Healthcare is being disrupted from every angle, but Crista Durand, MBA, FACHE, has a clear message: disrupt the process, not the purpose. In this episode of Success in Chaos, Angela Adams, RN, and Kandice Garcia, RN, sit down with Crista, President & CEO of Hospital for Special Care, to explore how disciplined simplicity, relentless communication, and trust-based culture turn strategy into real-world results.
Crista shares what makes her hospital unique—serving both adults and children with complex medical needs, including one of only a handful of inpatient autism programs in the country—and how that mission shapes her leadership. She breaks down her “Plan on a Page” (POP) approach, why repeating the strategic imperatives “a million times” is the job, and how leaders build buy-in by making strategy visible, consistent, and alive across the organization.
The conversation closes with practical leadership lessons forged in uncertainty: listening tours, frontline focus groups, “watering the roots,” and the courage to be vulnerable. Crista also shares the leadership principles she lives by—pressure is a privilege, integrity over ease, and remembering every pancake has two sides—plus book recommendations and her “CEO pop-ups” that keep her connected to the people doing the work.
Episode Chapter Guide:
02:39 Unique Aspects of Hospital for Special Care
05:28 The Plan on a Page Methodology
08:21 Culture and Communication in Leadership
14:11 Adapting Strategies During Crisis
17:00 The President’s Advisory Council
21:30 Empowering Frontline Staff
24:09 Listening and Building Relationships
26:28 Vision for the Future of HFSC
28:00 Accessing Programs and Services
30:52 Final Thoughts and Leadership Advice
Crista’s Resource Recommendations
Full Transcript
AI-generated transcript. Accuracy may vary; please excuse any transcription errors.
Angela Adams, RN
How many times do you say your six strategic imperatives in a year? It’s got to be millions of times.
Crista Durand
would say it’s
million. thought about getting a tattoo, but then I would have to change that tattoo every couple of years. So that was a bad idea. So that ⁓ came and went. But one of my mindsets is that we have to disrupt process, not the purpose. So in this era of disruption for health care, it’s really about disrupting processes, right? Not your mission, not your purpose. And so I think people can rally around that. Very simply put,
When people understand the why, they can get to the how.
Angela Adams, RN
Welcome to Success in Chaos, a healthcare podcast where each episode is dedicated to unlocking success amid rapid change and uncertainty. I’m Angela Adams, the CEO of Inflow Health.
Kandice Garcia, RN
And I’m Candace Garcia, owner of Tungsten QI Partners and Quality Improvement Director of the ACR Learning Network.
Angela Adams, RN
We are so thrilled today to have Krista Durand, the president and CEO of Hospital for Select Care on our episode today. Hospital for Special Care is one of the nation’s most distinctive hospitals serving both adults and children with complex medical needs. And we’re gonna get into what that means with Krista today. Krista is an absolute powerhouse leader.
⁓ I met Krista a while back and she is an inspiration both individually and a mentor to me and she has been so helpful in helping my own leadership style. So I know you guys are going to get a lot out of this. She has a track record of driving results, which I know everyone on this call listening wants, in some of the healthcare’s most complex environments. Her leadership style is clear.
accountable and deeply human. We’ve had that theme in many of the leaders that we’ve had on. And it is the kind that turns strategy into momentum and culture into outcomes. So we are so excited to have you Krista. Welcome to Success in Chaos.
Crista Durand
Thank you, Angela and Kandace. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m very humbled by that introduction, Angela, so thank you very much.
Angela Adams, RN
Well, I think to start, let’s get everybody kind of grounded on what the work is that you do yourself. So can you share what makes Hospital for Special Care unique and why that organization is unique and how it shapes how you lead it?
Crista Durand
Absolutely. So the Hospital for Special Care is located in Connecticut and we are the fourth largest LTAC in the country. So just by in terms of size and bed count, we’re a fairly large institution. And what makes us unique is that we serve pediatrics and adults.
Most LTACs are just adult oriented and we do complex children and we also have a nationally regarded autism program. So we are really regarded as both an LTAC and a specialty hospital and I think that’s what sets us apart.
Angela Adams, RN
That’s super cool. As far as autism is related, are there many of those in the country or are you guys pretty rare?
Crista Durand
So we are extremely rare. we’re about, I could do it on my hand. There’s about five programs in the country that treat autism with behavioral needs the way that we do. So what started out as a very small program in 2012 as an outpatient clinic has blossomed into.
really a national regarded accredited program in which we treat inpatient children. We have a day hospital program, so kids come for part of the day, and then we have the outpatient program. So we treat the whole arc of care. We have 20 inpatient beds, and we probably, I would say, impact about 1,000 children, families in a year. And we have kids that come from 26 different states nationally because there’s such limited services. As I mentioned, it’s an accredited program.
We do a lot in terms of physical rehab, speech rehab, occupational rehab. We have recreational therapy and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our amazing pet therapy program, which really helps the children that are non-verbal.
Angela Adams, RN
that’s incredible. And if I remember, it was the predecessor, your predecessor, right? Very mission driven to her family to start this program. Is that right? Am I remembering that?
Crista Durand
That is correct. So the former predecessor had a deep connection and a family member who was autistic and really, you it was a mom’s mission and how we can provide care in Connecticut and beyond for children with just such limited resources. And so this program, like I said, we get kids from 26 different states across the country and we’re looking to expand geographically, which we’ll tie into later part of our conversation on our plan on a page and our strategy.
Kandice Garcia, RN
I mean, it is so wonderful to see somebody’s vision, somebody’s passion turn into a multi-coordinated national program. I think it’s really what we forget sometimes about healthcare. We feel so stuck in the way that we’re doing things and we feel so stuck in the systems that we have, but with a little creativity, a little bit of drive and passion and a lot of planning and organization, you can really make something really incredible for our patients. ⁓
Tell me a little bit about your method. So I love structured process. I know that, you know, the only way to meet chaos is with structure. ⁓ And you are known for your POP, your plan on page methodology. So tell us a little bit about where did that come from and why is simplicity been such a powerful leadership tool?
Crista Durand
Thank
Yeah, so I have a mantra and it’s going from good to great to Olympic in everything I do. So whether you’re a trip to Greece or you’re a strategic plan for a multi-million dollar health care system, it all starts with a written plan. So I started using the POP or Plan on a Page about 15 years ago, three organizations ago, when I was the vice president of strategic planning for another Connecticut hospital. And I was introduced to that. And so through my journey, I’ve been in health care for about
hate to say this about three decades, you really need structure, right? And so there’s a mantra in healthcare, if it’s not written, it’s not real, it doesn’t exist. And that extends to medical records, human resources, know, finance, and it also extends to strategy, right? So I’ve worked in other organizations where strategy wasn’t necessarily formalized. And what makes the POP or the plan on the page so unique is it literally is an 11 by 17 document that has your organizational domains on the left.
It has what’s your North Star, all of your tactics and measures. We use the RACI format, right, by executive leader, responsible, accountable, consultative, informed. And then you have your KPIs, your key measures of success, what year you’re going to launch the tactic, and then we typically trend that on an annual basis. So what I like to do with the plan on a page or the POP is it’s a three-year plan, and then you back that up with annual work plans.
Right? So you want to make it, you want to break it down so that it’s very clear and concise. And then you have your annual work plan. And then off of the annual work plan, I typically take off the six strategic imperatives and we plaster that in the organization. So everyone, whether you’re a frontline staff member, you’re a board member, you’re a community member, these are the six things that we’re working on. This is where your manager is spending your time. This is where the CEO is spending their time, physicians, et cetera, et cetera.
So it becomes a very livable, breathable document in process and really guides the organization.
Kandice Garcia, RN
I’ve seen so many organizations try to do this like the spirit of it or like the the structure and like the point of it I think is there but the application and the dissemination to the frontline staff has always been a challenge even when I was a frontline staff at a couple of hospitals I was like, okay, I
I hear the words, but I don’t get what you’re talking about. How do you get them to really live the strategic plan? How do you get everybody to kind of not only buy in, but understand how they are supposed to participate from where they stand?
Crista Durand
So that’s a great question. And for me, culture drives everything, right? So the culture will only move as fast as it trusts. So I’ve learned that in leadership throughout the years. And so it’s important that you foundationally, where is the organization, right? Is the organization, do they have the readiness? Are they aligned? And then you have to meet people where they are. I think that’s really important. So my style has been, again, a 24-7 organization, 365 days, we never close.
How do I connect with 1,400 employees and then add several hundred medical leaders on top of that? So it’s through a very structured, deliberate communication plan. So we post it in every single department. I’ll start with that. ⁓ little 8 and 1 by 11 laminated, here’s the six strategic comparatives. Every town hall meeting, these are the strategic paratives. So we record our town hall meetings. Then I do a biweekly newsletter called Inform.
We do breakfast with ELT, which is the executive leadership team, and we have the strategic comparatives. I share it at my provider coffee talks. So we do those on a quarterly basis. And then we have info row, which are TVs, which sort of scroll all the things going on in the organization. And we have Tuesday announcements. And I could go on and on. And so it’s really having a very deliberate, structured, intentional communication plan to say, is what we’re working on. And I think the other just point that I want to make is that
POPs or strategic plans are fluid dynamic documents. So if something changes, right, let’s take COVID for example. So when things like that happen, talk about organizing or managing in chaos, you might have to pause certain strategic initiatives because of circumstances. So you have to be very agile in this type of leadership, I would say, philosophy to make the POP and make the strategic imperatives very livable and readable.
Angela Adams, RN
many times do you in a year say your six strategic imperatives? It’s got to be millions of times.
Crista Durand
would say it’s
million. thought about getting a tattoo, but then I would have to change that tattoo every couple of years. So that was a bad idea. So that ⁓ came and went. But one of my mindsets is that we have to disrupt process, not the purpose. So in this era of disruption for health care, it’s really about disrupting processes, right? Not your mission, not your purpose. And so I think people can rally around that. Very simply put,
When people understand the why, they can get to the how.
And so that’s how I like to break things down. And I want pushback, right? So you, as a leader, you want pushback to say, Krista, why are we doing this? And then you kind of explain what the why is. yeah, that makes sense. Now I can help you get to that how.
Kandice Garcia, RN
You know, I love your, you know, you’re highlighting so many ways that you’re communicating with your staff. think people think communication is, let me send an email. let me put it up in the room. But no, communication is really, I like to think of it as like the,
circulation system of your body, right? The information has to continuously circulate and it’s not just giving them information but getting back. And what I heard you say is it’s not just putting it on the wall but it’s having a conversation about it. It’s having a place where we can discuss it, where we can talk about the real problems with living ⁓ these strategic visions because it’s not as straightforward and it requires conversation and a constant vigilance of
How is it working for you? Should I change should you change should we change? ⁓ And I think that is where leaders sometimes ⁓ Miss the mark is that they don’t think of it as an ecosystem of communication. That is a constant it that is the job the job is the constant communication and then Supporting and empowering your frontline staff to do what they want to do the way that you described it is just so beautifully ⁓ well rounded I just
It feels so refreshing to see that, but it does feel like work that is not work. I think a lot of the time we feel like it’s extra or it’s like not necessary, but at the end of the day, it really does feel like the most important thing.
Crista Durand
I think the other, I completely agree with you, Candice, and I would add that it’s also about bringing the energy to it, right? So you want it to be, so if you want something to be breathable and livable in the whole ecosystem of your organization, you have to bring that energy. And someone like me is, I don’t drink a lot of caffeine. I’ve never had a cup of coffee. That’s a Christa fun fact. I don’t need the coffee. You know, I like tea and occasional diet Coke, but it’s also about, you know, the leader needs to bring and infuse the energy into the organization and the direction.
I the other piece I’d like to add in terms of tactics is just intentional rounding. I like to get out of my office, me, the CMO, the CMO, we’re known to do Friday roundings. And so you connect with staff, you connect with providers, you know, how are things going? It gives us the pulse of the organization. And the other thing I like to do is when I’m meeting with staff, as I say, how many people have seen our strategic comparatives? Raise your hand. And then it gives me a pulse on how well we’re doing with getting the communication and pushing it down as well.
Angela Adams, RN
That’s great. That actually is in line with my next question. I feel like I’ve seen so many organizations to Candace’s point earlier, make these big strategic plans for the year and it’s not necessarily a living document. And there’s a big disconnect between what the leadership thinks that they’re doing and what the end user staff thinks that they’re doing. So it sounds like you’ve came up with all of these like communications.
But can you give us an example of like a way that maybe something started out on the strategic plan on the pop plan at the beginning of the year and you had to evolve it because of this feedback loop. Can you give us an example of like that in motion?
Crista Durand
Absolutely.
Yeah. So that’s a great question, Angela. And I’m going to respond with, I’m going to reflect back into my COVID years. I still have PTSD, but I’m doing better. And so during the COVID years, being the CEO of an organization, you’re definitely leading in uncertain times, right? Like we really didn’t know what was going to happen. And what happened to all organizations across the country? Employee engagement tanked. No matter what you did, it just tanked.
Kandice Garcia, RN
Yeah.
Crista Durand
And so we had a strategic plan and we had an employee engagement, you know, that was a large section of our plan. It wasn’t working because we couldn’t connect with our staff. So we kind of took a step back and we asked the staff, what can we do to drive your engagement to further align into the organization? And they said, we want to see you more, Krista. We want to have some sort of forum with you and HR so we can talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And this was a very big risk for me as the CEO to be very vulnerable, to be with frontline staff. And so I said, I’m to throw myself into it. We’re going to do it. It was probably the single best tactic I did when I was the CEO of Newport Hospital. We had what was called the President Advisory Council, affectionately known as the PAC. And there was a wait list to get on the PAC after it got up and running. So we started during COVID. And we, think in the four years, accomplished more than 100 different tactics.
that I never would have known if I hadn’t sat down directly and broke bread with frontline staff. And how do I know it was successful? So our employee engagement over the four years of having a PAC eclipsed the national average. It was really leading the national average in employee engagement. And I couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the folks at environmental services, nursing, the emergency room, facilities, et cetera, human resources, and the list goes on and on.
I think as leaders, a lot of times we’re afraid to be vulnerable. And by doing that, I create a deeper connection to the organization, but yet I had a deeper appreciation for my entire workforce and what they needed to do. And the last point that I’ll make on that is that was at a time where workforce safety was really heightened in healthcare. And we deployed a lot of tactics, again, that I would never have known about that weren’t in our strategic plan. And so that came out of this, present advisory council.
And I hope to launch that soon here as well. ⁓
Angela Adams, RN
I love the president advisory council, but you’re right. We hear this theme over and over as we have leaders on Candice and I, it’s like leaders going first, you being the first to be vulnerable and then that creating the culture in the organization for other people to step forward and be vulnerable and break down those walls. That’s incredible. So tell us little bit more. said there was a waiting list to get on this. So ⁓
Crista Durand
Yeah, so
what, yeah, so let me explain the process. So all you had to do, I want to make the process very simple for the first like year and a half, we had to do zoom meetings and it was really hard. And then I, you know, I kind of broke out a little bit. I’m like, okay, we’ll go in a big room and we’ll have masks on and that worked. And then it came on to, you know, sitting in a board room shoulder to shoulder. So basically employees just sent me an email, how to do emulate the care values. And as long as they were in good standing and I didn’t want all the excellent employees. wanted some rebel rousers on the present advisory council.
And I got some. And so after a year, their membership would end and then I’d have to recruit 12 more. And so once it got traction, ⁓ things are happening. We’re seeing movement. There’s workforce safety. We’ve changed the parking lots. We’ve enhanced this. We built a mindfulness center. We have a bright ideas program. And the list goes on and on and on. It got a lot of traction. So one of the staff members said to me, it would be helpful.
as we’re transitioning people off the PAC, let’s keep a few of us on so we can be quicker and more agile to onboard the new sort of crop of employees. And we did that. And then at the end of their year term, they had to give me a survey. So it was my report card. How did I do? And this one employee, I’ll never forget this story, I was at the elevator. This one employee, she’d been there a very long time. She was very opinionated. And she came up to me, you never knew what she was gonna say.
And she looked at me and she said, you know what? She’s like, that PAC was a good thing and you are the most approachable CEO that I’ve ever worked and I’ve been here for 30 years. That’s impact. And that’s how I knew I made an impact in the organization.
Angela Adams, RN
That’s in.
Kandice Garcia, RN
Yeah, you
know, this is the kind of leadership that I… ⁓ go ahead. Sorry.
Angela Adams, RN
No, no, I was just
like, that is, that’s incredible. It’s, just something that we haven’t heard before. Candice and I as an idea. And I think that you’re really onto something. I think the rebel rousers, as you called them, a lot of CEOs would try to kind of cherry pick the best people to come on there for the least friction. But the fact that you have the rebel rousers in the room. Um, I love that term, by the way, I’m going to use it all the time now. Um, I think.
Kandice Garcia, RN
Thank
Angela Adams, RN
they can either be your strongest critics, but then once you turn them, they can be your strongest supporters. And the way that you gave them that forum, I’m sure is what created like, either they can be kind of a cancer that’s sitting in the background, getting all of the staff to go in a negative direction. Or if you can bring them into the conversation, they can be part of the positive change. But it’s like, how do you get them, how do you get them to the table in a healthy way? Give them an outlet that doesn’t disrupt.
everything. And I think you found the perfect blend there.
Crista Durand
Yes, I’ll say that, you know, I learned something a few years ago. I think it was the University of Houston’s basketball coach. They talked about his team. got to the Sweet 16. They weren’t the most talented team. And he’s like, you know, what is so special about this team? goes, it’s simple. We water the roots, not the leaves. And that goes back to culture, right? So find out what motivates people. You want to make people feel valued. So the pack was so successful because I listened.
So I listened and I sat back and said, they’re telling me a lot of the stuff was simple. It was a little hanging through, but no one had ever fixed it. And so it’s really about actively listening, being vulnerable, and quite frankly, delivering results. Every job that we have, you’re hired to produce an outcome. So whatever that outcome is, it’s being a good partner and listening with your staff. And just remember, you’ve got to wear those roots.
Kandice Garcia, RN
You know, I think this is the leadership that we’re all craving in healthcare. You know, when we are working on the front line, these are high, educated people. They’re, you know, people have master’s degrees and, you know, doctors and everybody is so smart and so capable. They manage patients all day long. So they are all individual managers all the way down to the front line house cleaners. And I feel like
Often in healthcare, we promote people without an understanding of what true leadership could look like, and they feel responsible for making all the decisions. They feel responsible for being like, we need a wellness center. We needed this. We needed that. When really effective leadership in healthcare is turning the table and saying, hey, I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I’m here to cultivate ideas from you and then enact those in the greater good for all of us. And I feel like what you have been doing is this.
Crista Durand
Mm.
Kandice Garcia, RN
real necessary shift for all of our leaders of that. I mean, we say it’s the top down leadership to the bottom up, but the bottom up really is about cultivating. It’s about empowering. It’s about understanding that everybody here actually can participate in your leadership in such a meaningful way, which means the hospital is better. Everybody feels better. Everybody wants to participate in it. It actually brings a little bit of joy back to work. How did you, how did you become this kind of leader? Have you just always been like this?
Crista Durand
So I come from a very humble background and my parents are both teachers. So I have teaching, I guess in my DNA, I didn’t realize that I did till much later in life. And so being a lifelong learner, so, you know, I’ve gone back and, know, I got an MBA, I’m a fellow at the American College of Healthcare Executives. I like to attend national conferences. I read a lot of books, a lot of leadership books. I like to really understand and get under the hood with culture. ⁓
And it’s all about teachable lessons. I think even when things don’t go so well, I say to myself, what was the message and what was the teaching? What was that bad situation trying to teach me? So myself, think inherently, I always want to be better. Again, how do I go from good to great to Olympic? So it’s reading, it’s learning, it’s stretching myself and stretching others. And if you ask me, what do I, people always say, what’s your superpower, Krista?
And I would say that people would say that mine is x-ray vision. So I tend to see things in people that can’t see in themselves as well as organizations. So I think that that’s my superpower. So it’s all about cultivating talent around you, right? So I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have all the skills. And so it’s cultivating a leadership team that’s like-minded to me, but has very different skill sets. And how do we continue to learn together and skill each other up?
Angela Adams, RN
So tell me, obviously you have this locked and loaded at Newport, then you switch to a brand new hospital, you come after a great CEO that had been in place for decades. Where do you start? We have a lot of leaders that listen to this podcast and they crave real actionable plans and mindset. Do you work on culture first? Do you work on strategy first? Does it have to all come together? You go to a new org like you just did.
how do you kind of create this environment ⁓ even though you’re brand new to many of them? They don’t know you, they don’t know your style. So how do you come in or even for our leaders that are listening, how do they start to make this change at their own organizations?
Crista Durand
Yeah, so that’s a great question, Angela. So I think when you start in an organization, it’s all about listening. So I did a listening tour. So I interviewed board members, leaders, medical staff, and I asked everybody the same questions, right? What’s going well? What’s not going well? What do you want to see change? What advice do you have for me? Then I call like that information, get the themes, and then you push it out to the organization. In addition to that, I did CEO focus groups with frontline staff.
The same thing, what’s a good day look like to you? What are the problems of the organization? How can I support you? And so again, you collate all that information and then you put action plans together and you go forth and do good. So it’s really about relationships, Healthcare is a relationship-based business. Medicine is a team sport. So I think I said at the beginning that the culture will only move as fast as it trusts. So you have to build some credibility. You have to get some…
Kandice Garcia, RN
system.
Crista Durand
quick wins in and by having those structured forums where people can come in and again, you know, it takes time. There’s always going to be folks that, you know, speak out and say this is awful or this is great. And then you can make your own assessments, but it gives you data, right? So it’s giving me data points about impressions and thoughts. And you know, what’s great about HFSC is that for the last 13 years, we’ve been a top performer in terms of employee engagement, but we can always go from great to Olympics. So how do we get to that next level?
So by listening to the staff, and then we put together this past year under my leadership, department specific action plans, which they had never really formalized. So now each department has, here was the top five strengths, keep doing those things. Here’s the things that I’m not so good at. So here’s the things I need to improve upon. And then we had a 90 minute round table conversation with all the leaders so that we could exchange learnings. So these, you learn these tips and tricks from other executives attending conferences.
know, reading, and so you do what works, and if it doesn’t work, then you fail fast and then you try something else. But I feel like when you’re going into a new organization, you really have to be on the listening front before you can start truly leading.
Angela Adams, RN
Incredible. I love all of this. Tell me what your vision is for HFSC. I think you’ve got big dreams. I think the organization does. Tell me a little about about where you guys are headed.
Crista Durand
Yeah, so I’m really excited that I’ve recruited some great folks that I’ve worked with in the past that have come here that know how I work and think. And one of those individuals has helped shape the strategic plan. And so we’re on the cusp of seeking board approval for a three year, ⁓ bold and provocative strategic plan to really expand and grow. We need to be in growth mode, really on the outpatient side with, I think I mentioned our
We have a very robust neurosciences and movement disorder program here, as well as outpatient rehab and some other things. And then on the inpatient side, we really want to formalize that patient experience. I’ve heard a lot since I’ve been here that we’re the best kept secret in Connecticut and beyond, and I don’t want to be the best kept secret. So what’s unique about LTACs, right, is you don’t think about long-term care unless you need it. But we are also a specialty hospital with our autism.
I think we’re the second or third largest ALS programs in New England, also an accredited program. So there’s a lot of uniqueness in this institution that we want to shop from the rooftops and make sure that when you need specialty care, you think of HFSA. ⁓
Angela Adams, RN
No, that’s amazing. So if anybody is listening to this and they’re interested in either the autism programs or the ALS programs, like how do you make that accessible for the public? You said 26 different states are sending kids into this program. Like how do people access you?
Crista Durand
Yeah, so we have a pretty large social media presence. So we’re on LinkedIn, we’re on Instagram, Facebook, we have a robust website, and we’re also going to be doing a rebranding to expand that even into more social media channels and things of that ilk. So there are lots of ways to get to know HFSC a little bit better. The other thing I’ll mention, which is unique to Connecticut and bravo to Connecticut for doing this,
So there is a system in Connecticut in emergency rooms that if the children have, if they’re having a ⁓ significant behavioral crisis and they’re autistic with a diagnosis, then there’s a pipeline to us for admissions. So that’s a well-oiled machine and unique to Connecticut. So again, just a great way of doing that to make sure we’re funneling children that are having behavioral challenges with their diagnosis to get right to HFSA. ⁓ I’d love to expand beyond Connecticut.
So that’s definitely something that we’re gonna be looking at as well as virtually and geographically. So stay tuned for more in the next three years to see what we can do.
Angela Adams, RN
I love it. I’m excited to hear what you’re able to do. I think with all of your amazing leadership style and skills, like you’ve taught me many things just in the years that we’ve known each other. But I just, for the audience, want to go through a couple of things that you said just to make sure that they got them. ⁓ One of the first things that you said, which I love, is good to great to Olympic, which is like, that is a great way to view it. ⁓
If it’s not written, it’s not real. Another Christaism there. We need a book of Christaisms here. You want to disrupt the process, not the purpose or the mission, which I love. Culture only moves as fast as it trusts, which is so empowering. Yep.
Crista Durand
you
Angela Adams, RN
And then in previous conversations, you’ve always said, we say it to each other, pressure is a privilege. Sometimes ⁓ as leaders, we get a little bogged down and you can’t always be at the top of your 100 % Krista energy. ⁓ But it is a good reminder when we’re in those moments as leaders where we’re just exhausted and we need energy and we need things poured into us.
to remember that pressure is an absolute privilege. And so anything that you would love to leave the audience with, I mean, you’ve given us so much to think about, but anything that you would love to leave the audience with on just advice from one leader to another.
Crista Durand
Yeah, I think a couple things sort of resonate to me and these are just, not, I didn’t really make up these expressions, but they’ve served me well in my career is that the pancake, no matter how thin has two sides. And an early mentor gave me that advice and I have treasured it throughout my career because I think as leaders we’re quick sometimes to make a decision or rush to judgment versus getting all the facts in perspective. And I think as a CEO,
Many times you are in the moment and you have to make a just in time decision, but just to take a step back and pause and say, could there be another perspective or another angle to this? So that had, I live and breathe that every day. The second piece of advice that I would have is that leadership takes courage. ⁓ So being able to stand up, offer either a different opinion or a very different perspective, I think is super important today in leadership that.
It’s the diversity of the points of view, which typically that generates innovation. And so that would be the second thing. And my last piece of advice is about integrity and do what’s right, not what’s easy. And my parents instilled that to me in a very young age and that’s about character and integrity. And that is something that I firmly believe in.
Kandice Garcia, RN
I feel like I want to go out and change the world. Like I want to go change the way I’m doing things. I’m going to like meet with my team today and be like, right, everyone, we’re doing this from our hearts. I mean, that’s what we love anyway. I love this type of leadership. I love this type of showing up. It just feels so connected to who we are in our humanity that, ⁓ you know, it’s, it feels weird that we would do it any other way. ⁓
Okay, so you told us like so much, so much advice. Any books, any resources, anything?
Crista Durand
So again,
being the planner that I am, of course I have a couple books here. So this book is fantastic. It might be a little hard to see. It’s called Humbicious and it’s the Power of Low Eagle and High Drive Leadership by Ammar Kassi. So someone else told me to read this book and it is great. And I think we learn a lot through the power of storytelling. It’s an easy read, highly recommend it. The second book, which I love is by John Maxwell and it’s the 21 Laws of Leadership.
This is the one I pick up over and over again when I’m stuck or frustrated. Really great book, timeless. ⁓ It’s just simply awesome. So those would be the two books that I would recommend. The last thing I would be remiss if I didn’t mention is I started doing this, which is a little cheeky. I’m doing something called CEO pop-ups. So just like a pop-up store, you never know where Chris is going to pop up. So I have usually candy and trivia and there’s like no agenda and I’m like in the organization.
just connecting with people, usually around lunchtime and we have another satellite. And so I’ve started to do that and try to connect it to holidays or themes and just another touch point that I can have with the folks that come in every day, they get up and they dress up and show up for each other, for our patients and community. And it’s just very rewarding.
Angela Adams, RN
That is awesome. Incredible. And tell me in closing, you have a ⁓ CFD moment if I follow you on LinkedIn and I your puppy. Tell me about that.
Kandice Garcia, RN
your sounds.
Crista Durand
I do.
Yeah, so I run with my dog, Sky, really who’s running who, but she’s a six-year-old V-Schluff on Garriant Pointer. you know, I just started doing this thing about a year or so ago and, you know, running and I don’t run with music and I like that’s my decompressed time. And so Sky and I will just post about a minute or so about a leadership tip. And I ended the year with, you know, pick a word, you know, pick a word that you want to grow and develop on. so my organizational word for 2026 is focus.
Focus out crap under underpin success. So focus is one of my words. And the second word that I’m going to use is elevate. Again, how do we go from good to great to Olympics? I want to elevate. So tune in to CFD moment of the week. You can see Skye and I running, whether it’s raining, snowy or sunny. We like to get out there. And that’s one of the ways I charge my batteries.
Kandice Garcia, RN
Absolutely, I can’t wait to connect. Thank you so much, Krista. This has been amazing. ⁓ You know, we get to talk to leaders all the time and I think that this is probably one of the most inspiring conversations I’ve had with somebody. So thank you so much for joining us. It’s been really great. All right, and thank you audience for joining us in success and on success and chaos. Be sure to like, follow and share today’s episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
