Frazer B Podcast - Frazer
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[00:00:00]
Nathan: Well, Frazier, welcome to the show. It's good to talk to you today.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Thanks Nathan. Really excited to be here. Uh, joining you.
Nathan: Well, you and I have known each other for quite a long time. We worked together, I don't know, 15 years or so ago, and we've stayed in touch in the decade plus since then. And something that really jumped out to me then when we worked together was you have an uncanny ability to execute, which is distinct from many people who are in the workplace. You just simply have this magical ability to get things done. I'm curious how you would describe your execution philosophy. Maybe you've not written, uh, for public consumption frazier's guide to getting things done at this point, so it could be some combination of intentionality and, and just hard wiring.
Nathan: But I'm curious how you think about that. Like how do you go about deciding what to get done and, and then how to approach executing it?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Yeah. Um, great topic and I think most really [00:01:00] good operators. Are generally born with an operator sprain. And, um, and I think I, that's, that's what I was born with. When I look at, you know, my talents and compared to my siblings or whatnot, I think, I think most really true hardcore operators just come into this world with that.
Frazer Buntin: And if they happen to be at the right companies that helps hone that skill, that certainly helps as well. You know, I, I've always, not always, um, probably for the past. I don't know, eight or 10 years I've thought about my job is essentially having the five. I have to do five things. I have to hire good people, I have to set the strategy, I have to monitor the behaviors, I have to measure the results, and I have to model the culture.
Frazer Buntin: And I can apply that to any leadership position. But at its highest level, you know, that's what I'm hired to do. If you click down below that, um. I've tried to think about [00:02:00] operations as, um, what's, what's right in front of me and what's. Here and here, and visually, I'm, I'm putting one hand right in front of my face and one hand out fully extended.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and the, the hardest part of a good operator is to balance the here and now, um, which is what do I need to do in the next few days versus what are the initiatives that I need to focus on for the next maybe 90 days? And, and the, the companies I've been with have, have typically been. It's hard to look past 90 days just 'cause they're earlier stage or more growth companies and, and looking past 90 days, you're kind of fooling yourself.
Frazer Buntin: So, um, balancing that very near term, but also really carving out time to have thoughtful, sit down with the pen and piece of paper and, and map out the, the 90 day strategies, um, has been.
Nathan: As I hear you talk about that you've got these five categories, I can almost envision in my mind a table [00:03:00] of maybe maybe the vertical axis or the five categories, and then you've got two columns, right now and the
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: days
Frazer Buntin: You got it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I also think about it almost like a pie chart of, based on where the team is, the company, the organization, I. How do I need to allocate my time and energy across that, those five things. And if I need to hire up some people, then that pie chart might get bigger on, uh, that piece of pie might get bigger.
Frazer Buntin: If I need to do more, I. Shadowing of staff to monitor behaviors and I need to drive up to Kentucky and drive around with some of our care team because I've got an intuition that things aren't working the way corporate thinks they will. Then maybe that tie needs to get bigger. So, um, kind of always flexing like, how do I need to allocate that time and energy?
Nathan: Yeah. Um, with those five categories, you indicated that it changes over time, just [00:04:00] depending on the situation. What takes the most energy from you
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: average? Have you seen one of those categories be more dominant for you? I.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, it is usually the, the hiring good people is fairly lumpy. You know, you either, you are either staffed up or you're not. Um, and, and I would kinda also put hire and inspire good people, um, into that one. So that one's maybe a little more run rate. Probably the one that, that I emphasize the most is measuring the results and you know, having the, defining the KPIs that are gonna be the flywheel of the business.
Frazer Buntin: Having the management reports that are accessible out of Power BI or whatever system you use. Having the forums, the monthly operating reviews, or the weekly one-on-ones or whatever it may be for operations that. Really is keeping your finger on the pulse of the, of the business. So that one's probably the most that I lean [00:05:00] in on too.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I love monitoring the behaviors. I love going out, not as Frazier, the COO, but as I go out as Frazier, the new guy in training, um, and hang out with our care team and interact with members. And um, you know, I think a lot of senior leaders just skip that. You kind of get into your, your seat and you think you have people to do that for you, but, um.
Frazer Buntin: I've gotten more product development, solution improvement, um, you know, inspiring the people by actually being out there. And, and I always come back with two pages of notes around, you know, oh, we thought our technology was great, but if you go sit with somebody and they have to click 82 times to get from this screen to that screen, um, and.
Frazer Buntin: You can sit there and say, why do you go from that screen to this screen? And then your employee will say, I, that's just what I do. But, um, some product development engineer would, you know, would, could change that in a, in a matter of weeks. So I really enjoyed that part.
Nathan: Yeah, [00:06:00] we tend to accept. Too easily what our constraints are
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: actually could be changed. We assume we will cause trouble if we say, Hey, there's too many clicks here. You don't
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: that guy. You don't wanna be that complainer.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: but you're, you're picking up on that by going out and sitting with them and, you know, and it's interesting in my experience, 'cause you mentioned. Um, you know, a lot of leaders don't do that, and I can think of being in leadership roles where there's a lot coming at me. There's a lot of meetings, there's a lot of internal factors in play that I'm trying to get my arms around, and I know that if I go out and sit next to somebody doing the work, I'm going to get insight, but no one's asking me to do it.
Nathan: And it's really easier not to do it.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: how do you keep it in mind? How do you make it a priority to, to make that a part of your role?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's cultural. Like we are, we try to be a [00:07:00] company in which our senior leaders go out to the field, and, um, and so that, that helps just reinforce it. Um, so for me, I and I, and then I enjoy it, so kind of that makes it easier to do as well. I think going back to the employees and employees don't gravitate towards raising their hand because a lot of 'em come from companies that had crappy culture or it's like, don't keep your head down, stay off the radar, don't challenge the boss.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I have tried to be the total opposite of, you know, corporate or Nashville. We don't know everything we're gonna come up with. Uh, a 70% answer, and I need you to tell me what's wrong with this. I need you to, to give me the 30%. I need you to have, um, risk-free communication, um, uh, candor, and actually celebrate the fact that, oh my gosh, so and so raised her hand and told us how bad this part of pathways [00:08:00] was.
Frazer Buntin: And you know, now we've gone back to the engine engineering team and, and fixed it. And if you think about it, every problem. And every company is seen by some employee at some point. All of them, they may not know that it's a problem. They may just think, well, I click from this screen to that screen and it takes, you know, 18 clicks.
Frazer Buntin: Or they don't feel like they can raise their hand so culturally to say. You know, our success is based on the rate at which we surface and solve problems. And if we can be, if we can have a competency as a business at surfacing and solving problems really, really quickly, then we will beat the competition or delight our customers faster, or not run out of money or, you know, whatever the clock is ticking on you.
Frazer Buntin: Um, there's some clock that's always ticking. So if you can make that speed to ideation or iteration, like a really competitive advantage could be pretty cool.
Nathan: That's a very powerful mantra that we are here to solve [00:09:00] problems
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: sees what the problems are. when I think about my, the teams that I've worked on in the best, on the best teams that I've worked on, the environment was let's get the problems on the table.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: everyone has a different perspective.
Nathan: And once you do that, it's, it's a multiplying effect. It's not. Two people plus two people equals four people working on things is almost two plus two equals eight.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: Um, so that's a very, very How much, how often do you find yourself having to talk about, remind people
Frazer Buntin: all the time.
Nathan: the case?
Frazer Buntin: All the time.
Nathan: that, do you think?
Frazer Buntin: I think there's so much, there's so much bad culture out there that you, you have to undo maybe decades of wiring of somebody and they need to see some positive reinforcement on challenging the norm or. Breaking the rules or raising their hand. Um, and, you know, I, and then I think you have employees who, um, you know, may be new [00:10:00] to kind of having a corporate, um, office or a corporate component to the business and, and think, oh, the higher ups, um, know everything.
Frazer Buntin: And I'm like, the higher ups don't know everything. Like all of our product development is gonna come from. You got this. So, but then you gotta, you gotta, you gotta walk the walk. So you need to, you need to go back and have the product development or the solution improvement or the engineering team actually take some of what they've heard and seen and, and put it into action.
Frazer Buntin: And then you have, then it becomes like almost a flywheel because somebody opens up the technology platform and they're like, oh my gosh. Like that thing is fixed. Um, and you get a little shot of positive reinforcement there.
Nathan: I think you're touching to another, on another challenge that affects many people, many businesses is, you think that you can come up with a solution in a conference room and then just launch the solution and you're, you're good. There's, um, um, a [00:11:00] professor at Stanford named Steve Blank, who likes to say no business plan, survives first contact with customers. referring to the fact that we can't, we have to be out in, on the quote unquote battlefield. In order to to see reality, we can't see reality from the conference room. And
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: to be you're organizing your approach and mobilizing your team along the same sort of philosophical concept.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah, for sure. And our, we have a product development or product improvement team here called solution improvement. And they are really good at going out and I. To the field and observing and shadowing and listening and coming back, uh, and building those relationships. So, you know, they know, here comes Rachel Close, or Kate Johnson or Joel.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and they're excited to have those people come out. And it's not, oh, here comes corporate to tell me what to do. They're like, great, I've got some suggestions for you. Um, and it works really well.
Nathan: [00:12:00] It, it strikes fear in the hearts of many people around the country to know that somebody from the mothership is about to appear on their day. It sounds fantastic. Yeah. You, you've turned the corner on that and you mentioned, you referred to earlier that most of your career you've spent working in high growth environments, uh, or startups which are more immature and in those environments. Um, real hallmark of them is that there's kind of a possibility orientation, not just merely an execution standpoint, um, and possibilities at war with focus, I. And a COO
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: must focus in order to be successful. So there's a real tension there.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: do you think, first, I guess the first question, I'd like to ask you more questions about this, but the first question is, what do you think causes so many CEOs to have?
Nathan: So ma, such a large appetite towards accumulating initiatives?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, shiny things. Um, [00:13:00] I've got a little bit of a shiny thing mentality that I have had to learn to transcend, um, especially over the past decade and continue to grind on the original ideas more than you. Bail on them and flip to the new ideas. Um, I think the hard part about these early stages is you don't know.
Frazer Buntin: I mean, you don't, you don't know what works and there's kind of the, I mean, there's a little bit of a naive entrepreneurial mantra of never give up. Um, but that's not the reality. Sometimes you do need to turn something off. Um, sometimes you do need to put the stop and start, stop, continue and, um, and back off on things.
Frazer Buntin: So. Knowing how much to continue to, to lean in and, um, you know, persevere through figuring it out versus trying something new. Um, I don't know. That's one of the, the hardest things I think [00:14:00] experience will definitely help around. Hey, have I done something? Somewhat on the dartboard similar to this in the past.
Frazer Buntin: And if I've done care management, for example, in the past in the healthcare world, but it looked a little bit different, but I know that works and I need to apply that here to this, you know, different sub-sector of healthcare, then you've kind of got a belief that you'll figure it out. Um, but it's, uh, it's, it's definitely hard.
Frazer Buntin: I think there's a difference in a strategic pivot and accumulating shiny things. Um. So, you know, you can be wise and do a strategic pivot, um, but not have to go after every, every idea that you have. It's also, you have good to have a good ELT or good leadership team that you, that you bounce ideas off of and, and listen to those folks.
Nathan: So part of it, it's, it sounds like what you're saying, part of it is, uh, I don't know what's going to fail, so I kind of need a hedge. So I'm gonna put
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: flight several different initiatives. And it's really hard [00:15:00] to know when you've gone beyond focus and you've been trapped into the shiny object mentality because there is a good rationale for having more than one initiative in case initiative A fails, you've still got initiative B is, that's part of what you're saying,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, that's part of it. Um, I would say at the same time, iteration is much easier than ideation, so it's easier to take, I think in terms of these companies or these solutions is zero is day one. I've got an idea and a hundred percent is this solution or service is totally mature and it's flushed out and all the KPIs power every month.
Frazer Buntin: And you know, this thing is on autopilot. Um. To me, I, I like companies that kind of are in that 25% to 75 or 80% run, where you're not coming up with, here's a brand new idea, but you're taking something that exists. Um, but there's still a lot of building runway left on it. And [00:16:00] through that, through that arc of something's 25% mature versus 80% mature, you do a lot of ideation.
Frazer Buntin: In the early stage, but you, you try to stop doing ideation and you move to iteration. So we're not, we're doing the same thing, but we're tweaking the edges versus we're no longer doing this thing and we're doing a new, a new idea, a new service or solution. Uh.
Nathan: Yeah. So you're not changing your customer segment, you're not changing your, probably your value proposition. You're just enhancing on what you've got for
Frazer Buntin: And you're not changing your service wholesale, but you're, you're, you're tweet you're trying to find that last, you're trying to ring the towel on, you know, okay, we've gotten this thing to, um, you know, this stage of KPI, how do we get two enrollments per day to, to three and a half enrollments per day per FDE, and.
Frazer Buntin: And that's iteration versus we should stop doing enrollments altogether and we should go do something [00:17:00] else. Uh, so it's kind of nice when you, when you make that transition from less ideation and more iteration.
Nathan: You also mentioned that an effective. Um, executive leadership team is crucial to navigating how much do you take on, how do you ma balance, focus across different potentially competing initiatives? And you've worked at enough companies that you've seen, um, a variety of approaches there. What, what have you seen makes it possible for, uh, an ELT to come together? and decide we're doing these things and we're not doing these other things.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I mean, depending on this stage of the company, sometimes you can't afford a fully LT and you gotta earn, you know, you gotta, you gotta fund your way into an ELT once you have a kind of the box checked, A CEO, A COO, a [00:18:00] VP of finance or a CFO, a head of hr, a chief customer or kind of account management.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, I think having, um, we do frequent offsites. We get outta the office and we have a, we don't call it a strategic plan, we call it a, um, we call it something else, but um, that's kind of like a strategic plan, but it's really our North star around here. The. Eight categories that we're gonna focus on within the work, which range from growth to, um, employee engagement or turnover and everything in between.
Frazer Buntin: And, you know, here's what success would look like and um, and kind of cascade from there. So we keep coming back to those offsite sessions and those, you know, that document to say, do we still wanna have these things on here? Um, what's changed in the past quarter or five months or so? [00:19:00] Um, you know, is this one at a two or is this one at a five?
Frazer Buntin: Um, and, and so that, that's really helpful to pull away from the business, get outside of the office. Um, even build some connective tissue where you know each other and, um, you know, it's not, uh, kind of all business for the sake of business.
Nathan: If a company were to say to you, uh, we're too busy to do offsites, we'll just do it in our conference room, what would you
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: to try to persuade them to, to keep it to an offsite?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. I, I just think there's something about a different environment that sparks creativity and go, go. Try to solve a problem at your desk in front of your computer with email and teams popping up versus go sit on a, you know, sit in the courtyard with a pen and a piece of paper. Um, I guarantee you, you will, you'll have more creativity and um, you just need to separate yourself.
Frazer Buntin: And there's something about, um, the environment that will either [00:20:00] slow you down and. Be less stimulating or kind of clear the deck. So, and you don't have to go to, you know, you don't have to go to the Adirondacks, you don't have to go to the Hudson Valley, like just, um, you know, go to a hotel room and rent a small conference room or, you know, go outside or go somewhere.
Frazer Buntin: But there's something different about leaving your corporate office.
Nathan: Yeah, I think it's such a valuable and hidden insight. I've
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: in just in myself that I don't even notice my environment. I don't even notice the distractions from technology
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: L I'm trapped at a baseball tournament with my kids and I have a notebook and
Frazer Buntin: that's right.
Nathan: else. And then it's like, wow, this, this was such a more productive,
Frazer Buntin: Oh, amazing.
Nathan: session,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, we have this really uncomfortable hard green couch, um, here in our, right in, in the front door of our office. And I will go sit there with, [00:21:00] with this brown, um, portfolio and a pen when I need to think or solve a problem or think about that 90 day view versus that two or three day view.
Frazer Buntin: I'll go recline on that thing with my feet up and I'll get a blank piece of printer paper or two or three and just go for 30 or 45 minutes and people walk by and be like, oh, Frazier, you must be solving a problem. Um, and people.
Frazer Buntin: Probably don't come talk to me because I'm, I'm trying to get in the zone here and it's
Nathan: fantastic and
Frazer Buntin: 40,
Nathan: you,
Frazer Buntin: I can see it from my office here. Um,
Nathan: The feedback that you're getting suggests what it seems to me, which is that's fairly rare to do something like that.
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: And do you worry that with more and more prevalence of using ai, that that that sort of activity becomes and farther removed from, you know, executives and people trying to be intentional and have high quality thought?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I, a [00:22:00] high quality thought is, um, is extremely necessary and more and more rare today. And it's, I mean, AI is part of it, but it's also work follows you everywhere. Um, you know, work, email on your phone teams on your phone. Easy to open your laptop at seven o'clock at night. And so, um, deep thought, like deep, deep thinking or focused.
Frazer Buntin: Um, problem solving on a body of work, uh, is more and more rare these days. And I schedule it on my calendar. I will block specific time to go. Um, not just like ad hoc, let me go think, you know, totally open-minded, but, um, I need to go spend 45 minutes working on a 90 day operations plan, um, that is blocked from two to three o'clock on, you know, whatever day or, um, and so that to me, that I, I, I need that sort of discipline to, to [00:23:00] make me use that time only for that piece of work or that body of work.
Nathan: Yeah, that's, um, scheduled time that that's the way to handle it, isn't it? Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: Exactly.
Nathan: when you do that, do you force yourself to get away from kind of your office setup, or is it dependent on certain things
Frazer Buntin: It depends, you know, if I need to do a mid-year performance check-in, I need to be sitting at my desk and that's fine. Um,
Nathan: Hmm.
Frazer Buntin: but, um, I'm not gonna do that and check email at the same time. Um, if I need to, you know, create a board slide. Deck for, for I need to be in front of my computer. If I need to strategize more around, um, you know, where to take our solution or service for this part of the business, then I can go sit on the green couch.
Frazer Buntin: And I don't, I don't, I need to be in a different environment. So
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: depends. But, um,
Nathan: Yeah, I've found even some of that, like a board slide, for instance. Obviously you've gotta be in front of a [00:24:00] screen to create the actual slide, but I learned a trick. Uh, there's a lady named Nancy Duarte who wrote a book called Slideology, and a couple follow up books about the art of presentations.
Nathan: And I saw a video of her interviewing someone else, um, talking about this and, and they. We're illustrating the point, like if you sit down with a piece of paper to make a slide and you don't even use any words, you just draw, even if you don't know how to draw, draw a picture what you want to communicate.
Nathan: And then round two is add words to it. And then round three is go to your computer and build the actual slide. And I have found that to be a, a quite clarifying
Frazer Buntin: Oh.
Nathan: for me.
Frazer Buntin: I as a, as a seasoned old veteran, I actually don't, one of the benefits of being a seasoned old veteran is I don't have to create my slides anymore. I only sketch 'em out on a piece of printer paper and, and, you know, ghost 'em out and then, you know, hand 'em to some [00:25:00] eager, you know, junior person who, who, you know, is much better at it than I am.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but yeah, it's so much easier to. Develop the storyline and the goal and the messaging when you're not thinking about, oh, I need a triangle here and I need the right font here and I need the right rectangle, you're, you're separating the construction of the, the construction of the visuals from the messaging itself.
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: And if you just, yeah, do exactly what you said, you can focus on what am I trying to convey with this piece of paper here? So I love that.
Nathan: and just to emphasize, I don't think of you as an old, uh, veteran. In fact, we're the same age, so I can't accept that. But, but I do get what you're saying, like there's benefits
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: more
Frazer Buntin: that's right.
Nathan: and more age.
Frazer Buntin: And even if you can accept it, Nathan, you, you, you may have to accept that we are, we
Nathan: some, at some point it's inevitable.
Frazer Buntin: we're [00:26:00] at the higher end. It's amazing. I walk around and I'm like, I'm in the upper, uh, I'm in the upper echelon of age here.
Nathan: It's wild.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: how, how that can happen. I still feel young. Um,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. you mentioned earlier that you've typically worked in growth environments most of your career. What, what is it, what's going on in inside of you that shifts your attention away from being part of a much larger organization in pursuing opportunities at more emergent ones?
Frazer Buntin: Probably my, probably my a DD.
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: Needed variability, um, to be fulfilled and content, uh, personally and professionally. So I have my hands in a lot of things, um, across the board and doing the same kind of sit. Fewer things in a smaller box at a bigger company just never appealed to me [00:27:00] as much as doing more things in a bigger box at a smaller company.
Frazer Buntin: And so I love being able to bounce from I. Um, so that, that's part of it is needing variability. And the other is I love building, I'm a builder and an improver, maybe more of an improver than a builder, but, um, having the runway to that 20% to to 80% outta that 25% to to 80% run, um, it gives me a lot more enthusiasm than kind of the, the towel ringing of.
Frazer Buntin: The last five or 10% is all like super lean six sigma or um, you know, micro additions to customer sales or whatever it may be. So
Nathan: Yeah. So creating something is much more important to you than optimizing
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. know, and you're in healthcare, um, you're, so healthcare is unique in an, let's just speak from an organizational environment. Healthcare is [00:28:00] unique in that you have clinical roles, um, that are a part of it.
Nathan: And so work with clinicians. Clinicians come from a totally different background of training, uh, than us business people. Uh,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: what do you, what have you seen? I'm just. Curious, like if, if any, if anyone from with a clinical background is listening to this,
Frazer Buntin: sure.
Nathan: advise them of how they could be more effective at, um, getting through to us hardheaded business people who might be thinking more in terms of, um, cash flow statements
Frazer Buntin: Right.
Nathan: targets and KPIs.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I. I believe that there is an intersection of business goals and good patient care, and those can exist in the same room and they can be very aligned if done, you know, the right way. And so thinking about, you know, performance of readmission rates or. [00:29:00] Um, you know, whatever, whatever the out outcome, the business outcome that you're trying to achieve, um, that can sit in the same room comfortably with, with patient care, and you can do, you can reduce avoidable unnecessary healthcare costs, uh, and provide great patient care.
Frazer Buntin: So, you know, the best clinicians I've seen are the ones that understood the business goals and advocated for the patient goals. Um, but brought those two things together and said, okay, um, yeah, let's reduce unnecessary healthcare costs because no one wants to go to the hospital, um, you know, for an emergency room visit.
Frazer Buntin: So if we, I. Have a goal of reducing emergency room visits that's actually good for the patient. And yes, we benefit as a business because we're under some sort of reimbursement model that rewards reducing ED visits, but that's not the devil. Um, you know, just because we have a goal of of reducing UNN serial healthcare costs.
Nathan: Yeah. [00:30:00] And sometimes, uh, those clinic clinical leaders have the right intentions, they don't come across the right way. So as you think about over the course of your career where you've seen. Clinical leaders kinda lose credibility. What, what are, what are the, what are the one or two things that you would suggest that they do differently that might help them regain credibility?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, again, I think understanding the business side, um,
Nathan: to business goals and
Frazer Buntin: is probably
Nathan: building.
Frazer Buntin: the biggest piece. Yeah. In context building. And, and not being, you know, we have a saying we're, we are a member centric company, so we, we serve members or patients, um, and we will all sacrifice for the member, not the employee. Um, we're, yes, we're an employee centric, but if push comes to shove, we're gonna put the, the member before ourselves.
Frazer Buntin: Um, [00:31:00] and, and a lot of clinical companies. Um, feel like they have to cater to clinicians, doctors, or whoever. It's like, oh, don't upset the docs. Um, because the docs are the docs and the docs are, you know, the docs are God, well, who is the inpatient? And that is actually, we're gonna be patient centric and that might mean.
Frazer Buntin: We have to work until six o'clock tonight seeing patients. So that might mean we're gonna staff a weekend shift or that might mean Fraser, the COO needs to step in and run the Kentucky market for six months because, you know, our person didn't work out. And those are all member-centric decisions that we make.
Frazer Buntin: And that kind of universal halo gives you a lot of air cover to
Nathan: Hmm.
Frazer Buntin: do the right thing for, you know, whoever it is in healthcare. Um. Your, your end customer or the end beneficiary of your service. Um, but I remember several companies and several moments where it was like, we can't do that [00:32:00] because the nurse practitioners won't like it or the docs won't like it.
Frazer Buntin: And I'm like, they're important, but they are secondary the same way. I'm secondary to our end patient, end user. And if we ruffle a few feathers or we lose some, but the member is better and our customer is happier than. Then, then so be it. So that's, you know. Yeah.
Nathan: that's great. You just reframe it to focus on who we're trying to serve. I, I think that's, that's really helpful. I'd like to shift to topics and ask you about something a little different from your day-to-day that you're involved with. I think most people perhaps. People who would see you on your LinkedIn profile or meet you at a conference would assume that you're a highly logical, um, uh, data-driven COO and you've got attributes of that.
Nathan: But there's another side to you, uh, a creative side, and you, over the last few years have gotten more [00:33:00] involved outside of your. role of as COO in pursuing an art hobby? Describe a little bit about what you're, what you're doing.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, yeah, so the, you're right, I'm very much a left brain, um, person. Probably on the surface. I've always had a creative side that emerged either through the types of companies I like to work for that had more creativity or, um. You know, kind of travel or adventure. There's always a creative outlet.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, so anyway, what I've been doing now for amazingly 10 years, um, I call it more than a hobby, but less than a profession, um, is, uh. Making, uh, actual, um, art in a couple of different ways. I started making sculptures with, um, limestones. This will sound totally random, but, um, that's kind of the, the beauty of art is often is very, very random.
Frazer Buntin: [00:34:00] But, um, I would find limestones in certain. Um, creeks in middle Tennessee that had the certain depth and rate of water flow. And occasionally when that happened, it would create these amazing natural water features and watermarks on these stones very naturally beautiful. Kind of think about slot canyons in Utah on a miniature scale built by water flowing over stones or, or something like that.
Frazer Buntin: And, um, and there may only be, you know. Three or four of these stones over a one mile stretch of a certain type of creek. And so I started finding those and using an electric dremel with a diamond tipped different types of diamond tipped bits to kind of work with those stones. Um, and then. It did kind of grew from there.
Frazer Buntin: So did all, all with no particular shape, very abstract and kind of modern and natural. Um, and then I started evolving into canvas pieces. I thought, I wonder if I smashed these [00:35:00] smaller stones of all a uniform color with a sledgehammer, and then I somehow glued 'em to a canvas and kind of a modern way. You know?
Frazer Buntin: I bet that would look really cool. Um, and so then I started doing canvas pieces and. It must resonate with someone because I've been doing it for 10 years and people generally buy 'em, um, almost as soon as I finish with them. And they're, you know, reasonably priced for artwork. I'm not giving 'em away, but I'm not, you know, robbing people.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and so, um, yeah, they, they, I think they resonate because they're natural. But they're also pretty contemporary and modern at the same time, so Yeah,
Nathan: So you take these stones and it's based on the depth and rate of water in, in a creek. Like, more about that. Like how deep, how fast is the
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah. The sweet spot is.
Nathan: using goggles [00:36:00] to find them in the water or the, is the water low enough? Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, and I've, and I've done all types of stones. Th that was a later evolution. Originally, I just started with, with general limestones because they, when you remove parts of the surface, there's different layers of colors and you could do some really interesting kind of cool, modern, but natural looking things with them.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and then I would mount 'em on a steel stand, and I've done small tabletop ones. I've done one that was probably 800 pounds and. Required it. Uh, tractor to remove it from the creek and required a crane. It took me a year to finish and required a, a crane to install it on a five inch, uh, or five foot, um, steel rod poured in 17 cubic feet of concrete, um, and someone's garden.
Frazer Buntin: So a huge variety of 'em. But the sweet spot on the water seems to be about knee, knee to quad. Deep, um, with [00:37:00] enough kind of drop to have consistent current and, and then it just needs to be randomly in the right, you know, there needs to be a limestone shelf or something like random there. And that's kind of part of the fun now as I'm doing those types of stones as to.
Frazer Buntin: You know, see if there's something there. And so I've got 'em kind of marked in a notebook all over the place where I'll just see one and either if I don't need to take it out and use it, I'll leave it there and, and put a mark in a notebook around where it is and come back two years later. And, you know, it's just getting better over time.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, with the water.
Nathan: you use a dremmel to, um, shape the rock and a dremmel for people who don't know, is something like a similar to a drill, but it's more, it gives you more precision over shaping things. Would that be an accurate description or would you modify that?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, that's good. I, mine has like a, uh, and I use a bunch of tools, mainly Dremel for the sculptures, but it has a flexible probably two or three foot [00:38:00] extension on it. Um, so I can get kind of angle it and get down to all types of little nooks and crannies and the diamond tipped, um, bits that you use have different sizes and shapes for different types of things.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but then I'm also using, you know, to, to do that big one, I had to rent a, uh, a coring device. They would core a two inch diameter hole, three feet inside of this stone. Um, that was gas powered and, and water cooled. Because it would, it sat down on this five foot steel rod. And, um, so it's all, all different types of equipment that I've got different equipment to smash the stones and sift, sift the different sizes, and then kind of a proprietary way of getting 'em, uh, to adhere to the canvas if I'm doing the canvas pieces.
Frazer Buntin: So that's the fun part, is I just let it go wherever it can go.
Nathan: yeah. And um, I mean, it sounds like there's a different type of [00:39:00] challenge the bigger the piece is and the bigger the equipment is that you have to use with this. Does that factor into this at all?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, if it's a large one ire, it really needs to be a commission because I don't want to commit any year to something and our house and yard are already filled with a lot of my art. So, um, and I mainly do it. I mainly do it so I can do more of it. Um, again, more than a hobby, less than a profession.
Frazer Buntin: I'm, I'm trying to, um. The more I can clear out, the more I can, the more I can create, which is
Nathan: Right.
Frazer Buntin: kind of the fun.
Nathan: when you look at a rock, how do you decide? Your approach to shaping it? What, what, what happens? Like how do, how do you read this thing and make these decisions?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Sometimes I'll start with the idea and then go find the stone. Um, you know, one, one that I do is we'll take kind of more of a, um, kind of classic rectangular shaped stone, and I'll take. I'll leave a strip in the middle and I'll take off all of the outsides. [00:40:00] And people always think it's three stones.
Frazer Buntin: I'm like, how did you get those three stones together? And I'm like, that's one stone. But I've taken the, the sides off, which creates this really neat contrast of, um, the original exterior on, on this middle strip and the interior on, on the sides of it. So sometimes it's idea and then find the stone to ma find the stone to match it.
Frazer Buntin: Sometimes it's find the stone and. Um, but usually, so I have tons of materials waiting that are sitting there, and sometimes I'll just leave them sitting for a while and then the idea will come to me. Mostly I have a backlog of 15 ideas that I'm waiting to do, and I've already, I've already figured it out.
Frazer Buntin: So usually comes pretty quickly.
Nathan: Okay. And you said you've been doing this for about 10 years. If you go back 10 years ago, you know, you know, it's interesting because your art is change. I'm gonna ask a different question. So [00:41:00] do you find inspiration? Are there workers that are doing comparable art pieces? Like this idea, was it influenced and to what extent was it just out of air?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I did a very more rudimentary version of this in my twenties, just as a hobby before, before really getting into my work career and, and then put it on the shelf, just, I don't know, um, uh, and so I don't really know what came, came, brought it back to me. It's kind of the cliche of like, something was inside.
Frazer Buntin: To get out. Yeah, exactly. I don't, I try not to look at other artists because I don't wanna copy anybody else. And so, um, I like to look at other artists that are not doing similar title of work for me, just for inspiration, but I don't, I don't really wanna see other people working with stone or ceramics or, you know, even [00:42:00] some canvas, um, type of work.
Frazer Buntin: So. Um, you know, I think most of my inspiration is just, I love the singular focus of it. I can't check email, I can't multitask, can't even listen to music because I've got a, I've got a mask on, I've got ear protection, I've got eye protection, um, gloves on. So I think most of my muse is just kind of going into a zone or a state of flow and, um, and solely focusing on something for.
Frazer Buntin: Three hours at a time, and especially if you're focusing on something like one square centimeter at a time, um, you know, or if I'm doing a canvas work, maybe one square inch at a time, our concentration is that's so rare to be that concentrated on something in such a single. So, um,
Nathan: What's been most challenging about this, hobby
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: of yours?
Frazer Buntin: Probably keeping it pure. Not trying [00:43:00] to make art that sells, but trying to make art
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: That is truly what I think is interesting and creative. And that's part of the beauty of it not being a profession, is I don't have financial pressure to sell art, to pay the bills. Um, which I think gives more, if you're not trying to sell art, you're not thinking about making art that.
Frazer Buntin: Cells and then you can take more risks, you can be more creative. You might end up throwing some pieces away, but you also will have, I think, more breakthroughs and create better art. So staying true to that, because you know, it was very surprising and I had some imposter syndrome of, I'm not really an artist, like I'm self-taught, but people are buying this stuff and I've done.
Frazer Buntin: Several shows and it appeals to people. So I dunno, someone likes it for some reason. Um, but not getting, not letting that flip over into, oh, I should start making stuff that I think [00:44:00] people will want to purchase
Nathan: Right.
Frazer Buntin: versus like, stick to your, you know, be true to yourself. Be true to just the creative process and what you think is neat or special or interesting or different.
Frazer Buntin: And if someone wants to buy it, great. If they don't, then you know, you're, I'm still gonna be able to pay the gas bill. Um,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: but that's a very hard, um, kind of line to, to, to, to stand by.
Nathan: What helps you stay true to yourself?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um. Man, that's a, that's a question that's bigger than art. Um,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: I think, um, just having some awareness of what my blind spots are and trying to, you know, reflect on what those blind spots are and, um, you know, be conscious around, okay, you're, you're trying to do this to, you know, for the wrong reasons, whether it's sell art, or, you know, [00:45:00] show up to a cocktail party this way, or, you know, whatever it happens to be like.
Frazer Buntin: Continue to stay true to yourself is a
Nathan: it, it's such a common human problem.
Frazer Buntin: right. Yeah.
Nathan: made it, and not intentionally, but you've made it more obvious by having it apply to your art, so you can actually, there's something tangible. There's a physical quote unquote product, and the way you are developing that product is either gonna be true to yourself or it's going to be in service of. Um, you know, fame perhaps. Maybe that's the, is that, is that the competing force?
Frazer Buntin: I think it's do not to try to be known as something. If you can, anytime you try, I wanna be known as a blank, that's when you get, I get into dangerous territory, like to be known as versus just me. Um, and so, you know, I don't, that's the slippery slope of I want to be seen as an artist, or I want to be seen as this type of artist, [00:46:00] or I want, um.
Frazer Buntin: People to say, I'm, I'm good. You know, when seeking that affirmation versus just do your thing. Just go out in the backyard and roll up your sleeves and see where this thing takes you and don't worry about it.
Nathan: talking about career and people often have that as a part of their calculus and career. I'm gonna try to become best investment banker in the world. Um, but really they don't have any interest in that. They just like the status that the person has. So that's
Frazer Buntin: Oh yeah,
Nathan: the same thing playing out vocationally.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah,
Nathan: so we we're all competing with that. So it's really interesting to hear how you, how you
Frazer Buntin: yeah. Oh yeah.
Nathan: it.
Frazer Buntin: Career and my line of thinking, you know? 20 years ago, and that's exactly where I was of,
Nathan: Me too.
Frazer Buntin: I wanna, I wanna accomplish this title or this level, or this amount of compensation or whatever. And you just grow up. Um, I mean, at some point you grow up and realize, you know,
Nathan: people do.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, some [00:47:00] people do, or, you know, um, life handed you a couple of hard things and you realize what's important.
Frazer Buntin: And, um, you know, you find, you find that, you find that awareness. But, um.
Nathan: There's, um, how do you, how do you see the world differently now that you've been doing this for 10? How has art shaped you? You've been shaping some rocks. How has that process shaped you as a person?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's really,
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: you know, if I, what I, if I were to say if I didn't make art, I don't know what I would be doing. My kids are older. I. I don't know what I would do on a Saturday or a Sunday, really. I mean, I spend a lot of time doing this and, um, you know, sadly less time driving to soccer games and, and, and whatnot.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, I think it's just been eye-opening that life can continue to unfold for you and don't [00:48:00] put yourself in a. In a box, don't assume that you know, this is, this is all I am. And continue to let your life unfold. You know, as you, as it progresses, and especially as you get older and it's easier to kinda say, oh, I'm an old dog and you know, there's no new tricks here.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but be open to. Those things and be open to like, I don't care if this goes anywhere or not, and, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this thing and maybe I'll create some community around it. Maybe I'll, um, you know, find some, some, you know, more contentment, pleasure out of it. So that's kind of it.
Nathan: what communities has this pulled you into? As
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: it.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. I mean, there, there is a really cool group of. Creative people, artists and creative people, and well everywhere. But in Nashville, it's been really fun to meet a bunch of people and do a couple of shows with some of 'em and. And just [00:49:00] learn what their pro, I'm always intrigued as an operator, what's your process?
Frazer Buntin: What's your studio look like? What's your, how do you get in the vibe of creativity? Do you do it on a Tuesday night or do it on, do it on a Saturday morning and, um, you know, how do you get your materials? So that's been really fun to see. Different types of people, whether it's a, another sculptor or a jewelry designer or you know, somebody who makes hat bands or whatever.
Frazer Buntin: These are people that I've met around the United States and, um, and, and having kind of the right questions to ask to explore with those folks has been interesting to see, you know, what are other people doing in this space as well. And I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't have come across those people. Um.
Frazer Buntin: They're, they're not in healthcare circles and they're not in,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: you know, those circles. So that's just kind of broadening the world.
Nathan: given the variety that you talked about, enjoying in work context, it seems like that would be very life-giving as
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: have a [00:50:00] variety of people
Frazer Buntin: yeah,
Nathan: out of this.
Frazer Buntin: yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: And, and how has it shaped the way you approach your work today? Um, years of, of art development certainly must influence in some way how you approach day job, your quote unquote left-brained
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: job.
Nathan: That's, that's very logical. What have you seen there?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, honestly, they're actually pretty distinct. There's probably been some crossover. Maybe in the, like, more singular focus, try not to be as you know, sometimes multitasking or getting a lot of work done in a short period of time is very good. Sometimes that's not so, um, but it's much more subtle. I, I don't, you know, I don't think about work while I'm doing art, so I don't lift that up and move it over as naturally.
Frazer Buntin: It may be a little more subtle. But that [00:51:00] would probably be it. But they're pretty distinct. Um, and I try to keep 'em pretty distinct.
Nathan: Yeah, that seems like, um, maybe part of the reason behind
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: is to have distinct pursuits. Yeah. You mentioned earlier, um, you know, uh, old dog learning new tricks. Don't, don't be essentially, you didn't say this. I'm saying, I'm interpreting this as, don't delude yourself into thinking that an old dog can't learn new tricks along those lines.
Nathan: For someone who finds themselves. Some, uh, in a, in a stage of career that they're really not satisfied with, would you advise that, that they think about, or what questions might you ask them? Any, any advice or thoughts there?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think about, I've used this analogy with a lot of people over the years. Your career is really a funnel, and when you graduate from college, it's wide open and you can go work on Wall Street and finance, or you can go to Tibet and be a sheep herder, and it's everything in between. And. If you start [00:52:00] somewhere and through a process of selection and elimination.
Frazer Buntin: You move through this funnel and you get tighter and tighter and you say, I like finance, but I hate New York, so I'm gonna do finance in Charlotte. And then I like finance in Charlotte, but I don't like, um, accounting. I like m and a, so I'm gonna do m and a finance in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then, and then you slowly start to, um, hone in on through a process of Selectional elimination.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and I always tried to do like a 12 to 18 month pull up and just say again, get a piece of paper. You go sit. On the hard green couch or the courtyard or wherever, and think about what do I like, what do I not like? What am I good at? What am I not good, good at? What do I like about this company? Do I think this is a place I want to be for another, you know, one year, two year, three years?
Frazer Buntin: Um, and try to do some reflection on that. And then if the answer's no, I don't think I want to be here, or I don't think this role is the right fit for me, or, I do wanna get [00:53:00] deeper into that funnel. Um, you have to be ridiculously intentional and aggressive about solving that problem. And you need, my dad used to say, get, make a job outta getting a job.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and so I remember when I was transitioning from one company in my past to another, I. I knew where I wanted to go. Um, it was Healthways where you and I worked together. I went in, I did so much research on Healthways. That was the company I wanted to work for. I did tens of, tens of hours of, of research.
Frazer Buntin: I read every, everything on the website, every K one, every PowerPoint, presentation, everything I could find. And I went in the conference room at lunch every day for four months and practiced. Interview skit that I was gonna give whenever I got an interview there. That's what I mean by don't tiptoe into the next step.
Frazer Buntin: Like you gotta go, you gotta get majorly aggressive on where you're going [00:54:00] after and be the most prepared person who's ever walked into that company to interview. For any position ever. That should be your bar. Um, and it might not happen in one week. It might happen in six months or 12 months. Um, and maybe you have a train and stop somewhere else to get there.
Frazer Buntin: So, um, I think people need to be, just gotta do a lot of work to make that transition after a lot of reflection, um, at the same time.
Nathan: What you're describing is. Counterintuitive to most people. They think if they commit in one direction, they're ruling everything else out. So they try to hold back.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: what you're saying is maybe something works out great, if it doesn't, there's a serendipity that's going to happen. It's gonna take you somewhere.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. So here's the goal at the end of that funnel that we all aspire to get to, but we're not entitled to it. It's the intersection of three things to do work that we're good at. [00:55:00] For me, that's operations and an industry that you love. Um, and to be well compensated. And if you can get all three of those, then work doesn't feel like work.
Frazer Buntin: That's kind of the cliche, but it's true. Or you kind of spring outta bed in the morning and you're not gonna get those when you're age 22. Um, hopefully you get those when you're age 52, but you might not, you may only get one or you may get two. But if you're thoughtful and reflective and you hustle, um, you might get to three at some point deep into that funnel.
Frazer Buntin: And would I say healthcare is, uh, an industry that I love? Yes. Is it probably the, the top choice for me? I don't know. Like, you know, there's no one singular place, but I would say I'm at least at a two and a half, at least a three, at least a two and a half, maybe a three on the intersection of, of those three things.
Frazer Buntin: Now, but it's taken a lot of time and work, [00:56:00] um, and luck and good fortune and great bosses and managers and colleagues and peers, um, that have helped get there. Um, but to me that's kinda like the farthest point of what, you know, what contentment could look like from a professional standpoint point.
Nathan: From your art perspective, you see the next decade going with it?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I would love to. Um, kind of recharge the creative side of it. Um, I would love to move that from a little more than a hobby. Um, so it's more than a hobby, but I would like to continue to move it to a little more than a hobby. If I could eventually back down on the left brain side and pull up the right brain side, um, you know, whether that's a, probably not like open a studio or anything like that, or, you know, a, a gallery or anything, but.
Frazer Buntin: If I think about X number of hours in the week, um, I would love to have more time allocated to [00:57:00] art than I have today. I would love to go train. I've said I was self-taught. I would love to go train and. Educate and study. Um, not in like a two year undergrad or anything like that, but you know, in some of these kind of either do an apprenticeship or go to some of these, um, kind of creative programs where you can go for a month or something like that.
Frazer Buntin: I would love to go do some of those in different parts of the country. Um, where you can really clear the deck for yourself or go do an apprenticeship, um, with somebody else doing something. So. That time, but that, that's really what, um, success would look like for me.
Nathan: Well, your art is beautiful and looking at it, I have found it fresh and somehow relaxing to my mind and spirit, so I, I appreciate you sharing it with the world, and I look forward to seeing how it evolves over the next decade and more. I.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Well, thank [00:58:00] you. I, I appreciate it.
Nathan: people go to see it?
Frazer Buntin: Uh, the best place is probably for the most updated is Instagram, which is just at f Bunton. Um, I do have a website, but those are, uh, always outdated for artists who are very bad at putting new work up there. But you can see new work, which is just for fraser button.com.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, the latest and greatest is, is Instagram. And I, I do a pretty good job of, of putting it out there, um, on that. So, yeah, come take a look.
Nathan: Well, thank you Frazier, and thanks for the conversation today.
Frazer Buntin: Nathan, always a pleasure to, to catch up with you and, uh, feel like we share a lot of the same, um, thoughts on, uh, on the world and on the professional side of things. So, um, love.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
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[00:00:00]
Nathan: Well, Frazier, welcome to the show. It's good to talk to you today.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Thanks Nathan. Really excited to be here. Uh, joining you.
Nathan: Well, you and I have known each other for quite a long time. We worked together, I don't know, 15 years or so ago, and we've stayed in touch in the decade plus since then. And something that really jumped out to me then when we worked together was you have an uncanny ability to execute, which is distinct from many people who are in the workplace. You just simply have this magical ability to get things done. I'm curious how you would describe your execution philosophy. Maybe you've not written, uh, for public consumption frazier's guide to getting things done at this point, so it could be some combination of intentionality and, and just hard wiring.
Nathan: But I'm curious how you think about that. Like how do you go about deciding what to get done and, and then how to approach executing it?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Yeah. Um, great topic and I think most really [00:01:00] good operators. Are generally born with an operator sprain. And, um, and I think I, that's, that's what I was born with. When I look at, you know, my talents and compared to my siblings or whatnot, I think, I think most really true hardcore operators just come into this world with that.
Frazer Buntin: And if they happen to be at the right companies that helps hone that skill, that certainly helps as well. You know, I, I've always, not always, um, probably for the past. I don't know, eight or 10 years I've thought about my job is essentially having the five. I have to do five things. I have to hire good people, I have to set the strategy, I have to monitor the behaviors, I have to measure the results, and I have to model the culture.
Frazer Buntin: And I can apply that to any leadership position. But at its highest level, you know, that's what I'm hired to do. If you click down below that, um. I've tried to think about [00:02:00] operations as, um, what's, what's right in front of me and what's. Here and here, and visually, I'm, I'm putting one hand right in front of my face and one hand out fully extended.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and the, the hardest part of a good operator is to balance the here and now, um, which is what do I need to do in the next few days versus what are the initiatives that I need to focus on for the next maybe 90 days? And, and the, the companies I've been with have, have typically been. It's hard to look past 90 days just 'cause they're earlier stage or more growth companies and, and looking past 90 days, you're kind of fooling yourself.
Frazer Buntin: So, um, balancing that very near term, but also really carving out time to have thoughtful, sit down with the pen and piece of paper and, and map out the, the 90 day strategies, um, has been.
Nathan: As I hear you talk about that you've got these five categories, I can almost envision in my mind a table [00:03:00] of maybe maybe the vertical axis or the five categories, and then you've got two columns, right now and the
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: days
Frazer Buntin: You got it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I also think about it almost like a pie chart of, based on where the team is, the company, the organization, I. How do I need to allocate my time and energy across that, those five things. And if I need to hire up some people, then that pie chart might get bigger on, uh, that piece of pie might get bigger.
Frazer Buntin: If I need to do more, I. Shadowing of staff to monitor behaviors and I need to drive up to Kentucky and drive around with some of our care team because I've got an intuition that things aren't working the way corporate thinks they will. Then maybe that tie needs to get bigger. So, um, kind of always flexing like, how do I need to allocate that time and energy?
Nathan: Yeah. Um, with those five categories, you indicated that it changes over time, just [00:04:00] depending on the situation. What takes the most energy from you
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: average? Have you seen one of those categories be more dominant for you? I.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, it is usually the, the hiring good people is fairly lumpy. You know, you either, you are either staffed up or you're not. Um, and, and I would kinda also put hire and inspire good people, um, into that one. So that one's maybe a little more run rate. Probably the one that, that I emphasize the most is measuring the results and you know, having the, defining the KPIs that are gonna be the flywheel of the business.
Frazer Buntin: Having the management reports that are accessible out of Power BI or whatever system you use. Having the forums, the monthly operating reviews, or the weekly one-on-ones or whatever it may be for operations that. Really is keeping your finger on the pulse of the, of the business. So that one's probably the most that I lean [00:05:00] in on too.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I love monitoring the behaviors. I love going out, not as Frazier, the COO, but as I go out as Frazier, the new guy in training, um, and hang out with our care team and interact with members. And um, you know, I think a lot of senior leaders just skip that. You kind of get into your, your seat and you think you have people to do that for you, but, um.
Frazer Buntin: I've gotten more product development, solution improvement, um, you know, inspiring the people by actually being out there. And, and I always come back with two pages of notes around, you know, oh, we thought our technology was great, but if you go sit with somebody and they have to click 82 times to get from this screen to that screen, um, and.
Frazer Buntin: You can sit there and say, why do you go from that screen to this screen? And then your employee will say, I, that's just what I do. But, um, some product development engineer would, you know, would, could change that in a, in a matter of weeks. So I really enjoyed that part.
Nathan: Yeah, [00:06:00] we tend to accept. Too easily what our constraints are
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: actually could be changed. We assume we will cause trouble if we say, Hey, there's too many clicks here. You don't
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: that guy. You don't wanna be that complainer.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: but you're, you're picking up on that by going out and sitting with them and, you know, and it's interesting in my experience, 'cause you mentioned. Um, you know, a lot of leaders don't do that, and I can think of being in leadership roles where there's a lot coming at me. There's a lot of meetings, there's a lot of internal factors in play that I'm trying to get my arms around, and I know that if I go out and sit next to somebody doing the work, I'm going to get insight, but no one's asking me to do it.
Nathan: And it's really easier not to do it.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: how do you keep it in mind? How do you make it a priority to, to make that a part of your role?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's cultural. Like we are, we try to be a [00:07:00] company in which our senior leaders go out to the field, and, um, and so that, that helps just reinforce it. Um, so for me, I and I, and then I enjoy it, so kind of that makes it easier to do as well. I think going back to the employees and employees don't gravitate towards raising their hand because a lot of 'em come from companies that had crappy culture or it's like, don't keep your head down, stay off the radar, don't challenge the boss.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I have tried to be the total opposite of, you know, corporate or Nashville. We don't know everything we're gonna come up with. Uh, a 70% answer, and I need you to tell me what's wrong with this. I need you to, to give me the 30%. I need you to have, um, risk-free communication, um, uh, candor, and actually celebrate the fact that, oh my gosh, so and so raised her hand and told us how bad this part of pathways [00:08:00] was.
Frazer Buntin: And you know, now we've gone back to the engine engineering team and, and fixed it. And if you think about it, every problem. And every company is seen by some employee at some point. All of them, they may not know that it's a problem. They may just think, well, I click from this screen to that screen and it takes, you know, 18 clicks.
Frazer Buntin: Or they don't feel like they can raise their hand so culturally to say. You know, our success is based on the rate at which we surface and solve problems. And if we can be, if we can have a competency as a business at surfacing and solving problems really, really quickly, then we will beat the competition or delight our customers faster, or not run out of money or, you know, whatever the clock is ticking on you.
Frazer Buntin: Um, there's some clock that's always ticking. So if you can make that speed to ideation or iteration, like a really competitive advantage could be pretty cool.
Nathan: That's a very powerful mantra that we are here to solve [00:09:00] problems
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: sees what the problems are. when I think about my, the teams that I've worked on in the best, on the best teams that I've worked on, the environment was let's get the problems on the table.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: everyone has a different perspective.
Nathan: And once you do that, it's, it's a multiplying effect. It's not. Two people plus two people equals four people working on things is almost two plus two equals eight.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: Um, so that's a very, very How much, how often do you find yourself having to talk about, remind people
Frazer Buntin: all the time.
Nathan: the case?
Frazer Buntin: All the time.
Nathan: that, do you think?
Frazer Buntin: I think there's so much, there's so much bad culture out there that you, you have to undo maybe decades of wiring of somebody and they need to see some positive reinforcement on challenging the norm or. Breaking the rules or raising their hand. Um, and, you know, I, and then I think you have employees who, um, you know, may be new [00:10:00] to kind of having a corporate, um, office or a corporate component to the business and, and think, oh, the higher ups, um, know everything.
Frazer Buntin: And I'm like, the higher ups don't know everything. Like all of our product development is gonna come from. You got this. So, but then you gotta, you gotta, you gotta walk the walk. So you need to, you need to go back and have the product development or the solution improvement or the engineering team actually take some of what they've heard and seen and, and put it into action.
Frazer Buntin: And then you have, then it becomes like almost a flywheel because somebody opens up the technology platform and they're like, oh my gosh. Like that thing is fixed. Um, and you get a little shot of positive reinforcement there.
Nathan: I think you're touching to another, on another challenge that affects many people, many businesses is, you think that you can come up with a solution in a conference room and then just launch the solution and you're, you're good. There's, um, um, a [00:11:00] professor at Stanford named Steve Blank, who likes to say no business plan, survives first contact with customers. referring to the fact that we can't, we have to be out in, on the quote unquote battlefield. In order to to see reality, we can't see reality from the conference room. And
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: to be you're organizing your approach and mobilizing your team along the same sort of philosophical concept.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah, for sure. And our, we have a product development or product improvement team here called solution improvement. And they are really good at going out and I. To the field and observing and shadowing and listening and coming back, uh, and building those relationships. So, you know, they know, here comes Rachel Close, or Kate Johnson or Joel.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and they're excited to have those people come out. And it's not, oh, here comes corporate to tell me what to do. They're like, great, I've got some suggestions for you. Um, and it works really well.
Nathan: [00:12:00] It, it strikes fear in the hearts of many people around the country to know that somebody from the mothership is about to appear on their day. It sounds fantastic. Yeah. You, you've turned the corner on that and you mentioned, you referred to earlier that most of your career you've spent working in high growth environments, uh, or startups which are more immature and in those environments. Um, real hallmark of them is that there's kind of a possibility orientation, not just merely an execution standpoint, um, and possibilities at war with focus, I. And a COO
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: must focus in order to be successful. So there's a real tension there.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: do you think, first, I guess the first question, I'd like to ask you more questions about this, but the first question is, what do you think causes so many CEOs to have?
Nathan: So ma, such a large appetite towards accumulating initiatives?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, shiny things. Um, [00:13:00] I've got a little bit of a shiny thing mentality that I have had to learn to transcend, um, especially over the past decade and continue to grind on the original ideas more than you. Bail on them and flip to the new ideas. Um, I think the hard part about these early stages is you don't know.
Frazer Buntin: I mean, you don't, you don't know what works and there's kind of the, I mean, there's a little bit of a naive entrepreneurial mantra of never give up. Um, but that's not the reality. Sometimes you do need to turn something off. Um, sometimes you do need to put the stop and start, stop, continue and, um, and back off on things.
Frazer Buntin: So. Knowing how much to continue to, to lean in and, um, you know, persevere through figuring it out versus trying something new. Um, I don't know. That's one of the, the hardest things I think [00:14:00] experience will definitely help around. Hey, have I done something? Somewhat on the dartboard similar to this in the past.
Frazer Buntin: And if I've done care management, for example, in the past in the healthcare world, but it looked a little bit different, but I know that works and I need to apply that here to this, you know, different sub-sector of healthcare, then you've kind of got a belief that you'll figure it out. Um, but it's, uh, it's, it's definitely hard.
Frazer Buntin: I think there's a difference in a strategic pivot and accumulating shiny things. Um. So, you know, you can be wise and do a strategic pivot, um, but not have to go after every, every idea that you have. It's also, you have good to have a good ELT or good leadership team that you, that you bounce ideas off of and, and listen to those folks.
Nathan: So part of it, it's, it sounds like what you're saying, part of it is, uh, I don't know what's going to fail, so I kind of need a hedge. So I'm gonna put
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: flight several different initiatives. And it's really hard [00:15:00] to know when you've gone beyond focus and you've been trapped into the shiny object mentality because there is a good rationale for having more than one initiative in case initiative A fails, you've still got initiative B is, that's part of what you're saying,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, that's part of it. Um, I would say at the same time, iteration is much easier than ideation, so it's easier to take, I think in terms of these companies or these solutions is zero is day one. I've got an idea and a hundred percent is this solution or service is totally mature and it's flushed out and all the KPIs power every month.
Frazer Buntin: And you know, this thing is on autopilot. Um. To me, I, I like companies that kind of are in that 25% to 75 or 80% run, where you're not coming up with, here's a brand new idea, but you're taking something that exists. Um, but there's still a lot of building runway left on it. And [00:16:00] through that, through that arc of something's 25% mature versus 80% mature, you do a lot of ideation.
Frazer Buntin: In the early stage, but you, you try to stop doing ideation and you move to iteration. So we're not, we're doing the same thing, but we're tweaking the edges versus we're no longer doing this thing and we're doing a new, a new idea, a new service or solution. Uh.
Nathan: Yeah. So you're not changing your customer segment, you're not changing your, probably your value proposition. You're just enhancing on what you've got for
Frazer Buntin: And you're not changing your service wholesale, but you're, you're, you're tweet you're trying to find that last, you're trying to ring the towel on, you know, okay, we've gotten this thing to, um, you know, this stage of KPI, how do we get two enrollments per day to, to three and a half enrollments per day per FDE, and.
Frazer Buntin: And that's iteration versus we should stop doing enrollments altogether and we should go do something [00:17:00] else. Uh, so it's kind of nice when you, when you make that transition from less ideation and more iteration.
Nathan: You also mentioned that an effective. Um, executive leadership team is crucial to navigating how much do you take on, how do you ma balance, focus across different potentially competing initiatives? And you've worked at enough companies that you've seen, um, a variety of approaches there. What, what have you seen makes it possible for, uh, an ELT to come together? and decide we're doing these things and we're not doing these other things.
Frazer Buntin: Um, I mean, depending on this stage of the company, sometimes you can't afford a fully LT and you gotta earn, you know, you gotta, you gotta fund your way into an ELT once you have a kind of the box checked, A CEO, A COO, a [00:18:00] VP of finance or a CFO, a head of hr, a chief customer or kind of account management.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, I think having, um, we do frequent offsites. We get outta the office and we have a, we don't call it a strategic plan, we call it a, um, we call it something else, but um, that's kind of like a strategic plan, but it's really our North star around here. The. Eight categories that we're gonna focus on within the work, which range from growth to, um, employee engagement or turnover and everything in between.
Frazer Buntin: And, you know, here's what success would look like and um, and kind of cascade from there. So we keep coming back to those offsite sessions and those, you know, that document to say, do we still wanna have these things on here? Um, what's changed in the past quarter or five months or so? [00:19:00] Um, you know, is this one at a two or is this one at a five?
Frazer Buntin: Um, and, and so that, that's really helpful to pull away from the business, get outside of the office. Um, even build some connective tissue where you know each other and, um, you know, it's not, uh, kind of all business for the sake of business.
Nathan: If a company were to say to you, uh, we're too busy to do offsites, we'll just do it in our conference room, what would you
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: to try to persuade them to, to keep it to an offsite?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. I, I just think there's something about a different environment that sparks creativity and go, go. Try to solve a problem at your desk in front of your computer with email and teams popping up versus go sit on a, you know, sit in the courtyard with a pen and a piece of paper. Um, I guarantee you, you will, you'll have more creativity and um, you just need to separate yourself.
Frazer Buntin: And there's something about, um, the environment that will either [00:20:00] slow you down and. Be less stimulating or kind of clear the deck. So, and you don't have to go to, you know, you don't have to go to the Adirondacks, you don't have to go to the Hudson Valley, like just, um, you know, go to a hotel room and rent a small conference room or, you know, go outside or go somewhere.
Frazer Buntin: But there's something different about leaving your corporate office.
Nathan: Yeah, I think it's such a valuable and hidden insight. I've
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: in just in myself that I don't even notice my environment. I don't even notice the distractions from technology
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: L I'm trapped at a baseball tournament with my kids and I have a notebook and
Frazer Buntin: that's right.
Nathan: else. And then it's like, wow, this, this was such a more productive,
Frazer Buntin: Oh, amazing.
Nathan: session,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, we have this really uncomfortable hard green couch, um, here in our, right in, in the front door of our office. And I will go sit there with, [00:21:00] with this brown, um, portfolio and a pen when I need to think or solve a problem or think about that 90 day view versus that two or three day view.
Frazer Buntin: I'll go recline on that thing with my feet up and I'll get a blank piece of printer paper or two or three and just go for 30 or 45 minutes and people walk by and be like, oh, Frazier, you must be solving a problem. Um, and people.
Frazer Buntin: Probably don't come talk to me because I'm, I'm trying to get in the zone here and it's
Nathan: fantastic and
Frazer Buntin: 40,
Nathan: you,
Frazer Buntin: I can see it from my office here. Um,
Nathan: The feedback that you're getting suggests what it seems to me, which is that's fairly rare to do something like that.
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: And do you worry that with more and more prevalence of using ai, that that that sort of activity becomes and farther removed from, you know, executives and people trying to be intentional and have high quality thought?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I, a [00:22:00] high quality thought is, um, is extremely necessary and more and more rare today. And it's, I mean, AI is part of it, but it's also work follows you everywhere. Um, you know, work, email on your phone teams on your phone. Easy to open your laptop at seven o'clock at night. And so, um, deep thought, like deep, deep thinking or focused.
Frazer Buntin: Um, problem solving on a body of work, uh, is more and more rare these days. And I schedule it on my calendar. I will block specific time to go. Um, not just like ad hoc, let me go think, you know, totally open-minded, but, um, I need to go spend 45 minutes working on a 90 day operations plan, um, that is blocked from two to three o'clock on, you know, whatever day or, um, and so that to me, that I, I, I need that sort of discipline to, to [00:23:00] make me use that time only for that piece of work or that body of work.
Nathan: Yeah, that's, um, scheduled time that that's the way to handle it, isn't it? Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: Exactly.
Nathan: when you do that, do you force yourself to get away from kind of your office setup, or is it dependent on certain things
Frazer Buntin: It depends, you know, if I need to do a mid-year performance check-in, I need to be sitting at my desk and that's fine. Um,
Nathan: Hmm.
Frazer Buntin: but, um, I'm not gonna do that and check email at the same time. Um, if I need to, you know, create a board slide. Deck for, for I need to be in front of my computer. If I need to strategize more around, um, you know, where to take our solution or service for this part of the business, then I can go sit on the green couch.
Frazer Buntin: And I don't, I don't, I need to be in a different environment. So
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: depends. But, um,
Nathan: Yeah, I've found even some of that, like a board slide, for instance. Obviously you've gotta be in front of a [00:24:00] screen to create the actual slide, but I learned a trick. Uh, there's a lady named Nancy Duarte who wrote a book called Slideology, and a couple follow up books about the art of presentations.
Nathan: And I saw a video of her interviewing someone else, um, talking about this and, and they. We're illustrating the point, like if you sit down with a piece of paper to make a slide and you don't even use any words, you just draw, even if you don't know how to draw, draw a picture what you want to communicate.
Nathan: And then round two is add words to it. And then round three is go to your computer and build the actual slide. And I have found that to be a, a quite clarifying
Frazer Buntin: Oh.
Nathan: for me.
Frazer Buntin: I as a, as a seasoned old veteran, I actually don't, one of the benefits of being a seasoned old veteran is I don't have to create my slides anymore. I only sketch 'em out on a piece of printer paper and, and, you know, ghost 'em out and then, you know, hand 'em to some [00:25:00] eager, you know, junior person who, who, you know, is much better at it than I am.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but yeah, it's so much easier to. Develop the storyline and the goal and the messaging when you're not thinking about, oh, I need a triangle here and I need the right font here and I need the right rectangle, you're, you're separating the construction of the, the construction of the visuals from the messaging itself.
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: And if you just, yeah, do exactly what you said, you can focus on what am I trying to convey with this piece of paper here? So I love that.
Nathan: and just to emphasize, I don't think of you as an old, uh, veteran. In fact, we're the same age, so I can't accept that. But, but I do get what you're saying, like there's benefits
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: more
Frazer Buntin: that's right.
Nathan: and more age.
Frazer Buntin: And even if you can accept it, Nathan, you, you, you may have to accept that we are, we
Nathan: some, at some point it's inevitable.
Frazer Buntin: we're [00:26:00] at the higher end. It's amazing. I walk around and I'm like, I'm in the upper, uh, I'm in the upper echelon of age here.
Nathan: It's wild.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: how, how that can happen. I still feel young. Um,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. you mentioned earlier that you've typically worked in growth environments most of your career. What, what is it, what's going on in inside of you that shifts your attention away from being part of a much larger organization in pursuing opportunities at more emergent ones?
Frazer Buntin: Probably my, probably my a DD.
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: Needed variability, um, to be fulfilled and content, uh, personally and professionally. So I have my hands in a lot of things, um, across the board and doing the same kind of sit. Fewer things in a smaller box at a bigger company just never appealed to me [00:27:00] as much as doing more things in a bigger box at a smaller company.
Frazer Buntin: And so I love being able to bounce from I. Um, so that, that's part of it is needing variability. And the other is I love building, I'm a builder and an improver, maybe more of an improver than a builder, but, um, having the runway to that 20% to to 80% outta that 25% to to 80% run, um, it gives me a lot more enthusiasm than kind of the, the towel ringing of.
Frazer Buntin: The last five or 10% is all like super lean six sigma or um, you know, micro additions to customer sales or whatever it may be. So
Nathan: Yeah. So creating something is much more important to you than optimizing
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. know, and you're in healthcare, um, you're, so healthcare is unique in an, let's just speak from an organizational environment. Healthcare is [00:28:00] unique in that you have clinical roles, um, that are a part of it.
Nathan: And so work with clinicians. Clinicians come from a totally different background of training, uh, than us business people. Uh,
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: what do you, what have you seen? I'm just. Curious, like if, if any, if anyone from with a clinical background is listening to this,
Frazer Buntin: sure.
Nathan: advise them of how they could be more effective at, um, getting through to us hardheaded business people who might be thinking more in terms of, um, cash flow statements
Frazer Buntin: Right.
Nathan: targets and KPIs.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I. I believe that there is an intersection of business goals and good patient care, and those can exist in the same room and they can be very aligned if done, you know, the right way. And so thinking about, you know, performance of readmission rates or. [00:29:00] Um, you know, whatever, whatever the out outcome, the business outcome that you're trying to achieve, um, that can sit in the same room comfortably with, with patient care, and you can do, you can reduce avoidable unnecessary healthcare costs, uh, and provide great patient care.
Frazer Buntin: So, you know, the best clinicians I've seen are the ones that understood the business goals and advocated for the patient goals. Um, but brought those two things together and said, okay, um, yeah, let's reduce unnecessary healthcare costs because no one wants to go to the hospital, um, you know, for an emergency room visit.
Frazer Buntin: So if we, I. Have a goal of reducing emergency room visits that's actually good for the patient. And yes, we benefit as a business because we're under some sort of reimbursement model that rewards reducing ED visits, but that's not the devil. Um, you know, just because we have a goal of of reducing UNN serial healthcare costs.
Nathan: Yeah. [00:30:00] And sometimes, uh, those clinic clinical leaders have the right intentions, they don't come across the right way. So as you think about over the course of your career where you've seen. Clinical leaders kinda lose credibility. What, what are, what are the, what are the one or two things that you would suggest that they do differently that might help them regain credibility?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, again, I think understanding the business side, um,
Nathan: to business goals and
Frazer Buntin: is probably
Nathan: building.
Frazer Buntin: the biggest piece. Yeah. In context building. And, and not being, you know, we have a saying we're, we are a member centric company, so we, we serve members or patients, um, and we will all sacrifice for the member, not the employee. Um, we're, yes, we're an employee centric, but if push comes to shove, we're gonna put the, the member before ourselves.
Frazer Buntin: Um, [00:31:00] and, and a lot of clinical companies. Um, feel like they have to cater to clinicians, doctors, or whoever. It's like, oh, don't upset the docs. Um, because the docs are the docs and the docs are, you know, the docs are God, well, who is the inpatient? And that is actually, we're gonna be patient centric and that might mean.
Frazer Buntin: We have to work until six o'clock tonight seeing patients. So that might mean we're gonna staff a weekend shift or that might mean Fraser, the COO needs to step in and run the Kentucky market for six months because, you know, our person didn't work out. And those are all member-centric decisions that we make.
Frazer Buntin: And that kind of universal halo gives you a lot of air cover to
Nathan: Hmm.
Frazer Buntin: do the right thing for, you know, whoever it is in healthcare. Um. Your, your end customer or the end beneficiary of your service. Um, but I remember several companies and several moments where it was like, we can't do that [00:32:00] because the nurse practitioners won't like it or the docs won't like it.
Frazer Buntin: And I'm like, they're important, but they are secondary the same way. I'm secondary to our end patient, end user. And if we ruffle a few feathers or we lose some, but the member is better and our customer is happier than. Then, then so be it. So that's, you know. Yeah.
Nathan: that's great. You just reframe it to focus on who we're trying to serve. I, I think that's, that's really helpful. I'd like to shift to topics and ask you about something a little different from your day-to-day that you're involved with. I think most people perhaps. People who would see you on your LinkedIn profile or meet you at a conference would assume that you're a highly logical, um, uh, data-driven COO and you've got attributes of that.
Nathan: But there's another side to you, uh, a creative side, and you, over the last few years have gotten more [00:33:00] involved outside of your. role of as COO in pursuing an art hobby? Describe a little bit about what you're, what you're doing.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, yeah, so the, you're right, I'm very much a left brain, um, person. Probably on the surface. I've always had a creative side that emerged either through the types of companies I like to work for that had more creativity or, um. You know, kind of travel or adventure. There's always a creative outlet.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, so anyway, what I've been doing now for amazingly 10 years, um, I call it more than a hobby, but less than a profession, um, is, uh. Making, uh, actual, um, art in a couple of different ways. I started making sculptures with, um, limestones. This will sound totally random, but, um, that's kind of the, the beauty of art is often is very, very random.
Frazer Buntin: [00:34:00] But, um, I would find limestones in certain. Um, creeks in middle Tennessee that had the certain depth and rate of water flow. And occasionally when that happened, it would create these amazing natural water features and watermarks on these stones very naturally beautiful. Kind of think about slot canyons in Utah on a miniature scale built by water flowing over stones or, or something like that.
Frazer Buntin: And, um, and there may only be, you know. Three or four of these stones over a one mile stretch of a certain type of creek. And so I started finding those and using an electric dremel with a diamond tipped different types of diamond tipped bits to kind of work with those stones. Um, and then. It did kind of grew from there.
Frazer Buntin: So did all, all with no particular shape, very abstract and kind of modern and natural. Um, and then I started evolving into canvas pieces. I thought, I wonder if I smashed these [00:35:00] smaller stones of all a uniform color with a sledgehammer, and then I somehow glued 'em to a canvas and kind of a modern way. You know?
Frazer Buntin: I bet that would look really cool. Um, and so then I started doing canvas pieces and. It must resonate with someone because I've been doing it for 10 years and people generally buy 'em, um, almost as soon as I finish with them. And they're, you know, reasonably priced for artwork. I'm not giving 'em away, but I'm not, you know, robbing people.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and so, um, yeah, they, they, I think they resonate because they're natural. But they're also pretty contemporary and modern at the same time, so Yeah,
Nathan: So you take these stones and it's based on the depth and rate of water in, in a creek. Like, more about that. Like how deep, how fast is the
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah. The sweet spot is.
Nathan: using goggles [00:36:00] to find them in the water or the, is the water low enough? Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, and I've, and I've done all types of stones. Th that was a later evolution. Originally, I just started with, with general limestones because they, when you remove parts of the surface, there's different layers of colors and you could do some really interesting kind of cool, modern, but natural looking things with them.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and then I would mount 'em on a steel stand, and I've done small tabletop ones. I've done one that was probably 800 pounds and. Required it. Uh, tractor to remove it from the creek and required a crane. It took me a year to finish and required a, a crane to install it on a five inch, uh, or five foot, um, steel rod poured in 17 cubic feet of concrete, um, and someone's garden.
Frazer Buntin: So a huge variety of 'em. But the sweet spot on the water seems to be about knee, knee to quad. Deep, um, with [00:37:00] enough kind of drop to have consistent current and, and then it just needs to be randomly in the right, you know, there needs to be a limestone shelf or something like random there. And that's kind of part of the fun now as I'm doing those types of stones as to.
Frazer Buntin: You know, see if there's something there. And so I've got 'em kind of marked in a notebook all over the place where I'll just see one and either if I don't need to take it out and use it, I'll leave it there and, and put a mark in a notebook around where it is and come back two years later. And, you know, it's just getting better over time.
Frazer Buntin: Um, you know, with the water.
Nathan: you use a dremmel to, um, shape the rock and a dremmel for people who don't know, is something like a similar to a drill, but it's more, it gives you more precision over shaping things. Would that be an accurate description or would you modify that?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, that's good. I, mine has like a, uh, and I use a bunch of tools, mainly Dremel for the sculptures, but it has a flexible probably two or three foot [00:38:00] extension on it. Um, so I can get kind of angle it and get down to all types of little nooks and crannies and the diamond tipped, um, bits that you use have different sizes and shapes for different types of things.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but then I'm also using, you know, to, to do that big one, I had to rent a, uh, a coring device. They would core a two inch diameter hole, three feet inside of this stone. Um, that was gas powered and, and water cooled. Because it would, it sat down on this five foot steel rod. And, um, so it's all, all different types of equipment that I've got different equipment to smash the stones and sift, sift the different sizes, and then kind of a proprietary way of getting 'em, uh, to adhere to the canvas if I'm doing the canvas pieces.
Frazer Buntin: So that's the fun part, is I just let it go wherever it can go.
Nathan: yeah. And um, I mean, it sounds like there's a different type of [00:39:00] challenge the bigger the piece is and the bigger the equipment is that you have to use with this. Does that factor into this at all?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, if it's a large one ire, it really needs to be a commission because I don't want to commit any year to something and our house and yard are already filled with a lot of my art. So, um, and I mainly do it. I mainly do it so I can do more of it. Um, again, more than a hobby, less than a profession.
Frazer Buntin: I'm, I'm trying to, um. The more I can clear out, the more I can, the more I can create, which is
Nathan: Right.
Frazer Buntin: kind of the fun.
Nathan: when you look at a rock, how do you decide? Your approach to shaping it? What, what, what happens? Like how do, how do you read this thing and make these decisions?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Sometimes I'll start with the idea and then go find the stone. Um, you know, one, one that I do is we'll take kind of more of a, um, kind of classic rectangular shaped stone, and I'll take. I'll leave a strip in the middle and I'll take off all of the outsides. [00:40:00] And people always think it's three stones.
Frazer Buntin: I'm like, how did you get those three stones together? And I'm like, that's one stone. But I've taken the, the sides off, which creates this really neat contrast of, um, the original exterior on, on this middle strip and the interior on, on the sides of it. So sometimes it's idea and then find the stone to ma find the stone to match it.
Frazer Buntin: Sometimes it's find the stone and. Um, but usually, so I have tons of materials waiting that are sitting there, and sometimes I'll just leave them sitting for a while and then the idea will come to me. Mostly I have a backlog of 15 ideas that I'm waiting to do, and I've already, I've already figured it out.
Frazer Buntin: So usually comes pretty quickly.
Nathan: Okay. And you said you've been doing this for about 10 years. If you go back 10 years ago, you know, you know, it's interesting because your art is change. I'm gonna ask a different question. So [00:41:00] do you find inspiration? Are there workers that are doing comparable art pieces? Like this idea, was it influenced and to what extent was it just out of air?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I did a very more rudimentary version of this in my twenties, just as a hobby before, before really getting into my work career and, and then put it on the shelf, just, I don't know, um, uh, and so I don't really know what came, came, brought it back to me. It's kind of the cliche of like, something was inside.
Frazer Buntin: To get out. Yeah, exactly. I don't, I try not to look at other artists because I don't wanna copy anybody else. And so, um, I like to look at other artists that are not doing similar title of work for me, just for inspiration, but I don't, I don't really wanna see other people working with stone or ceramics or, you know, even [00:42:00] some canvas, um, type of work.
Frazer Buntin: So. Um, you know, I think most of my inspiration is just, I love the singular focus of it. I can't check email, I can't multitask, can't even listen to music because I've got a, I've got a mask on, I've got ear protection, I've got eye protection, um, gloves on. So I think most of my muse is just kind of going into a zone or a state of flow and, um, and solely focusing on something for.
Frazer Buntin: Three hours at a time, and especially if you're focusing on something like one square centimeter at a time, um, you know, or if I'm doing a canvas work, maybe one square inch at a time, our concentration is that's so rare to be that concentrated on something in such a single. So, um,
Nathan: What's been most challenging about this, hobby
Frazer Buntin: yeah.
Nathan: of yours?
Frazer Buntin: Probably keeping it pure. Not trying [00:43:00] to make art that sells, but trying to make art
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: That is truly what I think is interesting and creative. And that's part of the beauty of it not being a profession, is I don't have financial pressure to sell art, to pay the bills. Um, which I think gives more, if you're not trying to sell art, you're not thinking about making art that.
Frazer Buntin: Cells and then you can take more risks, you can be more creative. You might end up throwing some pieces away, but you also will have, I think, more breakthroughs and create better art. So staying true to that, because you know, it was very surprising and I had some imposter syndrome of, I'm not really an artist, like I'm self-taught, but people are buying this stuff and I've done.
Frazer Buntin: Several shows and it appeals to people. So I dunno, someone likes it for some reason. Um, but not getting, not letting that flip over into, oh, I should start making stuff that I think [00:44:00] people will want to purchase
Nathan: Right.
Frazer Buntin: versus like, stick to your, you know, be true to yourself. Be true to just the creative process and what you think is neat or special or interesting or different.
Frazer Buntin: And if someone wants to buy it, great. If they don't, then you know, you're, I'm still gonna be able to pay the gas bill. Um,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: but that's a very hard, um, kind of line to, to, to, to stand by.
Nathan: What helps you stay true to yourself?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um. Man, that's a, that's a question that's bigger than art. Um,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: I think, um, just having some awareness of what my blind spots are and trying to, you know, reflect on what those blind spots are and, um, you know, be conscious around, okay, you're, you're trying to do this to, you know, for the wrong reasons, whether it's sell art, or, you know, [00:45:00] show up to a cocktail party this way, or, you know, whatever it happens to be like.
Frazer Buntin: Continue to stay true to yourself is a
Nathan: it, it's such a common human problem.
Frazer Buntin: right. Yeah.
Nathan: made it, and not intentionally, but you've made it more obvious by having it apply to your art, so you can actually, there's something tangible. There's a physical quote unquote product, and the way you are developing that product is either gonna be true to yourself or it's going to be in service of. Um, you know, fame perhaps. Maybe that's the, is that, is that the competing force?
Frazer Buntin: I think it's do not to try to be known as something. If you can, anytime you try, I wanna be known as a blank, that's when you get, I get into dangerous territory, like to be known as versus just me. Um, and so, you know, I don't, that's the slippery slope of I want to be seen as an artist, or I want to be seen as this type of artist, [00:46:00] or I want, um.
Frazer Buntin: People to say, I'm, I'm good. You know, when seeking that affirmation versus just do your thing. Just go out in the backyard and roll up your sleeves and see where this thing takes you and don't worry about it.
Nathan: talking about career and people often have that as a part of their calculus and career. I'm gonna try to become best investment banker in the world. Um, but really they don't have any interest in that. They just like the status that the person has. So that's
Frazer Buntin: Oh yeah,
Nathan: the same thing playing out vocationally.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, yeah,
Nathan: so we we're all competing with that. So it's really interesting to hear how you, how you
Frazer Buntin: yeah. Oh yeah.
Nathan: it.
Frazer Buntin: Career and my line of thinking, you know? 20 years ago, and that's exactly where I was of,
Nathan: Me too.
Frazer Buntin: I wanna, I wanna accomplish this title or this level, or this amount of compensation or whatever. And you just grow up. Um, I mean, at some point you grow up and realize, you know,
Nathan: people do.
Frazer Buntin: yeah, some [00:47:00] people do, or, you know, um, life handed you a couple of hard things and you realize what's important.
Frazer Buntin: And, um, you know, you find, you find that, you find that awareness. But, um.
Nathan: There's, um, how do you, how do you see the world differently now that you've been doing this for 10? How has art shaped you? You've been shaping some rocks. How has that process shaped you as a person?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's really,
Nathan: I.
Frazer Buntin: you know, if I, what I, if I were to say if I didn't make art, I don't know what I would be doing. My kids are older. I. I don't know what I would do on a Saturday or a Sunday, really. I mean, I spend a lot of time doing this and, um, you know, sadly less time driving to soccer games and, and, and whatnot.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, I think it's just been eye-opening that life can continue to unfold for you and don't [00:48:00] put yourself in a. In a box, don't assume that you know, this is, this is all I am. And continue to let your life unfold. You know, as you, as it progresses, and especially as you get older and it's easier to kinda say, oh, I'm an old dog and you know, there's no new tricks here.
Frazer Buntin: Um, but be open to. Those things and be open to like, I don't care if this goes anywhere or not, and, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this thing and maybe I'll create some community around it. Maybe I'll, um, you know, find some, some, you know, more contentment, pleasure out of it. So that's kind of it.
Nathan: what communities has this pulled you into? As
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: it.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. I mean, there, there is a really cool group of. Creative people, artists and creative people, and well everywhere. But in Nashville, it's been really fun to meet a bunch of people and do a couple of shows with some of 'em and. And just [00:49:00] learn what their pro, I'm always intrigued as an operator, what's your process?
Frazer Buntin: What's your studio look like? What's your, how do you get in the vibe of creativity? Do you do it on a Tuesday night or do it on, do it on a Saturday morning and, um, you know, how do you get your materials? So that's been really fun to see. Different types of people, whether it's a, another sculptor or a jewelry designer or you know, somebody who makes hat bands or whatever.
Frazer Buntin: These are people that I've met around the United States and, um, and, and having kind of the right questions to ask to explore with those folks has been interesting to see, you know, what are other people doing in this space as well. And I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't have come across those people. Um.
Frazer Buntin: They're, they're not in healthcare circles and they're not in,
Nathan: Yeah.
Frazer Buntin: you know, those circles. So that's just kind of broadening the world.
Nathan: given the variety that you talked about, enjoying in work context, it seems like that would be very life-giving as
Frazer Buntin: Yeah,
Nathan: have a [00:50:00] variety of people
Frazer Buntin: yeah,
Nathan: out of this.
Frazer Buntin: yeah. Yeah.
Nathan: And, and how has it shaped the way you approach your work today? Um, years of, of art development certainly must influence in some way how you approach day job, your quote unquote left-brained
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: job.
Nathan: That's, that's very logical. What have you seen there?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Um, honestly, they're actually pretty distinct. There's probably been some crossover. Maybe in the, like, more singular focus, try not to be as you know, sometimes multitasking or getting a lot of work done in a short period of time is very good. Sometimes that's not so, um, but it's much more subtle. I, I don't, you know, I don't think about work while I'm doing art, so I don't lift that up and move it over as naturally.
Frazer Buntin: It may be a little more subtle. But that [00:51:00] would probably be it. But they're pretty distinct. Um, and I try to keep 'em pretty distinct.
Nathan: Yeah, that seems like, um, maybe part of the reason behind
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: is to have distinct pursuits. Yeah. You mentioned earlier, um, you know, uh, old dog learning new tricks. Don't, don't be essentially, you didn't say this. I'm saying, I'm interpreting this as, don't delude yourself into thinking that an old dog can't learn new tricks along those lines.
Nathan: For someone who finds themselves. Some, uh, in a, in a stage of career that they're really not satisfied with, would you advise that, that they think about, or what questions might you ask them? Any, any advice or thoughts there?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I mean, I think about, I've used this analogy with a lot of people over the years. Your career is really a funnel, and when you graduate from college, it's wide open and you can go work on Wall Street and finance, or you can go to Tibet and be a sheep herder, and it's everything in between. And. If you start [00:52:00] somewhere and through a process of selection and elimination.
Frazer Buntin: You move through this funnel and you get tighter and tighter and you say, I like finance, but I hate New York, so I'm gonna do finance in Charlotte. And then I like finance in Charlotte, but I don't like, um, accounting. I like m and a, so I'm gonna do m and a finance in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then, and then you slowly start to, um, hone in on through a process of Selectional elimination.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and I always tried to do like a 12 to 18 month pull up and just say again, get a piece of paper. You go sit. On the hard green couch or the courtyard or wherever, and think about what do I like, what do I not like? What am I good at? What am I not good, good at? What do I like about this company? Do I think this is a place I want to be for another, you know, one year, two year, three years?
Frazer Buntin: Um, and try to do some reflection on that. And then if the answer's no, I don't think I want to be here, or I don't think this role is the right fit for me, or, I do wanna get [00:53:00] deeper into that funnel. Um, you have to be ridiculously intentional and aggressive about solving that problem. And you need, my dad used to say, get, make a job outta getting a job.
Frazer Buntin: Um, and so I remember when I was transitioning from one company in my past to another, I. I knew where I wanted to go. Um, it was Healthways where you and I worked together. I went in, I did so much research on Healthways. That was the company I wanted to work for. I did tens of, tens of hours of, of research.
Frazer Buntin: I read every, everything on the website, every K one, every PowerPoint, presentation, everything I could find. And I went in the conference room at lunch every day for four months and practiced. Interview skit that I was gonna give whenever I got an interview there. That's what I mean by don't tiptoe into the next step.
Frazer Buntin: Like you gotta go, you gotta get majorly aggressive on where you're going [00:54:00] after and be the most prepared person who's ever walked into that company to interview. For any position ever. That should be your bar. Um, and it might not happen in one week. It might happen in six months or 12 months. Um, and maybe you have a train and stop somewhere else to get there.
Frazer Buntin: So, um, I think people need to be, just gotta do a lot of work to make that transition after a lot of reflection, um, at the same time.
Nathan: What you're describing is. Counterintuitive to most people. They think if they commit in one direction, they're ruling everything else out. So they try to hold back.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah.
Nathan: what you're saying is maybe something works out great, if it doesn't, there's a serendipity that's going to happen. It's gonna take you somewhere.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. So here's the goal at the end of that funnel that we all aspire to get to, but we're not entitled to it. It's the intersection of three things to do work that we're good at. [00:55:00] For me, that's operations and an industry that you love. Um, and to be well compensated. And if you can get all three of those, then work doesn't feel like work.
Frazer Buntin: That's kind of the cliche, but it's true. Or you kind of spring outta bed in the morning and you're not gonna get those when you're age 22. Um, hopefully you get those when you're age 52, but you might not, you may only get one or you may get two. But if you're thoughtful and reflective and you hustle, um, you might get to three at some point deep into that funnel.
Frazer Buntin: And would I say healthcare is, uh, an industry that I love? Yes. Is it probably the, the top choice for me? I don't know. Like, you know, there's no one singular place, but I would say I'm at least at a two and a half, at least a three, at least a two and a half, maybe a three on the intersection of, of those three things.
Frazer Buntin: Now, but it's taken a lot of time and work, [00:56:00] um, and luck and good fortune and great bosses and managers and colleagues and peers, um, that have helped get there. Um, but to me that's kinda like the farthest point of what, you know, what contentment could look like from a professional standpoint point.
Nathan: From your art perspective, you see the next decade going with it?
Frazer Buntin: Yeah, I would love to. Um, kind of recharge the creative side of it. Um, I would love to move that from a little more than a hobby. Um, so it's more than a hobby, but I would like to continue to move it to a little more than a hobby. If I could eventually back down on the left brain side and pull up the right brain side, um, you know, whether that's a, probably not like open a studio or anything like that, or, you know, a, a gallery or anything, but.
Frazer Buntin: If I think about X number of hours in the week, um, I would love to have more time allocated to [00:57:00] art than I have today. I would love to go train. I've said I was self-taught. I would love to go train and. Educate and study. Um, not in like a two year undergrad or anything like that, but you know, in some of these kind of either do an apprenticeship or go to some of these, um, kind of creative programs where you can go for a month or something like that.
Frazer Buntin: I would love to go do some of those in different parts of the country. Um, where you can really clear the deck for yourself or go do an apprenticeship, um, with somebody else doing something. So. That time, but that, that's really what, um, success would look like for me.
Nathan: Well, your art is beautiful and looking at it, I have found it fresh and somehow relaxing to my mind and spirit, so I, I appreciate you sharing it with the world, and I look forward to seeing how it evolves over the next decade and more. I.
Frazer Buntin: Yeah. Well, thank [00:58:00] you. I, I appreciate it.
Nathan: people go to see it?
Frazer Buntin: Uh, the best place is probably for the most updated is Instagram, which is just at f Bunton. Um, I do have a website, but those are, uh, always outdated for artists who are very bad at putting new work up there. But you can see new work, which is just for fraser button.com.
Frazer Buntin: But, um, the latest and greatest is, is Instagram. And I, I do a pretty good job of, of putting it out there, um, on that. So, yeah, come take a look.
Nathan: Well, thank you Frazier, and thanks for the conversation today.
Frazer Buntin: Nathan, always a pleasure to, to catch up with you and, uh, feel like we share a lot of the same, um, thoughts on, uh, on the world and on the professional side of things. So, um, love.
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
