SixSEED Partners

Case Study

Applying Polarity Principles for a Healthcare IT Start-Up

by Leave a Comment

Using the Polarity approach to Supplement S.W.O.T. 

Background

The complexity, fragmentation, and highly regulated aspects of the U.S. healthcare system results in making the industry resistant to change. Despite the resistance, healthcare has undergone significant changes in reimbursement models, consumerism, and information technologies (IT). A small, IT healthcare start-up challenged itself to embrace the reality within the tension between Stability (current status) and Change (future status) versus resisting that change. On the journey to becoming profitable and self-sustaining, newly formed “startups” face any number of limited resource challenges and often fail within the first year of operation. To support this IT start-up in this intentional process, “NewCo” partnered with SixSEED Partners (SSP) in using the Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation (PACTô). 

The first step for NewCo was to establish the NewCo Culture Team (NCT), which was a highly diverse microcosm that had executive sponsorship. The NCT met regularly to guide culture development and determined they would assess the current state of NewCo by conducting an employee “SWOT” survey to analyze Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 


Supplementing SWOT With Polarity Thinking

Guided by SixSEED, the NCT learned how the Polarity Mapô could supplement and enhance their original SWOT result analyses. While a standard SWOT implicitly focuses on important dimensions of stability and change, what it misses analyzing are the interdependent connections between those SWOT dimensions. For example, the SWOT Strengths associate with the positive aspects of Stability (current state), or those that are worth retaining and holding onto. Similarly, the SWOT Opportunities associate with positive aspects of Change (future status), or those positive elements that are worth attaining and going after. However, if NewCo overfocused on their Strengths (for stability) without giving attention to Opportunities (for change), that could become a significant factor contributing to the Weaknesses identified by NewCo that were creating some angst and pain. Correspondingly, if NewCo overfocused on its Opportunities (for change) and ignored its Strengths (for stability), that could be a contributing factor to the Threats they identified. In this dynamic way, these 4 dimensions are interdependent with each other within the polarity tension of stability and change.

Seeing Polarity Tensions Play Out

As the NCT and NewCo began to more broadly understand how this and other interdependencies work predictably, they began to see additional polarity tensions that were a part of discussion or debate in the day-to-day workflow. 

One example of this occurred when a group was meeting to discuss a customer’s “overly excessive” technical support needs. Concerns mostly focused on what the customer was “doing wrong” until a staff member suggested that this might be a polarity: Customer Needs And NewCo Needs. The dynamic of the conversation quickly shifted as members mapped the dynamic. Capturing the wisdom in the Polarity Mapô allowed the group to see a more complete picture of the ongoing tension and enabled them to develop a more productive solution strategy for NewCo and the Customer.

Another example related to NewCo’s merger with a similar size and stage company. The newly combined leadership team was working through a series of critical issues focused on expectations for how work would be done. Pre-merger, one company had embraced a combination of a central office and some flexibility to work remotely while the other company had operated as a purely remote, virtual workforce. Flexibility and the option to work remotely were highly prized by some, while others felt coming to an office was critical to team building and efficiency. Initial discussions about how to proceed were framed as an Either/Or and quickly became tense and emotionally laden. A member of the executive team who had been exposed to the basics of polarity mapping via his work in the NCT led the team through a polarity mapping exercise to identify the benefits of Office-based and Remote work, as well as the limitations of each, without the other. Both could exist in tension and when maximized, contribute to NewCo’s Greater Purpose Statement: an “Efficient and Effective Work Environment”. Seeing the tension from an And (not just Or) perspective and working through it by seeing and mapping the polarity dynamic led to the NCT being asked to work on a set of activities designed to improve situational awareness, communication, and engagement across a distributed, semi-virtual workforce.

Conclusion

Polarity principles were successfully applied in a small, highly dynamic healthcare IT start-up environment that intentionally focused on building culture. Leveraging polarities played a key role in NewCo’s successful growth, from a few co-founders with an idea to a company with 45 employees, while weathering many storms – including successfully merging with another company.


What Now?
To learn more details about our work with NewCo, or other examples of how our clients have successfully applied Polarity Thinking to their healthcare “problems” –
                                       contact SixSEED Partners at: info@sixseedpartners.com
We are proud contributors of multiple application chapters in the book: “And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma. Vol. 2. Applications” (2021).  

Applying Polarity Thinking to Increase Healthcare Leadership Capacity AND: Volume TWO Applications

by Leave a Comment

Joy Goldman RN, MS, PCC; Petra Platzer PhD, NBC-HWC, PCC; Cliff Kayser MSHR, MSOD, PCC

Background:  

“Applying Polarity Thinking to Increase Healthcare Leadership Capacity” (HRD Press,2021) highlights three uses of the polarity thinking framework to increase individual, team, and systemic leadership capacity in a community-based, multi-hospital health system.  We illustrate how we helped the system shift from conducting a traditional “succession planning” process to one of improving overall “system-thinking capacity” so that the leaders would be more agile in responding to complex and unpredictable change.

The context of this work took place in an eight hospital, 1500 provider integrated health system.  The initial request and planning, which was spearheaded by the outgoing CEO and the system board, was to prepare seven emerging leaders to become possible successors to the CEO who was planning on retiring within the next five years.

CLIENT RESULTS

Strategy:  Aligning with SixSEED Partners’ goal of providing integrated solutions to heal healthcare, we worked with our C-level stakeholders to expand the vision of preparing the leaders for the CEO position to preparing the leaders to better lead within complex, ambiguous and unpredictable change.  With this understanding, development work consisted of individual, team, and systemic level interventions, all integrating polarity thinking to increase overall capacity.

Solution: SixSEED Partners integrated polarity thinking and mapping as part of individual leader 360 -degree feedback development planning; we cascaded the framework to each leader’s team to scale the work and impact; and finally, to the entire system via identifying and measuring system-level tensions.  Four polarities that were measured during our work included common tensions experienced within healthcare: Centralization and Decentralization; Continuity and Transformation; Mission and Margin, and Tactical and Strategic.  Given the impact of this work, SixSEED Partners was asked to deliver polarity thinking training as part of a curriculum for a combined nursing and physician leadership academy.

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. 

What Now?
To learn more details about our work with this organization or other examples of how our clients have successfully applied Polarity Thinking to their healthcare “problems” –
                                       contact SixSEED Partners at: info@sixseedpartners.com


We are proud contributors of multiple application chapters in the book: “And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma. Vol. 2. Applications” (2021).  

Celebrating Publication of “Polarity Practitioners AND: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma: Volume Two Applications”

by Leave a Comment

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

Background:  

We want to congratulate our strategic partners: Polarity Partnerships for publishing Barry Johnson’s sequel to his first book: “And, Volume One: Foundations.”  SixSEED Partners is proud to have several chapters published in his second volume as quoted above and found here.  Our collective nod to the other published practitioners included in Volume Two:  you help bring this essential way of thinking to others to help make the world a healthier and more peaceful place to live and we thank you.

Both/And different from Problem-Solving

It is our vision that polarity thinking:  both/and thinking will spread throughout healthcare as has Lean Thinking for process improvement.  One of the major and important distinctions in this structured and evidence-based methodology is that as we increase the capacity of our teams to think in this way, immediate behavior change follows as they begin to see interactions and systems differently.  We may find that we have less of a need for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, because our teams are integrating diversity, equity and inclusion in ALL that they do.  We don’t need as many procedures as form follows function:  behavior follows how we think.

Applications to our current work

SixSEED Partners has integrated both/and thinking in our individual coaching as part of the 360 feedback and development process; in our culture work with Information Technology and Healthcare organizations and medical groups; and in developing and strengthening nurse and physician leader partnerships.  Outcomes have included:

  • Less blaming and improved team cohesion and accountability
  • Time freed up for executive level leaders as their teams are better able to manage complexity and numerous stakeholder interests
  • Reduced expense and greater well-being as less time is spent on reactive cycles and frustration

You can see some of our case studies by going here.

Let’s hear from you

We’d love to hear how you are helping your leaders see the both/and to better manage complexity in a life-giving and sustainable way.  If this work seems like it could help you and your teams, we’d love to talk with you to explore how this approach might help your clinical leaders. Please post your responses on our LinkedIn page or send us an email here.  

Caring for the Organization & Caring for the Workforce

by Leave a Comment

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

Introduction: Case for Change

  • “Joy:  (as told by a hospital CEO)  “I am having a spiritual crisis.  I have dedicated my life to this work and I am exhausted.  I am getting emails from our system CEO at all hours of the night and weekends.  And when are our senior meetings?  Mondays.. so if we want to take a long weekend, we have to wrestle with missing those meetings or attending them on our time off.”
  • From a dear friend:  “My son (nurse in ICU) called me yesterday and told me he lost another patient.  He commented that this is a daily occurrence and he sent me this very poignant video illustrating the journey of his fellow nurses and care-providers.  He doesn’t feel that he can talk to anyone for fear they will think him “fragile” and unsafe.
  • From a senior leader whose position was eliminated:  “I was informed via a 10- minute zoom call that my position was eliminated and that I would be cut off from all communications as of that moment.  I could only go to my office to clean out my belongings with an escort.   I’ve worked for the organization for over twenty years and this is how I’m treated.  I understand the need to re-organize but why wouldn’t they allow me to transition my projects to others?”

The stories above are direct quotes from clients and/or friends.  As we reach the one- year mark for Covid-19 lockdowns and the now 500,000 deaths in the United States, more and more of these stories are surfacing.  SixSEED Partners is committed to providing integrated solutions to heal healthcare and there is no greater time of need than right now.

Crisis in the Making:  Grief, Trauma and Vicarious Trauma:

McKinsey & Company, in a December 2020 publication: “Grief, loss burnout: Talking about complex feelings at work” discuss the unparalleled levels of exhaustion and loss that have become “routine” for healthcare workers.  Provider burnout was a concern before the pandemic- it is only magnified now in the constantly “on stage” demands of taking care of patients and trying to recoup financial losses due to fewer elective surgeries.  The authors of “Healthcare Coaching Through Crisis and Trauma” (February 2021), published through Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, describe the experiences as passing even “severe burnout,” into the realm of trauma, vicarious trauma, and moral injury.”  How are we challenging ourselves to slow down enough to put resources to this significant need?  In many ways, we are reminded of our nation’s tension of leveraging individualism (each person responsible for their status/ wellbeing) with communal good (how are we caring for each other).

The Leadership Ecosystem Capacity Approach to Resilience and Restoration:

SixSEED Partners asserts that we each have a role in better leveraging caring for the workforce as we strive to keep our organizations afloat.  Without workers, we have no margin.  What’s in our control to do?

Please see the polarity map pasted below for some ideas of action steps and early warning signs to address this tension.  

SixSEED Partners recently partnered with an academic medical center to offer a polarity thinking workshop to sixteen internal medicine faculty.  These physicians were learning about leading change in patient quality and safety and we chose to help them expand their thinking to support their leading in complex and unpredictable environments.  They voiced appreciation for the safe space where they got to share with their colleagues and learn that the challenges they were dealing with were not unique to them. They were also able to acknowledge that they needed to assume individual responsibility for self -advocacy and health as they worked so hard at taking care of others- whether that was at work or at home.

Let’s hear from you;

We’d love to hear your perspective as you and your organizations better leverage caring for your workforce. Please post your responses on our LinkedIn page or send us an email here.

Transforming our Seeds to help you Succeed

by 2 Comments

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 Polarities to Create Sustainable High Performance: A Physician and Nurse Leadership Academy Day of Learning

by Leave a Comment

In April of 2019, WellSpan Physician and Nursing leaders were brought together for a transformative Day of Learning conducted by SixSeed Partners.

Dr. Larry McEvoy presenting the background of polarities.

For over a year SixSeed Partners worked with system senior leaders to increase the capacities for transformational change and leveraging polarities to create and measure sustainable performance. As the work of polarities had begun to permeate throughout the system, the was an expressed need to increase nursing and physician leadership knowledge about the power of polarities.

Educating Nursing Leadership AND Physician Leadership

Polarities are interdependent pairs of values or points of view that may appear as opposite, but when leveraged together can produce powerful outcomes. Prior to the workshop,

WellSpan choose four polarities to concentrate their work:Joy Goldman, RN, MS, PCC discusses the mindset shift to AND thinking.

Joy Goldman, RN, MS, PCC discusses the mindset shift to AND thinking.

  • Centralized and Decentralized- Focus on the independent business units needs AND systems opportunities;
  • Continuity and Transformation- Keeping the legacy and traditions of the past AND transforming for the future;
  • Tactical and Strategic- Increasing leadership capacity to think tactically AND strategically at the same time; and
  • Margin and Mission- Optimizing the financial health AND mission goals for individuals, systems and teams.

The physicians and nursing leaders learned that each polarity was not a problem to be solved, but a mindset to embrace, thus the “AND” mindset was put in motion for the group.  Interactive practice tools were given to help mobilize teams toward forward movement when they experienced repeated cycles of interdependent tension.

Perhaps the most significant take-away was the provision of language for the leaders to hold and invite numerous perspectives, which support AND thinking and leading within complexity.

_____________

Individual leaders start to map their own polarities.

“It was so helpful to hear what others have learned. I’m a new director, so to hear from other directors and doctors was so helpful for me in my new role.”  — Nursing Director

 

“To mention the elephant in the room, it was pivotal to our success today to bring nursing and physician leaders into the same room, to encourage dialogue around our common polarities.” — Chief Medical Officer

 

“I am going to go back to my team tomorrow and integrate eight minutes of dialogue into our meetings instead of our usual one-way conversation and problem solving.”  — Physician Leader