpatient care. So not just injury and disease. We try and prevent it. 800 of our 8,000 team members never walk into any of our inpatient or outpatient buildings. They're working on prevention. They're in the schools, this nurses, or athletic trainers, like health professionals, working on housing and security. We run the social service agency for the state of Wisconsin or who are adoptions, all come through us, foster care, all come through us. And so we are so much more than a hospital. That's why we call it Children's Wisconsin, we're a health system. I'm really proud on how we're trying to prevent injury and disease, not just treated. Yeah, no, I love that. That is very unique.

12:12Let's go back to being a hospital CEO again. So what is one thing most people wouldn't know about being? I think you already mentioned one really is the people, people part. But anything else that might be of interest to someone thinking about it. I would say in general, and this is not only in the hospital CEO, I think in general, as you grow in your career, it gets very lonely. And what I mean by that, not that I don't have friends and family, of course. But oftentimes, people only tell you the good stuff. And so you have to be really skilled at appropriately probing for the opportunities in areas where we're not good. And I understand when I was growing in my career, I used to see the CEO and I used to get nervous. One time I actually had a CEO tell me, Gil, what are you working on? And I literally listed 17 things at. And he looked me square in the eye, he goes, you're working on nothing. I'll never forget his name is Steve Allen. He's now he's retired, but he's in Utah. And the lesson I actually saw him a couple months ago, the lesson is you have to prioritize. And if you're not doing three or four things well and deep, you're not doing what kids need.

13:13And so I've taken that lesson from 25 years ago and continued to identify that you need to prioritize. But also, I'll encourage your teams to tell you their truth. And understand that the only way we can improve with an improvement culture is for people who share where their opportunities are. Yeah, that's great. You're a wonderful person to work with. I know because I have friends that work for you and are on your team. And to have a CEO who's that open and knows that they need the truth and want people to be very forthcoming and authentic, that's pretty special. So obviously, you have to balance many needs of the CEO. You have your staff requirements, the medical staff. You have patients, their families. You have the state, the legislature that you just met with. I think I already mentioned clinicians. How do you balance all those different needs and try to make everyone feel heard? So I think the most important two roles of a CEO is to be a sense maker and a culture influencer. And that's literally across industries.

14:15And so what I do is I just make sure that the right teams are in place to be able to take care of all four of our stakeholder groups. And we're very specific. We have four stakeholder groups. We don't apologize for. And number one is team members and call our employees team members. Number two is patients with families. Number three is referring physicians. 86% of what comes to a hospital. You can't just walk in. You actually have to be set there. So that's a really important stakeholder group. And number four is a community. And that's government relations and donors and all those individuals. So if you really take those four stakeholder groups seriously, you put your structures and processes in place to make sure that you care for those populations. And so I have a great team. All four of those groups are taken care of. And then I make sure that I round in a balanced approach. So I'm not spending too much time with one and not the others. And of course during crisis or during challenging times, you have to shift. But I very purposely make sure that my calendar allows me to be engaged and understand what's relevant to each of those stakeholder groups. That's very cool. You need to write a book on all this stuff. You're giving a great handbook of lessons for any leader.

15:17So you mentioned technology already. You talked about, hey, you're working on a strategy that's way differentiated and a key component of that is technology. So what's your view on technology and health care and where do you think we're headed? Yeah, I'm really excited about where we're headed. We have now really strong leadership in the space. And so I'm excited to see what they do. The direction we're setting is that we're going to continue to write the book in Pediatrics. Children's Wisconsin literally wrote the book in Pediatrics. All the medical students across the country, there's two pediatric books that they use. Four of the authors are from Children's Wisconsin. And so that's historical books. And now we're going to write the next book. And the idea is we can't be satisfied. We can't be satisfied that we have the same learnings or abilities to care for kids the way we have today. Technology is going to do two things for us. One is it's going to enable some efficiencies so that I can allow my team members to get back to what they really want to do to bring joy to their lives. And it's not just at work where they can spend more time with their teams or the patients. Maybe they can go to a soccer game

16:17but they weren't able to go to because technology is now assisting them to be able to be more efficient. So efficiency is one area that I'm really excited. The bigger area that I'm most excited about is our ability to be more precise. And so one thing's efficiency. Another thing is precision and radiology is an example or any of our clinical domains. Technology is going to enable us to be much more thoughtful and spend time thinking about the more constructive and the more difficult questions versus the superficial questions. And so with technology, we're going to be able to get deeper and ultimately, patients benefit. When you have a deeper answer and a more precise answer that's reliable. So I'm excited for both efficiencies and then that the more technology is going to allow us to do. No, I love that. And you just gave me this idea. I'm just going to throw it out there right now, kind of live on our channel. So I've done a series of books called Voice of Innovation. And one was focused on AI. One was focused on payers. Two of them were generally focused. Now I've been asked to do focused on continents.

17:20So we did one for Europe, came out in May. We have Latin America in play. We have Canada. But I was just thinking we need to do one on pediatrics. And we need you to be a forward author of that. I love that. Madison, all right. We're right in the book here at Children's Disgusting. So we'll do it together. That's what I'm hearing. That's why I picked up on it in that history and that innovation and you being a progressive CEO. I definitely want you being front center on it. And all the royalties for that book will be to Children's Disgusting. Oh, it's very kind of you. All right, let's keep going. But I just had that thought and sense. And I wanted to break it here. All right, so let's talk about ideal relationship between CEO and CIO. Sometimes it's contentious. And it can be a difficult relationship. So I know a lot of my listeners that come from the CIO side, they're always asking, wow. And how do you maintain a great relationship with CEO? But it's better to ask a CEO that in reverse. So how do you see that?

18:21Both have to come from a place of curiosity. That's the number one ingredient. If you have CIO or CIO who thinks they already know everything, you're done. You have to both be continuous learners, understanding that the field is moving in a very challenging direction and an exciting direction at the same time. The second is you have to really make sure that you understand where the there there is. And what I mean by that is as a CEO, oftentimes we can think of technology as a black hole. Yes, you don't know where does it start, where does it end. And when you hear the word, all you think of is black hole. And as a CIO, you want to make sure that you're applying technology wherever you can advance the mission. And so just understanding what are the priorities. And in my experience, what I've learned is when you point technology at strategic and operational problems, you win. Yes. Versus just the technology for the sake of technology. And so very, very focused on saying these are the problems that we need to solve in the next three years. Now it's point technology versus having an open ocean of technology that maybe you get an inch deep.

19:22So really trying to focus and having a CIO who's also strategic is helpful. Yeah, and a clinician and a great person. Yeah, he is. In your case, specifically. Yeah, so let's shift now to the last third, to talk about leadership. When was the moment you first realized you were a leader? Was there a time when you're in your youth, you're like, well, I might be a leader, or how did it happen? I think early on, my father used to be, he started off as entry-level mechanic in airline industry and it would be incoming a vice president. And every Saturday, he would take us to work. And he would put us in a golf court, and he would drive little golf court around to be able to show the mechanics that they also belong and they're seen. And early on, I said, I want to be able to show people that they belong and you're seeing. And so that was a kind of early impression. But then once I knew a kind of the direction I wanted ahead as far as being in healthcare, I knew I wanted to do more. Pretty quickly, once I started. Because I saw so much opportunity for efficiency, so much opportunities to set teams up for success.

20:23I'm a pretty solution-focused, optimistic guy. And so I knew that I could potentially leverage those. I would not be sitting here without the mentors in my life. Literally, I could spend two hours telling you exactly what each person has done to allow me. And so having the humble expertise of knowing that we're not done learning, hopefully I'll be a better CEO next year than I am today, because I'm going to learn from people like you and others. And speaking of which, what things did you learn recently like in the last couple of years? Maybe since you've been at Children's Concent, that you wish you had learned a lot earlier. Yeah, I think one of the most important things is pace. It's been a challenge for me in my career. I like to go fast because I think there's opportunity that is waiting. So again, making sure that you focus and be able to go deep versus why it is really important. Some I still continue to work on. My team knows I've gotten a lot better, but I'm not where I need to be. In the last five years, I would say, getting really good at third-level questions. So not the obvious question, or even the second variable question,

21:24third-level questions, which really bring in multiple variables to really come from a place of understanding. I think CEOs, any leader, should be able to ask that level of questions. Not one that can be, I guess, no answer. But one that's very thoughtful, that looks at a 360 view versus just one variable. Yeah, it just reminds me of the interactions I had with my CEO in the past. And he would ask those third-level questions. I was like, dang, that's a brilliant question. And I wanted to learn that same mindset, like how to ask that. How do you recharge and refresh your batteries? Obviously, you talked about pace, but you also have family, and you also know for your own personal wellness that you need time to arrest. So how do you do that? I just put parameters in place. And so I still work a 50, 60 hour week, every week, never less than that. I like to share my parameters with my team. I'm not shy about them. And so twice a week, I'm home eating dinner with my family by 5.45. Other two nights a week, I see my assistant knows she can have me out till 10 o'clock at night. Tonight I'll be out till 10. No problem, start. I'm always in the office between 7 and 7.30,

22:25never later than that. I work out at 5.15 in the morning. Saturdays, I don't work in the non-sun days. I four o'clock, my family knows. I gotta get ready for work. So I have a purple folder, my assistant puts it together with all the items I need to review. Anything I need to sign, my handwritten note file, seven to 10 handwritten notes every Sunday. Nice. I handed it back to her on Monday, and we're off and running. So what I say is, I was not always good at that. I almost burned out about 15 years ago, but when you put parameters in, you can be good at work and at home. And so, and it doesn't mean you're cutting corners. It just means you're putting parameters into be successful both ways. Yeah. Distill shoot hoops. I do. I'm a lefty. I've got a decent three point shot. You want to throw me the alley? I know. I was thinking, that I was like, do we bring a basket? Yeah. I think next time when we do, when we do our launch of the book, we'll definitely go. OK, there you go. That's right. I'll have to play you in a horse or something. Maybe I'll have a chance. I like that idea. All right, we'll do it. In the last about 30 minutes, we talked about so many things. We talked about how we first met and music.

23:26We talked about meangelo and how, remembering how you make people feel is better than what you might say or do. And then we talked about your growth, your upbringing, how you got into health care and some profound things that happened with your brother that led you down the path to pediatrics. And then we talked a lot about, hey, what do you need to do to become a hospital CEO such as yourself? And then what it's like being a hospital CEO and then gave recommendations on leadership and the things that you learn along the way. And really covered a whole gamut of things. I mean, so much. I hope age is here and notes. What did we miss, Gil, or anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word. Yeah, I think serving in health care is a privilege. We get to see patients and families at their most challenging time. And one's oftentimes that they never expect to have. And so leading with heart and with mind is critical. And so, to those who are working in health care now, who aspire to work in health care, it's a privilege. It's not a title, it's not a paycheck, it's not a job scope, it's a privilege.

24:28And so continue to focus on leading with mind and heart. And you can't go wrong. I love that. Great way to wrap up this edition of Digital Voices. Gil, thank you so much for viewing us. You're an amazing leader and person. Thank you. I appreciate it very much. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas, reflection and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify podcasts. So you don't miss an episode.