Leadership Development - Step 1 In Becoming A Leader With Adam Robin

Leadership Development - Step 1 In Becoming A Leader With Adam Robin

I got my buddy  Adam Robin back on with me. How are you doing?

I’m doing good. I’m glad to be here. I’m excited about the topic and let's get rocking.

We had our first aligned leaders group call. For our coaching clients, we are providing some leadership development and training for their leaders and potential leaders, and it's something that could be a huge benefit to them. At least we think there's a huge value in helping these potential leaders get grounded, give them perspective, give them insight, and also encourage them and build them up to be the future leaders in these clinics, especially for those who are within our clients' clinics. It’s an exciting day to simply kick off the Align Leader Program, and the topic was super cool. I came away enthused. I thought it was a great discussion that you let out on. It's worthy of doing an episode about it, so I'm excited to talk about it.

It's pretty cool. I spent a lot of time building out my first leadership development program. It is probably my 1st or 2nd piece of work. That was something that I did pull a lot of energy into, and so I'm excited to share how we have been building leaders in our organization. It's been super powerful for me. It’s transformative for me personally. The relationships I have built with my team have been unlike anything that I could have ever imagined.

I'm hoping that what we do is we can help these owners build those strong relationships with their leaders and give them an opportunity to be inspired and to want to sacrifice and do some of the hard work and make some money, win, achieve, and all the fun things that come with a competition that comes with running a clinic.

When I talk to clients about a leadership development program, or who are your next leaders, how are you going to develop them into clinic directors, usually they don't have any frame of reference. They haven't gone through a leadership development program themselves 99% of the time. They don't necessarily know what that looks like and they are thinking, “How do I take what I have learned about my clinic or know about my clinic and pour that into someone else?” Without any frame of reference, how do you develop this leadership development program?

Personal Growth And Tough Decisions In Leadership

It can be a popular topic. Like at PPS when I went there, one of the more popular rooms that I went to was leadership development. It's cool to talk a little bit about the program that we are doing, but also how we kicked it off. Last time was a lot about the fundamentals. It wasn't about how you hold somebody accountable, what KPIs should you measure? It was nothing about that stuff. It went deeper because we wanted to build this foundation first. Let's get into a little bit about you letting it out on the discussion. Tell me a little bit about your thought process, why you decided to start at this point, and choose these topics in particular.

Here's how I see it. You can agree with it or not. This was my experience. In order to do anything great, it's going to require sacrifice. You are never going to have enough time, money, or energy to get it done. You are going to have to make some hard decisions. You are going to have to choose that I want this more than I want that, and that's a hard thing to do.

There are these hard conversations and hard decisions that you have to make with your team, and the last thing that we want to do is make it me versus you. If we look at it like, “Nathan, you are my leader now and now you do what I tell you to do,” that's hard. That puts both of us at a disadvantage, honestly. Instead, if we can recognize that this is a personal journey, it's you versus you and it's me versus me, we are doing this as we get better, we serve each other better, and then that's why, it transforms the conversations.

It automatically elevates the personal ownership and the personal accountability that this journey has, and everybody's journey is a little bit different. We start with that personal development piece. It's like, “Who are you and what do you believe in? What do you stand for? What are some of the things that are important to you? How do you get in your own way at times?”

Mastering Self-Awareness: Overcoming Fear And Gaining Clarity

Tell me a little bit about that because you say you versus you and me versus me. What does that mean?

It’s like the first person you lead, and this was a great question because we talked about this idea of leadership and this idea of like, “Leadership is about getting out in front doing the scary thing and looking behind you and there's people following you or maybe not even following you, like alongside you.” In your hip pocket like, “I'm with you.” That's when you know you are a good leader.

If you are out front doing all the heavy lifting, you are losing sleep at night, working all weekend, and you are looking up and nobody's around, you are not a good leader because nobody's willing to sacrifice with you. As we go along these journeys and we do these hard things, we encounter the bad guy, which is the voice in your head, the emotions that you have in your chest, or whatever is in your stomach, fear, anxiety, and worry, and we tend to self-sabotage through those hard things. The degree in which we can overcome ourselves is the thing that allows us to succeed.

Recognizing that when I win the game against myself, I'm able to produce more value for others. Starting with yourself and leading yourself well is the first step in great leadership. The hardest person to lead is yourself. The biggest knucklehead in your life is yourself. The most stubborn person in your life is yourself. It's not the person across the table, it's you. How can I inspire Nathan to be great if I don't even know what it means for me to be great? This idea of leading yourself well, learning this idea of self-awareness, learning this idea of when you are doing these things, you are trying to negotiate with yourself on the best way to produce. That first step is recognizing that idea of self-awareness.

I can see myself as a younger owner where I wasn't number one organized and disciplined. I can say I was organized and disciplined about patient care, but around business ownership, zero. I was focused on treating patients and expecting everyone else to treat patients and make sure the company ran. There was no organization, there were no systems other than what I told you to do, and I wasn't clear as to exactly where I was going.

My clarity is involved in providing the best patient care and we'll figure out the business stuff on the side. As an owner, that's the opposite of where you need to have your mindset. As an owner, your business comes first. You are a physical therapist second, frankly. If you don't have those priorities in place, then your business will suffer. You might provide good care, but your business will suffer and the people within your business will suffer. For how long, who knows?

As I got clear as to what it meant to be an owner, as I got clear as to what it meant to be organized and structured, what did small business ownership entail? When I got clear about my role as the owner, as the CEO and my purpose in those positions, that's when my business changed. That's when my business improved because as I got better, my business got better. As I got better, what I could provide for my team got better.

As I got better, leadership opportunities for my team improved or presented themselves, like, “I needed a leader for blank.” I can focus my time over here and do these other things. All of a sudden, opportunities arose, and I had an opportunity to look forward and see what was coming and make changes and organize my business and generate a culture within my business intentionally that people enjoyed and appreciated. I had time for my partners and you name it. I lived that experience because I remember distinctly, as I was in interviews for people who might be techs or front desk and I said, “Your job is to do whatever I tell you to do.”

A total abdication of my responsibilities. It was like, “Just do what I tell you.” That was the limit of my organization. It’s so embarrassing to admit that at this point, but that's all I knew. I was acting from a place of ignorance. As I learned to improve myself, as I learned to put some structure in place and get clear as to what my roles were as a business owner, that's when I started becoming a leader, frankly.

Led yourself well. Whenever I hear you talk through that, it makes me appreciate you more because I understand you more. What I heard is it wasn't that you were doing the thing that made you a leader. It's the internal decision that you made with yourself that this was a new thing that you were going to create. First you have to find clarity, and the reason why we don't find clarity is because we have all these other things in our way.

They are distractions and we have these urgencies and fears. We are blind to our own self, but once we orient ourselves to something new, and we make a decision that the old way, the old you must die so that I must discover something new, that's the thing to help you internalize like, “I do have control here. I can decide where I place my attention. I can decide to react to that insecurity or fear or whatever,” and that's super powerful.

In my situation and many people, if you tuned in to some of my past episodes early on, especially, I'd get stories from successful PT owners who talked about a difficult period that they had to experience with their life, and I know you went through the same thing. They had to experience pain from living the way that they were living and owning the clinic the way that they were owning and running it before they finally made a change. What we are hoping to do, you and I, and the coaches that we have, is to catch it before it gets to the pain point. It doesn't have to get to that point. You don't have to wait until your business is struggling, you are stressed out, you are anxious, you are up at night, you are up early, and missing time with your family.

It’s not good for your mental health.

In a lot of these cases, the marriage was suffering, divorce was on the table, not good relationships with your kids. Financially might have had a hard time. If you are at that point, we can help but hopefully, we can catch people before then to say, “As an owner, this is not the path you want to go down where bearing your head in patient care, not up and looking at those who were working hard around you to lead them because I loved your visual in that. You are out there thinking you are the leader. You are running fast, you are setting the pace, you are seeing all the patients, you are running hard. You look behind you, and there's nobody there. No one else is going to fight with you.

You are the crazy person.

They are on a different path altogether, treating their patients. They are like, “This is what's going to get me what I need and this is going to make me get my paycheck. We are not on the same path, but I'm out there being the leader.”

You are doing some stuff.

It’s because I'm busy and I'm wearing my bag. I wear my busy badge with pride. I'm a super busy business owner, but it took some pain for me to let that old self die and experience something new, become a different person, and my life significantly changed after that. I know it did the same for you. When we are talking about leading ourselves, it's transformative. It wasn't, at least in my case.

That's what happens when you give the teenager the keys without letting him get his driver's license first. He wrecks the car, he brings it down the hill. It's like you got some growing up to do. I would argue that. You didn't become a new person. You realized who you were because, in the beginning, you were running on adrenaline and coffee. The real you was under there somewhere. The way that I like to describe self-awareness and the way that I described it during our call is that self-awareness is the recognition that you exist beyond your thoughts and emotions, and the active pursuit of being in touch with that instead of in touch with the feeling or whatever it is.

We have all experienced, hopefully, at some point being able to sit down and take a break. Maybe it's at church when you are in prayer. We experience glimpses of being present and still and centered. That's when we are able to tap into who we are and we are beyond that external rapid stimulus, the urgency, the fear, and all that stuff.



Developing Self-Management And Leadership Confidence

It's like how do we tap into that a little more often and how do we stay grounded in that more often so that we can step into hard things and not lose control, which leads into the second phase of leadership, which is self-management. Self-awareness is number one, self-management is step two where it's like, “Now that I understand how to get grounded, I'm able to insert myself into challenging situations, whether that be treating patients, hiring, firing, growing a clinic, managing financial struggles, and I'm still able to stay connected and grounded and clear and confident as I lead.” Now you are leading yourself well. Now people can understand you a little better. Now you are not the crazy person running the clinic. You are a clear and confident person that people look up to.

We talked about this. We spent a little bit of time on this part of it, the self-management part, because altogether, and especially as owners, we can come across issues in the course of a few hours of the workday and get emotionally tied up into the problems and the issues that arise. To be a better leader requires us to manage our emotions.

Check ourselves, frankly, and operate not from an emotional state but from a logical state, and use that part of our brain. It's not fight and flight but rather being at peace and thinking logically, and that requires some work. That requires whatever that might be. Meditation for recognizing the situation for what it is and not being tied up into the details, and the perseverating negative thoughts that come with it.

It's like the monkey mind is telling us a story that's not quite true. Let's be more objective about this. Whenever you are able to go through that experience and debrief and recognize that we have all been through some type of experience like that, at some point, your leaders are doing the same thing. Your leaders are going down the same trail. My belief is that starting with this foundation and helping them realize that I understand the journey you are on. I have been on the journey you are on. I want to learn more about your journey. I want to share my experience with you and I want to get to know you more. What a great opportunity and what a great place to start a great relationship.

To come from a place of experience and perspective and recognize that not all of your people are honky dory. Even on the surface, they might present the facade that everything's going well, but to ask the right questions and also share from perspective and also act out appropriately in front of them how to handle things is the best way forward, and also not only to give them the example but to invite them into a better version of themselves.

This is my opinion. This is where we get it wrong. This is the piece that is missing all of the things. This is when I know what's missing when I hear things like this. All these new grads only want money. You are missing this. My team won't work hard. They don't get it. You are missing this. I'm looking around, I'm working 80 hours a week and nobody wants to do any heavy lifting. They can't do it like me. They won't do it like me. You are missing this. There's a whole different game. It's like this idea of emotional intelligence and truly understanding human psychology as it relates to performance that must be understood. If you are going to get people, leadership is like, “How do I get these people to do things they don't want to do, but I help them learn how to love it?” That's leadership. A checklist ain't going to do it.

Who wants to do the documentation?

Not me.

No one. How do you get them to do it and do it well?

They want to do it and crave to do it, and be willing to suffer because they understand that suffering is the journey. We have to frame that up in a way that we have to put some language behind that and help them realize what that is.

Overcoming Leadership Challenges: Shifting Perspectives And Building Team Alignment

What leads people to say those things that you mentioned, like all these new grads, no one wants to work as hard as me? What leads them to say those things and how do you get them out of it?

It's a lack of awareness. It's a different level of leadership. I think that if we sit here and have a conversation with a rational PT owner or OT owner, whatever you are, we can all acknowledge that sometimes emotions compromise our decisions. I have done it. You are able to understand that it exists. That's level one. It doesn't make you a good leader.

Just being aware that your emotions make an impact on your decisions.

Being willing to say it out loud. Now you are a level one leader. You wouldn't even be my clinic director. You are not there yet. Level two is how do I move through the stress without letting my emotions compromise my behavior or perspective. Now you are able to lead yourself. Level three is how do I recognize the journey in other people? How do I recognize and how do I have empathy with what their journey is? The emotions that are compromising their judgment, and that's what's missing.

When these new grads come in with fears and insecurities, and they have their guard up around what they think is true, “I don't want to be taken advantage of.” We instantly lose our leadership and we start judging instead of appreciating and learning that as a human being going through a similar journey. Our job is to understand it, not to fight it. That's what we miss, but it's hard to get there if you can't lead yourself. If you are not in touch with your own story, you can't understand other people's story.

The way you are framing this, and it's something that needs to be overcome, there can be a natural tendency to make it us versus them. You are the bad guy, I'm the good guy. I need to bring you over to my side somehow. Instead of maybe asking different questions. What are their motivations, and are those motivations? With their motivations, am I able to work within their framework to tap into those motivations and get them to be aligned to do the things that make them successful, thus the business successful, instead of making it an us versus them?

We have got examples of clients of ours that have stood that ground, like, “I can't get these people to do anything. No one is here for the right reasons. No one's aligned. No one wants to sacrifice anything.” As long as they had that mentality, they got a churn. People crashed and burned in their clinics and they had a lot of turnover. It didn't stop and it won't stop, and it has changed when those attitudes have changed towards their team.

It's the definition of influence. Leadership is influence. It's our ability to recognize. We are using new grads during an interview process as an example, but these are riddled through your organization, these little changes with people. You are telling yourself that, as you said, it's you versus them. They think you are the bad guy, you think they are the bad guy, but the bad guy is the limiting beliefs that the new grad has, and you have.

It's like how do I understand what those beliefs are and how do I help influence that story so that they can see something a little different? That's leadership. That's not like it's going to take something more than a checklist. It's going to take something more than a nice website to solve that problem. It's part of what I love to do, honestly. It's why I get passionate about this topic, and it's also the reason that gives me so much confidence in what we are doing because when people are like, “What makes you different, Adam? Why would I want to join your coaching program?” I'm like, “I could probably help you change your life. I do think we could shift your perspective and you could be so much more powerful in these situations and get way more of what you want in those interviews and in those negotiations and those sales processes and all of the things. When you do that, you create win-wins everywhere.”

Building Leaders: Fulfilling Business Through Team Growth

Can I say one of the most fulfilling things that I experienced in business wasn't in the patient care, but it was in seeing people within the organization become leaders and become more than what they came into my business as. They developed skills and traits, and started leading teams and grew in a professional way. The fact that I had an opportunity to lead and guide and establish an environment in which they could do that was super fulfilling.

As I said, one of the best things about ownership was providing people that opportunity. What we are talking about are the beginnings of what Jim Collins and  Good to Great relayed as the level 5 leadership. Two of those things that create a level 5 leader are a healthy sense of self-awareness and putting others first, like putting others' needs above your own, and recognizing that for the business to succeed, they need to be succeeding. They need wins. You need wins. They need wins, and putting them ahead.

The third of the five things is that team orientation, that the collective achievement over the organization is more important than personal glory. Those three things and there are others. There's will which is represented in fearless decision making and humility, giving their teams credit and also letting them take responsibility for their failures.

Those first three things, putting others first, self-awareness, and team orientation, those are the things that we are talking about. We started the conversation with our leadership development group on the call. Leadership development is about leading yourself first. Be aware of what you need to improve on. Are you clear? Are you confident? Are you committed? Are you disciplined to the improvement of self? As you do that, you will then have a surer or better foundation off of which to lead other people.

Hard work doesn't become the barrier. It becomes an opportunity not just for you but for the team. If you have a team of 5 or 6 people and they are all growing personally, they understand the journey, they want to grow personally, they understand that success sacrifice is part of it, and they view sacrifice as an opportunity, how do you lose? Who's going to stop me? It doesn't happen. You don't lose. That's the answer.

You don't lose and it takes work. It's not something that comes naturally. It's done intentionally, but it also creates an environment where if you are committed to this or if you create some type of commitment to this within your organization, you'll be able to look up one day and say, “Team, here's the flag. Let's go get it.” You walk out of the room and they are all fricking starving for it and they want to go for it. They are excited. You ain't got to ask them, you ain't got to beg them. You have to plant the flag and they want it. That's what you want to create.

Improving Leadership With Self-Awareness And Personality Tools

We talked about some of the tools. You recommended some tools in which to have greater self-awareness and make yourself a better leader. Tell us where you started.

There are two of my favorites, and these are my favorites. Everybody has their own thing, but the first thing is I stole from Michael Hyatt. Check out Michael Hyatt. He is a cool dude. He was the person that taught me about this idea of establishing your non-negotiables. We all know the things that we are supposed to do or we should do, but we always put on the back burner, things that are good for our health, good for our mental health, good for our relationships, good for our presence and peace of mind, and spirituality. For me, number one, it’s getting eight hours of sleep. That's something you probably shouldn't sacrifice very often. You need to get your sleep.

Daily reading, family time, exercise, quiet time, meditation, whatever that practice is of filling your cup. The first sign for me whenever I'm sacrificing myself is that those things start to slip. I start to cut my workout short or skip my workout or like, “I don't need eight hours. I will get six hours. I will stay up a little later.” That's a bad way to lead yourself.

If you can be more intentional about taking care of yourself, then you'll start to realize who you are and you'll start to connect to yourself a little bit better. Establishing your non-negotiables and putting them on your calendar, and they don't move, whatever they are. If you are working a bunch of hours, you might not be able to have 12 hours a week of non-negotiables, but you can have 10 minutes a day. You can go for a walk at lunch every day. That's the first place to start establishing what those non-negotiables are.

The experiences are very similar. They are just packaged a little differently. When you put that on paper and you share it with your team, you heighten your self-awareness because now you understand that everybody has a journey and you normalize those things. You start to feel more comfortable with yourself. Also, you start to appreciate others in the room that are much higher level. That bond is where it leads you into the next phase of leadership, which is understanding others, but it's a great way to elevate your self-awareness. If you start doing those two things, your team will like you a lot better.

My experience with personality assessments, as I took the Kolbe, I will never forget it said, “Do not work with small engines.”

I need to take the Kolbe. I'm going to take it.

I laughed as soon as I heard that and I shared it with my wife and she laughed. She's like, “Yes.”

I wonder why.

It was such an insight to me that my personality trait was such that, and I get frustrated when I'm working on handyman stuff and engine, things like that. I tried to do things around the house and every Saturday like it didn't get in my way, I was pissed off all day.

I swear to God, I have the same thing.

My wife would tell the kids, “Don't talk to dad. He's trying to work on something.”

He's having one of those days.

Get out of my way, and my wife was like, “Why don't you invite the kids to help you out?” I'm like, “No possible way. That's not going to be a good experience for either.”

I'm barely hanging on, honey.

The YouTube video that took 15 minutes to fix something is now 4 hours into it, and I'm pissed. Once I understood that about myself, because the personality assessment told me that was my trait, I found a handyman and I got stuff done around the house. I paid the money to improve my relationships with my kids on Saturdays and get stuff done in a professional way that wasn't a drain. It was life changing.

That's how it can help people themselves with self-awareness, but it can also help understand your teams because some of these will tell you they like to be approached, they want to be shown the vision. If they are clear on the vision, then they will be led. They will happily give themselves and sacrifice themselves to the vision. Some people want to know about the steps 1, 2, 3, and 4. They are not so clear about the vision, but if you can give me the next three steps, I'm on board. There are different personality traits related to each of those, and there are others as well. It allows you then as the leaders to know how to approach them.

What might've been frustrating in the past in trying to share your vision and get them involved in the process, now you can say, “For so and so I need to paint the picture,” then they will join in on the journey. Whereas for this other person, I can paint the picture but I also need to say, “These are the next few things that we need to do in order to get there. Are you cool with that?” They are like, “I'm bought in.” There are different personality traits that you can then understand how to work with your team better. They are going to think you are the most amazing leader because you are speaking my language.

It’s because you understand a little more. The thing that I resonate with when you talk through that is it does help you find more balance in your leadership style. I'm a very hypervigilant dude. I can get a lot of work done. It's not all going to be accurate, but it's going to get done, but I tend to bulldoze through people. I blow by them almost like in a disrespectful way.

 “I'm going to get it done whether you are here or not.”

Correct, and I don't care the way it makes you feel or anything. That's why my brain is wired and you can understand how that would probably not be a great thing for my team at times. What it helped me do was recognize how some of my hyper aggressive strengths were also negatively impacting the people around me, then it came back to like, “I got to lead myself better. I see that now. I understand where I can get better as a leader to help serve people around me a little more cleanly.” That's how it helped me was bringing myself awareness of.

It was cool that you brought up those two things, and we asked people what their homework was. The last thing that you brought up and I shared it as extra credit for those people who wanted to get a little bit more self-awareness was, and you brought up the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 great book to get a little bit more self-awareness and how being self-aware can improve your ability to lead yourself and others.

I had somebody tell me that EQ, which is Emotional Intelligence, is the new IQ.

Emotional Quotient.

I'm making this up so maybe you guys can Google it and tell me if it's right, but I was told at one time that emotional intelligence is more correlated to an elevated net worth than your IQ.

I can see that.

It's like the person in the room who has the most emotional intelligence is usually the person who has the most influence, and is usually the person who can add the most value or who can create the most change. That's the game that I enjoy when I feel like I'm in touch with myself and I'm in touch with others. I feel in complete control. I feel confident in what we are doing and clear in the direction that I'm taking.

I don't have all the answers right now, but I'm feeling good that we have a great team, that we are going to figure it out. That's what you want to create as opposed to that elevated sense of panic and anxiety and it's like, “I don't know what we are doing.” It’s like how you are feeling whenever you are trying to work on small engines. You don't want that type of leadership team. That's going nowhere quick. You want a very composed, calm, balanced team who understands each other.

Aligning Leadership For Practice Owner Success

A good book to guide along the way. I like it. I'm going to read it again because it's been years since I have read that one. I'm going to get back to reading that one, but we have got to wrap up. We shared a lot of great information. Anything else you want to cover on this topic before we sign off?

We are rolling out the Align Leader Program. It's only going to be for our clients because we want to make sure we get this right. We are feeling excited about what we are doing, but we will be rolling this out to others who are interested once it's polished up and we know that it's going to be off the charts, but here's my vision. My vision is to take your team, plug them into a framework that helps them recognize how much power they truly have in your place, and to help them understand the excitement and the reward that comes with taking 100% responsibility for their own success such that they are on fire the moment their feet hit the floor and they are ready to crush it with you.

They want to help you make money. They want to help you do hard things. They want to help you see more patients. They want to help you do all the hard things. That's what we want to create for practice owners, and I believe that if we can do that, we can elevate the leadership in our industry. We are going to transform people and patients. Stay tuned for that. If you want more information about that, reach out to me and then I'm happy to have a conversation.

Thanks for that, Adam.  Adam@PPOClub.com or you'll find him on the socials. If you are not already, you should be in the Facebook group,  Private Practice Owners Club Facebook group. You can always find Adam and me there, as well as our LinkedIn pages. Check us out there. Thanks for joining.

Sounds good.

See you.

Important Links

• Adam Robin on LinkedIn
• Private Practice Owners Club
• Good to Great
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0
• Adam Robin's Email Address
• Private Practice Owners Club Facebook