SixSEED Partners

Joy Goldman

SEEDS for Success with New Year Resolutions

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Introduction: Case for Change

Have you given up on New Year’s resolutions because of repeated failures to achieve your goals?  Are you searching for the right way to get sustainable results?  Has the scale betrayed you again in this new year as you struggled to manage your weight amidst a work from home or constant adrenaline rush lifestyle?  You are not alone.  As so many of us do, we look back to our learnings from the past to inform our changes for the future.  We are taking a different spin to a prior post in the context of supporting your wellbeing in this new year.

The Challenges:

As we enter a new year and vow to make changes in our personal and professional lives, we struggle with how best to do that, particularly amidst what we may hear about the failure rate of New Year Resolutions.  In our efforts to find an example that might be universal, 2020 found many of us struggling with weight maintenance given our moving less and staring into a computer screen for 8-10 hours/day.  While there is great literature on successful habit cultivation, they often fail to take a systems’ and mindset perspective necessary in dealing with complex situations.  

2020 has required us to create structures AND be flexible and adaptive; leverage what we know as we advance into what is not known; honor existing familiar traditions as we create new ways of being with each other.  In revisiting our post from May of 2020 on taking ourselves seriously and taking ourselves lightly, we present this spin as it relates to improving personal health goals around weight management.

Leveraging taking ourselves seriously and taking ourselves lightly:  

At SixSEED Partners, we help our clients integrate both/and thinking in addition to traditional problem-solving- either/or approaches.  The elimination of perceptions of “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” helps our clients to take a more systems-oriented approach to complex challenges.  In the polarity map pasted below, you will notice a common tension of a serious/structured weight management approach and a more playful and spontaneous approach to weight management and health. Effective and sustainable weight management requires leveraging both upper poles, and mitigating the risk of overdoing either, to the neglect of the other.  

When we take ourselves too seriously to the neglect of a lighter approach, our inner judgers become active when we find that we’re not meeting our health goals and we’re not enjoying life.  If we overfocus on a more spontaneous approach to weight management (as just one common health attribute), we’re having fun but not meeting our physical health goals.  Using a polarity thinking frame helps us to see ourselves as a system that requires leveraging both poles.

What can you do? (action items and warning signs):

Even as I write this blog, I notice physical signs where my breathing becomes more shallow; there is a sense of tightness and heaviness and I notice my active judger interfering with my free flow of writing.  As I notice my own warning signs of taking myself too seriously, I open my chest more to allow easier breathing; I laugh and put this blog in the context of other problems in our world today; and I take a time out to exercise and move my body which amazingly impacts my movement in thinking.  I also access others more expert than I to help modify and edit, knowing I’m not alone in this work.  See our sample map below for actions you might take for success in weight management and other similar thorny challenges.

Polarity Map of Taking Self Seriously vs Lightly

Let’s hear from you:

What have you found helpful in leveraging taking yourself seriously and taking yourself lightly? In our next blog, we’ll be focusing on our leadership development seed as we discuss a common challenge of holding others accountable AND giving them freedom in doing their job. If you’re interested in learning more about how our team can help yours, contact us today!

Holiday Stories, 2021 Intentions, and Supporting Community

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What a year?!  I’m envisioning many exclamation points for 2020, and also realizing that “What a year?!” can be a reflection of what was, as well as an intention/vision for what is to be.  As a holiday message, our team thought we would offer favorite moments from 2020, share our holiday traditions, present a vision/intention for 2021, and spotlight some nonprofits we’ve supported throughout the year.

Happy Holidays from SixSEED Partners!

JOY

Favorite Story of 2020:  One of my most favored memories from 2020 was pre-Covid when I would see my mom sitting in the lobby of her Continuing Care Community.  As I approached her and she recognized me, she would smile the biggest smile and invite me to “come sit on mommy’s lap!”  She was 88 yrs old and fragile; I was 60 yrs. old and heavier than when I was a child. One day, I decided to ignore any feelings of embarrassment or concern and indulged her invitation, and “silly” became “joy-filled.”

2021 Intention: My definition of one of our seeds, “Well-Being”, comes from what I wrote on my holiday card this year:  “What matters most is someone to love; kindness; laughter; health; a spirit of adventure; inclusion; simple beauty found in nature; gratitude; and enough discontent to take action for a better world.”

Supported Organization: BUILD:  Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development/ Turnaround Tuesday

“Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) is a broad-based, non-partisan, interfaith, multiracial community power organization rooted in Baltimore’s neighborhoods and congregations. BUILD is dedicated to making Baltimore a better place for all Baltimoreans to live and thrive. For more than 40 years, BUILD has worked to improve housing, increase job opportunities, and rebuild schools and neighborhoods, among other issues.”

The secret to BUILD’s success lies in their commitment to identify and develop leaders in every community where they work. They rely on a radical tactic: We meet people face-to-face and build relationships that help to re-knit the frayed social fabric of our life. We don’t seek justice and social change for people, we seek change with people. We tackle big problems by breaking them down into issues that can be addressed. We build power by building community. Donate to BUILD

CLIFF

Favorite Holiday Tradition: My mom makes a famous Christmas Tree cinnamon roll that is absolutely legendary in my family. Not just for its taste but for the consistency and persistence. I’ll speak for myself that no matter where I’ve been over the past 30 years – that amazing Christmas Tree shows up at my door via overnight delivery. The gratitude I feel for the persistence that gets that tradition of love from one home to mine is something that makes the holiday season what it is, for me. And for which, I’m grateful.

Crazy Holiday Story: One holiday season just before Christmas, I took a bus from the east coast to Colorado for a skiing vacation. On the way, the bus broke down in a major snowstorm in sub-zero temperatures. It was quite late at night, and there were no lights visible in any direction. Within 30-minutes, the temperature inside the bus was the same as outside, but minus the wind. Unsuccessfully, the bus driver tried to contact the bus company and forbade anyone from calling 911. When people began to panic and insisted we get help, he began screaming at the passengers. The passengers then lashed out at the driver and from there the situation started to spiral, when… headlights and flashlights began to appear through the frozen windows. Somehow, the word had gotten out in the small local community, and that triggered a small convoy of trucks and cars that began transporting people to the home of a local person who offered their home as a temporary refuge. There was hot chocolate and Christmas cookies spread out for everyone.  There was holiday music and signing of Christmas carols. A few hours later, a local school bus to transport us to a local Church, where beds and cots had been set up in the basement community room. Santa was there to give out presents. The next morning, a replacement bus from the bus company arrived, and we continued the final leg of the trip.

Supporting Organization: Martha’s Table

Martha’s Table has operated from the belief that every Washingtonian deserves the
opportunity to thrive. They support improving the strength of children, families, and
communities by increasing access to quality education, health and wellness, and family
resources. Between 1989-1998 I lived around the corner from Martha’s Table’s humble
beginnings at 14th Street NW location and I volunteered to support their after-school
meals program.

They’d been operating for nearly a decade at that time and since then,
and it’s inspiring to watch their programs expand to support strong children, strong
families, and strong communities — now operating nationally accredited education
programs that begin at birth; fighting for food justice and increasing access to healthy
meals and fresh produce for over 15,000 residents; and promoting family
success through our no-cost community store and engagement programs. Donate to Martha’s Table

ASHLEY-DIOR

Holiday Traditions: The holidays are always important to me because everyone lives all over the country. It’s a time for us to gather and enjoy each other’s time together. We also play Holiday music and decorate the house.

Supporting Organization: Bread for the City

There are a lot of people living with food insecurity, especially with the pandemic. The mission of Bread for the City is to help Washington, DC residents living with low income to develop their power to determine the future of their own communities. We provide food, clothing, medical care, and legal and social services to reduce the burden of poverty. We seek justice through community organizing and public advocacy. We work to uproot racism, a major cause of poverty. We are committed to treating our clients with the dignity and respect that all people deserve. Donate to Bread for the City

PETRA:

Favorite Holiday Memory: Growing up in Germany, the holidays have always felt like a magical time to me with games, laughter, playfulness, gratitude and making time for each other. My fondest memories are of my mom, sister and I being in our PJs all day, watching classic Christmas movies, eating some German treats like Lebkuchen, and being warm, silly & cozy together.  

There are so many valuable organizations who serve those in need, and in thinking about this year, and my fondest memory, I’m highlighting a local non-profit, Family Lifeline, a member of the United Way efforts, who focuses on serving the ecosystem of individuals and families, from kids to parents to seniors, through 3 Programs:  Growing Well, Living Well, and Giving Well. Their new tagline especially resonates with me:  Bringing Health and Hope into the Home.

Supporting Organization: Family Lifeline

Family Lifeline is one of the oldest non-profit organizations in Virginia and an integral member of the greater Richmond community. They have been supporting stronger lives and stronger communities since 1877.

Their tagline: Bringing Health and Hope into the Home.
Their mission & vision: We partner with families and individuals, delivering intensive home and community-based services to achieve an equitable, resilient community where families and individuals are connected, safe and living a healthy, meaningful life. Donate to Family Lifeline

From our team to you, we wish you a happy holiday season with best wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year!

Team Spotlight: Meet Joy

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Joy Goldman, began her career in healthcare at the Massachusetts General Nursing School over 35 years ago. Out of Nursing School, she began a career as a psychiatric nurse and from there pursued Masters’ degrees in Community Health Education, Strategic Human Resources, Organizational Development, and a certificate in Leadership Coaching. Since 2008, she has been practicing as a Leadership Coach and OD facilitator. 

As a natural big picture thinker, Joy gravitates towards systemic interventions that can multiply impact on a variety of levels such as individuals, teams and systems. Joy finds the most rewarding part of her job partnering with individuals that provides the space to do profound work impacting their thinking and behavior in ways that align with their highest values and purpose. Also rewarding to her is working with her partners and combining their unique talents to create something powerful that exceeds what they could accomplish individually. 

When asked how she imagines the future of healthcare, she hopes to see an integrated system that promotes health for all. In Joy’s words, “I envision individuals taking responsibility for their own health by making better choices and having access to healthy food. I see payors, providers, investors, technology experts, and administrators creating collaborative systems where health is a foundational element of all workplaces. Healthcare is more than fixing what’s broken. Creating health is multidimensional and includes economic, social, and environmental influences.”

Beyond being the CEO of SixSEED, Joy loves to travel, dance, take photos and spend time with her husband.

Maximizing Team Development: Leveraging Theory & Application

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The Forming & Norming Team:

SixSEED Partners was invited to facilitate an executive council retreat for the Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI) of a community-based medical center. The HVI recently re-structured their roles and leadership within the institute to better meet their mission. The Chief Physician Executive of the Institute, in partnership with the Business Strategist, wanted to provide a day of learning and development where the members could build trust, align around shared objectives and engage in establishing accountability. Amidst Covid-19, the leaders felt these objectives were so important to warrant an in-person gathering.  It was clearly as important to the executive team members, who showed up engaged and fully present during the full day team development process. As several of the members are also clinical physicians, it highlighted to us that proper planning can facilitate the space for them to join in this work, which is also important to them. 

Can we learn multiple tools and apply them in 1 day?  YES!

Do you believe it is possible to deliver four different tools in three hours and have participants feel they learned them and could immediately apply them for their benefit? Thanks to Petra Platzer, our COO, we know we can! In less than three hours, the administrative and physician leaders were introduced to Thinking Environments, DiSC®, the Team-Work Cycle®  and the Three Vital Questions®. Petra also facilitated experiential activities that had  participants immediately applying what their learnings to their own work and team dynamics. Joy Goldman further facilitated application of these tools through the team beginning to draft their team charter. Elements of focus were their interaction rules around meeting practices, communication, decision-making, communication, feedback and evaluation.

But was it effective? Yes

We modeled creating an environment for feedback & evaluation by dialoguing on feedback for us within the session. Each participant said the day was effective for them, some surprisingly so, in fact, as they often are skeptical about “these things”. Each also named how one or more tools were new and powerful for them, and immediately applicable in some way. Some spoke about their insights into their own behaviors and styles as compared with others on the team. Others especially enjoyed the powerful visuals by physically going through the team work cycle. They quickly identified gaps, and possible solutions, to some of their self-identified needs for moving more efficiently from ideas to execution. The visual exercise provided the gift of addressing these topics without  blame or personalization, which fostered trust and new understandings together. The best gauge for how effective they rated this was their assertion:  “we need more of this from you.”

How is your team developing together?

Whether your team has been working together for a while, is newly forming due to a re-structure, or is somewhere in between – how are they working together? Is there a benefit to focusing on their ways of interacting and learning additional ways for navigating what seems to be never-ending change together? Making the effort on this work is what makes teams perform higher and more productively, with much less wasted energy and re-work along the way.  Like this HVI executive team experienced, it is often a pleasant surprise and energizing to spend time developing together.  And, without doing this kind of work, teams can often experience side conversations, wasted energy and good, but not great performance. 

What are your experiences in teams for creating clear agreements on how you’re interacting so there’s greater productivity with less wear and tear on the system?  We’d love to hear from you about your experiences and challenges.  

To learn more about applying these frameworks with your teams, contact us at: www.sixseedpartners.com or by tagging us on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Team Spotlight: Meet Petra

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Meet our COO, Petra Platzer, who started her healthcare career as a cancer researcher over 20 years ago. During her research years, she studied how the internal signaling in our cells create healthy – and unhealthy – results in organ systems, like the colon. In her later leadership roles at the Cleveland Clinic, she translated this “signaling” approach into facilitating highly engaged employees and high performing teams in her institute, and then others.

This work ignited her underlying passion to help healthcare leaders and systems create their own “healthy” signaling. In 2010 she left research to work as an executive coach and a team facilitator in the healthcare and academic settings. Petra’s holistic approach to improving our health also led her to becoming the Program Director of Georgetown’s Health and Wellness coaching certification program, as a complementary means to empower people wanting to directly create health behavior changes.

Petra’s commitment to partnering with individuals and teams to unlock new thinking and create courageous steps forward are fundamental elements in each SixSEED “seed”, or service offering, including individual and team leadership, culture change initiatives and well-being. Her own knowledge and experience of the inter-relatedness of these seeds is what propelled her to be a founding partner of SSP, where she feels energized by working with the team of like-minded colleagues focused on the same mission. Together, she hopes SixSEED can continue improving the signaling within healthcare systems to support the continuous well-being of all the people delivering, and receiving, quality and value-based care. 

Outside of her work, Petra loves playing soccer, running races, traveling, taking photos in nature and spending quality time with her husband, family and friends.

Team Spotlight: Meet Ashley-Dior Thomas

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Meet our Sr. Executive Assistant, Ashley-Dior Thomas! Ashley-Dior is located in Washington, D.C. and before joining our team she worked as an Executive Assistant/Scheduler on Capitol Hill turned full-time entrepreneur. Her passion for helping small businesses become more productive and process-oriented helps our team implement structure as a growing business. 

Ashley-Dior enjoys working at SixSEED Partners (SSP) because of the culture and empathetic nature that the Founders have when it comes to understanding the challenges at hand in healthcare. When envisioning the future of healthcare, she hopes to see a more holistic method used to enact change to the actual structure of the healthcare system. 

When not working, you can find Ashley-Dior running her own R&B club, catching up on articles that pertain to the industry, and most recently, Ashley-Dior got her Certificate in Women’s Entrepreneurship from Cornell University!

To connect with Ashley-Dior on LinkedIn, please click here.