Michelle Collie, Founder & CEO, Highbar Physical Therapy

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Ryan Heckman, the CEO of Rally Day Partners, and this is the Founders Journey podcast. We'll explore the heart and soul of great founders and their journey to build the company of their dreams. You will learn about new industries and business models while discovering how to apply the Founders mindset to your everyday work and life. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to another episode of the Founders Journey Podcast, brought to you by Rally Day Partners. I'm your host, Ryan Heckman, and I am with a dear friend and partner in crime, Michelle Colley. Michelle is the CEO and founder of one of Rally Day's healthcare services platforms called Ibar, it's based in Providence, Rhode Island, more recently with a substantial footprint also in the Boston market. Michelle and I are gonna explore two topics today. One is very personally, her growth journey for the last four years, we celebrated our fourth year anniversary working together on December the first. I think it was Michelle, if that's right. So it's a more seasoned part of our portfolio and naturally the longer you work together, the better you get to know one another. And Michelle's just got a really cool personal journey that we've gotta get out there. Maybe we spend about a quarter of our time on that topic. And then the balance, we've never really talked to a founder CEO about our Rally Day Accelerator program and kind of what that has meant to a founder's personal journey and obviously the organizational side of it. I promise it's not a commercial, but I just think it'd be cool to just talk about the program in each of its five elements and get that from a founder's perspective as opposed to a Rally Day perspective. And so in any rate, Michelle, welcome. - Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate being here and you called me a friend. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. - It's so funny, you know, high bar has not been up and to the right from the beginning, you know, a lot of healthcare services had a tough couple of few years because, you know, they were closed during COVID and then, you know, wage inflation occurred and in Michelle's specialty, there's shortage of physical therapists and we only recently were able to kind of reignite our M&A strategy. It's only been a year. Now the good news is we've doubled the footprint together from 25 centers roughly to 50 in the last year and we're going to have a breakout year in 26 but it has not been easy. And the only thing I want to say before, maybe you give us a little bit of your biography, Michelle, it's just a compliment that, you know, when that going got tough for you, you just decided to get better as an executive and the growth that I've seen in your executive toolkit never mind your founder one and your provider one has just been really inspiring. And as recently as up last week, I literally told an LP that I was visiting that Michelle Colley may be one of our, if not best CEOs in our portfolio today and it's come from a lot of hard work and dedication to personal growth. So with that, why don't you tell us where are you originally from? If not, people can't tell you're a Kiwi but let's start there kind of how you were raised and why you started a high bar and kind of like your personal side, if you don't mind, Michelle. - Well, thank you for that kind introduction and I don't, I would never imagine a day that someone would say we're the best CEO in our portfolio. It's not something I went out to do. And you're right, it's been lots of hard work but like they say anything in life worth doing does take hard work and it takes passion and purpose about what you believe in. So when I go back in time, I grew up, we call it in the Boondacks in New Zealand or the Wop Wops, like add them out on a sheep farm with my parents who neither of them went to college or high school, I mean they went to high school of course but grew up on a sheep farm. I was a little bit of a jock and at the age of 15 I injured myself playing basketball, tore my ACL and then discovered the field of what's called physiotherapy and I was shy, I wasn't that confident but those physiotherapists really empowered me and helped me understand that my actions and how I behaved and how I took control over my body could have a big impact on what happened next. So I fell in love with that profession ultimately became a physiotherapist then had the opportunity 30 years ago to come to America because there was such a shortage of physical therapists in this country. Came here with a group of other Kiwi girls, Kiwi woman we came to the small but mighty state of Rhode Island we'd like to say in Providence we were all welcome wholeheartedly here working in local hospitals, planned to stay here for a year and then travel the world and go home. No intention of staying here. However, I got caught up in grad school I ended up going to grad school in the evenings up at MGH in Boston as I thought I wanted to teach because I cared about our profession and I thought I cared very much deeply about giving the best care possible to our patients being all practicing at the top of the license sometimes we call it. Ultimately joined a single private practice in the Tucket Road Island and we're soon running that practice and then had the opportunity from the original owner to take that over because he decided he wanted to move away. I cared very much about that practice with this wonderful team of clinicians that leaned and collaborated and involved in the community. Did a lot of good, good work together and I was like we don't want to mess with that so I'll take it over. So I think the mafia was involved SBA loan, a little bit of self-financing and I closed, I acquired that practice 22 years ago when I was eight months pregnant sitting in the basement of a bank with a lot of strange men around me looking at me as if I was crazy. I had short, short, spiky blonde here. I knew nothing about business. The next day I ordered, I didn't, even not even online, we didn't have computers, ordered Harvard Business School's books on management and finance in between I think contractions of having my firstborn and tried to figure out what North was supposed to do. So we started as one clinic. We took care of people. We've always been very much this unapologetically people first practice and we grew and not because I wanted to get bigger but because we had clinicians who were like, "Hey, I'd love to open a clinic in this community." And we're like, "Okay, well, let's figure it out." And so we ultimately grew. I became very involved with our national organizations in different ways and was able to get a perspective on what was happening in healthcare, in physical therapy in particular, marketing PR, advocacy, value, policy, saw what was happening nationally. And again, we continued to grow. We got through the pandemic, made some bold moves in the pandemic, led the way on some of those moves, especially to do with telehealth and access to care and how you pivot as a provider to meet the needs of your community, which you find that not everyone agrees with, but those within your community understand it and if you're doing it for the right reasons, learned a lot through it and helped me discover again how amazing a team was when they leaned in and believed in the same things. And as we came out of the pandemic, it was like, what next? How do we help more people? How do we make a difference to the kind of care? I was seeing a lot of scaling and larger practices actually commoditized care. And when I mean commoditized care, not just the actual clinical care, but also commoditized how you take care of people. And I didn't like that very much. I was like, how do you actually grow and scale so you can help more people provide more opportunities, all of these things impact your community, but not commoditize how you do it with people 'cause people are more than just a number. So that's when I sort of went on a quest to figure out what next and met a lot of people, heard a lot of opinions, spent a lot of time with lots of people who had no idea what they're talking about 'cause all they wanted to talk about was financials and how much money they could make me which was not the drive behind it all. And I was introduced this team, Raleigh Day Partners, who were described as this brand new private equity group that was founded by entrepreneurs who wanted to do something different. And I had a call with John Trentiquero, Nancy Phillips, you Ryan as well, it was delightful, it was exciting, it was purpose-driven, it was meaningful, we were real people and from there the research history and that was the start of NX chapter. - And how many centers did you open or have between the one that you started with in that bank which is so funny visual by the way? And then when we met, did you have like 15 or 20? - 15, 15, right. - And was it particularly painful to go from one to 15? I mean what was, when you're doing it without a capital partner and you were probably doing a lot of leases with personal guarantees and all that stuff? I mean was that scary? Was that exciting or all the above? Like what was that like? - I mean it was just sort of how it was because my dear husband thank goodness for him, he's an entrepreneur as well, he's built businesses. So for us it was just kind of what you did. And I had wonderful relationships even with the banks in Rhode Island. And again, even the bankers I worked with, we would develop good relationships and understand what it was about. It was always more than, hey, does this work financially? And but yeah, I signed basically everything I own away for to get where we were. - I mean, hopefully Gill had already done the same thing. So the bank was like. - So yeah, we were both on that same, which many people think is crazy. And maybe it is, but guess that's who we are. - That's so cool. Well let's, I thought maybe to kind of round out the personal growth side, I could just do a rapid fire. What have you learned about X? And just let you riff on those, maybe, I don't know, a couple minutes each. But the first one is what have you learned about working with a private equity firm and the difficulties that that can be come when you're also trying to scale a business and end and end? So what have you learned about managing that relationship that you think has helped you now have a fulfilling one with Raleigh Day today? - I think it's just ensuring everyone is very in line in how they communicate with each other, setting those expectations as far as clarity, honesty, realizing we're one. It's never us in them. I do not like, I mean, I'm all good with what I pronounce, pronouns people want to use, but when it comes to our businesses, it's never they in them. It's always us and we. I think that's really important for myself and the role of the leader is understanding the ripple of how I behave and how I show up and how I support that relationship. I see myself much clearer now than what I did as being in that role of that core person who ensures the standard and level of communication between all stakeholders. And to me, stakeholders are not just the private equity group and the ALPs, it's just as much our employees and our community and our referral sources and our profession. So how do I ensure every single stakeholder is aligned and being very thoughtful about the expectations of the behaviors that will support the kind of culture that we have. I think also being very clear in knowing what you don't know for each party, there's a lot I don't know and being very clear on what that is. And I think too when you have an investor, there's a lot, the investor doesn't know either. And so bridging those together can sometimes be a little clunky and feel uncomfortable, but it is going to feel uncomfortable sometimes, but that just means you're learning and being curious and you can move forward. Yeah, along those lines, you know, we about six months ago released kind of a light paper. That sounds way too academic, but it was like a positioning paper for all of us here at Rally Day. And it explored this topic of what we call 7030. And the first person I sent it to was Michelle. She's been with us for a long time. And I asked questions like, you know, would this have been helpful at day one? It was kind of the question I asked, or knowing what you know now, is this helpful clarity? And the basic principle is that those of us in private equity are just terrible back seat drivers. And I think for some founders, they feel like the private equity firm is back seat driving verbally, but also sometimes even grabbing the wheel, you know, which is like obviously very dangerous metaphorical sense, but emotionally taxing to a founder to feel like they have lost an agency, particularly one who was a founder, who bootstrapped their organization from one to 15 centers in Michelle's case. Would you speak to me about that ratio, Michelle, and just from your personal perspective, the value of getting clarity on our desire at Rally Day for the founder to be pulling us 70% of the time and giving us an opportunity to push 30% of the time. Is that the right ratio? And does it change? And you know, give us your thoughts on that principle, if you don't mind. Yeah, it's a really good principle and one that I love to explore more. And I don't know if you can say it's always 70, 30. I think it shifts depending on the journey, depending on the part, you know, all of those things. But I think it's a wonderful starting point to create some expectation. Because when you say to me, look, Michelle, your job is to pull us like 70%. Where there is to push the 30? Even for me, that even helps. That even has a ripple effect on my leadership team. Like even as I ripple to my next leader, as not we like hierarchy, but the folks that report to me, like even for you guys, you need to push and lead, not expect me. I think it's helpful because I mean, we're all aware of it. Often private equity sometimes gets a bad reputation for itself, it gets bad for this, this, this, this. What I've learned is, no, well, private equity is a wonderful opportunity to support your ability to scale and grow. It's up to the leaders of that organization to understand how to lead the way. Because if you're not going to lead the way, then yeah, your private equity partly is going to have to push you more. So either show up and lead and lead the way, or if you're going to sit back and not understand how to do that or not want to do that, then yes, you're going to get pushed and then that things can, struggles can happen. So I really think that people need to stand back, understand that private equity is a wonderful tool to provide capital, to allow for opportunities, growth, et cetera, et cetera. But you have to grow. And so you need to have a leadership team who's dedicated that because scaling an organization and growing is different to like, yeah, we're going to go along and grow to a certain place. When we're going to scale, we're going to make, we're going to be more disciplined with strategy, process, decisions, and most importantly, culture and behavior and how we take care of our people. But we need to lead the way and allow the private equity partner to push a little, ask questions, question ask challenge so we don't screw it up. Yeah, I mean, the benefit of us at Relay Day, of course, is that four of us managing partners have combined made every single mistake that a founder can make. And if 30% of the time we say, you know, Michelle, I actually have this up or have that up. And I certainly don't want you to do that. And that's the push, right? And yet, I would say for us, we get a lot of confidence. We have more confidence if you're pulling us 70% of time because you're right. We don't know very much as it turns out in terms of what's happening within your organization or frankly, what's happening in your environment or your competitors or whatever. So I think it's been helpful for us to just get that, I guess, standard made here at the firm so that it's consistent across everybody here. And you're right, it does have inflow. If we're doing a bunch of add-on acquisitions, obviously we're going to be more involved. But that doesn't mean, being involved doesn't mean we're pulling you. And I think there's the difference, you know. Yeah. All right, now here's another one. Making money versus creating value. Oh, this is probably my favorite. And it's such a mind shift for the entrepreneur startup because we're running cash-based business and we're usually bootstraping it. And so we're really thinking about cash. And I've had the privilege in the last year of finding the right partners to join our movement. And so we've had three different brands join with high bar, which will only happen as if they're super culturally aligned. And we've got some other smaller practices that have joined too. But helping the founder go from that mind shift of like, yeah, I just got to make money to actually understanding how to create value. It took me a while to understand it longer than I would have liked. I guess I didn't know what I didn't know and I probably didn't ask enough questions. But I see so much of my role now as how do I speed up and help these wonderful founders of practices who join us to change that mindset and be able to respect that it's a different way of thinking. When you're creating value versus just making money. Yeah, and I think you and I both have Dan Kremens to thank for, you know, he's a, for those of you who don't know, he's heavily linked to Anne. He wrote a book called Winning Move and it was really about what he had learned as a private equity investor and how he could give those lessons learned as it relates to this topic of value creation to operators and entrepreneurs that may or may not be with private equity. But certainly those that are, it's kind of become, I wouldn't say required reading, but it's very helpful. There really wasn't a source of truth out there that was framed in this very practical way. And between the book and then him leading us through strategy together, which Michelle and I just completed, was that back in the spring, Michelle? It may or something. Spring? Something like the high time flies. Anyway, we were doing a strategy refresh and Dan led that exercise. And I think it was a great unlock for the high bar team. And it made us more aligned. And I think it gave us a shared language. So certainly a plug for any of you listening. It's the Winning Move's book is on Amazon of course. And Dan is just awesome. So I'd love to hear they unlock for you, Michelle. Oh, the unlock with Dan was wonderful. And I even have Dan will do sessions with new groups that join us with the leaders. And I asked him to read their book. And anyone who reads it walks away going, oh, I now I understand. And it's not in the value creation of understanding. It's not just the value of the company, but it ties into your culture and your people and your purpose and how it all fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, rather than just siloing it off. This is just about the finances. Yeah, that's well said. Let's go to, you know, in healthcare services companies, maybe a lot of service companies. There's this, I guess mindset between are you obsessed with customer experience or are you obsessed with employee and kind of teammate, colleague experience? And we hear and see all types. Where are you on that kind of mindset tension, if you will. Like if you had to choose one, what would you do? Well, it's simple. It's actually employees or team. And it's changed over the years. And like any with a leader or maybe I'm a woman, I can say it. But yes, my mind has changed about lots of things over the years as I've been humbled and learned more and listened more. But absolutely, it's about our team and employees first. Because if I can ensure that we have a work environment or we have a work environment, where clinicians, where admin staff can show up and be the best versions of themselves, both with the professional thing they do, but also personally as well. Be heard, feel safe, be empowered, get feedback. Then they can do really good work. If it's just about the patients, you can't force a clinician or someone in the service industry to constantly give their base to support a patient if they're not feeling good about themselves. But there is a book that, what's it called? Patients come second. And again, I think when I first heard of the title that book many years ago, it was terrible. And now I'm like, how could it be any other way? Now, do we care about clinical outcomes? Absolutely. Do we care about patient satisfaction? And we measure that. And we watch that and we're super curious. How can we better? How can we be the best without a doubt? But I can't do that. If I don't have a team that is feeling and behaving and really aligned with what the objectives are, the goals are culture. And so is my role in our leaderships. It's about being taken care of our people. And we call it unapologetically people first, which means it's not about one person. It's not about me or a leader. It's about our people out in the clinics taking care of patients and as leaders of this organization, that's what we're here to serve. That's awesome. I want to bring up this next one, but I don't want to spend a ton of time on it. But I would be remiss not to bring it up. And this is a topic of people and teammate, employee, ownership in the financial outcome of high bar. And I guess I had a little bit of an awakening. I got to meet Pete Stavaros of all places from KKR, who I never thought I would learn. It sounds mean, I didn't think I was going to learn much. But Pete is a very special human being and has been advocating far and wide the benefits of employee ownership and trying to like build in this country a new paradigm around this topic. And in particular within the private equity world. And at first I thought he was just kind of like, like doing the equivalent of greenwashing for KKR. That all of a sudden like KKR were good people and look at us were sharing financial upside with employees of some of their portfolio companies. What I discovered was anything but that. I mean, Pete is passionate about this topic for all the right reasons. And I came home from the conference where I got to spend some time with him and I called Michelle and I was like, look, let's try it. Like let's run an experiment. We don't, we have one other port co who has this program. But it's all about getting financial upside tied to the business to all employees and not just those that can afford a 401K match or not just those at the top of the org chart. What are your thoughts on this topic, Michelle? And what's your early read on the receptivity of this within your organization? Oh, it's well, first of all, let's say that we are not part of the experiment anymore. We're actually spent a lot of this year learning about how to potentially do it, what it would look like, getting feedback from all different folks in our organization so that we can roll out our own version of this and we're calling it high bar shares that aligns with our purpose and our strategy and our culture because the biggest thing I've learned is that so much of the success of a program like this isn't just like, hey, cool, now you get this opportunity be part of the financial upside. It's actually supporting and helping people understand why you're doing this, what the opportunities are and how this alignment actually creates more of a team and more opportunities to succeed. It's been a fascinating year learning and rolling this out. I'm really excited. We're actually launching this January 1st for 100% of our team, whether they are clinical admin, we're adjusting it based on role and there'll be opportunities based on tenure for all of our brands and there's been bought with it a lot of curiosity, lots of questions, really good opportunities for conversations to help people understand that whether you're a patient care coordinator or a new grad or a clinic director, if we're all aligned to taking care of each other, our patients growing in the right ways, then of course everyone should have the opportunity for some financial upside. So I think it's helped. It is creating more alignment. There's definitely people like, what does this mean? But the clearer we can be with even what our growth goals are, helps to give people more clarity. It's a crazy world out there. There's a lot of ambiguity and what I continue to hear over and over if you can show up and listen and answer questions clearly to support your people, then you're going to create this trust and buy in and the ability to grow forward. And I'll volunteer you. I mean, if you see Michelle's post on LinkedIn, you'll see she's pretty prolific out there and you can direct message her on LinkedIn. If you are considering creating a program like that, she's a student of this topic and has, as she said, spent better part of a year learning from one of our other portfolios about what they thought they did right and what they could have done better. And she's just done a brilliant job of, as she said, giving context to her teammates around this opportunity. So anyway, I just to plug if you want to learn more about that topic, you can reach out to Michelle. Let's go to our RAP program. RAP is an acronym that stands for the Rally Day Accelerator Program. The genesis of which was, when we started Rally Day, Mark, Nancy and I, the three founders of the firm, had all been founders, had all consumed private equity capital to varying degrees and for almost a year, thought about what could we do programmatically with our new investments and our new partners that would be a value to them? We had experienced a variety of these kinds of programs that seemed almost like an Excel checklist, if you will, that was heavily oriented towards growth in EBITDA, no surprise. It really didn't hit the mark. And so we called it the Accelerator Program, not because the intention was to accelerate growth. Funny enough, it was because we wanted to accelerate trust and alignment between us as the private equity firm and our founder and their team. And the curriculum has evolved to some degree, but a description of it would be as follows. We start with organizational purpose. Then we focus on strategy that should and properly execute to be in service to the purpose. And then we go into culture and it's not necessarily to change the culture, it's to make the culture more powerful such that as the company gets bigger, the culture actually gets better. And in physics of organizations would say, I think we all would say, like, when companies get big, their culture is get all ruined, you know, whatever we say, those things. We have spent a little bit more time in the fourth module. It's not very exciting, but it's on operating systems, so things like EOS and ways in which founder-led companies can maybe create a little bit more structure to the value creation process. And then the last one that I particularly am fond of is the whole leadership development side of things. And over the years, we've developed more and more content and that we share with our founders and our leadership teams to empower hourly employees, middle managers, executives. The idea is that if we can grow the people in the companies where we partner, we're gonna grow the business. And oh, by the way, when it's all said and done, you know, just maybe everyone at the company says that was the most fulfilling chapter of their lives because they had someone invest in their personal growth. And that doesn't happen in many organizations, particularly lower in the organizational chart. But why don't we start with, and we'll just kind of do a similar thing here on these five. I don't think we've done a ton in operating system, Michelle. So maybe we just do purpose, strategy, culture, and leadership development and just talk about how you went through that with us very briefly, kind of what the essence of it is, and then how you have applied it and where you think it's made a difference in terms of, you know, kind of stakeholder outcomes. So let's start with purpose, which is kind of a, not everyone talks about this as a business driver. So maybe briefly touch on it and Haley's work with you. - Yes, Haley, a purposeologist was amazing. And I think one thing was for who we were when we first joined with Raleigh Day, haven't culture, vision, purpose. These were all things that we'd also gone through by reading books. So what we were able to do is take those fundamental things that had got us to the size we were, and actually like lean into them and figure out, how do you evolve your purpose as well as your strategy and cultures so that they're scalable and they're not going to have cracks in fall apart. So purpose was really about utilizing someone like Haley who could spend a lot of time listening, learning, coming in, looking at it from different perspectives and supporting a journey to clearly come up with our purpose, which is empower people to feel better, move freely and live fully, and we've been able to take that and it bleeds into everything we do. You'll see it on social media. It's tied into interviews. It's tied into our performance reviews. I said repeatedly, and it's empowering people. It's not just their patience to feel better, move freely, live fully. It's also about our team members. How can you use a team member? Can I help you basically be the best version of yourself? So the purpose is this, the why, the why, the why. This is the underlying reason we do what we do, and it bleeds through our organization. And as we bring on new partners or new clinics, we bring these terms up very quickly to ensure they're aligned with them as well, because we're not about, and if we weren't aligned, they wouldn't be the right partner for us. So it's making sure everyone is aligned. We show our purpose video. We created this wonderful video. And I show it to new teams that look at Joining and saying, "Could you put your logo on that? Would that be you?" And they go, "Yeah, that's us as well." I'm like, "All right, then we're good." It's not about the logo or the name of the organization. It's the underlying purpose and the why that helps you grow and scale. Yeah, and from our perspective, if I dare say it, the why for most private equity firms is to make more money. And I think what's so cool about starting with purpose when we enter a relationship with a new portco is that we're going to really get to the essence of the founder's heart, mind, and soul and get it codified so that we can scale these three powerful influences in the business. If you think about it, if it was Michelle plus one employee, you're sharing one heart with one other heart. And that's relatively easy. I mean, whether they like it or not is a separate matter. But one to one, sharing of heart, mind and soul is relatively easy. You get to 10, you get to 20. How many employees and teammates do you have today, Michelle? And we're around 550, close to 40. So to be able to have the essence of Michelle's heart, mind, and soul that had the courage and conviction to start this organization in the first place and to have a methodology to scale that is really special. And that's what Haley is so powerfully talented and gifted to do with Michelle and our other CEOs. So it's just like, when you go through the session, it's like one of those goose bumpy kind of experiences. At least it is for me. Well, it turns into what we're doing. It's more than a job or profession. I mean, this is the essence of who I was as a 15-year-old girl who injured herself. And the impact that physical therapists or physiotherapists had on my life is huge. And this creates a ripple for us to allow many other people to be empowered that way. That's really well said. By the way, when you were doing your intro, I meant to give you a little grief. I can't imagine you being shy. That just seems almost impossible. You really shy when you were a kid? Oh my goodness. You should ask my mother, yes, I was very shy. I was the only one in my classroom and the one in the school I went to school. I wasn't really in the middle of nowhere. I was skinny and little and very shy, very mature. That's so interesting. I say that because if there are two people that close down our holiday parties at Rayleigh Day, it's Michelle and I. And I hate shy would not have been one of the words. I would describe those evenings together. But anyway, okay, so we did purpose. Let's go to strategies. So, you know, strategies kind of come out of the, I suppose, these days. I mean, I think if you type in strategy and Amazon, you know, I don't know how many titles come up. But it's a word that's just like maybe overused. How specifically did you engage in strategy work with Rayleigh Day and how do you view it as a little bit different than maybe what we were taught reading all these silly books over the years? Yeah, you're right. I'm pleased to see that about strategy 'cause I get so tired of people saying, oh, I want to have a strategy meeting. And I'm like, what does that even mean? Like, you just want to like hang out and make up ideas and chat. But what I liked about the work with Rayleigh Day that actually allowed a framework to understanding how you get disciplined about actually what your strategies are. We use something called tail feathers, just a little bit like a peacock. What do you want to show? And this is the basis to even our whole operating system. So we have five what we call tail feathers or if you could call them strategic killers, which really are what are the most important things that everything we do focus is on these. And extraordinary patient experience, igniting people's potential, unleashing clinic potential, advancing MSK here leading the Northeast. Those strategic pillars, there's descriptions with us, but they allow us to then level down into our priorities and our goals and our objectives so we can all be very aligned in the initiatives that we take on and making sure that we're not getting distracted, not seeing squirrels and running off, which is very easy for many of us to do. But it provided the strategy work with Rayleigh Day provide a really clear framework to support our team when it comes to scaling, but also a very common language with Rayleigh Day as well. To be able to actually dig in and have good conversations, whether it's with Rayleigh Day or with the board, to support where should we be leaning in more. And these are fluid. I mean, we look at them and check them every six months to make sure do we need to tweak. This isn't like a set it and forget it. But again, it gives common language, common alignment, supports communication and supports our ability to execute on the most important endeavors. - Yeah, I like that. And the only thing I would add is just the cool factor of if you have KPIs around these. You know, you can kind of in a board meeting, ask yourself like, are we actually progressing on strategy as opposed to a binary question, do we have the right strategy or not? You know, I mean, it does provide a nice historical record of progress that our teams make such that, you know, if and when we exit five, seven years, whatever it is, you know, we can look at each of the years and say like, on this particular tail feather, where and when did we start making progress on that staircase to excellence? So yeah, I find the framework both simple and powerful and readily accessible to everybody in an organization. It's not like it's Harvard Business School kind of way of thinking, it's very practical. - Very practical and I agree, we share all these tail feathers with our entire team. And even as we're rolling out the high bar shears, showing how what we do as far as, and I'm not just talking about numbers of clinics or number of patients seen. I'm also talking about the engagement of our staff, looking at the retention, looking at our NPSs, looking at our Google reviews, all of the things that contribute to again, showing that we're not just, it's not just about EBITDA and value creation, all of these other elements are leading and really important measures, not just for the short term, but for the long term as well. - I love that. All right, let's go to maybe the only field of business that is more confusing to people than strategy and perhaps most widely mistaught, in my opinion, I guess. I shouldn't even say humble opinion. That's my less than humble opinion. And that's the word culture. - Hi. - And it's like, talk about a misused word. And on one end, you have people that think culture is like parties or foosball tables in the break room or every other Friday off or any other perk to an employee or the experience that an employee has in an organization, those can certainly be part of it. But that is not the focus of culture work here at Rally Day. Michelle, take a crack at explaining in your words and the way you applied it to your organization, what is culture and why is it a powerful driver of stakeholder excellence? Culture is very simple to me. It's just simply how we behave. And that's it. So all those other things you talked about, those are fun things to do. But actual behavior, I mean, sorry, actual culture is what's the expected or accepted, actually, I should say accepted, behaviors in an organization. And to me, this one runs deep because I've seen this talked about so much in service or health care, especially physical therapy, is yes, there's a company scales, what happens to the culture, blah, blah, blah, the story goes on, and I, and I've had to even get, our team has become so much more disciplined in this area as well, like we know what we believe. We all believe we want to lead the way, we care deeply, we want to create joy, we want to grow forward. Now, so we believe in those things, but what we've seen a lot of time with is getting real clarity in how do we behave? A behavior would be that we learn with opportunity and with, we lean in, sorry, to opportunity, and adversity. So instead of a challenge, instead of going like, oh no, we don't know what to do, like our behavior that's expected everywhere is to lean into it and say, let's get curious and learn about it. If we have a problem, it's like, how do you find a solution or create it? So don't come to people with problems, like figure it out. So so much about culture is establishing the appropriate behaviors and then having the courage to hold people to those behaviors. So we tie those behaviors again into anything to do with people, including our performance reviews, which have really nothing about metrics, they're all about behaviors, our onboarding process, our pulse surveys, every quarter, all of our leadership training is so much about behavior, how you show up, but yet how you expect people around you to behave as well. And that drives the kind of culture that you choose to have in your organization. By the way, I love the or switch a root of the words, expect versus accept. I mean, accept's kind of a strong word. It's like, this isn't what we expect. This is like, we're willing to accept these behaviors and not others. And very specifically, we'll be compensating you based upon not just your productivity, but your contributions to the culture and your standard-making relating to them. It makes hiring and firing much easier. It makes promotions much easier. All the above gets better. And you also, I think in, maybe, weeding out is probably too strong of a word, but those people who might be good performers, but aren't cultural carriers, over time, Michelle, your workforce, your teammate, quality, has been improving. And it all comes down to hiring and promoting based on behaviors that are prescribed and not sort of like, does Michelle like me? No, yeah, I very much like we are one team who has the expected, expected, but also, yeah, they're expected behaviors. We won't accept others. Happy to coach, people make mistakes, all of those things. That's all very normal. And we love to have a culture where making mistakes is very normal. That's how we learn. But we need to be accountable. We need to be solution driven. We need to show up, take accountability and responsibilities to be the best version of ourselves and grow forward. So that's good. Well, and again, it gets to scaling. Like, scaling culture is maybe just as hard as scaling purpose, right, I mean, it's just like, with 500 employees, like standard making, it has to be more of a program as opposed to when you had one clinic, for example, the role model that you provided to that clinic was the expected and accepted behavior. But if you've got now 50 clinics, how do you possibly provide that role modeling at scale? And that's typically, in our opinion, why cultures usually get worse as companies get bigger is that the founder had a right. But number 500 employee didn't know what right was. So is it both believes to better outcomes? But also, I think clarity for an employee to know that when they show up at work, it's very clear. This is how we expect you to show up, as opposed to water cooler absorption, for example, or whatever. Politics, et cetera. Anyway, I would say just when I do compliment Michelle, this is also an area where she has just excelled tremendously. I mean, her employee, MPS, her patient MPS, her turnover stats, all that stuff, I think putting words in Michelle's mouth is because she has leaned into cultures so dramatically. And it's been really fun to watch you, not just create it, Michelle, but to, like, make it real, make it a living part of your organization. Well, in our pause for a moment there, because I think an important learning point for me was learning that the organization is, it's bigger than me. It's not about me. And hey, what do I think the culture should be? And oh, if I let someone get away with this or that, it's OK, like, no, I have a responsibility in the role that I sit in to hold a certain standard expectation of how we behave and show up. And so do our other leaders and managers, because we're there to serve all of our people. And if I choose not to behave in that way, what does that say to that new entry PT who starts working there and isn't treated well? The ripple impact of how I show up realizing I'm part of something bigger, and that I can never do this favoritism or do they like me or not? Like, all that just isn't a space for that. Hey, man. All right, well, we're going to skip operating systems just for brevity and focus on areas that I think Michelle is particularly profound talking about. But let's go to leadership development and health care is sort of funny, because most practitioners, most providers have a heavy emphasis in their educational journeys around their technical skills. And most doctors that I know will say something like, I spent like half a million dollars on medical school. And yes, I know how to do the technical skills required of me. But when it comes to leading teams or engaging with those teams in a productive manner, managing up, managing down, managing themselves under duress, I mean, all this stuff that are widely called soft skills, which we kind of hate that expression, 'cause there are anything but soft, properly taught. We call them super skills. Super skills to us means like a normal human skill, like listening, performed at an elite level. So their ordinary skills performed at an ordinary elite way. Listening's always good, 'cause we know someone we know is like, they're a really good listener. Well, what is the framework that you could maybe teach that to others? And it's very tricky. But tell us about teaching soft skills, the last leadership skills at high bar, and the extent to which you have done so. - That's a great question. And to your point, many of us who trained to be clinicians, have, we just don't know what we don't know when it comes to management and leadership. I will say that when I bought on our practice 22 years ago, we were automatically then, I started making up talks on leadership because I agreed books and blah, blah, blah, blah. The first thing, or time management, or all of these things. So it's always been there within our organization. I think that's how we're able to even get to that 14 clinics. With leaning in with Rally Day, it's again, just allowed us to accelerate that, ensure that we can have the right kinds of programs in place for those clinicians who want to evolve into more management or leadership, whether that's on the clinic side, or even as teachers and coaches and mentors, and have the framework, and have the space, and have the time and the investment, because this is what helps our organization to scale. I can't open a clinic without knowing we've got a clinic director or manager in place who's not just a good clinician, but actually knows how to manage and lead. That key person is the foundation for people being happy and being able to perform their best at that clinic. And so if the more we invest into our folks right from when they first start, helps them evolve and manage their careers, it's very sad when you see a super strong clinician jump into a role of a manager, and then see them flail and fail. And it's not good for that person, and it's not good for the people in that clinic, and it can change the whole dynamics of the kind of care that happens in that community very quickly. So investing in different kinds of programs, Raleigh Day has recently rolled out, and I'm really sorry I forgot the name, the program, the one that's been used for all of our administrative, like front desk personnel, and it's created really good opportunities for candid conversations from folks who have never had the opportunity to even feel comfortable talking about management and difficult conversations, and my favorite one being managing yourself. So I think it's easy, we talk about how do you manage and communicate above or below, but actually getting to know yourself and pausing to reflect, understanding how you communicate and behave in front of others, impacts other people, how you give feedback, how you follow up, and it's so much about constantly putting yourself into the perspective of the other person when you're a leader or manager, it's not actually about you, and learning how to get comfortable about that, learning how to get comfortable with listening to feedback, whether it's true or not, but getting the nuggets and just constantly thinking, how do I learn and grow and evolve? I think with Raleigh Day, the different speakers, the different presenters, the different structure, has allowed a really safe environment for that to happen, and knowing that the likes of you Ryan, as well as your other founders, Mark and Nancy has gone through this journey, it means that we can have really keen to get in safe conversations about it. - Yeah, it's in the admission of weakness, I think that we find growth, and in an environment or a relationship with a private equity firm who expects you to be strong and perfect all the time, or where, yeah, they think they're strong and perfect. That's just not a very good starting place for that. So you're right, there's some tonality that has to be established first and then the curriculum second, and I think we've done a decent job. I think that we've certainly worked hard to develop our leadership curriculum. It's been four or five years in the making so far, but I can picture, you know, in four or five more years, it will continue to unlock organizational value through personal growth, and it's something that we care deeply about, and it's been fun to watch you apply it so brilliantly. As we finish up, one thing that's unique about high bars, the extent to which Michelle has physical therapists in her executive ranks. And like, when you're a me, when you're a healthcare investor, Nirvana is when you have a founder, spirit, the skill of executive talent, with the mindset of a practitioner, all residing at the top, that is felt all the way to the bottom. But it's hard to find a founder that wants to be an executive. That's hard to find 'cause being an executive is kind of boring, as it turns out, it's also hard to find a practitioner with a medical degree that wants to be an executive, and it's get more rare to find either of those two that have this sort of founder spirit, the passion that in the embrace of purpose, that is a bigger objective than anything even financially related. And Michelle, you've just done such a great job of bringing those three maybe opposing forces into high bar, and I think it's one of the great strengths. Tell us, was that like deliberate? Or did it happen because you just trusted your provider, fellow provider practitioners more? Like, how did you bring the fusion of these three things into high bar? I don't really have a very thoughtful answer for you. There's one part of me that leads physical therapy, and I just think it's this, I don't know if it's a calling or what it is, I sound cheesy saying that. I personally love to problem solve, and I love to be challenged, and I love the competition, and it's not about beating someone else. It's more like every day I wake up, and I have this underlying what will I accomplish, how can I be better, which pretty much haunts me. I know my husband wishes he could quiet knit down a little bit, but I think part of it is just who I am for whatever reason. As an executive, I think that it's just, I've been able to surround myself from people who can help me survive as an executive, having bringing in a CFO. It was really important for our team. I have a VP of people who's amazing. He's been with us for a long time. Chief of staff, obviously the team at Rally Day, and then I have this other cool group of clinicians, who are four in particular, Vons was in the least a Cosbrine A&A Pavo, who, you know, I've known for between 15 and 30 years for a bond, but we all sort of grew up together, and we all learned from each other, and they allowed me to be in that role of leadership. They've all challenged me in different ways. They've all seen me at my best, and they've seen me at my worst. And I've tolerated that, and been kind to me, and probably tolerant of me. So, I think I've been sort of lucky to be surrounded by the right kind of people that have allowed me to be in the role that I'm in today. So, I actually don't think it's about me. I think it's really about that team, and really the person that is my spouse, my husband. He's always been a huge champion of mine, and then I have two stunning kids, who just like make me laugh, and are honest, and real, and funny, and curious, and respect the role that I've played over the years, as they sometimes mothering, traveling a lot, all over the place, but they seem to be doing pretty well. They seem to be doing well with that. So, I don't know, off topic. I don't know why or how I got into this role's day. I think it's being surrounded by the right people in the right community. Yeah, and we use these words aggressive humility a lot, as you know, Michelle here at Rally Day. And it's one of the markers we look for in the employees, all of us here at Rally Day, employees of Rally Day. We strive to be aggressively humble, and what that means to us is being an aggressive person, but also a humble person, and there just aren't many people, certainly in our industry that have these things in harmony, mostly just bear a lot of aggression, not humility. And I would just say, as a founder, I find you to be just off the charts in both of these things. You are extremely aggressive business builder. I mean, I'd say almost obsessed, but you're also like super humble and wanna learn, and always asks really thoughtful questions. And I think that when I look at your growth over the last four years, I attribute it most of it to the combination of these two words. And you've just given us a great, you've given me a role model for myself, but I think it's just such a great, your story is so fun to tell. Other founders that are newer to the portfolio. Like, it's not uncommon for me to introduce one of our new founders to Michelle, 'cause she's sprinted through thick and thin and come out the other side, a triple threat, an executive, a founder, and a practitioner who's building an organization with all of those dimensions. And in any rate, Michelle, I guess I would just say, it's been a real joy to be on this part of your journey with you. I have tough days like everybody, and this job can suck just like any job that we have. But what makes it fulfilling for me is the relationships I get to form with people like you, Michelle, where both I get to support and learn from it the same time. And I wanna thank you for these last four years. They've been very special to me. - Thank you, Ryan. Likewise, kind words, which, yeah, I really appreciate. - All right, well, thanks for sharing your wisdom on this journey that we're on, and this founder's journey podcast. And I guess I'll probably talk to you in a week whether our next one on one conversation. I hope you're doing well. If I don't talk to you during the holidays, I certainly wish you and your family the very best time together the next week or two. - Likewise, enjoy the time, pause, have grace, enjoy the moments. - Well, do, thank you, Michelle. - Thank you, Ryan.