BJ Schaknowski
CEO, symplr
This episode will air on Thursday, June 19 at 7:00 p.m. ET
You can't define organizational authenticity from your own likeness. It means you have to be willing to accept and even promote different styles and different leadership personas to make the collective whole stronger.
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan Fleischmann sits down with BJ Schaknowski, CEO of symplr, a leading healthcare operations software company. BJ shares his journey from a blue-collar upbringing in upstate New York and service in the Marine Corps Reserve to leading symplr’s mission to automate non-clinical healthcare operations. He discusses the value of mission-driven leadership, the role of diverse teams and how technology and AI can refocus healthcare professionals’ time on patient care, not paperwork. BJ also opens up about his personal leadership values, the lessons he’s learned along the way and the importance of balancing high performance with personal sustainability.
Mentions & Resources
Guest Bio
BJ Schaknowski is a seasoned software industry executive, with over 20 years of experience in leadership roles across a wide variety of operating functions. Before joining symplr, BJ served as the Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Vertafore, the world's leading provider of insurance technology. Prior to that, BJ spent four years at LexisNexis Software Solutions in progressively ascending roles, culminating as its SVP Marketing, Sales & Services. He held numerous senior and global leadership roles earlier in his career at CA Technologies, Intuit, and Sage Software. BJ brings his dedication to creating balanced value and outcomes for employees, customers, and shareholders to the symplr community. Deeply committed to philanthropic efforts, BJ was recently appointed to the Susan G. Komen Board of Directors, joining an elite group of nearly two dozen executives from various industries who help govern and advise Komen, which is the world’s leading non-profit breast cancer organization. He is a Fellow of the American College of Health Data Management. BJ earned a BA in Communications from the State University of New York at Geneseo and his MBA at the University of Georgia – Terry College of Business. Schaknowski also served in the United States Marine Corps infantry as an enlisted reservist for 8 years. He lives in Denver with his wife, Heather, and two children.
Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters at SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischman. Today, I'm joined by a leader who is working at the intersection of healthcare and software.
BJ Shaknowski is an extraordinary guy. He's the CEO of symplr, a healthcare operations software company reshaping how health systems function to increase efficiency and help provide high quality care to all patients. BJ’s story is one of service grit and transformation from growing up in a blue collar family in upstate New York to serving in the U.S. Marine Corps to rising to the ranks of the software industry to lead a rapidly growing healthcare tech company. He represents a rare mixture of operational excellence and deeply human leadership. He's also a three time Iron Man, a board member of the Susan G Komen cancer fighting organization, and a believer in building teams that lead with both passion and purpose.
Today, I'm excited to dive into his personal and career journeys, his leadership philosophy, visions for a more effective healthcare system, and the many lessons in leadership he has learned along the way. BJ, welcome to Leadership Matters. It is such a pleasure to have you on with us today.
BJ Schaknowski
Well, thank you, Alan, that is a tremendously kind introduction. I will do my absolute best to live up to it. I don't know if the reality is as exciting as the short bio, but we'll do our best.
Alan Fleischmann
I think I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg, my friend, only the tip.
Let's start a little bit because your life story is fascinating, and I want to get your leadership principles and how you look at, say, life through a very clear prism of doing right, and your humility is contagious. I know you as someone who combines that confidence with humility, which is an irresistible combination and leadership, but I want to get to those as well. But your story is pretty extraordinary, and I'd love to hear a little bit about your family life in upstate New York, a little bit about your mom who is a teacher and your dad who is a machine operator, a little bit about that environment. And, I believe based on conversations we've had before, your ideas of fairness and supporting one another and hard work came from those formational years, those early years. But you tell me if I'm wrong.
BJ Schaknowski
No, I think it's a pretty classic story. I don't know there's anything truly special about it, except that, upon reflection, you can realize that a lot of the things that have mattered now in business and in personal life, you actually learned them, but it's the tradition. I don't know if we were lower middle, upper lower, I don't know how you define these things, I'm sure there’s a socioeconomic definition somewhere.
But, I was one of three kids of two hard working parents. Yeah, my mom was a TA at a special needs school called Main Street Elementary, working primarily with autistic kids. Back then, I don't even know if they were diagnosed as autistic, right? You think about how long ago this was, and then my dad was a machine and operations human inside of a manufacturing plant, Deluxe Check Printers. I don't know if anyone here actually remembers physical checks, but they're one of the two big companies that actually printed checks back in the day. My grandmother worked there for 30 something years. My dad worked there for 30 years. I actually went to college on their scholarship from from Deluxe Check Printers. So I'm hugely, I have a lot of gratitude towards them.
But yeah, it was actually a really, really cool upbringing, because we were taught the value of both hard work through how hard our parents work. But also, the New York system, New York State Public School system was extraordinary. And so we really had this dual threaded, both respect for hard work, but also respect for education, the opportunities that it could present and how important it was. And my parents really supported both. I got my first job at 12, which was clearly illegal back then. I worked for $2 an hour for a company that did multiple different jobs, and I was the gopher. I'd do all the little jobs, and then started working officially at 14. I'd get my working papers, but no, I had this amazing blue collar lifestyle growing up. But you get all the life lessons. We had dinner every night, if we didn't have sports or job or activities, we had dinner every single night at the same kitchen table. I laugh, and all the politicians use the kitchen table principles and ideas, because actually, I relate to that, right? And still try to have that with my family now. But hard work, always do the right thing, right? Your name, or your handshake or your word is your bond. Those are things that still, we were taught growing up and still ring true today. So yeah, it wasn't anything extraordinarily special, but it was a time a lot of values were set, and I'm very thankful for it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's so cool. I love that. I love the idea that you I can see the young the young guy working hard. What were the different jobs you did?
BJ Schaknowski
Oh god, I would clean gutters. I would deliver Post Standard or Penny Saver, I think, newspapers. I would clean up and organize the shop. My aunt and uncle owned a lot of different little small businesses, and so basically they would hire me, and I'd work there on the weekends, sometimes at night, sometimes in the summer, and I would just do all these odd jobs. I was involved in the refurbishment of a hall in Baldwinsville, New York, called the Mohegan Manor. It was this couple hundred year old building that they turned into an event space. I worked for a catering company that actually worked out of the kitchen and learned how to actually prep and work on the line and do food service in my early life, so that’s how I learned how to cook, right in my early teens. And we would do laundry and do all the linens. It was just literally, I don't know, there was no one thing I probably did all the time, but there were 50 things that I did relatively frequently. And yeah, $2 an hour. But hey, tax free, so that was pretty good.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, it was cash.
BJ Schaknowski
Yeah, back when candy was 25 cents, two bucks an hour is pretty good cash.
Alan Fleischmann
Any brothers and sisters?
BJ Schaknowski
Younger brother, younger sister, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
And similar childhood for them too?
BJ Schaknowski
You know, a little bit different paths we each took, right? We all had very different skills, and all had different biases and interests, and the family unit was tight, but the three of us were probably as different as individuals could be. And I think it's actually a testament to my parents that they supported each of us equally in our pursuits. Me as I went off to college, my brother as he joined the Air Force, my sister as she went right off to work. And, each of us have taken our own paths, but we were all had the same values-driven upbringing.
Alan Fleischmann
Then in high school, you co-founded something I thought was really interesting, this Youth Court program.
BJ Schaknowski
I also found the Young Republicans Alan, which you probably did not know. That was a different party back then. We're not going to get into that here, but yeah, as a co-founder of The Young Republicans, and then I actually, I wanted to be a lawyer. Growing up, my mom's dad was a lawyer, and I had a real respect, I still have respect for the law, certainly for contracts, and there was an opportunity through our mock trial program to get involved with something called Youth Court. And we actually established, with the local police and local District Attorney in Syracuse, North Syracuse, New York, one of the first youth courts in the state. We would actually have youth prosecutors, youth defense attorneys, three youth judges, all trained and certified for Bucha. We went through a year long training program. I still remember Doreen Zangerski was the police officer who was our primary sponsor, and I became one of the lead judges. But we we basically established a way to help offset what was becoming a burden of Class A misdemeanor first offenders who were juveniles, and so instead of sending them to juvie court and getting a criminal record, they could actually opt to come to youth court. They'd get tried, prosecuted and defended by kids and judged by kids. We could actually issue a legally binding up to 50 hours of community service if they fail to fulfill it, they'd actually get referred back to juvenile court and the penal system. But if they did this, it would actually be expunged from their record, effectively go away. And we saw, I think, a 97% (if memory serves) rate of non-recurrence of Class A first offense juvenile misdemeanors in upstate New York. And we were able to take a real burden off of the criminal system, and hopefully teach some kids that right is right, wrong is wrong. You shouldn't suffer for a lifetime for your mistakes, but got some kids back on the right path. And I think it was a pretty cool thing that we did.
Alan Fleischmann
What an amazing thing, because it teaches two things, right. Accountability and second, chances are possible, which is pretty amazing, why this is the thing that should be taken to scale and that would be everywhere.
BJ Schaknowski
Yeah, it also, and listen and again, without trying to make a statement here, it also teaches you a great respect for law and order and the criminal justice system. And why we have laws, and the fact that they do have repercussions, but they don't have to be life ending. And, yeah, it was a really amazing thing, and we got some pretty cool awards for it, but was very proud of that. I think it made a difference in the community, and also helped me on a path I thought I wanted to go down at that time.
Alan Fleischmann
Another thing I didn't know about was your grandmother was a pioneer in business, one of the first women vice presidents of a Fortune 500 company. I'm curious about that influence on your life. When I think about you as a CEO and leader, did her stories influence you, the way you approach leadership or inclusivity? Tell us a little about her and also are there, I've always interested in you're such an extraordinary role model and mentor to others. When you consider the people who've been great mentors to you, was she one of them?
BJ Schaknowski
Oh, yeah. Probably my first, if you really think about it. So it's hard to talk about because I get a little, it's hard not to get choked up about it, because I see grandmother, right? My grandmother, and she's still alive, by the way, lives in Fort Myers. I know right, lives in Fort Myers, Florida, and I doubt she'll be listening to the Leadership Matters podcast, but I hope so. You never know, or on SiriusXM Radio, don't know what gram and Frank are doing, but you never know.
So my grandmother had my dad very young when she was in her teens, and back then, right in the 50s, that meant you stopped going to high school. You create a family. They got married. She got a job in the secretarial pool with a GED from high school at Deluxe Check Printers, and she was absolutely brilliant, and she worked her way up. And this is the, you hear the story a lot, worked my way from the mail room or the secretarial pool up to whatever she did it. She actually did it. And not only did she did it, she did as a five foot tall, quote-unquote uneducated woman, had her first kid at 15-16, and at the same time, when there was no, there was no dual relationship, right? She was the stay at home mom and the working mom at the same time, right? Both expectations were there, and she was extraordinary. She's one of these people that could literally do anything, right?
She worked 50-60 hours a week, and yet her house was always spotless and she never had any help, right? She could cook a meal for 12 in a heartbeat. It's just, she's just one of those. But what I think about with my grandmother and she, she never really talked about it in a condemning way, or she, I think she probably never even realized the reality of what you were going through, because it's just life then. But if you think about what she went through as a five foot tall woman, right, in the 60s, 70s, 80s, right? I think about when I entered the workforce in the late 90s, and things were still pretty brutal, right? And that was 30 years ago now, and this was way before then, she had to be perfect, right? If she did anything wrong…she had to be flawless in every way. Even on casual Fridays, she had to iron her jeans right.
There was just never a moment where it was, it was she always had to be better, because women leaders in the workplace were so rare, and people were always looking for reasons to potentially knock them down. Say, oh well, it's because of this or because of that, because she doesn’t have education, because she's a woman. How ridiculous, how even ridiculous does that sound to say right now? But we all know here, I'm pushing 50, right? I think you're a little younger than that, Alan, but can you even imagine what that generation went through? And she went through all of it, all the BS and all the crap, and she was just better than everyone else. She worked harder, she showed up, she drove outcomes. She never had a chink in the armor. And in a world where you almost had to be flawless, she was, and she rose to be, yeah, she rose to be one of the first, when a vice president was really a big thing now, now kids get vice president jobs out of college, back then, to be a corporate VP inside a Fortune 500 manufacturing company was something that's extraordinarily special. Allowed her to have a pretty amazing life, thinking about where she started, and really set a great example for us and how hard work and being exceptional and extraordinary, not being afraid to be right, and always taking what you do seriously. And she was my first mentor, because if gram could do it, why not me?
Alan Fleischmann
Is she still active and all that too?
BJ Schaknowski
I think they're in their 90s now, and they keep it going, though, as I understand it, she and Frank still drive to the beverage store every two weeks to get a pony keg in the back of the Cadillac to bring home, put in the garage. This is in their 90s. They still play a little bit of golf a couple times a week. Every time there's a hurricane, they refuse to leave their damn house as much as we begged them to, but they're still hardcore. And I'm very thankful having her in my life, because she really, I think there's so much possible, as long as you firsthand see something's possible, right? When something can be done because you've met someone, or you related someone, or experienced someone that can do it, it really opens your own aperture, and so much more becomes possible in your own life. And that's that's how I think about her impact on me.
Alan Fleischmann
That's so cool. I love that, and I know, and I know you attended State University of New York at Geneseo and you actually received a BA, a bachelor's in communications, and then you went on to get your MBA. You're very active at the University of Georgia, and I'm just curious, with all this talk about higher education, and you're being a parent of two, and what role did higher education play in your personal development? And then, were there any lasting influences, influencers, both mentors and experiences that you had from that time, both in undergrad and also during graduate business school?
BJ Schaknowski
Yeah I am, I squandered my undergraduate education. And I tell my kids that all the time, right? I really, my dad didn't go to college. My mom went, she had an associate's degree. She did a couple of years at a little school called Cazenovia, upstate New York, but what they always told me is you have to go to college. And so for me, it was a check the box. I didn't know why I was going to college, if that makes sense, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, and so I was going to go to four years of college and then three years of law school, where I'd really learn my craft, right? And then I realized, after my first year, I can't do this for seven years. I can't be a seven year student. I want to get to work. I don't like being poor.
I just, I didn't enjoy it. And so I knew I wanted to get through college and go get a job. Well, I enlisted in the Marine Corps halfway through college. Thought I was going to do that. And so, I tell my kids all the time, I say this, I'm not a three nine from Wharton. I'm a two seven from SUNY Geneseo, right? And I thought I was gonna be a Marine Corps officer. So even then, I was more aware of just get the degree, get out of school, go full time in the Marine Corps. And I met a girl, and I realized that I was really serious about her, and if I was going to really lean into that relationship, if I joined the Marine Corps, I'd be going six, nine months a year. And so I made the choice to not go in the Marine Corps.
Well, I found myself with an undergraduate degree in nothing. I shouldn't, it was an HR generalist degree, which is really funny, if me now, I even did an HR and I don't even know, I did an HR internship, right? And, but yeah, I just was more interested in the social aspects and playing rugby and being in a fraternity and all those things. And I really didn't focus on the academic opportunity, and I think it's one of the biggest blown opportunities or squandered moments of my life.
But then when I realized I got into business, and I got into software, and all the things, I realized, well, holy moly, I better actually go learn this. Right? There was always this concept of master my craft through through graduate school, and I very quickly realized I better go to business school, because I don't know a damn thing. I hadn't taken a math class since 10th grade. I didn't know how to read a P&L, right? I barely understood why we would price things where contracts. And so I went to business school with a very serious intent of learning business. And not only did I accomplish that to the degree, I needed to write, became financially literate, understood some business strategy, business fundamental, business basics, right? But I also, I did an executive program, which meant, I was by far the youngest they let me in, because of my Marine Corps experience, a little young, but I was by far the youngest in class. And so the people who were influential weren't just the instructors.
By the way, Rich Daniels was the director of the program. Actually, he was the guy that let me in. I owe a lot of this to him, because if he didn't let me into that program, I don't know if I would have done it. If I hadn't done it, I don't know if I would have gotten some of the jobs. So I owe a lot to Rich Daniels, who is a UGA professor and Dean of the Executive School.
But, but it was really the classmates. It was guys named Tom Trobal and Gary Ford and Scott Law and Jin Soo Park and Rich Byron and Bill Evans and a lot of folks who'd been in business for 10, 20, 30 years, who in a lot of ways, became classmates, but also mentors, because they'd seen a lot of the things that I was about to go through, and I learned as much from them as classmates, as I did the actual curriculum. And so that I think, in a lot of ways, not only reset me and gave me the the underlying foundation of the business principles, but also really helped me, because I have people I could call and go, hey, I'm leading a big team for the first time, or a managing manager for the first time, or we're doing an acquisition, and we're looking at how much to pay. And I had folks that I could lean on for that. And it was as experience, both in education and an experience that I'm really grateful for, which is why Heather and I, my wife and I, are so involved with the Georgia community as we are now.
Alan Fleischmann
So great. I know you're very, very involved. In fact, anyone interested, they should be interested. You gave a pretty remarkable commencement speech just a little bit ago, days ago this season, and it's quite remarkable, and it made me very proud, because, again, that humility, confidence combination is a wonderful message to send to young people. Be ambitious, but by example, you send a message that says, but know how important it is to be part of something bigger than yourselves. And I think that's a very powerful message through example.
BJ Schaknowski
Well, I will tell you this. As I said to you several months ago, I give a lot of speeches as a CEO, right? And I've given a lot of speeches over the course of my career. This one was a little bit daunting, because you really want to do right by the people that support – first of all, you want to do right by your school, right? My alma mater, which is Georgia. You want to make your family look good. You want to make your company look good. I'm only there because of symplr’s success, right? BJ shaknowski, the senior vice president of sales, doesn't get to do that address. Bucha, the CEO of symplr, does. And so you want to make your teammates look good. You want to make your family look good. You want to make Laurel Strategies look good, that helps you on such things, and how do you go in front of 600 bright young minds for 10 to 12 minutes and actually give them a nugget or two that they might find useful, right? And not bore the crap out of them. And it's, it was, that was one of the harder speeches I think I've had to prepare for in a long time. And people were very kind and gracious after and I hope, I hope, I hope a couple of them got one or two things that will benefit them in their career, because that's how I wanted to frame it.
Alan Fleischmann
It was a wonderful speech. And I love the fact that when people hear from BJ and say, what is that now? What is he telling me? And who is this dude? It's amazing how many people I know who went into business or became entrepreneurial because of a speech at commencement or a magazine cover, or they read someone's op ed and literally changes their lives. . . So you say, who is this guy? This you have no idea how many people are thinking differently today than they may have two weeks ago. And I love that. And I also think the commencement speeches are the only time that one can actually speak about one's life in a way that doesn't sound arrogant or egotistical. It really is about sharing. And it's a gift. It's a huge opportunity, huge honor. It's a huge honor.
Alan Fleischmann
I will say it was very cool. It is so cool. Yeah, yeah, I got shows watching. It is so cool. I actually think it's, also for your alma mater to say, to recognize you as someone that they want to share with their graduating class. you can ignore that as much as you'd like, but it is a wonderful, wonderful moment, and I know you as a parent and as a community leader, as a family man, it's a wonderful thing to tell your kids too. I work this hard. I travel that much, and let them know that it's for something larger than our home, family and the environment. And I think I know how hard it is for you when you're not home, so for you to actually send that message, even just to your own immediate family. It sends a message that that's what you do all day, and I know you would not be able to do anything you do without Heather, who is your partner, and she's as proud to be affiliated with that same place as you, as anybody could be.
BJ Schaknowski
So it’s funny, and, it's why not, right? It's worth mentioning. But that was, that was the core, the whole foundation of speeches that I tried to deliver is you can be as good as you want at work, but if you're not good at home, ultimately you won't be as good as you can be at work. And I was okay at work, and then the minute Heather and I got together, everything in my life just found balance, and I really understood my priorities, and it made me better at work, because I was so focused and so just dialed in to getting the best outcome, so that when I was home, I could be dialed in and focused on being great at home, being an awesome husband, being the best father I could figure out how to be in the moment. And yeah, I always say when Heather and I got married, nothing else in my life changed, but when Heather I got married, my career really began to hockey stick. And I give her all the credit, because she helped me figure out that balance. And I think that's everything.
Alan Fleischmann
The other thing about Heather, when you get to know Heather, you realize how remarkable she is and how remarkable you are as a team, no question. And the other thing it is the way you root up. You just root each other on and looking for your best self, finding your best self, and how the other one is encouraging that best self to step up. That's where we get our courage from, is when we know that we're doing it beyond ourselves and for others as well and with others. And it's remarkable. That's also what I think of you. I think about the the Marine Corps, how that service, that experience, impacted so much your mindset, your discipline. Certainly, are there any lessons you learned? Iron Man. When I think about the things where you're part of something that is almost unachievable, and yet you achieve it, and you take these moments, these lessons you learn from the Marine Corps, these lessons, be an Iron Man. Does it come back to work as much? The answer has to be yes, because I've seen it. But I'm just curious that you articulate that to yourself as well.
BJ Schaknowski
Probably not as elegantly, no. And I think, listen, if I am the illustration of anything, it's that anyone can do remarkable or unattainable things. You just have to see them as attainable. It's honestly that simple, right? There is, I've run dozens and dozens of marathons. I would have told you 20 years ago I could never run more than five miles. And I just said, what? I'm gonna run a marathon. You figure it out, and then from there, you figure out how to run an Ironman. And then it's what the Marine Corps gives you. The Marine Corps hit me at the end, by the way, I want to be very clear about this, right? I'm very proud to have wore the uniform. I served very lightly in comparison to the many heroes who have served over the last few decades and gone down range and experienced terrible things. And so I don't consider myself a veteran of foreign wars, but I'm very, very, very proud that I enlisted, that I served, and I'm very, I am immensely proud of the community of prior service and active duty men and women that defend this country, and so I just want to make that clear.
But when I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and I did it intentionally, right, I could have waited till the end and gone off to school, but I needed a true North right? I was rudderless after a couple years of college, and I needed something bigger than me. And I think that's also a life lesson, is I do well when I have a purpose bigger than me, whether it's my family, whether it's a company, whether it's a physical pursuit, whether it's the military, but it gave me a firm understanding of of two things, right? You're either fighting or training, and if you're not fighting, you are always training. And I think that learning mindset always getting better, always mastering your craft, always improving, never standing still, that served me well in every discipline that I've ever been involved in.
I think of the value of diverse teams. Everyone thinks they're diverse. Everyone thinks they grew up in diverse areas or have diverse friends, but you, I promise you, until you get dropped in with 76 other dudes from around the country, at 19 years old, you have not really been exposed to true diversity, right? Every socioeconomic status, every race, every religion, every background, every bias, every level of education, level of intellect, right? You want to see real diversity. Go to Marine Corps enlisted boot camp, and you will see it. And here's what I saw with the right alignment, with the right reinforcement, with the right set of guidelines, and both support, carrot and stick motivation, you can accomplish incredible things with a really diverse team that has served me incredibly well in my professional life, because a lot of people have these natural homogeneous tendencies relative to groups. I need somebody that looks me or acts me, or I've seen it done right this way.
It's nonsense, right? Actually, I believe that the most diverse teams are actually long term, the most successful teams because you have diversity of thought, because you have disagreement, because you have variety, and you look at different ways to solve problems, and you can avoid group think. And that's a Marine Corps thing, through and through, I didn't have that in team sports, right? Yeah, they're diverse, but not, not, not, not really, right? And that, oh man, that served me so well.
And then finally, I think prioritization, right? It's the mission and the manner, the mission and the people right? And ultimately, people are there to help you accomplish the mission, but you can only accomplish the mission if you take great care of your team. And that framework has served me well in nonprofits and business, some ways, even in family life, as I think about it. And yeah, those three things, I don't know if I had done it at 17. I don't know how it would have impacted me if I had done it at 25, I don't know how it would have impacted me, but sometimes life is about timing and getting lucky, and the right lesson at the right moment can have a profound ripple effect on the rest of your life. And then for me, the Marine Corps at 19, it gave me some rigor and some discipline and some belief that you can do hard things and respect for doing hardened things that most people don't want to do, that set me on the course to do a lot of other things and again, I said, right? Would I have gone done marathons or Iron Mans or CrossFit or any stupid things I've done, if I hadn't gone to the Marine Corps? Maybe not, because if you could do that, you can do anything. Climb mountains, you can. It's all possible. You just got to come up with a plan to do it, then do it. Then do it and suck it up and embrace the grit and do it well.
Alan Fleischmann
You set the physical challenge, no question. And you love that that the solitude of being able to compete with yourself, knowing you as I do. You also being part of teams, which I think is important, and both. And then I think you, I don't know, making the impossible possible. There's a humility in you that also stems from the sensation, with curiosity and love of people, that diversity you just talked about, never thought about, that probably comes from the same but this idea of the more diverse the riches of that diversity that surrounds you probably lifts your soul, lift your spirit, lifts your leadership, because you can talk different, you can talk multiple languages. I don't mean literally, and I think that is a sign of great leadership, certainly,
BJ Schaknowski
Well, it's a sign of stubbornness, certainly. There is a little bit of resilience that I think does come through. But I also think I don't know, I think it's generationally a little bit different. I think when I was young, coming up in business, everybody, you had these CEOs and these senior leaders that, and again, it's almost going back to my grandmother, you need to be flawless. And then I remember back then, early 2000s people, their leaders flawed and, I don't know if that's the case either, because you don't want to follow somebody that’s completely flawed. And what I've realized is it's just people want their leaders authentic, right? And you can be a little bit wrong and a little bit human, or a lot human, but as long as your resolve and your resiliency and your stubbornness or your determinationmis there, people I think will come along with you, particularly if you explain the why. And I think that's what allows people, I get a lot of grief sometimes for this, but it's, the work's never done, right? As long as I live, the work will never be done. At no point will I ever just sit down and go, this is enough, right? You got to learn. You got to evolve. You got to grow. Because if you stay still, you die as a human, as a business. And I think, I think it's just you gotta, there's always the next challenge, and if you're willing to embrace it, I think you can have a remarkable life that's full of all kinds of experiences and joy and sometimes heartbreak. But more than anything else, you just learn a lot of lessons. And if you look back a little bit to look forward, I don't know. I think you can. I think you can do great things, and we are only limited by our own belief in where our limitations are right. And so the more you stretch yourself, the more I think any of us is capable of doing so much more than what we were are naturally going to believe. That's really, how's that for hippie dippie, that's love, that other stuff right there.
Alan Fleischmann
No, it's very good, very, very –
BJ Shaknowski
Should I go back to talking about work? This is getting to an uncomfortable place.
Alan Fleischmann
No, that was gonna be real comfortable. That was deep. I loved it. It was actually very thoughtful, and I appreciate that. That's what our people want to hear and hear you talk about, but talk to us a bit about your career. A little bit. How did it happen? that you went into technology, for example, software, is it timing, or is it dumb luck?
BJ Schaknowski
True story, first job out of college I, was getting married, need to pay for an apartment. Couldn't get a job in Atlanta, where my family had moved. So I moved there with a degree from a college no one had ever heard of and couldn't pronounce. And so I got a job at the company Deluxe Check Printers, once again, there's , boy, they were pretty awesome, but they owned a company called United Creditors Alliance. It was a bill collecting company, and they were able to get me a job there, give me an interview, and I got the job.
And my first job out of college, this big, fancy degree that I thought I had, was a bill collector, but I would actually call the elderly in rural Alabama and try to get them to pay their Bell South Mobility past due balances. A lot of times where they had co-signed for a grandkid or a nephew or niece or something, and they had all this money due, and this was back before Fair Credit Reporting stuff, and we would have threatened people, and oh, it was terrible. And I felt I left work every day, I feel dirty, and that apparently I was good at it because I got promoted, and that made me feel worse. And it was terrible. And you made almost no money, you're doing these terrible things. And it really didn't sit well with my moral compass. And I said, I gotta get out of this. And my best friend worked at CompUSA Corporate. Remember CompUSA, right?
Well, in the corner in the back, they had this office looking thing, right? Bad, pleated, big, baggy pants, very bright shirts, silk ties, right? And you'd sit on the phone, you'd call small businesses in the area, you try to sell them software and hardware and supplies and all the things. And he said, you should come do sales. And remember, my day job was manufacturing. We thought sales people were used car sales people, or the WKRP in Cincinnati, sales guy, right from TV. And so sales , a four letter word in our household. I said, I'm not doing that. I got a college degree, and there's no chance. I'm not gonna go. Be a sales guy, and this is pre y 2k and he said, well, here's what I made last month. And I said, I'm going to try the sales thing.
And so I started working for CompUSA, and so doing software and hardware. And then a few months later, one of my bosses left to go to a software training company. Took me with them. Did a couple years there for a really small one, then one of the biggest training companies. I had taken a bunch of their business, though. They hired me to come do software training. And then I actually got laid off for the first time, only time, only time I've ever been let go of any job my entire life. I would move to Anaheim, California. Got laid off March 2003, activated by the Marine Corps in the same month, deployed to San Diego for Operation Enduring Freedom. Was there for 11 days. They were having me do base security or cold weather infantry instruction, which was my MOS in the Marine Corps. They sent me home. Had too many guys. And then two months later, I started with Sage Software because of my Georgia MB,A I was getting, and that was 22 years ago, and I've been in pure software ever since, and have ascended and done all the different jobs and the different usually around, go to market, buy-run services and all the things, and I've worked for some of the best software companies in the world. And I got into private equity about eight years ago, realized you could go faster and create real value. And it's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me, and I'm so glad it did, because I love everything about what I've spent the last 20 years doing.
Alan Fleischmann
And it wasn't so obvious that it would have that trajectory when you first signed up for this, being software and technology wasn't a natural –
BJ Schaknowski
I am still the least technical person. There is not a piece of technology that I can't break, right? I've never written a line of code. Now, I can tell you everything about safe, agile and defect rates, and I can tell you about pie cycles and T-shirt sizing, and I can tell you about implementation, and I can tell you about I've learned everything about the software business, but I'm not a technical person by nature. So for me to go into technology was not natural.
And I really paid attention and learned the industry because I was a novice coming in. And again, I'm still not naturally technical, but yeah, it was a bridge for me, and it was a stretch, and I figured I'd do it for a couple of years and then get out of it with some fundamental understanding of go to market or sales or marketing. But I fell in love with it. I fell in love with it, and I'm really homerish about this, and I don't care, because I believe it. Nowhere else can you fundamentally improve the life or the competencies of the customers that you have, be they individuals or businesses, more than the software, right? I know some of the folks we know well call it the fourth industrial revolution, right? They're right. I believe it and data will be the fifth but, but software and automation of tasks and really creating meaningful step function improvements above and beyond manual intervention, I think, has been one of the most compelling things. Oh, by the way, no carbon footprint. Great for the economy. Women make the same as men. It's awesome, and it's the best place to be as an industry and and you can make an incredible living for yourself doing it. What could be more lucky and better than that?
Alan Fleischmann
I love it, and it's an unusual phenomena. Is that sticky, the idea that your customers, they don't want to leave you, it's not a commodity, right?
BJ Schaknowski
It's not a commodity. There's real value to be had, and when there is, you can do amazing things. It means it's hard to switch. Means you get, you really get real chances to fix things. How many businesses do you really get a chance to fix something, right if it goes wrong? And then in software, we get that. How many chances, how many times do you get called if you're selling widgets or things, right, to actually go help a business change where it's going, if you're a software company, is a key partner of an organization for us, healthcare system, hey, BJ, we want to reduce costs. Hey BJ, we want to give clinicians more time. They call us and we say, how can we do this together? And it's just, you can really impact a category, you can impact a vertical, you can impact an entire constituency of a workforce through some good old fashioned automation and a little bit of code. And now with where AI is going, I think you'll see even more high value work being identified for people. And I think it's very, exciting.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very cool. And do you and then the healthcare world, when you got into it, the intersection of, urgently needed healthcare, operational change and transformation with software. How did that all come to be? Yeah, and I'm missing a few jobs here.
BJ Schaknowski
Yeah, yeah. So I'll give you the very quick for the detail oriented home. Did say software for a few years and go to market, primarily sales strategy, a little bit of marketing. Did some M&A work, actually really important career, influencing work in M&A, which then impacted me much later on. Then went to Intuit. Intuit recruited me to come run a couple of good businesses, but underperforming businesses, which was their point of sale and mid-market business, and got promoted a couple of times there ended up running all indirect channels, sales and marketing that weren't retail. And then I got an opportunity, a guy I knew really well went to run all global channels at CA, and asked me to come help him put together, not only channels, but also figure out how to fix what was a broken, direct and channel route to market. It was a fragmented strategy, and he had to come together and be cohesive to be ultimately successful. And I stick to the hard things, right, the challenges. I don't, I don't do well with easy job, really hard jobs.
And then one of my best friends, Mike Lips from Intuit, had become the CEO of LexisNexis software, and they had bought 14 software companies, and we're having a hard time getting the value out of them. And they were going to put them all together. And he said, hey, you want to come build an awesome software company inside of a world class known brand and legal? And I said, yeah man, let's do it. Sounds awesome. And so we did that for a few years.
And then private equity had been calling me for a while, and I got to know the folks at Vista really well. Guy named Brent Baker, who was then head of executive recruiting, he was an Army guy, was a Marine. We really hit it off. And he put a bunch of things in front of me. And finally, it really stuck with Vertifore and went to insurance. Did that for almost four years. We doubled enterprise value and sold. And then I got the opportunity to become a CEO and join symplr and so what I realized about healthcare, to put up, make it relevant, is that I had spent four years in legal. I'd spent almost four years in insurance. And what I realized was there is a genuine opportunity to improve the competencies, right, operational competencies within these verticals, with technology and healthcare was definitely the most daunting to me, and now is a little bit nervous going into healthcare. It is a big hairy, especially if you're not from the world. And I'm still, I'm almost five years now, and I'm still the newest healthcare guy in every room I walk into. And there is so much to learn, and it's so big. But honestly, at the end of the day, it comes down to understanding the workflows, understanding the challenges, understanding the people that you're there to serve, and then putting together, putting in front of them a better way of doing things. And it was as fun as it was to make lawyers more money and insurance agents more money to be able to say to my kids when I go up the stairs at the end of the day, we're improving US healthcare. It put the purpose with the profits, and that felt pretty cool to me.
Alan Fleischmann
Amazing. And then, how did counts, a little bit about symplr and your time as CEO. Now, yeah, it's a incredible organization, and I guess company, and I'm going to know a little bit about it, but you are at this critically important intersection of innovation, technology and healthcare. What exactly does symplr do? And that also just reinforces what you just said about waking up every day and having a life of purpose.
BJ Schaknowski
The thesis of symplr, the strategy of symplr, is to create a technology platform to solve in one way for systems which they would have to go and solve 45 to 50 ways, right? And so set a different way. This was an opportunity to create a new healthcare technology subcategory and really eliminate a lot of the extraordinary fragmentation that healthcare systems were dealing with. And I'll be more specific, healthcare systems have a platform for their health records, right? They have a platform for their revenue cycle management. They have a platform for imagery, or imaging or for healthcare specific ERP, but to do all the non clinical things inside of a healthcare system, which could be nurse scheduling or contract management or provider credentialing or quality and safety reporting, etc, etc, these systems could work with 30, 50, 100 different software providers, and frankly, what do you get with that? Data silos, information security risks, interoperability, lots of time logging into different systems for your nurses and your clinicians. And so what symplr really endeavors to do is put together the best of many of those individual functions and do it through a platform so that we can actually give caregivers more time to give care and take care of a lot of the manual work that was that was consuming them and taking them away from the patient.
The worst metaphor, my team hates this, I don't care I think it sticks really well – I think we are the waste management of healthcare software, right? Nobody wants to think about taking out trash until it doesn't get handled for you well, and then it becomes a really, really big problem. All the things that we touch are that, right? Nobody wants to think about nurse scheduling, nobody wants to think about credentialing their positions, nobody wants to think about contract management or compliance reporting. But if you don't, it's super bad in terms of the outcomes for the patient, for the system, with the government, right? And so we can take care of all those things so that they can provide care. And we, we've got the administrative, non clinical back end, and it's been, it's been a wonderful journey. I'm so proud of the work that we're doing. I think we're in the fourth or fifth inning, right? We've done the technology part. We've rolled out the platform. We've done a lot of these acquisition we've created standards, and we still have such a long way to go. And I'm just, I couldn't be more excited about the value that we're going to be able to provide these healthcare systems in these ambulatory centers and these long term care senior living facilities, and these payer and health plan organizations. It's very exciting.
Alan Fleischmann
And do they marvel at their ability to actually become more effective, more efficient as well?
BJ Schaknowski
A lot of them don't even believe it's true. I think everybody sees the need. And I'll tell the story. I was playing golf with a, I thought he was a doctor. I didn't know any better at the time. He was actually chief medical officer at a local system, and I explained what the company was, and what the thesis was, and what had been presented to me. He goes, oh, it's about time. People been talking about this for years. It's about time somebody did this. I'm like, okay, there's a real need, that's great to hear from somebody that's in a position of influence in the system. I think now, it's really convincing people that it has been and could be done and then demonstrating the value of that to them. There isn't a healthcare system CIO, COO, chief medical officer, that we met within four and a half years that hasn't seen the problem, and now it's on symplr to really demonstrate how we've been able to solve that for them and can help them tear down some of those challenges and silos one at a time. And I will tell you, for some of the partners that we're doing a lot of this with, they're seeing extraordinary benefits and extraordinary outcomes, and they're all measurable, and that's the story we're telling.
Alan Fleischmann
That's cool. What do you see that we don't that's not obvious to us?
BJ Schaknowski
So the first one is not, this has been written about, but even since the pandemic, we still have pretty significant nursing shortage and physician shortage in this country, right? And why that becomes important is, as the boomers age into this next generation of care and need, right, you just think about your supply and demand curve, and we're about to get inverted the wrong way, super fast, in a world where we're not already very good. And so, you think about impending supply, you think about diminishing demand or insufficient demand. What do you have to do? Well, you're not going to create three or four million new nurses overnight, or a few 100,000 new doctors overnight. And if you did, those wouldn't be the ones you'd want, right? You want them in seat a little bit longer. And so the reality is, you have to make the ones that you have more productive, and, oh, by the way, keep them more engaged, make their life easier, get them back to doing the things they love doing, so they stick around a little longer, right? And don't retire or burn out.
But one of the things that's really ultimately what we do, is if we can give a nurse back an hour in his or her day, multiply that by a few million nurses, how many more patients can you see in that time? You're improving the capacity of U.S. healthcare. If you can actually make them more effective, give them better decision rights, give them better data, they can provide better care, right? We can enable better health care, and then symplr, never touches the patient or the process, right? We just enable the clinicians, the nurses, the doctors.
And so a lot of it is about getting nurses away from laptops, getting doctors away from computer screens, getting them back in front of patients, practicing at the top of their licenses. Everybody in health care will really understand exactly what I'm saying. Hopefully those not are still still tracking, but it's all about giving caregivers more time to give better care, and that that's what we do.
Alan Fleischmann
And that and the people focus in the future in the age of AI, which is creating more effectiveness and efficiency. Certainly, it can't remove the fact that we're talking about people and no, what I love is that you, everything you build, everything you're using technology to do, has people right at the center.
BJ Schaknowski
The irony of it is, everybody says AI will replace our nursing workforce. No, it's a silly premise. What it will do is bifurcate low value workforce, high value, right? And if we can eliminate the low value work, doing administrative tasks on a laptop that take you away from the patient. What can the nurses then do? High value work practice at the top of their license, spend more time mentoring younger nurses, spend more time on the patients who need them the most. We all know that time and emotional connectivity of that nursing workforce are drivers of patient outcomes. And so if we give them more time, and if we give them better time, they can actually drive better outcomes with more patients. The math on this is fantastic, right?
And oh, by the way, what do nurses hate doing? Non clinical work. All the regulatory, oh, there was a slip. I have to go enter it into the system, and that takes 15 minutes. And if we can automate that away for them, it takes one of their biggest dissatisfiers with the job away, right? They're happier with, the metaphor is a little dangerous here, but, happy happy cows make better cheese, right? Happy Nurses provide better care, and nurses who aren't doing administrative work are happier nurses, right? There's a transitive property in here somewhere, but you see where I'm going, right? And so we're trying to eliminate a lot of the noise and a lot of the junk, so that they can be awesome at what they do.
Alan Fleischmann
I think I love that, because what you're reminding people is their purpose, they're calling. Their ability to actually do what their passion is in life. It’s often forgotten by all the other things that get sidelined because they're getting caught up in things that actually they don't have to do because of things that symplr provides, which is pretty powerful as well.
Let's jump in. I know we only a few minutes left, which I knew was gonna happen to us, but tell a little bit about what your what you would argue are your core leadership principles, your philosophy. What do you believe? What it what really makes a great leader? Today, I had recently on the show Stanley McChrystal, General McChrystal, and he talked about character, and so that’s his basic principle of how he leads. I'd love to hear yours. We'd love to hear yours.
BJ Schaknowski
There are a few, and they're probably not as succinctly articulated as General McChrystal’s. But what I will tell you is leadership is very different than management, right? And we talk about this a lot, management is doing the things you have to do. Leadership is all the things that you don't have to do that make you more effective, ultimately, at the end of the day. And I think inherent in that, particularly in what I'll call this generation, there is a level of authenticity that I think defines most of the best leaders that we've seen in the last 10-20, years, right? And that's the ability to admit when you're wrong, the ability to communicate a very tough decision, but explain the why, right? The ability to feel pain at the time your people feel pain, the ability to communicate emotion about tough decisions. Right?
Some of the decisions I make, letting go of people is terrible, doesn't mean it's not the right decision. Doesn't mean it's not necessary. And so I think a big part of leading has evolved also into not just leading, but teaching, maybe it always has been. But I think part of this authenticity comes with really the obligation to explain the why as you're doing the what. And for so long we've heard it described as ivory tower decision making, or a disconnected executive leadership or management layer. And I think the reality is, it's never been that, but that's how it's been perceived, because there's been a fundamental disconnect, and people will just go explain it as that. They'd go issue the edict or the directive, but never explain why. And I think in this day and age, even if people don't agree with you, if you explain why and you treat them an adult, they'll come along with you, right? People want to trust their leaders, right? I don't know if they need to their leaders. I think some people want that. But more than anything else, they always say, people work and people buy from people who they trust.
I also think people want to work for people they trust right. Trust to make the right decisions, trust to share the why? Trust to treat everyone fairly, trust to give everyone a chance. Trust they've got the company's interest above their own at heart, and so authenticity and really the ability to explain or cascade the why, I think, are pretty, pretty core to how I show up as a leader. I really believe in, particularly the more senior you get, you have to also let people be their own leaders, right? You can't define organizational authenticity from your own likeness. It means you have to be willing to accept and even promote different styles and different leadership personas to make the collective wholes. Maybe this is the Marine Corps thing we were talking about earlier, right? But it makes the collective whole stronger if we had everybody. You need your operationally strong people. You need your introverts. You need your thoughtful folks. You need your reactive folks. You need that melting pot of styles, but you have to encourage them to be as authentic as that which has made you successful. I also think there's this concept of pushing, and that's become interesting, right? Because this is where, for years and years and years, it was, how hard can you push the machine? And then it became, well, let's just let everyone do their own thing. And I don't characterize a whole millennial generation, but unfairly, I think there was a lot of that for a while.
Alan Fleischmann
That's cool. And do you find it hard to find talent and all that when you're trying to take your philosophy, you're taking what you believe, and you're all about transformation. Yeah, is it hard to find talent?
BJ Schaknowski
It's not hard to find talent. There are talented people everywhere. It's hard to find good culture fits, right? And I think that's the difference. Is you've got to find people that really want to lean in and be part of something, and not just, we have a no-brilliant-asshole policy. I think we follow it pretty well, right? There are lots of talented people that can do the job, but are they willing to do it to make the whole greater, right? Are they willing to lean in, or are they willing to teach again?
Private equity is about speed, which means you got to teach while you go, but there are never any days off. There's never any time to sit back and go, oh, tomorrow. And so you're constantly moving. And so you got to find the right people that are built for that culture. And that's a big part of my job, which is both setting the culture of the organization, but then also identifying those that could really come in and fit and create force multiplying impacts, because talent’s everywhere, lots of people are talented, right? This whole, there isn't a lot of talent out there. I think it's a lot of crap. I think a lot of people are talented. I think finding the right cultural fit for your organization is very hard and takes a lot of time. You need to be really thoughtful about it, and even when you get it wrong, you gotta be willing to move people out and find the right ones and admit you got it wrong, because if you don't, it can be more more damaging than by leaving them.
Alan Fleischmann
What haven't I asked you that I should ask you about you personally, about if you're thinking about these listeners here on Leadership Matters, and they look at you and they see this extraordinary life of service, but also leadership. You've shared some of your philosophy and principles, but if there's three takeaways in this climate we live in right now, for example, what would you want our listeners to walk away with and say, okay, I got this from BJ.
BJ Schaknowski
Move fast, be authentic and explain your “why” would be the top three. Don't ever sit still. If you sit still, you die. That's just, I believe that personally. That doesn't mean don't be thoughtful, by the way, right? That doesn't mean be brash or be impulsive, but just do it in service to moving. And just move.
The thing though that I thought we talked a little bit about, I actually thought you might bring up, because I've heard some, I've heard some of these other ones. There is this real movement now that is interesting to watch, right? And it's people think that there are two camps, and there's a you have to work hard, and you have to work all the time to be successful, right? And if you work too hard or too much, you're wasting your life. And the whole, I never want my tombstone to wish I had worked a little bit more. The problem with both of those is they're assuming this is what our country does, right? Right now we're so fractured and so polarized, and everyone believed that their way is right and the other way must be wrong. And I think the reality is, what's made me a effective leader is, and maybe Marine Corps, but I learned early on everybody's different, and I will never judge you for wanting to do a 40 hour job and doing the best you can and going home to be being with your family. Don't judge me for loving what I do and actually wanting to work 60 hours a week because we're both motivated by different things, and it doesn't make either one of us right. It doesn't make either one of us wrong. It just makes us different.
And I think there's a uniqueness in the people who lead and who are led, and when you identify that, you realize that neither one of them are wrong. And the minute you say you gotta grind, you gotta go 80 hours a day, all that means is that's what you did, and that's the only thing you respect. And I think that's very naive, and I think that's very a hollow way of thinking. Also, if you judge me for working 60 hours, we can say I must not love my family, or I must not be a good dad. That's a lot of crap, too. And so it's just, there's a uniqueness to all of us. And maybe instead of generalizing and making assumptions about whole populations of people who do things different from us. Maybe we should actually just learn to respect each other and say, some people love work. I love work. I love working. I've done it since I was 12. I will never not do it, either by my own decision or by Heather's because she's not on me around the house, right?
But, don't judge me because I love work, and I won't judge you because it's a way for you, it's a means for you to pay for your life and do the other things. As long as you do a good job while you're here and you understand that you may not get to all the different things, then we're going to be cool.
But I do think there's this. I watch this a lot. I watch LinkedIn, and I read all these posts about “respect the grind,” it's all about the grind. And then also, I read the posts about “they're doing it wrong,” and they don't respect, I don't know, man. It's, I'm probably not saying this as well as I'd like, but maybe we should actually just ask more questions than we make assumptions and really understand what people's motivations are. And then when we do we'll understand them as people. And if you, if you do that, you can have all different types of people in your team and get the best people, regardless of what their, their intrinsic motivations are, and stop trying to make a workplace that looks just you no matter what your belief system is. Sorry, that's my soapbox.
Alan Fleischmann
I'm thinking a lot. I love that. I love that. It's brilliant. But we're going to end here, reluctantly, because I know we only had an hour, and I knew we’d need more. Be back on as well.
You've been listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann, we just spent the last hour, really smart, thoughtful, humble, last hour with BJ SHaknowski. He's had an extraordinary career, a great journey. He's the CEO of symplr, and I've enjoyed this conversation because you didn't just share your life experiences. You also led with great humility, as I said twice, you've shared, actually your principles and philosophy, and I know that our listeners are going to love it. So thank you so much for today.
BJ Schaknowski
Anytime you call my friend, I will answer that.
Alan Fleischmann
I look forward to many, many more times. Thank you. Thank you for all.