People Matter at Work w/ Josh Block

"If you have to tell people you’re a good basketball player, you’re probably not a good basketball player." 

On this episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Chad and Cheese sit down with Josh Block, executive advisor and author of the new book, People Matter at Work. After unexpectedly becoming president of a $30 million family business at just 29 years old, Josh led the organization through a massive scaling journey—growing it to $215 million while obsessing over one thing: creating a place where people actually love to work. 

Inside this episode:

• The Dehumanization of Work: Why the gap between shareholders and team members is wider than ever, and how "quarterly earnings" pressure is killing company culture.

  
  

• The AI "Problem" in Healthcare: Josh shares an optimistic take on how AI is actually solving labor shortages and saving lives in the radiology space, rather than just creating obsolescence.

  
  

• Policy vs. Approach: Why Josh "cringes" at the word policy and how flexibility—not rigid handbooks—is the key to retaining top talent in a post-pandemic world.

  
  

• The "Barry Sanders" Strategy: Why the best company cultures don't need "jazz hands" or flashy marketing; they let the chemistry and the work speak for itself.

  
  

"What if we could create a place where people... go home and they’re better husbands, better wives, and better parents because of the investment we’ve made in them?" 

Tune in for a deep dive into the trenches of workforce talk.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:25.908)

Uhhhh, yeeeeaaaaaaah!

It's the podcast your Department of War warned you about. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast, everybody. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sewash's writing shotgun as we welcome Josh Block, executive advisor at Block Imaging, founder of Cube Mobile Imaging and author of People Matter at Work to the show. Josh, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast.

Chad Sowash (00:38.528)

Bella!

Chad Sowash (00:50.519)

Hmm.

Cause they don't matter. They don't matter anywhere else.

Josh Block (00:52.906)

I'm so glad to be here and looking forward to it, guys.

Joel Cheesman (00:55.572)

You look glad to be here. None of these marketing podcasts. This is real deal, in the trenches workforce talk here, Josh. I hope you're ready. A lot of our listeners won't know you, probably aren't connected to the medical imaging world as much as others are. Give us some sense of who you are, what makes you tick, what gets you out of bed every morning.

Chad Sowash (01:01.143)

The people.

Josh Block (01:18.348)

Yeah, I appreciate again being here. So I spent 10 years in Muncie, Indiana. So you're familiar with the Ball State Chirp Chirp. I got two Indiana guys here. That's right. So I spent 10 years in Muncie.

Chad Sowash (01:24.663)

Sorry. God. This... The worst battle cry ever, guys. The worst battle cry ever.

Joel Cheesman (01:25.236)

I love that that is your opening line.

We call it, we call it fun, we call it FUNCY, Josh. It's called FUNCY. Yeah.

Josh Block (01:37.964)

That's right. There was a shirt, think, back in the day, FUNCY. I can't remember exactly what went with it. That's right. That's right. So spent 10 years running a service company and really wanted to employ people in the inner city because jobs change lives. And so at 29 years old, made the decision to move north back to my family, which is in Lansing, Michigan. So we're Michigan State fans go green.

Chad Sowash (01:45.111)

all of you. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:45.204)

Yeah, the Harvard of Muncie is Ball State University.

Josh Block (02:07.338)

About four months after moving, I became president unexpectedly over a weekend of our family business. So we're in the radiology space, refurbished imaging, and became president and Monday morning, it's $30 million organization. And it was kind of my, my moment. And then have led over the last 15 years really in pursuit of creating a healthy culture and a place where people love to work.

Joel Cheesman (02:23.838)

Mm-hmm.

Josh Block (02:32.522)

I grew from about 30 million to 215 million and today I'm an advisor and launching the book People Matter at Work that just went live two days ago.

Chad Sowash (02:42.282)

So did you actually provide the book to Michigan State football teams and also Michigan football teams?

Josh Block (02:48.014)

Now it.

Joel Cheesman (02:50.069)

Jud Heathcote wrote the forward, I think Chad, on that one. I'm going way back with that one.

Josh Block (02:53.046)

We're pretty, Michigan State's, yeah, that's right. That's right. You go way back. But yeah, Michigan State's pretty happy with the new football coach and Michigan State basketball's rocking it pretty good right now as we go into the Big Ten tournament.

Chad Sowash (03:04.948)

That's a diversion.

Joel Cheesman (03:05.83)

is pivot pivot. Do you know Tim Sackett? Okay, huge, big. He's he's in our space. Big Michigan State fan. I was thinking Tim when I say Michigan State fan, but we'll forgive you. You didn't say the Wolverines. So we're we're okay. That team up north is not spoken on the show.

Josh Block (03:11.22)

I do not know, Tim.

Chad Sowash (03:12.522)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (03:17.332)

Yep. Is boys there? Yeah. Yeah.

So, so radiology, radiology, a big space, right? And great space. So why write a book about talent?

Josh Block (03:25.644)

That's right.

Josh Block (03:29.709)

Mm-hmm.

Josh Block (03:37.09)

Yeah. So in, in 2011, when I became president and I, there's so much I didn't know. mean, you talk about like inferiority or imposter syndrome. mean, I hadn't seen a profit and loss statement, hadn't been to our Japan or France offices. I was a sales rep, but I mean, there was, if you, if you put on one side what I knew and on the other side, what I didn't know, it wouldn't even be close. And so about that time, someone handed me a copy of Patrick once the only is five dysfunctions of a team.

Chad Sowash (03:40.64)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (03:54.112)

Hello.

Josh Block (04:06.178)

And when someone tells you Teamwork's the ultimate competitive advantage and you don't know your butt from your elbow, it gave me great hope. And so we really put all of our chips on the table and pursued a healthy culture. I'm thankful we're in healthcare because it's a really meaningful space to change lives through patient care. But it's meaningful, right? Because People Matter is our core mission.

Joel Cheesman (04:24.5)

It's the only place hiring people. You should be excited to be in that space.

Chad Sowash (04:26.984)

Yeah, it's a growth.

Josh Block (04:33.358)

It really not only is meaningful within our team, but also in our support of healthcare providers who are scanning patients. I mean, we don't have to go into this, but if I were to ask either of you something that's going on in your family's life or who's had an X-ray or an MRI or CT or mammogram, it touches everyone's lives.

Chad Sowash (04:50.068)

Yeah, yeah. But why, why? mean, so healthcare, there's high churn. And usually there's really bad management. You go to, I don't care who I talk to, my friends are in healthcare over the years, or we talk to individuals who are in talent, in HR. Management is horrible. And they have turnover that is horrible.

So the big question is, knowing that healthcare in itself, there's not enough individuals to actually just fill the positions that are open right now as it is, let alone trying to kick them out of the industry to other industries, why is that such a big problem in healthcare today?

Josh Block (05:30.124)

You know, I think there's an urgency and an acute care nature that you, mean, any business where you're 24 seven inherently has some challenges. You're dealing with people who have a myriad of difficulties from preventative care to, you know, the most difficult of people's lives, whether it be cancer or pediatrics. So you have some of those dynamics. You have a lot of regulatory changes happening at all times as reimbursements and insurance and.

And you have these health, not only did you have a lot of consolidation in the space, but you're serving wildly different clientele. I if you were in downtown Denver versus going to Littleton, it's just totally different challenges you're facing. So I think those are a few of the areas I just named about eight of why healthcare is difficult.

Joel Cheesman (06:12.666)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Speaking of challenges, Josh, what inspired you to write a book? I'm guessing it wasn't the money. Speaking of opportunities, like what?

Josh Block (06:21.942)

Yeah. You'd be surprised if you take an MRI and then you take $26 books and you multiply it. There's no, really, of course, didn't do it for the money, but I was of all places running in Muncie, Indiana and I got to a stop sign. remember where I was and just felt this tap on the shoulder. Like you need to tell the story and not because I necessarily wanted to, but because other people have talked about our culture and talked about our leadership approach.

Joel Cheesman (06:31.092)

Hahaha

Chad Sowash (06:31.487)

It was.

Josh Block (06:49.366)

and said like, you need to invite others into this. So I started in 2020 and because we've grown so much and this was a side piece of my day-to-day life raising teenagers and running a company, it took six years to get to the full publishing and launch of the book.

Joel Cheesman (06:53.204)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (07:06.269)

Just so.

Joel Cheesman (07:06.276)

And you're sure you weren't on Riverside being tapped on the shoulder by a meth head? Did you make sure that that was not the case? okay, all right.

Josh Block (07:09.998)

I was not on Riverside. I was a little east of town in Parker City, Indiana.

Chad Sowash (07:14.836)

I can't, I can't believe you allowed side piece to go past Joel. Anyway, so we, let's talk about, let's talk about kind of like the setup for this, right? You know, we talk about the dehumanization of the workplace in itself and it actually started well before AI. We're talking about AI a lot. We're talking about efficiencies. We're talking about a lot of different things, right? And people are afraid they're scared, yet, but yeah, you're bringing up a

Joel Cheesman (07:20.488)

blinded by months a what what

Chad Sowash (07:44.298)

Big point, that it's been dehumanizing for a very long time. So can you dig into that a little bit, please?

Josh Block (07:51.852)

Yeah, I think that I share about this and people matter at work. I think that the public corporation has had a big impact is when you look at like when we look at an aggregation culture and then a family enterprise, then you move to this public enterprise where shareholders and team members, the gap is as big as ever, right? Many of us own shares and companies that we have no idea what the experience is for the customer or for the team member. And so think the gap has gotten really big.

Chad Sowash (07:58.711)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (08:08.97)

Thank you.

Chad Sowash (08:20.342)

Mm.

Josh Block (08:20.462)

And then the pressure has grown around short-term returns. like quarterly earnings. mean, that is just a phrase that's totally commonplace today that wasn't even a phrase 50 years ago. so think quarterly earnings drive near-term results. Near-term results create pressure, pressure creates selfishness and kind of this focus on myself. And so those are some of the reasons why I think the gap has grown and the dehumanization has started to kind of, yeah, not go in the right direction.

Chad Sowash (08:49.27)

It's baked into society now. mean, we started, this all started with trickle down economics and then the rugged individualism came in, then greed is good, right? I mean, so it all turned into short-sightedness at that point because it started to compress, right? We started having long-term thoughts with regard to and strategies of how we're going to run business. We developed our employees, we retained our employees, and today it's all flipped. The development's not happening.

Joel Cheesman (08:49.524)

at

Josh Block (08:56.846)

Sure.

Josh Block (09:13.902)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (09:17.718)

We see employees as disposable. Hence what I was talking about earlier with a lot of health care It's just like well, there's somebody else that'll pop in there How do how do it's baked into society? So a book is great, but how in the hell do we change this?

Josh Block (09:34.156)

Yeah, and I think it's baked into American culture in some ways is this like we are we are such an independent place, the Declaration of Independence, and we talk about the celebration of our own personal freedom. And there are lot of cultures around the world that independence is not celebrated interdependence is they're multi generational and they see community much broader than the way that most Americans see community. So I think for me, the invitation is

for like, what does our legacy want to be? What do you want people to say of you as a leader in five years? And much of this book and really the question that I sought to be an answer to the last 15 years is what if we could create a place where people love to work, not because there's free granola bars and water slides, but because they're challenged and stretched and become people they never dreamed of and they go home and they're better husbands, they're better wives, they're better parents, they're better community members because of the investment we've made in.

Joel Cheesman (10:30.632)

What's this granola bar you speak of? I know not. The water slide is good.

Chad Sowash (10:33.938)

I'm, I did the water slide. that's, that was.

Josh Block (10:36.512)

When just when you talk about culture, people think ropes courses and trust falls. And actually what they really think is like, yeah, there's a funny story for another time on trust falls, but, but the idea of like, I think people just think if you have a healthy culture, you're actually really soft, complacent. you you're, you're comfortable with mediocrity and you tolerate poor performance. And it's a misnomer that I, if people matter, performance matters like.

Chad Sowash (10:42.966)

Trust falls.

Josh Block (11:05.548)

We have to perform so that we can actually drive our mission. And so both of those are really important.

Joel Cheesman (11:10.622)

Yep. Josh, you're in radiology and one of the professions we hear a lot about being automated is the radiologist, right? Like machines being able to look at imaging and making a diagnosis. Humans just have a hard time competing with that, which obviously trickles down into impacting your business and how you recruit and how you retain employees. If they think radiology is going away, why the hell are we making radiology machines? So how do you look at

AI and how it impacts the future of the business and how does it impact your recruiting and retention.

Josh Block (11:42.466)

Yeah, for radiology, from an AI perspective, there are areas in the labor space that it's solving problems. Like five years ago, the reads for radiologists, so there's a big difference between like scanning and then ultimately reading. There was a huge shortage of radiologists, and that's not even talked about today. AI is doing...

initial reads and providing some real solutions. like where AI is creating obsolescence and fear in some areas, it's actually solving problems in other spaces. And so there are not enough MR techs in the world today. There are not enough radiologists in the world today. And the ability to do remote scanning and to read with artificial intelligence is actually solving. So while the world kind of tends to complain about things like this is a problem, hey, let's not forget

Chad Sowash (12:12.916)

Hmm.

Josh Block (12:34.22)

The fact that AI is actually solving in spaces that are going to allow reads to happen in an hour or in six hours, rather than becoming like some other countries where we may not read for a week or two weeks, which is life-changing for people.

Joel Cheesman (12:48.692)

love that optimistic perspective on that. Curious, you've been part of fast growing companies. You talked about dollars and headcount. What are some of the sort of non-negotiable cultural strategies that you can't lose in those fast growth periods? Like what advice would you give a company that's at that 50 person headcount going to that four or 500 person headcount?

Josh Block (13:15.158)

Yeah, it's a great question. think organizational identity is so important. And a lot of times people think of organizational identity as your brand. And that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about going and finding values. And that sound nice or would look pretty on the wall. What is inside of you? What do you want? When you're cut, what do you bleed out? When you sweat, what comes out of you is that you find those values. And in our case, where my last name is the company's name.

Chad Sowash (13:27.318)

Mm.

Josh Block (13:43.042)

Like this is who we want to be when we grow up. And what you do is you become a magnet to draw people who are connected to that. You hold people accountable to aligning with it. And then you repel people who don't want to be a part of a place where people matter and honor and together and thoughtful and transparent are really who we want to be when we grow up.

Chad Sowash (14:03.158)

So how do you actually take, next thing you know, you're a president of an organization. Haven't been to Japan and or where was it? Paris, yeah, France, Paris. Joel, I have not been to either of our locations either. I need to go to Japan. How do you identify that? Again, you're coming in green, right? How do you identify where the problems are actually happening? How did that happen?

Josh Block (14:12.706)

France.

Chad Sowash (14:32.318)

And how did you execute and kind of like what a timeframe, what kind of programs, what'd you have to do?

Josh Block (14:38.318)

Initially, it was to regain stability, right? We had had, I share in the book that we had had some layoffs that had taken place four months before becoming president. And then my dad's imminent shift led to some instability. I mean, we went from the founder of the company who's 60 years old, who had spent two decades in radiology to someone who's 29, had been in sales, but didn't have nearly the business experience or the gray hairs that I have today. And so...

Chad Sowash (14:47.35)

Yeah.

Josh Block (15:07.042)

that was like starting with regain stability. Like regain stability, meet with each person on the team, which is about 50 at the time, and talk to them about where they're concerned. Some people were really excited about where we were going. Some people were concerned. Regain stability and then cast vision for where we want to go as a company.

Joel Cheesman (15:25.214)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (15:26.08)

So how do you do that? I mean, just a practical exercise. Do you sit down with people one on one? Do you sit down with the actual managers and then to be able, mean, explain just from an execution standpoint, how do you make that happen? And then at that point, you start to identify individuals who might not have the same vision, which is all well and good. How do you part with those individuals, right? And then also try to identify new.

individuals to bring into the organization.

Josh Block (15:58.274)

Yeah, there was meeting with the leaders was a moment by moment. Hey, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you walk me through what some of the things that I need to grow my acumen in in order to lead this organization? Then there was just meeting with each individual in the company, starting with those who were most concerned. And then there were a handful of people who were unable to make the shift across in the midst of our growth and the difference between my dad, who had hired some of his friends and had

Chad Sowash (16:27.21)

Mm-hmm.

Josh Block (16:27.566)

you know, these were his colleagues, there were a very small number of people who were not able to bridge across from his leadership to mine.

Chad Sowash (16:36.618)

What was the big problem there? Was it just that this is the way things have been done, it's more tradition this way and change isn't something that we're going to embrace? What did you see was the big problem?

Josh Block (16:47.726)

I think think humility, humility is a great pathway to healthy teams. And so I think there are a number of spots where there was this rugged individualism, which we talked about a little bit ago. I want it my way. I want to do it in this manner. want to in this case, we're working remote was very rare back at those times, but I want to work in my house. I don't want to work with other people. want whatever those things were. And I was really inviting people to work together and that.

Chad Sowash (16:52.842)

Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Block (17:14.976)

required humility. I'd say like that individualism and ego were two things that sometimes we were unable to get to the other side of.

Joel Cheesman (17:22.408)

Let's talk about remote because you're going to have people that read the book that we're all in office. We're all remote. We're a hybrid of both of those. Does the strategy change? Do you have advice for companies with different sort of setups or is it consistent?

Josh Block (17:36.012)

Yeah, so we have about 200 people in Michigan and about 200 nationally. And that's some of that's just because they're located in the hospital serving patients. And it's fixing systems that are serving patients every day. But for us, we really believe that being in person is important as often as you can. And so some of that's people who are working at a headquarters. Some people here are three days a week in headquarters. We try to bring people in for an annual retreat every year in September.

But yeah, we think that proximity and frequency are super important and we've sought to hold on to that as much as we possibly can in the midst of some changing dynamics, both due to our growth and the spread of the customers we're serving around the

Joel Cheesman (18:19.486)

They're generational. Yep.

Chad Sowash (18:19.52)

So wait real quick. So you're saying being in person with customers sometimes literally outranks being at headquarters.

Josh Block (18:28.586)

you in the space that we're in where we're fixing medical devices, you can't, you can't fly to California from Michigan. But I will tell you when we went through the COVID season and there are even some companies that are, you know, moving backwards. And what's really tricky is once everybody went remote and a couple of years later, you're like, Hey, I need you to come back in the office. And the person's like, I don't live here anymore. I moved from DC to Florida and the company's like, wait, we're still paying you based on DC rates. But that's another.

Chad Sowash (18:31.563)

Yeah, okay.

Chad Sowash (18:51.008)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh Block (18:57.824)

another topic is we sent people home for a short period of time and then brought them back. And then at Christmas, we sent them home again because of some concern about families and things like that, and then brought them back. And what we found is that people actually felt more safe, secure. They were in their normal rhythms when they came to the office, not when they were at home. And so we tried to find the balance. I really think something we talked about before we got on the show is like black and white policy. And I think that people

Chad Sowash (18:58.55)

That's another show, yeah.

Josh Block (19:26.958)

Us, we really try to go with approaches. Like, how are we going to approach different situations? Generally speaking, we believe that people being in the office is a big win. And there are situations with parents and there are situations with health issues and there are situations with kids and all that sort of stuff. And so how do we modulate based on what we want and based on what people need?

Joel Cheesman (19:49.151)

Do you look at the issue generationally? We talk a lot about younger people needing that mentorship, needing that sort of in office energy. People experience not so much. Do you look at it that way or is it sort of one size fits all?

Josh Block (20:05.964)

Well, the real challenge is when that person who's experienced, who knows everything they need to know to do their job goes remote. That's where we start to lose the synergy and the knowledge passed on. So when Bob, who worked remote for 16 years, resigns, I think he takes something different with him than if he was working in the office every day for those 16 years. The transmission of knowledge and one of the keys to our organization is that we're helpful. People help each other. People train each other. We're open-handed with knowledge.

Job security isn't driven by hoarding knowledge. And so that is one of the things that's really important to me is that when we talk about the generations, we want the experienced people in the office because of what they can give away to the next generation versus just fading off into the distance.

Chad Sowash (20:51.424)

Well, talk a little bit about flexibility, though, because obviously we see that there are a lot of women that have left the workforce because there wasn't flexibility and they were forced back into the office. So we're losing great. We're losing talent, right? We're losing talent for those types of those types of reasons. So talk a little bit about that. And it doesn't have to be obviously you can work hybrid or what have you. Maybe they're shifting schedules. What have you had to make concessions and actually work with employees and departments to be able to keep great talent?

Josh Block (21:20.054)

Yeah, we we have we believe that if you're in the Lansing, Michigan area, you're around one of our offices. We want you in the office as much as you possibly can. And at the same. So that's the macro view. And we recognize that we don't want it to be a retention issue. We want to accommodate and work. We obviously don't want you to go home and be the child care provider for your family while you're working. We just don't think that's necessarily honoring of the organization of your team.

Chad Sowash (21:26.614)

Hmm?

Josh Block (21:49.986)

But at the same time, if you have to be at the office every day or you can't work here, or remote is 100 % remote is the only way you'll work here, we probably try to thread the needle in between. And we have some three day a week, we have some four day a week. But we actually want teams. Some teams are here, like everybody commits to be here on Monday and Wednesday so that they can continue to develop those relationships and grow together.

Chad Sowash (22:15.242)

Bye.

Joel Cheesman (22:16.436)

talked about COVID a couple of times and we've seen politics creep into the workplace in the last few years. You're shaking your head very aggressively. Michigan is also a swing state. You guys are more politically charged probably than a lot of other states. How do you as an organization, what do you recommend other companies do with the political football? Avoid it, embrace it because culture plays into how a company

Josh Block (22:25.303)

Yeah

Chad Sowash (22:25.75)

Hahaha

Joel Cheesman (22:45.14)

approaches politics more and more.

Josh Block (22:47.106)

Yeah, our mission is that people matter. Like those two words drive and guide everything we do. And so when it came to the vaccine, when it came to remote work, when it came to task forces, when it came to all these sorts of things, we just really look through the lens, not of who the Republicans are, not of who the Democrats are, not of who's the governor, not of who's the president, but who do we want to be? And I think that that

The anchoring in our identity is really what keeps from the winds of change blowing you here and all over the place. so yeah, when we like the vaccine was a really hot topic. I don't remember if it was 21 and in healthcare, there was this idea of like in order to be employed here, you are going to have to force your team members to be vaccinated. And personally, I was just uncomfortable with that. I understand that there were some customer demands that we had in order to be in hospitals.

Chad Sowash (23:28.374)

.

Chad Sowash (23:39.158)

Mm.

Josh Block (23:39.234)

but to force our entire company to undergo really a healthcare decision in order to be employed here. That just, in the end, it wasn't a decision that we had to make. actually, some decisions, it's really funny, some decisions you can punt and they make themselves. And that's what happened here. There was never a federal mandate for our organization. And so it was much ado about nothing and a bunch of worry and conversation that didn't really come to fruition.

Joel Cheesman (23:58.034)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (24:04.67)

It sounds like most of politics these days.

Josh Block (24:07.244)

Yeah, yeah, just wait. It's one of the few areas of life that if I don't make a decision, it might be the best decision.

Joel Cheesman (24:15.209)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (24:15.36)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it also sounds like as we're talking about just like that and also culture, right? That there are all these lines that are drawn. There's a black and there's a white. You're either in the office or you're out of the office. And from what we've heard from many very successful organizations is that it's in the middle, right? And there's generally not a kind of like top down, you know, Jamie Diamond, everybody's in the office bullshit that's happening. It is generally

managers working with their teams, figuring it out and understanding that they have objectives that they have to meet. Whether it's sales quotas or it's product or whatever it might be, but there are things that they have to meet and objectives they have to meet. And that's the job. And that's the job. So tell me a little bit about that. Was it harder, especially with some of those older workers, to try to work with them and say, hey, look, this is standard operating procedure? No.

But it's not anymore. This is how we're working and we want to be able to just get the job done.

Josh Block (25:18.464)

It is, I mean, and frankly, the Jamie Diamond situation, which I don't know all of the details, but I am a Chase customer, is they, I think it's an overreaction to the previous decision, which was, hey, we're gonna make everybody comfortable, go remote, know, they're mowing their lawn, they're doing whatever they're doing. And then it's like, wait a second, I don't want, I was just on a Zoom call, I think they're folding laundry, what's going on here? And then they kind of swung the other way.

which was like the first wrong decision led to a more stringent second decision. And so yeah, for us, it's why I cringe at the word policy. And HR, a lot of people in HR, they, want to write a policy because I want the person to walk into my office and I want to have a clear answer. It was a 55 mile an hour zone. My radar detector said you were going 67. And so I'm going to write you a ticket versus what we've really encouraged is approaches.

This is our approach to in-person work. This is our approach to PTO. This is our approach to maternity leave. This is our approach to fill in the blank. And yet we recognize that the moment that we make this stringent policy is the moment someone walks into our office and it's like, my gosh, I never dreamed that this, when I was writing the policy, I could have never imagined this situation. And that's why keeping a little bit more flexibility, hey, this is what we're after as a company and we're gonna, and HR.

is not just designed to protect the company, to support the people.

Joel Cheesman (26:43.092)

Josh, you're supposed to say proud chase customer. Jamie doesn't like it when you just say chase customer. Okay, good. Proud, proud customer.

Josh Block (26:48.142)

I am, I'm a proud Chase customer. I was an old national bank customer, Muncie, Indiana, do you remember that?

Joel Cheesman (26:56.606)

KeyBank was my team back in the day, Josh. Anyway, you got me off track. I'm curious about when does the message around culture begin? When I go to your career site, there's no video, there's no sort of, I don't wanna say splashy, but there doesn't seem to be a huge effort around showing who we are with video and sort of new media.

Josh Block (26:58.933)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (27:04.192)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (27:24.84)

You have a section that says culture fit. That's literally two sentences, which I think a lot of people would say, how do you relay culture in two sentences? So what, what am I missing? What's the secret sauce? When do you start sharing the vision with a candidate and how

Josh Block (27:41.004)

Yeah, person is most likely going to know about Block Imaging's culture before they go to our site. Because we're in healthcare, because we're in radiology, it's a pretty incestuous space in terms of I used to work for GE, now I work for Siemens and Block Imaging. I've heard a lot about them. I have a friend that works there. So for us, I would say that you are either someone in healthcare who's familiar with our culture

Two, someone who works for this team invited you to apply and they've told you about their experience. And then the last is you're in the Lansing community. So a lot of our core accounting and HR and IT is located in Lansing. And so again, it's similar to the healthcare space where lots of people know lots of people and our culture is pretty well known in the Lansing area.

Chad Sowash (28:23.86)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (28:28.906)

So what would you say to the companies who come out with new colors, new logos, and just a new fresh cheerleader rah rah, because we see that all the time. What does that, yeah, what do jazz hands mean to you, especially when it comes to the corporate side of

Joel Cheesman (28:43.092)

I don't think Josh is into jazz hands. That's what I'm hearing, but let's hear it from him.

Josh Block (28:53.006)

Yeah, the I have a 16 year old son who plays basketball. And if you have to tell people that you're a good basketball player, you're probably not a good basketball player. Right. Like the best way to know if you're a good basketball player is when someone stops you when you're walking out of the gym and says, whoa, you're you're an incredible shooter or you're you whatever it is, is when other people talk about you, that's when you know. And so I think that's if we have to talk about ourselves and put our culture on display.

Chad Sowash (29:01.59)

Thanks.

Josh Block (29:20.212)

I really want you to walk in our doors. want you to engage our recruiting team and go, whoa, like something's different about the way that that person talked to me or the things we talked about. The focus wasn't as much on resume. Maybe it was more on chemistry, but I really want people to feel it more than I want to holler.

Joel Cheesman (29:40.948)

Another Michigan reference, Barry Sanders never celebrated because he had been in the end zone quite a few times.

Josh Block (29:44.142)

I tell my son that I'm like just act like you've been there before when you when you shoot a three and you make it you just walk down the court and you start playing defense if you got to do this like You know a mix of signs and and taunting and whatever else like you're not good enough

Chad Sowash (29:59.851)

He's got to get the dance moves together though. I mean, come on. I love Barry. He's tradition, traditional.

Josh Block (30:02.638)

Barry Sanders, hands the football to the ref and then he retires and he gets into the Hall of Fame.

Joel Cheesman (30:04.222)

Who does it?

Joel Cheesman (30:09.716)

For sure, for sure. So I'll push you on something else as well, Josh. According to LinkedIn, your median tenure of an employee is 2.3 years. The best comp I could find was Striker, a Michigan medical company as well, at about 4.3 years. Is LinkedIn off on that? Do you have a lot of people who aren't on LinkedIn? Are you happy with that median retention?

Josh Block (30:34.478)

Yes. I love that you just pulled out a piece of data I have never heard in my life. So we went, we were acquired two and a half years ago. And so we, as an organization, have moved from 200 to 400 in the last two and a half years. So my suspicion is, I don't know exactly how that data is pulled, but if you go from 200 to 400 in two and a half years, you immediately have 200 plus of those people could not have been a part of block imaging before that growth took place.

Joel Cheesman (30:38.312)

Tell me, talk to me about that.

Chad Sowash (31:03.444)

Mm.

Josh Block (31:03.534)

our leadership team, I've got 15 years in the office next door, I've got 22 years next door, our leaders, the tenure's really, really long. I would suspect that if you moved that outlier of extreme growth and the acquisition factor, I would have to think our tenure's pretty long, but it's not something that I've looked at.

Chad Sowash (31:25.98)

LinkedIn data, LinkedIn data. Well, guys, I'm sorry.

Josh Block (31:28.814)

It's probably good data. actually sounds pretty accurate. It just has that one piece in there. But I would say that turnover, the question of like, how do you know if a culture is healthy? Losing good people. it is something we just, don't have very often that we have someone who leaves and right. We all know when someone leaves you either have that moment of where you're like, I wish you the best and have a bagel party and you're going to do great somewhere else. And then you have the other side, which is like,

no, this was a person who was carrying something significant for this organization. Lot of knowledge, great chemistry, fit, extremely competent. I'll tell you the number of times that someone has departed in that latter category from block imaging over the years is a handful.

Joel Cheesman (32:10.366)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (32:13.878)

Well, Josh, I got to cut you off because I've got to, I've got a book flight for our Japan and Paris locations. So if somebody wants to actually connect with you or I don't know, maybe even buy the book, where might they go?

Josh Block (32:29.91)

Yeah, so they can connect with me, peoplematteratwork.com, peoplematteratwork.com, because you can't do an at sign in the middle of a website, I guess. And my email is josh at peoplematteratwork.com. And then they can buy books anywhere. Books are sold Amazon. I hear it's kind of a cool place to buy stuff these days.

Chad Sowash (32:37.622)

No, no, that's an email address.

Joel Cheesman (32:48.425)

We hear that too. Chad, I can't believe we didn't talk about my close relationship with Magic Johnson. I guess we'll save that for another show. Josh, Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.

Josh Block (32:56.194)

That's not true.

Chad Sowash (32:57.335)

I was, we out.

Josh Block (32:59.272)

Ugh.