An Open Letter on our 8th Birthday: Know and be Known 2019

 “Hey boss man… you’re on at 5pm and these are the details for our company birthday” – So goes the message I get from our amazing event planning team as I step on a plane in Melbourne to fly into Perth for our company’s 8th birthday celebrations. I cringe uncomfortably at the term "boss man" because I certainly don't feel "in charge" right now but of course I know they mean this only with endearment, so I brush it off.

I read the message with a deep and overwhelming sense of discomfort and gratefulness. It's a strange combination of feelings. Gratefulness because I feel truly privileged to have such incredible people working alongside me. Discomfort as I am visibly confronted with a deep truth I've perhaps ignored or not explored... that this thing that is "Life Ready" has certainly grown far beyond me as an individual. I recall memories of Jess and I clamouring to do our job whilst trying to organise our birthday events each year, I would know every detail from the sound set up, food, drink etc, but to step on a plane only a few hours before our largest annual celebration and know nothing except that "I’m on at 5pm" was both overwhelming and frightening.

It led me to a question: why we do this every year? Why bother celebrating our birthday we’re now a few hundred people across multiple states with their spouses and families our events are large, costly and challenging to coordinate.

The truth is that it had crossed my mind, it’d certainly be a lot easier to not step on a plane and take a 4-hour commute across country just for a "party".

"The birthday celebration is not about just having a big party; it is an outward manifestation of a deeper philosophy. That this is bigger than any individual"

This would be true if that was all this was... a party. However, in reflection the birthday celebration is not about just having a big party, it is an outward manifestation of a deeper philosophy. That this is bigger than any individual, and no one person can take credit. We are the collective ideas, passions, efforts of hundreds of like-minded people coming together the pursue meaningful work. That ours is a business of people, by people, for people. It has never been anything more than honest and authentic relationships, lived out in community, enabling all of us together to do more than any one of us could do apart. It keeps us humble, curious, and inspired. The irony is the more people we meet who share our convictions, and the more we know them, the greater our innovation and impact. Growth cannot separate from authentic relationship and authentic relationships need the wider impact of growth.

Moving to Melbourne and launching our company on the East coast was challenging to say the least, but the most significant learning is that no matter how well resourced, prepared, or smart we thought we were, no matter the sophistication of our metrics, processes, dashboards and analytics we couldn’t achieve the same outcomes without the authentic relationships. It wasn’t until we made a conscious decision to invest back into friendships, refocus back on learning together, growing together, knowing each other and being known by each other that the processes, metrics and analytics been given meaning and produced results. It is the relationships that activate the value behind the processes, and plans – the relationship is symbiotic.

The challenge for our company is that as we grow, we obviously get the upside of bringing in more like minded people who we can learn from, and grow from, but with that comes the obvious challenge of making sure every individual we add is not simply added as a number but that we invest the time and resources required to make sure they are known.

This is true not only of our leadership, our admin, our practitioners but also to our patients.

"Crucial to our success is our ability to walk the manage the tension between growth and authenticity."

8 years ~700,000 consults later we are now over 75,000 patients, a few hundred employees, close to 250,000 consults a year across 2 states. Crucial to our success is our ability to walk the manage the tension between growth and authenticity. I refuse to believe that it is either or. Rather the question must be both and. Both growth and authentic relationships are equally and essential in staying true to our company mission. The question then is “how”. How can we continue to bring people into the family whilst simultaneously ensuring that every individual is known and heard? How can we continue to help more patients whilst ensuring that every patient is known genuinely and served uniquely to their context?

Our birthday is an annual reminder for me, personally but also for all of us that we all need each other, now more than ever, and the relationship between growth and authenticity are not oppositional but synergistic.

I’ll conclude with a simple realisation. I recall dreading the arrival of my second son Caleb that I might not have the space and capacity to love him, Linda and Joshua. Sounds silly but I felt unsure about how much love I had left to give. I recall the moment he was born, and I laid my eyes on him, I was overwhelmed, because in that moment I realised that our ability to care for connect with people are not some finite buckets that we spread and allocate. The human capacity to love is infinite, but in that moment, I not only loved him with all my heart, but I also I loved Linda more and Joshua even more as a consequence. I am reminded that this is the privilege of what we get to do as health care company… Very few industries align making a living with knowing and caring for people. In fact, the more you authentically listen and know your patients the better the outcomes. The more your patients connect with you the better their adherence to your treatment plans. The same is true in our leadership, of our people, the more we know our people the better we can provide for them a great place to work that will enable them to learn and grow. The more they know what we stand for the better our ability to keep, attract and develop great people.

"If we are to help people, progress in their unique contexts we must know them authentically, be known by them courageously and with that, use the collective experiences, learnings and resources as a foundation in building a legacy that will last and reach more than we could have imagined on our own. " 

This is our challenge for 2019… know and be known – know your patients and be known by them, know each other and be known. The statement is simple, but it requires, humility, courage and vulnerability. It is not easy. But our core purpose has always been to “Move people toward their best quality of life” – The foundation of this statement is simple – people, progress and individuality. If we are to help people, progress in their unique contexts we must know them authentically, be known by them courageously and with that, use the collective experiences, learnings and resources as a foundation in building a legacy that will last and reach more than we could have imagined on our own.