EP 48: Building Strong Teams Through Lateral Agility In Leadership

Coffee Break-Tina Livaudais: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Coffee Break-Tina Livaudais: 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 another episode of the Coffee Break podcast. You know, bullying and incivility don't just happen in an acute care hospital. They happen in ambulatory care centers, in primary care clinics, and even in dialysis clinics. And today we get to chat with Tina Livaudais, who is the CNO at DaVita Kidney Care. And I'm so excited to have you on the show. Welcome, Tina.

Tina Livaudais:
Well, thanks, Renee. I'm really excited to be here, too!

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation because Tina and I have known each other and done some work together over the last couple of years, and I've really gotten to know her leadership style, and her focus, and her commitment. And I said, oh my goodness, I have to have Tina on the show. So a couple of interesting things about Tina. Well, she first started her career as a patient care technician for DaVita. Okay? So she's been there her entire career, and she started there as a patient care tech and then really just kept going. Then, she became a registered nurse. She became an administrator, a regional operations director, division VP, and now the CNO. Tina's passionate about attracting and retaining nurses and patient care techs who are then empowered, which I love, empowered to provide exceptional care to their patients. I also know that Tina is equally passionate about creating healthy cultures for her teams. That's where Tina and I really met and started doing some great work together. But okay, Tina, we have to start by talking about the fact that you've been at DaVita your entire career. That is so unique and unusual. Can you tell us a little bit about how that all happened?

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, absolutely. And I personally feel just really blessed that I've had such a wonderful career and in a place that I love. But as you mentioned, Renee, I started out as a patient care technician while I was in nursing school. And, you know, at that time, you know, nurses go and get a summer internship, and a lot of us think we're going to go off and do pediatrics or mother-baby or something like that. And so my summer I spent in a dialysis clinic, you know, just getting that healthcare experience. And little did I know, I just came to fall in love with the work that we do within our clinics. And there's just this unique connection we can create with our patients whom we see, you know, three times a week that's unlike any other setting, and then also with each other. And so I loved the culture and our clinics, the way that we're able to rely on each other, and really the feeling of becoming like a family. And so I stayed, I stayed after, as you mentioned, after I graduated from nursing school and had the opportunity to work in all of our different modalities as a registered nurse and then was able to move in different leadership positions, which was largely a benefit of others in the village, and we call that DaVita Village really pouring into me and mentoring me along the way. So I'm extremely grateful for all of the opportunities I've been given and feel honestly, really blessed and humbled to be able to serve all of our nurses and technicians across our organization today. It's really beautiful.

Renee Thompson:
There is such a benefit to that. And one of the things that I've been focusing on lately is this concept of lateral agility. You know, kind of that bobbing and weaving. And I've been talking about this a lot, especially someone in a leadership role. You need to be able to bob and weave, and you need to recognize that it's not just your department, what your goals are. You're not the only one who is responsible for solving problems but more of this collaborative problem-solving, looking at the organization as a whole. And I think for some people, it's really hard to do that when you look at, you know, this lateral agility and being able to identify who all of your key stakeholders are and all the people who need to be involved in that collaborative problem solving and decision making. You have such an advantage because you've walked in everyone's shoes, where you have someone who has never worked as a patient care technician never worked in certain roles; it's not to say that you can't be an effective leader, but this is such a gift that you could say, Oh no, I know what it's like to be a patient care tech. I know what it's like to be a nurse. I know what it's like. And so can you tell us a little bit about how you've used this to, you know, bring your whole village together and be that leader who people think that you're just not a suit? You're just not, oh, yeah, you're the chief nurse because DaVita is humongous. I mean, I don't know how many clinics you have across just in this country alone.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, so we are quite large. We have a really large footprint. We have about 2700 clinics. We service about 800 hospitals. With that, under my purview, we have about 20,000 patient care technicians and 19,000 nurses. It is big. And to your point, you know, I have had the opportunity to grow up here within our organization and had the honor to serve in all of those different roles. And so the way that I think about that is I have an accountability and a huge responsibility to our nurses and technicians to make sure that I advocate for them really, really well. And so the way that I do that is often reflecting on the time, obviously, that I had within those roles and speaking from my experience during those times. But even more importantly, you know, it's been years since I've moved out of those roles. And while I know what it felt like at that time to be in those roles, I feel like I am accountable to know what it's like today and be able to be their voice today. And so you asked about, well, how do I do that? How I go about doing that is being in the business. And what I mean is like front line with our teammates, listening to their voices, spending time in our clinics, hearing and seeing what's going on and what do they need, and how can I support them and advocate for them in the right way. And personally, it's also such a huge cup filler for me. That's like my bread and butter, you know. And so I walk away from those days just like so fulfilled and so honored to be able to serve them in such a meaningful way.

Renee Thompson:
So I want to reinforce something that you said because I always know that it's something important when I get goosebumps, and I got goosebumps when you said basically, Yes, I was a PCT, I worked as a nurse, you know, but you need to know what the role is like today. Because you and I both know and our listeners know it's different today than it was even 5 years ago now, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. So if you're a leader and you're listening to this, you're like, Why I went from this organization to that? Or I've never worked as a PCT. I have never worked as a PCT. I went right in as a brand-new nurse. But that doesn't mean you can't figure out and spend time with all the different roles now to see what it's like today because I think that gives you the credibility. And so if you don't have that experience. You do something really great: you get input from your team. And I know that you just started talking about that, but can you tell us how do you do this from a practical perspective? You have 2700 clinics, 19,000 nurses. 2007, was it 20,000 patient care techs? Is that what you said?

Tina Livaudais:
Yes. It's pretty large.

Renee Thompson:
How do you get their input?

Tina Livaudais:
There's a number of ways that we do this. And you're right, Renee, the scale is so large, and obviously, I would love personally to meet and greet every single one of our nurses and technicians. And in reality, that's going to be really tough to do just from the scale. But I think that the things that we have in place, you know, are proxies for that to really make sure that we are listening and building our strategy and our programs and our opportunities based on the voices of our teammates. And so some of the things that we do is we host roundtables specific to the roles of our nurses, as well as our patient care technicians. And we do this both virtually, we also do it in live offerings, and it's a great opportunity for those that are selected, are able, we have a self-nomination process for them to come to the roundtable. Then, of course, they have to prove it through their manager. But for those that are able to come to those roundtables, they're coming with the voices of their fellow teammates. So they're coming prepared with, let's just say there's, you know, 50 other teammates in that facility, then I'm touching one in particular, but they're representing the voice of 50. And so it's so great because what we get from those, both our nursing and our patient care roundtables, is really understanding what challenges are they having today in their role, and how can we help them overcome those challenges. And I think also, even more importantly, one of the things I love to ask our nurses and technicians is, What is it that you love about our organization? Why do you stay here? And they have so much, number one, great things to say, but then when they do share the things that they love, then we're like, Aha! We're not only focusing on the things we have to fix and overcome, but I know what really makes a difference for them, and then I want to go supercharge that. And like, how do we maximize that strength?

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I think that that is so smart because you said, Okay, what are your challenges? You know, we want to support you, but to find out what you're doing well, to find out what do you like about this? We tend to, as human beings, go right to the negative. And as leaders, we tend to be problem solvers, don't we? We want to fix all the problems. We don't want anybody to have a problem. We want to go and, you know, solution. You know, we're big solutionaries. But to also add, all right, tell me something that you love about working here? Because you want to make sure that you spend as much time growing that as you do fixing their problems for them. And I've actually been privileged to be a part of some of the roundtables, and what I really appreciate about them is that there's a mix of education and education for them to develop professionally, even as technicians, okay, develop professionally. But then there is keeping them informed on what's happening in the village, which I always like to sit and listen to them. I'm like, this is amazing. Especially how you onboard new people and some of the programs that you have, it's a really great opportunity to, there's like multiple benefits from doing this. It's providing some education, communicating what's happening, you know, at DaVita, but then also getting their input. What are your challenges? What do you love? So, you have your strategic plan built for you just by listening to your people.

Tina Livaudais:
Absolutely. And I mean, it's a great point that you make. We have it be very well-rounded in terms of our roundtables. And we do other things as well, which I can share, but we want it to be more dynamic for their experience. And so it's about listening to them and ensuring that we're hearing their voice. It's about sharing what we're working on and getting their feedback because they're helping shape our initiatives, and tools, and programs that we're developing. And so we use their voices on those roundtables to help us think about our go-forward strategy. And then the last piece is how do we continue to invest in them from a personal and professional development perspective? So I think we all want to grow and we all want to thrive both personally and professionally. And so our nurses and technicians do as well. And so those opportunities are very intentional around how do we continue to pour into them and tap into some growth, either personally or professionally, that they can walk away with? And then we also ask, we haven't asked of them when they leave those opportunities, and that is to go back and share what they learned with their fellow teammates.

Renee Thompson:
Right there is what I have found to be the missing link. Anytime you have your employees, you're either providing some type of session like you're doing with the roundtables. And again, huge organization; you can't bring everybody together; or you sponsor someone to attend a conference, and that's great. Especially now, people want to be with other people and learn and share, and network and all those things, but the missing piece is that they come back, and there's no sharing of what they learned. There's no like, Oh yeah, I had a great time, and I learned all these things. And some people are able to actually go back and say, Hey, I have a recommendation, let's implement this. But without having that sort of expectation and teaching them how to do that. So it's like you attend, you got to take this back to the people who weren't able to attend, and what are you going to take back and how do you communicate that I think is.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, yeah. That last piece that you said is, I think, really important because, you know, when we think about our nurses and our technicians, they're caring for patients every single day, and they're not typically leading and facilitating education sessions for each other, and so, and they're busy caring for our patients. And so one of the things that I think is critically important, if you bring your teammates together, such as what I'm describing, is that you give them the tools to go back with and to share the message. And so one of the things that we do in our organization is we encourage our leaders to host daily homeroom meetings, and that is where our teams come together and talk about, like, the most critical things that they might need to accomplish that day, the most critical patients that they might need to focus on or simply just talk about, hey, it's Renee's birthday today. Let's celebrate it. So one of the things we do, when we walk away from our interactions with our teammates, is we give them a prepared one-pager homeroom document that they are then challenged to go back to their clinic and say, Share this homeroom, like teach it to your fellow teammates, five minutes at most, but it prepares them to have the equipment at hand, the tools at hand for them to be successful.

Renee Thompson:
Okay, I have to clarify. Did you say homeroom? Like homeroom?

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah.

Renee Thompson:
And it's so wise of you to come up with a structured document. Boom, boom, boom. Fill this in. Do that. Because most people, if left to their own, if it's up to them, people just are not skilled or trained in being able to then share and communicate something that they learned. But you make it easy for them, and that's my thing. So you got to make it easy for people. I love frameworks, I love checklists, I love anything that's going to make my life easier. So if bringing your people together, sending them to conferences, if that's important to you, and it's important that they come back and share, you need to make it easy for them. So I think that's a brilliant just strategy. That's simple. You put it together, and you give it to everybody, and voila. You got to make it easy for them because as you said earlier, they're pretty busy.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, it's essentially a script that they have to go back and deliver. You're known for scripts.

Renee Thompson:
I do, I am. I love my scripts. All right. There's something else that you do, too, and it's called your Quarterly Voice of the Village Call. Can you tell us about that, Tina?

Tina Livaudais:
We do. We, and this is across our entire organization where our most senior leaders get on a call, and we host our CEO, host a Quarterly Voice of the Village Call. And so I'm a part of that call, and some of our other senior leaders, as I said, which is an opportunity for all of our teammates within our organization; we have about 70,000 teammates. We're talking about our nurses and technicians today, but it's large at scale. And this call is an opportunity for all of our teammates to dial in and hear what's happening, what's top of mind for us as senior leaders, what are we working on. what are we celebrating? But even more importantly, it has an open forum within the call where any one of our teammates can ask a question, and we get tough questions. These are unscripted, tough questions. And what this is, is it's our culture. It's our culture to make sure that we have a lot of transparency and a lot of awareness as it relates to what is top of mind for our teammates. And so it's any question; nothing is off the table. And then we take it without having, knowing what's coming at us. But it's a great opportunity for us to know what's top of mind and then what we might be missing. And transparently, Renee, like, sometimes we get some of the questions, and we're like, I don't know, I don't have a great answer right now, but we're going to follow up, and we're going to go research that and figure out what is it that is, what's happening, and what do we need to do to help support our teammates better.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, it's funny how you just said transparent because that's the word I wrote down. When you were talking about this, you know, it's an open forum and you're keeping people informed on what's happening at DaVita. It's a huge organization, lots of moving parts. Somebody who's working in a small rural area in one of your clinics, you know, how are they informed of what's happening across the organization? And so you're communicating with them; here's what's happening. And you're giving them space to be able to ask questions really creates transparency.

Tina Livaudais:
It does.

Renee Thompson:
So we're not trying to hide anything from you, okay? This is what we're working on. And I think some of the strongest leaders are the ones who are admitting what their struggles are. Like, We're struggling with this right now and we'd love your input. You know, not to assume that you have all the answers and to be able to say, Well, heck, I don't know. Like, I'm not really sure I know how to answer that one, but because you're putting yourself out there, you're being vulnerable.

Tina Livaudais:
Absolutely, yeah.

Tina Livaudais:
You know, not having these predetermined questions that you've all practiced, how you're going to respond to them. It's real-time. It's real issues. It's uncomfortable. But, you know, I think, and as we all know, that's what creates a trusting relationship between the leadership team and the people is, you know, having that vulnerability and that transparency side.

Tina Livaudais:
Absolutely. And it's something we're pretty committed to holistically. And so we, you know, this is a very set forum where we have the Voice of the Village Call, but we have a charge to all of our leaders within our organization, our senior leaders, that when they're in our clinics or in any kind of like forum of teammates where we have, you know, multiple teammates and a gathering that we should host what we call a town hall. And I'm sure you've heard of that terminology; other organizations do it, but it, again, is in the same spirit of transparency. And it is a leader standing up there sharing some top-of-mind things that we might be working on, sometimes even some personal beliefs; again, again, a little bit vulnerable and get to know each other. But then it's the opportunity, which I think is even more important for teammates to ask those tough questions, or again, celebrate and recognize the things that are going really, really well.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, because going back to the roundtables, yes, you want to solve their problems. And I can imagine being at the executive level, and you have these, you know, the Voice of the Village, you want to solve their problems, and you want to reassure them, but you also got to ask them, Okay, what's going well here? Like if you're not asking your people what's going well, how do you know that that's something you should focus on or continue? Because I think sometimes, something might be going well, and you don't think it's having an impact, and you take it away, and people are like, No, no, no, we love that. We had that situation with the meetings that we have with my team, and we used to have something on our agenda where it was kind of like a quick round-robin, and everybody told everybody what they were working on, okay? Well, we thought, you know, we're going to streamline our meetings a little bit, and we took it out. And it wasn't for, I don't know, a couple of months later, I was actually having a one-on-one with somebody on my team. And I said, You know what's one thing, you know, that's going well, and what can we do better? And all of that. She's like, Can we bring back like that round robin? I used to love hearing. And then I asked everybody, like, yeah, we love that. But nobody said anything. And I also didn't ask the question. And that's I'm like, Okay, I have some opportunity here, like what is going well, because if they love that and we take it away because we don't think it's a big deal like that's a problem. I mean, that was something that they enjoyed. We didn't realize it, so we took it out. So you have to ask, so.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, and I think also to your point, I think your round-robin example, some of the examples I shared, it reinforces feeling connected to an organization or to each other. I think that's so critically important is to know what's happening like outside of your narrow area of focus. And so I know we talked about this at some point earlier, but I also host a coffee and conversations with the CNO series. So, similar to your coffee talk, I do a coffee and conversations with the CNO. And my goal for that is a lot of like what you shared a little bit about the round robin is I have, you know, guest on the show where we, number one, I love for them to share about their career journeys. And because I think it's so insightful for people who are looking to grow their careers to learn from each other or others who've done that successfully, so tidbits from that is always helpful. But then the second thing is to share what they're working on for our organization, for our village. So our teammates, our nurses, and our technicians know what's happening around them. And then we also share then, Okay, here's how you can reach these leaders or these fellow colleagues that you know are doing great things in their local markets, and you want to learn from them. And that way, it creates, like, as we talked about, our organization is so big, it creates like a sense of connectedness throughout all of our vast footprint. So people feel like they understand what's happening, what are we doing, and who can they reach out to.

Renee Thompson:
Wow. That's an incredible model if you just want to call it a model. You're spread all across the country and beyond. But to have these various ways that people, as you said, this connectedness. I'm even thinking for that one hospital doing something like this, it's so much easier. You got one hospital, okay, to do something similar on a smaller scale, but you're doing this so well across your entire organization. And I think maybe it's because, it's not to say you didn't have a choice, but the need to create opportunities for people to come together and to know what's happening across the organization is greater when you have so many more, you know, facilities versus one. But the principles are the same. They are hard to find an opportunity for people to come together, talk about things, communicate, get their feedback. So, Tina, I know if you're listening to this on the podcast, you won't be able to see this, but on the video you can't. Can you show us your coffee cup?

Tina Livaudais:
I will.

Renee Thompson:
She showed it to me before we hit record. I was like, Oh my God. It's just coffee and conversations, and flip it around. Talk to me like, oh, you know, I gotta be doing something like that. I got to get my coffee and conversations coffee cup. Because usually, I have the one that says, A cup of gratitudes. One of my favorite ones, but.

Tina Livaudais:
Oh, I like that too.

Renee Thompson:
It's just so smart. It's just so wise to have these opportunities. And so, in the little bit of time that we have left, though, I do want to shift for a moment. Because a lot of the work that we've done together has really been about equipping your leaders, your teammates with the skills and tools that they need to actually address disruptive behavior so that they can cultivate a healthy work culture. So, can you talk about how you're doing that at DaVita, because you're doing this really well and how you're addressing disruptive behaviors?

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, we've done a number of things, some of which we've worked directly with you, Renee, which has been amazing in terms of having some very specific educational opportunities for our leadership teams and as well as our direct nurses and technicians. So, that relationship with you has been extremely beneficial. And then beyond that, we have continued to kind of strengthen our own organizational kind of commitment to incivility. And so we've developed our own incivility courses and leadership training for our leaders at the facility level that we just recently launched. And then we're heavily investing in our leadership training and what we're calling upskilling across the board. Just in terms of like how can we better equip our leaders to be better leaders? Because if they're better leaders, they're more equipped to handle the disruption that they're seeing in their clinics. And so we actually just kicked off earlier this year a series that's based on James Clear Atomic Habits.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah, I love that book.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, and that is really then focusing on our facility administrators and how do we upskill them as it relates to that. And so that actually will run through this entire year. And so that's a lot of like tactical things around our leaders. But I think even more importantly, when we think about our nurses and our technicians in the clinics, a lot of the actions that we're doing and the recognition programs that we have in place is very much geared towards creating a healthy culture within that clinic, within that unit. And listening to our teammates, as we talked about earlier, is also a part of that strategy because I feel like when teammates feel unheard or they feel that their work is not valued and recognized, then that has a tendency to lead to some of the disruptive behavior and incivility that we see. And so a lot of what we are doing is not only the upskilling and leadership investment but investing in our teammates themselves. There are a lot of different recognition programs, a lot of opportunities for growth and development, and a lot of the listenings that we just talked about earlier.

Renee Thompson:
Wow, it is very wise because you understand that it can't be one thing. You want to cultivate a healthy work culture, you can't just do one thing. You can't just have a listening session. You can't just equip your leaders. You can't just, it's not one thing. It's a lot of different things. And, you know, you alluded to something, and I know this about you too, is that sometimes when we have, so if you're a leader and you're listening to this and you have that employee who is very disruptive, you know, they're a challenge for us, and sometimes, we try to do workarounds, or we might justify their behavior because they're so good at what they do, and you're in a staffing crisis and all those things. Sometimes, we try to avoid them, or sometimes, we just say you know what? They got to go. Let's get them out. But to even just take a pause and say, Why are they disruptive? And I always say, You shouldn't have to be a psychiatrist to, you know, lead people. But it certainly helps if you understand, you know, human behavior and psychology, but there's usually a reason for it. And, you know, while we always say focus on the behavior, not why they behave that way, as a leader, though, I think one of the first steps should take a look at that individual person to say, Okay, is there something going on that maybe you know, and I know you're big on mentoring, Tina. Maybe they don't feel that their voice has been heard. They've been ignored; they've been squashed. So then they react. So it's you've done this really well where your mindset is, first of all, we're not going to tolerate bad behavior. Like we're a healthy work culture here at DaVita. But it's not that simple. It's not black and white. You got to first get to know your people and see if there's a reason. And if that reason is something you can help them with, well, by golly, help them with it.

Tina Livaudais:
That's right.

Renee Thompson:
Yeah.

Tina Livaudais:
And I do think, you know, as you shared earlier, is that it's not just one thing, it's multiple things and multiple actions that we should be considering as leaders to support our teammates, to have healthy environments. And model the behavior. We want our leaders, you know, and our nurses to make sure that they're modeling the behavior in the right way. But I think that if you take these small, incremental actions, it'll lead to bigger outcomes over time. And so I think that we need to look at the picture holistically and really make sure that it's a holistic strategy to create healthy workforce environments. And to your point, like we have to address the behavior, but we also have to facilitate a healthy culture within that clinic. And the way that we do that is largely through the things that I shared, but also through really making sure that our nurses and our technicians feel highly valued and that will understand that the work has purpose and meaning. And we're not, you know, teammates and, you know, organizational behavior and all of that shows that when you feel like you're recognized, then you do feel like the work that you're doing has meaning and that it matters and that you're feeling valued, they're valued by your organization. And so, you know, I know that you're, I think you're working with the DAISY Foundation. We have the DAISY Award that we have worked with them, and we actually modified it for nephrology, but we don't even exist in the nephrology industry before. And so Bonnie's been great where we reached out to her a couple of years ago. And we have the DAISY Award, which is such a huge recognition. We're looking at introducing a similar award with the DAISY Foundation's guidance for our patient care technicians. We just introduced an award for our nurses called the Nightingale Award, and this is based on kind of behavioral economics that show that those who receive an experiential award to an experience feel more valued and connected to their organizations than those that receive an economic award. So we're testing it out. We have, you know, five curated packages that, you know, the winners of this war get to go to Disney World, you know, or spa day or a, yeah, exactly.

Renee Thompson:
Okay, forget Disney. Take me to the spa.

Tina Livaudais:
That would be mine, too. But yes, I think it's being innovative and trying to make sure that we're meeting our teammates where we are to where they feel valued and recognized in a meaningful way. And I think that helps feed a healthy culture and workforce.

Renee Thompson:
You are so right. You're speaking my language. I just had a session with a client, and we were talking about meaningful recognition and what meaningful, somebody asked me, what is meaningful recognition? Like, what is it not? It's not giving pizza to everybody, okay, because they had a rough day. Because you always got those people, I'm gluten-free. I'm dairy-free. You know, it's meaningful recognition involves exactly what you said. It's helping them to feel valued for the good work that they do in a way that highlights that, and it's not, like I said, we always think about monetary, but it doesn't always have to be monetary. It could be, and I love that you do this experiences because we actually do this for our kids. So I have two grown daughters, and I have, you know, two grandkids. We don't buy our grandkids toys. I will buy them experiences. So, like the one year, we got Olivia swim lessons. So, you know, she was little, she had swim lessons, so, you know, soccer. Whatever it is. But now I don't know if you've ever seen the movie The Polar Express.

Tina Livaudais:
Yes, I love that.

Renee Thompson:
Yes, well, my grandkids are obsessed with it. Even in July, they're watching it. Well, they have a Polar Express in, they live in the Raleigh Durham area somewhere, not too, too far from there. So we're going to take them on the train, like go on the train. And that's going to be their Christmas gift, is we're taking them because they don't need another toy. So think about that and how you reward and recognize your teammates. And can you give, I love that you're considering that because we usually don't.

Tina Livaudais:
And Renee, what you said is so meaningful. Because think about that. Your grandkids are going to always remember that experience connected to you. And those memories are just; they're irreplaceable. And I think organizations should think about that in the same way. You give them money, they pay a bill, which is good. We have to pay our teammates. I'm not saying, but that's like table stakes. We need to think about how do you create meaningful recognition and experiences so they feel connected back to the organization.

Renee Thompson:
Absolutely. And you know, it's one of those things where you're right. Like even with my youngest daughter, I'm like, all right, Christmas is coming up. Do you want something? Do you want to experience somewhere, or do you want money to pay your bills? Like money to pay my bills, please. And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, we've had those conversations, and now, you know, we look at other experiences. And I just think to your point, it's all about what's important to that individual.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, absolutely.

Renee Thompson:
You know, and everybody has a different, everybody's in a different season of their life. And you know, when your kids are young, you're in a different season than when your kids are older. And so I think it's just being mindful of that and being intentional about how you recognize your people. And so, Tina, as we wrap up, I really just want to ask you, let's say we have a leader who's listening today and they are super excited, maybe they got goosebumps too, about all the opportunities that you've built into your village to really communicate, create that transparency, to be able to celebrate what's going well and get input and also continue the problem-solving. You do so many things. If somebody in an organization right now and they're not doing anything, I don't know, what would you recommend as maybe a first step for them?

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, I would say, first and foremost is, a small incremental step is where to start. Because it can be overwhelming when you think about, like, Oh my goodness, I want to do ten things, and then you become a little bit immobilized by those ten things because they're overwhelming. And so small, incremental steps, I think, in taking one action and something to consider. And the way that I would personally do that is understanding through the voice of their stakeholders; in my case, it's our nurses and our technicians, what would be the most impactful action to take. And so what I would tell them to do is get in the business, spend time as their first step with their key stakeholders to get informed and hear the voices of their stakeholders or teammates or whoever it might be that then can inform what should that action, that first action be as it relates to kind of like thinking about moving forward. So that's what I would recommend is one small action, and it should be getting into the voices of your teammates to help inform where you should go.

Renee Thompson:
That is so smart because I know myself, I want to go right to solution mode as we've talked about. Okay, I'm going to do a coffee chat with my people once a month. I'm going to do this. And you're saying, Wait a minute. First, be with your people, okay? Spend time with them. Spend time with the different roles. You know, and I think part of that, too, is what you're doing is building a relationship with them and finding out, like getting their input so that you can create, like that's the first step. It's sort of like the nursing process: you have to assess before you diagnose.

Tina Livaudais:
That's right.

Renee Thompson:
And also part of that walking in my shoes to spend a little bit of time with your technicians. And if you're in a hospital, you know, even your unit clerks, you know, spending some time with them just to say, Tell me about your work. And there's some questions that I like to ask, like, tell me what you love about your work. Tell me what you hate about your work. Because I can, you know, you go to the extreme ends. I can tell you a lot. But to start there, just start being with them and finding opportunities to get their input, I think, is so wise. It's a great first step.

Tina Livaudais:
It can have immeasurable impact.

Renee Thompson:
Oh, and it already has. Again, you've done such a great job, all of you and your leaders at DaVita. Again, I've been a huge fan for a long time. So, Tina, if somebody wanted to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Tina Livaudais:
Sure! I have a LinkedIn page. So Tina Livaudais on LinkedIn. My email address is super simple as well. It's [email protected]. And I welcome anyone to reach out to me. I'm, you mentioned this earlier, I'm a huge proponent of mentorship. So, I've been mentored by others in my life, and I love to help and support, and mentor others. And so I really do welcome any and all outreach from those that are looking for any support or help in any way. I would love to do that for anyone.

Renee Thompson:
I love that. Thank you so much. You are an extremely generous human being, and your time and your wisdom and so many people I know would benefit from that. And for those of you who are listening, we'll have a link to her LinkedIn profile in the show notes. We'll also include her email, and we'll include a link to James Clear, Atomic Habits because we mentioned it. I'm a fan. I've actually bought several copies and gave them to different people. And, you know, I love his approach to improvement is just focus on getting 1% better.

Tina Livaudais:
Exactly!

Renee Thompson:
1% better. And so yeah, huge fan of his work. And I found it to be very meaningful and helpful to me as a, personally and professionally. So Tina, thank you so much for being a guest.

Tina Livaudais:
Yeah, thank you for having me. I feel honored that you invited me. And it's just been so fun working with you through the years, Renee. So I consider you a great friend now.

Renee Thompson:
I agree, I agree. Like I said, I always like to pretend like I'm just sitting in a coffee shop having a chit-chat, you know, with my friends. And you know, you made this really easy for me. So, thank you for just being you and for all the great work that you're doing at DaVita. And thank you for listening. Okay, whether you're listening to this right now on audio or you're watching on video, just really grateful that you're here. And if you like this podcast, you could help me out by rating it, posting a review, and sharing it with other leaders who might find this helpful. So again, thanks everyone, for showing up today. Take care. We'll see you soon.

Renee Thompson:
Thank you for listening to Coffee Break: Breaking the Cycle of Bullying in Healthcare – One Cup at a Time. If you found this podcast helpful, we invite you to click the Subscribe button and tune in every 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 us at HealthyWorkforceInstitute.com. Until our next cup of coffee, be kind, take care, and stay connected.

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