42. Tough Love and Managing Complainers | Unapologetic expectations with Jim Adams, MD

Jim Adams, MD is direct, transparent, and unapologetic in his ‘tough love’ management strategy. In this episode, Jim breaks down: how setting expectations early helps to manage complaints later, managing those who degrade social capital, redirecting conflict to mutual benefit, and how understanding what motivates others’ behavior keeps you from taking things personally. 

Guest Bio:  Jim Adams, MD  is professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He is also the senior vice president and chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine. 

Awake + Aware | Our 2026 Retreat

Join us at Awake and Aware, our 3-day retreat in Scottsdale, AZ. March 1-4, 2026. Space is limited.

Learn More Here

🎓 P.S. This is a CME event.

The Flameproof Course

The hidden anti-burnout curriculum we all should have learned in training. Cohort 3 begins Sept 10, 2024. Get the deets

For full show notes of this episode and all sorts of other goodies, visit our podcast website

We discuss:  

• Zen and the art of scheduling [05:30];
• Why you might not want to be a complainer [07:05];
• The benefit of assuming people are unreasonable and crazy [08:10];
• A strategy for handling people who degrade social capital [10:30];
• Blend and redirect, a technique for negotiation and collaboration that’ll make you much happier than combat [14:00];
• “People are not against you. They're just for themselves.” [16:15].