When Owner and Team Is Not Enough
Hear Emily Mori and Jennah Kuhn talk staff support, real authority, disagreement, accountability, and the leadership layer between owner and team.
47:03 · Published 2026-07-02
Listening map
- 00:40 — Introducing Jennah and their shared history
- 06:01 — From clinician to practice leader
- 09:46 — Why staff need more than one support path
- 20:10 — Disagreement, trust, and accountability
- 25:25 — The unusual work of managing therapists
- 30:01 — Teachable moments and serious action
- 35:06 — Policies, expectations, and industry change
- 45:06 — Looking back at the leadership journey
Machine transcript
Machine transcript — may contain wording, punctuation, or speaker-label errors. This is the complete timestamped source record, published for reading alongside the episode. It is not quotation approval.
00:00 — Cold open
You didn't go into therapy to become the biller, marketer, tech department.
00:06 — Cold open
An emotional support human for your own business. But here we are.
00:13 — Show intro
This is Private Practice Is a Bitch, a Ludara original. Real talk, zero filter, better systems, less burnout. Private Practice Is a Bitch. Private Practice Is a Bitch. Private Practice Is a Bitch. Private Practice Is a Bitch.
00:40 — Emily Mori
Hey everybody, this is Emily Mori with Private Practice Is a Bitch. I am so excited to have you guys listening in tonight on the podcast. I have someone very special here today, Jennah Kuhn. She is a therapist in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area. And was also my coup when I had my group practice that I've mentioned in some of the earlier episodes. I thought she's one of the perfect first guest stars to have on the podcast. Just because we really, you know, kind of work together hand in hand from a leadership perspective. You know, at least within my practice, we've both talked to and worked in many aspects of the field. And not only that, we're also best friends. I think we've been friends for how long, Jennah? What do you think? Like 11 years, maybe?
01:31 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah, 10 or 11 years.
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01:32 — Emily Mori
Yeah, a long time. We went to undergrad together. We're in the same sorority together, which was really interesting. Not necessarily the same people, but that was a fun time and slightly questionable. But we also kind of grew into the profession together. And, you know, didn't necessarily go in the same direction from the start, but ended up, you know, side by side in the initial start of our private practice careers. So, you know, I figure, you know, Jennah, why don't you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your journey in the field other than just being the coup? Yeah, absolutely.
02:14 — Jennah Kuhn
So I'm Jennah Kuhn. I'm a licensed counselor in both Pennsylvania and Maryland. I'm also a certified autism specialist in Pennsylvania. I'm licensed as a behavior specialist. Kind of do a whole lot of different things. Currently, I am a director of clinical supervision at a private practice in Maryland. And then I also work for a nonprofit in Pennsylvania. I mean, honestly, my journey into the mental health field kind of starts with you, Emily. Like, the first job that I ever had in the field was because you were working at the agency, you know, prior to me. So I started out working with adults who have developmental disabilities, like working as it's called in-home and community supports in Pennsylvania. And I did that until I graduated from undergrad. And then I transitioned into a role, which is therapeutic staff support. It doesn't exist anymore in Pennsylvania because a bunch of rules change and laws and things like that. But I did that while I got my graduate degree. I went to Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.
03:16 — Jennah Kuhn
And then once I graduated from that, I transitioned into the role that was above a TSS, which is a mobile therapist and behavior consultant for the same nonprofit the whole time. I also I still work for that nonprofit as well. So my journey has been pretty strong there. But I got all of my hours for licensure and stuff like that, doing the mobile therapist and behavior consultant job. Eventually, finally, Emily got me to work for her practice. That was.
03:44 — Emily Mori
Yeah, I think that's important. Right. That clarified before we dive into some structure things. Jennah was never going to work for me. That was something that, you know, as we talk about tiny bits and pieces of how my practice had unfolded. She was not the first person that took a leap of faith and, you know, started working there. And she did not, you know, initially start developing systems either. But we talk every day, all day. So we felt like it just made sense to record a conversation. But anywho, she was never going to work for me. And I don't know why. For a reason. Or was it just like a thing? Remember.
04:28 — Jennah Kuhn
And so for some like background context, the job that of a mobile therapist and behavior consultant can be kind of like rigorous in a way. Because you have to go into people's homes. And it's not like you go and you see a client for an hour like you do in private practice. It's like these clients have really big authorizations of hours and things like that. And so I think after doing it for like two years or something, like I was just kind of starting to realize that. I love doing it. But it's maybe just a little bit too much to do all of the time. Because when I started working, like it was totally part time. Like it was the most part time that was allowed at the practice. I think it was literally just like 12 hours a week. Yeah. And a little bit of background context too. I think another reason why I originally didn't want to is because at the time, Pennsylvania didn't have a graduate license. So it was just like you had to get all of your hours, like supervised hours, and then get a fully license in Pennsylvania. And I was able to do it in Maryland. Like I was able to get the LGPC. But I think that was a barrier too for a little while. Like why I just partially didn't want to do it. You know what? I don't specifically remember why I changed my mind.
05:34 — Emily Mori
But yeah, I don't know. I mean, you were driving in person. Initially, you know, Jennah wasn't in a leadership role. Like she said, she was seeing clients and still did while juggling, you know, leadership role. Talk a little bit about, like I know you started talking about the agency in Pennsylvania. But talk a little bit more about your experiences before becoming, you know, the chief operations officer.
06:01 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah, I think I went from being like totally part time, like doing like literally just seeing clients 12 hours a week. And with like my specialty is being autism and ADHD, all of that kind of stuff. I'm being able to work with kids. But I think that that's when I started the lead therapist position. Like I transitioned into that. And I think that that had a little bit more to do with like stuff in my personal life. Like it just felt like I needed a more like full-time permanent role. And that was something that was available to me. And while I did that, I did drive in person to the one office. I was having like an hour and a half, two hours. I don't remember. For a little while. And I did that. And that was more of developing different things. I remember I ran like a mentorship group. And I developed like a curriculum for that as well. I think I had worked on developing like a couple of CEUs and things like that. I don't know. Those are the specific things that I can remember. And I think I did that for like a year, right?
07:01 — Emily Mori
It was a long time. I don't know. I don't remember why it switched. But I mean, it was probably just growth, right? And what made sense. I think that, you know, taking a look back from like a larger vantage point, you know, you being in Pennsylvania allowed for there to be opportunities. Or I was able to grow things in Harford County because of them being like the opposite sides. But, you know, you think, yeah, I don't remember at that point. It was a few years back. But, you know, you did it remote. And I think you also helped build a larger remote team, which helped us be able to, you know, access more clients. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember, I guess, like what it was like when you first joined the private practice setting from a more macro level, you know, job? A lot of times our listeners, you know, we talk about it from a double standpoint, right? One is an employee joining a practice.
08:06 — Emily Mori
And typically in the private practice world, there's not like an overarching, you know, group helping make sure it's managed correctly. And then also from like an owner's standpoint, you know, onboarding can look very different. So I'm curious, you know, from your perspective, because I don't really think we ever talked about that.
08:26 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah. Do you mean like what it was like for me just starting at private practice, like initially? Yeah. Yeah. I would say I kind of feel like I maybe have a little bit of a unique experience because like I said, it was incredibly different from what I was doing before. I was that I was doing mainly was like, I would go to clients and I would be there for like three, four hours at a time. So having a 53 minute session for me was not like, like I was like, oh, it's like finished, you know, like, and, and I had experience with telehealth being over an hour long as well too. Like, because with the COVID pandemic and everything like that, we were able to do telehealth in that role. And I think that helps me too a little bit with the telehealth aspect of things. Um, but I would have telehealth sessions that were like two, three hours long. So it honestly, I feel like the transition was a little bit different for me in the, in the sense of like, it was shorter and I didn't have as much time with clients as I was used to. And I will say the other thing that I know that was very different was the notes. So like being able to have maybe like shorter, a little bit less detailed notes, because for
09:33 — Jennah Kuhn
that job in particular, you have to like write down like everything, like you have to be really, really detailed in the notes and things like that. And that's not how, you know, private practice typically operates. So I had to adjust to that as well. Yeah.
09:46 — Emily Mori
But I do think though, you coming from an organization that was already established, you know, especially as you started coming into leadership really helped, uh, I think one thing that was big for me in my role, especially early on was networking. And I mean, it still is, but, you know, working and, you know, like body doubling with other practice owners. Sometimes as we grew, I think we were really deliberate and not wanting like, you know, me and then the offshoot being just, you know, not just, but, you know, therapists underneath because, you know, we want it there to be a different layer. Cause sometimes it's like the supervisor is the owner and the person, you know, that's paying your paycheck. And I think you kind of brought that in at least from a supervision standpoint. Yeah, absolutely.
10:38 — Jennah Kuhn
And I will say too, like thinking it was, it was very different, right? Like the way that I was like onboarded or brought on when I started compared to how things kind of like transitioned, even when I was a lead therapist to when I was the COO, like all of that stuff. Um, I think that we were able to kind of create this environment that made sure that people had this support and that they had multiple avenues of people that they could go to if they needed help. Like it's supervisors, they had me, they had you, but, you know, knowing that the owner is not always the person that people feel most comfortable going to, um, for things, especially if they feel like it's something that might kind of validate that imposter syndrome that they might have or something like that. Yeah.
11:21 — Emily Mori
And I think that that was a really big thing too, because I mean, I've mentioned it before when I graduated, you know, I worked in different areas, so I was almost like forced to kind of, you know, work at a different capacity than the private practice can be sometimes. So you think, you know, as the field went on, we saw people only coming in the field, our job was their first experience. So we had to have a really, you know, structured, you know, onboarding thing. I definitely think though your role took the pressure off of me as the owner. Um, there are definitely times, you know, when I was in a hospital bed, texting you, texting some other people on the team, you know, and trying to work on an issue. And I'm wondering like, from your perspective, like how could you tell, or maybe suggest other owners how to structure things. So there's a backup plan.
12:20 — Jennah Kuhn
Well, I think that the main thing is just always having a backup plan, like having somebody else there who could potentially be able to step into that role or be like, like just So I think even with you and I, like there were some tasks that like you really wanted to do and you really, you continue to do those things, but I knew how to do them in case there was a situation that happened where like you couldn't do them and it needed to get done. Right. So I think that that's really important to have. Um, and I also think that it's, it can be really important to have it as well, because sometimes just like as human beings, we need somebody else to bounce different ideas off of or to talk through. And I know, I know sometimes I kind of joke a little, it was a joke that like, there was like kind of like good cop, bad cop sometimes going on, like between you and I, but being able to like have that and have a little bit of like an opinion from somebody else, because when you are an owner, typically like everything does fall on you, but nobody's perfect. So nobody can make like 100%, like all of the perfect decisions. And it can just be good to have somebody else to kind of like, like I said, bounce up, bounce things off of, or be able to talk things through with. Yeah.
13:27 — Emily Mori
I think that that's true. And I think there are so many times where people on the team, you know, before we were ready or knew we needed it, wanted a legitimate ties. I don't know what kind of word that is, but what was it? Legitimized. Yeah. Legitimized Jennah knows, you know, way to do certain things. And, you know, in the beginning it was just me. So by the time Jennah came on, it was really like, how can everything from my brain get out, right? So somebody else can execute it. I think, because like I said, me and Jennah have been best friends for a long time.
14:15 — Emily Mori
So one of the fears that I always had early on with ending the practice was, oh gosh, what
14:24 — Emily Mori
happened? Because nobody knew, you know, what to do. And then as we started making, you know, processes, it all kind of started making sense. But I think so many people don't think of like, I need that, you know, backup plan. And I think it's also like people want it to be a permanent plan. And how many times did we make changes because it didn't work? Or like there was a hole and that like, you know, was consistently like an ongoing thing.
14:54 — Jennah Kuhn
Really important part of it too, is to like be flexible with it or like know that some of these things have to change as time goes on because it just stops working the way that it used to, or it never worked effectively to begin with. Yeah.
15:07 — Emily Mori
I mean, do you think there were things that like having, you know, a coup in the practice allowed, you know, for the practice to operate differently? Because from my vantage point, you know, there are so many different roles in businesses in general. And, you know, I work with some practices now who have them and maybe there are people not in the field. Maybe there are people that they are in the field, right? All different types of vantage points. And I see a lot of, a lot of growth. Obviously, practices have to get to that, that point.
15:40 — Jennah Kuhn
But yeah, I think it just made it like, especially for the size that we were right now. So like, I don't think that's like very small practices, it would be as efficient or it would change the efficiency or anything like that. But I think that for the size that we were, it really made things more efficient because there was multiple people to go to, as we had kind of said. But there was also like, we kind of split different tasks up between like, I became the go-to for something or you were the go-to for something else. Like, and that just made it more efficient. So more things could get done. But also knowing that too, like some people were more comfortable talking to me. Some people were more comfortable talking to you. So it also created that like buffer where, okay, maybe there's something that somebody doesn't want to talk to me about, but they can go to you about it or vice versa. And so I think it really changed like the culture dynamic with that as well. Yeah.
16:33 — Emily Mori
I mean, you definitely saw things that I wouldn't see from like the owner's standpoint. In the beginning, it was the opposite where it was like, okay, like you have to stop going to Emily, right? And it was kind of this, like many conversations would happen, you know, between us and some other people on the team where it would be like, well, you know, we don't want to be rude, but we also need them for efficiency purposes to stop, you know, going to Emily about something because this is the project she's really working on. And then, you know, it got to a point where I would tell people, I am not the best person to ask anymore. You need to go over here or there because you're wasting time, right? Asking me and really like pushing ownership on the people that, you know, needed to take ownership of that. I also, you know, I think comfortability was a thing. I don't know your thoughts on it, but we definitely had some employees.
17:36 — Emily Mori
I mean, the largest the team was, was around like what, like 42, 43 at any given time. And I mean, how many employees generally do you think were on the team from when it was open till, you know, when it was sold? I feel like, you know, it was quite, quite the amount and not because of turnover being a negative thing. In many ways, it was, you know, a good thing. But gosh, I don't know, like 60, 70.
18:10 — Jennah Kuhn
Do you mean like employees all like, yeah. Yeah. And I will say too, I think that there were quite a few that like had extended times, right? Like, so like you said, turnover, like in a bad way. I think a lot of people were around for a long period of time, but I would say, yeah, probably like 70.
18:30 — Emily Mori
Yeah. And I mean, I think it got to a point where at some point people didn't necessarily know that I was the owner because we were changing how, you know, it was presented on, you know, the website due to safety, you know, concerns and things like that, that were happening, you know, in the world. I also think too, you know, people like as much as we're best friends, I think the only reason it worked in our situation is because we tell each other we're being shitheads.
19:06 — Emily Mori
That's not going to work, but we've, you know, already kind of told each other, you know, do this, do that and kind of take things with a grain of salt so that we can improve it. But not obviously like all leadership, you know, relationships work in that way. It only works out work that way for certain reasons with us. But, but I think that there was that trust element with certain teammates and certain people. Yeah.
19:33 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if I would recommend anybody do the exact thing that we did because I think it worked because like we have a relationship where we can call each other out on things. And I don't know if, you know, that's like the typical friend relationship, especially in a kind of professional setting. But I think that that's a really important piece too, like being, being comfortable enough with people on leadership to be able to nicely call things out or be able to disagree with each other, but also be able to come to an agreeable like solution if there are disagreements. Yeah.
20:10 — Emily Mori
I mean, holding each other accountable to each other's thoughts. And like, I don't know, I say this sometimes to couples and I think it, you know, in the same way here, you know, compromising in a relationship doesn't mean both people walk away happy, right? It's the solution that matters. And I kind of feel that way. What do you think was one of the most meaningful moments with an employee if you had one?
20:39 — Emily Mori
I don't know.
20:41 — Jennah Kuhn
I don't know if I can like name a specific situation. But, you know, part of my journey was being able to work with the supervisors more and being able to kind of like, for lack of better terms, like supervise them almost in what they were doing with supervision. And I think that that was very important or like meaningful to me because the more that I was able to meet with people, like the more I was able to get to know them. Like it became more of a kind of like they could, they felt like they could trust me or like come to me with things. And so I think that that was a really important piece of what I did.
21:17 — Emily Mori
Yeah, that is true. And I think that we saw a need for that because, you know, Jennah, why don't you explain a little bit about, you know, yourself as a supervisor even and what we kind of did there and maybe what you're doing now with supervision? Yeah, absolutely.
21:34 — Jennah Kuhn
So what part of my role was supervising the supervisors, like I said, that all the supervisors would come together and have meetings. I don't remember how frequently we did it, but I would kind of like oversee that a little bit. I would meet with the supervisors individually. And I don't even know if I had no way to like necessarily describe my style of a supervisor, but I very much, and I guess maybe it's kind of like a similar way as how I see my clients, that people are just people overall. And like, I try and approach it from a standpoint of like, okay, this is a human being that I'm meeting with, like under the, under, with a supervisor, under the circumstance that like they're doing a job as well that I am trying to kind of like assist them with and provide them with support and all of those things. I don't think by any means I have the type of style of like crack down, like you need to do it this way. And like, sometimes there are circumstances where you have to do that. And there were circumstances where I had to do that, or I had to like enforce things. But I think that I try and give people the more of the benefit of the doubt that like they know what they're doing or that, because like, obviously in Maryland to be a supervisor,
22:44 — Jennah Kuhn
you have to have the training to be a supervisor and you have to get that approved. Um, so I would say that's like my style with it. Um, I am the director of clinical supervision at a private practice in Maryland. So, um, I oversee any of our supervisees and I really enjoy doing that, that piece of it as well. Like being overseeing our supervise. I mean, I supervise the LGPCs, um, I really enjoy doing that part as well. And that was something that I didn't have a chance to do, um, because we wanted to keep separate where we didn't want to have somebody going to their supervisor and their supervisor also being their boss at the same time. Yeah.
23:24 — Emily Mori
We really wanted to try to keep things not conflicted, I guess, is like the right word. And I would say that's kind of something that I really, you know, forgot how fun that was until after going to practice was doing supervision because, you know, that's just something that, you know, I didn't do because we didn't want conflict of interest. Yeah. I mean, I guess like, you know, memorable things or things that I, I always encourage owners to do is have fun with the employees because you, you want there to be, you know, a balance between work, work, and then also, you know, just knowing that they can, you know, come to you if things happen. We definitely had, you know, a lot of real life lessons as, you know, we were managing all the different types of people that came our way. I mean, I think managing therapists is different than managing people in other industries. I think, you know, there's a lot of emotional things that kind of show up with that.
24:31 — Emily Mori
You know, people, I think not that, not that all people, you know, don't want respect. Of course, everybody wants respect. But I feel like therapists, myself included, more a little bit emotionally in tune, you know, sometimes than other people. And as employees, I think where that can be tough is, you know, it shows up in private things happening and hoping, you know, workplaces, you know, can, it can balance those things. I think we did that well, you know, always trying to be compassionate, but also accountable. And that was always, you know, tough. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I can think of some tough, you know, scenarios that came up for us a few times. Or it's like, what do we do? But we have to do something. Right.
25:25 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah. I feel like managing therapists is like such a unique thing. Something I feel very strongly about is that like, I feel like it takes a therapist to be able to manage other therapists to a certain extent, because like, we know what it's like to be the employee therapist and all of those things. But I definitely think it's a little bit different than managing like, just employees in other settings that like, like you were saying, because we expect that like certain level of empathy. And sometimes that's something that only like another therapist can give. But I think we, I honestly think we balanced like the being a therapist and approaching employees from like that standpoint versus like, this is a business. And this is something that like, things still need to be enforced and really kind of like, like manage like a business. I think we did that. We balanced that very well. And I think sometimes that's where like, we hit it came into that, like, our personalities are a little bit different. So like, maybe one of us could recognize the like, hey, this is a human being, or like, this is like, kind of like, we approach from the therapy standpoint versus approaching it,
26:33 — Jennah Kuhn
like from the business standpoint, the other person could do that. Yeah, no.
26:37 — Emily Mori
And I think also like the teachable moment standpoint, right? Because I think both, you know, while there's business, while there's like the human aspect of it, there's also that like, well, wait, can we learn from it? You know, one incident kind of comes to mind. And I want to be clear in the podcast, you know, especially as other people come on and might talk about, you know, real life, you know, lessons. You know, we're not bashing employees or people, but we're using these scenarios so that other, you know, therapy practices, maybe with similar challenges or are trying to navigate things can hear at least what we thought was best in the moment. And, you know, if it didn't work out, right, what maybe we would have done differently, you know, taking a step back. And if you guys have like comments or thoughts on that, please, you know, drop it in the podcast thing where you do comments. I don't know. I never do comments on podcasts. I don't know.
27:38 — Jennah Kuhn
Do you do that, Jennah? I do not comment.
27:40 — Emily Mori
Yeah, I don't comment.
27:42 — Jennah Kuhn
I think you can. Like, I think it's wrong. Yeah, I know you can.
27:45 — Emily Mori
People have. Yeah. But, but anyways, like, do you get what I'm saying, Jennah? Like for me, I think of, you know, we had a newer therapist bragging about billing and like wrongly, like, you know, saying that the time was, they were spending more time with client. And I mean, I don't know if you want to think back on that one, but that was a lot of, well, is this a teachable recovery moment? Is it a reportable, you know, to the board? You know, what, what do we do? Yeah.
28:16 — Jennah Kuhn
And I think that was a time where we had to really, and this is kind of maybe a little bit of where it like takes the therapist to manage the therapist, where we really had to like reflect on ethics and like our code of ethics too, to be able to say, hey, this is something that's like wrong ethically. And like, this is the stuff, these are the steps that we have to take because it is hard sometimes to look at the employees, the therapists and kind of be like, you know, did this person not know what was going on? Like, is this something that they need to learn all of those different things?
28:50 — Emily Mori
Yeah, I think it got to a point where we're talking about like people not knowing what's going on, right? Like that's a big one. And I think we also walk this fine line of, you know, do we put it in a handbook? Do we write it down? Do we need a training? And the reason for that was because we, you know, really, really wanted to make sure, you know, that people had the opportunity to know all the information so that they could be successful, you know, working with us. But there were definitely, you know, some black and white times, you know, I think that that's, you know, the big thing. Yeah.
29:35 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah. And I think that, I think that all the, like there were deep discussions that went into all of these things as well. And so that's important for everybody to think about that. It wasn't like any decisions that we made that had to do with employees, like having these types of situations was just, oh, immediately, like, this is what needs to happen. There are conversations and lots of thought that went into any decision that was made. Yeah. Yeah.
30:01 — Emily Mori
No, I agree.
30:03 — Emily Mori
There were times when it was really hard because we did put a lot of thought in and, you know, people still weren't, you know, happy, not, you know, like that incident, you know, I think what we ultimately ended up terminating that employee's contract because it just didn't make sense with some of the things that we found out, you know, but I don't know if there's, you know, times when you're kind of thinking is like a real life employee lesson.
30:32 — Emily Mori
I don't know.
30:35 — Jennah Kuhn
I don't think that I can really like think of anything. I know that was one of the big situations that we had. I mean, I think maybe there were a couple situations with employees just kind of like talking about like etiquette, like in sessions and stuff like that, that we were able to use as more of teachable moments because it wasn't necessarily something that was like an ethical issue or such a big issue that we were like, okay, this is like something has to happen. Like it more of like, you know, kind of almost even kind of like supervisory thing sometimes of like going over times and sessions or if you're having a telehealth session, like where you are, you know, having that telehealth session, those kinds of things.
31:14 — Emily Mori
Yeah, definitely. And I think part of it too is the better environment you have with your employees, the better, you know, they'll feel balanced with coming to you with, you know, different problems and things and creating, you know, clear expectations for everybody. You know, I think sometimes communication issues can, you know, really kind of change how people talk. I have companies that I work with that, you know, they text, they email, they're using Google, you know, chat, they're using Slack, they're using the things in simple practice. You know, all the things, what are your thoughts on, you know, balancing, you know, being the private practice role as a leader, you have to, you know, not always be one, but also have all of these communications. Right.
32:12 — Jennah Kuhn
I feel like maybe I'm a little bit biased, but I feel like we did a very good job of communication, like just through using like the Google workspace and things like that. And I will say that it's something that I've had to learn. And I think that this comes, I think I've had experience with it from my other role that I did as well, because sometimes like clients in that role think that you're always on call. Like it's something that like, like you're there, you don't have defined work hours there. So that like, I had to be able to develop boundaries early on in my career. And so I think I was able to apply those similarly in like the leadership role. And sometimes that involves like, you know, maybe an email would come through or a chat would come through or something like that. And I would just kind of screen it and I would look at it and say like, okay, this can wait till tomorrow or no, this is a big emergency. And I think that for the most part, the people that we worked with, you know, did a good job of only like texting or calling or something like that if it was a true emergency, if there was like a big deal. So I think that that helped as well. But I just had to kind of like learn how to put my own boundaries up because people are
33:21 — Jennah Kuhn
going to reach out to you at all times of the day. Like, you know, hopefully not at like two in the morning, but who knows something like that could happen. And so I personally just had to learn how to like hold my own boundaries and figure out what is an emergency and what isn't an emergency. Yeah.
33:36 — Emily Mori
And I think that that's a big thing too in the field anyway, when sometimes your clients have emergencies and sometimes, I mean, like your clients don't have emergencies, but it might feel like something urgent. I know that for me, as far as balancing things, I would have, you know, certain things not on my phone, certain times I would, you know, check in. I think it was harder to have boundaries with the employees because for me, I always looked at it as a reflection, right? As if I cared or not, which is the farthest thing from the truth. But I think as you kind of came into the picture, right, we had to work on boundaries a lot, not because we kept crossing them, but to maintain like the unique situation of our friendship and, you know, working in roles or only work if we can act like we are not, you know, friends in some ways. Right. And I think that that worked, you know, really well for us. You know, I think there's been a lot of different unique moments in the practice, but the reality
34:43 — Emily Mori
is, right, that not every employee is going to understand all the business side of things, but you can try to build relationships, right, the best that you can. And do you feel like in the time you, you know, worked, maybe in all the places you've worked at, that there are any patterns you notice that come up with employees, you know?
35:06 — Jennah Kuhn
I don't know, because I would say in some of my other experience, I don't have necessarily like as direct contact with coworkers as much or like other employees. And I don't know. I don't know if there were any patterns that I specifically, you know, realized or
35:26 — Jennah Kuhn
kind of, you know, in that role specifically, I will say, I think that there are different policies as I'm thinking. Like, I think that something specific like for a W-2 practice or something, you know, that's like full time, has requirements for how many hours to work and stuff like that, that sometimes it can be important to have a strict policy in regards to calling off or in regards to like, you know, like PTO using those kind of things. I definitely noticed that sometimes like that could be a pattern.
35:56 — Emily Mori
Yeah, definitely. And I think that a lot of times, sometimes employees can misunderstand, right? The reasons why different strategies, different rules exist. And I think it can be, you know, taken very personally, but a lot of times it's all about how owners and how, you know, the leadership approaches these conversations and uses systems, right? And properly manages things. Right. Yeah. Do you think that there's anything right now that private practices should be kind of wary of? I know I've seen a lot of, you know, groups going to self-pay talking about, you know, headway, different types of organizations like that, even, you know, what's going on with CAQ reach. Mm-hmm.
36:45 — Jennah Kuhn
I don't necessarily know if there's, I mean, I think like being wary of insurance is always something that's good to do, but I also don't think that it's super plausible to always just cut out insurance or to not have that there. And for me, like my opinion is that insurance is a big part of accessibility for our clients too. So I kind of, even before, you know, there was all of these different platforms out there to be able to help with credentialing and things like that. And before CAQH, like, you know, kind of had this change. I've always thought of insurance kind of as like the devil, but like we have to work with them, right? Like, like, like sometimes I will tell people that like, as somebody who literally like gets paid through insurance, I hate insurance that like, that that's kind of always there. So I don't, I guess always like being wary of insurance, but obviously it's something that we have to work with and we have to live with as something in our field.
37:42 — Emily Mori
Yeah, that's true. And I mean, I, I would sometimes like to be private pay for the fact of not having to do the laid work, right? But I also, I don't know, I also like to use my insurance. So it feels some type of way. I don't know, but that's just me. Do you feel, you know, like as you're kind of thinking about maybe different workplaces you've been at, that there's any kind of like workplace rules that you feel like private practices you're trying to break?
38:15 — Jennah Kuhn
I mean, one thing that like comes to mind, and it's not as much as like a big thing anymore as I think it was in the past, but I know that there can sometimes be private practices that have this expectation a little bit of like, you have to look a certain way or you have to like not have tattoos or not have colorful hair, not have piercings and things like that. And obviously you have to be hygienic, right? Like you have to have that, like you take a shower and not smell bad and like probably not have like a bunch of holes in your clothing and things like that. But I think that maybe like letting go of that, some of those things sometimes of that, like you have to like dress really professionally and you have to be like, you know, have the professional hair and all of those things can be good because I actually think that it helps us like build sometimes a better relationship with our clients. Like, you know, thinking about it, like if I'm trying to find a new therapist somewhere, I might look at a therapist that has cool hair and cool tattoos and say like, oh, that's the person that I want to be working with versus like somebody who has the picture that's just like them in an all black outfit, you know, like super poised, all of those things. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but just that's kind of like where my preference goes sometimes.
39:22 — Jennah Kuhn
And so I think that sometimes us being human in that way can also be a really good thing. And I feel like that's something that maybe some practices should let go of.
39:32 — Emily Mori
No, that's true. I mean, the tattoo thing, I think it's funny just because, I mean, I know you and I know how many tattoos you have, but I had a client today comment on a tattoo I have on my shoulder and asked what it was. And like, it's a Gilmore Girls quote, which they also love. So it ended up being like a weird talking point today, you know, but I think, I think that like with everywhere, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, who cares, right? As long as people are hygienic. I also, for me, I think I'd like to see time off change a little bit. I don't, I don't know. I know that's something we always struggled with, but I feel like it's a weird field, especially because a lot of times people in private practice, you know, you get paid because you, you had that session, right? And I wish there were more ways to have safeguards in place so people could have that. But to get to that point, typically practices are pretty large. Right.
40:35 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah. And I, and I agree with that too. And I think that the issue is like the way that prior practice, this is get their income, right? Like it relies on the sessions happening to be able to have that income flow. And so I think that that creates a barrier sometimes, but that also, I would also like to see that change because I think it's something that's really important for us to be able to have in the field as therapists. Yeah.
40:57 — Emily Mori
Yeah. I think, I think that this was a really good conversation, right? About a lot of different, you know, maybe things that we always kind of thought through, you know, as leaders in our practice, which let me be clear is like not the only way to do it. Right. But we're just talking from our experience, going to have many guests on.
41:20 — Emily Mori
You know, we, I think this is such a perfect place to talk about marketing. Right. And I don't think the practice that we ran was marketed fakely. However, I think that sometimes practice owners see the beautiful website, the beautiful pictures on Google. And I think as I've worked with a lot of groups, there's a lot of like jealousy of like, oh my goodness, like I want that. And I think it's a perfect time to touch on like how much furniture did we put together? Right. There is not like a magic furniture fairy that dropped off furniture. I guess that would just be a furniture company. We didn't have that. I don't know. We didn't have that. We, we, you know, got cheaper things, put it together. We, you know, I mean, you probably more specifically, you probably gave me, you know, some unpaid time, not much time just talking things through just because we had more access to each other.
42:30 — Emily Mori
Yeah.
42:31 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah, absolutely. And I will definitely say like, there is like the nitty gritty behind the scenes, right? Like you put together furniture, I put together furniture, our families put together furniture, like that, all of those things. And we did, like, I know that that was something that you kind of talked about, like the boundaries that we had to have, that sometimes it would be like the weekend and we're just chatting with each other because we're friends. And like, we would start talking about work things and have to kind of like manage that. So there is a lot of work that goes into it outside of like the paid hours sometimes. Yeah.
43:04 — Emily Mori
And, and I also think too, like when we're talking about like the nitty gritty, you know, it, it can take a while to see your work pay off. Right. And I think, you know, it's probably something that we could even have you, you know, come back in and talk about it another time. But I think there's a lot of projects that we did, you know, you, you get someone a caseload and then maybe they leave, you know, and I don't want to say get, cause it's them too, but, you know, a lot of practice branding and, you know, efforts, you, you train someone and then, you know, you switch the system. Right. And I think that, that flexibility that you touched on before is really good. Yeah.
43:51 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah. I'm, if the, if the people want to hear more, I would absolutely be willing to come back at a later time. All right.
43:59 — Emily Mori
Now I am going to ask probably everybody that comes on some kind of goofy leadership question. So what would your leadership style theme song be?
44:11 — Emily Mori
You know, everybody knows that.
44:14 — Jennah Kuhn
I am like so bad at this kind of stuff. I don't even like, there's no like songs that even come to my mind to have anything to do with this. Why? I don't know. It just, I'm just like so bad at sometimes putting these things to like an actual, I don't know. Like I was kind of describing my leadership style of like being more supportive. I'm trying to think if there's a Noah Kahn song. Oh my gosh.
44:40 — Emily Mori
I was thinking about it today. Cause I was like, if I ask, I have to have an answer. And with like my daughter, I'm weird about names. Jennah obviously knows my daughter's name, but I'm not going to name her on here. But, um, we've been listening to music and we've been listening to Hannah Montana. So I think the climb, right. That's, that is such a meeting. Right.
45:06 — Jennah Kuhn
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm, I am like totally blanking. This is so bad.
45:11 — Emily Mori
Um, I don't know. We just went to a concert. We saw Jennah and I saw Wiz Khalifa and Machine Gun Kelly together.
45:18 — Jennah Kuhn
Cause definitely their songs describe my leadership style.
45:23 — Emily Mori
Oh, let me think. I'm going to have to look up one of their, I'm going to. I know.
45:27 — Jennah Kuhn
I'm going to look up Spotify and like find, see if I can find a song right now. That kind of.
45:35 — Emily Mori
I, I'm looking up to see if there's.
45:43 — Emily Mori
Lonely road could maybe be a private practice. Practice leader. Sorry. That's terrible. Um, that, that's a conversation for another day. Um, okay. I actually have one.
45:56 — Jennah Kuhn
Um, I'm trying to remember what the artist's name is because it's in Roman numerals and I can't, I never remember what Roman numerals. Okay.
46:05 — Emily Mori
Hold on. What's, who is this? What's his name?
46:11 — Emily Mori
Must be a good song. 92 maybe. Okay.
46:15 — Jennah Kuhn
Yes. Um, Quinn 92 has a song called look how far we've come. And that kind of like, like, like describes, I guess my leadership style.
46:25 — Emily Mori
I was really hoping you're going to pick El Diablo. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. All right. Everybody. Well, this is private practice is a bitch with Emily Mori and special guest Jennah Kuhn. Feel free to follow drop questions. Like, I don't know what else you can do on Spotify, but do something and keep on following. All right. Bye. Bye.