EP 7: Conflict Management Strategies for Effective Leadership

Coffee Break_Episode 7 _Randy Keirn.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Coffee Break_Episode 7 _Randy Keirn.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Renee Thompson:
Plants thrive and grow in a peaceful, nourished environment, right? Well, it's the same with human beings, but what if that environment is not so peaceful? What if it's toxic? Welcome to Coffee Break: Breaking the Cycle of Bullying in Healthcare – One Cup at a Time. In this podcast, you'll get practical, evidence-based strategies to help you cultivate and sustain a healthy and respectful work culture by tackling an age-old problem in healthcare: bullying and incivility. I am your host, Dr. Renee Thompson.

Renee Thompson:
Hi everyone, And welcome back to the Coffee Break podcast. As you know, bullying and incivility happen because they can, and it really takes dedicated leaders like you to put a stop to it. And that's what this podcast is all about, giving you practical tools and strategies to help you to stop it. And today, we're going to talk about, drum roll, conflict, and I have the privilege of interviewing a conflict expert who happens to be a good friend and colleague of mine, Randy Keirn. Randy, welcome to Coffee Break.

Randy Keirn:
Thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

Renee Thompson:
Me too. All right, officially, Randy is a training professional with over 30 years experience in fire services and healthcare. He currently serves as a district chief and EMS division chief in Pinellas County, Florida, where I live, too. He served as the department's training officer for more than 11 years and was honored as the 2010 State of Florida Fire Service Instructor of the Year. Now, while working full time, Randy also worked for, he was an emergency department nurse, and he worked in an ICU in both adult and pediatric hospitals. His company, Fully Involved Consulting, actually specializes in achieving results in the area of effective communication, conflict management, leadership development, and cultural transformation through training, facilitating, and coaching. And I always, when I talk about Randy, I always say he's like the coolest guy I've ever met. Not only does he work for the fire department, he is also, you're doing some work, Randy, right, on the waters. I know that you're like a boat captain or you do something there and he hikes all over the world. So, Randy, tell us a little bit more about that, your other adventures.

Randy Keirn:
I've had a pretty great career in both in healthcare and in the fire service, but it's, so to speak, the last chapter for that part of my life. For most of my life, I've, it was who I, really defined me. But trying to figure out what's next, and one of the things I was playing around with is being a boat captain or something like that, and that led, I think nurses by nature were in service, so that led to me getting into auxiliary for the Coast Guard. Yeah, and, like I needed more things on my plate, but I really enjoy it. And now there are a couple of years I'm the member training officer already, and it's, I just love doing that.

Renee Thompson:
It is just so cool. And all of your adventures and other countries and all the hikes that you've done overseas and even the volunteer work that you have done. Again, I always say Randy's the coolest guy that I know. He does so many different things, and the fact that you're a nurse and can do all these other things is, I think, just a blessing. So thank you for all of your great adventures, and you inspire me.

Randy Keirn:
And you asked about the adventures. And the funny thing is I say I'm a hike, I'm not a hiker that hikes.

Renee Thompson:
Okay.

Randy Keirn:
I'm a big guy. I'm a big guy, and physically hiking is extremely difficult, and it's, the experience requires it. I do travel to a number of countries and hiked many long-distance hikes from 100 miles to 600 miles. Every, usually every year I go someplace for a long hike, and it's just me, my backpack, and by myself or with a friend. It's great to disconnect. It's great to disconnect, get in nature, be present again, unwind, everything, yeah. And stopping at coffee shops and wine doesn't hurt either.

Renee Thompson:
I have my coffee here, so I hear you. Maybe that's how you actually can then do all these things because you take time for yourself, and as you said, you disconnect. So I think it's great. Like I said, I sometimes find myself living vicariously through you, so appreciate you. And I'm really curious to know, and I'm sure our listeners are too, how did you get involved in conflict management? How did you really tap into this topic and become the expert that you are?

Randy Keirn:
You mentioned I had, really, I have two career paths. I started both in the hospital setting at 18 and also the fire department at 18. So I was a firefighter EMT and started my career, but also worked at a local ER as a ER tech. So I've had two parallel careers for most of a big portion of my life. But really, the leadership work is was in the fire department because I was always a pool nurse, resource nurse, whatever you want to call it, throughout my career, and my experience as a leader is really where I found my lesson, so to speak. We have a tendency to teach the things we stumble upon. Like, I know a little bit about your background too, right? We suddenly get thrown into the situation. We're like, Oh wow. And I had prepared for years to become a leader, and my goal was not necessary to be in charge. My goal was really, I love training, and I wanted to develop people. And really as the company officer, it's their primary role is to develop people. And the first month was fantastic. Things were going wonderful. And about a month in, I'm running around micromanaging because I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing in my, again, let me, a little context. I'm in my mid-20s and most of my crew are in their 30s and 40s, so I'm the young guy and now I'm telling everybody what to do. I'm micromanaging, which I definitely lack some leadership skills back then. And one of my most senior firefighters was not doing what he needed to do. Check the truck out, check out the paramedic equipment. And so I walked over to him, and he was just hanging out with a friend I didn't know. And I said, Hey, John, I really need you to start doing your work. And he was sitting on the bumper of the engine and he slowly stood up. John is six foot five, and he looked down at me. Also a little preface. He's probably the most recognized, most people just adored him. He was an introvert, very tall, he didn't say much, but when he spoke, people just really admired him, and really, informal leader of the organization. And he stood up and just looked down at me and said, Go do it yourself.

Renee Thompson:
Whoa. So you were his boss while, quote-unquote, boss. Okay.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah, absolutely. And I stood there, and I just had my mouth open, and I'm looking up at him, and I'm thinking, I just got punched in the face. That's what it felt like. I felt like I got hit by a car or something. I just did not see it coming. And I'm looking at him, and then I look at this, the person that was there I didn't know, and they're looking at me like, What are you going to do? My mouth was just open, and I just stood there and looked up at him until it got so uncomfortable. I turned around and walked away.

Renee Thompson:
Wow, okay.

Randy Keirn:
So I walked back to the office, and I got to go back, I got to say something, I got to do something. I didn't know what to say in the moment, and I didn't know what to say an hour later, and two hours later, and three hours later. And then I'll talk to him next shift, and I'll talk to him next shift. Now, unfortunately for him, he ended up getting injured and went off the job. So I really never had that conversation, which would be an easy conversation. Yeah, it'd be an easy conversation now, but at the time, I didn't see it coming. All my prep work was really on building people up. I just, conflict was not my thing until it had to be. And about a week later, we didn't talk, but did he talk, right? The nurses talk to firemen talk, yeah. The whole organization knew that, I don't know if they knew specifically what happened, but their belief in me as this well-respected person that got promoted, and there's a lot more story why I was respected because of my education and training, and I did so much of, but they didn't believe in me anymore. And about a week later.

Renee Thompson:
Lost your credibility.

Randy Keirn:
Completely. And not only John, but the rest of the crew started treating me different. And about a week later, I got called in the office with a line of chiefs, right? That's not a good meeting.

Renee Thompson:
No.

Randy Keirn:
I thought I was going to get demoted, about, within a couple of months of being promoted and spending all those years preparing. And my chief said, Hey, you got to find a way. And I literally started pursuing a way, and that's led me to where I am now. Long story, sorry.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. No, that's so incredible because you've never shared this with me before, but it makes total sense. And I think a lot of us get to the point where, if we're considered extremely knowledgeable about something or an expert in something, like even the work that I do with bullying and incivility, I'm considered the expert. It usually comes from a place of pain first, where, and I tell my story where I was this unit manager, new to leadership, new to the organization, had a group of employees. I'd never seen people behave that way, you know, so-called adult professionals, and I was so ill-equipped. I had no idea how to handle their bad behavior, and I quit after a year and felt like a failure for a long time until I, like you, I figured it out. And now it sounds like we're on parallel paths where we're both on a mission to help other people, help other leaders, and you deal with conflict and help them manage it better, and me with the bullying, but they're very similar paths, not only personally, but also bullying and incivility, sometimes it shows up as conflict and sometimes conflict shows up as bullying and incivility. So I'd love to know from you, and so many people are going to say confused, but they're not clear on what conflict truly is or conflict management. So could you talk a little bit about that? Can you help us to define that a little bit better?

Randy Keirn:
Yeah, the conflict broad topic. I'm actually, probably spend more energy on focusing where I put my energy. So when I talk about conflict management, for me, my primary sweet spot to help people with, because when you think about me in that moment, right, I'm a manager or a supervisor, and I'm managing a team or a crew, and you have to deal with the things that show up. Your conflict's inevitable, it's going to happen, and how do you effectively have them acknowledge what's going on, have them own the problem, have them create a solution that solves the problem? So I'm really focused on performance management. I would say is the buzzword. But it's not only that, because the other aspect of my work is people that are struggling, like people come with baggage to work, right, and I don't solve their problems, but it's interfering with their ability to do their job. They still own it, but it's helping them become better. But one of the things I see is unfortunate is a lot of times people don't say anything, or they pass the buck, right? The person gets in trouble, then you assign them to another unit. That helps. And I'll never forget, I got an employee that was known throughout the department for being difficult. I'm a new officer, and they came to me and said, Fix them. I'm like, You didn't fix them five years ago. There's a whole nother story, I actually did make impact with him, huge impact with him, but that's a whole 'nother story. But you can, it's really helping people. Part of the thing I think I helped them do is realize the problem that they keep on this path, what's going to happen? I really am there to help and support them. And just as an example, in my role, I oversee about 65 people. Sometimes people don't make it, right? Sometimes their career gets ended and because of different reasons, but every person has left because they, I support them every way I possibly could, they just couldn't get out of their own way for some reason or another. Okay, and they had to leave the organization. Every person has ever been let go of our organization has hugged me and thanked.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. Okay. That's pretty powerful.

Randy Keirn:
… What the, I don't, it's my attitude when I show up there. I'm here to help you become better. But you have to own this, you have to take responsibility, you have to be accountable, you have to do it, and then I'll help you support any way I can, but at the end, they own it, and we can't own their problem. That was a huge one for me because when I was owning their problem, I had upset, I had headaches, I had upset stomachs, and I was sick. That was the only time in my career I didn't want to go to work when I had my issue with John. But once I learned it's not my problem, they need to deal with it, and I learned a way to have them own it, it really started changing things.

Renee Thompson:
I think that's the key because I talked to so many leaders who, to your point, I will support you, I will help you, I will give you education. Do you, what do you need? But then they don't know how to then shift it to I will do my part. However, you have to do your part. And I think leaders get caught in that trap where they think they have to own their problems. Okay, that employee's problems, help them with those problems and are almost afraid, I think, to step aside and say, okay, now this is the part that you own, and if you're not capable or you're not willing to, we're done here. And I think that's the missing piece when it comes to, and I hate to say managing a difficult employee, but I hear this all the time. I remember talking to a leader who said, okay, there's this one employee, and she acts out, and people complain about her, so she has to have a sit down with her, and then she behaves for 4 or 5, 6 weeks and then she's back in her office and the same pattern over and over again, and then I asked her this question. How many meetings have you had with her, or how long have you been in this cycle? And she thought about it, and she said, Over a year and a half. And I said, okay. Now, so to your point, you cross the line, the employee is not owning it. So how do you do that as a leader? How do you know either set that expectation upfront or how do you know when you're at that moment that you have to say, I've done all I can, rest is up to you?

Randy Keirn:
I think, and again, that's my approach as I have a coaching conversation. And what I mean by that is I ask the questions and let them answer them. And one of the, I think one of the struggles we have in conflict management leaders is we're problem solvers, right? You're late to work every shift. I'll tell you how to fix that. No, you won't. You could tell them they buy another alarm clock, you could tell them to leave earlier, you could tell all that. But then the next day, when they get up, they overslept, they have to get the kids to school. One of the big shifts that have to happen, I think is critical in this element is accountability. Now, when we talk about holding someone accountable, that's external. Okay, but you think about performance management. What's the best accountability? Internal.

Renee Thompson:
Right.

Randy Keirn:
So how do I ask you a question so that you own it? Not only the problem, but also the solution? Now, if I ask you to do something and you tell me you're going to do it, are you going to do it?

Renee Thompson:
Yes.

Randy Keirn:
Absolutely. Now, if I tell you what, exactly, that's accountability. It's internal. But if I tell you what to do, what's your success rate? Is it still 100?

Renee Thompson:
It depends on if I want to do it, or if I see the value of it, or if it's. Yeah, there are some variables there.

Randy Keirn:
There you go. And that's the variable, right? I want them. That's one of the things that I create a plan. I want a 100% belief that they own it. They're going to do what they say they're going to do. I do define the expectation. You ask about the expectation, right? And I define it in a big-picture way. Future focus, what success looks like, okay? You're a rude to Mrs. Smith. The expectation here is we give an outstanding customer service, next time you interact with Mr. Smith or anybody like Mrs. Smith, you're going to treat them with the utmost respect, right? We have rules and guidelines around that. But I leave that big picture and success focus on it for a reason, because my next question is, what are you going to do to create that experience? That's where the ownership comes in. They have to be part, we know from neuroscience autonomy is huge, right? I don't care if you're a kid or an adult. You want choice, and when we take away choice, your success is going to decrease. So it's a coaching conversation. It's funny, when I started this, I looked at my own process, and I mapped it out, and it was, let me back step on this because this is really, I want to kudos, I want to shout out to, a shout out for somebody, when I was struggling with the fire department as a leader, I went to my director of nursing at the hospital I was working. At the time, I think I was doing some ICU work or something or ER, either one, but I went to my director of nursing, and I said, Hey, I'm struggling with conflict. And I showed up with a stack of index cards of conflicts that I could see. And I remember, I handed Kathy the stack of index cards. She goes, dealt with that yesterday, dealt with that last week, and she just flip it through the index cards, right? And she's like, these are nothing to her, right? Nothing. And I said, I need help on figuring this out. And she goes, Let's role play it. And it was late to work, and had just bumbled through it, and it was horrible. I had, it was nothing. She goes, Let's switch. And then she role-played me. This was an actual conflict she just had minutes earlier with a nurse that was late, always late every shift, and it set the foundation for the conversation to how to fix this. And I went on and got advanced training, and conflict went on and became a coach, took some mediation, a couple of mediation trainings, but really all comes down to that core conversation. First of all, you have to have the conversation. Share what is wrong with the mindset we're going to get through this and make this better and then hear them out fully, but then define expectations, but then engage them in the problem-solving, okay?

Renee Thompson:
I think that's, you said it. You have to get input from them. They have to be a part of it. One of the things that we do with many of our clients is we create what we call a compact of professional behaviors. This is how we treat each other in this space. And it's not just the leaders coming up with the list of behaviors, because I always say that's your code of conduct that you have at your organization. Everybody has that, no, this is specific to your department. And what we do is we bring the entire team together, and we ask them, how do you always want to be treated by each other? How do you never want to be treated by each other? And you get their input, and then you collate, you look for themes, and then you have a one-page document that basically says, this is how we treat each other here. So that when somebody is acting out, when somebody is being disrespectful, you can pull out that compact, and it's not what Randy, as the leader says, No, what happened? We agreed that we wouldn't behave this way. You did not honor our agreement. So it takes it away from, I think, the leader's shoulders because you said it. The leaders are problem solvers. I know I'm guilty of that, I always feel like I have to solve the problem, but it takes, it actually, by getting input from your employees, they're more likely to take ownership of it, not 100% guarantee, but they're more likely.

Randy Keirn:
I totally agree, first of all. I've done a lot of work with team contracts, but the root of all of it came down to a story I like to share. I'll give you the short version of it, but it really illustrates what you just said. Years ago, I had the opportunity to be a volunteer nurse at Boggy Creek. It's outside Orlando, it's a camp for medical ill kids, so they have cardiac weeks and different weeks. So I went to a cardiac week, and my job was to be the nurse. So we had 15 kids, I think, and then their age was like 12, 10 to 12 years old, 15 kids, and we were in a beautiful, Boggy Creek is amazing. It's a nonprofit, they have lake horses, they have the fire pit, and this, they have everything. They had, the pool was put in by SeaWorld. That magic Orlando Magic put in the basketball court, full stadium, or enclosed gym. Just amazing place. But anyways, I'm there as a nurse for that week, and we had some kids in IVs and feeding tubes and things like that and medications and stuff. So I was the cabin nurse. We had an 18-year-old counselor that was actually in charge. So this is 24 hours a day for a week, and the first thing he did is said, Hey, kids, write your rules for the week. We'll be outside. And I thought, what a waste of time. I'm the know-it-all supervisor with experience. And these kids came out, and they had a list of rules, and they gave them to me. And I literally wanted to grab them and throw them away because they were so strict. And I just thought, these kids need to have fun. But I said, you know what? There are rules. This is what they chose. Now, do you think they broke any rules? They're 10 and 12-year-old kids. And let me tell you the rules.

Renee Thompson:
Yes.

Randy Keirn:
They had a curfew. Pick up their dirty clothes, make their bed, brush their teeth, no cussing, no fighting, etc. There's a whole laundry list of rules. And did they break any rules? Yes, but how many times did I have to speak to them in that week? And I guess.

Renee Thompson:
I would say.

Randy Keirn:
I'm going to give you the answer. It's zero.

Renee Thompson:
You stumped me.

Randy Keirn:
It was the biggest leadership lesson of my life, I swear, because here you are for an entire week, 24 hours a day, 10 to 12-year-olds that picked up their clothes, they didn't. If they did something, they would either, when they got called out by their peers, they would either own it, or they would be, they either said, Hey, my bad, and they would own it, or they would be reminded from an entire group that this is our commitment.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. So they came up with the rules.

Randy Keirn:
They came, just what you just said. And again, when I do team contracts, I do not include the leader. I have the leader facilitate the process.

Renee Thompson:
Right.

Randy Keirn:
But 100% believe in them. I think they have to be lived. That's the only thing as most teams hate them, and then they can't even find them on the bulletin board, or so to speak, right? They have to be lived to be effective, and it's great. That is a great tool.

Renee Thompson:
It's something that is our standard. It's one of the ways that we hardwire and sustain a healthy work culture is that we have this document, but it can't just be a piece of paper that you post to a bulletin board. And so what we then do is work on how do you make it a living and breathing document, and that's where you get your people involved. And taking a look at maybe one commitment or one rule a month, and you focus on that, and you talk about it, and you do some skill development with it. Because one of our big things is we talk to each other, not about each other. That direct communication, instead of all the gossiping and passive-aggressive behaviors. If I've never been able to talk to you before, Randy, what makes you think because you have it on a piece of paper that all of a sudden, magically I know how to do that? And by, first of all, having your team come up with the rules, as these kids did, but then how do you make them living and breathing and ongoing and provide the training and the skill development that they need to really honor them? And I think what you said was beautiful. It was, the kids started holding each other accountable. It wasn't just the boss. It was.

Randy Keirn:
Or they held themselves accountable. Hey, I forgot to do this. My bad.

Renee Thompson:
So if 10 and 12-year-olds can do this, why can't adult professionals do this? This is our life. Every single day, I'm talking to leaders about the conflict situations that they get in with their employees. But okay, this is giving me maybe some hope that if, again, 10 and 12-year-olds can do this, we can help.

Randy Keirn:
After, I'll be honest, after I came back, I did it with my own kids. I let them decide their nightly routine because it was a nightmare for us that, our bedtimes, getting them in the bath, getting them out of the bath, all that stuff, and plus they want you to read. It's getting late. Having them set up the nightly routine, again, autonomy, it works.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, it's interesting. I always tell the people who we're working with, we give them all these strategies, and I always say, these work in your personal life too. The scripting that we do, it works in your personal life. Randy, there's something that comes up a lot with the leaders we work with and that is, all right, classic situation, you have two employees who aren't getting along, and there's some conflict, and there's maybe some arguing, and it's going on, and you get caught in a he-said-she-said. A lot of the leaders will say, okay, I'm going to bring them in together. We're going to do mediation, and there is some confusion on what mediation is, when is, when mediation is more likely to be successful. Because what I always say, if it's a bullying situation, mediation does not work as well because you may have just given that bully more ammunition against the target. But can you just talk a little bit about mediation? Because I know you had mentioned it earlier and you and I have talked about mediation in the past.

Randy Keirn:
So yeah, absolutely. So mediation, what it is, it's really it's a third party person moderating a conversation, or I think, really, the most important thing about all of this is have the conversation. But their job is to be not a referee, but just make sure you stay on track, and your third party, there's little things you can do to help them have a conversation to try to solve the problem. Mediation is fantastic. So a couple thoughts. First of all, it has to be appropriate, okay? If you have two people that work together, they normally get along and there's suddenly something going on and it's not going away, that's probably a great opportunity to have a mediation. Okay, so this is not reaching a, like a critical like when you say bullying, if it's higher level, it's already escalated. If it's already escalated, I would have someone mediate that really knows what they're doing, or but again, it's is it both parties or is it really a bullying individual? You've got to decide what's right. But so think about low, maybe medium-level conflict. Two people, again, we all have disagreements and it's a good opportunity for them to bring them together for a conversation. The process is easy. The only thing I would really have people consider. Are you confident in doing this? Because if you, it could go bad. Now, in my experience, it hasn't, but I also know I'm confident in the process. Super simple. So you have a conversation with both parties, find out what's going on. Okay?

Renee Thompson:
Separately at first?

Randy Keirn:
Separately at first.

Renee Thompson:
Okay, okay.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah, and decide your fact-finding, find out if it's mediation, is it right? Okay, the first conversation was, the conflict I was talking about was really talking about individual performance management and how to have that conversation. This conversation, check with both of them. Find out, is it one person, is it the other? Is it a combination? But if a mediation is right, at that point, you're going to schedule a time. Now, this is interesting. This, it would probably freak people out, but like schedule three hours. Like, why would you schedule three hours? Because we're not leaving here until it's resolved. So let them know you're serious.

Renee Thompson:
It's like being a juror, right? In a trial.

Randy Keirn:
At least, now my experiences with my mediations, they go really quick. And I've had some people just deadlocked, again, getting people around them to support them and all that nonsense. They really resolved themselves pretty quickly, the ones I've done. And again, I'm also mediating at my level. If it escalates, that's another can of worms. Determine if this mediation is appropriate, schedule a time to tell both parties you're going to come together, we're going to resolve it, okay? Once you get them together, the room setup is helpful. If you can have a table where they face each other and then you sit on the side just like you would in real mediation. And again, the ground rules, and my interpretation of the ground rules is no fight or no flight. So no fight: you can't threaten, you can't coerce. But no flight: you're not leaving here until we solve this problem. Okay? And are the rules clear? Yeah, okay. Here's what we have to solve today. And this is where you define the expectation of success. All right? The two of you are not get along. The reason we're here is you're not getting along, the outcome that we need to produce is the two of you have to agree on how you're going to work together in a professional manner and maybe even meet the guidelines or standards that you have, okay? And then you welcome one of them to start, and what they're going to do, maybe they're silent, maybe they get started, but they're going to want to look at you and plead their case. And you've got to say, I'm going to ask you to have the conversation with them to help facilitate that, which is really a little art to it. When the person over here is talking to my right, I'm actually looking at the person to the left, because if you make eye contact, they'll keep making eye contact so you don't get.

Renee Thompson:
They won't look at the other person.

Randy Keirn:
Do you actually look at the listener while they're talking?

Renee Thompson:
That goes against, I think all of us, and somebody is looking at us, talking to us, we want to look back at them. But I see your point. Yeah, look at the other person because that's who they …

Randy Keirn:
You actually look away from the speaker, which is not normal. But as a mediator, you look at the listener, you're going to listen to the speaker, or you really want to look at, just so they don't, because if not, they're going to keep making eye contact with you. Once they know the routine, they start having conversation and not engage, then you could probably look back at the listener again. But to help facilitate that initially, you're probably going to have to look at the listener. And again, warning: people could get angry. They can elevate their voice, they could say things that they believe or heard or something. The success of mediation often comes from fatigue.

Renee Thompson:
And they're like, We give up. Okay, you win.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah, it's really bizarre. But unless people really want to solve this and it's going to go for a little bit, fatigue is usually what kicks in. And somebody will finally like, okay, I'll give in a little bit. Then you get into the law of reciprocity. You give it a little bit, maybe I'll give in. Or again, people might be cautious, yeah, you're just saying that you don't mean it. But once that one of these barriers break down and it usually softens enough that I don't, I try, your number one job is just to sit there and listen and make sure the rules are followed.

Renee Thompson:
Now, as the leader should you, if they really start arguing with each other, do you intervene? Do you say time out guys? Or if they're talking over each other, what do you do?

Randy Keirn:
No, I would let it go. As long as it's not threatening or coercion, right? Now, you're not getting up to leave. Because here's the reality, it's an emotional reason that they're upset. It's not unheard of to have an emotional conversation about why you're upset. So to expect people to have a calm, collective conversation when your best friend for five years, they believe you did something wrong to them, they're going to be upset. They might cry, they might get loud, they might, again, that's why you have to be comfortable with this process. But in my experience, it's always been really effective because they get to talk it out, which is really the problem. They're not talking, but they also have in the back of their mind, they can't leave here until they solve it together.

Renee Thompson:
Now, do you ever have to remind them, especially if somebody gets up and they say, this isn't working and you remind them, hey, wait a minute, we agreed, two roles.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah. A lot, what's going to be the next step? This is probably going to have to escalate, then you want somebody else solving this or do you guys want to solve it yourselves?

Renee Thompson:
Oh, no, that's good. That's a good, I'm big on scripts, to have that ready to go if that happens, I always think, what if, this to say, you want this to escalate and let somebody else take care of it, or are you going to handle this yourselves? Like we're here right now, let's, yeah, get it, get it done.

Randy Keirn:
You have the opportunity to create a solution that you both agree to, or you have the opportunity to let somebody else decide and one or both of you are probably not going to be happy.

Renee Thompson:
This is true. Wow, and you're right. I think a lot of leaders, for them to get to the point where they're comfortable sitting there and letting that all unfold, because I know honestly, I would have trouble with that. I would want to intervene. And I think a lot of leaders, because we are problem solvers, we want to tell them what to do and fix the problem. But if you really want a successful outcome, you need to let them figure out the solution so that you're not always the one who has to come up with the solutions to all of their problems.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah, that's really why I'm so big in conflict coaching, the coaching conversation. Like the first part, I didn't get into it specifically, but when I first analyzed my process, I had ten steps, and then I shortened it and shortened it, and I got it down to like really just a couple steps now to have a coaching conversation. So I'm going to go back to the performance management, I could.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, please.

Randy Keirn:
So the mediation, that's it. That was really wrapped up anyways, but never got to share my conversation element that I teach. First thing, I call it CLEAR, okay, CLEAR prescription (CLEAR Rx). The first thing is identify the conflict. Just simply state what's wrong and don't just say, we had a customer complaint. It's been brought to my attention that you did this. You were late today. Just say what's happened. Most people know what happened. They know what happened, it's not usually a surprise to them, and then ask them for their input what's what happened or wanted to hear what you thought your thoughts on this or whatever. Just get them speaking about what it is. Because one of the things is you really need to understand what the real problem is, because the reality is the real problem is not always the real problem. And by listening to them, one, neuroscience, they'll feel more connected. Again, I want that bonding for us to work together to try to solve this. But the other thing I listen for is, what was the underlying cause? Because it's not always just bad performance. Maybe it was miscommunication, right? It was maybe a communications issue. Maybe it was a capability issue, right? I had two places to be at the same time. I can't do that, right? Or is it a compliance issue, right? That is a performance problem. I try to listen for what really is the problem because then that helps define success, the expectation, first step, conflict; second step, listen; third step, expectation. What does success look like? And you're rude to Mrs. Smith, I expect you to offer fantastic customer service. You were late to work, expect you to be here on time. Simple, right? So far, identify the conflict, hear them out, define expectations, and ask them, so what are you going to do to solve this? And that's the actions, right? What, and here's the key: expectations, big picture actions, behavioral level, right? I'll be here on time. I'll be nice to Mrs. Smith. What are you going to do? What would I see you doing to get here on time? What would I see you doing to be nice to Mrs. Smith? Because I want to get down to behavioral level. There's not going to be any question on the actions you're going to take to solve this.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I think that's probably the missing piece with a lot of conversations leaders have with their teams, is what, and I love it. What are basically you going to do? It's not me telling you what you're going to do.

Randy Keirn:
One of my officers, he was all excited, he came to me a couple, like two weeks ago, and he had a conversation with a, with someone just not stepping up for a new employee and said what was wrong, defined the expectation, and he said it was a wonderful conversation. I was so happy, so happy, because he needs to have more conversations like this, and he does, and so I was so happy. And then we document just for, it's not punitive, it's just a coaching session. And he gave me the paperwork, and the employee says, I will do better.

Renee Thompson:
That's it.

Randy Keirn:
What exactly?

Renee Thompson:
What does that mean?

Randy Keirn:
Completely up to open to interpretation, when we had specific behaviors we were lacking, he had an opportunity to identify the specific behaviors that would have worked, and he didn't capture those. And he just let the employee say, I'll do better, and that was the plan. And I said, That doesn't work. You can't measure … When you get down to behavioral level, one, they're very clear, what they need to do to solve it, and they came up with it. And they don't come up with it, I prompt them. What would I see? What would I hear? And it just makes it very clear on the actions. The last step, no going wrong, review. All right? CLEAR. So conflict, we listen, we define expectation, they define their actions they're going to take and review. I review the plan we have and the anticipated success, but special sauce, I also tell them what's going to happen if they don't live up to the plan they created. Now, that came about by accident when I had someone get in trouble, and they came back and got in trouble again, they were looking at time off in our policy. And they were so upset. I said, I'm never going to let that happen again. When you get in trouble, we're going to make a plan, but I'm also going to tell you what happens next. And I truly believe, anecdotally, and also, I believe more than that, is that the consequence of not living up to your plan, knowing what's going to happen next is a huge motivator, right? You look at behavioral modification research, the most powerful impact on antecedent behavior, consequence is what drives, I know. And then Rx, CLEAR Rx is simply what do you document, and that's CLEAR. What the conflict was, what they said, what the expectation was, what actions they agreed to, anticipated results, and what's going to happen if they don't live up to those results. I should have said that earlier in the program, but I just wanted to. And I like, one thing I like you said, be practical-based.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah.

Randy Keirn:
And you can think, what's the conflict, and what's the outcome I want? Then go up and have that conversation. That's all you need. Those two little things.

Renee Thompson:
I, you and I were talking earlier, and I said, I love a framework. That's one of the things, I have a coach, a business coach, and one of the things I love about him is that every time I come to him with a problem or something I'm working on, he is so quick to give me a framework. I will follow frameworks all day and all night because it's easier, and my brain doesn't have to work as hard. And what you've given our listeners, Randy, is a framework. I love the practicality of it, and it's something actually, now after this podcast, I'm going to listen to it and then make sure I write it all down so that I can use it too. And I think it's a good framework that I can use with my, the leaders who I'm coaching. I'll say, this is the Randy Keirn framework. I'll have to name it. Yeah, we'll have to come up with it.

Randy Keirn:
I'll send it to you too.

Renee Thompson:
That would be helpful, thank you. And I was, I usually like to end with, what's one action that leaders listening to us right now can take if they want to start getting better at managing conflict? Can you think of just one action, Randy?

Randy Keirn:
One daily action that I found just incredibly useful, and it's not just for conflict, it's for everything. It's all, because conflict, it's a type of problem. When people come to you and they ask you a question, one of the most powerful things I figured out years ago is most people are not seeking an answer, they're actually seeking validation. So people come to you with a problem, and again, that problem could be conflict. They come to you with a problem. Ask them like, What are your thoughts on this? What are some options? What can we do? Now, as a leader, you always have the opportunity to solve that problem, but I think when you start doing that approach, you'll find that they already have the answer, they just need validation to do it. They're closest to the problem, they're closest to the answer. Okay, so again, what I'm sharing now is really a concept, it's a coaching concept. People have problems. Start asking them questions. What's going on? What's, what do we need? What's the, one of my favorite things, it's so simple, but it's such a great concept. Where are we at? Where do we need to go? How are we going to get there?

Renee Thompson:
Yep, we just did this the other day with my team. It was like, okay, well, you know, where are we? Where do we need to be? What's the gap in between, and how are we going to get there? Yes, so simple.

Randy Keirn:
So in coaching, that's what we do. It's all forward-focused, right? Where are you at now? What's the goal? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? And again, those are our questions, right? And you actually look at my CLEAR model, it's built-in.

Renee Thompson:
Oh, absolutely.

Randy Keirn:
What's the conflict? What's the expectation? What are the actions you're going to take to solve it?

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I think everybody listening is probably, if they can, writing this down. And I wanted to let you all know that if you want to connect with Randy after this podcast airs, we're going to have his LinkedIn profile, his email address, and he's been generous enough to allow us to include that in the show notes. And Randy does this for a living too. He goes into organizations, and he really helps there, really train the leadership team in managing conflict. So make sure that you connect with Randy. He's just an all-around amazing expert and has a lot of really great insights into conflict and people management. And as I said earlier, and he's a super cool guy too. So as we wrap up, Randy, I always like to ask my guests if they could let us know maybe a book that they're reading right now and maybe a book that they would recommend that leaders read.

Randy Keirn:
This is for, most of my books are for purpose. So I've actually, I love reading, and I only have a couple of audiobooks. This one is an audiobook. I think I got it while I was traveling one time. I wanted to hear it. It's called Never Split the Difference. Chris Voss, he is a, one of the top FBI negotiators. And I actually glad I got this one an audiobook because he's talking about bank robberies and hostage negotiations and things like that. But it's really, he does a lot more than just, actually a lot of the philosophies he has I actually incorporate into my own training. I was pretty happy to learn that, but I still continue to learn from him. Your voice inflection, your mirroring, and again, it's all used for the purpose of being good, right, and helping people. But I continue to learn from him, and I'm revisiting the mirroring aspect, which I still don't do real well. And it's not just the body language, it's actually the words. So repeating the last couple of words in a sentence is a real way of connecting with people. Because I want to break down any barrier, because you're upset potentially, and you're coming in for a conflict, I want to break down any barrier and make a quick connection. That's why I want to really listen to you, to have you feel more connected with me so we can work together. And that's again, I think that's why that success of people hugging me on the way out the door, you know, never had anybody not thank me for all the support and tried to help them, you know, I really did.

Renee Thompson:
But your intentions were clear. You wanted them to be successful. They weren't, however, that didn't mean that your intent wasn't pure and good. And I think when people see that, they recognize and appreciate it. I'll definitely have to put that one on my list. It sounds really interesting, the type of book that I like to read. Yeah, I was going to say his name sounds familiar. I'm wondering if I've seen something or read something of his before, but is there anything else that you would recommend that leaders read?

Randy Keirn:
It's funny, before this got here, I was thinking about that, and I'm looking at my shelf, and I got about four foot of conflict books, and this is a little nostalgic, it's a little bit me, but I developed my program, and then I started thinking I did it for years and years and years for free just to help people and, but then I started having people want me to pay me, and then it's, then I felt like an imposter. So I connected with the center of conflict dynamics, and right here locally, I was blessed it was right here locally. And the director at the time, his book just really helped me connect knowing I was doing the right thing. So this was very, these are kind of selfish books, but Becoming a Conflict Competent that he's done several of these books by Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan. But Craig was, turned out to be a great friend when he was director of the center, and that really helped just give me the confidence that what I was doing was right, because before that it was just all made up. This is more.

Renee Thompson:
Winging it, or it was organic and almost, Randy, it circles back to what you said. What they did was they gave you validation.

Randy Keirn:
Yeah. And I'm certified in a lot of instruments, but the center also has a conflict dynamics profile that I use all the time, really one of the best instruments I've ever used, thousands of instruments out I've used, and just, on that one, it's just fantastic. The second one is funny, they're all tabbed too. Dan Dana, he trained in the Mediation Training Institute, and now it's all connected, Decker College too. And I had the Supreme Court mediation in the Florida, I took that, but I also took his program, which was phenomenal at workplace mediation. So that's really good book. And the last book that caught my attention was this one. It's called Making Conflict Work. And I met the author of this one, too, and luckily through the center of conflict dynamics in the conferences we've had there, I've met all these, but his I like because he talked about the power dynamics of power over and power Under. Which is really neat because most of my initial conflict was power over because I supervisor-subordinate. But this one gets into power under, power over, how do you manage up? So understand that dynamic I thought was really fascinating from his book but I could keep going on the books. I'll stop there.

Renee Thompson:
Going to stay, I'm going to have to stop by and check out all of your books. But for any of you listening, we'll have links to all of the books that Randy just recommended in the show notes. So I know myself, I'm definitely going to put them on my list. And one of the things that I do, too, is a lot of times I get my books from the library. I borrow them from the library, that way I read it, and if it's something that I think, Oh, no, this is a keeper that I'm going to have to go back to every year, then I'll actually purchase it. But sometimes I'm like, okay, that was good. I got what I needed, but, and I'll just send it back to the library. But just as we wrap up again, Randy, I just want to thank you for being a guest on our podcast and for talking about conflict and sharing some of your strategies, and I really appreciated especially your thoughts on mediation. And you are so well trained in conflict management and mediation. My first thought when you were talking about all that was where did you find the time to do all of this, to get all of this training? And you've been working on this for a really long time and I really appreciate you. So thank you for being here.

Randy Keirn:
Really happy to be here. I always enjoy our conversations and this was fun for me to share a little bit about what I do.

Renee Thompson:
Thanks so much, Randy. And for those of you who are listening, I just want to thank you for doing your part to stop the cycle of bullying in healthcare. Remember, the way we treat each other is just as important as the care and services we provide. Take care.

Renee Thompson:
Thank you for listening to Coffee Break: Breaking the Cycle of Bullying in Healthcare – One Cup at a Time. If you found these practical strategies helpful, we invite you to click the Subscribe button and tune in every other week. For more information about our show and how we work with healthcare organizations to cultivate and sustain a healthy work culture free from bullying and incivility, visit HealthyWorkforceInstitute.com. Until our next cup of coffee, be kind, take care, and stay connected.

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