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Music.

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Welcome to Central Line, Leadership in Healthcare, the show that shares stories,

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experiences, and advice from notable and innovative leaders in healthcare.

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Leading in healthcare is incredibly challenging, so if you are looking to learn

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firsthand from nurses, physicians, administrators, and other healthcare professionals

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in leadership and management roles, this is the podcast for you.

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Hosted by Leah Wuchek, leadership development expert, executive coach,

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healthcare professional, and president and co-founder of Tall Trees Leadership.

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We talk with today's successful healthcare leaders on how they get to where

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they are, lessons learned along the way, and what it takes to thrive as a successful leader in healthcare.

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Let's get started with your host, Leah Wuchick.

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Kat Newport is a passionate conflict educator and coach with a knack for helping

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leaders and teams navigate tough situations.

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Observations with over 30 years of corporate

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leadership experience in organizational development and

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quality management Kat brings a wealth of knowledge and a personal touch to

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her coaching Kat offers engaging workshops master classes and personalized training

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to help you handle conflict boost emotional intelligence and build a culture

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of trust she's also the author of Smart Conflict,

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where she shares practical tips for turning disputes into opportunities for growth.

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Active in the coaching community and a board member of the International Coaching

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Federation, Calgary Charter Chapter, and supports training and programs as a

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chair in the Calgary section of the American Society for Quality.

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Kat is dedicated to empowering professionals to thrive.

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Join her for insightful sessions that transform challenges into successes.

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Music.

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Good morning, Kat. How are you? I'm good, Leah. I'm good. How are you?

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I'm doing great. Welcome to Central Line Leadership in Healthcare.

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I'm excited to have you here. And pick your brain about having a smart conflict.

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Before we dive into the details, what I'm curious about is you and your background

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and what Kat is all about.

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So if you want to just Just share with everyone your journey to this point. That would be great.

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My, there's a whole show in its own, eh? Yeah, right.

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Where did I come from? Where am I going? In a nutshell, I bring conflict into

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your workplace, converting it, of course, into a catalyst for positive growth and change.

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And I have extensive experience in leadership.

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I've been working at a national director level for many, many, many decades.

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That makes me feel so old. Working in organizational development and quality controls.

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So I provide tools and strategies necessary for effective dispute management

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in the workplace, providing effective feedback, and managing relationships and psychological safety.

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So in a nutshell, that's it.

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Beautiful. And I also do know that you're a coach as well. Well,

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I am. I am a coach. I am an author.

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Yeah, I teach stretch classes. So yeah, whole mind, body, spirit kind of thing going on over here.

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Yeah, I love it. And maybe we'll start with the book because I know this was

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a really recent achievement for you and it's a massive achievement.

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So tell us a little bit about the book.

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So I stepped away from corporate leadership just over a year ago now and said,

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what am I going to do with my time? Because I'm one of those people who's, you know, if I'm not going Mach 5 with

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my hair on fire, I feel kind of bored.

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One of those folks. So when I was working in corporate, one of the biggest organizational

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development trainings for managers and leaders that kept coming up when I was

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managing that was, how do I manage conflict?

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What do I say? How do I make the other person insert blank?

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How do I make them do whatever I want them to do? So when I sat down with it,

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I'm like, okay, what is this book going to be about? Because there's always

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been a dream to write that book. And in the span of 12 months, it went from conceptualization to writing to publish,

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and it's now available on Amazon.

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So yeah. Yeah, it's very exciting. And I know it's no small feat to put together

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a book from concept to publish.

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And the fact that you did it in 12 months really blows my mind because I do

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know it's quite a long process. So with conflict, I mean, I know it's something that I don't think any one of us enjoys.

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I think many of us, many of us, and maybe I'm making a big assumption there,

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many of us really try and shy away from conflict.

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I'm curious to hear your perspective on conflict. My perspective on conflict,

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for me, conflict is creativity. I'm a creative person. And for those of you who are watching, you can see the video.

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I'm a creative kind of person. I'm an artist. I enjoy being out there,

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you know, that kind of thing. And the thing is, is we're always told to think outside the box.

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I hear this in corporate all the time. You should think outside the box.

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But if you're never in conflict, which is defined as a difference of perspective

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with another person, if you're looking for wartime conflict,

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that's outside my scope. Conflict is just a difference of perspective. And if you're never entertaining

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someone else's perspective,

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it's really hard to think outside the box because the only thing you're thinking

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in is your own personal perspective and judgments and narrative.

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So conflict is a catalyst and a trigger for creativity and innovation in the

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workplace when handled in a healthy kind of way.

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I would assume the key is the healthy way and that when it's not handled in

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that healthy way, the opposite may be true.

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Very much so. The thing with conflict is we've been learning how to manage conflict

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since the very moment we drew breath in our families, in our relationships, in our friendships.

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We've been getting these narratives. If we've never sat down and really thought

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about conflict or never sat down and got trained on how to manage conflict in

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a healthy way, we have some habits.

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And if you've been privileged enough to get some habits that are really,

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really helpful and kind of healthy, you're going to handle conflict in a more positive way.

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If your narratives have been a little bit darker, a little bit less healthy,

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and your habits are a little bit less healthy, you lapse into things like conflict avoidance and emotional outbursts and,

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you know, it's the silent treatment and gossip in a workplace or gossip at home,

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depending on your family, these kinds of things.

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So if you're not conscious about how you look at conflict and how you personally

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interact with conflict, yeah, it can definitely be unhealthy.

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And I think that's one of the unique things about the book, Smart Conflict,

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is I'm looking at it through the lens of what do you as an individual bring

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to the table Well, in the workplace, what are you carrying in that backpack that's showing up and might not be supporting

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your workplace relationships and your professional development? Hmm.

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It's interesting because obviously in healthcare, like many different industries,

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conflict is prevalent on a day-to-day basis.

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What I find with the people I talk with in healthcare, clients,

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colleagues, friends, from my own experience, is that conflict in healthcare can be,

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more loaded because of the potential impact down the line, particularly on the

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well-being of patients and clients.

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So yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Not a huge amount of respect coming right out of the gate.

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When you're working in healthcare, you're seeing folks on some of the worst days of their lives.

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And you're dealing with that emotional load and dealing with that emotional

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work that goes along with that. So it just sort of compounds everything.

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As you look forward into, oh my gosh, how does this affect the level of care?

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How does this affect how we work together across silos? How does this affect all of these things?

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It becomes even more important to understand what you're bringing to the table

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and then really looking at the three phases of conflict.

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When I talk to folks about conflict, what usually happens is we talk about the

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flashpoint, the point where, you know, you and I have a disagreement,

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we have a difference of perspective, and we have to deal with each other, and this is what we want to talk about, is this moment in time.

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That's the middle step. So we skipped over the first step. We're into the middle step.

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And most people completely forget about the third step. So we got to look at that mitigation.

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How are you managing your day-to-day relationships when the pressure is not

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on, when the flash is not there, that will reduce the heat, that conflict,

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or potentially sidestep the conflict altogether? together.

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After the conflict, we really got to look at restoration. How are you restoring

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equilibrium in your relationships?

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And I keep talking about relationships, but when you're at work,

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you have relationships with every other person you have contact with,

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from the person who gave you coffee this morning at the cafe downstairs to your

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colleague working with you on the floor. These are all relationships of differing size, differing scope, and differing depth.

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So when I say relationships, I'm not referring to this is my partner and we

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have kids together. I'm referring to just generalized relationships.

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So when we look at the flashpoint, we have to look at what happens after.

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How do we soothe hurt feelings?

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How do we move forward from the flashpoint now that we've agreed this is what we're going to do?

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How do we address this if something like this comes up in the future,

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how do I make you feel safe with me again?

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And how do I make you feel safe? And how do I feel safe as we move forward together?

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Because we're going to be on shift together again, at some point,

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we're going to have to work together again at some point.

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And if we're at odds, that might pose a problem.

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And I think, you know, what you said was really insightful. And what comes up

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for me is how close a lot of healthcare workers are in their relationships and

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how closely they need to work together.

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So that when there is a breakdown of that relationship, the effects are significant.

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For many people in healthcare, it's not like they can go like retreat to their

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office and never see that person ever again, right?

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They need to work with them on a daily basis.

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And as you know, one of the challenges that I would say the biggest challenge

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in health care right now is retention and recruitment.

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There is a very real workforce crisis facing Canadian health care,

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but worldwide health care as well.

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And so I'm curious how we can use that creative process within healthy conflict

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as a tool for retention. Or is that possible?

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It's definitely possible. I mean, if you look at the statistics,

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and a lot of them are coming out of the States, just because of the sheer volume

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of folks down there compared to up here in the Great White North,

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90% of people are going to have a workplace conflict.

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And one out of 20 people are going to be eliminated from their role because

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of toxic behavior. That's 5% of your workforce.

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That's huge. Yeah. Particularly when you're facing a hiring crunch,

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when you're facing retention and attrition challenges, losing 5% because of

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that toxic behavior is a little bit too much.

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Too much in general, but a little bit too much, particularly when you're facing the crunch.

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So what a lot of folks are saying is that their frontline managers aren't dealing

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with conflicts proactively and positively.

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So it's about getting on the same page with the rest of of the team,

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it's about staying on the same page. It's about not shying away.

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And it's about having the same language around conflict.

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It's one of the reasons why I kind of started our conversation with this is

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how I define conflict. So we're talking about the same thing.

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I've been chatting with other folks, with other clients going,

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you know, I like your definition of conflict, but where's the hostility?

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Conflict doesn't always have hostility. In extreme cases, is it certainly does, but it doesn't always have hostility.

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So it's really about coming onto that same page, making sure staff feels supported,

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making sure we have that relationship building and moving through all phases, the mitigation,

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the resolution, and the restoration so that people feel secure enough,

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people feel empowered enough to stay,

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particularly in a healthcare environment where you do have a lot of emotional

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labor, that psychological safety becomes incredibly important.

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You mentioned earlier about the three phases, and you said the one that gets

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missed the most between mitigation, resolution, and restoration is restoration.

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Why is that? After the flashpoint of a conflict, a lot of folks are like,

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oh, thank goodness it's over. And they never want to talk about it again. Yeah.

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And we're left with this vacuum of, yes, we've had it. Yes, we survived this conflict.

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But what do we do now? So you're walking down the hallway and you see the other

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person coming towards you. You're going, what's going to happen now?

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Are we going to have this tension? Are we going to have this conflict? like

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continue because we now have you

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know bad blood or whatever yeah so trying

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to get away from that emotion of i

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feel uncomfort i feel discomfort in this relationship we have a tendency to

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try and forget about the relationship to bring some emotional relief unfortunately

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what happens there is you get emotional relief in the short term but the next

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time you see the person you have that emotional discomfort again.

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And then this can lead to other dynamics in the workplace. For example, gossip.

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Because I feel uncomfortable because we've had a conflict, I'm going to talk

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to a closer friend saying, gee, you know, Sally, I'm really uncomfortable with her.

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You know, she did these things and, you know, I'm not really happy.

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And I get emotional relief from that.

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But I'm also spreading gossip. And now my friend thinks Sally's a bit odd because,

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you know, Now Sally and I had a thing, and now we have this self-feeding environment

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of unhealthy conflict coping mechanisms, which gossip is one. Yeah.

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And I would say gossip is a significant challenge within many healthcare environments.

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And it's interesting what you're saying around that gossip can be that emotional

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release and an unhealthy coping technique.

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So how do you address the restoration phase? What do you need to do?

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Oh, looking at that relationship, thinking about, okay, I've had a conflict

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with my floor supervisor.

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I know I'm going to have to come back in tomorrow. I know this.

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It's on the schedule. I know I have to come back in and I have to face this individual.

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I really need to think about what I want that relationship with my floor supervisor to look like.

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And a lot of people don't project forward.

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Forward they look at the moment and they

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don't say how am i going to survive this tomorrow next

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week next month next year so it's

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really being deliberate about how you want

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to show up and how you want that relationship to look as you move forward and

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then opening a discussion about it it takes a lot of courage to sit down and

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say you know floor supervisor i really want us to get along as we move forward.

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How does this look for you and how can we work together to get past this moment?

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There's an emotional vulnerability that comes to that, that a lot of folks,

17:26

most folks, will shy away from. Because I'd rather sit in my uncomfortability over here not thinking about it,

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saying, you know, my supervisor is X, Y, and Z, rather than opening myself up

17:39

to that potential rejection. There is no possibility of courage without fear.

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So it's about really understanding what your motivation is and what your payoff

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is when you look at building that relationship out into the future.

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It's also about avoiding some of the poor conflict coping mechanisms.

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It's about not gossiping. It's about engaging with your colleagues in a productive way.

18:06

So So if somebody else says, well, you know, the supervisor did that,

18:08

it's about saying, I see your pain, I see your discomfort, how do you want me to show up for you?

18:14

As opposed to, well, you know, I had a problem with her too.

18:19

And again, we're in that self-feeding mechanism. So it's, how do you want to show up?

18:24

What kind of environment do you want your workplace to be?

18:28

And then taking steps to engage with it in such a manner.

18:32

Because everybody is waiting for somebody to

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do something about the corporate culture or the organizational culture

18:38

and the problem is is when everybody's waiting for somebody to do it nobody

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does it yeah yeah be the change i know it sounds flip and it sounds contrite

18:48

but what are you doing to contribute to a positive working environment i appreciate

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that you brought up the vulnerability that comes with this,

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because I think that's something that is significant.

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The other layer to this in healthcare is the fact that any given leader in healthcare

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is often dealing with multiple unions.

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And as I mentioned, that just adds a whole different layer to it.

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And that being said, I can see how what you're saying is a way to open the conversations

19:23

in a way that would support the unionized environment and whatnot.

19:31

What I'm curious about is, what do you do if the other person doesn't want to

19:37

engage in any way, shape or form? The old silent treatment.

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The silent treatment is also a coping mechanism when dealing with conflict.

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This is also coming from that narrative.

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It's easier for me to say nothing at all than to engage.

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That fawn experience, if I just put my head down, it'll all go away. It never does.

20:00

It just gets worse. Sarah, this is about the emotional regulation of the other person.

20:07

And I get the question a lot of how do I make the other person, in this case, talk to me?

20:13

How do I make them say something? How do I make them care?

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And the faulty idea here is that you can make another human being really do anything.

20:23

And I mean, we can dive into neuro-linguistic programming here,

20:26

we can do influence here, we can do all of those things.

20:29

But when it comes right down to where the cheese binds, there's only one person

20:33

on the planet that you can control. And for those of us with teenagers, we know it's not them.

20:38

The only person you can control is yourself.

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So as we're dealing with the reaction of another person, it's important to understand

20:48

that you can only control your response to it.

20:51

So from a silence perspective and someone who doesn't want to engage,

20:55

it's about cracking the door open regularly.

20:59

Leah, you look uncomfortable. Do you want to talk to me about that?

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It seems a little weird. Is there something going on?

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I get silent treatment. It's all right. I can back off, crack the door,

21:09

you know, a couple of days later. Hayley, I'm feeling just a little bit of awkwardness

21:12

here. Is there something we need to talk about? And it's constantly giving that opportunity to the other individual to move

21:20

forward at their own emotional pace.

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And I know that sounds really hard to deal with, but this does require you to

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manage your own emotions as well.

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Yeah. I want this resolved. I want this resolved now. And you're going to talk to me, gosh darn it.

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It's not going to work. Yeah. It's going to literally push the other person

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away because they're dealing with so many emotions.

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And we talked about these internal narratives earlier on. We talked about what

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we think needs to happen. So if my family said, you know, you shut your mouth or I'll give you a reason to cry.

21:56

Welcome to Gen X. Stop your crying or I'll give you a reason to cry.

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It's very common for us to then sort of sit back and say, okay,

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I'm just not going to say anything because this is just going to get worse.

22:07

So it's about us dealing with that or that individual dealing with that emotion

22:11

to come forward and say, okay, yeah, I'm going to really talk to you.

22:16

The next time you open that door, Leah, I'm going to talk to you. I'm really going to say something.

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But it's about maintaining that relationship and making efforts and investments

22:24

into that relationship little by little, knowing that you're not going to get

22:29

that huge payoff in the moment. Yeah, and I am glad you talk about this requires your own self-regulation.

22:38

Patience is not something that I have been blessed with naturally.

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And so when I think about my own self in that type of situation,

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I think about how it would be quite aggravating for me to have to kind of keep

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cracking that door over and over and over.

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Or the idea of, well, just talk to me.

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Let's just talk and get it done with.

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But I do think there's a lot to be said about what you're talking about,

23:08

really meeting the person where they're at and their own emotional pace,

23:13

recognizing that the person's already likely stressed and burned out and from

23:19

all of these other things that go on for them on a daily basis.

23:24

Much, sir. And when someone is stuck in that moment, I really like to kind of

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dig in and we're getting into the coaching side of the things.

23:33

I really want to know what's the payoff if you push?

23:36

What are you hoping to achieve if you push them into something they're not ready for?

23:40

Why do you need that emotional release now versus next week?

23:46

And helping try to identify that situation and that emotional component,

23:52

which are the first two points of SMART conflict.

23:55

SMART actually started as a training and as an acronym, and S is situation,

23:59

and M is measured emotions. Really understand the situation you're in, and then measure your emotions to the actual situation.

24:08

Because I can't tell you how many times I've heard folks come in and be arguing

24:11

about something, and they're not arguing about the same thing.

24:14

They're arguing about two different things.

24:17

So it's super important to really understand what's going on at the moment. Yeah.

24:23

You mentioned the acronym SMART conflict. I'm going to come back to that in

24:27

a moment because I'd like to hear the whole thing.

24:30

But I do want to just touch on, we mentioned earlier about the unionized environment

24:36

and again, multiple unions in one workplace.

24:42

So what does What does that then mean for engaging in conflict?

24:49

How do you make the most of that? We've worked in environments, and I think the most I've ever worked with at

24:55

any given time was 11 unions. That's a lot. So I get it. Yeah.

25:01

Each one of these is a relationship, and each relationship has a common foundation.

25:08

And that common foundation is the health, safety, and security of employees.

25:13

As an employer, I really want my employees to show up and feel engaged and productive

25:19

and all of the good things. And as a union, they want the same thing.

25:23

And there's been so many instances throughout my career where I see an organization

25:27

and a union in an adversarial environment.

25:31

Well, you're trying to screw my employees. Well, you're just making my life

25:34

difficult and costing me money. And then there's that automatic combativeness. Yes.

25:40

The crux of the story there is we've got the same interests at heart.

25:45

So if we can build on that commonality and negotiate the different perspectives,

25:50

because a union does have a different perspective on the goal than an organization

25:54

does, if we can then negotiate forward in that instance,

25:58

it makes that relationship a little bit easier.

26:01

If you are in a situation where the union and the organization are in an adversarial

26:06

environment or relationship, it becomes very difficult to get anything done.

26:10

You are investing so much into holding the line and taking the hill and digging the trenches.

26:17

And there's so much time and effort and money involved in that,

26:23

that you really got to take a look at the payoff.

26:25

What's the risk of becoming a collaborative relationship with your union partners?

26:31

You know, because they're not I'm going anywhere. And same for the unions. What's the payoff for being adversarial when you're

26:40

pushing so much into these adversarial environments and relationships and discussions?

26:46

And I respect unions a great deal. They're very, very helpful when conflicts

26:51

arise because a lot of us need that help, you know, calling in that shop steward

26:55

to have that negotiation because I don't have the conflict language to do it on my own.

26:59

You know, there's a lot of benefits here on both sides.

27:01

So that's my take on it. And I'm going to stop. I talk forever.

27:05

Just go on and on. I think there's something so interesting about the idea of

27:09

collaborative conflict. And what comes up for me is during COVID, what we saw was multiple organizations coming together,

27:21

for the support of employees and patients during COVID.

27:28

So we started to see the unions work with the professional associations,

27:33

which then worked with government, which then worked with the healthcare organizations

27:37

and systems in a way that I don't know if I've seen that before.

27:44

Certainly not in my lifetime, I don't believe.

27:47

And it's really interesting in that it,

27:51

highlighted the power of being able to get things done. Like we needed to,

27:56

to use the term, think out of side the box.

27:59

We needed to do things differently in a very short amount of time.

28:05

Healthcare is famous for moving very slowly during any other instance, but we saw during COVID,

28:13

all of these organizations coming together and all of these groups coming together

28:17

other to get stuff done and get it done in a way that was very quick,

28:21

that hadn't been done before.

28:24

Now that COVID has settled somewhat, we're not seeing that collaboration any

28:32

longer or not to the same degree.

28:35

And so I wonder, how do you sustain that collaboration?

28:42

So we're thinking motivation here. What is the intrinsic motivation of each

28:46

organization that had to come together under COVID to continue to collaborate in such a manner?

28:53

When the pressure comes off, or the intrinsic motivation be,

28:57

you know, a cute COVID time here.

29:01

When that pressure comes off, there's less of that motivation available.

29:06

So how do we build that motivation back in without it being a public health

29:11

crisis? I was trying to build that motivation back in for all these organizations

29:17

to cross the silos, to continue talking.

29:21

So where is that motivation? Who's carrying the banner?

29:25

And how are these relationships continuing to be fostered?

29:31

Because I know from a business perspective, because I was working throughout

29:35

COVID in national security endeavors.

29:37

Once COVID stopped, we all kind of put down the backpack and went,

29:41

oh, I say stopped. I know it's not stopped.

29:43

Once the pressure came off. Yep.

29:47

Everybody just wanted to put down the bags and, okay, back to business as normal.

29:52

And there was a huge talk about what is normal now? What is business as normal or as usual?

30:00

And everybody went back to, okay, I think business as normal or as usual looks

30:04

like this and it looks like that. And then we stopped having that main focal point.

30:08

So where is the motivation for each of these organizations?

30:12

Is it simply crisis management? We're just waiting for the next thing to pop up.

30:16

Please no more. I'm going to pop up, which a lot of organizations do,

30:21

you know, put out the fire, put out the fire, put out the fire,

30:23

put out the fire versus how are we moving forward together so that maybe the

30:28

fire doesn't flare up. Yeah. That's so interesting. And I want to bring in the SMART conflict.

30:36

And so tell us about the acronym. Tell us about what that means.

30:41

Because I think from my understanding of it, it is actually also very linked

30:47

to motivation as well. Well, very much so.

30:50

So when we take a look at SMART conflict as an acronym, it starts with the S

30:57

and knowing the situation. And I know that sounds really silly. Really know what you're in conflict about.

31:02

I work with estate matters where family members are coming together and are

31:06

in conflict over how the estate should be managed.

31:09

And it's surprising how very often that folks don't actually know what they're

31:13

upset about. They want grandma's house, but, well, grandma loved you more and

31:17

this house means that she actually loved me too. You know, it becomes much more profound other than just the dollar value.

31:25

So finding out that situation, really digging down, and I come from a quality

31:30

background, so I really love the five whys.

31:33

Well, I'm upset that I'm not getting grandma's house. Why?

31:36

Because, you know, Sally got everything. Well, why does that upset you?

31:41

You know, and really digging down. And in the handout, and I think it's going

31:44

to be in the show notes, in the handout, I really dig into the five whys.

31:48

So you can see that in an infographic. So situation is super important. And we talked about the next one,

31:54

which is M, which is a measured emotional response.

31:57

It's about understanding your own emotions and what you're hoping to get out of the moment.

32:02

Looking at those social media accounts where, you know, I'm going to go start

32:05

a conflict with my partner because I'm bored. I just want to rip my own hair out.

32:11

It's not a good reason to start a conflict. A stands for agenda.

32:17

Not the nefarious underhanded secret coined, but a mending agenda.

32:23

A lot of times when folks get into conflict, they don't know what they want out of it.

32:27

We get into a conflict and we argue, argue, argue, argue, back and forth,

32:31

trying to negotiate, but neither one of us really knows where we want to end up.

32:35

Interesting. So having that mending agenda and knowing in the ballpark of where

32:41

you want to go, you know, I really want to have a good relationship with you

32:44

and I don't want to have to work, three shifts of overtime this week.

32:49

At least you have an idea of where that negotiation is going.

32:53

You know, I can't do three, but maybe I'll do one and a half if we can split that with someone else.

32:57

You know, understand where your boundaries are. Know what that agenda needs to be.

33:02

R is the foundation of it all. Understand the relationship.

33:06

What does this look like moving forward? Be relationship focused when you get into conflict.

33:13

And T sounds so simple. It is the time and place of the conflict matters.

33:20

Sort of like when you negotiate for a raise, never catch your boss as they're

33:23

running down the hallway trying to get to a client meeting. Not a good time to ask for a raise. Same thing in a conflict.

33:30

I think it was the Gottmans who said, I think more marriages have ended from

33:34

the advice of never go to bed angry than it's actually saved.

33:39

Because when you're tired and you're cranky and you're emotionally drained,

33:43

you are not going to have a good conflict. You're just not. You don't have the emotional capacity to do it.

33:49

So pick the right time and place for a conflict, even in the workplace.

33:53

At the end of your shift on a Friday, just before you go home,

33:56

or whatever your Friday happens to be, just before you go home is not a really

34:00

good time to open up that conflict saying, I got to catch my train in about

34:04

five minutes, but I really want to talk to you about that. It's not setting yourself up or the other person up for

34:10

success so yeah that's smart what occurs

34:14

to me about the acronym and all the elements that

34:17

go into the acronym is the intentionality about

34:22

being really intentional about how you respond to conflict how you yeah i think

34:32

the word is response that's that comes to mind and i think about what

34:38

you were saying about the saying about never go to bed angry and not having

34:44

the emotional capacity at that point in time to deal with it.

34:47

And I think about the same, you know, in the workplace about firing off an email

34:52

in response to something else without taking the time to think about it.

34:57

And the advice I was given a long time ago, which I do try and adhere to,

35:02

not always successfully, but I try, is wait 24 hours.

35:06

If something feels off to me, to actually take time to consider what it means

35:15

to me, how I'm responding, and what do I want to send back to that person or have what that conversation

35:23

should be like as opposed to having it in the moment of emotions.

35:30

Emails always make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

35:34

When we're looking at the context of a conflict or a highly emotional conversation,

35:41

the best way to do it, and I know a lot of people are going to send me nasty

35:45

messages, the best way to do it is face-to-face.

35:47

Yeah. When you're face-to-face with another person, you get tone of voice,

35:53

you get eye contact, text, you get body messaging, you get body language,

35:57

you get it all sort of as a complete package,

36:00

which can help clarify any misunderstandings before they happen.

36:07

The challenge we end up getting when we have an email is the tone and the form

36:15

that it's read in is the frame of mind of the reader.

36:19

It is not the frame of mind of the writer.

36:23

And we've all gotten those texts from our family and it seems really short.

36:29

It's like, oh my gosh, are they mad at me? No, they are running down the street trying to catch a bus and they're typing with one hand.

36:35

They're not mad at all. But we end up thinking they're mad. We just lose so much when we do an email.

36:43

So be very, very careful if engaging in a conflict in writing.

36:46

If it's a long distance one, try on Zoom, because at least then you can get some eye contact.

36:51

You can get the tonality of voice and the inflection and the cadence where you're

36:56

just going to not get it when you write it at all.

37:00

It's perfect sense. And I think one of the reasons why people often default

37:07

to email is it's a little less scary to write an email.

37:11

For all of the reasons why you said it's better to have that conversation face to face.

37:17

So I think this ties back to what you were saying before about the vulnerability

37:21

and the courage that it takes to actually sit in front of someone and have that dialogue.

37:29

Very much so. I mean, if we look at the neuroscience of it, human beings are social creatures.

37:34

We thrive in conjunction with one And when there's friction or conflict or anything

37:42

out of sorts, particularly with people we hang around with a lot,

37:45

like spending at least 40 hours a week, if not very much more, with our co-workers,

37:50

being out of step, being outside of that social construct can be devastating.

37:56

And I mean, all you've got to do is read any of the studies on bullying or that

38:00

kind of thing to see how devastating it can be to an individual to be left outside of a social circle.

38:06

So our brain takes this as a

38:08

threat if i'm rejected from the

38:11

social circle because of this conflict this

38:15

you know go back 10 000 years i could die i'm gonna be out in the wilderness

38:21

all by myself yeah in modern life it's it's very unlikely we're gonna get eaten

38:26

by a bear for kicked out of the social circle yeah the the brain still sees

38:31

it as a huge huge threat which is why sometimes we do default.

38:34

A lot of times we do default to that written word so that we don't have to face that rejection head on.

38:43

But you also don't get the opportunity to invest in the relationship and strengthen the bond.

38:48

You don't have the opportunity to creatively look at a solution through digital

38:55

words, words that can so easily be deleted and misinterpreted towards one another.

39:01

So you're right, it's less scary, but you're also losing the opportunity to

39:09

invest in that relationship. changes. I really like what you're saying about investing in that relationship and that

39:16

even in the midst of conflict, you can and should invest in that relationship.

39:24

And I think that really ties in with the whole idea of keep cracking that door,

39:31

keep working at it, even when it maybe feels like Like it's going nowhere,

39:36

that the effort that you're putting in is going to be worth it in the end.

39:43

So one of the things I hear all the time, especially from my coaching clients,

39:48

is around feedback and conflict and often how feedback can be perceived as a

40:00

threat or something detrimental as opposed to receiving it for what the intention is,

40:07

is to give feedback so that you can grow in your development, change your practice,

40:14

maybe better your work, all of that.

40:17

What would you say to that? Been there.

40:22

So this goes back to that threat. I'm in a social situation.

40:27

Typically, feedback is coming from someone who's on a hierarchy higher than us.

40:32

So it's coming from the head nurse or it's coming from a physician or it's coming

40:35

from the floor supervisor Or it's usually coming from someone higher up in the

40:40

hierarchy, which immediately adds stress.

40:43

We're now being critiqued in the social circle.

40:46

So there's fear. this also brings us back

40:49

to the idea that you can control and yes

40:52

you can you can control your reaction you also have autonomy over what you can

40:58

take on just because i as your supervisor says x y and z doesn't mean you have

41:05

to do x y and z you don't like y but you like x and you like z Z, let's do X and Z.

41:12

You have that ability to take on what you need to take on so that you can move forward.

41:20

But this does require intentionality on your part.

41:23

What are your professional goals? What does this look like next month?

41:27

What does this look like in six months? What does this look like in a year?

41:30

If I don't take on why, how does that affect my progression in what I want to do? Yeah.

41:38

So the economy, when it comes to feedback, and I think a lot of us really forget

41:43

about that, that just because my superior says it's so doesn't necessarily make it so.

41:50

With that said, if we flip the coin, I love the fact that you brought intent into it.

41:57

As a leader, I really need to articulate what my intention is when I'm giving feedback.

42:05

I need to tell you that I really love working with you and I think this would

42:11

make you a better professional. So here's my two cents.

42:14

I need to tell you why I'm giving you feedback and not waiting for the annual

42:19

performance review because that's a little forced. Yeah. Yes.

42:23

It also has to be specific. I can't say I really don't like the way you deal with people.

42:30

That that's amorphous what am i supposed to do with

42:33

that do i just change my entire humanity what do i do

42:35

it's not specific enough for me to do

42:38

anything with so as a leader i need to come in with intent and specificity during

42:43

the surgery i didn't like the way you did one two and three we need to fix this

42:47

for the next time we work together we also have to define impact so So intention,

42:54

specificity, and impact. Because we did one, two, and three during the surgery, A, B,

42:59

and C happened. So we really can't have this happen again.

43:02

Yeah. It really puts things into context.

43:05

So how you deliver feedback as a leader can also take some of that fright and

43:11

that fear and that resistance out of it.

43:15

So really look at how you're delivering that feedback and make sure you're intentional,

43:20

specific, and identifying the impact.

43:23

I think there's a lot to be said around the identifying the impact piece.

43:28

And the reality with healthcare is that sometimes feedback is pretty heavy in

43:36

that somebody maybe didn't follow a policy, or, you know, there's been some sort of error.

43:42

And healthcare has come a long way with looking at errors from a different perspective

43:48

that used to be very punitive and whatnot.

43:51

They're starting to think about how else can we view errors and from a systems

43:57

perspective, how did that error actually occur?

44:00

But I think the history of healthcare and how it has dealt with issues like

44:06

that still feeds into fear of feedback. back.

44:11

And so when I think about the impact, I mean, impact is significant.

44:18

It could be the death of someone.

44:21

Now, that's a very extreme circumstance, but we all know what's happened.

44:26

So when you are giving feedback to someone, when the stakes are really high.

44:34

What else do you need to be thinking about besides your intention and the impact?

44:40

What else would be helpful in that situation? You're speaking my quality language. I love this. I've been in a lot of environments

44:47

and had a lot of clients where feedback is punitive.

44:51

X has happened and therefore it's Leah's fault and we're going to punish Leah

44:54

because if we punish Leah, everything will be fine again. And that is never the case.

44:58

Yes, I said never. That was a definitive. That is never the case.

45:02

Yeah. There's always structure that's going on around that.

45:06

So I love the fact that you brought process into this.

45:09

What were the steps that led up to this error that could potentially be changed

45:14

so that this error never happens again? Are we looking at equipment? Are we looking at availability of resources?

45:20

Are we looking at scheduling? Are we looking at timelines? And particularly when we start getting into the

45:27

human resource side of things, when we're getting into the people side of things,

45:30

it's very hard to say, you are a robot, you will do this, you will do one,

45:35

two, and three every single time, and you will do it perfectly.

45:37

It's never, ever going to happen. So, there's a humanity that we have to bring to this.

45:43

If my parent has just died, I'm more likely to make a mistake.

45:49

It's that humanity piece, no matter what process pieces are in there,

45:53

no matter how many checks and balances we have, no matter how much resource we've put into it.

45:58

So we really do have to look at that humanity.

46:01

We have to look at that relationship.

46:05

And what are we doing? Coming from a corporate environment, it's like,

46:09

you know, never miss a day's work. Always come in no matter what.

46:13

And I cannot tell you how many times I myself or other people have shown up

46:16

and they've been knocking on death's door. They really should be going to the ER.

46:20

And there's, I'm going to go into that client meeting anyway.

46:24

What is the the challenge here

46:28

is this person is not performing optimally they never

46:30

will they can barely see straight you know

46:34

how are we setting up our relationships

46:37

for success yes you check the box yes you

46:39

were here congratulations but how are we

46:42

supporting you show up showing up as the best version of yourself so that humanity

46:47

really needs to come in that's a very powerful And I think the more we can focus

46:54

on humanity in healthcare and every other business industry that is out there,

47:00

the more we can do our best work and be fulfilled in the work that we are doing.

47:08

We need to remember the humanity. So Kat, where can people find your book? You can get my book on Amazon or you

47:17

can hit me up on my website at www.smartconflictbook.com and that'll give you

47:23

all the deets on the book and all the other ways you can get personally in contact

47:27

with me if you have any questions. Wonderful.

47:30

Please do check it out and we all need support with conflict. That's the reality.

47:37

And thank you so much, Kat, for being here and for sharing your thoughts.

47:41

It's been really insightful for me and I hope for others as well.

47:45

And I've definitely learned a lot. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so, so much for having me, Leah.

47:50

Thanks so much for joining us today at Central Line Leadership in Healthcare.

47:55

Also, if you liked what you heard, please head on over to Apple Podcasts to

47:59

leave us a review. Be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

48:03

Also, if you'd like to learn more about our host, Leah Wuchek,

48:06

check out talltreesleadership.com.