EP 14: Creating Connections: Nurse Leadership and Workplace Culture

CB_Emily Chase: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

CB_Emily Chase: 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, Doctor Renee Thompson.

Renee Thompson:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Coffee Break podcast. As you know, we keep talking about this bullying and incivility happen because they can. And it really takes dedicated leaders like all of you to do something about it. And that's really what this podcast is all about. It's about giving you the practical skills and tools that you need to do something about bad behavior. And today, I am beyond excited to welcome Doctor Emily Chase to the show, who, Emily and I are going to have a conversation about how do you really transform your culture. Emily, thank you so much for being on Coffee Break. Welcome.

Emily Chase:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about this. Gonna be great.

Renee Thompson:
Yes. I've been looking forward to this conversation because you and I, although we could talk all day and all night about culture change and leadership, and I'm really excited for the conversation that we're going to have today again to give our listeners some more tools for their toolbox. And so I'd like to officially introduce Emily. Doctor Emily Chase is a Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer for the University of Chicago Medical Center. In her role, she has oversight in patient operations, including pharmacy, laboratory, respiratory. Is there anything that you don't have oversight for?

Emily Chase:
No, I guess a lot.

Renee Thompson:
I know you do have a lot on your plate. Emily joined UCMC in 2010 as manager of nursing education, and most recently, she served as Vice President of Women's and Children's and Emergency Services, where she had direct oversight for the operations of Comer Children's Hospital and the emergency and trauma services in Adult and Pediatrics. Emily holds a bachelor's in nursing and a doctoral degree in nursing administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Emily is a certified nurse executive through the American Nurses Credentialing Center and is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Emily and I first met when she was in her executive role at Comer Children's because I was doing some work there. Yeah, I was doing some consulting there, and Emily and I met and I tell you what: it's the first time I met Emily. I just knew that she had those leadership characteristics that we all look for in an amazing leader. And can I tell them? She's also a Yinzer. Both Emily and I are from Pittsburgh, and so we were doing all the yinzer, the Pittsburghese language, and we always have a really great time, and we're together.

Emily Chase:
Fast friends. But when you're both from the same hometown, it's really easy because we always have something to talk about. It doesn't matter what, but whether it's Pittsburgh sports or Pittsburgh accents, we've always got something good to talk about.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, we do, and we both have a love of Pittsburgh, even though we don't live there anymore. So, it was just right from the beginning. I like how you said that we were fast friends. And what I really have appreciated about your leadership, Emily, over the years is your ability to actually transform your culture. Let's face it, Chicago, large hospital not the easiest to transform culture. So what I'd like to talk to you about is what are some of the ways or the strategies how that you've implemented at UCMC that have enabled you to transform your culture? I know you've done a lot of work with your short governance, and I saw evidence of that professionally and personally. But yeah, I just love your input on this.

Emily Chase:
Yeah. So, I can say three things that I think have really helped transform culture. You hit on one of them, which is doubling down on shared governance and that importance of our frontline shared governance leaders really having a say in moving the culture in the way that they want it to. It's not my culture; it's their culture. And so whenever you flip the script, you allow your frontline staff leaders to really own pieces of how you're going to transform. It's so amazing to watch them grow as leaders in their own right. I was just at a conference last week where our shared governance leader staff were presenting about how shared governance could drive excellence in an organization. Talk about a proud mom moment. I'm sitting there in the audience, tearing up, right? Because that's really what you want to see, is you've handed over the ability to transform a culture to your front line, which is, I can't think of anything that could be more proud of. So that's amazing. The second is authenticity and showing up as your authentic self, right? And that takes time, coaching, energy, but making sure that leaders feel like they can be themselves. We don't have to be so serious all the time, right? You don't have to fit into a box. You don't. I want your quirkiness. I want your crazy, out-of-the-box ideas. I want to have fun, right? Those are the ways that staff are able to see their leaders as approachable because we're human, because we're just.

Renee Thompson:
We don't pretend to be.

Emily Chase:
Right, and it's okay to be able to come at it from an authentic point of view. And then the third, I would say, is spending time with the frontline, right? Your day can get so consumed as a leader, but spending that time with the frontline, that time is never wasted. It's always a good investment. So we can talk about all three of those things. But those are my three.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, oh my gosh. I could absolutely want to unpack these. And when you started talking about shared governance and empowering your employees to actually be part of really the decision making, and that's not always easy to do. And for you to then see the results of that by watching them being in the audience, watching your front line on stage, presenting their work. It reminds me of something that I've learned since I've been owned my own business and I'm a nurse. I'm a great nurse. And then you try to learn how to run a business, okay? It's a different skill set. And this is what I've learned. And it's something that I share with a lot of the leaders that we work with. Your job, so I start with me, my job, doing what I do, helping organizations and leaders address bullying and incivility. It's not to be the hero. I'm not the hero. My leaders, who I work with, are the heroes. I'm the guide. Okay, I'm just the guide. So I have those proud mother moments when I see the leaders who are struggling, who are stepping up, and they're addressing bad behavior and they're transforming their cultures. I am the guide that helps them to be the hero. But if you're the leader, you're not the hero. Your employees are. You're like, from The Hunger Games. See yourself as Haymitch. You are Haymitch helping Katniss to be the hero, and that's exactly what you're describing there. And Emily, can you give us some advice? I know some of the leaders I've worked with, they struggle to get their nurses to even participate in shared governance. Can you talk to us a little bit about maybe how you've been able to do that and do that so well?

Emily Chase:
Yeah. That was a challenge even for us, especially during the pandemic, right? Everybody wanted to go home and be with their families, and rightfully. And so one of the things that I think that at University of Chicago, we've really focused on is making sure that our shared governance structure is valuable. It's not a checkbox; it's not just something you're doing so that everyone feels like their time is well spent and that their accomplishments are celebrated at the organizational level. So every year, we have a shared governance showcase, our kickoff of Nurses Week, where every unit-based council presents a poster, a professional poster of one project that they've done, implemented, and seen results on in the past year, and every executive from our organization attends. It is such an amazing opportunity to share, and for them to hear, wow, that's amazing. I'll give one example. Our post-operative unit and our ambulatory surgery implemented a whole new process around crutch training for their patients that were going home after a knee surgery, and they saw fewer readmissions, fewer falls. It was such an amazing project that now we've rolled it out to all of our ambulatory care centers, not just that one unit. So, it took our organization saying, like, how cool are some of these projects that our front line staff are doing, but your staff have to feel like their work is valued for them to want to continue at aging in the shared governance process. And I think that organizational lens on it is such a great way to make them see that wasn't just a project to check a box on. Something really made an impact, and we can do more with that across our organization.

Renee Thompson:
And I think you bring up a really good point. I've seen and participated in some of those shared governance meetings, even at the unit level, the unit-based council, where it almost seems to where there is such a checkbox mentality, and okay, yep, we met, and this is some or it's not even that we met, here's check a checkbox. It's, the leader drives what the employees work on it. And I get it, it is shared governance, it's both leaders and the employees working on this. But I've talked to some employees who have said, yeah, we don't get a say, so, in what we work on. We're told what to work on. And that's not shared governance.

Emily Chase:
One of the new things that we've implemented, and so here's just another new hot off-the-press idea. We implemented a new mission, vision, and values for our organization, which has been a really an exciting time for us. And so what we do now is part of shared governance is every shared governance meeting starts with a mission moment, which is how do we connect the work of shared governance back to the mission and vision of our organization? And that's a staff member saying, when I was taking care of this patient, and I was able to implement discharge teaching for them using a language translation device, and that's something that we worked on through a shared governance rollout. I saw the connection to the mission of our organization, meeting patients where they are, the diversity of patients. It has been so inspiring hearing some of these mission moments because they're the little things that are the big things that make us see the connection between the mission, vision of our organization to share governance to patient care at the bedside. And for me, that's been inspiring, and I think it really helps engage the staff too.

Renee Thompson:
I'm thinking of this phrase, and I remember this from a movie that I watched. I'm sorry, but it is one of my favorite movies. It's Independence Day. They always got to watch it come 4th of July when the aliens come down. But when Jeff Goldblum's character said, and he's trying to tell the president he's talking about line of sight with the satellites, and I love that part. What you're talking about is in a way similar to that line of sight, where they have to align; they have to see how their work aligns with the mission, vision, and values. And I can't think of a better way to do that. There's you can show them the data and the quantitative, but they need the story. We talk a lot about left brain, right brain. People want to hear the story. And for you to have members of your shared governance actually sharing story on how they were able to take something that they worked on and then see it in action and how that aligns with your mission, vision, and values, it's like a brain blow. And if you really want to engage your employees, you got to help them to make those the line of sight, which I'm sure I'm not saying it, I'm saying it correctly, but it's probably not the example is not accurate, but it makes a lot of sense.

Emily Chase:
Yeah, and storytelling is such a powerful way to engage others in work that we're doing because it makes it feel real, right? Here's the page that prints out our mission, vision, and values. That's not, that's, doesn't feel real, right? But when you tell the story about nurses, and patients, and families like that's real, right? That's real life, and that's the power of storytelling. We're really trying to embed across shared governance to really bring it to life, right, because they're doing the work. But making those connections is what's so important.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, making those connections and showing them the positive impact that they're making, too. And to celebrate them, we had an interview with a recognition expert, Sarah McDaniel, and she really talked about the power of recognition and showing appreciation. And it's not pizza, it's not a box of cookies that show your employees you care about them. It's recognizing their accomplishments and recognizing their good work. And it really sounds like you're doing that, and you're doing that so well. Thank you. I'd like to talk about you said your second strategy. Let's talk about what authenticity means and how you've been able to really convey that because I know you get what you get with Emily, like she is who she is. She doesn't have an on-stage and off-stage different persona. How do you inspire that sort of understanding and that mindset with your entire leadership team?

Emily Chase:
One thing that I will say is that it is a role-modeling piece, right? When people see you being an authentic leader, they feel comfortable doing that themselves. And so you can't just say to do it; you have to do it. With me, what is what you get? For better or for worse? I'm honest. I'm transparent. I also sometimes start an answer to a question with a staff member by saying, you're not gonna like this answer, but I'm going to tell you anyway. And it starts, it sets up. I'm gonna give you the whole truth, even though I don't think it's exactly what you want to hear, right? For instance, we're not building a new parking facility parking is the hot topic right now. We're not building a new parking facility. Oh, it's sad news, but I'm gonna be honest with you about where we're at with our parking constraints across our campus. I think that role modeling that is really important for our teams to be able to see what an authentic leader looks like. I can joke around, sometimes sarcastic, give the old eye roll. I think sometimes it's important for people to see you as a human. One thing that we did, I developed an executive leadership team under me, which we call the office of the CNL. So it's basically my direct reports and rolling that out to the organization; I made a really intentional choice to do a fun but personal Q&A with all of the leaders, including myself. What's your favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning? What's your favorite vacation spot? This was a totally uncomfortable experiment for them. Like, they were like, should I actually say I like to sleep in, and sometimes I don't wake up till noon? I was like 100% like, people need to know that who you are. And so this is now a few years ago, people still talk about this. Like I loved when we started getting to know our leaders as human, as people, and this does not mean baring your soul and your butt, just showing up and being like, what's your job like? Kids. And there's a really good interview was a 60-minute interview with Brene Brown, who I just love, where she talks about the difference between being an authentic leader, and that doesn't have to look like laying all your cards on the table and giving all your personal information, but it also looks like you don't have that armor on all the time. And that's so important, right? For people to know, wow, she's someone I could actually talk to, and that makes such a big difference I think.

Renee Thompson:
You could not be more right and I think a lot of times, especially some new leaders, they think that they have to have that game face-on with their staff all the time. Now, there is a part of that is true. Like they need, they will watch you how you walk into your department that day. They will watch to see what kind of a mood that you're in, but from the perspective of just being even vulnerable to say, I made a mistake.

Emily Chase:
That's right.

Renee Thompson:
Or boy, that I didn't handle that. There was a leader we were working with. There was a real disconnect between her and her staff, and what we realized was she was trying to be too perfect. And the work that we were doing together involved some self-reflection, and we were working on things like reducing gossip and how do we give and receive feedback. And what we realized was she was not including herself in that; I need to work on this, too. And so we worked with her and gave her some of that language. So there's a self-assessment that we do, it's called What If You're the Bully? And we had her give that print that give it to all of her staff. And here is the key. We told her, when you share this with your staff, with your whole team, I want you to say it's just a self-reflection. You fill it out. I don't need it back. I did this self-reflection, too, and there are things I need to work on.

Emily Chase:
That's exactly.

Renee Thompson:
Right? It's letting them know that there are things you're working on, too, that you're not perfect.

Emily Chase:
That's right. And I will sometimes, let's say I start off a townhall. I'll start off by saying things like, you guys, I'm not having the best day to day, or my IT has not worked since I walked into my office, so everybody better just bear with me. And like, literally just saying it like that, first of all, that's reality. Okay, I said the one day I was like, I had a flat tire on my way in. So I'm hoping that's the down point of my day, but just and then you get people in the chat being like, oh, I had a flat tire last Tuesday. Isn't that the worst? Just opening things up. And it doesn't have to be anything huge or different, but you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be on stage all the time, and I think that allows for that transparency across the organization to really allow like staff to be able to talk to leaders. You're a human, and I'm a human. Let's talk to each other like humans. I think that's, it just can make such a huge difference in culture.

Renee Thompson:
Oh my gosh, you're spot on. I just had a conversation with another chief nursing officer just a few days ago, and she was telling me where a time recently where she was rounding, and she's a former ICU nurse. And so when she rounds, she always says, oh, let's start with the ICUs because that's her comfort zone. That's where she wants to start. She gets excited to go there. And she saw that a patient was sliding down in the bed. So she grabbed the nurse and said, hey, let me help you. Let's pull the patient up. And she's newer in her role, and the nurse looked at her name badge and saw that she was the chief nursing officer. And she said her demeanor, everything changed about her because she was, oh my gosh, you're the chief nursing officer. And she got really nervous and ended up saying, oh, I'll get somebody to help me. And very wise, she said, I'm still a nurse, like I'm still a nurse. Yes, I'm, and I know, and obviously, your patient's a wiggler. Let's pull the patient up. It wasn't that, Oh, your patient's slouching. Well, that's terrible, but she has a very similar philosophy as you do. It's, I'm a human being just like you. I'm a nurse, just like you. I just happen to be your chief nursing officer, but I'm still a nurse.

Emily Chase:
So I was listening.

Renee Thompson:
And you're a respiratory director. You're still a respiratory therapist? Yeah, same thing.

Emily Chase:
Nurse first. Forever a nurse.

Renee Thompson:
Right. I don't know if you've ever had this happen to you because the nurse is in your title, but I know myself, I've had this business for 12 years, and some people have even introduced me as, and Renee used to be a nurse. Or they'll say, oh, you're not a nurse anymore. Yes. I'm like, what? I think that gets me more than anything. Like I am still a nurse. I don't know, does it? They probably don't say that about you, but I think once you get into that executive role, they don't think of you as a nurse anymore.

Emily Chase:
That's right, that's right. And I think reminding people that we all started in the same place, one thing I always say is we were all a new grad once. We were all a new nurse, right? Yes. Every single one of us, myself included, right? We gotta put ourselves back in those shoes and not eat our young, not bully our new nurses, right? How did that feel? And we, every single one of us was there. Every single one of us. When you say it like that, and then people are like, yeah, listen, you nurse what? So it gives the realization of putting yourself back there.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, oh, I remember, yeah. And I think it helps you to extend grace to others. And I always think in terms of, especially when we do have these new nurses who aren't competent yet who are struggling to be able to say as an executive, I remember what it was like when I was a new nurse, and I didn't feel competent, and I made mistakes, and this is what I did. I got better, and I learned. And because they see you as the, you're an executive, you're accomplished. But they don't remember that you were once not competent. You weren't confident in yourself.

Emily Chase:
Renee, one of the other things that I often talk about with my teams is also the importance of preceptors, and I talk about my own experience of having a great preceptor or one that was really challenging for me. And I see that role in the organization has so critical, right? So pivotal, right? How we engage and onboard our new employees, that is so in the hands of our preceptors. And I talk a lot about I still feel very fondly towards many of my preceptors from when I was a new graduate nurse, and I feel like a lot of my successes in my bedside nursing career were because of them. And so, being able to bring people around to the purpose of you can make a huge difference in the life of someone just by being their preceptor. It really changes the outlook from, oh man, I gotta precept again, this is the 10th person to I'm making a huge impact.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I get to be a preceptor. I get to because that's what they say. Use that word like, oh my God, I have to do this. No, I get to; this is an opportunity. And Emily, I know you won't be offended when I say this, but I think the preceptor role is the most important role in the entire healthcare organization, I do. Anyone who is precepting your new employees, boom, that's where talk about you want to spend your time, energy, and resources, spend it in those people because we're challenging them and asking them to make sure that anybody new that we bring into an to our organization is equipped, ready for practice, understands our mission, vision, and values, and acts accordingly and treats each other with respect and professionalism.

Emily Chase:
Feel welcomed. That's such a big piece of it.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I couldn't agree more. And okay, let's go to your third one now, you talked about spending time with your team. So I know you do something really creative. And when you and I talked about this, gosh, I think it was a year ago, I was blown away by what you were doing. So maybe you could talk a little bit about actually how you spend time with your team.

Emily Chase:
Can I tell the story about how it started? Because it's such a fun story.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, please.

Emily Chase:
Okay, so during the COVID pandemic, like many hospitals across the country, our medical intensive care unit was really where most of our COVID patients were going. And I had some town halls with my NICU nurses, and they were feeling some things right. As many, many nurses across the country were, they just weren't feeling the love. And in this meeting, I was like, how can I help you tell me what I can do to make a difference? Do it, and I love my NICU nurses. So, if any of them are listening to this, I say this whole thing with nothing but love. They said, you know what you could do? You could come up here and see what it's like to take care of 24 COVID patients every single day and have to wear N95 for 12 hours. And I was like, oh, okay, what about Tuesday? And they were like, what about it? I was like, what about Tuesday? Did I come on Tuesday? And they were like, for how long? And I was like, when do you start your shift? And they were like 7 a.m., and I was like, okay, I'll be there at seven. How long are you gonna stay? I was like, why do you end your shift at 7 p.m.? I said, okay, we'll stay till 7 p.m. My favorite question is, are you gonna bring your lunch? Sure, I'll bring my lunch. Oh, I see, so it was awesome. Yeah, I'll bring my lunch.

Renee Thompson:
What a question.

Emily Chase:
I was like, Wow. So, I put my scrubs on, put my tennis shoes on, packed my lunch, and went up there and spent 12 hours in the NICU. Best 12 hours, probably my entire career, because I developed these relationships, built some of them I would call friendships to this very day. Just went to a baby shower for one of them, just these amazing connections that I had at the moment. But Renee, I got to see what was working and what wasn't, right? So it's not just about the relationships, but it's about what barriers can I help you overcome. Silly small things like they don't have enough pill crushers, so they have to share them between the rooms, right? Hey, can I borrow your pill crusher?

Renee Thompson:
I remember that.

Emily Chase:
Borrow them some pill crushers? Can we. Just things that could make their life easier.

Renee Thompson:
Right.

Emily Chase:
So from this, a nurse leader immersion is born at the University of Chicago Medicine. And we decided as a leadership team that from the managers up to me and everybody in between, will spend two days per month at said it immersing. You couldn't do it in many different ways. But the bottom line is that you're spending time with staff, you're developing relationships, you're seeing what's working and what's not, and what can we make different. And I can tell you that those are my favorite days. They're the days that I go home, and I'm like, this is why I do what I do. This is the impact that I can make isn't in zoom meetings. It's at the bedside and so fun.

Renee Thompson:
I am a huge supporter of spending time where your people are. Walk a mile in my shoes. I know that is something that other organizations have done, but I don't know an organization that has done it to this level. I can only imagine, Emily, when you presented this to your leaders, the reaction that you may have received. Can you talk a little bit about that? Did you have resistance?

Emily Chase:
The number one thing is how are we going to do this. How do you carve out that kind of time? And what I'm.

Renee Thompson:
How do you operationalize?

Emily Chase:
I did, like I went to my peers. My other executive leaders in the organization said, hey, this is what we're going to be doing. Guess what? Then, they all started joining. They were like, what day is it? Can we go too? We should be with our EVS workers, or we should be with our patient transporters. So then everyone jumps on the bandwagon and says it's not just you carving out the time. We should all carve out the time. So it became this organizational culture shift of how do we all get out there and spend the time? So the time was a big piece, but then just that comfort level of, what do I say? What do I do? How do I develop those relationships? And that takes, it just takes practice, Renee. I'm, I have moments, too, where it's like a little awkward at the beginning of the immersion day, and people are like, can we say what we want to say? How should we act? It gets better over time. And then now you get right over, where you haven't been to my unit. When are you coming to immerse on my unit? And then the other piece is our second phase of this was what we call reverse immersion. So our staff now have an opportunity to immerse with the nurse leaders and spend a day seeing what it's like to be a nurse leader. And I had this amazing nurse who spent the day with me and I was, I have a lot of pressure, right? She doesn't think I'm, like, boring. At the end of the day, she wrote me a letter, handwritten that said I had no idea how every hour of your day advocating for me that, that's exactly.

Renee Thompson:
What a goosebump moment.

Emily Chase:
It really was. And so the impact of that reverse immersion, it doesn't necessarily mean that nurse wants to be a nurse executive, but it's that they understand what your leaders are doing. And it's not just sitting in an office checked out of the. It's advocating for you to have resources to be able to deliver better patient care to have better access to quality outcomes, and that has been equally as impactful. I would say both ways that the immersion experience goes has been equally as impactful.

Renee Thompson:
I can see that because, first of all, it allows the leaders to see what it's really. Even though we've all been at the front line at some point, the longer we are away from it. And to your point earlier, the pandemic has really changed a lot of the day-to-day. What we do, especially in the inpatient and all departments. And so for them to see that you're willing to be a part of their work, I think, is that alone is transformational. But then to have them spend time with you because you know what they think. I remember when I was an educator, and I used to say all everybody thinks you do as an educator is sit in your office and build PowerPoint presentations. They think that's all you do. When you're a leader, they think that you just go to meetings all day long and check email, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. And how do you, it's not to say my work is really hard, and I want you to see that, but it's really I just want you to step into my world and see what we do here from using this lens, how you view the delivery of healthcare through the lens of a CNO versus through the lens of a brand new nurse or an experienced nurse, or fill in the blank. Wow. Okay, lots of goodies in this episode, alright we're going to recap. You talked about the importance of really it's empowering your employees, and you use the shared governance as an example. And I'm going to reinforce this, that your role as the leader is truly to empower your employees and help them to shine, because then they'll feel recognized and appreciated. We also talked about being authentic, being who you are as a human being, because when you're not your staff, they know. They can tell if you're not being your true self.

Emily Chase:
Yeah.

Renee Thompson:
And to even show some of that vulnerability and then you've got to spend some time with your staff where they are. And I think those three strategies are what helps you to create a healthy work culture. And when you have a healthy work culture, even having that is a way that you can start addressing bad behavior because I think it naturally occurs that the healthier, the more empowered, the more visible the leaders are with their employees, the less disruptive behaviors you'll see. Oh my gosh, I'm really excited about this and having the listeners really learn from you and what you've been able to accomplish. So, is there any last action or any last words of wisdom you'd like to impart on our listeners?

Emily Chase:
Okay, I'm going to say one other thing, which is you've also got to have fun and you've got to celebrate your wins. Oh, you're so serious, right? And it has serious work is life and death truly, we're taking care of patients. It's serious enough, and we don't need to add to the seriousness of it. We, it's okay to celebrate, to have fun. I always say like nothing like a good food truck to get everybody bonded together, eat some churros, have some hot chocolate, and try and come together and have a good time. There's nothing wrong with that. I think in healthcare and the pandemic is a great example, right? Couldn't eat in the same room. We couldn't be together without our masks on, right? Now we have more opportunity to get back to ways to connect, to have fun, and to celebrate the work of our teams. Don't let even a small win go by without celebrating it. And because, look, you've got tons of opportunities, we all do, but celebrating where you have the wins never is a bad use of time.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, I've seen, and you're right, the healthcare is a serious business. But I've seen, even with the seriousness of it all, even during COVID, teams getting together and just having fun. And we know that when people are laughing, they're reducing their cortisol levels, which leads to burnout and all of those things. And I appreciate that you're, you've recognized that and you're actually doing something about it to recognize and appreciate your employees and also do that in a way that's fun. And I just love everything that you're doing, Emily. So I wanted to thank you for sharing that with our listeners. I know you're an avid reader like I am. Maybe you can share just either something that you're reading or a book that you would recommend for other readers. What would you say?

Emily Chase:
Yeah. So one of the things that I always go back to, especially as new leaders are coming into their roles, is a great book that was recommended to me by one of my mentors. And when I took on a new role, which is called The First 90 days. And it really talks about how you transition as a leader into a new role. And I've never not recommended it to someone who's coming in. But I also find that book, keep it on your shelf, okay? And it doesn't have to be a new role. It can be a new challenge. It can be a new experience, a new initiative. Principles in that book apply across so many different things. So I recommend it a lot to leaders, not just, oh, you're a new nurse manager. Yes, that is well, but also those that are taking on a new department, right? Building a new shared governance model, right? That's The First 90 Days of anything new applies to that framework. So love that book, highly recommend it. And it's one, keep it on your shelf. And even when it gets dusty, take it off and dust it off, and get it back out again.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I think you're right. It's one of those books that it's a reread because every time you read it, you pick up something else. And I really liked that your approach to it; it's not just when you change roles, but maybe you've got a new project or a new challenge or some new responsibility. I think the strategies and the mindset in that book apply nicely in those situations too. So thank you for that. It's so funny. I always ask people, what are you reading? What would you recommend? And so now my list is getting very long, the books that I want to either reread or read for the first time because I haven't read everything, and for some selfish reasons, that's why I always ask the question because I want to find out what other people are reading so that I can read them too. But I know well the listeners out there right now are looking for help.

Emily Chase:
Yeah, one thing that I recommend to other leaders, I'm not, I live in the city of Chicago, obviously, so everything is traffic no matter where I go, and I am an avid Audible listener. So Audible is the Amazon product; you can listen to books. And it actually, I have found helps with my decompression after work, helps with getting my mindset going to work. So when leaders ask your work life balance right, how do you wind down? And for those of you that love to read, listening while on your commute can be a fantastic way to. It's not always about sitting down with, I love turning the pages, though. Like the book itself is great, but I do recommend all the time to leaders. Use your commute time to listen and really accelerate the number of books that you're able to read at one time.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah. It's turn your, I've heard this, turn your car into a mobile classroom and it could be the same. So you listen to audios. Me, personally, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Yeah, when I'm getting ready in the morning when I am commuting somewhere, when I'm traveling. But I love using making use of that available time during your transportation back and forth to work to do something that's nourishing for your brain and nourishing for your soul at times. Emily, thank you so much for being willing to share your strategies, and I think they're just spot on. And you're going to help a lot of leaders who are listening today. And just really thank you for your great work and cultivating healthy work cultures. I'm really proud and impressed with the work that you've been able to do.

Emily Chase:
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me and and letting me brag on. It's not my work; it's the team's work. So letting me have that proud mom moment and keep ragging on all of them. But thank you for highlighting all of the wonderful things that the nursing team is doing at University of Chicago. I know you're one of our biggest fans, so we appreciate that so much.

Renee Thompson:
I am one of your biggest fans. You have a lot of really good, as I usually say, humans working and some of your nurses, we still stay connected, we still chat and email, and they're in our community. And it's just, I see them sometimes when I'm at a conference, they'll come over the whole group of them when we get our little selfies, and I love it. It's a lot of fun. So yeah, you're doing great work there. Thank you. And of course, thank you for listening and for doing your part to cultivate and sustain a more professional and respectful work culture. Remember, the way we treat each other is truly just as important as the care that we're all providing. So thank you so much for listening. 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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