Cinnamon Dixon on Tiered Huddles at Cleveland Clinic

We saw Cinnamon give a great presentation at this year's Lean
Healthcare Transformation Summit, so we asked her to do a podcast
with us talking about Daily Tiered Huddles and how that fits into
the Lean approach at Cleveland Clinic.


Hosted by Mark Graban


Here is a link to the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model that we
discuss. `


What role does Visual Management play in the CCIM system?


What are the “tiered huddles?” Can you talk first about the
front-line huddles? What gets talked about? What are the expected
responses or actions coming out of the meeting?


Then, how do the huddles follow upward in the leadership chain?


What sorts of issues get escalated vs. being handled locally or
at a certain level of the organization?


How did you roll these out?


What have you learned and adjusted during the time you’ve been
using these huddles?


What advice would you have for others on daily tiered huddles?


Biography


Cinnamon Dixon, MA, CDP is the Director of
Continuous Improvement at the Cleveland Clinic. She has over 15
years of experience in organizational effectiveness and
continuous improvement.


Cinnamon started her career at the Cleveland Clinic as an
organizational effectiveness consultant. In that role she led the
development of teams and leaders. Her work included leading
system-wide initiatives such as the implementation of the
employee engagement survey which focused on how to create and
sustain an engaged culture, she was also instrumental in
developing and facilitating the Cleveland Clinic Experience which
was an interactive exploration for over 50K caregivers on how
each person contributes to the mission and values of the
organization.


During this time her curiosity for continuous improvement peaked.
She shifted her focus towards creating and sustaining systems
that support the great behaviors that we want to see in our
leaders and teams. This led her to join the Continuous
Improvement team. In her current role she leads a dedicated group
of Continuous Improvement Specialists who execute projects,
programs and apply lean methodology as they work to advance the
foundation for a continuous improvement culture enterprise-wide.


Cinnamon is also an adjunct instructor for Tri-C Corporate
College in Cleveland, Ohio. There she teaches a variety of
courses centered on organizational effectiveness and continuous
improvement.


She earned her M.A. in Diversity Management Psychology at
Cleveland State University with an emphasis on leadership
development, group processes and adult learning.