Shaping the Future of Healthcare | Shanil Ebrahim | 557

What does bespoke hand-to-hand thought leadership look like? We often think of thought leadership at the large scale, the white paper, the book, or the keynote speech. But thought leadership also occurs at small scale in private roundtables and dinners. Today we explore narrowcasting thought leadership to influential and highly curated audiences. I've invited Shanil Ibrahim to talk with me about this topic. Shanil is a partner and national life sciences and healthcare consulting leader at Deloitte Canada. In this episode, we explore together his journey from research to consulting to thought leadership, the careful use of convening authority in thought leadership, building trust and nurturing relationships, and driving impact at scale to deal with national-level challenges. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Sunil.

Glad to be here, Bill.

So where I want to start with this question is one of your journey, because you start out as a researcher and an epidemiologist. And you have now incorporated and expanded beyond teaching and research to consulting and solving problems at scale. And my question is, tell me a little bit about that journey. Where did that start from and where is your passion lie?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So my journey really started, This goes many years back, almost 20 years back as a bioethicist where I was working very closely with patients and their families in some critical issues that they were dealing with. So from children who are resuscitated in the ICU to supporting patients in end-of-life care. As you can imagine, during those times, there's some critical issues that families and patients are dealing with, and it's bioethicists who end up being a voice for them. At the table with clinicians. I loved that part of the journey, and I was working very closely with patients at the bedside. Now, through that work is where I decided to do a master's in bioethics coupled with medical science. And that's how I started working with a clinical epidemiologist. And I loved everything about clinical epidemiology and studying patterns and treatments of diseases. I pursued a PhD in clinical epidemiology, and one of the things that was very common in any sort of experience that I had, whether it's clinical epidemiology, bioethics, and soon to be a researcher at that point in time, it was working very closely with underserved and vulnerable groups. So that's how I started my journey. And through that training, I ended up taking on a few faculty positions as well as research positions at Stanford and at McMaster University. I also spent a little bit of time in Netherlands and in Switzerland as a visiting researcher. So that's how I started my journey. Now, over time, one of the things, as you can imagine, anyone who's gaining more experience and expertise in healthcare or any other field, I started getting sought out for more independent consulting work. And through that independent consulting work is where I started advising clients, primarily at that point in time, workers' compensation boards, insurance companies, startups, just in terms of how they should be thinking about what the future of their organization should start to look like. And very quickly I started collaborating with a lot of bigger consulting firms. And through the collaborations is where I was asked if I wanted to join Deloitte. At that point in time, this is going about 9 years back, and that was to help launch a new practice, which was health analytics. And eventually that evolved into health consulting overall that, that spanned across strategy to digital to data and so on. And at Deloitte is where I found my platform to amplify my impact. Here I felt like I wasn't just solving problems, I was identifying them before they came apparent to others. I was also shaping the conversation around healthcare's future with a lot of my clients, and I drew a lot on my experiences and insights to advise on technology role and the role of data and the need for patient-centered care. And that's how my work evolved from, let's say, completing projects and executing them with my expertise to influencing how others saw and approached healthcare's complex challenges.

So what I love about that is you painted a very nice picture between starting out in research hypothesis-based questions, testing to the independent consulting and now saying, okay, I can see patterns here. Let's gather the people that we need to have this conversation and start having it to make impact. You made the comment of, I found my platform. How do you view your platform? And I would love to dig a little bit deeper as to What was that moment of epiphany where it went from, like you said, the transactional to the, oh, now I see what I'm really talking about?

That's a, that's a great question. So how did, how do I view my, my platform? So right now, in my role as a partner at Deloitte, I feel my role goes beyond, let's call it the traditional boundaries of consulting. Where when I first joined Deloitte, it was about how do you work with clients to execute that, that problem. But eventually that platform evolved into serving as a voice in the ecosystem, or even you can even say convening, being a convening independent authority. And I find this especially in areas like healthcare where we are truly at an inflection point regardless of where you live, whether it's Canada, US, or globally. Where the future of healthcare is really changing, and that's been accelerated by COVID. So this, this honestly put me in a unique position where I could use my platform to orchestrate critical dialogues between public and private sector organizations across Canada and also globally. And I'm aware that Deloitte has an influential platform as an organization. And given my own personal and professional brand in life sciences and healthcare, I've been able to initiate and facilitate numerous forums from national roundtables and collaborative think tanks to innovation labs, for example, right? And as you can imagine, this platform allows me to gather leaders in formal environments where I bring together a multidisciplinary mix of healthcare leaders, policymakers, technologists. And sometimes this could even turn into something much more informal like a dinner where we're talking about a critical issue, but we're able to share a meal over that. And a great example of that is just last week where I convened a roundtable of CEOs where I had the CEOs of different hospitals and the private sector for a dinner roundtable. And we collectively came together to figure out how do we address some pain points in the surgical backlogs that is plaguing Canada right now and what can we do as this group to be able to do it. So a lot of bringing together leaders, shaping the problem, and actually thinking about how do we address this together? And I feel like that's where this platform has continuously evolved and continues to evolve over time.

So I want to stay on the concept of convening authority and the ability to bring people either to the room for a conference or to the dinner table. To discuss. Some of that comes from personal reputation and relationship. Some of it comes from the organization. How do you go about identifying who do I need at the table and making sure they get there? Because the worst possible situation is you have a plan, you want to get the right people in the room, and you don't get them. So how do you wire for success?

Really good question. So getting the right mix of people together to talk about healthcare is a big part of what I do, and it's a big part of what Deloitte is known for, right? And as you can imagine, putting together the right forum of people is about bringing different skills and different viewpoints to the table. And my job right off the bat is figuring out who needs to be at that table. And I think about who needs to hear what, what is, what are we trying to solve? Who can challenge us to think differently? Who can help us turn ideas into real action? And I use every tool and network to my disposal to be able to do that., and this is including my personal relationships that I have with clients. I spend more of my time, I would say, in private sector where I have very deep relationships with a lot of, you know, CEOs from retail pharmacy, specialty pharmacies, pharma companies, lab and diagnostics, and also with some of the hospitals as well. And then across Deloitte, there's a lot of relationships that we have with different public sector individuals. It's important for me to be able to leverage my internal network to be able to connect with my external network as well. And honestly, it's not just about finding experts, which is what most people would think, you know, you would want to do. It's about finding people who are open to sharing and learning from each other. And this could be CEOs, doctors, researchers, policymakers, technologists, consultants, you know, pharma companies and so on. But it's essentially people who have been through this, through the system and have stories to tell. And to me, these diverse perspectives are what makes the conversation powerful and puts the thought into thought leadership. And my goal when I get together— and this was the same thing that when I convened the roundtable last week— it's about getting the different people to talk to each other in a way that's honest and open. And honestly, that's half the battle. We're able to openly talk about what's working in healthcare and what's not and not put our guards up. That alone can end up advancing things so much, which could really make a difference in terms of, well, what do we want to now do about it? And I think that's the first part of the battle that we openly welcome.

So then how do you do that? Because that sort of transparency, vulnerability, not only on an individual level, but an organizational level, and taking the sort of corporate guard down just a little bit. Is essential. Is that work that you do before people convene? Are you doing it in the framing when people sit down to break bread? How do you make that magic happen? Because I think that's one of the biggest things. Otherwise, people could go, yeah, it was another networking event, and, you know, you know, we had the rubber chicken.

Yeah, it's, it's very true. The last thing we would want to do is just, um, have a networking event. And the way that I start it, it's well before the invitation and before any sort of roundtable kind of comes into play. It's through the long-lasting relationships that we have actually built one-on-one. Trust is very important for me as an individual and for us as an organization as well. Every business that we do is essentially rooted in that trust. And this is exactly, you know, what I do in consulting day in and day out as I spend a lot of time in small sessions or one-on-one with leaders of influential organizations. And I really find that in these settings, it allows us to build a relationship, allow us to have some psychological safety in terms of challenging each other, especially because it's a small group or one-on-one and it's truly guards down in terms of how we could solve it.. And this allows me to facilitate a true dialogue where guardrails are minimal, allow me, allowed me to explore nuanced perspectives, allows me to test point of views and strategies that's both about pushing the envelope and also some that are grounded in reality. These are the type of interaction to me that are just quite invaluable, I should say, because that level of trust that is built through these this dialogue allows me to approach them at another point when they are a leader as part of a bigger session to say, this is what I need from you. And this is, this is what I, this is what I want to do. I want to figure out how do we solve this collectively together. And I just want you to come in being much more open, just about sharing, sharing your thought process and driving what forward the conversation that matters the most right now. And so that trust allows me to leverage that kind of going forward as well. And it's vice versa. I've noticed my clients do the exact same thing with me as well, right? It's in the sense of trust that they're able to leverage my thought leadership or my support in things that matter the most to them.

Wonderful answer. And what I hear there is not only trust, but also reciprocity, the ability to give and to ask for help and to be able to, in very short order, reach a point where it's saying, this is what we're trying to achieve, come with me because there will be impact. Right?

Absolutely. That's exactly what it is.

So from what I've heard so far, it sounds like most of the work that you're doing, I would describe as hand-to-hand or small group thought leadership rather than you publishing articles, speaking at conferences and that. Is that correct that most of your thought leadership work is done in the small room environment or give me a little bit of context.

That's exactly it. So, you know, to me when you say, you know, hand-to-hand, thought leadership, it's about creating that impact at a personal and a group level. It's about engaging directly with the individual. So these are senior clients at different organizations or small teams. Maybe it's your leadership team to inspire, challenge, and drive that change. And this is what I do in consulting day in and day out, where I really find that in these settings, it allows us to casually chat about those complex issues facing the organization or in healthcare just in general. Allows us to have that psychological safety and be guards down just in terms of how we would solve it. And this to me is what it facilitates, that true diversity, just in terms of the thought that we would end up getting out of it. And by engaging in these direct or personal exchanges, I've been able to practice my thought leadership in its most impactful form, which is driving forward the conversations. Now, that's not to say that we don't end up doing point of views or webcast or something much that is much broader, like any sort of articles and everything. And there's a purpose behind that as well. There's a lot of times that we want to share our point of view at a mass scale. At that point in time, there's a forum that we end up basically doing that, and it does work well. I find that the thought leadership that I have is, is in service of solving a problem as opposed to sharing a call to action sometimes, which is what a point of view does, where there's a call to action and there's a trust that someone who's moved by that point of view will take the actions to move forward. But the onus is not on the person who wrote the point of view to do that. Whereas I personally, as a thought leader, I like to be there for that whole journey. So which is why I spend time with the clients. And when they're— where we're sharing perspectives, for me, the call to action is also actioning on it. So that's my own journey.

So one of the things that I think about from a framework for thought leadership is it can reach different audiences at scale. So you can do broadcast thought leadership, whether it's going out through marketing channels or social or to a targeted industry or sector. But there, as you say, you lose some of the specificity in a broadcast approach. Narrowcasting, then you're saying, okay, this is our target audience. We're going after C-suite individuals who are dealing with X, Y, and Z problems around the corner in healthcare, and we wanna equip them, but they're gonna have to pick up the ball. And then finally, that pointcasting allows you to really create what I'd describe as bespoke thought leadership. You can contextualize to them, and it is almost in some ways as a gift to them and say, hey, I've been thinking about this. Let me take you around the corner to either see a risk or an opportunity, or let's tackle a problem that needs to be tackled. And here's what I'm thinking. Come with me. Right. That's a much more personal— Yeah, it's much more personable. And deeply relevant. Now you have to be very selective on who you choose for that point casting. But if you have senior leaders in an organization, you can create outsized impact.

Absolutely. And I, and I, and I, and this is very important, right? You know, when, when you, when you're talking through that, like, it reminds me of a conversation that, uh, I had with CEO of a, of a pharma company who was shifting their whole business from immunology, which is, you know, things like Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis to oncology, which was a newer area for them. And this was a point where we have a strong perspective in terms of what does the future of cancer or future of oncology start to look like. And it was going away from, let's call it the traditional thing around one size fits all type of treatments to much more targeted therapies that consider the genetic makeup of, you know, yourself and the tumor. It's about integrating different data points, whether it's your lifestyle, whether it is your genomic data, and using, you know, data and analytics and AI to predict disease progression and tailor those treatments or prevent cancer in high-risk populations, which is very different from the way that pharma companies typically think about it. And this is an opportunity to be able to Talk about what is that, what does that vision start to look like? Where do you want to go, let's say 10, 15 years from now? And how do we paint that picture and get much more clear around where you want to go? And let's now then jump backwards to say what needs to be true for your organization to get there? What needs to be true in terms of the bets that you're making in terms of investments? What do you need to do in terms of your operating model in terms of how you're organized currently, because you may not be optimally organized to achieve your vision. What are, what are some of the things that you may decide to sunset and not do anymore, which are all difficult decisions, but all decisions and choices that you need to be able to make. So those, those become, you know, a part of the journey that I end up taking the client in terms of what does it look like? Where do you want to go? Let's shape this together. And maybe we can also co-design what the solution looks like. And if Deloitte can actually partner with you on some parts of it, let's work together on that. And that's how I end up approaching my conversations.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/podcast. /ltl and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. I want to build on that, and that's a fantastic example. So we've been talking about this hand-to-hand, in the room, Bespoke Thought Leadership. You wear several hats and you've worn multiple hats in your career: researcher, academic, consultant, and now thought leadership practitioner. So when you're in the room with senior leaders, what sort of mental difference is there for you between when you are consulting and when you are doing thought leadership in the room with them? What makes that different and how do you know when you're doing which? Good question.

And, and a lot of times it has been intertwined and clients expect to, or for me to wear those multiple hats in helping through that. And that's part of the facilitation that I do. But when things have actually evolved over time, Sometimes I explicitly mention the hat that I'm wearing. I mention I'm not here to help facilitate the solution for you necessarily. I'm here to be a participant with you in figuring out what does that future start to look like. And it allows me to, you know, at least create the permission to actually remove certain hats. And for them to see I'm part of the journey with them and trying to figure out how do we actually shape this together. That's how I end up approaching the dialogue. And very quickly, maybe towards the end of whether it's a one-on-one or whether it is a roundtable or whatnot, sometimes I say, now I want to put this hat on. Now I want to actually challenge you in terms of like, how do we solve this? How do we partner with you? And this allows— it to have much safer conversations. Because sometimes the challenge has been, is, is he helping me shape what, what my organization's future starts to look like with nothing hidden in the background? Like, the last thing that they want is a consultant that is trying to sell something to them.

Exactly. They have the partner in the room and it's like, is this the right solution for us or is it the right solution for him that fits what he has available to sell.

That's exactly it. And so that trust really kind of comes in where I want to make sure, you know, long before— the reason that I'm in the room is not because Deloitte is trying to make a sale. I'm in the room because I'm— a big purpose and mission of our organization is to help advance healthcare within, within our regions or within our countries. And we're going to be part of shaping what the narrative is in the ecosystem and ensuring that we're able to advance some of the solutions as part of it. Now, to do that, it doesn't mean that I need to be there to support you through the journey, but I would want to make sure that you are able to see what that future is, and shaping that future is, is half the battle.

So give me an example of thought leadership work of yours which has created both joy for you and impact. My question is, think of an example where you've done thought leadership work where it's created joy for you and impact and solved something.

Yes. So I have a, have a pretty good idea on one that has created both joy and, and created impact. So for a very long time, I've felt that private sector can play a significant role in advancing patient care across Canada. And traditionally, how it is in Canada is the public sector, so these are the hospitals, provincial ministries, and so on, we end up accessing patients and providing care. And what private sector does is provide certain products or certain services. So specialty pharmacy and retail pharmacy provide certain pharmacy services, pharmaceutical companies provide, you know, the drugs, you know, medtech companies provide the medical devices and so on. And one of the things that I have challenged a lot of the private sector organizations is if you're truly in the business of healthcare, how are you wrapping around your arms around the whole problem? How are you not looking just at a sliver of the problem, whether it is person is diagnosed and they now need this drug? Here I am as a pharma company to provide that drug. If you're truly in the business of healthcare, you would be interested in the whole patient journey. Now, as I was having conversations, and this is one with a specialty pharmacy and another with a pharmaceutical company, it was around how you do that. And the, the, the CEO and the leadership team in both organizations felt this is true, that we are at an inflection point where we no longer can do the same thing that has made us successful for the last 20 years. So what does our future start to look like? What is, what is wrapping arms around the patient start to look like. And so where I was working with them is shaping what does the landscape of healthcare start to look like? What are some of the trends and the shifts that we're basically starting to see? So, you know, patients, you know, want more autonomy in terms of the decisions that they want to, want to make. We start to see a lot of regulatory type of shifts in terms of private sector being allowed to play much more in patient care. Data and AI is proliferating. So as part of that, it was, it was just amazing for me to, you know, as an individual, to be able to shift the way that an organization starts to think. So that brought a lot of joy in terms of them actually breaking their mold and thinking what the future could start to look like. And this, this led to, you know, a pretty long strategy around which path that they can end up going. And ultimately, one of the organizations particularly chose to do what we call personalized care bundles. So if you have Crohn's disease, for example, you no longer just need a drug. You need fit, you know, a fitness regimen. You need certain nutrition bundles and you need certain other type of nutrition, type of supplements to end up taking. To be able to actually achieve the success that you have in your disease. And as part of that, they felt for us to do that, we need to launch new personalized offerings, education platforms to be able to educate the patient in terms of how do they get— take more control of their disease. They created partnerships with pharmacies and hospitals to provide these type of services to where the patient was actually going to go see a doctor. So they were actually executing the strategy along the way.. And we started seeing the impact in terms of one, patient satisfaction, the second in terms of patient experience, and the third just in terms of just the organization being able to actually improve its own bottom line as well, because they were starting to actually think about broader channels that they could end up servicing the patient. So this was one where I felt like it was something that I've always been excited about in terms of breaking the mold and breaking the classic archetypes. To actually seeing it through, to seeing, seeing the impact. And it's still a journey that we're taking the organizations through right now and has been, has been something that we've been continuing for the last 4 years.

Fantastic. That's a great example of how it can be a win on multiple levels, right? For you, for your target audience, for the people who are being impacted by that idea, there's a chain of success that happens, right? Because when you're talking about dealing with Crohn's disease, you can go from absolute misery to making a life substantially better, right?

That's exactly it. And I think there's so many opportunities to be able to help organizations not only craft the direction where they could go, but also think through how do they get creative just in terms of solving it. And that's where it's not just going to be me. I keep saying I, but it's a huge team. That I'm able to bring. And I see myself more as an orchestrator in terms of helping think through how we can actually support this client, whether it's actually crafting their vision or thinking through the solutions. And this is a platform that I'm privileged to have and to be able to bring the leaders to the table to be able to support that vision.

So as we begin to wrap up, Shanil, I want to ask you a question. I want you to think back to your time doing research or the independent consulting before you'd really gotten your feet into the world of thought leadership. Knowing what you know now, what would you do different to help you prepare?

What would I do differently? So it's been quite the journey, I would say, just in terms of kind of the twists and turns I've taken in my, in my career. My world started off in health research, and I was always driven by a deep curiosity about how we understand diseases better and improve patient care. It was all about digging into the data, looking for patterns, and asking the why and what we can do better. This is what epidemiology was in a nutshell. But when I transitioned into, into consulting, especially at a place like Deloitte, it was like stepping into a much bigger stage. And suddenly I was not just working on solving specific problems, but looking at the entire health ecosystem and figuring out how we can make it better. It was all about taking all the questions and curiosities from my research days and applying them at a grand scale. So now I'm talking about how can we make hospitals run more efficiently? How can we use technology to give doctors and nurses the tools they need to provide better care? And most importantly, it all comes down to the patient, right? How can we make sure patients have a better experience and outcome? And in consulting, I found a way to not only use my research skills, but also to lead teams that were tackling these big questions. So collaboration is something that became a big part of that journey, both internally within the teams that I work with, but also externally where I bring together the experts from different fields that we just talked about, whether it's hospitals or private sector or policy stakeholders. Right. And so I was able to, let's say, look at the different challenges from all different angles. And for me, it's been incredibly rewarding to see how bringing these teams, whether it's, you know, internal or external, can spark creative thought and also drive real change. So now, as I'm going into, let's say, much more of a thought leader type of role, it's becoming clear that this is more about than just finding solutions. It's about starting conversations. It's about inspiring others. To think differently. And whether it's talking one-on-one or, you know, speaking at conferences, writing articles, it's, it's about sharing, you know, those insights and ideas that can push the whole field forward. And what I've learned in this journey is that change doesn't happen in a vacuum, and change is also nonlinear. And I would love to go backwards and think, okay, how do I piece all these things together to become a better thought leader? But it was my my journey and the ability for me to have such diverse roles like bioethicist, a researcher. I was running clinical trials. I was an epidemiologist, being a consultant. That allowed me to drive these conversations forward, explore new technologies, explore new approaches and ways to improve healthcare for everyone. And that diversity, I find, is my unique advantage that I bring to the table. So all of this to basically say that even though there was twists and turns, I've lived a quite fulfilling career. There's always more to do, more to learn, more ways to make an impact. But I think it's— I personally wouldn't change really too much because this is the reason that I think I have the platform that I do. And if I think I changed certain things, it probably did not— wouldn't give me the exact lens, or I may be missing a different sort of lens to be able to create the same level of impact. Right. So I'm connecting the dots going backwards, like what Steve Jobs once said. But it allows me to— it allows me to re— or it reinforces the choices that I've made throughout my career.

So one of the things that you mentioned in there that made me think was how many thesis advisors wind up telling students, Narrow your topic. Don't go so broad. You can't handle something like that. Just pick one question and work on it, right? And now it's more, let's go after the really big questions, right? And that transformation and the ability to say, okay, I can't handle the big question on my own. I learned that lesson. Who else do I need with me on the journey, either internally or externally? Shaneel, I want to thank you for a great conversation today. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much, Bill, and really appreciate the conversation. And I could, I could have gone for a very long time just talking about this topic because it's something I'm very passionate about. So thank you for having me again.

Absolutely. If you're interested in organizational thought leadership, then I invite you to subscribe to the OrgTL newsletter. Each month we talk about the people who create curate, and deploy thought leadership on behalf of their organizations. Go to the website orgtl.com and choose Join Our Newsletter. I'll leave a link to the website as well as my LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to hearing what you thought of the show.