Episode 145 - Open Heart Surgery and Leadership

[00:00:06] Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. Each week, through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer, and a professional speaker. [00:00:26] And now, here's Dr. Patrick Jenks. [00:00:30] Oh, boy, here we go. [00:00:32] Welcome to the Leadership Window, everyone. [00:00:34] Yep, this is me. This is the, this is what you get. This is episode 145 of the Leadership Window. And I'm gonna get right to it because you can hear my voice. [00:00:46] You can hear that I almost don't have one. [00:00:49] That's kind of what this episode is about. [00:00:53] Not completely about the voice, but the circumstances surrounding the loss of my voice and all that goes with it. So we've been off the air for a little over a month. And that's because a little over a month ago, I was having some episodes where I had this pain coming across the top of my chest, more like the collarbone, and into my shoulders. And I thought at the time that it was, you know, I kind of blew it off as my, my right shoulder has a torn rotator cuff. And I thought, well, maybe I'm just, maybe this is just transferred pain. But it would happen, you know, like if I would exert myself, I'd feel this pain, I'd have to sit down for about 10 minutes and it would go away. [00:01:47] Well, one night a little over a month and a half ago, I had this episode and it just got so bad that I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I thought, this, this is, there's no way. This is shoulder pain. [00:02:04] So I tell my wife, hey, you have to take me to er. So we drive to ER and I describe the situation and the symptoms. And they said, you know, this sounds like classic angina, or some people say angina, where the, there's not enough oxygen or blood flow or something. It's not quite a heart attack, but, but it is a precursor of a heart attack. And so they said, let's, let's just do a heart cath right now. And they admitted me and they did a heart cath. And they found three blockages, somewhere between 75% on one of them and 90% on the third one. And they said, yeah, we're going to need, you're going to want to fix this sooner than later. And stents is not really an option. A lot of times they'll go in and they'll, they'll go in and they'll put stents in, and, you know, that's a lot less invasive. But because of where these blockages were and because two of the blockages were in one artery, they said, we really. You really need a bypass. [00:03:16] So double bypass surgery, I think, four days later. [00:03:20] So I want to. What I want to do right now is share with you some things I've been thinking about and reflecting on about myself and certainly about leadership. This is a podcast about leadership, so I got to use that lens. [00:03:38] But just some lessons learned and some things that I'm reflecting on as I've gone through this process, I will tell you. [00:03:47] So, by the way, the voice is. Is what it is, because during the surgery, a lot of times, if you are intubated, you've got the breathing tube down your throat during the surgery, that can irritate the vocal cords. Well, that's not really what happened here. What happened here is my vocal. The nerve. My vocal nerve was damaged during the surgery. This is down in your chest. Your vocal nerve goes down into your chest, and then it loops back into your. Into your throat and up to your vocal cords. [00:04:21] So the nerve was damaged during the surgery. Could have been anything. Could have been nicked. It could have been torn. It could have just been irritated. [00:04:31] You know, they don't really know. They just know it looks like the nerve was damaged. And this is through a series of evaluations they do. And basically what's happening is the left vocal cord, you've got two right. That run on either side of your voice box. The left vocal cord is paralyzed because of the nerve damage. [00:04:51] So while I'm talking, the right side is doing its thing. It's vibrating up and down and going left and right and doing what it's supposed to do, and the left one's just sitting there not doing anything. [00:05:01] So hence my voice. Now, believe it or not, after a month and a half, this is actually significant improvement. I actually have a little bit of a voice. What I have to do, though, is I have to lower my volume, get really close to the microphone. I have to lower my volume, and I have to lower my register or my pitch. [00:05:27] So if I sound like I'm trying to sound lower and more bassy, I am. And that's because if I talk up here in my normal voice, it cracks and goes all over the place. [00:05:38] So in order to get some clarity, I have to kind of bring it down. So you have to. You either you have a choice. You can bear with me through this episode, or you can say, I can't listen to this and you can turn it off. You can wait for, I don't know, somewhere down the road when I get improvement, there's supposed to be improvement. They say that this can take 3 to 12 months for the vocal nerve to do what they call wake up. And, and they expect a full recovery, but they don't know how long it will take. [00:06:14] There is a vocal cord injection that they can give you that gives you restoration of your voice for two to three months while your vocal nerve heals. It's kind of like Botox for the vocal cord. It puffs it up a little bit so that it, it closes that gap and touches the other cord and kind of does what it's supposed to do. And they say instantly you walk out that day and you've got your voice back. [00:06:45] Well, that's great. I thought, oh, that's, I'll just do that. And if I, if I need to do a couple of them while I wait for the vocal nerve to heal, then that's fine. Well, it turns out these things are only done at certain ENT clinics and they are scheduled months out. [00:07:05] So sometime in mid January, I have an appointment to get this vocal injection. And the last ENT I saw said he likely will be recovered enough where you won't need the injection in January, but let's go ahead and schedule it. [00:07:21] So there you go. I don't know how many podcasts or video episodes I'll do between now and January with this kind of voice, but I wanted to do this today for a couple of reasons. One, I don't want to be off the air for two months. Podcasts have ratings and rankings that are based on frequency and these kinds of things. So I need to put something out there. The second is I've had a number of people encourage me to do this. I mean, I feel completely up for it, by the way. [00:07:52] I just don't have a voice. It doesn't hurt, my throat doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt to talk. Even though it sounds like it must be incredibly painful. It's not at all because it's a nerve issue. It's not a vocal cord issue. [00:08:03] But I had a number of people encourage me to do this and one really good friend of mine, Dr. Tony Hodges, who's a world class, just elite renowned thoracic surgeon from a few years ago, he said, he told me that vulnerability is sexy. So he said, I'm just do the podcast. I want to hear it. So, Tony, this is for you, if it's not for anybody else. [00:08:29] The other reason I wanted to do it is because I wanted to share some thoughts with you while they're fresh on my mind, and I just kind of wanted to. [00:08:41] I don't want to. I don't mean to make this episode. Hey, this is about me and my heart surgery and my difficulties and my voice. That's the context and the backdrop. But I really want this to be a space where some of my reflections about what's happening might inspire. You do want to make some leadership parallels with these things. [00:09:05] So today's episode is just me thinking out loud with you about what this experience is teaching me. And since everyone says, hey, you should do it, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be vulnerable, and I'm gonna do it. By the way, there's a leadership lesson right there. [00:09:21] You know, I'm a. I'm a leadership coach. I coach executives and senior leaders to step out of their comfort zones to do things that they might not feel completely confident and comfortable or even something that they feel sort of puts them out there, puts them on the line, exposes potential weaknesses, etc. And so I want to practice what I preach and be able to put myself out there and push and stretch and do things even when the circumstances aren't perfect and my. My assets and capabilities aren't at their absolute best. [00:10:05] The question is, are they still valuable? [00:10:08] Can they still contribute value? [00:10:12] We've all seen athletes, right, Push through the pain. [00:10:16] We've seen athletes push through broken bones and the flu and all kinds of things and actually perform at pretty high levels because of that level of commitment. [00:10:26] So let me start by sharing with you. [00:10:31] Even now, I'm noticing that my inflections. I can't emphasize certain words and phrases like I normally would with voice pitch changes. I have to stay in the same register. [00:10:44] But I will tell you, it's. It's been a mixture of emotions for me over the last month and a half. I know I'm not the first person to go through bypass surgery, but it's the first time I've ever been through it. So I will tell you, it's a big deal. Here's one of the first things I'm learning, and I knew this, but you. It really magnifies when you experience this, and that is. [00:11:09] I've known a lot of people. There are people listening to this episode right now who have been through this. You've been through bypass. I know people have been through, you know, quintuple bypass or whatever. [00:11:24] You. You. [00:11:26] Very quickly, when you go through it, you realize, oh, wow. Everybody that I know that's gone through this, I now have so much more respect, empathy, whatever you want to call it, you really feel it more for the other person. [00:11:43] And you realize, wow, they, they went through a lot. And some people have handled it so incredibly well that you think might. They made it look easy. I mean, they made it look like it was absolutely nothing. I will tell you, it's not nothing to have and recover from open heart surgery, it is not nothing. I promise you I will, I will always remember the night before the surgery. So they, we did the heart cat. They sent me home and they said, you know, you might as well go home for two or three days. Got, got the surgery scheduled for October 14th. Come back on that morning, five o' clock in the morning, we'll do it. [00:12:23] So the night before, I'm at home, lying in the bed, I'm getting ready, I'm doing all the surgical procedures they tell you to do. And I will tell you when, you know you're having double bypass surgery at 5 in the morning, boy, you start thinking about a lot of things, you know, because you start thinking about the risks and what if something happens and I don't make it through the surgery or something goes wrong. And man, you just start thinking about everything. Do I have my house in order? [00:12:55] What are my kids going to do? What's my wife going to do? What about. I mean, you just think about everything. [00:13:01] And I'll come back to that in a little bit. But I will say this secondly is that this recovery, I expected it to be difficult. [00:13:11] It is far worse than I was expecting. Now, that's not for everybody, but it just so happens that I have had the perfect storm of complications and side issues. Some of them related directly to the surgery and the issue, some of them, like a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder that's still there, that are. That's just contributing to the difficulty of recovery. So it's been really tough. [00:13:41] I make my living with my voice. [00:13:44] And when you lose your voice and you're going, well, this is my business, this is my livelihood. This, like, what am I going to do here? [00:13:54] So all the emotions, fear, a little bit of anger that I can't believe this is happening to me, a lot of frustration throughout the recovery process with just coughs and infections and reactions to the statin they put me on. And I could go on. [00:14:14] I don't want to get clinical here, but it's been like a dozen different difficulties that have made this recovery harder than it would have been if it had just been in the regular, the routine recovery, rope and heart surgery. So, yes, things are getting better. I feel totally up to doing a podcast right now. So, you know, I'm back to doing some coaching calls and some sessions and things like that. But you go through a lot of different emotions. In fact, there have been moments where my, you know, my emotions have flirted a little bit with depression. I wouldn't say I'm depressed, but, boy, you get through. [00:14:55] You, you. [00:14:56] I mean, I'm getting. [00:14:59] Until very recently, into the last couple of nights, for a month, I just basically went without sleep. So you have to lay on your back. I can't sleep on my back. I've tried to sleep in a recliner and all these things. So I'm getting like two, three hours of sleep at night. [00:15:15] And that doesn't help. That just makes you more tired, more exhausted, slows the recovery process, all of that. [00:15:22] I'm just saying all this to say it's been, it's been a more challenging recovery than it would have been if these side issues and things hadn't happened. So one of the things I realized, though, as a leadership coach is that I find myself navigating emotions that I coach other people through, not, not because they've been through a heart surgery, but anger and frustration and exhaustion and even depression, burnout, fear, lack of self confidence, lots of worrying. I deal with that a lot with the executives and the leaders that I coach. [00:16:01] And so, you know, I have to back up and say, Patrick, what would you ask right now if, if you were coaching someone that was experiencing these emotions? [00:16:14] So it's been very helpful for me in that manner. And again, I'll, I'll come back to that. Let me, let me go into a few them that have risen to the top for me. Number one, you get a very different perspective on the fragility and the value and the appreciation for life. [00:16:38] I mean, you, you have your own fragility put right in front of you when you go through something like this. And it helps you rearrange your priorities instantly. [00:16:48] I mean, it's amazing how you just instantly start thinking about bigger things, more important things than the stuff you normally gripe about and complain about. [00:17:00] And suddenly different things matter, and suddenly the things that normally matter don't matter at all. [00:17:12] You just, you just come to grips with that. [00:17:15] There's a leadership parallel on this because leaders get trapped in, in daily execution, and we often ignore the biggest things, the biggest, most important things, until crisis forces those things to the forefront. [00:17:36] Just like what's happened with me with my heart surgery, instantly, without choice, I'm forced to face what's really important, what really matters. As leaders, we don't want to be in that situation where we're forced to think about the big things, because during the daily grind, we are in denial about them. We think they'll never happen to us. [00:18:07] We put them off. We think that one day we'll be able to get to it. And so we find ourselves, for example, I'll just get granular here, scrambling for resource development innovation. [00:18:21] Only when a major funder pulls out and you lose a big grain, you're like, oh, my gosh, we have got to get super creative right now. It's like when Covid took place, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, what do we do? [00:18:33] Or the federal government cuts funding to nonprofit contract grants. You're like, oh, my gosh, we've got to get creative now. Why do we wait until those moments to get creative and strategic and. And serious about the need to develop resources that are diverse and sustainable and innovative? [00:18:59] Why do we do that? Why do we wait until a talent crisis erupts before we start thinking, man, we really need to fix our HR systems? [00:19:09] You know, right now, I was, for example, that was what the doctors say, a ticking time bomb, right? These episodes of angina that were happening to me were. I was lucky to have something I could listen to to. To. [00:19:26] To prevent in time, to catch in time. What could have been a massive heart attack could have killed me instantly. [00:19:35] Well, what are the angina signs and symptoms in our business that we just go, ah, it's just a little. We don't need to, like, upset the apple cart for this. [00:19:47] And yet there are some big systems in our organizations that really need addressing. [00:19:53] One day we're going to address them because they're going to force us to. Or we think about board governance, development, training, engagement only after some board member goes rogue, or we have a board chair that's just really bad, or we just have a bad board experience. And then we realize it's because our board is not trained. [00:20:20] They're probably the wrong people. We haven't developed them. We don't have policies in place that would have prevented such things from happening. [00:20:28] So here's my challenge to everyone listening right now. Ask yourself this. [00:20:34] In your organization, you can ask this about your life, too. By the way, what are the top five things you should be focusing on as a leader, but you aren't? [00:20:46] And don't say, well, I Don't know. I think I'm pretty much focusing on them. [00:20:50] There are things you should be focusing on that you're not. I can guarantee it. [00:20:56] You. Again, you can take this personally. What are the. What are the life things I'm not focusing on that I should be. [00:21:05] But as a leader, ask the question from an organizational standpoint in our organization and in my leadership and with my responsibility, what are the top five things I should be focusing on, but I'm not? [00:21:22] And I want to encourage you to write them down. Don't just listen to this and go, that's an interesting thought. [00:21:30] Write them down. Get out a piece of paper, do it. Just. What are the five things you can come up with? 5. Guarantee. Guarantee it now. Carve out intentional time for those things before crisis forces their hand again. You know, stuff you wish you did. [00:21:54] And again, I'm. I'm lucky to still be around and have had successful bypass surgery. And I'm looking at my life going, man, I can do some things now. [00:22:03] I can do some things differently. I'm being given that chance one day. I won't be given that chance. [00:22:11] So there you go. The second theme that I'd like to hit on that I've been thinking a lot about is, of course, self care. [00:22:20] You know, everyone's been telling me, boy, it's so good you listened to your body and you went to the er. Well, yeah, I mean, I couldn't ignore that last episode. I really thought I was having a heart attack. So, yeah, yeah, I listened. I went to er. I could have just weathered it, you know, by the way, the. The pain, the discomfort I was feeling. In about 10 minutes on the ride to the hospital, it dissipated completely. [00:22:52] I could have easily said, okay, turn the car around, I'm fine now. It was nothing. [00:22:57] But it didn't. I'm glad I didn't do that. So don't ignore those signs. [00:23:03] I'm glad I listened to my body. I forced myself to the E. Are that decision very likely. [00:23:10] Almost certainly saved my life. [00:23:14] And there's a lot of leaders and just humans that don't do this. [00:23:18] We don't listen to ourselves physically, emotionally, or. Or in this case, organizationally. [00:23:26] So let's ask this question. What systems in your organization are whispering to you or maybe even shouting at you for attention every day? They're just. They're. They're. They're yelling. You feel it? Ah, this is annoying. There was an annoying pain for me in my shoulders and neck, but it was, you know, every once in a while and it would pass. So I would think, okay, maybe I won't have to deal with this again. [00:23:53] What are those things that we're ignoring, but we're hearing them. We just were in denial. [00:24:00] Because acknowledging that there's a problem feels like weakness, it feels like failure, it feels like loss of control. [00:24:10] And so we, we just deny them. And not even. [00:24:14] Not because we're. We're wussies, but just because that's the way our minds work. It's just, it's natural for us to, to, to want to put that off and want to believe in our hearts that it's not as big a deal as we think it is. [00:24:31] And here's the question for you. What happens to the organization if you keep ignoring these warning signs that you see? [00:24:43] They seem small, but they keep coming up their patterns? [00:24:47] What happens to the organization if you keep ignoring them? [00:24:52] Then they force your hand. [00:24:55] Here's another question you can ask. [00:24:58] Where do you need help, but you haven't asked. [00:25:03] That's a big one. Where do you need help but you haven't asked. [00:25:09] And what's the cost of maintaining the illusion that everything is fine? [00:25:17] I'll leave you with those questions. Let me go to the next theme. [00:25:21] I've been doing some. Some deep study on vertical adult development. [00:25:28] Go back to. [00:25:30] Let me find it episode in our. In our podcast. If you go Back to episode 137, Bill Pullen and Dr. Amon Gohal were my guests. [00:25:43] They are experts in this vertical development field. And that whole episode was about what it is. [00:25:48] I'm gonna make it short here and not be able to explain it all. But basically, in short, our horizontal development is usually what we think about, and that's our skills and our competencies. [00:26:02] And as we go through our careers and our leadership progressions, we learn new things, we get better at things, we master things, our competencies build and increase. [00:26:14] But what we don't pay as much attention to is our vertical development, which is less about our competencies and capabilities and more about our capacity and our mindset and our view of the world, or what we call action logics, why we are the way we are, why we respond to certain things the way that we do. And it's all about our vertical development. [00:26:46] So if you go back and you listen, or you can just Google it, what are the seven stages of vertical development? You'll find them. [00:26:54] But. But I'm realizing through this trauma that I've been through, some of the questions that I'm asking are changing. [00:27:05] Let me see if I can Explain this briefly. I ask a lot of questions on this show. I make my living asking questions. That's what a coach does. But I also find that I ask myself certain questions, what we call action inquiry. [00:27:22] And immediately I found myself asking questions that, that someone profiling at the achiever stage vertical development would ask, which by the way, I relate to. [00:27:38] So questions like, okay, how do I get better from here? [00:27:42] Or how do I get, how can I speed up and expedite this appointment to get this vocal injection and get my voice back? Or what's the plan? When do I start cardiac rehab? What's my three month health goal? [00:27:55] Right? All those things, those are good questions, but they're shallow questions. [00:28:03] They're in the now current technical questions, questions that can be answered and you have this sense of fulfillment. I answered it. I found the solution to that question. [00:28:17] What I'm finding is this experience is pulling me toward higher vertical development stages, like the redefining stage or the transforming stage. Because I'm asking questions now like, what is this experience teaching me? [00:28:37] Isn't that a very different question than what's my three month health goal to get back on track? [00:28:43] What is this experience teaching me? What blind spots are being exposed and illuminated for me? [00:28:52] What new mindsets and behaviors am I willing and needing to embrace? [00:29:01] What meaning am I crafting from this experience? [00:29:08] Aren't those very different questions? [00:29:11] So your worldview sort sort of changes and, and here's, you know, here's the, you know, here's the parallel. [00:29:20] When you're facing a crisis or a disruption, what kinds of questions are you asking? [00:29:28] Are you asking the fix it questions? Are you in fix it mode? Technical solutions, the achiever stage, right? How do we get through this crisis? Where can we find some more money? [00:29:41] How do I, how do I, how do I get through this board crisis? Or what do I do with this toxic employee? [00:29:52] But ask yourself the deeper questions. [00:29:54] Questions like, what is this crisis revealing about the culture in this organization and my leadership? What needs to change in me as a leader? [00:30:08] What beliefs might be outdated? [00:30:12] What, what, you know, conventions, patterns and systems might be no longer relevant in our organization? One of the questions I find myself asking leaders a lot when they bring me a technical question like, you know, why, why don't Bill, Susie and John turn in their reports on time? [00:30:33] Well, we can work on Bill, Susie and John and figure out all the ideas and make them turn in their reports. [00:30:40] My question for them though is what needs to change in your system that is allowing such deficiencies to happen? [00:30:51] It's a very different question. [00:30:53] It's that depth of question we're trying to get leaders to so notice which sets of questions you're asking when you're up against a crisis. Are you only asking the short term, I need to fix this right now, questions or you pausing to ask the deeper questions? [00:31:12] Let me move to the next theme, which is the value and the importance of gratitude. [00:31:21] Gratitude and nurturing of relationships and the things that actually matter the most. [00:31:31] I, I don't have to tell many of you, you've been through your own situations that cause you to back up and really think about your family, your spouse, your kids. I've got a six year old grandson that we just, I mean, he's our world, right? [00:31:47] Well, situations like the one that I'm in or I've been through recently, boy, they really make you stop and go, man, am I spending, Am I, am I investing in those relationships? [00:32:01] Am I, am I taking advantage of those relationships in a good way? My, am I really strengthening them and nurturing them? By the way, the professional relationships too. [00:32:16] How am I nurturing those? [00:32:18] We take these for granted. [00:32:21] So, you know, ask yourself questions like who needs and deserves more of my time, more of my bandwidth, more of my energy? Who is it? Write down five names, five people that should be getting more of you than they're getting. [00:32:39] Oh, man, I bet, I bet you have a hard time stopping at five. [00:32:44] I think you could do five. [00:32:46] What are five family members? What are five friends? [00:32:52] What are five employees of five stakeholders who deserve and need more of my bandwidth? [00:33:05] Man, that's a, Just as I'm asking that question, it's hitting me. [00:33:10] Who needs, who should I be picking up the phone and calling this week? Who should I send a card to? [00:33:18] Who should I have lunch with? [00:33:20] Again, I don't, I don't just mean to make this light like, oh, I need to go take a donor to lunch. Talking about your bandwidth, your energy. [00:33:28] A long time ago I did an episode on this around who do you give your bandwidth to? Who gets your energy? What gets your energy? [00:33:39] Don't, don't wait until your life flashes before your eyes before you ask this question. What relationships support your leadership and which ones are draining your leadership because you're investing your bandwidth in them? [00:33:58] Here's, here's, you know, there's a, there's a few other questions I could ask. I'm going to wrap this up. [00:34:05] Think about something structured. You know, I like frameworks. That's why I say, you know, write down five people or write down Five things you need to be doing. [00:34:13] What are the things right now? [00:34:15] Do you need to slow down, pause, or just let go? [00:34:21] What are those things? I bet you can come up with five. The things you need to stop doing. [00:34:29] What are five things you need to start doing? You know you do. [00:34:33] New behaviors, new priorities, new conversations that need to start or be rekindled. [00:34:43] What are you seeing about yourself or your organization that you couldn't or wouldn't see before? [00:34:57] I'm just going to ask you to reflect on this episode. You know, how's it hitting you? [00:35:02] Maybe write down two or three things that, that, that hit you on this. [00:35:07] What's one big insider piece takeaway for you? [00:35:13] If you feel like it, shoot me an email and give me, give me some of those. I'd love to know what about this episode might have inspired you or triggered you to think about a little differently. Shoot me an email, Patrick, attheleaders perspective.com or just if you're watching on the YouTube page, give us write a comment. If you want to share it with everybody, I'd love to hear it. [00:35:42] I want to close by thanking you for your, your patience again. We've been off the air for over a month now and we got to get back on it. Thank you for your support. [00:35:53] Boy, that the number of cards and letters and phone calls I've gotten is just so humbling. [00:35:59] It really is. It's so. [00:36:02] It's just so humbling. I can't think of another word. I'm so grateful for all the support, all the relationships. I do have everyone listening right now. You mean something to me, just the fact that you're listening to this, giving it time, giving it your bandwidth. [00:36:18] So I just want to again let you know my recovery is ongoing. It is moving forward. I couldn't have done this podcast a week ago, I will tell you that. So we're getting there. [00:36:28] We'll return to normal programming just as soon as we can and we'll get some guests back on and we'll make it work. But again, thank you for your patience. Take care of yourself, pay attention to what matters, and don't wait for crisis to become the leader you want to be. [00:36:49] Think about the greatest leadership, presence and value you can bring before the crisis occurs. [00:36:58] You know, the thought occurred to me that many of the iconic leaders throughout history were made iconic because of some crisis that they led through. [00:37:11] What if we could skip that? What if we could think ahead, prioritize on the things that really matter, focus on those things to be the leader we want to be. See you next time. Lean on Sam.