“Leading Up” – Lessons Learned from Senior Administration to Enable Organizational Change to Advance IPE

Objectives

1. Describe effective strategies and key challenges for engaging senior leaders in interprofessional practice and education (IPE) as a priority organizational change initiative.
2. Personally apply specific knowledge and skills to address these challenges, enabling successful development, integration, deployment and sustainability of IPE strategic initiatives.

Engaging senior leaders is critical for successful IPE. But attracting and holding their attention requires intentional, streamlined, focused communication, and political savvy. Using issue selling as a framework, two experienced IPE leaders and their C-suite administrators from diverse universities will share specific tools, communication strategies, and processes, “leading up” to advance IPE.

Outline

• Introductions / Warm-Up (interactive think-pair-share around 1 trigger question), 5 minutes
• Background and Rationale, 10 minutes
  • Current realities brought on by a global viral pandemic, and emergence of a chronic social epidemic of racial injustice challenge leadership - now more than ever. This virtuous cycle across academic and clinical environments requires continued restructuring of health professions education to meet current and future needs. Organizations are under severe economic pressures that either facilitate or retard efficiency and collaboration. Senior leader engagement is critical for sustainable intrprofessional practive and education (IPE) (Brandt, et al 2015; Cerra, et al 2015; Reeves et al, 2016; HPAC, 2019; Wartman 2015; Thibault, 2020). But attracting and holding senior leaders’ attention requires intentional, streamlined, focused communication, relationship-building, and political savvy. Exercising this specialized skillset can be uncomfortable for IPE champions, yet effectiveness can determine whether or not IPE is activated as a resourced and prioritized organizational change initiative.
  • Organizations are not structured to support collaboration. IPE champions are often placed awkwardly, ill-equipped, and poorly positioned to compete with other priorities. Meaningful and sustainable change cannot occur without “leading up”, even when it’s uncomfortable. Using issue-selling as a framework, IPE champions can successfully move their missions, agendas, ideas and needs forward to achieve issue-selling objectives, and effect visionary organizational change.
• Application, 10 minutes
  • Using issue selling as the basis, Slapcoff, Winer and Dobler (2014) created a framework for focusing leaders’ attention and deploying projects of significance in higher education. Seminar leaders will describe this framework, share specific tools, describe communication strategies, and outline processes they find effective when “leading up” to advance IPE. Seminar leaders will describe this framework, provide specific examples of tools, communication strategies, and processes effective in advancing IPE at their institutions.
• Active Learning Strategies, 30 minutes
  • Attendees will complete a case study, engage in guided reflection, and participate in a facilitated discussion to exchange ideas to develop and adapt these tacts for use at their institutions.
• Large Group Q&A and discussion, facilitated by Senior academic leadership and experienced IPE leaders (10 minutes),
• Participants will break into smaller groups for applied case study (13 minutes)
• Time for individual reflection and forward planning (7 minutes)
• Debrief (5 minutes)

Participants will gain specific skills and practical knowledge about “Leading up”, including leveraging contextual knowledge, using specific communication strategies, engaging stakeholders, network, and influencing decisions and institutional policies.

*References available on request.