How To Unite Different Teams in Healthcare (Plus InteCare Retreat Photos)
The entire InteCare staff gathered for 3-day retreat
WOW— we’re still feeling rejuvenated from our InteCare staff retreat last month!
At the end of September, the
entire
team gathered for a 3-day retreat. First off, you may not know this; our organization has 3 separate business verticals that come together under the health and human services umbrella.
1.
Credentialing and enrollment - We help healthcare centers streamline their credentialing and enrollment process.
2.
Veteran Services - We help Veterans secure permanent housing for themselves and their families.
3.
MHFRP - We help behavioral health providers complete the time study to recover critical funds.
It was an extra challenge to bring together, 3 different teams face-to-face for a thoughtfully planned agenda.
Twin goals in developing this retreat
Goal #1 Create a Culture of Positive Intent (We strongly believe in the power of
positive intent which you may remember from an earlier email where I dove deeper into the reason why and how to foster positive intent.)
Goal #2 Unite Organization Around Core Values
(Though we feel unified by our golden thread to make complex administrative services simple, our teams feel isolated from each other. And we need a diverse, integrated staff to build each other up!)
The outcome?
The entire staff felt unified and part of the whole. The post-retreat survey revealed a whopping 86.6 strongly agreed that they now felt more connected to coworkers.
We learned that YES it is possible to unite different teams around a shared vision for healthier, stronger communities. And we knew we had to share with you so that you can bring some of these lessons back to your organizations.
Action steps for your healthcare centers
To get started, we curated an agenda that leveraged internal and external talent for highly interactive programming.
First, best-selling author and business coach
Andrea Liebross presented on the
Think, Feel, Act model and taught the team how to interpret communication with group exercises. This business coaching model is built upon the 3 cognitive processes that develop positivity and performance.
What people THINK
What people FEEL
How people choose to ACT
Activity: Have your team reflect on a past situation and write down their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Discuss together the relationship between the 3 cognitive processes.
(FREE worksheet here)
Next, we participated in a fun, highly engaging exercise built around our core values. We each received postcards with our core values and then wrote notes to other team members about how they best demonstrated these values.
Activity: Turn your company’s core values into postcards and have the staff match coworkers with a value. You can do this as a one-time team-building activity or make it a regular practice to feature staff to build a positive culture.
Lastly, Briana Warris, Director Credentialing gave an uplifting talk on positive intent. She used examples of real-world emails and showed us how differently we interpret emails from a less familiar coworker versus a close colleague/friend. We learned how to shift focus from taking things negatively to assuming the intention is positive.
Activity: The best way to counteract negativity is to assume positive intent and re-read the email. If in doubt, call the sender directly or if possible, walk up to your colleague’s desk to settle a misunderstanding rather than letting the situation escalate. Lead by example: keep emails short, direct, and clear. Avoid slang and take the time to proofread!
Take Away Message
At InteCare, we hope you’re feeling inspired and full of positivity. Our team of credentialing experts (and great coworkers!), suggests you pull from these emotional IQ-developing activities for your healthcare center so that you can create strong, unified teams.
Please reach out to a member of our team and share how you are building unity in your organization!
