CEO Journey and Leadership Philosophy (ft. Adam McMullin)

Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. Thank you for listening. I know you have a lot of choices, great podcasts out there to choose from, and you've chosen time with us. We're gonna make it worth your while because I have the amazing Adam McMullen. Adam, welcome to Digital Voices.

Thanks, Ed. I'm, uh, looking forward to this. It's, uh, a Friday. It's a great way to end the week. I got a fresh cup of coffee, so looking forward to the time.

Yeah, this is great. You have become my running buddy. So whenever we're at conferences, we run together.

And in fact, it's always impressive, Ed. It's always impressive because you're so active at those conferences, but you are up there every single morning for the run and always for a good cause. Yeah.

And as you know, we do it for a cause. We want to get out there anyways, and we do it for a cause. And you've been a great supporter as the CEO of Avasure. You've always stepped up. And have helped sponsor. And in fact, I didn't plan to talk about this, but it's just naturally coming up where we ask for all the runners and walkers to make donations. And, and you've been gracious and kind to quadruple all of those. So thank you for doing that.

That's, uh, it's, you know, you go to these conferences and getting out, getting some fresh air in the morning, getting some sunlight, and it, uh, is, is a great way to start the day, but also, It's just fun on those runs chatting with people. Just another way to kind of get to know people, who they're about, and create some context. So, yeah.

And my favorite one, we've done a few together and then we've run just as buddies together through Chinatown and stuff like that. But my favorite one I think is we ran in Vegas at HIMSS and then we ran down to the sign and I think Elvis was down there at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign and we did some selfies with the group. That was a lot of fun.

We had been grouped that day. It was, uh, that was fun.

It was good. So we met about 3 years ago. I had just become CEO myself, and you were really kind to me and helping to mentor me and, and also to open doors, cuz you've been a CEO for quite some time and we'll get into that. Uh, but I'll, I'll never forget that and thankful for our mutual friend, Sherry McCarter, for bringing us together. And, and ever since then, we've been, like I said, fast friends and running buddies.

Yeah. You know, I've learned so much and benefited from so many people that have helped me along the way. And I remember when we first met, you had a very specific question and it was something we had just wrestled through in the last business. So it kind of gave us a good jump-off point and I've learned so much from you. And so yeah, always loved the relationship.

Yeah. And the most important question, Adam, that we have for this entire Podcasts or what songs on your playlist?

You know, I am going to just seem a little dry toast on this one because my playlist is almost all podcasts. And, you know, it's one of two flavors. On one hand, I really enjoy, I'm a student of business and I love podcasts like Acquired. I also really enjoy Founders. It's a, it's also a little dry, but he reads a book on a leader every single week and summarizes it.

Nice.

And it's a phenomenal concept because there's so much knowledge to be learned and you realize, you know, obviously people are going through the same things you've gone through. And if you get a couple things you can take away, yeah, it just, it just energizes me and, and try to bring those things into my day and, and my practice. But I also listen to this. I don't know if your, your other listeners have, have, have done this, but The Rest Is History. It's these 2 British guys and they opine on different areas in history. And I think especially today with the news coming at us so fast and from so many directions and so many voices, I've really tried to go back and learn things that are durable and persist over time and try to figure out how does that apply to what I'm doing in my life and work. So I've really enjoyed Rest Is History, and that's a little bit of a chill-out, relax one for me. And You know, anytime you get 2 British guys sort of opining on history, it's, you know, a little humorous as well.

Yeah, no, I'm going to look that one up. Those are great suggestions. What about life message or mantra? Are there sort of words that you live by that help guide you?

You know, someone early on to me, and this will sound a little bit like a quip, once said, don't fold like a cheap tent. And I do think about that a lot. There's a lot of things that if you just spend the time and you immerse yourself in it and you wrestle through it and you and your team just battle through whatever the situation is, you just get through it.

Yeah.

And I think it's important to put the work in and the time in and to have confidence in your team and yourself that you can step up to the challenges because they happen all the time.

Right?

You have a dynamic role. I get to do a lot of things each day. My team is always wrestling through stuff. My family's wrestling through stuff and you just, you gotta wrestle through it. On one of those podcasts, Jensen Huang, you know, the NVIDIA CEO said something to the effect of, you know, I wish ample doses of pain and suffering in your life. Like if you wanna become great, you gotta, you kind of gotta push, put yourself out there.

Yeah.

Wrestle through things, fail, learn, get into that meat. And I think that's just an important part of life, right? Like it just, things never go the way you want and sometimes they do, but often they don't. What did you learn and proving to yourself that you can just kind of get up and get through it?

Yeah, no, I love it. And that leads to resilience, which is a very important skill. So Adam, let's talk about you. Like, who are you? What's your story? Like, tell us about yourself. Like, start with where were you born?

I was born in Toronto. So if I say anything like out about our house, it gives it away.

How did you make your way to the US?

You know, my parents, at some point in a deep Toronto winter, I think my father was recruited down to South Florida and he got down there and realized you could, you have an office by the beach and play a little tennis and said, let's try this for a year or two. So we picked up when I was 12. We moved from Canada where I was attending a boys' school in like a jacket and a tie and got plopped down into South Florida and no jackets, no ties, girls in the school. It was a big change. And that gave me a real dose of the beginning of sort of moving to the US. And, you know, it was an interesting move. My parents are still, you know, mostly living in the US as well. So on one hand, you knew that there was a world outside the United States. On the other hand, I think my parents really looked at coming to the United States as this sort of unbridled set of possibilities. You know, that I could kind of feel that infectious energy from my folks when I got here. But yeah, I grew up in South Florida and I'm an engineer by training. So I went to Georgia Tech and, you know, that was a great discipline in problem solving, being an engineer. And I would say my growing up was just a really interesting media experience for me.

Yeah, no, that's great. Was there a pivotal moment in life that fundamentally changed your trajectory?

When we first moved to the US, 12 years old, Didn't yet have friends and relationships and was probably like a lot of 12-year-olds, not that focused. And I don't think this is a unique story. I think lots of people probably have it in whether it's in different domains of their life, but I really got eventually into sports and I found 2 things that were really helpful for me. One, I played an individual sport where you had to perform individually and train and step out in front of the crowd, so to say, and get the job done. And then Also, since I was in the US, I played football, which is about a team and a commitment and everyone doing their job together. And I really, those 2 experiences I thought were really powerful for me in the team dynamics, but also individual accountability and performance. And like many, when you're doing well in those areas, it really, my grades really spiked. Like everything I did got better because of that experience with pushing yourself. It unleashed a real competitive spirit and just made me a better person. And that was really important to propel the first part of my career.

Yeah, no, that's very cool. But you can't leave us without telling us what was the individual sport.

Oh, I was a wrestler.

A wrestler. Okay, cool.

Yeah.

And what position did you, were you best at on the football I was on the line.

I like to get right in there. So, and also, you know, frankly, I was more about the, just the raw determination and was certainly not the skilled player.

Yeah. No, that's awesome. And I agree. Yeah. Sports can definitely do a lot to help shape us in a good way. So, you graduate from university, you start with IBM. So tell us a little bit about that.

I thought I would work at IBM for a couple of years and be right back to business school. And I got in there and, you know, I think a lot about this because the experience I had at IBM, I don't think it's not often replicated today for that next generation. I get into IBM and got Ed, they like trained the heck out of you. You know, I moved into a corporate hotel. For 6 weeks at the beginning of my career. You had IBM executives coming in and training you. I was given fairly significant responsibility early on in my career in consulting. I got to go work when, you know, when people hired IBM from a consulting perspective, it was a big problem because they weren't cheap. So I really got sort of inside the tent in companies like Philips and Siemens and Sony. You know, I got to live and work around the US. I got to live and work in Europe. I eventually ran a practice in Asia and I ended up staying there a lot longer than I thought because there was these phenomenal mentors, high-integrity folks. The company invested so significantly in you building your career. I would say early on in my career, my EQ was pretty low. And I remember my first 360. I'd never had a 360 before, and here I am at 20-something getting a 360 and I got this feedback and I just was like depressed. I was like, oh my God, not everyone loves the way I interact with them at work.

Oh wow.

And then like pages of like feedback and comments and it was just like, you know, kicks in the gut. And it just, it was an amazing for me experience because it was so humbling. But then they gave me a coach to work through it and become better. I ended up being there almost a decade because I was just learning. It was incredibly important, incredible lessons for me when I first went to Europe. I lived in Germany. It's a very different style for leading and working with teams. And I then again had to make some significant changes to adapt to how I did what I did. And gosh, there's no way my wife would still be married to me today if I hadn't had some of those experiences of sort of learn how to work with different people types and styles and, you know, get some good kicks in the gut to, uh, so that's good. Yeah. IBM was great.

Yeah. IBM had this, you know, heritage and of this tradition that you're describing of incredible training. And so I know when I was first graduating, I wanted to work for IBM because I had known about all the perks that they give you in terms of the training and investment in young people.

And the mentorship, Ed, like that's the other thing they would just, I got assigned, I worked for like a lady, actually the majority of my IBM career, probably 75% worked for females. So that was another thing. It was just completely gender neutral. I worked for a lady, Maureen McGuire. She was a Scot. She ran strategy and marketing for half the company and IBM would fly me to headquarters every week for a year just to work with her directly. And phenomenal lessons on how to do things at scale.

Yeah, no doubt about that. That's, that's great. So you, you then switched to healthcare. What was the impetus for the switch?

So IBM paid for me to go to business school and they created a customized program that was really filled by people in the IBM consulting group. And one of the individuals there was a guy named Mike Gallup, who's gone on to be a very successful healthcare CEO. And I was traveling all the time. He was traveling all the time. We learned so much in business school while we were all traveling and working through this. So we became pretty close and he was asked to lead strategy for a company called Hillrom, which I'd never heard of. And he recruited me into healthcare. And the impetus there was, well, I really enjoyed my IBM experience. I ultimately wanted to lead a team that had more autonomy around just leading a business. And within IBM, when you're earlier on in your career, they don't sort of have a full business.

Right.

And Hill-Rom had this healthcare technology division, and it was in a position where it would benefit from a significant acceleration forward just in terms of how you look at enterprise technology and platforms. So, Mike helped me get into healthcare and it was, it changed my life.

Yeah. Yeah.

Before I got into healthcare, really my own experience, because I was younger and fairly healthy at the time, was a nurse had agreed to marry me. And so I had that. So I thought that was exciting. I was going to move closer to the industry that my wife was in and could see her passion. And then I found a 6th gear personally. For the impact that you could start to make for care teams and patients. And, you know, I can be a pretty— got an emotional component. I didn't always show it earlier in my career. As I got further on in my career and more comfortable, you know, you open up on the emotional side, but when you're sitting, you know, I once ran a business that was around labor and delivery and like the most passionate, committed nurses was just It was incredible.

Yeah. No, that's pretty amazing. And so you've gone on to what I would describe to be a serial CEO. Tell us about the CEO roles you've had, and then that'll break into what you're doing today with Avasure.

Sure. Yeah, I've had the privilege to be the CEO on the third business, Avasure, and I never start a CEO job with a timeline. lying or thinking that it's going to end, right? You take the job because you have real enthusiasm for what that company's doing, what the opportunity is in front of the company to go do that. And you really believe that with that company, you can go execute. And you, you know, it's, it's a, it's a busy job. It's, it's a rewarding job. It's a dynamic job, but you better be all in.

Yeah.

And that's the way, um, that's the way I work. And I get really excited about walking into a business. I'm, you know, I've never started a business. That seems very risky, very hard. I think I can add value in helping businesses scale and get to the next level. And I find it really rewarding working with the team to clarify what are A's, B's, and C's, right?

Yeah.

There's a lot of businesses where they're doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you only have limited resources. So making sure you've got a strat, strategic clarity around where you're going. You've got the right people in the right roles.

Yeah.

You know, as the CEO, your job is to build a team, align a team, and help them achieve great performance and outcomes. And that's the part I really enjoy. So, you know, I've had the privilege to lead Volt, which was the first work to transition from Trey Lauderdale, who's a very dynamic founder and has moved on actually to the nuclear industry now. And found it an interesting business. By the way, 5 years ago when he said he was going into nuclear energy, I was like, what are you talking about? Now with all the data centers, it's just been a resurgence. But that was my first CEO job and my gosh, there was so many things to learn. I thought I was ready for it and I'd never dealt with boards or managing cash flow. But it was a phenomenal culture, phenomenal business, a leader and a grower. And I led a business called FDS that was really helped pharmacies transition their business model from putting pills in the bottle to delivering medical care. And it was just another exposure. We eventually got 16,000 community pharmacies on the platform. And that was a phenomenal experience to learn the role that community pharmacists play in health.

Yeah.

Especially in these communities where they're the only licensed healthcare professional.

Right.

And you can have a lot of physicians. You only generally have one pharmacist.

Yeah.

And they see it all. So, uh, that was another, you know, that's, well, you see, look at healthcare, you know, there's all these very discrete domains. And, uh, that was a, a significant learning in that business and, you know, how to help those pharmacists run really healthy businesses and deliver care into their communities.

Yeah, Adam, that's awesome. So what drew you to Avature?

Same things I've mentioned. You know, Avature is the pioneer in virtual safety observation. It is one of the best things I've ever seen because it allows you to provide a workforce multiplier where you have about 10% of patients in health systems need observation for falls, behavioral issues, caregiver violence issues. Unfortunately, we could talk about that. It just, some of these stories are— Unfortunately impactful, but a nurse goes into work and one of their top concerns is violence. But they put someone in the room traditionally as a sitter, and it's not a great role. We're constrained for resources, not efficient. And with virtual safety, Avature was able to take 16 of those roles, turn them into one by doing that virtually and setting up a virtual care center. And that's workforce productivity. It reduces costs. But here's the best part. You will see significantly better clinical results. So it's cheaper, it's better for your care teams, it returns resources back to your care teams, and you will reduce your falls by 50%, better manage your behavioral health. And that was the core of the business. So I got excited about that core value proposition, and you could see the rise of virtual care and the opportunity around computer vision. And just that core business was a couple billion dollar market. So there was a lot of room to grow.

Yeah.

Um, and then the, the third element I always look at with a business is, do you think you've got the resources to be successful? And I got to meet the team. They're all enthusiastic about growth. That's really important. The, the business already had, had, uh, got to about 700 different hospitals. Now we're in 1,200. So there was a footprint. Um, the business, we generate cash, so we're a healthy business. We're not, looking to raise money all the time. We can operate a business. And then we had a board that was aligned. And that's one of the important things, a board that is aligned around growth, where they're transparent, growth-oriented partners. We started this question, we just talked about being a CEO. That's one of the other things that gets me really excited when you're in growth businesses and you've got a board and you're all on the same side of the table saying, How can we do the best for customers? How can we go faster? You can run laps around a lot of businesses with that kind of support and alignment.

Yeah, no, I, makes total sense. I would've, I would've jumped at it as well. It's been what, 3 or 4 years?

Yes.

So what, 3 and a half?

You're right on.

What are one or two changes that, let's say if I was talking to a board member, you're chair of the board, you know, hey, what, what are one or two changes that Adam has made In his tenure at Aventure?

Yeah, the, the first and most important thing is making sure you've got the right people in the right roles and the right team. We had some passionate people that grew up in the Aventure business, uh, and were founders, and many of them are still in the business, but there was an opportunity to complement them. Yeah. With people that brought in specific skill sets. And we brought in a phenomenal marketing leader. She used to run, uh, Paula Cobb runs mark— uh, ran marketing for Philips globally. Uh, we brought in a phenomenal product and, uh, now that person runs, uh, R&D leader. Uh, we brought in great services and customer, uh, success leadership, commercial. So we had to build the team out.

Yeah.

And it takes a bit to get the right people in the right roles and get to that level where the team has enough trust that you can have that productive conflict. And then you can let 'em run in their lanes and it just creates So much capacity. That part has been incredible. The second and most important piece is we're a healthcare technology business. We have more than doubled our spend on R&D. And, you know, health systems more than ever, and especially this year, have gone from sort of experimenting around new technologies to wanting proven solutions, right? They've got the reimbursement pressures. that we all know about. And they've said, hey, like, what's gonna make a difference on our P&L? What's gonna show up on our quality results? How do we scale? And then from the technology side, what are the platforms? And we had to invest significantly to make sure that we were a complete platform to meet the needs of our customers. So the team, the R&D investment, and, you know, we continue to grow significantly, but it's, you know, that's fun.

Yeah.

And it's been a very dynamic, very competitive market, which just helps you be better.

Yeah, no, that, that's great. I, I've had the opportunity to meet many of your team. You all had a sales meeting one time in Dallas-Fort Worth and you invited me to be a guest speaker.

That was fun.

Yeah, it was super fun. And the team is just stellar, like you talk about. What about the future? Where, where are we headed, do you think, in, in this particular space? And, and what is Avature doing, uh, to, to meet that or to help lead it?

Yep. Uh, as we look at this space for health systems, there's a few areas where we think we can lean in and help create significant value. We talked earlier about patient safety. That is, for every 100 beds, there's $1 million of savings there, and you'll get better results. As you bring virtual care into the health system, you can leverage your scarce resources much more effectively.

Yeah.

And whether that's bringing physician services to your community-based hospitals so you can serve patients, which then allows them to reduce leakage from their health system by serving more patients, Whether that is taking skilled nursing and complementing those care teams that are out there in front of patients. And then we're investing heavily in computer vision as well to provide additional layers of safety and to provide further automation in the care environment to support efficient flow of patients through a health system. I mentioned caregiver violence. We're bringing technology in there to automatically detect and look for situations where caregiver violence could be an issue in a building. And then I'd say the last thing for Avature, because of our footprint and our scope, we're spending a lot of time and energy around building the ecosystem. We're not going to do it all as one company, but because we have been around, because partners know we're going to be part of the solution going forward, we're making sure we work really well across Epic and Cerner, but also the ecosystem around that whole smart hospital. And putting all those things together, The last thing I would say is we wrap that with a really competent services and clinical team. You know, we're a tech company, it's 15% clinicians. So, it's not just the tech. It's how you actually drive the change management and get it to work and sustain. So, it's not an initiative du jour, so to say.

Yeah. No, no, I love that. I want to shift to leadership because not only did you get this great like in your youth with sports and things like that that you spoke about. And then we talked about your education, of course, the great education as well as employment with IBM, and that eventually led you to get into healthcare and then CEO of a couple different companies, including Avature, which we just talked about. So clearly you're a great leader and I know you already as a person, which we mentioned at the top. So you're a great character as well. Where do you go when you feel like super stressed out or your creativity is drained? Like what do you do to sort of refresh yourself, replenish yourself?

A couple things. I think like many, you got to get outside, you got to get some fresh air. You got to look farther than the monitor screen in front of you. And I have benefited in my career from building some strong enduring relationships. And when I'm working on something and I'm stressed out, I will start calling some of those trusted advisors and just talk it through. There's a proverb somewhere about sort of like sharing your problems and it lightens the load. And I get such creative insight and you call a couple calls, your thinking is sharper, your stress level is lower. You know, stress is sort of, it's the concern about what to do next.

Right.

Right. And when you get that insight and perspective from others, it really dials it down for me.

I think that those are good. Those are good tips.

Just actually on that, you know, it's something, and I, you know, as I'm mentoring folks, I always encourage folks to have almost your own personal board of directors.

Very good.

And, you know, the people you can call on, I'm very fortunate that there's a number of leaders that are in the same industry that, you know, have real context that know me, have care and concern for me. know enough about what I'm doing that are willing to and will dig in around some of the things I'm working. And when they call, I try to be, you just really, to anyone in my network, super responsive.

Yeah.

So many people are responsive to me. So many people have contributed to me being a better leader and being able to better serve the teams that I'm part of that I try to make sure I'm very quick on being responsive to them when when I can be helpful in that dimension.

Well, I'm certainly witness to that. You know, when I left as CEO, you were one of the first people to make contact with me, and you were there as a supportive friend and to see how you could help me. And I really appreciated that. So what, just for my Digital Voices audience to know, like, Adam's the real deal. So I am witness to that. So, Adam, this has been amazing. We could talk forever. And unfortunately, I didn't get to go much into the leadership side, but I think your leadership principles came out throughout our discussion. And I already summarized most of the things that we talked about. And then we just finished on sort of that creativeness and stress and who do you go? And of course, the other answer you wanted to say was run with Ed and creative, get the creative.

That's the outside. You get outside, you get a fresh start of the day.

So, is there anything we missed or anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word.

I'll give a double down on leadership. I know early on in my career, like many, you're a manager, right? You're like, how do we get people aligned to get outcomes? And you look at the world about systems that you get things from. And as you move further in your leadership style, you sort of fuse your personal self Bring your personal self to work and you realize leadership is really good about giving things to people. And I'd say for me, I try to think about how do I bring 4 things to the team? My enthusiasm and energy for what we're doing, right? It matters. It can be infectious. You try to help them grow their knowledge, right? People want to learn and grow their careers. So what's your vehicle for that? Genuine care for your team.

Yeah.

Right. People want to know that you care about them and not just like you have, that you really want to see them be better people and support them through the things they're going through. And then the fourth thing is just modeling integrity, right? So that people can feel really good about the team they're in. So I think as I think about what I do and especially as I progressed, have progressed, you know, throughout my life and career, you sort of move into this, like, how are you giving back to the teams around you? And as you're doing that, you're just getting better teams and creating longer relationships like the one we have, right? That is gonna endure until, you know, one of us is under some dirt or something.

Well, Adam, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you for being a guest on Digital Voices.

Thanks, Ed.