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00:00:01
Tannus Quatre, Net Health
40 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Steven sits with Tannus Quatre, SVP & Chief Business Development Officer, Therapy at Net Health.
Learn more about SaRA Health:
https://www.sarahealth.com/
Check out Net Health:
https://www.nethealth.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Disruptors Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of The Disruptors, where we're arming you with the tools you need to innovate within the physical therapy space by highlighting those who have come before you. I'm your host, Stephen Cohen. Now, let's get into it. Welcome back to The Disruptors, everybody, where we're highlighting people that have made innovation possible within the world of physical therapy. So that's Disruptors with a capital P.T.
Meet Tanis - PT and Entrepreneur
00:00:28
Speaker
Today, blessed to have with us Tanis. Tanis is currently the SPP and Chief Business Development Officer for Therapy at NetHealth. Tanis is a physical therapist and entrepreneur who's spent the last 15 years of his career on the business side of therapy. He got his start in healthcare as a certified athletic trainer in the late 90s, where he provided injury and rehab management to athletes in high school, division one and professional sports.
00:00:56
Speaker
He attended PT school at the University of California at San Francisco, graduating in 1999, practicing clinically for several years in a variety of settings, including outpatient orthopedics, inpatient neuro, geriatrics, and home care.
00:01:11
Speaker
Tann has returned to school in the mid-2000s, earning his Master's in Business Administration from Duke University in 2006.
Founding Vantage Clinical Solutions
00:01:19
Speaker
In 2007, Tann has found Advantage Clinical Solutions, a business services firm with the mission of helping physical therapy entrepreneurs build, grow, and sell successful therapy practices.
00:01:31
Speaker
In 2018, Vantage was acquired by the leading therapy software company Optima Healthcare Solutions, which was subsequently acquired by NetHealth in 2019.
00:01:43
Speaker
Tanis has held several executive roles at Optima and Net Health, and as I said earlier, currently serving as the SVP and Chief Business Development Officer for Net Health Therapy Division.
Innovating in Physical Therapy
00:01:55
Speaker
Tanis, within that intro, I think we already have some good things to talk about as far as innovation and you helping physical therapy entrepreneurs become, if not more innovative, right, become innovative in the first place.
00:02:10
Speaker
while the bio is a great place to start, I would love for you to talk a bit more about your personal why and how you got here outside of the chronological steps. Yeah, that's great. Thank you for the introduction, Steven, and it's a pleasure to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, so for me,
00:02:37
Speaker
I think about at my core sort of like, who am I professionally? Like, what is it that really drives me? And what am I most passionate about? What makes it easy to get out of the bed in the morning? And as I've thought about this many times over the years in my own professional journey,
00:02:53
Speaker
I've really boiled it down to, I'm a builder is the way that I think about it. And I build, if I was building homes, they would be in the shape of physical therapy practices because that's the lane that I've chosen. I'm very passionate about the great work that rehab therapists do for communities throughout the United States.
00:03:15
Speaker
around the globe, actually. And so my career, I really focused on those aspects that helped me be a good builder. And so you referred to going back to business school after being a physical therapist for a number of years. That was really set in motion because of the challenges that I experienced as a physical therapist treating clinically, and then also as a leader and administrator of therapy operations.
Pursuing an MBA and Business Acumen
00:03:41
Speaker
I recognized that there was more to learn so that I could do a better job at building. And so in going back to school and really not just the didactic information that you learn by going through a curriculum, but by cross pollinating my experience with others from different facets of industry, engineers, accountants, investors, and so on.
00:04:10
Speaker
the level of thinking that I was able to kind of pull together in my efforts to help provide value back into the therapy space was really just very, very much so accelerated. And it's been something, it's been that kind of connecting of the dots together and then create, you know, leading, allowing that to lead to innovation has been something that I've really found back to my why. That's really what, you know, I'm here for is to connect those dots
00:04:38
Speaker
build and innovate and do so by cross pollinating with other aspects of industry. That's something that's really a passion for me for sure.
00:04:47
Speaker
that I'm biased to that being a marker of success in that so many of the things that, I'm not a clinician, right? And so many of the things that I bring in are different finance or purchasing different methodologies, right? The whole idea of the weighted average cost of capital, we've applied that to how to think about a patient resourcing
00:05:15
Speaker
their time and energy into coming to a visit,
Economics in Patient Care
00:05:19
Speaker
right? Which is okay. I have like, it's this many pain units to go park. It's this, right? All these things. And if that doesn't outweigh the actual pain that that patient is in, whether that's emotionally, physically, right? It's a combination of the two.
00:05:33
Speaker
they're not coming. And at some point like that's going to a willingness to resource curve, but it's kind of this amalgamation of willingness to pay plus weighted average cost of capital, like all into this messy thing that we call the willingness to resource curve. And it was very cross pollinated, right? To be able to get there from economics into finance theory into
00:05:57
Speaker
patient experience and all of that, but I couldn't agree with you more. It's a really good point because I think there's some that are afraid to combine different things, but that's the opposite way you should approach it. It should be, hey, if there's something else in your life that seems like it kind of makes sense here,
00:06:20
Speaker
put it together and see what happens. So I really appreciate you bringing that up in particular as cross pollination for different areas because it's a very good skill set to have and to build. Yeah. Well, I love the way you're thinking there. One of my favorite quotes, and I'm probably going to butcher it a little bit, but it's a Steve Jobs quote, but it really is a North Star for me is,
00:06:48
Speaker
talks about creativity and innovation and says, you know, all that is is just connecting things together. Like nothing new under the sun, it all exists, right? All the ideas are out there. And so it's really a matter of actually just putting the pieces together and doing that in a way that's unique, differentiated and creates new value that is really the magic behind innovation. So it sounds like we're pretty aligned there.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yes, extremely, extremely, and not terrible to follow in Steve Jobs footsteps, right? That's not terrible. So you're a builder, you love building, right? Tell me a little bit more about what you're building now at NetHealth.
Role at NetHealth - Tech and Challenges
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, you bet. Maybe if I could just rewind a little bit on some of the things that have gotten me kind of inspired to do the work that I'm doing today at Net Health and maybe put some of the pieces together. But yeah, so coming out of business school as a
00:07:49
Speaker
as a physical therapist and taking this excitement and this kind of this new land of opportunity with all of these just connecting points by looking outside of therapy. I started a company in 2007 that you referred to in the introduction there vanish clinical solutions and a whole mission of that was to
00:08:09
Speaker
Our mission was to improve healthcare through entrepreneurship with the core premise being that if we can help facilitate others to think in an entrepreneurial way that are within the space that we're passionate about, which is healthcare broadly but more specifically physical therapy, by doing so we're improving the level of care that can be provided throughout our markets.
00:08:32
Speaker
And so in doing that, much of my work for about 12 years, I ran Vantage until it was acquired, had the opportunity of working with rehab therapy owner operators throughout the United States. So just, you know, hundreds and hundreds of rehab therapists that are getting into
00:08:57
Speaker
therapy operations for the first time, maybe they're building out new programs for a setting that they're already in or they're looking to expand, but really have the benefit of just working with a lot of entrepreneurs within the therapy space and learning about the challenges that they face.
00:09:13
Speaker
what they're super passionate about, what types of new value they're trying to create based on friction within the market, third party reimbursement, declining and how do they get around all that. So I really had the opportunity to be very inspired as I was working in a partnership relationship with customers for many years and just really learning about the pain points in the industry kind of firsthand in that way.
00:09:40
Speaker
And so when I joined Optima and now Net Health, I was able to really take that level of experience that I had and then combine it with new challenges and new customers that we're serving from a technological standpoint. And I've been with Net Health now for a little over five years. And it's a real testament to the ability for a larger organization that is working to serve similar customers
00:10:10
Speaker
But to do so in a way that is still entrepreneurial at its core, which is that big driver for me. So a lot of what we're focusing on now in my role within the Net Health Organization is to really focus on solving challenges in the industry. Many of them unchanged from my vantage days, but with a different spin today and then new challenges.
00:10:36
Speaker
but it's really helping our customers to solve what's getting in the way of them providing excellence and care, whether that be inefficiencies in their documentation or operational workflows, or whether it's to capture more revenue that is coming in through third-party reimbursement or from the customers directly that they're serving, or helping
00:11:06
Speaker
therapy operators adapt to this just rapidly expanding technological space that we're now in with digital MSK, RTM of which I know you're very familiar and close to, but really how do our customers need to evolve in order to continue to provide that value that is their mission is really a lot of what I'm focused on today in my role.
Resource Allocation in PT Industry
00:11:33
Speaker
You mentioned that you worked with a lot of owner operators in smaller groups when you were running Vantage, and I know you still get to do that today. We were having a call with a very large rehab brand, and the question came up, well, how many others like us are you working with? And I pushed back on it and said,
00:12:00
Speaker
It's irrelevant. I work with groups that the owner is still treating for 40 hours a week. They don't have a project manager. They don't have additional resources to be able to throw at this. Yes, I understand you're going to want some reporting that can be done at multiple layers, but that's the easy part. That's easy.
00:12:20
Speaker
How does this get applied in a practice that doesn't have a project manager, right? That doesn't have just a ton of overhead to be able to handle all those things. And it seems like in your experience that now you're bringing to NetHealth on the tech side, right? It seems like a really powerful combination that can make it extremely effective because you've seen the spectrum get run, right? In terms of resources available
00:12:50
Speaker
I'd be curious as you've worked across groups that have owner operators up to thousands of clinicians, what have you found? Maybe what's a nugget or two that you've found as you see those differences in those customer types? Yeah. I mean, I think that the challenges are in many ways the same.
00:13:20
Speaker
Right? So whether it's attracting, you know, casting that net into the market and attracting new customers into the practice.
00:13:31
Speaker
operational efficiencies, making sure that from a reimbursement standpoint, capturing everything possible to grow the business. I don't think that the problems are what is substantially different between the two segments when you're looking at the larger end of the market versus the smaller side.
00:13:53
Speaker
The level of sophistication and the magnitude of the problems is the scale is really what's different there. And certainly, and you alluded to it in kind of your lead in there, that the number of resources that are available to solve the challenges clearly scales with the larger organizations. And
00:14:17
Speaker
I do find that that is where a lot of the magic is. It's in resourcing innovation, whereas when you're working with maybe a small owner operator that's getting into business for the first time or maybe they've been in business for a while and they're really looking to grow, usually there's no lack of
00:14:36
Speaker
passion, inspiration, ideas, level of understanding of what really creates value in the market. It's really, in many ways, unparalleled. But the ability to focus on any one thing at a time and move it all the way across the line to optimal execution, it's just hard because you're wearing a lot of hats. When you get into larger organizations, again, solving some of the same challenges,
00:15:04
Speaker
but are resourced in a way where you can march downfield on a project according to a project plan that has clear milestones, definitions, dates, and all of those important elements.
00:15:17
Speaker
That really does obviously trend towards organizations that have more resources, and so they have a tendency to be able to engage in technologies and initiatives that are powerful and sophisticated uniquely because of their ability to actually invest.
00:15:35
Speaker
in the resources necessary to be successful. That to me is probably one of the, it's not the only thing, but that really stands out as massive difference between the high and lower end of the market from a size standpoint. Well, that makes sense and I would imagine, and I know it's a topic that we wanted to cover anyway, so I'll segue it.
00:15:58
Speaker
If you have someone like me who hasn't been a PT before, right, or hasn't been a provider of any type,
00:16:07
Speaker
Unless you have those folks who have had more non-traditional experiences, right, who have both worked in the business world and as a provider, I gotta admit, if you get too many of one group in the room, you can have some real issues, right? And I think it's, it lends to the importance of this cross-pollination that you talked about earlier. But maybe talk through some of the,
00:16:33
Speaker
the things that you've seen from leaders in this space who have had non-traditional experiences or non-traditional careers and how that's been helpful in bigger, especially the bigger organizations, right? Solving these problems in the right way.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, so what you see, or just from my experience, what I've seen is you kind of have a, there's different types of profiles that you will see leading some of these large organizations.
Leadership in Healthcare
00:17:00
Speaker
So one profile would be maybe similar to mine in that you have kind of a, you start with a clinical basis, there's a passion that's just from day one into the profession, and then you layer on the business acumen around that.
00:17:15
Speaker
and very successful leaders that kind of carry that profile. And then another profile, which in many ways equally is effective, but with a different orientation would be leaders that come into the space, they may or may not come even out of healthcare necessarily, but operationally, strategically, you know, level of business acumen,
00:17:40
Speaker
really unparalleled and from there they surround themselves with the subject matter experts that allow them to then orient that skill set and experience towards objectives that are going to create value for rehab therapy customers and patients.
00:17:56
Speaker
And there's like, I would say they work equally. It's just like what's right for the organization, right? Because they can be equally as effective. And it doesn't matter the size of the organization, you know, both exist. And really getting back to kind of where we started on some of this about the cross-pollination. I mean, to me, that's really where the magic is. So regardless of that orientation,
00:18:19
Speaker
the PT leader being able to get outside of just what they have seen in their own experience within the profession itself and really absorb subject matter expertise from others that may not come from that same space.
00:18:35
Speaker
And then the inverse of that, when you have a leader coming in to run an organization that doesn't have the therapy background, the ability to connect those dots is really where I see a lot of the innovation and operational excellence come from. So it really always comes down to it's a balance, right? And it has to be oriented towards value. And then when you assemble the right team, either of those profiles can be just amazingly effective.
00:19:03
Speaker
And four, I mean, is going back to school an option for PTs? Absolutely, right? But would, I mean, do you have a podcast that you like to listen to? Obviously not this one, but like a podcast, right? I know one earlier, I was talking about founders as her favorite podcast to listen to. I mean, there's so many now, so many content choices available for folks, but
00:19:32
Speaker
I don't know if you have any, I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but if you have any books or anything that you've really liked as you've gotten your own non-traditional outside of clinical type experience.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, so on the topic of podcasts, I'm a real true crime buff and I'm not sure how much that can actually help here. But there's just so much content and yeah, whether it's out on a run or you got a long drive, just absorbing information as you go. I don't have
00:20:06
Speaker
I don't have one lane that I explore there. I listen to a core part of my role here is business development. I listen to a lot of sales podcasts and just general business development, sales operations and so on.
00:20:22
Speaker
There's a lot to lot to pull from a couple of so so one recommendation is, you know, for those that are either getting into leadership or getting into organizational development, just find what you're passionate about and what actually just resonates with you and then just go in that lane and tell
00:20:40
Speaker
until you need something else would be my best advice on that. That's what I've always done. It's kind of like almost a binge approach. Once you're done with it or you're like, you're not getting anything else out, I kind of move to the next thing. There are a couple of, there are a couple of,
00:20:56
Speaker
books that I think have been particularly instrumental in my own career. One of them is called Delivering Happiness. It doesn't have really anything to do with therapy, but it's the story of Zappos and how Zappos was founded. And it's a wonderful book that always has, I've read it multiple times. And what I love about it and what I love about it for entrepreneurs and leaders is that it's at the core
00:21:27
Speaker
Inside of what you've packaged up and you actually sell to a customer at its very core is the same thing, which is happiness, right? Or satisfaction. You're trying to improve someone's life. And whether you're doing it that by selling shoes or selling physical therapy, it doesn't matter. The core is the same. And that's something that it kind of just hit me differently when I first read that book.
00:21:53
Speaker
I remember I ran my entire company, we went through and read it together and just really focused in on that. That is kind of a core bearing for us, is that notion of delivering happiness. And then the other one, kind of other end of the spectrum, because it's much more tactical about execution, but four disciplines of execution, which for a number of reasons equally, if not even more important in some ways, because
00:22:23
Speaker
if you could have the greatest ideas in the world, but if you fail on execution, you still are just the guy with the greatest ideas in the world that haven't necessarily made an impact or created that value. And so those two kind of bookends, starting with happiness, but kind of like layering it in with always ending with execution, having a framework for delivering consistently, to me has been a real nice kind of a bearing. And I've recommended those books to a number of folks that I've worked with over the years.
00:22:53
Speaker
I like it. Four disciplines of execution will be on my reading list for the future. I've also read Delivering Happiness a couple of times myself. It's a great way to think. You love the Zappos stories of customers calling and saying, can you order me a pizza?
00:23:12
Speaker
and the customer service rep actually does do it. There's so much there around how to build the right culture in a company, and there's so much we've learned and applied to that. It's like, yeah, it might cost us a little bit more money-wise, but
00:23:35
Speaker
when our culture gets tested in these ways, it'll rise to the occasion and it'll be worth it. And yeah, there's been a few of those things that we've taken into account. So almost this blending, at least at Sarah Health, of delivering happiness plus extreme ownership by Jaco Willink together, which sounds like a really odd combination, but I think there's some of those lessons
00:24:05
Speaker
that to your point, very, very similar. Like you'd be surprised how little differentiation there is, right? Because what's the idea of extreme ownership? It's to take ownership and to the end of the thing that needs to be done, right? And delivered happiness, so much of that is just around the same exact thing of
00:24:27
Speaker
I want you to be happy at the end of this, so I'm going to do everything I can until you say we're good. To your point, so much of this is very, very similar package, just a little bit differently, and that's how it gets it to resonate with one group versus another or the same person just at different times in their personal or professional career.
00:24:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And then that, you know, you, you know, the way that you connect those dots together for your organization and, and, you know, you know, maybe, you know, 90% overlap to maybe what, what I might be doing on my side, but that other 10%, that's, that's, that's unique
Focus and Execution Strategies
00:25:09
Speaker
and different. Like that's, that's awesome. Right. That's where we all, we learn from one another and.
00:25:13
Speaker
and can find new opportunities and new ways of serving. And, you know, when you write your book, then I'll read that and I'll learn from you once again. Capture that other 10%. Well, I think it came and fathom that as a possibility right now.
00:25:33
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode. This would not be possible without the sponsorship of Sara Health. Sara is the relationship operating system for physical therapy practices, driving better patient outcomes, improved arrival rate, and improved financial margins. If you'd like to learn more, check them out at Sara, S-A-R-A, health.com.
00:25:55
Speaker
Sarahhealth.com. And if you'd be interested in advertising with us and helping us produce even more great stories, please let us know at Steven at Sarahhealth.com. Now, back to the episode. I want to come back to something you said because I think it's really valuable to just go deep, right? To delve in deep and to binge in one area where you find your
00:26:25
Speaker
And the Deloitte day, or I guess they still do, they had this framework, right? Of thinking through things and classifying them to, this gives me energy or this takes energy away from me, right? And I love how you're talking about going a mile deep before trying to go a mile wide. And I think that's 100% correct. And people shouldn't get concerned about
00:26:50
Speaker
you know, niching down. In fact, they should get concerned if they don't, right? And so, as you're thinking about bringing innovation to your company, to your organization, to your clinic, to just one patient, right? I think, and I'd love for you to expand on this, but don't be scared of getting really, really deep. Like, do not be scared of that at all.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I don't think you can underscore that point enough because it's an area that I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with and organizations generally.
00:27:24
Speaker
because of sort of like the FOMO fear of missing out on opportunity by going too deep. And there's a balance to it, of course, and the level of complexity of an organization can play into that. But knowing what's most important and then focusing in on that and putting your eggs in that basket, choosing that lane, and then just going 100 miles an hour,
00:27:52
Speaker
There's so much power in doing that and it takes courage to do that because of that kind of FOMO mindset that you can get into. And I know that I've made this mistake before, plenty of times I would comfortably say, where you try to tackle too much and it comes at the cost of getting that one thing right. And so it is something that I would encourage those that are either embarking on
00:28:20
Speaker
business venture or just within your own career, however that may be advancing, really having a framework for dialing into those priorities, having the discipline of tying back to them, and understanding there's always risk of any decision. So it's the risk of this one thing working or not, the lane I choose, and then there's the
00:28:42
Speaker
And then there's the opportunity cost of not doing something else. You're never going to get it 100% right, right? Luck is a fair part of where success comes from. But to find that, it really requires that you be decisive and choose a lane. And that's one thing that I continually try to sharpen my own blade on that continually.
00:29:06
Speaker
you're always tested and challenged because none of us have enough hours in the day to get everything done that we wanna get done. And that is something that requires not only just knowledge of, hey, this is important, but also discipline, courage, and then maintenance of that discipline in order to be effective. And that's something that it's a great point that you raise and something that I think is really important for a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs out there.
00:29:34
Speaker
And applying it to yourself, at least in my experience, has been the hardest. And then forcing yourself to do less, right? And that may seem very counterintuitive, but it's 100% correct. I know one of the things that we do at Sara in one-on-ones is like, okay, what do you think you're gonna get done this week or two weeks or whatever the time period is, right? And then, okay, well, what if I cut your time in half? What would you for sure get done?
00:30:03
Speaker
It's like, okay, just do that thing. That's it. Just do that one or two things and that's it. And going through that process yourself and pushing myself through that mental framework and exercise I find is really, really helpful because when life and business and everything happens, right?
00:30:25
Speaker
and you have to firefight this thing or that thing or this customer needs you to call them back or you need to run this analysis or those things happen. If you've overloaded your plate, then nothing gets done well and then you don't get asked to do more. That's reality as we're discussing this.
00:30:46
Speaker
leaders in two different companies, but saying the exact same thing. I would much, much rather have someone come to me and say, I'm going to get this one thing done above and beyond really well, and that's it, because that's all I think I have time for. Perfect. That's great. Fantastic.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yep. If it's the most important thing, then you get your priorities right and you're going in the right order. I like that exercise that you just called out about, hey, okay, so if we cut your time in half, what survives, right? I've used Eisenhower Matrix for a number of years and that really helps me as I'm kind of planning out my day or my week.
00:31:32
Speaker
what's urgent, what's important, and how do those align, especially to those items that may be important but not urgent, right? What can I delegate? What can I ditch? And what takes priority in my schedule today? That's also another, gets back to the comment I made about maintenance mode. You have to have tools in place, or at least I do. There are probably some people that can get by that tools. I'm not one of them.
00:31:55
Speaker
But having that as part of that discipline routine to make sure that I am maintaining my orientation towards what's most important, really, really important. And that's something that I would say that in my experience, you know, past five years with net health,
00:32:11
Speaker
a completely different environment than I was in with my own business. And really developing that type of a skill set and bringing it to a new level has been a very important part of being effective when you have a lot coming at you.
00:32:26
Speaker
I appreciate you saying that in showcasing your own continuous development and learning.
Value of Mentorship
00:32:33
Speaker
This process doesn't stop, or at least it very well shouldn't. As far as learning new tools, and that could both be from a, hey, here's now a daily practice that I have. It could be technological tools.
00:32:46
Speaker
It could be very, very different things. You and I probably have a very different toolset than anyone who's listening in any of that. I used to have such a problem with this of where, and maybe it was ego, maybe it was imposter syndrome. I guess it was probably relatively related.
00:33:07
Speaker
If I was learning from you, like, well, Tannis doesn't need help with this thing that I'm obviously struggling with, I should just figure it out. Luckily, with some good coaching and some other things, now I'm like, maybe I'm just not good at that thing. That's fine. I need to bolster that with a help of a good tool. For me, some of those things are just snoozing and reminders on emails.
00:33:35
Speaker
It's not my thing. It's not on my calendar. I don't remember it if I don't have it popping up at me. I don't. And I know others that don't need that. They're like, oh, I told Dan, this is going to reach out to him on Tuesday, and here we are. We're all good. But yeah, that's just, I guess, a little bit of a personal anecdote of just because someone else doesn't need a tool doesn't mean that you're any less for needing it.
00:34:03
Speaker
No, that's such an important point. And just to go deeper on that, I mean, having, and back to something I said earlier about courage, that takes courage, right, to acknowledge that we're not going to be equally good at everything that is required in order for us to do our
00:34:22
Speaker
jobs. There's gonna be some things that I'm, you know, you know, really, you know, well positioned for both, you know, from experience or skill set standpoint, there's gonna be some things that I'm really passionate about, you know, and when those things align to things that are urgent and important, that's great. That's pretty straightforward, right? But the discipline of
00:34:40
Speaker
knowing that it's not always going to stack up that way. There are going to be really important things that you may or may not be the person that is the best at it. What are those strategies that you use to either get the coaching and get the support needed? And that's something that I would say I really, really appreciate.
00:34:56
Speaker
and have been fortunate to be in this environment at Net Health because that's part of our culture and it makes it easy. You don't have to have as much courage to ask for help when you're in an environment that's very supportive and looking for ways to support one another.
00:35:14
Speaker
And you're gonna be helping others shore up areas that they need support with. And likewise, it's completely acceptable and very important to be unsuccessful that you know when to raise your hand and ask for help yourself. And I think that that also carries with it a level of intention and discipline to not get into a box. And I've done it before. I know when I was running my own, when I was running my business,
00:35:41
Speaker
I felt that it was I felt that I had some of my loneliest moments ever running my own business because I didn't have that framework set up to where I could reach out to help and if you if you do have a whether it's whether it's
00:36:00
Speaker
intentional or not, and usually it's not intentional, but if you've got an environment where it's just hard to reach out to get help, it becomes you're on an island, right? And I've also would correlate those moments that I've had in my career with the stagnation in my own professional growth, because I didn't have someone to reach out to. And it also gets to an area that I'm really passionate about,
00:36:25
Speaker
which is having strong mentors at every step of your career. And my mindset is, we're always students.
00:36:36
Speaker
And who we learn from is going to be the rate limiting factor of our growth is going to be who we learn from and how fast can we access them to handle real time challenges. And that's another thing that I've been very fortunate with save for a few exceptions in my career where I've recognized I've had a big problem or have been on an island, always having a mentor or a team of mentors around you that you can reach out to for support, man, that's just it's just like, to me, that's probably the most important
00:37:05
Speaker
If you're embarking on a career in leadership or entrepreneurship, that to me would be the one thing that I would say, don't go at it without having that mentor in place, because it can be not only stagnating, but it can be very unhealthy, right? Because it's not healthy to be out on an island by yourself. So I'm glad you raised that. It's an area that I'm really passionate about as well.
00:37:31
Speaker
And thank you for your transparency and your journey. There's just a lot there.
00:37:47
Speaker
For those that are looking to innovate, even within their organizations and like a intrapreneur, still finding those other people and mentors to learn from, which don't always have to be 20 years your senior. It doesn't have to be that way.
00:38:06
Speaker
There's two things I want to make sure to hit on this because I think it's so important and then I want to come to the important. So what's urgent versus important because I think we need to talk about that for sure is don't discount or don't ignore the likelihood that someone is going to want to help you.
00:38:27
Speaker
I think you look at it like, oh, there's no way they're going to want to spend time with me. And yet, if they got to that point in their career, the likelihood that they feel like they need to pay back some of that karma. I've had so many people help me that if someone that's just starting their healthcare journey or just started a health tech company or once again, the PT, whatever it is, if they ask me for help, I'm like, yeah, I have
00:38:52
Speaker
an untold amount of time to repay. So yes, please, please ask me. So I can have the chance to be able to put that back. And yeah, don't look at those that have achieved a level of success, like, oh, there's no way they're going to want to help me. It's probably the exact opposite.
00:39:14
Speaker
and that, yes, they will because they've been helped. And you also can provide a really interesting sounding board to us as we hear about what you're struggling with and what you're dealing with and all that. That'd be my number one piece of advice is don't think that people aren't going to want to help you or you're going to owe them. They already owe others and now you're just giving them a chance to pay it back.
00:39:39
Speaker
No, so that's so important. And, you know, Sharon, before we started the podcast, you know, my children are adults now, right? So they're embarking on their own careers. And I work with a lot of students as well. So it's a great moment for me to be able to actually start to share back. And one of the things that I start with sharing, you know, I tell my kids about the importance of having just mentors.
00:40:04
Speaker
that are outside of like Heather and I as parents, I mean, we're there, we're coaches, we're always gonna be there for them. But having, starting to build out that network and having those new ideas coming in from others, it's so critical. And the question I get, I've gotten this from my kids who have asked, and I've heard this from students as well, is like, well, how do you go about getting a mentor? What's the program look like, right? And it's as simple as you just outlined it, which is, you just ask.
00:40:34
Speaker
and I challenge anybody who doesn't have a mentor or is trying to really accelerate their career by doing that.
00:40:43
Speaker
just ask and if you ever get a no, then come to me because I'll be right there for you. But I don't expect a lot of people to have to call me on that because I've never received a no. And I was fortunate because I stumbled onto this early in my career in a way that I didn't recognize what was happening. All I knew was that there was something I was trying to figure out, which is I was trying to figure out my career direction because I knew that I didn't have it all figured out.
00:41:12
Speaker
and I knew there was more that I wanted and I didn't know what to do about it. So as a clinician, I was meeting with the CEO of our health system who on the surface you'd say would never have time to spend with a physical therapist that's just starting out in their career trying to find the bathroom or whatever. And he wants to spend time with me and I've had success with the first time that I reached out and asked.
00:41:40
Speaker
And I've just continued that same playbook over and over again. And I have just an amazing, talented network of people that know how to do things that I want to get better at. And I've never, ever had someone tell me no. And I think that the same is true for anybody who asks. And it gets back to your point. We all love to give back because it's like, what are we going to do? We don't want to acknowledge the grave with us. We want to see the fruits of this page.
00:42:09
Speaker
play out for others. And so it's just as easy as just raising your hand and saying, hey, can I grab 15 minutes, 30 minutes, bend your ear and talk about something that you're doing that I think is, you know, that I would like to do better. That's a pretty easy ask. I've always found it to be.
00:42:25
Speaker
It is, and you're completely right, and I feel like we could probably spend a whole other session on just this topic alone, but let's cut it with just ask, right? That's the advice is just ask.
Determining Business Priorities
00:42:39
Speaker
Now, you mentioned urgent and important, right? And I want to focus on important for a little bit before we have a couple of my more, I don't know, my fun questions where the magic wand question comes out. And so,
00:42:53
Speaker
I couldn't let this pass. As you are looking at what you're going to dive deep on and get really good at and spend time on, making sure it's important to the business and making sure there's metrics around it. If you come at it with just, oh, I think this will be a good thing, you could be right. You could be right.
00:43:21
Speaker
But that hope is not a good strategy. And so I'm curious if you have a framework that you use to figure out what's important and how important it is.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. And yes, I do have a framework, evolves all the time, probably not perfect, but it does seem to work. So what it starts with is being clear about what's important to the business. And that's oftentimes not just a Steven or a tennis thing, that is organizationally, what is the most important in knowing what that is, right? So that's where it starts, because without that,
00:44:05
Speaker
everything's important or nothing's important, right? I mean, you know, pick your path there, but they both are going to, at best, be very circuitous and maybe get to an endpoint that's useful, but likely not. So it starts with knowing what's most important. And then as I define it, going back to the
00:44:23
Speaker
Eisenhower matrix that I have trended toward, then it's what my definition of important in that framework is what is important for me to contribute to. And I don't need to be involved in everything. So that's kind of the definition that I use. Is this important to the business? And then is it important that I do it? And that's how that's my definition.
00:44:48
Speaker
And if it's important to the business, but not important that I do it, then it's very important to have lieutenants that you can then delegate that out to. And you have to build up the composition of your team to be able to handle those things that you need to delegate.
00:45:04
Speaker
But that's how I define it. And I'm fortunate that we are very clear about what's most important, and I'm able to then fairly well decipher what is important that I'm contributing to versus what can be delegated. I like that. I like that a lot.
00:45:23
Speaker
Man, that framing of what's most important to the business and what's most important that I do. Yeah, I think that's sage advice for folks that are listening. Knowing we're getting close on our time, I think we've gotten a lot of advice for those that are listening and want to make a dent in this
00:45:48
Speaker
this universe, but Tanis, if I was able to gift you a magic wand, right, and you gotta fix one thing within therapy, what would you choose?
Recruiting Non-Traditional Talents
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah, I love the question. I feel very powerful right now. So I'm gonna try to choose wisely. Can I ask for five other magic wands? You can not ask for more wishes. You can not ask for more wands. This is what I would say. I think that
00:46:19
Speaker
Choosing the one challenge that we have in front of us as a profession, whether it be staffing shortages, student debt, reimbursement, technology enablement, it's hard to choose just the one thing that's going to make the biggest debt.
00:46:39
Speaker
So the way that I would answer the question is I think about who's going to solve all those problems. And it comes down to, you know, you're building Sarah Health, we're building that health. You know, we are, our growth is going to be a function of the talent that we recruit and helps us to solve all the challenges in front of us and helps lead us to the opportunity that we know is there, right? So the same thing applies to our profession.
00:47:05
Speaker
And as I think about it today, we've got, I mean, we're just an amazing, amazing profession. So when I met conferences, mixing with colleagues, meeting new people, I'm always blown away by the caliber of talent. So we're not limited in the amount of talent that we have and excellence and care and a lot of really greatness that we have within the profession.
00:47:27
Speaker
But as I think about the challenges that we have in front of us, whether it's whether it's working with payers or building new technology solutions or really solving complex economics of our profession when it comes to things like student debt and like how did we get here and how do we get out of it, that's going to require
00:47:53
Speaker
to solve those problems are going to require people that we need to recruit into the profession, right? And what I think we've done for a long time as a rehab therapy profession is we're recruiting
00:48:08
Speaker
By and large, this is kind of broad strokes common here because I know it's different for each academic institution, but by and large, we're recruiting clinicians, we're recruiting, you know, the smartest, you know, of the smarts, you know, whether it's whether it's, you know,
00:48:26
Speaker
standardized testing or GPA, you know, that is a big lens that we look through. And my perspective is that that is one important lens, but we are missing out on another one, which is how do we find those innovators, right? And we hear the stories all the time. There's a lot of innovators out there that
00:48:46
Speaker
didn't go to college or they dropped out to go and start some venture and became wildly successful because they didn't fit into the exact mold that a lot of others fit into that we think is right for the profession.
00:49:01
Speaker
With my magic wand, what I would do is I would, looking forward, change the composition of who we're recruiting into the industry, not because we don't need more outstanding clinicians, because we do. Obviously, we've got some of these challenges we have are related to not enough to go around.
00:49:21
Speaker
But I would specifically, as the admissions board for the schools that are out there that are basically bringing in recruits into the profession, I would be focusing probably, I mean, back in the napkin, a third of my efforts.
00:49:39
Speaker
towards business owners, towards those that are having a second career and maybe they come from, maybe they were accountants or engineers, but I would be looking to cross pollinate as part of a recruiting strategy into the profession because I think by doing so,
00:49:57
Speaker
The problems that we're trying to solve, they get solved pretty darn quick if you get the right folks around the problem. And that's probably what we can do to fast track our progress as a profession by recruiting in some folks that don't fit the current mold of what a physical therapist or rehab therapist is. Does that make sense?
00:50:18
Speaker
I love that, and while on the flip side, right, as I look at the composition of our C-suite, it's two PTs and two non-PTs. That's the four. And as I've seen the clinical, going clinical to TAC it and then merging the two,
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, but from a pure outsider looking in, well, they've only been a PT. How are they going to run this part of the business? They ran PT clinics. They opened up. Again, non-traditional, but it works. I think you're right. The opposite
00:51:04
Speaker
also very much could apply in making it easier for folks to enter the industry that have some additional.
Closing Thoughts
00:51:13
Speaker
So it's sort of a flip on what we've seen be successful for us. And, Tanis, we have gotten through so much in this 50 minutes together. You've given some great advice from the Eisenhower Matrix to delivering happiness, the four disciplines of execution,
00:51:33
Speaker
talking about how open people are to being mentors and to not be afraid. I think you've given this audience so much to be able to chew on and tactically be able to go and apply tomorrow. And for that, I want to say thank you very, very much for your time and thank you for being on The Disruptors. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the invite, Stephen. Thank you.
00:51:59
Speaker
Thank you for listening to another episode of The Disruptors. I hope that you were able to take one or two things away that you can apply immediately to your own innovation journey. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Cohen, sponsored by Sarah Health. Let's keep moving.