Six Seed Partners

Joy Goldman

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.

Grounded and Conscious Leadership

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We declared this in our recent blog addressing systemic racism, which also quoted Angel Kyodo Williams, Sensei: “Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” 

Now is the time for inner change so that we can transform our many economic, social, spiritual and health divides into just, equitable, and healthy systems for all.

To do this – as human beings and as leaders – we must be grounded and conscious to effectively take on this formidable challenge, in addition to all the usual challenges on a daily basis.

Knowing that grounded and conscious leadership is a vital competency for our healthcare leaders and teams, SixSEED Partners (SSP) is strategically partnering with Healthy Companies (HC) because of their vast research, tested applications and impactful results from their Grounded and Conscious Leader framework.

Founded by Dr. Bob Rosen in 1988, Healthy Companies has spent over 30 years culminating personalized, evidence-based solutions that succeed in transforming executives into leaders, staff into teams, and companies into healthy and sustainable ecosystems. Their work has been applied nationally and internationally across the high tech, automotive, banking and healthcare industries, amongst others. Their 2015 research exploring the 6 dimensions of a Grounded and Conscious Leader are proven to predict high performance and improved business outcomes. 

Due to the tremendous synergy between SSP’s and HC’s missions for creating healthy outcomes for leaders and systems, SSP’s Joy Goldman (CEO) and Petra Platzer (COO) became certified facilitators of Healthy Companies’ Grounded and Conscious Leader framework. This methodology for “Developing Grounded and Conscious Leaders” integrates action learning, behavioral science, social accountability, full-brain learning and an online portal for just-in-time tools, all of which support sustainable behavior change.

As SixSEED Partners’ commitment to provide integrated solutions to heal healthcare, we are excited to co-facilitate a virtual workshop with Healthy Companies where participants will explore these 6 dimensions and apply them to their own situations.

See here to learn more about this free virtual offering:

“Grounded Leadership: The Vital Foundation to Lead Through Uncertainty”

August 5, 2020 | 12:00 – 1:30pm EST

Register today! 

 

CEO Declaration

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Compassionate AND Courageous Leadership for our Nation’s Healing

“Through this work, I’ve learned that each of us is more than the worst thing that we’ve ever done; that the opposite of poverty isn’t wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice;  that the character of our nation isn’t reflected on how we treat the rich and the privileged, but how we treat the poor, the disfavored, and condemned.”  

–Bryan Stevenson, Director, Equal Justice Initiative

I write to you today as the CEO of SixSEED Partners; as a nurse who has dedicated her life to providing health and healing to all, and as a growing- in- consciousness white, privileged woman who is deeply saddened by the pervasive demonstrations of systemic racism and violence in our nation.  George Floyd; Ahmaud Arbery; Breonna Taylor; Freddie Gray – too many names to do justice to their lives by listing them here.  While I mean this statement deeply – I also believe strongly that these words of support are not sufficient to create real systemic change. Now is our time to ACT.

The question we are facing at SixSEED Partners is one we ask our clients to consider, too. How do we Act effectively, without “reacting”?  As we shift from our anger and sadness to activism and change, we challenge ourselves to focus on the impact we want to create:  our desired outcome, which is to contribute to a just and equitable culture where health is a right for all.

At SixSEED we partner to create “ecosystems” – environments in which individuals, teams, and organizations can all thrive.  Our approaches and tools-of-our-trade surface and honor differences and differing perspectives while moving forward together with increased speed and more sustainability. Healthy and thriving ecosystems require diversity and integrated solutions. 

A frequently asked question is, “Where to start?”   

We believe leadership comes from a variety of places and is always an inside-out job. Here are 5 essential steps we see as necessary for healing and lasting change, at all levels of a system:

  1. Embrace Courage in Being Vulnerable – Critically Self -Assess:  How are we part of the solution or part of the problem?  How do we know?  Whose perspective is missing in our lives and how do we bring that perspective(s) in?  Whether in reading; watching TED talks or YouTube Videos; engaging in conversations with our neighbors or families, we must take individual responsibility to improve our literacy in racism, implicit bias, white supremacy, and anti-racism.  
  2. Hold Self and Others Accountable, While Resisting Blame: It takes courage to resist blaming others and to recognize that Who and What we criticize lives within us.  What difference could it make if we could focus on accountability for behavior, and love the human being before us – and within us? How might making that shift impact us personally, as a leader,  in our organizations?
  3. Hold a Place for Compassion and Forgiveness:  This is easier said than done, particularly when trying with those we consider our “enemies”. Merriam Webster defines compassion as: “the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”  Notice there is no judgment here. It is more a recognition of our common humanity.  That is the outcome we are hoping to create in our world! Regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual preference, income, military status, and so many other differentiators – we are one common humanity.
  4. Be a Diversity Leader-by-Example – Imperfectly:   We don’t need to wait for a formal Diversity Officer to start making changes in our organizations. At every level – personally and in our teams – be intentional to bring as many different perspectives in the room as possible.  Make it a habit to ask questions like: 
    1. “Whose perspectives are missing here?”
    2. “What voice/s are being marginalized, and why?
    3. “How do we ensure all voices are heard?”  
    4. “What is the quality of our listening? Are we listening to confirm what we know or to hear what we haven’t yet considered?”
    5. “What shifts do we need to the practices we’ve accepted?” For example, instead of hiring for “fit,” what if we hired for “non-fit?”
  5. Allocate your time, money, and talent in service to living a vision of a just and equitable culture.  Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Sensei said it best: “Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters.” 

Like all systemic changes, they take intentional learning, development and actions, over time.

To stay connected with what SixSEED Partners is doing to support anti-racism, see  the below key resources and actions we are taking … to be anti-racist and create integrated solutions to heal our nation’s healthcare systems.

In health and healing,

Joy W. Goldman RN, MS, PCC

CEO and Founding Partner

SixSEED Partners 

Self-Learning / Action Resources:

  • How to Be Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Dr. Robin DiAngelo
  • “Deconstructing White Privilege” with Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Organizational Learning / Action Resources:

  • EQUALITY: Courageous Conversations about Women, Men and Race to Spark a Diversity and Inclusion Breakthrough, by Trudy Bourgeois
  • Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race, by Derald Wing Sue
  • “US Businesses Must Take Meaningful Action Against Racism” LM Roberts & E Washington, HBR, June 1 2020 

https://hbr.org/2020/06/u-s-businesses-must-take-meaningful-action-against-racism

Organizations to Follow / Support:

Transforming our Seeds to help you Succeed

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The SixSEED Partners Team: Petra Platzer, Cliff Kayser, and Joy Goldman

Since our inception, we have had one unifying passion: to make healthcare healthier. 

Two years ago, SixSEED Partners sprouted from a team of colleagues I brought together to work with multiple high potential leaders on a multi-year succession-planning process in a community-based healthcare system. Together, we were able to integrate our specialties of coaching and consulting with a developmental lens, e.g horizontal and vertical development, with the application of polarity thinking to create much more than classical succession planning. We developed a leadership ecosystem capacitation (LEC) model that simultaneously increased individual AND systemic capacities and overall resilience within that organization. As the impact of this multi-pronged model became clear to us – as well as our client – the vision for SixSEED Partners was born.

As we have continued working with that system, and various other healthcare leaders and systems, we have also continued applying the same leadership and system tools to ourselves – individually and our collective leadership team. Through that iterative reflection, our leadership team has evolved into a new structure this year. And through our continuous feedback processes, we learned that our branding was creating some confusion around our unique service offerings. 

With those shifts – and with the unprecedented health crisis that we have all been navigating in the past few months – we took this time to again, practice what we preach. We slowed down. We reflected on what matters to us and how can we be in best service to those we are passionate about serving.

From all those efforts, I am pleased to share with you our new website re-design and re-branded messaging, as a beginning. 

Our mission is simple: we provide integrated solutions to heal healthcareTM

Our service offerings are now denoted as 6 unique “seeds”, which can be approached as individual bodies of work, and ideally, as integrated engagements across multiple seeds to create a lasting result. 

  • Leadership Development
    • Team Development
    • System Integration
    • Well-Being
    • Culture
    • Leadership Ecosystem Capacitation Model

Through this multi-pronged approach at multiple levels, we are able to custom design integrated solutions that leverage the best delivery routes for meeting our clients where they are in their current cycle of work. 

We are not a “coaching” firm, nor a “consulting” firm, nor “a training” firm. We are an integrated solutions firm that can deliver all those delivery routes in order for our clients to create an expanded skillset, not just additional knowledge. 

What is still the same is our focus on improving the capacity of healthcare leaders and teams to lead in times of complexity and uncertainty. If there’s one thing the current pandemic has highlighted even more for so many, it’s the need for resilient people and processes to be able to address unpredictable changes for everyone’s well-being and success. 

What’s important to us and our clients is our integrated approach that includes:

  • Focusing on an overall goal of increasing leadership capacitation within systems 
  • Integrating solutions that address individuals, teams, and entire systems knowing that we need to integrate all aspects to achieve sustainable change
  • Delivering results that impact strategic, operational and cultural outcomes
  • Using a defined, iterative process rooted in evidence-based change strategies

We invite you to browse around our refreshed site to learn more about our approach, our results, and our team.  During this auspicious month officially celebrating National Nurses Day, National Hospital Week & Healthcare Heroes, we are here and ready to partner with you to help you succeed!

Leveraging Specialized Knowledge and Shared Knowledge

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This is the sixth in a series on leveraging tensions during this time of the coronavirus.  For SixSEED Partners, Covid-19 is a powerful reminder of what already exists in our world which is complex and unpredictable circumstances that can cause much pain and expense unless we learn to take a more systemic view and get comfortable leveraging interdependent tensions.  Previously, we covered the paradoxes of:

  • Leveraging Facts AND Faith
  • Leveraging Staying Present AND Anticipating the Future
  • Leveraging Care for Self AND Care for Others
  • Leveraging Assuming Responsibility AND Delegating Responsibility
  • Leveraging Taking Ourselves Seriously AND Taking Ourselves Lightly

The tensions we are highlighting are coming from your real-world challenges.  We’re asking questions and staying present to your pain points, that, in already demanding circumstances, is taking additional energy that you don’t have to spare.  We want to help make this easier for you, while also increasing your capacity to lead others through this pandemic.

As I was listening and participating in a recent SixSEED Partners team meeting, I was hearing stories of inflicted trauma to businesses as a result of one or more of their partners contracting the coronavirus or some other illness and becoming either temporarily or permanently disabled.  The trauma inflicted, in addition to the loss of a loved one, was the impact on the business due to a lack of shared knowledge – knowledge transfer. 

Organizations who understand this tension have been rotating a greater pool of leaders through their Covid-19 Incident Command Centers so that the “show can go on” if one of the senior leaders becomes sick.  As hospitals have struggled with adequate personal protective equipment, and as we’ve learned more about the varying symptom manifestations of the virus, this reality of suddenly having someone out of commission is front and center.

On a personal level, as I’ve heard of couples contracting the virus resulting in one or both of their deaths, I’ve been moved to have discussions with my husband around “information sharing” that we’ve not previously placed as a priority.  Where are passwords; “important documents;” “house maintenance activities,” etc.?  For a system to be agile and resilient, these processes need to be in place so that immediate adaptation can occur.

Below is a polarity map, which outlines this tension of Leveraging Specialized Knowledge and Shared Knowledge.

At SixSEED Partners, we are committed to developing leaders who have the capacity to leverage these interdependent tensions that are here to stay.  We’ve taken the liberty of adding some action steps and warning signs to this map that you can use immediately with your teams.  

If you’d like your own editable polarity map to give yourself the systemic view of the tension you are navigating, or if you have questions about how you might use this information now, complete our contact form and we’ll respond within 1 business day.