Latest / The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show / E171 | Healthcare Has No Offseason — Brian Ferguson, CEO of Arena Labs

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E171 | Healthcare Has No Offseason — Brian Ferguson, CEO of Arena Labs · The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show

0:11
Hello and welcome back to the Advancing
0:13
Health Innovation Show. I am your host,
0:15
Michael Samatinos, and if you're new to
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new interviews come directly to you. So
1:16
today's guest is to me I believe it's
1:20
something that
1:22
most of health care says out loud but
1:27
rarely acts on. So the people who serve
1:31
on the front lines matter just as much
1:33
as the outcomes that they're asked to
1:35
deliver. So Brian Ferguson is the CEO of
1:39
Arena Labs. He spent over 20 years
1:42
inside high-erforming teams where the
1:45
stakes were at the highest realness. Um,
1:48
and the cost of burnout is measured in
1:52
lives, national security, special
1:55
operations, um, elite athletics. Brian
1:58
is a former Navy Seal officer and a
2:01
graduate of the London School of
2:02
Economics. U, but what I think really
2:04
defines him is how he understands
2:08
service. So Brian talks about something
2:11
called the service archetype. And
2:14
there's actually a small group of people
2:16
in any society that rarely ever say,
2:19
"I'll go first." He's one of them. You
2:21
know, we've got first responders,
2:23
soldiers, health care professionals. So
2:26
in health care, that calling is
2:28
relentless. There is no off season.
2:31
There's no break in the schedule.
2:33
There's no margin when things go wrong.
2:35
doctors, nurses, care teams, um they
2:39
give and they give and they give because
2:40
that's who they are and too often the
2:44
system takes everything that they have
2:46
and elite uh Arena Labs exists to change
2:51
that. So Brian and his team are bringing
2:54
science and performance models that have
2:56
worked in elite military units and
3:00
worldclass sports into healthcare. uh
3:03
not necessarily to you know push
3:04
clinicians harder, rather to you know
3:07
help them last uh to help them flourish
3:10
to give them tools to manage stress
3:14
pressure uh recovery in a profession
3:16
that uh honestly just never slows down.
3:19
So they call that the era of predictive
3:21
performance and the idea is super simple
3:24
obviously really hard to execute. Um but
3:27
if we expect worldclass care for
3:30
patients we need to have world class
3:32
standards for how caregivers are taught
3:36
to take care of themselves. So this
3:39
conversation is going to be about
3:40
service. It's going to be about
3:41
standards. It's going to be about
3:42
pressure. uh and honestly what it really
3:45
means to build a health care system that
3:48
don't just survive on the backs of their
3:50
people but actually protect them. So
3:52
Brian, it's great to see you. Welcome to
3:54
the show.
3:56
>> Man, Michael, that is that is a an
3:58
impressive regurgitation of our mission
4:01
work. Truly, I mean I uh that is really
4:04
impressive that given that we've we've
4:06
spent I guess two sessions together. uh
4:09
that means a lot that you were listening
4:10
that intently
4:12
>> uh and able to turn that around because
4:14
I will tell you people in our own
4:16
ecosystem probably couldn't do that that
4:17
have been doing this. So that's awesome
4:19
man. Thank you.
4:20
>> It feels it feels good to hear that and
4:22
it's nice uh folks have told me that you
4:24
know look if you're going to do good
4:26
work do it right do it well and uh do it
4:30
with the best of your ability. So, um,
4:33
yeah, let's let's kind of dive in
4:35
before, you know, maybe we talk about
4:37
Arena Labs and, uh, performance. I I
4:40
kind of want to start here where I guess
4:44
maybe when someone meets you for the
4:45
first time.
4:46
>> Yeah.
4:47
>> What do you What do you hope that they
4:50
feel more than what they know about you?
4:54
>> Yeah. Authenticity, man. Authenticity
4:56
100%. I my you know my values in the
4:59
world be humble be authentic uh and then
5:02
communicate and and uh yeah authenticity
5:06
is a big one which you know is
5:08
interesting because it's that could be a
5:09
buzz word but it's it's a it's
5:12
um
5:14
someone who's authentic like that if you
5:16
think about that who comes to mind in
5:18
your life that that that's somebody who
5:21
is showing up even as life changes as
5:23
they go through seasons of life that is
5:25
still rooted
5:26
in who they really are. Um, and they're
5:30
not putting on a show that's, you know,
5:32
so and that's just I think that's harder
5:34
to do than than to say. Uh, so anyways,
5:37
feeling authentic and humble.
5:40
>> All right. So, is there a difference
5:42
between being authentic and being
5:44
candid?
5:46
>> Um,
5:48
yeah, because I think cander can be
5:51
performative. Like cander can be like
5:53
you can be the guy that's can I'm just
5:55
gonna tell it like it is and that's not
5:56
always authentic. It's like
5:58
>> sometimes cander
6:00
>> without the right humility
6:04
>> uh is arrogance.
6:08
>> Yeah. Because you know when I think
6:10
about it you've spent years inside of
6:13
some of the most elite performing teams
6:16
on the planet. Standards are really
6:19
really high. Um, I would imagine that
6:22
excuses are they just don't survive very
6:26
long in those types of environments.
6:29
Curious, what did like those
6:30
environments
6:32
teach you about human limits?
6:36
>> Um, that most people on the outside
6:41
don't see.
6:44
>> Yeah. two two things that come to mind
6:46
is there's I'm I'm sort of there's two
6:49
sides of that coin I think one like a
6:51
lot of times when we talk about high
6:53
performing teams and cultures whether
6:55
it's the military elite sport
6:57
uh medicine we think they're perfect um
7:01
and they rarely are but but what is true
7:05
is there is a standard and that standard
7:09
is held to accountability and so
7:12
accountability is paramount
7:15
Um, I think two parts of your question.
7:18
One is that I just had this conversation
7:20
yesterday. I was talking to a good
7:22
friend who was previously the head of
7:23
performance for the LA Lakers.
7:25
>> Um, and here's a guy who worked with
7:26
LeBron James and you know the lake show
7:28
as I call it. Um,
7:30
>> and we got a long discussion about pro
7:32
athletes and what has surprised me. Um,
7:35
I to be clear I've obviously never been
7:38
a professional athlete. I I love
7:39
performance. I love the human side. in
7:41
elite sport is a really interesting way
7:43
to see like the peak of that.
7:45
>> What is surprising when you're behind
7:46
the curtain of that
7:48
>> is you would think that in pro sport
7:50
there is like no margin for error.
7:52
There's no people are held accountable.
7:54
That's not always true. There are
7:56
actually bad teams in pro sport um
7:59
because there's not accountability and
8:02
there can be cander but like cander
8:04
without accountability doesn't do you
8:06
any good. So
8:07
>> I think it's like a we could deconstruct
8:09
like you know I'm really I love this
8:10
idea of like what are the first
8:11
principles of a high performing team?
8:13
What's true of any team your family to
8:16
the Navy Seals to the LA Lakers. So
8:19
that's that's one conversation and and
8:20
standards and accountability is a part
8:22
of it. Um and I'm always to be clear I'm
8:25
not perfect. I'm always myself trying to
8:27
figure that out. Um the other side is
8:29
like what is it about the limits of a
8:32
human
8:33
>> and if we have all those things in place
8:34
or pursuing all those things what's
8:37
possible.
8:39
>> Um and that to me I'd say like I had the
8:43
privilege as you mentioned in my
8:44
introduction to serve in the military
8:45
and special operations. It is in many
8:47
ways the the greatest set of learnings
8:49
in my life um outside of those that come
8:52
with family and children. But um
8:57
the single most powerful thing in that
8:59
is that I can't put a number to it, but
9:02
most of us go through life without even
9:04
coming close to touching the limits of
9:06
what we're capable of. And the beauty of
9:09
going through special operations
9:10
training is you will be forced into
9:12
seeing what is at the bottom of your own
9:14
well.
9:15
>> And that is a gift for a human.
9:17
>> And that usually involves a decision to
9:20
die for something. And that sounds
9:24
extreme.
9:25
>> Um, but it doesn't have to be literal
9:29
death. It's when you look at people who
9:31
do extraordinary things and go through
9:34
some element of touching a higher
9:36
version of themselves.
9:37
>> They came to a place where they usually
9:39
were like they were willing to die. That
9:41
could be
9:42
>> Yeah.
9:42
>> the the woman protesting
9:45
uh the mullers in Iran. That could be
9:49
>> um you know someone building a business
9:52
in the middle of the night that puts all
9:54
their chips in the middle of the table
9:55
because they believe in what they're
9:56
doing.
9:57
>> But that decision to let go of the thing
9:59
that keeps you afloat to go further.
10:03
>> Mhm.
10:03
>> As soon as you disconnect from that
10:06
tether, it's the scariest thing in the
10:08
world and it's at the same time the most
10:11
empowering and amplifying of the human
10:12
spirit.
10:13
>> Yeah. You know, so you mentioned
10:16
standards accountability and how you
10:18
described that to me just now like the
10:20
the word that came to my mind was
10:22
toughness. Um, you know, toughness
10:25
obviously, you know, there are things
10:26
that are in someone's highlight reel.
10:28
Um, things that hold up over time.
10:31
Toughness sort of stands out to me. How
10:33
do you, I guess, how do you define
10:36
toughness today?
10:37
>> Yeah, it grit. My favorite, our company
10:40
is called Arena Labs. The namesake of
10:42
that company comes from the Teddy
10:45
Roosevelt quote. If you're not familiar,
10:46
Teddy Roosevelt, you know, former
10:48
president of the United States, finishes
10:50
his presidency in 1910. Teddy Roosevelt,
10:52
by the way, um, if you're interested in
10:55
just just for the heck of it, look, I
10:57
mean, if you're not familiar with his
10:58
life, I would argue he is one of the
11:01
most prolific American lives in in
11:03
modern history. He is extraordinary.
11:06
um very tough upbringing uh sickly as a
11:10
child, healed himself through toughness
11:12
and grit, uh you know, wrote books on
11:15
ornithology and birds and at the same
11:17
time naval strategy, was a governor of
11:19
New York in his 30s, becomes president
11:20
of United States, first president to
11:22
host a black man at the White House,
11:24
active in women's suffrage, like just an
11:26
amazing human being. Finishes the
11:28
presidency, by the way, like attempted
11:31
assassination.
11:33
uh doesn't die because he's got a speech
11:35
in his pocket. The paper's so thick the
11:37
bullet doesn't penetrate his skin. Still
11:39
stands up and gives the speech after his
11:42
presidency. Goes and decides to map the
11:45
Nile River in the Amazon is carried out
11:48
on the stretcher. Like just a savage.
11:50
>> Um
11:51
>> savage
11:52
>> and a just an epic life and tough as
11:55
hell. And
11:57
the thing about Teddy that is
11:59
interesting is he gives a speech in 1910
12:01
at the um in France and the title of the
12:05
speech is citizenship in a republic.
12:07
There is one paragraph in that speech in
12:10
which it is known as the man in the
12:11
arena quote. And and I'm going to
12:13
paraphrase here but he says it is not
12:14
the critic who counts but the man or
12:17
woman in the arena. So the not the
12:19
person in the sidelines of life but the
12:20
person in the arena marred by dust and
12:22
sweat and blood who knows the great
12:24
victories of success and the great
12:25
failure of defeat and he's saying like
12:27
look in life you can be on the sidelines
12:28
or you can do the hard thing. Um and I
12:31
have I think society has always been
12:34
built on people willing to do the hard
12:35
thing. There are very two two clear
12:37
camps in life. There's people doing hard
12:39
things
12:40
>> and there's people benefiting from
12:41
people doing hard things. Um and so to
12:44
me like we get caught in a narrative
12:47
that in the modern world people are
12:48
soft. It is easier today to choose a
12:51
comfortable life. No doubt. But there
12:53
are still a lot of people doing really
12:55
hard things advancing society. Um and
12:59
that is like I think that is why grit
13:02
and it's frankly why there's an entire
13:04
industry built around people who want to
13:06
be gritty. You know they want to go on
13:07
the weekend and like sign up to do
13:09
something. But that's a daily choice of
13:11
like, am I going to give up being
13:13
comfortable to feel like I'm advancing
13:14
society a meaningful way? That's a
13:16
beautiful thing.
13:18
>> Yeah. We're gonna we're going to talk
13:20
about the man in the arena shortly
13:22
because I don't I don't want to I want
13:23
to I want to keep people hanging on
13:25
because fun conversation.
13:28
>> Um
13:29
>> you're an immigrant. I shouldn't say
13:30
your parents are, right?
13:31
>> My parents. Yeah. Yeah. we first
13:32
conversation like that's I mean that's
13:34
you know in that in that by the way in
13:36
that speech a citizen republic
13:38
>> Roosevelt talks a lot about immigrants
13:40
>> and and and and that fabric in a society
13:43
>> and it is like that is one of the things
13:45
I love you know I talk about this from
13:47
Cleveland Ohio a lot of immigrant
13:48
culture there second third generation
13:50
but there's a grittiness in people who
13:52
show up with nothing and got to figure
13:54
it out
13:56
>> and that is like remains the bedrock of
13:59
America
14:00
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you use this the
14:03
term um service archetype that like to
14:07
me that that doesn't feel like branding
14:09
or marketing. I mean, it just feels very
14:11
personal.
14:12
>> Yeah, totally.
14:13
>> Where where where did where did that
14:15
language come from? Talk about your
14:17
roots.
14:19
>> You know, it's funny. This is this is
14:20
not staged, but since you're saying it,
14:22
it's feeling staged. But behind me is
14:24
I'm in my home office, my library, and I
14:26
call this um the service library. And
14:29
the reason is all these photos behind me
14:32
are people in my family who served. And
14:34
it's important my you have a daughter
14:35
who's six and I want her I don't want to
14:37
make it, you know, it's one of those
14:39
things I want it to just be passively
14:41
part of the fabric of our home which is
14:43
people served.
14:44
>> They chose to do something for others to
14:46
advance their society and community. And
14:47
that's just an important part of our
14:49
narrative whether she chooses that or
14:50
not. I want her to hurt, you know. But
14:52
>> um
14:53
>> over time I realized that that was just
14:56
a really
14:58
um
14:59
prevalent part of my life that I adm the
15:01
people I admired and wanted to be like,
15:03
they were all serving something or had
15:04
served. My grandparents, my uncles, my
15:07
mom, and my mom was a nurse. Um and and
15:10
I think about the people um the real
15:15
this is such an overused term but the
15:17
the people we should celebrate the
15:18
heroes are usually people you don't hear
15:21
about uh the person that's waking up in
15:23
the middle of the night because they get
15:24
a phone call or you know a pager or a
15:26
phone goes off and they got to go
15:28
>> save someone they don't know. Like
15:30
>> that's easy to talk about but we just
15:32
don't appreciate how brutal that is. Um,
15:36
on Veterans Day, a friend of mine wrote
15:37
this beautiful post and he said, "You
15:39
know, someone's going to thank you for
15:40
your service."
15:42
>> Um, or you're going to thank someone for
15:44
their service, but know that right now
15:45
there's an 18-year-old carrying a rifle
15:47
in a country you've never heard of in
15:49
the middle of the night willing to die
15:51
for you.
15:53
The best thing you can do is to live a
15:55
full life to honor that service. And
15:58
that's like to me that is just it fires
16:01
me up thinking about that. Like there's
16:02
no other country in the world that's
16:03
true. And so the service archetype is
16:06
the person who raises his or her hand
16:10
whether to steward their fellow citizens
16:13
either to be to teach to be a first
16:15
responder, a police officer,
16:18
nurse, doctor, military.
16:21
>> For American society to flourish, it's
16:23
always been true that a small number of
16:24
people choose that path.
16:27
>> Usually they're never fully celebrated
16:29
or appreciated, but that doesn't matter
16:30
to them. And so that to me is like it's
16:34
the thing that fires me up. It um and
16:37
it's the thing I'm most humbled to be a
16:39
part of. And if I can continue to figure
16:42
out ways to live a life where my life's
16:44
work is around those people and serving
16:46
them, that feels fulfilling to me.
16:49
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's like when you serve it,
16:51
like this is not a job.
16:54
>> Like it's just something that you do.
16:55
>> It's who you are. And I see that happen
16:59
with a number of clinicians that I'm,
17:01
you know, personal friends with. I mean,
17:02
it's not a job, man. It's like it's a
17:04
calling. They're
17:06
>> well, and that important distinction,
17:09
and I talk about this a lot,
17:11
>> the basis of the service archetype
17:14
>> is the inspired soul. The person who's
17:18
like, man, that thing, I can't look away
17:20
from it. I need to do that thing. I need
17:22
to go serve. I want to be someone
17:24
wearing the nation's cloth protecting
17:26
overseas. I want to be the guy that gets
17:29
the phone call after car accident two in
17:31
the morning to go save a life.
17:32
>> Yeah.
17:33
>> And because that inspired soul, that
17:34
concept is so powerful, the service
17:37
archetype has a capacity to go beyond
17:39
their body's capacity physically into a
17:42
state of depletion against the better
17:44
angels of their nature because they
17:45
believe in something bigger. It's not
17:47
about them. It's about society. It's
17:49
about their community.
17:50
>> And that's why we see higher rates of
17:52
burnout, PTSD, stress. And it's why I
17:55
think our work
17:57
at Arena is so paramount because those
18:00
people um will deplete themselves over
18:03
time until it left.
18:06
>> Yeah. When did you start spending time
18:10
inside hospitals and health systems?
18:12
Like talk about the kind of the origin.
18:14
>> Um overtly I was actually still on
18:17
active duty in the military. My last job
18:18
with the military I I um I'd been
18:20
introduced to a heart surgeon at the
18:22
Cleveland Clinic. that was sort of out
18:23
of novelty frankly to like I wanted to
18:25
learn. I wanted to see how other high
18:27
performing teams thought about the
18:28
intersection of technology and
18:29
performance. The irony is that
18:31
healthcare doesn't um I just assumed
18:34
they did. I went to the Cleveland
18:35
Clinic, number one institution in the
18:36
world for 30 years in heart surgery to
18:38
be clear like incredibly capable team
18:41
and people and technology but no overt
18:45
thinking on performance in in terms of
18:47
training people for recovery and sleep.
18:50
Um but at that time you know I I watched
18:53
two um what are called coronary artery
18:55
bypass graphs cabbages um two heart
18:58
surgeries
18:59
>> and that blew my mind. It was an amazing
19:01
opportunity. My mom had been a nurse so
19:03
it was like life come full circle.
19:04
>> Yeah.
19:05
>> And then I spent the next god five years
19:06
I mean I've watched at this point I I
19:09
don't know hundreds and hundreds of
19:10
surgeries maybe thousands I don't know.
19:12
Um, I always say like that gave me kind
19:14
of a master's degree in healthcare.
19:16
There's tons of hours in in OS and EDS
19:18
and ICUs and um, it's important if
19:21
you're going to build any solution, you
19:23
need to understand the problem from the
19:24
inside. And so that
19:26
>> yeah, you know, I didn't know how
19:28
important that would be at the time, but
19:29
but spent a lot of time around doctors,
19:31
nurses. So coming from the military
19:33
world and kind of going in diving into
19:37
the healthcare world, um were there some
19:40
things that felt like very familiar?
19:43
>> It sounds like to me what what surprised
19:45
you most was the the lack of like you
19:50
said the the performance side like sleep
19:52
and recovery. Um
19:54
>> yeah,
19:55
>> but yeah. Was there anything that felt
19:56
like wildly similar, Michael? It's the
19:58
reason I love the work. It is it the
20:00
landscapes could not be more similar you
20:02
know to an outsider might go really the
20:04
military and healthcare but like the
20:05
service archetype is prolific these are
20:07
all people who are not in it for the
20:09
money um I mean even the people who make
20:11
a lot of money in healthcare maybe your
20:13
worldass surgeon like they didn't come
20:15
in thinking I'm going to make a ton of
20:16
money like they had to earn that um so
20:18
it's not about money it's about service
20:20
it's about doing hard things
20:22
>> I mean talk about grit most parts most
20:25
hospitals especially if you're talking
20:26
about high acuity like trauma ED ICU, O
20:30
like these are gritty people that don't
20:32
mind waking up in the middle of the
20:34
night or working an early shift.
20:36
>> Um, it's the same as the military.
20:38
Highly diverse, by the way. Like
20:39
>> we, you know, today there's so much just
20:42
uh tension in society around
20:44
>> Yeah.
20:45
>> diversity, but like these institutions,
20:47
diversity is just part of the currency.
20:48
No one really thinks about it.
20:50
>> Um, and then it's ultimately like it's
20:52
just a place where people feel impact
20:54
viscerally every day. Like when you when
20:57
you're in the military, when you're in
20:59
healthcare, it's very clear like we we
21:01
have a sort of this deficit of purpose
21:03
and meaning in the modern world. Like
21:04
those places that's not the case. Like
21:06
when you're on a medical team, if
21:08
anything, you have too much of it and
21:09
it's exhausting you.
21:10
>> Yeah.
21:10
>> And so so the work is to give people the
21:12
tools so that they can feel that
21:14
inspired soul and feel restored and feel
21:16
that purpose and not be drowned in it.
21:20
>> Yeah. Because you know, I mean, look,
21:21
like healthcare, there is no offseason.
21:23
It's just it's just unrelenting. Yeah.
21:25
Yeah. And
21:25
>> anybody that's built to serve, like we
21:28
mentioned earlier, like it's part of
21:29
their core fabric of who they are. It's
21:31
their identity. They're just going to go
21:32
until literally to till nothing.
21:35
>> 100%.
21:36
>> What What is just the unseen toll of
21:40
that like of that reality and especially
21:42
it happening at the scale that it's
21:44
happening at?
21:45
>> Yeah. I mean, I think it's um
21:51
how do I answer that without um I I
21:53
don't want to what I don't want to do is
21:55
lean into the pandering narrative that
21:56
everyone's broken in healthcare. I think
21:58
that's its own problem. I think
21:59
healthcare leaders especially want to
22:01
tell you there's a certain there's a
22:03
certain subset of people in healthcare
22:05
who are excited to tell you how hard and
22:07
bad it is and I think that's where
22:08
healthcare gets in its own way. Um and
22:11
part of that is that um
22:14
that I would say one of the differences
22:16
in the military versus healthcare.
22:20
In the military when you sign up
22:23
you're very aware of the sacrifice and
22:24
the toll and um especially maybe because
22:27
in the last 20 years we we've generally
22:28
been in combat. So so or we've been at
22:30
war. So people know that um and they
22:33
know there's challenges with it.
22:35
>> Yeah. in healthcare at some point like
22:38
it's all about brokenness and and and in
22:40
fairness the military got to that point
22:43
and I would say when I left the military
22:45
2017 there was this building narrative
22:47
around PTSD and the brokenness that that
22:49
wars had caused.
22:51
>> But what I learned and saw was that for
22:53
as much as we were investing in
22:54
resources to prevent PTSD, no one wants
22:57
to be told they're broken. If I say to
22:58
you, Michael, you are broken or you will
23:00
be, it's human nature to move away from
23:02
that narrative.
23:03
>> Yeah. And so when we talk through the
23:04
aspirational lens of performance and
23:07
flourishing, we're drawn to it. Even
23:09
though the things that make us flourish
23:10
are the same things that prevent us from
23:12
being burned out or broken. I think
23:14
healthcare has not quite figured that
23:16
out and continues to double down on
23:20
burnout, brokenness, how hard things
23:22
are, and the hidden narrative. And it is
23:24
real to be clear. Like just like I saw
23:26
my mom struggle and suffer because she
23:28
loved what she did and she was juggling
23:30
raising a family and two kids. like
23:32
that's very real for a lot of people in
23:33
the front lines of medicine and there's
23:34
bad leaders and there's institutions
23:36
that aren't making the right
23:37
investments,
23:38
>> but these are also people who like want
23:39
to do hard things.
23:41
>> Um, and so I think giving them the tools
23:43
to feel like they have a sense of
23:45
agency. um to not have to just be part
23:48
of the broken narrative. I think that's
23:50
really important and and for most of the
23:53
people we work with that is a preferred
23:54
path rather than um you know the the
23:58
things that feel like again they're
23:59
they're sort of pandering.
24:01
>> Yeah. I mean any high-capacity leader
24:03
that I know that I speak to that is
24:06
doing hard things when people ask them
24:09
how they're doing the default mechanism
24:11
is everything's fine, everything's
24:14
>> keep pushing forward. Obviously, when
24:15
you get behind private doors and there's
24:18
a relationship and they can they can
24:20
really share what's going on, but the
24:22
most are not they don't want to admit.
24:25
They don't want to say like, "Yeah, I'm
24:27
burnt out."
24:28
>> Yeah.
24:29
>> If anything, they want to just keep
24:30
serving, keep doing keep doing more. I'm
24:33
I'm kind of wondering because when I
24:35
think about Arena Labs and the mission
24:37
and the manifesto, which is which is
24:40
sick, by the way, it's amazing. If
24:41
anyone hasn't read it, it's phenomenal.
24:43
Um, you don't build something like that
24:45
unless something very real happens like
24:48
in your life.
24:49
>> Yeah.
24:49
>> Was there um I guess a moment
24:53
>> when when when
24:55
this work kind of stopped just being
24:56
just interesting to you and started
24:58
being very necessary?
25:00
I mean, I think it's just been um
25:06
it's definitely been the arc of my own
25:07
life. Um,
25:10
yeah. I mean, I I think again I I was
25:13
raised in a household where I watched my
25:15
mom give herself to something she
25:17
believed in, but I also saw the toll
25:19
that took. Um, you know, my mom my mom
25:22
passed away relatively young and, you
25:25
know, I I I would uh it's hard. You
25:28
never know, you know, what she had she
25:30
had leukemia. You you never know what
25:32
causes those things.
25:33
say that like an undue toll of stress
25:36
and imbalance in her life contributed to
25:38
some component of that. Um, and and just
25:42
classically being someone who didn't
25:43
take care of herself. Now, that wouldn't
25:45
have just been solved through something
25:46
like we've done, but I do think these
25:48
things contribute teaching people the
25:50
the the intelligent ways to um take a
25:54
knee when necessary. And then in the
25:56
military, I saw the same play out. I and
25:58
I also in the military was able to see
26:01
how small tools and solutions have an
26:03
asymmetric return on value. Uh meaning
26:06
if you teach someone early how to sleep
26:09
properly,
26:10
>> right?
26:10
>> And what it means to sleep well and you
26:12
do that on the front end of a career,
26:14
you compound that over two decades,
26:16
you're literally changing the course of
26:17
someone's life.
26:18
>> Uh teach someone how to use the breath
26:20
to deactivate the nervous system when
26:22
they're stressed. Sounds silly like,
26:23
"Oh, for real, we're talking breathing
26:24
techniques." No, like you if you learn
26:26
that skill now and you play that out
26:29
over 20 years, like you're talking about
26:30
a fundamentally different nervous
26:32
system. Um that I learned.
26:35
>> Can you share an example of that of that
26:36
breathing technique? Like now like right
26:38
now?
26:38
>> Yeah. I mean I think like um you know
26:41
there's the one of the things we teach
26:43
on our platform is just the
26:44
physiological side. This has been
26:45
popularized by Dr. Andrew Huberman. He
26:47
teaches it. It's just it's two inhales
26:49
through the nose
26:53
>> and a long exhale through the mouth.
26:56
>> And you do that like you think about
26:57
doing that through behind a mask in the
26:59
O you know with scrubs on just a
27:03
>> and that's like one of there's so many
27:04
different breath routines. There's
27:06
people who will sit and you know just
27:07
breathe box breathe like inhale four
27:10
hold four exhale four hold four.
27:12
>> Right. Right. something where we are the
27:15
what is more or I should say what is as
27:17
important as the act of breathing is the
27:22
mechanism of stepping back because you
27:24
realize that your nervous system is in
27:25
sympathetic state and one of the things
27:28
you in sympathetic state means you're in
27:30
fight or flight and in our nervous
27:31
system we're like
27:32
>> we're in one or the other we're in fight
27:34
or flight or rest and digest
27:36
parasympathetic sympathetic some of this
27:38
language is getting more popularized
27:39
today right
27:40
>> but at a basic level we think about like
27:41
most people in societ Y feel more
27:44
stressed today than they did 5 years
27:45
ago, let alone 10. And so the superpower
27:48
in today's world is like how do you
27:49
downregulate? How do you get that
27:50
nervous system from being in
27:52
sympathetic, alert, you know, sort of on
27:54
edge to being relaxed? Well, that's that
27:57
order of magnitude is substantially
27:59
higher in healthcare because you are
28:01
literally taught and wired to save
28:03
lives, which means you have to be in
28:05
sympathetic state. So what happens is
28:07
you maladapt to being comfortable in
28:09
sympathetic state. Same with operators
28:11
in the military.
28:12
>> So what we know is if we give people
28:14
these basic tools,
28:15
>> it has this really huge return on
28:18
investment over time,
28:19
>> right,
28:20
>> if they put them into play.
28:21
>> Um, and so for me, like to your earlier
28:24
question, like when did that become
28:25
clear? I just think I saw I saw two very
28:29
different outcomes over in my life in
28:30
people who learn to self-regulate and
28:33
those that did not in in these high
28:35
stress environments because if you don't
28:38
um it it plays out I mean the discussion
28:40
I had yesterday sport is less
28:43
consequential I mean there's just in a
28:45
real terms while I love pro sport
28:48
>> the stakes are not the same however
28:50
>> pro sport is a really interesting analog
28:53
because the there's so much money in
28:54
sport people spend on what they know
28:57
gets returned. And so you can look at
29:00
pro sport and you can say the discussion
29:02
I had yesterday with my friend Ed from
29:04
the Lakers is take LeBron James,
29:08
we know what works and LeBron has proven
29:10
it through consistency, through
29:11
discipline, and through the basics. The
29:14
NBA is a league that's about talent.
29:16
Meaning like everyone comes in, it's
29:18
pure talent and you can survive on
29:19
talent for five maybe five, seven years
29:22
>> and then if you want to keep going it's
29:24
about routine discipline and doing the
29:26
basics well
29:27
>> and it is wild to see the divergence
29:29
between people come in on pure talent
29:31
and those who take your talent and
29:32
combine it with the basics. So if we
29:35
take that concept and we say okay if I
29:37
want to be a world-class doctor or nurse
29:39
like I can survive on not caring and
29:42
just saying this is about the patient I
29:44
don't need to sleep I eat whatever I
29:46
want that works maybe out of medical
29:48
school and residency for a little while
29:50
but I can tell you in our data in health
29:52
in in at arena and what we see in
29:54
healthcare is like there's a cliff that
29:56
comes pretty quickly like people just
29:58
start you can start to see their nervous
30:00
system activity again they're maladapted
30:02
>> they they've got really low HRV their
30:04
heart rates elevated, their sleep
30:06
architecture is jacked up. Um, and so
30:09
when you show those people that data,
30:11
they turn around and go, "Hey, you know
30:12
what? Like, I actually didn't know how
30:14
much I needed this, but what are the
30:15
tools I can do to reset this arc?"
30:17
Because the current arc I'm on doesn't
30:18
end well.
30:20
>> Yeah. I mean, because if you think about
30:21
healthcare, just in general, just the
30:23
strongest leaders, um, they're usually
30:26
the one that everyone kind of leans on.
30:28
U, but to me, they're also the last ones
30:30
that like anybody actually ever checks
30:33
on. Yeah,
30:34
>> that's to me that's a huge problem.
30:35
>> Yeah. And that is that is to be clear
30:38
for to to the front end of this
30:40
conversation there's an accountability
30:41
mechanism missing and that I would argue
30:44
is most healthcare leaders and and I'll
30:46
gladly take flack for that. I do not see
30:48
a lot of healthcare leaders who see
30:50
themselves as leaders responsible for
30:52
stewarding human system. And that is the
30:54
difference in the military. If you take
30:55
the average military leader, they know
30:57
very clearly I'm responsible for the
30:59
next generation. I'm taking care of my
31:01
troops. You go into the average hospital
31:03
and you grab the the a healthcare
31:05
leader, they are thinking about patient
31:06
throughput. They're thinking about
31:07
turnover time. They're thinking about
31:09
marginal value,
31:11
>> but no one's really going how are my
31:13
people doing and that is not because
31:15
they don't care. It's because healthcare
31:17
does not teach people early on to lead
31:19
and what it means to lead at scale when
31:21
it matters.
31:25
>> So when when people hear performance, uh
31:28
maybe maybe they think pressure.
31:30
>> Yep. I think you you mean you mean
31:32
something different. I mean, so how do
31:34
you explain
31:36
predictive performance to someone who
31:39
>> Yeah, a lot of buzz words there, right?
31:40
Yeah.
31:41
>> Who's already exhausted?
31:42
>> Totally. It's a great question, Michael.
31:44
And I say this all the time. Performance
31:47
is not about doing more. It usually is
31:50
doing less. If I want to perform at my
31:53
best
31:54
>> in X, fill in the blank. as a father, as
31:58
a community member, as a doctor, as a
32:00
nurse.
32:02
In order to do that, I have to have the
32:04
capacity for presence.
32:07
Presence only comes by virtue of having
32:10
the attention and the emotional
32:13
tank to be present. When I am
32:16
underslept, when I am maladapted to
32:18
sympathetic state, my HRV is 10 and my
32:21
heart rate's 50% higher than it was 10
32:23
years ago. I'm not in a state where I
32:25
can be present in the way that I want
32:26
to. So performing at my best means
32:30
learning the tools to restore, recover,
32:32
refill my tank. That usually has nothing
32:35
to do with the hospital or work. It has
32:38
everything to do with how do you spend
32:39
your time outside the hospital?
32:41
>> How are you intentional with the way you
32:43
rest and recover even if you do work
32:45
call
32:46
>> on a weekend?
32:48
>> How do you think about your Sunday off
32:50
to restore yourself? Not just by being,
32:54
you know, sort of sedentary or
32:55
overprescribed with your family, but
32:58
making time to do something that refills
33:00
your tank.
33:01
>> And again, those things can feel trit,
33:02
but when they play out well, that
33:05
performance, it usually means
33:07
downregulating, taking something off the
33:09
table, being quiet, still in nature. Um,
33:13
and so we always say like performance
33:15
for us is subtractive. It's not
33:16
additive. Hm. So, what do you say to the
33:20
and I'm just thinking of, you know, the
33:23
uh the hospital executive or maybe some
33:26
some leader that might say, you know
33:28
what, this all sounds great.
33:30
>> But you know what? We're barely
33:32
surviving financially, which is true for
33:35
many health systems today. Really, it's
33:37
hard.
33:39
>> What if they say,
33:41
>> "Brian, we can't afford to focus on
33:45
caregiver well-being right now." like
33:47
what
33:48
>> like what is the mistake in that
33:50
thinking?
33:50
>> Yeah, I think it's probably this is to
33:54
maybe be provocative and maybe
33:56
incendiary, but like I actually think
33:58
it's probably the most illogical set of
34:01
thoughts in American society. When you
34:03
look at the the economic impact of
34:06
medical air, of health care costs, of
34:10
turnover, all these things that are like
34:12
such big numbers we can't even
34:14
conceptually make them concrete. It's
34:15
like
34:16
>> hundred billion dollars. Just crazy
34:17
numbers.
34:18
>> That aside, if you go into the average
34:20
institution in healthcare and you go on
34:23
any website right now, you pull up any
34:26
any American health system, I guarantee
34:28
it says some version of like we provide
34:30
world-class patient care. We love our
34:32
patients. Our patients matter. Totally
34:34
get it. That's great. Everybody goes
34:37
into healthcare for the patient
34:39
>> bar none. No one goes into like maybe
34:41
people are interested in like the human
34:42
heart, but they want to do it. They
34:44
choose humans because they want to
34:45
steward human health. They otherwise
34:46
they'd be vets or they'd do something
34:48
else. So the breakdown is to say the
34:52
most important thing we're doing is
34:54
taking care of this externality of the
34:56
patient.
34:58
But the way we're going to do that is at
35:00
all costs to the person providing care.
35:04
>> Yeah. meaning I'm going to do whatever
35:06
necessary for this patient and that's
35:08
probably going to cost me the doctors
35:10
and nurses taking care of the patient
35:12
and that is acceptable and it's not
35:14
acceptable because they we want that to
35:15
happen. It's just we haven't actually
35:17
thought about the reverse logic which
35:19
says if I want to provide worldclass
35:21
quality and care that means the person
35:23
providing care has to be at their best
35:25
definitionally. If they're not, I am
35:28
actually providing reduced quality in
35:29
care period.
35:31
>> And I don't like I'm I'm always amazed
35:34
that that feels like a novel concept.
35:36
And people make a lot of excuses around
35:37
it. Oh, you don't understand. No, I've
35:39
been in hospitals. I understand. There's
35:41
just no moment in the day or there's not
35:43
very little messaging. The messaging is
35:45
always like, hey, we're going to give
35:46
you a pizza party. We appreciate your
35:48
work.
35:49
>> Uh the doctor's wellness committee wants
35:51
dry cleaning. But no one's like, "Hey,
35:53
how are we really thinking about
35:55
measuring and impacting well-being in a
35:58
way that demonstrabably moves the
36:00
needle." Um, that's 100% a leadership
36:02
issue. And most people who make the
36:06
financial argument, I think it's a
36:08
copout. Like I really do. Um, there are
36:11
every organization has trade-offs. The
36:13
question is what are you investing in it
36:15
that is more important than your doctors
36:16
and nurses.
36:18
So for those that are committed to
36:22
improving and creating elite performance
36:24
for doctors and nurses, give me like the
36:27
fundamentals like how does it work with
36:31
Arena Labs and are there any cool
36:33
stories that you can share? Yeah.
36:35
>> Uh as a result of that work.
36:38
>> Yeah. Number one, I appreciate asking
36:40
that question, setting you up to talk
36:41
about our work, but let me be clear,
36:43
there's ways to do it without our
36:44
company. We do this. Yeah. Um I we do
36:47
work with health systems that are
36:49
investing in their people. Um as an
36:51
example, we're working right now with
36:52
HCA. A lot of people get angry. HCA is
36:55
for profofit. What HCA does very well is
36:58
they deliberately invest in people to be
37:00
leaders and they deliberately invest in
37:02
people to be managers. And they think
37:04
about that at different levels in
37:05
organization. And I find that inspiring
37:08
because I think it's a huge missing
37:09
piece of American healthcare.
37:11
Everybody's busy and and focused on the
37:14
patient on the thing in front of them.
37:15
>> Yeah. And leaders need to be thinking
37:17
about the people around them. So, so
37:19
that aside, um, at Arena, like we work
37:22
with Epic, there are a lot of leaders
37:25
who are hungry to figure this out and
37:27
say, "Look, to your question,
37:29
>> um, we want to make an investment here.
37:31
We know that our people matter and and
37:33
we just don't have a precedent. We don't
37:35
have a solution."
37:36
>> Yeah. And so when we come in, number
37:39
one, our goal is to put a performance
37:42
coach in the pocket of every doctor and
37:44
nurse in America. We believe every
37:47
doctor and nurse just like LeBron James,
37:49
just like Tom Brady, just like a Navy
37:51
Seal should have the tools they need to
37:54
manage their stress and pressure
37:56
dayto-day and over the long arc of a
37:58
career to improve rest and recovery even
38:00
when it's tough even after call and to
38:03
balance energy. And so to do that, we
38:06
provide them with a platform that gives
38:07
them a human coach that they can access
38:09
24/7. It gives them a wearable sensor,
38:11
so we get a biometric reading of their
38:13
lifestyle signature and it gives them
38:15
the curriculum and the tools to learn
38:16
based on what they need.
38:19
>> When we do that individually, if we do
38:21
it across a service line and a health
38:23
system, so advocate health, we just
38:25
worked with their emergency service
38:26
their emergency department um across the
38:28
organization. So about 400 people, we
38:31
get a lifestyle signature individually
38:33
across 400 people. We aggregate that. Um
38:36
and then the leadership there is saying,
38:38
"Oh wow." Like as an example, um last
38:41
year during the hurricane, hurricane
38:43
Helen,
38:44
>> you can you can see very clearly the
38:47
signature that a crisis event has on the
38:50
physiology of a human system in the
38:53
Carolinas versus Chicago in in the case
38:56
of health system.
38:57
>> What are they getting to measure that?
38:58
like you giving them just like a a
39:00
simple device that they need to wear.
39:02
>> We do qualitative and quantitative. So
39:04
the qualitative side is we ask we have a
39:06
essentially a daily check-in. How are
39:08
you doing?
39:08
>> Yeah.
39:09
>> Uh really basic and we we give people a
39:11
chance to throw notes in there. So it's
39:13
just like
39:14
>> today was you know rough rough morning
39:16
case got behind the curve and never
39:17
recovered or epic day just had a really
39:20
good connection with my team whatever it
39:21
is. And so um our data and analytics
39:24
team in the back end can just do a very
39:26
simple sentiment analysis on all that
39:29
language and say like what are the words
39:30
that are popping up what's happening
39:32
>> and and this idea of sentiment or human
39:34
emotion in aggregate language is
39:36
actually quite powerful because you can
39:37
imagine people in North Carolina during
39:39
a hurricane like the stuff they're
39:41
saying emergency department is just
39:42
heavy
39:43
>> versus you know a place that's in sort
39:46
of steady state operations. Um, but we
39:49
also measure it quantitatively through a
39:51
wearable sensor. So, so we measure
39:52
physiology and we're looking at people's
39:54
general sleeping patterns and we're
39:56
looking at the nervous system. Back to
39:58
the earlier part of this conversation
40:00
are, you know, that that the nervous
40:02
system is generally best measured today
40:04
through what's called heart rate
40:05
variability. So, so the variance between
40:07
heartbeats is a signal of your nervous
40:09
system either being in that sympathetic
40:11
fight or flight or parasympathetic rest
40:12
and digest. And so we look at that over
40:15
time and say, "Okay, is this person are
40:17
we seeing them kind of move through a
40:19
healthy cycle of stress and recovery?
40:21
Are they stuck in that sympathetic fight
40:23
or flight or are they are they just
40:25
really relaxed?" You can imagine again
40:27
in a hurricane in the aggregate that
40:28
human system you see that stress go up
40:31
and it the residual or the tail on that
40:34
is actually that that to me is the most
40:35
to your point on really compelling
40:37
stories. I think what happens in any
40:39
organization
40:41
um but especially in healthcare where
40:42
you have a high operational tempo you
40:44
have a crisis event so you have a you
40:47
know uh you're in trauma and you have
40:49
just a heavy weekend and then you you go
40:51
home and sleep and then Monday you're
40:53
kind of back to normal you think you are
40:55
but the actual your nervous system still
40:57
experiences residual and that residual
40:59
depending on the intensity or the acuity
41:01
of that crisis event it can be days if
41:04
not weeks um and we see that in the
41:06
human signature Again, like that's not
41:08
to say everyone should go home and rest
41:10
and be off. The question for leaders
41:12
>> is okay, what are the tools we give
41:14
people to accelerate the recovery and or
41:18
diminish the impacts of that residual
41:20
crisis event.
41:22
>> So you have this, you know, you have
41:23
data, you have the insights. What are
41:25
the actions that you hope that leaders
41:28
take?
41:29
>> So they see this information, they see
41:30
this event and sometimes you maybe it's
41:33
not a, you know, a catastrophic natural
41:36
disaster. Maybe it's something else.
41:38
What what do you hope are the actions
41:40
that these leaders are taking you know
41:42
for their team? Are there any examp
41:49
you know our thesis has always been
41:51
first we've got to create an individual
41:53
toolkit and an individual set of actions
41:55
that create a data set that shows
41:59
demonstrable movement. So we need to
42:01
show like hey over eight weeks we can
42:03
move someone's psychophysiology their
42:05
sense of self and their overall
42:07
well-being through sleep and stress and
42:10
we've done IRBs now independent review
42:12
boards that that look at that and show
42:13
that we can demonstraably do that
42:15
through our platform very proud we're
42:16
about to publish in GMA uh next month
42:19
>> um
42:20
>> but at the same time the individual
42:23
story while profound and powerful is
42:25
only profound and powerful if we can
42:27
tell it as an aggregate story that a
42:29
leader can then look at make sense of
42:31
and take action on. So where we're at
42:34
now um the bigger institutions we work
42:37
with again advocate HCA what I admire
42:39
about them is they are they are doing
42:41
the work of saying okay how do we put
42:44
this how do we operationalize this
42:46
>> healthcare is very good at
42:48
operationalizing data again patient
42:49
throughput turnover time first case on
42:51
time starts how do we operationalize
42:55
the physiology and well-being of our
42:56
team because pro sports does this we
42:59
know that if someone is in a real if
43:00
someone has too much load on their
43:02
system in the NBA, meaning they were
43:04
they they played more minutes than
43:06
expected and they put more they were in
43:08
deceleration at a
43:09
>> more than they should have been. It is
43:11
highly likely they're going to rest more
43:13
the next game. Now, healthcare, these
43:15
gritty environments, just like the
43:16
military, you can't just say, "Hey, take
43:18
the day off." But what we can do is we
43:21
can think about operational structure.
43:23
We can think about, okay, at a basic
43:25
level, if there's a crisis event, this
43:28
sounds trit, but this is better than
43:29
nothing. How do we think about our
43:32
standup when when we've got our huddles
43:34
in the morning? Our nurse managers
43:36
talking to nurses about basic recovery
43:38
principles. This is what the military
43:40
does really well. Just hit the basics,
43:42
hammer the trit and basic stuff
43:44
regularly and remind people about sleep
43:46
hygiene.
43:46
>> Yeah.
43:47
>> Remind people about sleep consistency.
43:49
Um but take the aggregate data set and
43:52
then integrate that into just the the
43:53
the subtle operations of the day. That's
43:56
how you culturally move the needle
43:58
around performance rather than just kind
44:01
of throwing stuff at the wall.
44:04
>> Yeah. I mean, look, people need to be
44:05
reminded more than they need to be
44:06
instructed. And sometimes, like you
44:08
said, we miss the basics.
44:10
>> So, if you're looking out
44:12
years from now,
44:13
>> Yeah.
44:14
>> Um, and if Arena Labs is doing exactly
44:18
what you hope it does,
44:20
>> Yep. What's going to be different about
44:24
this
44:26
healthcare workforce?
44:27
>> Yep.
44:29
Yeah. I I think number one um at the
44:32
individual the frontline level at the
44:35
lowest common denominator I don't say
44:36
that pjoratively but the the lowest
44:38
entry person right out of scrub tech
44:40
school right out of residency those
44:43
people are equipped with some toolkit
44:48
that allows them to be self-aware
44:51
on the risks of stress and unadressed
44:55
and more importantly the tools to give
44:57
them a sense of agency of what to in
44:59
increasingly consequential environments
45:01
as they move from scrub tech to nurse
45:03
manager and up they know what's required
45:06
and that toolkit's been provided by
45:08
arena at the same time in the seauite of
45:11
that hospital they work in when you go
45:14
to that morning operations meeting and
45:16
people talk about the amount of beds
45:18
that are full and the prior number of
45:21
patients that came through and
45:22
throughput
45:23
>> right
45:24
>> aggregate data sets on well-being around
45:27
sleep around readiness iness of the
45:29
workforce is considered a core
45:31
operational metric
45:35
>> because we have proven those operational
45:39
metrics when in the green are reducing
45:43
medical error they are reducing all of
45:46
the things that cost the hospital
45:47
heavily from turnover to air.
45:50
>> Yeah. Yeah. So when you think about like
45:51
you know red, yellow, green or you know
45:54
people that are in the red those are the
45:55
ones that at risk of you know maybe
45:57
they're overreving their engines and
45:59
those are the
46:00
>> those are the insights and exactly the
46:02
actions that they need to take based on
46:04
the aggregate data that you're
46:06
showcasing.
46:07
>> Yeah. And the thing about that Michael
46:08
is um those people in the red take
46:11
another analog industry of aviation. We
46:14
learned the hard way the people in the
46:16
red are dangerous. There's a reason that
46:18
when you take a flight from Chicago to
46:20
Nashville, the FAA regulates crew rest
46:22
time for that pilot and flight
46:23
attendants.
46:25
>> Our hope is not I I have no interest in
46:28
being part of the regulatory state and
46:29
mandating things. My hope is that we can
46:31
convince healthcare institutions if you
46:33
want to be world class in patient
46:35
quality and safety and care. The way to
46:37
do that is by keeping your pilots in the
46:40
green, in this case, your surgeons in
46:42
the green, which means making basic
46:44
investments that allow people to feel
46:47
the sense of agency to recover
46:49
intelligently. And that that is a
46:51
two-way economy. To be clear, I'm not
46:53
putting all of the onus on the surgeon
46:55
because
46:56
>> yeah,
46:56
>> a surgeon that knows how to rest and
46:58
recover that's still being pulled in
47:00
because the hospital's down to surgeons
47:02
who left because there are too many
47:03
operations. That's that's a problem the
47:05
institution needs to solve. We believe
47:08
creating the the the data is profound,
47:12
but data is simply a compass. The map
47:15
>> of how to use that data needs to be at
47:18
the institutional level. And that's our
47:20
work at Arena to train leaders how to be
47:22
proficient in the data of the human
47:24
system and use it to improve operations,
47:27
reduce turnover, medical error, etc.
47:30
>> So maybe we've got uh a clinician that's
47:34
that's listening to this, um a senior
47:36
leader that's listening to this
47:38
>> and they're they're showing up every
47:40
day.
47:41
>> Yep.
47:41
>> Exhausted but committed.
47:44
>> Yep.
47:44
>> What what do you most want them to hear?
47:48
Um, I hope something that I said either
47:51
made you angry or inspired.
47:54
If you are inspired
47:56
and you're already doing this,
47:59
I I would love to get to work with you
48:01
and understand how you're doing it. If
48:04
you were angry, I would ask why are you
48:06
angry? Are you angry because it's not
48:10
true that you don't think this is a
48:11
leadership challenge if you're a leader?
48:13
and ask yourself, are you really leading
48:15
your people in providing solutions that
48:17
are novel and not just what's been done?
48:20
Now, if you're on the front lines, I
48:23
know what it's like to feel overwhelmed,
48:25
to not feel like you have the resources.
48:28
And I would love in any way to convince
48:33
your leadership that we can help solve
48:35
that problem with you, not for you, with
48:38
you. But it does require the leaders you
48:41
work for to believe they've got to do
48:43
things differently because the thing we
48:45
see again and again to your point,
48:46
Michael, you brought this up, you spend
48:48
your life around healthcare leaders. So
48:49
the fact that you're saying we don't
48:51
have the money means you've been told
48:53
hundreds of times by healthcare leaders,
48:55
we don't have the money for this.
48:56
>> Yeah. Yeah.
48:57
>> And I'm just at a point where I don't
48:59
actually believe that. I know that
49:01
healthcare is a resource constrained
49:02
environment. I run a business. It's a
49:05
resource constrained environment.
49:06
Resource constraint is a good thing
49:08
because it forces you to make hard
49:10
trade-offs. I think for too long
49:12
healthcare has made the wrong trade-offs
49:13
and that's why it's in a deficit right
49:14
now with this human system.
49:18
>> So, we're going to we're going to kind
49:19
of wrap where where we kind of put a
49:21
little pin before and um when we were
49:23
together in Nashville, Brian, you um you
49:26
handed me something that I didn't expect
49:28
and honestly I carry it with me in uh in
49:30
my bag everywhere I go. you gave me this
49:33
uh this badass military coin which uh
49:37
that's awesome to see
49:37
>> which has which has the quote of um you
49:40
know Teddy Roosevelt's men in the arena
49:44
>> maybe just sort of share with the
49:46
audience the like the significance of
49:48
receiving a military coin um and you
49:52
know who are the men and women in
49:55
healthcare that are in the arena right
49:57
now and uh
49:59
yeah go from there. Yeah, I appreciate
50:02
you. Uh that's a shout out to certainly
50:05
a culture way bigger than me, a legacy
50:06
way longer than anything I've seen. But
50:08
in the military, as I explained to you,
50:09
Michael, and and and you brought up
50:11
earlier the similarities between
50:12
military and healthcare cultures. Um and
50:15
back to that that gritty service where,
50:17
you know, resources are not abundant and
50:19
hard hard trade-offs have to be made.
50:21
You cannot in healthcare give people
50:23
expensive gifts. Um part of it is
50:26
there's there's laws against it just
50:28
like the military. You can't kind of buy
50:29
people off. And then more importantly,
50:31
like most of the people working in those
50:33
environments don't have a lot of money
50:34
to to buy expensive gifts. And so in the
50:37
military, one of the most sacred
50:39
resources that's exchanged are coins
50:43
because a coin is not about the cost of
50:45
the gift. It's about what it represents.
50:47
And a coin is only given to an
50:50
individual on behalf of a unit or a
50:53
commander saying, "Hey, you went above
50:54
and beyond. you represent the spirit of
50:57
service, the spirit of being a teammate,
51:00
the spirit of the mission um in a way
51:03
that we want to honor. And so coins are
51:05
not given out just kind of like as gifts
51:08
or uh willy-nilly. They're given out
51:10
very deliberately at moments of
51:13
consequence to honor an individual or a
51:15
team for going above and beyond in a
51:17
spirit of service.
51:18
So from that prior life, we have a few
51:22
veterans on our team and that was one of
51:24
the things we wanted to carry forward is
51:25
is how do we bring that same tradition
51:28
to the people we respect admire who are
51:30
doing the front lines and and it you
51:32
know the there's a subtext in that coin
51:34
that says for excellence on the front
51:35
lines. This is for people who are
51:37
advancing health care on the front
51:39
lines. And um you know then it it it it
51:42
carries the spirit of everything we
51:43
believe in about service and doing hard
51:45
things. And uh it's really fun because
51:47
most people in healthcare have that
51:49
reaction where they just like I do. In
51:51
fact behind me up here you can see I've
51:53
got some of my coins like some of those
51:55
are probably 15 years old and I still
51:56
treasure them. I can go look and I know
51:58
exactly who gave it to me, what happened
52:00
and where I was. And that's uh that's
52:02
more profound than any uh you know fancy
52:05
dinner bottle of wine.
52:07
>> Yeah, it um yeah, it really means a lot.
52:10
Like honestly, when you gave it to me, I
52:11
was like first the first thought that
52:13
came to my mind was like I do not
52:14
deserve this. Uh and then you explained
52:16
it and it just felt um
52:19
a deep sense of okay, I have this coin.
52:23
um you know I'm going to be the person
52:24
in the arena day in and day out not be
52:27
not because everybody's looking at me
52:28
but because like supposed to be doing
52:30
the work
52:31
>> not to receive you know the reward but
52:34
just just to do it in the work. So how
52:37
can people follow
52:39
Arena Labs keep track keep tabs of the
52:42
work you and the team are doing?
52:44
>> Yeah, thank you. Um arenalabs.co. That's
52:48
our website. Um would love to hear from
52:51
you again. um any reaction today the
52:54
conversation um Arena Labs on Instagram
52:57
and then on LinkedIn um and and those
53:00
are kind of I think the three mediums
53:02
where most people in healthcare live if
53:03
you're listening you got you know
53:05
someone in your family go hey you should
53:06
check this out uh send them our way and
53:09
um we are always hungry for just
53:12
frontline leaders who want to look at
53:13
the world a little different but who are
53:14
doing the hard work and I know
53:16
>> the way you live Michael you're
53:17
attracting a lot of those listeners and
53:18
I appreciate you uh letting me share our
53:21
mission here today really really
53:22
>> Yeah, man. Of course. Of course. It's my
53:24
pleasure. Just thanks for the
53:25
conversation and honestly what stayed
53:27
with me today is um it's not just about
53:31
it's not just talking about the
53:32
standards. It's not about just having
53:34
these things that are on a wall or
53:35
values that are on a wall, but it's like
53:37
the kind that you like you really live
53:39
by, you know, the kind that you use that
53:42
protect people when nobody's watching.
53:45
And um when I'm thinking about Arena
53:47
Labs now, it's like this isn't this
53:49
isn't just like a company like you all
53:52
are like this is a living breathing
53:53
promise and it means something to you
53:57
>> and showing up for the people and
53:59
serving those that serve others and
54:01
having the heart to serve those that
54:02
serve others. So if you're a clinician,
54:04
if you're a leader and you're listening
54:06
to this and you feel tired and you know
54:08
you feel like there's a lot going
54:10
on here. um your work is meaning your
54:15
your health matters.
54:17
So take action. You know, if there's a
54:19
toolkit or something Brian, you and the
54:21
team have come up with, uh we'll make
54:23
sure we put that in the description, you
54:25
know, to support, you know, these these
54:28
fearless leaders that are going out
54:29
there and doing this type of work. And
54:30
and by the way, uh if there is a topic
54:32
that you want us to explore, if you're
54:33
still tuning in, if there's a a leader
54:36
you want us to make sure we connect
54:39
with, uh I'd like to hear it. you know,
54:40
drop me a note, leave a comment. Um,
54:43
honestly, share this. That was probably
54:45
the best thing that you can do is share
54:46
with people that you care about. This is
54:48
a platform that's not just about
54:50
content. I mean, this is really a
54:51
community. It's a living, breathing
54:52
ecosystem. So, thank you for listening.
54:55
Keep building with purpose. And, uh, we
54:58
will see you next time on the Advancing
55:00
Healthcare Innovation Show.
55:03
>> Thank you.
55:04
>> You bet.