Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Building Leaders at Every Level with Courtney Holladay

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Building Leaders at Every Level with Courtney Holladay · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

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  The most important health care decisions don't happen
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  in isolation.
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  They happen when leaders come together.
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  Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings together more than
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  3,500
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  hospital and health system executives this April in
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  Chicago.
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  With 800 speakers from Ascension, Cleveland Clinic, CommonSpirit
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  and more, the conversations get real. Leaders will
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  share how their scenario planning for policy shifts,
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  breaking through value based care barriers, and building
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  clinical teams that translate new ideas into real
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  world care.
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  Join top decision makers in the room April
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  13 through the sixteenth.
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  For the agenda and event details, visit beckers
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  hospital review dot com and click on the
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  events tab in the upper right.
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  Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Kelly
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  Guge, senior editor and enterprise lead at Becker's,
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  and I'm thrilled to be joined today by
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  Courtney Holliday, vice president and chief learning officer
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  at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
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  Center.
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  Courtney, thank you so much for taking the
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  time to be with us. I'm really looking
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  forward to our conversation, especially because MD Anderson
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  has become a national leader in redefining what
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  leadership looks like in health care, not just
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  as an executive level, but, of course, across
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  the whole organization and from your work with
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  the Leadership Institute to your impact on engagement,
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  patient experience, and researchers,
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  a lot to explore today.
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  So to get us started, Courtney, I was
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  hoping you could briefly introduce yourself and share
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  how you came into the role and really
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  what drew you to focus on leadership development
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  in a complex
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  academic medical center like MD Anderson.
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  Well, thank you for the opportunity to be
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  a part of the podcast today. I'm really
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  excited to be here.
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  I have been with MD Anderson now for
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  over twenty years, and I have been drawn
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  from to the role for both personal and
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  professional
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  purposes.
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  From the personal front,
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  my mom is a cancer survivor, was treated
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  at MD Anderson. So I've known about MD
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  Anderson pretty much my entire life. So the
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  opportunity to give back and to support people
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  whose intent and purpose is to
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  eliminate cancer
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  really does
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  fulfill me from that personal lens of how
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  I can give back to people who really
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  gave to me so profoundly.
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  And then from a professional standpoint,
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  my background is industrial organizational psychology.
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  And so that's all about applying psychology to
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  the world of work and helping people thrive
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  in what they do. We spend so much
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  time at work, so the opportunity to really
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  help support people in their work is important.
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  And
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  that background of industrial organizational psychology
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  really lined up with what this role, the
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  chief learning officer role, is all about in
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  providing leadership development at MD Anderson.
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  Absolutely. And, yeah, that definitely segues into our
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  conversation today to to dive a little deeper
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  into your role. And
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  I know MD Anderson has embraced the idea
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  that leadership isn't tied to a specific title,
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  but really something anyone in the organization can
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  step into from the front desk to the
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  c suite. And so what's had to
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  change culturally for that mindset to truly take
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  hold across a 27,000
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  person workforce?
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  Sure. That philosophy that everyone is a leader
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  is truly
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  it just
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  is across MD Anderson. And part of what
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  drove that is the buy in from
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  our president and our senior most leaders, our
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  executive leadership team.
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  And it wasn't just from them talking about
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  it. They started talking about aspects of their
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  own March that they had a coach, but
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  what people started to see was that they
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  were participating
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  in leadership development. So it wasn't uncommon to
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  see them in the room with you or
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  in the session with you online virtually.
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  And when people started to see that model,
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  it really started to disseminate
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  throughout the organization
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  that it is for everyone,
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  and it also has become part of how
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  we select into the organization. So it's not
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  just something
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  once you're there, it's how we're hiring. And
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  that
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  that premise that we want to hire people
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  who can demonstrate those leadership characteristics
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  has really allowed us to say this is
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  for everyone and how it permeates across the
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  organization.
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  I wanted to ask you too a little
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  bit about the leadership institute, which, of course,
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  has produced measurable outcomes from higher patient experience
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  scores to increase research impact and lower burnout.
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  So I was curious how you really design
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  leadership development that we've been talking about just
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  so it translates into real performance and engagement
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  gains rather than feeling like maybe
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  extra or additional training?
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  Sure. I think one thing that's really important
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  as we're talking about leadership development is thinking
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  about it more broadly than simply training.
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  Training is a key component, what most people
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  associate with leadership development, but it's so much
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  broader. There's the mentoring component, the coaching component,
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  team development.
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  And I think that's what's allowed us to
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  really produce those measurable outcomes is looking at
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  the total comprehensive
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  package around leadership development
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  because we're trying to address it through a
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  model of learn, practice, apply.
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  Often in the course and the training, that's
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  where you're learning, but it's through those mentoring
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  and coaching opportunities that you're really able to
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  practice and apply
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  the content.
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  And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention
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  as we're designing any of the programs that
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  we're doing, we're very intentional about the objectives
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  that we're trying to achieve. What is it
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  we're trying to move the bar on and
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  help people upscale in? And so those are
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  kind of the decision points in how we
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  really
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  provide
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  a rounded experience around leadership development.
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  We know that systems
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  often also struggle with silos and longstanding tensions
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  across roles and and disciplines. And
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  so how has MD Anderson's Situational Collaborative view
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  of leadership that we've been talking about really
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  changed the way clinicians, researchers, and operational teams
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  work together?
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  So the first thing that that I would
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  point to is that we view leadership as
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  discipline agnostic.
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  And what I mean by that is it
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  doesn't matter whether you're a clinician, a researcher,
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  an operational leader, the same leadership characteristics that
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  you need
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  in those disciplines are true across them all.
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  So for example, being an emotional intelligent leader,
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  you need that regardless of which discipline you're
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  leading.
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  And following that premise at MD Anderson,
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  we start from the
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  from the standpoint that everyone is first an
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  MD Anderson leader,
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  and we have eight characteristics
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  that we have defined
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  that really showcase what we're expecting from our
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  MD Anderson leaders.
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  And then you can build on that with
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  the particular discipline that you lead and what
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  may be nuanced or specific to that discipline
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  that you need to support.
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  Absolutely. And,
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  looking ahead to just kind of a forward
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  looking question. We know,
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  of course, organizations across The US are facing
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  continued workforce strain and and rapid change.
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  And
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  so how do you see leadership development needing
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  to evolve over the next maybe five to
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  ten years just to prepare the next generation
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  of health care leaders?
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  I think that's a great question, and I
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  would actually
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  process to say we have to start that
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  evolution sooner.
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  We have to be thinking about how to
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  really
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  skill up the next generation in terms of
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  their leadership and the skills and the toolkit
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  that they have available.
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  At MD Anderson, we're doing that by focusing
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  our leadership development efforts with our trainees and
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  our fellows, our residents,
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  our graduate students, individuals
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  who are going to be the next,
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  practitioners within our environment.
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  We're even starting a high school program. Our
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  we've started a high school program that we
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  run-in the summer where we have students coming
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  in and we're focusing on
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  those leadership skills.
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  Trying to get them earlier, I think, is
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  a big focus for us.
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  And this kinda gets to the point when
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  today, when I ask individuals, you know, how
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  much time have you spent training in your
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  discipline?
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  And when they come into our organization, they're
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  often saying, you know, in the hundreds of
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  thousands of hours to really hone their craft,
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  hone their discipline.
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  And then I'll ask them, so how many
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  hours have you spent
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  on
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  developing leadership skills or interpersonal skills? And they'll
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  look at me for a moment, and then
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  they might answer something in the, well, you
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  know, maybe fifty to hundred
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  kinda hours.
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  And I think that's where we need to
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  focus is really increasing
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  that time spent earlier
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  on leadership and development of those interpersonal skills
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  so that you
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  walk into the workforce
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  with that
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  skill set, with that toolkit already available to
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  you, and you're not having to develop it
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  after the fact.
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  Because when we see issues arise, when we
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  see complicated
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  interactions, it's often because we're
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  we're not able to draw from the toolkit
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  that we need to help us engage in
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  that interaction effectively.
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  And many times, the things that we're talking
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  about are not,
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  difficult. They are often
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  common sense, but what we'll say is they're
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  not common practice. And so what we're trying
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  to do by
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  spending time on the training and giving those
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  dedicated time and attention to them
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  now is really getting them to be common
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  practice. And so the earlier that we can
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  focus on them
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  as we look to that next generation and
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  getting it into, you know, high school, middle
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  school, elementary school, I think it's just going
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  to help that next generation as they move
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  into the workforce.
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  Yeah. It really sounds like the bottom line
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  being get those fundamentals
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  and and and have those set coming into
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  the workforce, like you said, and and really
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  building from there in a
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  efficient way,
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  essentially, and just continue to continuing to use
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  those skills.
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  Thank you so much, Courtney, for for sharing.
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  Is there anything
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  that you had mentioned that we do you
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  wanna add,
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  about what we've discussed so far? Any
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  anything else you'd wanna mention for those listening?
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  I think, though, one thing I would add
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  is going back to something you mentioned about
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  seeing
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  the training as extra or seeing leadership development
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  as extra. And it really
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  we have to change that line of thinking
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  to see how is it complementing, how is
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  it serving as a strategic lever
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  to accomplish whatever we're trying to do within
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  the health care system, within their health care
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  organization.
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  Because
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  people
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  are our greatest asset. We are going to
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  be the ones that are able to cure
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  cancer. We're going to be the ones that
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  are going to be
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  holding the hands of our patients. And so
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  that leadership development, how we're helping
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  our employees, our workforce
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  really be the best that they can be
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  is what's going to enable us to achieve
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  those really hard objectives that we're trying to
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  as an organization.
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  Thank you so much, Courtney,
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  for this wonderful and interesting conversation today. I
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  I really do appreciate your time, and I
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  look forward to working with you again soon.
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  Thank you for the opportunity. It was great
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  to connect.