Case Studies

Amplifying the impact of group training

Carole first connected with Clarity Connect through a knowledge translation program Dr. Dawn Henwood offered in partnership with ResearchNB in 2022. The training equipped healthcare researchers with tools, techniques, and confidence to share complex ideas with diverse audiences, including policymakers and decision makers.

Dr. Goodine had already experienced a positive outcome from the group training. She’d used strategies from the program to create a persuasive presentation for hospital leadership and get their greenlight on a key decision regarding her research. So once she’d completed data collection for the Hospital to Home project and was ready to communicate the value of her findings to a variety of stakeholders, she reached out to Clarity Connect for some additional help.

The skills you develop with Clarity Connect are absolutely worth investing in. That is the reason I reached out again about a year and a half after the initial workshop – I felt that investing in Dawn’s services would be beneficial for our team.

 Setting the stage for successful collaboration

From her group training experience, Dr. Goodine recognized the difference hands-on coaching can make. As part of the knowledge translation program, she’d received personalized feedback from Dawn on an infographic for the Hospital to Home program, via group coaching sessions and a detailed written assessment. She knew that Dawn would be able to integrate into her team of early-career pharmacists and help them develop important skills.

When Dawn suggested that they take a team coaching approach to collaborating further, Dr. Goodine saw an opportunity to give her team members the chance to learn from Dawn while developing a smash-hit presentation.

The collaboration began with a scoping session, conducted over Zoom. Dawn met with Dr. Goodine’s team to understand their immediate knowledge translation goals as well as their desire to develop specific skills. By the end of that first meeting, the team had already taken a deep dive into analyzing their key stakeholders and decided on three communication products to create:

• A 10-minute slide presentation for an upcoming conference on research in aging.
• A one-page handout to supplement the slide presentation.
• An interactive “boardgame” to simulate the patient experience among visitors to conference exhibition booth.

Each of these products would need to speak to a mixed audience including researchers from various disciplines, pharmacy colleagues in the hospital and in the community, leaders of the regional health authority, and government stakeholders. This was a tall order, so with Dawn’s guidance, the team divided the tasks required to produce the three deliverables:

• The team would take the lead on creating the slide deck, with coaching from Dawn.
• The team would create a first draft of the handout, and then Dawn would provide coaching and editing.
• Dawn would design and develop the boardgame, with input from the team.

Dr. Goodine calls the boardgame Dawn developed “one of the best icebreakers we’d ever had the opportunity to use.” The play involves a simple scenario:  you are discharged from hospital, and your goal is to stay 30 days at home, without needing to revisit the hospital. If you run into issues (dictated by cards you draw throughout the game), you go to the community pharmacy. If the community pharmacy can’t help you, you are directed back to the hospital and lose the game.

The Hospital to Home boardgame enabled conference participants to experience the challenges seniors face when they leave the hospital with new or adjusted medications.

The game was a hit with the diverse audience at the conference. People went out of their way to check out the game, and Carole’s team were then able to engage people in conversations about the critical gap their project addresses.

The Coaching Journey

Dawn and the team worked together closely over a three-week period, tackling the deliverables one by one.

1. PRESENTATION

Through a series of Zoom coaching sessions, two team members met with Dawn to get her insight into how to:

• Develop a compelling key message
• Convert data into an attention-grabbing storyline
• Communicate findings visually
• Build a cohesive, easy-to-follow structure
• Translate scientific language into language suitable for a mixed audience

Working closely with Dawn through email as well as live coaching sessions, the two team members evolved the presentation deck through several different versions. In the meantime, Dr. Goodine was free to take a step back and turn her attention to other matters.

With Dawn working as part of the team, everyone benefited. Says Dr. Goodine, “Clarity Connect allowed me to focus on the things that only I could do and allowed me to give my team their independence.”

Hospital pharmacist and researcher Savannah Davis shares the team's research with a mixed audience of interdisciplinary researchers and government stakeholders.

2. CONFERENCE HANDOUT

 A new team member, a PharmD student interning with the Hospital to Home project, took the lead on this item. She generated a draft and received multiple rounds of feedback from Dawn (via Zoom and email). She and Dawn also reviewed Canva templates together, a critical step that simplified the creation process. Once the student could picture the rough visual design, it became easier for her to decide what information to include and what to leave out.

Because the handout would be a critical document for the conference, Dawn further assisted by editing the final version. This extra step gave the piece an extra level of polish while also enabling the student to observe the thought process and editing practices of a professional communicator.

“I knew there would be major decision makers in the audience [at this event], and I knew this was a major opportunity to have my team showcase the work we had done... working with Dawn gave [my team] the skills, abilities, and confidence to do just that.”

Hospital to Home team members Amy Brown (left) and Savannah Davis (right) host the information booth at the conference, using the board game as an "icebreaker" to engage participants in conversations about their research.

3. BOARD GAME

 Dawn took the lead on this, first creating a rough visual design and describing the game play through a short video. Team members then brainstormed various scenarios to include as game cards.

Although time was tight, the team tested a prototype of the game on an audience of colleagues. The response was enthusiastic, so Dawn then worked with the printer and the printer’s graphic designer to finesse the design and print the various game elements. All Dr. Goodine’s team had to do was pick up the finished products the day before the conference.

4. WRAP-UP

 Dawn and the whole team met one last time for a debrief session, during which they reflected on what they’d learned through the coaching and the experience of watching people engage with their communications during the conference. They also continued to refine their stakeholder analysis and brainstormed creative ways to continue apply their new skills and confidence.

To conclude the engagement, Dawn summarized the team’s key take-aways in a short document, which they can use to guide their future adventures in knowledge translation.

Knowledge Translation Skills for Ongoing Success

Through team coaching, the Hospital to Home team produced impactful communication products AND developed career-critical skills.  It wasn’t just the boardgame that Dawn helped bring to life for the team: she also enabled individual members to improve their presentation and stakeholder engagement skills.

As Dr. Goodine points out, Dawn’s method provides the “why” behind feedback, not just suggested improvements, and Dr. Goodine has noticed the difference this in-depth coaching has made in the early-career researchers on her team. She says, “Working with Dawn gave our junior members skills that they will use for the rest of their careers – she has really set them up for success.”

According to Dr. Goodine, the insights the team has gained will help them share their knowledge with many different audiences in many different situations. Even in clinical contexts, which often require pharmacists to adapt their communication practices to patients who find pharmaceutical language baffling.

  Dawn has not just changed how I approach knowledge translation with stakeholders and colleagues, it has also changed how I interact with patients.

In this way, the team coaching engagement has delivered far more than three communication products. It has helped build capacity for research communication and knowledge translation over the long term.

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Curious about how team coaching could empower your team? Book an exploratory Zoom chat with Dawn.

Resetting expectations

New to working with Clarity Connect, Harrison at first assumed that the Strategic Communications for Startups program would be a standard course, focused on a static curriculum. He quickly realized he’d set the bar way too low because SCS offers a uniquely personalized learning experience. He explains:

"Dawn took time to individually look our pitch deck and our one-pager and offer substantial and insightful comments… it was 10x more than we had bargained for. "

During Harrison’s first session with Dawn, he immediately recognized the difference in the Clarity Studio approach, which he describes like this: 

"Dawn brings this wealth of knowledge and experience that is unparalleled. Usually, the feedback we get is a mile wide and an inch thick. With Dawn it’s a mile wide and a mile deep."

Through the feedback he received, Harrison has recalibrated the process he and his team approach drafts. DearLife was already investing significant time in revising documents, but they were spending a lot of time tinkering with surface changes. Now, they have an evaluation method that goes both wide and deep.

Harrison now challenges his team to take a step back from any message or document so they can first identify “the why,” the goals they want to achieve. This helps the team keep their focus as ideas and phrasing evolve. (Improving writing can turn into an endless series of minor changes if you let it!)

Building in-house capacity for persuasive communication

One of Harrison’s biggest takeaways from working with Clarity Studio was the learning. Yes, he found the feedback process efficient—with a single round of comments, he was able to transform his pitch deck into a document that wowed investors. But the process also helped him develop as a writer. In his words:

"Dawn doesn’t simply suggest edits. She helps you understand why something needs editing. That’s extremely valuable."

Having benefited from Clarity Connect's coaching method, Harrison is now thinking like a writing coach and guiding his team to write more efficiently. Rather than just diving into a draft and starting to make random changes, they now start by taking that critical pause: “We figure out: why does this need improving?... And we come to an answer a lot sooner.” 

Moment of Clarity

We asked Harrison if there was a “Moment of Clarity” while working with Dawn, a moment when it all just clicked. Harrison knew exactly what we were talking about. He recalled working on his pitch deck with Dawn:

"We were trying to communicate the problem, and Dawn came in and offered this really, really interesting insight that no one else would have been able to offer. She completely changed the way we communicated ourselves to investors, and they ate it up."

Insights like these happen when you evaluate writing by going deep as well as wide. Paying close attention to seemingly small details, like individual words or the tone of voice, can suddenly reveal the path to clear and effective communication.

To explore ways we could help with your mission-critical documents, book a Zoom chat with Dawn.