The Situation
WellSpan Ephrata’s focus on improving safety and quality of patient care, overall patient experience as well as employee engagement and stewardship is paramount to their future organizational successes, but at an organizational level there was a widespread trend of employees delegating up. Leaders were falling prey to advice-giving and making decisions on behalf of their staff. This led to a lack of focus and prioritization, making every presenting problem seem imminent, and individuals felt overwhelmed by the inherent ambiguity. Contributors weren’t owning solutions to their claims, and this behaviour had become habitual.
WellSpan Ephrata decided to implement a lean daily management (LDM) system to increase connection, lessen overwhelm, simplify problem-solving and eliminate waste. They identified tools to support the LDM and drive desired behaviours. What quickly became apparent, though, was that without the ability to be more curious and coach-like in their day-to-day interactions, rooted cultural norms would not budge.
The Solution
WellSpan Ephrata chose Box of Crayons to activate culture change and help transform leadership behaviours, so the benefits of LDM could be fully realized, while also improving overall patient experience and employee engagement. The Coaching Habit uncovers the rewards for — and risks of — defaulting to “Advice Monster” mode while creating a reason for people to care about being curious and more coach-like.
By leveraging foundations for coach-like curiosity, leaders were better able to understand how and why they were so quick to intervene with answers and how this behaviour contradicted their organizational values.
The Result
The simplicity of The Coaching Habit methods lent themselves well to the structures of the LDM, and our coach-like curiosity frameworks elevated overall patient experience and employee engagement as well as retention. WellSpan Ephrata saw progressive cultural change due to their partnership with Box of Crayons.
