Greg Meyer, chief community officer at Metro Health – University of Michigan Health Foundation, discusses setting goals in life and in business. As a Boston Marathon winner, Greg’s insight into moving our communities forward is clear and concise. Listen today!

 

[transcript]

00:06 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m Home. Welcome on in, I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union, and we are focusing from finance to fitness. And today we’ve got a little bit of both. No, I’ll tell you what, we have a lot of both. We are joined today by Greg Meyer and Greg, you know what? He’s kind of famous. And not only is he famous, he also is with us today to talk about our wonderful partnership that we have with University of Michigan Metro Health. But I’ll tell you what, let’s start at the beginning, Greg, and introduce who you are. Welcome in.

00:39 Greg Meyer: Well it’s good to be here, thank you. Thank you for all you’re doing with the employees at Metro.

00:44 LJJ: I’ll tell you what, it’s a blast, we love it. We’re loving it. So, tell me a little bit about yourself. Now, many of you, if you are just a little bit of a fitness buff, you might have heard his name because he won the Boston Marathon.

00:57 GM: It was a lifetime ago, but it gets me a free meal every April. So, I’ll be going back to Boston in a couple of weeks. But I’ve enjoyed the fitness side of things, but it’s also been fun to be in a new and different role, and it was nice to get away from running. Not that I don’t run or don’t stay active, but yeah, it’s fun to be in the community.

01:24 LJJ: When you started running, did you realize, or did you always had a hope or dream that, “Hey, I really want to run the Boston Marathon as an example.” And where do the skills of leadership come in to where you’re digging deep to hit those goals?

01:43 GM: I was never one that had like a five-year plan. It was only about how can I get better, and I think it was just thinking about getting better and then aligning myself with better people. And I think, if it’s one thing I learned through, whether education, or just the upbringing with coaches was who you surround yourself with makes all the difference in the world. If I did anything right, I picked the right people to align with, and whether it was my coach in college, whether it was the people I got to know after that and brought me to Boston. And then to the people that I find myself working with now. It’s just good people, and good people help others elevate what they do, so I’ve been lucky that way.

02:37 LJJ: You have a journey that started in West Michigan and then came full circle back to West Michigan, and I’d like to say even University of Michigan.

02:48 GM: [chuckle] Yes, now. I obviously grew up here in West Michigan, loved West Michigan, moved to Boston for running. I remember meeting Bill Rogers, probably the most famous runner in the country, at least for my age group. He came into the first River Bank run, and he convinced me to move to Boston to train with him. So was out there on and off for 15 years, and then came back, worked at the University of Michigan.

03:18 LJJ: Very successfully.

03:20 GM: Yeah, not a hard product to sell. I can remember asking when I first interviewed for the job with the Senior Vice President for Development, “So let me get this straight, you call a person, you want to go talk to ’em, they know that you’re in the development office, so they know what you’re going to come and talk about. If they take the meeting, they’re going to talk about Michigan. Tell me where this is hard.”

[laughter]

03:48 GM: And well, you sort of got it down. But it was a great education, the second time around at Michigan, learning about philanthropy. And it’s fascinating. But what’s even the best part of that is the people you get to meet, because you meet really successful people, and you get to hear their story about how they got where they are. That’s a lot of fun.

04:14 LJJ: Exactly what we’re doing today.

04:16 GM: It is. But eventually it led to wanting to be back in West Michigan. This was my territory for the University of Michigan. And when they wouldn’t let me open an office here, because at the time they didn’t want to have satellite, I decided it was more important for me to live over here. I’ll always bleed blue but that’s when I took the job back over here in West Michigan, and then eventually ended up at Metro Health, The University of Michigan, so it all came full circle.

04:40 LJJ: That’s just great. You are the chief community officer.

04:45 GM: Yes.

04:45 LJJ: What does that entail on a day-to-day basis?

04:47 GM: It depends.

[laughter]

04:49 LJJ: Probably does.

04:50 GM: It’s been great. The foundation reporting to me, the Metro Health University of Michigan Health Hospital Foundation, which is the fundraising arm of the hospital, all of our community engagement. So, any type of sponsorship that we do within the community, whether it’s buying tables at another charity function, or sponsoring the Griffiths downtown, that all comes through us.

05:15 GM: And then diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we were quite honestly a little behind in that. And the first thing I did was ask for a new position, and we will have a new Vice President of Diversity, and we’re really excited about that.

05:34 LJJ: When you decided that you were going to come back to West Michigan… and what I love about partnerships, which consumers and Metro University of Michigan have, is that jumping in with both feet. How did you decide… Where was it that you said, “You know, I really do love philanthropy, but this is a bit much bigger role?”‘

06:00 GM: It is a bigger role, and it’s actually a lot of fun. I mean, it’s just, again, it’s the people you meet. Grand Rapids is not just… Grand Rapids is engaged, whether it’s giving money or giving time, participating, they’re engaged. So, whatever you do within the community, it’s fun.

06:20 LJJ: When you were training for the Boston marathon or for any marathon, one of the things that you said was, “I just wanted to get better.” So, when you come into a new position like you just have, where is it that you’re looking at your leadership skills to get better?

06:36 GM: One of the things that you learn in athletics is goals and measurement. So with running, it’s like, okay, you know the things you have to do on a weekly basis, you know the mileage you want to get done, you know the hard work you want to get done, you know the rest you want to get done, all of those things, you know. But it’s having a plan. And one of the funny things is when I was doing my Master’s degree, sports theory, sports psychology, they use the exact same studies as business professionals. It’s all the psychology of achievement. How do you set goals, how do you determine where you’re going and how you’re going to get there? And then processes, what’s the process that gets you where you want to go?

07:20 GM: And I sort of bring that approach to what we’re doing at Metro, whether it’s in the foundation, or the community engagement because you have to make hard choices you only have X amount a pool of money. Where are you going to invest in the community, because you can’t do it all. So, you pick your spots based on a process of how does this impact your mission, what do you stand for? So, you make those decisions along the way, and you create the processes to follow. And when you have a reason why you’re doing something, people can’t argue with you, “Well, but I deserve that more.” Well, you may deserve everything, but this is our focus and this is where we have to put our limited resources against what we want to achieve within the community.

08:05 LJJ: You wake up every day and is it something different every day?

08:10 GM: Yeah. Yeah, right now, it is. I haven’t been there long enough. But it’s fascinating to me and it’s fascinating sitting in on the leadership meetings and learning about how Metro Health and the other hospitals in town deliver health and wellness to the community. Because if they’re… It’s amazing and I just sit there. I’d literally, for the first three months, go, “I need a book of acronyms. You people use all these and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” So, they finally brought me a book of acronyms.

[laughter]

08:45 GM: But it’s… But it’s fascinating when you talk about health equity, how do we provide quality healthcare to all segments of the community? It’s just, it’s interesting. And then you look at not just how you’re providing health equity or taking care of people when they’re sick, but are they being fed? Because nutrition and being fearful of not having food is a huge issue in our community. People don’t realize it, but it’s a big deal. So how do you tie in the different resources like you’ve done on the financial side, to help people with their entire life? Because when you have this anxiety about finances, when you have anxiety about food, it leads to not being healthy, that all wears on a person and it leads to chronic issues.

09:41 LJJ: And stress…

09:42 GM: Stress…

09:43 LJJ: Continues it.

09:43 GM: Always.

09:44 LJJ: So, when you came in, Greg, you have been involved in a lot of different… Obviously health is a huge component of you, but this is truly something… Are your eyes opening up every day to say, “This is… ” You just mentioned hunger, that who would think that you’d mention hunger when you’re talking about healthcare? But it becomes something that is a cyclical issue.

10:08 GM: It’s a huge issue, especially for a certain segment of our population that probably can’t afford healthcare, to begin with. When you look at somebody who may be treated for cancer, and they have the money to maybe get the treatment, but they don’t have the money or the transportation to do the follow-up things that they need to do. I mean, so there’s all these issues that come into play that we think people are getting everything that they need, but they’re not. There are certain pieces that a segment in and of our society just doesn’t have access to, whether it’s because of finances, whether it’s because of transportation or just not having the knowledge of where to go to get those things.

10:49 LJJ: The whole person is what Metro Health, The University of Michigan, is really focusing on.

10:57 GM: It really is. And again, when I walked in, I’d never worked at a hospital setting in my life, so I didn’t know. But the first thing I realized about Metro Health University of Michigan Health, and I think this goes back to the origination of Metro Health, is the way they treat people not about the health issue but just on an individual basis. They show they care, and I think they do that. And I hear this over and over it. When I first started working there, And I’d say, “I’m working at Metro Health.” They go, “Oh my God, they are so nice there. They took such good care of me there.” I hear that over and over again. Then when you go inside and work, staff and employee, they treat each other that way. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place that treats people with that kind of kindness as a culture. It’s just part of the culture. I go home, And, it’s like, “This can’t be real,” but it is. It’s a lot of… I mean, it makes going to work a blast. Because there’s no hidden agendas. Everybody wants to move the hospital and healthcare forward. They work together. It’s really been fun.

12:09 LJJ: When you decided to take this position, do you ever look at globally, and just go, “This is incredible that we have this wonderful partnership, but it’s a little bit daunting when you hear the statistics about healthcare and who really can’t afford it, and what changes are coming down the pike.”

12:29 GM: You realize that there are challenges in how we deliver healthcare to the whole community, not just the segment that can afford it. But you chip away at it. You do what you can do. It’s no different than if you’re running or an athlete. There are intermediate goals to get you… As long as you know the direction you want to go, you just keep hitting those little goals along the way. You do what you can do to move yourself closer to that goal. And I think when you talked to Dr. Pai, who’s our president of physicians groups, but he’s also an expert on population health, those are the kinds of people that we’re bringing together that are going to help us provide choices within this community to make everybody healthier.

13:15 LJJ: So really zeroing in and looking at what is that next step, that doesn’t seem so big.

13:22 GM: Yeah. I mean, you always have to have that intermediate goal, unless you have unlimited resources that you can write checks all… But nobody does. Nobody has that ability to say, “We’re going to take this whole community from here to here.” It’s like, “Okay, how do we start moving us slowly in that direction? Because it can’t happen all at once.”

13:44 LJJ: I’ll tell you, the collaboration is what it’s all about. And we are so proud to collaborate with you at Consumers Credit Union on financial wellness, which is a topic for another great day but it truly, that’s what moves the needle.

13:58 GM: It does. And again, like we talked about earlier, having just a plan for your finances so that it takes some of the anxiety out. You know where you… You make decisions based on a plan as opposed to, “Well, I got my paycheck. I can spend it.” It’s having a plan. And that’s the way you approach healthcare, that’s where you approach life, any of your goals, it’s having a plan.

14:20 LJJ: Thank you so much. Greg Meyer, who is the Chief Community Officer for Metro Health the University of Michigan Health, wonderful partnership. Thank you so much, from finance to fitness. I’m Lynn Jarman-Johnson. And Aaron Bowersox is our producer today. Thank you, Aaron. Have a great day.

[music]