Can you believe that another year is almost over?!? The older I get, the faster the years seem to fly by. It seems like just yesterday I was a young adult venturing out to my first day of being a real nurse. Thirty four years later (yikes!), I sit here at my desk writing to you and sharing ways to strengthen your professional practice. Each year in between has given me insight and experiences, both good…

“When I was signed up for this course I thought, ‘Oh great. Why do I need to take this? We don’t have bullying in my workplace anyway.’ Boy was I wrong. I learned so much. Most important: bullying wears many faces.” A participant in my online course, Eradicating Bullying & Incivility: Essentials Skills for Healthcare Leaders wrote the above comments on her evaluation. When I talked with her during our one-on-one coaching session, she shared that…

Disruptive behaviors feel like they are on the rise – and not just in healthcare. Bad behaviors are showing up across the globe, in our cities, our schools, neighborhoods, and our homes. Every day we witness acts of cruelty, ignorance, bullying, incivility, and just plan ol’ meanness. We could just sit around complaining about it and share the horror on Facebook – or we can do something about it. As I have written about many times,…

One of the best compliments I received came from a nurse a few weeks ago.  It was during nurses’ week, when she heard my keynote, “Celebrate Nursing: Human by Birth – Hero by Choice.” She told me that she had been feeling burned out in her role as a nurse lately, but that while listening to me talk about nurses as heroes, she was reminded of why she choose nursing in the first place. That reminder,…

We’ve all experienced gossip in the workplace in one way or another, so what can we do to stop it? Well, more than you might think. Say you’re at a meeting, sitting in the back of the room because you got there late.  One of the other managers, Maggie, is going on and on about what everyone needs to do to improve their quality metrics. After another few minutes, the person sitting next to you says,…