Page 6 - Mobility Management, January/February 2021

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Numotion Whitepaper
Swinford: Crises Can Accelerate Change
Mike Swinford
To borrow from Thomas Paine, 2020 was a time to try people’s souls. From the COVID-19 pandemic, to esca- lating conversations about racism, to hurricanes and wildfires, the year tested people’s perseverance and took them out of their comfort zones.
But while just holding on can feel like a full-time job, Numotion CEO Mike Swinford has taken a different approach. Absolutely, the essentials — are employees and their families safe, are our customers being taken care of safely, is the business safe? — were job number one. But beyond that, Swinford authored a new white- paper that examines whether times of crisis can be times of reflection, renewed determination, and growth.
Looking for Ways to Excel
The paper, “Responding with Clarity and Purpose to the Events of 2020,” was released late last year.
It’s a deep dive into a year that’s brought enormous and painful changes. It’s also a testimonial of how Swinford believes leaders and the Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) industry can and should respond. While the paper discusses financial and operational practices to keep a business healthy, it just as often talks of the importance of taking care of employees, their families, consumers, and the community.
The four main talking points of the whitepaper are Being Truly Essential to Our Customers; Relentlessly Pursuing a Caring Culture and Unlocking Employee Engagement; Courageously and Openly Embracing Diversity and Inclusion; and Adapting and Accelerating Through a Crisis to Profoundly Transform and Grow. Each talking point features examples of how Numotion has responded. For example, Numotion’s illustrations of Being Truly Essential discussed how the provider adjusted to the pandemic by shifting more than 2,000 employees to work at home within 48 hours, securing personal protective equipment (PPE) for employees who needed to work in the field, and accelerating the company’s telehealth and remote services’ capabilities.
In an interview with Mobility Management, Swinford acknowledged how difficult the year was while repeat- edly circling back to the well-being of Numotion’s team.
“There is no doubt that we’re all living it, every single one of us,” he said about the stress of 2020. “We’re all dealing with some form of anxiety and challenges. We used to plan for the weekends and vacations and
6 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2021 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
trips and dinners out, and all that is on hold. The whole idea of looking forward to something has just been out the window. We’ve had several surveys and discussion sessions with our teams to understand their anxieties.”
Asked how leaders can help employees, Swinford mentioned the importance of clear communication. “We communicated months ago that we didn’t see any real change [through the end of 2020],” he said as an example. “The more we can just be transparent and forward-thinking about how we see this playing out can really ease some of the anxiety and stress — just the anxiety of ‘Are we going to have to go back to the office? Because I’ve got homeschooling challenges and every- thing else.’ Everyone is dealing with so much.”
Leading Through the Storms
Swinford’s strong belief in meeting tough times head on can be traced back to the hurricane season of 2004.
“I often refer to the four most influential people in my career: Jeanne, Frances, Ivan and Charley,” he said of four powerful hurricanes that year. “I was living in south Florida, and the eyes of both Jeanne and Frances came directly over my house. I had two little kids, and we evac- uated both times. Those experiences shaped me in more ways than I can describe from a leadership experience.”
Then in 2005, Swinford was working at GE Healthcare when Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. “All we did was focus on taking care of our employees and their issues, and our customers and all their issues,” he said of the storm’s aftermath. “We did that for nearly two straight months, all day, every day. I saw our culture and the results of our business just excel so transformationally that it was a huge learning experience for me.”
He saw, Swinford said, that in desperate circumstances, leaders need to push forward. “They present such a unique opportunity to be laser focused,” he said. “Many people get paralyzed with everything happening and getting stuck in survival mode, rather than thinking, ‘This too shall pass, and how we lead through it will define how we come out of it on the other side.’ So for me, past expe- riences have been defining moments that really make me think first and foremost, we’ve got to make sure we’re healthy as a company. We’ve got to take the appropriate cost measures, we’ve got to have appropriate cash pres- ervation measures. But once you’ve done that and once
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