You Are a Unicorn: How Authenticity at the C-Suite Table Becomes Your Greatest Leadership Advantage (Part 3 of 5)

Brenda Battle (00:00)
the truth is in order for health equity to actually be executed effectively, you have to be innovative.

Innovation says, let's look at the circumstances surrounding the issues that we're trying to address and change. Let's look at the externalities and let's look at the history of what's happened within these populations and their outcomes. And let's create interventions that are appropriate for

that population at this time, given the circumstances that surround. That's innovation.

you get that when you're sitting at that C-suite table, because then you're at the, in the place where you're hearing all, all, all of the creation of the, the, the, the levers that impact folks' lives. Now you do see some of that at the director level, you do see some of that at executive director and up, but that C-suite level.

That's where those powerful decisions get made. And that's where you have to have some folks at that table who's got to change that and be willing to do it. And I read this book by George Myers years ago that says, it afraid. And I read that book. was like, look, I don't care. I might be afraid to do things, but I'm going to do it afraid. I'm still going to do it because these things have to change because these things are impacting people's lives and they're harming them.

Ralph Owens (02:11)
Hmm.

Brenda Battle (02:21)
And those, and that's what, so that's, I say the main, the biggest revelation for me at the C-suite table was just how this collective, like lack of consciousness at that table creates systems that impact people's lives, whether they're employers or people in, know, in the communities or consumers or whomever.

Terry Baylor (02:37)
Hmm

Brenda Battle (02:51)
that that lack of consciousness and not having the presence of people there who have that consciousness keeps perpetuating those systems that harm people. And that's what I had to interrupt.

Ralph Owens (02:56)
Hmm. Hmm.

so proud. ⁓

Terry Baylor (03:06)
And

that's going in with the, but that's still going in with the intent of doing good. Right? Wow.

Brenda Battle (03:14)
100%, 100%, one, the intent of doing good and with good people. With good people who just don't have a consciousness and it has to be raised.

Terry Baylor (03:19)
Right.

Ralph Owens (03:24)
Right, right. Ooh, I love something you said. You said to garner the willingness to change. That's a whole episode in itself. my goodness. You know, cause when you identify something that needs to be changed, how do you approach your colleagues? How do you get their buy-in? Right. How do you help them to understand why this is the right thing? Can you, yeah.

Brenda Battle (03:30)
Yes. ⁓

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, I love data, so

I use data because data don't lie. ⁓ So, know, especially if you're in academic settings, they're all about data. So let me show you the data. You cannot argue with me about what the data says. You know, listen, what happened with COVID was this revelation through data of what folks like me been saying for decades. This healthcare

Ralph Owens (03:49)
Please talk about it.

Terry Baylor (03:52)
Hey, we time.

Brenda Battle (04:14)
and the systems around it and the systems adjacent to it have created an environment where people are marginalized. They don't have access to care. They don't have information they need to make the proper decisions. And because of that, black folks and brown folks died at higher levels with COVID than anybody else. And it became like, my God, it's true. my God, what is happening?

Ralph Owens (04:42)
Hmm.

Brenda Battle (04:42)
And

people started realizing this and started the willingness to change systems. So yeah, this is, I use data. Look, data, I love data. I had a bunch of epidemiologists that worked for me before I came to UChicago. The division that I ran had no epidemiologists working for, that's your data folks, right? Who tell you data trends and how things correlate. ⁓ I had seven epidemiologists on my team.

Ralph Owens (04:49)
Hmm.

Terry Baylor (04:50)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Owens (05:10)
Wow. Wow.

Terry Baylor (05:12)
So

that leads me to this next question. How did innovation and health equity intersect?

Brenda Battle (05:19)
Well, the truth is in order for health equity to actually be executed effectively, you have to be innovative. So and what innovation will do, it will prevent you from a cookie cutter kind of developing cookie cutter interventions where every intervention has to look just alike. And for every population,

that intervention will work for that population. Innovation says, let's look at the circumstances surrounding the issues that we're trying to address and change. Let's look at the externalities and let's look at the history of what's happened within these populations and their outcomes. And let's create interventions that are appropriate for

that population at this time, given the circumstances that surround. That's innovation. What we did, when I came to UChicago, and this is so true of all academic health systems, they, you know, look, they're a bunch of scientists and researchers there, a bunch of doctors. They think they're smarter than everybody else. And so they make the decisions about people's lives and say, this is what you need. I kabashed all of that when I came to UChicago. I said, we're going to go to the community. We're going to give them some information.

share, just share information with them, but we're going to let them co-design with us the interventions that is the most effective interventions for addressing these issues that these communities are experiencing and have been experiencing. We got the best outcomes as result of that innovation in not creating top-down the interventions that would impact people's lives, but hearing from them, understanding that a community is wrought with assets.

that institutions don't leverage because they think that their assets are the only assets that work for making the changes that are necessary in communities. So we would bring the assets of the community together and leveraging with them with the assets of the university and we would co-create interventions and those interventions had the impact that we were looking for. That was innovation. You cannot deliver health equity without innovation.

Terry Baylor (07:40)
So how would you take that principle, that's heavy, how would you take that principle and translate that ideology to someone in finance or someone in transportation, right? Because one of the things that Raph and I talk about is a truth is transferable to any domain, right? So how does that transfer?

Ralph Owens (07:40)
Woof!

Brenda Battle (07:58)
100%.

So first of all, I don't care what industry you are, this is transferable to any industry. It always starts with the data. So whether you're transfer, it doesn't matter what industry, what does the data look like and who are you trying to serve through this data and what are you actually achieving? If you start there, then you can take this same practice. I don't care if you're trying to make

Ralph Owens (08:20)
Mm-hmm.

Brenda Battle (08:27)
shoes for population. really doesn't matter. Like, what is your data say about what the people who you want to make the shoes for are buying? And then why are they buying it? And what need is it fulfilling? And then how do you make what they need? I don't care what industry, these are transferable practices, regardless of the industry, if you want to create innovation and create equity.

Ralph Owens (08:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Brenda Battle (08:55)
across populations that are being served. I don't care if it's Coca-Cola, that's why Coca-Cola tastes different in Tanzania than it does in New York. Because they use data to inform that based upon the populations that they're serving, transferable. I don't care what industry.

Terry Baylor (09:02)
you

Mmm.

Ralph Owens (09:15)
us.

Terry Baylor (09:16)
Ralph, I know you guys. So I'm going say this one thing. I got to give it to Ralph, right? This is a Ralph quote. What you don't measure, you can't manage. That's a Ralph-ism.

Brenda Battle (09:24)
100 %

Ralph Owens (09:25)
you

Brenda Battle (09:25)
what you don't measure that is the key what you don't measure you cannot

Ralph Owens (09:33)
Mm-mm-mm-mm. Just, wow, just so many things. my goodness. Yeah, yeah, because I'm in financial services. So being able to connect with our community, those who we are trying to serve, understanding via the data, you know, the decisions that they're making, because they're telling us either indirectly or directly, right? Directly by surveys or indirectly by their actions, right? Exactly what it is that they're interested in. And then, I love that. That is...

Brenda Battle (09:48)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Use

it!

Ralph Owens (10:03)
That's fantastic.

That is fantastic. It's fantastic. I, I, I, I'm kind of going a little bit back, but it's still relative. I just, so one of the people that I like to follow is Carla Harris. And she talks a lot about bringing your entire self to the table. Right. And I hear that in your story that your ability to bring your entire self, right. You know, the medical expert, the spiritual person, right. You know, this person, that person.

Brenda Battle (10:19)
Yeah.

Yes.

Ralph Owens (10:30)
is what makes you unique in itself. And kind of going back to the the complex of thinking that should I even belong here, you know, being able to bring all of those unique perspectives to the table makes you so unique that it becomes your advantage. Would you agree with that?

Brenda Battle (10:49)
100%. That, you know, I was talking to a young lady who I'm just entering into a mentoring relationship yesterday. She's a lot younger than me. I think she's in her late thirties, maybe early forties. And we were talking about that. And I said, you know, I often heard from other people in my work environment that you're not like some of the other of your colleagues because they have kind of this

air of sea sweetness, you know, about them. and that's okay. That's how you feel like you need to be. But for me, I have to be authentic wherever I am. For me, you have to feel like you can come and talk to me. I have to feel like you have to know that when I see you walking down the hall, I'm going to say hi to you. And I'm going to know something about your family because I'm a person first.

Terry Baylor (11:22)
You

Ralph Owens (11:41)
Mm.

Mm.

Brenda Battle (11:47)
who wants to be in relationship with other people. And together, we're gonna collectively solve some big important problems. But that's gonna stem out a relationship with people. So for me, my whole authentic self is who has to be in that room and at that table. And that did make me a unicorn. Yes, yes.

Ralph Owens (12:08)
Mm, mm, mm, mm, that's so good. That is gonna help so many people. That is gonna help so many people. Because you

Terry Baylor (12:12)
It is.

Ralph Owens (12:14)
have to know, you have to be comfortable in your own skin.

Brenda Battle (12:16)
You have to be comfortable in your own skin and whatever makes you so. Look, as people of faith, we should realize that we can operate in the authority given to us by God. Given God gives us authority, then we should not fear being authentic in those environments, because if God put you there, you're to be there as long as he wants you there.

period. Knowing that gave me permission to be authentic because I have to operate in the authority that God has given me. And that authority requires that I bring myself into this place because that self is the reason I'm there in the first place. I was sent by God to do a job to help people. Period.

Ralph Owens (12:47)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Brenda Battle (13:15)
That's what's in front of my head and y'all deal with it. That's what's gonna be at the table.

Terry Baylor (13:24)
I love that. I love that. So, so Brenda, I'd like to bridge that to, Ralph, I appreciate you bringing that point up. I want to bridge that to a point that Scott made in the book around those four tenets. And I want to, you know, just, you can kind of tree top it if you like, but it talks about our health, spiritual, mental, and relational. How, how do, how do you balance that? And then what advice would you give? Because from, from what I recall in that book,

Ralph Owens (13:24)
So good, so good.

Brenda Battle (13:46)
Yeah.

Terry Baylor (13:54)
in reading it is that if you can have those four pillars of your life, ⁓ you know, in some kind of balance, then it will allow you to show up as this complete being that God has created you to be, because we have to address all of those elements.

Brenda Battle (13:59)
Yes.

Yes.

100%.

And you have to have clarity about that. Like, you have to be real clear on those aspects of your life, period. So, you know, we were talking earlier on, we first started the conversation about making some decisions, you know, like you go into these environments and the path is already set for you. So you have to make some decisions yourself, but you have to feel empowered to make those decisions. So about 25 years ago, you know,

Terry Baylor (14:32)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Brenda Battle (14:39)
being in the rat race, working really hard, I decided that I was going to stop working after work on Friday, shut down, shut off my phone and all day Saturday to take care of myself. That I was going, was shutting down Friday night and Saturday and I pick back up on Sunday evening to prepare for Sunday, but don't call me on Friday night. Don't call me on Saturday. I have to take this time off for my own mental, physical, spiritual health. Leave me alone.

I made that decision 25 years ago. I had friends that say, I don't know how you can do that. You know, my God, how can you do that? Because I decided to do it. And I'm not afraid to do that. And I did that. And I did that through the rest of my career. Last year, my very last year, I wish I had known this before, one of my colleagues is going on vacation. You know how we are, we take calls on vacation and all of this. I used to go out of the country on my vacation intentionally to make it harder for people to reach me.

Terry Baylor (15:30)
Hmm?

Brenda Battle (15:37)
But what she told me she did is she said she would give them her partner's telephone number. If you need me, call my partner. And then my partner will tell me that you need me. And nobody ever called her. She'd been doing that. I wish I had known that before. So in my last year, that's what I did. When I was on vacation, calling my husband. If you ⁓ really truly need me,

Terry Baylor (15:45)
Mmm.

Mmm. Mmm. That's a great tip. That's a great tip.

Ralph Owens (15:51)
That's awesome. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Terry Baylor (16:01)
I'm

Ralph Owens (16:01)
Mm.

Brenda Battle (16:03)
call my husband and then he will have his phone, cause I'm not gonna have mine. He will tell me that you need me. Nobody would ever call. That work, you have to balance those aspects of your humanness to be able to be a better contributor and a higher performer in work. You have to do that. These are decisions. And I think what people...

Terry Baylor (16:07)
Yes.

Ralph Owens (16:07)
Mm-hmm.

wow.

Terry Baylor (16:11)
Great

tip.

Ralph Owens (16:23)
Wow, wow, that's so good.

Terry Baylor (16:24)
Mmm.

Brenda Battle (16:30)
What happens with people is they get afraid that, God, I can't make decisions. I honestly believe nothing happens when you make decisions like that. But if like, like, like nothing happens. I mean, you help other people to realize I can do it for one. If something does happen and you are believer in God, then that's still God's will. You have to take care of yourself. Too many people are sick and slumping and stressed and

Ralph Owens (16:38)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brenda Battle (16:58)
dying because of work, because they don't make decisions to take care of themselves when in fact those decisions will help you be a better performer on the job. Imagine as a health person how high your cortisol level goes when you continue to work in a stress environment. Cortisol, high rates of cortisol is what causes people to have diabetes and heart disease and all these things that result in illness that makes you a poorer performer. What I used to tell employers

Ralph Owens (17:00)
Mmm.

Brenda Battle (17:28)
who I would solicit to get involved in this health equity effort is that if you wanna have a strong, healthy workforce, then I need your contributions to how we make that happen in these systems. What are you doing to ensure your workforce is healthy? If not, they're gonna be.

Ralph Owens (17:52)
Good.

Brenda Battle (17:55)
dealing with all this other stuff. So this whole balanced life and this balanced work for it, a lot of this stuff stems out of this, trying to create more balance for people, but people have to decide to be