Christopher Evans
Senior Consultant
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Trained as an applied management scientist and specializing in strategic operations and finance, Chris Evans works in individual and systems decision-making spanning executive and team coaching, governing boards, and leadership facilitation across a wide variety of client engagements in the US and abroad. Truly a people person, Chris brings solid experience in the field and current organizational thinking for how people can create outstanding performance outcomes.
BACKGROUND & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Chris brings over 30 years of financial and management operations experience across several industries. He has served in senior roles in health systems operations, medical school leadership, management consulting and investment banking. He is multiple-board certified in healthcare management, medical practice management, and executive coaching. His day to day experience in business operations, corporate finance and strategy brings real life lessons to his learning environments. Chris also serves as a senior faculty member with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), designing and facilitating leadership learning in the US and abroad. He is the author of six books, including Integrated Community Healthcare, Financial Feasibility Studies for Healthcare, and recently, Leadership Trust. He has also authored two new leadership assessments, the LEADERSHIP TRUST INDICATOR™ and TEAM TRUST INDICATOR™. Chris also specializes in leading individuals and teams in constructive approaches to managing conflict.
Chris routinely works with scientists, engineers, lawyers, and others with advanced training due to his work familiarity and ability to connect with such individuals. He has spent most of his professional career in healthcare in roles ranging from therapist/provider to department administrator, medical group manager, and hospital operations executive. He has also served in management consulting and investment banking, principally heading up healthcare operational analysis, M&A, financial strategies, and feasibility studies. He has been a regular speaker for industry groups and serves as an advisor and expert witness for the Center Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Health and Human Services on corporate systems and finance. Dr. Evans has coached leaders and teams within the US government (DoD and civilian), healthcare, pharma, manufacturing, science and technology, legal, and higher education industries. Chris also has served several state physician health/medical review boards as a coach for physicians who require a psychotherapeutically-informed regimen of coaching in response to licensure sanctions stemming from behavioral mishaps, anger, etc. He recently wrote two book chapters: Strategic Thinking and Executive Physician Development in Management and Leadership for Medical Faculty: A Practical Handbook.
Coaching Approach
Chris approaches coaching as a thought partner, one who walks alongside the executive, challenging and supporting growth and learning to work toward desired goals. Chris understands work pressures and helps leaders learn how to balance daily demands with the strategic execution of their goals. Gaining clarity of purpose & desired outcomes are two underpinnings of Chris’s approach to creating practical work plans. He has been successful in helping individuals, groups, and team overcome both thinking and behavioral challenges through mutually identifying issues that enhance and inhibit their desired outcomes. A truth-teller, working with Chris is like looking into a mirror clearly; you will come to see what is before you. From this perspective of personal (and team) insight, Chris works with his clients to map out discrete next steps to move them in their desired direction. Holding clients accountable for their own progress, and helping them overcome belief systems and practical impediments, Chris provides the support and strong encouragement to succeed.
Facilitation & Teambuilding Approach
From his first professional role as a therapist to successive responsibilities in supervision of departments, teams and organizations, Chris has been a point person for creating successful collaborative outcomes. In his work leading project and implementation teams in M&A initiatives, focus on gaining clarity and identifying “true north” for team members has been a primary underpinning of his approach. As a world-class executive education facilitator, Chris has both designed and delivered leadership learning to great acclaim in ten countries over the last 18 years.
In each of these opportunities, the goal has been organization development, and to leave leaders with the ability to better understand their situations, diagnose a way forward, and to implement even more effectively as individuals and as teams. Chris is certified in the 4MAT for Business design methodology and finds this one valuable approach to ensure that organizational outcomes are held primary in the design of any learning work with people. In addition, this approach takes individual learning preferences to ensure that the learning event makes connection with different learning styles while achieving the ability to address the root issues, explore and convey new information, and make connection to application that makes learning practical, relevant and immediately useful.
Relevant Coaching Assignments
- CEO with insinuated performance deficit challenges. Focus: Understand his tenuous position with his board and improve communications with them; addressing intractable key external stakeholder & internal personnel challenges.
- Focus: Coaching on transitioning/merging into a systems leadership role and succession preparation for COO becoming the new CEO; how to manage tensions to resist operational control while serving in a larger role.
- Senior scientist with brusque behavior/dominating his competent senior team. Focus: Identify both his behaviors that are disabling his team (e.g., micromanagement, taking charge, body language) and creating thought cues and reminders that rob his team members from leading. Update: Success; in nine months he was successful in seeing how well his team could manage with his senior guidance and was promoted to Senior VP.
Relevant Facilitation & Teambuilding Assignments
- Executive education design: As senior faculty at CCL, led the discovery and design of dozens of leadership learning events, programs, and multi-month learning journeys for clients in a wide variety of industries in the US and abroad.
- Executive education delivery: With CCL and privately, led the delivery of leadership learning in structured and ad hoc sessions ranging from hours to days to weeks for leaders at all levels of the organization. Special focus: Strategy and Senior Leadership. Chris also served as a Master Coach for CCL, both training and mentoring new coaches as well as serving in select executive coaching engagements.
- Scientist Team (8 scientists merged to form a new team). Focus: Elect a leader, create group norms for behaviors, and develop team goals with performance metrics.
- Conflict management facilitation between two physician partners recently acquired by a health system. Focus: Understanding each other’s perspectives and the circumstances that require them to collaborate; addressing issues immediately, and the adoption of an approach to discussion and feedback while speaking civilly to each other.
Education & Professional Affiliations
- Postgraduate Fellowship in Healthcare Management
- Postdoctoral Fellowship in Organization Dynamics & Psychology
- Doctor of Health Administration and Leadership
- Master of Public Health in Healthcare Organization & Policy
- Board Certified in Healthcare Management and ACHE Fellow (FACHE), Retired status
- Board Certified in Medical Practice Management (CMPE), Retired status
- Inaugural Board Certified Executive Coach (BCC), Retired status
- International Coach Federation Certified Executive Coach (ACC) and ICF-qualified coach trainer, Retired Status
- Center for Creative Leadership Senior Design and Delivery Faculty Member for Global Markets and Master Coach; certified in Feedback, Team and Executive Coaching as well as simulations, training methodologies and CCL core programs
- Certified/qualified in a wide variety of psychometric and performance instruments and tools
- Alpine Certified Member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America, he is the founder and lead faculty member of LeadershipOnTheMountain™, an immersive leadership and outdoor experiential education venture