SixSEED Partners

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Scaling Leadership

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Collective Honoring of Progress and Harvesting of Thinking to continue driving change for Excellence and Well-being

Petra Platzer, PhD NBC-HWC, PCC: CEO SixSEED Partners 

Background:

SixSEED Partners was invited to design and facilitate a full day retreat for all frontline and senior leaders within the Nursing and Patient Care Services department for two newly integrated hospital centers within an Academic Medical Health System. This was the first full department gathering since the Chief Nursing Officer had stepped into her role in 2021. In the prior two years, we supported the vice presidents and directors to apply polarity thinking to their integration process, creating a culture of “we” instead of us / them. The Chief Nursing Officer’s vision now was to continue scaling this “we” culture through the larger group by celebrating their 2024 accomplishments and looking forward for how to drive the changes needed for optimal patient care delivery. Recognizing that scaling leadership begins with herself, this nurse executive also selected two of her vice presidents to be part of the planning and execution of this whole department retreat.

Strategy:  

The retreat began with intentional time to reflect on the past year and celebrate the numerous accomplishments achieved across the various service lines and numerous inter-disciplinary efforts. This intentional slowing down to acknowledge the best of the past/current state was a generative action to help connect to their hearts and each other. From this appreciative space, we challenged the leaders to focus on the C-Dimension of Work, as first coined by Peter Senge, to collectively name what specifically was working for them within each of their 2024-2027 Strategic Plan Initiatives. Knowing the tendency to defer to authority within clinical realms, the design team leaders helped randomize the participants and we invited everyone to leave their “titles” at their tables and lean into speaking their thoughts, no matter their role. After identifying the best of what has been working so far, we facilitated a modified world café for the participants to think about how they might approach meeting future patient care needs by optimizing their delivery model.

 

Solution: 

Petra Platzer, Vinay Kumar and Lisa Hompe led the 130+ leaders through exercises designed so that everyone could share and build upon each other’s thinking. The group activities enabled all to participate and stretched the leaders to shift from their strength of managing operations to that of designing strategic actions to achieve results. 

The day’s structured activities invited diverse perspectives, including that of the medical center’s CEO whose presence for part of the day allowed him to witness and offer recognition for the collective progress and successes.

Through this experiential design, the participants gained an understanding that in a dynamic and complex environment like healthcare, the way to best lead for excellence and well-being is to scale their leadership through continued development – individually and together.

Impact: 

At the conclusion of this full day departmental retreat, the leaders and frontline managers surfaced existing and new ways of thinking and acting that can help drive their strategic plan and Vizient domains for optimizing the patient care delivery model. Focusing on successes and existing leadership capacity created palpable energy, inspiration and relief in all they can accomplish by working in partnership with each other.

Some of the key take-aways and appreciations participants named include: 

  • • “We need to do this more often! We’re not alone and we’re better together!
  • • “Practice gratitude. Use technology to make workflows easier. Remove barriers.
    Empower others. Celebrate small wins.”

To learn more about bringing this kind of work to your organization, contact us at SixSEED Partners.

Loyalty AND Autonomy

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A key tension to effectively manage leadership transitions

By Joy W. Goldman, Advisor and Founding Partner

Background

The New York Times recently published a news analysis piece entitled: “Silent no more, Harris seeks her own voice without breaking with Biden.”  The author, Peter Baker, states: 

“The challenge for her over the next 100 days will be to find her own voice without overtly breaking with Mr. Biden, a delicate political high-wire act without a reliable net… Yet even as she wants to demonstrate loyalty to Mr. Biden, she also hopes to show the public who she is.”

This blog is not about politics. It IS about assuming leadership in a way that navigates the complexity of honoring the leadership that came before you while advocating for change that exemplifies your unique voice. The challenge of both authentically respecting tradition and passionately advocating for new change.

Client Examples

At SixSEED Partners, we’ve seen this tension play out in several scenarios.  Perhaps one of these will ring true for you.  

  1. You’ve been promoted to a single entity Chief Nursing/Medical/Executive officer position while the prior person, likely your boss, is promoted to a system-level role.
  2. You lead the merging of two hospital systems – one larger, “mothership” so to speak, and the other a smaller, often community-based entity.
  3. You are hired to replace a C-suite position and you have a professional relationship with the leader exiting the organization.

All of these transitions require you to demonstrate your unique vision and the value you are bring to the role while also respecting the impact of the leader who came before you.  

Common Tensions & Solutions:

In partnering with our clients in these scenarios, we walked them through a structured “Polarity Mapping” process to identify actions that address achieving both goals, or poles, or competing commitments the leaders were facing.

Respect AND Autonomy: For the one “goal” – respect / tradition – we asked what are the set of actions that acknowledge and build upon what the outgoing leadership helped accomplish that is working for the organization where it is now.  For the other “goal” – autonomy / authentic voice – we asked what actions are needed to assertively make the case for change that is required to adapt to an emerging future. After seeing these sets of actions for both goals, the leaders could then decide which actions were needed to accomplish both together, over time.  

Leader AND Team: Once a leader has done this individual work around respect and autonomy, we often expand the polarity mapping work from the leader to the team level. A useful simple Action matrix framework in this process is Start/Stop/Continue/Do Differently, which invites everyone to name what is working and valued in the current culture and what traditions, even if cherished, might now be getting in the way of moving forward with emerging needs. When we did this work with a merger situation, both entities were able to see some overused habits (sounds like “that’s how we’ve always done it”) that they could shift and do differently or stop. As one example, shifting from their default habit of including every leader in all the decision-making, which was causing unnecessary delays in a fast-moving reality, to exploring ways to decrease the layers of input in some of the decision-making.

Confidence AND Humility:  The more senior the role, the more the leader is expected to be confident while driving change. This can be an inherent challenge for those who are promoted to a role that has a larger scope, but also fewer peers with whom they can do strategic thinking and ask vulnerable questions. Confidence requires acting with courage and alignment to one’s purpose and desired results, while humility requires us to ask for help.  For many senior leaders, hiring a coach can provide that kind of safe space to share fears and learn new habits for managing this tension, and many more.

Would you like to learn more about how you can navigate these tensions? Contact us at SixSEED Partners.

Extending Compassion for Recovering Fixers: Yes, AND….

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By Joy W. Goldman Advisor and Founding Partner

Background:

Quite often, we at SixSEED Partners find this theme arising with our clients:  “how do I stop seeing everything as a problem to fix?” Occasionally, we’ve thought of developing a 12-step program for recovering fixers: perhaps you’d like to be notified if we ever decide to go live? So what’s the “problem” with perpetual problem solvers?  In a complex, rapidly changing world, we need additional thinking tools and different perspectives. Feeling like we are the only ones who can satisfactorily fix problems can be exhausting!

The Challenge:

Simply stated, when every challenge we encounter at work is seen as a problem to fix, we end up in a cycle that drains energy and doesn’t actually eliminate the problem.  You can read our colleague David Emerald’s book: 3 Vital Questions to find out more!  You’ve heard of the myth of Sisyphus who was doomed to be pushing a boulder to the top of a cliff only to have it roll back down and him having to start all over again?  Exactly!

The Strategy:

First, embrace your strength and capacity to problem solve.  It’s a great gift and most likely contributed to your advancing in your field.  Bravo!

Second:  Seek out different perspectives, particularly those that are less visible to you.  Especially when you are absolutely certain that you have the one right answer, approach someone with whom you might often disagree and ask them: “What am I missing here?”  

Third:  Read up on “both/and” thinking:  Polarity Thinking.  This is a powerful thinking tool that allows you to see and map more complex systems where two seeming opposite tensions interact and the sustainable solution lies in leveraging each tension well and noticing early warning signs when your actions neglect the opposite pole.  As an example, for those of you who work for hospital systems that have many distributed hospitals, a common tension is centralizing for efficiency and decentralizing to meet local population needs.

The Outcome:

When you can follow the three steps above, you conserve energy, get results that last, and strengthen the leadership capacity of the entire system.  Want to know more?  You can reach out to us here:  https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

Improving Leadership Well-Being in an Academic Medical Center

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Application of polarity thinking and Accountability Structures to Improve well-being & culture change.

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

Background

In our work with Patient Care and Nursing Senior Leaders at an academic medical center, we have been focusing on two key tensions: care- for- self and care -for -others; and integration for two hospitals and with patient throughput strategic partners. Our design for facilitation has mirrored this interdependency: we have focused for this past year on both well-being and integration, setting the vision that team-member well-being and quality excellence can co-exist.

The Strategy

Over the past year, we have blended in-person and virtual team facilitation for thirty nursing and patient care leaders. We have grounded our work with three powerful and complementary frameworks: Polarity Thinking; The Leadership Circle Profile’s Collective Leadership Assessment and Above and Below the Line from the Conscious Leadership Group. 

The Solution

Applying a blended, action-learning framework and a coaching lens to our work with thirty Vice-Presidents and Directors of Nursing and Patient-Care services, we used time-tested frameworks to support a high reliability culture and decrease blame.  We invited the leaders to suggest real-time work applications so that the learning was in the context of their existing priorities and did not add any undue burden on these already exhausted leaders.  Our emphasis throughout this past year and the past two years has been integrating a focus on well-being in the context of creating sustainable excellence.

The Impact

After nine months of blended facilitation and interim “field work,” we heard the following results in the leaders’ change of thinking, emotions, behaviors, and results: “I’ve reduced my heart rate by six beats/ minute.”  “I’ve been modeling setting boundaries around my time at work and giving myself permission to take the weekend “off” from emails and work and I’ve noticed that my team members are doing the same- what I model they seem to follow.”  “I’ve become more present to who is in front of me and I’m listening more.  Before I would be more concerned about getting somewhere on time and now I realize that the person in front of me is more important.  This sense of presence has also impacted my home life and I am more present there.”

Would you like to hear more about how you can develop your leaders, improve well-being and culture, while you do essential work and not separate from your work? We’d love to hear from you! Please contact us here: https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

Polarity Approach to Expedite Hospital Integration & DEI

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Building Leadership Capacity to facilitate culture change and Improve
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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

Background

SixSEED Partners was invited to help build leadership capacity in patient care and nursing leaders to support the integration of two separate hospital entities within one health system. After the first year of facilitated work and implementing a collective leadership assessment, this second year was focused on engaging the leaders in recreating a culture that supported integration while allowing for the retention of what was unique and market competitive for each individual entity.

The Strategy

SixSEED Partners designed a two-day workshop that introduced the leaders to both/and thinking as a complementary tool to traditional problem-solving – either/or thinking. We were most concerned about surfacing the fears and concerns from the smaller hospital entity, that also happened to be a microcosm of the lesser served, mostly black community. Leaders were divided according to hospital entities and each had the chance to identify most treasured cultural attributes and worst fears of integration with themselves and then with each other.

The Solution

Fears that were identified by the smaller hospital included loss of identity; constant comparison and loss of unique attributes; lack of ability to autonomously act; loss of connection to their geographic community; and lack of influence in decision-making. What they valued and wanted to preserve, for both organizations included their unique histories; their commitment to the patients, community, and each other; a spirit of collaboration; shared knowledge; and diversity of staff and patients.

The Impact

At the conclusion of the two days, the leaders created a complete polarity map focused on their integrated one system. They had action steps to leverage retaining the best of current culture while preparing to best meet the future. They also identified early warning signs to alert them when they were overdoing either pole: too much tradition and too much change.

    If you’d like to learn more about bringing this work to your organization, contact us at SixSEED Partners.

    Both/And Thinking

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    Application of polarity thinking to Improve well-being and integration for two hospitals within an Academic Medical Health System

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

    Background

    SixSEED Partners was invited to help build capacity in patient care and nursing leaders for improving well-being and supporting the integration of two separate hospital entities within one health system. We had spent the prior year working with these leaders on strengthening team bonds across functions and service lines, and building capacity for shifting from problem-oriented, reactive thinking to purpose-driven, creative thinking and execution. The nurse executive’s vision was to create a culture of “we” instead of us/them and to decentralize decision-making and empower leaders to lead with less deference to the nurse executive.

    The Strategy

    SixSEED Partners designed an initial two-day workshop that involved walking the leaders through two polarity maps: the first- honoring the nurse executive’s wish to focus on the leaders’ wellbeing, was leveraging care for self and care for others. This map introduced the leaders to the interdependency between those poles and their personal and cultural bias toward care for others, often to the neglect of care for self. The “Me/ Not Me” – value/ fears were somatically felt as each leader stood in the quadrant representing the upsides of care for self and care for others, and the downsides of each. We also facilitated walking the maps of the individual hospital entities, creating a map for the integrated organization.

    The Solution

    Vinay Kumar and Joy Goldman led the thirty leaders through exercises that inspired honest and vulnerable sharing which paved the way for team support in increasing actions around care for self, and early warning signs for when the leaders were at risk of burnout and exhaustion. Some of their takeaways for that first day included: “It’s OK to care for self.” “I’m not alone.” “We’re not perfect and that’s a good thing!”

    The second day was all about integration and the smaller hospital entity leaders who had lost, or was losing two of its senior nursing leaders, was able to courageously discuss what cultural traditions were important to move forward, and their fears of being engulfed by the larger entity and losing their identity. At the end of day two, the leaders had formed a complete polarity map representing the best of both organizations that was important to bring forward AND outcomes that needed to occur to best meet the emerging future.

    The Impact

    At the conclusion of the two days, the leaders created a complete polarity map focused on their integrated one system. They had action steps to leverage retaining the best of current culture while preparing to best meet the future. They also identified early warning signs to alert them when they were overdoing either pole: too much tradition and too much change.

    There were several new leaders in the group who offered these comments:

    • “I appreciate bringing SixSEED in to facilitate this as many organizations don’t do this and it shows that it’s important
    • “I’m impressed with the support and sense of “we” here that often does not exist in other nursing and patient care service leaders/ divisions.” (systems)

    If you’d like to learn more about bringing this work to your organization, contact us at SixSEED Partners.