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Strategic Planning in a Metropolitan Health Clinic: Building Collaborative Capacity

Focus of the Appreciative Inquiry:

To explore open, just, and inclusive leadership.

Client Organization:

This locally prominent and nationally recognized award-winning non-profit clinic provides health care and human services to those who cannot or will not receive services elsewhere. At the time of the consultation, it had 120 personnel in three locations in a southwestern U.S. city.

Client Objective:

The executive team wanted to explore a more non-linear, transformational approach to change. They also wished to:

Access more creativity in their approach to team problem-solving and planning
Build upon the Clinic’s leadership strengths and most effective practices
Address employee concerns about leadership visibility, accessibility, and inclusiveness

What Was Done:

A strategic planning session using Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was conducted with the executive team on the second day of their annual retreat. The topics and questions were generated from the results of the annual employee survey (ES). The day began with a review of the ES results, an overview of AI, and strategically paired AI interviews. After lunch, the team crafted provocative propositions, then designed and prioritized actions and designated accountabilities to help manifest their vision. The team concluded by reviewing the ES data to ensure that issues identified in it had been addressed through this creative AI approach.

Outcomes:

Results far exceeded expectations. Significant outcomes included:

· Implementation of fundamental structural changes to address key organization issues
· The executive director’s high engagement in the process and resolution of a long-standing conflict with a key team member
· The team’s request of the use of AI for their subsequent all-staff retreat

By the end of the day the team members had co-created a powerful vision of open, just, and inclusive leadership. For example, one of team’s provocative propositions was:

The Clinic empowers all employees to be leaders. For us leadership is an organizational phenomenon that everyone shares. Everyone is responsible for an environment that fosters mutual respect, diversity, camaraderie, and fun!

Team members then generated organizational structures and personally committed to take specific actions to help manifest the vision that they had collaboratively created. Examples associated with above provocative proposition:

Develop a new leadership-training program, and create a new mentoring program
Establish greater accountability through setting and monitoring departmental goals and arrange celebration activities for collective wins
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Add diversity questions to the annual employee survey