“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” - Mark Twain

About six years ago, I connected with Gibson’s CEO, Tim Leman, after hearing him speak on a leadership podcast. Being somewhat new to the insurance industry at the time and limited in perspective, I was curious about a number of things that he shared so figured an outreach couldn’t hurt. He said ‘yes,’ which would eventually lead to a series of conversations and several months later, I joined Gibson.

Little did I know at the time that Tim had published a book, written years before, that would lay out a vision for Gibson to have a Michigan office. In our conversations, Tim laid out a vision of what my career could look like and the incredible opportunity we could pursue together. I recognized a gap in what the local market needed relative to proactive risk management, and through some due diligence with the operational leaders, I felt Gibson’s approach would resonate.

Warren Buffett said, “there are two sides to every coin…price and value. Price is what you pay, and value is what you get.”

In today’s healthcare system, there is a broad range in both price and value, and unfortunately, traditional health plans do not effectively support members consistently using high-quality, affordable providers and facilities.

On the value side of the coin, there are several reputable quality measures that consistently demonstrate wide variability in safety scores, infection rates, and overall health outcomes – even between two hospitals within the same system! And the statistics on unnecessary care, overuse of testing, and misdiagnosis are staggering.

Last week, we heard the story of a chicken and a pig, and learned about the first of two leadership qualities that mark bacon-level commitment.

Today we’re going to learn about the second quality of bacon-level commitment: Sacrifice.

The story is told of a pig and a chicken journeying together. The chicken grew hungry and recommended they stop to make some bacon and eggs. The pig replied that while it sounded like a great idea, there was a fundamental flaw in his plan. He went on to explain to his feathered friend that to make bacon and eggs, a chicken simply needs to be involved, but for a pig, it requires total commitment!

Is your leadership more aligned with a chicken or with a pig? That is, are you merely involved or are you totally committed?

In this thriving economy, savvy leaders are preparing themselves to capitalize on Merger and Acquisition (M&A) opportunities to supplement organic growth. According to a recent study from Deloitte, “Corporations and private equity firms foresee an acceleration of M&A activity in 2018—both in the number of deals and the size of those transactions.”