Hiring for Good is a podcast exploring the transformative power of leadership and what happens when the right person takes the job. Thank you for tuning in to this episode with Hiring For Good with Chris Pippin, the director of marketing operations at Cambia Health Solutions.
About Cambia Health Solutions: Cambia Health Solutions is dedicated to making the health care experience simpler, better, and more affordable for people and their families, including the more than 2.3 million people we serve through our regional health plans. For more than 100 years, Cambia has been deeply rooted in a legacy of transforming the industry and the way people experience health care. And we’re committed to delivering an easier, personalized health care experience for the next century. Drawing upon its legacy business, Cambia has pivoted to meet the needs of today’s health care consumers. Our six regional health plans, our health policy center, Echo Health Ventures, and the Cambia Health Foundation are all united by our cause— to serve as a catalyst to transform health care, creating a person-focused and economically sustainable health care system.
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Hiring for Good Podcast
0:00 Well good morning and welcome back to Hiring for Good. As usual, I am Tanis
0:05 Morris and with me is my lovely co-host, Suzanne Hanifin. Good morning. Good
0:09 morning, Tanis. Hi Suzanne and today we are very excited to have uh our guest
0:15 Chris Pippen. Chris leads with both heart and precision guiding teams that not
0:19 only hit their goals but elevate the entire organization in the process over
0:24 his 15 years at Cambia, Chris has built a reputation for delivering results
0:28 cultivating talent and creating systems that truly work while keeping a strong
0:32 focus on values and long-term impact from managing multifunctional teams to
0:37 contributing on national platforms like the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Chris brings deep insight
0:44 into what it takes to lead with purpose in a complex fast-paced industry and I
0:49 might add constantly changing industry it’s true yes we’re talking today about
0:53 what great team culture actually looks like how to create space for growth and
0:58 innovation and how hiring with intention can drive real transformation plus we’ll
1:02 get a glimpse into the human side of leadership from Stanford roots to raising a family of five actually you
1:09 know to leading a family of five I would say perfect yeah yeah and uh sneaking in round of golf when he can let’s dive in.
1:16 Good morning, Chris. Good morning Tanis. Thank you yeah we’re really glad to to
1:20 have you here so usually we ask our guests to kind of begin by just telling us a little bit about kind of your
1:28 journey to your current seat at Cambia. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background? Sure happy to um
1:35 and you know careers are funny things I mean it’s um it’s not something when you’re in school you sit down and say
1:41 you know I want to work for a health insurance company and be in marketing
1:43 operations like I didn’t think I knew uh what marketing operations was and I
1:48 barely knew what health insurance was so um yeah I started uh my career down in
1:52 the Bay Area and I was right on the the just at the back end of the tech bubble which was um kind of unfortunate timing
1:58 but bounced around there for a while and had an opportunity in real estate and I spent about a decade doing real estate
2:04 um and that was really fun for a while and then it got really not fun around 2008 or so so I went looking for um a
2:11 new career and a career reset and uh landed at uh Cambia and I’ve been there ever since okay and so when you came in
2:18 at Cambia I’m assuming did you just come in in marketing or and that how did you
2:23 kind of journey to Yeah I mean again careers are funny things and and a lot
2:27 of it is is uh you know happenstance how these things go but I I’d been there I think a month and we had a
2:32 reorganization and about 6 months later we had a new leader that came in after that and I think I had three different
2:37 jobs in my first year wow um but um you know was able to um uh work with the new
2:44 leader and you know she’s you know she put me in a in a position where I was
2:48 able to succeed, which was great, and have been you know kind of progressing from there and did you start out managing
2:54 people I know you manage a pretty significant-sized team now um not when I
2:58 came in the door, um I I’ve been managing for a long time, but when I started Cambi I was an individual contributor role but
3:04 um pretty quickly I’ve I developed a team and you know been uh growing the team and and evolving you know for the
3:11 last probably 12 or 13 of those 15 years.Yeah and you talk about like during 2008
3:17 which was you know a very difficult time but as you move through your career
3:22 there are formative events that happen that really shape who you are as a leader and
3:29 whether it’s a mentor or rising above challenging situations what have been
3:35 some of those real formative experiences and really what were the learnings
3:42 it’s interesting just again how much of this is is unplanned but when I was down in the Bay Area I was working for a
3:48 startup for a period of time um I had a employee number in the low double digits
3:53 let’s say and um there was no training there was no very little guidance it was
4:00 like here figure it out and I think at that at that point I was 24 and at one point somebody said “Hey we need
4:06 somebody to manage these three new hires you’re you’re now a manager.” It’s like
4:09 okay I guess I guess I’ll figure that out and again no training or anything else um that’s always stuck with me
4:16 because I really like the figure it out thing and most of the people that um I’ve seen be real successful are those
4:24 kind of people too and usually when you give people room to figure it out they’ll you know if they’re the right
4:31 kind of people they’ll they’ll be successful they’ll thrive and they’ll usually do something that surprises you
4:36 too so um that’s always stuck with me and that that works way better than I’ve
4:42 had managers where they are very directive and you know very much want
4:46 you to do things a certain way I’ve always chafed at that a little bit and um I found that you know when I when I
4:52 have a team teams kind of chafe at that too so I like to give people as much room as I can to figure things out on
4:58 their own when you that I mean I find that really interesting because that’s a very young age to go into a management
5:04 oh yeah i had no idea what I was doing yeah yeah but you know do you think that going
5:11 through your own experiences of figuring it out made you better position to just
5:16 let your teams do it or do you innately that way or or do you kind of try to be directive and then fail no I I
5:23 absolutely it’s it’s informed kind of the way I’ve I’ve hired and managed my team and um I I think you have to be
5:30 comfortable figuring out like what’s the worst thing that can happen here you
5:35 know and and you know are you okay with that and if you’re okay with it then let
5:41 people figure it out, let let them do a little have a little bit of failing um sometimes you know that can be
5:46 frustrating but it’s going to be way better in the long-term um especially for the employee and their growth and
5:52 and um you know their satisfaction as well yeah and you talk about like this
5:56 figuring out which I would probably classify as curiosity of of really kind of again figuring things out
6:05 and and obviously it’s a core value of yours and what other core values when
6:11 you look at leadership and management do you draw upon and and how do you implement that in the hiring process
6:20 yeah the the other so this this kind of goes along with this almost the flip side of figuring it out is um getting
6:26 things done um I’m very much a get things done sort of person and I look
6:32 for that in in people that I hire um I don’t care as much about the how um you know that’s the figure it out part but
6:39 we got to get the thing done um so the the what and the when are important but but the how less so so um I try to drive
6:47 that in my teams too i mean let’s um let’s stop talking let’s start doing um you know you can tend to get bogged down
6:54 often especially at a large company you know a lot of stakeholders involved and you know is not as small it’s not small
7:02 and it’s it’s very complex and highly matrixed and um a lot of what you have to do as a manager is making sure the
7:08 right people know about the right work streams um and just keeping people updated but that can get a little bit
7:15 excessive sometimes you know and sometimes you just have to okay let’s let’s stop talking about it and let’s
7:19 start working and and we’ll get there um so that that’s one thing I definitely I
7:25 it’s hard to call that a value but I I view it as a value like you know a value
7:29 of accomplishment completion achievement those sorts of things and so when you
7:34 look at that and you talk about when and where or timing versus how y is that do
7:42 you bring in a lot of data and matrix and tracking or do you really say by June 1st we’re going to get this
7:52 accomplished see a team um yeah sometime when we can we I mean like to be
8:00 everybody likes to be data driven very much that way but um you know it’s hard
8:04 sometimes the data doesn’t exist um you know sometimes um sometimes intuition is
8:10 better than data so um it it really depends on on the project but but usually it is more that second thing
8:16 you’re talking about like hey we’ve got to get this project done you know the
8:19 due date is June 15th let’s go um and that’s not to say I’m I’m completely hands off or I just like say okay you
8:26 know wipe my hands and and we’ll see you on June 15th but um you have to be
8:29 comfortable with letting your team figure out how to get from today to June 15th and what the path is because
8:36 usually they know better than you do well and and I’m going to ask one more
8:39 question, i’m so sorry, Tanis for jumping in here so much but I think it goes back
8:44 to who you hire you can’t necessarily do that for everyone yeah so when you look
8:50 at the hiring are there key things that you look at and go “Oh this person is
8:57 going to fit not just my management style but also within the team how do you gauge that?” Um yeah I I actually
9:05 love doing job interviews because it’s really fun to meet people and chat about
9:08 these things with them and um I like to ask people about situational um
9:13 questions so um one question I often ask and maybe I’m giving things away because
9:17 I’m sure some future recruits going to like find this and like listen back and now they’ll be super prepared I guess
9:22 but um I like to ask people okay talk to me about a project that went off the rails um what did you do like how did
9:30 you solve for that um what was the problem and and how um you know how that
9:35 make you feel did you panic um maybe that’s okay to panic but then how did
9:38 you how did you work through it so talking about those kind of situations with people it gives you a pretty good
9:44 idea as to you know are they going to be able to figure it out or you know or not
9:49 um it’s not easy to gauge and and a lot of it is kind of you kind of use your gut a little bit on those things but you
9:55 got to kind of put people in the situation and and ask them um how they navigate that situation so now I feel
10:02 compelled to ask you when have you failed and how did you manage through oh well I mean I just told you I did i had
10:07 a complete career reset in about 2008 or 2009 and um you know it try to limit
10:15 those things as much as you can especially um in in the role I’m in now i’m not going to say it never happens
10:20 but I don’t know i think I think I’m going to punt on that one Suzanne from from giving any other examples
10:25 sorry no no it’s okay i mean I think uh the one of the interesting things that
10:30 has kind of come about through the process of doing this podcast is um when
10:36 we ask people to talk about formative experiences it’s almost always when
10:41 things didn’t go as they planned or when they had to you know restructure their
10:46 lives or their career or their team or or their company whatever it was and um I I actually I found that one of the
10:56 most kind of compelling takeaways from from just doing the podcast it’s like nobody’s really going back to like when
11:02 I had this massive success I learned the most that’s exactly right yeah very true
11:08 yeah so kind of I think for me personally it’s made me feel a lot more like all right you know if you’re
11:14 failing you’re learning absolutely or you know things aren’t going as you want
11:19 lean in because that’s when things get interesting you know that’s when you’re
11:23 going to grow so um so punt away but but no it’s good stuff um you know the other
11:31 the other interesting question that I think has been the most compelling for
11:35 Suzanne and I to ask our guests is when you look back over your career
11:40 in life what advice would you give to you know 20-year-old Chris
11:47 um I think the thing that I struggled with very early and still does not come
11:52 naturally is self-promotion um that is something that I’ve learned is really important in the corporate world
11:59 especially like if you’ve got your own company that’s kind of a different story
12:03 but um when you’re in a large organization it’s really easy to get lost and um it took me a long long time
12:11 to learn that and um it it sounds very self- serving but it’s more about the
12:16 work it’s about um showing your value to the company those kinds of things um the
12:22 more of that you do and the more comfortable you get with it um you’re going to be better served in the long
12:26 run and that’s that’s that goes for individuals as well as their teams too
12:31 so if you if you manage people you have to be vocal about your team their work
12:35 and the value it’s bringing to the company um cuz if if you’re not again it’s it’s way way too easy to get lost
12:42 in a big company if you don’t i’m gonna lean in on this because I think we haven’t heard this particular piece of
12:48 advice before and I think it’s maybe one of the best pieces of advice for a leader no I’m I’m not joking i think
12:56 it’s so common to get lost or to to not recognize how important that is can you
13:02 give some examples of positive ways to advocate for yourself or your team
13:08 within a large organization um yeah yeah I mean the I talk to my team about this too especially the ones
13:15 um you know team members come to you all the time and say “Hey I want a promotion
13:18 what should I do?” Um the only way to be well not the only the best way to be
13:24 successful um in a large organization is you have to do the job that you want
13:29 rather than the job you have and then you’ve got to show people the the the
13:34 best way to get promoted is to say um is to have a leader say “I can’t believe
13:40 you’re only a fill-in-the-blank.” Um and then you know people are going to look at you as that higher role not the role
13:48 you’re in now so anyway um you have to be willing to take on additional work stretch projects and make sure that the
13:55 right people know that you’re doing it so I think that’s probably the best best
14:01 advice I’ve got on that yeah and so when you’re looking back 15 years again large
14:08 organization what are you most proud of and especially and and wrap it around
14:13 teams and your management and leadership little bit cliched I guess but I’m most
14:18 proud of the the people I’ve worked with the relationships I’ve built um some of
14:22 the leaders that I’ve helped develop some of the individual contributors I’ve helped develop I mean um we talk about
14:29 it all the time at the company and again it’s a common qu…so in an interview it’s
14:32 a common question I get back which is what do you like most about working at 14:36 blank um you hear that all the time right um and my my answer is always the
14:41 people so um it’s it’s really what makes um coming to work um enjoyable a lot of
14:48 the days um really enjoy my manager I enjoy my team enjoy my my peers and
14:53 that’s I think your question was about what I’m most proud of and So this is a
14:57 little bit of an indirect answer but um I I think it’s it’s those relationships and just the um the the atmosphere and
15:04 culture that that we’ve well I can’t can’t take credit for building it but that that we’ve enjoyed yeah contributed
15:10 to maybe and you’ve you’ve alluded to this culture and it is cultures you know
15:16 bottom up behaviors tend to be top down yeah so talk about how you’ve influenced or
15:24 have you influenced that culture and what has kept you there for so long yeah
15:30 you have to um a large company you know highly matrixed um very complex and all
15:35 that you have to be communicative you have to be willing to um share work
15:41 there is so many there are so many gray areas um so much ambiguity so I’m a big
15:47 believer in role clarity that’s something else I work on a lot with my teams is making sure people know what
15:52 their job is but that’s got to come with a little bit of flexibility too and you’ve got to be able to say “Hey this
15:58 this new project I’m not sure if it should be yours or that person’s or this third person’s we’re going to we’re
16:05 going to give it to this other person over here.” And you’ve got to be okay with that and um being able to
16:10 communicate around that uh make sure people know their roles and they’re comfortable with those kinds of things I
16:14 think that’s you know that’s probably one of the bigger things I can do to contribute to that culture but it’s
16:20 tough i mean it’s um you know navigating the organization and the industry really
16:25 challenging yes and there’s a lot of changes in the industry every day yes
16:32 if you had a crystal ball what do you think the next year looks like maybe five years looks like oh man um
16:40 you notice I didn’t say 10 or 20 well yeah i mean even even projecting you
16:46 know out a quarter or so is really hard i mean we’re um you know in the health
16:50 care and health insurance industry costs continue to be the number one challenge
16:55 um for both consumers um or members or patients whatever you want to call them
17:00 as well as employers who are usually the ones sponsoring um sponsoring health
17:05 insurance plans and that’s going to continue i I don’t see that pressure changing so you know there are a lot
17:11 there’s a lot of innovation in the space there are a lot of um companies trying to you know disrupt things there’s um
17:17 you know a lot of um new ideas being floated um I think they’re all kind of in that that cost um along that cost
17:24 vector um so I you know I think answering your question a little bit more directly I think the next 5 years
17:30 are going to continue to see that that trend and continue to see companies um
17:36 and you know individuals look for ways that that we can break that break through that um you know the
17:43 ever increasing healthcare costs I I don’t know what that’s going to be what what you know there I think that’s
17:48 almost impossible to predict but um that’s that’s the thing that kind of hangs over um every every conversation
17:54 I’m sure absolutely yeah and one more question kind of more broadly but um you
18:01 talk about innovation and I know for a long time Cambia was doing their um
18:07 incubators yep are is Cambia still involved and are you involved in the incubation of Yeah I I’m maybe not the
18:16 best person to talk about this but yes um Cambia is a partner in um in something called Echo Health Echo Health
18:23 Ventures see this is why I’m not the best person probably to talk about I don’t know the exact name but u we are
18:28 partnered with some other blue plans in that and yeah they are um they’re an
18:32 incubator using your your word there on um for a variety of startups and small
18:38 companies that are looking to innovate in the healthcare and health insurance
18:41 space so um yeah our team gets a little bit involved on the marketing side in
18:45 terms of helping to position those solutions for employers and sometimes
18:49 communicate to members as well yeah I always think that would be fun because
18:54 again you get to see creative ideas and hopefully new ways of doing I mean insurance is not a new industry
19:03 right you said you like to solve problems yeah exactly it’s kind of cool that you’re you know ended up at a
19:08 company that is actively you know working towards or you know taking outside of the box approaches to to
19:16 solving it yeah absolutely and that’s that’s I mean uh it’s corporate mission
19:19 and we call it the cause but that is um that’s what the company exists to do is to transform healthcare so yeah how
19:25 wonderful it sounds sounds fabulous um the last question that we always ask our guests Chris is what does hiring for
19:32 good mean to you so it’s you’re looking for a plug right that’s that’s no and we’ve heard so many different answers to
19:42 it it’s almost like the advice that it’s kind of ambiguous what does hiring for good It can mean a lot of different
19:49 things actually so we like that it’s a little um I mean I’ll tie right to the last uh bit of our conversation which is
19:55 I think you have to keep the mission in mind when when you’re hiring people so
19:59 you know you want to look for talent and look for um skills and and leadership
20:03 and all those things but um you also have to keep the mission in mind and
20:06 we’re I mean I’m fortunate because almost everybody that that we interview
20:10 uh I shouldn’t that might be a little bit of a stretch but a lot of people we interview say you know I want to work
20:15 for you because of your mission which is pretty cool so um yeah I I think that’s
20:20 that’s my best guess has anybody said that one before probably serving the
20:24 mission probably i mean it’s kind for good can mean for permanence some we’ve
20:28 had some people say for good means like hiring for the betterment of the people
20:32 that they’re actually hiring i mean it’s considered that that one was interesting for us too
20:39 we hadn’t thought of it in that way i I mean it’s so it’s it’s actually kind of fun to hear what people have to say but
20:44 it’s been really fun to hear what you’ve had to say good well thank you yeah
20:47 absolutely thank you so much for your time and again it’s it’s always fascinating on talking with people from
20:56 you know your learnings your experience because that’s who you are and I am
21:00 going to ask one more question just on on again your career plan yeah do you
21:09 have you know in the next some years are you going to be the next CEO of Cambia
21:14 is that what you’re aspiring to be what kind of a question is that um uh so um I learned again back like in 2008
21:23 that um shouldn’t probably shouldn’t make plans exactly like that i had a lot of ideas in 2005 when the market was
21:31 ripping about what I thought my career and my life were going to look like
21:35 absolutely zero of those things came to pass so um you know take it you know a
21:41 little bit at a time and we’ll see where things go how about that and I have my
21:45 money that in 10 to 15 years Chris will be the CEO of Cambia come on stop stop
21:51 stop all right zero ambition for that right now come on all right thanks so much for your time thanks to both of you
21:59 appreciate it awesome thanks for joining us today at Hiring for Good if you’re
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22:25 about transformational leadership until then have fun