This episode of Hiring for Good is a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and purpose-driven career-building, told through the extraordinary life story of Valdez Bravo, a public servant whose journey spans the military, the VA, and county-level healthcare leadership.
I don’t come to work for people to work for me — I work for them. My job is to remove barriers and get people the resources they need to thrive. – Valdez Bravo
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hiring-for-good-podcast/id1725208602
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/288s2urueV7xjlsFoYW8QN
Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehanifin/
Tanis Morris: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanis-morris-75a113266/
Valdez Bravo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valdez-bravo-fache-97710075/
Hiring for Good is presented by Acumen Executive Search. Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and Advisory Firm on the West Coast.
Hiring for Good Transcript
Suzanne Hanifin: Well, welcome to Hiring for Good. I am Suzanne Hanifin with Acumen Executive Search, and once again I’m with my lovely co-host Tannis Morris.
Tanis Morris: Hello, Suzanne.
Suzanne: Hello, Tanis. And we are super excited. You like that enthusiasm? Super excited to have Valdez Bravo join us today. We have been doing Hiring for Good for almost two years, a little longer. And for two years, I’ve been saying I want Valdez on our podcast.
So, Valdez is, um, a lifelong public servant with over 25 years of healthcare industry, and he serves today as the deputy director of operations at Multnomah County Health Department. Valdez is truly a healthcare expert and passionate about it.
So, I’m going to read read this, but before I do, I just wanted to say welcome.
Valdez: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Suzanne: Thank you. So, Valdez is a native Oregonian. And he got his healthcare start when he enlisted at the Army at age 18. After an honorable discharge, eight years later he came back to Oregon. And he ended up going to work with the VA for the next 18 years, primarily serving in positions of increasing responsibility at the VA Portland Healthcare System and where he served as an associate director or chief operating officer and the VA southern Oregon rehabitate rehab…I can’t even talk…rehab center and clinics in White City, Oregon.
In addition to serving his fellow veterans, Valdez is a former elected board of trustee at Portland Community College Zone 5 and has worked with a number of national and local organizations such as Portland Youthbuilders, Port Portland Humanities. And Valdez serves as president of the Oregon Biomedical Association from 2012 to 2013 and currently serves as the immediate past president of the Oregon Chamber of ACHE.
In 2022, Valdez joined the leadership team of Multnomah County Health Department as the deputy director, and he oversaw HR, organizational development, quality, data analytics, policy, and emergency management functions, which is such a hard time right after COVID. And hopefully we’ll we’ll chat about that a little bit.
But Valdez is inspired every day by his wife and daughter and has a family they enjoyed political activism, exploring the arts, trying out vegan foodie hotspots, traveling around Oregon, and attempting to keep up with two long-haired Chihuahua named Archie and Pepper.
So, welcome, Valdez. And you know, and I know I kind of did a very high level of your journey, but why don’t you kind of dive in and really kind of talk about how you ended up again, age 18, going into the military and now with your current position at Multnomah County?
Valdez: Well, I didn’t plan on being in healthcare when I was a kid. I mean, I don’t know that a lot of kids grow up saying, “I want to be a healthcare administrator.”
Tanis: Yeah.
Valdez: Um, but what happened with me in my case was I grew up in a family that was, uh, very loving, very supportive. It was my mom — a single mom – my grandma, and a whole tassel of cousins. And we all grew up on a little kind of hobby farm outside of Salem, uh, just outside of city limits.
And, um, it just it wasn’t a big…not only we’re not a big college family, there was a lot of things like you know, um, alcoholism, addiction, incarceration, um, heroin use, um, a lot of, uh, things in my childhood that, um, when I years later would learn to be are called adverse childhood experiences, ACEs. Um, when you look at those scores, I mean I I can count up, you know, five or six of them, you know, in my childhood. But but because I think I grew up with such love and support for my grandma and my mom, um, you know, it just it seemed like a very idyllic childhood despite all that.
Tanis: Wow.
Valdez: Um, and then, you know, name of the game growing up was to be a good person. Um, keep your nose clean, stay out of trouble, you know, uh, you know, and uh, try, just try to lead a happy life, and, and learn a vocation or a trade. Uh, my one uncle was a a plumber. My other uncle was a roofer and my mom had been on, uh, welfare for a hot minute. But, um, was able to get a job part-time doing bookkeeping at the welfare office and led to a, you know, 30-plus-year career in state government. And, she retired and is now happily living somewhere on PERS one, you know, on a little hobby farm, um, with her animals.
But for me, so I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, except I knew that I didn’t want to be a burden on my mom, you know, when I didn’t really have a plan, you know, coming out of high school. I was one of those bright kids that was like a tag, you know, type kid, but I had no work ethic, disciplined. I was just like, lived for the moment, you know, would always forget to do my homework, you know, whether consciously or not.
And um, so I basically, when I got somewhere between my junior and senior year, I got a call from a recruiter, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. “Hello, is this Valdez Bravo? This is..This is Staff Sergeant Daniel K. Smith with this man’s army. Are you ready to serve your country?” And it was funny because my mom and I had just been talking about military as an option, like a week or so before cuz she had almost joined the Air Force at one point. She’s like, “Had you ever thought about that?” I’m like, “No.”
So when I told the recruiter, you know, it’s funny. I was just talking about that with my mom. I think he knew right there that, you know. So, I ended up, um, talking to the army and, um, decided to enlist. So, I enlisted between my junior and senior year as a medical equipment repair technician. I figured it was a vocation that I’d be able to get a job anywhere there was a hospital or, uh, people sick. There was going to be medical equipment, and it would need to be fixed and serviced. So, it seemed like a very practical trade.
Um, it also was like the..seemed like the best, uh, job on the list, other than air traffic control, which, especially these days, you can see, you know very stressful position to be in. Um, and I had seen those movies like Airplane, uh, growing up, and it seemed like they’re always like chain-smoking and bumping into each other and smelling coffee. So, I was like, okay, I’ll I’ll do medical equipment repair.
So, I ended up joining the army as a medical equipment repair technician. Um, I was a six-year enlistment because the school was very long, and they had a very low retention rate because everyone would just turn around, get out, and go get a job. So, it was six years, but I ended up liking it, and I was having too much fun in Germany. So, I re-enlisted and ended up doing, uh, eight years.
Now, um, had I gotten out, I would have gotten out; if I hadn’t re-enlisted, I would have gotten out in June of 2001.
Suzanne: Wow.
Tanis: Oh, wow.
Valdez: But I had re-enlisted for Fort Belvoir, which is just outside of Washington DC.
Tannis: Mhm.
Valdez: So, um I ended up finding myself, you know, in the national capital area during, uh, 9/11. Uh, that definitely impacted my life in the fact that a year later, you know, a little over a year later, I was deployed to Afghanistan.
Tanis: Wow.
Valdez: As part of the second combat support hospital, um, in in theater there, um, who had, you know, the army deployed with a CAT scan. I was the one of the few people in the army that had that CAT scan training.
Tanis: Wow.
Valdez: So, went over to Bagram Air Force Base and, uh, it was a short deployment, but uh, an impactful one. Everyone came home safe from that deployment, so that’s the good news.
Um, so anyway, so I came home from the army. Um, got out, honorable discharge in August 2003. I went to work at OHSU for about 6 months. But then I, um, heard about, uh, an opportunity at the Portland VA Medical Center. Um, and they said, “Hey, you’re a veteran. We’re veterans. We’re serving veterans. You should be over here with us, not at OHSU, even though they love OHSU.” And so that ended up, um, leading me to the a career in the VA. I switched in 2004.
Um, I kind of knew that I didn’t want to necessarily fix medical equipment the rest of my life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I felt kind of guilty for having those conflicted feelings. And I learned later in grad school that the the vocabulary for that, which is that I had job satisfaction, which is I was kind of working for the extrinsic benefits of pay, time off, you know, those kind of things. My life started at 3:30 when I got off work, and it happened on the weekends, but the work itself didn’t truly like animate me, right?
Um, I didn’t learn that was a job engagement that was like years to come. So, I started going back to school. I went to Portland Community College, on the GI Bill uh, because ostensibly when I joined the army, that was one of the things, is not only vocation but college money. Um, I thrived, you know, I’m getting straight As at PCC, actually funny, the one B I got was in political science. It’s kind of funny that I’m so politically active these days, but anyway.
Um, but then, um, and then I, uh, gravitated towards the humanities. Um, and when I switched to PSU, I I chose the English major because I had read that that was the best way to get a well-rounded education. And I already had this really great job from the army of fixing medical equipment, which was, like I said, paying pretty good money. I got to use my mind. I’m working indoors. I’m helping support uh, patient care. It was a great job.
But, um, but again, I was I felt like I was something was unsatisfied, unsettled there. So, um, got my English degree and then a funny thing happened. I was thinking about maybe joining the foreign service because I’m very mission-minded and, you know, um, being in the army is kind of like getting a tattoo. Like, you know, you get one and then next thing you know, you want to get another one, you know. Um, and I have a number of them.
But, um, but when I was I kind of got stir crazy because in the army you move every two years, and I was so I was like the foreign service would be u really exciting and a way to serve my country. I thought about pursuing a master’s in fine arts and writing the next great American novel. Uh, you know, some little endeavor like that.
But what happened was instead was I got promoted to supervisor of my department. And when I got promoted to supervisor, all those old military habits that had been infused in me, those leadership lessons at a young age came rushing back, and I stepped right back into it. When I started the VA, I was 26 or 27. The next youngest two people were 43, and it went up from there. So, I was like the kid.
Now, you know, a year earlier in the army, I was leading a department of civilians and soldiers, you know, and, you know, kind of running stuff. And so, I had felt very disempowered when I got to the VA. I remember asking questions like, “Hey, have we ever thought about doing like this or for inspections? What if we do this?” And I got the, uh, the remark, you know, hey kid, you you can have an opinion when you’ve been here for 5 years. And this is like the opposite of, you know, empowerment of engagement within a play, right? Just total shutdown.
Makes me like, okay, you know, I don’t, I’m not going to put anything into work again. Life starts at when the when the buzzer rings. So anyway, um, so I had the opposite mindset, and so I asked all the staff, you know, I was going from being one of the team to the supervisor, you know, and then also like a month later, my boss left. So I was wearing both hats.
Tanis Wow.
Valdez: A month into the job. I’m the manager and the supervisor. And I said, “Hey team, like, let’s change things the way we’ve always been wanting it for, you know, all these years. Like I’m in charge. Like, what do we want to do here?” And so we made all kinds of changes to our workflow process, how we assigned work to our, um, parts to our, you know, everything that we did. And they were happy.
We were at a deficit because uh, there was a hiring lag in the federal government to account for, um, increased social workers that were hiring because of the suicide crisis. And so, uh, biomed techs weren’t getting authorized for backfill. So we were down staff, but our our performance actually went up, and we actually got um recognized in 24/7 magazine, our trade mag as one of the best departments of the year that year.
Tanis: Wow.
Suzanne: Congratulations.
Valdez: Thanks.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Valdez: So, at that point, my wife said, “I know you’ve been talking about foreign service and a master’s in fine arts, but it seems like leadership and management is really your thing. Is there some kind of degree you could do?” And so, um, I basically found out about this program where the VA would send you to get your master’s in healthcare administration and MBA with the Army Baylor program, which is a partnership where Baylor partners with the Army to train the next generation of federal leaders. I was the VA guy that got to go that year.
I came home, and then I got a chance to spend a year in the executive office doing projects and getting mentorship from our facility director or CEO. Um, then I had a chance to stand up our lean process improvement program as we were kicking off that journey. Um, earning my black belt, hiring others, they all got their black belt. Still going strong today, you know, doing Kaizen events and driving waste out of the government processes up there at the VA.
Then I did a lateral move so I could get some clinical experience, and I was primary care director for two and a half years, a bit before COVID and a bit after. So, I had both experiences of, you know, pre-COVID normalcy, and then post-COVID. I was really excited that, you know, we were able to take our virtual visits from eight visits in 2019 to over 8,000 in 2020 as a necessity. And then I made that jump to going down to southern Oregon and serving as the associate director at the VA Southern Oregon Rehab Center clinics.
Tanis: Wow.
Valdez: And then, uh, I was only able to do that because of COVID, because my wife was portable online. She teaches at Portland State. Uh, my daughter was, you know, online school. But once they had to go back to in-person, I’m down in Southern Oregon doing this trip back and forth to Lake Oswego every week.
And so, um, it was around that time that Molly Norton from Acumen Search found me on LinkedIn and said, “Would you ever be interested in leaving the VA and coming to Multnomah County? You’ve got the exact right set of skills that we’re looking for in this new deputy director of operations position. And and if, and if you don’t, um, if you aren’t interested, do you have an exact clone?” So, all that kind of resonated with me and was like, “Oh, I must be a good fit.” So that’s what, that’s what led me to applying to serve as healthcare administrator at Multnomah County.
Suzanne: And before I kind of jump in, I do want to take a little step back, and and that’s military.
Zaldez: Yeah.
Suzanne: So I think I shared with you, you know, my husband was military and was a JAG officer. And I tell you, it’s, it’s amazing. Twenty years later, thirty years later, he always talks about those lessons that are so—I don’t want to say inbred into the Army, but but….
Valdez: Ingrained.
Suzanne: Those…ingrained. Thank you. Those core….
Valdez: Yeah.
Suzanne: Core values. And how amazing the educational opportunities…the way that they push people that want to be leaders and help them become leaders. I I think the Army, you know, at least in some circles, kind of has a bad rep, and I think it’s been, at least in our perspective, has been incredible. And it sounds like your military journey too was incredible.
Valdez: Yeah, I mean there’s all kinds of, um, you know, people that join the military for different reasons that have different military experiences and get out. I felt very lucky that I had just nothing but positive, um, experiences in the army. But the thing about the military, whether it’s the army or any of the other branches, even though I think the army is the best, um, is that they start training you on leadership from day one. Yeah. From day one, like you’re at reception battalion. You haven’t really started basic training yet. They’ll say you you you, you know, go out there and um you know pick up trash in the field in front of you because they just keep you busy and they’ll like determine like who graduated first or “does anyone here have military or police law enforcement experience?” Somebody will raise their hand. “All right, you’re in charge because you’re policing the area”. Which is like, you know, it’s like a word for like cleaning it up. And so, um, they from from day one, whether you’re picking up trash, somebody’s in charge of picking up that trash, right? But it just goes from there. They basically are, you know, you’re always a soldier first and then whatever your occupation, your military occupation is second. Um, they develop you for those leadership positions as you advance from like private to private E2, private first class, specialist, and then ultimately sergeant, which is what the rank I held when I got out, non-commissioned officer. But you don’t just like pin those stripes. You got to earn them. You got to like amass all this education, all these points. You have to do so well at the range, on your physical fitness. Um, you have to study for a promotion board. That was my favorite part cuz I like trivia. So it was like, you know, you know all these, like, trivia questions they throw. You have to maintain your military bearing, and you know, exhibit all those. Your uniform has to be looking straight.
But what I really loved about the military was that there was such structure. There was this, if then, if you do x, y, and z, it will result in these good things, which is like a kind of structure and system I didn’t feel like I had growing up. So, I think that’s why I just thrived. It’s like, okay, there’s rules to the game. I’m able to understand them. They make sense. Now I just have to execute them and good things will happen. And I rose through the ranks pretty quick. I mean I pinned sergeant like shortly after I turned 21.
Tanis: Wow.
Valdez: Which was, you know, kind of early for people in my occupation. But, um, but the other thing is they do ingrain these leadership lessons, whether it’s the non-commissioned officer principles. I mean I quote one at work all the time, know of and make use of available resources. I mean, that’s something that is so key to being a leader in any situation, whether you’re at the front lines or at the C-Suite level.
Another key thing that we learned in our primary leadership development course, which was a course you have to take before you pin your stripes, to be eligible for your stripes. Um, I remember our platoon or our small group leader telling us like take care of Joe, Joe will take care of you. And when he first said it, I thought it meant like look, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours, you know, like, you know, let’s look out for each other. But it was really more servant leadership. I had never heard those terms back then. I don’t think I was hearing it commonly back then, but that’s what it was. It was like, and I tell the staff at the county, like, I don’t you don’t work for me, I work for you. I come to work every day to do two things: get barriers out of your way so you can do the job that you want to do and get you the resources you need so you can do the job that you want to do. And sometimes the resources are hard things like staff or budget or space, but sometimes it’s mentorship, a connection, a seat at the table, asking you what you think, um, getting you in the room, um, a communication, just updating you what the heck’s going on. So, there’s all kinds of ways you can do that. But I learned all that, um, from my very early days in the army.
Tanis: Yeah. Well, it’s really interesting. I mean, it kind of teases it up beautifully because our our next question really is about formative experiences. So, obviously, being in the military was incredibly formative for you.
Valdez: Yeah.
Tanis: Um, if you examine kind of your life as a leader, um, you’ve already spoken to some of what the army brought to you. What other formative experiences did you undergo that really kind of honed your leadership skills or made you kind of grow as a leader or or change the way you think about leadership?
Valdez: I think the the single biggest one outside of just like, you know, on the job, you know, leadership experiences and my, you know, to include my army time was, um, graduate school. Um, cuz, you know, in my bachelor’s, I was, you know, I did an English major. You’re kind of just studying a variety of topics and there’s not really a connected theme other than whatever your major is. In my case, it was English. But when I went to the Army Baylor program, that was the key thing that they pride themselves on is in in creating the next generation, developing the next generation of federal sector healthcare leaders, whether it’s at VA, army, you know, military treatment facilities, you know, Indian health service, wherever. It’s all about leadership. It was healthcare and healthcare systems, but all through that emphasis on leadership undergirding every aspect of every class, whether it was straight up a leadership class that we had, or organizational behavior or whether it was related to finance, budget, or you know healthcare ethics.
So, that program, um, that combined with my professional society, I’m a firm believer that, you know, lifelong learning is the way to go, and um, for me, you know, I’ve been involved with the American College of Healthcare Executives since 2013, when I got involved because our…I’d always seen, like, the ACHE, which is the credential that I possess, a board-certified fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. I’d always seen that on our, like, SES directors, you know, our CEO signature blocks in the VA. But when I got to grad school, they really promoted, uh, getting involved with ACHE as a learning organization. And the nice thing is that there’s these 11 core competencies that Army Baylor has that are pretty much like a direct cross, you know, um, cross-referenced with compantacies, the executive competencies that ACHE has.
Tanis: Oh wow.
Suzanne: Okay.
Valdez: So yeah, ACHE, Army Baylor, they’re all promoting the same things about governance, about ethics, about business, about human resources, about healthcare systems, uh, legal, all the gamut that it takes to be an effective healthcare leader.
And so they just promoted that in and out. And then the other thing is not only did they teach all those things and we got just robust development in all those during that graduate school experience, but, um, during that leadership class they asked us to really create our own leadership philosophy. And I think this is something that maybe a lot of leaders, um, maybe don’t take time to do or maybe they do it but then they kind of move on. But I kind of keep that handy so whenever I’m meeting a new team, um, whether it’s at a new organization or I’m at an organization but I’m meeting a new work unit, um, and they want to know what I’m all about or how I see the world or how I show up. It’s nice to have a leadership philosophy that you can articulate. Like I kind of did it a little bit a second ago where I talked about I only come to do two things when I come to work is get barriers out of the way, get resources, that servant leadership mindset.
But, um, for me it’s, like, um, you know, I’m a punster. Anyone that knows me knows I’m into word play. And so, mine was, uh, so at at Baylor the motto is sic ‘em bears, right? Sic ‘em bears. So my acronym was sic ‘em leadership. So, seek accountability in myself and hold others accountable for their actions. Inspire others to act through empowering them. Uh, challenge the process using critical thinking. Empower others to act and model the way. So easy for me to remember. I can rattle it off. And those are like truly authentic things that I hold dear as I try to show up every day to be a leader.
But when you can like know those things about yourself, I mean those might not be the high highest priority. People might not want people challenging their process with questions. That’s kind of a pain when it happens, you know, but it’s so important. But everyone should have their own. They should be able to articulate it and they should take time to share that um with their with their teams that they’re aspiring to lead.
Suzanne: Well, and you you have to know our questions because you just teed up the next one, which is really about….
Tanis: Second time in a row!
Suzanne: I now. It’s really about taking these core values that you bring and how do you operationalize them into your team and whether it’s sic ‘em or…I love that. I’m going to remember that.
Valdez: Well, it’s funny if you read the Leadership Challenge, uh, book by, uh, oh gosh, who is it? Uh, Barry McKee and Richard Boyatzis, you know, there are actual acronyms for that, their five is it’s MICES. So it was pretty easy for me to kind of move it around. But anyway, um, but no, the way I, the way I think the key thing I think is, you know, we always hear about authentic leadership. Like, people want authentic leaders. You know, I remember I had a a leader of my, when I was at YC, the director, uh, David Hull, awesome guy, super nice guy, right. He would go out into the, you know, go to the gimba where the work happens and we’d meet with teams and stuff and he was like, just listening and empathetic and nice and supportive and positive.
And I would get questions from my direct reports, you know, like, chief of facilities and stuff. “Hey, hey. What’s he really like? What’s he like when, you know, behind closed doors?” Same guy. He was very authentic. And I think that’s important to be that authentic person. People know when you’re just showing up and turning on a good smile when you’re out walking the lines, or you’re in the staff meeting. But if you’re some kind of tyrant or keeping people in the dark, people, people sense that.
Um, so for me the key thing, and I got this from this book called that I highly recommend to any leader, um, called, um, Primal Leadership. Now my wife hates the title because it sounds like, you know, caveman leadership or something. But the reason it’s called Primal Leadership is, um, and it’s by, uh, Daniel Goldman, who kind of came up with the whole notion of EQ and emotional intelligence. The whole point of it is that there’s like yes, you know, traditionally we’ve had people with like the most education or the most power or those people like those high IQ types. You know, if a hospital was like the senior doctor running things might not have the EQ to be effective, right? You’ve seen those types of people that have the IQ, but they don’t have the EQ, and then usually bad things happen. Um, they’re the people that, you know, moving on after one year at the organization and that kind of stuff.
Um, so what primal leadership is all about is leveraging your EQ in leadership. And and, he talks about one of the most singular important things. I’ll tell this quick story, because it’s the same thing. I was at the Army Baylor program, and we had this Colonel, Colonel Hopkins-Chadwick, and she came in, and there was this huge whiteboard wall all across the, this, it was a double classroom. Because there were so many of us in this, was like 60 people in the class. And she said, “What do you think is the most, the number one most important trait to being a good leader?” And the words started coming out, right? Courage, integrity, uh, selflessness, communication, equity, you know, all the different things you want to say. And she was writing them down. We filled up that huge big board, and not a single person got it.
Which, at the very end with all these wonderful words that we should all aspire to be, that we all know we should be, that, you know, they they show in movies of what a good leader is, and in the classes and all that.
Tanis: Wait, I’m curious. Do you have a guess what it is?
Valdez: You have a guess?
Tanis: I have a guess maybe.
Suzanne: What’s your guess?
Tanis: My guess is generosity.
Valdez: Ok, good guess.
Suzanne: I was going to say humility.
Valdez: Those were both on the board.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Ok.
Valdez: But the number one key characteristic is self-awareness. Because you could hold generosity as a value and not being a generous person. You could hold humility as a value, think you’re the most humble person in the world, and you’re actually not acting in a way that does that. So only by being self-aware do you truly know how you’re doing, whether it’s related to how you communicate, how selfless you are, how empowering you are, how partnering, how participatory you are, how inclusionary you are. And if you are operating on your own little world here and everybody else is on a different world, that’s not going to spell good things for you. And and hopefully, you know, you know, they have 360 surveys, and they have uh you know, employee feedback surveys that come out and everything where you can kind of sus some of this stuff out. But as you if you as a as a leader, take it as a personal value to always be striving to be self-aware. That’s that’s really the key thing that they point out. I always say that, like if you have to pick a value, some of these icebreakers, you know, here’s the values. What’s your most important value? I always say integrity because I feel like, you know, you can say all the other ones, but if you’re not a person of integrity, you know, you could be fake in the funk, right? So, um, so that was a key thing. I really, um, I don’t think it’s a spoiler alert, but I encourage people to read that book. I I tell anyone I’ve mentored, you know, dozens and dozens of people over the years. I always promote that book. One of them has it. Didn’t return it. Don’t know who you are out there. Um, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m glad you liked it.
And then the other thing is, um this is really interesting. It goes into the leadership styles. In that book, they talk about four positive leadership styles and the two negative ones. Now, you probably familiar with the two negative ones which are pace setting.
Tanis: Yeah.
Valdez: Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet? And, and then micromanaging and and then the micromanaging of of like commanding, right? So, in the pace setting, it’s like they talk about how there’s a time and a place where if it’s end of budget year, crunch time, there’s a joint, uh, commission inspection, you’ve only got so many time on the clock. I mean, it it is fair to not be, you know, to to be checking in routinely because you have some kind of like ticking clock that’s, you know, important. But if you’re just doing that on everything, you’re going to be a toxic leader. You’re going to burn people out. You’re going to drive people away. They always say people don’t leave jobs, they leave supervisors, right? So, if you’re that supervisor, you’re going to have a turnover problem, which means now you have a recruitment problem.
Um, the second thing is commanding. Do this. Why? Because I said so. Like, you know, see the rank on my shoulder or you see the title under my signature block. Just telling people what to do without an explanation. I’m a big Simon Syninnate guy. Start with why, right? Explain the why behind it. And then like also just mutual respect. Just cuz somebody works for you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respect them and treat them with respect. But so many people, I think, have that image of what that, you know, that leader on the hill with the flag behind him, you know, George S. Patton, like you know, so many people fall into that trap. And especially if they’re insecure leaders, they don’t want to be challenged on it. So they’re not going to explain it because if they explain it then people might have questions about it, and then they might not be prepared to speak to it. So they’d rather just shut it down and say just do it and walk off. Right? So those are the two negative traits.
The four positives. This is really interesting. Um, did a did a, um, lunch and learn on this at the VA one time. I started a leadership collective kind of like this podcast, but it was like a monthly thing for, uh, leaders at lunch. The four positives. Visionary leadership. That’s the way most people want to be led. It’s like Suzanne, tell me what I got to do, what resources I have to do it, why we got to get to it, when you need it by, how you want any, any particulars you want, and then turn me loose to go, you know, get out of my way and, you know, let me go do it. And, trust that I’m going to do it and hold me accountable and follow up. But that’s how most people, that’s like the number one preferred way people want to be led. Now, obviously, it’s a frontline person that maybe just started at the organization, you might not be able to do that, but especially if you’re dealing with someone that’s a fairly senior leader, you should be able to do that, and, and support them. Don’t just drop them in the deep end of the pool, you know, and and walk away and check back in in 6 months and then wish you had a time machine if things weren’t south. I mean, check in with them.
But, um, I think that’s the key thing. So, people want that. But the other four that…so, that’s the number one preferred. The other three were coach mentoring. You know. If if Tanis feels like Suzanne truly has her back, is not only telling her what she needs to do and by when, but knows that she’s in it together and she’s going to roll up her sleeves and is in the mud with her and truly cares about Tanis performing as a person, as a professional, is fully actualizing. Like that’s that’s the sauce because people like those are the kind of leaders that people will bleed for. It’s like I would do anything for Suzanne. She’s like got my back. She’s always there for me, and she sees that you authentically care about the mission because she’s supporting you and achieving that mission, right?
And then the other two are um, democratic like small D democratic participatory leadership. You know, no one of us is smarter than all of us. So, you know, including it. And I love to do that at huddles, the gimba. Sometimes I’m pathologically participatory cuz I’ll be, you know, I mean, I’m I’m not somebody that’s like afraid to make a decision, but I I’m so I care so much about this one that sometimes I I I will ask a little bit too much or keep the, keep the opportunity out there for people to weigh in a little bit too long and I think it slows me down. Um, the key on that one is you can overdo it.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Yes.
Tanis: You know, You can be like stymied.
Valdez: You can be stymied in paralysis by analysis.
Tanis: Yeah.
Valdez: And the other one that you can overdo is the fourth one, which is affiliative leadership, where people just like you just cuz you’re such a sweet, nice person. You know, you send them the card, you know, all the kids names. You know, you do all the things like that. Now, you might not be great at your job. You might not be this. You might not be a good strategist, tactician, but people just like you. I mean, they they’ll also believe for you just because you’re so sweet and nice. But if you are so worried about being popular, then the accountability suffers, right? And so um anytime you’re suff…you know accountability and the in the mission and the, and the customers or clients, patients you’re serving are suffering because you don’t want to be the person to tell the person they have to show up on time to work, or you know, be nicer to the customers. You know that’s that’s not a good thing.
But it’s really interesting. It’s a really good book, and those four things. And the last thing I’ll say on that is in being self-aware and striving to be self-aware anytime you have that that monthly one-on-one, where it’s that time to just check in with your direct report. End it with that reverse review. How am I doing? So, Tanis, if I’m like, you know, checking in. First, we’re going to the first half hour, we’re going to talk about your work and how it’s going, your projects, and how I can support you, any barriers I need to help get out of your way, resources. And then I’m going to hear what do you, you know, what are the conferences? What are this is how you what are the next promotion opportunities? Who are some mentors you want me try to connect you with? And then at the end, I’m going to say, how am I doing? And it’s your chance to rate me. And if people have that chance every month, it just normalizes it. And then if I start messing up or you have some kind of concern, it’s not like tricky to handle because you’re waiting for, oh well, I’m gonna be able to tell Velas when you ask me how he’s doing on the on the 13th.
Tanis: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. This is so, I mean, this is I I think this is probably one of the more comprehensive um, you know, answers to that. But I’m kind of sad that I don’t have a pen and paper to take notes because so I’m going to read the book. But um, thank you, that that’s really interesting. And uh, it sounds like you have a nice balance of all of those strategies in your, in your leadership style and in the organization.
So the next thing I’d like to ask you about is with all these strategies in place, how do you effectively build teams that are going to, you know, synergize with your leadership style but also move the organization forward or meet the objectives that you have?
Suzanne: And and I want to throw in there when you’re looking at teams, you’re not trying to hire the same person, right? So how do you, again taking these different leadership approaches, look at that?
Tanis: Yeah. What’s your process?
Suzanne: So it’s like a balanced team.
Valdez: Yeah. Um, I’ve had both sides of that. I mean, most commonly right, we, uh, we inherit teams. You know, we come into the organization, the team is, not only is the team formed, but the culture is long formed. You know, and leaders, you know, you’re you’re if you’re at the top of the org chart, you know you’re the you’re the number one decision maker. You’re the number one recruiter. You’re the number one marketing officer. The number one ethics setter. You’re the number one culture promoter, right? And so, I think it can be hard, especially when you’re coming in, and you see a culture that maybe is of low trust or low communication or siloed, you know, those kind of go hand in hand. Um, it can be, then of course incumbent on you to try to figure out ways to, you know, build team cohesion, which is a key military thing.
They always talked about that from the beginning to team cohesion, morale, you know. So it was one of the promotion board questions: what is the absence of too little information in the organization? It breeds resentment, stifles morale, and it, you know, fosters distrust, you know. Um. So all those things happen. So, you know, I always say that, um, in building teams, there’s two things I think. When you’re with an existing team—any team. One, you have to have, start with why. Make sure there’s a clear sense of what we’re doing here. Why do we come to work every day? What is our mission? What is our role? What are those clear goals? What am I expecting you to do and holding you accountable to? And then, of course, having standards in place to be able to do all that, you know.
It’s it’s, you can have standards in place and not be setting expectations. And then you’re going to have a culture of accountability, and nobody ever actually told them to do that, and you’re not holding them accountable. Or you can like set, hold people accountable, but they’ve never been trained or had expectations set, and that’s going to go sideways. So, you really got to start, and this goes back to my lean black belt background having a standard. Training to standard. Now that you’ve been trained a standard and you are able to do it, an expectation is set that you will do it, and then monitoring to do it, right?
But that’s more on the performance side in terms of like, building trust and cohesion. I think having that clear sense of mission, those clear, commonly understood goals. Um, a shared space where people are together, even in this virtual world, even if it’s a you know I I run a Tuesday, Thursday morning 8:30 huddle that I started at the health department back when we, um, had our, um, Mpox outbreak back in uh July of 22. Um, it was daily, and we eased it back to twice, twice.
But that’s a place where everybody can come in. They can see each other. I do topline messaging. That’s, you know, here’s what’s going on around the world. There’s a lot of that right now. Um, but anyone, I always say that we have little guidelines that we present on the screen. We just leave up there. Everyone is an equal in this space.
We might have a batting order. You might not see your name listed as one of the report outs of HR or communications, or public health, but everyone here will have a chance to speak up at the end, because if you need something, whether it’s a clarifying question or whatever.
So I think, um, creating those joint spaces is important because I think the two most important aspects I always say, like, the two ingredients or the I’ll say the two most important aspects of any highly performing organization, whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s a sports team, whether it’s a military unit, in my mind, just my, my opinion leadership and communication.
Because you can have all the the most wonderful developed leadership and values and ideas and strategies in the world, but if you’re not taking the time to communicate them out to the team, what good are they? It’s like Kool-Aid that never makes it out of the packet into the pitcher, you know? Um, it just it just stuck their concentrate. It doesn’t go anywhere.
And the reason I feel like that usually you see that lack of communication and that like that that dedication to it and that that beh..is it’s a lack of leadership. It’s either because you’re a new leader and you haven’t developed those muscles or you’re because you don’t not aware of those tactics or maybe there’s a culture of proud siloedness, you know, and people aren’t talking and you, you know, you you haven’t, you know, stepped into like right that, you know, yeah.
But people don’t like being kept in the, uh, treated like mushrooms as my former boss say, kept in the dark and fed a lot of hm, you know, you know, people don’t like that. So leadership and communication are the two most important things to building, uh, culture, trust, um, and then modeling that way.
You know of making sure that there’s true like sense of belonging, you know, sometimes there’s words that, you know, certain people are not wanting to use these days like diversity, equity, inclusion, but at the end of the day don’t we want every employee at every organization, regardless of what it is, to have a sense of belonging that when they show up there they feel seen, heard, empowered, welcomed and a place that they want to come back to.
So that’s how I would say it for existing teams. Now, back to your point, though, one time I had a chance to build a brand new team. You know, it was like one of those those, uh, movies where the, the you know, military unit where they, they’re assembling, where the Oceans 11, that perfect, you know, mix of people.
So we were starting a lean process improvement shop, uh, at the Portland VA, and I was like employee number one, and then I got to pick employee number two and then her and I picked employee number three, and then she, he, and I picked employee number four. Guess what happened?
Suzanne: You were all the same.
Valdez: We were all the same. We did a, we got, we, we did a, we, we did an exercise around Thanksgiving. I took him out to Mother’s Bistro and one of the staff ran the StrengthsFinder thing. We all…
Tanis: You all have the same strengths.
Valdez: We were all WOOs. Winning Over Others.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Okay.
Valdez: So, I’m, I’m a huge Winning Over Others person. And Robert, Andrea, and Joy were all WOOs. Surprise, surprise. Right.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Tanis: Okay.
Valdez: So we realize, and the, and the problem with that is, and there’s all kinds of these things, you know, with the Myers Briggs, and you know, there’s, there’s one with squares and squiggles and triangles and rectangles and everyone’s a different thing and you know the squiggles need the triangles and all that stuff.
But, um, but the thing is, like, we were all big picture visionary strategic thinking types and very much human center…
Tanis: You needed the operations.
Valdez: We lacked the analytics. So when we when we had our next opportunity to hire somebody, we per…we made it a point to prioritize developing questions that would tease out somebody’s this, their analytical strengths, whether it was like doing data or presentation or whatever.
And so we ended up hiring Christa, and then things clicked because I’m the kind of guy that will like plan the 3-day green belt training. You know, we have, we we know where we’re going to do it. We have it on the calendar. I’m promoting it far and wide. I’m championing. I’m proselytizing all across. I’m packing the seats. I’ve got the content. I’ve got the stories. I’ve got the guest speakers. Forgot to book the room.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Uh-huh.
Valdez: That’s the kind of stuff that would happen. And it happens in business, too. I mean, I remember at one of these things where it was like the, uh, in the executive leadership course, uh, that I did at the VA. Um, it was like squiggles and triangles. And they talked about a marketing firm in Chicago or New York or some place, probably New York, that um, was, had this, the greatest creative talent on board, but they were going out of business. Why? because nobody was sending invoices to the customer.
So you need that mix of things. So it’s definitely good. You know, sometimes people think about diversity, they, you know, their their mind goes to certain places and you need all kinds of diversity. The studies show that the more diverse an organization, the higher performing it is. The more diverse a board, the higher the better performing organization is, but you also need that diversity of personality type, mindset, and strengths.
Tanis: Yeah.
Suzanne: Yep. Absolutely. So here you have a daughter.
Valdez: Yeah.
Suzanne: You talked about who’s getting ready to leave for college.
Valdez: Yes.
Suzanne: So looking back in this incredible career of yours.
Valdez: Yeah.
Suzanne: What advice would you either give to your younger self or to her?
Valdez: Mmmm. Oh, that’s a new question. Um, what advice would I give her? I would say, and I guess I have been already telling her this, follow your gut instincts. Follow your heart. Don’t overthink things. I know that might sound counterintuitive, but again, it goes back to primal leadership and that self-awareness question. In the book, it talks about, and I want to commission guys wherever you are, two authors. No, just kidding.
Um, in primal leadership, it talks about how when you, um, the, the need to be self-aware, to be socially aware as well, right? To know, you know, to be able to sus out what’s happening in the teams, but following your gut instinct. Because so many times, think about, and maybe it’s in your own lives, think about the jobs that you’ve been in that you didn’t like, the the maybe the partners or relationships you’ve been in that it didn’t work out so hot.
Think about how maybe some of that happened, and, and if you ever had to, like, talk yourself into it in the first place, that usually can be an early indicator that maybe it’s not going to be the best fit.
I’ll give you an example. Like, so it talks about, like, you know, you know you’re in a good job that you you you you love but there’s this other job that pays a little bit more it’s got a better title or you think you know and you kind of have to talk yourself to going to your cognitive brain.
That’s why it’s called Primal Leadership because it’s about emotional intelligence. It’s leveraging your limbic system, you know, your, the lizard brain as people call these days, your feeling brain.
So you got to, you know, the reason that you’re feeling that is it’s the collective sense of your whole being kind of, like, doing all that work for you, you know, 6% of your brain or something.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Valdez: Like your body is telling you something when when you’re having reservations about taking this position because you’re basically trying to think your way into it. And often times when you get into those jobs, they’re the ones that you start looking for your next job two months later or, you know, or you just end up being in it and you don’t like or you’re not thriving, you’re not feeling supported.
And it can happen in relationships and other aspects of all that. You know, maybe move to the oh, I I should move to that neighborhood cuz it’s got the end of the best thing and then you get over there and you miss your, you know, your your old buddies. So, it happens all the time.
So, I would, I’ve been already telling Alani, follow your heart, follow your instincts. Um, especially with the bachelor’s degree. I mean, you don’t, you know, you’re not going to walk out of your bachelor’s degree and, you know, into your career that you’re going to do the rest of your life.
Um, follow some, you know, do what I did. Like, when I went to PCC, I just pursued the classes that seemed the coolest.
Tanis: Yeah.
Valdez: You know, I took a lot of film classes, a lot of writing classes, mythology, uh, US history, uh, Western Civ, I, you know, I’m kind of a humanities guy. Um, I I love understanding the world and how it works and the stories behind it. Um, and so that’s what I gravitated to. And then I ended up being an English major.
And then, you know what, when I went to grad school and I was, ended up I was kind of intimidated because I was not like a math kid, you know? I didn’t I was like um I thought I was going to maybe like fail my MBA because like I was not good at math in high school. Much different story.
But the thing is, like, when I got there like everyone was like I wish I had an English degree because I could write, type, analyze, speak, do all the things. And um and some people were kind of jealous cuz some people had to take remedial writing for the first three months just to be able to string together a sentence.
Tanis: Yeah.
Valdez: Um so I I’ve been telling her follow your, follow your heart. Um make choices. Go where your, if your gut is telling you something that maybe that’s not the right university or this one is or this major is what attracts you.
I mean, she was looking at some majors that she thought she should be doing, but we’ve, you know, talked to it and she’s actually just going to go for the one that she knows that she would love and has a lower better acceptance rate, too, which is helpful.
But the um the other thing I would say on that is like, I mean, so I was in the army. I was a medical repair tech for eight years. I was now at the VA and I was going back to school and I was having to pick what’s my major going to be.
And I seriously almost picked an engineering degree because I figured I’m already in this field. I’m already doing it. I’ve got years of experience. But man, when I looked at the courses, circuits one and you know, like I was just like, you know, sorry, sorry, my fellow biomemeds. Um, not for me. So, I was like, I’ll do the other ENG degree, the English degree. So.
Suzanne: I love it. The other ENG.
Tanis: I am a fellow ENG degree.
Valdez: Isn’t it great?
Tanis: It’s I
Valdez: Superpower.
Tanis: I, yeah, I think it’s a superpower. And spending time uh professionally writing sets you up for success in business because really all of business is telling a story and understanding how people you know connect to it.
Valdez: Snd being a good leader.
Tanis: Yeah. And being….
Valdez: Like you as the leader being able to tell the stories and whether it’s coming up with metaphors or uh past lessons from your life.
Tanis: Presenting information
Valdez: Presenting information. getting people’s buy inspiring that shared vision, making it real. It takes articulation and storytelling and craft and, um, you know on the side I I dabble in screenwriting and I think that that training of the three-act paradigm, and, you know, drama helps me um on top of that for the same reason.
Tanis: I believe it. Yeah, I I very much connect to what you’re saying.
Well, gosh, it’s so fun talking. I almost don’t want this to come to an end, but um we are there.
The last question that we ask all of our guests is iterative and I’m so curious to hear your response. Um, we named the podcast Hiring for Good. And we did so because um, we like that there’s a variety of interpretations. What’s yours?
Valdez: Of the title?
Tanis: Yeah. Hiring for good. What does it mean to you?
Valdez: Well, I definitely love the double entendre of you’re hiring a hire that’s going to stick, that’s going to be a part of the organization, that’s going to be there for the long haul, that’s not going to leave you hired right the first time.
Um, my uh one of my oft quoted, uh, things I say about recruiting to my team. This is something I heard from my manager Michael Denny back in like 2010, which is, it’s easier to hire than fire. So, hire well. And I take that to heart, and I put a lot of rigor into the selection process and, you know, from, from first posting and how you and where you’re where where you’re posting it in the in the selection and how you write up the job. I mean it starts obviously well before that first interview, right?
And uh and it doesn’t end after they start on, they, you know, go through the onboarding. But, so, yeah, when I read uh when I heard you know hiring for good, um, I thought about it as you’re going to make a hire that’s going to be the right hire the first time and it’s going to be somebody that’s there for the long haul and create that continuity and sustainability over the over time.
but I also love the double entendre that, you know, you want, you want to hire a good, give me a goodie.
Suzanne: Yeah.
Tanis: And good for the world.
Valdez: Good for the world.
Tanis: You know good for the organization. Good for the community.
Valdez: Yeah. Hopefully, you know, giving back, and, you know. Being a force multiplier for your community.
Tanis: It’s been really interesting asking our guests that question because some people even brought meaning to it that I don’t know that we intended or had thought of. Like there were some people they’re like I am I view that as hiring for the good of the person that I’m hiring. Like I’m going to make their life better. I, you know, it’s really just all…
Suzanne: It’s been very interesting like um kind of fun to hear.
Tanis: It’s been very interesting, like, um, kind of fun to hear, so.
Valdez: That’s cool.
Suzanne: Just like this has been so much fun. I tell you, Valdez, your energy, your enthusiasm. Thank you so so much.
Valdez: No, thank you for having me on the podcast. It’s an honor to be featured as a guest. I know you have a lot of impressive speakers. Um, I look forward to catching up on uh all those as well and uh yeah, happy to come back uh anytime you’d like and keep the conversation going.
Tanis: Wonderful.
Suzanne: Well, you’re definitely a big fan of Acumen, so thank you.
Valdez: Appreciate Acumen very much. Thanks for uh you know the role you’ve played in my career.
Outro
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