Rite Aid CEO Busy Burr on Practicing Ruthless Vulnerability in Corporate America
[Music] welcome to the minor console where I speak with leaders shaping our world in diverse ways today I'm joined by busy Burr interim CEO of the Rite Aid drugstore chain busy is an accomplished leader in Silicon Valley and the healthcare industry with a proven track record of accelerating innovation before taking the helmet Rite Aid she served as a president and chief commercial officer of carrot Inc a digital Health company supporting smoking cessation she has extensive experience in product development Investment Banking and Global Marketing and on top of her executive experience she's also a veteran member of the Bay Area improv troupe subject to change I'm delighted to welcome her to the minor consult to discuss her journey as a technology investment banker her vision for Right Aid and the future of drug stores and her insights on effective leadership from The Fortune 500 boardroom to The Improv stage busy welcome it's great to have you here today it's wonderful to be here thanks for inviting me busy you majored in economics at Smith college and you got your MBA here at Stanford at The Graduate School of Business what was it about the business world that drove you to choose a career as an executive and what was your career goals starting out so I I exactly and and um I think at the time felt a little bit revolutionary um my dad owned uh owned an uh custom steel fabrication business in Boston and he was a very talented engineer and a successful businessman um so that was probably the model but growing up I didn't know any women who worked in business the men were lawyers and doctors and business owners the women were stay-at-home moms or in some cases teachers or in some cases nurses so going into a business career felt like part of the women's Liberation movement whoops there of the dogs sorry about that that's okay uh it's like I said it was like it felt a little revolutionary I think a weird way the women of the 70s and 80s like we were it felt a bit like we had a bit of an obligation to tackle the men's um professions so that was likely part of it of course we have to tell us about your dog uh what kind of dog do you have I have two golden retrievers that are going nuts right now because one of them is going off I think the dog walkers here are going to take them out for a walk today so okay so that's what but it should be quiet any minute now but yes I I live with in a in a crazy household with loud dogs so I think we've gotten used to that over the pandemic like this is like exactly exactly well you have an illustrious career and before we get to Rite Aid I'd love to discuss some of the lessons you've learned along the way your resume includes Decades of experience in top tier companies such as Gap Morgan Stanley credit Swiss eBay City just to name a few and you also established and ran your own company in 2005 lucianlilly.com so after being in the corporate world what made you decide to become an entrepreneur and how did your life differ from your earlier career and inform your next steps I guess when you're sort of in Silicon Valley since the 80s I've been really loved watching how technology was just enabling and radically changing a lot of old and tired ways of working I mean I remember in the 80s we saw things like voicemail which was like like amazing right so now we don't even think about it but at the time it was amazing and then you know email emerged in the 90s and chips were getting faster and the Internet and mobile was creating connectivity and both of those connectivity that that connectivity changed Paradigm like of Just The Way work was going to happen um so I just wanted to apply technology to the challenges of a parallel manufacturing which I had seen when I'd worked at Gap it was a super wasteful very environmentally unsound and um and I just thought that you know we could we could deploy technology to solve some of those problems and we did for about five years and then uh we got we made it almost impossible to raise money in the 2008 crash um and so that was that it was a very exhilarating experience I like loved it it was ultimately very painful and sad so I know that emotional rollercoaster that uh that is entrepreneurship as you mentioned you've we've really focused on digital platforms and how they can transform Industries and businesses and and indeed ways of life and you've also been focused on digital platforms related to health can you talk about that a little bit more and how did you develop a passion for the consumer experience and how did that then relate to your focus on health I think what happens sometimes is product people fall in love with a product and what it does instead of the customer need that it actually solves for so I think that's what I've really been fascinated um by with digital um you know if you're not solving it from the right from the very beginning the true customer age you're going to end up needing to hire marketing and sales people to commercialize a product because it won't commercialize itself and um it doesn't have Commercial Appeal from the start because it wasn't built that way and so that happens all the time a lot of well-intentioned products that actually maybe sort of seem like they're going to solve a problem but they don't solve that human-centered barrier um that enables them to truly be adopted I have this this story that I tell a lot when I was when I was working at city um we had the digital team that was working on you know digital Solutions but obviously from from the bank's point of view and I can remember the head of digital we were grabbing coffee in Palo Alto and he was saying oh busy we just did this new release it's awesome and he goes people love transferring money and I'm like do you hear yourself and he's like what do you mean they're doing it all the time they go online they go on the mobile and they're transfer money like crazy I'm like that doesn't mean that people love transferring money they transfer money because we make them transfer money because if they don't we're going to penalize them for being overdrawn like they don't love it we just made it a little bit easier for them to do this nuisance and so I think there's just this this uh like really the right set of eyes with a customer experience um that sometimes gets missed um with uh with product people does that answer your question I don't know yes no it's really helpful it's really helpful uh focus on focus on the consumer and um and they don't always not consumers don't always if you ask a consumer what they want right um I used to tell this story um and it's hard to do it on a podcast but when I was when I was talking to folks I would walk out into the audience and I would say I need a pen and people would hold a pence and like hand pens to me and then I would hold the pen in front of them and say why do I need a pen I'm sitting here talking to you why do I need a pen and they will come up with all these reasons for why oh you're going to write something down I'm like no I'm in the middle of doing a talk why am I writing something down you want to point at something I said I've got fingers I don't need to point at anything why do I need a pen and people were sitting there trying to fill in reasons why I need a pen and then I would turn around and take the pen and scratch my back and everybody would be like oh you wanted to scratch your back I said for one of you guys if you had asked me why I needed a pen and then saw that what I wanted to do was scratch my back and you provided me with a back scratcher instead of a pen I would have loved you because you would have solved my problem I thought I knew the solution to my problem but if I had told you if you'd actually found out for me that what I didn't need was a pen what I needed was my back scratched then we would have a different solution so it's really getting at the core when customers say what they need they are they're almost always trying to solve their own problem that's great as vice president and head of Health Care and Innovation trends at Humana you met with hundreds of healthcare startups to identify promising Ventures for investment so what characteristics did you look for that signaled a potentially successful startup and how do you think the current economic climate is going to impact the healthcare startup space oh wow okay so I saw lots of stuff um I think the first thing almost any Venture person looks for is leadership so you want to make sure that the person is going to be able to inspire attract retain Talent and then probably secondly similar to that is the ability to attract Capital you want to have somebody who understands how Venture Capital works and how the decisions are made and their sort of ability to influence and attract Capital over time um so those are kind of the two like that's the ABCs then um I think this is kind of sadly and happily I I don't know how to how to how to think about this but the reality is that the payers in the space which are really insurance companies and um and and employee benefit providers that's where the most of the funding for Health Care is coming from um uh I think those those places are deciding what's important in what's going to make it they are the they are the ones who are blessing what's going to win and they're only focused on the things that are the high cost issues to them which are things like diabetes CHF COPD musculoskeletal like me replacement stuff maternity care hospital utilization and they're only looking at the things that are actually line items so however it's organized to them is the way that they're seeing it and so they're looking at the costs of of um of Diabetes Care because it's organized and and put out that way they're not looking at Food they're not looking at um you know for older folks they're not looking at the cost of cognitive decline they're not looking at the cost of um loss of hearing and what that does to people's cognitive decline it's not a line item so they're not seeing it so the things that become successful in healthcare are the things that answer the way that we measure stuff and the stuff that has the big numbers off of it the second I'm going to get on I'm getting on my soapbox now I apologize but the next one is um the Health Care system is built around uh one year Roi because we have the annual benefit enrollment period And every year everybody can they can change their health care or change with their insurances or whatever this happens in the same thing in Medicare there's the annual bid process and so everybody's trying to solve for everything in a one-year Roi and health isn't Health isn't a one-year R you know as well as I do this is a journey this is a this is a wellness journey and um sort of enmeshed in the system is this one-year marker that that creates a disincentive to invest in preventative care and to invest in long-term care and to invest in long-term Health at Rite Aid you joined the board and upsell well I think I think there's a lot more to be said and I um also maybe on that on the topic of healthcare Venture and investment what one of the things one of the many things that carrot accomplished with your leadership is you you really did design and Implement a program that changed Behavior yeah I when I moved here several years ago and I was getting to know people in the Venture Community I asked one successful Healthcare venture capitalist you know what what pitch if you heard it for you know for three minutes if you just said immediately to the entrepreneur thank you uh this is not going to work for us uh have a good day and he said anyone that tries to pitch me a digital Health idea to change behavior I'm not interested um and and carrot proved that you can change Behavior what what were the keys to to care being successful I think there's I think there's a couple of things um I think one is um Dr ottley Stanford physician who founded it started as passionate understood his patients very very well and understood the challenges of the solutions that were already out there for people who smoked and I guess another classic place where nobody had touched it for years because of the cynicism and the belief that people just don't want to change um and he believed and so he started that company with that level of passion um great product development folks who were very human-centered um and so I think that was um I think that was that was part of it lots of uh lots of real life testing and watching people use the product understanding the holistic nature understanding the emotional Journey that people have to go through um with with giving up you know getting rid of tobacco in their lives it's it's not just the nicotine habit it's the behave behavioral habits that surround it people get up in the morning they have a cigarette in the car like it they associate it becomes not about the nicotine but about the in this moment I'm having my coffee I have a cigarette so recognizing that not just the sort of medical but the behavioral habitual social nature of it um I think was another really key um key factor in it um and technically and also just the first feedback mechanism the the breath you know the they had this this tool that enabled you to analyze breath um so people got this real-time feedback which when you're trying to break a habit um even a scale doesn't really tell you anything but this tells you immediately your behavior and its impact on what's happening with your breath what's happening with the the the the chemicals in your in your breath and what's coming out and people could you know postpone a cigarette for 30 minutes to an hour or two hours and immediately see that um that change and so it created this this really positive feedback loop great great well maybe now we will transition to Rite Aid and you joined the board in 2019 just in time for the kova 19 pandemic and what were you your key considerations for navigating the pandemic as you saw fewer in-person shoppers but you're also were a key distributor of vaccines I think for Rite Aid we had to become very Nimble and that's true for all the pharmacies they become very Nimble and had to evolve their digital Solutions really really quickly to accommodate millions of people wanting to schedule appointments for at a pharmacy for example something that hadn't been a factor before he didn't schedule an appointment at a pharmacy um so those tools have become really vital and important as vaccines have continued to shift to to pharmacies and pharmacists um I think it just got people to start a start to recognize a pharmacist as an accessible touch point for Health Care is another piece of the of the system um I think up until this point they were just kind of seen as pill counters but I think for a lot of consumers they see them as really good trusted sources of information um and I I think it's I think this is a I think this is a a really good a really good change for the healthcare system to start to you know pharmacists see people regularly when they're going in to pick up um you know medications that are you know regular medications if they've got someone's on a maintenance medication they're seeing their pharmacist regularly that's a great place for a pharmacists to kind of check in check in on vaccines check in on other kinds of important components of their care so I think um people are recognizing that I think that was a really good outcome of the the covid-19 uh pandemic that pharmacies really stepped up and started to take a new place in the Healthcare System that's uh I think that's such an important observation and I I think we're seeing it every day and uh but the times have continued to be turbulent for for your industry uh and how have you maintained confidence of your senior leadership team of of the people who are running the stores every day the Pharmacists and what has the pandemic taught you about leadership and affected your leadership style yeah I think um I think all the pharmacies uh any well I think it's just not far cities I think this is true of hospitals this is true that everybody that was in the Health Care system I think we all had to become much more agile and adaptable um to really question our ways of doing business that was true at Rite Aid um a lot more discipline a lot more rigor and a lot more agility um I think at Rite Aid we call this we're driving a culture um where we hustle with humility so um this recognition of the importance important role that you're playing but also you you gotta hustle and change I think how quickly everyone had to adapt um was such a shock to the system that it really created um this this constant questioning of routine this constant questioning of of um of the way of doing things because one one what seemed like a tiny shakeup it's when it was a few people in China in January suddenly turned into something so rapid and and we knew so little and we we all had to adapt with very little amounts of information um I think that's a muscle that we can't lose I think we're going to need that and and I don't want to be a Debbie Downer on this but this may not be the the last of these we see right this this this may be a new reality for us and so I think all of us this I think not just in the Healthcare System I think everywhere created this this requirement to have a muscle that's agility that agility has has discipline and rigor to it it's interesting agility isn't just about like Switcheroo agility has a has a um like a gymnastics to it there's a muscularity to it and I and I feel like that's what we've all needed to adapt and I hope that we can continue to use that um and it will help our system it will help our Healthcare System to become more adaptable to innovate faster and so on what's your vision for the drugstore of the future and how do you think digital health and its many manifestations is going to impact Right Aid and the other large um you know pharmaceutical and consumer focused goods stores in the country yeah yeah well unlike your friend who doesn't believe in digital health or behavior change I'm I'm sort of I'm sort of bullish on it so and I think I always have I am too um and I and I am because fundamentally it's the thing that that solves both a need for the consumer and for the system it's bringing mobile technology it's bringing Insight it's bringing real-time data into the hands of both the system the Physicians as well as individuals who become can become much more engaged and knowledgeable about their health so as a concept I really believe in it and I know that it's the future and it's had its bumps along the way um but you ask about the drugstore in the future I think um I do think they're all pharmacist is forever changed and I think it's going to continue to change I think um you know we're working I know other pharmacies are working on on figuring out ways to streamline uh the routine tasks that Physicians that pharmacists do so they can operate at the top of their license um kind of in the front of the pharmacy more with customers that includes using technology to like develop centralized fill operations you know more automation to free up time and uh and technician time we're exploring more remote work for those Physicians that don't want to be customer facing that have the ability to do pharmaceutical verification remotely again as a way to create more technology and and more flexibility in pharmacist roles um but I do think you know digital digital in the pharmacy is everything about connecting people to understand their medications to create more medication adherence to create more information about drug interactions um so that so the drugs can be administered more effectively safely more customized all of that is accessible to us through digital technology so shifting gears now to improv you're you're a member of the a long-term member of The Improv performing troop subject to change first I'd love to know how you got involved in improv and what it has contributed to your life and to your Effectiveness as an executive so this could be a whole podcast in and of itself so it's great just it's like this is so I honestly what a friend of mine from business school had taken an improv class and I was ran into her I don't know ran into her someplace and she was telling me about it and she's like Billy you should do that it might be fun go try this and I was like all right I'll be fine so I did and I just got hooked and this was probably almost 20 years ago and um so I just started taking more classes and more lessons in it and I loved the art form and so um it's it's a it's a people get confused about improv versus sketch comedy and improv is literally there's no script it's um it's about creating as you're acting and um you have to really let go and be really comfortable with uncertainty of just not knowing and of just discovering and it's an incredibly vulnerable art form because you're in front of an audience and you don't have lines you have to make them up because you go and some and so it's a it's a it's a it's a really wonderful um um uh it's a very invigorating wonderful experience to to to be in the in the art of creation and to have the audience watch you as you're doing this creation so it's really I would say you know you asked about how it impacts me in business and I kind of have I've given this talk before so I have like the three things in my mind um and one of these is it's all about like I call it listening exquisitely which is you have to really be in the moment everybody knows about improv knows the yes and uh expression that's really the and it's really about the yes is I have heard you and I acknowledge you in the and is I'm going to contribute to what you've said so because you're creating something you have to be really present and you have to really pay attention um to the clues and to everything not just what the person's saying but their body language their facial expression um and each one of those is sort of an offer into the story and being part of that so listening exquisitely means like listening with your whole body and listening with your heart and your mind and your soul and to what's being said and what's happening and then shutting down your judgment and not planning what you're gonna what your response is gonna be but rather really listen um and that's about giving people the space to convey their ideas does that make sense sort of it's there's there's a listening piece then there's this um this whole thing about facing your fears like right in the face like every time I do improv you just you're you're you face humiliating failure because you just you just the odds of screwing up are pretty high and so we do like we do improv musicals like like this is the entire thing is improvised like the music the lyrics The Story So if you just think improv is hard imagine trying to improvise like a Disney ballad or a duet like on stage in front of an audience like you just just it's just nonsense it's really crazy that we do it actually um so uh so the fear is actually in it's in the air but it's actually in the empty space it's in that moment where you feel like you feel like you're gonna be like I got nothing it's my turn and I got nothing and so you really learn in improv to trust that in that moment in any moment you're going to have what you need it's either going to be in your head or it's going to be in your heart or it's going to be in your partners but you will have what you need in the moment and so I think that's like a really interesting business lesson too is that there's a an improv you have to let go of control but you have to only you only let go of control if you're so present in the moment you're paying attention and you know that the answer is there and you're going to find it and it's going to be there and you sort of trust the process to get to it um so you can really trust yourself but trust your partners on stage and then the third one I always talk about is selflessness which is kind of tied to the other two which is it's about really being super generous in province that you make choices that are all about making your partners look good on stage and you trust that they're going to do the same for you so the magic is an improv exists between the art actors I think people think of improv as being like somebody has a funny one-liner but that actually isn't what makes people enjoy and love improv they love watching the kind of mistakes or the the reality of life that emerges in the creation that they're watching the spontaneous spontaneity of it um and so for it to really work you have to just let go and Trust the process and trust your partners and I always say to people imagine a workplace that worked like that where you knew everyone you worked with every day was focused on making you look good and your mission was to do the same for them imagine a workplace like that how wonderful that would be and so that's why improv is so great because it's that little microcosm that's fantastic have you found that among your leadership team and the various organizations you've LED including Rite Aid now have those principles also been embraced by those working directly with you and those whom you choose to to be you know senior leaders in your organizations um I think so I think um well look I could just be the first one to say we all fail at listening like that's that's the that's the magical thing that we all need to do a better job of um and I think I maybe am more conscious of it when I fail at it because of improv I think um there is this thing that you notice when people are in meetings somebody will say something and then um they'll be talking for a little while and then the next person who talks says I want to get back to the first thing you said and I do this too and what it means is that whatever anybody said after the first thing they said nobody heard it yeah and this is the first thing you said right and and and so and some people are introverts and some people are extroverts so some people are introverts whatever comes out is fully formed and perfect and some people are extroverts and they kind of have to process from that first thing they said to the last thing they said and it's hard to be patient when someone's trying to get a thought out when you really really just want to respond to the first thing I said sure so um I do think that's what Exquisite listening is about it's about kind of sitting and being patient and letting someone get their full thought out and not try not to plan your response until they're through um and I think also as a leader um you have to kind of call BS on the politics when you see it if you see people trying to play you or play at people off each other or be manipulative there's not a there's not a truth and honesty happening in that moment and you need to create a space where people feel like they can be vulnerable and they can be true and honest and that's very hard the more senior you get in an organization because often people have succeeded to get to that point by being a little bit ruthless um yeah so I do think I try to create an environment of kind of Ruthless vulnerability and honesty um and um and I think that is refreshing for some people absolutely busy when you were named Rite Aid's interim CEO earlier this year you became one of just 20 53 women in just a handful of openly gay CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies what's been your experience over the years as a woman and lgbtq plus executive and what advice would you give to those who aspire to lead large companies well the first thing I always say everybody is hold on to your sense of humor because you're going to need it badly um I would say uh well I started on Wall Street in the 80s and things were really different than for women than they are now and so um and I think I see you know when at the beginning when I was talking about how it felt sort of revolutionary at the time to kind of go after Wall Street you know go after the men's professions um and there weren't that many women on Wall Street back then in the early 80s um and so that was that was not easy it was challenging um uh uh and so I think back then that was really just relying on other women who were going through the same thing and being able to talk amongst ourselves a lot so kind of having having posses of of support back then um but I think what advice would I give to people I think um I think sometimes I I would say leading is hard and um I think sometimes people think that leaders need to have all the answers like you feel like when you're a leader sometimes you're you're wise and um and I think if you think that you've gotten into trouble um if you think you have all the answers and there are plenty of CEOs out there plenty of narcissists out there who think they do and um I I it's toxic and doesn't create good environments I think the solutions are always deep inside of an organization and your job really as the leader is to kind of free out the gunk to get to free up the what I call the clay layer the place where stuff gets stuck um people always say that they need to be empowered and um they you know I need to be empowered to do things and I have this thing where I say you are hereby empowered like I just kind of bless them and say you're empowered because everyone is empowered already and um I think it's Alice Walker who said um and I'm gonna misquote if I misquote I'm going to have to fix it later but it's like uh it's like um it's like the like the the greatest way that people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any and that's what you have to leaders have to do is they have to have their teams and people realize that they have the knowledge they have the ability and they have the power to solve problems there isn't some Grand wisdom that's going to come and it's going to be bestowed upon them from the senior leadership team or from the CEO but rather it's inverted that it's up to us as Leaders to sort of really ensure that the people understand that they're the wisdom in the organization um and I think I think that came to me later in life and not early in life I wish I'd known that earlier that I didn't that becoming a leader or be being given or being promoted into a certain position doesn't somehow require or imply that you know everything it means you know how to leave right exactly so busy two quick questions in closing first what do you think are the most important qualities for a leader today hmm um sense of humor I said that already that's just that's like sanity that's just sanity um I think I think you have to leave with your heart in your head I think you have to have empathy and that's not just for um understanding consumer needs that's understanding the needs of the the people that you work with um so I think um empathy I think humility like I said before I think there's too many narcissists out there who are in positions of leadership um and I think authenticity and the willingness to be ability to be vulnerable or probably great great characteristics and finally what gives you hope for the future [Music] um um that gives me hope for the future like people I I think I particularly um I think this is I'll speak specifically to healthcare for a second but I I started in financial services I was in technology I worked in retail I worked on all these other businesses and then I moved over into Healthcare um not having been in it and taking a a role in in a company like Humana where I really didn't I didn't I didn't know anything I just I didn't know anything I realized how dumb I was really fast but I I was a quick study so um but I think what I saw really quickly is pretty much everybody who's in healthcare earnestly wants to make a better system and earnestly wants to help make people well like almost Universe universally and unlike a lot of other businesses where it's really they're coin operated Healthcare isn't as coin operated it's going on everything's going out right because we're in a market and we're in a capitalist system but fundamentally a lot of people in healthcare people that I met earnestly deeply with their heart wanted to make things better for people they wanted people to be healthier they wanted people's lives to be easier they wanted people to have better quality of life and so I think that's what gives me tremendous hope for the future in healthcare is the people that are in it earnestly care about the people they care for and um and and let me just say it's not just the patience I think people earnestly care about the lives of doctors right now it's horrible and it's challenging and it's difficult and and nurses and and so I think the pandemic woke up a lot of people to the challenges in the Healthcare System for the challenges that the people who are in the system who are giving care to the people who are getting care um and I think that's like step one right is making sure that you've got people who are in it trying to fix it who truly genuinely care about the right things so that's what probably gives me the most hope about the future is the people solving for the future frankly well busy that's wonderful thank you so much thank you for listening to the minor consult with me Stanford School of Medicine Dean Lloyd minor I hope you enjoyed today's discussion with busy Burr interim CEO at Rite Aid please send your questions by email to the minor consult at the minorconsult.com and check out our website the minorconsult.com for updates episodes and more to get the latest episodes of the minor console subscribe on Apple podcasts Spotify Stitcher or wherever you listen and if you enjoyed today's episode please rate the podcast five stars your feedback helps make this podcast happen thank you so much for joining me today I look forward to our next episode until then stay safe stay well and be kind [Music] foreign [Music]
2023-06-08 00:03