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🎙️ Unveiling Leadership Wisdom with Chris Barker from Spirit Health! 🌐
Matt Ball from Action Coach in Loughborough is back, and we’re diving into another enlightening episode of The Business Spotlight. Today, we’re fortunate to have Chris Barker from Spirit Health joining us.
👋 Matt is pleased to introduce Chris Barker, a key figure at Spirit Health, and they delve into Chris’s role and the essence of what Spirit Health represents.
🚀 Leadership Insights: Chris sheds light on Spirit Health’s core values: Passion, Excellence, Integrity, Accountability, and Family. He emphasises the significance of accountability within the work family and the collaborative culture that defines Spirit Health. The conversation unfolds into Chris’s role as a talking figurehead, allowing dedicated leadership teams to handle day-to-day operations while he focuses on future possibilities and partnerships.
🔍 Navigating the Fast-Paced Health Sector: In the dynamic health sector, Chris discusses the challenges of balancing short-term demands with long-term vision. He shares the strategy of having dedicated teams focusing on the core business while allocating a smaller percentage to explore future potentials.
🌟 Advice to the Younger Self: As Matt concludes the interview, he poses the timeless question: What advice would Chris give to his 18-year-old self? Chris reflects on the importance of enjoying the journey and doing what you love. His advice is to choose a path that brings joy and to relish the brilliant moments along the way.
🙌 A big thank you to Chris Barker for sharing his leadership insights and wisdom on The Business Spotlight. We wish Chris and Spirit Health continued success on their journey.
To our viewers, stay tuned for more episodes filled with valuable lessons and success stories! 🌟💼 #businessspotlight
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Everybody Matt bull MD of action coaching lra here with another episode of the business Spotlight and we are very lucky today to be joined by Chris Barker from Spirit Health how are you Chris I’m really good thanks M and thanks for inviting me absolute pleasure to have you here let’s get started then
Um just tell everybody a little bit about your role spirit and what Spirit does um yeah thanks Matt so I’m chief executive it’s my official job title um I prefer the subtitled one which is Chief mischieves um what’s my role uh my role is I guess if I give a formal
Version of an informal my formal one is to create an environment for people to succeed in deliver in our mission um and our mission is to go make Healthcare affordable accessible and easy for um for everyone around the world um my informal job title um in enables me to
Ask the really difficult questions that people were kind of half hoping that I don’t ask um with a bit of Mischief involved but mainly with the purpose of pushing people a little bit harder faster and trying to get a bit more out of them excellent excellent so lot we could go out there
But just take us back to the beginning first sens so how how did you’re you become involved with Spirit how did Spirit come about um so um my personal background was working for large pharmaceutical companies um which gave me a great grounding in healthcare and understanding the wants and needs of of
The market and populations um and I went on to found Spirit about 15 years ago now um really with a mission to at the time in the UK make health care more affordable and more accessible so we started out really with with um the sorts of things that we used to do
Within uh larger pharmaceutical companies so looking at medical devices and how we could make them more affordable for the NHS so that’s where we started and and these days that that division saves the NHS millions of pounds each year on prescribing costs in primare amazing a lot of people watching
This may may have an idea of a business maybe that they they want to run um and a lot of people will see opportunities in the marketplace or see areas they think actually I I could do that differently but as we know most people don’t end up taking that first step what
What was it 15 years ago that made you go actually there really is something here that I want to go after uh Serendipity I think Matt is the is the most honest answer to that question um so I I didn’t really set out to go and build the company that we now
Have um I set out to go and be a essentially a Healthcare Management Consultant I was just terrible at it um and I didn’t enjoy it um so I went out and I got some very good contracts working for NHS and redesigning Health Services so really worthwhile things um
But what I learned about myself at the time was I like I liked working with people and building teams um and I learned I was rubbish at loads of stuff um and actually I needed to work with teams to help make up for those shortfalls and and where I didn’t have
Strengths and whilst I tried to do that as a as a consultant I I simply wasn’t able to do it um so I guess the popular word is to Pivot um I’m not sure I thought of it like that at the time but I decided to do something a bit
Different which was to try and build a team and it was far easier to build that team with a product Le and service Le business than it was as a consultant okay and how was that transition for you then to from sort of you know as a consultant working for
Your you know for yourself in charge of you um to then building these teams was that a natural transition for you or were there challenges along the way there um oh that’s a good question so um people are really challenging yeah um and I include myself in the people
Category although my wife occasion refers to me as a robot rather than a person um but I yeah working out what what motivates and inspires and incentivizes people and engaging with that I think is something that that i’ I’ve had to work with and learn over not weeks and months but
Years um and I’m still on a journey to go and learn um so it was massively different you know being responsible for yourself to being accountable and responsible for for for a larger group of people um and I’m not a very good first line manager so at at supporting
People with with things that they’re new at I’m not particularly strong I’m much better at working with with more established leaders and and second line management so um for me it was important to quickly get people in that were good at that first line management work um to
Enable me to work with a team of people who were um perhaps more tolerant of of my my less detailed way of working interesting um what have you learned about yourself over the course of I mean 15 years is a is a decent amount of time constantly growing I imagine as the
Business grows what have you learned about yourself over that time yes so so business-wise yes we’ve been growing both in terms of of turnover on people um and I guess in relation to people bit um I think the more people I work with and collaborate with the more I realize I’m really crap
At um so even the things that I Once Upon Time thought I was brilliant at um we now have people in our organization that are far better at it than I am um I think I’m quite lucky that actually that doesn’t bother me if anything it excites
Me um you he people talk about imposter syndrome and you know worrying about your job and I don’t really get that um personally because I can of to see it as an exciting Journey that I can get people that can do somehow I can persuade people that can do things
Immeasurable better than I can to to come and work with me and and join me on that journey and that for me is really good fun brilliant it’s interesting the a lot of people um watching this will be intrigued about your Al alternative job title should we say which clearly I
Suppose um I’d imagine is a reflection of of your character but also that therefore must transmit into the culture of the organization um how has the culture evolved over the years um another good question so we’ve we’ve uh culture is something that we try and work with and curate curate on
On an ongoing basis um so where we would describe ourselves as quite a culture driven company and we often would awards for our company culture and and and how we work um which is nice to recognized um for us it’s it’s always been as important about how we do things as what
We actually do and I guess in some ways we’re lucky that we also work in healthcare which makes it um it draws people in already um from a spirit perspective we we would describe ourselves by some values um but then behind those values are a series of behaviors and expectations of people um
To be in keeping with those values um yeah and at a very high level those values are about being brilliant but also being vulnerable so been able to say what you’re amazing at but also and identify your strength because we’re a strength based organization but also to
Talk about you where you’re not very good and where you need to get other people to come in and and and deliver things better and faster than you could we talk about wanting people to have Vigor and enthusiasm but also link that to resilience and yeah we expect you to
Be brilliant work really hard fail quickly and then get up and start again um as fast as you possibly can so those are tough um and then lastly we we talk about family um probably the most misunderstood of our values really because it’s twofold one it’s that supportive and and yeah the metaphorical
Arm around someone’s uh shoulders when they need help but it’s also the metaphorical kick up the bum when they’re not doing something it’s it’s the it’s the accountability that you’d expect when you’re talking to um not just colleagues and and work Associates but your work family so for us engaging and driving
That is really important um and as we bring people into the business and a key part of my job is bringing in senior leaders um yeah it’s as important that they engage with that culture and and want to invigorate that and and Excel within it as it is that they’ve got the
You preorders it skills to deliver on a job as well amazing the health sector is is a fast moving sector um clearly there’s been a lot I imagine in the last two to three years with with with covid and things like that how do you as a leader ensure
That you deal with the short term and and what you see as a fast moving environment while also maintaining your sight on the longer term which as a leader is is a key part of the role um so so I’m really lucky that um with the stage that we’ve got to I kind
Of described myself as a bit of a talking Figure Head um so so if there’s real work to be done inside Spirit these days I’m I’m not the one that’s doing it um so we have leadership teams who look at that short to medium term Horizon um
And then that gives um yeah a smaller group of the opportunity to look at that Horizon scanning and Partnerships and exploring opportunities um I’m also a bit of a magpie um so I love opportunities and the potential that the future offers um most of my my senior
Leaders will be calming me down and telling me that we’re not doing things and we’re going to keep focused on on on on the core parts of of our business that are driving that that growth and that that making a difference um so for me having different people who have
Proportions of their time that are focused on the core business and then allowing relatively small percentages 20% for example to to to explore future potential seems to seems to be a healthy balance but to be honest once a funman that works we tend to find that it
Doesn’t next year and we tend to Tinker a little bit more with it as well so that’s how it is for now amazing amazing so one of the key questions that I I always ask people at the end of these interviews Chris is that um I’m I’m
Personally not one for regrets I believe in in Lessons Learned along the way um I always ask people what advice would you give 18 your 18 year old self I’m glad that I got a slight pre-worn that you’re going to ask that question because I had to reflect quite
Hard on on what that might be um do what you enjoy would be my advice um and enjoy the journey um and I think if I if I was reflect on on myself and and I do um I think sometimes I’ve been so focused on
An end goal on a Target on an objective whatever it is that quarter that year that that three-year cycle that sometimes I forget to enjoy the brilliant stuff that’s happening now and actually I I luckily fell into something that I really enjoy um I I didn’t go and strategically pick out
Something that that I was going to massively love so my advice to my 18-year-old self would be just make sure that you pick something that you’re really going to enjoy doing um and if that’s been yeah if that’s been an administrator fine great brilliant be the best administrator you can um and
Then make sure you enjoy the journey amazing Chris uh absolute pleasure having you on this episode of the spotlight um we wish you all the success Ming forward and thank you for sharing your lessons and uh wisdom with our viewers today many thanks thanks m