Pioneers in Adaptive Leadership

Patrick McGowan has spent his career as an inside change leader in several organizations, first in business then in healthcare. He specializes in aligning teams on a common path to achieving better results. For the past decade he has led several system-level change initiatives inside two major Midwest health systems. His work on the CMS Innovation Award resulted in the integration of behavioral health practitioners, processes, and assessments across 33 primary care clinics – an innovation which saw the adoption of a biopsychosocial approach to patient care for thousands of people. He also worked to realign 14 service lines on five strategic aims and two population health goals – collaborating with CEOs and Physician Vice Presidents in practice and technology standardization across multiple hospitals.

Patrick was introduced to the provocative teachings of adaptive leadership when leading the CMS Innovation Award and became a certified in Immunity to Change, a Harvard-based change leadership practice. Since then, he has facilitated over 100 small and large group meetings using adaptive leadership principles, including a series of discipline-specific Design Team meetings with physicians, social workers, and nurses. Patrick holds a Master Business Administration as well as a BA in Journalism. He completed Michael Porter’s