Connect Live @ Adventist Health | September 23, 2021
Story 44

Joyce Newmyer: How do we talk to and with each other? How do we maybe do less telling, because communication isn't just about sharing information. It's a two-way street. How do we ask more questions?

Joyce Newmyer: Welcome to Connect LIVE at Adventist Health. I'm Joyce Newmyer, the Chief Culture Officer at Adventist Health, and your host for Connect LIVE. This week, we'll talk about a 2021 award recipient, Leading with Love and executive development at Adventist Health, and the right questions. Since 1970, the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy has recognized a distinguished leader in the healthcare philanthropy community. This year, the Si Seymour Award recipient is none other than our guest next week on Connect Live, our Chief Philanthropy Officer, our very own Betsy Chapin Taylor. She'll receive this award at the international conference next month, and we will be talking with her about this next week. Congratulations, Betsy, for leading so positively and capably, and for always being a force for good. Today I'm delighted to welcome Lisa Nunes, Learning and Organizational Development Executive, and Eva Condron-Wells, Administrative Director for Executive Development. Welcome to both of you.

Lisa Nunes: Thank you, Joyce.

Eva Condron-Wells: Thank you.

Joyce Newmyer: Lisa, Cathy Hoyle recently retired and I know that was a very sad day for your team, but we're happy that Eva is now here and will carve out her own space in learning and organizational development. Would you like to introduce Eva to our viewers?

Lisa Nunes: Absolutely, yes. When God closes one door, He opens another one at the same time. So we're very blessed to have Eva Condron-Wells join us. She's been with us less than 30 days. And so she comes with us with a lot of experience in academia and also healthcare and technology. So super excited to have Eva with us.

Joyce Newmyer: Eva, welcome. You've had some amazing experiences in your career. So what drew you to Adventist Health? How did you choose us?

Eva Condron-Wells: Thank you so much, Joyce. I have to say, it's been an incredible journey to get here, and as you mentioned, working in different industries. That said, my initial interest in my career, if I back up just a minute, is I wanted to be a doctor originally. And so I've always been in love with the medical profession and healthcare industry. My path on my education journey didn't lead me that way, but I've always been drawn to serving others. And when I read the mission and I learned more about the people and the projects and the opportunity to help people learn and grow, I was just pulled further and further in to help serve. I've always seen learning as a way to support serving others, and I'm excited to serve people who serve others, frankly. So thank you for asking.

Joyce Newmyer: Well, we're so glad you're here. Lisa, we may have some viewers who aren't sure exactly what learning and organizational development does and what you all are responsible for. How do you explain the work of your team to people who aren't familiar with it?

Lisa Nunes: Thank you for asking. And we get that question a lot. We are a part of our Office of Culture, and in the Office of Culture, our overall purpose is really to empower and inspire our associates and our communities through learning development experiences. So for our team in learning and organizational development, we focus on tools and learning and skills to really equip associates and leaders to come to work, to be at their best, to do their best that matches their talents and their aspirations. And we do it the last three years in three areas, which is leadership development, engagement, and also performance management. So those are probably more fancy ways of saying, how do we equip leaders to be the best they can to help lead well their associates? And then how do we create engagement strategies so those leaders can know what the right levers are to help their associates? And then how do we create structure and process so that associates know what's expected of them, have regular conversations with their leaders about their development? So those are the three main areas that our team serve and support Adventist Health.

Joyce Newmyer: Wow. That sounds like being able to help people be their best selves. That's exciting work. Eva, what are you most excited about as you begin your work at Adventist Health? Is there a project or a learning design that you're particularly looking forward to?

Eva Condron-Wells: Well, to be honest, I'm learning a lot, so I will be continuing to learn, and I love learning. So that's exciting, but I think what I'm really excited about is how there is a cohesiveness in what we're doing, right? So there's a strategy focused on well-being, looking at the whole person. We're not isolating and saying, "Go to this separate experience." It's all tied together to how we can be our best, as you mentioned before, and I think that that's what excites me. So helping leaders who impact so many other people's experiences, but looking at leadership development, a very holistic approach connected back to a broader strategy. So it's all connected, and I look forward to seeing the impact that we can make, especially given the challenges in healthcare now, which is another compelling reason for me to be here. I like challenge, I like helping people through challenge, and I'm looking forward to bringing the strategy to life, frankly.

Joyce Newmyer: Oh, that's sounds exciting. We certainly have our share of challenges in front of us right now. That's true. Lisa, I want to dig into this a little bit. We've been focusing on how to have more meaningful dialogue, do less telling, more asking questions, and then actively listening. Can you tell us more about your plans for expanding this learning opportunity at Adventist Health and why it's so important?

Lisa Nunes: Yeah. But thank you, Joyce. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. So on leadership that I mentioned earlier, we've been focusing a lot on, how do we grow skilled, capable leaders? And we've been doing that with the brand of what we call Leading with Love. And so it is so important to us that everything that we do, we lead with love. And so how do we do that?

Lisa Nunes: We've been focusing the last couple of years on executives, and I'm so excited that the team is ... we're getting ready to come to a theater near you and roll out learning for all leaders across the organization in the next two years in two general areas. Overall, how to have wonderful connecting conversations. The first part is active listening, and the second part is communication styles. So really equipping our leaders to understand how to listen more, ask the right questions, help people bring out the best in themselves, and adjust our communication style so we can serve in the best way. That is coming soon starting later this year, and over the next two years, we'll be making those available to every single leader across the company.

Joyce Newmyer: Wow. Tell me, Lisa, how did we choose Leading with Love? That doesn't sound like a typical business term, right? How does Leading with Love show up in a healthcare company?

Eva Condron-Wells: It's been my entire career to get to this point that I can call a program Leading with Love because that's what it is, because our core value of our company is be love. And our mission statement, it's living God's love. So everything we do centers on love, love matters. So what we expect of our leaders is every way that they engage, they touch, they interact, it's through love. And so it naturally resonated that we expect our leaders to lead with love in everything that they do.

Joyce Newmyer: Oh, I think it's beautiful and what a cool thing that you get to work for a healthcare company that leads with love, with heart. Okay, Eva, I'm going to give you the final word here. A question, what do you find the most rewarding about learning leadership and development work?

Eva Condron-Wells: Personally, I would leave my family to go work, and I had my daughter sit on the floor one day and protest for me leaving one morning. And I had to kneel down to her and tell her, "Mommy helps save the world," which sounds kind of overinflated, but in my heart, I didn't think of what I was going to say, but I really meant it, that we need to help each other. And when I can help someone learn something new that changes their mood, their relationship, their impact, and it can be something small or it can be something big, but I'm literally helping change that person's world if I do my job right. So that is what really motivates me, inspires me, and I couldn't think and find a better place than to do that with the people at Adventist. So thank you.

Joyce Newmyer: Well, that's beautiful, and what a meaningful thing to be able to approach one's work with the idea of doing your part to save the world as opposed to doing a job. Thank you both for joining me here today on Connect LIVE. This has been a conversation, and look forward to seeing where Leading with Love continues to go in this company. So thank you for being with us.

Lisa Nunes: Thank you very much.

Eva Condron-Wells: Thank you.

Joyce Newmyer: Our final story today is about the right questions. Sounds a little bit like Leading with Love. A pilot program at Adventist Health Sonora is designed to provide healing and prevention by starting with the right questions. Matthew Rose, Director of Community Well-Being at Sonora, explains how having an understanding of adverse childhood experiences with the help of the ACEs screening can be the first step toward a brighter future. Watch the rest of this story at adventisthealth.org/story. Friends, thank you for connecting live, and we'll see you here again next week. Until then, let's be a force for good.