Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Advancing Women in Leadership and Innovation with Laurie McGraw

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Advancing Women in Leadership and Innovation with Laurie McGraw · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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This is where health care leadership comes together.
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Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
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hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
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speakers to Chicago April.
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This series event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
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Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
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w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
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visit beckershospitalreview.com
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and click on the events tab in the
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upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
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in Chicago.
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This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Health
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Care Podcast.
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I'm thrilled today to be joined by your
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brilliant leader,
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Laurie McGraw.
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And Laurie's had a long and fantastic career.
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And she spends a lot of her time
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now
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on her own podcast,
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in her own leadership efforts, in the in
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the core of her most recent effort, and
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it's been for several years now, is highlighting
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inspiring
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women leaders.
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We we tend to love following Laurie and
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what she's doing. Laurie, can you take a
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moment and introduce yourself and tell us a
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bit about your background and career?
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Certainly. And, Scott, thank you so much for
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having me, today. So yeah. So I am
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Laurie McGraw. And, today, the work that I
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do, I'm the chief commercial officer at Transcurrent,
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a company that is on the forefront
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of AI and providing a personalized health and
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care experience
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for people,
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across the country, and that comes from a
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30
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career
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in health care and technology
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and innovation.
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I built an electronic health records company, Allscripts,
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with Glenn Tullman, chief executive there. He's the
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current chief executive of Transcarent,
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so Yasmin, come help him here.
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And I did many years at the American
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Medical Association.
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Some of the work I'm most proud of
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with that association,
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very powerful working on behalf of physicians
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across, the country.
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And as part of all of this work
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that I've done over the many years in
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health care as
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a leader, as a woman,
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as an executive,
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I have found that,
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I'm used to,
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in the early days being one of very
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few women,
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at important leadership tables.
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And over time, that has certainly changed and
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evolved and become better in terms of representation
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at the levels of leadership.
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But, over a few years ago, I just
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felt that the progress was not strong enough.
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So in addition
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to my background,
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in,
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the professional work, Scott,
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I started this podcast called inspiring women,
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to help address
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those areas of women in leadership.
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Thank you. And talk a little bit about
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the inspiring woman podcast
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and some of the people we've had on
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and some of the encouragement
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or inspiration that you've gotten from that.
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I'd be glad to, and I can talk
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a lot about this. So I started inspiring
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women. We're going on,
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five years.
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I started it,
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at a time where I had just read
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the latest,
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women in the workforce,
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study by McKinsey
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and the lean in organization. And, again, steady
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progress,
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but just not,
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just not fast enough, just not fast enough,
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after,
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all of these
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years of leaning into it. And so what
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I do is I speak to incredible women
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leaders. There are many of them.
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I put their voices out there
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so that others who are aspiring
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to leadership
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can hear the many different ways that women
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lead and how they get there.
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I speak with CEOs. I speak with founders.
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I speak with entrepreneurs. I speak with politicians.
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I speak speak with health system leaders. I
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speak with,
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you know, people in all the different,
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areas,
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athletes,
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just people who are at the peak of,
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their performance or early stage just breaking out.
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What I hear from women consistently
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is,
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a lot of variation in terms of how
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they got the no one's story is the
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same, and that's, of course,
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not surprising.
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But the reality is is that, you know,
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leadership shows up in many different forms.
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And my objective
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with inspiring women is for the next generation
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of women leaders that they don't have to
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relearn or redo
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or
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go through hardships that may have been there
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before,
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but allow them to find new ways to
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break through
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sooner,
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faster,
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higher,
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more impactful,
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than others who have come before them.
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So it's been a labor of love in
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terms of putting out this weekly,
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podcast, but as a host and the person
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who gets to speak to all of these
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incredible women, I'm learning every day as well.
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Thank you. And and, Laurie,
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when you think about lessons for emerging leaders,
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you've got your own incredible experience as a
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leader yourself, and you've worked with Glenn Toleman,
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Seven Wire Ventures, some of the brightest people
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that that I've ever come across and and
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and you've led. And then you also get
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a chance to talk to all these leaders,
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inspiring women leaders. I'm gonna ask you the
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the first
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big question.
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Then I'm gonna ask you to highlight for
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people where they could find the podcast and
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to make sure they got the exact name
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and where they could find it. Why don't
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I ask you to do that first, and
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I'll ask you to do that at the
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end as well. Exact name of the podcast
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and where people could find it, then I'll
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get to my next question on leadership.
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So that people can find inspiring women with
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Laurie McGraw
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at www.inspiringwomen.show.
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Anywhere you get your podcast,
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Spotify,
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Amazon,
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you name it, you can find it, Inspiring
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Women with Laurie McGraw.
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Thank you very, very much. Let me bring
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you back to our next leadership question.
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You've had a great leadership career. You also
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have a chance to visit with so many
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inspiring women who have had fantastic leadership careers.
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Take a moment and and give us what
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advice would you give to emerging leaders trying
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to have a satisfying and impactful career.
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So some of the best advice that I
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hear, from others, you can never
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ask
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for enough soon enough in your career.
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Because when you're at that early stage in
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your career, when you put on the table
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something very significant that you might aspire to,
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this is the time when people are eager
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to give you helpful advice, to give you
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support,
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to put you in places that give you
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the opportunity
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to get there. That doesn't mean you're going
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to get to that next grand place you
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might envision for yourself
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immediately, but you're putting your mark
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out there that this is the place that
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you want to get to. And the number
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of people
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who are eager to support
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you
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is a lot, and it's not just the
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people that you're, in touch with. There are
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many people
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are always looking for the aspiring leaders,
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that are out there, and there is an
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affinity across the most powerful tables
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for emerging
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women leaders
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because we all know there's not enough of
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them out there, and we also
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most are well versed that when women lead,
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we have a more equitable
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society and better businesses.
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So put the put the big grand visions,
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out there. The second thing I would say
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is to ask for support.
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Learn from others.
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Learn what made somebody successful, what mistakes they
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might have made that you can learn from,
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and not just the people who are going
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to
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give you the warm hug and make you
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feel,
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good about what you're doing, right now, but
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the people who will give you,
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important,
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honest
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feedback
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that is allows you to grow from it.
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Some of the best learning moments that emerging
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leaders,
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receive in their careers. This certainly happened, for
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me on multiple occasions
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where some of the harshest feedback ever, not
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said in unkind ways, but in ways that
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you can actually action on, that you can
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figure out how to be a better voice
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in the room, not just complaining about something,
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but how to put a solution in place.
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Little things like that that make all the
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difference and allow people to move again forward
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faster.
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Thank you. And and take a moment on
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taking the bigger shot at the plate or
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asking for what you want.
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That is so hard for so many people
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to do whether men or women.
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But talk about why doing that earlier rather
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than later
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sets you up for longer term success.
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Yeah. So it is, one of the things
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that is, true for anyone
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as an emerging leader
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is at the earlier stages of your career,
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you are going to be promoted
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and recognized
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faster, sooner from being smart,
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from being hardworking,
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from taking on the hard projects, and that
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is
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fairly, fairly
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universal.
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And when you get to more, you know,
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later stages or even mid stages of your
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career,
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it is, it is not just that you're
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smart, you're working hard,
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you're being pulled forward. You actually have to
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ask for those things, and many women find
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that in the more mid stages of their
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careers,
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they're kinda surprised that they're not being
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pulled forward
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because of just their great hard work, because
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they're doing all of the, you know, under
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you know, background
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deep, deep work after hours and whatnot, and
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they're still not being pulled forward. It's at
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those mid stages where you actually have to
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ask for it, where you have to find
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sponsors, people who are not who are in
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those rooms that you are not in that
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are advocating for you. And for many women,
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they find that that's a surprising time in
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their career, and they might stagnate. They might,
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you know, just not be advancing
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forward.
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If you are experienced
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at asking for things at earlier stages
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of,
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your career, you're less likely to be stuck
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in that middle stage, and you'll be able
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to advance further. And if you talk to
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women,
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you know, the, just some of the most
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powerful, most senior,
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leaders that are out there. They have found
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ways, and I do ask these questions. How
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did you make sure you didn't get stuck
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there? How did you make sure that you
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did not
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be known as only the client success leader,
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only as the operations leader when you aspire
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to actually be the chief executive.
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And, usually, what those women are talking about
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is how they asked for
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something unusual. They asked for a,
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career move that might not seem obvious,
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for them, but they asked for it. And
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they asked for it, you know, at a
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stage because they had asked for other things,
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before that stage where they asked for the
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bigger things. So those are the types of
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things that I think are,
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small, very actionable things that people can do
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that, again, allow them to advance forward faster.
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I think the advice
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is so right on and so perfect.
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And I almost add onto that thought,
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because sometimes when you're asking for the big
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thing,
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you don't get it, but it takes experience
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in asking for things
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till they start to fall your way till
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you start to get them.
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And if you wait till later to start
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to ask for the bigger things, you don't
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get that experience in training and even asking
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for those bigger things that leads to those
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bigger opportunities.
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So I think the advice of getting comfortable
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asking for those things early
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is such great advice.
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It's it's so it's so hard. Just one
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other, you know, point there.
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So often when you ask for something,
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the answer is no. The answer is no.
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And and, people do not like saying no.
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It's hard to say no. And so if
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you're if you're if you're the answer is
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no,
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most often, it is no right no right
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now
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or no to the whole thing, but maybe
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I can do this one part of that
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thing. Maybe I can help you in some
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other way. And those additional
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benefits
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of a no
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are are really extraordinarily
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helpful. But if you don't ask, you know,
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not only do you not get the no,
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you don't get anything. You literally have no
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opportunity for anything.
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I I think that is right on, and
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there's obviously a balance on how you do
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it and how you work with it. But
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I think the advice is so right on,
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and, obviously, it's grounded in your experience
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and all the experience of people that you've
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talked to,
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and you've had yourself this extraordinary leadership career.
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Laurie,
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I wanna thank you again for joining us
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on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I always love
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getting a chance to visit with you, and
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we're huge fans of what you do on
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the inspiring women podcast
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and what you're doing at Transcarent.
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Congratulations.
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Scott, thank you so much.