Wednesday morning in the office at Imagine

Several years ago when I was a consultant, I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time working with Patagonia in Ventura, CA - a company with an iconic brand, great people and a culture that aligned with the difference they wanted to make in the world. With the Pacific Ocean in their backyard, it was normal to see wetsuits lined up on the railings after lunch during the week. Patagonia did casual before casual was cool. They were proud and unapologetic about who they were as an organization. As a consultant early in my career, I learned more from the people at Patagonia -- great friends and mentors like Ric Hatch, Henry Barber, Terri Wolfe and Graham Schelter -- than they learned from me.

Last Wednesday, over fifteen years later, I found myself standing on the side of the mountain at Snowbird with a group of my colleagues at Imagine Health. Many of us had flown back home to Park City the night before after meetings on the East Coast. After an early morning rendezvous at the "Swamp" parking lot, we loaded up our ski gear and headed to the mountain. There was 20'' of new snow, the season was coming to an end and we were going to enjoy every last bit of it. It was the middle of the week. There was tons of work to be done at the office. Shouldn't we feel guilty about skiing during the week? As we headed back to the office around lunchtime, I realized that the experience of spending the day together, sharing laughter and true joy, was more important than what we could have accomplished sitting at our desks. I knew that we had hired colleagues who would get their work done regardless of where they spent the morning. As the week progressed and we shared photos and stories from our morning on the mountain, I realized the power of the lesson from years ago in Ventura. That community and culture and true friendships are built through mutual experiences that need to go beyond meeting rooms and cubicles. That you can learn a lot more about a person in four hours on a mountain than you can in a year in an office. That just because it's not normal to encourage people to "play" during the week doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. 

At Imagine Health, we're challenging the status quo and are taking on some of the biggest, most entrenched companies in the country.  We're on a mission to change healthcare as we know it -- to save lives and to give people access to the care they deserve. We believe that employers are ready to take healthcare back. That they are ready for a new solution, ready to embrace innovation in care delivery. That they are tired of playing around the edges. We're committed to this mission and are excited about what the future holds. Along the way, our colleagues will be taking advantage of the mountains in our backyard, even on a Wednesday morning.