DISCLAIMER: Today’s Advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible, for free, to you! But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health, nor of the Advertiser. The Advertiser does not have editorial control over the content of this episode, and the guest’s appearance is not an endorsement of the Advertiser.
How does a new grad pediatric nurse climb to the ranks of fertility company CEO and investor throughout the course of her career, while building a family of her own? Tune in to the to find out if you could benefit from a similar path, as Griffin sits down with the CEO of Ivy Fertility on the latest episode of Inside Reproductive Health.
Listen to hear:
Steps and career changes Lisa made to end up where she is now, and which aspects she found most critical.
Different roles shaped Lisa’s perspective of her field as a whole, and how it benefited patient outcomes, employee satisfaction, and operational success.
It takes to marry clinical outcomes with organizational outcomes, and how that in itself can advance your career.
Lisa has to say about the 80% rule, and how it can help empower your team.
Characteristics she believes makes up a person with C-suite potential.
Lisa Van Dolah’s Info:
Website: ivyfertility.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-souza-van-dolah-68b51a15/
Transcript
Sponsor 00:16
This episode was brought to you by Univfy. Download Univfy’s free IVF Conversion and Revenue calculator.
Speaker 4 00:31
Today's advertiser helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible for free to you. But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of inside reproductive health, nor of the advertiser, the advertiser does not have editorial control over the content of this episode. And the guest appearance is not an endorsement of the advertiser.
Griffin Jones 00:56
Are you a natural when it comes to business? Many nurses are not, I am not in many areas of business. And that's how you know, the business books that I write at the end of my career are going to be really good ones because I sucked at so many of the principles that I'm trying to master. And I'll be able to deliver really good insights with Nuance having struggled with many of them for so many years, be able to give real-life examples, and really determine the nuance of this lesson versus that lesson, and be able to explain the principle, as though someone was a third grader, I have a feeling that a lot of these business principles that we talked about today come naturally to our guests. That's just the impression I get from the way that she thinks about her answers. She's Lisa Van Dolah. She's the CEO of Ivy Fertility an MSO that has many clinics on the West Coast, most recently an acquisition in Memphis, and presumably soon to be other parts of the country. She was the CEO of San Diego Fertility Center for 20 years. And she has a nursing background, she started off as a nurse, she got her MBA, and we walk through that career path. So for the nurses listening today, we talk about what it's like to go from nurse to a CEO, investor of a private equity-owned network company that owns multiple fertility clinics, starting off as a nurse going into research but with an administrative role that gives you some experience with project management. So project manager, then getting an MBA, then going into a management analyst role, helping to staff senior management teams, getting that exposure to the role of the people at the top the roles of the people at the top working on process improvement, leading to a vice president role, leading them to a CEO role, then to a CEO role in a much bigger company. And as a capitalist, as an investor. We go through each of these points today. And we talk about things like what education is necessary at different points, what skills are necessary, how they relate to nursing, and I press more on how they might not relate to nursing. We talk about negotiation, and hopefully, we light a map for the nurses and nursing managers that listen to this show that are thinking about what the next step of their career is, and how it might look for the rest of the career. Hopefully, it illuminates some possibilities. And if you are thinking about taking action, maybe it gives you the impetus to do so hope you enjoy this episode with Lisa Van Dolah, CEO of Ivy Fertility. Ms. Van Dolah. Lisa, welcome to Inside reproductive health.
Lisa Van Dolah
Thank you, Griffin, really glad to be here today.
Griffin Jones
I was interested in having you on because of a career path that I'd like to paint for the nurses and nursing managers that listen to the show for everyone. But I don't think it's terribly common to even find nurses that become sales directors, maybe it's more common than it used to be. But CEO is a different story altogether. And so I'd like to go back into your career and then use that as an opportunity to paint a potential map for those that are listening. And I've got in my notes that you were the CEO of San Diego Fertility Center for 20 years, is that right?
Lisa Van Dolah
That's correct. Yeah.
Griffin Jones
And that was prior to your current role as CEO of Ivy Fertility was so when's the last time you functioned as a nurse?
Lisa Van Dolah 05:00
Well, I maintained my licensure and certainly during my career at San Diego Fertility Center over 20 years, I stepped into the nursing role periodically, mostly out of the opportunity to connect with our patients, but you know, provided bedside care and the pacu and other various functions in infertility. So it's probably aWe've been about five years since I, I think I've actually functioned as a nurse in one capacity or another
Griffin Jones
Was CEO your title that whole time since 2003, or whenever your 2000 whatever it was, or was it practice manager at first executive director, President, like Did, Did that change or was it CEO.
Lisa Van Dolah
The whole time it was CEO the whole time it was an evolution of what that role meant. But certainly, I stepped out of hospital administration into practice administration at Seneca Fertility Center with the title of CEO.
Griffin Jones
Tell me more about the interim intermediary roles between no starting out and CEO. So what was your first job after nursing school?
Lisa Van Dolah
Yes, I started my nursing career at Children's Hospital-San Diego, now called Rady Children's but started that as a new graduate out of college, the primary role and responsibilities I took on as a new graduate was hematology oncology nursing, so we did pediatric oncology treatment. And that was my first career as a nurse and I did that for about three years at Rady Children's
Griffin Jones
And then you went into women's health or you first became a manager in PCMark. What happened?
Lisa Van Dolah
Yeah, yeah. So the journey is fun. My, I received rewards and knowledge and skills, I think at each turn, so I took a job after being a pediatric nurse in oncology at Rady I moved into infectious disease research, I looked at as an opportunity to learn some more administrative obligations, regulatory requirements, the research and looked at it as a whole nother way to apply my nursing degree. I did that for the Infectious Disease Program at Rady Children's in San Diego for oh shoot probably three or four years and then expanded into actually homecare nursing at Radies. That took on a role primarily interested in doing outpatient care for children, but also afforded me some flexibility in my career while I was having children, and needed a little bit more flexibility in my schedule, which is great nursing offers that many times to us. And so that role in in-home care nursing provided me the opportunity to work with a little more flexibility while I was raising my kids. And so are you a manager at this time or your nose during nursing care at this point, in nursing care, my infectious disease physician was more in an administrative role organizing, coordinating and managing those programs. And then about the time that I was, I was ready to step back into my career full time I went back to school and completed my MBA while I was working as a nurse at Rady Children's. So that was a the time in my career where I was looking at opportunity and picking up more administrative skills, business skills, you know, knowledge of accounting principles and other things that I learned during my MBA program.
Griffin Jones
Why did you get an MBA instead of an MHA?
Lisa Van Dolah
Good question. I started my nursing master's in nursing and felt like that was a great opportunity for me but wanted to broaden my skill set and knowledge into ideas around brand, Being marketing, business development, plain old accounting planning, and I felt like the curriculum to the MBA program would give me a little bit broader, broader knowledge base.
Griffin Jones
So you had gone back to school, you were in the master's program for nursing. And while you were there decided to switch to MBA.
Lisa Van Dolah
That's correct.
And up to this point, you hadn't really had management experience yet.
Lisa Van Dolah
Right.
Griffin Jones
Am I understanding that correctly, you had administrative experience with in infectious disease research, but was that more like project management?
Lisa Van Dolah
Correct, right. To have wide authority management or any other you know, I hadn't stepped into an opportunity for maybe a team lead role or other kinds of leadership roles in nursing. At the time, I decided to go to school to get my MBA.
Griffin Jones
Tell me more about the decision then because it seems like it was a radical departure if we're just looking at it linearly. But what else was it that had been in the back of your mind or this was not in the back of your mind, but rather forward thinking that you want to do achieve?
Lisa Van Dolah
I don't know if I really felt at the time I was I was making any dramatic shift in my in my career path. I think as I approached any of my nursing, if you will, roles, I looked at those roles to be broad in nature, certainly contributing to the team that I participated in both from a you know patient care perspective but also as an as an employee and part of a team and looking at the services we were delivering. So for me I think it was, it was just a natural evolution and seeking more of knowledge in regard to that.
Griffin Jones 10:06
Did you see yourself as running an organization?
Lisa Van Dolah 10:09
No, I saw myself as participating in, in an organization, I certainly, simultaneous to starting my MBA program, I started applying for jobs that may utilize more of those skills. So I started to apply for roles, like analyst roles, maybe many middle early, early functions were things that would support the nursing departments and in analyst type behavior, more of the research bases. And then as I completed my MBA, I was then applying in the same hospital for a management analyst role, which provided me opportunities to take on understanding the departments of hospitals that maybe nurses with, but not necessarily have any exposure to like biomedical department or person management. And in that situation, actually stepped into an acting Materials Manager role. And then in the biggest compliments I got were from the nursing units that said that, you know, I had to help them restructure access to supplies, that made their jobs easier that I understood that nurses don't have time to seek and find, you know, supplies and so as I looked at my role as the manager for materials management, which was obviously, initially way outside my skill set, I think I was able to apply a lot of my bedside nursing and nursing science to, to provide, you know, access to supplies, in this case, for the nursing units to make their lives easier.
Griffin Jones 11:46
You had that operational empathy because you weren't just looking at it from the 10,000-foot view, you had been one of the nurses that had to get supplies at some point, did you that management analyst role was that something that you sought before you went and got your MBA, or that was a result of having gotten your MBA that that opportunity opened up to you,
Lisa Van Dolah 12:09
I think it was both I actually applied for the job before I completed my MBA, and I was afforded that opportunity, you know, coming with my bachelor's degree in nursing and, and in my MBA in progress, but so that was a that was something that, you know, I have supported the senior management team at the hospital, in this analyst role, it was a wonderful opportunity to do that. Simultaneously, we're getting my, my degree,
Griffin Jones 12:31
I'm trying to tease out if it's a good idea for nurses, for anyone, but in this case, nurses to go get a degree like an MBA, if they're not, if it's for the means of tasting and exploring rather than the means to an end. And I think a lot of society would say that higher education is a great place to taste. I'm a big believer that that's the reason for the multi-trillion dollar debt crisis that we have in this country, that people very often on the undergrad level, but increasingly at the graduate level, are going to taste and they're tasting something that one isn't the most efficient means of tasting to certainly is nowhere near the most cost-efficient means it's extremely expensive, and then might not be what they want to do at all, I'm more of the Cal Newport ilk of you only pursue any given degree from any given institution, when you can map your desired outcome. Like I want this particular job, I want this post, and I know that this degree from this institution is far more likely to land me that role than not. And that's when you get a degree. I think that should be true of undergrad too. It seems though like you did get some of the eye-opening tasting from that. And then that led you into the next step of your career path. So what do you think? Is it a good idea for a nurse to pursue an MBA if it's in the interest of exploration, but
Lisa Van Dolah 14:07
it's a large commitment time? Right. And it's, it's, like you mentioned likely quite expensive, so I would not use that as the opportunity to evaluate whether or not an interest in in management is, is a value to a person. I think that nurses, you know, when the skill sets that they develop and the opportunity in their roles to step into team lead roles and other areas of responsibility. I think that's where you learn whether or not this is of interest to you not certainly through an education program. You know, certainly I support higher education. And I think that the value of that, for me was tremendous, but a lot of that was through my colleagues that I was in my coursework with, and learning from professionals that had experience that they were sharing. You don't need to get that through a program. You certainly can do do that, you know, with your colleagues at work or volunteering to take on more responsibility or seeking that opportunities through a current employer, even if it's just a project at a time. So, you know, nurses, nurses, nursing education is already fairly broad and, and affords you the opportunity to look at roles, I think without having to pursue education, necessarily, or a degree, I guess.
Griffin Jones 15:24
And then you could always then pursue the degree if you developed enough of an interest and realize that that is the intermediary between the next desired role. I want to talk about the management analyst role some more, but Well, at this point, the management analyst role, are you starting to manage people there
Lisa Van Dolah 15:44
I am, and that the fun thing about this role, which, you know, I think I love to create them in the environments I'm in because it does provide people interested in stepping out of what might be their traditional, if you will, roll channel, mind nursing or clinical, if you will, into something that can support a management team in a variety of ways. And so, the management analyst, analyst role was really to staff the senior management team with a resource that they could deploy in a variety of different ways. And it gave me a huge opportunity to explore anywhere from you know, direct line responsibility, or analytics on whether or not a business plan makes sense, or, you know, stepping into an interim management position, while we were filling that role, or even, you know, process improvement type of project. So, it gave me a broad scope. And I like to see that for people in organizations that you may be stepping into something without really any previous experience but willing to learn and, you know, support a management team. So, for me, it was a wonderful opportunity to explore all of those different variations of skills and responsibilities and, and then gave me and pointed me in the direction that I wanted to step into more of a direct line management role, which is the next job I took in the hospital. So, you know, it afforded me you know, a learning opportunity, you know, outside of education.
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Griffin Jones 18:44
Do you think that your administrative experience in research was necessary for you to be able to step into that management role? No, not necessarily.
Lisa Van Dolah 18:55
I think it provided, I think was everything, I think there's a big learning that can occur for individuals is an example of nursing is to step kind of outside what you've learned to be your role and look at the organization from a broader perspective. And so for me, research offered me the opportunity to understand regulatory require, you know, patient protections around informed consent, and those kinds of things that, you know, as you're, as you're in your, your nursing role, you may not look at it from that perspective. So I think, you know, in any role whether it's nursing or embryology, lab or administrative, you know, if you if you have the opportunity to step in and look at it from an organizational perspective. And you know, what you're trying to achieve together I think it gives you the opportunity to to bring more value to what you do. So for me, the research component of that just helped me step outside of what was kind of considered to be treasured traditional have clinical work and look at it in a broader scope. So think
Griffin Jones 20:03
project management is good training wheels for management. In many cases, I've had good project managers. And as I'm trying to counsel them on the next step of their career, it's like, this is where you start to practice your management muscles. Because the project manager isn't really a manager, they're not directly responsible for people there was, they're responsible for timelines, and that involves people. And so in fact, if you can be a good project manager, you're probably going to be a good manager. And if you can be good at the people part of project management, that is, because you can't really fire him. In a lot of instances, you don't have a lot of the stick that is part of you know, the carrot stick incentives, inspiration, etc, that whole mix that characterizes management and leadership, you don't have many of the tools as a project manager. And if you can be successful in getting people to achieve a cohesive outcome. Without many of those tools, it's likely that you're going to be successful when you do have more of those tools at your disposal. But you saw more of the value in terms of being able to see the bigger picture, which is what I like about how you described that role of staffing the senior management team, because then you're really getting a lot of exposure to different areas. And at a high level, at a at a phase of your career, which I don't think is terribly common for that, that maybe intermediary phase to have that much exposure to the, to the senior team and, and that many of them either. So what came after that role.
Lisa Van Dolah 21:47
So after that role, I stepped into a it was a vice president role at that point of clinical programs at Rady Children's read children's hospital back then in those days. So I had direct responsibility of a couple of departments that were not necessarily clinical departments, like I said, some of the back of the house departments, which was great, because it gives you the opportunity of how to run an organization that's not just always clinical in nature, I think. So that would that was my next role. And I wanted to go back to a point. And I think it's really important, and I think nursing brings this skill set just as a result of some of their training experience. And, and that's the ability to influence people without the authority to do so. And you mentioned that with the project management role. And I think, you know, nurses many times are in a position with our patients to influence them and help them move them to a place that hopefully is better for them without having really necessarily authority over them. Right. And so you learn that skill set. And I think that that's one, like you said that a good project manager can learn how to influence drive towards results, moving people and influencing people towards a common goal without being their boss telling, they have to do it. And I think if you can learn that skill set and apply that you become a very good leader, you know, because you, you are able to motivate aligned towards a common goal without necessarily having the authority to do that.
Griffin Jones 23:20
You also when you do have more authority, you have more of those tools, you also have more responsibility. And it isn't just getting a couple things done here or there. It's critical to the outcomes that the organization is pursuing. And so what's that, like? Where, where's the departure from what many people might be used to in nursing from when it starts to become Okay, now, I really have to be a manager and a director. So we talked about the similarities, where's the departure?
Lisa Van Dolah 23:52
That's a good question. You know, I don't know, I think you can apply your skill set as a nurse to your role as a manager, I think the area that may differ is just being able to approach the question from a broader perspective than just a clinical in nature response. Right. So, you know, understanding the needs from a clinical perspective, whether that be, you know, quality of care and in service delivery and training, but also then understanding the context of what you're trying to achieve as an organization. And I think, you know, that's that next level that that we as nurses need to challenge ourselves to do, because as you do that, you can then advance your own specific, you know, if you will objectives but in the context of what the organization is trying to achieve at the same time.
Griffin Jones 24:46
And this is happening while your vice president at the head of one of the clinical teams, and then when does fertility come in?
Lisa Van Dolah 24:55
I got a great call and I had two physicians in San Diego that were interest Started in starting their own fertility practice and asked me to help them and advise them on setting up a laboratory, building out a surgery center, understanding what the regulations look like the regulatory requirements, you know, the facility components of that, and then building out that team. So it was two physicians that had two clinical office staff. They were leaving the hospital that had the lab and surgery center, and they asked me to join them.
Griffin Jones 25:26
Did you know The two doctors or were you headhunted by a recruiter?
Lisa Van Dolah 25:30
No, I knew them through connection. So because I was a pediatric hospital, we did a lot with Women's Health, Labor and Delivery. So I knew them through that relationship. And you know, that was back in the era when most of these physicians were leaving larger institutions. And, and honestly, I thought at that time, in fact, I think that was part of my first hire objective that it was a temporary part time consulting job. I thought I would consult with them on how to do this. And I would gravitate back to pediatrics and famous last words, we know what happened.
Griffin Jones 26:03
So you go off with these two RBIs. At that time, it was two dogs. And how many people did you hire originally,
Lisa Van Dolah 26:12
so they both had each had individual practices with about maybe five employees each. So 10 employees or so together came together, and then we staff the surgery center in the lab, we fortunately are able to recruit one of the embryologist that was with them in their former labs. So he joined as well, in fact, he's still working in the same location. But after that, then it was building out kind of the team as we grew that center.
Griffin Jones 26:40
So when it was 2021, or whenever you went up from San Diego Fertility Center to AV when you had two physicians and 10 employees to start, how many physicians how many employees when you made that transition at the end,
Lisa Van Dolah 26:59
five physicians and 120 employees.
Griffin Jones 27:03
So a 10 employee organization is almost doesn't look anything like 120, employee organization, and we
Lisa Van Dolah 27:13
entered into other locations and also expanded kind of geographically,
Griffin Jones 27:19
your, your title this whole the whole time as CEO, but it's clearly a very different job from when you have 10 120. And you have one office or two offices versus covering multiple geographies? What were the biggest changes in that time period? They, of course, he could say a lot of different things. But think of it in milestones. What do you what do you view as the biggest milestones over those 20 years in terms of the changing in the development of your role?
Lisa Van Dolah 27:48
I think it's, you know, well, all, it's always learning, right? I don't know that the role changed, the scope of responsibility obviously did but you know, with the 10 employees, my job was to bring two centers together and to align them with a common vision. And to help them understand change associated with taking on a surgery center in a lab, and then take on change on how they work together versus two centers. My role really changed like much, you know, 20 years later, was very similar, it was just moving more people and, and many times more, more movement in a faster period of time. Right? And, and how to communicate that and how to how to align my teams around what we're trying to do much easier when you have 10 people you can gather together versus geographically disparate groups and in a much larger dynamic. So you know, certainly hiring and recruiting physicians, you know, got added to the mix as, as the two physicians and I decided that that was how they wanted to grow their business, certainly working with international bass programs, you know, learning regulations, learning how to find paths to grow our center, you know, improve outcomes for our patients. So, you know, a lot of that just evolved, but I think that you're applying the same skill set, whether it's 10 people or 1000. People, you know, it's just how you do that.
Griffin Jones 29:16
I noticed you didn't say anything about middle management, how much hierarchy is there when you have 10 people?
Lisa Van Dolah 29:22
There's none. I mean, we have team leaders, Surgery Center, Team Leader and lab director, we didn't end up with a lot of hierarchy when we had 100 People either really, it's, you know, a team based structures. So, you know, people have the opportunity to step into leadership roles relative to, you know, staffing an area, maintaining regulatory requirements, but, you know, even in 100 person environment, there's not a lot of layers,
Griffin Jones 29:47
there isn't a lot of lead that surprises me because as you start to delegate decision making authority that in and of itself, build somewhat of a hierarchy that person that you know, might be I'm seeing patients isn't making the same decisions as who to hire in for the nursing team, or what the standard operating procedures should be, etc. And so what was that delegation of decision-making authority, like, then I kind
Lisa Van Dolah 30:19
of look at it as kind of an empowerment model, which I think comes back from nursing ranks, you know, this is about identifying, you know, by teams, what, what the team wants to how the team wants to manage themselves, and sometimes that they empower themselves to be self led, and sometimes they prefer to have some authority structure. So, you know, we, we evolved our teams around kind of what, what interests we have, by our employees to step into areas of accountability, and, you know, kind of meet the demands of what was what was being asked of, of them at that time. So I, you know, it's, it's hard for me to say, I think, you know, when you live it, it's kind of hard to go back and analyze it, but I think, you know, the evolution of our field and fertility has been exciting and, you know, certainly has taken on tremendous opportunity for for our employees and team members nursing embryologist physicians to really, you know, step outside of that role and, and learn how to evolve their business. And so, you know, we didn't necessarily do that with a, with a real structured process,
Griffin Jones 31:36
I'm having a hard time analyzing it now, eight. What does it do to continuity, though, like, I see a lot of Fertility Centers having a challenge where people are practicing very differently from one another in the same practice. And people are using different standard operating procedures, and I am not a clinician, I'm not qualified to speak on it, I just see a lot of operational disparity. And it seems to be like, it's one of the things stopping the field from scaling, because I see all of these solutions that are coming into the place in order to be able to scale different people's workflow to be able to automate to be able to use artificial intelligence. And I see a very slow adoption, because people are doing a lot of different things. And it would be difficult to make things uniform in such a way that they can adopt those solutions at scale. And as a result, we've got bottleneck problems all over the field, that's what I can see is, is not having a hierarchy is not having like very specific, you know, rigid structure. I don't want to say rigid, it should be flexible, but certainly delineated is, is that a challenge for being able to scale of fertility center?
Lisa Van Dolah 33:05
I don't know, I mean, I'd like to kind of hear more about your observations, and maybe using a specific example to help, you know, I, I haven't seen, my feeling is that maybe all the things you just described are true, I don't know that. A rigid structure is necessarily going to achieve, you know, be the tool that you necessarily need, because they want to understand more about the question.
Griffin Jones 33:33
I don't mean to say rigid, but I do mean to say, delineating. So rigid, would mean inflexible, and it should be flexible, but it should also be eye, identifiable. And one of the things that I see it's very different, you can go into a clinic and this doc is doing the workups after the first visit, this doc is doing workups before the first visit, this doc is having an ultrasound tech to the ultrasounds and this doc is doing it themselves. And I can't speak to what's the right answer. But it seems to me like when you have such disparity, and as you add provider after provider, and then all of the teams that come with each provider, that it makes it really hard to adopt solutions that you might use to take what might be 500 cycles a year to 5000 because everybody's doing things a different way.
Lisa Van Dolah 34:34
That makes sense. And I think you're you're correct. We have always tried, you know, a model it that is agreement on some standardization, right, you're gonna have your 80% rule 80 Plus, right, so 80% of the time it should kind of follow a similar process. And I think what happens there's always exceptions and patients are not unique individuals, I mean are not identified, you know, identical individuals and they need unique applications. So, you know, truce 100% standardization, I think it is not appropriate. But, you know, as you think about processes, right, and, and empowering our teams to be independent actors on a daily basis, they need a structure that they understand and that they're supported if they follow. So, you know, what we always looked at was less work with the physician, clinical team, if it was clinical in nature from a process perspective, and let's get alignment, let's get agreement on what is the 80% rule? Right. And, and there's always gonna be exceptions. And then how do we communicate those exceptions so that the people that are expected to follow the process, understand when those can be deviated from and it empowers your team. So if you think about the nursing coordinators, if they have kind of standard operating protocols that the physicians traditionally follow with within certain parameters, it makes their job easier and clearer. And they have the authority to act within their scope of practice. That doesn't mean you can deviate, but then how do they know you're going to deviate? Right? And so I think a lot of it is around just clarity on what is expected and what is supported. And then you need your team to support those, right? You can't have the undermining going on where everybody agreed to a process. And so and so voice goes around the process, right. And you know, that's a hard, that's a much harder thing to do than it sounds right. But getting those in this case may be physicians aligned around how are we going to try to standardize things within some parameters. Knowing that as an individual practitioner, we can always vary that with some exception, but if we want to make our organization as efficient as possible, and supporting us in the most efficient manner, and give some independent Accountability and authority to our employees, then let's provide the structure that they function within.
Griffin Jones 37:07
That might be what we're talking about. And I hope I'm not straying from the career path for nurses too much that they're listening and starting to get bored, I hope that it's still germane to the conversation, because if you want to be a leader, this is the type of thing that you're going to have to struggle with, you're going to have to think about these kinds of things, because I'm going to write a few different business books. Later on in my career, at least one of which is going to be a coffee table book of all of the pieces of business advice that contradict each other, all of these axioms that you see on LinkedIn, there is another axiom to contradict it, and you could take either to an extreme and becoming a really good leader is understanding all of the Asterix is that qualify each of those axioms, I really believe that it's gonna be a great coffee table book. But
Lisa Van Dolah 38:01
tell you that back to nursing, I think as nurses mature in their own role and field, again, we're applying the same principles, you, as a nurse have a foundation and a framework to approach every patient situation, you're always gonna have variation. And in understanding when you can vary from that versus what is and why. But, you know, the nursing the nursing profession is exciting, because I think you have a tremendous platform for you know, different channels, depending on your interest and, you know, pharmaceutical lines education and development, areas management, you know, there's a variety of different ways you can take the science of nursing and apply it to other professional tracks.
Griffin Jones 38:52
How many nurses what percentage that you've worked with over the course of your career, which is a lot do you think have it in them? To be an executive and do not say 100%? Do not say all of them, I don't want I want any kind of fluffy millennial feel good answer. A ton of people ballpark what are the percentage that you feel like really have it within them that they could be not manager, not director, but Taapsee, sweet.
Lisa Van Dolah 39:25
Anything buddy that sets their mind out to do it can do it, but you have to be willing to learn and step out of kind of a comfort of a clinical based mindset. And I think many nurses don't want to have anything to do with that. They went into the profession to be a clinical focused expert, and they should that's amazing and they should continue to explore that how they can continue to contribute there. You know, there's only so many individuals that went into nursing originally that then look at organizational you know, goals and organizational You know, success as being something that they're even interested in, in being responsible for. So, you know, we all can contribute at every level of nursing to that organization's success. Whether or not you want to be the one that's, that's thinking about that 100% of the time, is, you know, it's only interested certain, certain individuals. And you know, but I don't think any nurses limit themselves to that possibility, if that's something they're interested in doing.
Griffin Jones 40:27
We've talked about how many similarities there are between what a nurse has to do in his or her day to day responsibilities and what's necessary for business leadership. I also think that there are some places where there is more of a departure in terms of the averages. And I talk sometimes on the show about the Big Five personality traits, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion. And people that are in positions of leadership are usually not the most disagreeable because they have to, they have to advance other people's interests. But they're, they're seldom highly agreeable people, they're usually kind of in the middle. And I think that there's literature, I can't, I couldn't possibly reference it to you. But I think there is literature showing how much more nurses are agreeable on average, than the average person. And so I think that's an area where you might see a difference of, well, in one scenario, your role is to totally care for someone, and you're really, you're really having that interest at heart, and you need that quality and leadership, you have to have that otherwise, you're a tyrant. But you also need to make really hard decisions and not be popular in many cases, and feel like, gosh, you know, I disappointed this person sometimes, because it's the cost of, of making the right decision for the future of the organization, did you feel like you had to make an adjustment? Or is your personality already kind of, you know, in the middle of the road anyway,
Lisa Van Dolah 42:26
I must be in the middle of the road, I didn't feel like I was making that adjustment. But you know, I also felt like, even in my nursing role, you know, there were times where you were doing things that weren't making your patient, happy, they didn't fact like you, because you were doing what was best for them. Certainly, as a pediatric nurse, I found that out, but you knew that you were making the right choice, given, you know, the circumstances you were in, and in that case, on your patient's behalf. So I don't know that, you know, I necessarily felt like I had to be a certain personality in order to tolerate some of those difficult times when you are making maybe unpopular decisions, I think my role is to be able to support those and, and communicate those. And that's how I felt as a pediatric nurse that maybe I wasn't, you know, providing chemotherapy to a child that really made them happy. But I felt good about what what we needed to do. And I could explain it to the best of my ability of why we need to do it. What separates
Griffin Jones 43:26
a manager or director, someone at that level from top exec in your view,
Lisa Van Dolah 43:33
Governor responsibility? Really, it? I don't know that necessarily. It's a different skill set.
Griffin Jones 43:38
If it weren't a different skill set? Or if it weren't a particular development of some of the specific skills, then wouldn't we expect everybody to have a the same career path? So we have very few people at the tippy top, and they have something that got them there that others didn't? You can't think of what that might be.
Lisa Van Dolah 44:05
I feel like anybody that wants to achieve it can so I guess it's just maybe a personal choice. This wasn't the next, you know, next, if they felt that they had to achieve the next level, if you will, versus contributing significantly at the place that they are, whether that be a team leader, Director, you know, I don't see it necessarily as being something that everybody really necessarily wants to take on his level of responsibility. But that doesn't mean that they're not any less capable.
Griffin Jones 44:36
Why wouldn't someone want to take it on if SEO is the most glamorous thing that somebody could be in an Instagram world where being a CEO being an entrepreneur, being at the top is, is the most glorious thing why wouldn't someone want that?
Lisa Van Dolah 44:53
I don't know that. I'll speak for myself. I just I didn't aspire to be a CEO to be to have a big glamorous, certainly doesn't feel like it all the time. So it's, you know, for me, it's a choice to lead an organization towards the goals that I feel are important. And it's not about glamour, it. That's not why you take this job. Because if you do that, and you're taking it for the wrong reason, well,
Griffin Jones 45:20
and the answer might be because it sucks sometimes. If you're what you're looking for is glamour, it's you're not going to see that very often. Maybe you perceive that it doesn't suck very often, because you're just wired to do you're just wired to do it. And that's how you found yourself in this role. Does that ever suck? Sometimes?
Lisa Van Dolah 45:41
No, really, me.
Griffin Jones 45:45
We went from nurse to not project manager, but research analyst with an administrator was working in research with the administrative function, you went back into home care, then you went and got your MBA, then you started working in a management analyst role. And then you started working in staffing, senior management teams. And that led you into process improvement. And that led you into a vice president role eventually that you came over to fertility and CEO. And then you took another leap recently, where you went from the CEO of a group that was owned by a few physicians, and maybe a lab director to a company that has more people as financiers, and presumably more sophisticated financiers, did you own equity in Fertility Center of San Diego at the time of sale? No. Do you Do you own equity now as CEO? Part of Ev?
Lisa Van Dolah 46:49
I personally invested in it. Yes.
Griffin Jones 46:52
So then you've you've gone from contributor, project manager, manager, Vice President, CEO, and now you're also capitalist. So what have the differences been? What have you had to learn? When now we're working with private equity folks who have limited partners? What were some of the things that you had to learn that you even if you were familiar with them, you really had to dig deeper into?
Lisa Van Dolah 47:19
Well, I go back, first of all, tell the people they're adding up all those years of work, and not as old as actually I am as old as it sounds. So it's
Griffin Jones 47:30
a smell that we never specified most of the years. So
Lisa Van Dolah 47:34
paper parcel years, right? Job hop very quick. It's, it's like anything, it's learning relationships, and, you know, moving from a hospital system, where the relationships had to do with boards, board members and, and nonprofit organizations and physician relations and moving into private practice, it was different, you know, we had less, you know, less equity, you know, equity participants, I had to start but, you know, it's with everything. It's it's learning those relationships and, and aligning goals. But it again, you're just applying the same skill set that you did back when I ran a materials management. Yeah, but
Griffin Jones 48:21
what specific skills? Did you have to bone up on like shareholder rules or types of, you know, like, what did you have to learn more of?
Lisa Van Dolah 48:31
I don't know that I have, you know, I understand obviously, the legal structure, you have to read the papers and understand the documents and know what what you're building and what the structure is from when you're talking to, you know, employees or physicians or others about how the structure works. But it that's not really a skill set. It's just understanding it, so you can explain it.
Griffin Jones 48:54
I want to let you conclude with how you'd like to conclude for nurses that might be listening and thinking about their career path. But before we do that, what do nurses need to know about negotiation?
Lisa Van Dolah 49:11
negotiation? I think you just know to believe in yourself and be clear on what you are representing and what you need by what you're asking for, and how that adds value to whether it's your patient or your carer or your role or your organization. And the negotiation after that is should be easy.
Griffin Jones 49:34
Are they used to it? I am asking this because my maternal grandmother was a nurse. My paternal grandmother was a nurse. My mother was a nurse, my sister was a nurse. All labor and delivery, by the way, are awesome. And these are people that are reluctant to ask for like a refill for their water at a restaurant. So it All right, are there things that you did to practice negotiation outside of just doing it? Were there particular pieces, lessons that you needed to get better at? And if so, what were they? or were there other things that you studied that were helpful?
Lisa Van Dolah 50:17
Not really. I'm probably just like your mom, I probably don't. If my meal comes out, I don't like it. I don't return it.
Griffin Jones 50:24
I never do either by though I seldom do No, I
Lisa Van Dolah 50:27
again, I think it's, it's, I always say get clear on the why, why are you asking for this? And be able to articulate why whatever it is, and if it is meaningful, and and right, in your own mind, you have the white clear, then it's not really feeling like you're negotiating. It's just that you're articulating what's needed. So I'm not sure
Griffin Jones 50:46
what is the right is entirely in my self interest and not in the other person's,
Lisa Van Dolah 50:51
then. And you're probably going to learn how to negotiate skills that I bring to the table,
Griffin Jones 51:01
then learn the hard way could I do I do see that. And I am also a little bit more on the agreeable end of the spectrum. I'm not far on agreeableness, I'm still probably on the bell curve. But I'm on the agreeable side, I think it's actually a good place to be in business, because I am agreeable enough to I really want to advance other people's interests. And if I'm ever at a place where there's a client feeling like they didn't get enough value, I can't sleep at night, not even if if, you know, I've never had things that are real bad. But if they're even just like, yeah, that was okay. It's like, oh, I can't stand and I want to advance other people's interests. But I'm also not so agreeable, that I'm going to work for little money or take on really bad terms that aren't in my interest. And when I started negotiating, I very often would get trapped in the desert of rent. Well, I desert I did this, therefore. And I see people, especially those that are more agreeable, when they're learning to negotiate, they're starting to do it, they tend to get in deserved mode. And I realized it's least in my view, is very useful to just eliminate deserve from the entire lexicon has nothing to do with me deserving things. I think having clients as opposed to having one employer over the years has been helpful for that. There's no me saying, I just deserve that if I can't prove a value to the client, they just let us go. And so it's always he, this is how this advances your interest. And sounds to me, like, you probably maybe already knew that instinctively. And so that's why you're not even thinking of like, like, when you say clarifying the why. Maybe you just had that to begin with. Yep. How would you like to conclude for the nursing manager, let's say the young nursing manager listening right now that thinking, maybe I want to take the next step in my career, what advice would you give to that person and, or any other thought you'd like to conclude the show with? Well, I'm
Lisa Van Dolah 53:10
speaking to one I just hired in Memphis, she's coming out of a hospital or surgery center experience, and she's stepping into the practice administrator role. And, you know, first her and anybody else, if this is a role that you want to learn, we'll be here to support you. And so if it's something that you want, as a nurse to step into something that maybe is outside of what you perceive to be your training, I think you need to seek that opportunity and ask for those around you to support you in learning things that maybe you don't have any experience in yet. And I think nursing has tremendous foundation to offer you the skill set in a variety of roles, whether it's administrative management leadership, or you know, like you said, project management, sales, marketing, business development, all of those things are are ways training, teaching for nurses, to advance their career. So it's not just one path, but I think they're seeing has a tremendous foundational value that you can build on if you're interested in.
Griffin Jones 54:15
So for those of you that are on the fence, maybe you take a shot because we could probably use a couple more nurses at the top. Lisa Van Dolah. Thank you very much for coming on inside reproductive health. Thank you.
Lisa Van Dolah 54:28
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Sponsor 54:29
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