Workplace MVP: Angela Ammons, Clinch Memorial Hospital

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Workplace MVP is brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. Now, here’s your host, Jamie Gassmann.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:26] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann, here, and welcome to this episode of Workplace MVP. I’m excited about this episode as it shares the story of an amazing leader who has had to navigate various trials and tribulations throughout her life. Now, for some, facing challenges can be debilitating, keeping them from moving forward or accomplishing their dreams. But for this Workplace MVP, it’s strengthened her resilience and provided her with learning opportunities that have helped to shape the successful leader she has become today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:01] So, looking out over the last two years, a number of leaders have faced various challenges as we have experienced personal and professional altering situations. And in some cases, having to navigate unchartered and unknown waters as we have ridden the waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment shortages, changes in our work environments, and more. So, how do we, as leaders, look at these challenges we have overcome as opportunities for personal and professional growth? How do we look on them as a silver lining when at times the challenge was quite difficult?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:37] Well, joining us today is Workplace MVP Angela Ammons, CEO at Clinch Memorial Hospital in Homerville, Georgia. Angela will be sharing with us her story of resilience, triumph, and tenacity as she took her role as CEO of Clinch Memorial Hospital. I’m so excited to have you here on the show, Angela. Welcome.

Angela Ammons: [00:01:57] Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for having me here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:59] So, let’s start with you telling us your story, because it helps to give some insight to the leaders that we have listening in on how you became the leader that you are today.

Angela Ammons: [00:02:10] Well, I have been here as CEO at Clinch Memorial Hospital, in September, four years. But before I became CEO, statistically speaking, I wasn’t supposed to be here. My mother was First-Generation American. She had immigrated here. She met my dad several years ago when he was serving in the war in Korea. And she and my older brother, he’s eight at the time, came over, and she really had never had an education. And even today, she has about a third grade level basic prose understanding and literacy and able to read and write at that level.

Angela Ammons: [00:02:50] So, I guess a tumultuous childhood with lots of challenges in itself led me to be a 15 year old high school dropout. And I was homeless at different times throughout those teenage years. And so, here I am being CEO of a hospital, so that’s why I said, statistically speaking, I’m not supposed to be here. But several years ago, I went back and got my GED. I went to nursing school at Coastal College in Brunswick, Georgia, graduated immediately, went into critical care nursing. And then, various roles presented themselves for me and management and special projects and so forth in the nursing world.

Angela Ammons: [00:03:33] And I have gone on to lead medical teams into Honduras for missions. And I started a nonprofit to, hopefully, one day build a free medical clinic in Honduras in this village that I’m just in love with there. But someone who had went on the mission team with me had picked my brain or asked me questions about the hospital here in Clinch because her husband is serving on the board. And, actually, you know, I get a phone call where they want me to come and speak to the board and to see if I would possibly be interested in the CEO position. And here we are.

Angela Ammons: [00:04:05] And at first I was like, “Oh, you know, I’m very excited about the opportunity, but I’m not a CEO. I’m a registered nurse, nurse manager. It’s very flattering. Thank you.” And they’re like, “No. Come and talk to us.” And so, the person who is very competitive, that side kicked in, and I said, “Why not? Let’s go and see what can happen,” and here we are four years later.

Angela Ammons: [00:04:25] So, I have five children. We live in South Georgia. And they are studying various different fields and we have one teenager left at home. So, that constitutes my very busy life after this boy.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:39] Absolutely sounds like it, for sure. So, you know, you mentioned Clinch Memorial Hospital, so tell me a little bit about that hospital. I know you mentioned it’s rural, so talk to me a little bit about the hospital itself.

Angela Ammons: [00:04:51] Sure. Well, it is a rural hospital. It’s a critical access hospital. And critical access means that there are some limits to us in how we can bill and how we’re structured. So, we are 25-bed max, we have a four day length of stay. And critical access hospitals were set up to offset any acute injuries when there is more than a 38 or 35 mile radius to your next hospital. And a lot of people think that we are just a band-aid station, but that can be farthest from the truth because we employ physicians, nurses, and staff who have to pass the same boards as any other hospital in the State of Georgia.

Angela Ammons: [00:05:28] So, the great thing about us is, if you were to experience motor vehicle accident or cardiac event or some other emergency, we have all the contacts network that we can actually get a helicopter here and fly you out, or can create an efficient path for you to get help that you need. And the hospital has been here since 1957. The older building was torn down and we built this new building here in 2007, so it’s aesthetically pleasing and beautiful. And the Clinch County, I think, there’s about 6,900 people within our county and we do serve some of the surrounding counties around us.

Angela Ammons: [00:06:07] But it has definitely been a struggle for us to stay open. As a matter of fact, when I first became CEO here in September of 2017, we probably had three to five days cash-on-hand and that is just absolutely deplorable for any business. And then, there are just so many other issues that had to be unraveled or rectified in order to get us in a position to where we can be successful.

Angela Ammons: [00:06:32] And I shared this story before. I think I was 30 minutes early to work that day and I kept driving through town because I didn’t want to look like an eager beaver too much. And new briefcase, new shoes, and dress. I was going to come in and save the world. I was what Clinch Memorial Hospital needed. In my small, little, tiny rotation of a brain, I was thinking that. And within two hours, I had four cups of coffee and I was on my second Goody powder because I could not believe what I had been presented with. Very good people, I think, in the heart of things, but just not very current to run a hospital.

Angela Ammons: [00:07:12] A lot of the people that are employed here had never been employed anywhere else. Never had experienced any other, I guess, management of another large hospital. And I had worked for HCA, Mayo Clinic, and Southeast Georgia Health System over in Brunswick, so I had, I guess, a very varied working knowledge of different hospital entities and some of the things that go along with running a hospital. So, I was in quite a shock for the first couple of days there. But here we are four years later and we’re still open.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:46] That’s amazing. Yeah, it sounds like you’ve obviously made a huge difference to operational, cultural, a lot of different things that you kind of walked into. So, with that, talk to me a little bit about when you took over as CEO, what was the culture? And I know you kind of touched a little bit on the state of the hospital. But what was the culture and the state of the hospital like?

Angela Ammons: [00:08:08] It was almost as if this hospital was in a bubble. And they had not been exposed to anything else. Everyone wanted me to save the hospital as long as it didn’t personally affect them or if it didn’t change anything about their lifestyle here at the hospital. And I know that change is hard for a lot of people. But in order for us to move forward and in order for us to save the hospital, there had to be a tremendous amount of change that had to take place. Tremendous amount.

Angela Ammons: [00:08:35] And the board had only given me an 18 month contract. And they had wanted to only give me a year contract at first. And I was like, “There’s no way you can do anything in a year. I know that I’m an RN. I know I’ve had a CEO role before. But I’m going to need a little bit more time.” So, 18 months I felt was huge immense amount of pressure to get in, shake things up, and to see where we could go. And, you know, every day as I was playing that game – and if you play the game at the fair or whatever, Whac-A-Mole, the little mole pops up and you hit it and the next one pops up – I felt like I was just chasing moles every single day.

Angela Ammons: [00:09:11] But the culture, for a good part of it, was somewhat toxic. I had some very good people in my C-suite who are very supportive. They understood that a lot of change needed to happen. But, for example, on my first day on the job, I had an employee who refused to shake my hand as the new CEO, who refused to be introduced to me.

Angela Ammons: [00:09:32] And it had taken me aback because I had been employed since I was 15 years old, working two to three jobs at times. And it didn’t matter what job I held, whether it was the waitress at Chinese or I was working in retail or I was working in an engineering co., there is this level of respect that you give to people who are your managers or the position they hold or just respect for the next human being. So, I just remember walking away from the employee, “You know what? They don’t want to meet me right now. I will come back.” Thinking, “What in the world?”

Angela Ammons: [00:10:04] And then, I remember a nurse who refused to even look up from the desk and speak to me until I finally had to tap on the desk and say, “Did you not hear me say hello?” They’re like, “Oh, yeah. I heard you.” and I was like, “Okay. So, this is going to be a very interesting job here.” But it was just whatever was allowed. There was limited accountability, very limited follow through, very limited amount of expectation set. And I think that previous CEOs had done the best they could, but it was just an immense project. So, I just started to decide to chip away at the little things.

Angela Ammons: [00:10:42] And a very wise woman in a church that used to give advice to all of the new newlyweds, and she said, “Honey, you need to start out like you can call it out.” And then, new women like, “What are you talking about? What does that mean?” “If you want to be sugar and kisses and full face of makeup every single day, you got to do that for the rest of your life. Because it’s not fair to the husband when three months in, you’re tired of that and you revert back to another lifestyle.”

Angela Ammons: [00:11:11] So, I’ve taken that kind of advice into the business. It’s hard for you to start out easy and then have to get harder because your employees are not going to understand that. So, I believe in being tough but fair and being very direct from the get-go. Tons of respect in there, but I had to be very direct with some of the things.

Angela Ammons: [00:11:31] So, I remember going to my CNN and she is a phenomenal employee, and I don’t know what I would do without her. But I told her about my experience with a nurse and I said, “Get it cleaned up and get it fixed immediately or I’m going to have to take care of the issue.” Because if she’s doing that to me as a CEO, I don’t know what she’s doing to the public, so we need to rectify the situation immediately. But it was just instances like that.

Angela Ammons: [00:11:55] And then, the community being an outsider, not from here, being half Asian, I think, has been hard to accept at times. There’s a lot of judgment, especially when you’re a female CEO and you’re taking on a role like this. And I even heard negative comments from people who I thought were my friends about how I potentially got the job. And so, it was just hard during that first year to be tasked with trying to save a hospital, changed the culture, and then dealing with the personal attacks that come with that.

Angela Ammons: [00:12:26] And it’s still not easy. I think once a quarter, I make someone upset in the community. I’m in this closed Facebook group, How do we remove the new administrator? Now, I’ve been here four years, so maybe when I’m here ten years and I’m still here, maybe I won’t be new anymore. So, that happens on a consistent basis. So, it’s just one of those things.

Angela Ammons: [00:12:46] But, Jamie, looking back, I believe that my entire childhood in lifetime prepared me for the things and the challenges that I had to face here. Because if someone had a very sheltered lifestyle and someone had to overcome a lot of obstacles had been put in situations where people were just really horrendous to you, I think they would have walked out the door. And people have walked out the door. And sometimes when I had insults hurled at me, I’m like, “Is that the best you can do? Because I’ve heard a lot worse. That doesn’t bother me at all.” So, I think that helped prepare me for this position and maybe other things in the future. I don’t know.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:13:26] Wow. Yeah. And that definitely sounds really challenging because you’re trying to make a difference. And, you know, having people understand and provide that respect to help along the way would make it that much easier. But it’s almost like they’ve created those obstacles. Because change is hard. I mean, change management, especially in an organization where it sounds like they probably had multiple CEOs that come and gone prior to you coming on board while they’re trying to fix the situation, and creating change can bring so many additional obstacles in it of itself.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:14:05] So, how did you approach that? What were some of the ways that you approach that change management process, knowing that you are already getting kind of some deflection of frustrated feelings and disrespect? And how did you kind of implement that? What were some of the ways that you approached that, that you feel helped to kind of overcome some of those challenges?

Angela Ammons: [00:14:26] Well, it was a multifaceted approach. And some days I thought I had it nailed down to a science. And then, sometimes you have to start back to the first page. I created a whiteboard. I had a whiteboard hung in my room and I created wants and needs. And I think I’m on my second or third whiteboard, where I had to erase it and start all over again. And I had to focus every single day on the things that absolutely had to happen, whether it’s applying for accreditation, looking at our charge master, going back and looking at policies and procedures.

Angela Ammons: [00:14:58] And things that are supposed to happen on a routine basis hadn’t happened in years. So, not only was it you had to get it done, but you’re looking at ten plus years of work that you had to go through. But just looking at that and being able to cross off with a red marker the things that we accomplished kept me going. And rallying the team, I had to make sure that the board had my back 100 percent. And at times, it can feel like they don’t. But you have to remember the end goal. And to remember as long as you know that you’re performing at your best capacity, your feeling for that day cannot be dependent on the feedback you get from somebody else.

Angela Ammons: [00:15:41] And being a novice CEO, being very new at my role, and being unsteady for the first six months, I probably caused a lot of undue stress upon myself wanting positive feedback, wanting you’re doing a great job, wanting the employee’s light. I mean, guess what? I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it at all from the community. And I’ve had some bad discussions with boards and with employees. So then, I had come to a sharp realization, like, “Angela, you’re wanting fuel for your fire that you’re not going to get. You’re going to have to learn to smoke that thing on your own. And not wait for positive feedback. Just keep your head down and do the best you could.”

Angela Ammons: [00:16:21] So, I created a good team of immediate support in the C-suite, and I was very direct with all of them. I said, “Look, I’m a very transparent person. I’m never going to be 100 percent right all the time. I will fail. I will do my best to admit the times that I failed. But I need you to be able to admit that with me as well. Together, let’s come up with solution. Don’t think you have to hide anything. I don’t want you to hide anything. If you don’t know an answer to something, just admit that because I’m going to do the same thing with you.”

Angela Ammons: [00:16:49] And we set some goals and we gave everybody a toolbox to be able to reach those goals. And if you couldn’t get there, we had to give you the opportunity to seek employment elsewhere. And a lot of people in our accounting thought this hospital was established to be an employer of Clinch County, and that cannot be farther from the truth. The hospital was established to provide excellent patient care for anyone that came to that door. And we are tasked with making sure that we have the right people in place to do that.

Angela Ammons: [00:17:17] So, there is a lot of nepotism that we had to alleviate within the facility. And there are a lot of hurt feelings associated with that. And a lot of people just thought it was a personal attack, but that wasn’t true. So, that was one of the things that we had to do and we’re still facing. And I think that a lot of people – a lot more, the percentage shifting, to where people understand that. And I used to tell my children and I still do, “Remember, you are the average of your friends. Look around at your friends. If you don’t like what you see, you need to do a little bit of introspection because you’re probably that average.”

Angela Ammons: [00:17:56] So, when I became CEO, there were years of people that I had worked with who had heard I taken the position and said, “Angela, we always want to continue to work with you and for you. If anything comes open, let us know.” So, for the first time in several years, we had people who could get jobs anywhere, but they were choosing to come and work in little Clinch County, BSN, master’s degrees, years of experience with compliance, and so forth.

Angela Ammons: [00:18:22] And so, that made my job a lot easier, is, having a great team and the same work ethic that I did, and who believed in just staying until the work was done, and being honest and laughing at each other. Now, there has been times when we have had a lot spats back in the day. We leave with the respect that we’re just here for the common goal. And I think if it had not been years of me doing the best I can in previous jobs, that reputation would have not followed me.

Angela Ammons: [00:18:50] And so, whenever we have new nurses come in or anybody through orientation, I ask that I have a few minutes to introduce myself and speak to everyone. And I tell them, you are in a constant job interview every single day you show up for work, whether you believe it or not. So, it’s important for your uniform to be right. The dress code is appropriate, for your personality to be on spot, because you don’t know the person that you’re working with next to you will be a future employer, a future reference, a future anything.

Angela Ammons: [00:19:18] So, that’s the way I try to operate in. That, I don’t know if any of the people that are working for me, I may not be working for them in the future. But I think that has what helped me be as successful as I am and to attain the positions that I did. Earlier on, when you’re homeless and you’re by yourself and you don’t have anyone to help you, there have been some pretty dark moments in my life whether it’s the shame, or the realization, or the lack, the only person that can change for you is you. There isn’t one person in the face of this Earth that owes you anything. Not one thing.

Angela Ammons: [00:19:57] And if you want to change the directory for your life, you got to get out and work for it. And that meant working three jobs. That meant going back to college. After you get off your second job and doing night classes, but keeping that mindset that whatever you want to have in life, you work for it and it’s not handed to you, I think, really has helped us, as a team, here at Clinch Memorial Hospital to get some of the recognition and the notoriety that we have thus far.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:20:24] Yeah. Which sounds well deserved and it’s great. I love that concept of, you know, show up to work like you’re always on a job interview. I always say it goes the same way when I’m traveling, I always travel dressed ready for potentially anybody that I might meet because you never know who you might be sitting next to. You don’t know who you’re going to run into.

Angela Ammons: [00:20:44] That’s so true. It never fails. The day you leave the house without makeup because you’re just going to run to the store, ripped t-shirt or something because you’ve been cleaning all day, you see someone. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. There’s no second chance of this ever again.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:21:00] Totally. Yes. I love that concept in the work environment of always showing up like you’re going to be in a job interview, because I love that thinking of always putting your best foot forward every day.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:21:14] So, you know, with the hospital, obviously, you mentioned it’s rural and you’ve kind of touched on some of those challenges with the nepotism and changing kind of the perception of the community to the hospital. With it being rural, what are some of the benefits that it has? But then, also, what are some of the challenges or obstacles you’ve had to overcome with it being a rural hospital? Are there things that have created maybe some barriers to it being more rural-ly – I don’t even know if that’s a word – rural in Georgia?

Angela Ammons: [00:21:51] It is extremely challenging for us because rural usually means high poverty rate. So, getting people to use your hospital or ancillary services is extremely hard because you usually have a higher uninsured rate, or Medicaid, or you really don’t qualify for that. And along with that, too, sometimes comes with a lack of understanding due to a lack of education. Most of the people who do go off to get college degrees, stay in the area that they’re getting the college degree from. And very few move back.

Angela Ammons: [00:22:24] So, we have a problem with outmigration and just a complete lack of understanding and the mindset of, “We’ve always done it this way. Why do we have to change?” Well, there can be no success without change.

Angela Ammons: [00:22:37] A very good friend of mine who happens to work here, so there can absolutely be zero growth, personal or professional, without conflict. So, it’s going to mean there’s going to be a time of being uncomfortable or a little bit different in order for us to see some change. So, that’s hard.

Angela Ammons: [00:22:54] And one of the things that was challenging for us coming in was that, we were a hospital that was slated to be closed. We were on the closure list. And hardly anyone had ever heard of us. We were sometimes confused with a hospital in Charleston County that closed in 2014. So, going in as the underdog and having everyone who could go to the back for you, the legislators, your representatives, people who wanted to issue grants knowing that you might be a sinking ship, they did not want to work with us. So, that was extremely difficult and extremely challenging.

Angela Ammons: [00:23:31] And then, having a board who is a good hearted board but was void of the health care management aspect, didn’t understand a lot of the terms of a critical access hospital. See, critical access hospitals are set up much differently than PPS hospitals. Usually in any business, if you want to make a profit and you save money, you cut back and you put money in the bank. Critical access hospitals are set up differently. So, we get 101 percent of all of our charges that are presented to Medicare. And at the end of the year, we do a cost report. And if we have not reinvested every dollar that Medicare gave us, we have to give them money back.

Angela Ammons: [00:24:12] In trying to get the board and people to understand why is that new CEO buying all of these IV pumps, or upgrading their computer systems, or hiring more people, or why does she increase salaries? Because all of that goes in our cost report. And so, it’s a game. It’s a game how to play this and how to navigate that to make sure that we get credit for every dollar that comes through here. And at times it can be very, very stressful. If you’re facing a possible payback at the end of the year because you worked so hard, your staff worked so hard, the last thing you want to do is write a check for a million dollars back to Medicare. I mean, it’s just so defeating to do that.

Angela Ammons: [00:24:53] So, understanding the nuances of that and trying to get your hands and head wrapped around that was extremely challenging because the community would post something in the paper to the editor, “Why did she get rid of this long term provider in the community?” Well, it really was not feasible for us to continue in this relationship. Or, “Why is she buying a car for an employee?” And so, a couple of years ago, we were trying to find a creative way to keep employees here, to retain them, and to recruit them.

Angela Ammons: [00:25:23] And I did not like sign on bonuses because that defeated everything that anyone had been here for years in the work that they were doing. So, what we did was created a driving excellence program. So, every two weeks, if an employee signed off on your time, you worked your scheduled hours, and you did not call out, your name was put into a drawing. And every quarter, we gave away $500 from that drawing. And then, we put your name back in the bucket, and every year we gave away a car to an employee.

Angela Ammons: [00:25:54] So, that got a lot of publicity for us, and there is a lot of people who wanted to come work for us because we were thinking outside the box. But the community can’t understand that, and I tried to explain to them, “Well, depending on a cost report, if you know the employee that we give it to, it’s not the face value of the cost of this car.”

Angela Ammons: [00:26:12] And every time an RN leaves our facility, the average cost for recruitment and retention and getting it back is $50,000 every time a registered nurse leaves you. So, if we have ten registered nurses walk out the door every yea, it’s costing us so much money. So, this is a very little small effort that we can do with that type of thing. But getting the community to understand that has been hard at times, but we just keep pressing on trying to think outside the box and doing things that we’ve never done before.

Angela Ammons: [00:26:41] We created a farm to table approach in the middle of the pandemic. We had a lot of farmers locally who couldn’t get their vegetables and produce and fruit to the market because the pandemic shut everything down. And one of the farmers reached out to me and said, “Angela, can you buy some blueberries? All of our suppliers have just dried up and they’re just down on the vine.” “Absolutely.”

Angela Ammons: [00:27:01] And so, I started getting my mind thinking, the restaurants may be closed in New York and Atlanta, but every hospital in this nation is still open. How can we help our local farmers? So, I picked up the phone, I called some other hospitals and they bought some. We started this food collaborative in which offset to another thing where we try to give our employees B-grade vegetables from local farmers so they won’t go to waste in the field. We can’t really give you money all the time, but, hey, instead of you leaving having to go to a grocery store, here’s some nutritious food straight from the fields from our local farmers. So, it’s little things like that we try to do to be creative, which is a challenge.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:27:38] Absolutely. But what’s really cool about that is you’re supporting your community while helping your employees. It’s almost like a win-win-win. Like, it’s kind of helping to keep them motivated and feeling good about the work they’re doing, but also helping others in that community with getting their produce to somebody who can buy it. That’s amazing. What a great story.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:28:00] And, obviously, you’ve overcome a lot of these challenges. You’re risen kind of like a phoenix in a way. You know, you’ve also leveraged mentors and other leaders kind of in your network along the way with that. Can you talk about how important that has been or how that helped you in being able to have that comfortability to reach out to other leaders and ask questions and get support from them?

Angela Ammons: [00:28:26] Sure. Well, I think my background created a boldness inside of me. So, I’m like, “What have I got to lose?” I mean, I’ve probably been embarrassed to the most extent. So, I’m one of those people who will be completely transparent and vulnerable. And I think this is something that executives or anyone in any workplace need to understand, not everyone should fake it until you make it, because you may end up making a complete fool out of yourself.

Angela Ammons: [00:28:51] The next person at the next cubicle or the CEO at your competitor could feel just as uneasy or insecure about various roles that they must fulfill. So, the best thing you can do and the best thing that I did was to be very upfront about the things I did not know, and to asked for help. Now, being vulnerable meant that a lot of people tell me no, or didn’t return my phone call, or pretty much said, “No. You’re CEO now, you figure it out.” And I was shocked when I got those kind of responses because I was always in the nature, if someone needs help, I’m going to do everything I possibly can to help them. I’m the person who does that.

Angela Ammons: [00:29:33] And I shared this with somebody else before when I talked about mentors, and I’ve had some really good mentors. The best mentors in my life have been the people who have been the meanest and dirtiest in my life. I have learned more from that than anybody else, because I have sworn to myself with those interactions, I am going to be so far away on the spectrum of where you are so I can never be like you. And what do I need to do so that I’m not like this?

Angela Ammons: [00:30:03] And I think reaching out for help, it leaves you open to placing trust in people you shouldn’t place trust in, but that’s okay. Place the trust anyway. Be very cautious, but extend the olive ranch and place that trust. So, reaching out to a mentor on my first day in the job here was something that took a lot of guts. I knew what I didn’t know. And I knew that as a new CEO, I needed some help here.

Angela Ammons: [00:30:33] So, I had researched powerful CEOs who are doing something to shake things up in the critical access world. And Robin Ralph’s name popped up and I cold called her on the first day. I was like, “Robin, you don’t know who I am.” And the gods smiled upon me because she answered the phone. It didn’t go to a secretary or anything. She answered the phone and I said, “I’m Angela. This is my first day on the job as a CEO in this critical access hospital. I don’t know a lot, but I know I need a mentor. Would you be my mentor?” And she agreed and we developed a relationship and I have learned a tremendous amount in these last three years from her.

Angela Ammons: [00:31:11] But taking that chance and letting her open doors for me led me to meeting other people, and introduced myself, and really stepping outside of my comfort zone. I’m a huge introvert. I mean, I’m on all day and there’s nothing more than what I want to do is get curled up at home with my dog and cat, read a book, and stay inside. And I can stay inside the house for an entire weekend. But I had to learn that my position meant for me to get out of my comfort zone and network.

Angela Ammons: [00:31:40] So, I remember the first conference I ever went to. I shut out to some of the sessions that was going on, and I ran right back to my hotel room. I wanted to avoid the cocktail hour, the meet and greet hour, because I felt that I was not adequate enough to mix and mingle with other CEOs, even though I held the title as CEO, even though I was pursuing a master’s degree, even though I had to overcome so much that would put people in a grave. And that would stop people.

Angela Ammons: [00:32:11] Years ago, I let my inner voice tell me, “You are not there yet. How dare you get out there and give a business card, introduce yourself as a CEO when you’re so new in the game?” But you know what? I’m looking back now and I wish that had not stopped me. And we let our inner voice of fear stop us from stepping out and obtaining the things that we should obtain, and going after the things that we should because of that voice. And, also, criticisms from other people.

Angela Ammons: [00:32:38] And that year as a new CEO, I remember sitting in a session with this group called Hometown Help and someone won CEO of the Year, and I was like, “I’m going to win that one year. I promise you that.” The next year, I won it. And there are a lot of people who felt like I shouldn’t have gotten that award, and I knew it and I could sense it. There are people who have been CEOs of hospitals and rural hospitals for years and haven’t gotten it.

Angela Ammons: [00:33:04] And then, the next year, I was asked to give a keynote message or speech at the same conference and my opening line was, “A year ago today I received CEO of the Year award. Just like a lot of you who are sitting in this audience, I didn’t think I deserved it.” I can feel the tension break in the room. And being vulnerable in that moment, I felt let them be open to the rest of my speech and we got Hospital of the Year that year after that speech was over.

Angela Ammons: [00:33:35] But mentors have come in different shapes and sizes. Some of my biggest mentors now are my employees that work under me – and I hate to say work under me – work with me. There are some hard working, very smart, intelligent people that teach me things every single day. And I truly believe in being surrounded by people who are smarter than me. If I’m the smartest person in the room, I need to get out of the room, and I tell them that all the time. People who I thought were my mentors in the past surely were not. And I realize that now, but they were. I hate to say that because I’m still learning from them.

Angela Ammons: [00:34:15] And being in the position of being mentored, I think, it’s hugely important that I try to mentor someone. And I’m usually shocked and taken aback when I get someone that reaches out and say, “Would you mind being my mentor?” And I’m like, “You want me? Are you sure?” But sometimes people just want friendship to know that we’re not in this alone.

Angela Ammons: [00:34:36] So, I think it’s important that in any leadership position that we remember to give it back and pay back. And then, sometimes it really helps offset the pain and the sting of the criticism and stuff that you get when you’re trying to do your job.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:34:50] I love that concept of reaching out even just to be a friend or have somebody there. Because, you know, there’s a lot of leaders or there’s people that I’ve heard this from that say it’s very lonely at the top. And from what it sounds like to you, you’ve really taken an opportunity to embrace those that are either working with you or can help you in some way from a networking perspective. And, you know, ones that may be a little bit more negative, you’re going, “Yep. That’s not what I want to be, so that helps me to grow as a leader.” But, you know, really kind of finding a way to not be lonely at the top so that you can continue to thrive in a way, very interesting.

Angela Ammons: [00:35:29] Hugely important. Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:35:31] Yeah. Absolutely. And you’ve navigated a lot of discomfort when you’ve been put in different situations. I know you shared some on having to choose your battles as you moved into this role. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I know sometimes, you know, when you get into that leadership role and you go into a meeting, you’re like, “Okay. This is something I have an opinion on. I should fight for it.”

[00:35:52] But I think what was really interesting about a previous conversation you and I had where you shared some examples of, “Yep. That’s not a battle I’m going to take on. I’m going to choose my time when I take that battle on.” Share a little bit about that and how you were able to kind of learn some control on that in choosing your battle, because you ran into some several obstacles where you had to do that.

Angela Ammons: [00:36:14] I did. I did. Several comments I want to make about that. One is that, you can’t want more for people than they want for themselves. The disappointment stops when you realize that. And I’m still trying to get past this, I hire really quickly and I fire slow. And a lot of times people think that, “Oh, this person has positions, so they should know better. They already should know better.” But that’s not true. You’ve got to be able to have some very tough conversations.

Angela Ammons: [00:36:44] Now, don’t criticize a person every single day that they’re walking in the door. But for the bigger things or for, “Hey, do you want to help with this?” And let me tell you how I thought this meeting went today. The same thing with my board, they’re a fairly new board when I started and we are each trying to prove ourselves. And there are some very tense conversations that we’ve had to have. And me not having that boardroom experience before, I learned that I had to learn how to regain or gain my composure and post questions in a different manner. Or if I didn’t get it yesterday, it doesn’t mean it was a permanent no. I just had to redirect and find out what the root cause of the issue was and then just reask in a different time.

Angela Ammons: [00:37:26] So, I learned that I don’t have to go in and be the fist on the table or get my way. And instead of going, “Are you crazy? Did I just really hear that come out of your mouth?” That I may not get such a great response and said I can word it like, “I really appreciate your feedback on that. Can you explain or elaborate a little bit further on what you’re trying to convey here? Because I’m not quite sure I’m on the same page with you.” The same thing, but completely different ways of saying it.

Angela Ammons: [00:37:58] And it was very hard for me to come in to this environment because there are some very strong personalities. And anyone who’s ever managed a team of physicians or have had to be a CEO of a hospital or a physician practice, physicians at time can be hard to manage, especially if they’ve been allowed to run the show for an extended period of time.

Angela Ammons: [00:38:24] And we, as females, not only do we constantly second guess, or do I deserve to be in this position? Should I ask for a raise because I’m not sure I deserve that? Should I say no to this, even though I know it’s out of my scope of practice because I really have got to prove myself? Not only that, but then we have to balance the inner voice of, you’re fat. If you’re a little bit skinnier, you look better in that suit. Or, do you really need to eat that donut today? Should you be in both sides of that bagel, Angela, before you came to the office? But we constantly worry about our image.

Angela Ammons: [00:38:59] And so, I remember a physician who was well-respected in the community. When I walked into a meeting – it was a med staff meeting – he called me out and he says, “Miss Ammons, have you lost any weight because it doesn’t look like it?” And this is with a team of other professionals and doctors. And, really, I just kind of giggled uncomfortably.

Angela Ammons: [00:39:20] And after the meeting, I said, “Is this something that happens all the time?” “Well, yes, that’s just how he is. You just have to deal with it.” I was like, “No. Let’s not have to deal with it.” Other people say, “Oh, just don’t worry about it. That’s how they are.” I’m like, “You don’t understand something, in any other setting, this person would have a lawsuit against them, if you’re telling me this is how they treat everyone.”

Angela Ammons: [00:39:42] So, I have my back against the wall just because I didn’t have another physician so forth. So, I tell myself, “You’re going to fight this battle, but you’re going to fight it at the right time.” But, still, I would get a phone call randomly, a phone call from this person they’re saying, “AA -” because Angela Ammons “- I only have one question for you.” And I say, “Yes. What’s your question?” “Are you still fat?” And they would laugh and hang up the phone. And I’m a size eight to ten, average female in American sport team, so I never considered myself fat. We all do a little bit. But I was like, “Oh, my God. Not only do I have to worry about three days cash-on-hand and payroll, I’ve got some idiot asking me about my weight in a professional setting.” I’m like, “Oh, my god.”

Angela Ammons: [00:40:23] And then, I would walk in to a performance improvement meeting, a CQI meeting, and this person would say, “I think our next performance improvement plan should be to reduce Ms. Ammon’s BMI because she’s really not overweight. She’s clinically obese. And I would appreciate it when you go on your walking clubs, if you happen to run past my house, you call me and tell me so I could hold my China cabinet in place so the China doesn’t bounce out.”

Angela Ammons: [00:40:48] And I remember a new physician that I hired sitting there staring at him and his color is getting red because he was new and he didn’t know how to navigate it. He was just like, “I cannot believe this behavior is happening here.” But another time and another place, I was able to address it head on. And that behavior towards me does not happen any longer. I was able to stop it. And I believe that I have gained enough respect for myself that I could go to anybody in the community and say, “This is a behavior that’s happening. We could get sued for this type of behavior. This is lateral violence and harassment. This will not be tolerated in our facility anymore.” And I said that.

Angela Ammons: [00:41:31] And so, as far as I know, it has stopped. But I had to remind myself that I cannot walk out the door every time you got an easy for me, or every time it was not comfortable, or every time I wasn’t getting flowers and champagne tossed at me for doing a good job. When you’re in a position of power, a CEO, CFO, manager, owner of your business, you’ve got to remember what your goal is, your end goal. And it’s not going to get any easier in any other facility or business you go to. It’s just going to be the same type of person. It’s just a different name.

Angela Ammons: [00:42:08] And you’ve got to tell yourself, what’s my end goal? What can I tolerate? It’s not going to be on the the ledge of being illegal. But you just have to keep your head up and keep going because every single employee in this facility needed me to do that. And I couldn’t take it personally. I just had to let it just roll off, like, this is something you have to face every single day or intermittently. But you have to remember you’re here to save the hospital and you’re not going to get a parade every single day when you come in here. It’s just not going to happen. And I think people forget that. I think at times we’re a little bit more sensitive than we should be, and we walk out the door, and then we forget the true mission of what we were set to do here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:42:53] Yeah. Well, that was one of those moments where planning your time to address it when you could make the biggest impact as opposed to trying to navigate that too soon and not getting to that end goal that you were set.

Angela Ammons: [00:43:08] Sure. Because he wanted to squabble. If I wanted to do an immediate squabble back and forth, then I think everyone at that table would lose respect for both of us. And I need that respect. It had not been lost for me, and I wasn’t going to do anything to add fuel to that fire. So, you can get in a fight. Sure, fights are very easy, a verbal squabble, but I knew that I need to hold my place and time, and I would have my due day of being able to reckon.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:43:33] Yeah. Absolutely. And good for you, because that would have been a really hard one to sit and take. But then, I admire your strength in that moment to just, you know, “Okay. All right.”

Angela Ammons: [00:43:46] Yeah. And then, sometimes you have to have private conversations with someone which is acting very irresponsibly, and you really felt they didn’t know any better. Very young people, they graduate and immediately, “I have my master’s degree. I know what I’m doing.” Or, “I have my bachelor’s degree, you can’t tell me everything because my degree at Georgia Southern has told me everything,” or my degree at UGA.

Angela Ammons: [00:44:07] And sometimes you have to pull someone down, sit them down and say, “Private conversation between you and me, where do you want to go and live? What you’re doing now is never going to get you there. So, if you want to listen to my advice, I’m about to tell you that.” And those conversations can be extremely hard because these people are so young and fragile, sometimes 22 or 23 or just graduating college. And they probably have a dozen trophies at home where they’ve got a trophy just for showing up. So, having someone have a hard conversation with them are very difficult.

Angela Ammons: [00:44:40] Well, I’d much rather have hard conversations, performance improvement plans to help them achieve the goals that I have for them just to fire somebody every six months or a year just because it’s not working out. And I think too many times, executives and people in leadership roles look the other way. But the idea they should know better. Why do I need to tell them that? People need to be told. I need to be checked. If I roll my eyes and I don’t catch it, I have people who’s going to be, “Angela, your facial expression.” Or, “Angela, you got a little bit loud in that meeting. You shouldn’t do that.” I have people in place to check me. And that’s so important.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:45:18] Yeah. Oh, I love that. We’re going to jump into a commercial from our sponsor real quick. So, Workplace MVP is sponsored by R3 Continuum. R3 Continuum is a global leader in providing expert, reliable, responsive, and tailored behavioral health disruption and violent solutions to promote workplace well-being and performance in the face of an ever changing and often unpredictable world. Learn more about how R3 Continuum can tailor a solution for your organization’s unique challenges by visiting r3c.com today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:45:52] So, I like that thinking about having somebody in place to check yourself. That is so spot on. I completely would agree with that. And I tell my staff as well, you know, “It’s okay to call me if I’m on something too. I expect the same in response.” So, in looking at some of the key learnings that you have as a leader since taking on this role, what would some of those be?

Angela Ammons: [00:46:22] One of the biggest things is, never stop learning. Some people are like, “I’m CEO. I never have to go back to anything because I don’t need to know anything else.” That is not true. I work – and I think all of you probably – ungodly hours, but I’m always looking for other avenues to learn and improve. Is there a conference that I can attend? Is there a podcast I need to regularly listen to you on my commute? What books do I need to read? Who do I need to continue to mentor me so that I can be sharpened? Because iron sharpens iron, right?

Angela Ammons: [00:46:53] So, a lot of people would not have done this. And a good friend of mine said, “I would have never made this call if I were you. You’ve got some guts.” After winning Hospital of the Year award, which is a back up to being CEO of the Year award. Which, also, in the middle somewhere, I was featured in Time Magazine, this hospital was featured in Time Magazine for some of the work we’ve done, I couldn’t understand something on the financials of our financial report.

Angela Ammons: [00:47:19] And I had a good friend who’s the CEO and CFO at another hospital, and I reached out to him, Kerry Trapnell at Elbert Memorial. He’s been a godsend to me. And I said, “Kerry, I don’t understand this. Can you help explain this? And maybe we should put this in another format?” Well, a lot of people would have responded, “Didn’t you just win Hospital of the Year? You’re supposed to be the rock star, why are you asking for help?” He didn’t. He’s like, “Sure. What do you want me to show you? What you want me to do?”

Angela Ammons: [00:47:46] And without being vulnerable and asking for help, I would still be in that one place. So, I think it’s important for us to realize when we need help. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. And to continue to educate ourselves. I mean, I thought I was done with school. But, now, I’m thinking, maybe I need an MHA on top of an MBA. And maybe I need to join these organizations so that I can continue to be better, because you don’t know what the future holds for you.

Angela Ammons: [00:48:18] When I was a 15 year old high school dropout waiting tables at Shoney’s, and that was when they had the awful ugly uniforms back in the day – I don’t know if you have eaten at Shoney’s, but it was a green wrap around polyester skirt and this green and brown plaid top. I couldn’t see past me paying the bills at the end of the month and working there. So, you never know what the future is going to hold for you. You never know what’s going to become of that. So, always try to prepare yourself to be better.

Angela Ammons: [00:48:46] And I remember going to yard sales and checking out books during that time I was a dropout, whether it was law books, it was college books on geometry, and so forth. I’m telling myself, “Okay. You may not be officially enrolled in school, but you need to read over this. You need to try to get ahead of the game and that type of thing.” So, I think it’s incredibly important to continue to educate yourself and to learn from other people. I think that’s probably the best advice that I can give everyone.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:49:15] Great. So, in looking at your career and how you’ve grown, I know you’ve mentioned it a couple of times that voice of fear in your head that we all have. And what I’m curious about is, how do you overcome that voice of fear? It’s almost like imposter syndrome, right? Especially when you get into leadership roles, sometimes you show up at that table like, “Wow. Do I really belong at this table?” And it’s like, “But you do.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:49:42] How do you find that voice of believing in yourself? Because there’s a reason you’re at that table. You earned it. You’ve mastered certain things that have gotten you to there, even if it’s not educational or any of that, it’s your work ethic, your integrity. There’s so many other things that get people into those roles. Can you talk through how you overcome that fear? How do you make sure that you show up believing in yourself, whether it’s a meeting, or it’s a presentation, or it’s just the day-to-day workplace?

Angela Ammons: [00:50:14] Sure. I still wrestle with that every single day. That voice has probably gotten a lot quieter over the last couple of years. And I think I can attribute that to being very real and honest with myself. Because even very influential and successful people may suffer from imposter syndrome. They may not even realize they have it yet. And you can see the definition and you’re like, “Oh, my God. That’s me.” Because I remember reading the definition, I’m like, “Oh, there is a term for what I do, for what I say to myself. I can’t believe it.” But being honest with yourself and saying, “Yeah, Angela, you did screw up royally today. You blessed that employee out today and you should’ve never done that. You know what? Get over it. It’s going to be okay.”

Angela Ammons: [00:51:02] Finding the people who will be honest and truthful to you, whether you want them to or not, is truly important. And I have two of those people in my life. I remember my good friend will say, “Do you want me to validate you or do you want me to be honest?” And I’m like, “I want you to be honest.” He said, “Okay. Then, this is this and this.” And there are times when you can get dark, and you’ve had a succession of really bad decisions, or there has been immense pressure at work, and you feel like there’s no end to it, and I can recall even this weekend of hearing the negativity seep in.

Angela Ammons: [00:51:38] But you know what? I set a time limit for it. After about five minutes, that’s enough. There’s not going to be any more of this, because if it was your friend, your children, your loved one, you’re personally speaking to them the way we speak to ourselves, you would immediately intervene and say, “You’re not talking to my husband like that, or my child, or my best friend. She is my girlfriend. What are you doing talking about her like that?” We have to have that same respect for ourselves.

Angela Ammons: [00:52:05] And I’ve learned that more in the last two years than my entire life, “Angela, stop talking to yourself like that. Look at everything you’ve accomplished. Look how great your children are, your life. So, what you messed up yesterday? What about all of the other successes you’ve done?” So, I think at times, even if you need to put it down on paper and then when I do that, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. I guess we have them pretty good.” And then, you have to accept the failures and say it’s a failure, but it’s only a true failure if you repeat it over and over and over again.

Angela Ammons: [00:52:37] And checking yourself with your mentors and being truly vulnerable with your staff. Whenever we accomplish something, I’m telling you, guys, it’s because of this wonderful team of people that work with me. And I congratulate them. And I talk about this team let us in Time Magazine. This team helped us get CEO of the Year award. This team enables me to go to this conference and speak because if the hospital wasn’t running well, I couldn’t leave.

Angela Ammons: [00:53:04] But when you fail at something, I think it’s truly important, very, very important for your employees to hear that you failed at something. I would say in a minute, “Guys, I’m late for that email I did, so that’s being paid late because of me. It’s not because of you,” and I would tell them that. Or, “Guys, it’s my fault. I dropped the ball on this. I can’t let you down, but it’s not going to happen again.”

Angela Ammons: [00:53:28] So, I think it’s truly important for you to do that to be real, have other people check you, and for you to protect yourself, and to defend yourself like you would do the loved ones in your life. You cannot get beat down or go into that dark place every single day, and then go up there and perform to be the light of your facility, for your home, for your friends, or anything if you’re constantly beating yourself down. I mean, you just can’t do that.

Angela Ammons: [00:53:58] And you think you don’t do it. But if you wake up five minutes late or you forget to turn off the alarm, you’ve already told yourself, “You’re so stupid, you can’t even set the alarm in the morning.” Or, “My gosh, Angela. This is the second pair of pants you put on and the buttons are about to burst. You’re CEO of a hospital and you can’t put down a bagel or you can’t reduce the carbs for 30 days.” And I talk this over with my girlfriends. And sometimes before you even leave the door and get in your car, you’ve already told yourself 20 negative things. And you’ve got to be able to stop recognizing it as it’s happening and stop it.

Angela Ammons: [00:54:32] And men do the same thing. I think they do it a little bit more quieter than most because they don’t feel like they can be as vulnerable as females, so they internalize that a lot. But you’ve got to stop beating yourself up. You’ve got to be honest with yourself, and be transparent, and vulnerable, and you got to give yourself credit for the things that you do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:54:52] Yeah. That’s such great advice. I love it. Great, great conversation. This has been so much great information. And I think you shared some very vulnerable stories of truth around some of the challenges that you’ve overcome in taking on the CEO role, but also the successes as well that have come as a result. I mean, big congratulations on your awards and the recognition you’ve received. It’s very impressive and we’re so glad to have you on the show. If our listeners wanted to get a hold of you, maybe to ask questions or to seek a mentor, how can they do that?

Angela Ammons: [00:55:35] Well, they can go on our website and our direct line is there. But, Jamie, I’m going to ask that you offer my contact information for anyone to email me or call me. I’ll be more than happy to entertain, respond, meet someone that would like to know more about us or my story. I’m an open book.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:55:56] I love that. Well, thank you so much, Angela, for being on our show. It was such a pleasure to interview you and hear your story. And truly inspiring, I learned a lot from you. So, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here.

Angela Ammons: [00:56:08] Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:56:11] Absolutely. And we also want to thank our show sponsor, R3 Continuum, for supporting the Workplace MVP podcast. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you’ve not already done so, make sure to subscribe so you get our most recent episodes and other resources. You can also follow our show on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter at Workplace MVP. And if you are a workplace MVP or if you know someone who is, we want to know about it, so email us at info@workplace-mvp.com. Thank you all for joining us and have a great rest of your day.