SixSEED Partners

Archives for December 2021

SixSEED Holiday Giving – Ashley-Dior Thomas

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This holiday season, we celebrate “SixSEED Holiday Giving”, where each team member donates to an organization that is meaningful.

Ashley-Dior Thomas:  Sr. Executive Assistant, SixSEED Partners

ASHLEY-DIOR THOMAS CONTRIBUTES TO SOME (SO OTHERS MIGHT EAT) Ashley-Dior explains why this is organization is important to her: “Food insecurity and homelessness is a huge issue in this country. With the rise in homelessness, the pandemic exposed how many people are undernourished and don’t have access to quality food and shelter. SOME has been a leader in the DC area to feed people and provide holistic counseling to help people get back on their feet. The holidays remind us to think more about others and help whenever we can and I’m thankful that organizations like SOME exist to combat these issues.

ABOUT SOME (So Others Might Eat)

The cycle of poverty and homelessness can be broken. SOME’s (So Others Might Eat) comprehensive programs are designed to help our most vulnerable neighbors—people experiencing homelessness and extreme poverty—find pathways out of poverty and achieve long-term stability and success. SOME is an interfaith, community-based service organization that exists to help and support residents of our nation’s capital experiencing homelessness and poverty. SOME offers a variety of services, including affordable housing, counseling, substance use disorder treatment, and job training. In addition, SOME helps meet immediate daily needs by providing food, clothing, and healthcare to those in need. Learn more about this organization at https://some.org/.

Case Study: Developing Clinical Leaders to Improve Staff Engagement

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Joy W. Goldman RN, MS, PCC:  CEO and Founding Partner, SixSEED Partners

Background

SixSEED Partners concluded a year-long Leadership Development Series with the Executive Committee of a Heart and Vascular Institute by facilitating the morning of their full-day Strategic Planning Retreat. During this series, SixSEED introduced the blended physician and administrator team to vital tools like TheEmpowermentDynamic*, 3VitalQuestions, DiSC styles. and Polarity Thinking. We measured three polarities, or tensions, of most interest to the Executive Committee. One polarity: Centralization and De-centralization, or the competing commitments between their Cardiovascular Services and the rest of the system, was the greatest area for improvement, as well as learning for them. For their 2022 Strategic Planning, the Executive Committee shifted their focus inward to their teams and wanted SixSEED to partner with them on how to approach improving engagement within their Institute.

The Strategy:

SSP’s Petra Platzer and Joy Goldman designed an interactive session to both teach and engage the participants on what engagement means and the difference from satisfaction, for the individual and the leaders trying to make it happen (see graphic, adapted from DecisionWise). Participants also learned about various decision-making styles and practiced making Effective Requests to create shared commitments, which are key elements and techniques in fostering engagement.  Activities were specifically designed to emphasize what they owned and were accountable for as leaders (one pole), as well as what “the staff” own and are accountable for (other pole). Throughout, we compassionately and constructively identified the habit of going to blame / problem-oriented thinking habits and helped to shift the participants into a broader, outcome-oriented thinking process.

The Solution: 

The eighteen physicians and administrators “experienced” engagement through pair activities to practice active listening and reflection and larger group conversations to come to a shared meaning about various topics. SSP’s Petra and Joy infused sections of content throughout the activities and challenged the committee to think differently about their afternoon agenda on the staff engagement initiative. The participants identified that “one size does not fit all” and the elements that result in someone feeling and being engaged, i.e. DecisionWise’s MAGIC (Meaning, Autonomy, Growth, Impact and Connection), cannot be assumed without engaging people appropriately in the process. Through learning about and practicing elements of commitment management, the participants also experienced which saboteurs they may need to address in order to make effective requests that people could commit to, and be engaged about.

The Impact:

The participants looked at their employee satisfaction results with a new mindset and were able to shift to interventions that were less about problem-solving for the staff and more about engaging them around their “MAGIC” elements. Their language shifted from “I need to know and fix” to “We need to ask questions and engage them in dialogue so that, together, we can have the best work environment for the staff, leaders, and patients.” An administrator in the group said “Everyone really participated in this today. That’s success in my book”, while the Chair of the committee shared “as a result of the work we did in the morning (with you), we were able to stay focused on our desired outcomes and more quickly identify our 2022 Institute strategies (including the staff engagement initiative).”

SixSEED Holiday Giving – The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare

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This holiday season, we celebrate “SixSEED Holiday Giving”, where each team member donates to an organization that is meaningful.

Joy W. Goldman RN, MS, PCC:  CEO and Founding Partner, SixSEED Partners

JOY GOLDMAN CONTRIBUTES TO THE SCHWARTZ CENTER FOR COMPASSIONATE HEALTHCARE. For Joy, when she heard about this non-profit during the Ending Physician Burnout Global Summit, she knew she wanted to support their work. SixSEED Partners’ mission is “to provide integrated solutions to heal healthcare.” Joy’s personal mission is to model and grow compassion in the world. The mission of The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare is “To put compassion at the heart of healthcare through programs, education, and advocacy.” What better alignment could there be?

Joy states, “In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, crowded with competing priorities, the human connection is too easily overlooked leaving caregivers burned out and patients and families fearful and suffering. Through innovative programs, education, and advocacy, the Schwartz Center is working to support caregivers, healthcare leaders, and others and bring compassion to every healthcare experience.”

She is also impressed with their Healing Healthcare Initiative Framework that takes an ecosystem approach to healing healthcare. At this time of unprecedented burnout and resignations within healthcare, it is essential to support organizations like The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare to create healing cultures where excellent care and well-being exists for ALL.

ABOUT THE SCHWARTZ CENTER FOR COMPASSIONATE HEALTHCARE

The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare provides research-based strategies, tools, and the support that caregivers need to create and sustain cultures of compassion. Together with their members, partners, and other supporters, they are bringing their vision to light by helping caregivers, healthcare leaders, and others across all sectors of healthcare experience and share compassion through their work and in their organizations and communities. They are making compassion a priority for every healthcare organization across the country and around the world. Learn more about this organization at https://www.theschwartzcenter.org/.

Breakthrough Leadership Moments

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Healthcare Executive Interviewed Five CEOs

Joy W. Goldman RN, MS, PCC:  CEO and Founding Partner, SixSEED Partners

The November/December 2021 cover story for the issue of Healthcare Executive interviews five CEOs from across the country as they describe their breakthrough moments in leading during this unprecedented time. There were two messages that resonated deeply with our work at SixSEED Partners. Tina Freese Decker: President and CEO of Spectrum Health System in Grand Rapids, Michigan highlights three interdependent tensions: polarities necessary for impactful leadership. She calls them paradoxical skills to be balanced: we would call them polarities to be leveraged, as we minimize the downsides of over-focusing on either of them to the neglect of the other: “Leaders must think big and small.”

At SixSEED, we coach our leaders and systems to leverage operational and strategic priorities– details and big picture. “Leaders must be decisive yet collaborative.” Yes….we must know when to be swift in our decision making, at the risk of not being inclusive, and when we have time and will make better decisions when we invite in numerous perspectives. “Leaders must be comfortable with sitting at the head of the table AND taking a seat at the table.” At SixSEED, we would call this leveraging executive as leader AND leveraging others as leaders. Lastly, Decker highlights that “leaders must over-communicate AND over-listen.” Advocacy- sharing what we know, while also being curious – Inquiry are two essential polarities to leverage.

Read more from the source at https://bit.ly/3ykT2eQ.

SixSEED Holiday Giving – Mended Hearts

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This holiday season, we celebrate “SixSEED Holiday Giving”, where each team member donates to an organization that is meaningful.

Petra Platzer, PhD, NBC-HWC, PCC

PETRA PLATZER CONTRIBUTES TO MENDED HEARTS. For Petra, this year has found several pointers toward the Heart – from the work she and Joy have enjoyed doing with the Executive Committee of the Heart & Vascular Institute at Centra Health; to the latest Brene Brown book (Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience); and getting to work closely with her new colleague Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a nationally recognized pioneer in women’s heart health. The most poignant of all for Petra is her mom’s recent diagnosis of Atrial Fibrillation, and the journey she’s been on surrounding the ER trips and various doctor’s appointments surrounding that diagnosis. The support she has received from Mended Hearts outside of those medical care processes has been pivotal for how Petra’s mom is now able to navigate her own health and wellness amidst this new illness. That is why this year, Petra is supporting Mended Hearts, just as they have been supporting her mom. 

ABOUT MENDED HEARTS

The Mended Hearts program is the nation’s premier peer-support program for patients who have cardiovascular disease, their caregivers, and their families. Since its humble beginning in 1951, Mended Hearts has served millions by providing support and education, bringing awareness to issues that those living with heart disease face, and advocating to improve quality of life across the lifespan. Learn more about this organization at https://mendedhearts.org/.

Case Study: WellSpan Health

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Joy W. Goldman RN, MS, PCC:  CEO and Founding Partner, SixSEED Partners

Background

WellSpan Health is an eight hospital, 1500 provider integrated system based in York, PA. In 2016 they invited Wiederhold & Associates to design and implement a multi-year succession planning process for seven high potential leaders: four physicians and three non-physicians. Joy Goldman, executive director of coaching services, assembled a coaching and consulting team of experts on horizontal and vertical leadership development strategies, including executive coaching, polarity thinking, creating thinking environments, and strategic simulations. WellSpan’s commitment to internal development and awareness of anticipated turnover and retirements in their senior leadership resulted in this opportunity: to increase the capacity of their high potential leaders to manage complexity. In affiliation with Wiederhold & Associates, SixSEED Partners commenced this work between 2016 and 2020.

The Strategy:

To elevate the thinking competency of the seven Wellspan (WSPH) leaders, individual coaching goals gradually shifted from preparing for a specific role to preparing each leader to better manage a VUCA (volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous) world. Additional cohort-based work was needed to integrate individual learnings and provide strategic simulation case studies cross-functionally.

The Solution: 

Joy Goldman, SixSEED Partners (SSP) CEO, recruited and led a team of two SSP co-founders and three additional executive coaches and consultants, to design coordinate and integrate individual, team, and systemic interventions. These included polarity mapping as development plans and a polarity assessment for more than 130 of their senior leaders and direct reports that measured four polarities WSPH identified as key to their success:

Centralization AND Decentralization
Continuity AND Transformation
Mission AND Margin
Tactical AND Strategic

In order to scale leadership capacity further into the system, polarity thinking was cascaded to all of the high potential leaders’ direct reports. As a result of this work, WSPH asked us to also present a half- day session on polarity thinking to WSPH’s Nursing and Physician Leadership Academies. Executive and team coaching, Leadership Circle Profile 360’s, and strategic simulations were also components of this multi- faceted engagement.

The Impact:

Through delivering polarity thinking to over 100 nursing and physician leaders and over 130 additional staff, WSPH leadership shared this thinking competency was instrumental in supporting the systems’ response to COVID-19.

The polarity framework was also integral to a strategic simulation wherein the high potential leaders assessed actual strategic challenges for WSPH and presented their solutions to a mock board of WSPH’s C-Suite.

Under a new CEO, polarity assessments are being used to measure effectiveness within regionalization efforts in the system. Four of the seven leaders have been promoted to Senior Vice President roles.