So I have this thing for CEO’s. You might want to have dinner with Jennifer Aniston. But I’d throw her over in a heart beat for Jack Welch. Sorry Jen.
Well, today, I just had dinner with the president and CEO of Summa Health System, Tom Strauss. It was all quite by mistake. But that didn’t make it any less exciting.
On top of that, the speaker of the dinner asked to share with the person next to you (that would be Tom for me) about a coming together moment in your life.
I told him about when our company went from 3 to 5 people and we almost crumbled. But through endless change, faith and energy we developed an entirely new pricing model and way we sell our services. It has completely turned around our company and made us stronger than ever. It was all because of having a great team focused on one goal.
He told of a story where he merged two hospitals together. He said it was the hardest thing he ever did. He talked about the difficulty of merging two executive groups. That’s crazy intense.
But the best part was… before he sat down, the speaker for the night who was also sitting at our table said he was coming over to join us. She said that he was the greatest leader she had ever met. She would walk over hot coals with him. I asked her why. She said it was because he lead by his values and ethics.
That’s exactly what I want people to say about me when I’m not at the table.
It was completely thrilling.