In this episode of “The Heals Pod,” I had the pleasure of sitting down with two remarkable individuals, Kyle Underwood and Adam Haas, who are both emerging leaders in the healthcare industry. The conversation delved into their personal journeys, experiences, and insights on leadership, mentorship, and growth.
Kyle shared his background, starting from being diagnosed with a rare disease at a young age, which fueled his passion for healthcare. He emphasized the importance of bringing a patient perspective to leadership roles and the value of psychological safety in building trust and understanding in healthcare settings.
Adam, coming from a family of healthcare professionals, highlighted the impact of his father’s experiences on his own journey towards becoming a healthcare leader. He emphasized the significance of being a servant leader, fostering availability, and understanding in leadership roles.
Both Kyle and Adam discussed the concept of “frentorship,” a blend of mentorship and friendship, which has been instrumental in their growth and development as leaders. They emphasized the power of asking questions, seeking mentorship, and engaging in meaningful conversations to enhance leadership skills.
The episode also touched on the importance of learning from challenging leaders, embracing failures, and using them as opportunities for growth. Kyle and Adam shared their involvement in professional groups like the American College of Healthcare Executives, which provide valuable resources, mentorship opportunities, and networking events for emerging leaders in the healthcare industry.
Full Transcript
DIEGO TRUJILLO:
I’m your host, Diego Trujillo. And it’s great to be here today, ladies and gentlemen. This is Diego Trujillo, the host of The HEALS Pod, also the CEO of Las Vegas Heels. It’s time I get to come and sit down with very interesting people around our community to find out what’s going on in health care in our valley and what we can do to improve it. We always want to unpack the different areas, right, the different areas that we have our vision for on Las Vegas Heals, which stands for health, education, advocacy, and leadership. And throughout that process, right, as I took over, was focusing on each one of those components and the value that Las Vegas Heals brings to the community. With that, we have very special guests with us today. And I say very special, we’re very excited because we’re going to be able to unpack a little bit of the leadership portion of the Las Vegas Heels. And not just that, but look at what’s going on in leadership. With me today, I have Kyle Underwood and I have Adam Haas that have joined me to be able to come and share on behalf of the Cleveland Clinic. How are you gentlemen doing today?
ADAM HAAS: Doing well.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: How about you? Excellent. I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. Fantastic. Well, it’s wonderful to have both of you on here. We were discussing the sometimes the problems of leadership that we see. I know leadership for me as I look out into the world, I always look for that lighthouse that can be that beacon, who I can learn from, what are the new levels of leadership. I think that as culture changes, so does the technique, so do the values, and with that, the leadership, what it requires to lead people. So it’s wonderful to have each one of you with me today. I wanted to kind of unpack a little bit about each of you, find out how you ended up here in the Valley, what your goals are here in the Valley, and then we can explore the idea of what leadership is, what that means, not just to us, but, you know, look for some definitions, agree on those definitions, and then see what we can do about it in Las Vegas. That sound good? Yeah. Sounds great. I don’t know which one of you would like to go first today as we’re speaking and unpacking. I don’t know if Kyle or Adam, which is the one that wants to share.
ADAM HAAS: I’ll give it a whirl.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Adam likes to step up, alright.
ADAM HAAS: I think one thing I want to say, Diego, is thank you for having us. Thank you for Las Vegas Shields Group for allowing us to share our story and our vision for what leadership looks like from an emerging leader perspective. My name is Kyle Underwood. I’m originally from San Diego, California. And for me, health care is rather personal. I was actually diagnosed with a rare disease at the age of four, which led to a whole host of just health care challenges, doctor’s visits, you name it. I’ve seen it. But from that perspective, it really inform my desire to go into healthcare as a career. Then my undergrad at UC San Diego in public health and business, and I went on to get my graduate degree in health administration at USC. Never thought I’d leave Southern California, and lo and behold, was lucky to land an administrative fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. in Ohio. For those that do not know, it’s a one-year leadership-based training program for leaders coming out of their master’s programs. And it was a great experience, worked on a variety of projects across the enterprise. And from there, entered a program manager role at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus in the Head and Neck Institute, which is where I met Adam, who started off as a mentee and now is a great friend. And through there, got to work on a variety of different projects on the clinical operations side. And as you know, things happen. I got a little bit bored and was fortunate enough to come out to Vegas with Adam to an event. It’s the Power of Love Gala at the Cleveland Clinic Host with their Keep Memory Alive Foundation. And through that experience, I said, hey, how can we get out here? And was fortunate enough to start roles in June of this last year in the project management office at Cleveland Clinic and RoboCenter for Brain Health. working on process improvement, strategy, business development, you name it, being able to really inform and change the way healthcare is delivered in Nevada. On the flip side, I do a lot of work with the American College of Healthcare Executives, and also Gerardo Deeds Advocacy, but, um, that’s a little about me, but I think Adam can, uh, top that one.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, like Kyle mentioned, Diego, thank you for giving us the opportunity to hop on here and talk about things that are very important to us, um, especially for the future of emerging healthcare leaders and general leaders as all. For myself, health care is personal as well. My father is a physician, a urologist, vice president of medical affairs at a hospital over in Ohio, where I’m from. And within my father’s journey, seeing him deal with mental health battles, burnout, demand, stress, all that. It really lit a fire under me to want to go make a difference for providers in the healthcare scene. And within that, I decided to study at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, earning a Bachelor’s of Business Administration with minors in Health Services Administration Healthcare Systems Management. I was fortunate that the Cleveland Clinic Akron General Emergency Department hired me when I was 21 to be a healthcare coordinator in the heart of COVID. So sitting in the fishbowl with attendings, residents, physicians, APPs, you name it, I saw what it was like during a pandemic in an emergency department, whether it be seeing COVID emergencies or general traumas, I was able to see it all. And it really opened up my mind to healthcare and knew where I wanted to go. In that year of 2021, I decided to accept enrollment at Case Western Reserve University, studying healthcare management and getting my master’s in that I am currently in my first year there so post undergrad I decided to take a role at Cleveland Clinic main campus head and neck Institute as just a general administrative assistant. where I was fortunate to meet Kyle, where we became best friends, where we were able to kind of go through this journey together. Starting as mentees, being my mentor, and me being his mentee, we generated a relationship of psychological safety. And, you know, he’s really taught me a lot about health care, but also how to be a better man. Like Kyle mentioned, we attended the Power Love Gala, and within that we realized that Nevada was a state that very much interests us, both professionally and personally. as there’s so much to offer in this amazing state and the city of Las Vegas. I’m currently now an administrative program coordinator too located within the project management office on the same team as Kyle so very fortunate to have our dreams kind of come true early on with this you know and just really indulge in the valley and learn more about health care and every week right every week coming from old Cleveland to Nevada there’s a new lesson From Kyle, from San Diego, there’s a new lesson, right? So I think it’s super exciting to get on here and speak about things that really, really matter to us.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: That’s excellent. No, it’s wonderful to hear that. And not just that, to listen to each of you, your approach, the reason. Simon Sinek always talks about finding that why. And so for me, again, I went through a health care experience, my first day of training in health care. So I started as a chaplain. As I joined my chaplaincy, my father had a condition. So it was very unique. My father had a fall in a hospitalization, and that was my process, right? Both as a family member of someone that was going through a very serious healthcare condition, while at the same time being able to engage with patients and seeing them going through these different positions. I think everyone brings a unique insight, or at least should bring a unique insight. I was listening to, I think it was Ryan Holiday, and he said that a unique perspective needs to be earned through unique experiences. And it’s very difficult because especially in today’s modern world where anyone with a computer can record and start voicing their opinion. Well, why should we listen to you? Right? Everyone feels like they have something important to say. And unfortunately, those unique perspectives require a lot of suffering in a lot of very unique situations that you wonder, why am I going through this? Why is this happening to me? Or why is, you know, Well, everything going on around, but I think as time progresses, as time goes on, we start kind of looking at our situation and understanding that you choose to make something out of it and you choose not to make something out of it. I mean, the choice really lies in your hands. I was very interested as you were talking, Adam, and you were sharing a little bit about your personal perspective. So, and correct me if I’m wrong, so it sounds like you came from this as the patient going through the system. As a patient going through the system that had been, I apologize, did I say the wrong name? Yeah. Okay, my apologies. So Kyle, so you came through it as a patient going through the system. Were there challenges, things that kind of set off in your mind? What pushed you towards healthcare? Was there like an aha moment that you could identify that you thought, you know, this has to be better or this could be better? Or were you just drawn to it because you were around that system, do you feel?
ADAM HAAS: You know, that’s a really great question. I love how you mentioned the Simon Sinek start with your why, you know, the first time I met Adam, I asked him, what is your why? Because at the end of the day, if we don’t have a clear purpose and a clear direction for what we want to do, we’re not going to be happy in our roles. And I think something for me is my own patient experience. It really wasn’t one singular moment. It was built up across various perspectives. You know early on I thought maybe I want to be a clinician provider and realize that for me and my my mindset that didn’t make sense to me, but also seeing what was good about health care and what was not so good about and how can I take what was good and bring it to the bad. I think the biggest thing that really stuck out for me is that. at the boardroom, at the table, where is that patient perspective being heard? And we have, you know, patient advocacy groups and groups that come together to provide their insights. But if I could be that person in the room that had that patient perspective but also making decisions, that’s going to be so powerful. And I think the last piece about that and my patient perspective is that I could have commonality with our patient population and have those shared stories so people can build trust and that psychological safety that was mentioned earlier with this community we serve.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: No, and that makes a lot of sense. And Adam, you came at this from a completely different perspective, which is more on the provider side. So being able to witness what providers would go through, the suffering that it is sometimes healing the other people. And a lot of times I’ve noticed in working with different clinical experts and different people, they’re very quick to be able to offer help to everyone around them. It’s a little hard to ask for help. Absolutely. And I see that happen time and time again. Would you agree with that? Is that something that you saw?
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, I think, you know, looking at my father’s perspective and him putting his patients first always, regardless, you know, doing vice president medical affair work to still being a surgeon, doing both. He doesn’t want to lose that relationship with his patients. And, you know, I tell everyone, you know, all doctors I interact with when we have just casual conversation, I ask them, I said, You know, do you miss holidays with your family being on call?
ADAM HAAS: And they always say yes, right?
KYLE UNDERWOOD: So it’s going through a Christmas without your father or mother, going through your birthday without it, not being able to attend a sporting event, not being able to get on a flight and visit you if you live across the country, right? Those are the perspectives I go through. And, you know, once you, in the shoes of healthcare, can understand that perspective a provider goes through, whether, like myself, lived it, or like Kyle, who hasn’t, right? And who has a great relationship with my father. that has given him another element of what healthcare is and how he can make a difference, right? And it’s, if you can put that provider hat on as, you know, someone who wants to make a difference in healthcare, you look at the system, totally different.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: And you mentioned something that’s very interesting. And I always think about this with my kids. My father was someone that really served the community and really focused on serving the community. And it’s very interesting because when you have a mission in your life, there’s sacrifices that you’re willing to make. It’s very different when you’re asking your children to make those sacrifices because they’re paying a tax on something that they don’t really understand. And so at 12 years old, you don’t reason, well, a lot of people need my dad because, and your parents might have told you that. However, when you’re that young, even though it’s been told to you, it’s not something you might truly understand. There’s resentments that might build up inside, different feelings that you may have. Would you say that that was part of your experience?
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, you know, there were times where, you know, my mother had to step up and take on that father figure role, right? And that’s something that is challenging because, you know, that’s the path, that’s the oath my father took. But, you know, with my family being so understanding of it still, as a young individual who was around 15, 16, 17, 18 in college, saying, hey, dad, I’m coming home this weekend. Hey, Adam, I’m on call. I got to be at the hospital all night. That’s so challenging sometimes as a man, as an emerging man who really is trying to figure out, you know, his leadership style, his purpose, his hobbies, all that, and not really fully have your father there on weekends that are important. You can kind of, you get angry at the world a little bit, you can get a little angry at the world, but you have to realize, you know, my father’s making a difference in the world, saving lives, you know, and he’s getting fulfilled in his own journey by doing this, which in turn means I’m getting fulfilled.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: And I think sometimes along that journey, at least for me in trying to reason that, I don’t know if you guys have ever read Franz Kafka. He’s a philosopher. He was a novelist and an essay writer. He has a book that, so right, he wrote a book. He published a novel. It did not do well. And eventually, he kept writing and kept writing. Before he passed, he told a friend of all his writings, and he said, promise me you’re going to burn all of this. uh, and destroy all the material once I’m gone. And, uh, and sure enough, after he died, his friend did not listen to him whatsoever. He ended up becoming a very renowned philosopher for his writings, one of them being Letters to My Father, um, and the difficulty in the childhood, in his childhood that he had with his stepfather. And for me, it’s fascinating because you could see this man working through these childhood issues of, you know, I couldn’t understand this as a kid. And even though I understand it now, right, that inner child, right, who we are, it’s still somewhat of a challenge. And you’re left with a choice of either bitterness or betterness, as I like to say, you know, am I going to use this to fuel me, to impact lives around me? And I think as we become men and try to figure out, well, who am I going to be, right? Am I going to be that bitterness, the result of all of these situations, or am I going to look to make an impact? and I think it’s very unique choice that you made to say well how can we serve these providers better how we could provide a better life and I even see that on the I even see that right now with the younger generation of residents you know we have an event that we do just with resident physicians and you talk to some of the older physicians and they’re like yeah these young kids are just not willing to sacrifice and sometimes you want to ask them well for what right? I mean, what are you left with? And I think it’s something that we, starting off as leaders of our home, right, as men, as we’re having children, sometimes things that are not addressed because we’re ready to pay the price. But again, do our families really understand the price that we’re paying? And so being able to take the time to kind of check in on those things. So each of you guys have very unique backgrounds as to how you came to approach this. And today we wanted to unpack leadership and what leadership looks like. I’m going to ask you guys a very simple question that has many, many different answers, which, what is leadership to you?
ADAM HAAS: You know, that’s a pretty loaded question. I think everyone has their own perspective, but I think it’s really built up on a couple things. I think it’s, you know, about having that servanthood mentality. So how can I provide value and be a servant to my community? How can I be that servant leader where I’m giving back and making sure that my approach in you know, whether at home or in the workplace, it’s about how can I make a difference. I think another thing with leadership is continuing to listen. I think we live in a society where everybody, we have all this content and all this knowledge and all this quick, ready, accessible material, but we ingest it, but we don’t listen and really reflect on it. And I think the last piece is understanding that leadership, you’ve got to take risks. One of the biggest things I like to say is the best known is the unknown, and that’s really tied to getting out of your comfort zone and making sure that you’re doing things that really push you and challenge you, because you’re able to be an example to other people in that space. All that being said, I think leadership has come down to perspective. We all have unique perspectives to bring to the table. And if you can bring those perspectives to the table, we’re able to better understand how we can navigate certain issues and problems. And for me, my perspective for being a patient, back to the earlier comment about bitterness, I could have been bitter. I could have been down in the dumps about my own health care condition. But what I decided is I’m going to take that and empower myself and empower others to make a difference.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: No, it’s really good, and I like that you’re not just defining what leadership is according to a dictionary, but what kind of attitude a leader should take when approaching leadership. What about for you, Adam, what would you say?
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, I think for me it all comes down to being understanding as a leader, right? I think it’s important to express availability, right? I think for me, I have been mentored by amazing leaders at the Cleveland Clinic, individuals who work 60, 70 hours a week, right? Physician leaders, administrative leaders, nursing leaders. I’ve been mentored by so many different perspectives and I’m so thankful to say that. And I think that availability as a leader is key, right? You know, sometimes it’s very hard to take 30 minutes out of your day just to connect, right? And, you know, I think when you look at that perspective, being available and understanding that, you know, you can be open, you can take that 30 minutes out of your day. And I’ve noticed when I do these 30 minute calls with leaders, it turns into them enjoying it and getting a 30 minute break out of their busy day too. So, you know, from my perspective is becoming, wanting to become an emerging leader I’m learning the little nuances it takes to be a better leader and that availability, that psychological safety, you know, just those two things alone really resonate with myself and understanding that when you want to be a leader, you have to exemplify these traits or you will come off, you know, whether it be unauthentic or fake, right, you will come off as those. And although those are traits that express my ideal leader, I think it’s a base foundation that I, you know, have constructed for myself in wanting to become a better leader and what leadership is.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: And I find it interesting the way that you guys describe that, right? Because if you look at the McKinsey Institute, I really like one of the definitions they have. It’s very broken down, right? They define leadership as a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective direction, to execute strategic plans, and to continually renew an organization. And there’s a few concepts that are within that right in executing plans, in taking people and aligning the direction of a group of people. And for me, it was always very interesting studying leadership. I don’t know what your experience was in childhood. I naturally always exhibited gifts and viewed leadership as kind of a curse. And the reason being, every time I got in trouble with a group of kids at my school, it would always turn into, well, you know, Diego, you’re punished for two weeks. Everyone else is punished for one. And I would say, well, why? They’re like, well, you’re the leader. I never asked these people to follow me. That’s, you know, that’s what being a leader is. And for me, I would try to run away from that, right, that ability to just have people follow. Later on, I remember in school, right, when I was in school, starting to break down what leadership is, and even as I look to guide people that I mentor, and trying to teach them to think through on leadership, and not just the privilege, because people look at leadership as, oh, I get to stand on the stage with a microphone, and not all the responsibility that comes with leadership. And so when I challenge people under me, and they say, well, you know, I’m frustrated because I asked these people for help, and they didn’t even show up, and blah, blah, blah, and I’ll always turn it around and say, well, then you didn’t lead them right. And they get very upset. People will take it very personal. And it is a very personal journey. You know, you messed up. And I’ll tell them, well, at the end of the day, your job is for people to follow. If you want to know if you’re a leader, just look behind you. And so I remember hearing that one time while I was in school, and I was like, well, that’s a very good point. And sometimes people won’t follow. And you can blame people all you want, but you can’t grow from other people’s actions. You can only grow from your own and look to change. Okay, well, how am I leading them? What is the different styles of leadership I should be implementing with different people? That takes what you’re saying, right? Slowing down and observing what drives people, finding out what are those common goals, the commonalities, what the differences are, and then looking to align all of those things together to get people towards a common goal. But I think you guys both hit the nail on the head when you mentioned, right, it’s being able to listen and to understand and taking that time out. I know as leaders, sometimes we get wrapped up, and it makes it difficult for us to, A, delegate or to check in on the people underneath us, and we’re so driven towards a vision, towards a destination, that we forget to even check on our teams. So let me ask you, you use the term emerging leader. What does emerging leadership look like? What is an emerging leader? How would you guys define that for our audience?
ADAM HAAS: Yeah, I think this is something that’s kind of come up, you know, in the last couple years, you know, post COVID, the social media age, it’s like this emerging leaders, what does leadership look like to the next generation of healthcare leaders? And I think the standard philosophy and leadership has great tenets and great values in it. But I think there are certain things that we’re missing that we need to make sure we’re incorporating, and we’re looking to mentor and mold leaders in this new space. I think For one, I think it takes into account that leadership and developing leader occurs not just in 30-minute conversations, but in life lessons. We are in a world where, you know, personal life and professional life is integrated, so how can you navigate someone’s, you know, challenge, let’s say, you know, they got in a car accident or their dog is sick, But at the same time, helping them get for their professional career because at the end of the day, if you can’t have your bare necessities taken care of, you can’t be that leader you want to be. So it’s really understanding that there is a sense of and a desire to integrate those two things. I think another thing an emerging leader is someone that’s flexible and hungry and driven. And what that means is they’re willing to, like I said, take the risk, but also willing to sit back and learn from others. One thing I’ve realized is mentorship is so valuable, but sometimes people don’t understand that the mentor gains so much from the mentee, and that’s an emerging leader perspective. It’s like, as an emerging leader, I can mentor other people, but I’m going to learn from that mentee as well. And I think the last thing that’s really tied to the merging leadership pieces, how do you continually grow talent? How do you continually invest in talent when we have limited resources, limited time? And oftentimes, it’s letting people take projects or take ideas or take, you know, say, for instance, a podcast and run with it and be challenged to do that.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, I think Kyle hit a lot of the points there and even spoke on some of our personal relationship and how Kyle and I got to this point. I think one thing my father taught me was, you know, value is a word that has a lot of dense meaning, and extending value, but also accepting the value. So you have an individual that extends the value to you, then you have the individual that accepts it. And within Kyle and I’s relationship, it turned, we curated this term called frentor, or frentorship, which is taking the ideology of mentorship and the ideology of friendship, and kind of striking that balance between personal and professional growth. So Kyle mentioned, you know, going through a car crash or going through your dog getting injured. but also understanding how to pull a data poll or how to lead in healthcare, you know, and make a decision, right? If you can master that and strike that balance, you know, these emerging leaders are looking for that, especially working within a multi-generational workforce. It can be challenging as an emerging leader because, you know, a perspective from a 23-year-old like myself is when somebody, you know, it’s so silly, but when somebody leaves a period or leaves an exclamation point on an email or a text, my generation takes that in a different way. And as an emerging leader, we need to start to understand that there are certain cultures and certain work environments that we need to adapt to. And as an emerging leader, it’s so important to be flexible and you cannot be stubborn, you know, in learning how work operates. Because if you do that, you’ll pigeonhole yourself, you won’t learn, you won’t take advantage of this opportunity. You know, in the Cleveland Clinic, in our, for our experience has so many opportunities to take advantage of learnings and life lessons. And if you don’t go in with that mindset of openness, you will block those blessings. I think that’s something that’s so important for an early individual, you know, who’s trying to become a leader, no matter what workforce you’re in, to understand is that there are going to be differences in how you communicate, but that communication is vital to success.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: You know, it’s funny you guys mentioned this because I was having this conversation very recently with someone. Sometimes we take this attitude of kind of imposing. So I’m going to teach you the way that things are. And outside of the fact that we are multi-generational, we are also very different culturally. And I see this, so my parents were Colombian, I was raised here, and it’s very funny, someone was asking me, based on miscommunications, how I talk with my mom, and I was like, honestly, if it’s ever a very deep or tense conversation, I will speak in English, and she will speak in Spanish. because those are the languages that we are able to be more versatile in. And with that, because my language, my mom, we would end up getting in fights because I would say things very direct or hurtful in her eyes. And I was wondering, but I’m not being hurtful. And I realized that my language tools in Spanish were much more limited. So I couldn’t say, oh, thank you for having me over. Is there any way you could facilitate me a little, a cup of water? I could just say, give water, right? And so I would be more limited and it would come off as rude or brash. And it took us coming to a point of understanding, hey, you know what, we’re different, this is the way it is, and we need to learn to communicate differently if we’re going to effectively be able to navigate challenges throughout life. I think one of the things that I came up with, it’s a quote by a philosopher and a theologian, which is, in the essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity. And that’s something that I, when I, when I talk with leaders, right, they want to get sometimes a little bit demanding, and they want to start, like, cracking down. I’m like, hey, you know, demand only from yourself. Marcus Aurelius also spoke about that in meditations, right? To be firm with yourself and to be very forgiving with other people. And sometimes we take that firmness with ourselves, and we want to direct that on other people. We want to put everyone through the boot camp that we felt that we have gone through. And it’s very interesting, as you’re mentioning, right, that the relationship between the friend tour, you said. And for me, I think you guys nailed it on the head. I think that it always should be a friend-torship. Any real mentorship that is going to occur doesn’t just happen in the professional setting. It’s based on relationship. And I always drive this home, right, when you reduce leadership, well, where does leadership really start? Let’s go back, you know, 5,000 years, human beings are living more tribal. It always comes down to the simple relationship between a parent and a child, right? And the way that you choose. Many of us, some of us had fathers that were very firm, that were very, you know, like a dictator and authoritarian, and you do what I say because I say it. Other people’s fathers would take a little more time, seek to understand and seek to explain. And, you know, we always kind of take those challenges. I know you guys haven’t crossed that bridge just yet. Um, it’s very challenging, but I would work with a lot of young people, and that was the one thing their parents would say, well, you know, I’ve, I’ve done everything I can, I’ve taken everything I can, and he’s just flippant, and I was like, ah, it sounds like he’s being hard-headed, and he goes, well, yeah, and I was like, well, where would he have gotten that from? And then the, I remember this father, he got quiet, and he goes, well, I’m hard-headed, and I was like, yeah, that’s one of your gifts, is you’re very stubborn at the things that you want and on executing, and your son has the same personality, and all you’re doing is butting heads. So at one point, you think that leadership is just imposing on top of them. At one point, you’re going to have to shift. Someone’s going to have to, you know, lower their head, or else you guys are going to crack each other’s skull. You know, and unfortunately, the one that’s going to suffer is your son, because you’re telling him things for his benefit, but he’s not receiving it that way, right? And changing the communication. Do you guys find that to be the case with people that you mentor now? When you mentor somebody, do you guys specifically look to connect with them? On that relationship, is there a template that you guys are following or do you allow the relationship to naturally begin to show, you know, weaknesses and strengths and directions and things like that?
ADAM HAAS: Yeah, you know, I think there’s never a prescription of mentorship. And I like to say, you know, you can mentor many, but you can mold only a few. And I think it’s a very much a mutual symbiotic relationship, where as much as a mentor is going to put in, a mentee does as well. I think the biggest thing that I’ve always done with my mentorship and, you know, Adam being my mentee, is experience it. you know really grounding it into what is your personal why for what you want to do and getting beyond the nuances of like I want this title or I want this pay or I want to be at this organization but who are you as a person and what has gotten you to this point to do what you want to do and through that that leads to a natural just conversation of um built around psychological safety to be like hey as much as I want to do this in career but this is what I enjoy doing in life And once we feel that relationship and a communication style, I let things kind of evolve and I watch and see where their strengths where their weaknesses. I never come to the table saying, here’s your strengths, your weaknesses, I want the mentee to identify them. And once they identify them. Empower that meant to to work through them and solve them and I’m a big proponent of focus on your strengths first because once you focus on your strength, you’re going to build that confidence to handle those weaknesses. And the one thing I think that you brought up earlier, Jay, go with, you know, that kind of like demanding leadership. No, you need to inspire. and incite change. So that individual, whether it’s on your team or that mentee, feels in their heart that they can make a difference. And that’s kind of where the friendship comes from. It’s building that relationship where you can have that professional conversation, but also dive deep in the personal side and feel comfortable in that space.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Yeah, Kyle kind of laid out that blueprint that right that plan of how you can get there naturally. I think coming from a mentee’s perspective with speaking with my mentor in here is is that mindset that we just want to have fun. We just want to laugh.
SPEAKER_01: We want to enjoy life.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: And we want, you know, we want to be very professional in our work. We want to save lives. We want to make a difference no matter what way. But at the end of the day, if you’re not laughing and having fun, what’s the purpose of doing what we do, right?
DIEGO TRUJILLO: It’s like learning an instrument. I remember wanting to learn guitar, and they were like, oh, just practice your scales. And I was like, this is terribly boring. This is not what I wanted in being a guitar player. And so it’s trying to teach people, listen, take the time to do those things that are not fun, but also take time to make it enjoyable. This is why you want to play guitar, not to hit a bunch of random notes to a little timer that’s ticking in your ear. And so I think part of that goal of mentoring other people to what you’re saying is figuring out how to keep it fun while at the same time putting those fundamentals into place. Have you guys ever had a terrible leader? Let’s unpack this, because I know I could go on.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: I’ve had some. I think, yes, I think everybody has, especially someone like myself who’s trying to get established and get moving forward. You know, it’s a loaded question. And, you know, one thing I’ve learned about a terrible leader is it’s one of the biggest blessings you can have in your in your early journey. It can be. I would agree. You know, and although it might hurt in the beginning, right, whether it be not respecting, you know, schooling and also working and doing those little things. But looking back at it, that taught me so much time management. That taught me how to manage my time off. That taught me how to manage school. That taught me how to manage work, right? So in that moment, you know, around that improper leadership, right, it may be hard to see the good in it, but when you flash forward a couple months, you can see it, you know, being a positive, right? And one thing Eric Vidmar, who is the leader of Cleveland Clinic Louisville, Nevada, has mentioned to us is, you know, when you find those leaders, you know, you can pick and choose, you know, the relationships you want to keep carrying on.
ADAM HAAS: Right.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: And I think one thing Eric does a fantastic job of is Eric spent all over the country, worked at multiple locations of the Cleveland Clinic. And he always brings back lessons and shares it. And that’s a great leader, right, is taking those cultural lessons like we mentioned before and taking those leaders. And he can turn, you know, a poor experience with the leader into something so fruitful and beautiful. And I think that is what you do when you go through that poor leadership, poor mentorship, is you learn from it. Well, first, you engage in the negatives, you embrace it, and then you learn from it. and then you change, and then you can go into this new season of leaders and relationships and know what you want and know what you don’t want, and then that in turn will allow you to grow even more. It shapes you, right?
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Yes. What was it? Viktor Frankl would say, when the choice of suffering has been removed, it’s how you respond is the only choice you’re left with, right? So again, going back to that bitterness or betterness. So everyone’s wondering right now, well, what is the name of him or her, that terrible leader that you had? I’m kidding.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Kyle Underwood. Kyle Underwood. Kyle Underwood.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: No, I’m kidding. No, like you said, right, even those people that even terrible leaders will sometimes kind of push you to be like, well, that’s not how I want to lead. Yeah. Right. And it makes you kind of change your perspective and it shapes you as a leader to be better. What about you?
ADAM HAAS: You know that’s a great question and I’m going to change it from terrible leaders to challenging leaders because I think, you know, no matter how bad per se leader can be Adam mentioned, you can learn from it. So for me, my approach and mentorship is introducing individuals to my network. And the reason I do that is because there’s different perspectives and different things that people can learn from different leaders. And I have a fairly vast network. And for that network, there are people that I talk to on the regular and people I don’t talk to on the regular, but they all have different things that bring value to the table. And the Cleveland Clinic as a whole, as an enterprise, is very big on mentorship and has amazing leaders across the enterprise that I can connect my mentees, such as Adam Chu, to learn from. And there have been conversations with individuals that didn’t go exactly the way that we thought they would go, but you learn from them. But in terms of my own personal journey with challenging leaders, yes, I have had experiences with that, and I’ve learned from it. But more importantly, it’s allowed me to navigate difficult situations further along in my career. Because if I had a conversation with one leader, it didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, I can reflect on it, take it in, talk to my people and say, hey, how would you navigate this? And go back and come back to the drawing board and say, hey, this is how I would handle it next time. And oftentimes, you know, when dealing with challenging leaders and going back to the drawing table with them again, I’ve actually been able to lead to better ideation and better thought processes and better delivery of results for an organization because I was able to take that challenge, reflect on it, and say, hey, how can we be better in this? Um, I’m not going to name any names, but I think in general and people need names. Yeah, in general, in general, I think lead if we didn’t have challenging and say terrible leaders, the best leaders wouldn’t be here. I always like to say you gotta have losers have winners. That’s kind of approach. I would look at leadership to
DIEGO TRUJILLO: See, I always use the term, people are challenging and we’re people too, right? Because at the same time, as much as we may want to criticize, we always need to have that mirror next to us because sometimes we’re going to fail the people that are following us. It helps us to have a little bit of humility and to be a little more forgiving with the people that are above us. I remember early on, I had somebody that was under me, and they would always challenge me on different things. They would always present problems to me. And I remember one point, I had an aha moment. I said, hey, do you want to be a leader one day? And they’re like, yeah, absolutely. I’d want to lead. I was like, then try and be the type of follower that you would want to lead. But every time you come, you bring me a problem with zero solutions. And he was like, yeah, you’re absolutely right. And from then on, he would come in and say, hey, I’m not going to be able to be here on Tuesday, but I already called these three people. This person is going to be able to follow up. And his personality completely changed because he thought of leadership in a different sense. In other words, something that he wanted to attain. And that requires us, even as leaders, there’s always someone we’re following to kind of shift the way that we’re following people, right, to adjust our thought processes. And through that, And the experience, I’ll say this, since I’m a little bit further down the road than you guys, right? And I’ve made more mistakes is what I mean by that. So being seasoned, I may be more seasoned, but because I’ve also failed. It’s not just the successes and the victories that I’ve had, but the people that have walked away from me that hurt. And I thought, man, I did mess up there. I should have done something different. I could have led them a little bit differently. This is on me. And so it kind of takes me a step back. So how do you see this as you guys search out tools for the early careerists, right? You guys have leadership on your mind. It’s very exciting to hear. I didn’t tap into this, right, when I was 22, 23. It sounds like you guys had this end in mind, right? Like you wanted to aim the arrow and let it go.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: I think, you know, one thing Kyle and I do a lot of is we put 30 minutes on the calendar every day to do some reflection one opportunity, one win. And I think one thing that Kyle. I remember Kyle and I were talking and he was mentioning I say hey Kyle, it was just a random hallway conversation when we were working from home because Kyle and I roommates. And I said to him, I said, Kyle, like, where can I be better? And he’s like, I got to think on this. I’m like, okay, like, this is a real, like, I’m like, I’m finally catching Kyle in a deep think where he can give me some raw advice, some real raw advice for, you know, with our new journey that we embarked on. And, you know, he was writing things down. And then he said, I remember it was like two hours later, he comes and knocks on my door. He’s like, I got it. And I’m like, okay, what is it? I’m like, it’s a million dollar thing. And it was two words. It was just ask. And when Kyle mentioned that, he goes, Adam is becoming an emerging leader, is becoming somebody who you want to be. You need to be better at just asking, right? Worst they can say is no, right? Like asking for, hey, I would love to meet this person. They have an amazing career path. Okay, shoot him a message on LinkedIn. or I’m really interested in going to school and studying this and maybe doing a career flip, what can I do? Just ask an academic professor if you see him, if you have their email, shoot him an email. Just ask because you can learn so much from that. And ever since I heard that advice that day two months ago, it really just fueled a fire in me to want to learn more about myself. And to do that, it’s by just asking.
ADAM HAAS: This is a good perspective on when you can be best friends and mentor mentee right there. You can have the hat, wear different hats. And roommates. And roommates, man. That sounds challenging. It is. We’re doing it. We’re doing it. I think the biggest thing, you know, when you’re looking at tools, and I think that just ask piece is key, and we’re looking at those hard tools, leveraging the resources in the community or at large. I mean, if you look at healthcare, the American College of Healthcare Executives, which is a professional group made up of healthcare leaders across the country, we have our own chapter here in Nevada, that offers, you know, programming, a mentorship, a variety of things that could be tools for the emerging leader to get connected with people, what skills you need to learn in the workforce, things like that. But on the flip side, I think another big thing is podcast reading. Those are traditional things that every leader has listened to. So the whole value today. But I think the biggest tool and the biggest tip I would get for any emerging leader is conversation, conversation, conversation. I brought up earlier, I ran an ad for the gauntlet of 100 one-on-ones in probably three or four months, and he did it, he did it, I’m very proud of him. But having those conversations with different leaders will be so much more valuable than, let’s say, opening up a book. Because you’re having that real authentic discussion, and you’re going to learn outside that classroom. I think the last really major piece when you’re looking at leadership and those tools is Thinking of ways that you yourself can bring to the table. What do you think, as an emerging leader, you could bring to the table to bring perspective on? You know, Ab and I have been doing this for about a year and a half now. And as much as we love leadership and love, you know, talking about mentorship, this is not something we decided, hey, we’re just going to go do. It evolved and naturally came. So making sure that you understand as an emerging leader, one of the biggest tools you have is your voice. And your voice has power and has an impact.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: That’s really good. Both of those answers are very, very good. I think I think it’s very key. Like you mentioned, right? Yes, it’s the constantly building ourselves on a continual basis. But at the same time, like you said, right? Where’s the practical? I can learn all the theory I want in books. But until I start doing until I start mixing until I start asking until until I get out of the box, right? I go back to Again, as Colombians, we had a lot of family and friends that would come from another country and they’re like, well, I’ve taken eight English classes and my English is not that good. I would always tell them, go get an American friend. No, but I think I need one other class. No, you need to go and start speaking English. Go play basketball with people. I would meet people that their English was great after a year and a half and it was always the same answer. I would just go talk. At the same time, we just need to get out there. Well, I very much you guys mentioned right a group here that focuses on leadership. Are you guys involved in any groups here? I was going to I was going to follow up and ask what groups are you involved in leadership outside of the Cleveland Clinic? What tools if someone that wants to get involved in leadership or wants to grow in leadership? What do you think is available to them?
ADAM HAAS: Yeah, you know, I mentioned earlier, but the American College of Healthcare Executives is an amazing resource group that I’ve been a part of since actually 2017, from San Diego to LA to Cleveland, now to Vegas. It’s a group that brings healthcare leaders, whether early careers or senior executives, together to talk about key healthcare trends, provide mentorship, provide professional development and knowledge sharing, to how to be a leader in this space, how to navigate difficult challenges and issues, and how to make a difference in the healthcare landscape. And you know the way you can get involved is you can go online to American College of Healthcare Executives. We also have a website for the Nevada chapter and sign up, become a member. We have a lot of great events that are coming up and just get engaged with the community. It only takes one conversation to get the ball rolling.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: So that’s the way they can just ask. Just ask.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Just ask.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Start getting involved. Just ask.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: So yeah, Kyle mentioned the basics of American College of Health Care Executives. Kyle and I were collaborating at American College of Healthcare Executives of the Northern Ohio group, and then we transferred over, thankfully, by Dr. Maia Carter to give us the opportunity to contribute with American College of Healthcare Executives of Nevada. And both boards were fantastic. Both groups were fantastic. And the one thing about the Nevada chapter that I love that is similar to the Northern Ohio one is the events we put on. Nevada our chapter in Nevada puts on so many events and they’re fun, right?
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Like you don’t have to go in there like robotic, you know looking for your elevator I’ve attended some of them and I was like, yeah, it’s just a great time to connect with other people, right? It’s just you’re all suffering leadership together, right?
KYLE UNDERWOOD: Exactly, and it takes you to that point of laughter and smiling and enjoying it and learning right? And especially with, you know, not having a lot of, you know, academic centers around here, academic institutions like colleges and stuff, right? In Ohio I had probably about 20 schools in the region in the span of like four hours. So it was really easy to connect and make those connections here, you know, learning the Nevada landscape in our first, you know, six months here. It’s learning, you know, how can we reach that student group? How can we reach UNLV? How can we reach Reno? How can we do whatever it is, right? What can we do to reach those students, you know, because You know, I remember, I’m a student now, and my program’s online, in part-time, and being online, I still don’t have that direct connection, and I miss that. And I know some students that are interested in this field of healthcare administration can get that through the American College of Healthcare Executives, ACHE, here. So, definitely look into that if you’re interested. I think it’s a fantastic group of individuals and a very well-organized machine that really just wants to make a difference in the Valley.
ADAM HAAS: And I think one thing to mention is we love volunteers getting involved whether you’re a student or a senior executive joining a committee That’s how I got started. That’s how Adam got started. That’s what built that kind of network and it just comes organically So you’re saying to serve to serve? That’s excellent.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Yeah, I think I think you guys are onto something and you know, we connected I was very excited at You know when I got your guys’s email and said, yeah, you know Eric pulled us out here to Las Vegas and I was like, wow, they’re really interested in leadership and developing leadership and That made me excited because it’s something that, like I said, in my younger years, I always struggled with. I always found it to be more of a curse. Now, as I’m getting older, I’m seeing the privilege of being a leader, the responsibility of being a leader, and more importantly, to work together with others so that we can develop good leadership. I’ve also had, I’ll go as far as to say terrible leaders, but the only reason I’ll say that is because I used to work in a French, a classic French kitchen. and back then it was authoritarian to the max. I don’t care if you learn anything, you do what I say. Yes, chef is the only answer I want to hear. I don’t ever need an explanation. So it was very, very rough for me. I remember wanting to quit at one time and I called my mom just furious because we almost got into a fistfight, the chef and I, that happened about four or five times. And they told me to go walk outside and as I’m walking outside and I call her I was like I can’t believe this and I swear And I’m just saying and she goes son. Do you think you’re there for a reason? I was like, yeah, I know that I’m here for a reason and she goes well Then maybe you needed someone more stubborn than you to break you Wow, and I was just she’s right. I hate that She’s right, but mothers are always right Right. Luckily, it’s not the case. I think younger people are a little more sensitive to how to guide people. You know, it’s not just a whip. It’s being a wind in the sail and inspiring and pushing people. And this is something I want to do on a continual basis with you guys. You know, I think this is something we want to follow up. I know we had discussed doing a quarterly. I think it’s we can unpack this topic on a monthly basis and look at different areas of leadership. And so I hope this is not the last podcast and we make this a regular occurrence and we can start coming together and talking about leadership tools and lessons that we’ve learned book recommendations. There’s a lot we can impact. So I want to thank you very much to Adam and Kyle that have joined us from the Cleveland Clinic here at the Blackfire Innovation Center. to be able to share a little bit about your experience as to why you choose leadership. And I want to unpack a little bit more on leadership and what you see the development of leadership being in Las Vegas at a later date. So I look forward to being able to meet with you guys to discuss and to continue this conversation. So if people want to find you guys, how can they reach out? How can they connect? You guys mentioned the American College of Healthcare Executives?
ADAM HAAS: Yeah, so you can find us on at the website there. And the best way to connect with us is LinkedIn. That’s something that we leverage well. So Kyle Underwood on LinkedIn.
KYLE UNDERWOOD: And Adam Haas. And thank you, Diego, for this opportunity to get out here and chat. Don’t be a stranger, anyone that wants to reach out to Kyle and I. We’re always so thankful for these opportunities to share our lessons that we’ve curated over the early 20 years of our life. But it’s trying to take these lessons and learn. And Diego, thank you for this platform to share.
DIEGO TRUJILLO: Absolutely. Well, thank you guys very much. And to all our guests, thank you for listening. Make sure to check out the American College of Healthcare Executives. Thank you very much and have a great day.
