Doug Parks, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you on this is a long time coming, we made it happen. I appreciate you making it happen. I know you've got a lot on your plate between your corporate position Not to mention your position at home as a father.
Yeah, things are interesting time for us right now. You think about what's happening in the professional world, right with our pandemic of COVID-19. And you think about that you think about some of the social unrest that we are dealing with as a country as a company, as a community. And then you layer on top of that we at least here in my role, we're embarking on a strategic affiliation. And so in my role as a people leader, you're often you can deal with one of those, you might even be able to deal with two of those, but oh, my gosh, dealing with all three, and then you go home, and I've got a got a two year old who let me take that back, we are working from home, he doesn't know the meaning of office hours. So try dealing with those three things in a two year old toddler at the same time. So you said an affiliation, do you mind expanding on that our company is embarking on a strategic affiliation with our partner, our healthcare partner, just here to the east, or excuse me, to the west of us. So we are partnering in an effort to gain more synergies to deliver value back to our members. And so I am looking forward to embarking on this work to drive synergies as we integrate our businesses where we can and deliver value back to the membership. Interesting, and then how does that affect what you do? And I guess if you don't mind, let's rewind a second. And if you could give an overview of kind of who you are, and what your role is. Sure. So again, currently serving as the Chief Human Resources Officer of a large BlueCross BlueShield Association, health plan here in western New York. And I've been here, what three years now, we are just recently announced a strategic affiliation with our brethren, like I said, To the west, and we're gonna merge our businesses where we can to drive value for our membership. Ultimately, it's about again, delivering quality, affordability and access to care to healthcare services as a payer. And so in some respects, that requires an ability for us to scale and flex the business in a way to deliver against those three tenants. And so this is an effort for us to do that and achieve those outcomes. Sounds like you're gonna have a lot on your plate, my friend.
People are the people piece of this is critical, right? Until there are opportunities for us to partner become a larger business across a broader array of businesses. And for people you think about me and my role, there are people implications associated with that. And so how do we do that in a way that still values, our associates, and creates opportunities for them to achieve their full potential. And that's what this is, has also have to be about?
It's a lot of things to think about.
Yeah, think about that. And then you layer on top of that, Adam, you've got the pandemic and the social unrest, which are also people centric issues that have thrust HR to the where we voices are much stronger, and HR having to flex a bit more as you deal with those type of issues that are in our marketplace.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I guess this is a good time to like sink or swim, right?
Yeah, exactly. And what better way to do it, get thrown into the deep end. And let's just say good thing. I know how to swim.
Okay, so let's give everybody a little better understand about you as a person. Yeah, I've got a little section that I like to call rapid fire, right, throw a couple questions at you. When you're ready to go, and I'm gonna, I'm going to throw them at you. All right, let's do it. All right, introvert extrovert? Or do you find yourself toggling in the middle? Something that they call either a centerburg or an ambivert?
An ambivert? I think that would be accurate. Are there times where and again, in our role, some of it is role driven. Some of that is inherent in who I am. And so I would say professionally, much more extroverted. And I think you have to be in my job, right? Yeah. It's hard to be an introverted being a people leader. But however, I like to do things that are maybe introverted, so reading, I enjoy reading a podcast or two and so those were things that may be the marks of someone who who was a bit more introvert. So I think I flex across the two
interesting and I don't know if this question is appropriate for now but because with a two year old, but are you an early bird or a night owl,
I used to be a night owl. Unfortunately, circumstances or fortunately, I have become an early riser. So I my days can begin 530 ish, six o'clock, and they really don't in Adam. I think you've got to couple of little ones yourself. And so I'm sure you can appreciate that.
Yeah, I can over appreciate that. Have you got any habits good, bad or indifferent that you did be kind enough to share with us habits?
Let's see, I tell you I have a habit of depends I so I stretch every morning. Right? So that's a habit, a good husband. That's a good habit. 1015 minutes, and my two year old watches me and he joins me doing it in his own way. So I get a good laugh out of that. So that would be one habit that I match for people, not a lot of people know about me.
Is there something that other people don't know about you that you'd care to share? You're opening yourself up down to the world?
Oh, my gosh, we're going to do that. Let's see here. So I am one of nine.
No way.
I am one of nine. And number eight. And so boy, I don't know how my mom did it. But yeah, we big family is made for some challenges, obviously, in this time, where we're all restricted from traveling the life but if I miss my family a bit, but yeah, one of nine. You imagine what that was like at the Thanksgiving time.
Got more people just everyday that I had like at my Thanksgiving? Exactly. It was a lot of fun. One of one of my best friends is one of 11. What were some of the best things to come if my gosh, having eight brothers and sisters teaches you how to be scrappy.
That's for sure. Yeah, you have to be scrappy. So we want to have nine here. And we grew up in a humble beginnings. You know what, two, three bedroom apartment there on the south side of Chicago. So some humble beginnings. But it teaches you how to be scrappy, how to be flexible, and nimble. And I take some of those traits to me to the job.
Those are some of the best things that you could have, especially now I mean, having to be agile, and changes, I can't even begin to sometimes what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Exactly. I mean, and then how do you pass on some of these things that you've learned having to be scrappy? How do you ask most staff? Or how do you teach that? Wow, that's
a great question. So boy, flexible, it just requires adapting to the situation. It's not easy. But if you stay constant on what you're trying to accomplish, stay with a constant thought on that. Keeping your eye and your thoughts there. And letting that then dictate your actions and what's required. And just freeing yourself up from any sort of preconceived notions about how you're going to get there and whether or not you're going to be successful or not. And just doing it, it's not easy. But the world we live in today, just a mandate, don't you think?
It's a must? It's an absolute must, you've got to do it, evolve or die, you just have to. So now, let's transition back over when you clearly have a lot on your plate. I'd love to know if there's as leaving the function of HR during these kinds of times. What's the over arching role of what you're doing right now?
That's interesting. So the role today is really I would say it centers on first and foremost, how do we, how are we willing to respond to these these two recent events, at least. And it teaches us some life lessons on why we need to be flexible and to be nimble, to be scrappy. You think about it, if we have now worked through this pandemic, everyone is working from home, in our business as an insure. This was thought not to be our culture. But it's amazing how the pandemic and an event can create a new and energy and desire and a willingness to take risk. And so the pandemic has forced us into a new way of thinking, a collective thought that yes, we can be scrappy, and nimble. And we can do this, we will get through this. And until you think about literally that second week of March, we transition from having roughly 95% of our workforce working in the office to now 95% working from home. And we haven't lost a beat. And so it reminds me of when I first came here and going through our sort of initial phases, you're trying to get to know the company and the culture. And, well, Doug, we can't do that we can't deliver training that way. We can't deliver development that way. It just can't be done. And lo and behold, not only are we capable of doing it, we are excelling at it. And in fact, now that our associates have had an opportunity to work from home, many of them don't want to come back Okay, this feels good to me, this change feels good to me. It works. So you get into this whole notion of work life integration, this is it in its essence. And so what we've learned, and what the pandemic, and the sort of external events that will force you out of your comfort zone, and into a way of being it forces you to adapt, and to think and so now, if we can take this experience, and apply it to almost any change, how might we view that change? Or any resistance that we're having differently? How do you create these sort of events that are, where you're forced to act in a different way? How can you create them as a part of a normal course of business?
Interesting? Did you have any kind of experience with change prior to this? That's your, your phone thrown into the fire?
But it's your three? Yes, that's right. Yeah. So I mean, I've, I've studied at Northwestern, the whole concept, process of change. There are many organizations that will engineer events that will then force the organization to act to change behaviors and mindsets. But it's amazing what a pandemic will do until you work, you're often you hear the term a lot, never waste a good pandemic, right, or disaster. This is the essence of it. And it is really spurred people to a different way of thinking and what we are capable of reminds me of my mentors from a while ago, just saying to me, Doug, you're capable of more than you think you are. And I'll never forget him saying that to me. And so that's what this is forced organizations, our organization into that we're capable of more than we thought. And this is just one example of it.
Let me ask you this, when all said and done, because this will be this will be a blip on the radar, at some point, who knows when, but will you do anything to memorialize or document what you went through? And will you create a playbook for the next time? Yeah,
that's a great question. So we've I know, I've posed that question to the leadership team. How do we take this and use it to create a way in which we should approach many of our change initiatives, you're often hear of organizations that will create scenario, this sort of scenario based sort of planning? That would suggest or ask ourselves a question, what would happen? If we were we were approached by an activist investor? How would we behave differently? How would we approach the decisions that we are confronted with today? If you are in a pandemic? How would we approach our business differently? And that's the kind of thing you've got to sometimes have to level set our leaders with, to engineer the sort of scenarios to create an environment where people can let go of the old ways of doing things and think differently about the possibilities about the upside? Yeah,
so you've done this before, or you're saying this is something that you will be doing.
This is something that I think a lot of companies do when you think about an event where maybe as a publicly traded company, what if we were an activist investor, wanted a piece of our business? How would we behave differently? How would we approach operating expenses differently? How would we approach innovation differently? How would we approach change initiatives differently? In a pandemic? How would we deliver a differentiated people agenda differently? How would we do that differently in the context of these different sort of scenarios? And so this is what we, we do here as a leadership team we're constantly grappling with, and what if a competitor, when our business, you've got many think about healthcare business. It's a big part of our GDP or gross domestic product. And there are opportunities to streamline to deliver again, quality access and affordable care, and to do it in a way that's different. And so you constantly have to ask yourselves, we ask ourselves, how can we do it differently? It's not easy, because again, there are there are many that are wedded to the old ways of doing things. But it takes asking ourselves those kinds of questions. Sometimes Adam, it just takes a pandemic, to force people out of their comfort zone and do it differently. But I think we're going to take a lot of lessons learned from this. And constantly How do you build this sort of thinking and scenario planning and make it part of your business?
Wow. A lot goes into that. Reminds me of a quote, failing to prepare is preparing for failure.
Yeah, I like it. I think I'm gonna use that one.
I'm sure I'm glad to have that part of your repertoire because that's you guys are clearly prepared, which is it sounds like you've thought through this a lot more than most organizations do. And it sounds like it's something that you're pretty active with.
Oh, yeah, I think you have to be, particularly in this day and age, where, again, in our business, there are many threats, direct and indirect. To our business, when you think about it being what a third of our GDP, there's a lot of spin on a yearly basis tied into healthcare, a lot of conversation in at the state level, at the federal level around what can we do to again, deliver health care in a way that's quality, access and affordability. Out of those three things, there are opportunities inherent in them. And it's our responsibility to find them and deliver that back that value back to our members.
Yeah. When your role, I'm assuming you've got to make a lot of tough decisions.
Sure. Sure, you're constantly facing, particularly when you're when you think about people in talent, and in my job, it's really to deliver along those three dimensions of quality, access and affordability. How do we deliver differentiation? Along those three dimensions that's enabled by people? How do our people need to show up in a way that's differentiated from our competitors?
What are your thoughts on the chro? Being a risk manager?
Boy, you better be, I think, the way I look at risk, it's interesting. So you think about risk, there's an upside component in risks. And then there's a downside. I think that in most cases, my experience has taught me that most people will do more to protect the downside, than to capture the upside.
There's a theory on that I forgot the name of it. But
yes, yeah. Right. And so anything you think about now, and I'll take it to HR, as I'd like to say, but think about this for a moment. I mean, you if you think about again, just this whole concept of risk, what do we need to do to capture the upside? And it differs, a different way of thinking, when you think about healthcare, and insurance are my business, where it often when you think about insurance, inherent some of that mindset is protect, right to insure against the tragedy that may occur, the bad thing that may occur, right? And so it's hard when you think, culturally, to think about and flip that and think, okay, here's the upside. How would we make a different decision around our talent around our people, that is not so much about protecting our downside, but how is it going to help us capture more margin? If we make this kind of talent decision? Or how's it going to help us capture more market share, if we make this kind of talent decision? And so it takes constantly asking that kind of question of ourselves this way, in this sense, it's tying it to our business outcomes, which we all want to grow in our business, we want to grow membership,
I was gonna ask you, when you start thinking about things like that, how important is brand for organization? And what is your role as HR, what's your involvement, when building and maintaining that brand,
the brand is delivered through through your people. There's a theory that says we don't own our reputation or brand, but we don't own it, but we have to deliver against it. And so when you think about our business, that the brand, the reputation is owned by the experience that we create for our members. And so all it takes is one bad example, right? You could go through 80 years of delivering value for members. And it takes one bad decision, or one sort of experience that a member could have. And with technology today, it spreads globally in an instant. And so when you think about our business, and the fact that if we don't own our brand or reputation, but we have to deliver against it, and it takes people to deliver that and so, in my job, we have to constantly be looking at it through that lens as a risk manager of are we hiring the right talent? Is this the type of talent that will show up in a way that's differentiated, that will deliver against our desire to deliver again, a differentiated member experience. variants that helps us become their service provider of choice. Until when you think about it through that way and constantly, you're asking yourself those questions. Is this the right leader to deliver against that? I think it forces people to make different decisions. But I have to do in my role is constantly challenge our leaders to ask ourselves and to look at it through that lens. And I think it's, it's part of what we have to do as people leaders, how
do they like being challenged?
You'd have any good leader with his or her salt, right? No one wants to be necessarily challenged. But in my job, I, as I tell them, I don't get paid to do your job. Right. So if you're working with a business leader, and he or she has to deliver membership growth, or they have to deliver the legal function, or they have to deliver the finance function, right, they have to deliver girl smarter to I don't get paid to deliver those things. But I do get paid to have a point of view on the outcomes of those things. And those things are delivered through people. And so in that sense, let's partner to get this done.
It's a good approach. Can you walk me through? You and I were speaking, I forget if it was last week, the week before, he talked about a three phased approach to meeting the needs of high growth companies. Can you walk me through those?
You remember that conference? Yeah. So yeah, we were I think we were talking about Yeah, HR, HR transformation. And so in my job, yeah, I didn't grow up in HR. And so I grew up on what I like to call the front end of the business. So I'm more on the sales side. And that sort of marked the first act of my career. And the second act of my career was more on the spent in the OD and strategy world. So in consulting, and so and then this third act has been spent and people in so my experiences have taught me when you approach an HR, HR transformation, it's this three phase approach that as I have entered into this role in prior HR roles, your approach in HR transformation news marked by three phases, as I like to any good consultant will give you a framework. So my framework looks something like this first phase being that discover phase. And, and so that's delivered through sort of foundation, building around your current assessment of the current state, right, typical sort of people process technology, sort of things, assessments, but it would also include things around an assessment of policies and programs and developing an understanding of the business. What's it trying to get done? And asking ourselves, how's that enable by people, and then the big part of that first phase that I've learned is about mitigating risk, some of the risk inherent in our policies. And so I recall, when I first got here thinking, guys, we haven't transformed and evolved the HR function since the flip phone. And our goal has to be to become a smartphone, how are we going to do and we're going to go on this journey of three phases. So that first phase, I kind of call the discovery phase. And then the second phase I call the shape phase. So this is where you begin to shape the function to really meet the needs of the business. And so that's achievable through talent, and it's accelerated through technology. So this is where you got to start to look at your talent within your HR team, your HR leadership team, really optimize your some of your programs and your policies, and then you kind of look at technology. And to not look at it would be just simply a huge mistake in any HR function today. And so you start to think about the brand and the value proposition. And how do you what are the things you need to do to deliver differentiated value? Okay, and so that's where you start to shape the function in your people agenda. And then you move to the scale phase. And the scale phase is really achievable through analytics, and being digital. And so this is about scaling. Again, the functional programs, policies, etc. Such that we're able to build it in business agility, and the ability to flex the function in a way to deal with things like a pandemic, to support the business right to build in some this notion of resiliency and the like, and that takes people analytics, it takes a level of being digital within the HR function, particularly now in this work from home environment. And so a level of digital expertise, and then evolving the how you deliver a differentiated people experience. Where do we flex the HR muscle that we've built as you've mature the function and the program And the policies. And now this is where you start to flex, you flex your muscle in the areas where you've exercised. And so inherent in a lot of these, and I'm giving you the cliff notes version of this. There's a lot of detail beneath this sort of approach. And I'd like to say currently, am I in my current role, we're still in the shape phase, We're now entering into the scale phase. And it feels good that you sort of lay out this journey to be a differentiated function. And and so it feels good to know that you were on our mark. Aren't we're on our mark.
Excellent. Congratulations on that. So in terms of your mark, is there a rule of thumb on how long these phases take? I'm sure it's going to vary per organization, per field, all those kinds of things. But is this something that typically transforms? I don't know, six months, one year, multiple years?
I tell you, you're dealing with some of the business leaders for you, how do you accelerate Doug, can you just get us to here, now, and sometimes you just can't. So there's no clearly defined sort of mark that says you're going to this is going to take this amount of time or that amount of time. So you just lay off the things that you have to do, some organizations are in a different place. Some of it is we haven't barriers, cultural things that you have to deal with. And so when you think about our culture, we're risk averse culture. And so when you're asking some of our leaders to make different kinds of decisions around their talent, we're a long tenured workforce, right? With long tenured associates that have been with us for a long time. And so there's some of that's good lends itself to, to good business outcomes, there are times where it can become a barrier. And we need to do things and think about our talent in a way that's different, because what got us here, won't get us there. And sometimes it just takes a different kind of decision. And so we flex the model, this sort of model, depending upon the level of change that the organization is can accept. And sometimes we're out of guys, I like to say to my boss, sometimes I'm noting in this direction, and that'll get us there. And then sometimes I say, you know what, we're going to push here. So you move from a nudge to a push. And then if the push doesn't work, then you break glass and you say, Okay, now I think it's time for us to move on. But you give people an opportunity to step into the change that we're asking them to take on. And you do that through the sort of nudging and pushing a bit out a week, you're creating an environment where people can be motivated and delivering to their best. And sometimes if you feel like you've done that, and they're still not doing and you've you've got to move on. Yeah.
Well, a lot of takeaways, Doug, I want to thank you for making today happened. I feel especially guilty right now after hearing about all the things that are on your plate. This was time well spent from my perspective.
I love it. I love it. I love it. It's what else could we do on a late Friday afternoon,
right? That's true. Maybe do it again. That's what we let's do it. Awesome. Doug, thank you very much for coming on the show and I hope you make it a great day. You do the same