267 - Enhancing Patient Outcomes: A Journey in Medical Innovation and Leadership with MOLLI Surgical's Ananth Ravi

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show, and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Ananth Rathi, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the, the, the founder, CEO, and president of MOLI Surgical, spelled M-O-L-I Surgical, found at molisurgical.com. Welcome to Listening with Leaders.

Thanks for having me. I'm very interested. I've seen some of the videos and they're incredibly fascinating.

Oh, thank you. Let's just start off with a little bit about MOLI Surgical. I went to the website and I understand it has to do with helping surgeons map out where they're going to be cutting and excising cancer and things like that. That's, as a non-technical person, that's the gist of what I got. So tell me if I'm right or not.

You're, you're spot on. It's, I think everybody has the presumption that medicine is hyper-precise and hyper, hyper-specific and objective. But once you operate in the space, you realize there's a lot of art to this science. And so part of what Molly does is to add precision in a very simple way. We are helping surgeons point to what they want to remove in a very clear, reliable fashion so they can remove cancers or other abnormal lesions from patients with ease and provide an incredible cure, but also in some instances maintain the patient as wholly as they can. So that's the context and what we're trying to achieve as a company and an organization. And the technology is spe— Specifically does that in the breast surgery.

Sounds like it's a magic marker pen that you draw around the zone that you want to work in. How does the technology work?

So the way it works is we implant a tiny little magnet the size of a sesame seed into the lesion in a patient that primarily is for breast cancer patients. This is done up to 30 days prior to their procedure. And then the surgeon uses a wand and a tablet and acts very much like a GPS system. So they find that magnet so that they know exactly where to remove it. And they're able to do that so precisely that they can then plan out their surgical route to leave very minimal scarring behind so that there's not this residual physical and emotional trauma on the patient from the procedure.

Wow, that sounds impressive. So let's back up a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your backstory. How do you get where you are today from where you started somewhere back in the past.

That, that is a circuitous route. I don't think I would have predicted this 10 years ago. I'm actually a medical physicist by trade, so I'm a biomedical engineer. And then I began my career in radiation oncology, taking care of building and establishing clinical programs to treat prostate, gyne, and breast cancer patients. And I loved that job. Like, it was like— it taught me a lot about being of service, of value, taking care of patients directly. And it was— it's very different when you're directly responsible for the safety and effective treatment of patients on a one-on-one basis. So it taught me that value very acutely. But I also love to do a lot of research, and my research was primarily focused on improving the experience of treatment in these various disease sites and disease states. And Molly just so happened to arise when one of the surgeons came to me from Sunnybrook and said, there is a patient's story or journey that we need to improve, and that's for breast cancer patients going through breast conserving surgery. Right now, the standard of care is they fast the night before, they have this painful wire placed, and they're in hospital for 6 to 8 hours. They faint. Can you help me make something? And at the time I was like, we've got all of these other clinical programs. I'd like to learn more. So I was, I listened to a couple patients talk about their journey and it was so compelling that immediately me and my co-founder started working on it along with the surgeon and iterated. And it was really meant as a research endeavor and then to improve the local treatment of patients. And we weren't, we didn't have aspirations to become a company or commercialize. But when we found it had such an important impact, people outside of our institution started to contact us to say, hey, how do we get involved? How do we use this? And we couldn't scale. There was no way to scale as an academic and as a clinician. And that's then when the light bulb started to click on, oh, maybe we need to commercialize this in order to have more than just a local impact. And then the rest is, is, is history.

Wow. And so is your device now widely available to surgeons doing this kind of surgery?

Yeah, I'm proud to say we're across North America. We're over 150 institutions and I think 20,000 patients treated and lives improved because of the technology. It's been quite a rewarding, rewarding story.

I bet. So you've been doing this for a while now. What is it that gets you up in the morning? To go to work and get you excited and motivated?

I think the biggest thing now is just I've seen how our ability to influence and improve healthcare and take the level of care to the next stage and kind of push the frontier, which when I was an academic or a clinician, it took years. You can influence change in a very small little like area, but now we can do it on almost a global scale. And I think that is incredibly exciting. I find getting up in the morning, you're always like, I'm going to run out of hours in the day to do everything that needs to get done. And the pace is so much that needs to be done. You see the need that you just don't have enough time in the day to get it all done that you want to. So I think that drives me primarily. And secondarily, we have a company that's growing with a lot of people now that I'm so proud of that, that we, that's the other piece that people get me up and looking out for their best interests as well.

How have you found your role shifting from being a co-founder of a tiny little startup with an idea to now having this organization around you that you've gotta pay attention to and manage and lead?

That's, yeah, that was, I, I think had various incarnations of leadership. When I was at Stripe, I was responsible for a program. And had leadership in terms of maintaining clinical teams to deliver on a particular mission. I think when we transferred over here, when we first started, we were very tiny and we kept growing organically and organically. But the, the actual goal hasn't changed. Like, the mission is still to improve lives through innovation and technology and doing it safely. And I think that's been true. And everybody that's bought into the company really believes in that mission fundamentally, that leading this team has almost been like getting out of their way and helping to be of service to make sure that they can do their best every single day. So I found it incredibly rewarding. And, and the exposure to talented, brilliant people has only made— I think I've learned more than they've learned from me.

It's just, it's of interest to me how you as a biomedical engineer in academia, started a startup, and now you're the CEO, co-founder, and president leading a fairly substantial organization. That's a completely different skill set than what you trained for. How did that happen?

You know what's very— yeah, that's— I didn't— when we even— when we first switched over to MOLLY, that was never my intent to like lead it. I wanted to be on the science side and the academic side. Push the technology and keep innovating, primarily because to your point, it was very much— that was my role. I understood it. The part that I— you have an idea, you want to protect it, you want people. I know my strengths and I know my areas that I've never been exposed to, and business and sales were foreign to me. And so I think the switch to when I was like, okay, I can do this leadership role was when I recognized that, especially in medical device sales, you are, you are, it's the same as when I was in clinical. You're trying to get people to buy into the idea of how can we do things better. So when I was clinical and a biomedical engineer, the thing you would come up with this treatment protocol and your close would be, will you help me implement this protocol? Now the close is, will you purchase this thing that will still always drive to better patient care and better patient outcomes? So the close is a little bit different, but it's still a different form. And so that, that mindset shift was incredibly important for me in terms of being comfortable then. And then the rest of the business acumen that came from relying on people that are better than myself.

There you go. There you go. Does Moly Surgical have other devices other than this one device, the little magnet device that we talked about earlier?

We have a, and this is part of the innovation culture that we've been building is we are not stagnant or static. We're constantly trying to refine and build things. Our next pipeline growth is to expand outside of— we're primarily focused in the breast space, but we've seen so much need from patients in the thoracic community and in other soft tissues as well. And so we're looking to really understand these challenges well and then implement technologies in that pipeline. So that growth is rapid and it's coming soon. Wow.

Anant, what do you think it is about you that makes you unique and has made you successful that you bring to the table to make all of this flourish?

I, I don't know if it makes me unique, but I, I will say the one thing that is unique about the culture and the company that we've built is we are very much service and mission oriented. I think everybody in the company recognizes that we're here to make the world a better place for our efforts. And our mission is to improve lives, and we do it in a very concrete way. So whether it is the, a first-year intern right out of high school that's going into university to our CFO, like, we're all bought into, like, we have been touched by cancer in some way. We know how challenging that experience is. And so my only— and I've always led with that principle of have a mission that is true, good, and changes the world. And people will then buy into that mission. And my role as a leader is to be of service to them and ensure that they have the resources and tools to then excel and fulfill that mission on a day-to-day basis. I don't know if that's unique. It probably isn't, but it is definitely, I think, some of the secret sauce behind Mollie's success.

What you just described was the perfect leader. Your job is to provide resources to people to allow them to excel. And that's really one of the main functions of a leader. So I suspect that you're probably a pretty good listener. How did you learn how to listen?

By learning how not to listen. I think this is every once in a while when you are, when you're growing in your career, there are these pivotal moments where I did not do that well. And I remember there was one part early in my career while I was in biomedical engineering, we had this big meeting and one of the staff was just sharing it but not really communicating well. And I interrupted the dialogue very abruptly. And I came out of that and I recognized how poorly that was handled. And similarly, like, even in patient interactions when you're speaking to them, like, that's the other part where if you have a script but you don't listen to people's concerns, you miss the underlying need there. And so in the early— it was from those missteps early on, I recognized you need to just ask questions, understand the needs. And so that's pervaded through our company in terms of how we build product, but also into the culture that we've built and that the people that we hire, they too like to ask questions first before speaking.

How do you manage situations that get uncomfortable? People have disagreements or conflict arises and it, it, it's, it all dumps on your desk, right?

And yeah, and there is, I think that is one where I can always be better. Like I think that's one of those things is when you can never stop improving in that front. But I, I've learned over the years and again from these events of, ah, that's, that was poorly handled, Ananth, you can do better than that. And one is Typically, when there is elevated emotions, it comes from a lack of understanding. And so my— what I realize is whenever there's a conflict, I like to understand the other person's view better than they understand it themselves. And only then, only then will I posit an opinion on it and present a point of view, because I think a lot of disagreements come from either individuals don't have context that I may have, or like this corporate context that's missing. And so they will disagree with the trajectory, but when provided all of a sudden, and as long as it aligns with the mission and what we're trying to achieve, you find more often than not these highly contentious. And I think that's the part where typically I, whenever these, there, there are these, and there's always parts where emotions rise and it's a challenge to step away and take a breath and then regroup. But I do tend to listen, try to understand the other point of view. And then that's where communicating overall context and does this align with the mission? And if it doesn't, you now know why decisions are being made for why they're being made.

I teach people, I've developed a skill as a peacemaker and mediator that allows you to calm any angry person in 90 seconds or less. And the secret is learning how to listen to emotions rather than to words. In fact, I, in my coaching and training, I say ignore the words, read the emotions, reflect back the emotions with a you statement, and you can stop any argument, any fight, any contentiousness immediately. Because first of all, there's neuroscience to support why this works. It's interesting what goes on in the brain. But beyond that, What I have found is that when people are getting emotional and contentious, they have a deep need to be heard and validated. And when you— if you validate them, you don't have to agree with them. All you have to do is validate what they're feeling. You're really angry and frustrated. You feel disrespected and not heard. You don't feel appreciated or supported, and you're a little worried and concerned. Statements like that calm people down literally in 90 seconds. And then we can engage in the problem-solving. What do we need to do to fix the problem? Or have you considered, in your context, have you considered these, this context that maybe you haven't looked at yet?

Right.

But the secret is to calm, validate people, validate their emotions. That calms them down. Then they're open and receptive to getting new information. If you try to solve the problem before they calm down, what happens? They get—

I know that one. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

They get angry.

You're absolutely right. Yeah, acknowledging.

And, and when— and you see this behavior over and over again, and it's because people don't feel heard.

Yes.

And they have a desire to feel heard. And when you as a leader can listen— I call it listening other people into existence— when you can listen them into existence where they feel heard, then you can engage in the deep conversation that probably needs to happen to try to solve the problem. It's pretty cool.

That is very cool. That is very cool. Yeah, I, I think you're totally right because some of these are highly emotional, and without acknowledging the emotions, you don't ever get to talk about this, the, the underlying, like, details. And we are creatures and humans not just Excel sheet numbers.

Yeah. What I teach is there's no such thing as rationality. This will be interesting to get your reflections of biomedical engineer. There's no such thing as rationality. We can use critical thinking. We can do qualitative and quantitative analysis. We can use algorithms and techniques for thinking, but that's not who we are. Every decision we make is an emotional decision. And yet we have, we live in culture that tells us that emotions are bad. Emotions are irrational. Emotions make us weak. And so we're denying our own humanity. And I think that's where we get into trouble when we buy into that myth that's been going on for 4,000 years. And once we start recognizing that we're emotional beings, then everything changes. Think about every patient you've ever talked to. Were they rational?

And being in those meetings, absolutely. Like you have to, because sometimes you're delivering a diagnosis of cancer and the emotional weight of that.

It's heavy.

All of it. Like all of whatever you tell them after you say those words, no one can retain that. Like that is an impossible task.

That's right. So you have to deliver the bad. In fact, I teach physicians how to do this. You deliver the bad news, the diagnosis, and then you shut up and you listen and then you start. And when a person gets a diagnosis of cancer, you know what they're going to, you know what the emotions are going to be. Fear. Terror, confusion, anxiety, anger, right?

Yeah.

Grief, sadness, depression, a feeling of being abandoned and rejected and betrayed by the universe. Every single patient is going to go through these same emotions, and all you have to do is just listen to those emotions, reflect those emotions. They calm down, and you say, okay, here's how we're going to handle this. And then they're ready to, they're ready to hear it. It's amazing.

That's great. That's fantastic.

So what do you think Moly Surgical is going to be in the next 10 years?

Oh, I, I was just thinking like, we're growing and scaling so quickly. I think my hope for us is that our technology continues to evolve. We continue to grow and globally change the standard of care so that no patient has to experience that discomfort with the wires and do that on a scale that is, I would love to say it, unimagined, right? I think that's where I want my imagination for what it could be to be limited at this point. I want us to overshoot what I can imagine at this point in terms of overall global impact. So that would be ideally the goal and building an organization that can achieve that mission. It's part of the—

Wow.

Strategy.

What a great life. You get to be the founder, co-founder of a company that is making patient care even more efficient and less painful and more successful than before. And there is a huge need for this around the world, and you're out there fulfilling that need. That's a pretty cool way to live. I can see the smile on your face. You're really happy and satisfied about that. You have a lot of pride in what you do.

I am incredibly honored to be of service to the patients that we've treated. It is one of the reasons to get out of bed.

And that's right, it's really satisfying.

It is satisfying, really.

And it creates meaning in life. And that's, I think, that's the most important aspect of life. If we have meaning in our lives, then we don't work, we just serve, and it becomes effortless, right? Yeah, we put in long hours, but effort is one thing, but the—

you feel lightened by the fact that it is for a reason and it's not, uh, and I think that gives you motivation. And this is the part where you could get up in the morning, see your to-do list and see that as like with remorse or regret, or whoa, this is gonna be cool. This is gonna be a good day. Yeah, exactly.

I get it. One more question enough, then I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

Wow. That's a great question. I think that I am an introvert through and through. Like I, I need to go back and I charge my batteries. And before I'm in front of a lot of people, you can, you can present yourself outwardly, but then to recharge, you need quiet alone time with no noise in a very darkened room to recharge those batteries, reading a book.

So you'll be pleased to know I'm that way too. And 99% of the 230 people I've interviewed on this podcast are introverts.

That's—

I've only had one CEO who was a self-proclaimed extrovert. Every single other person was an introvert. Interesting.

That is fascinating. It is fascinating that there's such a tendency in leaning one way. That's crazy.

We, we would think that CEOs and founders would be very outgoing, and it doesn't mean that as introverts we can't be outgoing.

That's right.

It just means that we don't draw our energy from other people. They take energy from us and we have to go be alone or quiet to recharge.

That's exactly it.

It's every single—

I love hanging around with people, but at the end of the day, to fill those batteries, you need a moment alone.

You are in a, you are in a good group of people.

That's great. That's fantastic.

Annette, it's been really great talking with you. Thank you so much for your time today.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Doug.

You're welcome. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you Please share this episode on social media. Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.