Surgeon Mindset Meets Leadership

SPEAKER_01 0:05

What if the same discipline that makes a surgeon steady in the operating room could make a leader steady in the boardroom? That's a crazy analogy, right? But what if I tell you that's true? And what if pressure didn't have to mean panic and burnout wasn't inevitable? Welcome back to another episode of Healthy Bind Healthy Life, a part of the Healthy Mind by Avik Network, a space where we have honest and grounded conversations like these. It's just hyan on this end, and uh today I have a truly remarkable guest with me, uh, Dr. Jason Piefer. He is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, chief of staff and chairman of orthopedic surgery at Memorial Herman, the Woodlands Medical Center, and a powerful voice on high-stakes leadership, showing us how precision and kindness can coexist together even under the most instant, intense pressure. So I welcome you to this journey where we would really talk about those high-stakes moments and also what burnout really looks like from the inside and how we can shift from operating in a survival mode into more of a mode which is leading with genuine purpose. So, Dr. Pifer, it's it's an honor to have you here with me today. Welcome to the show and really excited to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate you taking the time and your listeners taking the time to be with us to talk about a little bit of leadership.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, I think that's really fundamental to you know most of the verticals that I mean we get to experience, whether that be in corporates or whether that be in politics, whether that be in, I mean, uh leadership pretty much, you know, uh covers, you know, all the all the domains and leaders are very important. And we'll we'll come towards the end, you know, what really makes a good leader a good leader.

A Quick Listening Disclaimer

SPEAKER_01 1:48

You know, but uh before we get started, folks, just a little disclaimer.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Hey dear listeners, before we begin, a quick note from Heldiman Beyavek. This episode is created for educational and informational purposes only. The views shared by our guests are their own and may not reflect those of the host or network. Nothing in this conversation should be taken as medical, legal, financial, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making important decisions. We encourage you to listen with curiosity, think independently, and use this content as a starting point for reflection, not a substitute for professional guidance. Now, settle in and enjoy the conversation.

Pressure Reveals How Leaders Behave

SPEAKER_01 2:29

So, with that being said, Jason, before we get into all of it, I want to start somewhere with your own story. Since you have built this whole philosophy of Tinder Shift from inside an operating room, which is quite interesting to me, honestly, what was the first moment or maybe a patient or a situation that made you realize the lessons that you were learning in in that room were actually about so much more than just surgery?

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Well, so as I as I sort of started doing a little bit more and more medical leadership, chief of staff work, we started to see that that as pressure mounts, as pressure rises, physicians, so high-level intelligent folks who are who are really called upon to lead, when the pressure mounts, they tend to have different sort of pathologies that start to come out. Sometimes they lose their cool, sometimes they try to ask for more information, even though they don't need that necessarily information. And then when you get into the operating room, we operate in a scenario where everyone in that room with me, none of those folks are my employees, right? I don't pay any of them. The hospital pays all of them. And so, how do you motivate people to do the right thing to help you as you're working through to serve patients when they get paid the same, whether they do 10 surgeries or two surgeries, right? And so, but in those moments, you can see people when the pressure starts to mount. If you start to lose your cool, when you need your team members to move in and help you, they start to back away because the tendency is to protect yourself, right? And your team is gonna be the same. If you're screaming, yelling, insulting, ridiculing, losing, losing that focus, which can sometimes happen in operating rooms, then your team is gonna back away. But by the same token, if you don't lead with some confidence and lead with some not only courage, but confidence and gratitude, then the team's gonna find another team where they feel they not only feel confident that they're gonna succeed, but also that they're appreciated and that they're that the activities that they're doing are providing that purpose uh into the room. And so we see that a lot. We see it in in uh not only in the operating room, but you can see that in business. If you don't have a good purpose and you don't have a way to manage pressure, then ultimately you end up driving away great team members.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, I think well said. And uh, you know, when you say high pressure moments, I can only imagine, you know, a moment between life and death, right? That's that's the kind of decision or stakes perhaps that's involved in in those kind of rooms. So it's kind of you know, be terrifying to even think of. I mean, trying to put yourself in those shoes and trying to think uh rationally from uh that standpoint. And you say something interesting, uh Dr. Jason. When when you say that pressure is constant, but you know, this anxiety, this panic is optional. I really find that interesting. So when most people hear high-stakes leadership, they think it it just means, you know, being composed all the time and you know, giving direction to other people, keeping it together no matter what. But I'm curious as to what do most of the leaders get completely wrong about this, completely wrong about these high-stakes environments that actually what it demands of them.

Relieving Organisational Pressure Early

SPEAKER_02 5:50

So, one of the things, I'll tell you a little bit of a story from the operating room, too, maybe going back to our previous question a little bit too. So, are you are you familiar? Have you heard of a saying called compartment syndrome? Have you heard of this diagnosis before? So it's interesting. It's very interesting. So in orthopedic surgery, when you have a fracture or you have an injury, let's say of the leg below the knee, right? In that area where your calf muscles and those things are, there's multiple compartments, right? And so those compartments are filled with muscles, nerves, blood vessels. They have there's compartments there. And those compartments, when they start to swell, when you have an injury and they start to swell, that increases the pressure and that squeezes the muscles and squeezes the narrows. And it's so as the pressure goes up, you as a surgeon, we are get called in those emergency situations to release the pressure. You have to have that ability to make the decision to relieve that pressure. We call it a fasciotomy, but it's opening up the compartment so that now the pressure can be relieved and those muscles and blood vessels and nerves can work, right? If we don't do it, then we lose function. Sometimes we even lose the limb, right? So that's a big, big deal. But inside of businesses, inside of organizations, there are compartments as well, right? Whether it's your HR department, whether it's accounting, whether it's sales, whatever it is, if you have compartments in your business that are that the pressure is mounting and you don't have the courage and the confidence and the foresight as a leader to go relieve that pressure, to make that difficult decision, to, to, to let that compartment relax, then you'll lose the function of the entire entity. And so it's an interesting and fun parallel inside the operating room with high pressure, a little bit even of a play on words, because the pressure is coming in the compartment syndrome, right? The compartment pressures are what's increasing. And so I think that that's very, very important. I think where where a lot of leaders get things wrong is they they wait, right? They just keep waiting and they let the pressure get bigger and bigger until a moment comes where they have no choice, but the damage has already been done. And what I find for excellent leaders, you'll hear it said a lot, is that I failed more times than you've tried, right? Acting is important. Doing the work and making a step, whether it's ordering a test in medicine or whether it's performing a procedure and then responding is more important than sitting and waiting. And sitting and waiting while pressure mounts ultimately just causes damage to all of the contents of the compartment. All of your people in sales who are just keep getting squeezed, keep struggling.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah, I think that uh really resonated with me because I think, you know, being or having being in this proactive stance is much, much better, you know, than being in a reactive stance. I mean, uh this is something that APB hear a lot, you know, across multiple domains, uh, not just uh maybe in healthcare or I mean leaders in general across the world. And I think there's really a real cost to leadership that that's all performance and no grounding. And you know, the team really feels what the leader is carrying even when nothing is said out loud. And I think that's that's kind of a sovereign truth for me. And I think it leads me to something that I want to go on a little deeper

Burnout As Lost Purpose

SPEAKER_01 9:10

in this. So, you know, coming to coming to this conversation about high pressure situations, right? I mean, in these kind of moments, I think because we're constantly in a situation where we're, you know, I would say making decisions, split second decisions almost, you know, across the whole time. I think burnout really becomes an important challenge here. And I think it's often talked about as a productivity problem, but you're not getting enough done and your output is falling, maybe, or you need to you know recharge a little bit and get back to it. But I suspect that framing is really missing something much more fundamental. So from where you sit, what is actually happening underneath that surface when a leader starts to burn out? Because I I think it's really a common problem with leaders these days, specifically. I mean, given and I think you could also tie it to you know the amount of information that's there available that wasn't maybe the case, you know, 20 years back. So I think there's a bunch of different factors that you could really see this from. But curious to know what's your take on this.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Absolutely. So burnout, not only for leaders, but also in healthcare, very, very prominent. It is a very prominent issue. And and what we tend to find is that that mentality that the leaders have, or even even your employees may have or team members, is that they're they're lacking purpose, right? The the underlying foundational purpose of what you're doing starts to disappear, right? We start to really measure productivity, we measure sales numbers, we're measuring quotas, we're measuring these different things. And then you start to feel like, well, am I serving someone? Am I helping someone? Am I doing something that's providing value, or am I just meeting numbers, right? And is there somebody else who could come? And so for me, if you can foundationally, not only as a leader, but as a team, as your team, can foundationally pull that purpose together so that people understand this is what we're trying to do. For me in the operating room, our purpose is to will the good of the patient, right? We want to will the good of the patient and will the good of the team, right? That's our number one priority. It's not a number of surgeries, it's not an amount of money, it's not an amount of success or acclaim as we move out. Our goal for every patient is to will the good. And when you can refocus that foundation of your leadership into that purpose, then it makes it easier. But we do definitely see folks struggle because when they lose sight of their purpose, then it becomes very easy to question everything that you're doing. And once you start questioning everything, then you start to lose that, you start, you lose the focus, you lose the sight, and then you lose that value. And then people really start to burn out because is it worth it? And is what I'm doing worth it for me? Is it worth it for my team? Is it worth it for my clients? And that can be a big challenge.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, I think that that reframe alone could change how so many leaders approach their own the path to recovery. And so before we, you know, wrap this off or come to a conclusion, Dr. Jason, I am curious to ask you this. You talk about uh these rules, you know, translating surgical discipline into lessons on teamwork and human connection and purpose, like you said. So I would love for you actually to pull one of those rules into this conversation right now, because I think that would be really interesting. So, what's one principle uh maybe from the operating room that you believe every leader in a high pressure environment needs to understand? You know, it's a must-have. What would you like to say today?

Look At Your Hands Rule

SPEAKER_02 12:46

So, so one of my top favorite rules is called the look at your hands rule, right? And so as a surgeon, we use our hands all the time. And when we're working inside of a joint, we're focusing a camera inside of that joint to look at specific areas. But you can imagine if you looked out across the horizon, all of the things you can see. But when we're looking with that camera, we're looking at a very tiny part of a body, a part of a joint. And we're seeing there, and especially for young surgeons, it can be very disorienting. It can be really tough. You're looking at the problem and you're staring at the problem. It's magnified in high def. The problem is right in front of you. And the temptation is to lean in further and look harder. And what happens is as you keep leaning in and looking harder at those, at those problems and at those goals, you actually get lost and you get more and more lost and you get disoriented. And so the idea is, right, my hands are holding the camera. If I lean back, take a breath and look down at my hands, now I can see the entire environment again. I can see the orientation of the patient. I can see where the cameras are pointing, I can see where my hands are moving, I can feel back where the room and everything else that's in the room. So I instead of diving in and keep trying to focus harder on the problem, I back up, I look at my hands, I get reoriented. And most of the time what I find out is if what I was seeing is not what I thought I was seeing, it's because I'm pointed in the wrong direction. And I've got to reorient myself and repoint so that I can move in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Sorry for that. I think uh that's really, you know, a a great, great way of putting this point forth and kind of I think it sums it off because I think it's not about waiting for kind of the situation to pass, right? Before you start leading with intention. So I I think I I love what you said, especially how the way you reframed, you know, the situation that most of the leaders, you know, put them through. And uh before we just wrap this off, uh, one last question, Dr.

What Struggling Leaders Need To Hear

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Jason. So for the listeners who are listening to this right now, maybe amidst burnout or you know, a situation. I mean, uh I I want to ask you something for the person who is listening to this and hasn't said any of this out loud yet. So to the leaders who who are probably holding on on the outside, but you know, things look fine on the inside on paper. So what would you want them to hear today?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

So number one, you're not alone, right? Number one, this happens, this happens to leaders and needing to get reoriented, needing to refocus, feeling that area of stress and burnout, it's there. But most importantly, finding that purpose, identifying the found foundational purpose will change things. But there are people who you can talk to, right? Whether they're your colleagues, whether they're other leaders, whether they're coaches, you can go out and have those discussions and people can help guide you. And that may be the reorientation you need. That may be the look back at the hands that you need is to take a breath, step back, and share with somebody what you're going through because you're not alone in this. And there are a lot of folks who are willing to help who can be out there for you. And so I think that's an excellent piece. And it's tempting as a leader to say, I can do it all on my own, right? It's tempting to say it's all on me. I got to make this decision. But having a little bit of humility and gratitude, you know, being grateful for the team that you have, understanding that you didn't get here all by yourself. You don't have to keep going by yourself, share that with someone.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, I I love what he said towards the end. I think it is tempting for a leader indeed, you know, because I think it also comes back a little bit on the egoistic side of being a leader and that uh probably he should be carrying on with his duties probably and not be bothering anyone. But I think a good leader actually is somebody who involves everyone at the same time and, you know, then perhaps moves on to make a decision, right? So I think that really resonated, that part really resonated with me. So what I would like for the listeners today to carry on forth this conversation would be, you know, when when you say leading, it's not about knowing your purpose well enough. I think it's about knowing your purpose well enough so that pressure does not come in the way and doesn't get to make decisions for yourself. So that's what I would like you all to sit with and ponder as we wrap this off.

Where To Find Jason Online

SPEAKER_01 17:27

But uh, Jason, for anyone listening to this who actually wants to keep learning from you, whether it's a writing, your podcast, or speaking, where's the best place for them to find you and follow your work?

SPEAKER_02 17:37

So you can find me on I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Jason Piper. We have I've got a podcast called Slice of Piper. So you're welcome to find us there as well, which is really fun. And if you want to kind of really dive into your leadership pathologies and leadership weaknesses to try to get stronger, the leadershipdiagnostic.com is an excellent website where you can take a quiz. It's a free quiz. You just go fill everything out and it'll tell you if you tend to be someone who delays, if you tend to be someone who is flustered, it'll help you to find different ways that you can take care of that.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Perfect. And I love I love the uh podcast name, uh slice of Piper. I think that really resonated with me as well. So for sure, I'll include the details in the show notes for you all folks so that you could easily find Dr. Jason on the social media platforms and his podcast as well.

Closing Takeaway On Purpose

SPEAKER_01 18:28

And uh, folks, with that, unfortunately, we hit today's minute mark. So firstly, I want to thank you so much, Jason, for bringing in this kind of depth from such a clinical standpoint and then you know generalizing it for the leaders across the world. I think that's that's a hard thing to do, but it comes from a lot of lived experience and a lived wisdom. So grateful to have this conversation and folks, for all of you listening to this and have stuck with me, stuck with us till this point. I want to remind you that firstly, thanks for being here as well. And if something in this conversation stirred something in you, maybe sit with it and you know that's your sign to perhaps notice what the world might be sending your way. So you just have to notice, and I think that's where it begins. So this has been Cyan on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, and until next time, folks, I'll see you in the next one.