Excellence In Healthcare Podcast
Welcome to the Excellence In Healthcare Podcast—the premier podcast for healthcare leaders committed to building high-performing organizations and creating lasting impact for the patients, teams, and communities they serve.
Hosted by Jarvis T. Gray, healthcare strategist, executive coach, and Founder of Healthcare Excellence Advisors, this show explores the leadership, strategy, operational excellence, and innovation practices that drive sustainable healthcare transformation.
Each episode features conversations with healthcare executives, industry experts, innovators, and transformation leaders who are navigating the complex challenges facing healthcare today. Together, we uncover practical strategies, proven frameworks, and real-world lessons that help organizations align people, priorities, and processes to achieve measurable results.
Whether you're a CEO, COO, CNO, physician leader, quality executive, department director, healthcare entrepreneur, or emerging leader, you'll gain actionable insights to strengthen leadership, accelerate execution, improve performance, and build a culture of excellence.
Topics include:
• Leadership Excellence and Organizational Culture
• Strategic Planning and Execution
• Operational Excellence and Performance Improvement
• Healthcare Innovation and Artificial Intelligence
• Workforce Engagement and Leadership Development
• Quality, Safety, and Patient Experience
• Rural and Community Healthcare Transformation
• Healthcare Entrepreneurship and Growth Strategies
• Change Management and Organizational Transformation
• Future Trends Shaping Healthcare
At Healthcare Excellence Advisors, we believe that better healthcare starts with better leadership. This podcast serves as a platform to share ideas, amplify best practices, and showcase the leaders who are shaping the future of healthcare.
Join us each week as we explore what it truly takes to achieve excellence in healthcare and build organizations that thrive in an increasingly complex world.
Because better healthcare starts with better leadership.
Excellence In Healthcare Podcast
098_The Leadership Principles Transforming Community Healthcare w/ Dr. Craig Glover
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What does healthcare excellence look like amid policy uncertainty, workforce shortages, and the rising role of AI?
As community health centers face new funding realities and expanded expectations, leaders are being called upon to reimagine care delivery, strengthen mission alignment, and build resilient organizations. In this candid episode of the Excellence in Healthcare Podcast, Dr. Craig Glover, CEO of a leading community health center, joins host Jarvis T. Gray to explore how executive leaders can steer organizations through complexity, change, and unprecedented opportunity.
EPISODE OVERVIEW
Dr. Craig Glover brings over two decades of experience in healthcare leadership, technology, and community service. From his early IT career to now leading his third Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), Dr. Glover’s journey is a powerful example of purpose-driven leadership and strategic transformation in healthcare.
In this conversation, Dr. Craig Glover sheds light on the real-world challenges and high-stakes decisions facing community health and rural healthcare executives in 2026—including the far-reaching impacts of federal policy shifts and funding reductions on primary care access. The episode goes beyond policy, delving into the leadership values that guide Dr. Craig Glover, the transformative potential (and ethical considerations) of AI, and why cross-sector partnerships are now essential for healthcare organizations’ survival and growth.
Listeners will discover practical lessons on building high-performing organizations, developing future-ready strategies, and staying mission-focused—even as the landscape shifts underfoot.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
• How to lead with fairness and mission-driven values during times of industry disruption
• Strategic approaches for navigating federal and state policy changes impacting healthcare funding and access
• Why community health centers are foundational to America’s largest primary care network—and what’s at stake as policy shifts threaten coverage for millions
• The critical importance of cross-sector partnerships and how to align with local agencies and stakeholders
• Practical lessons from building and sustaining organizational cultures in both technology and healthcare settings
• How to leverage artificial intelligence to drive efficiencies and address healthcare workforce challenges—while maintaining ethical guardrails
• Empowerment strategies for developing resilient, future-ready teams
• Leadership advice for new and emerging executives, including insights on self-awareness, introversion, and relationship-building
NOTABLE QUOTE
"There is more than one way to do something correctly. As a leader, tell your team the outcome you need—then empower them to find the best path. Sometimes, they’ll even find a better way than you imagined."
— Dr. Craig Glover
WHO SHOULD LISTEN
This episode is especially valuable for:
• Hospital and health system CEOs
• Community and rural healthcare executives
• COOs, CNOs, CMOs, and clinical leaders
• Strategy, quality, and operational excellence professionals
• Healthcare entrepreneurs and FQHC leaders
• Emerging executives seeking to build high-performing teams and resilient cultures
ABOUT THE EXCELLENCE IN HEALTHCARE PODCAST
The Excellence in Healthcare Podcast features conversations with healthcare leaders, innovators, and industry experts who are helping organizations improve leadership, strategy execution, operational performance, and healthcare outcomes. Hosted by Jarvis T. Gray, each episode explores practical ideas, proven frameworks, and real-world lessons that help healthcare organizations achieve sustainable excellence.
CALL TO ACTION
Ready to lead with purpose and turn uncertainty into opportunity?
• Follow the Excellence in Healthcare Podcast on your preferred platform to unlock more strategic insights.
• Share this episode with your leadership team and peers to spark meaningful conversations about the future of healthcare.
• Connect with Dr. Craig Glover on LinkedIn to expand your professional network and learn more about transformative leadership in community health.
• Connect with Jarvis T. Gray to stay ahead of industry trends and best practices.
• Visit Healthcare Excellence Advisors for strategic guidance and resources to strengthen your organization.
Join the conversation that’s shaping healthcare’s next era—download the full episode now.
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Hey, healthcare leaders. Welcome back to another episode of the Excellence in Healthcare podcast. I'm your host, Jarvis Gray, and today I am joined by my guest, Dr. Craig Glover. Craig, are you ready to share with our audience of healthcare leaders? Absolutely. Thank you for having me on. No, man. I was gonna say it's long overdue, but I know things happen when they're supposed to, so I really appreciate this time with you. So, Craig, I always love to start our conversations here on the podcast just on a high note, so. So I'd love to know if there is a leadership quote or a leadership mindset that guides you, and if so, how do you apply it on a daily basis? Good question. So for me, my leadership thing is really about treating people fairly, you know, thinking strategically and implementing that. And I really apply that on a daily basis. So everything I do is all about, you know, treating people fairly, treating people the way you want to be treated. And I think of it as if I can go home at the end of the day and look back on my day and the decisions that I made. Was I fair to everyone that was involved in the decision? People may not always like your decisions, but again, I'm always focused on let's do what's right for people. All right, fair enough. I mean, it's the golden rule of life is what I'm hearing there. And from kids all the way up to executive leadership, it sounds like a good principle to stand on. Yes. All right, fantastic. Well, you know, Craig, just to take our audience back, I had the pleasure of connecting with you through a mutual contact who's also been a guest on the podcast here, Shayla, and just really impressed from that first conversation, Craig, I had a chance to go and just learn more about your organization and your background. Super, super impressed with everything. So I'd love if you could just walk us through your role, your. Your journey as a health care leader and. And definitely what inspired you to get into the health care industry. Sure. Well, let's start with my journey of how I got here. I read something many years ago. They said people had three distinctive careers in their life on average. And so I am on career number two. My first career was information technology. I started off doing desktop support. I used to tell people I used to go to work in a long sleeve shirt, a necktie, and dress slacks, and call into people's desk and install computers and printers and stuff. And from there, I was able to get into system design work. So I had some business customers that I would meet with, understand what their challenges were. What their needs were from a business perspective and then go and talk to the programmers so that they can actually create systems for that. That work led me into actually doing actual system design. I spent a little bit of time as a programmer. And so from there I got into health information technology. And so in early 2000s, I'm dating myself a little bit, but in the early 2000s, I was working for a very large health information technology company. But I got laid off. And I got laid off because the, the guy who was the founder, he was co founder, he was at the time serving as chairman of the board, president, CEO of the organization. One year he only got an $18 million bonus. Yes, only an $18 million bonus. And he said, hey, my bonus really should have been more like 25 million. So I know what I'll do. I'll raise stock price by reducing costs. And I was in a smaller organization that had been acquired by this bigger organization. And so one day I found myself without a job. And so I realized I've been working really hard to make a few people rich, but I wasn't one of the few people. And so at that time I consciously decided I wanted to work for a mission focused, mission driven organization. So I thought I'd end up working in the United Way or school district or something like that, working on their technology. Well, I answered a blind ad in the newspaper and long story short, I ended up working in the health center. So my first role in the community health center was chief information officer. And this particular health center, and this is back in St. Louis, this particular health center had developed their own electronic health record and practice management system versus buying one off the shelf. And I was coming from a background of developing healthcare applications, so good fit. I understood the development side as well as I had the sort of traditional technology support. I understood desktop support and email administration, networking and all that. So I joined this organization. I think I'll do this for a couple years and I'll move on to something else. So about a year into my tenure with them, the St. Louis City Department of Health divested four primary care clinics that they had because there had been a study done about a decade before said they should get out of that business and they should allow the FQHCs in the area to do that because they did it better and they did it more effectively. So as they divested, therefore, two came to my organization that I was at. And one of the two health centers that we got is where my mom had taken me as a kid. And so now I'M like, ah, I think I'm in the place I'm supposed to be. I remember Jarvis walking into that building, having not been in there for, you know, 25 plus years or so, walking in and having this flood of very vivid memories of being there as a kid. Like, I could take you to the. An exact exam room that I had been in as a child having a visit. And so that kind of clicked with me. And I thought, now I'm now part of the leadership of an organization and a facility that took care of me as a kid. I'm now in a position to make sure that it continues so they can take care of other folks. I mean, I even got to the point of thinking part of the reason that I'm standing here is because this facility helped take care of me as a kid. So that was an aha moment that really tied me to the community health center movement. And so from there, shortly after that, I got a new CEO and he asked me one day, craig, what do you want to do? You're still a young guy. And I said, I want to run a community health center. And so he said, I can help you with that. So he gave me lots of opportunities over the next five and a half years that I worked for him to learn the business from the inside out, if you will. And so from there I went on to my first CEO job in the community health center. Today I'm in my third organization, third community health center as CEO. I've worked in the industry for 23 years now and what, 13, 14 of those years or so have been in the CEO role. Nice. Well, I will start, Craig, just by saying you almost really dated yourself when you said you answered a blind ad in the newspaper. Oh, we might have a couple of listeners like what? We might. You might have a couple listeners like what's a newspaper? Exactly. This is before. Indeed. And Monster. And all those job boards. You got jobs out of the newspaper. Yeah, no, I'm old enough to remember those, but no, I would love to touch on something that you, you clearly mentioned, which is you called it a community health center movement. Yes. And I personally, I feel like that's exactly what it is. Can you just take a moment to talk about the impact of community health centers, FQHCs and why we need exceptional healthcare leaders kind of focus in these areas as well. Not just the big name brand healthcare organizations, but also community health centers, FQACs. I've been doing a lot of work in rural communities over the past several months now. Just, can you Talk about that movement a little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing to understand is a community health center or federally qualified health center fqhc, these are ambulatory practices with the focus on creating access for underserved people. And when I use the term underserved, I'm referring to people may be Medicaid, maybe covered by Medicaid, they may be uninsured, they have no coverage whatsoever. They could also be folks who are insured, but they're on a plan that has a really high deductible. So maybe the insurance part doesn't kick in until they pay the first five, six, $10,000. So in that regard, they're no different than any other ambulatory practice. But what makes them unique is the focus on the underserved population. And for a lot of community health centers and the patients that they serve, they're kind of the last resort. And if those organizations didn't exist, then a lot of folks would go without healthcare or they're relying on the emergency department for what should be done in a primary care setting. And so the importance of them and the was it 32 million, 33 million people that are served by community health centers in the United States and its territories? The importance of that is really having access to high quality healthcare. The folks who work in community health centers are highly qualified. Sometimes I get that question, like, oh, are your folks volunteers? No, they're employed. We employ doctors and nurse practitioners and dentists and psychiatrists and social workers and on and on. All those folks are employed by us. I've had people ask, oh, well, these must be the folks who got C's in medical school. No, they're not. They're board certified physicians. They're certified in their discipline, highly skilled, they could be working in, as you mentioned, the big name healthcare facilities, but they choose to work in these community based organizations because they want to give back to the community that maybe they live in that community or it's a community that they want to help, they want to see people thrive. Community health centers, FQACs offer a wide variety of services. So they're doing the traditional primary care. Think of it as your regular doctor's office, but they have additional services. For example, in my organization we do dental, we do school based health where we have health centers that are embedded in the school environment that do a little bit more than what the school nurse can do. We have vision services, we have psychiatry, behavioral health, we have a lot. And these organizations grow organically out of a need from the community that they're serving. So I mean, there, without them, there would be a lot of folks who would lack access to healthcare if the community health center model didn't exist. Great. Fantastic. And I always do this when I have great conversations and really impressive leaders. Craig, like yourself on here. I'm going to ask another question with the risk of maybe bumping one of my future questions around. But just with all of the things going on at the federal level with the administration, big beautiful bills, all the stuff going on right now, just any crystal ball shakeups like what is happening in the world of community health and FQHCs right now, anything just to continue to educate our audience on the need and the impact that's coming for you all. Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned before, collectively there are about 1600 community health center organizations. And I forget the number of actual delivery sites. I mean, it's 20,000 delivery sites or so. Those organizations collectively take care of 32, 33 million people. 32, 33 million Americans in our country. It's the largest primary health care network in the country. And so when we think about draw risk things like HR1 that some people call the big beautiful bill, when we think about these changes that are impacting healthcare, those things can be detrimental to people having access to care. So what is that doing for the community health centers? It's making it more difficult for us because what's gonna happen is we will have folks who will lose Medicaid coverage. We'll have folks who. We already have folks who have lost their coverage because they were covered by one of the plans on the exchange. But because they lost the subsidy to help with that, they're no longer covered by that. So we'll have a larger number of people who are uninsured, but yet they still need access to health care. And so now they'll continue to come and the community health centers will won't have the same reimbursement for that, and that's going to cause some loss or reduction of services. So the biggest thing that people can do is reach out to your elected officials and share with them what the impact, the real impact of these bills and these changes are and let them know how it's impacting the. If it's impacting you directly, and if it's not impacting you directly, it's definitely impacting your neighborhood, it's impacting your community. Talk to them about that and maybe that may cause them to respond differently to some of these changes. Yeah, no, thank you for that. And again, just with the work that I do. A number of my clients have already been impacted by grants that have been either, you know, reduced or just completely taken off the table. Like in the middle of the funding cycles. Yes. So no, I really just wanted to pinpoint that because, you know, to your point, I don't know if folks realize, again, this model of healthcare, this is the largest model of healthcare in the country. Yes. And I just think it gets overshadowed by a lot of the big names that are notable doing great work as well. Yeah, absolutely. But I would say community health centers are definitely doing great work and they're doing it for a portion of our population that is often overlooked. All right, fantastic. Well, let me get back on my script over here. Act like I'm an experienced podcast host, Craig, but no. Craig, my next question for you. And kind of on topic though we know healthcare is always evolving. I am curious to ask specifically if there is a trend that you see going on right now that you think all healthcare leaders should have on their radars. That's a good question. And there's so much going on that healthcare leaders have to keep track of. It's almost getting to the point. Some days it may feel like it's even a little bit overwhelming. There's so much to keep track of. But again, I have to go back to right now. The biggest thing is just watching what changes are coming from the policy level, what changes are coming from the federal policy level. And then there are also that rolls into the state policy and, and then what your individual state may be doing. It's really important to keep an eye on those because one vote can change a lot. One vote from the federal government, as we're talking about in HR1 2027 will be a lot different for folks. There will be people who have access to healthcare through their Medicaid coverage that won't have that come this time next year. So I think that's really important to, for healthcare leaders to monitor. One, because it's impacting the patients that you're caring for. But second, because it's impacting the patients, it's also going to impact the organization, it's going to impact the reimbursement model and those things impact services. And yes, we're nonprofit organizations, we're mission driven organizations, but we also still have to generate revenue so that we can pay our bills, pay the staff, and so on. And if there are things that are reducing that, then that creates other challenges for the health delivery system. Yeah, and I will say, to your point exactly, some of the trends that I'M seeing kind of in that same model of getting prepared for moving through the rest of this year and into the next, our healthcare organization is doing a lot more alignment with their local areas, the cities, the towns, the counties and things that they live in. You know, the, the funds from HR1 have already been disseminated to most of the states, I think at this point. Yes. So everybody's gotten somewhere around $200 million to start figuring out. Yes. Right. So, so no, just I don't know if you all have already kind of started looking at all of that. I'm sure you have. We have. Perfect. And then to our audience, again, these are the things to really pay attention to, watch the policies, watch the money, and then really start to figure out how do you plug in deeper, really establishing great relationships all the way through. The healthcare centers and organizations, they're not going to be able to stand up on their own if all these things continue to move. Yeah, that, that's definitely a good point. The, the rural transformation funds are out there. They've been distributed to the states. And understanding each state then can figure out how best to use that. So there'll be 50 different ways of how these funds are implemented. So another thing is healthcare leaders have to figure out how their state is using the funds and how they are, how they may be able to get some of that funding for their organization. I think the other thing you mentioned too, that's important is the community part of it. And healthcare organizations are going to have to look to partner with other organizations in their community. And I know a lot of what's coming as far as funding. It's based on partnerships. So our opportunities of, oh, I can do this by myself, those are probably gone. It's kind of you and three or four or five other community partners coming together to be able to do something collectively. Yep, this is it. It's the, the healthcare versions of the Avengers, if nothing else. Right, exactly. That's a good way of putting. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I like that. Yeah. But Craig, so my next question for you, you know, we, we all face those, those bumps and ups and downs kind of in our career path, so would love to learn if there was ever a pivotal moment or a challenge in your career path that really helped to shape your entire approach to leadership. Yeah. So two things come to mind, Dorvis. So one is back in my days when I was doing technology, so I kind of talked a little bit at the beginning of how I kind of got to where I was So I found myself in my first management position, but I'm in my mid-20s and I'm managing a group of programmers, and I have folks on my team that are actually older than me. And some of them, I recall having a person that I was leading one time who told me that my grandkids are older than you, right? And it's like, my grandkids are older than you, so why should I be following you? But one of the things I learned early on in management that stuck with me for years and years is that there is more than one way to do something correctly. And so as a programmer, I have my programming style and the way I would do it. And so I would look at other people's work and in the beginning I would tell them, oh, you did it wrong. And they were like, what do you mean? Well, and my definition of you did it wrong is you didn't do it the way that I would have done. But yet they still got the right outcome. So it took me a little bit of time. But one thing that I learned in management is you really do have to give people the opportunity to do their best work. And doing their best work may not be the way that you envisioned that it was done. So I learned kind of quickly as a manager, let me tell you what the outcome is that I need you to get to, but then you figure out the best path to get there. And, oh, and by the way, the path that you may take to get to that outcome maybe different than mine. And then I also had to accept, oh, you actually did it better than I would have done it. Your, your work is more efficient. So that's always stuck with me as, as a leader. And. And actually, I really think that's sort of the difference between being a manager and a leader. A manager is probably going to tell you, go, do this and do, do this. Step one, step two, step three, a leader is going to create this vision for you. The vision is, we need to get to X. You figure out the best path, how to get to X. And I, as the leader, I'm just looking to make sure, did we get to X? Did we get the outcome that we wanted? Did we get it in a timeframe that we were looking for? So that's been a big part of an influence for me and my leadership. And I'm actually glad I learned that in my kind of early mid-20s, because I had a lot of Runway, if you will, to. To implement that. The other sort of pivotal moment for me was my experience of being laid off from corporate America and then deciding that I wanted to work in a mission focused organization. You know, I feel good at the end of the day when I go home about the work that I've done because I know my work that I do every day is directly impacting thousands of people that my organization cares for. And then if you sort of extrapolate that to the broader community, I know my, my work is impacting the community that I live in, that I have the opportunity to serve. So that's important for me as well. All right, well, I appreciate both of those examples. You know, Craig, as I quickly reflect on what you just shared, I guess the two things that actually come to mind for me, our empowerment. So as, as leaders, we have to empower our teams to solve the problems, to, to achieve the mission, but we do have to paint the vision of that outcome, like you said, but then also making sure we're working within our values. So doing mission driven work, make sure. I love the way you put it. I want to make sure I can go home and sleep at night. Right. So I, I appreciate both of those. I think that's going to resonate really, really well with our audience. So thank you. Next question. I have Craig, when you think about the people who have influenced you, would love to know who stands out. But most importantly, if there is a lesson that you learned from them that you could also share with the audience. Yeah. The person who stands out the most for me is my mother. My mom had me when she was 19, teenage mom, and we started life poor. And you know, some of the things that I experienced as a kid I didn't realize were synonymous with poverty until later. And I had the chance to look back. So the fact that my mom didn't let this stop her. She went on to earn a college degree, undergrad degree, got two master's degree, had a very successful career, had a opportunity to retire a little bit early and, you know, is doing well. And so one of the things for me is always say I'm the, I'm a statistic, but I'm an anomaly because if you look back to where I started life compared to where I am, this is not the place statistically that I was supposed to end up. So I, you know, I credit that to, to my mom. And the lesson that I got from that is hard work does pay off because it's easy to say, oh, I'm not going to do that. This is too much. But she never gave up. I remember having to spend a lot of time with my Grandmother. When I was younger, because my mom was in night school, I remember having to go to class or go to the computer lab with her at times as she's trying to get some of her work. So again, it's the hard work, the determination to get things done. And that's a driving force for me. People ask me all the time, oh, how can you do this and do that? I'm determined to do it. I'm not a person who's going to give up or, oh, that's too difficult. I love a good challenge. All right, well, Craig, we'll definitely have to powwow deeper on that, but I'll share quickly. My mother had me at 16 and she was in the process of graduating high school. And very similar paths. Not even we, we were happy, poor, didn't know how poor we were until we, until we got older as well. Absolutely. And, and a lot of similar lessons. My mother taught me those. You know, take what you got, make what you want, we don't stop. One of her teachers in high school told her she was the statistic and she was not meant to succeed in life. And here we are. So I just want to. Want to say your story resonates very personally for me. Right. So appreciate that, Craig. You know, when you're looking at the healthcare landscape today, what do you see as the single biggest challenge facing healthcare leaders? And then the flip side of that, what do you see as the single biggest opportunity, challenge? I think the biggest challenge facing healthcare leaders right now is just kind of the uncertainty about the industry overall. And so I've been in healthcare for over two decades, and it's a lot different today than it was when I started in the industry. And right now I feel that it's unstable. When I think about the changes that have been made to the US Healthcare delivery system, to what I would describe, it was already a fragile system. And I feel like with some of the policy changes, someone has taken an anvil and dropped it in the middle of an already fragile landscape. It's crumbling. Right. So that concerns me. And it concerns me because it makes me worried about people's ability to access care going forward. So that's definitely a challenge. So we as healthcare leaders, we have to figure out how to maneuver around these changes that are coming opportunity wise. I think artificial intelligence gives us the greatest current, the greatest opportunity currently. Now we have to be ethical and be conscious about how we're using AI. But I think AI brings to the healthcare industry great opportunities. And so we think about challenges around workforce I think it can help with that. It can certainly automate some tasks. I was in a workshop yesterday, we were talking about AI and the instructor said what used to take him three hours to do some computation. He was like, with the use of AI is done in three minutes. So we start thinking about the opportunity to use tools like that. And things that used to take hours to do can be reduced to minutes. Then that frees up time to do, to do something else. So again, I think that helps us in the workforce shortage. And I know you know this, but we've been struggling. We, the industry, have been struggling with workforce since COVID because there are folks who got into health care, doctors and nurse practitioners included, highly skilled, educated folks who we hit cover and they said, wait a minute, this isn't what I signed up for. And so they left the industry to never come back. Right. And now people are kind of concerned about, oh, I work in health care, what's the next pandemic that's coming? And so people are choosing to do other things. So the workforce, the, the depth of the workforce isn't as, as deep as it was pre Covid. And so those create some challenges which I think AI can be helpful in trying to resolve. Great. Well, I can't even touch either one of those. I think you are spot on. I see it from a unique point of view, just all the stuff going on, given the work I do as a consultant and how my clients are trying to address it. But the other side of what you shared, I am teaching many of my clients how to do things in AI, just things that I figured out for the work that I provide for them and even how I use AI in my business. So I would say if there are any AI gurus, and I'm far from it, but I know what I know at this point. But I still. To your point, I love that you were in a workshop. I am starting to see more healthcare leaders kind of adopt it more. There's one client I'm working with, they are completely like, don't bring this AI stuff to my door. So, so there's still kind of this cultural shift, but I agree with you. I think that's the opportunity just to, just to accelerate what we're trying to do. I bet your, your client who says, don't bring that to my door would be surprised. They're probably already being impacted by AI and they just don't realize, well, that that was a conversation. I held up my, my, my smartphone and I was like, really? I real, real quick. I Went to the MGMA conference last year, the Medical Group Management Association. So I went to their annual conference last fall and they have a vendor floor. I mean there, there's 500 vendors on the floor and every single person I went to and talked to, they're using AI in some form or fashion. Yeah, it's out there. Yeah. There you go. Craig. Man, we are right there. Kind of the halfway point of our conversation. I'd love to move us into what I call my 2min rapid fire drill. But I always love to do a quick check in. Make sure you're ready to go before I start throwing more questions at you. I'm ready to go. All right, perfect, Craig. So the next question is a little bit of a two parter where I'd love to know what inspires you to do your best and then share with us. How do you inspire others to do their best? What inspires me to do my best is my desire to help other folks. I've had people who have helped me along the way, whether it's in my career or personally. Um, and I, I feel I, I owe it to the folks who help me to help other folks come in behind me. So that, that's what inspires me. And remind me, what was the second part of the question? Yeah. How do you inspire others to do their best? How do I inspire others? Um, I inspire others by creating a vision for them and I'm hopeful that they see the vision the way that I do and then that motivates them to help us achieve it. Another way of inspiring people is find, finding out what drives them and then using that in your way to motivate them. Love it. And what's the best piece of career advice that you've ever received? Best piece of career advice that I've ever received is probably don't run away from a problem. Even though something may look like it's really tough, don't turn around and run away from it. Run into it. But there's a, there's a great book I'm paraphrasing, but it's essentially like hard is the answer. Like, do it the hard way. Address it. If you could rewind time knowing what you know now, what's one thing that you would do differently along your leadership journey? That's a tough one. Let's see. What would I do differently along my journey? Um. Oh, okay. I know. So I'm actually an introvert and most people probably don't realize that, but I'm technically, I'm truly an introvert. And, and early in my career, particularly as I got into management, I was trying to manage from an introverted standpoint. And so I wish I kind of overcome that a little sooner. I think it would allow me to build stronger, better relationships with the folks that I was leading earlier in my career. Right, fair enough. And I probably should have gave you my disclaimer. That's a little bit of a trick question. Now, I do have guests who are like, I would do nothing. Like I had to go through it, so. But no, I appreciate hearing that. I think I want to kind of capstone that a little bit. For any of our leaders who aren't familiar with introversion, extroversion, omnivers as well, the folks who are kind of in the middle standing, your. Your leadership energy in those three spectrums can be hugely important. So great. Thank you for calling that out. Yeah, absolutely. Craig, if you could recommend a book, a podcast, or a publication that has been critical for your development as a healthcare leader, you have any, any good resources to share there. So a book that I discovered many years ago was the Leadership Secrets of Colin Pyle. And it's a book that's dated. I actually, I'm looking to see if it's on my shelf. I don't see my copy there. But anyway, it's actually a book that I still give to new leaders. I mean, it's a book about Colin Powell. We all know who Colin Powell was. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was Secretary of State at one point. Great statesman, but really good leader. And I like that book because, um, it's like 12 or 13 chapters, but each chapter is kind of one of his leadership principles. And it, it's very practical information. So, like, one of the things that, that he says is you have to get out and walk around and talk to people. And he talked about his days of being in the Pentagon, and he would walk around the Pentagon and he would just talk to people. And he said he would get so much information from just walking up and saying hi and striking up a general conversation is what he discovered was that people would tell him things because he's standing there that they wouldn't take the time to email him or call him about. And so that, you know, that's one of the things I do. I like to go and visit with, with people and just chat with them. And then I may occasionally ask, hey, how's this new policy going? But often people say, oh, did you know that new policy we put in place? Here's what I think about it. So that's one that's really been. And I actually go back and reread it every couple years. And again, as I said, when I'm working with newer leaders, I will send them a copy of it. No, that's phenomenal. I read that book when I first came Into Healthcare almost 20 years ago and I haven't read it since. So just the fact you brought it back up, I'm gonna have to plug back in. But it was a phenomenal, very impactful book and I did the audiobook with him reading it. Okay. So if you really want the all in experience, the audiobook is fantastic. I didn't know there was an audiobook of him reading. I have to see if I can find that now for my next read of it. All right, perfect. No, that is awesome. Awesome recommendation. I love it. Craig, when you're looking forward to next year, what are you most excited about achieving over the next 12 months or so? And most importantly, how are you planning to celebrate those wins? So what I'm looking forward to over the next 12 months or so is taking my organization through AI adoption and so identifying what challenges we have that AI can assist us with and then building our governance framework around AI usage and then implementing tools. And how do we celebrate that? We, we celebrate that by patting ourselves on the back. We celebrate that by taking the efficiencies that we realize from successful implementation of AI and deploying that workforce, or time, if you will, to do other things so that we can continue to help our patients. Well, we didn't highlight that you're up in West Virginia, so I hope some of that celebration involves a good barbecue somewhere. Yeah. But no, Craig, man, this is honestly just been a really genuinely thoughtful conversation. Really excited about all the information that you share with me today. And I can't wait to get this out to our listeners before I do let you go. I love if you could share the best way that our listeners can connect with you online or just follow the great work that you all are doing and then we'll officially sign off. Yeah, I think the best way to connect with me is through LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, so if you go out there and find Me Craig Glover, EdD and lots of other initials or credentials behind my name. Love to hear from people on LinkedIn and connect with folks that way. Fantastic. Now I'll be sure to include the link there. Dr. Glover, Craig, really appreciate all of the insights and value that you brought in our conversation. To everyone tuning in, thank you all for choosing the Excellence in Healthcare podcast. Truly hope that you find a ton of value from everything that Craig has shared today. So until next time, this is Jarvis and Dr. Craig Glover, and we're officially signing off.
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