EP 36: How to Address and Mitigate Toxic Behaviors in Healthcare Teams

Coffee Break – Dr. Mitch Kusy: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Coffee Break – Dr. Mitch Kusy: 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. I hope you're having a great week, whether you're listening to this or watching it. And today, we have, let's just say, one of my very favorite guests on: it's our very own Dr. Mitch Kusy. Mitch, welcome to the show.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Hey, thank you so much. It's such a pleasure being here, Renee, and I just love chatting with you.

Renee Thompson:
Oh my gosh. Mitch and I have many, many conversations, and you know, he's a favorite on the podcast. This is his second appearance, and the first one was early when we first started the podcast. We'll make sure we put a link to that first episode in the show notes. And that episode, we really talked about how to convince, especially physicians, that culture change is important and just as important as clinical care, and so that's definitely an episode that you do not want to miss. And again, we'll have a link to that in the show notes. But to tell you a little bit more about Mitch, in case you just don't know him, Mitch is an organizational psychologist. He is the author of many books and many, many research articles. He is a professor at Antioch University in the PhD program for Leadership and Change. And my favorite thing about Mitch is that he's part of our team here at the Healthy Workforce Institute. Mitch and I do a lot of our consulting work together. He's just such a great partner. He's got the analytical brain, you know, the left brain. And I'm more of the story and the right brain. Although we do flip-flop, don't we, Mitch? There are times that I'm analytical and your story. We are. We make a really great partnership. And Mitch and I were talking about dealing with some toxic behaviors and toxic leadership. And then I remembered that Mitch actually talks about this issue a lot in one of his books, and I have it here called Why I Don't Work Here Anymore. So, I asked Mitch if we could unpack this a little bit on the show today. So, Mitch, all right, can you first talk to us about toxic people who are also high performers? Because that's where I think we get into trouble.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
You know, Renee, that's one of the top questions that I have, how to deal with toxic people who are high performers. And not that we're always dealing with them, but that's the topic right now. And one of the things that I have to say that I learned from you is how to unpack, really, what toxic means, first of all. And with you and the Healthy Workforce Institute, one of the things that I promote over and over again is whether you're talking about bullying or people sabotaging efforts what makes it toxic are three perspectives. Is the behavior targeted? Is it harmful? Or is it repeated? I learned this from you, which I love. And in terms of targeted, it could be targeted to one person or a group. And the research demonstrates that when it's a group, it's sometimes called mobbing. And if it's harmful, and it doesn't matter if you didn't intend to do harm, if the recipient sees it as harmful, it's harmful. And third, it's repeated, so it's not just having a bad day and getting on the wrong side of the bed. So, first of all, that's the definition of toxic. Now, your immediate question: How do you deal with someone who is some of your highest performers? And I have to address this with many leaders across the world. This physician is our rock star. This leader is the one who's pulling in all the marketing efforts for our healthcare organization. So it's an issue. So let me tell you a story first. I think the, I know, I know, we learn from stories. I'll never forget this, Renee. I was doing a keynote address, 500 people in the room, and I was sharing some of the examples of toxic behaviors, and one example is when someone's a perfectionist. They have to have everything that way, no matter what. And we also talked about exit strategies, and you know this, Renee, 30.7% of nurses knew someone who quit as a result of these kinds of behaviors, so I was relating this in the keynote address. And a gentleman raises his hand and he says, Mitch, this is exactly what happened to my wife. I said, Well, tell me more. Now imagine this is a group of 500 people, and he said, My wife quit. She couldn't take anymore. I said, What is it? And he said she was a surgical nurse, and she had done some things according to protocol and one too many times, remember, targeted, harmful, repeated. This surgeon came down on her so hard in a public form that she decided that she could not take it anymore. And so he said, My wife is one of those statistics. So I said, Well, geez, thanks for sharing that and corroborating and making this research come alive. But then it gets worse, Renee. A woman raises her hand and says, Dr. Kusy. And I'm always fearful when in a forum like this people call me doctor because I must have done something wrong. So Dr. Kusy, I know, I hear it. So, Dr. Kusy, I'm a surgeon. I have to be intimidating in the operating room suite. I demand perfection, and I'm starting to sweat there, and I usually don't sweat in public and get nervous, and I'm starting to get nervous. How am I going to respond to her? And then she issued this, almost a mandate to me. Would you go to a surgeon who isn't perfect? I had to think. Wonderful power of the pause, even with 500 people in the room. And I said, doctor, I want to go to a surgeon if they're about to make an error, someone feels comfortable enough to call them on that error. There was utter silence in the room.

Renee Thompson:
Don't you love it when you're put on the spot like that, and then you come out with something genius? Because you were spot on.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Yeah, I love it, too, because it really was from the heart.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, and it's true. … saved myself here on stage.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Yeah, you know, another example, I was working within a culture change with a large orthopedic practice out east, and there was, and I don't want to badmouth physicians because there are a precious resource. We need them. This was a physician and really in high demand, another rock star. But what was interesting is patients were going to this physician, and I was working with the chief medical director, and he said, What should I do? And I coached him. And based upon the data that we had collected as part of this assessment, I coached him to say this very simple statement: you are putting our practice at risk. With you're not listening to your colleagues, you're thinking there's only one way. So bottom line here and how we started the conversation today: everyone needs feedback. No one is perfect. And when we're more open to accepting this feedback, we're better professionals no matter what our profession is.

Renee Thompson:
Absolutely, and we achieve better outcomes. And I do want to reinforce something that you said. This isn't about demonizing any one role. And when Mitch and I start doing work together in an organization, especially initially, we are there to work on a culture that's, let's just say, not professional, not respectful. That's why people reach out to us. So initially, it's not easy, right, Mitch? It is difficult, but there's a lot of people who like to blame. Well, it's not us; it's the physicians. The physician says it's not us. We have issues with the nurses. This is not about demonizing, and I learned that from you, Mitch. There's one meeting that we had, very difficult meeting. Actually, you had the meeting with a client, and you said that we are not here to demonize any one role. We're all in this together. Everybody is responsible for the culture. Everybody plays a role. It's not physicians or nurses or techs, but it's really taking a look at even though they may be a top performer, they are putting your organization at risk. Even though you may not see it that way. Right now, they are. And you know, Mitch, I want to actually take a look at chapter number two.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
… Chapter number two.

Renee Thompson:
Chapter number two is false myths about toxic behavior. Yes, I want to take a deeper dive into the myths. And you have seven of them, but I really want to talk about three of them. And the first one is that you cannot calculate the financial cost of toxic people, because I chose that one, because we hear this a lot. They bring in so much revenue to the organization, we could not possibly let them go. But Mitch, you've done some really good work on this to show organizations that if there were toxic human being, it's actually costing you more money, and maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Yeah, and, you know, anyone could do this in any organization. There is some top things to look at when you calculate the costs. First of all, what we know is that from our own research study that I had done with my colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Holloway, there were 900 leaders in the study, and we know that 51% of individuals are likely to quit because of toxic behaviors, toxic work culture. And it gets worse. The research by Pearson and Porath in their book, a Great Book, The Cost of Bad Behavior, and they found that, in general, about 12% of individuals quit as a result of toxic behaviors. So, first of all, what we know is people do quit, not everyone, but 12%. So some of the costs are when someone quits, you have recruiting costs, the costs of recruiting new people. You have training costs. They're still professionals, but they need to know about your organization, the procedures that you have, training costs, the opportunity costs by not having everybody on target there right away, and also the cost of when the right people aren't there, a bad reputation. In general, for your listening and viewing audience, in general, it is at least 6% of your total compensation costs. So subsequently, if you're a medium-sized healthcare organization and you're paying, let's keep it easy, 100 million in compensation to, for people's jobs, you are wasting $6 million a year. So think about it this way: while 6 million sometimes may not seem a lot in terms of 100 million, what would I say to you, any leader who's listening to this? I can find you $6 million where you can do something better with cancer prevention, education of patients, etc.. $6 million and $100 million compensation package for everyone in the organization is huge. So, and that's the low amount, 6 million.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, it is surprising, but sometimes not surprising. Shocking, sometimes not shocking. But even in the work that we're doing, Mitch, when an organization reaches out and they say our turnover is so high, we can't keep people here. And, you know, we ask them, Tell us what's going on. And we find that there are some toxic people there, but they're not willing to address their behaviors. And we say, All right, we can help you. Our work, we have great outcomes. And they say, No, we don't have the financial resources to get the help that we need. Basically, we can't afford to. And I think, Oh my goodness, if you prevent 1 or 2 people sometimes depending on what they're looking for, if you prevent them from leaving, you've paid for this. It pays for itself. And the same thing, if you look at that, okay, we can't afford to lose this person. They bring in a lot of revenue. Or maybe it's because they're the only one who can do what they do. It's just short-sighted. And I don't know that executives and senior leaders are always thinking about the long-term implication of keeping someone, and you basically saying, if you've got $100 million in compensation costs, you're losing $6 million if you keep these people here. I think is kind of easier for them, though.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
It's really, really easy to understand, at least 6%, and that's a very conservative estimate.

Renee Thompson:
You're right. And I've seen so many different studies that show the cost of organizations when bullying and incivility are not addressed, you know, the cost to employee turnover. And then I always think about the revolving door when you have, and I'll just, you know, use nurses as an example. When you hire new nurses, and then they get eaten alive by the people they work with, so they quit, then you hire new nurses, and they get eaten, and they quit. And I think of the preceptors who are being asked to orient these new nurses who are getting burned out from this. So there are a lot of direct and indirect costs.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Absolutely. And as you know, nurses as well are such a precious resource. We can't afford to burn them out. We need to find ways to fulfill all professionals. And that's what I talk about, and we talk about this in our consulting is the premise of respectful engagement.

Renee Thompson:
Exactly, and it's the entire team. Everybody plays a valuable role. Okay, so that's myth number one. I want to actually jump over myth number two and go to number three; ignoring the toxic person will stop the behavior. And I read this chapter in this section, and I thought, Oh my gosh, yes, this is psychology. You know, just ignore bad behavior; it'll go away. You reinforce the positive behavior. Not so much when there are toxic individuals, so can you talk to us a little bit about this whole issue of should I ignore it, it'll go away, or should I?

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Well, first of all, there's a very interesting statistic that we discovered in our research study. And the statistic is this: Most toxic people are clueless about the impact of their behavior on others. I didn't say they were not clueless that they were toxic, but they're clueless about the impact of their behavior. So, if you were to typically give someone feedback that was highly toxic about their behavior, they might say things such as, Well, you know, I have to be this way. I'm the only person who has the guts to do something about this. So, first of all, when we understand that premise is that they are clueless about the impact of their behavior, ignoring the behavior will not necessarily stop the behavior. With some people, when we ignore, behavior will stop. With them, it takes a lot of work, and we need to figure out that work. And one of the ways that I do this and, you know, my four-phased feedback model: intro, behavior, impact, and toss back. I'm going to share this with your viewers because it's based on the importance of engagement. You cannot necessarily come down on individuals who are toxic. You need to engage them. So, I'm going to share this four-step model, first of all, the intro. You have to introduce the topic to them. You have to introduce this behavior. And they may have heard this before but this is a different way of doing this. Hey Sally, at this meeting I have some concerns and I'd like an opportunity to talk with you about this. When is a good time? Let's set up a time to chat intro. Then you have this time, the behavior is: I've noticed that the past several meetings, you're interrupting people a lot. First of all, notice I did not use the term toxic. What you don't want to do because that's what inflame the situation. So, secondly, you name the behavior. And you and I talk about this, the importance of naming the behavior, the behavior in a concrete behavioral specific way is you're interrupting people and this is what's happening, intro, behavior, impact. People are shutting down at the meeting. People are less willing to come up to you for help after the meeting. And then this is probably one of the most important pieces: the tossback. I want to hear your view on this. Let's talk about this. And what you need to do is come to some agreement on just one aspect of the behavior that needs to change. So that's really key in not ignoring the behavior.

Renee Thompson:
Right, and it's a great framework. I love how you introduce it. Hey, you know, I'd like to talk to you about something that happened at the meeting. What would be a good time for you? Okay. So you do give them a little bit of a heads-up on what you want to talk about. And then focus on that behavior, and you mentioned interrupting, and then what's the impact? People are shutting down. And I noticed that people who would normally speak up weren't, okay? And the whole tossback is probably more powerful than people realize, especially if you're in a leadership role. Let's say this is one of your employees even. Leaders tend to want to always tell people what to do. Sometimes, you know, we right away want to go to a, you know, performance, you know, action plan. But the tossback approach is important. And I'm going to add it like part two to the tossback. Part one is, you know, I'd really like your input on this or your view on this, and then it's the, what are you going to do to make sure. Because you can't just tell people what to do all the time, because then you do their thinking for them, and they never come up, they never sort of absorb it and then think, Okay, maybe I've got triggers that initiate me being like this; what is my trigger? What can I do about it? But it's like we have to put it back on that person. What are you going to do about it? But it's a great framework, and you're right. If you don't say anything, they won't even think there's anything wrong.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Yes, and you know, there's two things that are key about this. And one that's key is you need to be very concrete and behaviorally specific. Notice I didn't say you're shaming people at the meeting. Shaming doesn't really help to understand this because people's hackles go on fire, and they say, What do you mean I'm shaming? But it's harder to object to; I've noticed that you're interrupting people to me. That's the first premise. The second is, even if there are five things you want to give this person feedback on, choose one. We're human. And then, actually, I just thought of this in talking with you. The third piece is, and I get this question a lot, What if I should have been doing this all along to this person? I'm their leader, and I've been ignoring it. This is a prime opportunity to say at the intro, I want you to know that I've wanted to say these things to you, and for a variety of reasons, I haven't. And I'm now going to talk with you openly about this, and I own it, that I should have been doing this all along. So maybe you had some responsibility. It's not always, you know, you're not always right. Again, back to the surgeon story; we're not perfect.

Renee Thompson:
I think what you just said right now is a key ingredient to this is if, let's say, you recognize after listening to this, I should have been saying, and I don't want to should people here, okay, but I should have been addressing this all along to actually use that and saying, you know what, it is my responsibility to have brought this up to you in the past, and I haven't. Starting today, I am, and I will continue. Giving yourself some grace too that you haven't addressed it before, but it's like, Oh, but I'm going to address it now because now Mitch gave you a framework to use that makes it a little easier.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
That is a perfect lead in and I know you love this. Maybe your reviewers will love this. The power of the apology. So if you've been wrong as a leader, geez, apologizing; four-step apology. First of all, most people in Western culture apologize the wrong way. Well, you already know the answer to this, but let's just do a little you did. So, and if I were to ask you, How do most people apologize?

Renee Thompson:
Yeah. Hey, I'm really sorry that that happened, but you have no idea what my life has been like right now. And I had to do this, and I had to do, and then they go, but, but, but, but, but, but.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
And communication experts have found what comes after the but is often regarded psychologically as the excuse. No, yes, but, here's how you apologize the most effective way. First of all, you state what you did in the past. And let's go back to the example we're just using. I know as a leader I should have been giving you this information, this feedback all along. The impact is that it's going to be harder for you to accept this now. I apologize, and in the future, I want to give you feedback more regularly. And then you go on with a regularly scheduled program.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, no, that's awesome, and I love that four-step apology. I catch myself, in my personal life, you know, apologizing for something. And I think it's quite natural as a human being to add the excuses that makes us feel better.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Well, what I say to people, as you know, you got to put the four steps on the palm of your hand. I would write it with a pen.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, maybe a tattoo.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Yes, a tattoo. I love that, maybe somewhere here.

Renee Thompson:
Yes. Somewhere that it's readily available so that you remember. If you're sincere, that's why I never force anyone to apologize to someone else, okay? Because I don't want an insincere apology. If you are sincere, it's you, you identify what happened, you apologize, this is what I'm going to do moving forward, you know, and that's it. And that alone right there can even, I think, sometimes break the ice of tension between, you know, you and a colleague. So this has been great, Mitch. All right, our last myth that we're going to tackle on today's show: Concrete feedback will handle their manipulations. And when I read that the first time, I'm like, what? What do you mean concrete feedback will handle their manipulation? You explain that a little bit.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Sure. I just gave you a great example of, you know, how to give feedback, intro behavior, impact, tossback. That doesn't always work. And the reason it doesn't always work related to the manipulations is that you need one magic thing, and that magic thing is consequences. It's giving the best of feedback is not going to work if we don't have consequences. Now, with the example I just gave you of interrupting, maybe the consequences that people are going to be less apt to trust you. However, let's make it even more difficult. If the consequence, if person doesn't care. I don't care if people don't trust me. I know I'm right. Then what the leader needs to do, and sometimes in conjunction with HR for a console is what kind of consequences do we have available? And one that I gave you, which was a very difficult one right at the beginning of our podcast today, this medical orthopedic practice out East is that understanding that your behavior is putting our practice at risk. And with this physician, the consequence was and yet a warning that this was going to occur one-week suspension. It takes a committed organization. Now many organizations are enabled to do that. I understand that. You need to have collaboration with leadership and with HR to find out what are the viable consequences we have because the best of feedback is going to fail with some people if we don't have these realistic consequences.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, the consequences clearly articulated. So you got to prepare for this conversation. You know, this isn't an, Oh, here's a consequence. You have to prepare. And as you said, Mitch, might be HR, it might be with an executive. And once you identify what a consequence is, if that behavior continues, you better be willing to follow through on the consequence. And, you know, I'll relate it back to even parenting. I remember understanding this. I've been studying human behavior since I think my kids were born. And I remember one time my daughter was a teenager. This is my oldest daughter, Katie, and she was mouthing off to me, okay, you know how some teenagers, they get their, you know, Oh, I'm going to mouth off to mom. And I warned her, I said, Do you say one more thing, and I can't remember what she said. And as the words came out of my mouth, I was saying to myself, Don't say it, don't say it. I said, I'm going to ground you for a week. And sure enough, she mouthed off to me again. There I was, and now I grounded her for a week. So, this was my philosophy when it came to disciplining my kids. Why would I ground my kids? Because that means they're stuck in the house with me. No, no, no, I don't want them stuck in the house with me, okay? Because then they mope around and they complain and they … I started making them clean. All right, so you say that one more time, you're going to clean the basement tomorrow.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
That's the behavioral consequence, I love it.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, I made it work for me. But I don't know why I did the grounding, and then I was stuck with her for a week in the house because I couldn't go back on it. Because I knew if I did, then whatever threats, whatever consequence I would give her in the future, she wasn't going to pay attention to.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Renee, that is a superb example. And the reason it's a superb example, and I learned this strategy through you will be less likely to say things we don't really mean if we script the conversation ahead of time. So if we have, you know, in this one, the intro, behavior, impact, tossback model, we script it. That's the first piece. And the second thing that I suggest to clients is try it out on a trusted colleague. So you're not going in there cold giving that feedback. Feedback is one of the hardest things that we do as human beings. So try it out on someone. And here's the caveat: don't try it out so that you can get corroboration. Ain't it awful? Look at what he just did, how she just talked to her boss because that's gossip, which is a whole another conversation.

Renee Thompson:
Yes. We could have a whole conversation.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
We could have a whole conversation. By the way, since I mentioned it, one of the best ways I have found to extract yourself from a conversation that's gossiping is, first of all, not to point your finger and say you shouldn't be gossiping. Instead, take ownership. I know I've been part of these conversations in the past. I don't feel good about myself. I don't feel it accomplishes anything. So, I'm going to simply extract myself from these conversations. In the future, I hope you understand.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, it's such a great way to respond so that it doesn't shame them. You're not judging them. You're not saying, You know, we all shouldn't be gossiping here. No, you could have that conversation, depending. But you're not saying, You're terrible for gossiping or that's awful. You're just saying, you know what? I know I was part of this in the past, but I don't feel good about myself. So I'm just going to remove myself from these types of conversations because we talk a lot about gossip. It's one of the behaviors that show up with all of our clients when we do our assessments and we're doing this consulting work. And we always say, if you want to reduce gossip in your department, it starts with you recognizing when you're engaging in gossip and stop yourself. So all right, as we wrap up, I'm going to just kind of do a recap on what we talked about today, Mitch. First of all, you can have toxic people who are high performers, and many of us justify their behaviors because they're such high performers, and now you have a better understanding of why that's not okay. And we tackled some of the myths related to some of these toxic people who are high performers. There is a huge financial cost. So make sure that you're not being shortsighted here thinking that, Well, they bring in revenue. You mentioned somebody who's, you know, the best marketing person, and they can. The bottom line is in the long term, it's costing you more money. Ignoring their behavior, even though that might work for other types of situations, does not work for these people. You gave a really nice couple of frameworks: the intro, behavior, tossback. Intro, behavior. I missed one.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Impact.

Renee Thompson:
Impact, that's right, and then the tossback. And then, also, we wrapped it up by talking about how to actually give feedback that'll work, and you gave us a bonus and that's how to apologize. And a second bonus and is how to extract yourself from gossip, even though you may have been a part of it before, right? Did I miss anything?

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Hey, I wish you were a PhD student of mine, but you already have your doctorate, so you don't need a PhD.

Renee Thompson:
I got enough. I'm good, I'm good. All right, so one last question, Mitch. There's a leader right now who is listening or watching, and they're resonating with this. Maybe they're thinking of one person or maybe a few people, and they say, Oh my gosh, you're right. We need to do something. What would you recommend as maybe a first step? You know, we don't want them to just go right to that person and say, Oh my gosh, I listened to this podcast, and now I know I have to have this conversation with you. But can you give the audience maybe a way to start addressing somebody who's toxic?

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
That is a superb question. And one of the ways to start is by getting alignment in your organization. So one way to start is I want to share this podcast, or another way to start is I just learned two things that are really important to us. I'd like to take time at a team meeting and share that. You know, it's interesting, at team meetings, one of the things that I've discovered is leaders have all these tasks, but one of the tasks is how do I build a team? And they take very little time in those meetings to build a team. So sharing the wealth, I just learned something. And it's not just for this podcast. If you're attending a training program, come back and share with your team: I've learned something at this training program, I'd like to have a ten-minute discussion with all of you about this. So, share the learning. So first of all, what you can tell here, what we're doing is bringing in the system to start looking at this and then tackle one thing. And I say to tackle something that is going to be an easy baby step for you that has high probability, it's going to be achieved, and it's relatively easy. Don't tackle the big stuff right away. And if it's big, break it down into a manageable dose. Baby steps.

Renee Thompson:
No, I think that's excellent advice. And really, what you're talking about is: Before you can truly tackle, and I'll just say, dysfunctional culture, toxic culture, you have to start by raising awareness of behaviors that undermine a culture of safety. And so saying, Hey, I just listened to this podcast, or I read this.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
I wasn't asking for that. That's very good. You know, you're absolutely right. And that's one of the first phases in the culture change work that we do. We have to raise awareness.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, we have to heighten awareness of disruptive behaviors first because you can't expect anyone to adapt their behaviors if they're not even aware of their behaviors need to be adapted. But back to your point, Mitch, do this at the system level. Do this at the organizational level, the service line level to say, All right, let's take a look at our culture and use this or anything, any other programs that you've been to that talk about culture in a way your excuse for bringing it up. And then you can start identifying specific behaviors that you no longer want to tolerate, independent of who is displaying those behaviors. Yeah, that can really help you. So I want to let you all know before I forget, that you can actually, we're going to put a link to Mitch's book in our show notes. So, if you're interested in reading what the other myths are and learning more about how to address toxic behaviors, I will make sure that we have the link there. We'll also make sure that we have the link to Mitch's LinkedIn profile. So, if anybody wants to connect with Mitch on LinkedIn, can certainly do that. And Mitch, I just want to thank you for being a guest on our show again. The work that you're doing to truly address disruptive behaviors and cultivate the good ones is just so important, so meaningful. You've been a great partner up till this point, and I can't wait for even more partnership with you in the future as we continue to really support our clients on their culture change journey.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Well, thank you, Renee. As you said, it's a partnership. I've learned from you the scripting piece and many other perspective the phases that we go through in culture change, and you're a fabulous interviewer. I had such a great time.

Renee Thompson:
Thank you, I appreciate that. All right, everyone, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, or if you're watching, thank you for watching and for really doing your part to stop the cycle of bullying and incivility in healthcare. And if you really like this episode, we ask that you rate it. Okay, wherever you listen to your podcast, post a review. We love getting reviews, and make sure you share it with others. So, thanks for being here. We'll see you again soon. Take care.

Dr. Mitch Kusy:
Bye, all.

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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