Episode 64: Winning at Business and Life with Bruce Prothro

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where executives share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

I'm Bruce Prothero. I'm currently the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for SI-Bone, which is a medical device company. But that's only half of what I do. I've been in the device industry for 30 years, but I also have a Napa Valley-based wine venture that my wife and I started a few years ago that builds upon our experience as being home winemakers when we lived in Los Gatos, California. And that's a very exclusive, very limited brand that has gotten wonderful acclaim, and we've had great success with it.

Bruce, it's great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry? And you have 2 industries that you work in?

Well, I, you know, it's— I've been the recipient of 8 knee surgeries. I'm an old college football player and a triathlete, and so a lot of abuse on my knees. When I had my first knee surgery, it was in 1981, and I had my last knee surgery this past June, um, June of 2019. I would say that the progression of medical technology from '81 to 2019 when I had my last surgery has just been amazing, even in the area of orthopedics. So one of the great things about working in the industry, particularly medical devices, is you're able to bring that technology forward, and then patients get to benefit from it. My last surgery would not have been possible in 1981, nor would it have been possible in 1990. On the wine side, The wonderful thing about the wine business is engagement. I love selling wine. I love making it. I love blending it. But I love selling it because you're giving a product to someone that they're going to be able to experience. Much more so than software or something else because wine is somewhat ethereal to people and they relate to it. And so it's wonderful selling wine to people and then hear their comments and see their Instagram posts and have them messages about how they like your product.

It's fun because the way you're talking about it, it's, you know, there's just two different passions that you have for the two different industries. I love it. And so question number 3: I have a book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read? None of it. None of them. Okay.

When I came out of college, the person who gave our commencement address— I was with the UC Berkeley in the College of Chemistry— he basically gave this advice. He said, any management book that you're given, any management seminar you're asked to go to, don't read the book, don't go to the seminar. Management philosophies change from author to author, from era to era, from you know, uh, industry to industry. The main thing you need to do is read the Old Testament because you're going to spend a lot more time dealing with greed, avarice, territoriality than you are anything else in your professional life, because that's the motivation behind a lot of things that people do. So therefore you've got to be able to ask yourself, am I dealing with this on an aspect of territoriality Am I doing this from an aspect of greed or am I dealing with this on an aspect of jealousy because someone's doing what someone else wants to do? If you can understand those things, then you can relate to the individual or the situation or the customer, and you don't have to dig through a management book to tell you how to do it.

I love that. That's a really great way to look at it. Thank you for that. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude and care for the customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?

The thing that I've learned in my career— and I retired for about 3 years, so I got to exhale for a little bit and consider a lot of things. I always tell people everything in life comes down to time and attention. I want your time and I want your attention. And you, going through this podcast, want my time and my attention. It's the same way with employees. It's the same thing with friends and family. People want your time and they want your attention. Put yourself in a position where you can give people time and you can give them attention. And in giving them attention, that also means understanding what their motivations are, understanding what their workflow is, their personal life, um, and, and, and also listening. And then once you've done that, demonstrate that you've listened, uh, in a way that, that has trust and value, uh, and decision-making incorporated into that. Because We all manage a life outside of work, and most of us do it quite well. So when we're in the work environment, we want someone who values us as individuals, not just as a work component, but who also trusts us to make decisions because they recognize that we're making decisions every day once we leave the office. And some of those have pretty big consequences. Where do you send your kids to college? You know, how do you pay for this vacation trip? How do you pay for the surgical procedure? You make all these different sort of decisions. And so we should be able to be trusted to do the same thing in the workplace.

And it's interesting too with that time and attention. The first thing that comes to my mind is when you're in a work conversation and the other person is spending more time and attention on their phone than they are with you and you're sitting right there in front of them. That's just— it's amazing how the wrong message that sends to the other person.

Well, it's, it's just a message of disinterest. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

And that doesn't help a person to feel valued. Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Question number 5, what other executive or business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

I'm a regulatory affairs professional. I learned to be a regulatory affairs professional. And for those of you who don't know what that is, I work with FDA. I work with European notified bodies. I work with other international organizations to bring products to market and go through the regulatory process. Um, I learned that from Darlene Crockett Billig, who's been in the industry for quite some time. She was very exacting and very demanding and a great person to, to learn from. Um, Rich Ferrari, if you haven't come across Rich Ferrari, a wonderful CEO. He's, he's been with the Novo Ventures for years. He's, he's a VC. He sees a lot of companies. He'd be a great person to talk with. Jeffrey Dunn at SI-BONE, you know, he committed a lot of time and a lot of dedication to starting SI-BONE and building it and going through some rough times and then being able to take it public. He'd be a great person to talk with as well. And then lastly is Lisa Sunan. Lisa has been in the industry for a while. And she's a wonderful person when it comes to, um, what's happening holistically in the medical device community, what's happening holistically in digital health. Uh, and she runs a nice blog site too, uh, that you can explore.

Wonderful. Thank you for those 4 referrals. I'll reach out to them. And question number 6, please tell me about your first job.

Um, When I always go back to my first job, it was in Mississippi. I'm from Mississippi. My grandparents had a general store at the intersection of two blacktop roads. They also had about 300 acres of land, of about 25 of that was planted to what we called a garden, 25-acre garden. I used to go and help them in the summers in their store, and my grandfather, when I was in 6th grade, told me, look, if you go manage the garden and you pick the melons and you pick the cantaloupes and you pick the squash and you pick the peas, I will give you 60% of whatever you're able to sell in the store. Um, I did that, you know. I'm in 6th grade, I hop on the tractor, I go down to the land, and every single day I pick. And if you take like a bushel of peas, uh, I was selling the bushel of peas for $6. And then it was $8 if someone wanted me to shell them. So I actually that summer ended up making $600. And as a teenager back, you know, whenever that was, $600 was a lot of money. But I also worked really hard and I enjoyed it and I had a lot of fun. So when I found that I approached my other jobs, I kind of took that lesson of picking peas and sweating and being out with the snakes and everything else as you're doing this, this fieldwork with me in my work dedication and how I approach things in life.

I love that. It's a great story. It's so neat that the very first job, certain things that you learned carry forward to this day, basically. So it's wonderful. So Bruce, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?

It's pretty easy. I'm on LinkedIn, Bruce Prothro. You can also find me on Instagram in two ways. It's Prothro ATX. Are just Bruce Prothro, and it's also Prothro Family Wines. And then if you want to look at our wines a little bit further, just prothrofamilywines.com, um, and you can see what we offer, what we do, and, and read about our story because we started in a garage in Los Angeles, California, and just kind of built things from there.

That's great. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.