The CEO ASSASSINATION That HORRIFIED Corporate America
➡️ SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@makeworknotsuck?sub_confirmation=1
In this video, we talk about the assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the U.S. health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, who was shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan.
We break down the details, the possible reasons, and how people reacted.
Most importantly, we will talk about what we can learn from this.
How can we make work not suck? Whether you're an employee, CEO, shareholder, or business owner?
How do we find the right balance between profits and people? This incident feels like a direct message to the health insurance system, and we take a deeper look at what it could mean.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
2:16 - What Happened to Brian Thompson?
5:30 - Three Words Carved on the Bullet Casings
7:11 - Why Did This Happen?
14:13 - The System Is Rigged
21:45 - The Actual Job of the CEO
29:08 - The Struggles of Everyday Workers
37:13 - One Big Problem
42:18 - Why It's So Expensive to Be Poor
45:58 - Can We Fix This?
46:52 - What Will We Learn From This?
➡️ Go ahead and hit that like button!
Transcript
Thing that I thought was really kind of the most chilling when I first heard this story, the bullet casings had words kind of etched into them. Delay, deny, depose were the three words carved into the 3 bullet casings that, you know, killed this man. You know, there are certain conditions that if you get diagnosed with them, health insurance companies just say, sorry, we don't help with that. It can cost tens, if not 100 of 1,000 of dollars to care for your loved one. And the insurance company just says, sorry.
That's not what we do. I think that is clearly the point that he's trying to make is that health insurance companies are also costing lives in the decisions that they make.
[:This was not an act of, you know, rampage, of anger.
[:Oh, no.
[:This was premeditated. This was thought through. This was to send a message.
[:There are some people that are calling this guy a hero.
[:80% condemn the murder, but empathize with his motives. 80%.
[:I would watch
[:I think it's also a little messed up that a lot
[:of people are calling they're almost turning this into, you know, he he's becoming this hero. I remember watching Saturday Night Live a couple weeks ago, and they were doing something. And again, it's a comedy show, but everybody in the audience started hooping and hollering about this guy. And the the comic was just shocked. Right?
Here's this guy who lives in New York. The murder happened in New York. And he's talking about what's going on and everybody else is celebrating. Like, the audience members are celebrating. And he's like, this is a murderer.
Right? Like, this guy's accused of murder. Why are we celebrating this? He just didn't know how to respond to an audience that was pro murder and anti capitalism.
[:This is one individual frustrated with the system, but how many people feel, maybe not to a murderous intent, but how many people feel just as frustrated with their job or think work sucks or they're being taken advantage of or they're not getting the pay to deserve at the expense of profits?
[:There are a lot of organizations that have sacrificed purpose and people to fit numbers. And I don't think that that's a good thing. I think that that's one of the problems that capitalism has to figure out a way to address, or it's going to get worse.
[:Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.
[:Alright, Daniel. Assassination of a CEO, the death of Brian Thompson, and the fallout of health care and work. Let's talk about how the how the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO from both perspectives. How's that impacting health care? How's that impacting business?
How's that impacting work? You know, some people are even hailing this guy as a hero that murdered somebody. This is a weird situation. And I think what's even more interesting is this guy's even been labeled as a terrorist in this situation, which, again, I'm not diminishing the bad thing the guy did. But what makes him a terrorist?
[:I think this could be peak work sucks. Right? When people are being murdered over work, we've clearly got a problem. There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm I'm excited to get into it.
[:Well, it says here an Ivy League graduate turned assassin, a CEO helmed of America's largest, controversial industries and a chilling manifesto. So when you put all this together, you get one messed up situation. Let's talk about what happened. What? December 4th, 20 21 days before Christmas, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, walking towards an investor conference at that is basically gunned down on the side of the street.
[:Yeah. I've actually stayed at that Hilton. It's it's a nice place. It's not crazy nice. I wouldn't afford it.
But it's it's kinda scary because I've I've been there. I've I I know where this guy was gunned down. And I think one of the the interesting things here is that the person who has been accused of murdering him I I mean, I'm assuming he's guilty, but, you know, let's let's give him his due process. The the the person charged with the murder is not some person who you would typically think of as, you know, hasn't, you know, found their place in society, has been rejected, hasn't really found the place where they fit or connect. I think the guy was the valedictorian of his high school.
He went to an Ivy League school. The the guy's very successful in many ways. And it just kind of doesn't fit the narrative of a social misfit murdering someone? It's like, no. This guy was an up and comer.
Why why would he be the one? Not that it's ever okay, but I think it's a it's a different twist on the story that we've heard maybe some iterations of in the past. It's a different twist when it's coming from a guy who seemingly had so many things going for him.
[:Well, I think it's interesting is, the the book tipping point.
[:Mhmm. You know,
[:when when you finally get to a point that something triggers And like you said, this up and comer iv Ivy League graduate, very smart intelligent, finally hit a point of, you know, we'll call it vigilante justice
[:Mhmm.
[:Taking matters in his own hands to try to change the health care system and what he believes. And he's got a manifesto on this that that says it's, you know, corrupt and, is not for the people, does not provide care, and this is, you know, his way of of trying to press a tipping point. And it's it has caused a lot of controversy controversial conversations. There's a lot of talk about health care reform, yet again, but not not from a health care standpoint, but from a corporate health care standpoint.
[:Right. The thing that I thought was really kind of the most chilling when I first heard this story was the fact that the the casings of the bullet the bullet casings had words kind of etched into them. Delay, deny, depose were the 3 words, carved into the 3 bullet casings that, you know, killed this man. Apparently, kind of a critique of the health care's practice of, you know, delaying claims, denying coverage, or deposing patients and needs and just, you know, saying we we don't cover that anymore, which is which is hard because I've got several people in my family with chronic health issues, and this is something we've had to wrestle with. You know, there are certain conditions that if you get diagnosed with them, health insurance companies just say, sorry.
We don't help with that. And it can cost, you know, tens, if not 100 of 1,000 of dollars to care for your loved one, and the insurance company just says, sorry. That's not what we do. So I I get the frustration. Murdering somebody is not okay.
But I I think that is clearly the point that he's trying to make is that health insurance companies are also costing lives in the decisions that they make. And that one's tough because they are kind of in the business of health insurance. Right? It's it it exists to cover catastrophic events, but they're a business. They need to make a profit, and finding the balance between that is is a tough situation for anybody to be in.
[:Well, it it goes into at the end of the day, it's UnitedHealthcare is a for profit business. It's publicly traded. It's got shareholders it has to account for. And I think that's where a lot of this goes down to is, you know, I think a lot of people will will claim out the issues with capitalism.
[:Right.
[:You know, this is a product of having a capitalistic society, and it's not you know, it's it's a byproduct of the system that we allowed. But to your point, I mean, if someone literally had those words, delay, deny, and depose, etched on the casing of the bullets, this was not an act of, you know, rampage of of anger.
[:Oh, no.
[:This was, you know, premeditated. This was thought through. This was to send a message to to really drive a point. And I I I don't know. I I struggle with this because murder's wrong.
Like Right. I I I feel like the the means of doing this, there's gotta be a better way, but an individual this intelligent, what else did they try? Did they try many other things? Did they you know, is it one voice was not enough to drive change? Is the machine too big that we he needed to make this dramatic of a statement?
And then the other side of it where he's being hailed a hero in in some cases of, you know, sticking it to the man and to the corporate machine. But at the end of the day, that was a human being on the other side of those bullets.
[:Right. And that So human being has a family and the it's it's it's really sad to me to see how many people are celebrating what he did and holding him up as a hero for fighting against the corporate machine. I think that this is really maybe peeling back some layers and getting to the heart of what I think makes work suck for a lot of people. I think that there are many people, I think, especially younger generations, who have seen profits come at the expense of people and have this almost visceral rejection of that. Like, that's not okay that some people have way more than they could ever spend in a lifetime, and some people don't have enough.
I saw this meme yesterday, and it said, you know, homeless man sees a shooting star and wishes for, his next meal only to realize that the shooting star was a billionaire going to the moon for fun. And it's like, that's kind of but but I get it. Like, I get why so many people are so angry when there are people who have, you know, 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars. And then there are other people who struggle to have enough, you know, it's like food or rent, but you can't have both this month. I think that that's been that trend has been accelerating.
That's getting worse. It's not getting better. And I think people who have been impacted by that are in some senses rightfully upset about the system. Not that that excuses murder. Murder is not gonna fix that, but I understand their frustrations.
So what do we do about it?
[:It argued that health care systems prioritize profit over patient care, and it needed to be held accountable. So I think we got a we got a picture here. Now let's let's see what the public the public is saying about this. So you cut a level of social media that is has got to pay to both as the hero and the villain. Right.
They're criticizing it. The health care system was what turned him into this vigilante.
[:Right.
[:And then you got a lot of
[:go ahead. He's the victim. He's not it's it's not his fault. He's the victim.
[:He's the victim.
[:Right.
[:And it's exposing a large I mean, 49,000,000 people insured by 1 health care company. And I'm I'm sure he's not the only person in that 49,000,000. And that's that's not even this is only one insurance company. This is not all. Right.
I'm sure there's, you know, probably about 48,000,000 people, if not 49,000,000 people that probably share a similar sentiment or frustration overall.
[:Yeah. I've I've flipped through a
[:little bit of Reddit and some of the comments about him. I mean, they're call there there are some people that are calling this guy a hero. Some people that are
[:saying percent. Eighty a particular poll, 80% condemned the murder, but empathize with his motives. 80%.
[:I was watching it's huge. And I I think that that would probably skew younger. I think the younger generation, the millennials and gen z's are probably the most sympathetic because they have experienced the downsides of capitalism. And let's be honest, there there there are downsides to it.
[:I think it's also a little messed up that a lot
[:of people are calling they're almost turning this into, you know, he he's becoming this hero. I remember watching Saturday Night Live a couple weeks ago and they were doing something. And again, it's a comedy show, but everybody in the audience started, like, hooping and hollering about this guy. And the the comic was just shocked. Right?
Here's this guy who lives in New York. The the murder happened in New York. And he's talking about what's going on and everybody else is celebrate like, the audience members are celebrating. And he's like, this is a murderer. Right?
Like, this guy's accused of murder. Why are we celebrating this? And it just shook him and you could watch it happen live on TV. He just didn't know how to respond to an audience that was pro murder and anti capitalism.
[:Yep. Such a messed up scenario. How does this relate to to making work not suck? I mean, I think one key thing is it it highlights the disconnect between the disconnect between people how people feel from the systems they rely on. Yeah.
Workplace as a business as a whole is is no different. When frustrations boil over, it doesn't make work suck. It makes work dangerous.
[:Right.
[:And think about this is one individual frustrated with the system, but how many people feel, maybe not to a murderous intent, but how many people feel just as frustrated with their job or think work sucks or they're being taken advantage of or they're not getting the pay they deserve at the expense of profits?
[:Yeah. I mean, I've seen this. I've I've even experienced this, right, where they have layoffs and people lose their job so that the people at the top can get their bonuses. And I think that there's you know, look, we're not gonna fix a problem unless we're honest about it being a problem. You're not gonna fix anything that you don't think is broken.
And so I think that there are absolutely ways in which capitalism values profits over people and profits over purpose. And there are a lot of organizations that have sacrificed purpose and people to hit numbers. And I don't think that that's a good thing. I think that that's one of the problems that capitalism has to figure out a way to address or it's going to get worse. And people are gonna feel more and more disenfranchised and that the system does not work for them.
I mean, I think that there are a lot of people who feel the system's rigged. Like, it's a game you can't win. When you look at the price of housing, when you look at the, you know, just student loan debt and what it would be like to try to start life right now as a 20 something. It's like trying to climb a ladder, but the first rung on the ladder is 12 feet up. It's like, good luck.
Climb that ladder. And it's like, well, how do you even get to the 1st ring? It's it's 12 it's 12 feet up. How am I gonna get there?
[:Well, in your KPI of getting to that 12th rung is, not hitting the mark, so we're gonna fire you.
[:Right. It's like if you can't reach up and touch that, we're gonna have to let you go. But it's like, who in the world could jump up and grab the the first rung of the ladder at 12 feet high?
[:Oh, well, and and I'm not 69. I'm I'm only 54. Right. Maybe at maybe at 69 with an arm reach with a little bit of a jump, maybe.
[:But Right. Maybe. I think that this, though, represents the underlying feeling, and I think it's growing. I think it it it was just Gen z's and millennials bitching, but now I'm seeing older and older people feeling like the system is rigged against them and feeling like getting up, you know, going to school, getting a good job, and working hard 40 hours a week for 40 years is not sufficient. Like, you you can't survive doing that.
If you wanna live in a major city in the US, that's not good enough. I think there's a lot of people who are rightfully angry about that. Now the solution's tricky. We'll get to that in a second. But I think there's a legitimate complaint that going to school, getting a decent job, and working hard 40 hours a week is not gonna be enough to provide for you and your spouse and 2.5 kids.
[:Yeah. The let's just take it inside the Nuance inside a normal business. I think this happens this happens every day, and this is almost, I wouldn't say more dangerous because I do think most people are are there's there's a there's probably a majority percentage that are that are okay. Or the is their life where they want it to be? Is their pay where it needs to be?
Are they struggling to pay the mortgage? Are they struggling to put photo on the table? No. But they're they're not able to go on the family vacation as often as they'd like. Right?
Now Right. There's probably there's a good chunk of people in that category, and then there's good chunk of people that, you know, are, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. And then there's the people that really are, you know, paycheck to paycheck is not enough, honey. Yep. But I think when you look inside a general organization, you know, when people feel the system is rigged against them, they'll idolize those who challenge it.
Think inside companies where there's someone that's fed up. This is that that one individual that's fed up, and they start becoming the vigilante inside the organization. Now they're not waving a gun around, and they're threatened to kill the the executive, but they start building that toxic culture. And, basically, it starts to build that outrage and retaliation, and and this the system starts to crumble. I actually think that is a huge factor of what makes work suck.
And I'm not criticizing the person that that's challenging it or being the you know, being idolized for their retaliation against it. I think that's a tipping point scenario where enough is enough.
[:But I
[:don't think companies are doing enough to like, if if that's what happens in your organization or you're following one of those individuals and it's literally happening right now, it's because something is not triggering a a string of information for people to understand reality, and that tipping point is too late. It's reactive.
[:Yes.
[:So now either the company has their head in the sand or they're greedy and they're sucking profits out
[:Mhmm. Or they just don't know. And I think I think some combination thereof.
[:Some combination of all the above, but regardless, it's a very dangerous situation in general. And I think we see that we're seeing that so much. I think we're seeing that with a great resignation, you know, that people are just fed up with their jobs. I think the return to work stuff we talked about, you know, refusing return to work. I think we're just seeing all of this all over the place.
And I don't think this this health care I mean, this was challenging the health care system. I mean, even looking at, you know, United when the when the attack happened, their stock dropped $63,000,000,000 in value. Of course, it's tarnished their, reputation and all that stuff. But okay. Fine.
The company lost value, and they're trying to figure out what to do. But here's where this went too far the wrong way. A lot of these health care companies are now removing photos of their executives and their leadership teams from websites. They're moving investment meetings online. So because he was I'm gonna guess.
I don't know this for a fact, but I'm gonna guess that, miss Thompson was strategically gunned down in front of an investor meeting. I think that was very strategic because that meeting was to talk about profits and
[:That wasn't an accident.
[:That was sending a message. And so, you know, you now you've got individuals that, you know, don't wanna go to these meetings because, you know, they could be the next target, and then you've got, you know, installing weapon detections technology in offices. Like, this this this is this is going the wrong direction.
[:More and more companies are spending more and more on security to keep their executives safe, especially publicly traded companies who are re you know, reporting record profits. And it's really easy to look at the people at the top of the org chart and say, it's your fault that you're generating 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars of profit, but you're not really serving your customers or taking care of your employees well. And so I think that's an interesting question is, to what extent is the CEO and the executive team accountable for how their organization behaves in the world and in the market? They're clearly accountable for profits, but are they also accountable for the purpose?
[:I would agree. And I think here's a here's an interesting one, and I'm not trying to be little or belay any any of this. You know, technically, the the CEO here that was murdered, his boss was the board of directors, and he was charged with doing a thing with the business. And now he was handsomely paid for it. He took the job.
Mhmm. You know, he didn't he didn't have to take it. So it was all by choice. So I'm I agree with all that. But, really, isn't the board the one responsible for deciding that's the directive the CEO needs to go?
[:Generally. I mean, they they will structure his compensation to get the results out of the business they want. So whether that's long term stock appreciation, earnings per share, His compensation is set by the board. He will be paid well if he does what they are asking him to do.
[:Well, that's that's where I go down to can't a board put some initiatives in there to say these are again, profit's not a bad thing. No. It's when profit turns into greed at the expense of all the other things. I believe there are things that health care companies can do to still better serve their people and get profits. And and I think I'll go on a little mini rant here.
I think part of the problem too is on the opposite side of it. I think the doctors are getting screwed just as much as the patients are.
[:Yeah.
[:Because they're they're they're jacking up the premiums, and they're lowering the payouts. Right. It it's gotta bring it's it's gotta bring balance across the board. I mean, it's getting to the point that doctors don't even wanna, you know, deal with it. Right.
I mean, I've even talked to doctors that are like, I don't I'm done practicing because it's too much of a hassle, and you got good doctors coming out of the system.
[:Yeah. You know, when you and I worked together at a company a couple years ago, I love the way that you talked about the job of the CEO. It stands for 3 things. Why don't why don't you unpack that? Because I think that's a helpful reframing of the job of the CEO.
[:Alright. So the job of the CEO, it's not chief executive officer. It's customer, employee, and owners, and shareholders. So we'll say owners, because if you're a shareholder, you're you're an owner of some sorts. But it's not only that.
It's the customer's customer. It's the employee and the employee's family, and it's the the owner's and the owner's legacy. And if you put the CEO in the middle of that and you draw those 3 dots in a triangle and those outer ones, it makes a target.
[:Mhmm.
[:And the problem is is too often, the CEO will go strictly after the customer to bring the revenue in and pay the shareholders at the expense of the people. Now there are companies that go the other way. They take the money from the customers and give it to the employees at the expense of the customer. But at the end of the day, if you are a a if a CEO can truly bring balance into delivering value to the customer, providing for the the employee and their families and the shareholders, that's a triple win. I mean, I hate the whole, you know, win win concept.
I think it's dumb when people use that as, like, a greed excuse, but you really can get to a win win win win win win situation when you look at it holistically like that. And I think that's what CEOs need to do. I think boards need to be part of that equation as well.
[:Mhmm. Yeah. I think boards need to set that as the expectation and structure the comp of their executives to deliver that that triple win. Because most of the it's certainly publicly traded CEOs or CEOs of publicly traded companies. They're really just compensated on earnings per share and driving up the stock price and making the owners happy.
And to do that, they've gotta make the customers and employees happy enough, but they can't piss them off. But they're not really very few of them are are incentivized to engage their customers and employees and owners and and make and delight all 3 of them. Because it's hard. That's really hard.
[:Especially in publicly traded companies. You know, the average 10 years, what, 3, 4 years. And what do they do? The first thing they do is they go in and they wipe out a bunch of people, and that drives the the share value up because profits skyrocket. But then there's too much work and stuff starts slipping through the cracks too.
After you kinda get the boost in stock price, you get all the people back. And at the end of the day, then the next guy comes in, and he's got a mess to clean up. We just have compounding messes where, the CEO and the board needs to put a sustainable plan together that doesn't include, you know, hiring people to or firing people to drive the stock price, rehiring a chunk of that back. I'm all for good hiring and firing techniques for, you know, keeping good people in the company and rewarding them and and underperformers, you know, out the door. I'm all for systems like that.
But when it's just mass layoffs to drive a stock price, so you can hit a stock per or a dollar per share and get a bonus, I I think boards should penalize against that.
[:Yeah. And but it's hard though because CEOs are usually viewed as kind of the the representative of the company. Right? We know who the CEOs are. Off the top of my head, I don't know who board you know, many board members of publicly traded companies.
I know that information's publicly available. You could go look for it. But if I asked you about Tesla, you would tell me that Elon Musk is the CEO, but I don't know who's on his board. Right? Right.
So so it's easy to associate a a single name and a single face with an organization and say he represents their values, good or bad, and the decisions that that company makes, good or bad. And whether or not that's fair, it it is true. That is what people are going to think. And so it makes that CEO job really, really tough because even things that are not your decision, you're still gonna get blamed for.
[:Yep. Yeah. And that's that's exactly it. That's why the the CEO has the target on the head. And, unfortunately, that o, you know, the owners and equity holders, shareholders, etcetera, those usually carry the most demand.
Actually, it's actually the the the customer and the and the shareholders, but I think in this health care case, it's it's the shareholders. And sure, because they're
[:the only ones who can get you fired. Right. Right? Like, if your customers leave, you lose revenue. If your employees leave, you've got a turnover problem.
If your if your owners are unhappy, you get fired. And so Right. From a self preservation standpoint, the CEO's number first job is gonna be keep the owners happy. Keep the board happy.
[:Well, it's and I think that goes into the health care system as a whole. Right. It is the customer, you know, I think in this this situation, the assailant in this case, you know, he was the customer of the health care company, and he was being screwed over.
[:Mhmm.
[:And I'm willing to bet the employees of the same organization, I'm pretty sure if I if I go back a couple of podcasts, we're talking about the worst places to work. I'm pretty sure United was pretty high up on the list.
[:With one of them?
[:I I it's it the change starts at the top, and I think the change starts with what the board's expectations are set on the CEO.
[:Mhmm. Yep.
[:And and I think it's easy for us to say the CEO just needs 2. Right. I don't think that's, I think that's a third of the equation.
[:Yeah. For for those of you who think that this that my kids like this. My son is like, I can't wait to be the boss. And I'm like, okay. But the boss has a boss.
And he's like, what? The CEO has a boss. Right? And if you think that you'd be getting to the corner office and being the CEO means you don't have a boss, you will be very disappointed because every CEO has a boss. So it it's much more complicated than just saying, well, the CEO needs to have some balls and stand up to the to the, shareholders.
It is not that simple. Yeah. Because I
[:would say this, you do that to your boss and see what happens. Right. I dare anybody that thinks a CEO can do that, do it to your boss and tell me what happens because I guarantee you it's gonna be about the same reaction.
[:Mhmm. It is No. It is
[:a lot harder than you think it is.
[:Right. It's yeah.
[:But but that doesn't entirely excuse them at the same point. Right. Right? They still are accountable for their decisions and for the for the situations they choose to put themselves in. And I think this would be maybe my one wish or or call to action is I think both boards and CEOs need to work harder at clarifying the purpose of their organization beyond profits.
And put a metric around it. I get that's not easy, but you guys are being paid 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. You're incredibly smart people. Figure it out and and find a way to put a metric on your on your purpose as well as the metric on your profits. Because we know earnings per share.
We know stock price. Those things are easy to measure. What's your purpose? What's the reason that your organization exists in the first place? And put a metric on that so that we can see, and you can see, and the whole organization can see that we care about more than just the money.
[:Agree. Now let's let's take this to the, you know, the average employee working at one of these big companies. How do you get excited, or how do you feel good about your job when the world is literally angry at the company you work for?
[:Oh.
[:Industries like, you know, health care, energy, finance, they're increasingly facing public backlash, for corporate decisions they can't control. And so who gets the brunt of of all this backlash? It's the people that work in these companies.
[:Right.
[:How dare you work there? You should quit. You should go work somewhere else. Can't believe you work at a company like that. Like, how does that make people feel that work for United?
And that's just that's just the job they have. I'm willing to bet most of them just like most people that work at any job that they don't like or they're doing it for a paycheck, like you said at the beginning of the podcast, it's to make ends meet.
[:Right. I worked for a financial services technology company during the 2008 financial cry crisis when all these banks were going out of business. Those were a lot of my clients. And I had people being like, how how in the world are you working for all these banks and helping them? The banks are evil.
And, man, I was just trying to pay my bills. I wasn't an executive. I didn't have a leadership role that, you know, had it made any difference. But it's hard. It's it's hard when people are looking at your industry and pointing fingers and accusing your industry of things, and some of them are true, but not all of them.
And and it's not fair because I can't change a multibillion dollar organization from, you know, my little tiny seat. I think that for the average person who is working in a large company, whether they're getting, you know, ripped on social media or not, I think it's incumbent on each of us to be the difference that we want to see. To try to change what we can change within our sphere of influence to to make this a better situation for our customers and for our employees and for our owners as well. I I think that the the focus on profits only is a short term strategy that is causes long term problems. We need to be more purpose driven.
Most organizations need to be more purpose driven because that's a more sustainable strategy long term. And if you've got any sort of influence in your organization pushing and nudging your your leadership in that direction is gonna be I think the best thing you can do for an organization that's getting a little bit of, resistance from the public.
[:I don't think it even has to be purpose driven. Now I agree. I I love purpose driven companies, and I advocate for purpose driven companies. I I don't think this is like every company needs to have a, you know, philanthropic mission and change the world objective. You just need balance in the equation.
Your mission can still be make profit, but it's gotta be at the balance of the customers and the employees. And when you find that balance, you can actually have a healthy, thriving company. I mean, Chick Fil A, for example. Right? True with Kathy.
No margin, no mission?
[:No margin, no mission. Right.
[:But still a very healthy company, very profitable company, very impactful company, and it's not just because they're a Christian based organization. It's the intentionality.
[:I would say every organization needs a a purpose beyond profits. Because the the problem with making profits your purpose is you will chase anything that'll make money.
[:I I agree to an extent, and this is what I'm saying. This is this is a a that's the the end goal. I think there's companies that have an in between. There's a a friend of mine that runs a $300,000,000 pest control company that's kinda across the Southern United States.
[:Okay.
[:They don't have a mission. Their you know what their mission really is? Now they've got a phenomenal culture.
[:Okay.
[:They don't have a purpose in this number they track on the wall. They have a, a very high empathy for their employees. They take care of their people. They take care of their customers, and their only metric of success besides customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, is did they beat last year's revenue numbers? Their entire goal is to beat themselves.
They don't care, and they're and they're they're they're owned by a a much larger conglomerate.
[:Okay.
[:They're always the top performing and providing profits to the parent company.
[:Okay.
[:But they have the highest growth. They have the highest customer satisfaction. They have the highest employee satisfaction. But their mission literally is to be 13% better growth, if you will, on top line, bottom line. But it's not to be the world's cleanest health, pest control company.
It's not to be you know, there's there's no purpose like that. But there's intentionality between the balance between the 3. They service their customer, they service their employees, and they service their shareholders.
[:And
[:so I think it's just if you start with that. Now I do agree. Now they're a $300,000,000 company. They've done pretty good over the past number of years to to get there. I think that they could grow faster.
If they instill the purpose, I think it would be an accelerator, but I don't think it's a requirement. I think the the absolute fundamental is you've gotta bring balance to that those three points of the equation. If you do that, you're at least in a category above everybody else. Then if you want to 10 x from there, you get purpose driven.
[:So what about health insurance companies? That's what we're talking about here. Right? The CEO of a health company.
[:Health insurance.
[:Should they have a a purpose beyond profit?
[:Again, I think I I think they now you gotta put me in a circle
[:here.
[:Again, I I I agree to an extent, but I think just bring balance to the damn equation first. Like, just just dive into the employee and the don't incentivize, like, from the board level, value customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction along with the profit returns. That alone is a step in the right direction. That'll make work not suck for how many thousands of people that work for the organization and the 49,000,000 people that are insured by that organization. Right.
I'll give you a perfect example. I just got back from a quarterly board meeting for a health care company in California. Now they're a provider, and they're in California. So there's all the regulations and the fees and the taxes. And and guess what?
[:At the time we're recording, you know, every all of Los Angeles is on fire right now. So that's not a good situation.
[:Right. So they have a very strong culture, and they have a very strong passion for the for the customer. They provide, hospice services, so the the patients are literally dying that they serve.
[:Yeah.
[:And they they do have a mission. Now they don't have a metric that they track. No. It's it's in the process. We're getting there.
[:Mhmm.
[:But when I walked in the door with them a year ago, they were already balanced in that three equations. So they're trying to push further, but they didn't know that they were balanced. There was kind of accidental. Over the course of the year, we got really intentional between the 3 prospects or the 3 categories, and they've made a lot of changes. The business is in a better direction, and they've gone through some technology swaps and restructuring of the company and all this and the other, but their people are happy.
need it to be. But last year,: [:Right.
[:The employees were very important in all these moves and shifts they had to do, and profits suffered. Now the company was still level of profitable, but coming into this year, the goal is to bring balance back in the equation. We have to raise the profits up, but it cannot be at the expense of the other 2.
[:Right.
[:So it can be done. There's not a there's not a intrinsic driver behind them yet, though they want 1, but it's bringing balance to that equation is the first and foremost.
[:I like that. I I I think I'm coming around. I'm I'm a big fan of corporate purpose, but you're right. You really do. Every organization has 3 column stakeholders.
Right? The customers, the employees, and the owners. And just like a 3 legged stool, you can't give all your love to one of those and neglect the other 2. I think you can even give all your attention to 2 and ignore the 3rd. I think you've got to take care of all 3 of them if you're going to be successful in the long run.
Right? Short periods of time, sure, you can cheat a couple of them. But in the long run, I think you've gotta take good care of all 3 of them or the stool's not gonna stand.
[:There's a company that you and I know of and work with where they prioritize the employee over the customer and the profits, and guess what? They're in a money crunch.
[:Yeah.
[:So it can go the other way. And and well, we worked with a company during COVID that was very much like that, and they were in a money crunch.
[:So Yeah. Yeah. You can overvalue employees, and that creates a different problem. You can overvalue customers and do whatever they ask and lose a ton of money because of it. So you you you've gotta balance all 3 of them.
Alright. So so, Ryan, if I could promote you to CEO of a health care insurance company, how would you try to find that balance?
[:Oh, I'm gonna this is this is gonna sound very simple.
[:Okay.
[:But the first thing I would do is I would just dig into the heart of what is causing the why why are we having to to deny claims? Where are the inefficiencies from an operational standpoint that's creating customer, you know, dissatisfaction. Actually, that'd be second. I would do that first. 1st and foremost is I'd I'd talk to the people.
What's going on? What's what's needing to happen? I would understand the pulse of the entire organization. I'd get down in the nitty gritties and then turn around and then figure out how to solve that other problem, and then it'll lead back around to profits on the backside.
[:I would lean into purpose. I would talk about how important our job is in the community. Like, in in society. Right? There are people that have catastrophic medical situations.
And my father-in-law, was just diagnosed with cancer. Health insurance helped pay for the treatment that he could not afford. And he is alive today because of health insurance. They don't get a lot of credit for that. Right?
They don't get Attaboys for the good things that they do. And so I think there's I think there's an opportunity for us to kind of reframe health insurance. Sure. It's easy when your claim gets denied to yell and scream and and curse. But I think that for the thousands, you know, tens of thousands of people that work in those kinds of companies, remembering that what they do is important
[:and that it I'm gonna disagree. I'm gonna disagree with
[:you.
[:You know why? Why? Because if you're if you work in a health insurance company
[:Mhmm.
[:You probably know what your product is supposed to do and how it's supposed to serve. Like, you don't need to be told what health insurance benefits are. You need to be listened to to how they can help do more. The it's it's the problem is is there is a vision problem. I'm not gonna deny that because the vision has talked about results.
And so I would definitely that would be on the radar of course correcting. But I think it's 1st and foremost, you have to understand the people. What is it, like, you in in that, you will find the wins, and in that, you'll find the disconnects. Like
[:Yeah. But I think you've gotta you've gotta tie them back to that bigger purpose. Because if they're just there for a paycheck, you they're not gonna help you
[:But you don't need to go on a big you don't need to be on a go on a big vision, you know, purpose tirade, and this is our mission statement and like, that's that's that's just fluffy more corporate BS. They know why they're That's all I do. I know. Me too. But that's my my my point behind that is if if I was to walk into an insurance company right now or ask anybody, what are you what are you trying to achieve with insurance?
They would be able to tell you. It's already there. It's in the product. Right. If you ask them, what are you actually doing?
That is where you'll find the disconnect and gap. And so I don't think it's a matter of getting people excited about a vision or a purpose. I think it's getting people excited about fixing the disconnect, which is a journey problem. So understanding the people, understanding the disconnects in the journey to get to the profits in a healthy manner. That's that's I don't make it sound that simple, but that's really it.
Yeah. Let's start with start with the culture to challenge the vision, to make the changes, to get to the results. And you know what will come out of that? The vision will become clear. People want to see the results of change, not the idea of change.
We already know we want change.
[:Right.
[:We need to see the results of change to make us believe if you build it, he will come, not if you talk about it.
[:Yeah. I think you I I like what you're saying of engaging the people in the conversation around how do we fix this. Because I think I've got to imagine that even the people I mean, when I worked in financial services, one of the things that I learned, and it and it broke my heart, is that it's very expensive to be poor. That people who have lots of money pay very little for financial products. People who have no money pay a lot for financial products because they're more risky.
Banks don't like to loan to people that don't have money because there's a chance they're not gonna get their money back. Whereas people who have tons of money can get money for almost free. And there's a part of that that doesn't feel right, but no one's gonna fix that by themselves. You've got to get a whole organization together if you're gonna really tackle these big complicated problems in society.
[:Agree. You know what what the Richard, Richard Branson quote, your people are your company's most valuable asset.
[:Mhmm.
[:If you don't take care of it and understand how to leverage it, you will never be successful, truly successful. You'll have waves of success. You'll have red compounding red lines. Right. At the end of the day, squeezing the people for profits is what got this gentleman killed, unfortunately.
[:Yeah. Yeah. It I don't know. I might I might edit that and say, I don't know if he was squeezing for profits, but the the perception was that he was squeezing the the company for profits, and somebody killed him for it.
[:Yeah. Like, I'm not trying to blame it on him. I think it's a situation that happened because it Right. Again, he he still answers to a board. So so I think there's a little of everybody's guilty in the the scenario.
[:Yeah. You
[:know, it's it's unfortunate that that the tragedy highlights the growing disconnect between corporations and in public view. It serves as a wake up call for for leaders to reevaluate their priorities.
[:Yeah. I think I think this is a systemic problem that it's it's not gonna fix overnight. Like, there there isn't a single thing of, oh, if you just go in and you do this, it'll all be better. I I think this is gonna be years of hard work from a lot of people working together to try to realign capitalism with humanity.
[:Yeah. Exactly. Well, making work not suck is not just an internal goal. It's about creating companies that employees and customers alike can believe in. This is bigger than just that.
And and, again, this unfortunate tragedy is highlighting the need for this more than ever. And now is the time for us to actually make change before something like this happens again.
[:Yeah. Because I'm worried that this is gonna become more more common as work sucks more and more. People work harder, get paid less, and have less available income to meet their needs and take care of their family. There there's gonna be a lot of anger. I read a quote several years ago, and it was I can't remember if it was at Davos or it was one of these places where a lot of really, really rich people get together and talk about problems.
Right? Like, they have problems. I'm sure they do. And the guy said, this level of income inequality between the haves and the have nots, historically, has only been solved by war or revolution. And he said, I don't think we want either of those, so we need to figure out how to make this system work better.
And I I think that whether or not he's historically accurate, I don't know. But I liked the thinking of, look, this is a systemic problem. This is not easy to solve, but we've got a lot of smart people here and a lot of resources. How do we find a way to, yes, make money, but also make the world a better place and take good care of our customers and our employees along the way?
[:Yeah. I may be I'm a fan of revolution, but I'm not a fan of revolution through destruction. To me, that is a red line. I believe in revolution through unification. If you get everybody on the same page and understanding what's trying to happen, the revolution is self, not peer versus peer or employee versus manager.
It's the company, the people beating themselves to be the better version and doing it together. And the revolution is is not, again, it's not against each other, but it's against the old version of, you know, that entity, if you will.
[:Yeah. It's not the worker versus the manager or the employee versus the executive. It's all of us against the version of ourselves that we were yesterday, and and today we wanna be better than that.
[:Yep. Hopefully, in light of the dark situation here in the end, we don't condone what the individual did. This was a tragic tragic event. You shouldn't be praised for murdering somebody. On the other hand, it has brought to light a very serious problem that needs to be addressed.
And I think if if we can if we can find ways in our individual lives to help improve, help make work not suck, then maybe we can prevent a tragedy like this from happening in the future. So I'd invite, you know, feedback and stories from the audience. You know, how can corporate accountability or systematic failures, have affected you in the past? You know, is there something that can be done or a reflection that can be done to, you know, drive meaningful change in your workplace? You know, is there something that you can do from the the balance of the of the employee and the customer standpoint?
You know, you are a company's greatest asset, so how can you contribute to being the solution as opposed to being part of the problem?
[:Yeah. I'd especially love to hear stories of companies tackling systemic problems. Right? These these big, nasty, complex problems that plague an entire industry. I'd love to hear about somebody trying to tackle one of those and what that journey's been like.
That'd be really interesting.
[:Make work not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that. Our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck.
Hosted by Ryan Hodges, co host Daniel Steer. Join us each episode and make work not suck.
