SixSEED Partners

#teamdevelopment

Dr. Stephen Karpman’s the Dreaded Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic by David Emerald Womeldorff

by Leave a Comment

By Joy W. Goldman Advisor and Founding Partner

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pepperextrashot_youve-seen-it-ive-seen-it-weve-all-seen-activity-7217125638887915521-LDZM?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

With thanks to Pepper Wilson for providing this fun and practical post on David Emerald’s work of the Dreaded Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic. Along with The Conscious Leadership Group’s: “Above and Below the Line,” the DDT and TED are our most commonly used frameworks in working with healthcare leaders and teams. Think about it: as a nurse, I went into healthcare because I wanted to improve people’s health. Some might say, I wanted to “save” or “rescue” people. That’s a noble goal, EXCEPT when I over use it and apply it to all aspects of my life!

At SixSEED Partners, we work with our clients to identify their thinking habits of responding as “heros/ rescuers” and invite them to shift to a more empowering perspective that encourages development in their teams and less wear and tear on them. And we compassionately and with healthy humor, invite them to notice their own inner persecutor and help them shift to a more kind and generous approach to self-management. It is no coincidence that we often see that grace applied to others in their lives, once they have mastered it for themselves.

Would you like to learn how you might apply this framework to your teams? Contact us here: https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

The Healing Healthcare Initiative: Guiding Leaders to Heal a Traumatized Workforce

by Leave a Comment

In today’s blog, we share the executive summary of: “The Healing Healthcare Initiative: Guiding Leaders to Heal a Traumatized Workforce” from The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare.

The Healing Healthcare Initiative (HHI) supports healthcare leaders to create a workplace that prioritizes the well-being of healthcare workers, so they can continue to provide high-quality care for patients and their families.

The program’s goals are to help leadership teams implement the framework to address and mitigate risks for healthcare workers through organizational and operational initiatives, policies, and metrics. The program also provides leaders with a psychologically safe space for reflection and peer support.

This work aligns with SixSEED Partners’ mission and vision to create sustainable, healing and healthy cultures to promote health for ALL.

“The program emphasizes communication and collaboration among departments, disciplines, and locations to identify effective initiatives and spread them across healthcare organizations. “Overall, the pilot underscores the significance of sustained leadership involvement in addressing the well-being of health workers and highlights the importance of trust, workforce involvement, collaboration, communication, and peer learning in driving organizational change.” Note the six key principles of the HHI framework and the eight implementation domains to create compassionate, trauma-informed organizational cultures and practices.

Want to know more?  You can reach out to us here:  https://sixseedpartners.com/contact/

Improving Leadership Well-Being in an Academic Medical Center

by Leave a Comment

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

by Leave a Comment

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

    by Leave a Comment

    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.

    A Modern Twist on Succession Planning

    by Leave a Comment

    Preventing The Most Common & Expensive Hiring Mistake

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

    Background

    SixSEED Partners was approached about providing coaching and leadership development for a tenured leader in an academic medical center who was two-three years away from retirement. The executive was concerned, however, in allocating resources for the leader, who had an immediate need for development but would be leaving the organization in a relatively short period of time. His question was how he could best use his resources so that both immediate and longer-term needs were met.

    The Strategy

    Upon further exploration, we discovered that the senior leader of advanced practice clinicians had not designated any successors for his role. The organization needed to mitigate some immediate development needs while also investing in leadership development for current high performers. The organization was also concerned about attrition given the extraordinary demands that had been placed on this department during covid 19 and beyond. The aging workforce coupled with high degrees of burnout and exhaustion were contributing to a perfect storm that could result in a crisis at the same time the leadership transition would occur.

    The Solution

    As we have done in past engagements, we challenged the executive to consider investing in expanding the thinking capacity of high potential leaders as compared to identifying one or two individuals as a potential successor. They could do this through a blend of individual and group coaching and facilitation where the leaders were invited to progressively move out of their comfort zones of being technical experts and more into leading with others in unfamiliar multi-department systems’ issues. Through a multi-year team development effort, the senior clinical leader received time-limited coaching on immediate development needs along with ways to further mentor and develop her staff. The high potential advance practice leaders were offered training on both/and thinking (Barry Johnson thought leader); leading above and below the line (the Conscious Leadership Group); the Empowerment Dynamic (David Emerald and Donna Zajonc); and conversational intelligence (Judith Glaser).

    The Impact

    The senior clinical leader improved her performance and appreciated an opportunity to safeguard her legacy. There was less turnover in the department as the high potential leaders felt that they were being given an opportunity to learn and grow, and in the moment development occurred with support for mistakes instead of being placed in roles with heightened pressure to perform. If you’d like to learn more, contact us at SixSEED Partners.

    If you’d like to learn more, contact us at SixSEED Partners. Reach us at:  SixSEED Partners.