Creating Us - A podcast for Texas Tech University System & beyond
A learning and development podcast focused on bringing the Texas Tech University System Values Based Culture to life.
Creating Us - A podcast for Texas Tech University System & beyond
The Leader Fast Lane - Episode 26 - with Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman, President of TTU Health Sciences Center
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does it take to lead one of the nation's premier academic health institutions? In this episode of Leader Fast Lane, TTUHSC President Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman shares lessons from her journey as a first-generation college student to becoming the first female president in the Texas Tech University System. We discuss trust, influence without authority, embracing failure as a catalyst for innovation, and why the simple discipline of listening may be the most powerful leadership skill of all.
Hello, and welcome to the Leader Fast Lane, the podcast where accomplished leaders from higher education, public service, and beyond share real stories, practical principles, and hard-earned lessons listeners can apply immediately. No buzzwords, no shortcuts, just real leaders sharing real lessons you can apply right away. I'm Lane Mears, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Leader and Culture Development at the Texas Tech University System. Today I am joined by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center President, Dr. Lori Rice Spearman. Dr. Rice Spearman took office as the ninth president of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center on June 5, 2020, making history as the first female president in the Texas Tech University system. She's a native West Texan and a proud TTUHSC alumna, which fuels her dedication to advancing access to care in West Texas and beyond. In June 2024, Dr. Rice Spearman was appointed to the state's 11-member Health Care Workforce Task Force by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board at the Governor's request. The task force aims to address health care workforce shortages in Texas and meet the growing demands for health care services. Under her leadership, TTUHSC achieved national recognition, including institutional membership in the National Academy of Inventors, and designation as a Carnegie classification of institutions of higher education as a special focus medical school and center, placing it among elite universities nationwide with curriculum focuses on health care and medicine, research, and other specialized fields. TTUHSC has been a Hispanic serving institution for three consecutive years.
unknownDr.
SPEAKER_03Rice Spearman joined TTUHSC in 1987 and has held multiple leadership positions during her tenure with the university, including provost and chief academic officer and dean of the School of Health Professions. Before serving as Dean, Dr. Rice Spearman served as Associate Dean for Learning Outcomes and Assessments and Chair of the Department of Laboratory Sciences and Primary Care.
unknownDr.
SPEAKER_03Rice Spearman was in the inaugural class of the TTUHSC School of Health Professions Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program. She earned her master's in interdisciplinary studies and a PhD in family and consumer science education from Texas Tech University. Dr. Rice Spearman and her husband Doug are proud parents of three adult children and their spouses, and they have five grandchildren. It's great to have you on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Lane. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.
SPEAKER_03I am too. Thank you again for joining me. As we begin, could you tell us a little bit about your leadership journey and background?
SPEAKER_00Well, as you mentioned in the intro, um I am a West Texas girl born in Stanton, Texas, and raised in Odessa, Texas, and attended Permian High School. We're really um my leadership journey started there. I was drum major of a of the one of the largest bands in the state of Texas. Um we uh we competed at the state level and really uh began that journey during that time in my high school years. Uh had the the absolute pleasure of going to Texas Tech University. I'm a first-generation college student from my family. And uh Lubbock was the beautiful place that when you came from Odessa, you got to come visit. And uh I had uh an uncle that attended here for a period of time um as well. So uh my my leadership journey really began back in those high school days and and uh had opportunities to to lead groups and be part of organizations and and lead projects within those organizations. And it really is uh leadership opportunities evolved over time during my career.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. Well, I look forward to diving into some of those experiences and lessons learned. I've got a series of questions I'm gonna ask you based on a few different themes, and we'll just go theme by theme and we'll wrap it up with uh with just some closing words that you have any uh have for any listeners. So, but first I want to focus on your leadership journey, some of what you've already shared a little bit of. What experiences most shaped how you lead today?
SPEAKER_00I think building teams, so important when you're trying to accomplish uh bold goals, to really build a strong team and what that takes to build a team, and then to lead that team and provide clarity to that team and accountability to that team, and um really lead that team with tenacity and vision to get really big projects over the finish line. And uh that I would say was a very important part of my journey was learning how to lead teams. Um leading teams when you don't necessarily have authority with those teams, a lot of horizontal leadership and uh making sure that uh everyone was bought in to what it was that we needed to accomplish and how important it was to accomplish that uh for the university. So I I think those were my early, my early leadership experiences on building teams, effective teams, and um the the mistakes and the things you learn from um building teams and sometimes succeeding and sometimes not, and having to rebuild the team to get the right people in the right place uh to move things forward.
SPEAKER_03I like what you said about leading when you may not have the title. Um we in some of our programming with faculty and staff at Angelo State and Midwestern State do have a session where we focus on leadership influence. So leading up, leading across, and leading down, often without the title as a leader. How if if there are people listening that are, you know, maybe a middle manager and may not have ultimate authority, may not have that word in their title, how do you how would you recommend people use the influence they have in order to lead up and lead across?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think you build that influence within your institution by establishing trust and building relationships. Uh, trust is so important when you don't necessarily have a title or an authority, but individuals uh know who you are within the institution. They've built a relationship with you and they trust that uh you truly do want to do what's best for the team and um can understand what it is that has to be accomplished. And so building trust and building relationships um across the institution is critical to effective leadership.
SPEAKER_03Who were the leaders, good or bad, that most influenced your leadership philosophy?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think every leader that I have encountered throughout my career has had just that either either positive uh impact or negative impact. The positive impact is watching from afar. And um, oftentimes I would be invited into that group uh to be a part of their leadership teams and watching how they led, how they inspired, how they built relationships, and the trust that they built as they were building their teams and having the privilege of being a part of their teams for the not so positive experiences, really understanding um the impact that words and actions have on teams. Um, I often tell my team, uh words matter and actions have consequences, and living those in real time with uh some negative leadership experiences and seeing the impact that those have has really helped me at very key times throughout my career to pause and to think and to listen to ensure that I am not ever using language or presenting myself in such a way because those actions will have consequences, whether positive or negative. And so that that really has had a lasting impact on me.
SPEAKER_03Well, I I 100% concur. One of the another topic that we talk with with folks across the system on is emotional intelligence, and that's understanding the triggers in your own emotions and being able to respond to the emotions in a positive way. And that is a key skill for a leader because, like you've said, words and actions can have extremely positive impacts, or they can have extremely negative impacts, certainly on trust.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03So in November 2023, you joined my colleagues Jason Weber and Shelby Jolly on the Creating Us podcast. And you mentioned that some of your leadership mentors didn't fit the traditional mold of a leader. Can you tell me a little bit about what you meant?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, so I have to be honest with you. I, you know, November of 2023 was a few years ago. And we've we've had a few major events since, uh, but I knew exactly what they were talking about. Um I come from a very non-traditional pathway into leadership. Uh if if someone would have looked at that Lori Rice Spearman, the little girl from West Texas, who's a first-generation college student, and said she's going to be a university president someday, they that probably was not ever said, you know, as I was coming up through the ranks and working. And so the individuals who come through non-traditional pathways into executive leadership positions often have mentors that look different, perhaps, than other mentors do. So I had uh, for example, uh a Girl Scout leader who is very instrumental in um making sure that I was staying on the path of uh of leading and being a leader. Um my band director, Charles Nell, saw something in me that I had not seen in myself as a 16, 17, and 18-year-old. But he he later said to me, I knew even then that you were you were destined for leadership. I had I had no idea of that when I was 16 years old. So these non-traditional um mentors that impact your life as a as a young person. And then to interact with uh key high school teachers, um, can't tell you how important, um, particularly in the area of women and science in West Texas in the 1970s. Um, I was the only girl in the science club. And so I had a teacher who who, you know, you have a seat at this table. We want to keep you engaged in sciences. They knew how much I love sciences. Uh, again, a college professor who invested in me, um, Dr. Roger Corzon at a community college. Just some key individuals throughout my career who continued to encourage me, um, make sure that uh I didn't back away from challenges and met those challenges head on. And then probably one of the biggest impacts was was my own mom and dad. You know, they they uh had a small business in uh West Texas for over 45 years in the oil and gas industry, and watching them be partners, equal partners in a successful small business and survive the ups and downs of uh the challenges of being in a small business in the oil field uh for from the 1970s up through the early 2000s. The leadership that they taught me about um listening and analysis and and uh just really critical thinking skills and understanding relationships and how important those were. So I I feel like I've just had some non-traditional type mentors um throughout my career.
SPEAKER_03That's inspiring. Just the the simple things of those people that you've mentioned seeing something in you, calling it out, planning that vision. It's instructive for all of us that that certainly all of us have people around us who we see things in that we can do the same thing, call them out and and cast a vision. It's really powerful. Good. Well, my next uh topic is leadership philosophy and principles. How do you find leadership in a mission-driven institution like the Health Sciences Center?
SPEAKER_00So, leadership for me, first and foremost, starts with um ensuring that we have alignment with our mission. We have a very clear mission for this institution around access to care and workforce development. It was why we were created. And it is why we are so desperately needed in the communities that we serve. And so when we are searching for leaders, the very first question that I ask them is why Texas Tech Health Sciences Center? And usually that question, the way they answer that question, helps me understand where they are and making sure that they understand who we are and what we do. So vision alignment is a priority. We have already screened them for their skill set, and so we know that they're capable, but truly, if you do not have the heart for this mission of access to care and workforce development, then this is going to be a very challenging place for you to lead. So we've we've had some leaders that came and stayed for a very short period of time, realizing that we're not a place interested in helping you stamp your resume so that you can move on to the next big thing. We hire leaders who are ready to come and commit to our mission and our vision. And uh that is something that we have clarity in as we hire leaders across um our entire enterprise.
SPEAKER_03And it shows. Um I've I've talked about on the on the podcast and with other people that when I was brought on a little over a year ago, Steve Soslin was the vice chancellor, and this was fundamental to how he approached staffing and and developing people was first making sure that the people carried the vision and the values of the organization. Skills, that's one thing, need to be fit for the role, and some can be taught for that, but you really have to bring people in that that match the values of the organization.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03What are two or three principles that guide your decisions when stakes are high?
SPEAKER_00Well, first and foremost, is it aligned with our values? Many times uh uh we have sat around the leadership table faced with some very challenging decisions that have to be made. And uh we we tap into our our values, you know. Does this align with our mission and our vision? Is this aligned with the values of our institution? And um oftentimes that that is that is the clarifying decision maker for us as a leadership team. Um, that is a guiding principle for us, also to ensure that we are putting our patients first. We are patient-centered, patients first, very close behind our patients or our students. Is this a student-first, student-friendly approach to a policy that we are making? And are there going to be any unintended consequences to our patients and our students through our policies? And that's something that we we always have a group at the table that I will ask if, in fact, if we have too much consensus, I'll usually have someone at the table play the red team and say, okay, let's play the red team. What what could potentially happen with this? And um, our team is trained to do that now. Our executive leadership team, our cabinet, they know what that means when we say, let's think this through, let's make sure that we red team this and then we understand the consequences. And then the other area is ensuring that we understand that once we make a commitment to a decision and that we have leadership alignment and team member understanding, that execution is where the challenges occur. And so execution means sometimes us having to alter the plan, tolerating the messiness in the middle is what we call that, um, and making sure that we are staying focused on what our long-term goal is and willing to make adjustments and changes as needed to get to where we need to be.
SPEAKER_03When you have to adjust a decision or implementation, what what does that look like? How does how does that adjustment percolate? Where does that come from typically? Is it is it bubbling up from the people on the ground? Is it coming from more mature level based on the contextual dynamics? How does that typically develop?
SPEAKER_00So for us, we have um a few layers of built-in internal review. If we are not meeting um a key performance indicator, something that we know that is that is important for our university, we'll pull a team together. And that team always includes those individuals that are on the front line of whatever that challenge is. And we'll say, this is not, we have a saying around here, there are no mistakes, only lessons. So thus far, we've not been able to meet this key performance indicator or our KPI. What have we learned from how we're doing something right now? What is not working? Help us understand where the barrier sits. And if we're not, and if a barrier exists, then what do we as a leadership team need to do to ensure the success of that team? How do we remove that barrier? Did we give them the uh the appropriate resources to be successful? Um, is there is there a policy that doesn't make sense that's that's providing a barrier to it? And sometimes these are very informal groups that we get together and ask them to tackle this. Sometimes we bring these larger challenges to what we call the president's advisory board, and that is across our entire university and enterprise. We do that once quarterly and bring individuals from all over and we'll pose a problem or a challenge to them and say, roll up your sleeves, help us do some problem solving with this particular university challenge that we're having right now. Or in a very formal sense, we will conduct what's called an after-action review. So when we have a major challenge within the university, we actually formalize the process, conduct the after-action review, and that is reported back to the cabinet as well as the executive council, and then we make decisions on how to move forward. So we really have three stages: more of an informal, uh semi-formal with the advisory board, and then the formal process of the after-action review.
SPEAKER_03It's very thorough. I'm sure that's uh it's it's time and and people power intensive but necessary.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I I think when you have as diverse and complex an organization as we do here at the Health Sciences Center with six locations, we have to be very intentional about uh monitoring monitoring key performance indicators and making sure that we keep everything moving forward.
SPEAKER_03That's great. Well, my next question uh the theme is leading culture at scale. Oh what does a healthy culture look like in an academic system?
SPEAKER_00I would say that a healthy culture looks like an academic system, a culture to where all team members, and we include our students. When we say team members, we include our students as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh, that there is a healthy exchange of ideas and that um we are actively engaged in intentional communication, internal communication. We have uh several layers of internal communication where we are trying to reach individuals through multiple touch points, whether it's a website, um our weekly touch point with Statline, our monthly touch point called the Huddle, um, communication, written communication that goes out from different members of the leadership team throughout the university. Um, I would say that those are examples of how we are intentional with our culture. We try to recognize individuals when we see day-to-day uh performance and those who exhibit our culture daily. And we we recognize that before every one of our council meetings, our cabinet meetings. We recognize a student as well as a team member who exhibit our values and we honor them. And uh those are always it reminds us why we're here and what we do. And um, that's an important part of our our leadership journey here at the Health Sciences Center.
SPEAKER_03That's great. Follow up on that how six locations, very complex organization. How do you intentionally shape the culture across such a large and diverse organization?
SPEAKER_00So it it it you are absolutely right. It has to be intentional. So we have um uh leadership teams on every one of those locations, and we make sure that input from those leadership teams are integrated into uh our cabinet as well as our president's advisory board and at our executive level. In addition, we all, all of the executive team members and the cabinet members are expected to regularly um interface and be on those campuses. So, for example, last week um I was in Abilene on the Abilene campus and here in Lubbock. This week I've been in Midland. I'm right now in Lubbock, and then I'm about to leave and head to Amarillo. So we are actively engaged, all of us with the leadership teams on those campuses, and we meet regularly with those teams to ensure that we have alignment, um, that we understand the unique personality of that location and that campus, and that we're meeting the needs of that community. We have community advisory boards as well on each of those locations and campuses that we meet with regularly as well.
SPEAKER_03Well, and that that may have addressed the follow-up question I was going to ask is you know, Dallas, Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, they're all very different in lots of ways, but but one the uniting thing is the HSC culture. How does locations and other places differ from each other culture-wise?
SPEAKER_00Well, culture-wise, so um so the good news is that at the end of the day, from a community perspective, we have tremendous support for uh the vision and mission of our university, which is, as I mentioned, access to care and um workforce development. And all of them turn to us for that. Now then each one of them may have a different workforce need. So, for example, in Dallas, uh we were originally brought into the Dallas community to focus on pharmacy education and research. And so we have a very strong pharmacy hub there. We're growing a very strong nursing hub there with our Dallas and our Mansfield campus. So our School of Medicine doesn't necessarily have a footprint on the Dallas campus. And so that that is a very different type of campus, personality-wise, with that campus. Um, we also that Dallas campus houses two of our wonderful institutes, the Laura W. Bush Institute as well as our Kenneth H. Cooper Research Institute. So it has a very different flavor on that campus versus our Amarillo campus, which houses five of our six schools, very mission-driven around access to care. We have hospital contracts there, a robust nursing, pharmacy, medicine, all of those complements of individuals are there. And so that that campus has its own unique personality as well. So it's just understanding the needs of that community and what we how we're serving that community when we're there and working with those community advisory boards about what they tell us they need from us to help support their healthcare workforce needs.
SPEAKER_03Great. I'm gonna shift our next topic of values under pressure. It's clear that you're a big advocate for the values-based culture. Yes. But is there a time when your values were tested as a leader you can talk about?
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Um, I think it's no secret that in October uh two years ago, we went through a uh significant challenge as a university when we had um our cybersecurity um event. And it impacted not just uh it impacted the entire enterprise across all 121 counties that we serve. And because we are such a um an anchor for healthcare in many of the rural communities that we serve, it also had an impact on those communities as well. I'm grateful for the work of our team that had built those those relationships and that trust prior to this event because those communities rallied around us while we were trying to work through this very big challenge as a university and the impact it had not just on education, but but healthcare, access to healthcare as well. And how that challenged our values-based culture is that um we were getting some outside uh counsel that uh was not allowing us to be as transparent as we have typically been as a university. We we uh we are very clear in our transparency regarding everything related from budget um to patient care. And and um when things haven't gone well, we always go to the university and sit down and say we're facing this particular budget challenge. This is why, and this is how we're gonna handle it as a university. We're always transparent in our communications and with with them. And during the cyber event, we were not able to be as transparent as we would have liked to be as a university. And because of that, it it um it called into question. Some people it questioned their trust of us if we were telling them everything, because we were not able to tell them initially that it was a it was a cyber attack. And we were not able to talk about things like ransom and some of those terms in an effort to protect the university as much as we could. And that felt very counter to our values of who we are and who we had been as a university around transparency. And uh, I felt like I spent the next year, once we had moved through it, explaining that to uh different um constituents um within the university of why we weren't able to engage in the transparency that we normally would have. And uh, we learned through that about perhaps uh consultants from outside of the university don't understand the culture of our university and how important transparency is for us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, it's a powerful example. And I've heard you talk about that before. Um, but it's it's great that the conflict was there, you recognized it and took steps to remedy it just to stay true to the values that define the organization. Similar question. How do you make decisions when there's no clear or obvious right answer?
SPEAKER_00Goodness. Well, first of all, as an executive leader, um, I've learned very quickly to surround myself with uh good people who know their jobs, trusted advisors, and individuals who bring um that we are collectively stronger together. And so when hard decisions have to be made, that there isn't always a clear path, this team that we trust comes around a table and we really talk through what what are the positives and the negatives. As I as I mentioned to you again, we talk a lot about what's the red team. If we make this decision, what is the going to be the impact of that versus if we make another decision? And uh being able to have trusted advisors work through that decision and truly make the decision that's aligned with our values and is the best for the university and for our patients and our students.
SPEAKER_03Our uh next topic is developing others. How do you identify and develop the next generation of leaders within TTUHSC?
SPEAKER_00So that is, I think, one of the most exciting pieces of my of my uh job and my career is getting to build the next generation of leaders for this great university. Um, we have been deeply engaged in leadership development now in this institution for eight years. And we are watching those leaders emerge that we trained seven and eight years ago, who are now stepping into and maturing into a key leadership positions in our institution. And so we are truly seeing the value of secession planning and investment in leadership and ensuring that um this great university is going to be stable and deliver on the mission and the vision for the decades to come. And um, I feel very strongly about uh commitment to leadership division. And it's generally those individuals who show us um that they can they they make great team members and they can follow through on a project and it's how they treat their team members. Um, you know, our values-based culture isn't about just our external um and how we treat our external stakeholders. More importantly, we think it's about how we treat our internal stakeholders and how we interact and and work with each other uh to accomplish great things. And so leadership development, I would say, is a priority for us as an institution, and we are certainly reaping the benefits of that now that we're going into our eighth year of the of these programs.
SPEAKER_03I I see that as well from what I've observed from from my position here at the system. One one question, and and to call back a little bit to your formative experiences where you had teachers and uh Girl Scout leaders see something in you and calling you out as a leader. What would you say to those people within the Health Sciences Center who are maybe newly in a leadership role, maybe lacking some confidence in that new responsibility? How would you what would you say to them? How would you coach them?
SPEAKER_00I would coach them by making sure by reassuring them that they have the skill set. Oftentimes we question our own um ability to execute something. And what I have learned as as I have had the the absolute pleasure and joy of mentoring individuals is the first step is reassuring them you you've got the skill set. You just don't realize you have the skill set. And let me see you, let me tell you how. I saw you lead this project, which shows me you can build a team. I saw you handle this particular situation, which shows me that you have the ability to discern and be thoughtful. I saw you uh identify this challenge and how you reworked the the particular challenge and you were able to pivot and move the team in a different direction. So it's showing them that you have the skill set and you you have the ability. And so now it's time to step up and take all of those experiences that you've had throughout your career so far and these different experiences and put them all together and take that next step in a leadership position. And every time those young leaders will say to me, I had never thought of it that way. You're right. I forgot about. And it's the it's the concept of putting it all together and then being ready to step into the role.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's good. I I I think people do, certainly new leaders may tend just to be overwhelmed with the new opportunity, the new responsibilities, and have this myopic focus on the problems without, like you've said, remembering all the skills that they developed, the confidence, the achievements in the past that would ground them more uh properly for the present to lead. So I that's great. Yeah. Is there a mistake that you've seen leaders make when trying to develop their people?
SPEAKER_00I think the major mistake that I've seen young leaders make is thinking that they they have to have all the answers, all the solutions, and that they have to be the expert in the room. And uh I think a mature leader realizes that uh that is a recipe for disaster. And the mature leader realizes um, you know, my job is to lead the team and to inspire and make sure that we are moving forward and that we have the vision that we need. But my job also is the executive leader is to ensure that I have the right people at the table, the expert at the table, and not and not thinking that I'm the expert or I'm the one who has to have all the answers. And um, I just I know you keep hearing me go back to saying it's about building that team. And and Lane, it is. It's about building that team and listening to that team.
SPEAKER_03We're gonna move to our next topic, um, our final themed topic called personal effectiveness and sustainability. Okay. What routines or disciplines keep you grounded and effective?
SPEAKER_00Um, I end every day pretty consistently. I started this during um when we were when we were working through COVID. And during COVID, we were on a pretty rapid cycle, which means we had new information almost every 12, 12 to 24 hours. And I got to have at that at the end of that of those days of asking myself, what could I have done better today? What did we do well today? And do I need to have a conversation with anyone tomorrow that that acknowledges either something that they've done, positive or negative, and how do I hold myself accountable? And really started working myself. I I still to this day ask myself that. And so it's not unusual for me to come to work the next morning and pick up the phone and call somebody and say, Hey, I just wanted you to know I saw what you did in the meeting yesterday. Thank you. Thank you for your your work. Um, the gratitude piece. I've also had to come to work and call someone and say, you know, I wish I'd handled that better. Here's here's what I've learned from from the conversation we had yesterday. And then I've also had to come to work and call someone and say the it wasn't what what I expected. Have maybe I haven't given you enough clarity. Let's try this again. So, really that daily accountability to myself and to my fellow team members about um the kind of leader I want to be and the kind of leader I want to help them to grow to be. And that is a habit that that started during COVID, and I still do it to this day. What can I do better today?
SPEAKER_03Well, that that calls to mind something that Jason Weber, who's the vice chancellor now of Leader on Culture Development, um his favorite question to ask leaders is how do you want people to experience you? And it's right in line with what you're saying, that reflective, you know, how how what steps can you take to ensure that people experience you like you intend, like you want them to.
SPEAKER_00And leaders have to take accountability. Yeah, we're not gonna get it right 100% of the time. And so the more you show your leaders, hey, I could have done that better. I wish I had done this. Yeah, it it helps them see that they don't have to be perfect 100% of the time. And those who strive for that, that's a dangerous place to be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, creating that norm is is powerful. And then and then your discipline of at the end of every day writing those three things down, especially the one about what do I need to do tomorrow, what conversations. I did a series of webinars based on some books called Deep Work, Indistractable Flow, all about how to reorder our work lives to be more productive, more uh focused on things that that are creative and fit with our passions. And one of the disciplines that was like science-based is that in order to avoid leaving work and thinking about things over and over again, things left undone, is this daily discipline of wrapping up the day, identifying what are my priorities that I see for tomorrow, what conversations do I need to have so that you've got it on paper and you don't you don't have to focus on it after hours. I wonder if you've you've seen that for your in your practice.
SPEAKER_00I I have, but I also am um I am one of those individuals who's always thinking about the next, the next 25. I'm a planner. I I my strength is my weakness. And uh so I while it helps me wrap up and think about that's very much for me a relational human-to-human type of accountability, but I've always got the plan in my head about the next project or getting the next project to the finish line. So um I I hear what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, well, in that same November 2023 episode I referred to before with Jason and Shelby, you talked about the importance of seeing failure as a part of growth. Can you elaborate on that?
SPEAKER_00So we've touched on it a little bit, and that is where we um have infused into this institution um to embrace failure. Failure by us embracing failure and acknowledging it and not having fear of it, particularly in the area of innovation and trying to do big, bold things, it has allowed us to move things forward much more quickly. So giving executive leaders permission to fail in a way that, okay, let's all accept this may not work this way right the first time, with the understanding that we will we will have a quick intervention, we'll get around a table, we'll figure out what didn't work, we'll make the pivot, and we'll continue to move forward. And uh that is that is something that's ingrained in this institution, uh, whether it's informally or formally, is the is that concept of there are no mistakes, only lessons. And uh that it it sits in our conference room table. What are our lessons? It only becomes a mistake if we didn't learn from it. And that's that really is the philosophy um here at the Health Sciences Center.
SPEAKER_03That's powerful. And frees people, yeah, like you said, to be innovative, to offer new ideas, crazy new ideas that that you never know. You never know what what can succeed. All right, I've got three speed round questions. Okay I want to ask you the best leadership advice you've ever received.
SPEAKER_00Listen.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00One word.
SPEAKER_03Two ears and one mouth, right?
SPEAKER_00That's right. And I I when I go into any meeting, it's usually written in very large letters across the top of my notepad. Listen.
SPEAKER_03That's great. Good. One book that shaped how you lead.
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh, that's hard because I read so many leadership books. Uh you know, I can always go back to my to the one that was was so pivotal for me early, and that's good to great.
SPEAKER_03Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. So much in that book.
SPEAKER_00And I've reread that book probably four or five times, and I get something from it because of where I'm at in my particular leadership evolution myself. I get something different from it every time.
SPEAKER_03In that book, he talks about not only getting the right people on the right on the bus, but getting them in the right seats.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03And I've always I've always loved that um imagery. But it's difficult. It's difficult to shuffle that. It's difficult to invite people off the bus and invite people to move seats to get them in the right spot. Any tips for people that may be faced with that with their team? They've got maybe the right people just not in the right spaces?
SPEAKER_00We the this is a conversation that we've had quite a bit. When I was a dean of a school, um we went through this very difficult exercise of looking at um the values of the institution, how we wanted uh faculty, staff, and students to interact with each other and to move the vision forward, and really looked at um the team and the and the team we knew. And we knew that we did not have some folks that didn't need to be on the bus, and then some folks were in the wrong seat on the bus. And um those were some probably some of the most challenging um leadership conversations that we had to have as a team. But we knew that if we did not have the courage to have those conversations, we were not gonna going to be able to move the school forward in the way that we wanted to. And I learned a Lot of lessons um during that time period because coming up through the ranks, many of these individuals had been my colleagues for for a period of time. And making that transition from colleague into leadership, executive leadership, um was indeed a transition, but it is it's one of the necessary challenges and and oftentimes sometimes an unpleasant conversation that has to occur. But also it's all around clarity. Yeah, you know, you sit down with the individual and say, this is where we are headed, this is the commitment that we need, this is what we need to be able to do it. Um do you do you have alignment with that? Yeah, and oftentimes they'll demonstrate whether they do through their actions or how they perform. And when that alignment is not there, then that conversation has to occur.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And often you do more damage by not having the conversation and realizing that and living it and seeing it and understanding that it really is it really is best for the organization to have those hard conversations, those crucible conversations.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And just an anecdote from my past, I was working for a nonprofit in in Rwanda many years ago, and we had a staff member that just wasn't pulling their weight. And I put off the conversation for for months because I was new, wanted to be liked, thought maybe things would improve and things didn't. And so when I finally worked up the courage to have that conversation and this person left, one of the staff members came to me and said, We all saw it, we just wondered how long it would take you to act. And so it was having a ripple effect on the team. I was so focused on the one. Yes. Um, and it did damage my credibility as a leader the longer I let that go. And our productive and our productivity, frankly.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. And I think, I think, Lane, that every leader makes that mistake at least once in their leadership journey and has to learn that one the hard way. I would agree with you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Last speed round question. What is a habit that has had an outsized impact on your effectiveness?
SPEAKER_00So I I am a very curious person. And I came up through the ranks of science and put years and years and years into developing my science profession. Um, and I knew that if I was going to be the kind of leader that I wanted to be, then I had to invest that same kind of time into my leadership development. And so becoming a student of leadership and learning to understand um individuals, it's almost like a sociology degree, understanding group dynamics, understanding that every day as people, we bring our humanness to our jobs and our careers, and investing that time into developing leadership skills, understanding people, and really leveraging that to help build trust and build relationships so that we can accomplish extraordinary things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So it's your personal development in an area that you felt like you would need. That's great. That's powerful. Well, Dr. Rice Spearman, thank you so much for joining me. Any any final words of of advice that you'd give to listeners?
SPEAKER_00Well, I would assume that most of your listeners are are individuals that are on the leadership track. And um I would encourage them to um embrace the challenges. Uh, don't be afraid to make the mistakes because right now they're afraid to make the mistakes. And you learn so much from that. And when you acknowledge the mistake, it it gives you a freedom to uh to go forward and take more risk and and do more hard and challenging things. Um, we we uh the team most recently gave me an elephant, and you know, there's that saying when you tackle a big bold vision, you eat it, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And we are challenging, uh we are facing a big bold vision in front of us uh related to our clinical practice. And so the team gave me an elephant because we uh they know we're gonna get there, but it it's a big bold vision, and and they know it's gonna be messy and we're gonna make mistakes along the way, and just the permission to do that and then move on. Make amends as a team and move on. And that is just something that um I wish I'd I wish I'd known that more in my 30s, in my 40s.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's wise words. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00And uh thank you so much, Lane. I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_03My pleasure. It's been great to hear your leadership journey and get practical takeaways that we can all incorporate in leading our teams. To those listening, thank you for joining me on the Leader Fast Lane. If today's conversation sparked a moment of reflection or a lane change in how you think about leadership, take a minute to share this episode with someone you lead or learn from. Join me next time when I'll be joined by Namatai Kwekweza, founder of We Lead, a youth focused nonprofit in Zimbabwe. You can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep leading with purpose, integrity, and clarity, especially when it's hard.
.jpg)