Developing healthcare leaders’ capabilities at scale

Client need

A multinational medical device and healthcare organization needed to better understand, practice, and apply the critical capabilities of effective leaders.

To achieve this goal, the organization partnered with BTS to design a program for over 20,000 of its leaders. Together, they facilitated meaningful conversation amongst participating teams, coaching each leader to develop these critical capabilities over a four-phase journey.

The solution

Throughout the 12-week virtually facilitated journey, which was delivered in 13 languages, participating leaders learned and practiced four key leadership skills:

• Inclusive leadership: respecting and valuing diversity of thought, perspective, and approach
• Building trust: treating everyone fairly and maintaining open and honest communication patterns that inspire teammates to speak the truth
• Creating culture: fostering an environment in which all can thrive but also challenging employees to be at their best
• Coaching and developing: pushing teams to their full potential by assessing individual strengths and development areas

To build these skills, participating leaders followed a framework called “See-Hear-Speak,” which culminated in a module focused on coaching and developing others:

• See: building trust and drive inclusion by making others feel seen
• Hear: helping teammates understand the value of their input
• Speak: creating culture by communicating with clarity and compassion, after seeing and hearing

Throughout each phase, they experienced:

• Learning bursts, or digital scenarios during which to practice these concepts
• Supplemental online training using existing company content
• Go-dos, which are action items to be completed back on the job
• Peer pods, building trust through constructive conversation
• Development of key takeaways and commitments

After wrapping up the 12-week journey, each participating leader received a sustainment plan designed to help incorporate these new skills over a six-month period.

Results

The program yielded completion of over 11,000 peer pods and 269 1:1 coaching sessions. Direct reports of managers who completed the program have meaningfully higher employee engagement-survey scores than those whose managers opted out. Analyzing these scores four months post-program shows positive effects on profit, revenue, safety, and productivity as well.

Additional highlights include:

• Overall evaluation score: 4.3/5
• Completion rate of 97%
• Participants gave effectiveness of training a score of 4.2/5
• +129k go-dos completed

Client feedback

• “I’ve seen a big change in my manager. They’re listening more and asking more questions, and while they’ve still got a ways to go to be a good manager, I’m seeing real progress.”
• “I began to realize that when you step back, you bring forward curiosity. I was able to notice someone else’s state and I know they felt seen because they came up to me later and said ‘thank you!’”
• “I’m finding more opportunities to get off ‘auto-pilot,’ get out of the box, and be more curious, really listening to others.”
• “I’m actively putting myself into a more empathetic mindset. I’m asking my people more questions, probing deeper into the data, and coming back with insights I’ve never seen from them before.”