Interview with Chet Czaplicka, CEO of Comprehensive Care Services (Video & Podcast)
In this episode of the Wise Decision Maker Show, Dr. Gleb talks with Chet Czaplicka, Founder and CEO of Comprehensive Care Services, which provides perfusion and autotransfusion services across the United States. Chet talks about how his company weathered the coronavirus pandemic and about the approach that he uses to prepare his company for future threats and opportunities.
Video: “Interview with Chet Czaplicka, CEO of Comprehensive Care Services”
Podcast: “Interview with Chet Czaplicka, CEO of Comprehensive Care Services”
Links Mentioned in Videocast and Podcast
- The book Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage is available here.
- You are welcome to register for the free Wise Decision Maker Course
Transcript
Gleb Tsipursky 0:01
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Wise Decision Maker Show where we help you make the wisest, most profitable decisions. Today we’ll have one of our decision maker revealed episodes and I’ll turn it over to the decision maker himself to share more about what he does and the kind of decisions that he makes. Please go ahead.
Chet Czaplicka 0:19
Thank you very much, I appreciate the opportunity. My name is Chet Czaplicka. I’m the CEO and President of Comprehensive Care Services. We are the largest blood handling perfusion Corporation in the United States. We have been in business since 2002. And currently in 22 states spread across 217 hospitals 650 clinicians, spread out amongst those institutions.
Gleb Tsipursky 0:51
Excellent. Thank you very much. Tell listeners I know you and I have talked about this a number of times privately, but tell our listeners what kind of challenges you’ve experienced during this difficult time of the COVID pandemic?
Chet Czaplicka 1:05
Sure. One can only imagine because we’re in medicine, preferentially in cardiac surgery, but we also do a whole lot of other surgeries because we do blood salvaging on orthopedic, neuro and trauma cases. When the declaration of COVID pandemic was first announced by the CDC, we started to see hospitals filling up across the country. And again, as I stated, we’re in 22 states. So we saw varying, let’s say, varying case plugs at these institutions, some places harder than others, the larger concentrated metropolitan areas were much harder hit, mostly due to the concentration of the population. And I think people continue to do what they thought was normal. Even though those references should be wearing masks, we have to be more careful. That’s sort of hard to do when people don’t understand the gravity of the pandemic itself. And what we saw early on is a pretty significant drop in our caseload. Certainly, on the elective surgical side, there was about a 74% reduction in caseload and to get your heads wrapped around that, that would mean people getting knee replacements, hip replacements, back surgery, other neuro operations going on trauma cases, didn’t change that much early on, but drastically changed afterwards. Because the amount of traffic on the roads drastically reduced the amount of traffic that was out there, which is a good thing. The bad thing that happened though, from this was we saw a cardiac caseload drop approximately 71%. About 55% of our cases are urgent emergent cases. And what that means is a patient comes to the institution, a hospital, goes live, cath lab, gets a diagnosis. And then within a day or two is coming to us for our surgical repair of some sort. So those cases weren’t being seen in the ER, a lot of those patients were being driven away from the ER because they were frightened. physicians were recommending patients come in through the ERs were completely overwhelmed with COVID cases. What happens is, a lot of those patients unfortunately died. This is one of the factual items that people don’t hear much about. But the reality is, that, you know, we made a whole bunch of decisions early on. And when I say we, I mean the CDC, other other people in the federal government, hospitals, doing what they thought, you know, was the best, and unfortunately, only made it much worse. To be completely honest. When we saw that we saw those drastic drops in the caseload. Of course, we have clinicians that are full time in the corporation, we immediately started to call twist on the screws in the financial world on our side anyways. So anything that had to do with hardware purchases, that we could put off, we put those off any other capital expenses, we put those off any new hires, we froze positions temporarily. But one thing we did not do is we did not lay anybody off. sorted the personnel in the medical field. We do this early on, we let people go Because we didn’t have a caseload, we probably lose them and not get them back. So, by tightening all of our financial screws, we certainly dipped into our what I call rainy day funds. So for about six to nine weeks, we saw a pretty large financial hit to the tune of about 27 to 28%. And technically, those months we were upside down. So we were in native territory in terms of income. But because we were fortunate enough to have not only bank available funds related to lines of credit, which we never did dip into. But the bigger thing I think, maybe because of my depression, here are parents, we are very attuned to making sure that we had at least three months of cash bank accounts. So we bled out about six to seven weeks of that money before it started to turn around.
And it turned around relatively quickly. On the one hand I think, because the summer months came, I think the virus started to wane a little bit as much. You could look at this, you know, from a standpoint of looking at the CDC information, you could see what was going on in the country. Cases started to come back, things started to open up a little bit. But as we all know, the fall hit. And we found this sort of back into the back into the glue a
Gleb Tsipursky 6:49
a little bit. Yeah. I had a question before we moved on to the fall. Now you said that the CDC shut things down, you said there are some problems. Now imagine if you were the COVID sar or in charge of the situation, what would you have in terms of decision making? What kinds of decisions should the CDC have done differently? From your perspective?
Chet Czaplicka 7:09
Yeah. It’s they’re in a very difficult position. Not understanding the nature of the disease. Unfortunately, the Chinese knew a little about it. They weren’t forthcoming. Yeah, who wasn’t able to get the information from them either. And this is what happens when you’re in a closed society, unfortunately. So we were, I would say, flying by the seat of our pants. And they were flying by the seat of their pants. In their decision making process, some things they did know, some states made some very bad decisions. They unfortunately sent COVID infected elderly patients back into nursing homes, only making those situations much, much, much worse. You can list those states out, it’s pretty well known. But you know, that was a, it was an awful error that, again, was made by about five governors in the country. They unfortunately, were either given bad information, which those governors weren’t medical people. Or they thought they were doing what I’m assuming was the correct thing to do. Because I don’t think anybody intentionally would have sent sick patients into a situation knowing that they were going to make more patients exposed to the disease. And this disease, somewhat like the flu, affected the elderly. Obviously, they took the hardest hit that affected those people who had multiple comorbidities. Obesity was one of the big factors that was involved, that we started to see in our ICU patients. And even the physician community made a bunch of decisions based on what they thought was the right thing to do, putting patients on ventilators. And you know, now we do everything we can don’t be patient. But with that being said, you know, we did learn pretty quickly. And one thing that the government did do correctly if I can say, is they deregulated or removed some of the regulatory burden on getting these vaccines out? As we think about it, how quickly those vaccines came to market. It’s, it’s amazing, and then you know, we have, you know what, 250 or 200 60,000 million, excuse me 250 to 260 million. That explanation given the United States with a very, very low incidence, what I’m going to say comorbid, you know, conditions occurring after that. So that, in and of itself, shows what the government is capable of. I think that we certainly have all learned a lot from this pandemic. One of them is, I think the most important one is never sin. You have to be careful to not assume, you know, trying to keep the general population isolated. Another really bad idea. Look at the psychology and what’s happened to a lot of folks out there in terms of depression and the suicide rate. They’re incredibly high right now still, and I don’t think human beings are meant to be isolated. We’re, we’re herd animals Gleb, you know, that we like to be around other people for the most part.
Gleb Tsipursky 11:06
So you will. So kind of fewer than sorry, profits are, you would have recommended not isolating people, not kind of having those lockdowns. Is that what I’m hearing?
Chet Czaplicka 11:17
The difference between a lockdown and those states that didn’t lock down, there wasn’t much of a difference. It really wasn’t. The Delta variant, I think, is maybe showing us something a little bit different. But even that’s hard to tell at this point as well. You know, we’re looking at Texas and Florida, which have been hit pretty hard by the Delta variant. So I think lockdowns could have been isolated. The suggestions of isolation could have been directed more tightly to those folks that are most susceptible. You know, shutting the schools, that was probably one of the worst things you could again, because, again, the teenage suicide and depression rate is very high as well. But again, I’m not here to judge those people, because
Gleb Tsipursky 12:11
I asked you the question, because, you know, I, you’re obviously a medical expert. So looking from your perspective, let’s get back to CCS perfusion. So in the fall, there was a better situation. Definitely. And I know from talking to you that you are also involved in some acquisitions. At that stage. Can you tell, can you tell our listeners about how you made those decisions? And I mean, that obviously, there are some risks with acquisitions during the pandemic. So you had to have some risk benefit trade offs in your decision making there. Tell us a little more about that.
Chet Czaplicka 12:45
I think Gleb, the big thing is there’s a lot of small corporations in our field, okay. And what I mean by small two to $5 million in revenue. A lot of those folks didn’t necessarily have bank lines of credit to fall back on. They maybe didn’t save enough money. And I think a lot of those folks got very frightened by what was going on. And it would COVID kind of do that up check again. I think that a number of those people that you know, I don’t know if I want to go through this again. We also had a fair amount of early retirements in our profession. The Wall Street Journal, as an example, said between 2.4 and 2.6 million additional early retirements occurred during COVID. It also affected us so yet the small corporations losing people were in a shortage of personnel. What do they do? They do what a lot of other people would do, said, you know what I have to protect the asset that I still have. And they decided to test the waters. We were very fortunate again, as I said early, or bank lines of credits, grip bank lines of credit really good. And careful not to maybe mention my bank name, but they have been exceptional through this whole process with us. And maybe I should put up with her out there.
Gleb Tsipursky 14:32
I’m sure they’ll be glad.
Chet Czaplicka 14:35
PNC is our bank. And every step of the way, they said how can we help? What do you need from us? They actually came and said, we’re gonna increase your bank lines of credit. We see what you guys are doing really like it. You guys are surviving nicely through this process. Your your emergency got pinched early on. You’re back to normal, you know, working through this process for a while. So, you know, we were we were the least risk they could take on the, on the other side of the coin was hospitality, which was sure. Crushed, absolutely crushed, you know. So um, you know, from that standpoint, the ability to go out and do acquisitions, which we did was was why Hope it really was. And the unfortunate thing was, we could have done a lot more if we had the enough people. But professionally, there’s a shortage in our field as well. So to go and try to grab more business, not have the clinical professionals to provide the service. Good. You know, we couldn’t do it. So we actually restrained ourselves from doing too much. I think the other thing is, you know, we were back and forth with having part of our office staff working from home back in the office, Flexi time, etc. I think it was in the fall, we brought everybody back, to be in the office, knowing full well that we needed to be here. From a collaboration standpoint, especially with doing the acquisitions, you could only imagine trying to do acquisitions with your staff spread out in various locations, are our head of technology sitting in a row with me, and we we had him scurrying around like, like in on an Hill, it all the parts and pieces put in, and then you you’ve dumped on top of this, think about this, dump on top of it, a shortage of computing hardware.
Gleb Tsipursky 16:47
Oh, okay. Yeah, with all the switches.
Chet Czaplicka 16:51
Remember, we have to deal with that, because we start up these new hospitals, we have to have computers, we have to have laptops, some places need handhelds. So our technology, directors like Hey, guys, I’m warning here, there’s a pretty severe shortage out there is probably going to get worse. So he also came to us and said, Hey, strategically, we need to beef up our inventory, which we’ve done and find other resources to supply the computing that we need. So we even had to think about that. We bought extra heart lung machines, as an example. And 165 to $185,000 each. Not a fun thing to be sitting on from an inventory stamp. But again, we were prepared. And that led to what happened in 2021, where we’re having our largest growth that we’ve ever had, because we have what we need for the most. so tight on personnel. Again, we didn’t lay anybody off, kept everybody on board. That’s Yeah, the freezing of staff was out in the field, the freezing of staff was here in the office, and then political people who support our clinical folks.
Gleb Tsipursky 18:15
So that must have been hard the freezing of staff when you were doing acquisitions.
Chet Czaplicka 18:19
Yeah, very difficult. I mean, you, you almost have no idea we have, we have over 650 employees in the corporation. So to give you the idea of the gravity of the situation we’re in, and the payroll and benefits, but you know, even Don’t forget the federal government worked closely with all the businesses out there, they allowed us to not pay our fica match as an example. Our fica match, you know, runs in the neighborhood of about half a million to $600,000 a month. So we were able to save those dollars. Of course, we had to pay it back. But because of allowing us to have it delayed, we’re allowed to, again, build up our bank reserves. So those are all things the government did some really, really good things from that standpoint. Yeah, I think the, you know, trying to get, you know, the, the money out to the small businesses. That was a bit of a tangled mess. But when you had every business in the country, trying to submit applications through the SBA, you could only imagine what that did to their computing system. Sure. Because I don’t think the government was prepared for the barrage.
Gleb Tsipursky 19:51
No, no, I was reading that. It was not prepared for some of the large, larger small businesses to submit applications and thought it was normal. smaller businesses would submit. So I wanted to go back to the theme that I’ve been hearing running throughout your conversation. But being prepared, it kind of reminds me of the Ben Franklin quote, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that’s what I do and what you and I talked about about future proofing, protecting your future, what led you to have this kind of mindset to be really prepared and having sort of a defensive stance where you have a sufficient lines of credit, all of that stuff, not biting off more than you could chew, which is definitely a problem frequently for many folks, what caused you to have this more potful and mindset? Tell me a little bit more about that?
Chet Czaplicka 20:41
Well, I would say, first and foremost, I’m a fiscal conservative. So I run my life, how I run my business. So we’re always very careful about not stripping our dollar out of the corporation. So along the way, we’ve always had that mentality. So going into what I would say, a situation like this, nobody expected it to be a pandemic, it could have been, our building got destroyed in a tornado. You know, there were a lot of things that we’ve always done along the way. And as an example, we’ve done a fair amount of what I would say crisis management. So, you know, with our technology, folks, are we prepared to have backup plans? Is our financial information backed up someplace, not? Not just on a computer desk in our office? Do we have cloud backup? Do we have all those things? It’s sort of pervasive through the entire organization.
Gleb Tsipursky 21:47
So it’s the culture.
Chet Czaplicka 21:48
It’s the culture for us. And anything I say to people starting a business in business is, I think you have to realize that you need to have that cultural filter. Right? If you don’t, you could be in a situation where, you know, you force yourself into a bankruptcy situation, because it could happen pretty quickly. Think about revenues, drop it off that much. And you have all these folks on your payroll? Can you make that change rapidly enough? Do you want to get rid of these people? Do you want to keep these people and get rid of these people? You’re going to lose all this experience? Can you afford to do that? And the answer’s no. And so, you know, we were fortunate enough to be in that situation. I wish I could tell you I wish I could tell you there were some magic bullets. There really wasn’t.
Gleb Tsipursky 22:50
It’s not a magic bullet. It’s a mindset of being prepared and a culture of being prepared. And having that risk management. I mean, I think that’s relatively rare for people who are in startups. I mean, you’ve been running a startup, and you have yourself from that 2002, when you found that it to this stage, you’ve become a really great leader in terms of knowing how to run a maturing startup, so to speak, it used to be a startup now, it’s kind of a maturing company. And you are really prepared for these serious, serious threats, whether it’s a pandemic, building, burning down, all of these sorts of things. And did you have that mindset from the beginning when you were starting the company?
Chet Czaplicka 23:34
Yes. And one thing I will say is that to communicate, you have to communicate with all the people in your corporation. So we had frequent meetings, HR, finance, technology side, you know, which is running everything, making sure that we’re prepared for them telling us, you know, this is what our recommendations are. This is what we need to be looking at, we need to be thinking about, and all those things that are very strategic, but the communication piece. Remember, human beings are fearful of what typically they don’t do. Yeah, sir. You don’t want people to presume you want them to understand. And even through the bad news, people were appreciative of getting the news without the Bs, right? You know, it’s just that it wasn’t like watching the news networks. ABC, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, you know, as all the hype and the bull, it was more coming down to, hey, listen, this is really what’s going on. Right? This is really what’s happening to us. And I think that helped our folks to coalesce, you know, together, that we’re going to get through this and here we are. Day, you know, flourishing. That’s wonderful, but still around pandemics, quote unquote, out there. But we’ve learned so much through this process, and only as a business, but we as a society continue to learn.
Gleb Tsipursky 25:17
And so let’s go back to the USA business, you’ve clearly made some decisions that were informed by your culture before the pandemic, contract, the risk avoidance, transparency, communication, preserving resources, taking advantage of situations like acquisitions without biting off too much. What did you learn? How is the company and you personally? How are you different in your decision making now that we’re in the stage of coming out of the pandemic and making it more of an endemic?
Chet Czaplicka 25:48
Well, I think like in any crisis, any disaster, those are probably the best opportunities to where, one, we affirmed what we have been doing, what’s the right thing to do? Because, you know, we certainly had, you know, our investment advisors in the corporation saying, I don’t know why you guys have so much money in the bank. That’s an example. Well, you know, they came back and said, while we were really wrong, yeah, against fiscally conservative. I think additionally, what we learned was, in times of high stress, you need to keep your folks informed. And you need to have two way communication. We, we were, we were very tried to be very sensitive to people who were afraid to come into the office as an example. So we gave those people a little more leeway. But we also said, Hey, listen, we’re going to give you this leeway. We’re going to show you that it’s safe in the office. And other things we did in the office, our cleaning people who physically clean our office, early on, we bought one of those nebulizers, like the airplanes are using now. And we had the cleaning crew trained to use it to provide that deposition in the office on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So we sort of tried to keep everybody very comfortable. We recommended that people eat their lunch in their offices. But we learned a bunch of things along the way. In terms of keeping people comfortable. You know? Was it scientific? I don’t know. It was, it was using the science that we had, but more about using human psychology. If you know what I mean, if you know, psychology makes people comfortable in their situation in their environment, I think you’re a step ahead of the game. Right? You know, really getting people to say, Hey, listen, these people are concerned about me in which we work. But going to above, you know, what other companies were doing in getting these machines in here to make sure you know, we even thought about installing the, the black lights, and all of our venting, because, you know, the virus didn’t didn’t do well around that lighting spectrum. So it actually kills it off. So there’s some, there are some a lot of things that we did along those lines as well, to make sure that again, the office environment felt like a very safe place to be.
Gleb Tsipursky 28:53
So it sounds like there’s that risk avoidance. There’s that transparency and communication, but also an additional lesson, an important one is the importance of making people feel safe and comfortable, not simply retaining them on the payroll, but helping them feel safe and comfortable. And addressing those psychological needs. Regardless of how much we know whether the science fully agreed with the standards that you were implementing.
Chet Czaplicka 29:17
Right. The other thing we did, we went out and bought the N 95 masks, okay, very early on. And we secured those for our staff out in the field, because there was a pretty big shortage of class, as you well know. Some people wanted to get the face shields. So we’re able to get the face shields for those people as well. Because we were in a situation where we’re being exposed to COVID you know, nearly every day. I would say right now we probably have 98% of our folks fully vaccinated. The 2% that are are some people here in the office and have elected, you know not to do it. Well, I think that’s a bad idea. Again, I’m not here to force anybody in their situation. But you know, we also did some things along the lines of, if you decide not to take the vaccine, if you get sick, it’s non-paid time off. That makes sense. It’s a disincentive to not go get it. And I think there was a lot of fear mongering that had gone on with the vaccine. I mean, unfortunately, social media isn’t the best place to get your news. Some people think it is. But I would say it’s a really bad place to get your news.
Gleb Tsipursky 30:45
Social media is well known for spreading lies much more quickly than truth.
Chet Czaplicka 30:50
Yeah, unfortunately, and they, unfortunately, affected a lot of people. Yeah. Because even now, we’re looking at the people who are unvaccinated in the country. It’s the people who really need to be vaccinated, because a lot of minority populations, etc. So, you know, we just need to really educate people. That’s really what, correctly, and we’re saying science. Instead of social media.
Gleb Tsipursky 31:20
Now, I want to turn back to COVID, and your personal experience, and that’s something you unfortunately, were ill with COVID did that change your perspective on the disease on the whole experience? I’m curious.
Chet Czaplicka 31:34
Uhm not really because I was one of those people, one of the, you know, 85, or 88 percenters that had relatively minor symptoms, I had a headache for a couple of days. I lost my sense of taste and smell.
Gleb Tsipursky 31:52
Which is not not a light thing to do.
Chet Czaplicka 31:54
Yeah, it was, it was pretty rough. But, you know, the general muscle aches, it felt like the flu. And after about day three, I started to come out of it pretty quickly. You know, there were some things I did that, you know, personal things and taking vitamins etc. Do I think it helped? I don’t really know. You know, so hard to tell. The worst part of it was cooking meals. And, and in asking my girlfriend to taste it, because I had no idea what it tasted like. He needed salt. Enough. They needed pepper, anything. Seriously? Couldn’t smell anything, which is very strange. I’ve actually lost weight. Because I had no, I had no, no appetite.
Gleb Tsipursky 32:51
I bet I mean, if you can’t smell or taste that, it’s not fun to eat.
Chet Czaplicka 32:55
But I mean, I will say that, you know, people shouldn’t take my experience and use it as a reason not to go get vaccinated, either somebody is watching this because, frankly, there’s a whole bunch of people that we saw in hospital that were very sick, you know, a whole bunch of people that die.
Gleb Tsipursky 33:14
I mean, it even happens with people who are vaccinated. It’s so strong, Colin Powell just died. And he was vaccinated. So there’s some breakthrough cases. I mean, if that’s true, of course, the vast majority of the people who die right now aren’t vaccinated, but it’s a very powerful disease not for everyone, but for many people.
Chet Czaplicka 33:33
Yeah, the interesting thing, as everybody assumes that the flu disappeared? Well, what it was, is that a lot of those flu cases, I’m going to assume we’re actually probably diagnosed as COVID cases, through this whole process. The flu is out there. If I can also say to anybody, go get your flu shot. Go get your flu shot. That’s a really good idea. You know, the flu didn’t disappear because COVID is here. It’s just, let’s say was put over the fence a little bit.
Gleb Tsipursky 34:12
Okay. Okay, masking and social distancing also helped reduce.
Chet Czaplicka 34:18
It probably did. But, you know, maybe that’s where the mask came in. Maybe it reduced it a little bit there as well. But, you know, I would say, you know, getting your vaccinations, getting your checkups, making sure if anybody’s got cancer, getting your cancer treatments in a timely fashion, continuing to get your screenings done, when they need to be done. All these things mean, so many people put those things off because you’re on the radio in the hospital, free to go into the clinic afraid to see their doctor. I mean, that’s something that we’ve learned first and foremost, do not do that. With those Things are,
Gleb Tsipursky 35:00
Oh, absolutely agree that I had a colonoscopy scheduled in the fall of 2020. And despite the problems and the many, many patients, I went and got my colonoscopy. We were lucky that we did not have so much fun. Yeah.
Chet Czaplicka 35:16
But you know, I mean, that’s, that’s again, it’s a cancer screening, Becca knows. Yeah,
Gleb Tsipursky 35:20
no, I mean, so it’s really important. Now, as the last question, what do you think of CCS perfusion? How do you think it will go forward? And how do you think it will be different after the experience of the pandemic?
Chet Czaplicka 35:35
I think the biggest thing is that we have become even more strategic in our thought process. In looking at, you know, as an example, you would think you could go buy a computer any time. Well, guess what? We realized in the chip shortage, you can’t even buy a car. Right? Yeah. So I think we’re going to naturally allow those inventories of computers and things that we need from a hardware standpoint, to make our business work, I think we will keep a little, little higher inventory of those things. We’re keeping some emergency stock of critical items that we use in the operating room, such as heart lung packs, and oxygenators. Actually, there really is an artificial lung that we use during that heart operation. We’re keeping some extra long term membrane oxidation devices here in our building as well. Because we had a lot of hospitals calling us to say, Hey, we don’t have any inventory, can you help us sell? And circumcircle? Stances were we able to help them out? Excellent. So from that standpoint, you know, on that side of our financial sheet, our balance sheet and balance sheet looks, you know, right now, probably a little heavier than what I’m going to say in assets, capital assets. But I don’t know what could be nuts. You know, and it isn’t ridiculous, I didn’t go overboard with it. But I’m keeping a little higher inventory. And also, I think the other thing, you know, that I would say we learned is that communication. First and foremost, it is probably the most important thing during a disaster. And keeping your employed folks knowledgeable of what’s going on in the Corporation, letting them know that you’re doing everything you can to make sure that the company is viable. And staying viable is important. And those messages don’t sound crazy important. Right now, we’re talking about this in a relaxed atmosphere. But in the middle of what I would say, say a disaster. Yeah. Um, it’ll, it’ll mean a lot to people. They’re really well,
Gleb Tsipursky 38:12
understandable, calming people’s anxieties, addressing their emotions, very important. Well, is there anything else that is final that you would like to tell our listeners?
Chet Czaplicka 38:25
No, I was like, I’d say to everybody out there that, you know, I would say if you, you have a company, whether you’re a startup, or you’re, you’re advancing in age, like we are, think about the fiscal conservative item that I have been brought up multiple times, think about making sure that you have your bank lines of credit there, talk to your banker, get a good relationship with your banker, have that person in your office, more than once a year, have the person in your office, or go to their office, and make sure you set up a plan for disaster. Not having a plan for disaster is a disaster. Trust me, that’s a disaster, because it’ll bite you harder than what needs to be. And so I would leave those are some really kind of, I would say high level things you should consider
Unknown Speaker 39:25
I very much identify with being prepared and having reserves. I mean, there’s a reason why companies called disaster avoidance experts. You want to manage the risks, you want to address those things, and you want to have a good plan. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it and everyone, make sure to subscribe to the show. Listen to it, and share it with your friends. All right, thank you till next time, and the wisest and most profitable decisions to you in the meantime, my friends.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Bio: Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is a world-renowned thought leader in future-proofing, decision making, and cognitive bias risk management. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-proofing consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, which specializes in helping forward-looking leaders avoid dangerous threats and missed opportunities. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Career Press, 2019), The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020), and Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage (Intentional Insights, 2021). His writing was translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, Polish, and other languages. He was featured in over 550 articles and 450 interviews in prominent venues. These include Fortune, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, CBS News, Business Insider, Government Executive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Time, Fast Company, and elsewhere. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for mid-size and large organizations ranging from Aflac to Xerox. It also comes from over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist, including 7 as a professor at Ohio State University. You can contact him at Gleb[at]DisasterAvoidanceExperts[dot]com, LinkedIn, Twitter @gleb_tsipursky, Instagram @dr_gleb_tsipursky, Medium @dr_gleb_tsipursky, and gain free access to his “Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the Workplace” and his “Wise Decision Maker Course” with 8 video-based modules.