EP 32: Leading Through Crisis: Essential Competencies for Nurse Leaders

CB_Michelle Conley: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

CB_Michelle Conley: 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! Welcome back to the Coffee Break podcast. Whether you're listening or you're watching, wherever you are, I hope you're in a really great place. Okay, today I'm excited to introduce my new friend, Michelle Conley, to our show today. And Michelle, thank you so much for being willing to be here.

Michelle Conley:
Oh, Renee, thank you. I'm so appreciative to have this opportunity to see you, obviously, and also to talk with you a little bit today.

Renee Thompson:
You listeners are in for a treat today because Michelle and I met in January. This was the first time I met Michelle, and I was there to be part of a retreat, a nursing leadership retreat. And I remember, I knew Michelle's name, but yet when I was on site, I was meeting all these people, and it was a group of nurse leaders, and Michelle was there and I'm like, Oh, hi. And I didn't realize that Michelle was the chief nursing officer. Everybody just approached Michelle smiling, they were talking. I'm like, Oh my gosh, she's friends with everyone. And then, I learned that Michelle is the senior vice president and chief nursing officer of the Jefferson Health North Region. And I thought, Oh my gosh, this is the way an executive leader should really be. They shouldn't stand apart from everyone else; they should be with everyone, and that's exactly what Michelle did. She was just a part of the group, just like a nurse manager, just like a nursing director, and I fell in love with her from that day on. And we've done some additional work together, we're going to talk about that, but what else I want you to know about Michelle is that she is a long-tenured nurse executive, been in an executive role for a really long time. She is passionate about developing and supporting healthy nurse practice environments, and dedicated to professional development and satisfaction of nurse leaders. And again, she walks the talk, I saw this happening, and it was in a recent conversation that Michelle and I had where we were talking about new nurse leaders and how many new nurse leaders are out there right now. I know one of our own studies of the Healthy Workforce Institute showed that 50% of nurse leaders right now have less than two years experience. And Michelle said something that I thought, Holy cow, I don't know if we've ever thought of it this way; that a lot of our new nurse leaders learned how to be nurse leaders in a crisis during the global pandemic, and that's all they know is crisis mode. And so I said, Oh, will you please come on our show and talk about this? So, Michelle, can you just tell us a little bit about what you're seeing at Jefferson Health related to this new nurse population?

Michelle Conley:
Sure. Thank you, Renee, thank you for your kind words, and I appreciate how you referred to me as old by not saying I was old like that. I'm not going to steal that from you.

Renee Thompson:
I got you, girl. I got you.

Michelle Conley:
I think, and you know, and as we were talking previously, I think one of the things that's occurred to me since assuming this role and probably a little bit beforehand, but really has crystallized more for me recently, is that notion that so many and such a high proportion of our nurse leaders, particularly our nurse managers, moved into their role either during or immediately preceding COVID and a global pandemic. And most of us, again, who have been in these roles for really long times, I know what that felt like for me. I cannot even for a minute imagine what it would be like to move into those roles with that kind of tenure coming in. Really got me to thinking, just as you stated, and we had talked about, what does that mean if you assume that kind of role in the middle of a crisis, and what are those competencies that we both look for and appreciate in the midst of a crisis that maybe aren't as applicable, sort of post-crisis or in your sort of normal course of work when you're not in a crisis mode, or you're not in the middle of a global pandemic? Hopefully, I hope they never need to live that again in the same way. Certainly.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, let's hope they never have to use those skills again, but you're absolutely right. Being a leader during a crisis, as we all experienced during the pandemic, requires a different set of competency than being a leader when you're not in a crisis. And I really like to, your input on what you're seeing with these new leaders is that they don't know how to handle things when they're not in crisis mode, when the building's not on fire right now, and how perhaps they're struggling with, obviously, what can we do to support them?

Michelle Conley:
I think there's two ways. I think there's sort of an impulse stay-in-crisis mode, regardless of the circumstance. Regardless of what the external situation may be, the impulse is to approach that from a crisis perspective, from a manager's perspective. And then I think the other thing that I've seen is this sense of overwhelm with the day-to-day. I think, in a lot of ways, as nurses, we're good managing crisis, even as a clinical nurse, right? Most tenured or experienced clinical nurses know how to handle a difficult patient situation or crisis patient situation. So that kind of mentality and that kind of being able to jump in and take care of a situation, I think that's very innate to many nurses. So now that we've moved out of that stage of things and we're in a more stable, for lack of a better word, period, it's hard to bring yourself out of that. And having not necessarily learned all of the competencies that they would have learned had they come into the roles when everybody wasn't in crisis, because we didn't do as good a job onboarding them as we would have under a different circumstance. So it's almost, I think about it in two ways. I think we have to just back up and think about, okay, do an analysis for each individual person, like where are you today? And wherever that is is perfectly acceptable, understandable, and something we can work with. And really challenge people to do that for themselves even, because I think what happens sometimes for all of us and myself included, when you think about someone who's been in a role for 3 or 4 years, they're your tenured expert person, right? But I think for a lot of us, and I would even use myself as this example; when you move into a role, and then the crisis passes and now it's you're in a more normal situation, you almost have to take a step and say, Okay, what is this playing field I now play on? What does it look like in this state, and what do, what am I good at? What do I know? And what maybe do I have opportunity with? And maybe what do I just not know? Because I think we found that as well, and I'll give a really concrete example, just staffing. Again, having been in nursing leadership roles for years, I was not accustomed to using travel nurses with any regularity. I could probably have counted on two fingers the amount of times I used them in my whole career, and it was usually really small scale and for a really short period of time. Obviously, during the pandemic, all of us were in a situation where they became an important part of our workforce, and as a manager, managing vacancy, and managing when people are not there, that was their default. We don't have that now. We know that we can't afford, from an industry perspective, to stay in that space, so we have to normalize back to normal staffing levels and normal staffing finances. Those folks don't necessarily know how to do the day-to-day things that most nurse managers were used to doing previous to that. That's a really simple thing, but I think it's a really huge gap and potentially frustration for them. And I think that's the last thing we want is to see these more junior nurse managers becoming frustrated and overwhelmed just because, developmentally, they're probably not where maybe they think they should be, or maybe we sometimes put that expectation there.

Renee Thompson:
So, you said something that made me think a little differently about leading in crisis versus after crisis. Okay, and I'll just keep it simple. And you mentioned how overwhelmed they are right now. Do you think it's easier to lead in a crisis because you have no wiggle room for anything else? Development: I have no time for that. We're in crisis. I just need to do these things. Well, now that the crisis is over, they're like, Oh, there's, now there's so many more things that I'm supposed to be doing that I was given permission before not to do that now I'm responsible for. And you would think the overwhelm would have happened during the crisis, but you basically had one priority, and that was to make sure you were taking care of patients, travelers doesn't matter, whatever you needed to do. But now it's, Okay, now I have all these other responsibilities, and I don't know how to do them, so I'm more overwhelmed. I almost think about, and this is a personal story, when I was a unit manager, and it was not a good situation. Okay? Brand new leader, you know, new leadership, new to the organization. I lasted 14 months. I was in such a state of stress potentially, like right there close to a nervous breakdown, that I got to the point where I couldn't tolerate anything else, no other stressors in my life. I ended up getting a divorce during that period of time, which ended up it was okay. It needed to happen. But it's like Al Pacino and I forget what movie it was like, You're out of order, you're out of order, everyone is out of order. Like, I couldn't handle anything, but I had one focus at that period of time. These nurse leaders during crisis had one focus, now they have 107 things to focus on. No wonder they're feeling overwhelmed.

Michelle Conley:
And during that period, everyone had the same focus. So we were all supporting one another around this sort of collective, we're in this together, and people are clapping and buying them pizza, and now we're back to that doesn't happen anymore, right? No one claps when you go to work, and no one greets you with, you're the best thing that ever happened in the world. A neighbor of mine said that too the other day, it's like it's back to this is how people always treated you previously. And there's probably a place in the middle that makes more sense, but I think that we have to figure out as nurse leaders is how do you ensure, obviously, we're not going to get back to that level of we're all in this together, but how do you bring that culture or that notion of we really are all in this together? Even if it may be my focus is in staffing a certain unit today, that's not my stressor, it's something else; it's still important to me that the person who is responsible for that has what they need to do that, whether that's a personal competency, whether that's an external resource. So I think it's almost how do we build this virtual, if you will, support system and put our arms around each other to say we're not in it together that way, but we're really still in it together. And it's a different kind of challenge, but it's still a big challenge, and it's going to stay a big challenge. That's not going to change. So how do we take the stress level from here every day and bring it here? Because none of us can function there. You just gave a great example of it's not sustainable as a human to do that. So we need to figure out how do we have our managers. Obviously there's going to be, it's a stressful job, but not have it at a stress level that feels unmanageable or unsustainable from a personal level, or else we won't retain them. You know?

Renee Thompson:
We won't because we're looking at new leader or leader turnover. And that's, we're starting to shift our focus as healthcare organizations and looking at that instead of just the employee turnover. But you said something that, from what I've seen, could be a starting point for this, especially if you're listening right now and you're like, Oh my gosh, this is what our new leaders are dealing with, yes, is to do that analysis like a personal analysis and to make it safe for these new leaders to admit what they don't know. Because I always say, like, when you're new, some people, you don't even know what you don't know. And a lot of these leaders, they didn't know what they didn't know, and then they were dealing with the crisis. They still might not know what they don't know. But to make it safe, and I'm going to share, I won't share the details, Michelle, but we just did a webinar together with Michelle's team, and one of the leaders actually spoke up and said, Yeah, I may basically have made this mistake, but to make it, and it was a safe place for her to admit that because we all make these mistakes and, but, and we all have things that we don't know what we don't know. But to create space for, especially your new leaders, to say, I don't know what that is. I don't know how to handle that. Will somebody help me? Because you, as an executive, you can't help them if you don't even know what they need. They can't get the help that they need if they don't even know what they need. So how would you go about doing that, doing that sort of personal analysis?

Michelle Conley:
I think it can be at a very simplistic level in some ways, and you gave a good example. I have a similar one where I was pretty new to this role. I was just getting to know some of the managers, and a manager came to meet with me for the first time, and there were probably a director or two between us in terms of role, but she came to talk to me about something, which was lovely. And we were sitting, talking, and she essentially said to me, we were talking about some problem she was having, and I asked her a question, and her response was, I don't really understand my budget.

Renee Thompson:
Cool.

Michelle Conley:
And I remember sitting there and thinking, Oh, that's not good, but at the same time being so incredibly impressed that she was willing to say that to me as someone she didn't know very well, in a role that potentially could be a little intimidating. And she very, from a very vulnerable place, said that. And it was so helpful because it helped me reset my expectations and it helped me understand why things were maybe happening they were happening as opposed to potentially misunderstanding completely what was the driver of the problem. That was really it. And once I understood that and we could work together on getting her just some very basic things, because she was smart and she knew her department and she even knew her role. This was just one small part of it that she didn't understand. It just.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, sure, the budget. And that is such a gift to have someone in a leadership role admit that they don't know something, especially as you said, she's admitting it to you, and she didn't know you all that well. So right away she trusted that she could be honest, she could be a little vulnerable. And that is such a powerful, I would say, I don't know, lesson if you can get all of your people to admit when they don't know something. Because a lot of people won't, because they don't want people to think they're stupid, and I'm one of them. I hate to admit I don't know something when I think I should know. That's the, I think, the key. If I think I should know it, you're the leader, you're the manager. Budgets; people expect that you understand the budget, which when I was a leader, I had no idea. I had to have somebody else help me with the budgets. And you're like, what is this, okay? But to create an environment where people are willing to admit that, and they're not going to fear, I don't want to say retaliation, but judgment. Judgment, that's what it is. You're so right. It is judgment. And how do you package that? How do you advocate for that with all of your leaders?

Michelle Conley:
I think it really starts with, and you alluded to this as well. We talked about it a little bit in the webinar. You really do have to start with yourself. And I think you really have to allow yourself to be vulnerable with yourself and be willing to sit down and have an honest conversation and take an honest inventory of what are you good at and what are you not great at. And I always remember, and this was years ago, and I wish I could remember who said this to me, but it was someone I worked with and a leader I worked with, and they said, As a new leader, they always say, know your strengths and weaknesses, do 360s, get evaluations, and then really kick those opportunities and focus on them. And I remember this person, I guess it was in that context, said to me, Sure, you need to be aware of these things that people are saying are opportunities for you. But what I really want you to focus on is this other side, because look what they're saying that you're good at. I want you to really embrace, acknowledge it in yourself, and then cultivate that, like, really build that up because it's a whole lot easier to really be good at things that you're already good at than to take things that you struggled since you were two and change that. And that was really just such a paradigm shift for me. And this was many years ago, and I think it helped me really think about other people that way. So instead of looking at leaders and being like, Oh, they're not good at these three things. It's, you know what? I have these four people, and they are magnificent in this space. I'm going to put them in that space every chance I get and give them every opportunity to thrive there, and then pair them with people who are really good in this space, because then they'll start to learn from each other, and they'll learn in a way that isn't threatening, because it isn't someone telling you you're not good at it. They're saying, You're really good at this, and Rene's really good at this. And when you two work together, the world's your oyster. You know, you just, you can magnify things. And I think what it also does is it starts to cultivate that sense of team in a way that's really different than I think we think about it a lot of times. It's like you're part of this team. We're all part of the same team. And I think when we see ourselves that way, whether it's someone in my role or clinical nurse, we're all on the same team to take care of that patient. What I do every day may look very different, what he or she does every day, but our goal really is the same thing.

Renee Thompson:
Or it should be.

Michelle Conley:
Or it should be. And if it's not, that's an easy thing to refocus yourself.

Renee Thompson:
Yes. So why are we here? What's our purpose? It's, ultimately it's that patient. But, oh my gosh, Michelle.

Michelle Conley:
And each other, right? I think it's an equal application.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah. I just talked about this yesterday with another group: how you make decisions. It's your mission, okay? So purpose, your patients, then it's your team, and then it's yourself. And sometimes I think we have it backwards, and you know some people have a backwards. But I absolutely love what you said when looking at a leader's strengths and weaknesses because it used to be, back in the day, you fix, you work on your weaknesses. Well, it's like swimming upstream. You're always going to struggle with that, but if you look at what you're innately good at, are you a big-picture thinker or a detailed person? Do you make quick decisions, or do you like to process? Even just simple things like that. But then to take a look at your leadership team and you say, Okay, if everybody knows what they're good at and what they're not good at, and I'll say it like that, and then in your leadership group, who's good at these things and who's good at those things, then, oh my gosh, first of all, if you give Simons tasks things that they have to work on to the people who are good at those things, think about the satisfaction they have. Okay, Oh, I get to do this, versus, I got to work on the budget. I don't even know what I'm doing here. I've got to put the spreadsheet together. I'm not good at spreadsheets. But if there's someone else who is good that especially, you can't just say, I'm not good at that, so I'm not going to do it. Okay, let's just be clear on that. It's like, nope, I heard it on the podcast. If I'm not good at it, I don't have to do it, but, that you're not. And I'll just say good at it, or it's not your strength, but you have someone in your organization that it is their strength that they can help you. I think that's a huge satisfier.

Michelle Conley:
And it helps you value other people. I think what it also does, A, it gives you a positions you to succeed, so you're putting people in positions where they can be successful and be recognized as successful, and it also positions them nicely to work with other people in a way that's mutually beneficial and in a way where you can be appreciative. Because I'll give you an example from this morning. I had a convert something to a PDF to be able to edit it, and I didn't have the proper equipment to do it, and I'm not that great at it in any way, and I knew I could probably figure it out if I spent long enough, but I didn't have time. And I literally I knew there was a person down the hallway who's really good at it, and I just went to her and I said, I need your help for two minutes. And she was to come help me, and she did it, and she did it in two minutes, and boom, it was done. But I think that's so important. And to make sure that people see that you value all of it. One isn't better than the other or one isn't overvalued, and one either diminished or undervalued, that all competencies have value, and when you bring them together on a team, you really can achieve anything, I really do believe.

Renee Thompson:
Powerful. I learned this, I read this in a book. For the life of me, I can't remember which book it was, but I started asking myself this question. I'm the CEO of my company, and so when I first started this company almost 13 years ago, it was just me. So I am used to being the one who does everything. Now, there's 12 of us, but I still struggle with, Oh, I have to do everything. And obviously, it's not sustainable for me to do that and I have a competent team. But any time I need to work on something, especially if it's something either that I haven't worked on for a while or it's something new, I now force myself to ask this question: Who can help me with this? Not, how am I going to get this done, and oh my God, who on my team can help me do this? And depending on what it is, I'm like, Oh, that's Cheryl. Cheryl could do that. And a fourth of the time it would take me to do it. Or I'm going to get Courtney to do this because I know she can easily do this and it's in her wheelhouse, it's not in my wheelhouse. But you did exactly that. Who can help me? And she did it in two minutes where it have taken you two hours.

Michelle Conley:
At least. And I think the intentionality of that. What you just said, I think, is really important, and it's a skill that I've always started to be better at in more recent years, is to, you can really set yourself up in a better place by asking yourself those kinds of questions. And I give this example because this is, in this kind of roles, I've always struggled with, and we talked a little bit about this, you don't want to lose sight of what's happening with the clinical nurses at the front line. And obviously, the further away you get, the more deliberate people, patients become with you, the less that the reality of what the day-to-day can be sometimes. How do you really keep in touch with that? And that's my structure in a lot of ways. But one of the things I started doing every day when I would look at my calendar of meetings because, as you can imagine, I don't spend time on the units at the bedside in my current role. But that's the most important part of my job in my mind. So how do you do that? One of the things I started to do was, I look at my calendar every day, and I think of a nurse that I've met recently. So just any clinical nurse that I talked to that day, I saw an orientation, wherever it may be, and I literally will go through the meetings, and I'll say, What would this mean to this person? What is my role in this meeting for that person, in his or her role? And does it make sense? Is it a meeting that I can't really find a connection to the person? Then why am I there? Do I really need to be? Yeah, maybe there's not value in me being there, or maybe it's a misplaced energy for me, and I should put my energy more in the meetings where it's really easy to say, I'm in this meeting this day because this is how this benefits the nurses that work in my organization. And it has shifted how I think about going into meetings completely. Whether it's a budget meeting that I'm dreading, right? Maybe it's going to be a contentious meeting. We're at budget times, I'm not talking about that, but what's going to be difficult? And there's going to be gives and takes. And it's, I think it's just mindfulness. And it's best when I mindfully think about, Okay, what is my role in this meeting? And my role is whatever it means to them, I go into it differently than I would if I just thought, Oh, it's Tuesday and I have to go to these things. A whole different way of thinking about your work, and it's really helped me. And I think it's helped me, particularly when it's busy and there's a lot of different things happening, a lot of different spaces at once to go into those spaces and into those interactions in a way I can attach meaning to.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I think that's so wise just to have that sort of pause. And it's really an intention that by participating in this meeting, I am helping Amy, who works in this department, maybe not directly, but indirectly, so it helps you to show up better. And that is the one thing that I was impressed with as I've gotten to know you, Michelle, you are the regional CNO. And how many hospitals is it? Six? Six hospitals, but yet you spend time in every one of those hospitals. You're just not sitting in an office remotely somewhere in your home office, but you're out there with your people. And the more you can do that as an executive to be where your people are, even to that front-line level, and have them get to know who you are as a person, I think is incredibly not only valuable, but it's essential.

Michelle Conley:
I agree.

Renee Thompson:
I think they know, you know, who their CNO is. I want to circle back to, we talked about new leaders and the competencies that they need now versus when they were in crisis. If you can, maybe from your experience and what you've seen, can you give us a few common competencies that maybe you've seen that they don't always have, that they need in a post-pandemic environment versus crisis, the building's on fire situation?

Michelle Conley:
Yeah, I think probably one of the primary competencies is really being able to look at the picture. So, if you're a unit manager, what are all the things that your unit is responsible for? So obviously, your stuff and your equipment and your supplies and whatever that patient population is that you work with and their families and the communities they live in and the things that inform that disease process if you're in a very specific kind of unit. I really think about things from a more holistic and comprehensive way, as opposed to this is my job today: don't let people die. Keep them alive till tomorrow. We want to do that. But it's not, the burning platform of that is different now. And it really is important that we're patient-centered and we're thinking about what patients want. I had a conversation with a nurse one day who was nowhere to practice and worked when there were no visitors in the hospital. So, literally, no one came to visit for a good portion of time. And all of a sudden, visitors were back, and she was struggling, because she was taking care of her patient, but people were asking her questions, or people were being difficult, or there were ten people and there couldn't, you know, she couldn't maneuver in the room, or they were disruptive in some way, and she literally had no ability understand how to intervene in that, and it was overwhelming her, and it was angering her. She's like, Why do these people need to be here? She really and I could understand. And at first I was like, Oh my God, you can't, they're family. But when I thought about it for a minute, I'm like, of course, she thinks that way. She learned how to be a practicing nurse with just she and the patient. So now there's, and even other clinicians like it was the nurse and the patient in the room for that period of time. And now there's other people coming in, and there's visitors that don't go home or don't want to go home and want to stay with their person. And she was having a hard time finding what the value in that was. So it was almost like the same thing. She had to step back, and we talked about this. And again, I had to think about it myself because my first thing was to be like, Oh my God, how can you think that way? And then I was like, of course you think so. So it is really, I think, as we talked about at the top, how do you step back and take a note inventory of yourself, whether you've been doing this for five minutes, two years, or 20 years? It's a new day, and things have changed externally. So we have to sort of assess where each one of us are individually and collectively and then what do we need to move forward. And I think a lot of it really is just that reassessment and understanding the comprehensive nature of your job versus a singular mission for the. And the nurse manager job is just such a comprehensive job, and they have so many responsibilities, so many people. How you prioritize that is so important to not get yourself to a place that you're overwhelmed, that it's almost like, how can they look at those ten things and say, Okay, I'm going to really spend most of my time on these today, and these can wait till tomorrow. And there are things that can wait till tomorrow now where before there were.

Renee Thompson:
No, spot on, Michelle, looking at the big picture, and I think to your point, when someone is basically saying, sharing frustrated with, it's easy for us to judge and say, How could you even think that? But we need to also take that pause and recognize that, Holy cow, they learned when there weren't any visitors in the building. Or I think about this new nurse population who are the least prepared new nurses we've ever experienced. Yeah, because they learned during a global pandemic when we didn't let them in the building, and they had to learn in simulation. It's the ability to not react, to take a step back and say, Okay, where could this be coming from? Because you can't fix it or solve it or utilize, like you can't even help develop that person to even look at it from a different perspective until you've done that reflection to see where is this coming from and such a good conversation. As we start to wrap up, I just want to go over a few things. We know right now that a lot of the new nurses became new nurses during the pandemic, when everything was in crisis mode. And now what we're finding is they seem to be even more overwhelmed because now they have all these other things that they have to do that they may not be competent in doing and may not be either willing to admit that they don't know it, or they don't know what they don't know, and to give them, to make it okay. Okay, so you have to talk about it. But then I love this whole do that personal analysis. These are the things that I'm responsible for. It's not just one thing. It's these 27 things. Where's my competency with these, and what is urgent that I master now? And what is something that I can work on a little bit later? Looking at the big picture and trying to think of what else we had talked about, but one of the things that, I love what you're doing, too, at Jefferson, is that you are bringing your leaders back together in a room with each other. I love me some Zoom, okay? I could stay in my house and I don't have to get on an airplane to travel places. And obviously, if you're in a hospital setting, you don't have to go to the next building or to fight with the elevators, but there's still nothing better than getting people together. And you've done that really well, even if it's for a short period of time or not as frequently as you did it before. But to give yourselves the ability to do that, invite obviously your new leaders to be a part of that, because I think that's where they can maybe if they are in situations they don't know what they don't know, that's where they may recognize, Oh, wait a minute, I don't know that. And have you seen that at all?

Michelle Conley:
For sure. And I think as we, having the responsibility for six different hospitals, it's really easy to bring like department managers together now. So I can bring, I can, I did this yesterday. I called the six ER managers and said, I want to get you guys together to work on a problem with me. They now will work on that together, where prior, you would have sat in your own ER and thought, Oh, we're not doing so well with this. Let me go out to the literature. Let me call my friend that I went to nursing school with. Now, they have an immediate affinity group that they can come together, talk through an issue, talk through a problem, hear what each other are doing. Most of the time, I believe that will solve it. You're going to get six perspectives. Chances are one of them has some insight or some connection that's going to help somebody else, but also just that brain trust I think is just invaluable. And I think what I really love about it, and I've seen in bringing the group back together or not even back, starting to bring the group together, is they're eager for that. They want colleagues, they want peers, they want people to talk to. They want someone to sit next to them physically and be like, Oh my God, I know. I feel you, sister, brother. Like we're all experiencing this. And that feels different. It feels different to go back to your office when you know there's a group of people who are in it with you and experiencing it in a similar way, you feel more equipped to handle it. And it's not anything, you don't have to go to school, you don't have to attend an all-day seminar. It's really just that ability to know that you're supported in the moment by people who will help you.

Renee Thompson:
And that there and available to you, for you, whether it's in person or virtually. But I was talking to somebody the other day, they said all the virtual work that we do, we miss the hallway conversation. We miss the going to a meeting together and having that chit-chat where that's sometimes where the important conversations are happening. I love having virtual options. However, we have to make sure that we're bringing our people together to engage in conversations about issues just like what we're talking about today, and then to make sure that we have the support for them. Michelle, as we wrap up, I just want to ask you, let's say there's a new nurse leader, right now, who's listening to us, and that new nurse leader saying, Oh my gosh, oh my God, they're talking about me, this is exactly me right now, and maybe they don't have an executive who is creating space for those new leaders to do an analysis and start working on these competencies: what advice would you give them? Like where would they start?

Michelle Conley:
I think a couple things. I would say start with, think about yourself as an incredible person and an incredible person doing incredible work regardless of what you're good at or bad, because I think it takes a lot of courage and a lot of bravery to take on these roles right now. So I think, I would start with that and acknowledge, have them acknowledge that for themselves, that this is not for the faint of heart. And if you're in that position, you're capable, or someone has deemed you capable, and you have at least felt for a minute that you are capable, or you wouldn't have applied for the job, I would definitely start there. And then I think the second thing is, I would say is really, don't have those expectations extend the same grace to yourself that you would extend to someone else, probably, and allow yourself to be vulnerable with people that you can be vulnerable with. You need to be a little discreet about that at times. I mean, there are going to be people that maybe couldn't be or shouldn't be right off the bat, but be thoughtful around it. And when you find those people, allow yourself to do it, and it will really help you continue to grow and to learn what you need to learn. When you're open to things, you can learn anything. When you think, or you're not willing to let people see that there are things you don't know, you're never going to move from where you are; you're not going to be able to, and you probably won't be happy. And I think ultimately, one of the things that's most important for all of us, and especially all the nurses and nurse managers is, your work is so incredibly meaningful to other people, and when you can't put your finger on that, I think you have to stop yourself for a minute and refocus. Because I always tell them, I said, If you're having trouble with that, call me on the phone, we'll talk for 15 minutes, and you'll tell me 100 things of where you are meaningful to other people today. You're just having trouble connecting it. It's not that you're not doing it. So I would also challenge them to do that as well. If it feels stuck or you feel unhappy or unfulfilled, take a step back and look to those people who can help you find that again, because something put you in that seat in the first place, and whatever put you there, you were there for a good reason.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. Great advice, Michelle. We've been talking a lot about new nurse leaders, but everything that you just said really applies to all leaders. And actually, everybody who's working in healthcare right now, I never forget the positive impact that you're making, the good work that you're doing. Yes, it can be difficult, but as you said, Michelle, give yourself grace and just know that you don't have all the answers. You haven't mastered everything. And to be willing to admit that and then ask for help. And I do appreciate that you said you have to be discreet at times. …

Michelle Conley:
… by somebody figuratively, right?

Renee Thompson:
Yes. Let's hope you have a discerning eye and ear, but yeah, have somebody that you can actually be vulnerable with and say, I'm really struggling, and this is why I'm struggling. And I love that you say, if you're ever not sure, just call me. We'll have a conversation. And then they walk away remembering why they chose to work in healthcare in the first place, why they chose to be a leader. Oh my gosh. So I think I could talk to you all day about this. This is such an important topic. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your time today and the conversation that we had. Thank you for the great work that you're doing at Jefferson Health. If people want to connect with you, what would be the best way?

Michelle Conley:
I am on LinkedIn. I also, my email is available, and however you want to connect happy to do that.

Renee Thompson:
Awesome! We'll put the, Michelle's LinkedIn profile and her email in the show notes. And if anybody wants to connect with her, highly recommend that you do that. And so again, Michelle, thank you so much for being here. And I want to thank all the listeners who are listening in right now, or if you're watching this on YouTube, thank you so much for being here and for doing your part to just stop the cycle of bullying and incivility, that's what our ultimate, this is what we're trying to do, but it's really to cultivate and sustain a healthy workforce culture where people come in to work, they show up as their best selves, and they feel good about the work that they do, so thank you. And if you like this podcast, don't forget to review it. I love getting reviews. Rate it, and then make sure you share it with others who may need to hear this message. Don't be stingy. Please share. Thanks everyone for being here. Take care.

Michelle Conley:
Thanks, Renee.

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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