Coronavirus: Changes at Floricane

As we hit the first week of serious Covid 19 whitewater in Virginia, Floricane — like many businesses — is making some immediate changes to how we are doing our work.

• Our team has both a liberal leave and remote working policy to maximize our health, and we are taking advantage of our shared space with Punch to practice social distancing in the office.

• We are wiping down our work environment twice daily.

• We are contacting each of our current clients to better understand how their organizations are responding to the new Coronavirus, and where needed realigning our work together.

• We are canceling all of our scheduled workshops for 2020, except for our Insights® Discovery public workshops. We had a cascade of more than a dozen new skill-based learning opportunities ready to unveil this year, and we’re looking forward to re-launching these in the future.

• We will keep registered participants informed about the status of our April Insights® workshop. Currently, we plan to sanitize the Highpoint training room (doors, surfaces, tables, chairs) before and after the session, and establish CDC-recommended guidelines for social spacing in meeting environments for this workshop. If we cancel this session, we will let participants know.

As circumstances evolve, our approach to work will evolve. We anticipate an increasing number of our meetings — and work engagements — will happen electronically in the weeks ahead. We take our work seriously, and we take our responsibility to do our part to change our behaviors to help our community move through this challenging period.

If you have questions, or ideas for us, leave a comment or drop me a note.

Punk Rock, Poetry and People: A Disrupt HR Presentation

I recently presented at one of Richmond’s Disrupt HR events. Presenters had about five minutes and 20 slides to share something illuminating about their knowledge of or experience with human resources. It was fun, and a little nerve-wracking! Take a look.

Doing More with Less: a Non-Profit's Dilemma

Change is the watchword of the 21st century. For nonprofits, the word takes on a particular urgency. There’s been a paradigm shift, says Lorri Powers, executive director of the Sarah Bonwell Hudgins Foundation, a Hampton-based organization that coordinates and supports disability services in the Virginia Peninsula. Much of state and federal funding has been stripped, and nonprofits have to do more with less. “We’ve been operating for 50-plus years under the same guidelines. That’s not feasible anymore,” she says. A new strategic plan needed to be slotted into place.

Powers recently took over as executive director, and instead of feeling that change was a challenge, she wanted the board to see it as an opportunity. “I’m the first person to roll my eyes when I hear about facilitator sessions in other places. But John [Sarvay] and I have fun together, and that’s the key to alleviating the dread people may feel.” That’s the way real work can get done, she says. 

It was important to Powers for the board to be actively engaged, despite the daily tasks that still needed their attention. In addition to a series of work sessions with the board’s strategic planning committee, Floricane also facilitated a focused, four-hour session with the full board. It suited the foundation’s needs perfectly. Instead of getting derailed, as is often the way of many strategic planning efforts, Sarvay kept the group on track. “We managed to get everyone thinking differently and stretching their vision,” she says.

The work with Floricane was also an opportunity for Powers to clarify her part in moving the organization ahead. “I needed a sounding board — someone to help me get out of my brain space. John brought a great toolkit with him.”

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

Leadership: An Attitude

As chair of professional development at the Virginia Academic Library Consortium, a group of ten university libraries in Central Virginia that share resources, Patricia Sobczak was looking towards the future. Libraries today are a very different animal than they were even a decade ago. She needed leaders to help push the libraries in the consortium forward.

“Leadership isn’t a title but an attitude,” she says. “It’s believing you can make a difference, step up and lead a project, or lead a presentation.” She wanted library representatives to understand that you can lead from anywhere you may be sitting.

Floricane’s John Sarvay took a deep dive with members of the group in January during a workshop focused on leadership and effective influencing. With a focus on their work, “he made everyone feel comfortable and open to the questions he was asking. It was a supportive environment.” People, she felt, were able to share things that they may not have expressed in a large group under different circumstances — they shared moments of disappointment or challenges they weren’t sure how to overcome. It was risky, but, she says, there was no “gotcha” moment.

A facilitated debrief of conductor Benjamin Zander’s TED talk helped participants see ways to translate creativity into their daily work, and how to take the lead even when they aren’t the designated leader on their team. The group explored Floricane’s own Manifesto — built around a series of beliefs that guide Floricane’s work, such as Conflict is change waiting to happen and The work of a leader is to bring voices from the margins to the center — and discussed ways in which these beliefs applied to the library setting.

“People left feeling like they had real tools they could take with them,” says Sobczak.

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

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.