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Leadership in the Workplace | Panel w/ Leslie Trigg, Nadine Hachach-Haram & Amy Belt Raimundo

Medtech continuously develops some of the best leaders in any industry. The combination of putting patients first by saving and extending lives, while leading world class teams who produce some of the most innovative technology platforms requires agile, thoughtful and courageous leadership.
Speakers
Leslie Trigg
Leslie Trigg
CEO, Outset Medical
Nadine Hachach-Haram
Nadine Hachach-Haram
Founder & CEO, Proximie
Amy Belt Raimundo
Amy Belt Raimundo
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Convey Capital
Joe Mullings
Joe Mullings
Chairman & CEO, The Mullings Group Companies

Joe Mullings  0:08  
Well, thanks for joining me here at LSI 2022. I'm excited for this panel representing leadership in the med tech health tech industry. So I really appreciate all you joining us here. And I want to just jump right into it. We were having some great conversations beforehand. And as leaders in med tech right now, publicly traded company rapidly growing company soon to see if it goes public or not never know. That's me saying that not you. And from the investment community as well. How have you, Leslie, start with you? How have you started thinking about leading since January 2020? What are the dynamics that you're really plugged into that? Maybe were not on your radar screen before?

Leslie Trigg  0:52  
Pretty much everything. Maybe the easier question to answer is what's the same, because that would be one word, which is nothing. But I think more specifically, let's start with the beginning of the journey, which is recruiting. I never in my wildest dreams, I don't know about you guys thought I would ever hire anybody without meeting them in person. So we hired I want to say about 275 people last year, mostly, I would say almost entirely over zoom. So we've had to completely rethink the candidate expect from the candidates point of view, what is the candidate experience like? That's one, two, for sure. I would say for us the the hybridization, and then the geographical spread, I am very old fashioned. I really thought everybody was going to be hired from the Bay Area, work in the Bay Area together and be in an office together every single day. Now, out of that 650 employees, we only now have 100 in the Bay Area. So it has been a an explosion of talent across the country and also for us in Mexico. But that's led to a rethinking of how do you build culture, amplify culture, and make people feel bolted in versus just kind of bolted on? So those are just a couple of examples off the top of our head

Joe Mullings  2:04  
Curious, how do you build culture in a two dimensional zoom fatigue world? Right, because culture sort of historically, has been influenced by in person. So, Nadine, what have you changed? What have you noticed, with the explosive growth approximately? And then how do you maintain culture across?

Nadine Hachach-Haram  2:26  
I mean, I think you know, I would echo everything you said, I mean, it's it was definitely a surreal experience having to do that and triple or quadruple your team, you're trying to even think about how you're identifying the candidates, how you're wrapping around that kind of support infrastructure around them in a in a, in a world that's no longer in person, but at the same time, trying to identify the culture and the values. And so trying to really sync those up together. And, you know, we're in a little bit fortunate position in that the real draw of the talent that we bring in. And you need to look at the positives, you know, one of the great things about being able to be hybrid, you're bringing together lots of different cultures to influence a unit, a unifying culture of a company. So we've really been thinking a lot about that. But sometimes it's the, this the sort of straightforward things that you can do as well that just remind people and keep people hooked in and I like the bolt in versus bolt on comments. So you know, we are a company that's really working hard to try and connect and collaborate to enable the delivery of surgical care for patients and, and improve the quality and save lives for them. And so trying to really wrap around our values, and what we do around that culture was really important. So we started to introduce things like, you know, a monthly or weekly zoom, stand up, and then on that stand up, every week, someone will be sharing a mission and vision story, the why why are we doing what we do? How do we do it, even though they may not see anyone in the company for, you know, months at a time. But, you know, I definitely want to caveat that with it's not straightforward. I think anyone who says it's straightforward, you know, I'd like to know what their playbook is. It's, it's not but you know, we try to work really hard and invest in that space. And, you know, make sure that we're listening, that this is not static, this is dynamic, that we need to continue to change and evolve this and, you know, and we're learning as as as the whole world, this is not something that we've ever seen before. So I think it's just that humility and approaching and as well as really important.

Joe Mullings  4:16  
Amy, yourself and your role, especially.

Amy Belt Raimundo  4:18  
Yeah, it's interesting when COVID hit, we didn't think we didn't know what to do. We've never done an investment having never met a management team. And we thought, Oh, we're just gonna shut this whole thing down. And we are not going to make investments. And then it went on and on and on. And actually the last investment made, we had met the CEO the week before COVID, shut down. And so we made that investment, but then we were like, do we do any more? And it turns out, yeah, you can do investing. And you can fundraise. You can fundraise and in some ways you can get I mean, I completely agree with Leslie and Nadine's points that the challenges are as I come, I met I'm a three dimensional person person. But there are also new opportunities that I think there's an opportunity to exploit I mean, fundraising, you can get a lot more places a lot more efficiently. That way. Now, it's very difficult to build relationships. And so there's a, there's a trade off there. The other thing is, it's also easier to incorporate people from different locations, because we had, you know, people that were working remotely, that really struggled to get incorporated, that actually zoom is, you know, the great equalizer. It's like little Brady Bunch boxes, and everybody can be heard, everyone can hear everyone else. And so in some ways, that was sort of a positive because we could more easily incorporate those people. But the culture piece and building relationships building trust, we were sort of executing on trust that was already built. And that's that is possible. We, I think the humility comment is just right, like, we don't have answers, we have experiments, and see what will work what drives different ways of filling in the gaps that remote doesn't? Or what is the right mix of in person? And how do you do it? How do you organize in person because you can't be casual about it anymore? Because it's just not automatic? And so you have to be thoughtful when is in person key in versus when do we need to, you know, just get the gears going and work remotely? Because we have to.

Joe Mullings  6:30  
So do what are your concerns about if you've already established trust, and you've already established a career trajectory? And let's say that establishment is eight or nine years into your career, because the first five you should be noodling around with everything to figure out where you're going to go. Do you do you worry about the mentoring component, the in person mentoring component, and how that will be affected while we expand our reach on who we can add to our team? But if they're, two timezones away, and they're two years into their career, where do they get that mentoring component? So Nadine wants to start that,

Nadine Hachach-Haram  7:07  
I think it's a it's a super important comment, I think the reality is, is we've had to adapt to come up with new ways to do that, because you can't just not do it. It's so important. I mean, particularly with people that are a few years out and are, you know, this is like their second job or third job, and they're really excited about learning from who they may be reporting to, and spending that time. And so you have to be really intentional about, you know, setting time aside protecting time for that. And it may be in virtual, maybe some face to face, and we do more of a hybrid at the moment. But that's important. Also building the, you can't assume the trust is, you know, there's an assumption, especially if you've grown in, as you described in rescrub, you grew pretty quickly, there's a whole new people group of people that joined only virtually to start with. And so there it's, it's short sighted to assume trust in that period of time, you really want to build the rapport and the relationship. So we've been really thinking, how do we look at learning and development? How do we look at individual goal setting? How do we look at executive coaching? I mean, putting more robust executive coaching mechanisms for leadership in this new environment? How do they connect with their teams, and, you know, management, training, all these things that, you know, we'd assume people with experience would just get on with it, we had to we realize, we take a step back and, and really worked through that again. So we've really been trying to put mechanisms in place around that. And, you know, I think, personally, I mean, one of the, I think there's a lot of opportunity in the virtual I agree, it's a it's a real democratizer for sure. And it's been really nice to pull in talent from all over the world that historically might have been more challenging. I think as you grow that quickly, as well, on a personal level, the things that I often think about is, you know, I what I used to love when we were the 30, 40 group peoples, you know, I could spend time with everyone, you could really spend time so now it's if you're all in person, yes, there's the watercooler moment, you can still do that. With with the online, it's got to be really scheduled and, you know, intentional. So I've been really thinking through how do I how do we come up with new mechanisms and evolve our mechanisms that are more adaptable to the current to the current world, but it is a it is a really important comment about mentorship, and it's something I love doing and I'm sure a lot of my team leads do and we're constantly trying to evolve that. So yeah, we I think we've made some strides. But if any, anyone else has some good tips, you know, please pass them on

Joe Mullings  9:16  
Leslie, in your role. So you know, if I'm not mistaken, it was September 20, was it 2020 or 2021? You rang the bell and NASDAQ virtually?

Leslie Trigg  9:26  
Well, yeah, I didn't ring any Bell, right one. The most I was ever going to do is push the button. There was never going to be a bell involved, because we did go public on NASDAQ, but it was September 2020. So about six months after we had all retreated to our homes.

Joe Mullings  9:40  
So on the mentoring side, you're a leader and you've built a lot of your team over the last couple of years virtually. Yeah. So how do you give guidance and what do you tell the two three year person who's just joined your organization? Here's how we're going to help you grow, even if it's on a 2d screen.

Leslie Trigg  9:58  
Well, I think I think the thing that worries me the most is when I reflect on my first five or 10 years is the the opportunity is missed for observation. And so much of learning in my experience is through osmosis. And the osmosis occurs when you're observing, and it's hard to observe over zoom. There's so much subtlety to body language and watching I remember Amy and I are both at Guidant and I remember watching Ginger Graham. I watched not in a weird freaky way. Like I was obsessed with you, but still am. But I just I watched her a lot. I watched what she wore, I watch how quickly she walked the hallways, I watched how she interacted with assemblers all the way up to her executives, I watched her she handled tough questions. And, and so there's a lot of moments where you you can observe how do I interject? Or when can I interrupt or watching just sort of almost the interplay, you know, between people. So that's my biggest worry is that a lot of that is getting missed. On zoom, it is hard to interrupt. And it's it's hard to actually challenge somebody as much on on Zoom. So one of the things that we're trying to do is really turn our office into a what we'll call like purposeful collaboration. We're not going down the path that you have to be there three days a week, and it's got to be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I think that's far too prescriptive. Because what if Monday, Wednesday, Friday isn't the right day. But what we are moving to is a real urge and encouragement toward we're doing in person meetings we're doing on on site meetings, one of our leaders, our Chief Commercial Officer started something called orchard week we have we live on orchard drive. And so he flies and yes, you have to invest in this. But he flies all the members of the commercial team, and they spend the week at Orchard and that's the right week. That's the week you all you want to be there. Because there's a lot of purposeful collaboration going on. So we're probably moving more toward intentional on site, rather than a routine kind of prescriptive approach. Whether it's right or wrong. I don't know. Because it's an experiment to your point. And I love that like there is no right or wrong. There's just taking a step forward learning and then iterating from there.

Joe Mullings  12:02  
Yeah. And do you think that we're trying to increase the efficiency of something that maybe shouldn't even exist right now. So meaning that the odds that in February of 2020, when we were all at JPMorgan, we remember that week or two afterwards, and you and I were were used to SDTS. Our response thereafter? Has the workplace structure changed a lot since our initial response? But what's the odds of that initial response being the correct one? So Amy, what if if you could fast forward a couple areas? Where do you see yourself spending time and giving guidance to the people that work with you on building leadership for the future?

Amy Belt Raimundo  12:40  
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, one thing, and we talked a little bit before, at med tech women, we stood up sort of a new net new mentorship program, that really was sort of harder to execute on in the non virtual world, because there's an efficiency associated with being able to get people to match in that world, because there's no travel time, there's no having to be in the same place. And so there's sort of net new opportunities to be able to sort of develop that class of folks. And I think that's actually, you know, I think what I would recommend for people coming up and then for, you know, leaders to to adopt, is there a way to have that sort of efficiently targeted mentoring program that you can sort of do via zoom? Because I think it does actually expand the number of lives you can touch with a smaller amount of time, and sort of there's an interesting sort of efficiency play associated with that. What I don't know, and I would love, you know, yeah. Any ideas about is that issue less that you raised sort of that first couple years, first five years, I mean, I remember being in my peer group, and sort of being nights and weekends and all hanging out together, because we are trying to learn from each other. And like, what are you doing? What's that and asking the dumb questions that everybody you know, everybody thinks they're dumb, and they're actually really functional? Like, how do you recreate that experience when people are working in their own home and zoom? It's hard to you know, that casual or that casual hanging out being able to flag a question. You know, I don't know if slack can mimic that.

Joe Mullings  14:25  
As a leader on that Zoom platform. So I know I'm, I'm in I've been caught it. Are you getting zoom fatigue? Where it's every meeting? I know when my meetings were face to face starting at 7am in the morning and work on to five at night. There's a different cognitive dissonance on Zoom versus in person. So personally, how do you manage yourself on that from a health, mental health and giving your teammates the best you can give them on Zoom? Are you doing anything different? Are you shutting off your camera or something? times I mean, this, I'm getting down to the micro here. But I'm curious as leaders, what you're doing to make sure you put the oxygen on yourself first.

Leslie Trigg  15:08  
Do you want to go first? I know. I, you know, I would say that again, maybe I'm old fashioned, I would never turn my camera off. Never ever, ever. It's just not about me, I when I'm in that environment, it goes to like, how do we form connectivity? And how do we form culture, we have very purposely established a culture of we're on camera all the time, unless you're eating or doing something embarrassing, or, you know, whatever exceptions to the rule, but I feel very, very strongly about on camera all the time, and I'm gonna set that example, it's just easier for me to be be more expressive, and try to capture a tiny bit of the in person interaction, if they can at least see me using my hand and I probably have elevated my hands a little bit closer to my face, and little adjustments like that. But, but really being able to kind of look somebody in the eye virtually, versus this black screen, I think the black screen is deadly, like I would absolutely never do it and never want any of our team members to operate that way.

Amy Belt Raimundo  16:04  
It's funny, I have that same reaction, like I think I'm a very visual person. But like, if you compare zoom to in person, Zoom is not as good as in person. But Zoom is far better than black screen for me. And so I really feel like there is, you know, there's an opportunity now, Zoom fatigue is real. And so, you know, sometimes I will switch over to a phone call where I'm walking around the neighborhood, in order to sort of break that, then we're but both people know, they're on a phone call. And you know, that's, you know, it just a way to, you know, but it's not as valuable from a from a team or expressive perspective, but it does give you sort of enough of a break, to sort of say, like, Oh, I am walking around, because I think the first I don't know, the first few months, I was like, all zoom all the time. And I was just, you know, I would just lie down on my couch after the day was done, because I just couldn't take it. And so part of it is just almost like, you know, physical training, is it like, can you need to be able to sustain it? So like, what do you pop in, but I think that's part of the experimentation is like, you know, like, what sort of things do you need to do to be able to sustain this new culture as it evolves, I think your point is well taken is, it continues to evolve, it is not done. And so we're gonna continue to figure that out. But the physical aspect of it is real. I have one, I have one trick. I stare at myself sometimes while I'm talking. Yeah, because there's something easier about not getting distracted by myself over in the corner. And so I like if I've got to, like really just kind of calm it all down, I can just start to see myself talking. Now some people do the absolute opposite, which they turn their screen off. So they're not staring at themselves, but staring at myself, for some reason, actually, just, it's, you know, it just means it's like you're talking to yourself in the mirror. So silly. Yeah.

Nadine Hachach-Haram  18:01  
I mean, I think, you know, a lot of the comments that I would agree with, I mean, we're early on, we were just back to back to back to back. And that was just, that was really hard. And so it's just being a bit more structured about gaps. And you know, you don't have to do calls from seven to seven, you know, you can take breaks, I do some walking calls as well. But I let people know that I'm off camera is going to be a phone call. And just making sure I mean, it's little things like I might start a day, you know, 30-40 minutes later and take an hour walk from home to the office, because I just feel like I need the fresh air, you need to get a bit of the stimulation of the environment before you just get into a desk and sort of sit at the desk. But I would love to not challenge but sort of give two other perspectives, perhaps to the sort of the zoo work site. I know. It's hard. And it's an I love the experiment analogy. And we're learning through it. And I do like the human contact as well. But I feel like the disruption we're seeing in the workplace is a disruption that Proximie was trying to make in the or right so 2014 I said, Why do i Why do I have to travel to X OR to see how a surgeon does something couldn't I just virtually scrub in. And that kind of conceptually, for surgeons that are very traditional, you know, as you said, we you know, we like the way we do things we always do the same way. You can imagine that behavior change and that culture change needed time. Now we're seeing the work from home, which is coming after but you know, I was talking about virtual operating rooms and connected operating rooms back in 2014. And now, you know, it's now it's becoming a reality, you know, we're seeing this becoming spread across all countries. Strategics using it to scale their companies, doctors using it to connect and feel mentorship, and taking that mentorship to the next level. You know, if you're stuck in a difficult case, and you can just ring in someone for 10 minutes to say, yep, you know, I would have done the same thing. You know, keep going that that extra level of mentorship. I think we can be creative about taking the you know, leveraging this new world and trying to think differently about how we do things. And the other point I would say is about you know, I know it's hard for the connection and the other but I think we've also opened up opportunities for people that found it hard to get to offices and found it hard to get to work, and we're stuck for two hours in traffic, and we're missing their kids dinnertime and in all those different things that were obstacles, I know as a kind of working mom of three, though, that was really difficult trying to manage all those things. And so now, the fact that I don't have to travel for two days to go to one meeting in person, I could actually just dial in, but I can be home for my kids homework and help them is something I think we also should consider as a plus to this new world. And maybe there's better ways to get a better work life balance out of it, too. It's not all easy. And it's not all straightforward. But I'm trying to see what are the also the positive things we can look at this come out of this,

Joe Mullings  20:39  
 I want to jump into an industry conversations going on quite aggressively right now in the changing centers of care, within outset, hold dialysis as a focus factor, right? Proximie changing standards of care whether it's ASC, whether it's a clinicians office, and obviously the OR. And as you look at opportunities, you have to look at where's this convergence going on? And how is it going to impact? So, like, your thoughts and starting out with that. One is what are your thoughts about the changing centers of care? And what are you keeping your eyes on over the next five years in that area?

Amy Belt Raimundo  21:20  
Yeah, I mean, I would say that it's a really exciting time that connectivity actually enables and so it allows a access, and a democratization that, you know, I think is, is in the ability to leverage technology leverage, really high level clinical expertise, much more broadly. And so I think that's exciting. Now, to do that, you have to set up a whole nother new systems and platforms. And so I think we take for granted sort of the traditional sort of hospital model, where you know, things have been dialed in, it was very efficient, from a sort of, you know, the hospital's perspective to have people there. Now, you're doing much more inside out all the way to the home. And so what do you need to build in from a logistics perspective, from a, you know, staffing perspective, responsiveness perspective? You know, what technology do you have to enable in those environments? That's different than pulling it all internal, and make it really super efficient, but not, you know, efficient for sort of the hospital, but not efficient for the patient for everyone else. And so I think that's that, you know, what we're looking for is yeah, what are those platforms? What are those technologies that really enable the ability to bring care closer to the patient, create more access, but it but it is, like, it's just a tremendous logistical service challenge that is being built right now. And so, you know, we're excited for really strong leaders that are doing that build and create those teams, the technologies, but I don't think it's, you know, point solutions, it's going to be either, you know, the platform that then acquires the point solutions, or the technology that then, you know, wraps around this service around

Joe Mullings  23:16  
You are saying there, that you're thinking that there might be platforms built for the distribution, the service, the ongoing compliance, and then organizations will then start buying business models that fit into that platform.

Amy Belt Raimundo  23:30  
Yeah, I would say that there are going to be technology, I mean, just think about medical technology sell into the hospital or the outpatient setting. And everything's our you know, all the contracting is already there, all the, you know, everything is already there, and then suddenly break that model. And so you're gonna need both the people that have figured out the logistics of that, and that may be bigger companies that may be technology solutions. And then what are the big enabling technologies that make that possible? Because again, you don't have the benefit, just like we were talking about the future of work, you don't have the benefit of someone right there that you can tap on the shoulder and say, Hey, can you help me, you have to, you have to, you know, you have to already set that system up. And so I see that as and I don't know what the business model is going to turn out to be. But it's going to be some combination of technology and service that really enables the ability to turn some of these things inside out.

Joe Mullings  24:31  
Leslie, from your position, right? You, you disrupted tremendously the dialysis market with bringing outsets platform into the home. Do you see that creating a pathway for other technologies, especially in the chronic care side of our business?

Leslie Trigg  24:47  
Well, I'd like to think so we're a long way away from that. I mean, we're just getting just getting started. I will say that one of the things I've learned just touching on what Amy just said is I would say I used to think that the device was the center point of the patient experience. And I would say that the device is probably 10% of the patient experience. And that's really forced us then to, frankly, unfortunately, from an investment time resource perspective, go and build a bunch of new stuff. The what, what really informs the patient experience and keeping people at home, that that's something we're talking a lot about getting people home, but at least in in our world, and for any chronic condition, the whole idea is to keep people at home, it's all about retention, because you really haven't done very much good in the world if somebody goes home, and they're back in two or three months later. So keeping people at home is really the people part of it. So for us, my big realization was it's kind of the to draw on Bill Clinton, it's sort of it's the people stupid, which is probably an old reference that nobody except for me remembers, maybe you, Joe, but it's the it's the people stupid and so are yes, the device has to perform it, it has to work well, in a home environment. That's no small feat where you have like kids, cats, Cokes, you know, carpets. But But beyond that, you have to be better than than the device and really provide the people ecosystem. That's, I think, for all of us as consumers, ends up being kind of 99% of your experience with a product.

Joe Mullings  26:12  
And so I hear there that convergence medtech always put the patient first and its profitability like and they need to because right, we deserve to make a good profit. So we continue to develop products, but we've never really been known as a consumer centric market. And then so now with all these open architectures and products coming out that service that 18% of our GDP, that maybe isn't a 510 K or PMA, but as a workflow or the patient experience, right, that's influencing. And so that brings me to Proximie right. You don't have an FDA oversight yet. Yet, you're impacting millions of patients. And it's about an experience on Proximie, not necessarily a diagnostic or a solution, per se, on the device side.

Nadine Hachach-Haram  26:58  
It's really been, I would I would echo with the points made earlier, I mean, I'm very excited about this decentralization as a practicing doctor and someone who was on the frontline, you know, even during COVID, it's not like the problem just became a problem during COVID. It's just it put a massive magnifying glass on what the challenge is this, these more antiquated models of care that are very bricks and mortar very specific to, to to that actually silo and don't give access to everyone, you know, people having to travel miles to get care. I mean, dialysis is a great example. I mean, we saw that in COVID, it was really difficult to get patients to dialysis that they needed. And so that is something that that is essential to really just take a step back and not try to keep duct taping the current model. But really say, we're going to build a new platform, a new system, a new behavior, change a new culture around the delivery of care. And I would completely echo the point that this can't be just a bunch of point solutions, because it's really difficult. If you're trying to do change management behavior, change whatever word you want to use, for every single one of those point solutions, it's, it's highly unlikely that it's going to succeed. But if you come across and say, I'm going to be the, the infrastructure, I'm going to be the workflow manager, I'm going to be the connector, the aggregator, the middleware, whatever you want to call it, that pulls the, you know, people systems strategics together, and then collectively unlocks value for all the different stakeholders, like you said, it's, it's not just about the patient or the doctor, it's, it's everything around it as well. It's the relatives, it's the system, it's the nurses, the healthcare workers, the payers, the providers. All of that is complicated. So you can if you can find a way to break through and disrupt that, I think you're well on your way, then to, to become at least the person that crowdsource of that brings it all together. And we have to be brave enough to shift it's really hard. I know, and I know is kind of working in a hospital how hard it is, you know, we still want to stick to our traditional EMRs and our traditional kind of in person clinics and blood testing facilities. And but we have to be brave. And we have to think that this inflection of supply and demand and the the investment and care has to be different. And we have to do that because people deserve it. patients deserve it, their relatives deserve it. So, you know, I get very excited when I see companies like yours that have really tried to break through but a thought holistically around. It's not just about building the box or the device. It's everything around it. And at Proximie we think about it the same way. It's not just about connecting a doctor to another. It's like what how can we continue to extend the value chain, pre op and post op and we have a long way to go still. I mean, we're still working through that. But we're we've already started to build the architecture that enables pre op and post op apps to plug in. So we don't have to build everything. There's great points there's not that need a home that needs to be part of a bigger mission. And we want to sort of be that platform that enables you to do that

Joe Mullings  29:41  
That is super exciting. Medtech is becoming an open architecture where it used to be really a one way street a lot of times because we were so wrapped onto the device, justifiably so. So that's exciting. Alright, last question for each of you. You're you're all leaders, in your in your companies in our industry. How How do you manage your own self learning? How important is ongoing learning to personal professional growth? And how do you find time with it? Where do you spend your time on that? So Amy?

Amy Belt Raimundo  30:12  
Yeah, it's a, I have to say that one of the reasons I was attracted to venture was the constant learning. So and I did actually add Gaiden, we did the, the StrengthsFinder. Yeah. And learner was actually one of my five. So it's super important. You know, for me, you know, I get it naturally through some of the companies I get involved in, because you're constantly learning. The others, I recently took a public board role. And so the ability to, you know, take my board experience, but into the public realm, you know, really was a way to push and challenge. And then I also decided to, you know, launch a venture fund in the middle of this. So again, it's sort of the, like, keep pushing my own boundaries, in terms of not being necessarily, you know, saying, safe, in what I know, but can I add, like, take the experience I had, but then add a component by taking something new on, and that, for me, has always kept me energized, always kept me learning. And I think, you know, that's what I've done. I think my whole career, and it never stops for me.

Joe Mullings  31:21  
And comfortable enough with being that old adage, we're always the fool before we're the master. Yeah,

Amy Belt Raimundo  31:27  
Yeah, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like, it just is, that is how you grow. And the better you get at that, passing through that, the more and faster you'll grow. And then the more interesting the world becomes, I would say that, you know, when I think about careers, I thought it was going to be easier. But less interesting than it turned out to be is harder and more interesting. Every day

Joe Mullings  31:53  
Maybe because you're really stretching for your each bogie, you go after meeting your thoughts on that. So how do you keep your learning up? Other than survival learning? I know, we're all guilty. But lauric learning, like, I need to learn this, that's the way to maybe outside of business.

Nadine Hachach-Haram  32:10  
Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, you know, I also scored high as well as a thirst for learning type of, you know, and humility, I think so, you know, I keep saying it, but it is really important, recognizing that, you know, it's okay not to know everything. But, you know, and I take many approaches. One is I really try to, you know, hire top top kind of people around me, because I think I can learn a lot from them, too. And it's really reciprocal, I think this idea that I'm the CEO, so I should know more than everyone else is just, you know, is outdated. So I really thrive by learning from people around me sitting in on their meetings and trying to see how they communicate with their teams, how they communicate with customers, that's kind of something I enjoy. Equally, you know, I think it's really great to continue to invest in executive coaching that pushes you, you know, I'm constantly, you know, listening to podcasts, reading books, trying to see, you know, how are other people thinking about these problems? And, and how are they addressing them, it doesn't necessarily mean that they know all the answers, but just thinking through it. And then finally, I've, I've invested time in being part of a CEO network, and we come together once a month, it's a great, you know, four hours, where, you know, every month an executive has to share a challenge that they have in their business. And it doesn't almost matter what your business is, it could be autonomous cars, it could be healthcare, it could be whatever it is, it could be retail, but you there is attendant, there tends to be a pattern of sort of challenges that you as a leader have. And so listening in a very safe space, could be board issues, fundraising, really makes you think about I'm not alone. Others may have some challenges, or, actually, I solved this two years ago, let me see if I can help this individual with some suggestions, is really a great way to continue to drive that forward. So it's that constant, of course, coming to meetings like this, where you can, you know, connect with great people like Amy and Leslie and others, I think is really helpful.

Leslie Trigg  33:49  
Well, I'm gonna fall down on the job. Those are both great answers. I would say that I have probably been highly self critical. I don't I haven't done structured learning. And I don't remember my strength thing was, but I do remember taking Myers Briggs and I showed up as an introvert and I was shocked. And I've taken another one, and I doubled down on the introvert thing. So maybe this is not surprising. Reflecting on this question, I read I do read a lot. However, I don't read business books. Then every time I listen to like the Google CEO, the new one I'm forgetting his name. I'm not reading the right things like they're not highbrow so to be perfectly honest, I read everything from like people, I am a religious people magazine reader. Proud to have never revealed this before. No, I'm kidding. People us trashy mags given to me. But I do because I like to actually stay current with with with culture. And I found that no kidding. I have used things that I've learned from People Magazine, in, in everyday life, everyday conversation. So it's everything from people to and then I read. I've gotten tipped off on a couple of of tech publications, the information, Strategery. which is more esoteric newsletter about tech. One of our one of our backers, one of our investors, has a WhatsApp group with CEOs across med tech tech, environment, whatever. That's been really a really cool source of learning. So I think what I learned is like, let it go. You're not supposed to be learning something and it doesn't mean you're not smart. If you're reading People Magazine, that's that's my pitch. But other than that, I would say I do I try to read a lot and I do a lot of observation. And maybe that is why I'm an introvert. I don't know,

Joe Mullings  35:32  
Maybe. Well, this has been fantastic. I appreciate each your time. I know you're super busy at this conference. And I know our audience will appreciate this session as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's great. I'm Joe Malines, from LSI 2020 to be well

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