Prioritizing and Scaling Employee Development with Ochsner Health’s Anne-Marie Skansi
"Learning for learning's sake doesn't help, the goal has to be to change your behavior."
Anne-Marie Skansi’s lifelong passion for teaching and education led her to a job in organizational development at Ochsner Health back in 2006. Since then, she’s been named VP of Ochsner’s Learning Institute where she and her team have created a library of resources and learning experiences aimed at prioritizing and scaling employee development.
In this episode, Anne-Marie shares how she uses direct feedback to understand the challenges the leaders in her 36,000+ organization face, so she can leverage a combination of internal resources and external programs to support them. Listen in to learn how to build trust and courage on teams, develop and retain talent, and create connections, all while encouraging constraining learning and growth.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to use a combination of internal resources and external programs to develop a robust, scalable development program
- What strategies can be used to retain talent and build team connections
- How to meet the needs of leaders through customized learning experiences
Things to Listen for:
[04:46] The evolution of leadership
[08:48] Asking the right questions and listening to the answers
[14:49] Combining internal resources and external programs
[22:34] How to scale employee development initiatives
[29:52] Cultivating a culture of learning
[34:56] Measuring success based on feedback
Resources:
Connect with the Guest:
Connect with the Host & Floyd Coaching:
Transcript
And so when we bring those two together, we can create some really, impactful. Experiences and programs.
[:I had a great conversation with Anne-Marie Skcansi, vice President, Ofer Learning. I. Oker Health is an integrated healthcare system with a mission to serve, heal, lead, educate, and innovate. She has over 20 years of experience in education, leadership development, and change management. Anne-Marie is also a certified dream manager.
She shared a lot of great ideas on how to implement leadership programs and create dynamic cultures in your organization. Enjoy our conversation.
Anne Marie, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited for this conversation. Talk a little bit about, I mean, you have this very interesting career, but you've been in kind of.
employee development leadership training. this has been your world for 20 years. How did you get into it? Why is it important to you? Well,
[:and when I graduated from, college, I went into, high school education. . And then, from there I decided that I had always aspired to, an academic setting to higher ed. And I thought that, you know, I wanted to teach at the university level.
[:skills in training and education to help others, to do so. And so I, I did that for quite some time. and then the Katrina hit in New Orleans where I'm from and, I provided an opportunity for me to kind of come back to New Orleans. and help, as there was a lot of rebuilding and growth going on in the city after, that devastating storm.
[:And so there was a lot of kind of, resurgence in rebuilding. so it was a, it was just a really great opportunity. Now I've been working with Oxner since then in their training and development. department. It was a very small department at the time I joined. and it has since grown into the Ner uh, learning Institute, which is a, essentially it's an in-house, university for the system to support ongoing professional development, for our team members.
So it's, it's been quite the trajectory, but it allows me to kind of combine my passions for training and development. and then to, to share that with others and to help others learn and grow, which is, really just, it's what fuels me and it's my passion,
I love hearing people's journeys cuz it's almost, it's, it's that Steve Jobs quote of you can't connect the dots looking.
[:It is. You have how many, uh, team members?
[: [:Like what are some of the things that has have surprised you along your journey in this world?
[:And so, you know, the evolution of, of leadership has changed over the course of, of certainly my tenure. when I first joined the organization, we would get requests for, you know, how do we build more professional skills acumen, you know, I need to be a better communicator.
So we would work on courses around communi. Skills. and there was some degree of, development needed around kind of the business acumen piece. And so, we, we would cater to kind of these, I would call 'em kind of one-off exceptions for what people needed, right? They would come to us, but as we have grown.
as a health system in in particular, and then healthcare just in general, having to navigate the ambiguity, the uncertainty, the challenges that come with healthcare, you know, the needs of our leaders. Have grown significantly. So, we have had to evolve as a, as a learning function to meet those needs of our leaders as they have changed.
[:So trust. Courage, vulnerability. these are becoming kind of the, the, the real big focus right now as we continue to, in a post covid world, especially navigate, in a space where, we cannot, neither predict nor control our circumstances, right? And so we have to really be fully, kind of vested in who we are and what we bring to the table.
And so this idea. who we are is very much how we lead. and we need that courage and courageous and daring leadership. So I think the now more than ever, we're kind of doubling down on, the human aspects of leadership and leading human right. and what does that mean?
Bringing our full selves to this space, in order to help, kind of unlock the potential that, and the gifts that each leader brings to the table. So it's been, it has been a, a shift. and I would say that we are, you know, we're navigating in, in such uncertain waters that we have to, focus on, how do you manage change?
How do you, build courage? How do you create trust on teams? how do you build a very resilient. workforce as well. Well, wellbeing is, is, is top of mind as well, so it's, it's certainly, indicative of the waters that we are navigating in right now.
What's interesting is, well, you, you run this department, this is what you're tasked with is figuring out what are these programs, what are these courses, what are the things that you know are really gonna en enhance the leaders in your organization?
[:How do you pick them, right? Like you're talking about really important things like having difficult conversations, trust and courage and bravery, right? All of these pieces, but I don't know. , everyone on our team would actually identify that as the problem. So that is kind of what, what you get to do. So, so for somebody that is leading a team right now and they're thinking, what should I be doing for my team to help them grow?
How do you really discern what things to implement and what to leave behind? Because, there's a lot out there to choose from. There's a lot that you could do, but how do you know what's right for your organization?
what I've really been focused on, particularly in the.
[:And then from there we think about, okay, so based on that, what can we do to help to support whatever those, those challenges may be? Those business challenges. and listening to what they're telling us. So, top of mind right now. and what has, been top of mind for the past, two years in particular coming out of the, environment that we've been navigating in is how do you build trust?
right on teams in vulnerability, in a market that's very, uncertain right now. I think nationally organizations are being plagued by how do we retain talent, right? and I think that that talent, we know that employees wanna work for companies where they can feel a sense of purpose and where they feel that they are seen and heard, fully seen and heard.
building trust on teams is a really big, piece right now. How to, build courage. How do we have. Courageous and daring leaders, right? And so that means people who fully commit to and own who they are and what they bring. And then this idea of developing teams, how do we develop people? And so, the retention of talent right now are some big pieces for us building, trust on teams, creating courageous and daring.
and retaining talent. How do we develop and retain our talent with a focus on how are we taking care of our teams and building connections with teams? So, in response to that, we have, system-wide programs. So we have, the Dare to Lead, courage Building Program based on the research of, Dr.
[:So in that, that space of how we're developing our teams dream manager has been a, you know, an incredible asset for us. . we have a, a change management program that we, work with our project management office because, understanding how to, to. , approach change in an era where things are changing, not just on a yearly cycle.
They're changing monthly, sometimes weekly. so we're helping, to build that, acumen as well. So I, I think it, it comes down to what can we do to listen to the challenges and then how can we help, our leaders to get there? And so we, we basical. Kind of create system-wide programs, and then we work very closely with our regional leadership because we're such a, a geographically.
Dispersed, system. And so the needs in one area, in one region may be different than the needs in another. So we, I have consultants on my team that work very closely with the leadership in these various regions. And so we talk about what are your goals for next year, right? and where are your challenges?
And then what we do is then we kind of create a regional, uh, learning plan. based on the needs of that, region. And so we have a, we've built up over the years quite a library of resources that we can bring to support depending on what those needs are. So we identify some kind of core, system needs that everyone is working on together, like courage, building courage among leaders, and then we customize by region based on the needs of that particular, region and what they're seeing.
So it allows us to customize and to flex based on those needs. We're fortunate because we've been building this library up, for years now to get to where we are. When I first joined Ox Oxford, we, there's no way we could have, customized to the extent that we are today cuz we just didn't have that, resource, load.
And so we've been able to do that and fortunate that the organization spends a quite a bit on investing in the professional. And development of it's team members, and they're, they're vested in that we have a commitment to learning policy that all of our team members, are asked to, to get a certain number of development hours every year.
So we want and encourage and expect that you are advancing in your own growth and learning. So it provides a really good opportunity to be the, the learning function that allows that to really support a culture of.
[:No, like asking your people what it is that. that they need. Yes. Kind of like what? Like with Dream Manager, right? It's the whole concept of you're asking people what's, what are your challenges? What do you need to really do your best work and how's everything going? And then you're able to decide what are these programs that would really help them.
So I wanna hear about the impact that all of this development has had on your team. Like what does that look like? Do you have any specific examples of. Maybe a particular leader that was able to grow in their career because of some of the programs that they were able to do to work through?
the team has just done just really, really, instrumental, work.
I would say 70% of our offerings are developed in-house. which represents a, you know, a significant amount of of work. So the, I have an instructional design group of instructional designers who work with, subject matter experts across to the system to design.
[:And our, I think where we have, had great success in the past couple years is with, we created what we called Leader Pathways. And so we, we did some research, kind of voice of customer research. at the various leadership levels. And we went to, like our supervisor, we pulled a group of our supervisors from across the system and we said, so let's look at these, these competencies.
these lyric competencies, and tell us at your level as a supervisor at ner, which of these do you find that you use the most or that most contribute to your effectiveness as a supervisor, as a leader? And so we gleaned those results at every leader level.
And then what we did is we took those and we created them the, this prioritized set of competencies that in what we call a pathway. So when leaders come to us and, and as they often do, and say, you know, I don't know where to start. Like, there's so much in the, um, learning institute that I, I don't really know where to start as as, as a leader.
So now we can say, well, because you were in a manager position at er, here is your pathway. So this is where it's a suggested start to say these are the competencies that managers at Oxford have told us are mo most contribute to their effectiveness. So I would look at these and I would say, So let's, let's do a self-assessment against these six.
Let's say there's six core competencies there, that manager. focus on and prioritizing their development. So where do you have opportunities and where do you have strengths? Right? And use that then to inform your development plan. Let's start there. It's not a, it's not the only way, that you can come to us and experience, um, the learning Institute.
But here's a, a first step. And so we, we encourage them then to look at one or two of those competencies where they have most opportu. And then from there, there are a host of resources that we have around those competencies to support that. So if they select, financial acumen as an area that they really need to, Focus on for the year. Then we have, um, in our, in our library, we have courses around that. We have podcasts, we have books that they may want to look at, videos, articles. So there's just a slew of if they wanna deep dive or if they just want some just in time learning, we have it to meet their needs. so we have used, we launched those pathways last.
And, our directors, for instance, that was our first pilot group, and those directors have been coming to us and telling us that it's immensely helpful. and we launch these, cohort. Pathways in the regions. So the directors from each region kind of come together so that they're, those who are working together, they're learning together in the same regions in which they work and live. and they have told us that this has, it's been a very targeted and focused experience and that it's been really, really helpful to them because it is.
Based in what they need, what they base it, they told us they needed. And it has been very applicable, kind of real-time experience. So the learning for learning's sake doesn't help unless it's helping you to change your behavior. So we're taking these business challenges. and then we want you to go, so if it's financial acumen, then we might ask them to go and look at your, labor management, let's talk about that, right? So let's look at those spreadsheets that you're looking at and let's figure out how then can we capture some savings.
So they actually have to go out and do something with what they're learning. Then they come back to the classroom experience at a later time, and they talk about the successes and challenges they've had, and we have, coaches available there to help them navigate that, it's been very, experiential.
and hands on and kind of real time challenge based, and they have found that immensely helpful. rather than just kind of willy-nilly picking something for the sake of, having to satisfy a learning requirement. So we've had a great deal of success with our leadership pathways this year.
[:So I
[:what are your needs? And here's how, as a center of excellence, this is how we can support that need. it's a small team. but, you know, they're small but mighty. They do, incredible work and they, they have a lot on their plate. But, you know, we're like the liaison between, you know, the leaders, what they need.
and then the resources that we have, and we try to match and blend those together then, and create these learning experiences. So, they do a lot, a lot of good work. And then my instructional design team, when we hear about needs, people will come to us and say, you know, like, we partnered with our, uh, de and I team and they really wanted to create a course.
On how to help leaders find their voice, navigating difficult conversations. and so we partnered our instructional designers, worked with our, D e I team, and we created a, what we call a deep dive bundle. And so these are, plug and play. it's a leader's toolkit for how to navigate discussions around, let's say, you know, Our gender, or, our bariatric patients or how to be sensitive to, bariatric patients.
[:And so when we bring those two together, we can create some really, impactful. Experiences and programs.
well, I'm very excited about, rolling out obviously the Dream Manager program Yes. And into your organization. I think that is gonna be so phenomenal, and we're excited to, to see how your team members respond to that you're rolling Dream Manager out. But you've done this for, for multiple programs, but when companies do start expanding and growing, what are some of the challenges that you see in. Incorporating programs to such a large group of team members.
[: [:So when I started, ater, you know, someone could come to us and say, you know, I need a course on communication skills. We need to really, so if we identify that that's a learning need, then we would say, okay, and we would go through that process to create a course. Well, that could take, that process at that time could take three to six months to create a course, right?
Because number one, we had limited resources, that was, allowable at that time because we had the time to do that. we can't spend six months today building a course out, When the need is there, it's there. And so trying to figure out ways to meet the need if we don't have the resource in our, in the learning institute, and we have to develop it.
So the question then becomes, how, quickly. , can we develop this in-house or do we need to look at options externally that we could purchase, for instance, a program. And then sometimes you have to negotiate that, sometimes it actually ends up being less expensive to purchase than it would take for me to assign, instructional designer to build this out for three months.
So it's questions about that is, is the speed at which we can, create and, and design, deliver, deploy. . and then the scale, because you know, we again have just grown. So, geographically dispersed throughout the entire state and into neighboring states that, the training where I used to be able to, invite and expect that the training center that we have downtown New Orleans, that people would travel in from kind of the surrounding areas to come to our corporate training center.
Well, we can't ask people to do that anymore because we have people in North Louisiana that's a five. travel for them to get down to New Orleans. So what we've had to do is to create kind of learning hubs in the regions. So basically the Learning Institute, we're trying to build extensions in the regions and create those in, in-person experiences in those regions.
when we can, but that means that we have to train faculty in those regions, identify those who can, who are the experts in those areas, and we train, identify, and train faculty in those regions to support that. the learning plan. And then we've had to rely on, virtual delivery too, because it allows us to scale.
so the scale issue continues to be one for us. And so we really are trying to figure out how can we maximize that virtual experience and create the same quality. and replicate that same quality that we would have virtually, that we can create in an in-person experience, because that does allow us to scale.
[:So we, we maximize that learning time and then we send them out to do a task and to apply, and then we'll bring 'em back together another time and talk about it.
So it's, that's allowing us to deliver quality and to do so quickly, bec because the needs are such that they, there's a need for that. and that's allowing us to scale. a big need coming out of the path this past year was how to lead remote teams.
Our leaders have not understood, you know, because we haven't been in this space before. So how if I've never even in person met my team, How do we lead remotely? How do we build those connections in a remote environment? So we quickly pulled together and realized that we needed to get something out.
So my instructional designers worked with. , our HR partners and some other leaders, who do this very well, and so who, who have been leading remotely for a while. And so we capitalize on that and created a, a, a course that we just, launched, but we had to kind of prioritize that as a very big need, for the environment that we're working in today.
it's a challenge. It's a constant challenge, you know, and I, I don't know that we've ha have it all figured out, but it's certainly something we work at.
[:No needs are already changing, and so we have to be
[: [:Yeah. It's this built in all, Hey, we're gonna teach you how to implement it. All you have to do is go, we have the materials, we have everything. Uh, you're doing that with some of the other programs, which is beautiful, which is makes it easy for some people that, unlike you, they don't have big teams of people that are developing all of these programs.
And the hybrid is great because, I feel there's so much out there virtually. I mean, you can learn anything online, right? but when you have that hybrid of, Hey, I'm gonna learn something, but then to come together and be able to get coaching and to be able to get real-time feedback, that is one thing that is extremely important.
[:Anne Marie, this is great. You have 17 people plus consultants and all of this stuff, but what are some ways that a smaller organization, like if somebody's listening, going, oh my gosh, this is my dream to have all of these programs, the way that you've been able to craft them and, and deliver to your team.
But what are some things that people can do today immediately if they're thinking, Hey, I. , we've gotta have more development for our team. We don't have as many resources, but we wanna take a couple of steps. What are some ways that you would invite people to, to take those first steps in developing programs like yourself?
I can appreciate where people are with that because this has been a journey for us. I've had to build my team and therefore been able to build the resources over the years, right? So, to get to where I am today, it was certainly not the team that we had, even five years ago.
[: [: [:And so, in an age where, we're economically being very challenged. Right now, you know, we are nev, we never did during covid. We have never in any of our, the times in the past, nor will we now, we will never cut our develop. Programs, right? So all of our workforce development, our learning and growth and development is central to what we do.
[:two instructional designers. And so those instructional designers were, they were experts. They're just experts in learning and design and what they're able to do then with some software like Adobe, publishing. So software or Captivate is another tool that we use. It's very inexpensive. Then we can take, let that skill in an expertise in design.
[:an expert in putting and designing, learning together. When you kind of, you bring together those two, then you can create great things, and that's how we did it from the get-go. and we didn't have, resources to purchase programs, then we would say, okay, so we're gonna build it. So let's take the instructional design that I have, designer, and let's partner with the expertise that we know we have in the system and let's put that together and let's create a course.
And so we did that one at a time and then we kind of slowly, and as I was able to acquire. , instructional designers, then we could certainly boost those resources together. So if you have limited budget, and limited, human resources on the team, I would start with, you know, to the extent that you have an instructional designer that really helps.
And then use the existing resources that you already have in the organization and just start there. and there, there are such inexpensive. Like captivate the Adobe, you that you can create. these experiences pretty easily if you're looking for a virtual experience. and then certainly to, to the expertise in putting an in-person, class together comes from those instructional designers who know what that means and can create very experiential learning.
And so, my background in education certainly helped with that.
I have a, a passion for a faculty. education and understanding that, you can have all the expertise in the world, but it, you need facilitators to know how to facilitate that in adult learning principles. So we have, a, faculty care program so we can support our faculty.
Cuz again, I don't have. Trainers on my team. We work with our experts in the, across the system. and we said, okay, we'll support you through this faculty care program. And then we certify faculty then who can go out and implement and facilitate.
So I think you can start small by capitalizing on the existing resources that you do. , and focus on the learning, right? in development and, and learning especially there's, I think, a tendency to kind of focus on just what's the content and like getting content out there.
and then remember that our job in the Learning Institute is to create an engaging experience with the learner. and the content, we want them to be engaged in it so that it leads to a change of behavior, right? So it's not just, a data dump of, and a PowerPoint presentation of all this, this data, right?
[: [:Yeah. And ask your team, get your team involved with a team, with a smaller team, it's even easier because now you get to, you have more one-on-one figuring out what it is that you, that they really need, what skillset that they need, and then that can kind of determine, yeah. how you're gonna take that next step.
[:Probably in the same waters that we're all navigating in. Right? Yeah. and then, then you can go from there. And then you truly are being a partner with Right. And support of. Needs. Yes.
[: [:the greatest compliment we can get is when people tell us, thank you for that. Because I am, I, I went back to my team and I, and I worked on what,. we learned in the class. And this has been, you know, transformative. So when we get that feedback, that's when we know that we have, you know, more than any sort of net promoter.
I don't measure the success of my team based on how many classes, our learning experiences we host in a year. I like that kind. anecdotal feedback that tells us, you know, when someone sends us an email and says, thank you for that, or, this was so helpful. and that's, to me, that's where, when we, we've been successful and that's, that's when we've had a good year is when we've helped to change behavior.
I love that. I love that. That's how you, that's one of the ways that you're measuring success because it's so important, right? With getting that feedback that, I mean, most people don't actually reach out and say the thank you or not even talk about it.
[:Experiences and information that you otherwise wouldn't have. And so you're gaining all of these skills and that's what, Hey, the number one role of a leader is to help your team grow. Absolutely. And these are programs that do just hundred. a hundred
[: [:It only takes about five minutes, and you'll receive a customized report which includes your overall culture score, as well as your score in each of the six immutable principles of a dynamic culture from Matthew Kelly's book, the Culture Solution. Get it at floyd consulting.com/culture. Thanks again for listening.
Until next time, lead with culture.
