Catholic Health World

CHI steps up commitment to executive formation

Through mentoring and by example, the women religious who built Catholic health care worked to make sure that lay administrators understood and committed themselves to the healing mission of Christ.

Now, with the number of sister-leaders declining, and the first generation of lay leaders they trained retired or approaching retirement, it's becoming increasingly incumbent on ministry systems to become intentional about formation. The process ensures that lay leaders are well-grounded in the Catholic health mission and that allegiance to mission informs their every business decision. Senior lay leaders in the ministry realize that it's critical to get this right.

In this spirit, Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives created the Center for Formation and Organizational Effectiveness in 2009.

The center's approach to formation "calls for deliberate and intentional dialogue about 'why' and 'how' we do what we do," explained center Vice President Patrick Gaughan.

Gaughan runs the center along with two other executives, Colleen Elliott, vice president of organizational effectiveness, and Lou Forbringer, vice president of strategic talent management. They and 20 support staff make up the center's virtual team. All of the center's staff members also are part of CHI's mission and human resources departments; those departments sponsor the center.

The team spent its inaugural year building the groundwork for its programs. It has begun helping CHI and its facilities to take a structured and consistent approach to how they form executives, mid-level leaders, people in governance roles, clinical leaders and emerging talent. Through dialogue, meetings and informational programs, the center is helping CHI and its facilities to root their leaders in Christian spirituality and Catholic theology.

The system has long offered formation opportunities, including an orientation program, retreats, a project to share associates' stories about living out the values, and a leadership program aimed at educating executives about CHI's heritage and values. (CHI continues to offer these formational tools and experiences.)

Still, CHI leaders felt that something was missing. Around 2006, they began evaluating their formation activities, and they determined that the system needed a more disciplined process for forming leaders.

After the 2006 discussions, CHI created a workgroup of internal mission experts, and they assessed the system's approach to formation. Gaughan explained that the group determined that the system needed a more structured way to help its leaders understand that their role in the ministry is not just a job — it is a calling. The workgroup said a formation program should teach executives that they are part of a ministry of the church and that their respective spiritual journeys should relate to their daily work. The group said CHI also should ensure that the healing ministry of Jesus Christ is at the core of its operations.

The group said through its formation work, CHI should do a better job of helping leaders understand the system's mission and ensure they can articulate Catholic social teaching and apply it to their daily tasks. They said leaders should be committed to advancing the ministry's values, and they should be able to recognize how to use their own leadership skills to do so. And the executives should be able to lead prayer, facilitate dialogue and listen to others when it comes to mission matters.

CHI established the formation center to advance this agenda by making inroads into the system and its facilities. The center is working with CHI locations to offer instructor-led courses, online courses, coaching and mentoring for leaders, and it will be fostering discussion on mission-based leadership.

Gaughan said, "The philosophy underlying this model is that the ordinary leadership practices, business processes and care delivery protocols of our daily work provide a rich milieu for formational experiences." As leaders be-

-come more and more accustomed to viewing their work in this way, Gaughan said, they are transformed, and their work be-comes more and more aligned with the system's values.

The senior leadership at CHI's St. Vincent Health System of Little Rock, Ark., is piloting a formation program from the center intended to help mid-level leaders understand the ministry's purpose and its legacy. Peter Banko, president and chief executive of the system, said that the heightened attention to formation encourages dialogue about the mission and appropriate discernment for decisions.

Formation has been a long-standing priority within CHI, he said, and that has an impact at the bedside. "I get feedback from patients that they see and feel a difference. I find that it is easier to attract top talent to our leadership because they feel it too, and want to be part of something that is truly different."

Banko has been in Catholic health care 13 years, four of them at St. Vincent. He said that his "personal faith and leadership gifts have been more fully enriched because the formation path has been very deliberate" at CHI.

Fr. Thomas Kopfensteiner, STD, CHI senior vice president of mission, said that leaders who understand and embrace their role in the ministry are more effective than those who are not rooted in the mission.

Kevin Lofton, CHI president and chief executive, noted that being formed in this way will help leaders to appropriately navigate the changes that will come about through health care reform.

Gaughan said that the center's approach is reminiscent of how the foundresses of CHI's facilities approached their work. Ten congregations of women religious helped to form CHI in 1996, and those congregations had a legacy of using "their gifts and talents in the face of the challenges of their times," said Gaughan.

Those still active in those congregations "are counting on us to use our gifts and talents in the challenges of our times," he said.

Copyright © 2010 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
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