After Planning Comes Implementation

The nice thing about developing an awesome plan? Implementation.

That’s because a truly awesome plan is usually well on its way to being implemented by the time it gets approved. That is certainly the case with a Virginia Oral Health Coalition project we’ve been supporting.

Designed to dramatically increase medical/dental collaboration across the state, the project has brought dozens of medical and dental providers (and educators, insurance providers, policymakers and more) to the same table to discuss a simple challenge: Helping health providers of all stripes treat their patients from their teeth to their toes.

This past year, we facilitated the awesome work of VOHC’s Sarah Bedard Holland and Katherine Libby as they convened groups and hammered out an aggressive plan to change the way Virginia schools teach oral health, the increase continuing education opportunities for established health professionals, to bolster early childhood dental care and to improve the use of technology solutions to simplify care.

In August, they submitted the plan to the DentaQuest Foundation for implementation funding. In September, funding was approved.

When we reconvened the project team earlier in November to discuss implementation, we were all delighted (but not so surprised) to discover that significant chunks of the plan were already moving forward. As we move into 2013, Floricane’s work will be fairly straightforward as we help keep a focused team focused, and guide from the side as a group of experts go about the business of changing the health care landscape.

It’s work we can sink our teeth into. Pun intended.

Insights Discovery: New Insights Into Team Effectiveness

More than 700 of our friends and clients have utilized the Insights Discovery® self-awareness tool to explore their personal effectivenessat work, and we continue to introduce the instrument to organizations throughout Richmond. Recently, we've started digging into Insights' Team Effectiveness model. Color us impressed.

Built around the Insights color wheel, the cornerstone to the personal discovery work, the team ef fectiveness model suggests that effective teams leverage four sets of core competencies to do great work. The Insights Team Effectiveness model includes targeted activities to help teams identify and prioritize their own unique behavioral norms -- and opportunities for growth.

FOCUS: A focused team has a clear, shared sense of direction -- and they understand their vision and goals. Keeping their attention focused on specific deliverables, the team is eager to take action, move forward in concrete ways, and hold themselves accountable for their commitments.

FLOW: A team in flow is solutions-focused, creative and collaborative -- and always prone toward collective problem solving. The team learns together, as a team, and regularly engages in discussion and dialogue. Teams in flow are agile, responding quickly to external input and quick to change direction as circumstances evolve.

CLIMATE: In a positive climate, teams demonstrate a high level of trust, and a genuine sense of caring and support for one another. Such teams have a high degree of engagement and motivation, maintain cohesion under pressure, and are able and willing to dive into challenging discussions that can strengthen the team's performance and sense of connection.

PROCESS: Teams that demonstrate a capacity for effective processes have clear roles for each team member, and roles that are linked and interdependent. These teams have a clear decision-making process in place, and established measurements that help monitor progress and provide the team with relevant information.

In a full-day, highly interactive workshop, we take teams through a thorough exploration of their dynamics and begin the serious work of identifying the ways in which the team can leverage each set of team effectiveness competencies. Individual team members create a personal game plan to improve their engagement on the team, and strengthen their contributions.

Join us on December 6 for our last public Insights workshop of the year, and discover ways to engage your team.

Throwing a Community Party at Our New Space

It’s hard to believe that it has been four years since Floricane come into existence. It’s even harder to believe that more than200 of our friends, community partners and clients dropped by last week to celebrate our little anniversary event.

For us, it was a chance to showcase a new piece of work – a joint venture with the Richmond Times-Dispatch to create a collaborative business community smack in the middle of their downtown headquarters.

I think most of them just wanted to see what we did with the place.

From the buzz that evening, I’d say most of them were pleasantly surprised by the energy and atmosphere of the place. It certainly has a different color palette.

The atmosphere was given an extra lift by three talented friends – restaurateurs Kendra Feather and Betsy Harrell, and confectioner extraordinaire Nicole Lang. Nicole (of Dollop fame) provided boxes of mini whoopee pies, and several large canisters of her famous pimento cheese. Betsy loaded us down with a flavorful assortment of Dixie Donuts, and chips and salsa from Café Ole. And Kendra swooped in with trays of amazing chicken sliders from The Roosevelt, Church Hill’s latest amazing restaurant.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that Nikole and Thea spent the afternoon at our house skewering fruit for the masses, and that my mom arrived laden with additional food items.

All of it came together through the orchestration of Tina Pearlman, who has spent the past two years pushing us to make Floricane’s brand and experiences something special.

Collaboration, and community, at their best.

Small Group Coaching with Bon Secours Virginia

Debra and I have kicked off an exciting new process for a group of key managers and leaders across Bon Secours Virginia.If you don’t already know, Bon Secours Virginia is extremely invested in what they describe as employee engagement, which uses a system of questions developed by Gallupto assess how each team at Bon Secours is performing year-over-year. Two years ago, we interviewed close to 100 leaders across the system whose teams consistently scored well in the process. Our goal was to identify some key attributes of highly engaged leaders.

For the next six months, we’ll be working in small coaching groups of 4-7 managers in an effort to strengthen the leadership and team engagement focus of more than 80 Bon Secours managers. This is the first time Bon Secours Virginia has implemented such a large group coaching process, and we’re excited to be part of it.

Our approach is fairly straightforward: Small, location-specific groups will meet six times to share their challenges, experiences and best advice with each other as it relates to leading and engaging their teams. Debra and I will guide and facilitate the discussions, providing management tips and tools, assignments and accountability to each participant.

While the ultimate goal is to help each leader improve their team’s scores on the Gallup assessment, we believe the real strength of the program is simply providing consistent, peer-based opportunities to develop a new set of leadership “muscles” and behaviors.

We’re excited that we’ve started, and we’re going to be very interested to see how our work helps shape the engagement of these leader’s teams.

Operationalizing Strategy with Super Radiator Coils

Let’s get one thing out of the way. Super Radiator Coils?You may call it a strange fit. I think it’s a perfect fit.

Super Radiator, as they call themselves, is a manufacturing business with a strong research bent. They have stand-along divisions in Arizona, Minnesota and Virginia. Their Virginia division is run by the husband of a past client. That’s the connection.

When I worked at Luck Stone, we had a corporate office, a team of engineers and process analysts, and folks in production. Super Radiator doesn’t specialize in rocks – rather in heat transfer systems, and coils for cooling systems – but many of the principles are the same.

That’s how Caroline and I found ourselves hanging out with a small group of engineers, sales managers and operational leaders from Super Radiator talking about strategic focus and leadership. As usual, we learned more from the team we were facilitating than they could possibly have learned from us! But we provided them with clarity and a pathway along which they could begin to map a growth strategy.

It’s what we try to do for all of our clients. Even if their work doesn’t make any sense to us at first. (Seriously. Check out this video of their test lab here in Richmond.)

Insights Discovery: Making an Investment in Your Team’s Development

One of our favorite conversations goes something like this:

What if I train and develop people in my organization and they leave?

What if you don't and they stay?

Your personal development -- or that of the people on your team, or in your organization -- is an investment that will pay life-long dividends. Today's environment asks each of us to stretch, grow and discover new ways to bring our best selves to our work.

People -- by which we mean well-trained, forward-thinking, engaged people -- are truly your organization's biggest investment. But there's a difference between having employees and cultivating their best potential.

That's where Insights Discovery® comes in. Insights Discovery is an in-depth personality profile built around a simple eight color model to help individuals strengthen their self-awareness, and maximize their ability to create and lead change.

The Floricane team has facilitated hundreds of Insights Discovery for Personal Effectiveness workshops for well over 2,000 individuals. Our last Insights session for 2012 promises to be one of our best. It's happening on Thursday, December 6, and we'd like to invite you and members of our organization to join us.

Find out more at Floricane, or register now. (Want to know what an Insights profile looks like? Download mine and see – and learn more about me than you want to know!)

Commonwealth Parenting: Starting With Alignment

Commonwealth Parenting asked me to drop by last week.It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse – after all, I dedicate an entire sectionof Floricane’s monthly newsletter to lessons I’m learning from my daughter.

The two decade old organization that serves as a parenting resource was facing a challenge we see all-too-often these days: Managing organizational transition at a time when the economy and social changes have made everything tumultuous. It’s like changing kayaks in the middle of Class IV rapids.

Obviously, the past five years have created huge economic challenges for families across Central Virginia. And the composition and nature of families has changed more in the past several decades than many of us can imagine. For an organization like Commonwealth Parenting, the simplicity of mission – helping parents parent better – has never been more complex!

Add to the mix a new executive director, new board leadership and new approaches to funding, and you’ve got an opportunity for some new conversations.

So, last week, I sat down with a small group of staff and board members, and we walked through some of Commonwealth Parenting’s opportunities and strategic choices. It was a fast-paced discussion, but the team at the table seemed eager to wrestle with big questions about scope, direction and vision.

In the end, we reaffirmed the organization’s primary commitment to serving parents, explored ways to better execute on two core “products” and began mapping out a process to better engage a staff and board in the midst of continued change and transition.

Like good parenting, the strategic work of Commonwealth Parenting is starting by getting everyone on the same page.

Hitting The Right Notes During Challenging Times

Timing is everything, right? Not if you can’t control the timing. The show, as they say, must go on.That turned out to be the case recently when we met with the board and staff of the Richmond Symphony to begin a series of strategic planning conversations – right in the middle of difficult labor negotiations with the Symphony’s musicians.

And so, bright and early on an October morning, we begin a series of creative conversations with the Symphony’s leadership about “re” – reengaging, reinventing, reigniting a centuries-old concept for a changing world. The Symphony’s strategic planning process has a nice organic quality to it – the first phase has included a series of staff conversations, focus groups led by a team from Genworth, benchmarking reports on peer symphonies around the country, a board conversation about core values, and a retreat centered around opportunities and strategic outcomes.

I like to imagine it’s like composing a new piece of music – bringing disparate elements together, writing and rewriting, all in service to a strong and passionate vision.