Outcomes Rocket Podcast _Greg Sloan: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody! Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket. I want to thank you for tuning in to the podcast again. Today I have an extraordinary guest. His name is Greg Sloan. He is the chief purpose officer and co-founder of Go Beyond, a people development company that combines behavioral science and technology to create a more prosperous workforce. He has over 25 years of experience in wealth management and financial services. He’s a serial founder who discovered his personal purpose and wants to share the knowledge of how to achieve the same goal with others. He’s a thought leader who centers his time and energy on purpose and people with a focus on purpose in the workplace, future of work, and financial wellness. We all know that this purpose-driven approach is what drives us all in healthcare and oftentimes is, has been lacking of late. And so I’m excited to have Greg on the podcast with us today to talk to us about what they are doing at Go Beyond. And so with that, Greg, I want to welcome you to the podcast. Thanks for joining me.
Greg Sloan:
Thanks, Saul. Thanks for having me.
Saul Marquez:
Absolutely, now talk to us a little bit about you and share with us and the listeners the role that your work plays in the healthcare system.
Greg Sloan:
Well, it’s really interesting. Of course, today is Mental Health Day in the world, and it’s fitting to have this discussion, particularly in the healthcare industry, as we’ve all witnessed and seen what this pandemic has done for our most precious of workers, because none of us can say we have not been impacted by either personally being received healthcare treatment or one of our loved ones. But, you know, the individuals that work in the healthcare space, they choose to work in this space because they’re some of the most purpose-centered workers. You know, in our experience, they chose the field because this deep calling to serve people with their most valuable area of their life, which is their health and their wellness. And so our work is focused on helping healthcare workers find more fulfillment in their careers, which of course will benefit patients in the overall system. You know, Jim Collins book, Good to Great, he describes getting the right people in the right seats in the bus is key to a great company. So we take it a step further and, you know, maybe those buses need to be retrofitted for the future of work. So I’d like to say that that’s sort of where we’re playing in the space.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, no, I appreciate that, Greg, and, you know, as we dive into this further, you know, one of the things we love to learn is our guests’ journey. What is it that inspires your work in this field of purpose?
Greg Sloan:
Yes, so in walking through my own personal journey, I learned that my work and my real passion for helping others find fulfillment in their workplace originally was inspired by my father’s lack of a successful career. You know, I’ve heard that expression, there is purpose in the pain. Sometimes it’s our own pain, and in many cases what we found is observing or witnessing pain in someone else’s life. So I turn that pain of his lack of a successful career to focus on where I thought I would be most successful, which of course is in money, that’s the way people would categorize success. So I dived into the financial industry and became quote-unquote, successful, financially successful, vice president at Goldman Sachs in my, I guess, early thirties. And what I found for myself was I was making more money in eight years than my dad made in 40 years in his career, but I just wasn’t fulfilled with the seat on the bus that I was sitting. Within healthcare, focus is inspired by my wife’s family. So both her father and her grandfather were physicians, her brother, her niece is a physician, we now have a daughter in law that’s a nurse practitioner. And when we serve in the medical community, person after person, we witness their heart for serving patients directly impacted by the challenges of the system that seems to be less concerned about patient wellness and more focused on costs and, cost metrics and profits. So that’s a little bit of the journey that sort of inspires us, particularly in this healthcare space.
Saul Marquez:
Thanks for that, Greg. Yeah, you know, it’s those challenges that could often propel us to create or to inspire others to do things, and thanks for sharing that. You know, it’s a personal story. So I thank you for being vulnerable here with me. How does the work of Go Beyond add value to the healthcare system?
Greg Sloan:
Yeah, well, ultimately, business should be about all the stakeholders. Of course, owners, I’m a capitalist, I’m a business guy myself, so I do appreciate that the risk and the capital that owners put into any business venture, but without having people, that vision is just a vision. So it’s about the workers, it’s about the customers, and it’s also about the community in which the business operates. And we truly believe that each person is designed to make the world a better place in their own unique way. We call that personal purpose. You know, business owners create that because, they create the business because they see a gap in the market, but unless they recruit and retain the right people, the right healthcare workers, in this case, they’re not going to be able to execute on their vision. So as an advisor, as a financial guy, I definitely appreciate the financial metrics, but I believe that when you align company purpose and workers’ purpose, you will create resilient companies and resilient and sustainable profits, which of course is going to benefit the entire system.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, for sure, Greg, and so, you know, I always think about how our companies differentiating themselves. So in terms of what may already be similarly out there, as far as systems, support, other tools to help burned out healthcare staff, how’s what Go Beyond does different and better than those tools and/or the status quo?
Greg Sloan:
Yes, so when we think about benefiting individuals, what seems to be the most common go-to is coaching in these days really, putting workers in a position where they can be vulnerable with someone else, right? There’s a company called Imperative, which Imperative and BetterUp are two really big technology-based companies that we think operate in a similar way, but maybe a little differently than us. Imperative focuses on purpose, but then involves peer coaching, where the platform is set up, where individuals can find peer members within their organization to help coaching, beautiful model. BetterUp actually focuses on third-party coaching, and again, that’s a wonderful model. We’re structured to incorporate more on-demand video coaching modules and then a peer journey partner to walk through a cohort-based learning. So we do incorporate peers, not necessarily as coaches, but is what we call journey partners, or when you go through the program, you have someone to be vulnerable with. You also have some accountability, but no question that being able to be vulnerable with someone else really does help a person feel like they have a sense of belonging in that organization. That’s something that has come up quite frequently in our work is, how do I help our people find a greater sense of belonging. So I would say those are some of the differences, but definitely, our cost structure is much more appropriate for organizations that don’t have a big budget for third-party coaching or one-on-one.
Saul Marquez:
Thank you for that, Greg. And so, you know, it’s worth putting on the shoes for a second and you know, so it’s a 12-week program and so you walk people through there. What I like about your platform is that it’s got a combination of peer but also that on-demand, like a serve-yourself-where-you-need-it type of model and also transparency in pricing. Talk to us about the specifics and how somebody could potentially engage there.
Greg Sloan:
Yes, so first of all, the 12-week journey is something that we’ve sort of designed based on a company’s desire for a start to an end. When we install a program, they have access to the entire program for a year, but we structured the 12 weeks in such a way that companies can roll out four of these in cohort-based learning per year. So that’s the purpose behind the 12 weeks, just so you know, it’s fully accessible. What we’ve learned is that individuals that go through the modules often come back to say, wow, you know, I took something away from that, but I need to sort of digest it, let it sort of sink in and then come back to it. So each of the modules are videos that go anywhere from 3 minutes to about 6 minutes in length, and they have different topics, as you describe. In terms of transparency, we’re pretty upfront about our pricing in general. It’s about $400 a head per employee for up to 100 employees and then it kind of drops off after that. I think once you cross 1000 employees, it’s under $200 per person. Now, that is just for access to the platform. Of course, we do layer in live workshops or we have the ability to layer in live workshops as well as provide augmented one-on-one coaching. We’ve certified over 20 individuals in our programs. We do have access to one-on-one coaching. It’s just not a cost structure that many companies necessarily want to bear, but absolutely, we do believe in one-on-one coaching so that is available for companies that don’t want that.
Saul Marquez:
Thank you for that. You know, I appreciate that, and folks, as you’re thinking about ways you could further drive this purpose in your employees, it’s really, it’s a really neat platform actually. We’ll leave the link to the platform Go Beyond inside of the show notes, so definitely make sure you take a look at that and explore it. As a professional, Greg, could you share what your biggest setback has been and what’s a key learning that’s come from that?
Greg Sloan:
I was trained as a finance guy. I have an undergraduate degree in finance, I have a master’s degree in finance, and if you think about the brain and how it works, the financial and the numbers and the metrics, they typically come from the, what we call the rational brain or the human brain. And I very much relied on that part of my brain to make decisions, to advise clients. I used to think if it wasn’t in a spreadsheet or a cash flow model, it really didn’t have a whole lot of value. And I learned the hard way, unfortunately, that, you know, there’s other parts of the brain, there’s this emotional part of the brain, and we use that term lizard brain, that sort of fight, flight, or freeze part. Well, I didn’t appreciate that in people and I didn’t, as much as I should have, and I didn’t appreciate that definitely when I made business decisions. And so I used that same rational brain to help make my own decisions, as well as try to hire and do business with other people. And, you know, one of the biggest setbacks was the partnership I got into because we sort of were aligned on the rational component, but as we know, business does often face adversity and stress, and when you face those situations, you do resort to some of those other, you make business decisions, you make life decisions based on emotions, based on this lizard brain, if we want to call it that. And so, you know, I made some decisions to partner with someone and stress hit, and we were not able to overcome the financial alignment because we were not aligned in what we would call our purpose or a calling, and definitely some of the emotional intelligence that we both had. So it really did put a, it was painful.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, yeah, and when those things happen, it’s about what you learn from it. And so what would you say is sort of the big takeaway for you on that one?
Greg Sloan:
Yeah, so when you think about making a big business decision, like becoming a partner with something, hiring your key people, or even creating strategic partnerships, not necessarily where they’re employees or financial ownership partners with you, but even where your business interests must be so aligned that we recognize when stress hits, how does that other person respond to stress? And so one of the exercises and modules that we built is called Friction EQ, which is about creating positive friction when stress hits versus negative stress or negative friction. No question that learning experience was I want to understand that about other people, and I want also them to understand that about me. So even though I’m a big-picture visionary, when stress hits, I resort back to the rational part of my brain, and some have called that paralysis of analysis. And I definitely get into the weeds and I’ll get into the numbers, and it’s important for other people to understand that about me, because that’s how I respond, that’s sort of my comfort, but I also want to understand that about them. So if we move in opposite directions, it’s important for each of us to appreciate the other. But we may not fully understand why, and I don’t think that that’s, I’m not sure that’s fully knowable, but we definitely want to appreciate how does a person respond under stress and really what do they feel like? Their unique, what’s their ultimate calling? Because when you find yourself in those situations, you will eventually say, well, gosh, you know, at the end of the day, I’ve really thought about it and I just don’t believe that that’s my calling, and so I’m going to go in a different direction, which is wonderful, but it would have been helpful to know that sort of before that event arose, if you will.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, no thanks, Greg. And folks to take away there is, as Greg highlighted, is especially with your leadership team, right, with those core people that you’re making big decisions big moves with, how do they react under stress? And I think that there’s a lot to be explored there if you haven’t already. One of my favorites is Ray Dalio, you know, he gets pretty in the weeds with the way he does it. But man, really understanding how these things work before it all hits the fan is really key and how you build a strong leadership team. So thanks for that share, Greg, that’s really valuable.
Greg Sloan:
Could I comment on that? So, because I’ve looked at Ray’s tool and we’re similar and different. His is very much based on sort of Myers-Briggs, I guess ours is as well. One of the key differences between Ray’s tool and our tool is, I believe that Ray’s tool measures your, more like your general profile, whereas our tool measures you twice, what is your normal profile, what is your stress profile?
Saul Marquez:
Got it.
Greg Sloan:
So we’re trying to help. How do you change? What is the behavioral change? So I do, I love Ray Dalio stuff.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, oh, man, he’s a, he’s fantastic, I agree. Good, good call, good distinction there, appreciate that, Greg. And so from your viewpoint, what’s one healthcare trend or technology that’s going to help, that’s going to change healthcare as we know it today?
Greg Sloan:
Yeah, in my opinion, no question, it’s just going to continue to be this move towards customization and hyper-customization. I was talking with someone in the healthcare space that is developing some, what they call supplements, that medical supplement, healthcare supplements that are based on your DNA or genetic predisposition. The way technology has changed the data and they be able to, the ability to collect data and then even the ability to dispense healthcare based on that data just needs to, it’s going to continue to happen, which in theory will be better for the patient. Now, there’s clear cost concerns about how much customization can we afford, how much customization can the patient afford. The, I think most consumers don’t really understand the financial partnership, if you will, between them, their doctor, the insurance company, and the overall system, but just the way technology has given us more data, obviously what we’re doing with our technology is helping to create more customized work experience. There’s an article I recently read about the difference between a job design and a job crafting, and we’re probably a little more in the second. Job design is sort of, here’s the position and how what’s the normalcy of it, and then crafting and sort of incorporating your unique touch to it, which at the end of the day, that’s what we’re all looking for, right? We all want to come to a place of work, or maybe it’s not a place anymore, maybe it’s in our bedrooms, both of those, maybe, but it’s really being able to provide value to the greater good in our own way, where if you remove us from the picture, from the system, there is a hole in the market because we cannot, we’re delivering something that no one else can deliver, and that’s our unique purpose and calling.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Thank you, Greg. And so there are, I mean, we all have an opportunity to get better, to get sharper, and the same goes for our employees in the organization. I think you have a really great, great platform here. Leave us with the closing thought and the best place the listeners could connect with you and learn more about Go Beyond.
Greg Sloan:
Well, thank you again, Saul, for having me. And again, in the healthcare space, it touches every single one of us. And what I would say, as a patient, I have a primary care physician, I have other facilities that attend. I want to go in and be served by people who really believe that they’re uniquely designed to do that thing, whether it’s the MRI, whether it’s the CAT scans. I have a heart condition, so when I go to the cardiologist, I want to be served by the person who really wants to help me become a better patient, improve my healthcare, because they really find their unique calling in doing that. So absolutely, we all are going to benefit as consumers, obviously, as a society, we’re going to benefit, and yeah, we just would love to help more healthcare workers find their thing. We’d love to help organizations, hospital systems, and medical facilities that are struggling, particularly coming out of this pandemic with burnout. We do not want our healthcare workers to experience burnout. There’s a difference between burnout and compassion fatigue, and compassion fatigue is, that’s just normal, right, that they’ve had a tough time, but we don’t need them burning out because we all need them to be serving us well.
Saul Marquez:
And I agree with that completely, Greg. So I appreciate the invite to learn more. Folks, as mentioned during the podcast, there’s going to be links to today’s conversation with Greg where you could access the Go Beyond platform, learn more about him, and the work that he, his leadership team, and his company are up to. So Greg, I just want to thank you again for spending time with us. This was a good one.
Greg Sloan:
Thanks, Saul. I really appreciate you having me.
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