The Power of a T Profile: Insights from Barry Blauvelt

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everyone. My name is Wendy Manganero and I am the host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us and if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. So sit back, relax and learn from the practical to the woo-woo. How did best take care of you? Have a great day, stay blessed and leave a review when you're done listening to the show. Thanks so much, Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode. Today we are talking about the future of healthcare with Barry Blavile. I'm going to read her bio and then we're going to get right into it. Barry is the CEO of Innovera Incorporated, one of the top healthcare talent development firms in the world. In addition to her and her team creating and delivering functional talent development globally, she is a personal champion of advancing patient and consumer centered healthcare and women and diversity and leadership across all sectors of the healthcare industry. Her landmark study health alert women, diversity and leadership in the business of healthcare. Then she works over 2000 executive leaders across over 200 firms and organizations that account to two third US healthcare spending. She also founded and chairs the extraordinary women advancing healthcare awards in Massachusetts under the auspices of the Commonwealth Institute, aka the woman's edge, and helped to launch these in Nigeria as well. She teaches quality measures and healthcare at the graduate level and conducts global policy informing research and teaches or otherwise collaborations with many academic and medical public health affiliations, including John Hopkins, Mass, Brinkham General and other top medical research teaching based hospitals and affiliated universities in the US and around the globe. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Wendy. I'm really interested in our topic today because we're talking about the future of healthcare. But we're going to talk to you about something called the T profile, which I actually know a little bit about. So I'd love to know from you what is a T profile?

Speaker 2: 2:13

It was interesting is what I did the health alert, some of the initial interviews with people who had made it to the top, women and men and said it's a secret to your success. One of the women said her name was Adil Gulfo. She said, oh, develop your T profile. That's the advice you would have given young people. And I said in any career, in any business or operation, they want to succeed. And I said what's a T profile? And she said you should go with a T profile. And I said hey, I'm okay, I'm not afraid to ask dumb questions. Explaining you're a T profile. There's nobody you'd learn about it, except a few academics. But it was a concept started in the 60s for science and engineering where an engineer or a scientist needs to be able to communicate effectively and collaborate with other functions in order to solve problems, create new products, new processes, et cetera, and really innovate. And she said we all have to. First of all, like you, think about a T, you've got the stem of the T and that's what the table sits on. If you think of T as a table, that's what secures that tabletop and that's your deep expertise, and everybody around that table has their deep expertise and that is critical. And then the top of the table is how you cross-communicate and interact. And to be effective in that role, you have to take your deep experience and help people to relate to it in a way that helps the project, the common goal, and then likewise they can say but more than that, you have to understand what they do enough to be able to help them be better. And so you end up, through cross-functional teamwork or projects of importance to the company, gaining visibility. And we are not at the table. This is really important. It's really essential for your career development and we talk about wellness in the health set. It's also critical in terms of your well-being. I want to make sure I'm being successful and I'm not just hoping for serendipity. And let me back into that Women, I suppose, are men, and this is a generalization. Don't forgive me, but there have been many studies, including our own, that bear it out. We focus on things. So good at what we do. Two things happen. Number one we assume that's enough. We assume that being really good at what we do is going to get us enough recognition that will advance us. We'll get on radar screens and people will hear about the good work and they'll want to promote us. That's the first mistake. So self-advocacy in a good way not braggart way, but in a good way is really critical to that. And here's where that T-profile comes in, because you're able to let others know how you are, but more than that, not just impress upon them your deep expertise. You're a bit of a biker to that table for that reason, that's a given. But rather how can you add value to the project or the team, or to each of them individually even? So that becomes really important. The second thing is that I did a study of all the Nobel laureates in science and medicine and said where are the women? There's so few women that have won any of these awards. And I contacted some of them that should have won the award, because their bosses won the awards, and I said come on, you did all the work, why didn't you get the recognition? She said there's that T-profile, right? The men will take credit for what you want, and you know what they don't want to advance you. They need you Supporting that, and so a lot of times you think that you should be recognized and promoted into another opportunity, but you'll be held back and you won't even know because they're gonna be sitting around a table in a room or virtual room and they're gonna be discussing that career opportunity opening and they're not gonna be promoting your name because they don't know you and your own bus or mentor may not be promoting you because they don't want you to go and have to start all over again. And that's really true in this work virtual environment. It's really tough. What you have someone is productive, working virtually, remotely. You really don't want to lose that, because trying to bring someone new on board because so much more difficult and it's really interesting to see what we're saying. And that was just some of the initial insights I'll share with you about the deep profile. But when I heard that from a doubt it really resonated with me and. I thought about my own career. I was the youngest, highest rising woman, a fighter from a suitable way back when, when I graduated with, it was a Meteorite rise with advisor and then a meteorite rise in another company, because I get a stonewall advisor very early in the career, which just stunned me and I'll share this. There was an opening for a position that I should have got and this guy Was relatively need of the group who came from the sales force well, the good old guys, right, but young, who got the job and he had proven himself and he didn't have the expertise and he didn't have the traction and he didn't have the proof in the job. But everybody knew I'm unlike because he came to the sales force. He was one of that and all the executive know when he could charm anybody to death, except maybe me. And when he got that job offer instead of me, I went to my boss. I said why did he get that over? Why? Why didn't you give it to me? Why wasn't I even asked if I wanted it? When they sit, john, he's married, it has kids and you're single and you got time and he's a little bit older. We all know me from the sales force and I'll tell you that was a huge wake up call for me and I think this idea advocacy you don't just self advocate, you have to have a sponsor and that's the other thing that goes along with the profile. You've got to have someone. When they're in that room discussing who could be considered for that opening, you can ask someone, say I really think we ought to give it to Wendy. I know you guys don't know Wendy, but I've been working with many. She's been working with me. She is terrific. Now this is not a mentor, this is a sponsor. This is someone who's willing to take their account and say I think she'd be great for this position. If you read the article which I'm sure you can give them the link to Wendy that was published in pharmaceutical executive magazine and has gotten a huge recognition. When I asked the executives mail and email what advice would you give young people? One of those pieces of advice was from a guy called David and he was this young, very bright young guy who was given an opportunity to set up for Novartis Pharmaceutical their oncology business division. And this was we weren't sure I was part of Novartis but I work with him as a consultant. We weren't sure if they had the pipeline. But we think we did and I did the research and found out that they were really on the rise and he had a terrific opportunity here. But he himself said I was really scared when they said that I wasn't sure I was ready, but I figured I probably had 70% of the skills they needed leadership skills are transferable and I'd get the rest on the way by doing the job. And he said well, I find with women when I eventually, by the way, he wrote to become CEO of Novartis and he said when I, as I rose up and I had opportunities and openings in our fast growing division and everything else, I'd want to bring women in, we had incredibly talented women. I had a doctor and they'd say I'm not sure, I have the experience for it. And he said I think you can do it and you'll get it along the way, but they just help themselves back. And it was interesting that he said that, because I actually heard that from other people too in interviews. So at least with the T profile you realize you don't have to be an expert at everything, you just have to have your deep expertise on the rest, you'll get along the way. And the rest, beyond your own deep expertise, isn't about more expertise. It's about cross functional communication, cross functional collaboration, collective intelligence, connected intelligence and sponsorship. To be Fred.

Speaker 1: 10:29

That's so interesting. I was laughing in my head. I worked in nonprofits for years and rose and management and when I was in my early 30s I was the youngest director in the state where I am for what I did and similar thing, not because people didn't like me and know me, but it was like good old boys club and the president told me I could not speak to people the way he did. I left the company.

Speaker 2: 10:54

I got a call from a head hugger shortly after that and I was so disgusted and I was so upset by that. It wasn't about Pfizer, say, it was about all the companies were like that, and there's still that tendency. So I think that it's great that things are changing. They may not be changing as much as you think, and that's. I've learned so much. My eyes have really been open to so much around health alert, but I would have expected more change. I would have expected parity at the top. I would have expected more openness from both men and women to advance women. And sometimes we hear the opposite, which is I feel I don't have enough men now or I don't have, but these aren't the rank and file. They're not getting moved up. They're not getting the moved up because, again, the women are lacking sponsorship and they feel they shouldn't have to self-advocate. They confuse that for being a braggart and that's not true. It's about letting people know who are in a position to make decisions, who you are, what you can do, and I'll give you another piece of advice there. So, as your listeners think about their careers and think about where they're going and think about what they're enjoying, if you read this article you read the career about another person who her sponsors believed in her so much that they gave her opportunities where she'd really have to stretch. And what she realized is that once she had done it once, she could do it again and again and she's now had a digital communications and financial and analytics. She started out as a PhD in biologic sciences and research very different pathway, but a meteoric rise again and it's okay to fail. I think that's another important thing to say. We as well, we have to be perfect. We have to do this perfectly. The key is it's not working. Quickly address it, bring it to you by saying I tried, it's just not working, or I need help. I need the help. I'm not getting help I need, or I think the project is flawed. I think there's a fundamental flaw and nobody in the company wants to see a fail. I remember once I was consulting a major company and I was helping them to prepare for launch of this potentially major new product and we have a process called world-class launch, which we take a cross-functional team through and they you know how ready are you and what do we need to do to get ready? And they were like, literally, it was imminent, this launch. It was now September and they were supposed to have their big launch meeting in November or December or January, I can't remember and they were going to pull all the salespeople from around the USA. They had hired Cirque du Soleil to do a show for them. This was huge, right, and you have to appreciate that what this particular company sold was the equivalent of a widget, right, you have to sell a lot of widgets to pay for Cirque du Soleil. I remember saying wait, what's your forecast? What's the size of the market? Stepping back to the stuff that I assumed the valuation was there, right, the value of the market was already determined. And I said wait, what's your first year forecast? And then it was so small. I said how can you justify this huge launch when you have a very small forecast? I said what's your forecast, so small? And then they said we can't make it fast enough. We can't make enough that we're underpowered from a manufacturing standpoint. Now we're talking bricks of water, now we're talking machinery, we're talking about approvals by the government for manufacturing. And I went hey, let's take a breath here. What is your capacity and how long will it take to get to the capacity you say the market is worth. How long will it take you to get there If we put reships on and triple our manufacturing facilities? I said you don't want to put reships on, but even if you did, how long would all of that take? I said, conservatively, two to three years. I said you do realize you're not ready for launch. And they all looked at me and I said why are we proceeding as though we're ready? And they said we can't go to them and tell them that it's not going to work, it's going to fail. I said, yeah, you do, and if you don't, I will. And they looked at me, like here in the headlight, and I said guys, you'll be a hero if you pull the plug now. You'll fall on the sword. If you don't do it now, and pretty soon after this great event, everybody's going to be saying wear the sails, wear the sails. And then this whole thing will unravel. So which do you want now? Pull the plug. And yeah, they're not going to be happy, but it's a heck of a lot better than proceeding. And they looked at me and they said can you make the call? I said no, you can make the call, but I'll stand by you. And so they did it and I said right then and there in the meeting, and I said okay, now we're going to spend the rest of the time talking about how do we back out of this plan and how do we develop a commercial strategy that makes sense. And that's what we did and turned out to be absolutely the right thing to do. But having said all of that, I think sometimes we're so afraid of not being perfect that we don't bring it to the attention of people who can actually help us soon enough, and that's male and female. That's human nature, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 16:14

And it's so interesting because I did marketing strategies and I was always like this may not be what you think, and it's really hard because companies don't want to hear that they sometimes want to hire the firm that's going to yes them and then they get mad that they don't get the results. And then I hear things like I hate marketers. I'm like, really, I'm like you do. Did you just go with what they said without seeing if it was going to make sense to actually do this? And that happens, I think, a lot. So we have a lot of listeners who are female entrepreneurs and I'll be curious to get your thoughts on this. So I think sometimes, especially when you're new in business, you say yes to a lot because you're afraid of not getting the sale.

Speaker 2: 16:52

And you think they know better than you.

Speaker 1: 16:54

And they should.

Speaker 2: 16:55

But what you have to do is learn from them and listen to that instinct. It's what I call the two-year-old question. If it just doesn't make sense to you, if you're just not happy with the answers you're getting or you just don't trust, do your research, do your homework and if it's not connecting for you, if it's just not making sense, choose the status quo, challenge the assumption that people are making and probably the biggest success stories. I've been able to really think things global transformations in healthcare. I've started with that dumb question, that two-year-old question of why don't we know why young women in all over the world who are not white are getting breast cancer at a rate four times more than Americans and European women or white women, as it turned out, it was ethnicity. And when I challenged everybody about the kinds of research that were being done and the kind of guidelines being said and I said guys, you're basing this all on white Western women who are willing to volunteer for clinical research and all have her two positive forms of breast cancer and there's 70% of the world out there that are not going to get any benefit from it. The medicines that are being developed for women for breast cancer. And everybody was like what?

Speaker 1: 18:10

We can get into a whole other conversation about that too, because I'm sure another crazy statistic about healthcare and women.

Speaker 2: 18:16

But your point is right, which is, if just something doesn't feel right or if it's an assumption and it's a big assumption when I just described what you just described if it's a really big assumption, ask for facts. I have become very data-driven. I've always been data-driven, but I'm also considered, like you, marketing. People are, by nature, innovative. We like to be creative. That's what drives us. We like to create, we like to make things come alive, make things happen really and through your organization, of course. But people are going to tell you things and then you'll have to check assumptions. You have to say is that a fact or a subject? It's a fact, it can be the facts, but it's an assumption. How sensitive is that assumption? And we need to go test that before we build strategy on it, because if we're wrong about that, we're really wrong and it's worth just holding back a little bit and figuring out how can I get enough traction on this so that I have confidence. I do a lot of policy-implemented research and, as from COVID, policy actually precedes facts. Sometimes we have to set policy, like people should wear masks and we should try to get vaccines, and we want to keep six different distances. Some of that had good facts and some of it was very great. But logic says keep your distance and work as bright. It's just good logic. And yes, there's good data in some places, but not necessarily everywhere or not necessarily with the mask you buy and you wear, etc. And so we have to really sometimes with policy, we have to make decisions and form by experience, decisions and form by logic, even in absence of data, but we try to get as much data as we can. When you do that, you can actually interview 15 to 25 people and if you start hearing the same thing again and again, you can say I feel pretty confident that the majority think this fine, but if it still doesn't resonate with you, don't do it, don't accept it.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Absolutely, and I want to talk about something that you mentioned on the topic description, because I think it goes along with this. What we're talking about is how do female entrepreneurs know if they're falling into the hedonism response? What is that? And then what are the warning signs that women are doing this while they're in their own business? That's really not serving them.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Okay and actually they got some relationship to each other. When you're in a tea profile you don't see. You're in that cross-functional meeting and it's your. You know your brainstorming. You're all touring around ideas, what could be done, and you are trying to do creative problem solving, come up with some ideas that don't be tested, et cetera, and let's just say that's the scenario. Someone throws out an idea maybe it's you, maybe someone else and all of a sudden everybody starts to get excited. They move forward and they lean forward and it's just a gem of an idea. That's called the hedonic response. There's different centers of the brain, but most of it is what we call the limbic part of the brain. The ancient brain is also called the reptile brain. It's the thing fight a flight. If someone goes to attack you, you're not expecting it. Naturally we'll either push away or run away right or fight back. That's that fight-or-flight response. You respond so quickly you don't even process it. It's a natural response and this is what the hedonic response can be in terms of pleasure centers. So, if it pleases you but you're not sure why, you haven't explored it all yet or whatever that you get, like a light bulb lights off in your head right or light it. Literally your brain starts glowing in these centers and that's called the hedonic response. When you see in a group that something that someone mentioned takes on and everybody starts sitting up and starts talking about it or grabbing onto it and suddenly maybe that would work. We can try it this way. Some people call it brainstorming. Remember that term brainstorming it's before brainstorming. You don't want to brainstorm every idea, you want to watch the hedonic response and when you start seeing it, no matter who the author of that was, share it and go with it, say okay, jim, I saw you light up. What were you thinking at that moment? But then, amy, you also smiled. What were you thinking? What made you think about? And this way you get this kind of tip and that's through synergy in the group. And they may still have no idea how to make it happen, but they're on to something. Now those often will be as you flesh it out or work it through. Maybe they will be, but chances are those will lead to success and even if it's that intuitive. So I think, absent of facts, look for that hedonic response in a group, because willpower is amazing. If we really want something to happen, we'll make it happen despite the odds. Let me raise it further, because there's a negative side to hedonic response and I bet you the word hedonistic and hedonism. We have developed a generation, our new generation of workers, prayed the hedonic response. These pleasure centers are what cause addictions. We're constantly seeking our brain and our craves, a certain kind of constant reward, constant motivation, constant pleasure, and gaming is the best example where my son turned me on to gaming and it's like a whole different thing where for me to do and you to do some of the work we do, you have to shut off everything and just focus, and when young people are learning by being entertained all the time, they expect that they learn in small soundbites and by repetition. That works counter to deep thinking, to be frank, and so I think we have to be concerned about how much we're on our cell phones, how much we're on games and how much are we really communicating with each other, listening to each other, deep thinking, switching off all those TVs and things that entertain us, and play a game with each other or do something. I think one of the things I was surprised to see in my children, who are adults, is we get together on a Sunday and we all work the crossword puzzle together and so pleasure is finding a word, but we're working collectively and when we don't work it together, so much isn't on their own, it takes forever. But when we all get together, because of all the generation and experiences and everything else, we can nail those crossword puzzles really quickly. I'm saying that again. That's just like the T profile I've got my expertise, you've got yours, we bring it together and things can really great things can happen. And that's just a small example of people. Imagine it going bigger Women entrepreneurs we talk about. As an entrepreneur myself and seeing many women try to start companies, in the sciences in particular, and then have to fold up show, I started NovGropits and bolded them up. I've had to do that too. But as an entrepreneur, I'm going to go back and tell you a story because I think it relates to this. When I was getting my MBA at Columbia, there was a course called Career Planning and Development and I go oh, I'm on this one, this is going to be great. And they made us take a survey and their Columbia University back in the 70s and 80s we had the highest percentage of women was 30 to 50% women, and Harvard had two MBAs who are women the year that I accepted at Columbia and I was one of those two, by the way, and I just did not want to be the woman in an all male class. I. That just wasn't my thing. I had three brothers. I had enough of that growing up and when I went to Columbia, so we were, let's say, 50-50 in that classroom in particular and they made us take a survey that would predict what kind of careers would we do well in, and it was based on any career and all of us got our reports back and the men were very diverse, but the women we were all either going to be teachers, bank tellers or nurses. It was just so silly that we all just laughed. We went to the professor. We said this is ridiculous, whereas the guys were being told that they should go into finance and consulting or they're going to be a future CEO or whatever it was. We got this ridiculous stuff. We said put our surveys back through as though we were men. Just let us do it and give ourselves a male name and a male gender and let's see what we got back. We got back completely different reports, completely. Mine came up that I was now my German by 20s. I fit the classic of someone who would be an entrepreneur and start his first company by the time he was 30. To tell you, I wasn't thinking about being an entrepreneur, but I did put a seed in my head. Then the opportunity came up and I was going to start a new company. And then life happens and changes happen and I ended up starting the firm that I'm CEO of today. But I do a lot of work with women who are entrepreneurs. The three things and the first thing you're not going to like to hear this. You have to know you've got a financial runway for three years. You either have it on your own, you have it with a partner or a spouse or friends, but you've got to be able to figure out what is the cash flow need. That doesn't require you to put your mortgage on the line, doesn't require you to put everything you have at risk, but you will probably be asked to take some risk, more than you would normally do. Then you have to ask yourself who else in your life and family will be impacted by this. Are they going to be supportive of you doing this? If the answer is, I have the wherewithal and I have a family or partners who are going to be supportive of me, then it will take about three years. What you think should take one year will take three years. That's the only thing I can say. It happened to me. It was classic. I really couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Until after the end of the second year, going into the third year, I said I think I'm going to make it. Every time I've looked at a new business, startup, whatever, you've got to hang in there for three years. A lot of new businesses fail an entrepreneur's fail because they don't have the resources to hang in there long enough. It's not that it's a bad idea. It's just like what I was talking earlier. They've underestimated the resources, underestimated or don't even know about competition and they overestimated how fast their new idea will catch and what people are willing to pay for it. I think you always give it a couple of innovative customers first, clients, customers, whatever that help you to take off quickly. Then you say look at that, we're off and running. Then things will flat. That's the natural process of adoption. You'll get your first adopters, your innovators and early adopters. They'll account for about 15% of your revenue. But the next, which is called early majority, and that's assuming you do all the marketing. They think twice as long and four times as long as all those others to change behavior which are basically asking someone to do when they buy you. You're asking them to stop doing something they were doing and start doing something with you. That just takes time and you've got to get to that third year to start penetrating that early majority customer ratio. I think that understanding the process of adoption isn't just for women or men. This is universal. Now, when we talk about women, I am fascinated by what I talk to women and they tell me the hoops they have to go through. By the way, this has happened to me in the startups. I've been involved in women on the board or I've been a consultant or whatever. The hoops they have to go through convince male funders that they have the capability of doing a good job and have the leaderships known. It goes right back to that story. I told you at the beginning that if they were in the old boys' network, they want to put people into boards and people into roles because they like them, their friends, their buddies, they've had long relationships with them and so therefore, they trust them and they trust that they'll do a good job and they'll keep them informed. But with women we may be talking to people we don't have those relationships with, we don't have those segues to, we don't have the sponsorship we need at the top. And it's no surprise that the venture capital world is dominated by men and very closed about how they make decisions, how they favor or don't favor women. But if you talk to any female entrepreneur, ceo, someone who's had to raise funds and I'm talking about big funds, millions of dollars for life science, startup companies, things like that, women with incredible track records and then they just are put through so many more hurdles than their male counterparts in order to get it. So it goes back to again make sure you've got a three-year bandwidth that you can handle it. Look at those T-profiles, develop those other skills, learn how to talk the world of finance, learn how to talk the numbers, because many times we don't have a financial acumen that we need to be able to sell it and have a business idea. And yeah, I think most women are more than capable of doing it. The hurdles they have to go through are phenomenal to try to get acceptance in terms of the financing and the venture of the capital world, and then acceptance in terms of the marketplace, bringing a new idea to market. It's a lot better now than it used to be, but on the venture capital side and the financing side it's still horrendous. I think on the market acceptance side it's really changed a lot. I am one of the judges for something called Mass Challenge, which in Massachusetts is actually one of the biggest startup non-equity diluting startup firms. That puts money into new companies with new ideas and I would have to say one half to two thirds of those startups are technology and healthcare related. So I'm in demand. I'll be listening to the pitches and we are really rigor. But I think the women tend to hold back on their pitch, they don't sell the sizzle and the guys tend to sell the sizzle but may not sell the back end of it enough to give me the confidence on the numbers. But guess who wins? Not every mass challenge. We the amount of rigors like short time gives it. The rigor that goes into it is pretty serious. There's a lot of money on the line that goes for these young startups, but I would say you need to put sizzle into it, you need to be charming, you need to develop friendships, build trust in people that never met you before and yet speak with authority and know your numbers, be able to talk some numbers. I think that's where holds a lot of women entrepreneurs back. That would be my idea.

Speaker 1: 32:58

That's so interesting that you said that I was just talking to somebody yesterday. We were talking she was something a little bit different she does processes and she goes on one business as a Scali and talked about processes, and we were talking about how many businesses male and female, but a lot of times in family and all in businesses it's not that they're not successful, they don't know their numbers. And we're not talking about within the first three years, we're talking about sometimes in the fourth and fifth, and so they want to scale, but they don't know if they can't because they don't really know their numbers to be able to scale. And that's a common issue. And to me, to wrap it back around to self care is, if you know those things and you're comfortable with those things, you're not going to have fear of oh my gosh, I can't take care of A, b and C over here, right? Because you're going to be like, oh, this is not a big sale, I know what I can do in my own company, and I think back to what you were saying, though, is about the confidence in how women speak and how women talk when they're selling something. It's really interesting. I've worked in the healthcare doing marketing for doctors and healthcare facilities and, what's really interesting, it's always a woman who usually brings me to the door. It's just the way that it works out, but it is always male doctors and CEOs who are usually making the decision. So it's a very interesting thing to be able to go from, because a woman will go in and say she gets a social media thing and then trying to explain to their male counterpart why it's important, how it can change Right, it's a very different.

Speaker 2: 34:29

I started the extraordinary women advancing healthcare awards, I said we've got to get these emerging leaders, women, we've got to get them some recognition, we've got to get them out of their corners and more exposure and also networking, getting them out there and networking to each other. I just interviewed one of them who, ironically is because of this conversation, is someone African women in the hospital which has had a history of women CEOs or women leadership and they don't have that kind of fear of leadership but being a woman, it's really even Steven, I think, for a lot of them compared to some of the other hospitals. But and she was telling me, just being in the event ceremony, being on a commitment, on a page of the Boston glow, having your peers come and be with her and bosses recognizing her because she got that award and it made her, she said I was just hunkering in, I was like why me or I don't deserve this? Yes, you do, you do deserve this, and a panel of 27 judges agreed you deserve this. And yeah, but so, and so one won the award. She did this, and so one that I did. Yeah, look what you did. I think we tend to be a bit more humble than we should. We need to be willing to do that numbers. Again, in the financing world, you have angel investing you around and be, and then any investment, any venture capital. For what's it now? When are you going to go public or when do we sell you? And you got to understand that's the way they're looking. So, yes, you can show a 10 year plan and you probably will have to show a 10 year plan because, particularly if there's a long runway and technology is there, isn't healthcare You're not going to show market for seven to 10 years, and that's if everything goes well and there's going to be a significant burn rate in terms of happen. So how are the funding raises going to go? Are there an ancillary sources of revenue that can happen Licensing, technologies or whatever? Is there going to be some kind of back in screen? And how can we be sure that those back in streams of revenue don't end up taking too much attention away from the very thing that we're interested in, which is an innovation? So these are the kind of things you have to know how to talk to and you have to have clarity around and, yeah, you've got to know your numbers.

Speaker 1: 36:41

You have to know your numbers. It amazes me and I think when we talk about that, though women are always talking about to worry about that. I mean, we have gone from generations of let somebody else handle that, and so I think that has a lot to do with us. It's like coming out of that idea that somebody else is going to look at that stuff and handle it for me, as opposed to saying, since my company, I need to know what I make and what I don't.

Speaker 2: 37:05

You need to know your numbers. You can't be blindsided. I've had experiences myself where I trusted someone else with the money side of things and Gupert and even if you hate it, you have to be involved. Do you have no choice? And then we go back to the other thing, we trust someone else or whatever. It's perfectly fine to have a second link amount. Who's a strong person in finance? Perfectly fine. That's right. Speak to those numbers. If we go to JP Morgan in early January, we'll see nine-tenths of presentations for startups being given and deals being led by men. Maybe more than nine-tenths, okay. And they know how to talk to the top. And they always, almost always, even if they know how to talk to the numbers, they almost always will have those CFOs along with them or their top financial advisors with them to be able to handle the questions and to be able to back them up or for them to turn to if there's a question that comes up that's sticky, but you're not going to go to a JP Morgan conference instead of them going? I don't know. We haven't thought about what we're going to probably need to be round of financing. You do that. You just shot yourself in the foot, exactly.

Speaker 1: 38:16

I have one last question, then we're going to have to wrap up. I could talk to you forever about this. So when we talked about female entrepreneurship and we talked about some different things, bring back the self-care of if we take care of those things, we'll feel better, but then we're not stressed all of those things. But what's the first step? If a female entrepreneur is listening about this kind of oh my gosh I don't know my numbers, I don't know if I really have that community, because there is a lot of women who still feel not so much our listeners, but there's a lot of women who don't believe in collaboration. Still, they're still in that mindset If I collaborate, somebody's going to steal whatever I think I'm doing. So I'd love for you to talk about what that first step is to tap into some synergy to get rid of that mindset, because that's a mindset issue. It's like that some of us women have been raised in. I can't share. I can't because I'm afraid and it really holds you back.

Speaker 2: 39:05

It's between intellectual property and being afraid of your ideas being stolen, and for that I'd go and get some advice from a good IP firm. If you're in the life sciences and need that help, I can contact me. I can give you some recommendations. But so move that aside. Let's say the whole intellectual property thing, which is a big deal in our business. Move that aside. Yeah, I would have to say, if you don't develop a willingness to collaborate on the ability to collaborate goes back to that T profile. The sooner you can start doing it, the better Then maybe you aren't ready to be an entrepreneur, because you're going to have to understand and, yes, you're going to have to wear lots of hats, and maybe you're going to have to have those multifunctional hats yourself in the beginning because you're going to be a one woman show, as they say, but you'll really need to develop those collaborative skills. So I would say, if you think, okay, I want to start this new company, I've got this idea If you don't have the ability to work with and through a cross functional team, you're probably going to fail. And I'm really sorry to be so blunt about that, but none of us is an iron man or woman. None of us can be an island and be successful. It just isn't going to happen. And we need the teams around us. Sometimes entrepreneurs male and female they don't want that because they don't want to be challenged. They don't want the serious challenge of someone going hold on. Why are we doing certain? They don't want that. They want someone who's going to drink the Kool-Aid and just keep buzz the hedonic thing going for them. Keep that motivation. I think in terms of wellness, when you develop a team, you can trust each other and trust each other enough to be honest with each other. Then you've got to win. And still, yes, there's concerns and this and that, but all together as a team, you really feel committed to this new venture. Your chances of winning are infinitely higher. And it's going to show when you meet with investors and fundraisers or potential customers and they see not just you but the team you've built around you. You've got a much higher chance of success. And don't you want that? Anyway? Dr wants someone saying hey, wendy, that's a really great idea, but someone else is already doing that. What's going to be your competitive advantage? Sometimes we need that other person to either allow me to show why I have a compelling competitive advantage, or pull me back down to the ground and say, yeah, you're right, we need to build more value in these pieces.

Speaker 1: 41:33

Yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Thank you so much. I hope you've enjoyed this. I guess the last thing I would say and this is true in life as we go don't go to bed angry with your partner, and if something's bothering you, put it to the side to try to get some sleep, and about three in the morning you'll probably come up with your solution. I think you have to learn to pace yourself, give yourself timeouts and give yourself permissions to be wrong and make mistakes and move on. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 42:03

And I know that you have an article on your site which I'll have the link to, but it's how to develop a cheap profile at the website. That's right.

Speaker 2: 42:11

So I think that's a great way to get some information about your ability, your ability to develop your form of team profile, but it would apply to any industry and some of the questions. Don't hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to help guide and some questions whatever people they want.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Thank you so much, and all of Barry's information will be in the show links or linked in, and her email so you can get in contact with her, along with her website and the link to the article. So thank you again, barry. Thanks, take care.