Skip to content

Pradeep Goel of Solve.Care: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO

Being a CEO is not just about how smart or talented you are. A big part of being a good CEO is how good the team reporting to you is. You need a strong, trustworthy team to execute your mission and vision. Instead of focusing on the doing, the focus should be on proper delegation. There is great value in creating the right team that can manage and coach the rest of the company; they are the ones who should be hands-on in helping implement your vision. Give your team the freedom to focus on the how, and you can focus on the big picture.

As part of my series about the leadership lessons of accomplished business leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pradeep Goel.

Pradeep Goel is the Chief Executive Officer of Solve.Care, a global healthcare company that redefines care coordination, improves access to care, empower consumers with information, reduces benefit administration costs, and helps reduce fraud and waste in healthcare around the world. Pradeep has more than 25 years of healthcare experience, developing groundbreaking software for the insurance industry, and co-founding four healthcare IT businesses where he has served in a number of management roles including CEO, COO, CIO, and CTO.

Pradeep was previously Founder and CEO of health software firm EngagePoint, where he was deeply involved in implementing the Affordable Care Act across multiple states. He also served as Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Information Officer at Noridian BlueCross BlueShield of North Dakota. Pradeep Co-founded Dakota Imaging in 1990, where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, before the company was subsequently acquired by WebMD. Pradeep has been named one of the ‘100 Most Promising Entrepreneurs Worldwide’ by Goldman Sachs. He holds a B.E. in Systems Engineering from the University of Punjab in India.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Of course — thank you for taking the time to chat with me! My name is Pradeep Goel and I currently serve as the CEO of Solve.Care, the healthcare technology platform leveraging blockchain to change the way we deliver and manage patient care.

Solve.Care is the result of more than two and a half decades spent working as an executive in healthcare, insurance, and IT. It was here the inefficiencies inherent in the healthcare industry were really laid bare and I vowed to do all I could to make the space more efficient, accessible, and secure.

On a personal level, I have also experienced first-hand the difficulties and inefficiencies with our healthcare system as my young son has a developmental disorder and requires continuous care. I am determined to “solve healthcare” and so, Solve.Care was born.

Can you share one of the major challenges you encountered when first leading the company? What lesson did you learn from that?

Solve.Care is nothing like any of the companies I had managed before. Although I have had extensive experience leading companies in the healthcare industry, and while blockchain and crypto were topics I was interested in, before Solve.Care, I had no professional experience working in that sphere. The main challenge was coming to terms with how different this job was to any of the previous companies I was involved in before. To overcome this, I had to disengage myself from my past successes and failures and look at Solve.Care with a fresh perspective.

I feel that sometimes the more experience you have, the more you can struggle if you try to rigidly hold on to how you previously did things. Often, it is because there is a certain level of comfort in holding on to what you know, and it is tempting to continue trying the things that worked before, but solutions for one business may not work for another.

What are some of the factors that you believe led to your eventual success?

There are many factors that lead to success but the two that I believe to be most important are perseverance and adaptability. You have to persevere. There is no doubt that there will be great days and there will be dark days. It is good to keep in mind that a dark day is just one day in a long journey. As the saying goes, the sun always rises again.

Adaptability is a strong factor in finding success. One thing you have to consider is that even if you don’t obtain the specific goal you were pursuing, you may find other successes along the way, as long as you keep an open mind and don’t measure success rigidly. What both perseverance and adaptability have in common is that they require mental strength. But these are factors that are totally within your control.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO”? Please share a story or example for each.

Being a CEO is a tough but rewarding job where you are always learning new things to better yourself. There are so many things I would love my younger self to know that would have been helpful along the way. Here are 5 of the most important things I wish I knew before I became a CEO.

Being a CEO is not just about how smart or talented you are. A big part of being a good CEO is how good the team reporting to you is. You need a strong, trustworthy team to execute your mission and vision. Instead of focusing on the doing, the focus should be on proper delegation. There is great value in creating the right team that can manage and coach the rest of the company; they are the ones who should be hands-on in helping implement your vision. Give your team the freedom to focus on the how, and you can focus on the big picture.

To be an effective CEO you have to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally. I would recommend that you spend at least 30% of your time outside the office. Take this time for self-reflection and other activities that can provide self-improvement. Be selective in what you read. What you read will have a profound impact on your management of the company, so also be wary of where your information is coming from. If you don’t step out and observe the things going on around you, it is possible to develop tunnel vision that can be counterproductive. Sometimes less is more, don’t be a workhorse.

As a CEO, you can never forget about revenue. The age old saying of “cash is king” comes to mind. You need to always ensure your company has enough income. There will always be more demand for money than there is money coming in. That is where your CFO comes in. But as CEO, your focus should be on the revenue. Be involved in sales meetings and observe what your clients have to say. In order to course correct, you have to personally know why a client does not want your product or why they don’t want to upgrade to a new offering. After all, the greatest source of information on how your company is perceived and how your products can be improved is by listening to your clients.

A company is like your child emotionally, intellectually, and in terms of responsibility. As your company ages and grows larger it will inevitably change. Things you did to manage your company when it was only a few months old may not work when it is older. This means that as CEO you have to change how you manage your company and adapt. Eventually that may even mean learning to let go of the reins a little.

Don’t hire your friends. This is age old wisdom that you have no doubt heard countless times before. The problem with hiring friends is that it complicates your roles, both in your work and in your personal life. It is not a game you can win. When you want them to behave like an employee they will behave as a friend, but when you want to approach them as a friend, they react to you as their CEO.

What advice would you give to your colleagues to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

The best advice I can give for preventing burn out is to make sure to create a structured routine and rituals. Take an hour or even just 5 minutes a day, and find something that works for you to re-energize yourself and allow you to refresh yourself mentally. For me, the ritual is exercise. I find that working out, with the proper intensity, clears my mind and challenges me. For 30 minutes to an hour a day, it lets me focus, both mentally and physically, on something simple which is within my control.

People also tend to experience “burn out” quicker when they are disconnected from those around them. Family, friends, and colleagues can help to keep you grounded. A five-minute phone call or a coffee with a loved one can get your mind off work and help you relax.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are many, many people I am grateful for, especially those who have helped to push me to where I am today. In my early 20s, at one of the first companies I worked at, I had a manager who taught me many things I still use to this day. He really expanded my views on how to run a business. One such lesson was not to focus on the problems but to focus on the people. Whether it is clients or employees, it is people that make decisions.

I remember when I started one of my earlier companies, I pushed the business hard to hit very high sales figures. When I was stressed about reaching those results, I asked him for advice. He answered me with a simple question, “What’s the rush?”. I remember being perplexed at first, but he went on to ask me why sales targets have to be my definition of success. Success can also be measured by customer loyalty or employee happiness.

Even today I sometimes find myself asking, “What would he do in this situation?” or “How would he react to this?”. Not necessarily to do exactly as he would but just to get another perspective. Being able to view a situation through someone else’s eyes can really help to find innovative ways to solve a problem..

What are some of the goals you still have and are working to accomplish, both personally and professionally?

Professionally, my goal is for Solve.Care to be a long-term sustainable organization. My main goal is for my business to outlive myself and the current management. I would be proud for the company to be sustainable enough to hand it over to the next generation of managers. Our ambition is to have a lasting legacy, like that of Colgate or Johnson and Johnson, that have spanned for over a century.

Personal goals are great to have too. Three years ago my personal goal was to get fit and healthy. I achieved this, and now it’s more about maintenance. My current goal is to read more. Reading is truly an amazing gift. In 30 minutes of reading, it is possible to learn about the past 30 years.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would enhance people’s lives in some way, what would it be? You never know what your idea can trigger!

What I want to work towards is helping the next generation to be more entrepreneurial. I believe that it is important to teach new generations to be fearless and encourage calculated risk taking. It is important to show alternatives to how business leaders think. There are so many ways to reach success in business and why they should not be afraid to try.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

We’re a social bunch over at Solve.Care and you can keep up to date on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, or join our community on Telegram


Pradeep Goel of SolveCare: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.