5 Highlights from 5 Years of #SASLife

Sunday, October 30, 2022, marked my 5th anniversary at SAS. I can't believe how time flies! Since graduating with my doctorate, I've worked for three fairly different organizations: A hospital system, County government, and a private technology company. This is not the stereotypic career path for a psychologist, but I've loved the journey and found new and exciting ways to impact people lives aside from direct care.

At my first anniversary, I reflected on some leadership principles I observed. In honor of my Quinquennial Anniversary (I had to look up that term, but it sounds cool, so I'm using it), I thought I'd reflect on five particular highlights from my first five years at SAS to help others consider different career paths:

1. Global presentations and collaboration

One of the cool things about SAS is the diversity of expertise, including all industries and geographies. This is a great way to keep me curious and learning, as well as helping share human impact across all of these groups. While I primarily focus on the United States, it's been so cool presenting to and learning from health and social services experts from around the world.

It still blows my mind that I've gotten to talk with the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, Canada, and more. Even controlling a colleague's computer halfway across the world while we co-presented was pretty darned cool! ??

A particularly special time was when I got to provide a conference plenary session immediately prior to then-California Attorney General (and now US HHS Secretary) Xavier Becerra. No pressure... ??

2. Interviewing some fantastic minds, including Mayim Bialik

While I get the honor of presenting regularly, I also get to use my role to learn from other brilliant experts in the field. It's so gratifying to see how people are using #data4good around the world. Interacting with these folks keeps me learning and challenges all of us to continue to be critical thinkers and find creative ways to improve the world.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight the chance I got to interview Mayim Bialik as part of promotions for SAS Explore. So many reasons to nerd out over this chance, and I'm super grateful to our broader teams to think of me for this opportunity. It's another reminder to build authentic relationships and partnerships in every area of your life. When you show collaboration and value, neat opportunities like this can often present themselves!

3. Helping develop and deploy evaluations and program plans

The ultimate purpose of the travel and collaborating with people is to make a difference using data. Many of you have heard me say that my current career purpose is using data as an advocacy tool to improve our systems, structure, policies, and benefits. An immensely gratifying part of my job has been to continue to partner with agencies to help develop and conduct evaluations of programs. These evaluations have supported quality improvement efforts and policymaking that directly impacts the care people receive.

I started some of this work when I was with the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health. From there, I got see the benefits of analytics for advocacy through:

• The Riverside University Health System for the 1115 Whole Person Care Waiver
• The California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission demonstrating the value of integrating data to show the impact of Full Service Partnerships on non-mental health outcomes
• The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services being nimble to respond to ever-evolving needs for both situational awareness and program evaluation
• Behavioral Health Concepts in evaluating the 1115 Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System Waiver and providing quality improvement supports across California
• Participation in the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative Think Tank to develop an electronic platform to support youth and family behavioral health needs across the state
• And several others I can't (yet) mention publicly, but who are impacting and saving millions of lives through whole person care and creative, effective use of data to identify community need and the impact of holistic services.

4. Integrating work and life can be done successfully

A key part of my values is integrating work and life into a meaningful whole. I firmly believe that's a central part of whole person care. There's a lot that can be said about this not happening for clinicians (legitimately so). But when you get into the private technology world, there can be even more concerns about this.

However, I've seen several examples of this kind of thing at work successfully:

• Earlier this year, our founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Goodnight, closed out our company kickoff with an emphasis on mental wellness, encouraging people to care for themselves and take time that's needed. We were all given a wellness day where the company closed to really encourage this. Modeling and explicit permission of this from the top execs is key.
• A newly appointed Vice President of a major sales division had a baby right at a milestone time for sales numbers. He was given (and took) time off for paternity leave! Others stepped in, and I didn't hear a single complaint. This is a perfect situation where people may feel pressured to work anyway and miss critical times of life. I'm still impressed with this situation.
• A colleague started recognizing a return of mental health symptoms shortly after she started at SAS. She was worried about the interpretation of this, but she was able to be honest with her management. She was not only encouraged to take time off to care for herself, she later was promoted. She even did a talk on the value of support in the workplace.

• Another colleague recently needed to take time off to help his wife after surgery. Caregiver leave enabled this, and his team encouraged it and supported him in his time off. Imagine what this benefit does to mental health, teamwork, cohesion, and organizational loyalty!
• Seniority and promotions don't necessitate people management. In traditional workplaces, the only way to promote, gain seniority, and influence an organization is to move into the people management ladder. As Kim Scott eloquently describes in Radical Candor, not everyone wants to be (or is skilled at) people management. To really encourage full development, there needs to be multiple career paths. At SAS, some of the most senior and influential staff are in the individual contributor category. This does not remove their ability to be leaders and even functionally lead teams (there's a lot of matrixed work). Giving options for promotion, recognition, and seniority in multiple forms is a very valuable way to reinforce a balanced life.

5. Getting to travel, including with family, and see US history

When presenting and collaborating, I get the opportunity to travel a lot (at least when there isn't a pandemic). It's been an honor to visit many places of the country I hadn't gotten to see yet. I'm a fan of walking when possible, so exploring new areas and especially the history museums is fantastic.

My family has even gotten to come on some trips. I love being able to expose my kids to new people and areas and am grateful that we have the flexibility to bring them along at times.

Both using the trips I go on alone as well as being able to bring family reinforces the previous point about integrating life and work not only being possible, but being valuable.

What positive work experiences and highlights have you had? What do you hope to experience in the future?