By Henry Mortimer, Editor-at-Large
What do you do when you realize your obsession with coffee could become your profession? When you’re Joe DeMattos, a healthcare policy leader with decades of professional experience, you launch a business.
“I drink a gazillion cups of coffee,” says DeMattos, CEO of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland (HFAM), an association representing skilled nursing, transitional, rehabilitative and long-term care providers. “I thought, what about this idea of ‘charging up your leadership’ by a triple latte? Not just a latte, but a triple latte. And for the price of one or two or three triple lattes, maybe [I] can impart some knowledge about leadership” to others in need.
So, in January 2015, he formed Triple Latte Leadership, LLC., and began serving as a motivational speaker, trainer, and coach to help “athletes, executives and everyday individuals to gain higher self-awareness and to reach peak performance.”
Triple Latte Leadership, LLC is focused on a single concept: “That we are all leaders, even if sometimes we don’t recognize that we are leaders,” says DeMattos, who previously served as the State Director for AARP Maryland. “The fact is, we can be more effective leaders and effective leaders leave clues.”
And that’s the key to leadership success — the word “effective.”
“I’m not pointing out good leaders or bad leaders,” says DeMattos, who is also an Adjunct Professor of Leadership at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Erickson School for the Management of Aging Studies. “I’m explicitly talking about effective versus ineffective leaders.”
DeMattos admits that the “clues” about effectiveness that he shares with his clients — that “effective leaders listen, separate people from the problem, and focus on interest and not position,” etc. — are based on concepts proffered by Bruce Patton, Roger Fisher, and William Ury in their book, Getting to Yes, which he studied while earning a masters degree in government at Johns Hopkins.
Yet the lessons based on these concepts that he imparts to his listeners come straight out of his own playbook of experience — and from the heart.
“I think the most effective leaders in healthcare are those that are value-driven and that focus first on getting it right, on doing the right thing,” DeMattos says. When that happens, “the bottom line works out for them.”
The “right thing” for DeMattos also includes focusing on community, professionally and personally.
“I really couldn’t do Triple Latte Leadership without Betamore,” say DeMattos. “It’s about being in the place and the sense of community and folks helping you out.”
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