Latest / Something Extra / From Horses to High Tech w/ Jessie Minton

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From Horses to High Tech w/ Jessie Minton · Something Extra

• 0:02
  Lisa Nichols: Chromosomes.
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  Lisa Nichols: Little strands of nucleic acids and proteins are the fundamental genetic instructions
• 0:08
  Lisa Nichols: that tell us who we are at birth.
• 0:10
  Lisa Nichols: Most people are born with forty six chromosomes, but each year in the United
• 0:14
  Lisa Nichols: States, about six thousand people are born with an extra chromosome, making them a
• 0:18
  Lisa Nichols: person with Down syndrome.
• 0:20
  Lisa Nichols: If you've ever encountered someone with Down syndrome, you know that they are some
• 0:24
  Lisa Nichols: of the kindest, most joyful people you will ever meet.
• 0:27
  Lisa Nichols: They truly have something extra.
• 0:30
  Lisa Nichols: My name is Lisa Nichols, and for thirty years, I have been both the
• 0:34
  Lisa Nichols: CEO of Technology Partners and the mother to Ali.
• 0:38
  Lisa Nichols: Ali has something extra in every sense of the word.
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  Lisa Nichols: I have been blessed to be by her side as she impacts everyone she
• 0:45
  Lisa Nichols: meets.
• 0:46
  Lisa Nichols: Through these two important roles as CEO and mother to Ally, I have
• 0:50
  Lisa Nichols: witnessed countless life lessons that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the
• 0:54
  Lisa Nichols: world.
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  Lisa Nichols: While you may not have an extra chromosome, every leader has something extra that
• 0:59
  Lisa Nichols: defines who you are.
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  Lisa Nichols: Join me as I explore the something extra in leaders from all walks of
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  Lisa Nichols: life and discover how that difference in each of them has made a difference
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  Lisa Nichols: in their companies, their families, their communities, and in themselves.
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  Lisa Nichols: Jesse is the vice chancellor for technology and chief information
• 1:26
  Lisa Nichols: officer at Washington University.
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  Lisa Nichols: Well, Jesse, welcome to the Something Extra podcast.
• 1:31
  Lisa Nichols: I am so happy that we are finally able to make this work.
• 1:35
  Lisa Nichols: We've been trying for a few months now.
• 1:38
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 1:38
  Jessie Minton: We have.
• 1:38
  Jessie Minton: It's absolute pleasure to be here.
• 1:40
  Jessie Minton: Thank you so much.
• 1:42
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, I'm excited.
• 1:43
  Lisa Nichols: I'm excited.
• 1:44
  Lisa Nichols: So, you know, just, and we're gonna talk about this.
• 1:47
  Lisa Nichols: We're gonna do a deeper dive into this, but currently, you're the vice chancellor
• 1:50
  Lisa Nichols: for technology and the CIO of Washington University here in St.
• 1:54
  Lisa Nichols: Louis.
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  Lisa Nichols: It's a wonderful university with a national reputation for excellence,
• 1:59
  Lisa Nichols: I think.
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  Lisa Nichols: Very well known across the country.
• 2:02
  Lisa Nichols: But before that, you were the CIO for the University of Oregon.
• 2:06
  Lisa Nichols: You came here in twenty twenty two.
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  Lisa Nichols: So I'm just gonna say we are so lucky, Jesse, seriously,
• 2:12
  Lisa Nichols: to have you in our region.
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  Lisa Nichols: So I'm so glad you made that move from Oregon to St.
• 2:16
  Lisa Nichols: Louis because we're lucky to have you.
• 2:19
  Jessie Minton: Oh, thank you so much.
• 2:21
  Jessie Minton: It's been an an absolute pleasure.
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  Jessie Minton: WashU, as you said, is an extraordinary institution.
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  Jessie Minton: Both personally and professionally, I'm incredibly grateful to be a part of it, and
• 2:31
  Jessie Minton: the the people are wonderful.
• 2:33
  Jessie Minton: And, you know, as you mentioned, it's absolute cutting edge research,
• 2:37
  Jessie Minton: clinical care, and education.
• 2:39
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 2:40
  Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
• 2:41
  Lisa Nichols: Well, we're gonna get into all that.
• 2:42
  Lisa Nichols: We're gonna get into technology.
• 2:43
  Lisa Nichols: I wanna get into leadership, but I'd love for you to take us back
• 2:47
  Lisa Nichols: to your childhood growing up in Oregon.
• 2:49
  Lisa Nichols: You grew up in Oregon.
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  Lisa Nichols: But what I really wanna talk about is you did something pretty special
• 2:55
  Lisa Nichols: as a child, and, I would love to talk about that.
• 2:59
  Lisa Nichols: And you even have a passion for this today.
• 3:01
  Lisa Nichols: What did you do?
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  Lisa Nichols: You competed?
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  Jessie Minton: I did.
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  Jessie Minton: I still do.
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  Jessie Minton: So I, spent the vast majority of my childhood and teen years and
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  Jessie Minton: all the way through college, competing in equestrian competitions.
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  Jessie Minton: So, hunters and jumpers around the northwest up in Canada
• 3:18
  Jessie Minton: down to California.
• 3:21
  Jessie Minton: And it's abs I really thought I was going to ride and train horses
• 3:25
  Jessie Minton: professionally until about my senior year in college, and
• 3:29
  Jessie Minton: it became clear to me as I really thought it through and after I
• 3:33
  Jessie Minton: had I had done it at a level as, a working student
• 3:37
  Jessie Minton: that I would've wanted to do it as a professional, but I needed to
• 3:41
  Jessie Minton: have this be my hobby and and not my job.
• 3:43
  Jessie Minton: But I I still have a show horse today.
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  Jessie Minton: I'm competing this, summer in Traverse City, Michigan
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  Jessie Minton: and, Florida over the winter, and I absolutely adore
• 3:54
  Jessie Minton: it.
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  Jessie Minton: It's a huge part of who I am.
• 3:56
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 3:57
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I know that I mean, you did.
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  Lisa Nichols: You competed at the highest levels.
• 4:01
  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: I'd love to for you to talk about, like, how did that
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  Lisa Nichols: shape your leadership and even how you approach things today?
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  Lisa Nichols: Because there were things that you learned, I'm sure, that that you still carry
• 4:13
  Lisa Nichols: with you today.
• 4:16
  Jessie Minton: Oh, absolutely.
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  Jessie Minton: You know, riding is a partnership, and especially
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  Jessie Minton: doing something like asking a horse to be your partner,
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  Jessie Minton: jump large fences, do that in a way that allows you to be
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  Jessie Minton: successful, whether that's going fast and leaving the jumps up in the jumpers or
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  Jessie Minton: doing it in the most lovely, appropriate, beautiful form that
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  Jessie Minton: the judges will score you highly and the hunters.
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  Jessie Minton: If you can't make an animal do that and you don't want to, you
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  Jessie Minton: want them to want to work with you, you want them to be your
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  Jessie Minton: partner, you develop a relationship and, you know, when you go
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  Jessie Minton: to compete that day, it's it's a partnership, and
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  Jessie Minton: you're dealing with another entity that has thoughts,
• 5:01
  Jessie Minton: feelings, sore muscles, all the things that that people do,
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  Jessie Minton: and you are leading.
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  Jessie Minton: It's your job to lead, and you have to lead through whatever
• 5:12
  Jessie Minton: course you're doing that day through aches and pains, through maybe
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  Jessie Minton: they wake up cranky and figure out how to find
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  Jessie Minton: a way to work with them that they wanna work with you.
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  Jessie Minton: And to me, that is the crux of what
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  Jessie Minton: I learned from riding is a great deal of patience,
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  Jessie Minton: that things don't always go your way.
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  Jessie Minton: Sometimes you literally have to pick yourself up and figure out how to
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  Jessie Minton: restart.
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  Jessie Minton: And when you fail, you should fail fast and fail forward.
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  Jessie Minton: You you can't go to the next jump worried about the fact that the
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  Jessie Minton: last one went badly.
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  Jessie Minton: And that's a huge lesson for me in leadership as well.
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  Jessie Minton: I take that away in terms of how to find
• 5:58
  Jessie Minton: a way to make
• 6:01
  Jessie Minton: the mission, make the work mutually beneficial for our folks.
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  Jessie Minton: I want them to to be able to see themselves in the work, be
• 6:07
  Jessie Minton: passionate about what we're doing, and also see that they can grow and benefit
• 6:12
  Jessie Minton: right alongside the university.
• 6:15
  Lisa Nichols: That there are so many parallels when I think about it.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: And the thing that just popped in my head, Jesse, is that old adage,
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  Lisa Nichols: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
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  Lisa Nichols: And I was thinking about
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  Jessie Minton: not a joke.
• 6:30
  Jessie Minton: It's not a joke.
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  Lisa Nichols: I mean, you can't make them do that.
• 6:33
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 6:33
  Jessie Minton: No.
• 6:34
  Jessie Minton: No.
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  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 6:36
  Jessie Minton: It is one hundred percent a partnership, and it's a journey.
• 6:39
  Jessie Minton: You know?
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  Jessie Minton: You you don't just hop on one day and decide to jump.
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  Jessie Minton: It is you start with the baby steps, and this
• 6:47
  Jessie Minton: building a partnership and training and a horse learns to jump by first walking
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  Jessie Minton: over a pole.
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  Jessie Minton: And you gradually work into all the things and the complexities where you're
• 6:56
  Jessie Minton: capable of doing these really complicated things together.
• 7:00
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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  Lisa Nichols: That is just so beautiful, and I am sure you truly have taken
• 7:06
  Lisa Nichols: that into each of your leadership positions as you're leading this team.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know, you just said something like you walk first, and then you jump
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  Lisa Nichols: over a a low pole.
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  Lisa Nichols: And then, you know, and I'm thinking and we're gonna talk about this, but
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  Lisa Nichols: I'm even thinking about AI, right, and how we roll that out
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  Lisa Nichols: across the enterprise, Jesse, and it's baby steps.
• 7:25
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 7:25
  Lisa Nichols: It's baby steps.
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  Lisa Nichols: So we'll we'll dig into that more.
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  Lisa Nichols: But, you know, you did you said that you did bring, like did you
• 7:32
  Lisa Nichols: bring one or two of your show horses?
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  Lisa Nichols: You've got Hank and
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  Jessie Minton: Hank and Ray.
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  Jessie Minton: So I brought yep.
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  Jessie Minton: I brought two of them to Saint Louis.
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  Jessie Minton: Hank is now retired.
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  Jessie Minton: He is twenty, and he spends his days in the pasture with his girlfriend,
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  Jessie Minton: Peaches.
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  Jessie Minton: And they just enjoy life and eat grass
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  Jessie Minton: and roll in the mud, and and he just gets all the love and
• 7:54
  Jessie Minton: the carrots in the world.
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  Jessie Minton: And my younger horse is Ray, and he's, actively competing,
• 8:02
  Jessie Minton: and he's eight years old.
• 8:03
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 8:04
  Lisa Nichols: It's not time for retirement.
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  Lisa Nichols: He still has to pay his dues.
• 8:07
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
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  Jessie Minton: Oh, gosh.
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  Jessie Minton: So
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  Jessie Minton: and and he loves his job, you know, and Hank did too.
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  Jessie Minton: He by the time he's twenty, it's physically it's just time to
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  Jessie Minton: not ask him him to do it anymore.
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  Jessie Minton: And, you know, they tell you when arthritis and everything else catches
• 8:23
  Jessie Minton: up.
• 8:23
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 8:24
  Jessie Minton: And, yeah, Ray is in his prime, and he understands his job, and
• 8:28
  Jessie Minton: he's learning more every day as I.
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  Jessie Minton: I you know, make no mistake.
• 8:32
  Jessie Minton: I learn things every day.
• 8:34
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I never competed, but I did grow up with horses, Jesse, because I
• 8:38
  Lisa Nichols: grew up in Kentucky.
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  Lisa Nichols: And that's equestrian country.
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  Lisa Nichols: Right?
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  Lisa Nichols: And, Absolutely.
• 8:44
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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  Lisa Nichols: Greg would say because Greg really didn't grow up around them, and,
• 8:49
  Lisa Nichols: you know, we we would ride a little bit after we got married.
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  Lisa Nichols: And he goes, I feel so sorry for the horse.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: Like, us on there.
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  Lisa Nichols: Am I like no.
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  Lisa Nichols: They're they're athletes.
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  Lisa Nichols: And so a few years ago, we were at a dude ranch in Montana
• 9:02
  Lisa Nichols: and riding through, you know, like, on these cliffs and all
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  Lisa Nichols: this, and it's, like, really scary.
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  Lisa Nichols: Right?
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  Lisa Nichols: But the horse, you gotta trust the horse that they
• 9:13
  Lisa Nichols: are they're sure footing.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: And sometimes I know they fall and stuff, but they don't wanna fall.
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  Lisa Nichols: They don't wanna fall anymore than you do.
• 9:20
  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: But
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  Jessie Minton: No.
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  Jessie Minton: Not at all.
• 9:22
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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  Lisa Nichols: Well,
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  Lisa Nichols: well, let me ask you this.
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  Lisa Nichols: Like because you'd even said that sometimes things don't go so well.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know?
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  Lisa Nichols: They don't go your way.
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  Lisa Nichols: So how have you taken that, like,
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  Lisa Nichols: getting over adversity or getting maybe, you know, you were competing
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  Lisa Nichols: and things did not go the way that you had planned.
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  Lisa Nichols: I mean, how have you taken that lesson?
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  Lisa Nichols: Because sometimes in business, things don't go your way.
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  Lisa Nichols: You know, how have you taken that to overcome that?
• 9:51
  Jessie Minton: You know, I think that there is an aspect of you have to figure
• 9:55
  Jessie Minton: out how to mitigate the situation you find yourself in right now.
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  Jessie Minton: And, you know, that might mean that we have to stop and pause and
• 10:03
  Jessie Minton: reassess and try again.
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  Jessie Minton: It might mean that we need to, in the terms of a of a
• 10:08
  Jessie Minton: project, really be honest with ourselves about what's happening, put new processes
• 10:13
  Jessie Minton: in place, and figure it out.
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  Jessie Minton: And then you once that immediate moment of,
• 10:19
  Jessie Minton: intensity, maybe is the right word for it, is over, there's an obligation
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  Jessie Minton: to reflect and to say, how did we get here?
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  Jessie Minton: What is it that we need to put in place to the best of
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  Jessie Minton: our ability to prevent this from happening again?
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  Jessie Minton: And and that's very much something that I see in
• 10:38
  Jessie Minton: in business as well.
• 10:39
  Jessie Minton: And and it's not just in technology.
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  Jessie Minton: For me, it is the crux of being service oriented.
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  Jessie Minton: You know, when you make a mistake with a customer, we have to
• 10:50
  Jessie Minton: start with owning it.
• 10:52
  Jessie Minton: We we absolutely have to own the issue, be accountable,
• 10:56
  Jessie Minton: don't make excuses, don't give reasons, and talk about what
• 11:00
  Jessie Minton: we're gonna do immediately to fix it and then what we're going to do
• 11:04
  Jessie Minton: to resolve it and prevent it from happening again.
• 11:07
  Jessie Minton: And it's very interesting.
• 11:08
  Jessie Minton: And there's a great deal of research around customer loyalty and engagement
• 11:12
  Jessie Minton: that if you never have an issue, your customer is actually slightly
• 11:16
  Jessie Minton: less loyal to you than if you had a problem and you were accountable
• 11:20
  Jessie Minton: and you solved it in a really compelling way that made them increase their
• 11:24
  Jessie Minton: trust.
• 11:25
  Jessie Minton: And for me, that that applies to
• 11:29
  Jessie Minton: the gamut of what it is that we do as leaders.
• 11:32
  Jessie Minton: Things are not always gonna go well, and
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  Jessie Minton: and and that's sort of the unexpected.
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  Jessie Minton: The other piece of it, you know, kinda tying it back to AI, is
• 11:43
  Jessie Minton: we don't know everything about what's happening with generative AI and LLMs,
• 11:48
  Jessie Minton: and even how they learn isn't necessarily
• 11:52
  Jessie Minton: super well understood.
• 11:54
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 11:54
  Jessie Minton: We need to find ways to implement, fail in small controlled
• 11:59
  Jessie Minton: areas, learn from it, and not failing forward.
• 12:02
  Jessie Minton: How do we fail, learn, and go forward?
• 12:04
  Jessie Minton: Because if the other piece of it is if our teams are afraid to
• 12:08
  Jessie Minton: fail, they won't take calculated risks.
• 12:11
  Jessie Minton: And we sacrifice innovation, we sacrifice
• 12:16
  Jessie Minton: achievement, and you sacrifice that environment where they feel confident.
• 12:21
  Jessie Minton: And that, to me, is a tremendous shame.
• 12:24
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 12:25
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, I completely agree.
• 12:27
  Lisa Nichols: You've gotta make it a safe place, right, for them to try and experiment
• 12:31
  Lisa Nichols: because innovation won't happen otherwise.
• 12:33
  Jessie Minton: So Absolutely.
• 12:34
  Lisa Nichols: That's really that's a great point.
• 12:37
  Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this.
• 12:39
  Lisa Nichols: Have you I'm gonna use a question in terms, but it, like, in your
• 12:43
  Lisa Nichols: leadership, have you ever, like, fallen off the horse, so to speak?
• 12:48
  Lisa Nichols: And then
• 12:49
  Jessie Minton: Sure.
• 12:50
  Jessie Minton: I think that we all have.
• 12:52
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Lisa Nichols: And what did you learn from that?
• 12:54
  Lisa Nichols: And it kinda ties into what you just said too, you know, that you
• 12:57
  Lisa Nichols: take a moment and pause and
• 13:00
  Jessie Minton: Yep.
• 13:00
  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 13:02
  Jessie Minton: So I'll I'll tell a story where I stubbed my toe pretty
• 13:07
  Jessie Minton: significantly when my first foray into the mission driven environment.
• 13:12
  Jessie Minton: So, you know, as you know, Lisa, I spent the first little more than
• 13:15
  Jessie Minton: a decade of my career in the publicly traded environment, very corporate, very
• 13:19
  Jessie Minton: command and control.
• 13:21
  Jessie Minton: You know, those environments, you have to be able to report to
• 13:25
  Jessie Minton: your shareholders, talk about earnings, talk about what you're doing in the next quarter.
• 13:29
  Jessie Minton: And, you know so for example, when I was at Yahoo, we had processes
• 13:34
  Jessie Minton: and the ability to pivot very quickly in place because if we're going to
• 13:38
  Jessie Minton: make fifteen thousand people around the globe change direction
• 13:42
  Jessie Minton: in order to achieve something for the next quarter, that's
• 13:46
  Jessie Minton: a really we have to communicate, expect that the changes happen
• 13:51
  Jessie Minton: and go.
• 13:51
  Jessie Minton: And that was really the environment that I grew up in as a leader.
• 13:56
  Jessie Minton: When I, went into the mission driven environment for the first time at
• 14:00
  Jessie Minton: Oregon Health and Science University,
• 14:03
  Jessie Minton: I had this shocking moment where I realized that
• 14:08
  Jessie Minton: that isn't how it works
• 14:11
  Jessie Minton: in those environments.
• 14:13
  Jessie Minton: And there aren't
• 14:16
  Jessie Minton: accepted sort of mandates and pivots that happen.
• 14:20
  Jessie Minton: So I had been asked to build a project management organization.
• 14:24
  Jessie Minton: This was my I reported to the CIO, and I was running one of
• 14:27
  Jessie Minton: six divisions for OHSU.
• 14:30
  Jessie Minton: And we had the project management organization had been
• 14:34
  Jessie Minton: dismantled.
• 14:34
  Jessie Minton: It wasn't working several years earlier during o eight zero nine downturn,
• 14:39
  Jessie Minton: and I was rebuilding it.
• 14:41
  Jessie Minton: We started with this notion that everyone needed a base level of project
• 14:45
  Jessie Minton: management training.
• 14:47
  Jessie Minton: And I sent out a note to the leadership team essentially saying, you know,
• 14:50
  Jessie Minton: this is our new required, methodology, required
• 14:54
  Jessie Minton: training.
• 14:54
  Jessie Minton: Here's how your folks can sign up.
• 14:56
  Jessie Minton: Please support me in doing this.
• 14:59
  Jessie Minton: And I had a colleague send me a note that said that I had
• 15:03
  Jessie Minton: deeply offended his management team,
• 15:07
  Jessie Minton: and I was absolutely floored.
• 15:09
  Jessie Minton: You know, I had this physical reaction that I had offended them.
• 15:13
  Jessie Minton: And I reread my my email, and I thought, oh my gosh.
• 15:16
  Jessie Minton: What did I do?
• 15:17
  Jessie Minton: And so I went down the hall and and had a chat with him,
• 15:20
  Jessie Minton: and he said, well, you know, you said that this was mandatory and required.
• 15:24
  Jessie Minton: You know?
• 15:24
  Jessie Minton: Those those words were very aggressive for
• 15:28
  Jessie Minton: this environment.
• 15:30
  Jessie Minton: We generally don't use them unless it is something that is
• 15:34
  Jessie Minton: legally compliance based.
• 15:36
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 15:37
  Jessie Minton: And that was such a big learning moment for me.
• 15:40
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 15:41
  Jessie Minton: And it was something that I was able to take forward, but it also
• 15:44
  Jessie Minton: I had some repair work to do
• 15:47
  Jessie Minton: because I had entirely, unintentionally based my
• 15:51
  Jessie Minton: frame of reference in a previous culture.
• 15:54
  Jessie Minton: I hadn't paid enough attention to the culture that I was in
• 15:59
  Jessie Minton: and placed myself in a situation where my new program
• 16:03
  Jessie Minton: was being viewed poorly by a handful of managers
• 16:08
  Jessie Minton: because of the way I'd communicated, and that really stuck with me.
• 16:12
  Jessie Minton: And it was something that I learned from very quickly and
• 16:16
  Jessie Minton: that I I'm probably potentially oversensitive to it, but
• 16:20
  Jessie Minton: it's something that I think that, especially in technology, we have
• 16:24
  Jessie Minton: to communicate well.
• 16:26
  Jessie Minton: And if we don't, we lose it.
• 16:28
  Jessie Minton: You know, the technology part is not the hard part.
• 16:31
  Jessie Minton: It's the implementation, the adoption, the understanding of what
• 16:35
  Jessie Minton: we're trying to do, and meeting people where they are with a solution
• 16:39
  Jessie Minton: that meets their needs.
• 16:40
  Jessie Minton: And if we can't communicate, we're lost.
• 16:43
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 16:44
  Lisa Nichols: Wow.
• 16:44
  Lisa Nichols: That's this what you just said, there's so much gold that's packed in there,
• 16:48
  Lisa Nichols: Jesse.
• 16:49
  Lisa Nichols: Because here's the thing, you were coming in with a preconceived notion
• 16:54
  Lisa Nichols: of how Yep.
• 16:55
  Lisa Nichols: You had experienced it before.
• 16:56
  Lisa Nichols: So there's lesson one.
• 16:58
  Lisa Nichols: You know, make sure you're reading the room, understand the culture, and
• 17:02
  Lisa Nichols: then just our language.
• 17:04
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 17:04
  Lisa Nichols: So how would he have preferred you do that?
• 17:07
  Lisa Nichols: Suggested?
• 17:09
  Lisa Nichols: Not mandatory, but suggested training?
• 17:12
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 17:13
  Lisa Nichols: Would he In when I
• 17:15
  Jessie Minton: went back and edited it and I resent it and I I just simply
• 17:19
  Jessie Minton: removed the word mandatory, and I just said, this is our new project management
• 17:24
  Jessie Minton: methodology and training materials.
• 17:26
  Jessie Minton: I'm asking for your support as we move forward.
• 17:29
  Jessie Minton: You know, it's our goal to have everyone in the organization have
• 17:34
  Jessie Minton: gone through the basics class by x date, you know.
• 17:37
  Jessie Minton: And so just kind of changing that to a little bit of a different
• 17:41
  Jessie Minton: tone, and then also realizing that in the mission driven
• 17:46
  Jessie Minton: environment, and this is held true everywhere I've been.
• 17:48
  Jessie Minton: Oregon Health and Science University when I became the CIO at the University of
• 17:52
  Jessie Minton: Oregon and here at WashU,
• 17:54
  Jessie Minton: you have to do your own legwork in a lot of these things in
• 17:58
  Jessie Minton: order to get adoption of what it is that you need.
• 18:01
  Jessie Minton: You know, we have teams that will go out and do organizational
• 18:05
  Jessie Minton: change management work with the departments and with the schools and colleges
• 18:10
  Jessie Minton: because
• 18:12
  Jessie Minton: it is
• 18:14
  Jessie Minton: necessary for us to understand how they're using it, make sure that they
• 18:18
  Jessie Minton: understand where we're going.
• 18:19
  Jessie Minton: If we rely on the departments to figure out that change management adoption,
• 18:24
  Jessie Minton: you're kinda toast.
• 18:25
  Jessie Minton: And that was the other thing I took away from that is we would
• 18:28
  Jessie Minton: do the, hey.
• 18:29
  Jessie Minton: Has everyone signed up?
• 18:30
  Jessie Minton: Has everyone gone?
• 18:31
  Jessie Minton: The outreach to the managers and to say, we've got these four people who
• 18:35
  Jessie Minton: haven't signed up for training yet.
• 18:36
  Jessie Minton: Can you please help them help us get them into a class?
• 18:40
  Jessie Minton: Whereas in the publicly traded environment, you just send a report to say these
• 18:43
  Jessie Minton: people haven't attended.
• 18:44
  Jessie Minton: Please fix it.
• 18:46
  Jessie Minton: Right.
• 18:47
  Lisa Nichols: Exactly.
• 18:49
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, that is so good.
• 18:50
  Lisa Nichols: I love that.
• 18:51
  Lisa Nichols: Sometimes we learn more from those missteps sometimes,
• 18:55
  Lisa Nichols: I think.
• 18:56
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 18:57
  Lisa Nichols: Totally.
• 18:58
  Lisa Nichols: And look at it that way, that it's just it's a learning opportunity.
• 19:03
  Lisa Nichols: Let's talk about leadership a little bit more here, and then I've I wanna
• 19:07
  Lisa Nichols: get into WashU.
• 19:09
  Lisa Nichols: We'll take a quick break, and then we'll get into WashU.
• 19:12
  Lisa Nichols: But I and I kinda skipped over kind of what to what you're doing
• 19:16
  Lisa Nichols: today.
• 19:17
  Lisa Nichols: But at the age of twenty two, Jesse,
• 19:21
  Lisa Nichols: you were given responsibility for managing a call center
• 19:25
  Lisa Nichols: at the age of twenty two.
• 19:27
  Jessie Minton: So It was a little terrifying.
• 19:29
  Lisa Nichols: I was gonna say it would be twenty I'm thinking back to when I
• 19:33
  Lisa Nichols: was twenty two.
• 19:35
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Lisa Nichols: But what do you think helped and you were very successful in it and
• 19:39
  Lisa Nichols: went on to, you know, be promoted after that.
• 19:42
  Lisa Nichols: What do you think and you probably can tie it back to some things
• 19:45
  Lisa Nichols: that you do in your childhood.
• 19:47
  Lisa Nichols: What do you think gave you the confidence to step into that leadership role
• 19:52
  Lisa Nichols: when you've never had done anything like that before?
• 19:57
  Jessie Minton: You know, I think I think part of it's my personality.
• 19:59
  Jessie Minton: I am eternally optimistic.
• 20:02
  Jessie Minton: I tend to look for the upside and assume that things are going
• 20:06
  Jessie Minton: to go well and then go about executing with that assumption
• 20:10
  Jessie Minton: in mind.
• 20:12
  Jessie Minton: You know, that doesn't doesn't mean that we can be Pollyanna about it, but
• 20:15
  Jessie Minton: I I tend to go about things assuming that we can find the best
• 20:18
  Jessie Minton: outcome if we work together.
• 20:20
  Jessie Minton: And that's just kinda fundamentally part of me, and I'm sure that had to
• 20:24
  Jessie Minton: do with,
• 20:26
  Jessie Minton: you know, I've always been pretty brave and not been willing to try new
• 20:30
  Jessie Minton: things whether that, you know, means that you end up in the dirt or
• 20:33
  Jessie Minton: you fall down and break an arm or whatever.
• 20:35
  Jessie Minton: All of those things that that you experience as a kid.
• 20:40
  Jessie Minton: And it was scary.
• 20:41
  Jessie Minton: You know?
• 20:41
  Jessie Minton: I I was given this opportunity,
• 20:44
  Jessie Minton: and I had worked in the call center in college.
• 20:47
  Jessie Minton: I sort of had some ad hoc part time job to fill in stuff.
• 20:51
  Jessie Minton: And so I knew the role, and I knew how to do the job
• 20:55
  Jessie Minton: as an individual, which really, really helped because I wasn't worried about not
• 21:00
  Jessie Minton: knowing how to
• 21:02
  Jessie Minton: actually I could pick up the phone right beside any of the call center
• 21:05
  Jessie Minton: reps and connect an interpreter to a doctor in the midst of a a
• 21:08
  Jessie Minton: medical appointment.
• 21:10
  Jessie Minton: The piece that I didn't have any idea is how
• 21:14
  Jessie Minton: to manage toward metrics, how to manage
• 21:19
  Jessie Minton: a team that we need to make sure that we are you know, when
• 21:22
  Jessie Minton: poison control calls and you don't know whether the non English speaking person
• 21:27
  Jessie Minton: on the other end has a child that drank bleach or ate crayons, like,
• 21:30
  Jessie Minton: we have to have a sense of urgency and process to get that right.
• 21:35
  Jessie Minton: And I was really fortunate that I was, given
• 21:39
  Jessie Minton: a management coach and consultant, and I learned how
• 21:44
  Jessie Minton: to create metrics, build them, how to work
• 21:48
  Jessie Minton: with my team.
• 21:49
  Jessie Minton: And and I also figured out, at this point,
• 21:54
  Jessie Minton: a key tenet of what I carry with me leadership philosophy wise today,
• 21:58
  Jessie Minton: which is that authenticity is huge.
• 22:03
  Jessie Minton: I I truly believe that as leaders and
• 22:07
  Jessie Minton: and I think it's even more true the more,
• 22:11
  Jessie Minton: senior you become as a leader.
• 22:14
  Jessie Minton: Your team has to believe in you.
• 22:15
  Jessie Minton: And and in order to believe in you, they have to believe that you're
• 22:20
  Jessie Minton: genuine.
• 22:21
  Jessie Minton: And there's a big piece of that.
• 22:23
  Jessie Minton: When you ask folks to come along with you and to do things you
• 22:27
  Jessie Minton: know, our our jobs did not mean that we're going to make everyone happy
• 22:30
  Jessie Minton: all the time.
• 22:31
  Jessie Minton: But if they believe in you that you have the best interest of the
• 22:35
  Jessie Minton: institution, of the team, and they know you a little,
• 22:39
  Jessie Minton: I think that that's huge.
• 22:40
  Jessie Minton: And I I learned that with that team.
• 22:43
  Jessie Minton: You know, I would come in on third shift at two AM and check
• 22:46
  Jessie Minton: on my team, because it was a small enough organization that there was one
• 22:50
  Jessie Minton: manager and three shifts and twenty five people.
• 22:53
  Jessie Minton: And I I can't tell you how much I learned in that job and
• 22:56
  Jessie Minton: how it was such a terrifying and incredible opportunity
• 23:00
  Jessie Minton: all at once.
• 23:01
  Jessie Minton: And and my advice to someone who has an opportunity like that is,
• 23:05
  Jessie Minton: when you get that kind of opportunity, you take it.
• 23:08
  Lisa Nichols: Take it.
• 23:09
  Jessie Minton: And it's okay to be scared.
• 23:12
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 23:12
  Jessie Minton: Wow.
• 23:12
  Jessie Minton: Have to figure out how to create success.
• 23:15
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 23:16
  Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
• 23:17
  Lisa Nichols: Because I think a lot of people think, right, Jesse, they think, oh,
• 23:21
  Lisa Nichols: this person, they're not scared.
• 23:23
  Lisa Nichols: They're just so courageous, and there's not fear.
• 23:27
  Lisa Nichols: But there is, but you chamber that fear in the right
• 23:31
  Lisa Nichols: way.
• 23:32
  Lisa Nichols: And, absolutely.
• 23:33
  Lisa Nichols: So that is so good.
• 23:35
  Lisa Nichols: I love that.
• 23:36
  Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this one question, then we're gonna take a quick
• 23:39
  Lisa Nichols: break.
• 23:40
  Lisa Nichols: Was there a single turning point in your journey
• 23:44
  Lisa Nichols: where you knew that tech leadership
• 23:48
  Lisa Nichols: was your path and what you wanted to do?
• 23:51
  Lisa Nichols: Because you kinda had an unconventional start.
• 23:52
  Lisa Nichols: We didn't talk about that, but you have a degree in anthropology and, you
• 23:56
  Lisa Nichols: know it wasn't like you went and got a computer science degree.
• 23:59
  Lisa Nichols: What was your turning point and what was that
• 24:03
  Lisa Nichols: precipice would you say where you said I Yes.
• 24:05
  Lisa Nichols: This is my path.
• 24:08
  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 24:08
  Jessie Minton: So, you know, as you had mentioned, my first management job was leading this
• 24:12
  Jessie Minton: call center that did medical interpretation,
• 24:15
  Jessie Minton: twenty four seven.
• 24:17
  Jessie Minton: And I I was sort of in the customer service space,
• 24:21
  Jessie Minton: as a leader.
• 24:23
  Jessie Minton: I worked for what is now a part of Change Healthcare after that,
• 24:27
  Jessie Minton: and I started to get some technical groups.
• 24:28
  Jessie Minton: You know, one of the things that, gave me some technical background
• 24:33
  Jessie Minton: was that interpretation company.
• 24:34
  Jessie Minton: When I joined, we were in the middle of both an office move and
• 24:38
  Jessie Minton: a major technology migration.
• 24:40
  Jessie Minton: And I mentioned that, you know, the organization is small, so we had zero
• 24:44
  Jessie Minton: IT.
• 24:44
  Jessie Minton: We had one consultant who did desktop stuff, and we had hired
• 24:49
  Jessie Minton: this company to implement the software.
• 24:51
  Jessie Minton: And that meant somebody had to learn how to administer it, how to
• 24:55
  Jessie Minton: administer the telephony and the switches, and that someone turned out
• 24:59
  Jessie Minton: to be me.
• 25:00
  Jessie Minton: And so I got that hands on experience
• 25:04
  Jessie Minton: through that journey as well, and I really was good at it.
• 25:07
  Jessie Minton: And I liked that too, and I thought, gosh, this is amazing what we
• 25:11
  Jessie Minton: can do to help these non English speaking patients
• 25:15
  Jessie Minton: get access to care through technology and connecting them with
• 25:19
  Jessie Minton: people who speak their language, which was really cool.
• 25:23
  Jessie Minton: And then fast forward, gosh, a decade, I guess, or more,
• 25:28
  Jessie Minton: I completed my master's degree in a more business relevant field at this point
• 25:32
  Jessie Minton: because I had figured out that leadership was what made me tick.
• 25:36
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 25:36
  Jessie Minton: So I got a a master's in management and organizational leadership while I was
• 25:40
  Jessie Minton: working at Yahoo, and
• 25:43
  Jessie Minton: I was starting I completed that.
• 25:45
  Jessie Minton: I was starting to look for the next step.
• 25:46
  Jessie Minton: And by the time I got to the end of my tenure at Yahoo,
• 25:49
  Jessie Minton: I knew I wanted to be in an executive leader role.
• 25:53
  Jessie Minton: I didn't really know what that looks like.
• 25:56
  Jessie Minton: I had I'd had this kind of varied path of customer service,
• 26:01
  Jessie Minton: search marketing, small business with Yahoo, you
• 26:05
  Jessie Minton: know, electronic bill payment presentment revenue cycle work,
• 26:10
  Jessie Minton: and then this medical interpretation piece.
• 26:14
  Jessie Minton: And I I I was recruited to this role at
• 26:18
  Jessie Minton: Oregon Health and Science University in the IT department reporting to the CIO,
• 26:22
  Jessie Minton: which I had never done before.
• 26:25
  Jessie Minton: And it was this phenomenal fit to the things that I've done in the
• 26:28
  Jessie Minton: past.
• 26:29
  Jessie Minton: It had some lean six sigma performance process improvement pieces.
• 26:34
  Jessie Minton: It had customer service.
• 26:35
  Jessie Minton: It had running the finances
• 26:38
  Jessie Minton: and also some technical leadership.
• 26:41
  Jessie Minton: And I got in the door, and I figured out a couple of things.
• 26:45
  Jessie Minton: One was leading in the mission driven environment is
• 26:49
  Jessie Minton: incredibly powerful.
• 26:51
  Jessie Minton: We have this really cool opportunity to take technology,
• 26:56
  Jessie Minton: use it as a force multiplier for the mission, for
• 27:00
  Jessie Minton: advancing research, advancing the next generation of
• 27:04
  Jessie Minton: educators, of clinicians,
• 27:07
  Jessie Minton: and taking care of patients all at the same time.
• 27:10
  Jessie Minton: And I saw my opportunity
• 27:15
  Jessie Minton: to do that in executive seat in the CIO, and that was the moment
• 27:19
  Jessie Minton: for me where it all kind of clicked, and I really focused
• 27:23
  Jessie Minton: my next development steps around that notion.
• 27:26
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 27:27
  Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
• 27:28
  Lisa Nichols: Well, I'm just thinking as you're talking, I mean, the mission driven
• 27:33
  Lisa Nichols: because we say, like, one of our taglines is we're harnessing the power of
• 27:37
  Lisa Nichols: technology to improve the world because it really does.
• 27:40
  Lisa Nichols: But when you're talking, like, things like patient outcomes and things like that where
• 27:44
  Lisa Nichols: technology is being used, oh my goodness.
• 27:47
  Lisa Nichols: Jesse, there's just so much satisfaction in there, isn't
• 27:51
  Lisa Nichols: there?
• 27:51
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, when you know It's incredibly rewarding.
• 27:54
  Lisa Nichols: It's incredibly rewarding.
• 27:56
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 27:56
  Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
• 27:57
  Lisa Nichols: Well, we're gonna take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Jesse
• 28:00
  Lisa Nichols: Minton on the Something Extra podcast.
• 28:03
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• 28:32
  Lisa Nichols: Well, welcome back everyone to the Something Extra podcast with Jesse Minton.
• 28:37
  Lisa Nichols: So, Jesse, now you started when you were twelve.
• 28:40
  Lisa Nichols: Okay?
• 28:40
  Lisa Nichols: I'm just gonna preface it with that.
• 28:43
  Lisa Nichols: But you you've been in IT leadership for close to twenty years, but you
• 28:46
  Lisa Nichols: started when you were twelve, so, you know, you're still very, very young.
• 28:49
  Lisa Nichols: But I know one thing is for sure.
• 28:51
  Lisa Nichols: One thing is for sure, Jesse.
• 28:53
  Lisa Nichols: You've seen a lot of change.
• 28:55
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 28:56
  Lisa Nichols: You've seen a lot of change.
• 28:58
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 28:59
  Lisa Nichols: We've been doing this for thirty one years, and we've seen a lot of
• 29:02
  Lisa Nichols: change.
• 29:03
  Lisa Nichols: But in those seasons of change, and that's one thing that we say.
• 29:06
  Lisa Nichols: You you just if you're in technology, you just gotta get used to change
• 29:10
  Lisa Nichols: because change is coming, and so embrace the change.
• 29:14
  Lisa Nichols: But how do you personally, as a leader, help your team
• 29:18
  Lisa Nichols: stay grounded and
• 29:21
  Lisa Nichols: and confident during these big seasons of change?
• 29:26
  Lisa Nichols: Well, you know, are there certain tactics that you use or, leadership,
• 29:31
  Lisa Nichols: tenants that you employ when that happens?
• 29:35
  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 29:36
  Jessie Minton: So, you know, we talked a little bit about authenticity.
• 29:39
  Jessie Minton: You know, the sort of the the three pillars around which I think about
• 29:43
  Jessie Minton: my leadership philosophy are authenticity,
• 29:47
  Jessie Minton: making an environment, creating a welcoming environment where
• 29:51
  Jessie Minton: our teams can see themselves and that they can feel that they can thrive
• 29:55
  Jessie Minton: and do their best work.
• 29:57
  Jessie Minton: And that that that translate into the third tenant, which is a high degree
• 30:01
  Jessie Minton: of accountability and outcomes and focus on mission, which
• 30:06
  Jessie Minton: means that we have to have everyone understand how the pieces that they
• 30:10
  Jessie Minton: do, their role fit into the bigger picture.
• 30:13
  Jessie Minton: And a a big way that I do that that helps, I think, when
• 30:16
  Jessie Minton: we encounter change or turbulent times is
• 30:21
  Jessie Minton: having a set of principles and values and goals.
• 30:24
  Jessie Minton: So when I joined WashU, it was a wonderful moment to do that for
• 30:28
  Jessie Minton: IT.
• 30:29
  Jessie Minton: Our here and next strategic plan had just been launched in the fall of
• 30:32
  Jessie Minton: twenty two, and so at that point, I was five or six months in.
• 30:36
  Jessie Minton: I had gotten my feet on the ground, done the listening tour, and
• 30:41
  Jessie Minton: really started working with the IT team to build,
• 30:45
  Jessie Minton: a strategic plan that we call impact that aligns behind
• 30:50
  Jessie Minton: the ten years here next plan.
• 30:53
  Jessie Minton: And part of that is a set of principles,
• 30:57
  Jessie Minton: values, aspirational stakeholder experiences,
• 31:02
  Jessie Minton: and those things shouldn't change.
• 31:06
  Jessie Minton: You know?
• 31:07
  Jessie Minton: Even though we're dealing with turbulence right now, you know,
• 31:11
  Jessie Minton: go back to two thousand eight, two thousand seven when we've really
• 31:15
  Jessie Minton: experienced a pretty traumatic recession.
• 31:18
  Jessie Minton: Who we are from a philosophical standpoint, our mission, vision, values
• 31:22
  Jessie Minton: shouldn't change if we built them right.
• 31:24
  Jessie Minton: And we may adjust our goals as the goal post shift,
• 31:29
  Jessie Minton: but having that clear understanding of who we are,
• 31:33
  Jessie Minton: how we go about the work, what makes us special, and what it
• 31:37
  Jessie Minton: is that we are here to do, I think, is really powerful to help
• 31:41
  Jessie Minton: folks focus around that, and and we can't assume
• 31:45
  Jessie Minton: that people remember.
• 31:47
  Jessie Minton: You know?
• 31:48
  Jessie Minton: We we've gotta communicate, and and a piece of the authenticity for
• 31:52
  Jessie Minton: me is, you know, I'll I'll stand in front of my team and say,
• 31:57
  Jessie Minton: hey.
• 31:57
  Jessie Minton: This is hard.
• 31:58
  Jessie Minton: Like, I know that this is really difficult right now.
• 32:01
  Jessie Minton: It's difficult for all of you.
• 32:03
  Jessie Minton: It's difficult for me.
• 32:06
  Jessie Minton: I don't feel that I have all the answers.
• 32:09
  Jessie Minton: Here's what I know right now based on what I understand,
• 32:13
  Jessie Minton: and here's how I would like us to go about dealing with this together.
• 32:18
  Jessie Minton: And I've really taken that approach throughout my career when we've we've hit
• 32:22
  Jessie Minton: either just really transformational change,
• 32:27
  Jessie Minton: you know, like generative AI, or when we've hit things like a recession.
• 32:32
  Jessie Minton: And we have to deal with a really changing
• 32:36
  Jessie Minton: landscape and changing conditions and, and financial environments as
• 32:40
  Jessie Minton: well.
• 32:40
  Jessie Minton: And and I think you have to be very visible, very present.
• 32:45
  Jessie Minton: And that looks really different now, I think, than it did pre
• 32:49
  Jessie Minton: pandemic.
• 32:51
  Jessie Minton: You know, we're not in a studio recording this podcast, and we would have
• 32:54
  Jessie Minton: been pre pandemic.
• 32:56
  Jessie Minton: Right?
• 32:56
  Lisa Nichols: That's right.
• 32:57
  Jessie Minton: The IT organization has shifted to a hybrid model
• 33:01
  Jessie Minton: where we can hire folks across the nation
• 33:06
  Jessie Minton: who are the the best at what it is that we need, but that
• 33:09
  Jessie Minton: means we have to lead differently.
• 33:10
  Jessie Minton: And you have to think about the fact that your culture what your culture
• 33:14
  Jessie Minton: was when it was fully in person is not the culture that you have
• 33:18
  Jessie Minton: when you move remote, and you have to figure out how to then protect
• 33:21
  Jessie Minton: it, build the aspects that you want.
• 33:25
  Jessie Minton: And it it's very much about clear communication at all levels of the organization,
• 33:30
  Jessie Minton: giving your team, your managers, your leaders those skills to do the same
• 33:34
  Jessie Minton: thing,
• 33:36
  Jessie Minton: doing lunch and listens, doing you know, creating those virtual environments
• 33:40
  Jessie Minton: where folks have the ability to ask questions even if we don't have
• 33:44
  Jessie Minton: all the answers and and being honest and genuine and visible.
• 33:49
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 33:50
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 33:50
  Lisa Nichols: That's good.
• 33:51
  Lisa Nichols: That's good.
• 33:51
  Lisa Nichols: Well and then your third pillar was accountability.
• 33:55
  Lisa Nichols: In those remote environments, you can't just pop into someone's office.
• 33:59
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 33:59
  Lisa Nichols: You know, you have to have the Right.
• 34:01
  Lisa Nichols: Ability systems in place.
• 34:03
  Lisa Nichols: That's really good.
• 34:05
  Lisa Nichols: Well, let's turn our attention to what you're currently doing today at WashU, and
• 34:08
  Lisa Nichols: you've already talked about it.
• 34:09
  Lisa Nichols: I love that you talked about you did the listening tours.
• 34:12
  Lisa Nichols: You you really got clear on, you know, mission, vision,
• 34:16
  Lisa Nichols: purpose, the culture of your IT organization at WashU
• 34:20
  Lisa Nichols: and getting everybody pointed in the same direction, making sure that everybody understands what
• 34:24
  Lisa Nichols: you're trying to accomplish.
• 34:26
  Lisa Nichols: But what have some been some of the other initiatives, Jesse, that you've
• 34:30
  Lisa Nichols: had since you came in in twenty twenty two?
• 34:32
  Lisa Nichols: Let's you know?
• 34:33
  Jessie Minton: Sure.
• 34:34
  Jessie Minton: So I the the earliest one that we really launched with,
• 34:39
  Jessie Minton: a great deal of intention was a cybersecurity program that we
• 34:43
  Jessie Minton: have branded Cyberbear, so watch you, Bears.
• 34:46
  Jessie Minton: And so our Cyberbear secure program is
• 34:50
  Jessie Minton: a multiyear process for us to raise our cybersecurity
• 34:55
  Jessie Minton: maturity level under the National Institute of Standards Technology,
• 35:00
  Jessie Minton: cybersecurity framework.
• 35:01
  Jessie Minton: And it's a really interesting
• 35:05
  Jessie Minton: dynamic
• 35:07
  Jessie Minton: environment because, of course, we have our Danforth campus that
• 35:11
  Jessie Minton: is, you know, for the listeners can think about as a very traditional university
• 35:15
  Jessie Minton: campus,
• 35:16
  Jessie Minton: strong liberal arts, research, all of the things that you think of as
• 35:21
  Jessie Minton: university.
• 35:22
  Jessie Minton: And we also have our academic medical center, and I have the absolute privilege
• 35:26
  Jessie Minton: of leading IT for both.
• 35:28
  Jessie Minton: But what that means is we have to think about how to tailor cybersecurity
• 35:32
  Jessie Minton: for a protected health information medical environment,
• 35:37
  Jessie Minton: which is a much more specific,
• 35:41
  Jessie Minton: tightly controlled environment from a regulatory perspective,
• 35:45
  Jessie Minton: and then also create the ability for us to have wide open collaboration
• 35:49
  Jessie Minton: in research.
• 35:51
  Jessie Minton: And this program has been
• 35:55
  Jessie Minton: we have done literally hundreds of projects over the last four years,
• 35:59
  Jessie Minton: everything from moving on to a twenty four by seven
• 36:03
  Jessie Minton: security operations center with partners,
• 36:06
  Jessie Minton: that allowed us when the CrowdStrike incident happened.
• 36:09
  Jessie Minton: We responded to it.
• 36:11
  Jessie Minton: It showed up in our logging like a cybersecurity breach, and we responded
• 36:15
  Jessie Minton: as such.
• 36:16
  Jessie Minton: And we were really fortunate that we had it affect, you know, less than
• 36:19
  Jessie Minton: four hundred servers in our environment, and we were back up and running and
• 36:22
  Jessie Minton: fully remediated inside of, like, three hours.
• 36:26
  Jessie Minton: And that was all because we had done all of this work in the
• 36:29
  Jessie Minton: cyberspace.
• 36:31
  Jessie Minton: It was a huge investment on behalf of the university, and I'm incredibly grateful
• 36:36
  Jessie Minton: that we had that level of trust.
• 36:38
  Jessie Minton: We tied it back to the mission.
• 36:40
  Jessie Minton: We tied it back to our strategic plan and spent an
• 36:44
  Jessie Minton: awful lot of time doing the legwork with folks about
• 36:48
  Jessie Minton: why we're doing this and why it's important and because it results in change
• 36:53
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 36:53
  Jessie Minton: Those we just talked about.
• 36:54
  Jessie Minton: Change to the university, change to policies, change how we
• 36:58
  Jessie Minton: manage things, to ensure the security and integrity of the institution.
• 37:03
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 37:03
  Jessie Minton: So that
• 37:04
  Lisa Nichols: that that would be done.
• 37:05
  Lisa Nichols: Aren't you so glad, Jesse, though, that you'd started that work?
• 37:08
  Lisa Nichols: And Yes.
• 37:09
  Lisa Nichols: When the crowd start I mean, honestly, that's that's another wonderful
• 37:14
  Lisa Nichols: leadership principle is the per preparation.
• 37:17
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 37:18
  Lisa Nichols: Making sure that you're doing the the legwork to be prepared when something like
• 37:22
  Lisa Nichols: that does happen.
• 37:23
  Lisa Nichols: Because, you know, you you always hear that old adage.
• 37:25
  Lisa Nichols: You know, it's not like if.
• 37:27
  Jessie Minton: It's when.
• 37:28
  Jessie Minton: It's when.
• 37:29
  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 37:30
  Jessie Minton: And hope hope is not a strategy.
• 37:32
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 37:33
  Lisa Nichols: Exactly.
• 37:34
  Lisa Nichols: That's that's good.
• 37:35
  Lisa Nichols: Well, tell me what and you can talk about AI and kind of I'd
• 37:39
  Lisa Nichols: love to hear, you know, how you guys your thoughts around it, how you
• 37:43
  Lisa Nichols: guys are rolling it out across the enterprise, how are you how are you
• 37:46
  Lisa Nichols: getting your are there certain function areas that you have found that have been,
• 37:51
  Lisa Nichols: where it's really been kind of a game changer?
• 37:53
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, what what's your thoughts around all of that?
• 37:57
  Jessie Minton: You know, in our environment, it is incredibly dynamic and diverse.
• 38:02
  Jessie Minton: And I think that that is the key to understanding how
• 38:06
  Jessie Minton: AI should roll out in a mission driven environment is that it's very
• 38:10
  Jessie Minton: different in the clinical space than it is in the academic space
• 38:14
  Jessie Minton: and the research space and the administrative space.
• 38:17
  Jessie Minton: We have arguably made, I would say, the most,
• 38:23
  Jessie Minton: current
• 38:25
  Jessie Minton: progress in the clinical space.
• 38:27
  Jessie Minton: We've done some physician efficiency things that have been really
• 38:31
  Jessie Minton: interesting with, what you call AmbientNotes.
• 38:35
  Jessie Minton: So we've piloted a couple of different products, and we're in the process of
• 38:38
  Jessie Minton: selection around.
• 38:40
  Jessie Minton: So if I'm a patient and I go into my doctor's office, they ask
• 38:44
  Jessie Minton: my permission to just take your iPhone and record the session.
• 38:49
  Jessie Minton: And the technology then turns that into a physician note,
• 38:53
  Jessie Minton: and it's saving some physicians three and four hours of documentation time a day.
• 38:59
  Jessie Minton: And that means they can spend more time with patients.
• 39:01
  Jessie Minton: They're less burned out.
• 39:02
  Jessie Minton: They're not at home trying to remember all of this at night and
• 39:06
  Jessie Minton: do their documentation.
• 39:09
  Jessie Minton: And that that's kinda meat and potatoes of what some of this technology
• 39:13
  Jessie Minton: can do.
• 39:15
  Jessie Minton: Some of the other really extraordinary, things that are happening are happening
• 39:19
  Jessie Minton: in the research space.
• 39:20
  Jessie Minton: There's a particular variety of ductile breast cancer
• 39:25
  Jessie Minton: in which a large percentage of patients don't require treatment,
• 39:29
  Jessie Minton: but the percentage and don't quote me exactly in the numbers, but it's something
• 39:33
  Jessie Minton: like seventy percent of patients don't require treatment, and the other thirty percent
• 39:37
  Jessie Minton: absolutely do or it's fatal.
• 39:39
  Jessie Minton: But up until when researchers started using artificial
• 39:44
  Jessie Minton: intelligence to analyze millions
• 39:48
  Jessie Minton: of breast images and found a marker that differentiated,
• 39:52
  Jessie Minton: physicians didn't know which group was which, and so everyone had to be treated.
• 39:56
  Jessie Minton: So seventy percent of those patients were having to go through incredibly
• 40:01
  Jessie Minton: invasive and challenging treatments in order
• 40:05
  Jessie Minton: to make sure that that thirty percent that we didn't know who is who
• 40:08
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 40:10
  Jessie Minton: Was treated.
• 40:10
  Jessie Minton: And now they've used artificial intelligence to identify
• 40:14
  Jessie Minton: markers in imaging that that know, and they're going
• 40:19
  Jessie Minton: down the path of validating which patient group is which, which
• 40:23
  Jessie Minton: is you know, it's an example of the game changing nature of how we
• 40:26
  Jessie Minton: can use this technology for things.
• 40:28
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 40:29
  Jessie Minton: So I'm incredibly excited.
• 40:31
  Jessie Minton: We're doing some cool things in the administrative space looking at, you know, contract
• 40:35
  Jessie Minton: management life cycle and and how do we make sure that we're,
• 40:41
  Jessie Minton: you know, using generative AI to make sure that our contracts and the billing
• 40:44
  Jessie Minton: are in compliance, that we don't wait too long to renegotiate.
• 40:50
  Jessie Minton: There's some really cool, good efficiency cost savings things
• 40:54
  Jessie Minton: that are available out there.
• 40:56
  Jessie Minton: And then our researchers, you know, we have folks who have been we talked
• 40:59
  Jessie Minton: at the top before we started recording.
• 41:01
  Jessie Minton: You know, AI has been around for a very long time, and generative AI
• 41:05
  Jessie Minton: has become,
• 41:06
  Jessie Minton: at the forefront in the public eye.
• 41:09
  Jessie Minton: And we have folks that have been in this space their entire career.
• 41:13
  Jessie Minton: And so we have really tremendous research happening.
• 41:16
  Jessie Minton: Our instructors are starting to use it with our students in new ways.
• 41:20
  Jessie Minton: And our role I see as as the IT
• 41:24
  Jessie Minton: department is to create that enabling infrastructure
• 41:29
  Jessie Minton: upon which our brilliant folks can do their work and engage
• 41:33
  Jessie Minton: in discovery and learning and patient care and to create that environment
• 41:37
  Jessie Minton: in which we have it segmented in such a way that we have the
• 41:40
  Jessie Minton: security right so that we have it secure where it absolutely needs to be
• 41:44
  Jessie Minton: and that we educate our faculty,
• 41:48
  Jessie Minton: so that they make sure that they know where their intellectual property
• 41:52
  Jessie Minton: is going using generative AI tools, and we don't inadvertently,
• 41:57
  Jessie Minton: provide those data
• 42:01
  Jessie Minton: just somewhat we don't mean to.
• 42:03
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 42:04
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 42:05
  Lisa Nichols: For sure.
• 42:06
  Lisa Nichols: That those are some remarkable case studies, seriously.
• 42:09
  Lisa Nichols: And I love I love what you described on the the certain
• 42:13
  Lisa Nichols: type of breast cancer because I'm thinking the pay you're increasing the patient experience.
• 42:18
  Lisa Nichols: There's also an economic play there.
• 42:20
  Lisa Nichols: Right, Jesse?
• 42:21
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, if you don't have to go through treatment, why do that?
• 42:25
  Jessie Minton: Right.
• 42:26
  Jessie Minton: We talked about the cost of health care.
• 42:28
  Lisa Nichols: The cost of health care, and that's one way to, you know, make sure
• 42:32
  Lisa Nichols: that we keep that in line.
• 42:33
  Lisa Nichols: That's that's so good.
• 42:34
  Lisa Nichols: Well, let me, let me ask you two more questions, and then I
• 42:38
  Lisa Nichols: want to talk about something extra.
• 42:41
  Lisa Nichols: So I know,
• 42:43
  Lisa Nichols: I I know that that in talking to you that mentorship has has been
• 42:47
  Lisa Nichols: really important to you.
• 42:49
  Lisa Nichols: Is you know, and you had even said that you had, I believe, a
• 42:52
  Lisa Nichols: management coach and executive coach in the one role, which is awesome.
• 42:56
  Lisa Nichols: But if you think about a mentor or two, what you know, are there
• 43:00
  Lisa Nichols: some things that were said to you even as a young professional
• 43:05
  Lisa Nichols: that you still, like, carry forward with you today?
• 43:10
  Jessie Minton: You know, I've realized when you asked that question that I said one of
• 43:12
  Jessie Minton: them while we were here, which is hope is not a strategy, Jesse.
• 43:16
  Jessie Minton: I I reported to a vice president at, this was in the private
• 43:20
  Jessie Minton: sector and change health care, and we were we were or what is now.
• 43:24
  Jessie Minton: We were dealing I don't even remember what the business challenge
• 43:28
  Jessie Minton: was, but it was something that we knew might get really
• 43:33
  Jessie Minton: unpleasant, might be really challenging.
• 43:35
  Jessie Minton: And Bill said to me, so, you know, how are we gonna handle this?
• 43:38
  Jessie Minton: And I started to say the words, well, we're gonna hope
• 43:43
  Jessie Minton: that and he just looked at me, and he said, hope is not a
• 43:47
  Jessie Minton: strategy, Jesse.
• 43:48
  Jessie Minton: And I looked at him, and I was like, that was one of those
• 43:51
  Jessie Minton: glass breaking moments for me.
• 43:52
  Jessie Minton: You know?
• 43:53
  Jessie Minton: Right.
• 43:53
  Jessie Minton: And and it sticks with me.
• 43:55
  Jessie Minton: Yes.
• 43:56
  Jessie Minton: The other thing that I think that I've learned,
• 44:00
  Jessie Minton: from from leaders that I've admired is that, you know,
• 44:05
  Jessie Minton: best isn't the enemy of better.
• 44:06
  Jessie Minton: Right?
• 44:08
  Jessie Minton: We have to make progress, and if we spend so much
• 44:13
  Jessie Minton: time trying to make it exactly perfect, we're going to miss
• 44:17
  Jessie Minton: the opportunity to have made progress in the meantime, and it doesn't
• 44:21
  Jessie Minton: mean we can't keep working on it.
• 44:23
  Jessie Minton: Right.
• 44:24
  Jessie Minton: And I think, you know, that clarity of communication and what are we
• 44:28
  Jessie Minton: gonna accomplish now, what are we gonna work on next is important.
• 44:33
  Jessie Minton: And I would say the the third piece of it is setting expectations,
• 44:37
  Jessie Minton: and what I talk about is controlling your own destiny.
• 44:41
  Jessie Minton: I wanna empower our folks and and our leaders to control
• 44:45
  Jessie Minton: our own destiny in terms of our success.
• 44:47
  Jessie Minton: And what do I mean by that?
• 44:49
  Jessie Minton: That means every interaction we have, whether we're ordering someone a new monitor in
• 44:53
  Jessie Minton: our hardware depot or we are implementing new modules of a cutting
• 44:57
  Jessie Minton: edge software product, we've got to communicate what we're
• 45:01
  Jessie Minton: going to do, when we're going to do it, and what's the scope of
• 45:04
  Jessie Minton: it, and when we're gonna get back to people.
• 45:07
  Jessie Minton: And if you do that, you can control their experience and how
• 45:12
  Jessie Minton: they view your service and your credibility.
• 45:15
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 45:15
  Jessie Minton: If you don't, the chances of them making up in their head what
• 45:19
  Jessie Minton: they think ought to happen next, matching what reality is if you
• 45:23
  Jessie Minton: don't talk about it and agree on it, are just vanishingly small, and you
• 45:27
  Jessie Minton: have created failure for yourself right out of the gate.
• 45:31
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 45:32
  Jessie Minton: And I would say those are three big things that to me are not
• 45:35
  Jessie Minton: technology specific.
• 45:37
  Jessie Minton: It's it's about leadership and how to
• 45:42
  Jessie Minton: really make sure that you are working with your stakeholders and
• 45:47
  Jessie Minton: that they understand and so do you.
• 45:50
  Lisa Nichols: That is so good.
• 45:51
  Lisa Nichols: That is gold.
• 45:52
  Lisa Nichols: That is gold.
• 45:53
  Lisa Nichols: Well, JSC, I know in twenty twenty four and I'm just gonna do a
• 45:57
  Lisa Nichols: little shout out here just to to tell our listeners.
• 46:00
  Lisa Nichols: I mean, you were, an Orbi winner in twenty twenty four for
• 46:04
  Lisa Nichols: large enterprise.
• 46:05
  Jessie Minton: Thank you.
• 46:06
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 46:07
  Lisa Nichols: So congratulations again on that.
• 46:09
  Lisa Nichols: Honored.
• 46:10
  Lisa Nichols: Yes.
• 46:10
  Lisa Nichols: I know.
• 46:11
  Lisa Nichols: And I know that what you would say about this, but it just it
• 46:14
  Lisa Nichols: wasn't just Jesse Minton.
• 46:15
  Lisa Nichols: It's a team award.
• 46:17
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 46:17
  Jessie Minton: No.
• 46:18
  Lisa Nichols: It's a team award.
• 46:19
  Jessie Minton: It's absolutely.
• 46:20
  Jessie Minton: I mean, it's a recognition on behalf of the incredible work from from our
• 46:23
  Jessie Minton: team at WashU IT.
• 46:25
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 46:26
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 46:27
  Lisa Nichols: So well, very good.
• 46:28
  Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you now I I could put words in your mouth
• 46:32
  Lisa Nichols: on this.
• 46:33
  Lisa Nichols: I usually the question is that I always ask is what do you believe
• 46:37
  Lisa Nichols: is something extra that every leader needs?
• 46:39
  Lisa Nichols: And I want you to answer that question, but you were to say what
• 46:42
  Lisa Nichols: your something extras are, Jesse Minton.
• 46:46
  Lisa Nichols: What do you think they are?
• 46:47
  Lisa Nichols: And I I mean, I could put some words in your mouth.
• 46:49
  Lisa Nichols: I'm gonna give you one, courage.
• 46:51
  Lisa Nichols: Okay.
• 46:52
  Lisa Nichols: I think courage.
• 46:54
  Lisa Nichols: I also think adaptability
• 46:58
  Lisa Nichols: for you.
• 46:59
  Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
• 47:00
  Lisa Nichols: And this positive mindset, not a Pollyanna,
• 47:04
  Lisa Nichols: but the pause I think positivity goes a long way.
• 47:08
  Lisa Nichols: And when we're talking about hope is not a strategy,
• 47:12
  Lisa Nichols: yeah, I mean, you hope is not a strategy, but you can still have
• 47:16
  Lisa Nichols: positivity
• 47:18
  Lisa Nichols: in whatever it is that you're doing.
• 47:20
  Lisa Nichols: Right?
• 47:21
  Jessie Minton: Absolutely.
• 47:22
  Jessie Minton: For sure.
• 47:23
  Jessie Minton: You know, I I think those are probably right.
• 47:26
  Jessie Minton: I'm I'm a relatively persistent person.
• 47:30
  Jessie Minton: And I think for me,
• 47:33
  Jessie Minton: I am I'm hard to discourage, and that comes with the optimism and
• 47:37
  Jessie Minton: the adaptability.
• 47:38
  Jessie Minton: And if if something doesn't necessarily work, I, well,
• 47:42
  Jessie Minton: that doesn't mean it's not going to.
• 47:43
  Jessie Minton: It just means we learned one way not to do it.
• 47:46
  Jessie Minton: Mhmm.
• 47:46
  Jessie Minton: And,
• 47:48
  Jessie Minton: and so I think for me, it's it is.
• 47:50
  Jessie Minton: I'm I am optimistic by nature.
• 47:52
  Jessie Minton: I am very persistent.
• 47:54
  Jessie Minton: And
• 47:56
  Jessie Minton: I think
• 47:58
  Jessie Minton: for something that every leader needs is you've gotta figure out how to have
• 48:02
  Jessie Minton: fun and be you.
• 48:05
  Jessie Minton: And, you know, and and that probably goes back to my thing about authenticity
• 48:09
  Jessie Minton: is that what what it means to me isn't the same
• 48:13
  Jessie Minton: as what it means to mean to someone else, and neither one is right
• 48:16
  Jessie Minton: or wrong.
• 48:18
  Jessie Minton: But if you can find out how to be you as a leader, let
• 48:21
  Jessie Minton: that shine through in your leadership and have a good time.
• 48:26
  Jessie Minton: You know, not that we all don't have bad days where you'd rather put
• 48:30
  Jessie Minton: a pen in your eye because it would be less painful.
• 48:32
  Lisa Nichols: Right.
• 48:32
  Jessie Minton: But having a good time and loving
• 48:36
  Jessie Minton: what you do and figuring out how that ties into who you are and
• 48:40
  Jessie Minton: letting that show, I think, is is really important for something extra that every
• 48:44
  Jessie Minton: leader could use.
• 48:46
  Lisa Nichols: I agree.
• 48:47
  Lisa Nichols: Because guess what?
• 48:48
  Lisa Nichols: That's contagious.
• 48:51
  Lisa Nichols: And if you're not having a good time,
• 48:54
  Lisa Nichols: your your team is probably not gonna be having a good time either because
• 48:58
  Lisa Nichols: they are looking to you and how you approach things and how you approach
• 49:01
  Lisa Nichols: challenges, and they're looking to you for that.
• 49:04
  Lisa Nichols: And so if they see you not really enjoying what
• 49:08
  Lisa Nichols: whatever it is that you're doing,
• 49:10
  Lisa Nichols: they probably aren't either.
• 49:12
  Lisa Nichols: So I do think that's contagious.
• 49:14
  Lisa Nichols: That's a good one.
• 49:15
  Lisa Nichols: Well, Jesse, this has been so much fun.
• 49:17
  Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much.
• 49:20
  Lisa Nichols: This is Thank you, Lisa.
• 49:22
  Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Lisa Nichols: It was a good it was just good to spend this time with you,
• 49:25
  Lisa Nichols: but I cannot wait for our listeners to learn from you.
• 49:27
  Lisa Nichols: So thank you again so much.
• 49:29
  Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much.
• 49:30
  Jessie Minton: It was great to see you.
• 49:32
  Announcer: Thank you for listening to today's show.
• 49:34
  Announcer: Something Extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
• 49:38
  Announcer: Copyright Technology Partners Inc two thousand and nineteen.
• 49:41
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• 49:45
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• 49:47
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• 49:51
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