Welcome to the Becoming Unassailable podcast! This podcast is all about helping you build functional, collaborative, and aligned teams. Season 2 is dedicated to “Lessons from Leading Teams” from senior leaders.

Rick is CEO at the Diocese of Nashville, which really means that he leads not just one but two separate corporations / healthcare ministries: a 217 unit section 8 affordable housing corporation and a 98 bed assisted living corporation. In this episode, Rick shares many practical lessons from his experience in executive leadership, including factors in his success, key practices and tactics, challenges, his secret sauce, and his next level of success.

What you will learn in this episode:

• The importance of hiring the right person and how to recover when you don’t.
• Why quarterly check-ins are so important.
• How to model visibility, approachability, and set the right standard for all of your leaders.
• How to cascade culture.
• The importance of celebration, especially after the last three years in healthcare.
• How to lead other executive leaders.
• The importance of mission and a next-level vision.

Key Quotes

“Supporting your people through thick and thin creates a synergistic effect for your teammate to say ‘I’m going to support my leader because they support me.’”

“Think back early in your career, you’ve stumbled, you’ve fallen. Who do you really respect as a leader when you are growing into a career? It’s someone who helped pick you up.”

“How a person enters an organization is just as important as how a person leaves an organization.”

“Quarterly check-ins make the hard conversations easier for both sides of the table.”

It’s about “Visibility, approachability, and setting the right standard for all of our leaders, [including those] who report to another leader.”

“It’s easy to pick up the phone but I walk down the campus to visit the other building to visit in person because there is nothing like eyeball to eyeball.”

Links from the Show

The Checklist Manifesto book

Get your free gift from Mark (free chapters from his book)

Book a complimentary strategy call with Mark to discuss the best strategies for your team

About Rick

Connect with Rick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-borofski/

Mr. Borofski is a seasoned senior healthcare executive. He has more than 25 years’ experience in executive leadership roles in national health systems and regional integrated health systems. He has a passion for leading organizations with a focus on growing and maximizing opportunities to increase market share.

He is a skilled leader with a proven ability to create and lead high performing teams. Known for his ability to lead diverse groups connecting vision, strategy, operational excellence and accountability, he has served in senior executive roles in organizations ranging in size from $1 billion in revenue to $12 billion in revenue. He has successfully led financial turn-arounds as well as improving the performance of already high-performing organizations. As the lead executive for growth in a ‘B” Market, he was able to improve the top line from 30 million dollars to 81 million dollars, creating an “A” Market for a Fortune 500 company.

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Welcome to the Becoming Unassailable podcast! This podcast is all about building a highly effective and aligned leadership team so that your organization thrives.

Building a healthy organization is what improves retention, reduces unnecessary politics and confusion, improves morale, and increases results. In this episode, I talked with Zac Wilcox about organizational health. What does it mean for your organization to be healthy and why does it matter? What do you need to be doing now to significantly improve retention? (spoiler: it’s probably not paying people more).

If you are experiencing issues such as turnover, politics, silos, an inability to move quickly, confusion, frustration, or you just feel frustrated or stuck, this episode is for you.

What you will learn in this episode:

• What is a healthy vs. a smart organization and why does it matter?
• What steps do you need to take to build a healthy organization and make a significant improvement in retention.
• How do you get aligned as a team and organization?
• Why you really need to focus on getting healthy, now.

About Zac

Zach Wilcox is the founder of Wilcox Consulting, has over fifteen years of experience in leadership roles across a variety of sectors. He has hired over 200 team members across his career and was also responsible for onboarding most of those employees as well. Zac draws from both his successes and failures as he consults with companies around building effective, aligned, and cohesive teams, while helping them hire, onboard, and promote the right people.

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Welcome to the Becoming Unassailable podcast! This podcast is all about eliminating dysfunction and creating alignment on your leadership team so that you can thrive amidst change and disruption by embracing forward change, together – the only way to become unassailable!

In this episode, I talked with Michele Herlein about the problem of misalignment. Michele is the Chief Administrative Officer for Barge Design Solutions, Inc. and a Senior Consultant for Thrivence, a management consulting firm. If you are experiencing misalignment between executive team members, between departments, between levels of the organization; if you are experiencing politics, silos, or confusion, this episode is for you .

What you will learn in this jam-packed episode:

• What is alignment? What does it look like when your team is aligned?
• How do you actually create alignment?
• What gets in the way of alignment?
• What does the leader need to do, constantly, to create alignment?
• How do you create strategic alignment?
• What should you do if you want to create alignment for your department, group, or division?

About Michele

Organizations are a social system made up of people coming together to achieve a common goal. Michele Herlein has dedicated her career to creating corporate cultures where these social systems thrive. She has worked with CEO’s from very prominent organizations. Each organization recorded record profits for at least five years after implementing her process. Her passion is creating work environments that allow employees to flourish and contribute their unique gifts and talents. She has extensive experience in leading large-scale change initiatives, integrating talent management processes and horizontally and vertically aligning an organization to drive business results.

She currently is the Chief Administrative Officer for Barge Design Solutions, Inc. responsible for Marketing, Communications, Accounting, Human Resources, and Administration. Prior to this role she was the Chief Human Resource Officer where she focused on creating a great employee experience using organization design, change management, and strategic HR principles. Her recent accomplishments at Barge Design Solutions, Inc. include obtaining Great Place to Work Certification, being recognized by Humana as one of ten companies in the Nation with a workforce engaged in wellness. being named HR Executive of the Year, and being recognized as a Woman of Influence by the Nashville Business Journal.

Prior to Barge Design Solutions, Inc. Michele spent eight years at Bridgestone Americas, most recently as Vice President of Talent, Organization, and Culture, where she implemented an integrated talent management system, designed and defined the firm’s values, and led a cultural transformation effort. Before joining Bridgestone, Michele worked for ten years at Bandag, Inc where she implemented a comprehensive leadership and succession management program and effected change initiatives through learning and development.

Michele has published articles on coaching, mentoring, and change management. She has spoken at the American Academy of Management, Society for Human Resource Management, and the Association for Talent Development. She is a cofounder of Impact Nashville and lives in Mt. Juliet, TN with her husband Doug. Her interests include paddle boarding, yoga, and lifelong learning.

Michele also serves as a Senior Consultant with Thrivence, a management consulting company located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Michele can be reached at Michele.Herlein@bargedesign.com.

Welcome to the Becoming Unassailable podcast! This podcast is all about helping your executive or leadership team thrive amid change and disruption by embracing forward change, together, as a team, which is the only way for your organization to become unassailable.

In this episode, we tackle the all too common disconnect between senior leaders and employees. If you experience communication issues between top level leaders and employees, if you are still seeing issues with turnover, or if people still are not motivated or engaged in their work, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Deborah Watts.

What you will learn in this jam-packed episode:

• How nothing has really changed.
• The criticality of being a courageous leader.
• What does it look like day-to-day to be a courageous leader.
• Where you need to spend your time as a senior leader.
• Practical ways to close the disconnect between levels.

About Deborah

Dr. Deborah Watts has more than 20 years of experience helping people and organizations grow. Her passion is developing professionals into tomorrow’s leaders and coaching leaders on how to optimize their performance as well as the performance of their team. Her experience has come from many unique opportunities spanning a wide range of disciplines and industries including organizations such as the Governor’s Literacy Foundation, RJ Young, Lands End, Humana, Harley-Davidson, Seaspan, Starbucks and Zillow.  Currently, Deborah is the Founder and CEO of Hayde & Company, a talent optimization consulting firm and the Director of Graduate and Executive Education at the University of Tennessee, Haslam College of Business.  She also serves as a Certified Partner for Predictive Index and Senior Consultant for the Leadership Pipeline Institute.

Deborah has expertise not only in organizational development, but also in behavioral assessments, adult learning, talent optimization, succession planning and emotional intelligence competencies.  Deborah is a certified EQi-2.0 and EQ 360 coach and a Predictive Index analyst.  She helped launch the Nashville start-up, America’s PowerSports, which won the “Best in Business Award” by the Nashville Business Journal.  She was chosen as one of seven executive women to execute an innovative new model launch for Harley-Davidson which included an advertorial in a national magazine with Pepsi MAX.  Deborah is a national speaker on topics regarding leadership and emotional intelligence.  She has spoken at corporate retreats, Chamber events, large industry expo’s and professional association annual meetings.

From an academic standpoint, Dr. Watts has worked with local and international universities including, Belmont University, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Lipscomb University, Trevecca University, and the University of Tennessee. Deborah is a member of Delta Mu Delta, a national honor society in business, Tennessee SHRM, and Vistage International Nashville.  Recently, Deborah was honored with being selected as a Nashville Business Journal “Women of Influence.”

An Ohio native, Dr. Watts earned a B.S. in Organizational Communications and a Master of Business Administration in Leadership at Lipscomb University and a Doctor of Education degree in Leadership and Professional Practice from Trevecca Nazarene University.  She lives in Forest Hills and enjoys spending her free time with her family, mentoring her students, traveling, going to Nashville Predator games, riding her motorcycle and scuba diving.

Deborah can be reached at Deborah@HaydeandCo.com.

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Welcome to the Becoming Unassailable podcast! This podcast is all about helping your executive or leadership team thrive amid change and disruption by embracing forward change, together, as a team, which is the only way for your organization to become unassailable.

If you are struggling to build trust on your team or you have that feeling that something is just not quite right with your team, this episode of the new Becoming Unassailable #podcast is for you!

In this episode, I talk with Justin Patton, whose latest book is all about trust.

What you will learn in this jam-packed episode:

• Trust boils down to three specific elements
• The three question trust test: can you say yes to these three questions?
• 4 steps to repair trust 

Key truths you will hear about trust:

• Trust is your biggest competitive advantage
• Trust is how you get results through people instead of dragging them along
• You cannot heal what you cannot talk about
• People can handle the truth. What they can’t handle is secrecy.

Justin Patton is an executive coach, leadership presence expert, and award-winning author of four books who challenges individuals to use their presence to communicate with stronger trust – both in the workplace and with the people they love the most. 

Justin believes if you ever want to be a great leader of other people, you must first be a great leader of yourself. Justin studied body language from a former FBI agent and coached NCAA athletes and contestants in the Miss America and Miss USA pageants. He is currently a faculty member for the US Chamber of Commerce, and a member of both the International Coach Federation and National Speakers Association. 

Justin’s engaging style, relatable storytelling, and insightful messages make him a sought-after keynote speaker. His programs will inspire you to reimagine who you are at your best and think differently about how you lead, love, and communicate.

You can learn more about Justin at www.justinpatton.com or @JPinspires across all social media.

Don’t forget to buy Justin’s book, Your Road to Yes!: How to Build Trust in Yourself and with Others..