SixSEED Partners

transformative leadership

How to Hire a CEO: Neglected Attributes

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

Introduction: Case for Change

Turnover at the CEO position remains high: According to the American College of Healthcare Executives, CEO turnover was 17 percent in 2019.* (ACHE: “Hospital CEO Turnover Rate Shows Small Decrease.” – press release. In Development Dimension International’s 2021 Global Leadership Forecast, that polled close to 16,000 leaders across the globe, 55% of CEO’s indicated developing the next generation of leaders as their top challenge. These statistics and personal experience working with clients who have been traumatized by making a wrong choice, motivated Dr. Larry McEvoy, Dr. Kevin Mosser and I to offer healthcare boards a webinar through The Governance Institute  called “How to Hire a CEO: A Guide for Ensuring Effective Selection at the Most Important Position.”  

For SixSEED Partners, we see the hiring of a CEO as only one part of our sixth seed: Leadership Ecosystem Capacitation.

 

Current Process:  Strengths and Gaps:

Whether in our country or within healthcare, we continue to look to the CEO as a heroic leader and in doing so, often place great emphasis on the CEO’s accomplishments and experience.  It was fascinating to us that the participants on the webinar placed low importance to the role of experience in their candidate selection yet, in practice, it was one of the top three attributes that they assessed. (see graphs below).  Bob Anderson and Bill Adams, in their book: Scaling Leadership: Building organizational capability and capacity to create outcomes that matter most” dispel the myth that leaders that prioritize results and technical expertise have the greatest impact on business results.  To the contrary, after culling through hundreds of thousands of 360- degree -feedback assessments and comments from around the globe, these skills were shown to be non-differentiators for high performing leaders.  Their research identified ten attributes, six of which were people-related.  Some of these include developing others; empowering people; team-builder; leads by example; and good listener.  

We were also surprised with the time paid to assessment results and interviewer ratings, given neither interventions were rated as having great importance to the participants.  In our experience, we agree, in part with this assessment, given our observation that this process is often incomplete, where the personality profile results remain with the search firm and are not used by the hiring company to integrate into designing behavioral interview questions targeted at possible gaps, nor using as development once the candidate is hired.

The Neglected Attributes:

If you’ve read this far, you are probably guessing where we believe you need to focus to have the greatest chances of success for the candidate; your executive team; and your organization.  The two attributes least assessed yet deemed most important to the CEO’s success is their ability to scale leadership, and to leverage and manage paradox (seeming opposite tensions).

Experience matters less in rapidly changing and volatile situations.  What matters more is the degree to which you’ve built leadership and thinking capacity in your organization.  As an example, SixSEED Partners was asked to offer change leadership training to a cohort of internal medicine physicians.  In partnership with the Chief Quality Officer, we designed a workshop where we introduced both/and thinking as an adjunct to traditional problem-solving thinking.  If these physicians have the thinking capacity to leverage individual AND team; mission AND margin; decentralized AND centralized needs; candor AND diplomacy; advocacy AND inquiry among others, then collaboration is strengthened and we increase their ability to lead sustainable change.

The Leadership Ecosystem Capacity Approach to Hire and Develop

What does this mean for you?  Here are several steps you can take make a better CEO hire:

1. Elevate talent development as THE FIRST Strategic priority- for the board; for the executive team and for each leader.

2. Ask your CEO candidates a question similar to the following:  “If your current organization were to give you a grade of A to F in relation to how well you’ve prepared them for your departure, what would they say?  On what would they be basing their rating?”  You want to listen for details around the use of development strategies like rotational assignments; creating a learning environment; internal promotions; and prepared successors.  You want to listen for a blend of “I” and “We” statements.

3. Assess for their thinking capacity to manage paradox:  “Give me an example of a decision you had to make where you felt torn between two or more competing perspectives.  Who was involved?  What was at stake?  What did you consider in your decision-making process?  What did you do?  What was the outcome?  What did you learn through the process?

Let’s hear from you

We’d love to hear your perspective as you and your board plan for your next CEO hire.  Please post your responses on our LinkedIn page or send us an email here.

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.

Leveraging Taking Ourselves Seriously AND Taking Ourselves Lightly

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This is the fifth 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

After hours of speaking with our clients who are on the front lines in hospitals or leading medical practices, the tensions we’re highlighting are coming from them—you.  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.

Below is a polarity map, which outlines this tension of Taking Ourselves Seriously AND Taking Ourselves Lightly in service to creating a healthy workplace for all.  What you’ll notice in the below polarity map that is different from prior maps in the series is an action step that is highlighted in yellow.  This is called a “high leverage action step” since it applies to both poles.  Intentional design of meeting agenda and space is necessary to leverage a business focus and a lighthearted/ energy-giving focus. 

As we’ve spoken to our clients, we see and hear the exhaustion people are feeling as a result of this prolonged pandemic along with the stressors of re-opening elective surgeries while also staying prepared for what could still be a surge in Covid-19 cases.  After weeks of being immersed in fourteen- hour days and incident command centers, your “higher-order thinking” can get worn down by the constant energy out.  Designing in activities that allow you to laugh and keep a “beyond-Covid” perspective helps to build your resilience for the ongoing demands.

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.

Leveraging the Tension of Assuming Responsibility and Delegating Responsibility

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This is the fourth 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

After hours of speaking with our clients who are on the front lines in hospitals or leading medical practices, the tensions we’re highlighting are coming from them—you.  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 we coach leaders, we often refer them to the powerful work of David Emerald who wrote: “3 Vital Questions: Transforming Workplace Drama.”  This book, along with his other book: “The Power of TED (The Empowerment Dynamic)” describe our tendencies to fall in roles of victim, persecutor, and rescuer.  Covid -19 calls on medical professionals and others to play the role of “Hero/ Rescuer” to patients who are sick and/or dying due to the coronavirus.  These patients are helpless to fight this battle without medical support.

The tension for leaders occurs when we extend that pattern of playing hero with others in our lives who are quite capable of taking care of themselves and possibly, even acting in a way that may exceed our capacity.  How do you determine the essential work that only you can do, as compared with those responsibilities another resource is, or could be, well-prepared to do?  If I were to use some of the examples I’m hearing from my clients, I’m impressed with the speed with which others have been trained to staff command centers, or resources have been summoned to expedite operationalizing telemedicine.  

It takes a conscious leader to pause during the crisis of reacting to Covid-19, and ask themselves and their teams the following questions: 

  • “What beliefs did we suspend during this crisis that helped us to be successful?” 
  • “How might we continue to challenge our former belief structure to allow us to expand our talent pool and create a stronger degree of shared ownership?”  
  • “What benefits might emerge for our ability to better care for ourselves while we create more powerful engagement for our teams that can help us meet future challenges?”

In the book above mentioned, the second question is: “How are you relating?”  During this time of complexity and uncertainty, pausing to notice with curiosity “how you’re relating,” (from what role) in addition to taking action will yield dividends in your future preparedness and increase in systemic well-being.

Below is a polarity map, which outlines this tension of Assuming Responsibility and Delegating Responsibility in service to creating shared ownership for all.  

At SixSEED Partners, we are committed to developing leaders who have the capacity to see these interdependent tensions to better lead in this time of uncertainty.  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.

  

Gathering Facts AND Thriving in Uncertainty

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As mentioned in our previous post, SixSEED Partners would like to provide you immediately applicable tools to help you lead during this time of unprecedented disruption.  These tools can help elevate leadership capacity in leaders at any level.  These times call us to leverage problem solving skills which often have a right/ wrong- black and white answer along with both/and responses to complex interdependent tensions (if you want to know more, stay tuned for a webinar being offered soon).  

Leading during Covid-19 requires both problem solving as we learn facts concerning viral spread and leveraging uncertainty- what we don’t yet know.  As we learn facts about the corona virus, we can problem-solve where there are definitely right and wrong answers.  For example, we know the right way to wash our hands and to deploy personal protective equipment so that it is accessible to those who most need it.  Decision-making during complex and ambiguous times also requires the ability to know when we’ve exhausted what we know, and could benefit from the deployment of faith and possibilities.  Faith is not often spoken in healthcare, AND we know that deploying faith along with facts helps to strengthen our resilience and positively infects others.

The Polarity Map® below takes you through how you might leverage this tension in service to our greater purpose of impactful and informed decision-making.  Since this virus is new, we are leveraging what we know and have used in the past, while dancing in the moment as we discover new patterns of viral spread; infection and disease manifestation.  

If we listen to the news, there are many who want to blame others for spreading “wrong information.”  If all acknowledged the tension of what we know with what we don’t know, perhaps we’d be more forgiving in our perceptions.  Each human being on this planet is now challenged with leveraging their own tensions around their behavior.  How do I protect myself and loved ones, while also contributing to the common good?  As the primary caregiver for my 88 year-old mom, I’m challenged by leveraging the therapeutic benefit of my presence and healing touch, with the risk of exposing her to the virus should I be a carrier without symptoms. I’m not convinced the risk of exposure is of greater risk than that of her not seeing me which provides her reason to live.

The map below is a suggestion of how you might leverage action steps and warning signs to make sure you’re fully-leveraging the benefits of both poles and minimizing the downside limitations.  Merely balancing isn’t good enough. Truly great performance comes from full-leverage – staying out of the downsides as much as possible and staying in the upsides as much as possible. System-level resilience is directly tied to how well leaders and those who follow them leverage this and other polarity tensions. Here’s the bottom line: while either/or thinking is useful, it’s not up to the task of leveraging the interdependencies that show up for leaders, teams, and organizations.

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.