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The Owner’s Room: If I Had to Do This Again · Integrity at Scale™

• Alright, y'all owner's room. It's the owner's room with Tara Vossenkemper. This is the Culture Focus Practice podcast. Welcome. Thank you for being here with me.  This episode is if I had to do this again, and by this I mean group practice ownership, building out a business, dot dot dot. This  is not intended to be, and I do not think it will be, an episode where I'm just listing out life lessons or things I wish I knew or here's a hack to be successful or anything like that. It's really, just like any other owner's room, a , where I am going to ask myself some questions with the same core theme, which is, if I had to build this again, what would I do differently? Not what worked, but what would I consciously say yes to? Knowing the weight of the system, knowing the costs of saying yes to that thing. This is much less about having an answer, and much more about exploring this space together. A little bit different than others, we are not gonna do scenarios. It felt, I don't know, inappropriate, it didn't feel fitting to run through any scenarios here. So we'll just have a series of five questions and then I'll wrap up our time together. You know that I have not prepped for these, so I have no fucking idea where I will 📍 go with them. Question number one, what kind of problems do I want to be responsible for solving every day? My first answer is none, but if I did have to choose, let me do this the opposite way. I feel like I do better getting to my answer by like removing obvious non-answers. I know that I don't wanna be responsible for solving daily operational, logistical sorts of issues. So there's a client issue related to billing. Somebody's upset, like, nope, not it. I want people to have a great experience, but I don't wanna be the one that's calling or like talking through things. I've trusted people for that. I don't wanna be the one troubleshooting payroll related issues.  I don't want to solve big marketing related issues, and by big I mean, full, like breadth, not depth, breadth related issues. Probably depth too. Honestly.  I think that the things that I really like solving, like on a consistent basis are, I don't wanna say puzzles, but like stuck points for other people, not a logistical stuck point, but like a  conceptual stuck point, or I've tried these four different things, and I don't think this is it. And maybe somehow it didn't land on our issues list in our meeting, you know? But for whatever reason, there's a bigger view of things that's needed, like a wider sort of lens. Those are the problems I like to solve. I like meta, kind of meta problems, or like higher level conceptual, more abstract. I like those sorts of problems, and quite frankly, I want to solve it and then be removed from implementing the solution, because I  don't so much care to do that. I just want to be there to say like, okay, cool. Let's talk through this and all right, there you go. Have at it. You know? So I think that's my answer. I think no problem every day, like, no thank you, but the problems I do like to be responsible for solving consistently, would be those higher level meta, more abstract 📍 problems. All right. That's good. Right? Here we go. We're going. Okay. Question number two. What parts of this work actually give me energy and what parts have I been tolerating? Oh my God. I think what makes this question hard is that the scales are in the process of tipping, and so historically I would say everything gives me energy, like to be able to be engaged in building the business and bringing things to fruition and creating. All of those things gave me energy, like in and of themselves. I was fucking in it, like I loved it. At some point that stopped, like that was not the case. It's not work. I like work. I'm a workhorse. I think it's just the ways in which I want to engage in work and the ways in which I  feel energized from work have shifted.  And at this point, there is a larger part of me or a larger need, or the scales have tipped in this favor, this direction in such a way that I really want to spend time on thinking. I want to be able to sit and read and think. That's what I wanna be able to do. That's the shit that gives me energy, and I can't even believe I'm saying that out loud. The idea of doing that for  years now and still to this day, feels so self-indulgent. Like the idea of saying, part of my job is to sit and think, like I get to sit and read and then think, and that's my role. Like that's what I have to do. But that is where I feel energized is being able to sit, not be inundated with tasks or needed by anybody outside of I have time by myself to spend ingesting information, synthesizing it, grappling with it, and that's it. That would be ideal and that's honestly like where the most energy comes from right now. I do feel like the things I have been tolerating are much more in the camp of being needed to do any sort of maintenance related to the practice. I think I'm at the point that I am tolerating being needed by my practice in a even like semi-weekly way. I'm like horrified that I'm saying this out loud, like it's coming out as I'm talking about it. I'm an external processor if that's not fucking obvious at this point. That's how I feel, which is like, I don't want to be needed. I want to be able to sit and think about the business. I want to basically work on the business. If we're, thinking about the E Myth revisited, I wanna work on the  business 95% of the time and maybe in at 5%. I'm not at that ratio yet. I would really like to be, so I think I've answered that question. I think I've hopefully answered it directly, but maybe I've just danced around the answer and you can deduce it 📍 from my dancing. Question number three. Ooh. Oh my God, this is a good question. If I removed the identity of practice owner, what would I actually choose to build? Okay, so I have two thoughts. One is that I don't know how salient the identity of practice owner is for me.  I've heard people talk about this where the idea of either selling their business or doing less or spending more time doing something else, it starts to chip away or erode at their sense of identity. I don't think that's it for me, like that doesn't feel exactly right, but I think what does feel right and it makes it kind of hard to answer is, I'm not sure what would take up the space. And that's not to say that I'm terrified and I can't let go 'cause I don't know what's gonna go there. But that is to say it's hard to like what would come after. With that said, when I think about the idea of the group, and hypothetically, I move states and I sell my practice, and let's say I just think to myself, man, I miss that. I miss doing that. I miss building something and I go to do it again. Would probably do a less uniform, and operations heavy co-op, that's what I would do. I would do a, everybody's in their own business and here's the space and here's the mission values. Here's what we're doing or here's what I'm trying to build. And maybe there's some sort of screening process still to be a part of the co-op, you still have to get through some sort of process, because values, alignment and all of that.  But I would not employ people  and I think that I wouldn't do as much operations heavy things, because I wouldn't have any employees, I wouldn't have a leadership team. In essence, I would try to just bring people together  intentionally and then let the co-op, almost like emerge on its own, if that makes sense. So that there's some structure, maybe some like very core, like any system. They're like a agent or entity. If I think about emergence and ant colonies, like I always think about the harvester ants from the, I think it's Steven Johnson book, the book Emergence and how there's a couple of core rules to function.  I'm thinking what are the simplest rules possible for something to evolve and merge. Like if we always come back to these core rules, what are they? I keep saying core rules. That's gonna be my new mantra, I think. What are the core rules? Like a broken record, broken robot. Core rules. Core rules. What are they? My point is I don't think I would be as involved in the building process. I would want to set core rules. There I go again and then step back and see what emerged. That would be a little more experimental, because it would be interesting to see what came up like to see what were the norms and what were the habits and the tendencies of this group, what emerges if we do set these things in place and then shoot, you know, step back and look. With that said, there are costs to that. I think that the idea of having  very little oversight or any sort of uniformity, the cost is that it can feel much more chaotic and maybe the chaos is, you know, of course like any group process, developmental process, you're gonna have chaos before you have some sort of norming period. That does feel like a cost. If I really wanted something specific, then I would be much more intentional. Like what I'm doing now, everything is very intentional, all the processes, the people, the structure, et cetera. But this almost feels like the exact opposite, which is that, again, setting up some parameters and then stepping back and seeing what emerges. Gosh, now I'm like struggling with this question. I don't even know if I would choose to build that. I think that I have done this one, and so I just feel  interested in the other, like I've done the one where I built it intentionally. If I just backed away from that and I said, okay, I'm not a practice owner anymore. What if I just facilitated a co-op? What would that look like? How would that perform? You know, it seems almost like, um not flip sides of the same coin, but just sort of like a science experiment, honestly. I would just wanna see what happened. I would be really interested in watching the system unfold. So maybe I would actually choose to build nothing and I would just see what  built itself without my active involvement. It'd be super interesting if it ended up being approximately the same as the one that I have built intentionally. That would be really fucking interesting. 📍 All right, I'm gonna keep going. Question number four. What did I assume would feel meaningful that doesn't anymore? Whoa. Clinical work and supervision. That's what I thought would always feel meaningful. It still feels important to do. The act of supervision and the act of clinical work are incredibly meaningful,  and me doing them right now does not feel meaningful. For me, so I'm not dismissing the impact or the importance of them. I'm saying that I do not feel compelled or moved, or especially engaged. I don't derive a lot of meaning from that right now,  and I'm not doing any of it right now. I mean, I think that, sort of thinking about roles and things I wanna be responsible for, et cetera. It's not that it's not doing clinical work and it's not doing supervision, and quite frankly, teaching too. I have taught, graduate courses for a long time, and  I'm not doing that at all either. For the same reason where it's like, this isn't it for me right now. Still really important work and this is not meaningful for me. I think the other piece is probably something about like meetings or like team engagement. Maybe something like the clinical director role. I think that I assumed it would always feel really meaningful to me to hold onto and to do, and same as the other stuff. I think having the right person in that seat is a must, and the team that is at your group like so fucking important and it does not feel inherently meaningful. I don't derive meaning or create it from being in that seat, and I thought that I would for. Ever basically are always like, I'm always gonna love this. I'm always gonna wanna do supervision, I'm always gonna wanna teach. I'm always gonna wanna see clients. And right now my answer to all those is like, no, no, no, and no thank you. Like, I don't wanna do any of these things right now. They do not feel meaningful. They do not feel like the best use of my time. They also don't feel like the thing I'm getting any energy out of if I were to engage in 📍 them. Alright, question five. What would I design differently if I knew the emotional cost upfront?  Okay, that's a really good question. I'm not even sure if I really have an answer. It's probably the term emotional, like that word in there. I think I just need to get rid of that word. So let's just say it's what would I design differently if I knew the cost upfront? Not financial, but just broadly speaking cost. I would have spent more time or energy or effort clarifying director of operations or office manager or integrator, like I would've done that sooner, which of course I would say I would've done that sooner, but also that's reflective of my own evolution as a practice owner. You know,  with that said, I still would have done that sooner and been more clear about things. Maybe either through more research or consulting or something, but then also I would've passed things over sooner. So there's something there, which is like, I should have offloaded this in a different way sooner. The second thing is that I would have been more strategic. About a marketing seat. That's what I would've done. Because I'm not saying we weren't intentional and strategic about marketing things we did, but what I am saying is that I would've been more. Strategic about a specific seat. What does they cover, what they're responsible for, what they own, what they do, what they coordinate, all of it. I would've been more strategic about that. Yes, that's what 📍 I would've done. I'll do one more bonus question then I'm gonna wrap it up. Where did I confuse growth with success? I think that is an incredible question. We grew fast our first few years, and I feel like it was not shortly after we implemented EOS, I think a couple years in, I think we hit the ceiling to use their language or plateaued.  And this is where the marketing strategist would've been really helpful because that person in that seat would've been able to step in and probably intervene and work some magic, so to speak. But I think that it was so easy to grow when I started, and it was probably market and timing. It was just so easy. And it was fun. I was doing everything all the time. It felt like success because we were growing so quickly, but the reality is that doesn't mean our numbers were healthy necessarily. I was still really figuring out finances. Oh God, that's another thing I would design differently. If I knew the cost upfront, I would've been  more thorough with figuring out pay structures in the beginning. Now things feel different, you know? But like initially, I would've been much more intentional and thorough about designing pay structures. But that's a side note. So my bad, let me skip back forward. I think that the growth we experienced. Was not synonymous with success. If I'm thinking about the numbers, if I'm thinking about even the people and sort of the culture and the people that were there and  my stance who I was as a leader, who I had in place to sort of buffer me from the team. I hate saying that, but I mean for real. I'd need somebody much more stable than me in place, somebody who likes the maintenance and the consistency stuff. I think all of that, it probably looked like success on the outside, but I don't think it was success. When I reflect back, I think it was growth. Although at the time, I think that I thought it was success, but it wasn't, not in the way that I would define success now. Let's just say your revenue is high, that is not success just because you have a certain number of employees. That is not success, just because you bring on your first office manager like that is a success. Sure. But that is not success. If that makes sense, it can be a success for you. But that doesn't equal, this is it. Like I've done the right thing. I'm done. It's sort of like. Cool. You've filled a seat. Is it with the right? You know, it's all the stuff. Then we get into like EOS and structure and culture and all of that stuff. So yeah. Okay. I think I am 📍 officially done. This will short and sweet, which, c'est la vie, tit for tit, live and let live . All those things you can say. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to the podcast you already know, but anytime you are subscribed, you get when new episodes come out, you are more likely to help people who need to hear the message than hear it, et cetera. Otherwise, I'll see you on the next one. Thanks. Bye.