WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
“Management by Fact is a workshop that had a profound effect on how I viewed processes and how I determined when to intervene (or not) when presented with performance data. This session shaped our approach to how we manage processes, and how and when we initiate improvement efforts. It directly influenced my leadership philosophy. Management & Planning Tools is a [workshop] that equipped me with a practical set of tools that are used extensively throughout the organization. These tools are used regularly in team-based decision-making and planning; their use facilitates the synergy among people’s ideas rather than the conflict so typical in decision-making. We use them for decisions that are very big – like organizational goal-setting, selection of our EMR system, and hiring decisions – and for day-to-day decision-making. These tools are also used extensively in our strategic and tactical planning efforts. I am a big proponent of these tools for effective, efficient and team-based planning and decision-making and use them regularly.” Tom Huebner, President & CEO, Rutland Regional Medical Center
Kathy Letendre has been instrumental over the years in helping our organization to improve its impact on the lives of those we serve. Specifically, she has helped us achieve a level of organizational clarity in our structure and the approach to our work. This has removed unnecessary obstacles, and provided crisper direction for our staff. I cannot speak highly enough about the support she has provided in helping us make bold change, in incremental ways. We simply could not have achieved as much without her guidance. Lorraine Jenne, Chief Operations and Human Resources Officer, Community Care Network
The model, coach, and method were perfect! I will continue to work closely with my direct reports and identify opportunities for their own development via coaching.Lorraine Jenne, Chief Operations & Human Resources Officer, Community Care Network
We can talk candidly with each other about anything. I feel much more prepared [for my new role as Change Agent]. I now have a lot of tools to use. Terri King, Change Agent & Human Resources Director, Tri-Area Community Health
"Most beneficial is that we can dig into a problem, quandary, or something intimidating that is coming up. You don’t tell me what to do, instead, you ask questions that allow me to figure out what I want to do. I come into our conversations with a cloudy idea and some emotions and leave with a clear path forward. It is nice to look back on all we have accomplished over the past year." Heather, senior leader
Kathy is a great facilitator, presenter, and expert. She is systematic and thoughtful. Medical Director, Urgent Care
“The Management and Planning Tools Class that I attended was exceptional. It is highly relevant in my work as a service provider and leader. The tools are very functional and have high applicability in my work with teams and in the planning process, in general. I recommend the class and tools to any organization that is serious about accountability, planning and team/stakeholder engagement.”Gloria Quinn, Vice President, Community Care Network
“Kathy Letendre is a professional with a vast depth of knowledge, experience, integrity and patience. She has been instrumental in nurturing and teaching our organization and team the rationale and benefits of operationalizing an excellence framework. She was able to teach us the proven tools, techniques and tactics than can refocus a team to move from good to great. Kathy’s attention to detail and her commitment to always raising the bar have been responsible for many of the successes that our team, organization and individuals have reaped…She is never satisfied with good enough, excellence is what she teaches, models and lives. I have been lucky to have Kathy as a mentor, teacher, leader, colleague and friend. She has taught us the importance of listening to our patients, our staff, our leaders and each other…Many people aspire to make an impact but Kathy leaves RRMC a much better organization, team and hospital because of her tenure.” Jill Markowski, RN, BSN, MSA, PCCN, BC-NE Director of Surgical Services, Rutland Regional Medical Center
“Kathy is a very helpful, experienced and professional leader. She is a strong educator and problem solver who creates and helps teams add value. Kathy demonstrates true interest in and caring for people and organizations. I benefitted greatly from her excellent work in quality and transformation… I highly recommend contacting Kathy for any person organization that wants to make serious positive change!” Eric Lapp, Compliance Manager, Kalow Technologies
“[Kathy] is a progressive and committed leader. She and I worked on developing a vision and service line plan for Women’s Services to unify the various offerings under one umbrella and to integrate tertiary services on-site. This involved working with my different stakeholders and finding common ground to move forward on. Kathy was the perfect partner for this work and we celebrated many successes. I would recommend contacting Kathy if you are interested in making meaningful improvements in developing a long range vision/plan for your service.”Sara Kussel, DNP, MSA, RN, NE-BC Clinical Manager, US Department of Veterans Affairs; Adjunct Professor, Rush University Medical Center
“As Rutland Regional has been pursuing its Vision of excellence over the past several years, I have been guided by these two individuals –Kathy Letendre, my Vice President of Planning & Organizational Excellence and Doug Horne [they are now associates in Letendre & Associates]. Their expertise in performance excellence, their experience in organizational transformation, and their professional coaching have been invaluable to me, my executive team, and the organization. Rutland Regional has used two criteria to guide our way to being an excellent health system, the Nursing Magnet criteria and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. We felt these were the best guidelines for achieving the Vision of our organization, to be the Best Community Health System in New England. In 2010, we received designation as a Magnet hospital (a goal achieved by only 5% of the hospitals in the U.S.) and received the highest level Baldrige-based State award, the Governor’s Award for Performance Excellence. Kathy was inarguably the single most important leader in getting us to these achievements. Kathy was the organizational expert and champion on this journey. Many organizations, healthcare and otherwise, are in pursuit of excellence and being the best. Kathy and Doug can be great teachers and partners on the journey. It is great to have experienced individuals such as Kathy and Doug available to guide and coach us as we continue to improve our organizations.“ On a personal level, Kathy is one of the finest intellects I have had the pleasure to work with in my career. Her ability to envision systems and processes is extraordinary. Her ability to organize and ensure teams get their work done is exemplary. She is persistent, yet polite, and is consistently professional. She always puts the needs of the organization first and has a level of personal integrity that is second to none. Tom Huebner, President & CEO, Rutland Regional Medical Center
Having the annual strategic action plan has allowed us as a senior leadership team to have more concrete and specific tasks so that we can ensure we are working on them consistently and that we are going to finish the [overall strategies]. Heather Stein, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Community Health Centers
You go in-depth with the person to really listen and understand the situation before offering guidance. This provided me the opportunity to really examine myself in all aspects of my work. You helped me to rebuild my self-confidence.Director of Operations
“Kathy is thoughtful, compassionate, engaged and committed to the betterment of everything she engages in. Kathy's organizational skills are superb and she is an excellent communicator who always demonstrates the highest values. She motivates everyone to her high expectations and to achieving the best outcomes.”Thomas Hartigan, Director
“Kathy is an excellent teacher and mentor. Her knowledge of organizational leadership is outstanding. She taught me and my team how to do strategic planning and develop a Nursing Magnet Plan. Throughout the planning process Kathy was knowledgeable and guided us to a plan that ultimately received national recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. What I valued most during this process is how Kathy guided and mentored our team to become successful in the planning process. When she works with groups she is knowledgeable and truly teaches how to be independent in carrying out the strategies and tactics of the plan. With her guidance and support the 15 nurse directors within this team became proficient in the planning process and took ownership for the tactics, each year developing additional tactics in alignment with the strategy.”Dorie Ward, (retired) Vice President and CNO
The Hot Seat exercise was the most useful and most insightful. I will apply what I learned to revamp my team and my division. This was an excellent workshop. The hot seat exercise was priceless.Physician leader, Division Chief of Nephrology, university medical center
Most beneficial was working with my colleagues on common problems, teasing apart the pieces needed for effective teams, and then applying to my work. An extremely worthwhile workshop. Kathy is a very skilled workshop leader. I really enjoyed both the content and delivery, with different exercises to keep it engaging. Physician leader in Physician Leadership Development Program
"… [Kathy] has been a prime resource in coaching and mentoring the rest of leadership and staff in evidence-based methodologies around strategic planning, process improvement and management by fact. She has a strong skill set in the analysis and use of data to drive performance. She is skilled in bringing together leaders and staff from difference department to develop and implement service line plans. She has the interpersonal skills to successfully manage divergent and sometimes contentious opinions within groups in order to achieve an end results that all involved can support. I give her my strongest recommendation.” Baxter Holland, Vice President
“Health care can be a challenging system to navigate. I value Kathy’s ability to listen to barriers of integrating new health care strategies and then break down the parts into steps for implementation and measurement. She is a critical thinker, asks questions that push one to think beyond the issues at hand, and is conscientious and following up on the tough problems.…Her work creates a ripple effect across the organization that will be long lasting. …She presents complex information in a step by step process that helps a novice audience understand the content.” Sarah Narkewiz, RN MS Director, Community Health Improvement
“Kathy is a future thinker who has a broad variety of capabilities within the areas of planning, [leader] development, and service excellence. She is an outstanding collaborator and leader in team building and function. She acts as an excellent guide and coach. She has the ability to display an important voice as a facilitator in groups both large and small. She is a customer focused person who is always compassionate and practical. She simply searches for excellence in all that she does, all that she offers, and all that she sees. She is driven in her pursuit of the best. She is a transformative thinker who pushes the edge when approaching significant issues.”Daniel M. Foley, MD (retired) President of the Medical Staff, Rutland Regional Medical Center
“The work Kathy did [at organization] was superlative. She brought a sense of order into the daily processes of the hospital. Her work was instrumental in the development of the much acclaimed quality system of that hospital… She is also a leader with great integrity. Quite intellectual yet easy to talk to with deep caring for the people she works with. Kathy does things well and yet she is always striving to do the right things, which I believe, in the end, is the best thing you can say about an organizational leader. She can see the big picture and plot the vision with you and then turn around and put the project plan together to execute to get to that vision. Pretty rare combination of talents!” Joe Cimback, The Talent Man, Sunland
“Working with Kathy has been an incredibly positive experience for our organization. Her early investment in learning our business, combined with her outside perspective and insightful questions, have led Kathy to become a trusted coach and advisor. Kathy has helped us with a variety of projects, including: strategic planning; formalizing our informal internal processes to facilitate growth; developing job training aids to capture and teach best practices; designing and implementing a program to solicit customer feedback. At the core of each of these projects is a common thread: Kathy has provided us with tools to analyze complex situations in a quantifiable, empirical way that removes emotion and bias. The outcome has been a clarity of purpose and a confidence in our decisions that is shared by all stakeholders. Whether it is in teaching new decision making tools, improving internal processes, or supporting ongoing work with a fresh perspective and high elevation vision, we look forward to continuing our long term relationship with Kathy.” Chris Smid, Vice President, New England Slate Company
“Very valuable tools, and more importantly, thank you for a new mind-set to look at things with”Recent participant in a strategic workshop
“I am impressed with Kathy’s outstanding understanding of hospital operations and patient focused care. Her organization and focus are unmatched. She was able to work well with physician partners to accomplish an unbelievably important goal of maintaining an active vibrant women’s health clinic in [our region]. …Her energy and attention to process improvement are exceptional. Her drive for clinical excellence and team building are remarkable. I can say without hesitation that Kathy Letendre is the best of the best. Her knowledge, work ethic and commitment are unmatched.” Kirk Dufty, MD FACEP, CMIO and Emergency Service Medical Director
“While a VP in charge of organizational excellence at a local medical center, Kathy was extremely helpful to our organization in its initial efforts to launch an organizational excellence initiative. Kathy demonstrated a substantial body of practical knowledge about planning system best practices and pitfalls, which proved enormously helpful as we structured our initial development work. After Kathy joined IQA as a consultant, I attended two workshops facilitated by Kathy and her IQA partner Doug Horne -- Management and Planning Tools, and Management by Fact [now provided by Letendre & Associates]. These were two of the most valuable workshops in which I have participated in terms of immediate practicality. Subsequently, Kathy and IQA were retained to help our organization implement its strategic plan. Kathy has been a highly valued coach to me as we roll out our organizational excellence initiatives.”Dick Courcelle, Director of Organizational Excellence [now President & CEO], Community Care Network
"The most beneficial aspect of the Management & Planning tools workshop was] “learning how to positively engage people to work together to reach a final vision.” Manager
The Management by Fact workshop “helped me to think differently about what the data is saying. Excellent thinking exercises about looking at processes differently. Very informative!”Julie Vest, Director
“Using these tools will be transformative for Porter [Medical Center].”Vice President, Porter Medical Center [regarding the Management & Planning Tools workshop]
“Kathy has extensive experience in business planning and brings a great deal of insight to the strategy and execution of any goal or project. She has experience with marketing, financial, and customer service aspects of delivering a product to the market. She brings an extensive perspective on planning with the ability to bring long term vision to any project and the necessary process tools to make it happen. I recommend Kathy to any organization looking to sharpen their approach towards business strategy and an overall improvement process. She is a versatile and capable resource in the changing world we live in.” Bruce Bullock, MD - Business owner and practicing physician, Marble Valley Healthworks