Navigating Personal Bias and Seizing Opportunities: An Interview with Danielle Werner

In this engaging conversation, Amy Taylor-Bianco and Nick Winnenberg interview Danielle Johnson Werner, COO of Penn Medicine, exploring her journey from Ohio University to a leadership role in healthcare. They discuss the importance of mentorship, embracing disruption, and the balance between personal and professional life, highlighting the significance of support structures in navigating career challenges.

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OnBrand Podcast Studios produced this episode. Special thanks to Audio Engineer Alex Winnenberg, Producer Nick Winnenberg, and Marketing Specialist Cori Stokes.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

All right, I'm Amy Taylor Bianco, and I'm here with alumnus Nick Winnenberg. We're here at the College of Business at Ohio University in the Walter Leadership Center. And we have a phenomenal guest today who's really exciting for me to bring back. Danielle Johnson Werner. I still call her Danielle Johnson, long time ago, but I do. Danielle Johnson Werner, who is the chief operating officer of Penn Medicine, and who graduated from Ohio University with her master's in healthcare administration, I think the year after I got here. So we'll let you all figure out when that all is, but a while ago. And we're here today, Danielle's just so much fun to work with. She's such a great mind, a great thinker, executive, doer. But I want to hear like how you got that way. I want to hear like something early in your life. Like when you knew, like when I first met you, I knew that you were a leader. I just knew. And I want to know when you knew. Like was it, I don't know, in elementary? Like when was it? Like when were you like, oh yeah, I'm kind of good at this stuff. Like maybe I should lead.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27

That's really funny. I have to say I greatly appreciated mentors like yourself helping to reflect that back for me because I do think we're not quite sure as we're going through our journey, what does that mean? What does that look like? And for others to say out loud to you that they see something in you, I remember very important moments. points in my life when when people said something to me that made me feel like, oh, wow, I didn't know if I could do that. But that person's vote of confidence really gives me that extra boost I needed to take action. So I do think like along the journey in undergrad, for example, I had two different professors that I just found very memorable as I was thinking about what am I going to do with my life? I knew I was very interested in science and I'd been and I have a little bit of a nerdy past, but I spent all my summers going to science camp. I had a awesome, you know, we all have a thing. And and so I think that definitely was part of that formative. years where my parents were extremely supportive. And we didn't have a lot of extra money to invest in these kinds of experiences, but they really made it accessible for me. And I found that there were science teachers along the way who nominated me to go to some of these summer camps. And so I suppose that is where my love of science came from. But I didn't know how to couple that with some of my personality characteristics and some of my nature, right? which is a bit more extroverted than other lab scientists might be. I got that feedback loop during college when I thought sophomore year, wouldn't it be great to be president of the biology club? I love science, but also clearly had a desire to be part of driving work and I do think that's a big part of what leaders are great at is, you know, finding everyone's assets and amplifying and finding opportunities to give people space to do what they're great at. And I thought, gosh, I would love to give space for this group to do all these great things and for their voices to be heard. And I want to make a really great, you know, agenda for this meeting. And my professor was like, okay, you have some skills here that I don't normally find. When I'm advising the next lab scientist. So have you really been reflective about that? And I was like, well, no, I don't know. It's just kind of my nature. And he said, you know, there is a new program. It's literally starting this year. There's been no one in it yet. We're just kicking it off. It's called Healthcare Administration. And your love of science and your innate ability to... organize people, amplify voices, create these spaces for collaboration. He's like, there's just this, I just feel so drawn to guide you in that direction. Would you be willing to give it a shot next year? You know, junior year, important year to pick your courses. Um, and I, you know, I was like, absolutely. Why not? Um, I had no idea. So I started taking these courses, um, loved it. It I didn't know because I'd been so guided in the past years to be very focused on the science. I didn't really know the applicability of that scientific knowledge into policy development and into the economics of health care and the things I just hadn't been exposed to about, you know, how one creates, how one delivers the science and the medicine that we are so invested in. how we deliver that to the communities was actually incredibly interesting to me. And I just, I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know that was going to be interesting. So I feel so privileged to have been guided. And then I had a professor in that program who said, I just like handed in a paper one day and it was a side comment. And she was like, you know, your writing is really good. You'll be great in graduate school. And never had I even like thought about graduate school, right? But one comment, handing in a paper, a nice comment about like my writing skills. And I thought I could go to grad school. All of a sudden, I just had that confidence from one comment. And so then I was like, I'm going to apply to grad school. It's like these doors open and you kind of like run right through. And then, of course, I had this wonderful experience in graduate school meeting professors like Dr. Bianco, who sort of further guided me along that journey. And Amy had been the one to say, have you thought about New York? And I was like, absolutely, no, never. I haven't even been there. But I ended up moving to New York, getting my first job after grad school. Thanks to Amy's connection at Columbia, I ended up with a job there. And 14 years, almost 13, 14 years in New York City, and really was a catalyst for everything I've been able to continue to accomplish at work and in life, right? It's where I met my husband and all the fun things that come with sort of life after grad school.

SPEAKER_01: 6:52

that's so great that's there's just so much there what I what I kept hearing is like these doors would open so you made them open and you and you ran through not walked through not considered going through but ran through them and that's a huge right that's a huge differentiator um when the door is open to actually like do it I remember you were you're just like on your way to New York like okay I'm gonna go figure it out I love her she's just amazing like I

SPEAKER_02: 7:22

I feel like disruption is just, I mean, maybe it's a little bit about the change learnings that we did in grad school, right? But this concept of disruption, I think it's personal and professional and to be ready for it on both levels and embrace the disruption as we were talking, I think has been a mindset that I didn't explicitly know that I had, but one that has really been important on both a personal and professional level. So just kind of say, you know what, this is a disruption that I see as a growth opportunity that I'm going to embrace, trying not to be afraid. We're all a little bit afraid of disruptions. There's plenty of disruption that I've absolutely been terrified for, and doors have opened that I haven't walked through. But the ones that we are able to embrace, I think, have all been so impactful that it makes them so memorable. And you can see how your path ebbs and flows because of those pivot points.

SPEAKER_01: 8:25

I wanna go through, so like, how do you think about that? So disruption comes about like, I don't know, you could, a professional, personal one, whatever you wanna talk about, but it comes about like, what are your first thoughts? Like, cause I have a feeling that you have different thoughts than a lot of people, like what's your immediate, like, I don't know, can you go back to any particular thing and think?

SPEAKER_02: 8:48

Yeah, I mean, I think there is a bit of courage that's required. And for myself, I'm risk averse also by nature. So I really have to like pause, right? And I think part of what I found that I do, because a lot of it is self-reflection, right? There's certain things that we're innately doing or that we've observed others doing that we felt like that person's really successful. I want to emulate them. And so I think over time, I must have observed that a really good, Like someone who's really embracing disruption, like pauses and takes a breath, so to speak. Like that, I'm not going to react quite yet. Just going to like, sometimes what I say is like, I just need to digest that for a minute. And like really kind of like consume it because there's a lot of guttural response when something hits you and you're like, okay, wasn't expecting that. Whoop into it. Just chew on it for a minute. The eight seconds Amy had posted recently on LinkedIn, which if folks listening to this have not followed Dr. Amy Taylor Bianco on LinkedIn, it is a pleasure and a privilege to see her posts and be able to take in those learnings that Amy still provides in a lot of venues. Recently, you had amplified sort of that eight seconds. And I think it is, you know, whether it's eight or 10 or, you know, 100, the breath, right? Like it's just that concept of, It is possible to take a breath. It is possible to think for a moment before we react. And there are some, almost some de-escalation skills that we can use both externally, right? We talk a lot about in healthcare in particular de-escalation skills, but I do feel I de-escalate a lot internally, right? Something comes up, I have a reaction. Everyone's gonna have some sort of reaction and I have to pause, pause, okay, something like this probably happened before. What could I do differently, right? Digest it a little bit, as I say. Chew on it, whatever that right feeling is. And sort of de-escalate, right? From whatever my initial gut response was going to be. It's like, that's not going to work. Let me pause. It could work. It might work. I don't know how it's going to work yet. But we could get there. And being open to that, I think... And again, this is all stuff I think I can speak to much more now than ever before because of the, I think the support structure that I've had working at Penn with great leaders to really be reflective. And however leaders take that time, many will talk about a construct of like meditation, whatever the construct is, whether, you know, whatever your moment of self-reflection is, I do think it's critical to pause and reflect. And some of that reflection comes from having a really open and authentic feedback loop that you create for yourself. You want to be accessible. You need people to give you a feedback loop. And I think as I've gained more confidence throughout the years of being in a leadership role, I take feedback better and better and better every year. And I found that the more I take feedback and I digest it, and some of it is feedback that I want to be responsive to, and some of it is feedback that I need to consume, digest, and put back to the person who gave me that feedback in a way by which we can collectively navigate it. It's not always something I specifically need to change, right? And I think sometimes we feel like feedback is this one way feedback loop of, you know, hey, you should do this differently. I think it's often when someone opens a door with some feedback, it's an opportunity to collectively do something different. And there's a lot of things I can change about myself, and those are only in my own control. But I think that there's a lot that we can change about the way we work together. And some of that's a bit individualistic in how we get to know each other, which is where I think that authentic leadership of being like, here's who I am. All my flaws. All my charisma. Hopefully they come with that. But the accessibility piece is so important. And I know that's a little bit of a long-winded response. I'll pause there.

SPEAKER_00: 13:28

It was great. And Dr. B, if you don't mind me jumping in too, one of the things that I absolutely love about your story is the idea that the doors open and I just went through them. But you said something that kind of pulled you back to say there are some doors I didn't go through. So how did you decide which doors were worth your fearless abandon, which you definitely have, and to actually pursue versus to hesitate? Or have you actually ran through every door? That's what I'm feeling like, Danielle.

SPEAKER_02: 13:55

So I could give a good example, maybe, because some of these are about a lot of how we, particularly post-pandemic, how we've really tried to connect more meaningfully in the workplace, in the healthcare workplace space, which I can speak to is through the story narrative. So just thinking about one story. When I went to New York and was thinking about after OU, what do I do, right? And I'd had so many great experiences to transition from the life you've built at OU during your time there. And then think about what am I gonna do next? All of my options seem to be relocating. I wasn't staying in Athens. That's a lot of change to go through personally. But I also wasn't going home. So now what? And those are things, too, where it was like, okay, I knew a little bit about my guardrails. I knew I wasn't staying. I knew I wasn't going home. So no matter what I chose, it was going to be some new framework in my life. And I had to think through, it can't just be about the job. It has to be a little bit about the job. It's always a little bit about the jokes. We spend so much time there, right? Needs to be thoughtful. But it was also a little bit about who was I and what was I looking for in my next stage of life. And I evolved a lot as a small town, Midwestern person. Um, you know, I went to grad school actually sort of against my parents' advice. Um, I'd secretly applied for scholarships. Thankfully, OU had offered a great one that I was able to take that allowed me to go to grad school because they said you need to get a job, which was good advice. Definitely, definitely. So it was like, oh, I'm broke. You know, we'll take some risks, right? Risk averse, but don't take risks. Um, So I did it and I was like, okay, I know that that was a risk and I survived it. And that was a great learning experience. I took a risk and it went well and I enjoyed every minute of that graduate school experience. So now I'm building my risk tolerance. I knew I wasn't going home and I wasn't staying, but I didn't know how to pick the next place. So I had two offers from the table, post-grad school, which is actually a great place to be, for the exact same amount of money. One was in New York City, as Amy is not the same as the offer I was getting in a small town in Indiana. So again, the feedback from my family was like, why would you even consider? You can't afford to live in New York City on that salary, but this is a great offer in small town USA where cost of living is different. you know, this is more of the life that you know. This is a comfort zone that you have. We have a comfort zone with it, right? This is also about the people around you giving you mentorship and advice. There is going to be some, you know, particularly maybe some inexplicit and sometimes explicit bias in the mentorship and advice you're given, which is why I always advocate that people have more than one mentor because what's good for one is good for one. I do think we need diversity in guidance, right? And sometimes that diversity is simultaneous. Sometimes it's as your journey changes. But I got I got feedback loops and guidance from some others as well. And I think that was very meaningful or I could have been very biased to go to the Midwest. And I've really flourished in in the way that I was able to to make some career choices in New York City. But I had five roommates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:41

You had five roommates?

SPEAKER_02: 17:42

I think there was five of us. I had four roommates. Oh, my gosh. It was quite the foray into New York City living. I had to take out a small personal loan to make the move. There was a lot of risks there. But I was able to make that choice, I think, through balanced mentorship from various places. If I'd listened to my family, I'd be in Indiana. Um, if I, you know, hadn't listened to the voices of people I didn't know as well, Rick's your family's so deep rooted. Um, but I was able to make a choice for me for what I wanted. And I, I think I wanted to, um, I wanted to experience more culture and I felt like there was pieces of the world that I hadn't yet been able to see. And I felt so intrigued with the diversity that I was able to be exposed to by even just leaving Wisconsin and going to the Appalachian, uh, area of, uh, in Athens and, um, The ability to kind of experience some international travel while I was there, those types of experiences I wanted more of. And I thought, this is a great place for me to go. New York has some really great international airports and a lot of diversity. So I think that's what I want. And I was willing to take the risks as I looked at what that balance was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:58

So what you're saying, a small town in Indiana was not the cultural hub that you were pushing for at that point?

SPEAKER_02: 19:03

You know, again, like, don't want to be biased about it. At the time, as I was thinking about my choices, it felt like this was a place that was going to expose me more to things I didn't know. Whereas I felt like I was probably going to get some similar experiences to what I've had for the past 20 some odd years, right, at that point. So I was ready for change.

SPEAKER_03: 19:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 19:26

But being ready for change is different. I'm an eight-year-old and a house, and I think, you know, all the things that come with homeownership. So I think how I would make my risk assessment today is different than how I would make my risk assessment then and where my doors are opened. You know, there might be a job opportunity in Santa Barbara, and it might sound lovely, but I also have to think about how that impacts other variables in my life, right?

UNKNOWN: 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

I think I may not be as I may not be running through that open door today. But those are the kinds of things I think that we all think about along the journey is when when the door is open. Maybe when I was at OU thinking about I could go anywhere except back home. Maybe Santa Barbara if it had been on the list is where I could have ended up as well. So I think it's just a little bit about. So my risks now are different. They're more professional. It's more about doing a podcast when you've never done one before.

SPEAKER_00: 20:31

You're doing great. Dr. Van, I know we have one question to hit on, too, kind of going into her journey. So do you want to get into the next piece now?

SPEAKER_01: 20:38

So you went to New York. You took a position at one leading health care system. You really followed your career, right? You went from, if I remember right, from Columbia to Cornell to Penn.

SPEAKER_02: 20:50

Mount Sinai and then to

SPEAKER_01: 20:52

Penn. Oh, to Mount Sinai, of course. And you made a lot of personal sacrifices to do that. I remember talking to you early on and trying to figure out when we could talk. And you're like, there's really no time I'm alone. I have all these roommates and I could go stand outside. And I was like, well, how's that going? And you're like, I just live here. Which I thought was the best. I'm like, yeah, the city's yours. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I just live here, whatever. But then you met your husband there and have a whole life. So tell us about you. You met your husband. You were taking career advancement, career changes at the same time. And then you had your son. So tell us about your career during those points a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 21:40

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think. So, you know, disruption, right? Well, we all look at and I think. I remember this being an example in the business classes with Dr. Taylor Bianco. There are some changes that people are really excited about, right? Not all change is feared or bad, right? And so, of course, for me, marriage is something I was excited about. Again, everything is not for everyone, right? I really wanted to be married, so I was excited about this opportunity. So that's a change I was really looking forward to. And I think as we, you know, had been married a couple of years and I was following my career in New York and feeling really comfortable with the choices I was making, we were planning a family. And so I had my son and I'm a one and done. Again, choices. Everyone's got their unique opportunities. Yeah. So I was seven months pregnant when I was working at Mount Sinai in a position that I had been really excited about. It was, again, an opportunity for me from a career standpoint. I think many of us wonder, like, when do you make your journey changes? And for me, when I started to get interested in a position and then would say, like, do I meet the qualifications? And I would find, oh, maybe I haven't had a big enough budget to manage or, you Maybe I'd like to be exercising more of my change knowledge. There was two opportunities with moving from my role with the New York Presbyterian system into Mount Sinai. They had just purchased a five-hospital system, and I was following the industry in New York City, and we were all shocked. We thought NYU was going to partner with the Continuum Health System, and then out from nowhere comes Mount Sinai. So it's very exciting kind of, you know, for us nerdy folks watching the industry in health care. And I thought, oh, I really want to know what that's like. How do you go from being, you know, essentially a large hospital with one hospital in Queens to now adding five hospitals in a few months? Totally different culture. So it was really exciting for me to think about, like, how could I help be a leader here? in something like that. And I hadn't had that experience. New York Presbyterian is a longstanding, amazing relationship with Columbia and Cornell. And those are the experiences I'd had thus far. So I wanted those experiences. And also I was hearing, okay, you know, the areas I'd been focused on were surgical subspecialties with budgets that were less than 50 million. And that was like a benchmark of getting to the next opportunity you know people really wanted to see that you can manage larger budgets so I said okay this this meets two of the things I'd like to experience along my career journey so I moved to the Mount Sinai role and and then I was starting a family and I really only had been in the role for about two years I was seven months pregnant and I got this call from a recruiter and the recruiter was you know describing this great opportunity at Penn and And it was really the job that I had wanted when I was thinking about my next step and when I was hearing the feedback loop of, you know, bigger budgets, more responsibility, so you'll be eligible for a job like this in the future. So, so exciting that so quickly something had come up and someone had thought that I was now starting to really hit these boxes of experience. And that's probably a whole nother sidebar about applying for jobs when you hit all the boxes versus stretching, but I'll leave that for another podcast. I went home, and this was back when voicemails were listened to. People didn't text, right? So I went home, and I said to my husband, I got this voicemail. I have to return this guy's call tomorrow. Like, how funny is it? This great opportunity, but I'm, like, this huge pregnant person right now. And he was like, well, what's funny about that? And I was like, well, I'm going to call him back and be like, I can't possibly. Like, I'm really pregnant. And he was like, what does that have to do with anything? And I was like, I actually was like, I have no idea. I'm not sure. I guess I have to think about why is my current health and future motherhood biasing me from even throwing my hat in the ring. So it was a bias that I was carrying that I didn't really even realize. And my husband was like, throw that bias out the window. If you want this job, at least throw your hat in the ring and see if they offer it to you and then decide, right? So I thought, okay, great choice on the marriage front.

UNKNOWN: 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 26:21

All I needed was one boost of confidence. The next day, I returned the call and did the interview. I got through the entire in-person, lunchtime interview. And I was like, listen, I'm on a little bit of a timeline. Do you know when you might be moving forward to interview in Philadelphia? And he was like, oh, why? Why are you on a timeline? And I thought, well... Not sure if you noticed, but at this point now I'm like eight months pregnant. And he was like, and you know, the recruiter innocently was like, I'm really, you know, he's like apologetic. He's like, I'm sorry I didn't notice. I was like, okay, this is great. We're focused in the right places. But so I let them know I was, you know, about a month away from delivering, but was very interested. And I think it's important to say those things because, you know, again, The recruiter was like, okay, no problem. We'll make sure to get you an interview within the next month. We'll push you up on the timeline. Not a single question about my choices, not a single question about whether I felt this was the right time for me, like no commentary, just, oh, okay, thanks for letting me know. Like, we'll make sure to get your interview in early. And I was like, that's not at all what my unconscious bias was expecting. So I go and I did the interview in Philadelphia. Two weeks later, I had a baby. Not a single person made me feel in the process that I was making choices that weren't acceptable. And again, I don't know where I came up with some of these. Society definitely exposed me at some point to this bias that I was holding myself back against. And so I'm so glad I threw my hat in the ring. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to make a choice for myself. I ended up taking an offer for the position, which was how I ended up at Penn. And so I'm really glad that I did because these are all choices that I think I would never have really known because now hindsight's 20-20, but I would have regretted not being able to have this opportunity, I think. It definitely put me in a role that I have very much enjoyed and was definitely aligned with where I saw myself adding value back into the healthcare space. So really glad But I think it also is another one of those opportunities to self-reflect where I said, you know, I need to make sure I'm sharing this story because how many other women are like myself are afraid to put themselves out there wondering what because of our own unconscious bias or wondering what other biases might be out there and how we may be perceived about the choices that we're making. or how people may wonder what kind of risk we are to invest in because, oh, maybe she'll be on FMLA after we hire her. I didn't feel that at all. And I'm so grateful because now I want to work really hard to make sure that that's the same experience that other women have. And so sharing my story as part of that is championing that experience and how And I, at any point, felt very confident that if I was uncomfortable or if I was going to make different choices because I really wanted to do something different or wasn't able to arrange my resources to help me with my other choices outside of the work environment, I could have made any choice I wanted. And that statement alone, that I could have made any choice, and I feel like I was empowered to make my own choice, huge.

UNKNOWN: 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 29:55

It's a huge thing. I think so many of us, women and otherwise, if we feel our choices aren't there for us to make or that someone else is making choices for us or there's some bias in the process of allowing us to tell our own story or answer our own interview questions, I think we can all do more to support people in the workforce, whether it's someone who has other accommodation needs. I think it really is a versatile opportunity story to share about unconscious bias, but also about when we really are able to see what that feels like, celebrating that for others. I want to make sure that this is something everybody gets a chance to do, like break down any barriers or feel that empowerment of choice. So thank you for allowing me to share my story here and amplify it further.

SPEAKER_00: 30:50

That's an incredible story. Sorry, Dr. B, go ahead. No,

SPEAKER_01: 30:52

go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 30:54

No, please, you go.

SPEAKER_01: 30:54

Okay. Absolutely incredible story. And I love the way you... you talk about professional and personal and this holistic way of looking at both and it's kind of cool like maybe you didn't have the you didn't have the chance not to show up pregnant right you didn't have that opportunity so you showed up pregnant and then you had your thoughts about it but they weren't other people's thoughts they weren't so no one was holding you back and you got to make the choices I think that's fantastic and you welcomed big changes at once disruption change you had to move to a different city right

SPEAKER_03: 31:38

yeah

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

yeah so

SPEAKER_03: 31:39

and

SPEAKER_01: 31:41

that great husband right like okay sure let's do it um

SPEAKER_02: 31:46

thank goodness for support structures whatever that community looks like for folks um i do think it does you know um whether it's a community and family or And what I say is sometimes I buy the support that I need, right? I have someone who I rely on to help me keep my house clean. There's services we purchase because not that I can't clean my own house, but I need that extra couple of hours a week that you gain by having someone who does this well and faster to be able to spend my time on something else, right? So I think there are some choices that I was fortunate to be able to think about my support structure. And it's, you know, it's family, but it's also some of these other choices that we make. So I applaud all of the families who are, you know, have parents in the workforce, because I think they've all circled their wagons in whatever way that is. And hopefully some of those wagons that are being circled are folks in the workplace who are saying, yep, I can cover you until 9 a.m. so you can go to your kids' holiday program in the morning, or yep, I can cover you from 3 to 5 because I know your annual healthcare appointment is important. It's important for all of us, right? Some of these opportunities to support flexibility, I think we're finding, again, particularly post-pandemic, the emphasis on those flexible work environments has been really amplified. And I think there is more flexibility than we recognized historically, right? There was a lot of rigidity to the way we approached the working timeframes that have been broken down by the evolution of technologies and teams and cell phones and text and email and all the ways to reach us at whatever hours of the day. I think we've had to evolve, right? There was a period of time, I think, in that evolution where we all felt we had to respond to emails 24-7. And I think a lot of us are working really hard to say there is a normal business hours and you will not be responded to after. And as a leader, I'm going to try really hard not to email you, even if that means I use the delay function. Because some of us, like maybe I need to take my kid to a doctor's appointment and I'm going to be catching up on emails at 7 o'clock at night. But that doesn't mean I want someone to respond to my emails at 7 o'clock at night. So if I can delay those receipts to go out in the morning, it helps to set the right stage with the people who work for and with me. If I send them an email, they are going to feel compelled to write me back. So I do try hard in some of those ways. I'm not perfect. But I think we're all trying hard right now to evolve.

SPEAKER_00: 34:35

Use

SPEAKER_02: 34:35

the new technologies to our benefit and not feel like the tails wagging the dog.

SPEAKER_00: 34:40

Sometimes it happens, though. It definitely does. I just want to go over what I what I heard in this conversation. A, introspection. You mentioned a couple of times to take that second. If it's an eight second breath or a longer conversation with your peers. Second thing, mentors. You've mentioned your mentors, I think, seven times. And you keep saying you're risk adverse. I don't believe you, but that's fine. We'll get to that later. And then I do think ultimately, though, it's the identifying of like, how do you look at the opportunities and know which doors to walk through? You are an incredible speaker and amazing leader. But Dr. B, did you have any major takeaways you want to share?

SPEAKER_01: 35:17

Oh, it's just so fantastic to hear the personal professional, the authenticity with which you answer the questions and you have fun with us, right? Like you, you're not saying like, I went to work, you know, and I did that, right? You are breaking down those kind of mindsets just by literally the way you're leading. So there's so, so many different pieces here. I think the mentoring, the disruption, making choices, supporting everyone around you. you, the belonging and really supporting everyone. I think we need to have you back for a future episode. There's so many things we can talk about, but I want to thank you very much. Danielle Johnson Warner here with us from Philadelphia at Penn Medicine and with Nick Winnenberg and I here at Ohio University College of Business. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 36:16

Thank you for having me I appreciate it.