Merger Is An Answer, Not The Only Answer 

Last week in Clearwater Beach at the 2026 OPEN MINDS Performance Management Institute, the question hanging in the air was: “Is $1 billion big enough?”

The reason? We opened the institute with a spirited discussion with David C. Guth, Jr., chief executive officer (CEO) at Centerstone and C.J. Davis, former CEO at Brightli and CEO-elect at Centerstone, who, through merger, recently created a $1 billion specialty provider organization (see Brightli & Centerstone Plan Merger To Form $1 Billion Behavioral Health Powerhouse Across Nine States).    

I’ve known both executives for years—and have had a continuing dialogue about . . .