Finding Alignment and Gaining Perspective

It can be easy to create a mission statement. The hard part is figuring out how to implement it. At Tuckahoe Montessori School, Amanda Edmundson, head of school, didn’t want a new mission to remain words on paper. “I wanted to get the staff aligned — to each other and the perspective of the school,” she says. 

Tuckahoe Montessori is small, and some of the staff have worked together for years. “We needed an outside perspective. You can say you know what dedication means, but what does it mean to be committed to the school’s principles?” she says. Enter Floricane.

Supported by facilitator Kathy Greenier, Edmundson — along with her team of faculty and administrators — crafted Tuckahoe Montessori’s new Mission, Vision, and Core Values and how to put them to work. 

Edmundson and her team realized that communication was key to their mission. A weekly newsletter and web calendar already existed for the parents. Through their work with Floricane,  they realized that they needed a regular newsletter specifically for the staff as well. Although it contains prosaic information like calendar changes or unexpected events that may have popped up, Edmundson also includes questions gleaned from her experience with Floricane: What is the value of the week? What phrase should we use for positive discipline? How did you use your compassion and empathy today? These questions, she says, keep everyone actively engaged in the process they learned during their Floricane work sessions.

“It can be lonely as head of school,” Edmundson says. “It’s hard to figure these things out on your own.” One of the best things, she says, was having someone to ask — someone who, instead of imposing answers, could help her come up with her own.

Written by Brandon Fox, a richmond-based freelance writer.

A Strategy for Purposeful Work

Lee Sprague, associate head of Trinity Episcopal School is succinct. “For a school, the hardest thing is time — there isn’t any.” That’s why it was so important to figure out a way to make a strategic plan for the future in a fast but concrete way in order to move ahead. Sprague and head of school Rob Short felt it was paramount to include all of the teachers and staff. “Everyone is invested in our long-term success and deeply cares about the students — we’re extremely collaborative here — but we wanted to engage them actively in order to carry out all the parts of our plan.” 

Sprague had broken down the major tasks into components and wanted small groups to focus on each of them, but she needed members of the faculty and staff to facilitate them. The problem was that they didn’t know how. She immediately thought of Floricane. “We had modest goals,” she says. “Let’s be together, learn, and identify the challenges. Let’s do purposeful work.”

Floricane’s Kathy Greenier and Holly Gordon asked well-placed questions, she says. She was impressed with the way the two intuited when to press the group to dig deeper and when to let the conversation flower. At the end of the process, Sprague felt that both the Trinity faculty and staff had new, powerful tools with which to communicate with each other, but also with students and their families. 

Inevitably, in a secondary school, there can be hard conversations with parents. “Sometimes we have to convey information they don’t want to hear about their child,” she says. They now have the tools to approach those moments so that “everyone feels heard.”

Trinity plans to continue to hold small group sessions with Florican to keep the momentum going. “It’s a really great fit! Kathy and Holly really get us, and that’s not easy!”

Written by Brandon Fox, a richmond-based freelance writer.

A FOUNDATION FOR A NEW HOSPITAL CULTURE

As we near the two-year mark with the (ever-growing) team preparing for the Sheltering Arms Institute hospital, our culture change activities are becoming significantly more tangible. A new leadership team is in place, dozens of new managers have been hired, and the interview process for several hundred additional employees is underway. The new hospital is set to open in June.

Hiring a brand new team for a brand new organization is a once-in-a-career opportunity for many of SAI’s team leaders. For our team, led by Serena Fulton, creating a clear and compelling Culture Statement was an important milestone. The Culture Statement sets the tone for new leaders, and provides clarity for managers as they think about – and hire for – both a new culture and their own vision for their best team. (Take a look at the SAI Culture Statement.)

In addition to helping SAI leaders craft the Culture Statement, we have been busy putting shape around a Leadership Launch event for dozens of newly hired SAI managers – and a combination Leader Guide/Journal for these leaders to use through June to capture their reflections on their transition to the new hospital.

 The Culture Statement, the Leadership Launch, and the Leader Guide are all elements we’re helping the SAI team put in place to smooth the transition of new employees and teams. While the majority of the new hospital’s employees should be hired by February, the hospital doesn’t open until June – and the majority of the new employees have existing jobs, existing teams, and existing patients.

Creating tools and resources to smooth the transition, and to effectively onboard teams whose employees may currently be working at Sheltering Arms or VCU Health, or elsewhere, is essential. In the end, part of our success will be defined by new managers poised to develop and share their vision, engage and build relationships with their new teams, and be ready to welcome new patients in June.

A PRESCRIPTION FOR MEDICATION ACCESS

There’s no single prescription for effective strategy. Over the years, we’ve facilitated everything from day-long retreats to months-long engagements. When Rx Partnership recently reached out to discuss support, they were looking for a focused approach.

The small nonprofit provides access to medication to uninsured Virginians – primarily through Virginia’s networks of free clinics. After some discussion about need, capacity and timing, we agreed that a targeted refresh of the organization’s existing strategic plan was in order. 

Our consultants, John Sarvay and Holly Gordon, tackled the refresh in four steps – an expanded SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) exploration with staff; a board retreat to build out ideas staff identified; a working session with staff to clarify outcomes and strategies; and the offline creation of a final plan with tactics and an implementation schedule.

On the heels of last year’s Medicaid expansion efforts, the RxP team’s focus remains set on thousands of Virginians who remain uninsured. Part of that focus involves ensuring each free clinic is getting the right mix of medication to address significant health issues, such as heart disease or mental health. Longer term opportunities include working with statewide partners to identify prescription access needs among under-insured Virginians, and a more comprehensive approach to data.

The organization is also committed to strengthening their leadership voice throughout Virginia – by continuing to engage in conversations about the future, leveraging better data solutions, and helping more organizations and policymakers recognize the importance of patient-centered pharmacy care. 

By taking a compressed, and accelerated, approach to RxP’s strategic needs, we were able to deliver a more focused plan. And Rx Partnership walked away with a future-oriented strategy that their small team, and board, could implement.

A VISION FOR EQUITY AND WEALTH CREATION FOR CHARLOTTESVILLE'S BLACK RESIDENTS

Question: What do the last two weeks of a six month community-focused Small Area Plan look like?

Answer: 80% of the heavy lifting.

Last spring, our team (Shelli Brady, Ebony Walden, John Sarvay and Marle Hylton) was asked by New Hill Development Corporation and Virginia LISC to create a community engagement plan and Small Area Plan for Charlottesville’s Starr Hill neighborhood. Last month, that plan was delivered to City Council. The plan consisted of almost 100 oversized pages of maps, illustrations, and recommendations to reimagine the 47-acre neighborhood as the center of Black life, Black culture, and Black wealth creation for the City of Charlottesville. (You can take a look at our 24-page overview of the 108-page plan below).

Shelli, working the impromptu team of community designer, Jodi Dubyoski and graphic designe, Sarah Riddle Culclasure, dialed in long days and late nights of revisions, edits, tweaks and changes – followed by face-to-face meetings with our client and key Charlottesville officials – to create a powerfully visionary roadmap for Starr Hill’s future.

 The final deliverable was both detailed and comprehensive. But the Guiding Principles, shaped early on by the community engagement process, resonated strongly with our team. Particularly the first two Guiding Principles, which shaped so much of the final recommendation:

A More Equitable Community: We envision a neighborhood where those who are often marginalized are empowered to congregate and co-create, build and own, and innovate and learn

Promote Black Prosperity: We will create strong pathways for African Americans in Charlottesville to thrive and grow. We envision a neighborhood centered around Black-owned property, commerce and culture with visible access to capital and financing. 

With the plan in hand, New Hill Development Corporation is ready to start the heavy lifting with dozens of community partners focused on amplifying the tremendous potential of Charlottesville’s African American residents.

RECENT WORK: August/September

We get the opportunity to work with some amazing organizations striving for a better future. Here is some work we have started or about to start. We love supporting these organizations and their growth.

FROM COMMON VISION TO TRANSFORMATION

We feel privileged to be in the room when a close-knit team decides to invest time in meaningful conversation about purpose, shared values, and the emotional impact of their work. Listening to a passionate group of individuals rediscover and name their North Star is energizing and inspiring.

Such conversations don’t usually start with a mandate for change. It’s the more basic questions – “How can we work together better?” or “Are we having the right impact together?” – that triggers some of the best conversations we see.

That’s how our two days of discovery with the faculty at Tuckahoe Montessori School began. Head of School, Amanda Edmondson, wanted to start the school year by creating space for her team of teachers to connect, build alignment, re-engage for a new school year, and have fun.

Floricane’s Kathy Greenier and John Sarvay spent two half days with the team to focus on their mission, vision, and shared values. What that really means is we created room for them to have effective conversations as a community of purpose-driven teachers. From that discussion of purpose, passion and commitment emerged common language to transform their work and their behaviors.

Tuckahoe Montessori School takes its mission to build community and engage the hearts and minds of its young students seriously. Their arms are open wide. Their work is big.

During our time together, the faculty engaged both broadly and deeply. They painted with generalities and with specifics. It was important for them to connect all of the dots, and to understand what might be left out.

Our work as facilitators meant helping the group uncover their own best answers by asking questions, and then stepping out of the conversation. Being prepared to pivot, to shift our own energy in response to theirs, was important. Allowing the teachers to get into the weeds, then drift to the grass tops, helped ensure their best ideas came into the room in powerful ways.

We took a brief pause with the school so they could do their best work – welcome more than 100 students back into the classroom. We’ll re-engage with them later in the fall with refined mission and vision statements, a set of shared values, and ideas on how to transform the words on paper into a lived experience.

We can’t wait to regroup later this year to hear how a group of teachers already infused with a shared sense of passion and possibility turned their energy up a notch to strengthen Tuckahoe’s world-changing community of learners.

BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR CHANGE

It takes a colony of bees just seven days of working collaboratively to create up to three pounds of honeycomb. That’s 5,000 bees, working 10 hour days, and converting pounds of honey into beeswax. Time, energy, geometry, and collaboration all go into building the perfect beehive.

To borrow a metaphor, the Virginia League of Conservation Voters have been busy as bees ensuring the voice of the state’s conservation community is heard – on Capital Square and around the state. To mobilize and engage hundreds of organizations and citizens, the League – like bees – has to start with a common foundation.

The League had a strategy, new team members, and new resources to deploy in service to its mission. With that framework already in place, Floricane’s Kathy Greenier and Debra Saneda have been working with the team to connect the pieces into a stronger framework.

When organizations have both individual- and team-based needs, customized approaches are often needed. With the League, Kathy and Debra deployed three tools – Insights® Discovery, Insights® Team Effectiveness, and leadership coaching – to align the perspectives of the entire staff.

The beauty in these three tools is that, like the hexagon shape in a honeycomb, they build on each other. They lead to one shared foundation, not disconnected parts.

The initial Insights® assessment provides individual awareness about communication style, approaches to decision making, and more. It gave the team at the League an opportunity to think about their individual strengths, and what they bring to the table.

The emphasis on Team Effectiveness illuminated how the group works together for a common purpose, and allowed space for a conversation around shared work goals and behaviors.

And, at the center, individual coaching provided key leaders time to reflect on their best approach to helping the organization integrate its work with genuine integrity.

Watching an organization coalesce with energy and purpose around very real challenges facing our community inspires our team to bring its best work to the table.