Why Compassionate Leaders Are CRUSHING It in Business

[0:00]  over the last year um I have been learning more about compassionate leadership and heart-based Leadership and it has been a tremendous asset and it's also something that I imp part on our team as well because it really takes sort of a holistic approach where you're you know starting with the inside how you are how you're feeling how you're coming in and then how you're then giving to others and in this field I feel like that's incredibly important Allison welcome to the show how you

[0:47]  doing today I'm doing well how are you I'm doing amazing so why don't we give the audience a little bit of background about who you are and the work that you do currently today so I am the chief executive officer and the founder of train of Behavioral uh we are a company that provides ABA therapy to individuals with an Autism Spectrum diagnosis and I started the practice 15 years ago with this passion to ensure that we're providing the best therapy services for our uh our clients so 15 years ago we started on this journey let's rewind a little bit further back why are we doing this type of work let's talk a little bit about your origin story did you get exposed to this at an early age or what brought us

[1:34]  down this path I've always had an affinity for psychology neurology and just such a deep love for children I'm a mother of two boys and I always tell them you know regarding careers you got to do what you love and I feel just so blessed that I get to do just that so I started my career um I guess uh in developmental psychology I guess that would be kind of where it all started at Lehi so I love psychology so much they basically ran out of site classes so senior year I had to I just didn't have any other classes to take so I got to take uh work in a lab at Lehi and it was a child development lab and it was just really inspiring and from there it just kind of had that opportunity to you know

[2:22]  experience that and it just fostered this love when it comes to being exposed to you know psychology early why was this something that caught your passion were you kind of into these type of things when you were younger or was this something that you experienced just when you got into like higher education I think even at a very young age I always wanted to understand and kind of figure things out and as well as kind of helping and serving others and I feel like psychology really neurology psychology all these different feels are it's just fascinating so I always found that to be incredibly useful and trying to figure things out and with that being able to serve and provide to those who may need it and I think you know it's easy for us to say that the field of ABA needs more

[3:11]  support than ever in our previous conversation we talked about you know when I first got working into this space and supporting some of my partners it was one in 56 children being diagnosed with autism now that number is one in 36 children so have you seen the landscape kind of grow in front of us as you've been in the space for the last 15 years yeah I really have and I think it's just it possibly could you know continue to grow but luckily there are such wonderful Services out there that can try to help with that when it came to starting your organization what were you doing before this so were you working with a different organization you had an aha moment where you said I think I can do this better or I have a different perspective on this or what was that like so I definitely worked in the field as a therapist and a behavior specialist

[4:00]  as well as helping others uh form their own company um but I really felt like this was kind of the opportunity where I can take what I feel is useful like empowering employees and you know really honing in on that so that's why I wanted to kind of start this company in in the way that we have now there's a recognition that we all go from which is we trade our nine to 5 in for a 247 365 so what were the early days like in starting up the organization realizing the challenge that was ahead of us how did you kind of deal with that that transition process yeah so I think because I have such a passion for what I do um it was really helping through those moments

[4:50]  right that like any other business owner who's starting their company you put those Blood Sweat and Tears in and you do a lot of it yourself before you're able to kind of Outsource and get help from professionals that are really skilled in whatever area it may be billing or otherwise and um I just think my love for this this field really kind of fueled it and I actually worked as a behavior specialist in the field for a very long time within my company because I just I love what we do and how we help others what was the process like of growing the team you know on the podcast often we talk about like the my baby fallacy which is often when we're the founder CEO of an organization we think that this is my baby and nobody else is going to be able to do the work as good as we will but in order to grow we have to relinquish trust into others to help them execute on the vision that we kind

[5:38]  of cast so what was that process like for you I love that question so our employees absolutely 100% make our practice and for whatever reason I feel like that might be missed with a lot of business owners um specifically our clinicians um are some of the best in the field I'm I could not be more proud of them so really recognizing that fact right there and then ensuring that we're doing whatever we can to empower our employees giving our leaders the skills that they need to support the clinicians as well as you know supporting the leaders too the supervisors how has the the process of growth been for you guys well one thing I've recognized I had an amazing conversation with another CEO um her

[6:25]  name was Porsche James she was out of California and she said hey Keenan since 8 this space has grown by about 500% and often when we think about how we're going to be able to meet the needs of the community we often want to hire our way out of this but when we hire quickly often we see I would say clinical proficiency drop so how have you kind of balanced that need to be able to meet the needs of the community growing the team but also making sure that there's clinical excellence in the work that you guys do to serve the people who come to your organization right so we definitely take a quality versus quantity approach whenever possible I try to be the one that personally interviews the clinicians that are going to be coming into our company and right up front we're very honest about who we are what we do in our mission so we're always ensuring

[7:12]  that uh the people that are coming on know that they make our company and that um you know that this is the right fit it takes it takes a certain individual that they have we know we look for things like passion and willingness to grow and then we have core values as well that we're what are some of those core values so um our core values are really wonderful they really kind of speak to who we are as a company and again our company is our team so our core values are Integrity Drive kindness and teamwork so with that Integrity is just that being authentic right you know realizing like what your personal needs are as well as how you can give back to the company and then drive is that drive to grow so we're in provider we of

[8:00]  course do trainings um in the behavioral field we I also really like to ensure that we're giving trainings on leadership to our Behavior Specialists and specifically compassionate leadership so leading with heart leading with the compassion for our clients and for the support staff that we have with us kindness is pretty self-explanatory but incredibly important and we are a team it's not one leader in a company or just it's it's all of us who make up what who we are what does kindness mean to you I would love to hear from your perspective what does that mean kindness could be many things um which is kind of why I think it's such a great core value um it's really taking that time with the client going a little bit you know taking that time to kind of

[8:49]  slow down and have compassion for what we do and really just always bringing the best you can into the field I love that you know I'm might have referenced this in our previous conversation there's an amazing guy out there his name is Gary vaynerchuk he has a book that's called 12 and a half which is the 12 a half in ingredients that leaders need to be successful in the future the subtext of this book is leveraging the emotional ingredients necessary for business success I want to get your opinion on how you kind of exemplify some of these qualities if you will that kind of come from this book so the first one that we have here is gratitude how do you think about gratitude oh that is such such an amazing quality gratitude is how I live my life and it's definitely what I bring into the company and I I'm just beyond

[9:38]  beyond grateful and humbled that I get to work alongside these amazing clinicians and just that I get to do exactly what I do um we're always grateful for the people that are the Life Changers in this field and I make sure that they know that and and I think that you know that they do how about patience patience of course you need to have patience when working in the mental health field but of course with children um and we you know typically work with children um but also patience for co-workers and having that compassionate latitude right like that um compassion for okay like we're all trying to do the best we can and that's really what's important and the last one I want to

[10:25]  talk about here is accountability yep so accountability it really goes along with that integrity and that drive quality that we have being accountable for who we are on a like systemic level like as a whole so you know accountability of bringing the best we can into our work and being accountable for what we do and how we serve I'd like to know a little bit more about kind of what drives you as a leader of your organization to continue to show up and do the work that you're doing every day now we know that you've had a passion for this since you were young right 15 years in this space which is great but one of the things that we often see is sometimes when we're on such a long Mission it's very easy to

[11:13]  lose sight of the things that we accomplish along the way and one of the things that I talk about often is the idea of our goals becoming Horizons right we take one step towards our goal our goal takes one step further away from us how have you been able to stay grounded in the things that you've accomplished and the impact that you guys have had over these 15 years in being in business that's a great question so on a personal level um I'm always growing in learning I think learning is Limitless um everything from compassionate leadership coaching classes and just kind of expanding my horizons so that I can better give back to my team as well as imparting a lot of that knowledge on our leaders and ensuring that everybody

[12:00]  feels supported what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned as a leader over the last 15 years if we could go back in time and have a conversation with Allison as she's just getting started on this journey what would you say to her keep doing what you're doing keep leading with heart you know it's so easy to get distracted um by opposition by competition and lose sight of who you are as a company or what you stand for your values and I never did that I never sacrificed quality for quantity or for whatever and I I just wanted to make sure that you know if I was going to tell myself I my younger S I really would say you're doing it right just

[12:48]  keep doing what you're doing and really be authentic and true to yourself that's a that's a statement that's grounded in a sense of an unshakable confidence you know because often in this maturation process of you know being a leader of an organization we often think we have to change and shift and become a different version of ourselves to accomplish the things that we want but you're saying that you would just say continue to do what you're doing like you've been on this this path the entire time I would because I think that I've I had such a passion for doing it with quality and doing it with heart and because of that it's it's always served us well we you know we have a great reputation both on the employee side and on the client side because I just won't sacrifice quality

[13:38]  for quantity ever it's amazing I wanna I want to talk a little bit about the idea of technology so you know we came from a place which I refer to as the before time or at least I did I was born in 1990 so I saw what the world was like before technology right now we're in the world where things like artificial intelligence automation and Technology seem to be running rampid across the landscape of business how are you kind of thinking about technology impacting you know the work that you guys do creating efficiencies is it a threat what's your kind of two cents on the layer or the landscape of Technology right now yeah I certainly don't feel like it's a threat it's such a benefit I mean what what's occurring is just better technology for anything from like assisted technology to help facilitate

[14:26]  communication um just different platforms for efficiency whether it be data collection or scheduling stuff like that like on the administrative side or even just you know better forms of communication better devices but I don't think that learning is limit I never think that learning is Limitless and there's not a cap to learning so I don't think that technology will take the place of one-on-one therapy but it will certainly help as a tool a really useful tool and it's it's wonderful that it it keeps you know getting getting better and better for our for our Learners and the individuals that need it yeah I'm really excited to kind of see how the the new version of our businesses will kind of continue to develop and change over the next couple years because even things like chat GPT as an example right

[15:14]  just came out of nowhere but now it seems like personally me and my team can't live without these tools because it help us be more more proficient so we can do the higher leverage tasks like spending time having conversations or responding to the things that are really important absolutely absolutely the more efficient we can be the more time and energy we can focus on bettering different areas whatever that may be our Focus will be on you know kind of increasing those areas and I think that that really has helped us um just be able to focus more on our employees and ensuring that not only are they getting the clinical training that they need that they're also getting the support in other areas too encouraging wellness and you know not letting them choose how many cases

[16:03]  they take on but kind of guiding them and that you know let's make sure you're not overwhelming yourself or having that burnout effect it is impossible to pour from an empty cup and we talked about that a little bit in our last conversation together you've mentioned a couple times that you believe that learning is Limitless what are some of the things that you've been intentionally learning over the last let's say year that you've really been focusing on so over the last year um I have been learning more about compassionate leadership and heart-based Leadership and it has been a tremendous asset and it's also something that I imp part on our team as well because it really takes sort of a

[16:50]  holistic approach where you're you know starting with the inside how you are how you're feeling how you're coming in and then how you're than giving to others and in this field I feel like that's incredibly important what are those two things to dive a little bit deeper and double click on that compassionate leadership and heartfelt leadership what are those things so it's taking the time to slow down and check in with where you are so you know kind of taking the time to if I'm feeling a certain way then to um you know really take the time to slow down and say okay if I'm feeling this way you know is this the way I want to come in is you know taking that energetic responsibility of how I'm showing up and slowing down so in other words if you're kind of distracted or

[17:39]  having issues in other areas and you're super in your head and busy you know and then you have to go and meet with a client or a parent or to train a clinician you might not be 100% there and really it's taking that time to slow down and kind of changing your focus and shifting where you're now coming in with heart and you're saying okay well now I'm going to slow down and really take the time to hear the person I'm with or ensuring that I'm coming into the session in a way that the other person is going to feel comfortable and supported and I think that's incredibly important why was this something that you know you pointed your focus towards did you have an event where you said I need to be more intentional in this space or did you realize that this was an opportunity for improvement I just think it was an opportunity for improvement I'm always trying to improve

[18:26]  grow it's and this was just such a fascinating Arena that I was that I stumbled upon and just loved so much so did you ever play sports or anything like that as a as a child I did played tennis things like that okay were you very competitive did you take like winning seriously you know what I kind of didn't I really didn't I was more focused on kind of the team or the experience so um whether it be tennis lacrosse the wise kind of just spending that time with my friends or enjoying the team that I was in the two points here so I uh was an athlete I grew up I played all three Sports football basketball baseball played baseball in college and

[19:13]  unfortunately I got hurt and went through a process where I had to like refind my identity because I was so dedicated to becoming a professional baseball player that when that dream didn't happen I went through a really negative downward spiral and I had a mentor one time talk to me me he said you know what Keenan someday you're going to have to choose to go pro at something other than baseball so what is it going to be and then I found the the world of Business and Entrepreneurship and I I took that same competitiveness that I had playing on the field and applied it to the sport of business and the beautiful thing about the sport of business very much like you're talking about is the season is a lifelong meaning we can continue to develop our skill sets that we need along the journey to become the best leader the best friend the best

[20:00]  supporter the best teammate that we possibly can and that was a dynamic shift for me that I had to take that competitiveness out of sport and put it into something else where I could impact more people through business what do you think about that I absolutely agree with that um I mean I feel like that should just kind of be a given and it's amazing that so many different you know so many people aren't realizing that right in business um learn is never going to end you know it should really be something that we focus on it's a it's a beautiful gift but you have to take it in that frame of these challenges that come across we are benefiting from our opportunity to apply ourselves to these challenges and overcome them and take the learning lessons out of these things which is

[20:46]  really powerful um one of the things that I've really tried to learn a little bit more about is how to be a better leader and showing up with intentionality and you talked about that a little bit here today with this you know heart focused leadership this compassionate leadership I think it's so easy for so many other leaders of organizations CEOs and Founders to find themselves focused on so much that it robs away from the moment when we can pour into other people and I feel like that kind of deserves for us to kind of circle back do you think that's been a huge element of how you've been able to build such a great culture in your organization is that intentionality oh absolutely and it's true you're juggling a lot of balls as a business owner so it's really important to kind of have that Focus um and not lose sight of that those important things right whether it

[21:33]  be these core values or that heart based leadership all these things that kind of set you know the drive of why you kind of started it in the first place as well I think it's incredibly important what do you think one of the biggest challenges that you've overcome has been in the process of building your team in organization and business I think the greatest challenge is is um H I think that I've been we've been pretty fortunate where we were always kind of growing and learning um I think the probably the biggest challenge is to take these calculated risks um whatever they may be

[22:24]  so I say calculated because I'm very like conservative with kind of the way I approach business um but I think you know kind of trusting that jump would probably be something that I should focused on a little bit more in the past but it's scary to take those risks right when we have so much I would say responsibility for our team there was an interesting conversation I was listening to uh I was listening to a keynote from Jeff Bezos who was talking about a culture of failing forward now the example that he gave I mentioned this on the podcast before was Amazon spent $690 million trying to create what they called the fir phone it was supposed to compete with the iPhone and the Google pixel and the one thing that he said was you know in order for us to be able to make big

[23:12]  changes we have to take big risks and unfortunately a $690 million risk was something that we learned a lot from he'll put it that way now the things that came out of that failure was Amazon Alexa so the voice little agent that you will that we talk to and the Kindle came out of that as well it's really difficult to build a culture of people being willing to take risks especially when they're so much on the line so how do you think you can in the future encourage your team members to take those calculated risks like we're talking about to do things differently to be able to meet people where they are and serve your community better I think continued support is incredibly important but also to encourage everyone to be their authentic self so really kind of seeking deep inside them um you know what truly sets truly makes

[24:02]  them them right the individuals that are coming into this practice came into our company for a reason um they seem like they absolutely love what they do and they are phenomenal and they're very passionate and really just kind of having them remember to kind of check in and be that authentic self and to you know check in with their heart I I also feel like it's really important for our team members to recognize that they can be successful through working for our organization and our Dream right the role of a CEO is to cast a vision so large that other people can find themselves being successful in our vision and I feel like over the last years especially we've seen a negative connotation if you will with work people

[24:49]  say I don't like working I don't want to do these things I want to find work life balance but if we recognize the commitment of time that we give to the work that we do every day shouldn't be a vehicle to help us accomplish our bigger dreams professional and personal I always said that true leaders don't create followers they create more leaders and that's what we do at Trina so we're always encouraging our employees to grow in multiple Arenas not just in the clinical field like I was saying before and I think it's always served us well and I think it it just really creates this kind of platform for our employees to come in and be their best and to feel comfortable um you know in this in their job role whatever that may

[25:39]  be what is on the front of your mind as a leader as we kind of start wrapping up Q4 here in 2024 and we get into 2025 what are the things that you're thinking about have you intrigued interested or starting to pay attention to I think that um there's incredible shift between kind of this idea of supervisor and then employees now it's more um about building a culture and being a team and I think if one of the things that our supervisors really should be focused on is how to be that great number two right how to best support those um in within the organization and why is that something that you're focusing on I just think that creating a culture well

[26:28]  you know creating a culture is just how our employees are happy and enjoying what they do for a living and that's really what's important because again they make our company so if they like what they're doing if they are feeling motivated and driven to keep growing within the field or with Wellness or you know all of these things then they're going to come in and be their best self and be their best clinician and stay with the company because you know they'll enjoy where they are yeah I think that's a beautiful Vision um you know I think uh I was having a conversation with my younger sisters also a co-founder in my business and she just came back from a uh women's business conference in New York City and one of the things that she was talking

[27:14]  about she was really inspired by a leader who was saying your job as the co-founder leader of your organization is to inspire other people to give 100% of themselves to the mission that you guys have aligned with and when they can do that they show up more fulfilled they show up happier they show up hungrier but also their experience and working with you correlates to life in general and you guys create memories together it's very similar to creating the culture of trust and then aligning everybody and going towards the same type of mission and I feel like that's been a big pivot that we're seeing across the landscape of business now we've come from a place where employee turn over the great resignation was super high a couple years ago people don't want to work for organizations where they don't feel supportive and they can grow in and I feel like when we have leaders like you who are pushing Us

[28:03]  in that direction it's a beautiful opportunity for us to be able to change the landscape of work and how people kind of perceive the commitment that is work which is investing into ourselves yeah absolutely and I can't tell you how reinforced I am by having that opportunity to to do that it's incredible what what else should we be talking about here on the podcast that maybe we haven't talked about thus far Allison it kind of depends where you want to focus if you want to focus more on the clinical side or just on the cultural side why don't you take it where what are you more passionate about right now so I think that the culture is super important um having these core values and setting up systems to reinforce them I think have been a really great asset um you

[28:51]  know we have reinforcement systems within the company so things like team tickets where whenever we catch an employee exhibiting a core value or going above and beyond we reinforce that and then we also reinforce the supervisor that sought that out and uh we'll do team building events like renting out an ice skating rink or ropes course where you know employees can kind of get to know each other a lot of our employees are in the field they're working in the schools or homes so they're not necessarily in our Center where they would be able to kind of sit and you know have each other as support um or get to know each other even our leadership team I think some companies just kind of have bcbas out there floating in the ocean by themselves we definitely don't do that we do uh bcba forums every other month where we all get together there's of course the

[29:39]  learning piece of it it which we are an ace provider so it could be a clinical piece but then also we have that again that leadership and that heart-based kind of training where we're checking in and giving them those tools and um they also have the opportunity just to be with other bcbas and be supported with their you know co-workers as well what was the first thing that you mentioned there the reinforcement system what was that so uh I think it's super important to have a reinforcement system within the company and there are definitely challenges surrounding that within this field because we do have a lot of clinicians and bcbas are out working in schools and homes so they're not always in the center so we can't always kind of catch them being good if you will and exhibiting um our values and our and our

[30:27]  you know all these great things that we do at Trina but um so we do the best we can so we have a ticket system where whenever we can catch them being good as well as as like I said the supervisor who is reinforcing them we'll get a ticket and at the end of the month we have an employee come on a different employee every month and they pull a raffle ticket and you know they they say who won and then we have prizes that they pick as well and then they also sit and they they say what the company means to them and it's it's really it's kind of emotional actually it's really beautiful to kind of hear what they're saying and about the company names excluded what are some of the examples of what people say about the company that make you emotional so they'll say it feels like growth or they'll talk a little bit

[31:17]  about that teamwork that being supported um the things there are quite a few things that I've seen that made me really emotional but um for example I'll walk into our Center and I'll just see like sticky notes or like a big page that just talks about like why each employee has gratitude for the other um just and for the team or for the company and I didn't tell them to do that you know it's just another example of them wanting to being motivated to lift the other up and honestly I don't know if there's anything more beautiful than that I'm just so I'm so proud of them I mean the the culture that you try and instill often takes on a life of its own right and when our team members are advocating and innovating to be able to do that and spread that wellness and that goodness

[32:03]  throughout the organization that has to feel absolutely amazing it's like a proud mom moment it it really is honestly I mean I wouldn't say I'm like a mom I feel like I'm kind of like just working alongside them but it's in it's incredible it's super reinforcing what does what does the future look like let's cast a vision for let's say the next 5 years right which will take us to 20 years of the amazing work that you guys have doing what do we hope to accomplish what are we thinking about I hope that we just keep with that trajectory of growth that we've kind we've been on and that we're always going to I mean I don't think we ever will but just not sacrificing that you know quality for for quantity and just continue to grow we we want to serve as many you know individuals as we can because they just like you said there

[32:51]  are so many that are in need of services and there are a lot of weight list everywhere so just kind of you know continuing to focus on quality being authentic and who we are as a team and just giving back with compassion that's beautiful any closing thoughts here that you want to leave on the audience about the great work that you are doing or anything that people should be aware of as a leader who are tuning into this episode today I said it a few times but I'll I'll say it again the employees make the company they it's important for any business owner any supervisor to recognize that and to really Foster their growth and be a responsible compassionate leader and to just make sure that everybody feels valued and again going back to the the idea of

[33:38]  gratitude being I'm incredibly grateful for the individuals that get to work alongside I'm incredibly grateful for what we've built as a team and that we're able to give back to you know individuals with an Autism Spectrum diagnosis in their family you know one of the traditions we have here on the podcast is we like to end by having a previous guest asked you a blind question so the question today is as a leader of your organization what does courage mean to you in times of turbulence that is a good question what does courage mean to me in a time of turbulence courage in a time of turbulence is when I feel a leader can really step up and shine and when they really are needed to do that so to me courage is to continue to support

[34:28]  and and stay authentic to your values and who you are as a company who you are as a team even in the face of you know fear or you know whatever that may be that's what courage means to me staying authentic it's easy to be a good leader in times where everything is easy right but it's tough to be a leader when times are tough and I think that you are the perfect exemplification of what means to be a leader that demonstrates heart and hustle Allison I want to say thank you so much for coming on the show it's been an absolute blast I really appreciate your time thank you for having me that's the ra guys catch you in the next one