Healthicity
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We're excited to introduce a thought-provoking podcast episode that dives into the world of compliance in healthcare and explores the ever-evolving challenges compliance professionals face in their careers.
In this episode, “A Candid Conversation on Challenges and Balance in a Compliance Career,” Dieter Lehnortt and CJ Wolf share their insights on the complexities of the healthcare compliance landscape. From dealing with government regulations to navigating the uncharted territory of Artificial Intelligence, they cover it all. Key takeaways from the podcast:
- Explore the potential of AI in compliance and the importance of using it appropriately to enhance efficiency.
- The significance of establishing boundaries, delegating tasks, and prioritizing for a better work-life balance.
- How to make compliance approachable more approachable for colleagues who find it intimidating.
Dieter is an experienced compliance professional with skills in Medicare and Medicaid regulation analysis, building health care provider relationships, assessing health care operations, effectively using data analytics to identify compliance risks, and building effective compliance communication and training programs.
Episode Transcript
CJ: Welcome everybody to another episode of Compliance Conversations. I am CJ Wolf with Healthicity and I am excited today to have our guest Dieter Lehnortt join us. Hello, Dieter!
Dieter: Hey, CJ, how are you?
CJ: I'm doing great. It's so good to have you on and Dieter and I go way back and maybe we'll talk a little bit about that. Dieter, we love to have our guests introduce themselves a little bit, just so that they get a sense of who's on and we'd love to have you take a moment to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dieter: Well, thank you again, CJ for the invitation for me to help with this. So as CJ said, I'm Dieter Lehnortt. I'm currently a senior director of compliance for a company called Innovus Corporation. We are a very large, actually international durable medical equipment, medical device, and medical technology company that's based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but we do have offices all over the world.
But to give you a little bit of background, kind of the historical part of my career, I actually started out in government affairs with a national medical specialty society a number of years ago. And my role there really was physician reimbursement, coding, and billing. I was the guy who was making frequent trips to CMS in Baltimore, and also to Washington DC to attend hearings and meetings.
We also had, interestingly, that entity also had a political action committee, so I also was involved in that and so involved with meeting with members of Congress to talk about various centric issues that were of interest.
Beyond that, I've done consulting. I actually, interestingly ran two different billing companies in my career, physician billing and hospital billing companies. But really the biggest, and I would say the longest part of my career was as a director of billing compliance at a very large academic medical center, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center located in Dallas, and so as you might imagine with Academic Medical Center, lots of interesting issues going on all the time for us in compliance, we had approximately 3000 physicians in our practice plan, we owned and operated two of our own hospitals on the campus, lots of research.
And so, that's kind of a snapshot of my career, CJ. But I think, you know, I've been in compliance for a long time, and really before that did work that we didn't use the term compliance, but it really was compliance, you know compliance oriented.
CJ: Yeah, exactly! And I love hearing kind of how people came to compliance, so I appreciate you sharing that background. We all come from different backgrounds, which I think kind of makes the profession exciting and enjoyable. Dieter and I met when I was at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is a part of the University of Texas system, just like UT Southwestern was and we worked together on physician billing and coding compliance type of issues. And then I moved on to the University of Texas System Offices in Austin, and I think Dieter was still at UT Southwestern, so that's such a great institution of Premier Medical Center and a training institution. And we had a lot of good years and I appreciate all the things I learned from Dieter over the years at UT.
Dieter: Well, thank you! Well and the things I learned from you, CJ, you were always very helpful and particularly when we got into some, you know, specific physician coding issues. You being a physician yourself, I think that was always very helpful. And there were many times I pretended to be a physician when I went into walking with our faculty or an attorney, which I'm neither of those but it was always great working with you, and always appreciated your insight and what you were able to help us with. And we did accomplish a lot I think during our time at the University of Texas system overall. So, that was it was a great time.
CJ: Yeah, it was! So, part of the reason I reached out to Dieter is I knew he's just got a great breadth of compliance and we wanted to talk today kind of just high-level general compliance topics. You've had a good many years of experience. And so, I think that that gives you some good insights in, maybe reading the tea leaves or sharing advice on certain things.
And so, we're going to do kind of a little potpourri type of questions today and we're going to start off with a question about challenges. So, Dieter, I wanted to get your take on what you see as some of the more significant challenges that face compliance professionals. You know, maybe for the rest of this current year of 2023 and maybe even starting to look into 2024 if you have any thoughts on challenges?
Dieter: Yeah, absolutely! Well, it's always interesting, because for those of us who work in an area which, you know we all do in healthcare where it's highly regulated. We're always dealing with new things coming out from the federal government and typically from CMS. And it's always interesting I think when we talk about challenges, you know it's sort of the; "Okay, what is coming next, right?"
CJ: Right!
Dieter: "What's going to happen next?" And so, it's just part of the challenges is dealing with the unknown. And to your point of a second ago, yeah, I've been in compliance really since the very early 80s and in healthcare, really now for 40-plus years. And so, I'm giving away my age a little bit, but...
CJ: And you started when you were twelve?
Dieter: I started when I was twelve absolutely! You know, and we won't talk about the child labor laws, but my parents thought it would be good for me to go to work.
I think, you know the challenges that we see, of course, you know, one of the big things everyone's talking about right now is Artificial Intelligence, right? And how is that going to get used? How and do we in compliance make sure it's used appropriately? So, I think that is definitely, you know, a challenge. It's also an opportunity, I think for the future, but it's always a balance of how do we make it work correctly but not allow it to do things that it really shouldn't do.
The other thing I would say, and really is another challenge, what I'm seeing at least in my industry, you know being me, health services and so forth is really even though companies are doing relatively well in today's world after the pandemic, what I do see is bottom lines and particularly cash flow issues always come into play here, right?
CJ: Yes!
Dieter: And as you know particularly well, CJ, anytime there was a little bit less cash, compliance, and/or legal, and usually, it's both. Those are usually the last entities or business operations within an enterprise they get thought of, right?
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And so, one of the big challenges I see frankly and I think we've all seen it for probably a few years now. Through the pandemic and then out of the pandemic. As budgets get tighter, what happens is we still see expansion and growth within our companies, within our enterprises and so that's the expectation frankly. And we see it, you know, I see it every day where you as a compliance person will just cover more issues yourself because we don't have the resources to hire more staff or to bring in additional, you know, other kinds of resources that might be needed.
So, I think that's an ongoing challenge. It's been there before, but I'm really seeing it pretty acutely now. And again, the thing that worries me a little bit in terms of challenges, how do you balance taking on ten, twelve, or fifteen more compliance issues in areas that you typically have not worked in before.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: While your company is expanding and growing and either acquiring other companies or merging or what have you. To me, that's kind of the more pressing challenge that I see is, how do we balance that challenge and how do we survive it?
CJ: Yeah, that's a great point, Dieter, because you know and I've experienced it too, where people are like, as the company expands or as new issues come up like, "Oh, that falls into compliance's bucket or in their realm." And it's like the things just keep getting added on and you might not be having more employees added to you or other resources. And so yeah, it's like you're trying to figure out, how do I accomplish all this with the limited resources I have with new things being added.
And the other thing I appreciate you mentioned was AI. I was at a conference recently about three months ago and the keynote speaker we it was a kind of physician coding and CPT kind of conference. But they talked about AI, and it was interesting because he talked about it in the context of history and other major historical events that kind of are, items that like have a paradigm shift. So, he even went back into time and said, "When man discovered fire! When the wheels were discovered! When the printing press!" Like how that changed life, right? It was like this monumental historical event. You know, the industrial age, the computer. Just think of how the computer or how the television changed life. And his prediction was that AI is going to be one of those types of advancements that might not happen tomorrow. But you know, over the next decade or so his prediction was AI is going to be one of those major historical events in history that's going to change our world a little bit.
Kind of like, you know, when I was growing up, I never dreamed of having a phone that I carried around with me that had the computing power that more than, I have an engineer relative who worked on some NASA projects and said; "Your phone has more computing power than some of the early rockets that that in spaceships that they sent up in the space decades ago." So, it's like it really changes things even in our lifetime. So, I'm glad you pointed out AI.
Dieter: Yeah! And I do think there could be an opportunity there because it's always very interesting. You know, I and I know you've talked about it before. We always think about how can we use data, right?
CJ: Right!
Dieter: You make our jobs and compliance not necessarily easier, but use the data to make points and to bring up a lot of messages forward. And I think AI does present an opportunity there. But I do agree with what you heard at the conference; I would agree with what I'm seeing in the environment now in terms of discussions around AI. You start thinking about some of the movies, right? Where, you know, AI is your friend and works very well and you're happy.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: You know when you see you think of the other movies where AI takes over the world. I don't tend to have that view. I tend to view AI as you know, again if it's used correctly, it absolutely has, you know, provides us with an opportunity I would say. And I think again from a data perspective, certainly, it might help us do things a little bit more efficiently, a little bit more quickly, and certainly be able to, you know, get messages out more effectively.
CJ: I agree and kind of like you said it, if it's used appropriately and I think that's true with all the technology, it's like the computer changed healthcare, right? We have Electronic Medical Records now, but we also have bad actors who want to access that inappropriately and, you know, use the data for nefarious reasons. And so, to your point, I think AI is going to be a real benefit in many ways as it develops and then we have to just always be cognizant of; "Okay, how could somebody try to use this in an inappropriate way that could affect our compliance?" that sort of thing.
Dieter: Yeah!
CJ: Well, that's a great, great discussion. Let me kind of shift gears a little bit. How do you as a compliance professional kind of find this appropriate work-life balance? Because you just mentioned about all these challenges and maybe reduced resources that could be stressful. So how do you and how do you would you recommend other compliance professionals find that appropriate work-life balance with all these challenges that we're facing in healthcare today?
Dieter: Yeah, that I think again we talk about challenges finding that balance is really one of the key challenges I think today again, given that we're taking on more and more and really. Whether because it we can't find, you know, people to help us do the jobs when we do have openings or there just aren't any openings that we can even offer people.
Either way, work-life balance, and again you heard, I've been around for a while, and so as I get a little bit older in my life, work-life balance becomes much more critical. And it's funny CJ, and you know and you are probably on the same boat, I think back to when I was in my 20s and 30s and I had no problem. I thought it was fine working, you know, 80 hours a week, you know, you're trying to get ahead. You're trying to advance your career, right?
CJ: Right!
Dieter: But what I found was as I got more mature, I would say and as I got older, you start thinking more about; "Well, how do I... Okay, how do I do this? I have so much to get done. How do I do this?" And to me, first of all, it's important that you have leaders and particularly compliance leaders. So, if you work for a compliance officer that understands the importance of work-life balance, and that's always interesting, and that's a challenge in and of itself because you don't get to pick who your leader is in most cases. So, that becomes really important.
And I think one of the things I've been able to do as a senior director is to work with our chief compliance officer really just to remind her that; "Look, you know it's important that we have a work-life balance. Yes, we have a lot to get done and a lot of it is on a time frame. It has to be done by this date or by this time. But how can we then remove..." It's always to me work-life balance whether we are truly talking about work-life or even just work balance is about how do I recognize that; "Okay, I need to take on three more things. So, what three or four things can I either remove or delay to help with that balance?"
CJ: Right!
Dieter: It's all about keeping that balance. You know it's, I mean, you know this, it's like you're on a tightrope, right?
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And you got the long pole and you're trying to, and then a bird lands on one side of your long pole and you're like, "Oh, great! That's not good!" And so, yeah, to me having leaders who understand the importance of work-life balance and actually live that through actions is very important.
The other thing is just personally, you have to remind yourself sometimes. And again, I found this when I was younger, I actually had the executive director of the Specialty Society I mentioned come into my office one evening at about 6:30 in the evening. And he said, "You know Dieter, you and I are the only two people here and I'm the executive director, and it's not unusual and I should be here, you know, they're paying me to be here until 6:30 - 7:00 at night. What are you still doing here?" You know, and I looked at him and I said; "Well, you know. I still have things to get done." And you know, I remember this to this day, he said; "Dieter, it will still be there tomorrow!"
And so that was a good reminder early on in my career. And I think the issue is we always have to worry about ourselves and burnout and you know, and basically getting to a point where we become then ineffective as compliance leaders because now, we're just so tired we're exhausted and we don't think straight or we don't think through things as you know, or we react too quickly.
So, you know, to me, the work-life balance is very, very important. And you know what I would tell everyone is; "Work with your supervisor, work with your manager or work with your boss. And just make sure you're on the same page about understanding the importance of look, you know, I need to be able to do other things in my life than just work," and that and that means, you know, after hours that means weekends and again you and I both know of people that you know. In the old days, had to carry pagers that were getting paged. You know, at all hours of the day, seven days a week.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And that's just, you know, I think what's happened now, the good thing is most companies have recognized that's not a good thing and doesn't lead to long-term employee commitment. And you know, I think again as leaders in compliance always tell myself; "Look, what can I do to help out the people who report to me?" So, you know, they truly have a work-life balance, you know? You need to take time to go to doctor's appointments. Yeah, you've got to take time because of your family. And you need to be understanding about that.
CJ: Exactly! I'm going to comment on this and ask kind of a follow-up question right after a break, we're going to take a real short break and then we'll be back with Dieter.
Welcome back everybody from the break. We were just before the break; we were discussing a kind of work-life balance. And Dieter I just wanted to kind of make a comment of, I think the people who tend to be, this is not always true, but a lot of the people who tend to be attracted to a job and compliance are very conscientious people, right? They tend to be rule followers themselves and they tend to be in some ways kind of a perfectionist, and that's what makes them partly good at their job, is they're detail-oriented. They want to make sure things are done right. And to our previous discussion about kind of work-life balance, sometimes that can drive compliance people to do like what you were saying is you were there at 6:30 at night and you're still working, because you wanted things to get done. You were conscientious. You're like these things need to be getting done. And if I don't do them, who's going to do them?
And so, one thing that I learned, and I'm kind of that personality as well, and like you earlier in my career I was just spending so much time and I had a family member once tell me, you know, I think they took this from somebody else who shared it I can't remember to give appropriate credit. But they said; "Life is like juggling, you know these glass balls or glass globes, and some of those globes are real fragile glass and some of the globes might be a little bit more durable. And the ones that are very fragile, are kind of personal life, family, those sorts of things. And the job is a little bit more durable of a globe that you're juggling and sometimes it can drop and you can pick it back up. Sometimes it might break."
And so, you do have to be sensitive and cognizant and conscientious about it. But to your point about work-life balance, if you're thinking long-term, you want to do what's healthy for you. You're not going to be an effective employee if your personal life issues are so bad because you're spending so much time at work. So, I really appreciate you kind of raising that issue.
Dieter: Yeah, no problem. And I think you're exactly right, CJ. I do think an hour in our industry, in compliance, you're right. I mean, we have a lot of people who are very meticulous and they're very rule minded and also are very driven, I think that's really the good word is they're driven, right?
And yeah, it's very easy to forget about that balance and not just always remember, you know I've seen it on Instagram, I've seen it on YouTube, it's a professor in a class, a college class, and basically, he pulls out this jar he pulled. He puts a bunch of stones in it and talks about, you know, I filled this up with your work. And then he goes, you know, "Do you think I can fit anything more in this?" and the students will say, "Oh, no, no, it's full!" And then he starts pouring sand into it, right?
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And ultimately. At the end of the whole thing the message is; "Look, you know you have to make room in your day and in your life for those things that really are the most critical." And again, it's things around your health, it's your family. It's, you know, it may even be your pets, whatever it is.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: If you don't do that, ultimately your work life isn't going to work so well either. So, you got to balance those.
CJ: And you can't separate the two. I mean, people say; "Let's keep those separate." Well, you're one human being. And if things are stressful at work, it's going to affect your personal life. If things are stressful in your personal life, it's going to affect your work. And so, I think that's really good advice, especially from someone like yourself who's been in the field for a long time and kind of has the wisdom now of all those years of experience.
So, let me ask you kind of somewhat related, do you think that remote work might be a way to help that and just in general? Maybe let's talk a little bit about remote work. It's new to many of us because of the pandemic. Some people found a lot of benefits from that, but I'm curious about your thoughts. Can someone be effective in the compliance space if he or she is fully remote and doesn't get to interact face-to-face with his or her own team or those who are looking for guidance from compliance? I'm curious what your thoughts are about that.
Dieter: Well, I think that is, again when we talk about challenges, I think you know that's one of the big discussions as you're seeing again on the Internet, you know, across a lot of different media today is; "Should I bring all my staff back into the office or is it Okay for them to work remote, right?"
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And I think the answer, CJ, and you're right, the whole discussion around remote fits in very well with the work-life balance, and it's interesting because I lived in the Dallas Fort Worth area and as I mentioned we our headquarters is now in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So, when I lived there, I was going into the office every day, you know, five days a week. And then the pandemic hit. And interestingly, I normally didn't take my laptop home, and for whatever reason we were doing it more as a test. Interestingly, in clients, we took our laptops home. And the very next day, the company announces; "We don't want anyone coming in we're shutting down the office!" because of the pandemic, I mean it hit us very quickly!
And let me just say there were a number of people on our team in compliance who were very concerned about that; "Well, how am I going to get things done? You know, I talk to so and so every day I go, you know, I have people who come by my cubicle or by my workstation or by my office every day."
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And I would say there was a lot of concern about that in the beginning. But what I have seen now, since we've kind of gone through this period where everyone was working remote and now some people have gone back, it's interesting because what I find, and by the way now I am completely remote because my wife and I moved out of the Dallas Fort Worth area and I'm in a spot where there is no office to go into.
CJ: Got you!
Dieter: Okay, so I can fly to Dallas or I can fly out to California where our other offices are. And so, you know, I'm completely remote now. So, what I find interestingly and it's funny because again you hear the conversation around, "Well, people who, you know aren't in the office aren't as efficient and they aren't working as much or as hard as people who are in the office." You know, that may be true for some. I have not seen that myself.
For me personally, I probably work more hours now than I did before because I'm not having to drive back and forth to the office. And I always had to work into my schedule, my work schedule, how long is it going to take me to get to work and then how long is it going to take me to get home from work.
The other thing too is I, you know, kind of laughingly, I think about when I was going in the office every day I would either go downstairs to the cafeteria for an out to take a break for an hour to have lunch, or I would, you know, go out to the break room and I would make something in the microwave, and I would sit out there with people that you know, I knew and worked with. Today, when I work at home, I tend to eat my lunch at my same desk where I'm working! And so, while I'm eating, I'm also checking e-mail, I'm responding.
And so, it turns out, I think for us in compliance, and yeah, the big concern is well, "How can I do this remotely when you know, I really need to be interacting with someone face to face?" Well, that's why my answer to that is that's why we have Microsoft Teams.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: That's why we have Zoom. You know, that's why we have other tools that allow us. We use teams at our offices and so I'm on a Teams meeting on video with people internationally all the time, Okay? I've made it a habit now that when I'm in a meeting with somebody, I'm always on camera, Okay? What that means is I look really nice from the waist up, right? And you know, who knows what I'm wearing from the waist down?
But the answer is I Have not found really any sort of decrease in effectiveness. I'm still able to interact with people. Again, in teams, there's a chat.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: You know, application. Interestingly this happens now more than it did before. You know, I used to have some people drop by my office when I was there in the offices and would ask me questions. Now what I get is people will send me a quick chat message and say; "Hey, are you available? And then the next thing I know is I'm getting a phone call through teams for a meeting and it's a very impromptu and again I go on camera, we interact face to face and I'm talking with someone in Colorado. I'm talking to someone in California. I'm talking with someone and we have a lot of people, by the way, in our industry, in the field, all the time.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: They don't go to an office, they're always in the field. You know we have salespeople; we have people who do what we call field service representatives. And so, the issue is I have really not found there to be any sort of decrease in effectiveness or capability now that we're more remote than we used to be.
And I think this again, back to the work-life balance, the challenge is I have to remind myself; "Okay, Dieter, maybe you should just walk away from your computer to have lunch today, okay? Go eat in the kitchen or go outside and sit outside for a few minutes." Because again you need to get away for a few minutes when you're taking a break or eating.
And interestingly too CJ, I have seen some reports and a lot of studies and it's interesting, you know, sort of the psychological studies about people and interacting. And it's interesting because our company has adopted now a return-to-work policy and we do require our staff who are near an office to be in the Office three days, you know, a minimum of three days a week.
CJ: Okay!
Dieter: And so, it's interesting because there's been a lot of feedback on that you know from people and some people really like it. And some people really don't. They feel like, "Well, wait a minute. You know, I was just as effective when I was fully remote and didn't have to go in the office. Why do I have to go in there now?"
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And so, what happens is here we go another, you know, another compliance issue that comes up. You know, what do you do when you have staff that are not following the company policy on return to work and being in the office? And how do we? We don't really enforce that in compliance, but we certainly will do investigations and I know we get this a lot through our hotline, interestingly. We get hotline complaints about, you know, "I'm being forced to go back to the office," and then you get the whole life story which I understand and I am somewhat sympathetic to.
But I think you know from a remote versus in office, it's interesting because I do feel the pain that companies are feeling because look, you know again I'll use my company as an example that office in Louisville, we probably have, oh, 120, maybe 200,000 square feet in a building.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: And we're using probably less than a third of it right now. And so that's an expense. We don't own the building; we lease it and so you know that's an expense. And so, I understand why, you know, the President or the CEO or the CEO might say, "Hey, we need people to come back to the office!" and of course, you always hear this is, you know, because it offers more opportunity to interact face to face, right?
CJ: Yeah, but then do you?
Dieter: But that's just it. Again, you know, I was going into the office three days a week. This is before there was a policy after the pandemic was over when I lived in the Dallas area. And what I found was while there were cars in the parking lot, I rarely saw another human being in the office!
CJ: Yeah, exactly!
Dieter: I mean, I would see the office manager. Now I will say, all the executive leadership were there every day, you know, they were there every day. But I didn't interact with them every day. They were in the executive suite of the building, and I didn't typically go over there unless there was a meeting. And interestingly, people were scheduling face-to-face meetings. They were still scheduling Teams meetings and they were doing them; you know through video.
CJ: Yeah, it's so funny.
Dieter: It's weird, yeah!
CJ: And, you know, I think you hit on a lot of good points for me. I think it's going to vary from culture to culture and organization to organization. I think a lot of the same principles are the same, like even when we all were meeting face to face, you still had to manage people and you had to make sure they were working efficiently and you had to be a good manager. Those same principles can be applied even though you're remote.
And I, like you, I found myself working so much on this work-life balance kind of concept. I was like checking emails, you know, into the evening and early morning. It's just like I didn't separate work. And so, it some of us probably were working more because we're just kind of that kind of mindset. And so, yeah, there's pluses and minuses to all of that. And it's interesting to watch some organizations are adjusting one way in one direction while others are another.
And I was at another conference recently where we were talking and an HR person pointed out that the younger generation, we were talking about generational differences, and the younger generation in some cases, is missing out on some really good mentoring opportunities because they're not face to face.
Dieter: Right!
CJ: But you know the answer to that is how can you then mentor through technology? Can you still do some of that mentoring and those sorts of things? So, it's really interesting, it's going to be interesting to see how all this is going to play out.
But I think the workforce, in general, there's going to be a lot of employees who are going to demand or really want that work-from-home type of environment. So, I think I think we're going to see a little bit more of it, maybe not more than it was in the pandemic, but more than pre-pandemic, right?
Dieter: Right!
CJ: I think that ship is sailing out there.
Dieter: Well, and to your point, CJ, what we found is in interviewing candidates in a number of different areas across the company. If we didn't offer the ability to work remote, at least part of the time.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: We had really, really strong, I mean excellent candidates and they basically said; "Look, why would I come work for you if I have to be in the office five days a week and go work for, you know, name a healthcare entity and I can work remote three days a week for that and same pay, same everything, right?"
CJ: Right!
Dieter: So interestingly, after the pandemic and the company started pushing more and more, you know, we need you to come back into the office. At least for our company, we ended up losing quite a few staff. I mean, we really did. We didn't lose anyone in compliance thankfully. But we did lose a number of people in other key areas around the company and I think that sort of opened the company's eyes a little bit about, "Well, maybe we should wait and not push this so hard and maybe be a little bit more flexible, right?"
And so, to your point, I think, yeah, it's a new dynamic, it's a new environment and it'll be interesting to see how this all works out for everyone. And well interestingly in compliance, we have, what, four people that are in and work in our California office, we have one person who's close to our Dallas office, and the rest of our team are all remote. And, so we never go into an office unless we fly into one of those locations. So, we have been remote actually even before the pandemic, and now we've continued to do that. And again at least from my perspective, it's worked pretty well.
CJ: Yeah, that's great. Well, Dieter, we could talk all day. I know I could talk all day to you cause your great colleague and friend, we are kind of running out of time here. I just wanted to see if you have any last-minute thoughts or words of wisdom from all of your years of experience and compliance. Appreciate you sharing what you've shared already, but do you have any last thoughts or comments?
Dieter: Well, just one quick thing, CJ, and again thank you for the opportunity. I always love talking with you and interacting with you. I mean, you're always been great to work with, and appreciate all that you've done. And I continue to watch, by the way your career. So, you're doing great and I really appreciate the things you continue to do to help people.
CJ: Thank you!
Dieter: My word of advice to everyone in compliance is, you know, don't take yourself so seriously and have a little bit of fun once in a while, Okay? You'll find a big difference if you interject a little bit of humor into some of the serious issues you got to deal with, and when you're, especially when you're interacting with colleagues that are outside of compliance.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: You know most people are very intimidated by compliance, interestingly, and so the more you can kind of level that and make people feel comfortable.
CJ: Right!
Dieter: You'll find that it works a whole lot better, and you're able to accomplish a lot more. So, my advice is, have some fun. Don't kill yourself and try to, again try to interject a little bit of, you know, fun and humor into what you have to do every day because everything we do is serious stuff.
CJ: Exactly, that's great advice, I agree, cause if you can lighten, lighten the mood a little bit, you help those relationships develop and then trust can be there and when the serious things come up then they're not afraid. So that's great advice.
Well, Dieter, thank you so much for your time and sharing your ideas and thoughts and perspectives. And thank you to all of our listeners. If you're enjoying these podcasts, we hope that you'll subscribe and that you'll share with colleagues and friends. And we love to hear your ideas. If you have ideas for different topics we should discuss, or if you know of guests that might make good guests, please reach out to us and we could see if those ideas would work out. So, from all of us at compliance conversations, thank you again and have a great day everyone.
Questions or Comments?