In this episode, Jeff Bartsch, Founding Communications Strategist at Story Greenlight, discusses how hospital financial staff can gain greater influence in the workplace.
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Learn how to listen to The Hospital Finance Podcast® on your mobile device.Highlights of this episode include:
- How Jeff went from creating content in Hollywood to coaching in the accounting world.
- How you start narrowing communication down for your client.
- Leadership and what that means.
- Best practices in finance to get buy in from leadership on needed changes.
Kelly Wisness: Hi, this is Kelly Wisness. Welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome Jeff Bartsch. Jeff is the founding communications strategist at Story Greenlight and has been recognized as a top 30 thought leader in the accounting advisory world. With over 20 years of professional background in the entertainment industry and client coaching, Jeff has helped shape content for clients including ABC, NBC, Disney, Apple, Netflix, and many others. Jeff’s commentary has been featured in publications including Accounting Today, The Associated Press, and USA Today. Through Story Greenlight, Jeff empowers accounting advisors to attract and keep their ideal advisory clients so they can expand their business and their impact in the world. He believes that the power of story is within reach of everyone, and that human connection is everything. In this episode, we’re discussing how hospital financial staff can gain greater influence in the workplace. Welcome, and thank you for joining us, Jeff.
Jeff Bartsch: Hey, Kelly. Good to be here. Looking forward to our conversation today.
Kelly: Yes, me too. Well, let’s go ahead and jump in. So how did you go from creating content in Hollywood to coaching in the accounting world? It’s a very interesting transition.
Jeff: Well, you wouldn’t be the first person to ask that. And it’s a legitimate question. I think that the biggest thing to start with is the idea of– when people say the idea of, what is communication and why does it matter? The place that I want to start with is that is that when we communicate powerfully, we build influence. And when we build influence, that means that we’re much closer to achieving our goals. And this applies within the hospital world, within the healthcare world, whether we’re working on an individual reimbursement or we’re responsible for an entire revenue cycle for a whole healthcare system. So, this is a really big deal. And I’ve literally been learning about this and how to help people discover this for themselves my whole life. I won’t go into all the details of how I started out as a kid. I mean, I was known as Jeff, the piano guy, for most of my life growing up. It turned it up. It turned into me going to film school. And I spent 20 years learning how to take regular TV in Hollywood and elevate it to something extraordinary where people actually have– they react to it. They feel things, taking the ordinary elements and taking it to the extraordinary.
Kelly: Wow, yeah.
Jeff: And there was a time when I was building my career, I was attending an industry mixer. And one of the guys who was talking on this mixer was a gentleman who was working at Warner Bros. Studios as a re-recording mixer. His job was to sit in his own private movie studio all day, supervising a crew, running hundreds of channels of sound and mixing it all together into the soundtrack of the movie. And he sat at this mixing console that’s literally stretched from one side of the room to the other. And it’s incredibly intimidating to look at it. And to say that this guy had a lot of moving parts to what he was doing would be the understatement of the year. And so one of the people in the audience asked this guy, he said, “There is so much to know about what you do. How do you keep it all straight?” And I’ll never forget his response. He said, “The bigger and more complex the tools that you work with, the more important it is that you learn them like the back of your hands so you can make them disappear. And when you do that–” his point, he went on to say that, “When you do that, you take the technical things of whatever you’re doing, you make them disappear so you can focus on what really matters.” In his case, it was creating the experience of the movie. And that really is the core of what I’ve been doing within my professional background and what I’ve been doing with my coaching clients initially within that creative context of Hollywood, but then expanding into business and later into the financial and accounting world to say, “Hey, here’s how we take regular communication. Here’s how we elevate it to something extraordinary. So, we build influence, and we get to the places where we want to go.”
Kelly: Wow, that is an impressive story. And I’m sure you have tons of great stories like that too. So, communication is a huge subject. You kind of talked about this a little bit. How do you start narrowing that down for your clients?
Jeff: Well, it’s really kind of a tricky thing. It can seem like a tricky thing because it’s one of those things that people do all the time. Everyone communicates all the time. And so it’s really easy to think that because we do it all the time, it means we’re really good at it. And the fact of the matter is, we’re not. This is why we don’t build influence. This is why we don’t get what we want. Just because someone’s been driving a car for 20 years doesn’t mean you’re an incredible driver kind of a thing. Raising my hand on that one. But in terms of communication, the question becomes, it’s so wide-ranging and it’s so familiar. How do you start wrapping your head around it? And the number one way that I do that with my clients is to start introducing some frameworks. And the number one framework that I always work with is the idea of what a story is. And sometimes people raise their eyebrows at this, and they say, “Well, so we’re talking about communication, and you instantly go to stories. And why do we have to care about that?” And here’s why. Because when you talk about the word story, this is one of the other things that people think, “Oh, I know what that is. It’s talking about what happened over the weekend. It’s talking over the water cooler.” That’s what I refer to as a tactical story. But when you actually understand what a story is from the big picture point, from a strategic standpoint, this is where you start uncovering some ideas that make sense of every communication between any human being for any reason ever. And if it seems like I’m kind of exaggerating, I promise you I’m not.
So, here’s how it works. The strategic definition of a story that I always talk with my clients is based on some of the early writings of Donald Miller and expanded by myself. It goes like this. A story is where a character wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences transformation as a result. When you start thinking about what those elements are, a story is a character who wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences transformation as a result. You start realizing that you have the core, what I call narrative elements that drive everything for anyone ever. You have identity, you have desire, you have obstacles, you have conflict, you have the change that people want to see happen. And you have people like us coming alongside to help them get what they want. And so, it’s this big picture idea with understanding what a story is. When we understand what that is, it means it shapes every single communication that we do, whether we tell a tactical story or not. So, there are lots of– there are lots of different frameworks that we can talk about. I talk about the idea of what a story definition is. We talk about thought leadership. We talk about persuasion. We talk about influence. There are lots of different places you can go.
Kelly: Yeah, I know for me in marketing, storytelling is such a huge part of what we do. So, I can really appreciate what you’re saying and kind of pertaining it to my own job, which is very different than most of our audience. But I think like you’re talking about, I think it can impact everybody.
Jeff: Well, and the thing is, you’re well aware, you can write a powerful marketing message without ever telling a tactical, traditional story. And I think the bigger point to all this is, when people hear the word story, they think, “Oh, well, I have to tell some kind of fairy tale or some big epic long hero’s journey thing.” It doesn’t have to be that. But man, when we understand that big picture of what communication is, it’s equally powerful in marketing, it’s powerful in one-to-one communication. It can be one-to-many, however you choose to engage in it.
Kelly: Right. Completely agree. So, let’s go back to, you mentioned thought leadership. And so, I’m guessing that a lot of people don’t really understand what that means. They think it’s a huge book deal or you’re showing up on TV or some other really big thing, right? But I mean, I know that’s not really what it’s about, but can you explain more about that to us? What is thought leadership?
Jeff: Yeah. The interesting thing about thought leadership is when people hear that phrase, the first thing that comes to mind is someone standing on a keynote stage or having a great book deal or something like that. And they think, “Oh, well, how on earth does that apply to my world?” That’s not what I’m doing. That’s not what I want. And most times, for most people, that is true. That is absolutely legitimate. Now, the thing that most people may not realize is that thought leadership, which if you actually look up what thought leadership is online, you’re not going to get any one definition because people can’t agree what it is. What I like to help my clients consider is the idea that it’s not one exalted state where you’re talking to millions of people necessarily. That can be part of it if you want to and if you want to get there. But it’s more of a continuum. It can go all the way down to one person interacting with one person, helping you see the world in a different way. And when you do that, when you communicate in a way that helps someone else see something in a different way, you are leading the thinking of that person. And my argument is, if we’re involved in leading the thinking of even one person, we’re engaged in thought leadership. So, it’s something that is, it’s incredibly powerful. It can be one-on-one. It can be one to a group. It can be one to many. Whatever happens to apply to your scenario.
Kelly: Yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it and I never really thought about it in those terms. But I do know what you said earlier about there not being one definition. I’m well aware of that, being in marketing myself. But thank you. That was just a very interesting take on thought leadership. So, let’s talk about finance team members. That’s mainly our audience here. We’re so often faced with new sets of laws and regulations and really anything seemingly some new challenge that requires changes to processes, or maybe even we have to change the vendor that’s being used. So, what are some best practices that they can use to get buy-in from other leaders so they can make some changes?
Jeff: Well, I mean, that can go any number of different directions. I’m not going to sit here and say that there’s one specific answer for that. However, another framework that I found incredibly helpful is something called the ABT framework. It’s an incredibly powerful focusing tool when it comes to communication. It’s a three-letter acronym that stands for And, But, Therefore. And the idea behind this, I mean, we could have an entire conversation just on this. I can gig up–
Kelly: You’re right.
Jeff: -all over the place.
Kelly: Yes.
Jeff: But when you have the idea of and, but, therefore, it’s the idea of structuring any communication that you do, starting from a place of agreement. This is the way things are, or this is who we are, and this is what’s happening. If we get what we want, it’s going to be amazing. And we all agree that this is going to be incredible. You start in a place of agreement. You use the word and. The challenge is, the problem is, but we can’t get to that amazing future place that we all agree that we want because this challenge is standing in the way. This roadblock is in our way. And if we don’t fix it, here’s what’s going to happen. And it could be bad. Because of that, therefore, that’s why I propose we do this, or we explore this new direction. That’s the basic function of this framework called ABT. First came up with a guy by the name of Randy Olson, who spent his background working in science and academia and working in Hollywood and putting those two worlds together. He wrote a book called The Narrative Gym, like Gymnasium Gym. So, if you want to learn more about the ABT, check out The Narrative Gym by Randy Olson.
When we’re applying these ideas to the healthcare world, the finance world, and we have change that’s happening, the number one thing we can do by structuring is to structure our communication in a place where we say, “Hey, what do we all actually want? And what do we agree is the problem?” Because how many times do we go into a conversation and you’re saying, “Well, this is the problem here, and so that’s why we need to do that, and blah, blah, blah, blah.” And the other person on the other side of the conversation says, “I don’t agree. I don’t agree that that’s a problem at all. So, I don’t care about your solution, next.” And that becomes very frustrating very quickly. So, when you come to a place where you start with, here’s what we agree that we want, and here’s what we agree is the problem, then it’s a whole lot easier to get to a place of, “Okay, what do we do? How do we go forward?” So, we can all get what we want.
Kelly: Yeah, I love that. I’m going to use that. The And, But, Therefore. I think that’s a great strategy we can all use in our, not just our professional lives, but our personal lives as well.
Jeff: I mean, let me tell you, we can use it writing an email. We can use it writing a subject line of an email. Well, maybe not a subject line, but…
Kelly: I get where you’re going with that, yes.
Jeff: You can use anything you want.
Kelly: Agree. Yeah, I’m definitely going to use that. I’m going to look up that book too. And I’m going to link to it in the transcript here. So just for everyone here, if they want to see it and buy it. So, let’s kind of switch gears just for a second. Obviously, we’re all under a lot of stress these days, and burnout is a huge topic right now, especially in healthcare. So, do you have any guidance for us, for the leaders listening here today? How can they help with this in their workplace?
Jeff: Yeah. When you think about burnout, a lot of the time, that stems from a place of there’s being too much asked of people, or people are just doing– and they feel overloaded. Or sometimes burnout happens when people are doing what they’re doing, and they don’t see a reason for it. They don’t see any purpose, any bigger purpose behind it. And in both of these cases, as leaders, we have the opportunity to use communication, even just starting with that strategic story definition that we’ve already been talking about, to say, “Okay, who are we talking to? What are they wanting? What are they not getting?” So, if we as leaders are engaging with our people and they’re not getting what they want, they’re overworked, if we don’t know why they’re overworked, or if we don’t know why they’re burned out, it’s our job as leaders to start asking questions, genuine questions to say, “Okay. Well, what might be the reasons that this is happening?” And it might be a reason that we have no idea at the time. But when we start asking those questions in light of finding who is our audience, we know who our audience is. We need to find out what they want so we as leaders can help them get what they want. Then as soon as we find that, well, if there are staffing issues, if there’s a staffing shortage, well, at least we know their perspective. At least we know that that’s the way that they see the issue. And then we start putting our heads to work. Is it a process issue that could be changed? Is it someone isn’t pulling their weight? Or is it someone doesn’t know how to pull their weight? Or it can go any number of different ways.
Kelly: True.
Jeff: I don’t pretend to be a clinical psychologist or the director of human resources. But it all starts to overlap very quickly. But when you have these ideas of, as leaders, we are responsible for our direct reports and our teams and the people underneath us. One of the ways that we can be a great leader is to say, how can we help our people get what they want? And so, it goes back to finding out what do they want and what’s keeping them from getting it.
Kelly: It goes back to that key communication subject that we talked about earlier, right? That’s what it all kind of circles back to. Yeah, well, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your insights on how hospital financial staff can gain greater influence in the workplace. We really appreciate all of this great information.
Jeff: It’s a pleasure to be here. Well, just saying, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, as you say, it is so wide-ranging. And sometimes it is really challenging to try to wrap your head around it if it’s so big picture that you say, “Okay, how can we actually drill down and get some specific steps, some actionable ideas behind it?”
Kelly: Right, because it can be very overwhelming.
Jeff: Yeah.
Kelly: So, I really appreciate the actionable items that you actually left with us today because that’s, I think, really key, some takeaways. So, I’m sure you have lots of great information to share with people. So, if someone wants to get in touch with you to learn more about this topic, how best can someone do that?
Jeff: Sure. Well, I mean, if you’re wanting to– if you’ve been hearing these ideas and you say, “Okay, this is cool, I’d like to learn some more, I’d like to see how some of these ideas fit together in a more cohesive way.” There’s the number one place where you can do that is go to storygreenlight.com/hospitalfinance. That’s a specific page specifically with resources for listeners of this podcast. When you go there, you’ll find a select group of podcast episodes that lay down all these ideas on top of each other so it all makes sense. So, you can wrap your head around it that way. And if you are in a place where you say, “This is cool, but I really would love to experience this personalized to my own scenario.” Then if that’s you as a gift for you as a listener of this podcast, I’d like to offer you an hour-long complimentary coaching session to take these ideas and to plug them into your world and see how you can get moving forward and gaining more influence in your world. So, to do that, just go to that URL, storygreenlight.com/hospitalfinance. Love to continue the conversation there.
Kelly: Wow, thank you for that, Jeff. We really appreciate that specialized online destination and the consultation there. Thank you.
Jeff: Of course. My pleasure.
Kelly: And thank you all for joining us for this episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. Until next time…
[music] This concludes today’s episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. For show notes and additional resources to help you protect and enhance revenue at your hospital, visit besler.com/podcasts. The Hospital Finance Podcast is a production of BESLER | SMART ABOUT REVENUE, TENACIOUS ABOUT RESULTS.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to discuss on the Hospital Finance podcast or if you’d like to be a guest, drop us a line at update@besler.com.
