Generational Shifts in Leadership (ft. Aaron Miri)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices Podcast, where we chat digital transformation, challenges, and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx.

Ed Marx here, Digital Voices. Exciting to have another friend of mine and, and just an awesome leader in the whole healthcare digital space. And that's my friend Aaron Mirrie. Aaron, welcome to our show. Thanks, Ed.

Good to be here, share some time with you today.

So Megan, our producer, you know, I'm curious from your angle, 'cause we're gonna be talking about general shifts in leadership and your place in the workforce, and what's the generation that you most closely identify with?

Well, so being born in the '80s, I'll have to say I identify with Gen Y, also known as the millennials.

Right, so you're more of the digital native type compared to at least myself.

Yeah, I can remember back, I don't know, I'm kind of an early millennial. I was probably in high school when I really think I played around on, got my own computer, you know. But in elementary school, I at least remember like the Oregon Trail, you know, those, the Macs that we had in the computer lab. So yeah, I think computers have been a part of my My life since early elementary school.

Yeah, that's cool. So Aaron and I, we're going to tackle this topic because we're— as the generations shift and there's retirements going on with the baby boomers, we're definitely seeing a lot of new faces and generations in the workplace, which makes for a really strong culture when done right. But let's talk about Aaron now. He's an amazing leader and innovator, as I mentioned, a friend. He's the CIO, CDO, Senior Vice President at Baptist Health in Jacksonville. And Aaron, I'm trying to think when we first met, but we've known each other for, I'm thinking, 10 years.

Gosh, more than that, Ed. I mean, if you think about the time that all of us grew up in Dallas together, right? I mean, you among your cohort of peers in that region, that was truly an exceptional time for CIOs. And so it's got to be at least 15 at this point. I mean, when you were at THR and others, so.

Yeah, you may be right. And I know we've interacted. I do want to touch on one thing a little bit later, because you and I interacted as both a vendor, supplier, and CIO, and the script has flipped a little bit now. And so I want to talk about that in terms of sort of career progression, things like that. But anyways, everyone wants to know, Aaron, the first question we always ask is, what is on your playlist?

Yeah, so a few things, right? Number one, obviously workforce design and workforce re-enablement as we come back from this pandemic. There's a different expectation set for your workforce and making sure that they are invested in and have the tooling to do their job, as well as your patients, right? So tremendous focus on digital. 2, obviously some big rocks. We go live with a new EMR this July. We've opened up a brand new children's tower, all acute tower, and we opened up a new hospital this fall. And we're breaking ground on 3 more acute care institutions going south on I-95 towards Orlando starting this fall as well. So it is hypergrowth, hyperaccessibility, and ensuring a smoothness of a transaction and a frictionless experience coming to our health system no matter which way you enter the doors.

Wow, yeah, you'll be busy for quite some time. Yeah, Florida's great, lots of growth, especially in Jacksonville, and definitely you all have been stalwarts in that community, and I can easily understand why you're growing so much. What is your passion or life mantra? Is there like a sort of a statement that keeps you going that's kind of your North Star?

Yeah. So honestly, if you want to do something bad enough, you're going to do it, right? And so it's something I've told myself since as being a kid going forward, sort of a driver that, you know, don't be lazy. Don't just sit there and wait for it to happen to you. Go make that happen. Go make that magic. That's actually my tagline with my staff is, go make magic, which is my sort of euphemism for my whole, if you want something bad enough, you're going to do it. So, as I tell my team, I sign off on all my messages and all my all-hands calls and everything else, which is, go make magic, meaning don't wait, like, go.

That is so awesome, Aaron. I'm not surprised that you do something like that. And right there, for our listeners, I'm always trying to mine gold out of our guests, and there's some right there. And that's, you're basically envisioning your team and you're consistent in message. That's really key.

Yeah. But, you know, Ed, it's a borrow from your playbook, right? I mean, look, I recall the days at THR, you used to take your team team building, right? I mean, climbing mountains and whatnot. I mean, there's some leadership stories that you shared amongst all of us growing up per se, within the Chime bootcamps and whatever else about team, right? And resonating with a common theme, even your time at Cleveland Clinic, what you did there to rally the troops and really, across all of what's going on in the clinic. Those are exceptional stories. So it's simply a playbook of expanding upon what, I hate to say your cohort or your generation, but it is your generation of CIOs that blaze a trail for us. So just to put it out there.

All right, well, that's very kind. All right, so let's talk about generational shifts. So just a baseline, everyone. And when you look these, if you were to Google this, you'd find a slight variation in the years, but baby boomers essentially, mid-'40s to mid-'60s. Then we got Gen X, mid-'60s to '80. And then we got Gen Y, like Megan, '81 to '96 or so. And then the latest generation, at least that's in the workforce, is Generation Z. So that's like 1997 for 15 or 20 years after that. So those are sort of the generations that we find in the workforce. So Aaron, are you seeing a shift in leadership styles? And I know we're speaking very generically, right? There's always exceptions, but generally speaking, is there a shift in leadership styles, do you think, from like Gen X to baby boomers? I think so.

I think so. And I think you can see it play out with what's happening with CEOs in the media who are being very public about thou shalt return to work and thou shalt all come back and be on site 8 to 5. And those are very traditional types of CEOs. Then you have more of the, you know, maybe tech company CEOs and others who are like, oh no, remote forever, right? Remote. So if you look at those 2 extremes and you come in the middle of it, now you have the workforce that's trying to transact again, their expectation set, which leadership expectation set and find alignment. What you're going to run into though are recruitment issues down the road unless you can resonate a message that crosses all those generations. And so that's why it's important for us at Baptist as we invest in tooling and equitable digital strategies that everybody feels inclusive regardless of what your perspective may be, which is there's no wrong perspective. It's to your point of what you were just saying earlier, it's just a generational thing. So how do you work through that and get to the other side of it and be successful?

Yeah, do you think that Gen Y is better prepared for digital worlds since many of them maybe grew up digital?

I think so, I do. And I do think that it's just, Natively, I mean, you ask a kid today how to use a rotary phone, they'll look at you funny, but they'll be able to tweet and go on Snapchat and do a TikTok at the exact same time. I mean, how, I have no idea, but it's just a different expectation set. So yes.

Yeah. So if we step back for a second and go to Gen X, which many— so if I think about CIOs, and this would be a great Chime study to undertake, is really looking at this from an angle of leadership and leadership development. And we think about Gen X, probably the majority of CIOs today, I think we've seen a graying of the CIO and I'm included in that. But mostly the baby boomers in their retirement, there's been lots of retirements. We're not gonna go into names because there's so many CIOs, but a lot of prominent CIOs are retiring or on the cusp of retirement. Then you have Gen X, which So I'm sort of the leading, the backend of the Gen X, and you're seeing a lot of them who may be struggling a little bit making the transition to CDO like you have. Is there something that is helpful to maybe Gen X persons who didn't grow up digital natives that might help them in the transition to CDO?

End of the day, it's about the P&L. End of the day, it's a business. So talk like an operator. Some of the most classical CIOs that to your point have been around a while are some of the best operators I know. They can understand a balance sheet, they can understand what drives top line and how to cut bottom line. They understand how to maximize EBITDA without cutting off your arm to spite your face. They're phenomenally brilliant. So talk like a business person no matter what. Digital is just a way to get it done. But as long as you can transact and operate the business, you can shift into a CDO world.

Yeah, no, that's good. Yeah, there's— age is not the issue. So Aaron, tell us a little bit about yourself now. So you've been around not all that long, but long enough. And you're a great leader. Tell us your story about how you sort of grew up and then grew into this, how you got into healthcare IT and grew into the leader that you are today.

Yeah, so funny enough, I'm a software developer by background, right? So I was working for Comcast in Dallas, we got acquired by Time Warner. So I became a free agent. I was actually leaving for Microsoft to help them build out what eventually would become the Windows kernel for Windows 7. They didn't know it was Windows 7 at the time, but it was the next-generation Windows kernel. And I got a phone call from Pam McNutt in Dallas saying, hey, why don't you come work with me because we're digitizing all of our PACS systems and we're doing this crazy thing called an EMR and really taking our EMR to the next level. And she's such a visionary leader. And I was like, that sounds very interesting. I could always go be a programmer for Microsoft. I fell in love with healthcare at that point. And I was going for my MBA, so I did my MBA with a healthcare administration emphasis on it and just stuck with it and just fell in love with it. Did that for a good, you know, a little over a decade, decade and a half, and said, you know, I always wanted to be on the vendor side. So I joined a healthcare cybersecurity company out of Boston. We were publicly traded, so I was accountable to Wall Street, had to deal with Sarbanes-Oxley, traveled the world with teams. You know how that feels. And so, I mean, it's all glamorous, you know, in pictures. In reality, you're spending half your life on an airplane. It's like, goodness gracious. So did that. We were successfully acquired because we were doing well, all good things. And my passion really was healthcare delivery. So I came back to the healthcare delivery side, right? And was at UT Austin and then now at Baptist Health. And so for me, what I led my career by is what's interesting, what's fun, and what's really worthwhile to a community, it's worthwhile for me to do. And so if an opportunity really shines itself as something that I feel like I contribute my talents and maximize what I can bring to the table and help an organization that really does need it, I'm willing to do it. And so that's kind of led my career path. There has been no thoughtful, in 5 years, I'm gonna go be here, in 10 years. It's been more of do a really good job, have fun, enjoy it, enjoy the journey of life, and then different things will come up in the future.

Yeah, that's awesome. Let's talk about how you've weaved, although unintentional, But you've weaved being on the supplier side as well as on the provider side. Is that something that you'd recommend for individuals as they grow in their career?

I would, I would definitely recommend exposure to it. So if you're not gonna go actually formally do it, advise, right? Do advising on the side for startup companies and for some for-profit companies. Understand the nature of sales and sales cycles. In healthcare, we don't typically have, you know, sales cycles the way you think it is. People come to us 'cause they need us. not because they're choosing to buy something from us. So it's a little bit different selling per se, but it's important to understand the buyer behaviors and journey mapping of what that looks like, 'cause it's gonna shape your delivery of solutions, AKA your service lines, to match that demand. So if you can start thinking of yourself as a product company, even though you are in a healthcare seat, it's amazing how you align better to the industry because that's the way the rest of the world works.

Yeah, that's really good insights. You know, I struggled at first going to the supplier side for a wide variety of reasons, but when I came back then on the provider side, everything really made a lot of sense. Now I understood both sides and I could see the advantage of purpose, being purposeful in your career and getting some exposure. But Aaron, you mentioned something else now. So if you don't dive all the way in and actually work for a supplier, there's other ways to gain that understanding. And I know that you've been very Uh, dedicated to doing this as well, and that's just being part of boards and helping advise startups. Can you— for a lot of people ask the question, how do you, you know, how do you do boards, or how do you get involved? I know you've done different things with Chime and other organizations and, and the government. So tell us about that experience and, and how you'd recommend going about, you know, pursuing something like that.

Yeah, so first of all, good boards seek you out. You don't actually seek them out. If you do good at your craft, and again, I always tell people, don't be a talking head, go actually do something and then talk about what you did and keep doing cool stuff, right? If you're actually delivering and innovating and actually producing something net new and you have a unique IP to you, right? Your brand mentions is something. And case in point, I built a depth in cybersecurity and privacy, then I have now built a depth in artificial intelligence and machine learning. And so these align with what boards of directors are looking for. And they say, hey, we need to bring somebody with cybersecurity experience to our board, or someone who understands privacy or understands quantum technology or AI or ML. And they'll add you and you'll get solicited to say, hey, do you wanna join our board? Because we need you. Boards of directors are an amalgamation of expertise to guide an executive team on how to move forward. So all you have to do is do a really good job at your job and these things open up for you, but you have to be, you have to do something. You can't just talk about doing something.

Yeah, that's, that's really good. I think the point is that boards, good boards, will come after you. And don't be just a talking head or what I call a pontificator.

Right, right, right.

But you do stuff and then the rest happens. A lot of times I think we, we might tend to like try to go to the boards and not really do stuff. And so it's less than optimal, not only for the board, but for yourself and for the organization that you serve. That's really good. So let's go back a little bit to leadership. And so you're clearly a wonderful leader. How do you evolve? How do you keep evolving? So I know you did bootcamp, right? Like a Chime bootcamp way back when. And so that's a good start. What else do you do to keep learning? And you just mentioned that, you know, you've gotten deep in these different areas. How do you go about doing that?

Yeah, so let's take bootcamp as an example. Now I teach bootcamp, I'm on faculty, right? And I always said when I went through bootcamp in like '08 or '07, whenever that was, it was like, I'm gonna teach this class one day. So to be able to do that, to be invited to become faculty, you have to have competencies and do something, right? So again, it's that thematic thing. As to learning and specializing in depth, I dive in. I mean, I think all of us that are in these roles, in these leadership roles, are just passionately curious no matter what we do. And so if you keep learning and honing your craft and also having the hubris to know that you don't know everything and there's smarter people than you in the world, and that's okay, then you're gonna keep learning and growing and you continue to give back. But to me, it's a— I'm at a point in my career, I guess you would call it mid-career, mid-late career, where it's not just keep learning, but give back to the next generation. So teaching now Chime University, teaching in universities formally, you know, I teach an adjunct class at the University of Texas at Austin, all these These things are meant about embracing the next generation where I'm not too far removed, but I'm removed enough from them. But I can relate saying, look, I was in your seat one day. And if you really want the crazy job of being a CIO one day, this is what it takes to do that. Like, be careful what you wish for. But it's one of those ebbs and flows, just like you used to teach the class, Ed, just like the things you and your generation did for us, right? Now it's up to us to do the same thing, give back.

Yeah, love that. So we talked a little bit earlier about like baby boomers and, you know, maybe some tips for them to make sure that they're still contemporary and on the digital side. What would you say to— and I know you have a couple daughters who are not yet in the workforce, they're plenty young, you got plenty of time. But, you know, let's just say 15 years from now, you know, they graduate college and, you know, what sort of advice would you give people coming out of college today in terms of You know, their future, and it doesn't have to be specific to healthcare, but it could be. Yeah.

So, number one, right? Always keep learning. As I always said, just because you're done with college doesn't mean you stop cracking textbooks open, you stop cracking good business books open and learning. So, always be learning. 2, do not work for jerks. I would say, you know, if you're in a crummy place and working for a crummy person, get out. There's plenty of jobs out there. I don't care how frightening you think it may be. Do not work for jerks. Life is too short to tolerate jerks. And then last but not least, go see the flipping world. Do not sit in one place for forever and think the world's going to come to you. It will not. It will pass you by. And one day you'll wake up and ask yourself, why didn't I take that trip to Barcelona? Why didn't I go spend a summer abroad in Paris? What— I mean, Ed, you're a classic example of this. Go embrace life in the world as it was meant to be. I mean, God created this beautiful planet. Let's go enjoy it. That's why we're here, right? So, so don't be afraid to stretch yourself. And I think if you keep doing that as an individual, especially as a young professional, you're going to see your career explode in growth because you become a more well-rounded individual and a more holistic individual. And that's what makes you so appealing in terms of investing and putting you in these senior roles because you bring a perspective and dynamicism that maybe wouldn't have been there otherwise.

Yes, very insightful. I've just, you know, this is obviously not a visual podcast. It's all Hearing our voice. But man, I just want to jump up and down, Aaron, at a lot of your answers. It's so good. This is— I'm hoping a lot of listeners take what you share, your wisdom, to heart. Let me throw in a new sort of question based off of that answer as we sort of head down the home stretch here. And that is work-life balance, you know, that we'll talk about. You talk about it as Chime and on faculty at Chime, you talk about it quite a bit. You know, how do you balance all these different things? You know, see the world, uh, at the same time be really good at your job and also learn new things. You know, how do you— and I know you're a big family man, so how, how do you balance everything?

Something has to give, and it usually is sleep, a lot of coffee. No, I'm actually just kidding here, but the reality is you have to have your priorities straight, which is your, your your personal health, your family and your family health, and then everything else, inclusive of work, inclusive of everything else going on, right? So if you're healthy, so if you, you know, I run every day. Now I'm not a marathoner like you or a gold medalist like you are, Ed, but I work out every day. That's my, you know, 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock in the morning, my head is cleared, right? So I do my morning run and that keeps me also healthy in mind, body, and soul and in spirit. Then 2 is my family, ensuring that I'm there, especially for my My young daughters and my wife, as they have events at school, as things are going on there, I do not sacrifice that. I do not miss the important events. I carve everything out around that and I make sure everybody understands that. And I only work for institutions that understand that that is my priority. If there's an expectation that you're gonna miss your daughter's recital, or you're gonna do whatever else, guess what? I'm finding somewhere else to go work because that— there is no substitution outside of an emergency one-off thing. There is no substitution. And then last but not least, as I said, to give back, right? So I find a lot of joy in traveling, you know, with Chime faculty, doing these teaching events I do with these things, building stuff I do with Chime, and I keep growing from that and allows me the opportunity to give back.

Yeah, that's great, Aaron. And you're right, if you have— that is the key. You have to have everything a priority and then be a good time manager, and you can do all these different things. Uh, it's, it's amazing if you really study your time and how it's spent. You can be very efficient and still accomplish all of these goals, you know, within that priority. And that's something that people sometimes overlook. Wow, Aaron, this has been amazing. I took a bunch of notes just for myself here as I'm looking down at my paper. As we come to the end, you know, we covered a lot of topics from sort of the different generations. We talked about leadership. We talked about sort of home and work-life balance. Is there anything that you want to double down on, or perhaps there's something we didn't talk about and you want to share?

So I'll share with you a fun story. You'll remember this, Ed. I was with you on your— one of your hospital go-lives on Coney Island for New York hospitals when you were going live with Epic, and you rolled in a giant Epic Go Love, L-O-V-E, cake. And the exuberant joy from the team as you went live and transacted that day was something that was very palatable and stuck with me. And that was, I believe, 2017, if I have the year right.

Yeah.

And then you and I walked around Lower Manhattan talking about it and the lessons learned and how you build people. And I think the takeaway story in all of this is the way you transact and treat your teams is the way you transact and treat yourself. And so the more you can give yourself a go-love cake from time to time and keep learning and resonating in the future and loving on your team the same exact way and helping them grow and become aspirational you know, careerists themselves, you will see everything around you blossom. And so at net-net, end of the day, it is all about how you treat people, how you treat yourself, and how you never, ever, ever stop and just smell the roses and you keep going. That's the endgame. Yeah.

Well, I think everyone could see why I had Aaron as a guest, why I had you today. It's amazing. I, I get a lot— I'm like energized myself, you know. I'm ready to— I want to go do something, uh, that I didn't. My schedule's full already today, but man, if I could you know, I'm ready to conquer the world, do whatever, handle whatever challenge comes before me. Lots of great insights, tremendous. And more than that, you're just a really good person. I think that came out in your answers as well, Aaron. You are leading sort of this next generation of leaders within healthcare. I feel really good and confident for the future of a lot of our organizations because of people such as yourself, just full of A lot of great energy, passion, and vision. And just like I said, just good people, which is as important as anything else that we spoke about. So thank you so much for being our guest. It really means a lot to me personally. Again, I'm energized myself, and if that's the case, I'm sure our audience will be as well.

Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

That concludes another pod drop for Digital Voices.

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