EP 9: Creating a Culture of Positivity in Healthcare: Three Proven Strategies for Dealing with Conflict

Coffee Break_Episode 9 _Becky Hartley.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Coffee Break_Episode 9 _Becky Hartley.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, who are listening right now, to actually do something about it. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's giving leaders the knowledge, the skills, and the practical tools that they need to actually stop bullying and incivility. And today, we get to talk to an amazing human being about how to shift your culture from maybe it's negative to positive. I really have the privilege today of chatting with a healthcare leader, Dr. Becky Heartley, who is the Assistant Vice President of Surgery at Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo, Texas. And she has done just that, and I've been so impressed with her ability to actually take a negative culture and shift it to one that's so much more positive. So, Becky, welcome to Coffee Break.

Becky Hartley:
Thank you. Thank you, I'm excited to be here, Renee. Renee and I go back a while, and I'm just excited to be here and talk about this.

Renee Thompson:
We do go back a while. And it's funny because when I was looking at how do we really tackle these negative work cultures that are so prevalent now in healthcare, and some people, I think, get a little depressed about it, or they think, oh my gosh, this will never change, it'll never get better and they become complacent, and then I think of people like you, Becky, who have actually been successful in shifting their culture. And so, formally introduce Becky, she is, as I said, the Assistant Vice President of Surgery. She has an amazing background, including 25 years of perianesthesia, med-surg and emergency department nursing, trauma case management, and clinical education. Becky was the president of Pennsylvania Perianesthesia Nurses. She has presented both nationally and locally. She's really focused on things like shared governance and the perioperative space, integrative modalities, implementing a perioperative good catch, which I love, program, and improving post-anesthesia throughput using a PACU passport. Becky was actually recognized as a finalist for the Pennsylvania Nightingale Award for Manager leader. And I'm from Pennsylvania and I'm telling you, that is a big deal. And she was previously awarded Manager of the Year and Educator of the Year at Lancaster General Health. Becky's philosophy is to bloom where you are planted and influence positive change within teams and work cultures so that we may grow the future of healthcare. I mean, really, if everybody would just think that way, Becky, right? Bloom where you are planted, this would be a much better world, and I'm really hopeful that we can learn from you today so that every single person who's listening can bring back and take a little nugget of knowledge and practical skills from you so that they can start planting, as they say. So, thanks so much for being here, Becky, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became so committed to culture work.

Becky Hartley:
So I'm a seasoned nurse, you can tell by the snow on the roof that I've been in healthcare for quite some time. Really, I can remember my first year as a nurse. I was that nurse that cried in the bathroom almost every day and was so stressed because of the leaders and the staff that I worked with. It was just not a good, engaging environment. I was a BSN at a time where Bsns were not popular, and I worked at a hospital that was really a diploma program, and BSN nurses were resented and I was just glad that I wasn't the one targeted that night. And we had our nurses capsule, and I remember it was the girl from Penn State that got targeted, the one night I was really glad it wasn't me.

Renee Thompson:
Oh my Gosh.

Becky Hartley:
And I really learned early on, I actually consider actually leaving nursing then, believe it or not, because it was just a horrific experience and I learned what I did not want to be as I moved into leadership. Of course, I was extremely shy, I've kind of really gotten over that now, but extremely shy at that time, which made it a little bit, made me more, less assertive and less able to stand up for myself. And that's what I try to engage my staff in now, is how can we professionally engage when you are being bullied too? And that's hard. It's not, it doesn't happen overnight, right?

Renee Thompson:
No, you're right.

Becky Hartley:
I even say to my staff, I don't want to see you crying in the bathroom. If you're crying in the bathroom, you need to come talk to me.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. Because it's interesting that you say that. Yes, please come talk to me if you're crying in the bathroom, because we know right now that 40% of all nurses who are being bullied don't ever tell anyone. They suffer in silence. That was you when you were a new nurse and you said it. You almost left nursing. And we know right now nurses are leaving because of how they're being treated, because of they can't handle one more night where they're being targeted, and then they're crying in the bathroom. And it is really impressed with your ability to have been treated that way, treated with cruelty, I always say, but then you didn't become one of those same people who treated other people with cruelty. You decided because, you know, people say, well, that's how I was treated, so that's how I'm going to treat everybody else, but you decided, uh, uh, I don't want to see anybody else go through what I did. And as a leader, you have an incredible influence to make sure that that never happens.

Becky Hartley:
For sure. And I think part of that is really, I will say, and I shared this with you previously, I know that I do have bullying tendencies. I've done the bullying evaluation, and I can still, you can just ask my husband and he can tell you I'm a bully too, but.

Renee Thompson:
Well, that's a whole other conversation.

Becky Hartley:
So for sure. And it really helps to, like, self-reflect on what you do and also pause when, because in my role now, I know that I can be over the top assertive, which is aka bullying sometimes. I have to pause and like really, it's what you do with it after the fact, I think, to really help you get through that, like go back and apologize. Hey, if I came off a little bit rough, I'm really sorry. And I have found that nurses and everyone in healthcare, they have a really hard time saying I'm sorry and saying I'm sorry if I…

Renee Thompson:
I agree because people think, oh well, they knew I was acting that way because we were in a crisis situation. We tend to justify lashing out at each other because we're so stressed. And I always say there's something that happens with your hippocampus and your brain, your memory center, that any time that you are embarrassed, humiliated, somebody is very aggressive towards you, especially in front of other people, you will never forget. And I always say, even if it was 20 years ago that you treated somebody with cruelty. You say, oh, I'm sure they don't remember it. Yes, they do. They will never forget. And for you to recognize that sometimes you can come across as maybe a little aggressive or over the top or a little strong, and to just let people know that that's not your intention, and I don't know, Becky, have you ever told your people, hey, if I'm acting like this way, call me on it.

Becky Hartley:
We do and it's really pretty funny. Like my manager, because I've engaged my leadership team to my manager, specifically shares, like if someone goes negative, they will, she'll say, okay, give me three positives. So they call her on that a lot. It's so fun to watch it really, because it's like, oh yeah, I went there and she'll do it to me too. So we have like, we built that kind of culture and relationship where it's just like, whoa. And I know when you've spoken at other events, you've talked about having a safe word like, ours is hippo now, we kind of spill that from other places. People will yell hippo down the hallway, and if they feel that people are being inappropriate or even doing the old-fashioned time outside and those kind of things.

Renee Thompson:
I love my timeout, you know that.

Becky Hartley:
And you have to really open yourself up. First of all, you can't just say that, come and talk to me. You have to be willing to listen to it. And that can be the hardest part of getting that feedback, because it never feels good to hear that you did something wrong or you did, you weren't nice, but you have to take it and you have to grow from it as an individual. That's just life, right? It's not just even I'm just hopeful that I can help people, that they're better people, not even inside work, but outside of work, too.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, and you're right, it is both. And I always say whatever I teach leaders and their teams that work professionally, they also work in your personal life. But you said something that I think is really powerful, that you've created a culture where you're willing to call each other on your stuff or you're willing to call each other out because you all recognize that nobody's perfect, that we all bring ourselves and sometimes our not so pretty selves into the workspace, but then having, we talk about psychological safety, we talk about having a culture where everybody recognizes that it's not just the boss's job to hold people accountable, that it's everybody's job. But for your people to be able to call you on and call each other on their behavior in a way that's not attacking, that doesn't put you on the defense, it's just, hey, are you having a rough day today because you're a little intense today? What's happening? Do you need some help? I think is so incredible. So when you, so let's talk about surgical services. Okay. I have to preface this whole conversation now about shifting your culture with, we do a lot of consulting in organizations. There are two service lines that when people reach out to us and they ask for help that are the most common: surgical services is number one, and actually women's and infant services is a close second. Sometimes they compete for the number one spot. But when you started working in your department now, can you tell us a little bit what was the culture like then, and what did you do about it, and what's it like now? Sort of before and after.

Becky Hartley:
For sure. So where I currently work, I've worked at Shannon for almost a little over a year and a half now, believe it or not. I've worked in Pennsylvania like Renee said, and really started that culture work then, I didn't realize that because we didn't really label it as that, but I had some Mean Girls clubs that worked for me, and we gently worked through, like, if you want to be a part of this team, these are the expectations, and ended up, I actually making my PACU at the one hospital like the unit of the year, and it was a horrible place to work. They were without a manager for a year. But here at Shannon, when I walked in, I could tell even during the interview, the stress that the people were under you could see it in their eyes. You could see the hurt in their eyes. And you all may say, like, why would you want to go there then? Well, I think it's natural for me to try to want to help people. And I'll never forget the manager when I interviewed, she said, please come and work with us. She begged me during the interview, please come and work with us, and I was like, oh, and when I got here, it was a culture of everyone had their own opinion. In operating rooms specifically you have a hierarchy, you have nurses, you have search techs. Search techs can be the work husbands and wives of the physicians, so they are highly empowered. It's a very, if you haven't worked that type of system, it's a very funky environment because you have this huge hierarchy. Plus you don't have the physicians really reporting to someone like me, but they always come to me with any complaints or anything like that. So sort of the surgeons are, are part, and then anesthesia, it's a whole, we're a whole dysfunctional family, so I'd like to call us, but…

Renee Thompson:
I get it.

Becky Hartley:
When I got here, there was a lot of people would speak out and huddles negatively, and there was never any held accountability. There was no trust within the ranks to trust your peer, let alone leadership, there was no trust in leadership whatsoever. And there was a lot of trust rebuilding. And how I really did that to like, try to get the culture to change was really to have a lot of frank conversations with people, and it was with growing pains for that to happen. And you had to set behavioral expectations of, it's not cool to stand at the door and swear at me, honestly, and it's like, you can't make this stuff up. You would think you would learn that in kindergarten, this is not nice to do that, but there was physicians swearing at me. There were staff. I had one person stand at my door and say, F you, I quit.

Renee Thompson:
Oh my.

Becky Hartley:
And that had been, a behavior had been allowed to be accepted.

Becky Hartley:
I probably shouldn't have said that on the podcast, I apologize to all you guys out there in cyberspace. But long story short is that you had to set accountability, you had to find champions of positivity, you had to really raise up the people that were positive to help us work through the people that were not. And some of our worst people, for no better way of saying it, were some of our high clinical performers. So they were highly empowered because of their clinical ability and they were protected by physicians sometimes too, which made it even harder. So it came down to really changing the culture and making them aware that I had their back because of the trust as well as these behaviors are not acceptable. And I'm not the one to want to fire people, don't get me wrong, I'm not one to sit down, but we had to do a lot of mediation with people. People that were in fighting sat down together, and I'm so proud of my one manager now because she now does it independent for me. I've passed that torch and she can do that and do the time out if it gets a little bit heated, teaching people to talk to each other like, hey, when you did this, this is how it made me feel, as opposed to you, you, you as spoken volumes.

Renee Thompson:
Well, and I think you said something that's really powerful there and that's you had, how you started this when you were in Pennsylvania, how you really had, you called it frank conversations. We call it honest and respectful conversations. Is, to your point, you have people standing there cursing, yelling. If nobody has ever told them, time out, not okay, like, we don't do that here, if nobody's ever either addressed it in the moment or had to sit down with them to say, this is not okay, you're the role model, this is what we need to see from you, they think it's okay, and you come in and you're like, what is going on? This is not okay. But it always starts with heightening awareness, as we talk about all the time, and then having those honest conversations with people about their behavior because you said it, Becky, sometimes what happens is you have an employee who is so clinically competent whom everybody else loves working with them because they're so good at what they do that we tend to just justify or ignore their behavior because they're so good at what they do, and we don't want them to leave. And you're coming in saying it doesn't matter how competent you are if you can't treat your coworkers with respect, we don't want you here, then this isn't a good fit for you. But that's not easy to do. So how, making an assumption that you probably had some resistance when you started trying to set that standard of how people treat each other, can you talk a little bit about that?

Becky Hartley:
I think you really, the resistance often came from, like I said, some of those high performing folks that really, I'm going to say were the roosters that ruled the roost, okay? And they had, they had been doing it this way, and no one had ever told them, and they've had this control, not been held accountable to their actions and how they would come across to people. And honestly, I think having conversations saying, when you did this, this is how it made people feel. Now with that's, one of my managers hates it when I say the truth is usually in the middle somewhere, because if you have two individuals that are infighting, which we've had a lot over my career and especially here when I first started here at Shannon, everybody has their own perception, right, on each side of the track, and she absolutely hates it. She goes, I go home and tell my husband, I hate it when you say that, but you are so right because you don't know the backstory and you weren't there to observe it. So if we can sit down and have reasonable conversations as adults, and I think a lot of our people don't like adulting, you know, that that helps us overcome so much of the barriers of just not why can't we just all get along, right?

Renee Thompson:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you make some really good points there. And people, it's so uncomfortable to tell someone the truth. It really is. Especially maybe if we've tried to do that in the past and they've ripped our head off or they've retaliated against us in some way. But if we're really going to create this professional culture where everybody shows up ready for practice, they got each other's backs, they're not stabbing each other in the back, it requires a bit of, let's say, uncomfortableness, if that's a real word. When you and I were last together, you were telling me about all the fun things that your team was doing to cultivate a more positive and fun work culture, because that's the other thing: the work that we do in healthcare is serious business. But as human beings, we need to have fun. We need that positivity to help us cope with all that negativity. And we know we will get stress and burnout and high cortisol levels. We know that things like laughing and having fun help to decrease those cortisol levels. So, can, and you shared some really great pictures with me, it was so much fun to see, but can you tell us a little bit about some of the fun things that your team is doing?

Becky Hartley:
So we've done a Be Kind campaign. I've got my button on, just like Grenada's.

Grenada:
I got my button.

Becky Hartley:
Sometimes it is funny because let's just face it, all of us can sometimes lose our kindness, and I've had my manager actually come and take my button away from me when she,

Renee Thompson:
Like, you're in trouble.

Becky Hartley:
At the point me, well, yeah, like, hey, you were out of line there. I was like, oh yeah, okay, thank you. And so we had to Be Kind campaign. I actually have a gratitude stop on my doorway. So as opposed to being the complainer… It's actually, I just have a sign Is This Gratitude Stop? So as opposed to coming in and complaining to me, you have to tell me one thing you're grateful for before you start to come in. I'm going to call it vomiting on your shoes. … physicians both. And I'll just like, wait, wait, wait, what are you grateful for, before you start? And just point at the sign. So we've done a lot of things like that. I think it's important to do and get the staff involved, because I think as leaders, sometimes we could go broke trying to take care of our teams, and it's almost like, early on in leadership I made the mistake of really trying to buy off my team, I guess, with like, prizes and that kind of thing, but do monthly potlucks. We did one, like, last year for Halloween, and I was dressed up as a lion cause I do like to dress up in costumes. I was dressed up in a lion that day, and it's hard in the hour to dress up in costume, but we had a Rosie the Riveter. We had people that were dressed up and we had costume contests. We had to make your best dessert. We literally had 30 desserts and we had the executives come and judge the desserts. My boss swears she has diabetes now because of our dessert contest. And we've done other things, like we did things with football, we did gobble to your wobble in November, and we did just tailgating food because it was football season as opposed to turkey and those kind of things. And yes, there was a turkey con, turkey outfit involved as well for that. And I think it's just celebrating milestones and supporting them. We had, I think it was this, I think it was in the spring, like Nurses Week time period. We actually did take time for yourself. It was actually during National Time Out week, I take that back. And we had a spa day, so I had a paraffin dip wax and you wouldn't believe the guys got even into doing their paraffin dip. And, it was just like, a relaxing, and we're able to have fun. We did trivia and huddles every day, and everybody's just so excited about doing trivia. And it's like starting the day out positive and really showing appreciation to the people that are positive to all those things.

Renee Thompson:
I think some of these things, it may sound like, oh, that's a lot of work, but it doesn't have to be. And you said you would do pot luck. I actually read this somewhere. There were studies that show, when people on a team, first of all, when they eat together, it builds camaraderie. But here's what takes it to the next level. When they actually prepare the food together. So let's say you're going to do a pot luck, and maybe some people you're going to make a big, let's just say I love Cobb salads, they're my favorite in the world. If I go to a restaurant as soon as I see Cobb salad, that's it, that's mine, that's what I'm going to get. Well, maybe, okay, I'll bring in the lettuce, you bring in the blue cheese, you bring in the chicken or the eggs or whatever, however, you make your Cobb salad, and then you prepare it together. That increases the camaraderie. But also you can look at, I love the whole idea of trivia and your huddles. I used to love going to a certain restaurants where they would have the Trivial Pursuit little cards in, on the table. I forget where it was. It was somewhere in Pittsburgh. They had Trivial Pursuit cards in a little, like, you know, where they put the sugar packets, but they were cards, and when you were eating dinner, you could just quiz each other, ask each other questions. I think it's so much fun. Or people like Trivia Night, you could do the same thing at work, and it probably doesn't take a whole lot of time, does it?

Becky Hartley:
We, our Get Huddles are usually ten minutes and we get through usually three trivia questions at the end. We get through the meats and bones, the updates, and then at the end, it's just like people look forward to that, and it's really funny. We did music trivia where she would pull out music and it would be amazing, some of the people that were more seasoned that would get like the really like hard rock or rap, so and I think was like, how did you know that? They learn stuff about each other too.

Renee Thompson:
Well, and when you learn something about your coworker, something about them personally, wouldn't you agree, Becky, that it's a lot harder to be mean to them?

Becky Hartley:
For sure. I always, and I try to encourage my leaders and myself,everybody has a backstory and I don't need to know everybody's dirty laundry. They don't have to come and share with me their health issues or those kind of things, but it helps me understand better why they may be coming off as negative. And it's just like, gosh, I didn't know. I mean, I had a girl at one point that worked for me, extremely negative, high performer. Later on, I found out that she was going through a divorce. Her husband had embezzled money, all those kinds of things, and it really helped me appreciate. It didn't, now, with that, you can't use that as an excuse, right? You can't just say, my life is horrible. We all have stuff in our lives, right? But it does help when you're approaching that individual to understand them better.

Renee Thompson:
You're right.

Becky Hartley:
For sure. You got to get the back story.

Renee Thompson:
Because I always think, and I've said this so many times, that there's goodness and badness in all human beings, it's just a psychological reality. We're all born with goodness in us. But then sometimes life just gets in the way and what we see show up at work really not be the true essence of who that person is. There may be some very difficult situations they're dealing with in their lives that we have no idea about. Although I know some of my employees would come in and tell us all day long all of their woes, and we knew everything that was happening. However, it's still not an excuse, but what it is, is an opportunity for you, as the leader to just pull that person aside and say, okay, what's going on here, because the way you're behaving, the way you're acting out there is not okay. Is there something going on, do you want to talk about it? And just leave that door open for them to come and talk to you. To your point, Becky, not to divulge all of their dirty laundry, but also you as the leader to say, I'm going to need you to step up out there. Like I get it, you're going through a lot, but when you're here, I always say when you cross the threshold of your workspace, it is game on. And it's not to say you leave all that other stuff behind, it's still part of you, but you've got to focus on why am I here? Who am I here to serve? How do I make decisions today based on what's best for my patients, then my team, and then myself? And I think it really helps when you're the leader who can have that conversation with someone, not just say, That poor thing, it's a shame what she's going through. No, that's the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is, That poor thing. Empathy is, Hey, let's talk. What do you need? Okay, I'm here. However, this is what I need from you.

Becky Hartley:
And you really have to create that safe environment for someone to share with you and just really say, you don't have to tell me anything, but I'm noticing this from you, or, Help me understand, that's my favorite phrase to say. Help me understand, like, what's going on here because I've seen this or this has been elevated to me. Because if you can get the backstory, you can put the pieces together and then I can help you. Because I do have a mom tendency to want to help people if they're having like, sick child issues or, and I've tried to engage my leaders to become that way, too, to really try to understand where their people are coming from, because people leave because of their leaders, right? That's why people often leave the workforce. And I can tell you that's why I wanted to leave the workforce 30+ years ago to go, to consider leaving, because I just did not feel supported, it was the safe, not a safe environment. And as leaders, I think we owe it to our team to step up and take care of them to an extent. Now, you can't exhaust that. You have to set balance too.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, you definitely have to set boundaries as a leader, and we say this often that you really need to care about your people and care about who they are as human beings. And if you don't, you cannot fake this. Your team will know. Then leadership might not be a good fit for you, and that's okay. But to make sure that you are there and showing that empathy to your people as human beings. However, at the same time setting very clear expectations for how they're behaving in your department because you know this, Becky, all of the studies out there show that the way we treat each other is just as important as that good care that we're providing, and not having any wiggle room for badness, nope, you're going to call them on it. And if they need to take some time off, they need to take some time off. It's having that honest conversation with them that, that's where it starts. It's being honest with them. You said a couple of things that I think are really important. So if you really want to shift your culture from negative to positive, we talked about first being honest, having those frank conversations with people. It doesn't matter how good they are or even what role they have, because I'm sure you've had some honest conversations with your surgeons, with your anesthesiologists, with your surgical techs who have been there for decades. It's having those honest conversations and then, I think what I love that you do, too, is that you create fun in your department. You love the whole Gratitude Stop. Yeah, I'm willing to hear your complaint or whatever that is, but you got to tell me something good first. What are you grateful for here? And some people might get a little testy with that. However, I think most people would even laugh a little bit about it. So you just add this element of humor and fun, and we want this to be a fun place to work. Are there any other strategies or actions so, that you would recommend? I'm a brand new leader, and I am now the manager in a department that has a very negative culture. Like where do I begin? What would you, any other advice for me, Becky?

Becky Hartley:
I think the number one thing you have to self-reflect on yourself first. Okay, where do I have bullying tendencies? And I have done, and it's funny because we did the bullying survey that you have on your website with our entire team. We did not have them come and get, if they wanted to share them with us, they could. We did have one surgeon that did it, and he was very proud that he had a high score. We had to explain to him that a high score was not good.

Renee Thompson:
That's a bad thing, right?

Becky Hartley:
Yeah, yeah, it's not a good thing. So it's like a golf. You want a golf score, you want lower. I think it's really important as a leader to first of all self-reflect, because when I was a new leader you lack a lot of confidence. There's something to be said about role playing with someone that sounds geeky and people absolutely hate it. But find some, find a mentor that can help you actually help address behavior. Someone that's really good, and you can look around your organization and say, that person would be really good at helping you. Ask them to help you because you're not going to learn this stuff. It's not like all of a sudden, I was on staff and now I'm in a leadership, and I can, like, now do this and change a culture. It's going to take, it takes a village. And maybe it's your charge nurses that are helping you do it, do this, and addressing the behavior in the moment. So first of all, really, really reflect on yourself. Try to find a mentor to help you talk through, and how can you do things to get it there? I mean, I'm willing, people can always email me, and I will try to talk to you because I love mentoring people as well. Like, when you have difficult situations, like what could you do differently? I also think that get the team involved to come up with accountability standards. What do we want our culture to look like? I've done things that my previous employer in here, where he put big posters on the wall, and basically we would take like our pillars. Every hospital has standards and under each, What do you define that as, and what should we put in our standard? Because we know no one says you come to work to bully. That is not a standard on any organization where I've ever worked.

Renee Thompson:
Gosh, I hope not.

Becky Hartley:
Meanness is not a standard. So we have a praise culture here at Shannon and those kinds of things. So what, have the team build and help you define that, and also identify your champions on your team to help you get there. And it may not be your high level performers that have been ruling the roost forever. So you're going to have to find those people that are like a new, maybe a newer person that comes in positive. I have this new employee here that comes in every day and says, I'm like, How's your day? And she just goes, Excellent. She's just so excited to be here, and when she's in the room, she makes everyone else feel more positive. You know.

Renee Thompson:
I love people like that.

Becky Hartley:
Yeah, and that can be contagious where negativity can be contagious too. So sometimes finding that positive person to help you change the culture is what…

Renee Thompson:
And you're so spot on because we are influenced by the people we surround ourselves with. And if all you're surrounding yourself with are negative people, you're going to become negative too. It's because of things in our brains called mirror neurons. And that's why sometimes all it takes is somebody who's ultra-positive, who can actually start shifting their culture and influencing other people to be more positive. And Becky, I know that some of that is you coming in saying, no, we're going to make this better and influencing other people to really look at the culture and say, this is our culture, what do we want it to look like? And I love that, I actually wrote it down: Meanness is not a standard. But you never see that on anyone's wall when you walk into an organization, We are our standards: excellence and integrity, and all these things, you never see meanness. So guess what? We're not going to see meanness here in our department either. I might have to write about this. That's really good. That's one of the poof moments that I had with you today, Becky. That's so good.

Becky Hartley:
It will be a book chapter for you.

Renee Thompson:
Absolutely. What's funny, I'm actually thinking about this. This is one of these things that I thought about when I was goofing off, reading something about publishing another book, because it's been a couple of years since I've published a book, and I thought I should just do it. I'm going to call it a fun book, but it's not really fun, but I want to write a book called You Can't Make This Stuff Up, and it's all the examples of bad behavior.

Becky Hartley:
So I'm going to tell you, Renee, mine is going to be You Can't Make This Feces Up.

Renee Thompson:
Oh! Yeah, anyone in healthcare would totally get it and be okay with that.

Becky Hartley:
I can't guess a word towards healthcare, right?

Renee Thompson:
Yes! No, but because there are things that happen and people share with me and things I've experienced that, I think, oh yeah, you can't make this up, it's too bizarre, for some of them. So I might do that. That might be on my 2024 list.

Becky Hartley:
If you want any input, call me.

Renee Thompson:
Oh. I'll be calling everybody. So if you're listening to this podcast right now, watch for the call to, call for stories for…

Becky Hartley:
A set for stories.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, yes. This was incredibly helpful, and I'm just going to reinforce something that you said as we were wrapping up. You said, you can't do this alone, nobody becomes a leader overnight. Find a mentor, find someone to help you, and this is what I always recommend too, like, you need ongoing leadership development, and if your organization is not providing it, that doesn't mean you can't seek out help from somewhere else. And even myself, I've had this company now for 12 years and I teach how to give feedback, I teach how to have these honest and respectful conversations. Sometimes I have to have those conversations with people on my team, and I'm not as good at it when it's my team, as it's always easier to teach someone else how to do it. I have a business coach, like I have a coach that I meet every two weeks. I'll meet with him tomorrow. His name is David. He's amazing. And when I'm in those situations where I'm not sure how to handle something, I go to David because it doesn't matter where you are on your leadership development path, there's always opportunity for you to get better and you to get the support, and I cannot overemphasize that enough. So alright, as we wrap up now, can you tell us, is there anything that you're reading right now that you think is shareworthy? And then if you could just recommend maybe a book for especially, I always think of the new leaders and people always reach out to me and say, What, what book would you recommend for me as a new leader?

Becky Hartley:
I have so many, I tell you, one of the books that I've worked with one of my newer leaders with is called Life Scripts, and it's a really nice book.

Renee Thompson:
Oh, i read that.

Becky Hartley:
And it actually gives you algorithms and how to talk through. So prime example, my manager had a person that was dealing with a body odor issue and it actually helped her. And there's a softer way of doing it and a direct. And said, You're more of a direct person. I think this row would work better for you. And it went fantastic because of course, as a leader you're like, oh my gosh, this is going to go south, there's going to be tears involved, it's going to be horrible. And I think that is a really good book. It's an older book actually.

Renee Thompson:
I remember, back and white cover. I think it was black and white cover. Yeah I had it.

Becky Hartley:
It's on my shelf over there, unless I loaned it to somebody. I think Crucial Conversations is always a good thing. I actually took a Crucial Conversation class, which helped me really learn to pause because I can't try to control conversations, and as a leader, we need to listen more and talk less, which is hard, and I think Crucial conversations helps you get the verbiage so you don't, cause you're going to be nervous, right? I'm nervous, I will play in my car. If you see me driving down the road and I'm talking to myself, I probably go, I would have a crucial conversation with somebody. I think it's important that you learn how to talk, and that requires maybe some role playing with somebody, find a friend and just say, Hey, I have to have this conversation with somebody tomorrow, can you just talk through with me, pretend you're this person kind of thing? And I know it sounds a little geeky, people hate that, but it has helped me tremendously. There's another good book. We actually had a gentleman. I don't know if I have it right here or not. Oh, it was a really, really good book and it was about turning F-bombs into outcomes. It's a really good, and I can share that with you later, Renee. I just don't see it on my desk right now. He actually spoke at our leadership forum here at Shannon a couple of weeks ago, and he's got several good books out in the market right now, and I'll try to find his name before we get off of this podcast.

Renee Thompson:
Well, you can send it to me after. So all of you who are listening right now, we're going to put a couple of things, you'll find them in the show notes. So we'll have a link to any of the books that Becky recommended. We will also have a link to our Be Kind buttons if you want to start a Be Kind movement in your department like Becky did, you'll find the opportunity that you can get your buttons, and I'm also going to include a link where you can download our surveys called What If You're the Bully? And remember it's a self-reflection. So you give it to your people, you ask them to complete it, but you don't ask for them to turn it back into you, and here's how I always recommend doing this. So, like you, Becky, you're the leader, you give it out to everyone, and then, you tell everybody, This is a self-reflection. We would work on our culture. It always starts with each one of us. Turn the mirror back on yourselves. I have taken this survey, and I have work to do too. You can't be the leader who says, I'm perfect, I scored, I'm not a golfer. So is it possible to get a zero in golf? I don't know, can you?

Becky Hartley:
You can get negative in golf. You can't get a zero. You can get negative.

Renee Thompson:
Oh, you can get negative, okay. I have the perfect score. Not like the surgeon who scored high and thought that was great. You can't do that. You have to basically say, No, there's things I need to work on too. And I think that makes it more meaningful to your team, that it's not just you pointing fingers at them, it's we're looking at ourselves. So I'll make sure all of that is in the show notes for you. So when you get that other book back, you just send it my way, and we'll add it.

Becky Hartley:
So the author's name is Jody Holland, and he spoke to us on Bold Culture. He's got a multitude of books out there on culture and very good.

Renee Thompson:
I always ask our guests to share book recommendations, and I'd say half the time there a book that I haven't read or haven't even heard of before. My library list is getting very long now, but that's how, a lot of people ask me how I became so knowledgeable about bullying and incivility and culture, it's because I'm a voracious reader. I've been reading and learning from other people for decades. And so, I encourage all of you who are listening, if you're not reading something to help you to become a better leader, that's a missed opportunity. So it's one of my own professions, for you.

Becky Hartley:
I think you have to be a continual learner. As my one boss said at one point in my life, If you're through changing, you're through, it's probably true. So if you can continue to learn and adapt and everybody's got a different personality, and what may work well for me, may be not work well for you. So you have to find that sweet point for yourself to improve your culture.

Renee Thompson:
Right, and I always say, None of us are done cooking yet. We still have work to do. We still have things to learn. And when you can embrace that, I think it really influences other people to do the same. So, Becky, I just want to thank you so, so much for being a guest on our show. Keep up the great work that you're doing to really continue to create that positive and nourishing and respectful and basically a healthy work culture. And those of you who are listening, thank you for being here, and doing your part to eradicate bullying and incivility in healthcare. Remember, the way we treat each other is truly just as important as the care that 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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