How a Clear Vision Clarifies Product Portfolio Strategy and Team Development
Brady Shirley is President and Chief Operating Officer of Enovis, an innovation-driven medical technology growth company dedicated to developing clinically differentiated solutions that generate measurably better patient outcomes and transform workflows. The Company’s extensive range of products, services and integrated technologies fuels active lifestyles in orthopedics and beyond. In this episode Brady shares the history of the company, how they are leveraging market leadership in one segment into a broader vision, why they decided to rebrand, the importance of divesting and acquiring companies and technologies to align with vision, how outcomes are a key driver in their strategy, and why team development is key to their growth and future.
Links from this episode:
Brady Shirley Bio https://enovis.com/leader/brady-r-shirley/
Enovis https://enovis.com/
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Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service and is minimally edited. Please forgive the mistakes contained within it.
Patrick Kothe 00:31
Welcome! growing a company involves coalescing around a vision, mission and values and then identifying the strategies that can make that vision a reality. However, vision mission, values and strategy are just words. People are what makes it happen, and you need to assemble and develop the right team to realize your vision. Our guest today is Brady Shirley, President and Chief Operating Officer of Enovis, an innovation driven medical technology growth company dedicated to developing clinically differentiated solutions that generate measurably better patient outcomes and transform workflows, the company's extensive range of products, services and Integrated Technologies, fuels, active lifestyles and orthopedics and beyond. Some of you may not recognize the name a novice, because the company was rebranded in 2022. But it's a fast growing company with over 1.6 billion in revenue, and they're making some major moves in the Orthopaedics market. In our conversation, we discuss the history of the company, how they're leveraging market leadership in one segment into a broader vision, why they decided to rebrand the importance of divesting and acquiring companies and technologies to align with vision, how outcomes are a key driver in their strategy, and why team development is key to their growth and their future. Here's our conversation. So Brady, to kind of start off our discussion. I'd like to find out a little bit about you and what drew what drew you into medical device and kind of high level, you know, what's what your career has been like within medical device?
Brady Shirley 00:46
Well, it's been a long career. So that can take a long time, but I'll try to narrow it a little bit. The second portion of my career began a medical device when I was 2627 years old. I actually had one portion of my career that was it was in the business forum space with a b2b company before I came here, and I had a dear friend from college who was working for Medtronic, who had gotten a call from a company named Stryker Corporation. And he told him, I'm really happy where I'm at, but I have this friend, you really should talk to him. And here I am, all these years later. So
Patrick Kothe 02:44
Do you thank that guy every other week.
Brady Shirley 02:44
I do. His his name's John McDonald. And he's a dear friend and just a brilliant guy. So that's how I got in I'll tell you it was a I was drawn to it. Certainly just the need opportunities that were there, you know, to back up to 1992. Of course, healthcare had come a long way by then but we've got along we've been a long distance since that time as well. And so it's it's been a fun 30 plus years.
Patrick Kothe 03:19
So Stryker was was your entree into it and where did you go from there?
Brady Shirley 03:24
Yeah, it was I spent almost 19 years at Stryker I, I had a unique opportunity being in rigid endoscopy with a striker to actually touch orthopedics and cardiothoracic GYN in general, just a number of areas, which for me was was great, because I'm a very clinically technical person. I love the details. And and so being with in that segment of Stryker, let me see a lot of med tech and have exposure that I would have had and others of Stryker even though the company's I left Stryker, and 2009. And I certainly didn't leave Matt, it was a wonderful company, and, and I still hear from John Brown from time to time, and I still love Stryker and have tons of friends there. But I had an opportunity to be a CEO of an innovation company, an orthopedic innovation company called IMDs. Which was really neat, kind of working to be at until insight and orthopedics for a period of time, did that for four and a half years and then we were acquired it was a private equity owned company. And then after that, I came to DGL global which is now a novice and so not a lot of companies in the in the window of time but but at least three and giving me some opportunity for different experiences.
Patrick Kothe 04:40
Well, we're gonna get into career in a little bit and how you progressed and learning and now how you manage manage growth and manage teams, etc. But I want to start off and talk about a novice a little bit. Let listeners understand your what the company is all about. Its people may not know the name because it's, it's a rebranded company. So can you explain a little bit about Enovis a little bit of history and what the company is focused on.
Brady Shirley 05:13
So you know, I think the best way to back it up and anybody that's been around med tech for a while and certainly with a PDX with no DonJoy in though we were DGL global before we became a novice, to global actually stood for DonJoy orthopedics. And so the larger company with a backdrop, was DonJoy. It was created in the 1970s by an ex NFL player who did not have a good brace to wear while he was playing city league basketball after his NFL career and actually used a a dive suit to come up with exactly what he wanted to build neoprene and start going for it so and by the way, for me growing up in the sports medicine space as well. I was very familiar with DonJoy since the beginning of my career in orthopedics. I will tell you, what's unique about it is just the name. It's one of the biggest brands, we're in 50% of the orthopedic clinics in the United States as far as literally managing all of their bracing and preventative products. So strong player historically and preventative and also a big 70 year brand and Chattanooga and hit and that's really what DGL global was built off of historically now. When I joined a company, we had a very small recon business that was shoulder arthroplasty was about 8% of our revenue and 2022 our recon business was 33%. So we've reshaped a lot since maybe what most would know from the name DonJoy or Aircast. Fast forward the business when it was assembled and became DGU global was owned by Blackstone fantastic private equity firm. Got a ton of friends there and really enjoyed working with them during my time here. And then we were acquired by an unexpected conglomerate called Colfax and Colfax was founded by the same two brothers that that founded Danaher and fortive. And their their view with Danaher, the approach with Danner it started in industrial, and then they really moved into life sciences. And they took this really creating better together, which is something we talk about, and we phrased it a little differently today, but that that continuous improvement model was really by Mitch and Steve rails. Well, Colfax, Mitch, Mitch Rails was the chairman of Colfax and was led by matcher Attila, who has a really good experience with both Danaher deposits and some big players, both medtech and industrial. They really were interested in Biggio global as we went to the sale process, and, and I was confused by them day one, because I didn't really know them, but I had an opportunity to get to know them. And I think this is just worth saying because as you and I've talked a little bit that I both met on the acquirer, the acquirer side and the acquired and, and fit is really important. And it was wonderful for me because the first day that I met Matt, and after our teams had spent several hours together management presentations, I sat down with him for about 45 minutes. And we just talked about philosophy. You know what, what we thought made group made a company great, and what we might be able to do together and it was our shared philosophy that really drew us together and I think led us to them acquiring us and bringing us into the conglomerate at the time. Colfax had a fantastic Aryan gas company called Houghton. Another fab tech company called Aesop, one of the leading companies in welding technology around the world, both of those industrial within the industrial segment. And then and then DG of global, we sold out and shortly after do was acquire, and then we decided to spin out Esau and really combined Colfax and DGL global into one publicly traded company. And we had a fantastic season team with ESOP that we spun out into their own standalone, publicly traded environment. And you know, those guys are just great. I mean, Shawn, who's the CEO there, Kevin, the CFO, they're really really good team. So it's been a neat ride to get to where we are now we're a standalone second largest growth pizza company in the world, fastest growing recon company for a number of years, still the leader globally and preventative and rehab. And so it's a neat company with a lot of opportunity.
Patrick Kothe 09:32
So what are the main product focus areas? Do you have it and help us?
Brady Shirley 09:36
So you know, we we first we break it into two segments, you know, the first segment being PNR and that's really our history, prevention and recovery, that's bracing when you see an NFL player, wearing a brace will, you know, 90 plus percent of the time that's our brace and, and we're the largest bracing manufacturer, globally and on virtually every continent. I've been there for a long time. We also are a big leader, and D leader, we actually are larger in Europe and rehabilitation or what we call rehab than we are in the US, but a very big player there for post operative rehab treatment. Globally,
Patrick Kothe 10:12
can you explain a little bit about the post operative rehab treatment, what types of technologies in that in that area,
Brady Shirley 10:19
you know, historically, some of the basic things that you would see, Pat, anytime you walk into a physical therapy center, whether it be the tables that are there that the patients are that are being utilized for working on the patient for stretching and, and creating that movement, that's so important. And over time, we've really transitioned to be the modality, the modality leader, because what's happened, physical therapy is a lot like what we've seen just in the larger orthopedic environment, moving from inpatient to outpatient, same things happening in physical therapy. And so moving from a physical therapist led physical environment to rehab the patient, which is still critical, but to using modalities like high powered laser focused Shockwave, to move the patient a lot better and to get better outcomes. And so we're the leader today. And those modalities that are that are about really that at rapid invest post operative recovery. So that's our PNR side. Then on the Recon side, we've had a just a fantastic run with our surgical implant business, focused in shoulder, the longest and deepest franchise where the number three player in the shoulder, the leader who really revolutionized the reverse shoulder, we had a fantastic surgeon named Mark Frankel, who brought the design forward. And over time, the data has just been incredible. And it's really changed the market. If you looked in the US, you back up only 10 years ago, less than 30% of total shoulders that were done, were anatomically done. Fast forward to today, and that number is is almost 60% reverse shoulder. So it's really created a change. And we're starting to see that change in Europe. Also a small at the time, at least when I joined nine years ago, a pretty small niche player in hip and knee. And as you know, it's humongous market with some really large players that are heavily consolidated have a lot to share. But we stepped in and really following a model that I learned from that I've watched from afar from a guy named Dane Miller, who was one of the great innovators in med tech, who really built biomed. We use that model in many ways of just innovating with a tremendous innovation cadence to build a recon business. And today, we acquired maphis, which was a big part of that we've actually done about 10 acquisitions over the last two and a half to three years, we just announced a couple more recently. And, and so we've really had a really a good run of building our recon segment from from only hip and knee us to a broad based shoulder, hip and knee player globally, as well as building out a new Foot Ankle business. And there's more to come.
Patrick Kothe 12:57
So let's talk a little bit about about the strategy because as you said, I mean, you you came in, you're an acquisition, you're with some companies that fit some that that didn't fit with a vision. What was the vision and kind of where are you on that, on that vision? Are you are you are you well down the road of of realizing the vision of what you want to be as a company are kind of where are you?
Brady Shirley 13:21
It's a great question. I I would say we're still early, but we're not at the beginning. And what I mean by that it's if you look at our strategy today, certainly the Colfax engine and some real depth with with Matt, Dan prior and just a number of other leaders that kind of joined us from Colfax, USA, I would say that the m&a offense has really been opened up to accelerate our strategies, which, which is very well done. We've talked about that more later if you have any questions, but but the strategy was, look, we're the we're the biggest player. on the prevention side, we're the biggest we were the biggest player on the rehab side. But in between only 8% of our business was done where the majority of the markets, that's a $53 billion orthopedic market. And only about 5 billion of it sits on those two outer edges. So we were only playing and you know, 10% of the market, and then middle segment, you know, much higher gross margins, some fantastic growth opportunities there. And what we thought, what I thought what we thought was, look, this things move into the outpatient environment. And as it does, the surgeon then becomes the person who's responsible for caring for the patient all the way across throughout the whole what we call the OA continuum. And that's that preoperative perioperative and post operative, also strongly believe, and we'll chat about that summon innovation and that also speaks to how it's going to reshape the market going forward. So we started talking about that back then, all with a focus of hey, we are the player on those two outer edges. Let's build the middle we're off have that basis. And we've really done that. We've worked hard to walk with that clinician with the patient all the way across that continuum, from preoperative care, to perioperative care to post operative, we actually hear our larger competitors talking about that today. And that's kind of been the fun thing is that, as ambulatory, as the ambulatory outpatient model has expanded, everyone understands, we got to walk with the patient on the whole journey. So that that was the that was the thought. And it was, but it was also built off of us being a scaled innovator. And what I mean by that pattern, and you know, you've done this SMI, when you walk in as a startup in a space, it can be really difficult to get on contract to have enough brand power behind you to really take sometimes what is a breakthrough technology and get it moving. Just that that pathway, the timeframe that it takes, it can be done. But it can take a long time. Being a skilled innovator and having this big DonJoy brand as a backdrop, and being contracted to basically every hospital in the United States and most in the world, through that side really allowed us as we step into these different recon segments, to accelerate rapidly, to have a contracting power to have a name. You know, if you're in 50%, if you're managing the DME and 50% of the orthopedic clinics in the US, there's a lot of shoulder doctors, you already know, there's a lot of hip and knee doctors, you already know, there's a lot of sports medicine doctors foot and ankle. And so we use that we felt we have a right. We weren't presumptions but we felt we have a right and we have we'd have a warm reception as we went. And that's really has played out that's been the strategy, we line that up with the team back in December 2016. And so this is how we're going to do it, we're going to, you know, how we're going to get there is we're gonna use our deep brand promise in history, and the power that comes with that brand. And we're going to be an incredible innovator that's really focused on making outcomes better in some of the unsolved areas, not, not areas that no one's trying to touch. But some of the areas that have just been naggingly Not changing over time, because if I learned anything, and 30 plus years, in med tech, you really want to be a sustained player, you got to change the outcomes, because surgeons only changed or only adopt to something new if they really can see a change in outcomes.
Patrick Kothe 17:22
It's a brand that you're talking about. It's a fascinating topic to me, because when when a customer has a name of a company, in their mind, there's a brand associated with that there's a whole bunch of feelings associated but also there's this whole products associated with it. So you think of Apple, you think of a certain type of product, you think of GM, you think of a certain type of type of product. And when they think of your company, they think of bracing, not necessarily what was going on in the in the AOR. And some things translate and some things have a more difficult path and translating. So how was that adoption of you being known for bracing? And now moving into the AOR? What was that like?
Brady Shirley 18:11
Yeah, it's funny when I when I joined the company, which was nine years ago, last month, what and because I've been with you for a long time, I knew a number of surgeons and I would drop in and see a friend. And almost every time when I would talk about shoulder arthroplasty at the time, they would look at me and say, I didn't know DonJoy was in total joints. They didn't even say DGL global they said DonJoy every time and in reality, it was Mark Frankel's shoulder data that gave us that ability to say, hey, we're not just somebody with a logo, throwing some joint at you some some knee to knock off implant that's like everybody else's. It wasn't a science project. It was it was thoughtful, it was driving incredible outcomes. And we had the discipline the team, before my time, had the discipline to really gather that data, which is what changed the market in the shoulder. But it was off that basis that as we would talk to them, we started to build an avatar you at the same time when you think of brand. You know, it was called DGL surgical with surgical was an odd name to me coming in because I came from a company in Stryker that the surgical division meant something else. But here it was the only thing that was surgically based everything else was surgical, so it kind of made sense. Matter of fact, when I got here, my initial gut reaction was let's change the name to donja we orthopedics for the Recon business. And I ran against the guys the guys on the bracing side fought against that really didn't want it. But the brand didn't matter. But the data did as well. And it was really the combination of those two if without the data, the brand would have only got us in the door but probably would not have had some and try our implants. That's that's what I would tell you. And then you then you fast forward to today, which I didn't even, I didn't get all the way there yet, which is, you know, we worked really hard to build a ramp. And if I DGL surgery became the fastest growing player in all of recon, hip, knee, shoulder, I mean really huge impact over time. So you can imagine when we said, hey, we're going to now the company name is going to be a novice with the DonJoy guys were concerned, air casts Chattanooga DTO surgical, we had worked so hard to really build this velocity behind our our brand, an established brand, but but a new velocity behind it. But we were convinced that because of who we were, now, we were positioned really differently from a capital perspective, we knew we were going to be so maybe the wrong word, but in some ways a serial acquirer, not not not transformation, acquisitions, transforming acquisitions, but strategic acquisitions that would really help us accelerate faster. With that in mind it it just made sense for us to come under a new house brand, that that would speak to who we were and by the way, what does a novice mean? Well, you know, when you when you're looking for a new name, you spend a lot of time making sure you don't have a name, that means something terrible, and in some country or someplace. So it's really hard. But for us, what we really wanted to represent was what we were about. And the historical DonJoy piece was about motion as medicine, knowing that if you keep a patient moving, they're just got to do better. And it's that the medicine of motion that keeps people healthy. That was the DonJoy prevention, or preventative and rehab brand, or in brand promise. Well, in reality, what we were doing intra operatively was the same thing. But in within that environment, we became really strong innovators to change some of those sticky points that did not move. So as we thought about a novice, in essence, what it represented was a novice innovation, and this vision, and in some ways, to me, if you're us talk a lot, we talk about creating better together. And creating better together, you know, doesn't just mean internally, it means that we work really well with clinicians to help us go change and outcome. It's all focused on that. And so that last two letters, and a novice that is in a novice is better, to me also represents better is, and because that's what we're focused on. So it's been an easy transition, it took about a year for it to really kind of get get there, but it's been very well accepted. And, and I think we're seeing the benefits of coming together under a new house brand that really represents who we are today, versus only speaking to a DonJoy path not losing the DonJoy past. But a company that's a very serious and driven fast grower medtech player that's beyond prevention, recovery, and actually is the one that's captured it all
Patrick Kothe 23:28
rebrands are really interesting, because there's so much internally that you're dealing with, but then you've got the external the market, does the market accept it? Do they understand it? Do they buy into it? Do they recognize it? So the internal peace after a year, I'm sure internally, you're all feeling good about it. But the external piece, you're still a work in progress? I would imagine.
Brady Shirley 23:51
You know, it's true. What's funny is that I think to our customer environment to the surgeons, that transition has been pretty good. I matter of fact, it's been more rapid than I thought. Most of the surgeons when I speak to them today, they don't make that they don't have the full power of accidentally saying Well did you do and then having to correct it. They literally say well, what do you think from an analysis perspective? I mean, they say it, the analyst, the investor market, they're still trying to work through but they're also in some way still trying to understand us completely. Because we are, you know, we we are unique because of the breadth across the whole patient journey. It makes us unique. And so I would say it's kind of less about our logo more about them, just trying to understand what that patient journey looks like and what opportunities we have. They like it, and they like where we're going. But they're still trying to understand but it's actually been it's been better than I thought. We are a novice. We are not DonJoy or do global any longer.
Patrick Kothe 24:58
That's fantastic. You mentioned something earlier, I want to go back to it. And and we're talking about this, this customer journey, this patient journey going from pre to time of intervention to post post care. And that's something that's unique to you, you're able to leverage it and other Orthopaedics companies, they're just focused at this point just on the hospital piece. So you're able to kind of look at things from a PRI, all the way through post management. And you talked a little bit about outcomes. Let's let's dig into that a little bit. Because every company's got a personality that's a little bit different. And you're focused on one thing, let's talk about outcomes.
Brady Shirley 25:43
And I'll start by just maybe defining outcomes from a novice perspective. And then I do want to talk about just that broader patient journey and how we think about that from an outcomes perspective, what it means today, what it means tomorrow, first of all outcomes to us, just defining that it's measurably better, meaning not in class, not solid, not me, too, but measurably better. A great example, I can give you that the reason that the total solar market was predominantly anatomic was because the outcomes on the Grimaud style reverse prior to 15 years ago, we're just not good at a lot of notching a lot of dislocations a number of challenges. But there was a depth and thought behind it that wow, we need to solve this because if we can get a patient moving faster and get their shoulder with a full range of motion faster and anatomic silver is really hard to do. It will change the game. What Dr. FRANKEL did, working with our team to develop that really changed it. Well, that's real outcome change. I can tell you, if you look at the total needs interesting to me. As I told you in orthopedics for a long time, you may or may not know this, but you can look at the data and it's very factual you might listen to me at some orthopedics knows that it's true. Highest outcomes in all of med tech are our total total hip. Believe it or not the total hip arthroplasty procedures, high 90s outcomes, it's unbelievable. And the cool thing about it is that not only the outcomes are really high, but the patient satisfaction matches the outcomes. When you're measuring outcomes, you're saying hey, you know, survivorship, blah, blah, blah proms. But all that matches together for at this really high level. When you look at total knees, as for companies have 80% of the market share and total knees yet only 80% of total knee patients are satisfied postoperatively. And why? Because it doesn't function like their natural knee. They don't have what's called an invisible knee. They know it's there. It doesn't, it doesn't feel it's not that it's necessarily horribly painful. For some it is. But there's that's a big percentage, if you think of it that 20% Total Knee patients not satisfied postoperatively Well, for us, you know, that's a big opportunity that those are the kinds of opportunities that we're looking for, we're not going to go chase something that's a that's a procedure that's way out there. That's that's done 1% of the time by a surgeon and really doesn't make a big impact. We're going to look for opportunities like that one with a total knee or there's a patient satisfaction issue and say, Let's go make a difference. But to make that difference, that means you really got to understand the problem first, you got to assemble the right team together, innovate to do it. What I can tell you is our empowerment. Analysts investors asked me all the time, Brady, you know, you guys have been grow at this incredible pace with the Empower knee, you know, no robot, how do you just keep doing that? And why do you keep doing that? At the end of the day? Guys are our patient satisfaction scores are 93%. That's why we're gonna get to 100. No. But 93% is way different than 80 way different. Do you think of how many total joints are done in the population of patients and clinicians office? That's a big difference. That's why it's doing that that to me. That's what I'm talking about when I say measurably better outcomes. Now, you're here today your digital digital is like the med tech buzzword. Everybody's digital this digital that
Patrick Kothe 29:30
and I'll throw a little bit of AI in there too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
Brady Shirley 29:35
absolutely. And I love digital by the way. Matter of fact, in my past life before I came here, I spent maybe more times with things that plugged into the wall than I did with implants and in any of my long term, Stryker friends, if they're listening to us, they'll be shaking their head. Yes. But what's interesting to me, is when you when you really started Think about digital, you know, kind of the the words that make sense. It's enabling technology. I mean, it's how do we use technology to enable, but what are we trying to enable? That's the question that companies and caregivers have to answer. What are we trying to enable, because you can say, I'm trying to enable repeatability, which could mean, you're not necessarily improving outcomes, but you're improving outcomes across a larger segment of patients. Because of that, you can try to improve time with enabling technology, you can try to improve footprint and speed with the name of the technology. But also in the name and technology, you can literally try to change the outcome, change it at the very top. If all you do is make a lot of people get to 80%. Okay, great. Bye, if you can use an enabling tech that moves everybody into the 90s. That's a new game. So when I think about innovation, and I tie it to what I saw in as I dug into DGL, global and what our potential was going to be this patient journey would say, hey, you know, what, we need to know what what the patient look like coming in? What is their age? What is their gender? What's their weight? What comorbidities do they have, we need to understand that clearly, then what did we do to prep them for surgery? And any orthopedic surgeon you talk to you, they they're gonna, they're gonna walk you right through that, you know that, then then, did you do inter operatively? Like, what, exactly what you intended to do? It's one thing to have an intention to know that to actually do it. And then post operably, did you have the right protocol, and was a good compliance to that protocol. At the end of the day, if you get all those things really well, your outcomes are better. But what's really neat, and when I hear someone say AI, you know, AI, you said it? Well, I mean, it's so tossed around just like the word digital and like, okay, great. Artificial Intelligence doesn't mean, well, if we do it, right, and I believe the big centers in the world, in many countries that I've been in, in the last 24 months, even if you listen to the surgeon, who care deeply about changing the outcomes for as many patients as they can, they're convinced, as were we years ago, and as we are today, and we believe we can be the leader in this industry, that the entire journey has data in it. And if we get that data captured, well, then that means we're likely to change what we do from a preventative perspective, that not just the devices we use, but the protocol, we're likely to change what we do postoperatively, how we track it, how we measure it, how we drive compliance, who we're also likely to reshape the implants, all of those things to get if you get the broad look across all of them, you have the ability then to really be a difference maker. For us. With our motion IQ, smart braces, I mean, it's the ultimate wearable device postoperatively someone's wearing a Smart brace, we're tracking flexion, extension, movement, acceleration, all the things that you can do, you don't have to put a smart implant in to do that, you just need to be able to track it honestly. And if we're the player is providing the devices across the journey, we have a pretty unique opportunity to innovate big in a number of these spaces.
Patrick Kothe 33:35
How big an issue is rehab, post implant,
Brady Shirley 33:39
I would tell you, if, if we had a couple of my orthopedic surgeon friends on here, certainly there's a difference from surgeons, a surgeon. And when I say that, there's nothing negative and what I'm saying. Because there's also a difference from patient to patient. But if you if you walk into most of these devices, most of the implants that are there, these surgeons are so well trained, that they would tell you that the gap between the person who does 500 or 1000, and the person who does 100 is very limited. Now, if the numbers drop too small, then you have a you're gonna have a different change. And so those differences are are just extremely minimal when you think of the surgeon and who's who's actually doing it. I just look at it Pat, in a way that would say, if we can step into the rehab environment, with the same preciseness that we can control in the perioperative environment, we can change it and here's why. Because in rehab, most of the surgeons would say to you, it's 40 to 50% of the recovery. You pick the patient right You put in the right implant for that patient. And then you provide a protocol that says, Okay, here we go, here's what I need you to do postoperatively. So we get you back, most surgeons would say, That's upwards to 40% of the outcome, how you track that how you make it happen, how you help the plate, the patient be compliant, and a lot, that's how you keep the doctor, clinician connected to that patient, they don't need to be looking at something every hour of every day, they need to know if something's going bad. And that's that I think, is the real, you know, that post operative rehab that the different protocols in in compliance are huge in outcomes,
Patrick Kothe 35:43
and having the ability to have access to that data, and then feed that back early on, you can go back one step into the implant, and you can go back another step into what happens prior to that, because understanding the exact anatomy and understanding what the gait looks like, and you know, what issues somebody has not only you know, how to generate it, their, their hip or knee is, but also what they've done to compensate for it already, because you're gonna have to change that when you get to the rehab as well. So understanding all of that stuff, going back a couple of couple of steps, is going to help that outcome.
Brady Shirley 36:27
Oh, yeah. And I'll tell you, I recently was was on a panel. And in the panel that, you know, the question came to robotics. And by the way, you haven't asked me anything about robotics today. But almost everybody that speaks to me asked me some question about robotics. So maybe I'll get it out of the way before you ask. And you should know for me, and there's nothing anti robot about me I'm you know, I think that I've seen some really neat things that have been done by a lot of companies for robotics. But at the end of the day, what robotic should be, it's that enabling piece that I was talking about, that enables us to actually raise the bar. And as I look at how we do post operative, how we do preoperative, but inside, when we get into surgery, how we make sure we do precisely what we intended to do, is also really important, and how we make it more repeatable clot across a broader subsection, not of surgeons, but patients, as well, as I think we're just at this incredible time with the data we can feed into the system. And then what we can't be, we can't run into Michael Christensen's Innovators Dilemma, where we go, oh, you know, I'm not sure if I want to do that. Because if I do, you know, I've got all these instruments out in the field, or I've got all this, we can't do that. We've got to be willing to do that, or someone else to do it for us, we have to be willing to all of us are ACP partners, and us, I've got to be willing to say, You know what, we've got to go to the better outcome, and just boldly go there. Because if we do it, we can really change tomorrow with the data we're able to gather today.
Patrick Kothe 38:27
Well, technology and information, and products are all pieces of this. But what makes it happen is people. So let's talk a little bit about about teams, and kind of how you how you develop your people, and develop your team to execute on these things. So you mentioned that you're doing a lot of acquisitions. So bringing integrations and different groups coming in, it's not always who you choose, but who comes in with those things. So give me a little bit of about what your philosophy is, with building teams.
Brady Shirley 39:08
That's a great question, Pat. And I agree with your comment that, you know, at the end of the day, we're going to get this done or not going to do anyway won't be the computers running it may be providing data to us. But it's going to be our great folks who who were driven to be in this space. They care deeply about the patient that's on the other end of this. That's and that's so unique and med tech is you know, it's just, that's the beauty of med tech is our engagement score should always be higher in med tech, because everybody that's here to care a lot about the patient. And I used to tell folks that eight out of 10 of their engagement score sheet is on their own, have me handled the other two, I'd say yeah, I think about teams. I know you have a lot of leaders on here, so I don't want to cover a bunch of ground that others have covered that that I know is important. What I would tell you is one of the things that that I spent a lot of time thinking about is is balanced within the teams balance is a is a word that can mean, you can get it balanced through the right diversified team, to having those different lenses to look at any opportunity. You also get there on top of that through something that I think is so critically important. And that is having the right balance of initiators and responders. I think that, if you haven't heard that heard that term before, out there, anyone that's listening, spend some time thinking through that and consider, because you know, on every team, you need those just fantastic strategic executors that in the moment, they have tremendous focus, they're often very technically capable. And they're going to to really create the detailed work to execute on a critical strategy. And it doesn't matter that what kind of team if we're talking r&d, marketing, finance, manufacturing operations supply chain, to me, what are these two balance pieces I'm talking about apply to all of those. And then you need, you need the ones with vision, as well. And that's really what I mean by the initiator, those who they see where it's going, they see where they need to go where their team needs to go, the innovation that needs to happen within the supply chain, to make a difference in a time, like we've dealt with for the last few years, as well as just incredible r&d innovators who see an opportunity to, to change the material or change how we actually accomplish what we're trying to do to drive outcomes. If you get the team balanced well, with initiators and responders, you have a whole different subset of winning. Most teams are just loaded with the responders and loaded with them. And that's how you see the kind of driving up the track. And I would just encourage everyone that's listening to this to think about how you have the balance of initiatives and responders in the team. And when you talk about it from it from integration perspective, like we said, we both been on both sides of that. And and I'll tell you, I'll speak from the side of an acquirer. I've been a part of damaging some things on the way in, you know, where didn't take the time to really look at the talent through the right lens? And to really consider what needs to be protected? What What made you want to buy it? And what was great about it? And how do you think about protecting it, unfortunately, we learn a lot as we go through our career, from our mistakes, and I've made some there, I'll tell you over time, I learned to greatly appreciate the talent that was coming in, to carefully think about not only how we can move that team that's coming in into some of the philosophical components that are critical for us creating better together, but also taking a long enough look to see what pieces they're bringing in, that should impact the rest of the company, as well help change all of the novice because they're doing something just better. And we are. And if you if you're willing to look in the mirror properly, you get an opportunity to do that. And then I'll tell you, I'll give you one more thing that we do here that I think is just paramount to that. It's something that Koch Colfax, brought here. I think we've all done different pieces that are similar to this but Colfax, the discipline here was fantastic. And that was to do what's called 100 Day strat plan. And that means in the first 100 days that we own a new business, and we take that team, we take what we thought coming in, or the reason we were going to buy them our thesis. And then we get side by side with the team and we say, Hey, this is what we thought we missing something. And then how do we get to what we thought and the thing we're missing that you've explained to us and build a right strategy for so 100 days from now, we're not still trying to figure out how we're going to do it. We're running together, we've got the right bandwidth to integrate it. And we're running together towards a goal, a common goal that we've created. That is so critical when you buy a great technology or great company, and you want it to be what you were hoping it would.
Patrick Kothe 44:39
The field is littered with bad acquisitions, where somebody buys some somebody and it doesn't work out. And for a variety of reasons, but kind of you know, the classic is you buy somebody and then you try to make them like you or you bought them for a reason because they were unique and now you're trying to make them like you that's not necessarily can be a good thing. And companies are people there, you know. So you've got to, you know, some people are going to make that transition. And I've had it happen to me where I've been on the buying side and the selling side. And, you know, some one of the times I was bought, I knew within, you know, a week that it wasn't gonna wasn't in long, long term cards for me to stay there. It you know, some people make the transition. Some people don't, some people have that. But understanding who you are as a business, I think is really critical. Because what you said was, your strategy is not only to grow organically, but to grow through acquisition. And unless you've got a system in place for how you do that. And do it routinely, if you get good at acquiring and assimilating. That's a strategic competitive advantage.
Brady Shirley 45:51
Pat it absolutely isn't. I'll tell you if I've learned anything over time. You get a lot more incoming when you do it really well. And those incomings can be really the i It's amazing to me just in my career, how many different things so many of the acquisitions we've done, and even recently, were ones that, you know, they were out going out, we, we saw, this was our strategy. And so we searched for something that fit that strategy. Absolutely. But we've had some really great ones that came to us. And some of them came to us. And they'll come to you, if you build a reputation as a good acquire, as an innovative player who doesn't mess around and an acquisition, who's thoughtful, authentic, transparent in the process, and one who, both for those who are going to be a part of your team going forward. And for those that may opt out, because some people don't want to be a part of a scaled innovator. They want to be in a startup environment they want to be, and that doesn't mean anything negative, it just is. But doing all that well together, builds a reputation that brings a lot more your webbing. I've been shocked, particularly over the last two or three years, and how many that have come our way because they knew who we were as an acquirer and who we were as an integrator,
Patrick Kothe 47:16
that reputation is being built and following you that that's that's a great advantage. great advantage. So you got leaders and followers. What was the term that you use initiators and responder initiators and responders? Are leaders and followers? Is that similar? Or is it different?
Brady Shirley 47:35
You know, it's really not I mean, I would I would tell you is that that even when you look at your leadership teams that you want initiators and you won't responders, and I would just tell you, kind of the easy way to think about in terms that people use all the time with the vision and strategy. responders are great at strategic execution. initiators are great at vision. And you know what, the two sides are not usually great at the other side of it. That's why you got to happen. That's why you got to have the balance, you know, and then people will ask me, sometimes, Well, which one should be the CEO? Or which one who should have the leaner power? And you know, what I couldn't tell you. I have seen and known incredible responders, there were some of the best CEOs that I've ever been around. Meaning they weren't really vision, folks, but they were so good at building teams about and strategic execution that they, they they were in the role they should have been. And then I've seen other CEOs that just have so much vision, it's just oozing out of them every time you're around. So it's really not about all that. I know how that translates across. I mean, I had someone you were ever chat about this a little yesterday, I had someone asked me a question. You were asking about how to think about our teams. And I was on a call recently, and one of our leaders, our top 100. Leaders, he said, Brady, when you're looking at us, how do you evaluate us? How do you think about us to give us some insight in what you're looking for? So we know. And, you know, once again, these were our leaders, top 100 leaders in the company. And my answer was pretty simple as what some of you could ask questions on the fly and it didn't it didn't flow out easily. This one is just walking around. It's how I live and breathe and and I told him, I said three things. Number one is followership meaning and you can't be a leader if you don't have followers. But what it means to me is that engagement it as a leader, are there people on your team that they're not following, they're not reaching across you to follow me? They're following you. And when I've walked in leader, I want to see that they are engaging, they're they're vibrant, they're, they have a compassion and a warmth as well as a great process orient They should always be those things all create followership. Second thing you don't want to see in a leader is leadership. And what I mean by that is more external. In other words, how does that leader move our brand forward? How does that leader represent us in a way that makes us a novice, a bigger leader in our space. And then the last one is literally what I was talking about a moment ago. And that's strategic execution. And whether they're on the front vision side of it, picking where to go, or whether they're on making sure that it happens. And it happens really well and better than everyone else, it fits in that category. So when I'm looking at leaders, it's always going to be those three pieces. And you know, what's cool about it, it's not hard to see any of the three. And it's not hard to see when any of the three are missing. And so it's just worthwhile for any any leader, particularly at the top of a segment top of an organization of GE and to be looking for those things in their leaders.
Patrick Kothe 50:59
Part of what we do as leaders is we get the message down throughout the organization. If I asked that question to somebody that's a sales rep or somebody that's on your production line, do they would they pare that back?
Brady Shirley 51:15
I think they would I can tell you this that 2020 2021 and 2022. Every two weeks, I did a fireside chat with our teams globally live. And by the way, I answered every question. Anybody want to ask me a question they could put it? Now I did have a couple of rules. One rule was no foul language. No, like foul language. And the other was, if it's a statement, and not really a question, I'm not going to treat it like a question. But what I think we've done a nice job of here is working really hard with our teams to create an environment where we all are working together, and we're all speaking the same language. And, you know, one of the real challenges, you know, that I think that leaders face every year, is making sure that everyone's got enough belief in where they're going. It's one thing to get people to believe in a long term vision. They go, Oh, yeah, man, if we're there someday, that's gonna be awesome. What's more challenging is, you know, in every journey, there's some pretty big steps, you have to take some of its uphill in the snow. And some of its downhill and easier. Well, their belief thing can kind of waver on you as you go through that. And so to me, I try to spend a lot of energy with our teams, make sure they know what we're looking for. But also knowing the journey, and knowing what we're doing together. And the role that they play that each individual plays, and maybe not to the positional level, but that there's an understand that we're all going to either be really successful in the journey, the hard parts, and the easy parts of the journey. Or not. And if we're not all together, we're not gonna get there, we're not going to get to our destination.
Patrick Kothe 53:15
We started off the conversation, talking about your career, and your 30 plus years with three companies. And some people are buying hold people, some are buying sell people, when you think about that in that career type of progression, or moving from company to company, in light of what you just said, and making people bought into and understand what your philosophy is. Does that lead to more stability in your workforce?
Brady Shirley 53:51
I think he does. Very contrary I don't know if you know, Barry or not, or if you've ever read his book, strengths based leadership, I'll give him a commercial real quick, because he's a good friend. And he's a he's written the, you know, had a part in writing or the most best selling books of all times for leadership. Very said that leader that and what he spent time doing was studying followers instead of studying leaders and, and lay followers telling what makes a great leader versus letting some leader telling why they're great. And what he said was that followers look, first and foremost for compassion in their leader, a real person who views them as a real person. Number two, they look for trust. Someone that they know if they said it, that it's authentic, it's transparent, and they hold themselves accountable to what they said. They also look for someone who has this, you know, this vision component, and he called it hope, which means if they're the leader, and I'm a part of this team, great things are gonna happen. It's just gonna be great. I look at that leader and go, You know what I'm in. And the fourth one, which speaks to Pat, what you're talking about is stability. And I'll tell you the interesting thing, you know, and I've had a lot of opportunities to speak to very personally over the years. And, and, and I don't want to quote him wrong, but I'll try to get as close as I can. It's this. What's interesting about stability, that's the one that makes people walk, what we're looking for in a leader, as followers, is stability. And if things get murky and shaky, we walk, we're going somewhere else. Now, certainly, all four of those matter to us. Those are the big 4000s of lakes, 1000s of followers interviewed across all kinds of spectrums. And those are the big four to be in leadership. But that last one that you asked about, asked about that stability, peace, man, in my experience, people leave or stay because of the stability.
Patrick Kothe 56:00
Well, I really appreciate the conversation and I want to pick up on on something you said. And that's hope. And, as you have said before, in your 30, some years in this business, a tremendous amount has changed. All kinds of things have changed within medicine, within medical device companies, within regulatory agencies, technologies, etc. What gives you hope right now, about our medical device community, and about healthcare in general.
Brady Shirley 56:35
First of all, I? That's a great question. It's so deep, and you're sitting there looking at me go Brady, you gotta be short on this one. But, uh, I'd say this, a post a little bit of what I said earlier, which is, we're at a spot where the combination of great talented people that are partnered up really well with extremely caring healthcare providers, brilliant health care providers, and the ability to build data around it, and use computer learning. He's kind of reshape how we take care of patients. And we're just barely scratching the surface of that. And, and other the underlying drivers in med tech are incredible. The aging population, you know, there's all kinds of things if you just look at this and set aside the patient care. So obviously, it's a great industry, there's no other industries out there that have the underlying drivers that med tech has. But if you care about innovation, like I do, and you see where we are, we're at this place where the next 20 years are going to be incredible, with just leaps and bounds changes in how patients do. And to me, that's, that's it. One of these days, when I'm retired, I tell people, I'm a cowboy, I actually have a ranch and a team rope and, and that's what I that's, that's my passion outside of med tech. And I always tell people in the company, one of these days, when I'm just sitting on a horse every day, I'm gonna be so jealous, because of all the innovation that's going to be taking place from the data that we're able to gather today, it's just gonna be a neat
Patrick Kothe 58:24
what a great conversation with a purposeful leader. I was struck by Brady's commitment to sound business principles, learned from school of hard knocks, and his experiences, and the study of leadership experts. There is so much to take away from this conversation. But here are a few of my takeaways. First, commitment to outcomes. When he discussed outcomes, he said it's measurably better not me to not best in class, but something that is measurably better something that's significant. It's so it's not just your product, but it's the patient outcome, not just your products outcome. So he discussed enabling technologies and and why and enabling technology may or may not lead to significant changes in patient outcomes. And that's kind of the way that they're approaching some of these enabling enabling technologies also talked about the importance of rehab on that on that patient outcomes. So it's not only just your product, but what are the opportunities for you or your company? Within that, you know, post surgical or post interventional space? How can you help to deliver better patient outcomes with technologies that are outside of that surgery or that that interventional procedure? The second thing was the importance of the team? Now Brady said that he's given this a lot of thought, and one of the things that he mentioned that's very important to him is balance within the team. And when he described the difference between initiators and responders and wanting to have that ratio of 5050, it really makes sense. I wasn't familiar with the terms, initiators and responders and I'll be doing some more research and looking at the author for for that, because I find it to be nuanced between leaders and followers. And I want to learn more about what exactly initiator does what exactly a responder does, to really move a company forward. And finally, be a good acquirer. Brady described that they're building systems and processes to be a better acquirer of companies. Because when you do that, you're building your reputation and giving you more opportunities to acquire good companies. And that ends up being a strategic competitive advantage to your company. So when he described looking at, at the talent and taking the time to look at the talent from the right lens, and ask the questions, you're what made you want to buy it? What was great about it, and how do you protect it? And it's not only to make them successful, but what can you learn from the acquiring company that you can use broadly across your company, there's great practices all over, being able to mind those great practices for a company you're acquiring, and then to roll it back out to your company is a great way to learn and to continue to grow. Thank you for listening. Make sure you get episodes downloaded to your device automatically by liking or subscribing to the mastering medical device podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Also, please spread the word and tell a friend or two to listen to the mastering medical device podcast as interviews like today's can help you become a more effective medical device leader. Work hard. Be kind
