Realigned mental health services through integrated leadership and organizational change
Organization’s rapid growth strained operations as key executive’s retirement loomed without firm succession plan.
"We're facing a major leadership transition and feel overwhelmed.”
-Leadership team
The Crisis Centre of BC (Crisis Centre), a successful community mental health organization, was at a critical juncture. While leadership had successfully expanded programs and secured new funding streams, their operational structures hadn’t kept pace with growth, leading to unclear reporting relationships and service delivery challenges. Additionally, a long-tenured executive was also retiring without a firm or robust succession plan in place. Realize was asked to help the Crisis Centre manage this transition, help strengthen operations, and develop their leadership pipeline.
Date
February 12, 2025The client
Crisis Centre of BC
The challenge
Rapid growth created operational inefficiencies, leadership gaps threaten long-term sustainability.
Crisis Centre’s successful expansion had led to unexpected growing pains. Key challenges included operational silos and an over-reliance on a long-serving director nearing retirement. The impending retirement of this key director added urgency to addressing these structural and leadership challenges.
The solution
Integrated approach combining organizational review, succession planning, and leadership coaching.
Realize recognized that sustainable transformation required addressing three interconnected areas: organizational structure and operations, leadership succession, and team development.
Our approach and methodology
Realize ran two processes concurrently, designed to create clear operational frameworks, mitigate internal leadership capacity challenges, and foster a more collaborative culture.
First, succession planning was addressed by providing a 4-month interim director placement and reorganizing leadership roles to emphasize operational leadership and break down some of the silos. Realize then supported the transition through targeted coaching to enhance the leadership onboarding process along with maintaining crucial institutional knowledge. This strengths-based leadership coaching enabled the incoming leader to quickly and better integrate with their role and effectively lead their department.
Secondly, Realize conducted an organizational review through staff interviews and leadership discussions to identify key inefficiencies and growth opportunities. Operational plans were developed to establish decision-making authority and reporting relationships, while realigning director roles to match the organization’s community-based service model.
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About Crisis Centre of BC
The Crisis Centre of BC (Crisis Centre) is a leading provider of crisis intervention and suicide prevention services in British Columbia. In operation since 1969, Crisis Centre’s services span a wide spectrum of crisis support, suicide prevention, and postvention. Crisis Centre also operates a 24/7 crisis lines offering barrier-free, non-judgmental, confidential support and follow-up, as well as education and training programs that promote mental wellness and equip schools, organizations and communities to assist people at risk of suicide.
About us
Realize Solutions is an award-winning B Corp-certified team that designs practical solutions for organizations with complex problems in the areas of board governance, organizational development, and people.
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