All right. So thank you so much to everybody who's joining us. I know that we'll have more people jumping in as we get started. Just like the last session, if you joined us for that, the Q&A is open and I have already updated the chat settings so that participants can chat with each other as well as hosts and panelists. So depending on what type of message you would like, feel free to drop that in the chat and just make sure that the to section is listed with who you want to be chatting with. We are so thankful that this session has been sponsored by MedEvolve. Really that's all the housekeeping I have other than introducing our wonderful panelists today. We are joined by Jennifer Straub, Erica Knoll, and Lisa Warren, and I will be moderating this session with questions. They've received them ahead of time, so they've had a chance to think through their answers. But let's go ahead and jump in and start having a great conversation. So I'm going to get started, and I'll shoot it to Erica first, but I'd love to hear thoughts from all panelists. So what inspired you to pursue a leadership role within your career, and what challenges did you face along the way? So I'll get started, I'm Erica Knoll, I'm the COO of Peachtree Orthopedics in Atlanta, Georgia. We are 70 years old this year, so we've been around for a little while. And I've been at Peachtree in varying capacities for about 18 years. I have an interesting background, I'm an occupational therapist, a certified hand therapist, and I found early career, starting with really my first two jobs, that I had people coming to me for advice, and I was in my 20s, but I was having people in their, you know, the old people, the people in their 30s and 40s, coming to me and asking me, you know, what do you think about this? How do you think we can make this better? And so that started me on a path, I think as part of my background and part of my personality, I like seeing improvement, I obviously like helping, you know, people, early career people set individual goals for how they're going to see improvement in their life, and that's expanded out to organization wide initiatives and goals. One of the challenges I faced along the way is I lacked formal business education. I had one management class in college. So I've gone back, I've gone back and gotten more education. I've been targeted about my education, I've taken courses that I think are going to help me improve as a leader, help me learn different aspects of the business, I've done executive education. And that's been helpful, but I would say that was one of my barriers to entry. All right, so same question, I'm going to shoot it over to Lisa, because you're who I see next. Okay. I'm Lisa Warren. I'm CEO at Andrews Sports Medicine in Birmingham, I've been here 12 years, and I actually have the complete opposite of Erica, where I started out with business training. I think, initially, it was my age, and maybe my gender, you know, you walk in, and you're 20 something years old, and you're, you're talking to these doctors, and I remember I told one of them that someday when I have gray hair, you're going to believe me when I tell you these things, and now I color my hair, maybe it's the wrinkles, but people believe me now. So I think that age, and probably gender was a barrier to begin with, and, you know, how do you come, overcome that, and I think Erica hit on it is in some ways, you have to be humble about what you don't know. And then go find it, you know, go find ways to build your skills, and the things you don't know, and credit, and that's how you can build your credibility, even when you're young. So I worked in the clinic, I worked the front, I worked the back, I helped with pap smears, I worked in the lab, you know, I did all of that, and that helped build the credibility with the managers who I was managing, who were 20, 30 years older than I was, and so that, and I think as women, we are more prone to do that than possibly, and I don't want, I'm not slamming men, so please know, I'm not, this is not going to be like a feminism, you know, crammed down on men, but I think we're better at that in general, but that's how I did it, is to really get in the trenches for the opposite with the clinicians, to balance my business side. That's great. And finally, Jennifer. Hello, I am in the orthopedic world affiliated through Westwood Sports Institute and Golden State Orthopedics in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and also have the opportunity to work in the fertility space and health care concurrently, so a bit of a unique perspective to provide, but I think leadership really is the same in all of the varying disciplines that I've had the opportunity to work in, and I'm a lot aligned with Erica's story. I actually am a certified athletic trainer by trade, and so got my end with orthopedic positions hanging out about the numbers on the sidelines at soccer games, and they had a nurse administrator for, when I was working at the University of South Florida, their nurse manager was retiring, and so they said, is this something that you'd be interested in? And I said, sure, let's give it a go. My husband's a football coach, and so us both having the travel schedules wasn't going to be very feasible, so I was kind of shopping for something that was closer to a nine-to-five desk type job, and orthopedics never really is, because sports never sleep, but it was a really unique opportunity, and I was super, that's kind of what launched me in was just luck and conversations, and so it's all about networking, it's about knowing who you want to be working with and finding those personalities, and then I will just say one more thing that may be controversial, just depending on the individuals in the room, and I was at an ATPPS conference a handful of years ago in Boise, and that's, for those of you who don't know athletic trainers and physician-owned practices, for lack of a better term, I forget what the other P is, but anyway, the presenter of the keynote said, you know, at the time, I felt like I was running into all of these barriers where I wanted to move up in my career, but I wasn't a nurse, and I couldn't get, all the managers were nursing manager roles, and he said, everybody reports to a nurse, or at some point in the chain, a nurse reports to a non-nurse somewhere, and that's true, and just helped me kind of to answer a question that's a little bit later, with that, you know, identity crisis of like, well, I'm not a nurse, do I go back to be a nurse, if I really want to get, do I need to do that, I say, you know what, I don't need to go back to nursing school, I can figure this out, there is a way to do this, that doesn't involve me having to be a nurse, and I work alongside a ton of people that are nurses and do nursing management, and that's fabulous, and so I just, that wasn't something that I had to do, and a story that I'm on, for sure. Awesome, that's great. Now, Lisa, I know you touched on this a little bit, and so I think it's a good time to touch on this question, in male-dominated fields, what advice do you have for women looking to break through barriers and advance their careers? I think even in the previous speaker alluded to it, but you have to act like you're supposed to be there, you know, and I think particularly with orthopedic surgeons, you know, there's a lot of, there's some not-so-nice jobs with, and boots, and you know, there's all kinds of things people use to describe orthopedic surgeons, and so you have to act like you're supposed to be there, and I think that is the number one, because you are, but I think as sometimes we walk in and we're a little intimidated, especially then I think back when I was younger, and at the end of the day, physicians are people, and we need to, we're just as important as they are when we walk in a room, and we're bringing something to the table that they don't know, that's why we're there, we're there to do the business so they can practice medicine, and if you walk in that way, and they know that's your heart, I think that that, it's more fun in private practice, because they know you're on their side, you know, I feel bad for hospital administrators, that would be the worst, right, because you're not on their side, but in the practice, if they know you're on their side, and you're making decisions that is in their best interest, they'll generally follow you. Jennifer, do you have thoughts on that, since you kind of talked through that imposter syndrome a little bit, and we can get to that one next, but. Sure, you know, I really think that my other soapbox with women in leadership really is that we have to empower one another, and we learn at way too early of an age that keeping another woman down is the way to get ahead, and that's just not true, and so, you know, my messaging with regard to moving up in male-dominated fields is to be the biggest cheerleader of the woman next to you, because she can be your stepping stone, and you can be hers. You know, we are in this together, and there are certainly men, it's not just a women thing, there's those men that speak your name when you're not in the room as well. Those are your allies, those are the people that are going to help you get where you need to go, and just remember that you, another woman's win is also your win. That is, there's enough, Taylor Swift puts it really well when she says we all got crowns, right? So you just have to find your own. Absolutely. Erica, do you have thoughts on this one as well? I do, and I think it goes to some of what Jennifer said, finding your allies, your women peers or women in the organization, but also, you know, who are your allies in the organization, you know, how can you develop those relationships? And I will tell you, you don't have to become a man, you don't have to play golf and go hunting and whatever the guys like to do. You belong and you are, they need you, right? So I've kind of come into this as a, y'all need me, I need you, but y'all need me too, right? So, and I think, you know, the personalities we all work with, they're all very similar with each other. There's a reason, you know, that our physicians have gone into orthopedics and they've been, there's a personality type and then there's their development over time. I think you do have to have some thick skin, but I think you've got to be able to take feedback also and act on it and help them produce the results they're looking for. Absolutely. Well, I think that this conversation really leads into imposter syndrome. I'm starting to hear that a lot. I think all of us are and really understanding, you know, what does that mean? It's probably something all of us have encountered, but have any of you encountered imposter syndrome yourself? And how did you find a way to get past that? And I'll just open it up to whoever wants to speak first on it. I was actually just speaking with a life coach about this the other day, we were answering some questions and doing some surveys for her and she's trying to get her career going. And it was really cool because we were talking about that and how prevalent that is in leaders and particularly women in leaders and women in sports. And her, the way that she said to reframe it is she said, that just means your goals are big enough. And it just absolutely resonated. I didn't even know I needed to hear it in the moment. So I thought that that was pretty good. That's awesome. And so cool that you have a life coach. I think that's something that, you know, you don't think about, I know I personally sometimes feel alone with some thoughts and, you know, having a resource, whether that's a life coach or a friend or something, someone like that to talk through things is just such a good piece of advice. So, Erica or Lisa, do either of you have thoughts on this? Well, yes, of course, we have imposter syndrome, but you know what, I think men do and they don't admit it. Right. I think it's, I mean, we've all walked into a room and or a situation and thought, what am I doing here? And it's funny, I have a junior in college and I was sitting around with her girlfriends and it was a student teacher and she's like, oh my gosh, I'm a student teacher. I don't know what the heck I'm doing and these parents are coming to me and asking me about their kids and when am I going to get good at this and when I'm going to feel okay about it. And I was like, never, like you're always going to feel that way at some point in your career. And even I do. I was like, look, I've been doing this a minute and I still feel that some days. But I think that that what Jennifer said and what you alluded to as well is that we have a group, like when you get in that spot, find someone to talk to about it because they can get you out of that rut. And I love that you're feeling, you're reaching high and that's why you're wondering, what am I doing? And I think that's, that is great. I'm going to go tell my friend's daughters that, but, but yeah, I think that we all do and to realize you're human because you feel that way and then not continue to beat yourself up about it is important. I think, you know, echoing that you're in the right place. I mean, I think you have to sometimes give yourself a little self-talk about that. I'm supposed to be here. They want me here. I think all of us in this industry, as dynamic as it is, there are problems we face and issues that come up to us on an almost daily basis where I'm like, well, I've never done this before. Is it rocket science? Am I being asked to send a rocket to Mars today? No. Do I have resources? Are there people I can ask? Is there stuff I can read? What do I need to study up on? Who needs to be part of this team? And I'm all about, you know, use all your resources. And I think the more you do it in your career, the more you get comfortable, you're flexing this muscle of, you're walking into situations where people might be talking over your head. Right? So how do you, and then you learn over time, I can figure this out. Other people have figured this out. I did this two weeks ago. This reminds me of a situation from two weeks ago, and you start pulling those things in together. So it is, I think it's a constant, you know, reminding, at least for myself, I'm supposed to be here. Absolutely. I know I found myself giving myself some encouragement of you were hired to do this job. So even though this situation or somebody else is making you feel like you're not going to be able to perform or achieve this goal, you're here and you can do it. And you know, having ways to encourage yourself or talk through things with other people is huge. I know I find myself talking through situations or problems with people and sometimes even hearing the words come out of your own mouth without even hearing feedback from somebody else can give you clarity. So I think you've all touched on that. And that's such a good point is leaning on your resources, talking to your colleagues and friends about things can really help you shift your mind and get you in the right head space to be able to do what you need to do. So just switching gears a little bit, what are some key leadership skills and quality that you believe are particularly important for women in leadership roles? I'll shoot it over to Lisa first, and then whoever wants to go next, just pop right in. Not sure that leadership is specific to women, right? I'm not sure that there's keys to leadership that apply to females versus males. I mean, at the end of the day, I think in general, if we talk about leadership, one of my favorite books is John Maxwell, 360 Degree Leadership. He's one of my favorite authors. And, you know, wherever you are in the food chain, as we talk about, you know, whether you're the CEO or the operations manager or the front desk manager or the front desk person, right? I think learning, and again, touched on it in negotiations, is who are you dealing with? How do you communicate with them effectively? What are their goals? How do you help them reach their goals so they can help you reach yours, right? Like that's, to me, the easiest way to get done what you're gonna get done. Any other thoughts on particular skills or qualities? I had put down three kind of key traits that I could think of, and one is empathy. There are actual tangible studies out there that show that women tend to have more empathy and that women in leadership tend to have happier, healthier, and more balanced teams. Whether there's a direct correlation there or not, I do think that the studies are out, but empathy is something that resonates with patients, it resonates with physicians. Like Lisa said, they know you're on their side and that speaks volumes. The other is resilience, which we've talked a lot about. And so that's, I said, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and you are bound to ruffle some feathers. So ownership of your mistakes and ownership of how you make others feel, but continuing to press forward anyway is really important. And the third is communication. And that is something we spend a ton of time with my leaders on. I recommend everybody read Gary Chapman's Bible of Languages. It's super important to understand how you like to be loved and I correlate that into communicated with and how other people then want to be communicated with. And you have to remember that communication happens with the listeners here and not at the speaker's mouth. And that's a great thing to think. I've never heard that before. And it's really indicative of having good communication skills. And I'll echo that. I actually took a coach certification training, gosh, almost 10 years ago at Duke. And the hardest thing, and this is something I brought into leadership and I work on it all the time. People are like, what'd you get out of that coach training? I'm like, I was professionally trained how to listen. Absolutely. And the interesting thing when I look at fellow leaders, people in other organizations, my organization, you do have to open your ears in a specific way in order to lead. So, asking open-ended questions, not always having the answer in mind, because I think if you always think you have the answer and I think if you always have the answer in mind before you've asked the question, you're not gonna hear what you need to hear. And so that ties into that communication piece. I think it's a skill that sometimes, even if you're dealing, let's say it's a problem employee. The what question, the how question, the tell me a little bit more about X, Y, or Z. So you can develop some empathy. You may be able to understand the why a little bit better. It may not, you may not, right? You may come to the conclusion that that's just not gonna work out. But I think that's as important trait as a leader is to learn how to listen. And we're expected to sort of read tea leaves a lot, which is very hard. And so taking in information from other places besides even just our practices. I mean, I'm like the podcast queen. I got all these wacky podcasts that I'm like, I think we should put our favorite podcasts that deal with leadership in the chat because like in my commute, I'm listening to Adam Grant and I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. Like thinking about, he's got a book right now called Hidden Potential and it's about perfectionism and he's bringing in people and you're like, oh. And then I listened to like how I built this and it's about people that like started companies from the ground up. And you're like, oh, that's really cool. That's very creative. Oh, that's interesting how they built that team. So listen. That's awesome. I just dropped a reminder and make sure that you're selecting everyone when you're chatting. And I'm gonna read a few messages that were sent to hosts and panelists because I think that they're also good notes for everyone to see. Angela made a couple of comments. First, I really liked the teamwork design of helping each other reach goals for each other. And it's so important and so overlooked. I agree. I think the more we remind ourselves that we're all playing an important part of a team to achieve goals, it's so true, so important. And also that Angela agrees that the Love Language book combined with DISC or something similar training helps you to know how you need to be dealt with but also how you deal with others. And that transforms to good leadership. I agree. DISC assessments are great. And there are so many good ones. There's Myers-Briggs and there's a thousand of them anymore and they all add value and can help you learn how to communicate with other learning or communication styles. And then Heather, one of my colleagues at AOE, don't let anyone rent space in your head unless they are a good tenant. Again, so true, so true. You accept what you let into your life and letting in good people, great way to keep just a good outlook there. All right, great. So next question I have here is how do you maintain a work-life balance while holding a leadership position and what tips can you offer others striving to do the same? I'm not a good one on that one. I mean, I'm just going to own it. I think, and I spend a lot of times talking to my employees and direct reports as well about this because it is a struggle. I think men are, it's more now in this generation of men, they're worried about it, but I think women have always been concerned about this. I think at the end of the day, there's no such thing. Like I'm going to put it out there. There is no work-life balance. It is never going to be 50-50. And so there were some weeks that it'd be 70-30 and there was some, you know, on either side, right? But it will never be 50-50. And so to me, it's to give yourself grace on the weeks that it's 70% work and 30% personal, that you missed the Chinese New Year parade at the elementary school because you had a managing partner meeting, right? Like there are going to be weeks like that and you have to give yourself some grace on that because if you beat yourself up, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. And so I think that's a big part of it. up and you're never going to win. And I think an important thing, and then I'll let the other one talk, but this is kind of life-changing to me, is to ask whether it's your spouse or your children, what do I do that makes you feel loved? And it might really surprise you. It has nothing to do with being home at five o'clock. Okay. And so I asked my daughters this, I have two daughters, and at certain ages, and it's super interesting, but it was never that you come to the Chinese New Year parade. It was this and that and this and that. And so once you find what that is, do it. And you can still work 60 hours a week or 80 or however it turns out and do that and still meet their needs. And you think about what you're modeling for your children, you're modeling work ethic, you're modeling drive, you're modeling all this stuff. So mine is give yourself some grace because if you're in an executive role, there is no such thing. Okay. Y'all talk, I'm sorry. Well, we got the prep questions for this and I wrote, I said I had mixed feelings about the term. So Lisa and I are on the same page, but I think it ebbs and flows, right? So again, like you said, some days it's a ton, some days you've got a little bit more flexibility and you've got to, for me, it's been building in some systems that work in the background that don't take a lot of effort, right? So I have a really awesome lady that comes and walks my dog every day. That's a system. I've put that in place. If I need to stay a little later, the dog's cool. I have fresh food delivered every Tuesday from a local farm. They just bring it. I don't have to think about it. Right. So I can build in some things. I hired a trainer. The trainer is going to text me at seven Oh three, if I'm not there. Right. And I do it. I built in the system. So it's at times where I know I can be there 90% of the time or more. So it's, for me, it's been a little bit of combination of the mindset and then having some habits and systems in place. Yeah. I love that. I think that's how we're all successful at anything that we do, right. It's creating systems. And so glad to hear you speak to that. I wrote that it's a little bit different, but I, I think that we have an obligation and in our roles as women to set the tone and reframe that challenge. And so that's really something that I've tried to do. And I give all the credit to Rachel Hollis for really reframing the working mama mantra for me. And so I don't feel like I'm letting my kids down when they see that I'm working. In fact, I'm emulating what a strong working woman can accomplish. And that teaches my daughter that she can do anything in the world. She sets her mind to, and it shows my son. It changes the narrative for him at a very young age that the expectation for him and his partner, he chooses or him in his workplace. He's in that women have a place and should be there and should be respected and reserving that respect. And so I don't try as hard now. I'm not perfect, but I don't try as hard to separate the two so much and said on those 70, 30 weeks to just kind of own it and say, this is the reality of what I have to do. And this is what we learned from that. And we learned that together. And then when you have weeks that swing the other way, then great. We have family time and I can make it to every single soccer game and we can go to the zoo and do the extra. But I think you're right, Jennifer, in drawing the line too. Like I told my doctors when they hired me, I said, look, I will work, but between me getting home, we'll call it six 37 and nine o'clock. And the kids go to bed. I'm not answering your phone. I'm not calling you. That is my only two hours a day I get with my kids and I will not pick up the phone. And, you know, to their credit, they're like, okay, fair, you know? And so would they, and if I hadn't said that up front, I would have felt like I needed to pick up the phone every time the doctor called and that showed their respect for me by them saying, okay, we agree. We want, we want you to do that. And then when you have leaders that see you do that and see you set those boundaries for yourself, they're empowered to do the same thing and you create this chain effect. Right. And so you're empowering other women to set those same schedules and create those systems for themselves. But I have that exact same role. When I get home, the phone goes down. I'm happy to respond. Once everybody's in bed, you will still hear from me. I'm not offline for the rest of the night, but I am offline in those moments. If you call. I think you all touched on what I was thinking of through the whole conversation is boundaries. And I also think that, you know, work-life balance is a huge hot topic right now and everyone's trying to achieve it. And you've got social media and, you know, other types of media saying, this is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to hit a work-life balance. And it makes you think that it's supposed to be 50, 50 all the time. And it leads you to think I'm failing. Because you're not getting there and there's no way to really get there. Just like you said, Lisa. And I think that there's probably many people who are in this session that are feeling that same way. And to be able to share that solidarity and that I'm not achieving it and that it ebbs and flows is so important. I think being able to have those conversations, Erica touching on having systems in place, that's a great tip. And I also think, you know, communication at home is just as important with communication at work. So setting boundaries at work, but also, you know, having that conversation, whether it's a partner or roommate or whatever your home situation is, is, hey, this week is going to be bananas and I need you to pick up X, Y, and Z so that I can do A, B, C over here. And knowing that you're going to be reciprocating that at some point too, because all of us who are working are in this situation and have busy seasons and slow seasons. The slow seasons seem to be more and more rare in this world, but they exist every now and again, maybe it's just a couple of days or a week, but they exist. And so a lot of really great tips and tricks there and opportunities to remind everybody to give yourself grace. I think that's amazing. I'll share one more tip. And yeah, one of my friends who is a coach shared this with me and I actually do this. There's a Mayo Wellbeing Index app that I have on the phone and it triggers me to ask a few questions every, I don't know, 90 days or something. And it kind of shows you where your wellbeing is on a graph. And so it's just one of the systems I also have in place to kind of do a check-in with myself, because sometimes we're running so hot all the time, you don't realize where you kind of have, you know, am I liking what I'm doing? Am I getting enough rest? Am I, you know, whatever. There's, it's a very short quiz, but it's given me a nice trend line over time to, and I'll put it in the chat. It was actually developed for physicians and for physician burnout, but you can use it. I mean, you might want to use it on your doctors, but they might not comply. But it's actually, you know, it's been studied and researched and, you know, something that is useful for that purpose for me. I love that. I think any time of tool you can do to check in with yourself is so good. So important. All right. So let's move on to another question. This is probably something that everybody's had to deal with over the last few years. And the question says, in a rapidly changing business environment, I would say just world environment, how have you been able to stay adaptable and lead your team through lots of uncertainty? Jen, do you want to go first? I see you nodding. Yeah, I'm happy to go first. I think I have the luck of listening to these ladies lead off on all the others. So, you know, one is really paying attention to the data. I will say that with the caveat of a lot of that data, at least in the last few years, wasn't coming as quickly as we needed it in order to be able to make some of the decisions that we had to make. But when there is data available to lean into, using that to drive decisions is always going to be the place where you're going to find me because I feel like I have something to fall back into. And the other piece is really being resourceful and collaborative. I think, I mean, COVID was such a unique circumstance, and I just remember all of these different regulations were coming down, all these different changes, and we were trying to figure out how telehealth was just coming onto the scene as like a big thing that we were going to be able to do to get around it. I was on these forums, and I mean, everybody from across the country was on these same forums, and meetings were constantly popping up, and you know, you could kind of go under the desk and just hope that everything gets better and see how it pans out, or you could get in and jump in and admit what you didn't know and try to work together with people and try things out. Everybody here will tell you I'm not personal, throw anything at the wall and see what sticks, and that's really how I operate. So kind of the antithesis of following the data is kind of live in both spaces, and I guess do that pendulum swing, but really, you know, if we can figure out what we need to do, and then we can figure out what levers we have to pull to make change, and if we don't see the changes we want, go back to the drawing board and reassess the levers. That's how I do it. That's great. Lisa? I think the difficulty or how, when I feel this, like there's some days I come to work or I'm watching the news, and I feel like I'm being machine gunned, like, you know, that feeling you're just like, oh, you know, and you can't, and you know, and back to there's some weeks that are better than others for that piece of it, but for me, like processing these changes is trying to compartmentalize into, and this is so cliche because I hear it all the time, the urgent and important, you know, as you go through here, and, you know, I'm going to take on the urgent, and then I'm going to break it off into small pieces to try to figure out how to manage it, and I don't have to manage it all, and that's the other. I'm going to find a team. I'm going to collaborate with people. I'm going to figure out, I'm not, if I'm not a data expert, I'm going to go find a data expert if I'm going to, you know, and trying to do that, but I do, I watch my staff, and I feel this way, too. I just feel like we're getting machine gun constantly with changes in MIPS, and the things are moving, and now we got another benchmark, and now, so trying to take a breath and back up and figure out, okay, I'm going to take this piece of it, and I'm going to be successful at that, and then I'm going to move to the next piece, and I'm going to be successful at that. Like Jennifer said, throw in the spaghetti and keep moving, and, but it is hard, and I don't want to be discouraging. This is supposed to be uplifting, but I don't know that it's going to get any better, right, so we do have to figure out how can we manage this so we don't feel like machine gun and wholly, you know, everyone we leave work. Absolutely. I think you're right. I think the situation is constantly evolving, and now we're seeing it play in other ways, right? It's not necessarily the, you know, COVID itself, right? It's the effect it's had on the workforce. It's the effect it's had on our relationship management with vendors and the access to be able to distribute, you know, medications or even have room to schedule surgeries. Everything has had a domino effect based off of it, and, you know, it's always evolving, so it's so true. Erica, what thoughts do you have? So unfortunately, my organization has had quite a few crises we've dealt with this year and that kind of brought me thinking about what I feel like helped with that and maybe what didn't help, you know, it kind of goes back to you've got to have your team, you've got to have a lot of communication, you've got to be humble, know what you know, know what you don't know, figure out if you can figure out what you don't know, that's great, but, you know, I think one of the things we've learned from a few crises we've had this year and, you know, are trying to help put arms around this is we do a really good job typically as leaders handling the crisis of the moment, like we kind of keep it together, we keep things running, we're going to figure stuff out, we're going to be super creative. We don't do a great job on the back end when the dust has settled learning from that. I think that's just a human situation, like we think about some of the COVID stuff that we thought we learned permanently and then we really haven't retained that, so I think, you know, getting a little bit more purposeful about learning, especially when you've had something difficult happen or, you know, you're having to pull in, you know, develop a strategy, a lot of us are in markets where we have a ton of competition, so how are you building your strategy, what resources do you have, what do you need, what information do you still need, and you still have to pick a direction, it's hard, I mean, I think we're all kind of echoing that, that, you know, there's not like a read this book and you'll have all your questions, all the problems solved and all the questions answered. Absolutely. I think that you've all made such great points on that. I think we have time for at least one more question because I want to give an opportunity for questions from the audience as well as give you an opportunity to share any last thoughts, so the next question I've got is, can you share any personal experiences where your leadership made a positive impact on your team or your organization? Anybody want to volunteer to go first on this one? I will just say I was part of, I can't even take the credit for it, it's kind of a cop-out, it's not really answering your question, but we had an opportunity to have a professional leadership development and visual come on site, and one of the things that we really focused on in that session with the leaders of our teams here was gratefulness and gratitude and coming at all of your situations and coming at your day from a place of small wins and of gratitude for the opportunity to have the challenges that then generate the small wins. And so what has just been really neat, and I can talk about this because it's so cute, but in the past two, three weeks since that training session, just the amount of, like we have a thread on Teams where it's like share three wins from your week and then it just like domino effects and one person writes and then the next person writes, and you can just feel, you can actually feel the spirit of the place improved. And so this year we're going to do a gratitude turkey, we're going to go get a big, I got me a brown butcher paper and take the turkey and then cut out hands that are feathers and you have to write what you're grateful for and put it on and we'll put it in the break room. So really excited to do that and just kind of hone in on this space where we are, where people are kind of in the moment appreciating and showing gratitude. I love that. Sometimes things like that feel, you know, whether it's cliche or that they won't make the kind of impact that they do and then you realize, wow, we all really needed that. I needed that as much as everybody else did. So one thing I did is along those lines is I got thank you notes and we're a big practice, we have 150 employees, but I would write five handwritten thank you notes to all of this to, and I tried to do it a week and I put the stack on my desk, you know, so I'd have to get through it by Friday. I couldn't leave until my stack was gone. Well, I don't know what my 150 people are, I'm just not going to lie. So I went to my managers and I told them, I need you to tell me somebody to write this letter to you, but then I gave them three notes too. So I'm not going to do that. And it's remarkable. And I'm going to own, I'm not doing it much lately, but I walk through the clinic and I see people have them tacked on there next to their workstation, you know, and I'm thinking, and I did one on Valentine's day just for this particular employee. And it was like, Hey, you know, happy Valentine's day. Thanks for all you do. And she had written me back and said, that's the only Valentine's day I got or Valentine's card I got because her husband had died the year before. Right. So I was like, wow, I was telling you, thank you for being awesome at the front desk, you know, where I was coming from, but you have no idea how the things like that can do. So back to gratitude, sometimes it's just, you know, you spend $30 on 30 note cards and just run through it. It doesn't have to be money. And, but it is, I'm stunned when I walk into these different little work cubbies and they're stuck on their desk. That I feel like is back to creating a good culture. I need to get back to it. Now I'm feeling guilty. I need to do that. But, but I think it worked. Absolutely. Love that. And I do think the handwritten is different than the email. I'm good at the email. I'm not good at the handwritten. So I'm taking that today as a takeaway. It shows that you took the extra effort. It is remarkable making yourself write cursive though. That's hard. Like, I mean, you have to think about writing cursive, but yeah. My handwriting is definitely devolved over the years. I speak at all the new employee orientations. So we are now an organization of about 650. And, you know, one of the things, and, you know, continuing to work with management on, you know, why, what do we do here? Right? Like we don't make widgets. We kind of, we really focus on, I think, having a clinical background and having some stories behind why do we get up every day and do this? We help people, we help improve quality of life. That's at the end of the day, you can have your mission statement, you can have your vision, you can have your values, but what is your practice doing for the people that you're serving, your clients, your patients, your customers? And I don't, I get uncomfortable in conversations when we stop forgetting about the patient, when we start forgetting about the patient, sorry. I kind of go, wait, wait a second. How's the patient going to like that? How's that going to affect their outcome? How's that going to, you know, and so I think bringing that, having that as your central focus, obviously taking a really good care of the team, but you know, not losing sight of, okay, you're focused on your pre-cert process. Okay. Well, if your pre-cert process isn't working right, what's the impact on this human, right? Things like that. So true. All right. So I'm going to give an opportunity, just a couple of moments for people to drop in. If you have questions for the panelists, you can use the Q&A or the chat. I'll monitor both. And while we wait to see if anybody has questions or thoughts, I'll just give an opportunity to the panelists to see if there's any other thoughts that you had and, you know, preparing for this session that you wanted to share, you know, whether it's a tip or a reminder or a piece of advice, we'd love to hear any last nuggets of knowledge you'd like to share. All right. I'm going to call on Lisa first this time. I was waiting for it. I was hoping, Jennifer, I was wanting to hear what they had to say. I think it's, this is huge. So thank you so much for organizing it and whether it's formal through AAOE or, and it doesn't just have to be women, but I do think we tend to communicate about different things in different ways. I think it's super important to have a support infrastructure, whether it's a male group or a female group to kind of, whether it's to vent, whether they're a practice manager or not a practice manager, you've got to have a good support and come to Erica's wellbeing and all the things we talked about. That's the only way we're all going to survive this is to be in it together and make sure you have a good support team, whether team, team at your office, but team at home as well. All right, Jennifer. I think my big takeaway aside from kind of, you know, a lot of the things that we've really touched on, which is empowering women to empower other women and to really remember that, that at least, you know, we are in this together and they're another person's success really, really, truly is yours as well. And in that same vein to remember that none of us know what to do all the time. And I think Erica actually spoke to that a little bit too. And so knowing who your network is and knowing who the resources are and understanding, giving yourself the grace to know that you, there's as much power in saying, I don't know, and I will find out for you as there is in knowing the answer in the moment, because what, if somebody is coming to you looking for advice, if they're looking for answers, they're looking for help, you, by offering an opportunity to extend that conversation by providing follow-up sometimes can even be more meaningful than having the acute answer back out the door. That's great. Erica. I am coming to thinking more just about my relationships and, you know, I have found even when we've had, you know, maybe a contentious negotiation with a vendor, we've had issues internally. Focusing on, you know, the relationship first, you can figure the rest of this stuff out. I, you know, may be seen sometimes as too soft. I think that, you know, point taken, right? But you never know when you're going to interact with a person, things change. I always want to have a reputation of being good to people, being a good partner, you know, making things better than when I found them. And some of that, you know, I think just trickles across your organization. If that's your expectation of your team, like you don't get to talk to each other like that. We don't do that. We don't have to do that. There's like literally no requirement that you're mean to people to get stuff done, right? So, you know, I think in the old school tradition of, you know, old school management where you've got to be this top down person, you've got to direct and you've got to scream and you've got to, you know, set these really hard, you know, charging targets. Like, I don't know that people respond super well to that. I don't. And so, you know, that to me, relationship and how you come across is super important. Absolutely. And I think just to extend on that, just because you have either a boundary or a policy or a procedure that you're enforcing, you don't have to be, you know, like you said, mean about it. You can still enforce it and find ways to make sure that the expectation is the same for everybody or that it's a safety thing or it's something in place because of the patient need while still being able to be approachable and having an opportunity for somebody to ask questions so they can come to understand why that's the case. So, I think that's a great point. All right. A lot of great comments here. And it looks like we have someone with their hand raised. So, Carrie, I'm going to push the button to allow you to talk and then if anybody else has questions, feel free to drop them again in the chat or the Q&A. And maybe that was accidentally, because I don't see that she's connecting to audio. All right. Any last minute thoughts from anyone in the audience, feel free to drop it in. And I want to personally say thank you to Erica Lisa and Jennifer, this was an amazing conversation, I felt like I had a lot that I can take away and implement into my life and just appreciate all of you being honest in your responses as well, because I think, sort of like Heather mentioned here vulnerability and being soft is strong I think that's so true. So, being able to meet people where they are and be transparent. I think is a long way and helps to ensure that all of us know that the feelings that we have are real and are validated so just thank you so much for all of your insight advice tips. This was such a great conversation. Our next session is going to begin in just a few minutes at 215 it's 10 ways to advance your career so really looking forward to that conversation. Hope everyone can stay and join us for that. Our next session is going to be just a few minute break so if anybody needs to step away answer emails or phone calls definitely do that and we'll see you back in about five minutes at 215 for that session. Thanks.

navigating uncertainty

work-life balance

gratitude practices

communication

empathy

resilience

supportive relationships

leadership impact

patient care