Always Be Curious: Interview with Richard Ashworth, Former President of Walgreens

I recently went one on one with Richard Ashworth. Richard is the President and CEO of Tivity Health and the former President of Walgreens, where he spent nearly 30 years, helping transform the company into a global leader in pharmacy and health and wellness.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Richard: I started my career in retail at Walgreens and fell in love with the ways a pharmacist can connect with their community. Pharmacists are accessible—you can walk up to any drugstore counter and a pharmacist will always be willing to talk to you. It wasn’t just about drugs or medicine—it was about life and relationships. I was drawn to that aspect and decided to pursue a career in pharmacy. After working in the space, I knew that I loved taking care of patients and working in the health care system, but I wanted to make a larger impact. I attended business school and shifted gears towards a management track at Walgreens, eventually working my way up to president.

What eventually drew me to Tivity Health is that I had spent my whole career on the “treatment” side of healthcare and knew from that experience that there is more that needs to be done on the prevention side – low-cost health improvement opportunities such as physical activity, nutrition, and mental enrichment. Tivity Health is focused on helping adults, including the senior population, live longer and healthier lives, and when I was presented with the opportunity to take part in the mission as CEO, I could not turn it down.

Something instrumental to my growth as a leader is the eye-to-eye experience I get with customers and now with the members we serve through SilverSneakers at Tivity Health. It is so important to recognize that “human-ness” in everyone—it has made me a stronger and more empathetic leader. It’s important for leaders to remember the higher purpose of their role and their company—I think many of us can lose sight of that.

My setbacks as a leader have generally been more personal. Like many of us, I’ve dealt with experiences that have brought me to my knees and made it difficult to manage that personal/professional life balance. I’ve gotten much better at managing those situations to ensure that I’m prioritizing as needed and that I continue to be present and effective as a leader and outside of work.

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

Richard: First, it is important to define success. What is your final play? Your endgame? And if you don’t know that—what are you scaling to? What drives growth in every business is the consumer. If you do not have intricate knowledge of who is consuming your product or service, you might be in trouble.

This connects to another key step—making sure not to overinvest. If you’re spending money marketing a product to a customer base you know nothing about, you will not be successful and too often, companies just invest more hoping for a different result. In my opinion, overinvesting can hinder efficiency and can result in a loss of focus, process and determination. It’s all about having the right balance of investment—investing in the right resources at the right time.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Richard: It’s imperative to instill a strong sense of purpose and objectivity toward the work. You want your colleagues to understand what they are doing and how it connects to the greater purpose of the business. This drives a different level of intensity and passion and it is something that is embedded in the culture at Tivity Health.

The second biggest thing is to establish trust—the foundation of strong leadership. You simply cannot be effective without proper leadership. You should always be strengthening the interconnectedness and relationships within your team. Leaving team dynamics to nature will result in unsatisfied employees and messy internal politics. Connecting and strengthening team relationships should be an intentional, daily practice for leaders. At Tivity Health, we use a predictive index to evaluate each colleague to better understand their optimal work environment. Team members have an opportunity to access each other’s responses and are encouraged to take each other’s needs into consideration. Some people like to talk it out, some need more time to process independently, some, like me, tend to want things done quickly. These individual nuances offer a very simple way of intentionally creating interconnectedness and understanding between colleagues.

From a managerial perspective, transparency and accountability are also key. Poor performance not only hurts the team but affects the overall construct and productivity of the team as well. Part of transparency and accountability is making sure there are consequences for actions that are not meeting expectations. It is also important to constantly be in a state of review. You should evaluate yourself, your teams, and your work to ensure you are aligned with overarching goals and strategies.

Adam: What are the most important trends in healthcare that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?

Richard: Digital and virtual healthcare and health services are here, and here to stay. A significant amount of data is telling us that people are consuming healthcare and related services such as physical fitness in ways they never have before.

Another trend used to be called the “retailization” of healthcare, which was important during my time at Walgreens. The retailization of healthcare wanted to get healthcare out of big buildings, hospitals, and health systems and into communities through drugstores, grocery stores, etc.  Now, the retailization of healthcare is moving into the home. I don’t think we’ll be doing heart surgeries at home any time soon—but we will begin to see a lot more home healthcare alternatives in the future.

Another healthcare trend that I’m really excited about is genomics. The science is moving fast on all things precision medicine and personalized medicine care plans. The COVID-19 vaccine is a recent example of speed of delivery and finding new ways to approach old problems. I think this will really help us with some of the hardest conditions; the conditions that have medicine profiles with lots of side effects, or conditions that are debilitating to everyday life. Genomic approaches and personalized medicine have huge potential to address these conditions. If we can better address the conditions for the short term, we can hopefully then also engage these same patients in healthier behaviors for the long term.

Lastly, there is a big focus on health and wellness and the social determinants of health. Getting in front of the healthcare wave means fighting obesity, alcoholism, drug addictions and more. It means reversing the narrative on inactivity, food insecurity, social isolation, and loneliness, all of which affect overall physical health. There’s a belief that focusing on these social determinants will lower costs of healthcare.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Richard: Well, there are the obvious ones of course—leaders should be trustworthy, transparent and good communicators. But perhaps a more unique answer; a truly effective leader wants to make a difference that is greater than themselves. Your legacy as a leader should not be tied to your title or financial gain but to the greater impact you can make in your industry, and the world. If you are smart, successful and good at your job, but all you care about is getting promoted or having a fancy car— you are not going to have lasting success as a leader.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Richard: Leaders and aspiring leaders should view every opportunity as a chance to learn and grow. Never fall out of that “lifelong learner” mentality because you have something to gain from every situation life throws at you. Good leaders are constantly seeking ways to improve themselves and their performance and they are not afraid to unlearn what no longer works. There is no one formula to successful leadership—adapting and growing along the way is key.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Richard: First— always be curious. Curiosity leads to relationship building which is critical for any entrepreneur.  People like to say it’s all about “who you know,” but it’s actually the opposite—it’s all about who knows you. I think you get there by being curious and occasionally going out on a limb to connect with people and learn from them.                     

Being an avid reader is another great tip. It’s amazing how much you can learn by reading a little bit every day. Reading challenges your ways of thinking, increases empathy and heightens your emotional intelligence. As a leader or entrepreneur, you’ll become more effective in understanding and communicating with others.

My final advice is to always lean forward into challenges and have that “say yes” mentality. Of course, there are exceptions to these things, but as you are thinking about your legacy and your brand as a leader, saying yes, even when it means stretching yourself, will only lead to greater opportunities.

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing and branding?

Richard: To be the best salesperson, it’s not about knowing your product or service the best—it’s about knowing your customer. That’s how you get the sales. On the marketing side, all I can say is that to me, the best marketing campaigns are those that are truthful. It’s ok to be aspirational, but you also need to be accurate. It’s about the emotional versus the tactical—if you can find a way to lean into emotional appeals while staying true to your product or service, you will be successful.

As for branding, it must tie into your strategy. Oftentimes, strategies and brands may veer off course, but a thorough understanding of objectives, goals and customers are needed for long-term branding success.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Richard: It’s ok to fail at things. Learn from your experiences, including your mistakes—they are investments in your journey. People are so afraid of failing that they do not take risks. If you don’t take risks, you will not create big things. If you can’t create big things—are you making a meaningful difference? Are you creating a legacy that people will remember? Fear of failure can stymie a lot of businesses, so lean into failures—don’t repeat failures—but lean in and learn from them.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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