The Case for
Relational Leadership

Drives for efficiency, value, and equity only raise the stakes and heighten the need for truly effective teams. The characteristics of high-performing teams and organizations have been known for decades. Concepts such as psychological safety, flattened hierarchy, agility managing tensions from difference, and fostering connection have been extensively researched and documented. However, building such teams, or transforming poorly performing teams into them, has eluded health systems leaders and practitioners for some time.

We now live in a moment where the stakes are even higher, and our systems, leaders, and colleagues face additional obstacles — levels of burnout, already high pre-COVID, have soared during the pandemic, the workforce has shrunk, and tremendous harm has been done to trust between the healthcare workforce and their institutions and leaders.

We are turning the tide on burnout and disengagement by helping courageous health professionals and leaders implement a practical new model for showing up in their work. To achieve this we put our attention where others don’t. We are laser-focused on the quality of human interactions and dynamics as core drivers of satisfaction and success, and on the  interplay between those relational characteristics and the processes, policies, and workflows of the institution.

The experiences we create are curated from decades of experience in healthcare and beyond. We help to make a core set of relational skills real and practical in healthcare. Participants are renewed by their engagement with us; they gain an actionable set of practices that can immediately be put to use and they rediscover a sense of connection to a wider community and purpose. This contributes to more satisfied and successful individuals, more productive and effective teams, stronger and more stable institutions and, ultimately, to a thriving healthcare ecosystem.

• Relational and human dynamics are the foundation of our approach, rather than a complement.
• We cover the essential skills, mindsets, and knowledge of high-performing teams and leaders and make them easily understandable, teachable, and shareable with others.
• Our programs are designed and taught by clinicians and other health professionals with deep personal experiences in both transactional, non-relational systems and human-centered relational systems. They can speak directly from experience about the gains in success and team engagement.
• We emphasize application and practice, facilitating group experiences that model high-performing teams, so participants can both be inspired and begin developing relational “muscle memory.”
• We recognize that providing quality healthcare requires weaving together technical strategies focused on structures, processes, and workflows with relational strategies that attend to the human dynamics and relationships that drive our success.
• We offer real-time team interventions that serve the individual and collective needs for trust-building, healing, and organizational renewal.