The Instincts at Work Story
Instincts at Work was founded in 2009 with the goal to lead leaders in healthy system transformation.
Every initiative has a background story, often fired up by a very personal experience. Instincts at Work is no different. Our founder, Penny Paucha has seen the power of our public health system up close as her older sister, father, mother all battled and succumbed to cancer. Through this difficult experience, Penny was made acutely aware how much more difficult it would have been for her family without the support of the public health system Canada is renowned for.
Out of her challenging experience, Penny formed a commitment to the ideal of excellence and accessibility that is possible in a public health system and searched for ways to make the system more effective and efficient to maintain its viability and patient centered to maintain its quality. She discovered that driving systems changes means working not only on individual skills and organizational structures but also on the thinking and feeling that drives individual behaviour and the culture of the organizations that form the system.
This all quadrant approach is a hallmark of our programs and our shared commitment to evidence based learning and development methods ensures our training and coaching is not just interesting and engaging but also effective for creating the change we need and want to see.
On a mission to create a shift in healthcare
The Instincts at Work team is on a mission to provide transformational education and coaching that teaches health system leaders to be at once relationally focused and accountable for results. These twin skills, when deployed together rather than working in opposition, provide a synergy that elevates performance in remarkable ways.
Medical professionals have devoted themselves to their technical craft and when we supplement that expertise with an understanding of the emerging science of neuro-leadership their leadership shines in ways that allow for significant performance gains throughout the system. Our clients report more innovation, less analysis paralysis, gains in efficiency and effectiveness and improvements in quality of service.
Trusting your Instincts at Work
The name Instincts at Work comes from the notion that enabling people to bring not only their technical expertise but also their full complement of natural talents, values, and motivations to work releases both performance gains and employee engagement.
We encourage our client-leaders to learn to trust what they know and move forward responsibly where others often get stuck. We help leaders understand how their context can inform their leadership choices so that they can be more creative and innovative. We teach leaders how to unlock and release the full potential of their teams.
It’s all about evolving; evolving yourself to improve your instincts at work in order to create powerful system change.
We help leaders and teams to adapt to rapid change
At Instincts at Work, our expertise is in coaching healthcare leaders to become adaptable. This requires an understanding of group dynamics and human behaviour in complex environments. As an adaptable leader, you will be able to execute tasks and motivate people so that processes go more smoothly and teams move in the same direction.
Expert coaching and evidence-based leadership training
We help our clients become the leaders they desire to be through expert coaching and leadership training based on the science of habit formation. Unlike other coaching organisations, we offer a validated, evidence-based approach designed and delivered by three skilled leadership development experts and coaches with over 40 years of combined experience helping highly technical healthcare managers build effective teams.
Validated methods with a human touch
Instincts at Work delivers information in an authentic and personable manner. Everything is grounded in research but is also tried and tested. Our mission is to equip leaders with new thinking skills and innovative behaviour models that transform their way of working so they are ready to face whatever their work environment throws at them. But we go beyond just teaching theory and include real-life experiences and anecdotes to make methods meaningful. We strive for sustainable transformation, not just quick wins, and the skills you learn in our programmes will spread the new ways of operating we require in healthcare and help you thrive as a leader.
Results
Founded in 2009, Instincts at Work has worked with health system leaders to achieve:
Principles in Action
Effective leadership is about modeling and demonstrating your principles in action. These are the principles that you can expect from Instincts at Work:
As a team, our meetings run more smoothly, we get more done with less conflict, and we are clearly moving ahead faster than before...
"Having done several other leadership programs, I was skeptical that the Evolution of Thinking Program would provide any additional value. Our team had a number of younger potential leaders with no training so I followed along. I was surprised and pleased with the results. Most programs sound great, then one gets back to work and the materials get put aside then discarded a couple of years later. With spreading a variety of sessions over several months - allowing for reinforcement, incentive to test out techniques and then discuss them - I learned and retained far more than past experiences. As a team, our meetings run more smoothly, we get more done with less conflict, and we are clearly moving ahead faster than before.”
