Josh, you grew Block Imaging from a $30 million company to a $215 million company before its acquisition by Siemens Healthineers. Looking back, what leadership decisions had the biggest impact on that growth?

Many business owners worry that an acquisition will disrupt culture and lead to employee turnover. How did Block Imaging manage to preserve its culture and retain key leaders through the transition?

In your new book, you argue that employee disengagement is often a response to how workers expect to be treated. What are employers getting wrong about engagement and retention today?

Your company experienced remarkable loyalty during the COVID era, even when some workers could have earned more through unemployment benefits. What did that experience teach you about building trust and commitment in a workforce?

As a family business leader who successfully navigated succession, growth, and an eventual exit, what advice would you give Michigan business owners who are thinking about leadership transitions, succession planning, or preparing their companies for acquisition?

Most Michigan companies that get acquired by a Fortune 500 don’t come out the other side with culture intact. Block Imaging did.

Josh Block was handed the presidency of his family’s Lansing-based medical imaging company at 29 — three older brothers now reported to him — and spent the next eight years growing it from $30M to $215M before a successful exit to Siemens Healthineers. Every key leader stayed. Every brother stayed. During COVID, his workforce showed up even when unemployment paid more.

It’s a Michigan business story worth examining closely, because the way Block built it runs counter to how most companies in this market think about workforce strategy.

His new book People Matter @ Work (Forefront/Simon & Schuster) makes a pointed argument relevant to every employer in this region: what managers call disengagement or entitlement in today’s workforce is “a preemptive defense against a system that an employee assumes will exploit or treat them poorly.” Gallup just put engagement at a decade low. Block argues the standard response — more surveys, more perks, more programming — is treating the symptom.

For readers navigating retention, succession, or M&A:

Why engagement surveys are measuring the wrong variable and giving Michigan employers false confidence

The specific reason most acquisitions destroy culture — and why Siemens didn’t have to absorb that cost with Block Imaging

What the COVID retention data revealed about what workers in this market actually need
How Block managed succession inside a family business without losing the family

Block is now the founder of Cube Mobile Imaging and an executive advisor at Block Imaging — still operating out of Michigan, not just reflecting on a past win.