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ATD Blog

Gaining Commitment for a Leadership Development Strategy

Wednesday, January 4, 2017
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Houston Methodist is a leading academic medical center in the Texas Medical Center with six community hospitals serving the Greater Houston area. Comprising of 21,000 committed personnel and growing, Houston Methodist, a faith based nonprofit healthcare system has a strong culture built on the I CARE values of integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, and excellence. Its strategic goal is to optimize talent management to prepare for Houston Methodist’s second century, poising the organization to achieve unparalleled patient safety, quality, service and innovation. Its message: succession planning helps us achieve that goal, it is not the goal itself! 

Creating a compelling business case to move from replacement planning to succession planning included honoring what was in place: a benchmark-worthy culture and strong executive leadership commitment to development. Then, Houston Methodist identified talent opportunities to provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace.  

Connecting the Dots

In 2016, Houston Methodist set to connect the dots for executive leadership by illustrating the “why” of talent development. Acknowledging a leader in healthcare is a 24/7/365 vocation, the organization methodically established a leadership philosophy unique to Houston Methodist. A philosophy fills in the grey spaces and provides aspirational intent for change. To ensure relevance we solicited participation from key stakeholders representing our organization’s critical characteristics: nonprofit, healthcare, faith-based, and ICARE core value system. 

Clarifying Expectations

In parallel, Houston Methodist revisited our leadership competence model originally launched in 2010. The timing was appropriate, as the Houston market was feeling the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They also fueled the evolution of its leadership competence model with evidence from multiple data sources, such as employee engagement surveys, patient satisfaction surveys, stay and exit interviews, and so forth. Competencies like teamwork, problem solving, and accountability were also added to the mix.  

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Explaining the How 

Talent leaders explained the “how” to staff with a one-page strategic theme document that included: 

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  • a short, strategic overview statement 
  • three strategic goals 
  • what Houston Methodist would accomplish in 2016 
  • what Houston Methodist would accomplish in 2017 
  • necessary executive support 
  • metrics. 

In late 2016, Houston Methodist launched a corporate university with role specific “developmental pathways,” which honors the existing culture of “Patient Care Pathways.” Developmental pathways is a 10-week highly interactive cohort experience. The Houston Methodist Academy of Leadership & Learning provides a talent development infrastructure for change management, especially for early adopters to direct their enthusiasm. 

Gaining Buy In

Take every opportunity to use meetings as a coachable moment with your highest ranking and operational champion of each department, division, or enterprise. Have your data at the ready—even just a simple plan and timeline. Depending on your organization, we recommend partnering with human resource directors, human resource business partners, organizational development consultants, and recruiting or continuous improvement leaders to build significant ground swell. 

Moving Forward

Want to learn more? Join Christina and William Rothwell on January 13 for the ATD Webcast, Assess and Develop Potential Talent On Succession Planning.

About the Author

Dr. Christina Barss is an experienced industry subject matter expert (SME) in improvement sciences and organizational culture change. Her unique blend of practical, academic, and art perspectives creates custom operational and employee engagement solutions that transform the bottom line. For example, her PhD in sustainable systems design focused on disparately located interprofessional teams in transition during lean transformation at a large, midwestern, urban, academic medical center.

Dr. Barss' 12 years in healthcare were filled leading strategic enterprise-level initiatives to improve patient safety, quality, service, and innovation as well as teaching and coaching executives. From C-suite to frontline, she connects seamlessly and guides others in building trust bridges. Her continuous improvement science foundation began in the manufacturing industry. She presents nationally and internationally on design thinking, change management, organizational culture, corporate learning, executive education, and succession planning.

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