People and Patient Center Approach with  Melody Dickerson and Grace Greenan, Virginia Hospital Center

Virginia Hospital Center puts their people and patients at the center. By connecting to people’s values and helping them learn the skills to be successful, outcomes follow. Melody shares how rounding on patients and employees is a key step. She shares how relationship rounding is different from “drive by rounding” by having an  intentional conversation to build rapport, find out what’s working well, who can be recognized and where improvements can be made. During this podcast, learn how frequency correlates to outcomes and how sequencing and hardwiring behaviors sets the framework for engagement with their employees. Grace discusses their leader orientation, culture day and how training creates the culture for engagement. Listen in to hear tips on creating an engaged workforce, how to connect to the values of employees and leading through a crisis.

Melody F. Dickerson, MSN, RN, CPHQ , Senior Vice President & Chief Nursing Officer, Virginia Hospital Center
[email protected]  

Melody Dickerson is the Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Virginia Hospital Center Health System, a 437-bed, not-for-profit Magnet teaching facility in the Washington DC metro area. A nurse leader for more than 25 years, Melody is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Organization of Nurse Executives, and is the President of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Nurses Association.

Melody leads the clinical and quality initiatives that advance high-value healthcare for the health system. Melody has played a critical role throughout the pandemic as the voice of the health system to the surrounding community, serving as one of the Hospital’s primary spokespeople for the region’s first drive-through COVID testing facility. Melody also led the Hospital’s effort to become a Level II Trauma Center earlier this year, filling a critical need in the community. 

Grace Greenan, MA, LPC, Associate Vice President for People and Experience - Talent Management & Patient Experience, Virginia Hospital Center
[email protected] 

Grace Greenan, MA, LPC has been a counselor for 18 years and a counselor educator for the past 5 years. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts and her MA in Professional Counseling from Liberty University. Grace currently works as an Associate Vice President for People and Experience at Virginia Hospital Center and maintains a private counseling practice. For her Ph.D. work in Counselor Education and Supervision with a focus on Organizational Development, Grace’s research has included a deep analysis of the supervisory relationship dynamic to determine if supervisor realism and genuineness predict an increase in staff willingness to report errors. Grace is passionate about positive psychology, employee and patient engagement, and leadership development. She is a member of the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. She is also a graduate of the Arlington Leadership Center for Excellence program.

Leadership is a mindset, not a skillset and it starts with purpose. Mike Harbour and Dr. Brian Haas join the podcast to share information about their presentations at The Gratitude Symposium as well as helpful resources for changing the mindset. 

Mike is the founder and president of Harbour Resources, a leadership consulting, training, and talent management firm. During the podcast he shares 4 ways individuals can create a path of upward mobility in their life and leadership to experience more peace, more success, and more abundance in their life, business, and leadership of others. 

Dr. Brian Haas is hospitalist, and physician leader and coach who explores how life stressors can deplete your emotional intelligence reserves and how this can negatively impact, your patients, your family, your friends and lead to burnout and dissatisfaction with your career. During the podcast Brian provides strategies to create an environment and culture to maximize the human potential.

Take a listen to learn valuable resources to help your mindset and replenish your emotional intelligence.

Resources:

• Mike Harbour
• The Gratitude Symposium Presentation - How To Use Gratitude to Raise your Altitude (47:03)
• Tool - Action Guide

• Brian Haas
• The Gratitude Symposium Presentation - Your Emotional Intelligence fuel tank and how it is being depleted without you even knowing it. (37:47)
• Blog Post - “What We Can Learn From Ted Lasso” 

Books Referenced: 

• The Calling: Why Healthcare is So Special, by Quint Studer
• The Fifth Discipline, by Peter Senge 

Lisa is an international speaker, author, TEDx presenter, certified shamanic healer, guided energy practitioner and registered nurse. 

Adrian is a global expert on organizational culture, and author of the New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestsellers The Carrot Principle, All In and Leading with Gratitude. His most recent book is Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done. 

Lisa and Adrian join the podcast to share how creating a culture of empathy can lead to better organizations. 

Lisa offers wisdom, insights and practical tools to attend to our spirit through “BUILD,” an acronym inspired by Lisa’s life experience of loss.  She shares how to release fear, embrace love, value intuition and connect to each other as we explore aspects of leadership by leading ourselves first.  

Adrian shares what you can do for yourself to help with your own anxiety and how to help those you lead. In addition, he shares his extensive research on why employees leave their job and how an employee’s resignation involves their relationship with their supervisor. 

In this podcast learn how you can maximize your own potential and those you lead.

Resources:

Lisa DeLong: 

Miracles Manifest Through People: The healing power of spiritual exploration for healthcare professionals. (30:42) The Gratitude Symposium

BUILD 

Adrian Gostick:

The Anxiety Solution: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done (38:23) - The Gratitude Symposium

Forbes Article: “4 Ways To Beat The Great Resignation”

View Gratitude Symposium Presentations HERE

Being a good listener is the key to being a great leader. Executive Coaches and National Speakers, Linda Deering Dean and Don Dean join Quint this week on The Busy Leader’s Podcast to share their advice on how to become a more empathetic listener and an overall better leader.

Linda has a passion for improving leaders, employees, and organizations. She shares how in order for individuals to be great leaders they must be coachable—in order for people to be coachable we must let go of our egos. She highlights that great leadership starts with self-awareness.

Don emphasizes how being an empathetic listener, especially when it comes to patient care, can make a world of difference in patient satisfaction. Being a good listener starts with being present in a conversation. Don provides tips to ensure your patients know you are listening to them and making sure they know you care. 

Resources:

• Presentation from The Gratitude Symposium: 

"Caring From The Heart" - Don Dean
"Outstanding Leadership is a Choice" - Linda Deering Dean

• Book referenced: Compassionomics| Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference by Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli 

Looking to reconnect back to your purpose? Kristin Baird, President and CEO, of Baird Group, and Author, Speaker, and Healthcare leader, Jeff Atwood are on The Busy Leader’s Podcast this week to share the power of storytelling and the deep and impactful way it connects us to each other.

Kris explains how having a great patient experience starts with having a great culture; having a great culture retains talent. She says that the best way to build a great culture within your organization is by having an unrelenting focus on people as individuals. Healthcare organizations tend to spend more time recruiting new people rather than retaining the talent they already have. Kris empathizes that when we get to know our people better and listen to their stories, we then know how to coach and lead them better. Stories connect us back to our purpose.

Unlike Kris, Jeff never intended to get into the healthcare industry. It wasn’t until his daughter Madison was born that Jeff saw first-hand the difference that healthcare workers make each day. Going to doctor’s offices and hospitals regularly with his daughter, Jeff saw the impact that Madison’s story made on those who listened. He soon discovered the power of storytelling. Jeff explains how we must focus on the importance of telling stories because hearing and understanding the story of a patient can make all the difference in their care.

The is a must-listen for healthcare leaders, providers, workers, or anyone looking to connect back to their calling.

Calling all healthcare workers, leaders, and providers looking to reinvest in themselves and replenish their emotional bank accounts! Dr. Swati Mehta, adult hospitalist at Commonspirit Sequioa Hospital, California and Executive Director of Quality & Patient Experience at Vituity, a physician-owned and led partnership in acute care innovation that is committed to transforming healthcare for the benefit for all, is on The Busy Leader’s Podcast this week. Dr. Mehta share her tools and best practices for improving patient care and physician burnout. 

Dr. Mehta started her journey in healthcare leadership about 10 years ago when she was a hospitalist and part of a 20-physician team. While on this team, her Medical Director unblinded each physician’s patient experience scores. Dr. Mehta shares how these scores became the catalyst for her building the best practices for herself and her team to improve patient experience while becoming the only minority leader in her organization. 

Dr. Mehta set out to develop techniques designed to make improving patient experience and healing burnout among healthcare workers real and achievable. She shares some of her valuable tools such as the 6H Framework, which is designed to connect patients with their clinical teams; R.I.S.E., a technique to address healthcare burnout amongst your team; and R.E.A.L., a tool to connect with patients virtually. If you are looking to reinvest in yourself and your team this is the episode for you!

Connect:

Swati Mehta, MD, FACP , CPXP
Director of Quality & Performance
Patient Experience- Vituity
Chair- S.H.M Patient Experience Executive Council
Executive board member- S.H.M Bay Area Chapter
Mobile: 510.410.1991
www.vituity.com
[email protected]

Tools and Resources: 

1. 6H Model for Human Connection ( S.H.M The Hospitalist August 2020)  
2. 6H model to connect with your team 
3. R.I.S.E  from Burn out like a phoenix! 
4. COVID patient experience  

Want to redefine how you and your employees think about diversity? Vincent Brown, President & CEO of V. Randolph Brown Consulting, a boutique global, management consulting consortium, is on The Busy Leader’s Podcast this week to discuss the meaning of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our companies and lives.

Vincent has been making strides in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for over 35 years after he and his two partners asked the question: “What can we do to create a more inclusive world?” Since then, DEI have been at the forefront of Vincent’s message. In this episode, he dives into how DEI is beneficial for business, customer service, and innovation. He mentions that inclusion starts with good leadership. For companies to truly embody DEI, leaders must role model the ideals they want to implement among their employees. Companies need to be willing to make inclusion a strategic priority to make a meaningful difference. The biggest takeaway you will leave with after this episode is how DEI is not about fixing problems but about taking advantage of opportunities for all. Vincent emphasizes that we are all human, therefore we will make mistakes, but the actions we take after our mistakes is where true change lies.

Vincent also mentions his latest book he co-authored with Dr. Janet Reid, Intrinsic Inclusion: Rebooting Your Biased Brain. The first 50 people to email me at [email protected] will receive a copy of this book!

On this week’s episode of The Busy Leader’s Podcast, Dan Gentry, President and CEO of AUPHA, and Anthony Stanowski, President and CEO, of CAHME join me to discuss how their organizations are helping universities build better healthcare administration programs. The Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) is a network of universities, colleges, faculties, and organizations committed to improving healthcare through healthcare management and education. As Dan says, it is the Big 10 of academic programs! AUPAHA is where academic faculty and staff come to be better teachers and leaders. 

The Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) is a group of educational, professional, and other health sector organizations dedicated to improving the education around healthcare management and administration professionals. Put in simpler terms by Anthony, CAHME reviews the criteria and standards of programs that are educating future healthcare leaders to ensure they are meeting these said standards. He dives into the specific of these standards and what it means to be an accredited program by CAHME. 

Together, both Dan and Anthony discuss how their organizations coped during the pandemic and what the future has in store for their members. Whether you are a student, educator, leader, or individual in healthcare, this is an episode you will want to listen to. 

Have you experienced stress or anxiety at work? Chester Elton, Author and Executive Coach, is on The Busy Leader’s Podcast this week to explain how leaders can help their employees with mental health issues. Chester talks about his books he co-authored with Adrian Gostick, Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results, and Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done. He dives into how the most important thing we can do as leaders is normalize the conversation around mental health because you can’t solve a problem you can’t talk about. He also emphasizes that the most essential skill we must have as empathic leaders is the ability to listen to our employees. When employees feel comfortable and heard, organizations thrive. If you are looking for tips and best practices on how to open the conversation about mental health with your employees, this is the podcast for you!

The first 50 people to email [email protected] will receive a copy of one of the books mentioned above.

Click HERE for books and resources.

About Chester Elton:
Chester Elton’s work is supported by research with more than a million working adults, revealing the proven secrets behind high performance cultures and teams. He has spent two decades helping clients around the world engage their employees in organizational strategy, vision and values. In his inspiring and always entertaining lectures, Chester provides real solutions for leaders looking to build culture, manage change and drive innovation.

Chester is co-founder of FindMojo, a global assessment company, and author of multiple award-winning New York Times, USA Today and #1Wall Street Journal Bestsellers All In, The Carrot Principle, Leading with Gratitude, and Anxiety at Work. His books have been translated into 30 languages and have sold more than 1.5 million copies.

Chester has been called “fascinating” by Fortune and “creative and refreshing” by the New York Times. He appeared on NBC’s Today Show, CBS 60 Minutes, and is often quoted in Fast Company, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. In 2021, Global Gurus research organization ranked Chester among the world’s top leadership experts and organizational culture experts. He is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches pay-it-forward project and serves as a board member for Camp Corral, a non-profit for the children of wounded and fallen military heroes.

Some of Elton’s clients include GE, Novartis, Duracell and Pepsi. As an executive coach, he has helped high potential leaders at American Express, Cubic, and the World Bank

Connect with Chester:
https://twitter.com/chesterelton?lang=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCK77lFrQJv8ql7t2yrwonA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesterelton/
https://www.facebook.com/ChesterElton/
https://www.instagram.com/chester.elton/

What makes a good mentor? Bert Thornton, former President and COO of Waffle House, and Mort O’Sullivan, former Managing Member of the Gulf Region of Warren Averett, have the answers to this question on this week’s episode of The Busy Leader’s Podcast! The two dive into the importance of having a mentor and how meaningful it is to be one. They explain that asking for mentorship can be a simple as asking someone to join you for a cup of coffee. Mentoring is more than just business advice, it is coaching, training, and valuable life lessons. Bert and Mort share how the most powerful mentoring tool is merely asking an instructive question. With the extensive knowledge and experience that these two have, you will be sure to have some great takeaways from this episode! 

Resources:
Studer Community Institute Accelerate Roundtables
Studer Community Institute - The Spring VMS Mentoring

About: Mort O’Sullivan - click here

About: Albert S. (Bert) Thornton
Albert S. (Bert) Thornton was born in New Orleans, LA in 1945 and grew up in Tampa, Florida.  He played football at T. R. Robinson High School, where he was President of the Student Body and attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a full football scholarship. Bert was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at Georgia Tech and graduated in 1968.

Bert served two years as an artillery officer in the United States Army and served one tour with the 5thBattalion, 2nd Artillery in South Vietnam.

Upon separation from the service, he worked as a systems analyst and salesman in NCR’s IT Division, and in 1971, Bert joined Waffle House as a manager trainee.  Four years later, he became a Vice President.  In 1994, he was elected to the Board of Directors. For over 40 years, Bert worked with both Company and Franchise Operations in Waffle House and in 2004 was named President and Chief Operations Officer of Waffle House, Inc. Today, he is the retired Vice Chairman Emeritus of Waffle House.

Bert is also very active at Georgia Tech, serving from 1996-2000 as a member of the Alumni Association Board of Trustees. In 1999 he chaired Tech’s highly successful $7.8 million dollar annual giving “Roll Call” initiative, and was named President of the Alumni Association in 2001 and 2002. He has been a member of the Georgia Tech Foundation Board of Trustees since 2001 where he has served on the Finance, Development and Stewardship Committees. In 2016 Bert received the Joseph Mayo Pettit Alumni Distinguished Service Award, the highest award conferred by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.

Bert is a member of the board of directors of The Studer Community Institute in Pensacola, Florida and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of West Florida, College of Business- Center for Entrepreneurship.

Bert also has an Advisory Board role with The Museum School of Avondale Estates, a charter public elementary-middle school in DeKalb County, Georgia. He is a former trustee of the school and was honorary chair for The Museum School’s successful 5 million dollar expansion capital campaign.

He is the recent author of the book Find an Old Gorilla, a handbook for the development of emerging leaders.

Bert lives in Perdido Key, Florida with his wife, Kathy, who devotes her time to several “not for profit” organizations. Kathy and Bert have three daughters: Aspen, Chaice, and Mayson. All three girls are very successful graduates of Georgia Tech and members of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority.