People often me what I do. I tell them that I coach Physicians and they don’t know what that means. Even other physicians don’t know what that means. When I tell them that I also coach Nurses, Allied Health Professionals, Nurse managers, Respiratory Therapists, Executives, and IT Professionals, they get really confused. So, allow me to explain.

First and foremost, I facilitate better communication. I take a situation with sticky, bumpy, icky communication (as my younger patients would say) and I make it all better. Let me elaborate. Good communication is when you have two people are sharing information about a patient, and it goes from one to another without any mistakes. That’s good, right? Better communication is when it flows. When additional information just seems to slide along in there without any prompting or additional questions. When the staff from A shift doesn’t leave B shift wondering if they’re going to need to call and wake A shift to ask something else. That’s smooth, flowing communication. That’s what I facilitate. When A shift leaves and B shift has that nagging feeling between their shoulder blades, that’s icky, right? If you’ve worked in a hospital, you’ve been there. There’s a piece missing, and you may not even be certain what you should ask. That’s sticky, bumpy communication. That kind of communication can also happen during a surgery, or when you’re asking for a raise. It can happen when you’re lobbying for a critical piece of equipment. In any of these cases, the stakes can be quite high, leading to anxiety and unnecessary stress.

It can get worse when you’re negotiating a contract. It may not be more money you’re after, but protected time off, or better working conditions. Lack of these things become key drivers for burnout, which is a huge problem in healthcare and has become even bigger since COVID-19. There are hundreds of articles on burnout, and a number of books, with more being written every month. They all have several things in common. They focus on what they consider the causes and cures of burnout. If you read these articles and books, you’ll see that some of these things keep repeating. Things like wanting a reasonable workload, alignment of values, sufficient rewards, a sense of fairness, a sense of control, and strength of community; while avoiding such things as feelings of ineffectiveness, emotional exhaustion, loss of meaning at work, depersonalization, loss of motivation, self-doubt, helplessness, and reduced personal accomplishment. In other words, when you’re looking at burnout, there are things you want to gain, like control over your workload and a sense of accomplishment; and things you want to avoid, like emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

When I look through these lists, I see that much of this can be summed up in community, an understanding of each person’s contribution and value, acknowledgment of that contribution and value, fairness (not just a sense of fairness-for true fairness would lead to appropriate control), and communication. True communication, communication that gets to the heart of these matters, will achieve all of these. I accomplish this by teaching personality science and the six intelligences.

Let me explain. Personality science is the system that allows us to better communicate, by truly listening to someone else. To learn more about that you can attend one of our Codebreaker Summits, which is a 2-3 day seminar, or joining us for one of our informal happy hours for a quick 90-minute run down. The six intelligences are Personality Intelligence, Sales Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Business Intelligence, and Spiritual Intelligence. They’re like the six spokes of a wheel. If one or two of the spokes are too short, your wheel isn’t going to roll very well.

Let me do a quick break down of each of the six intelligences. Personality Intelligence is how well you understand the personality science upon which we base our teaching. How well are you putting it into place? Are you using it every day? Sales intelligence is influence. You aren’t in sales? Are you sure? Every time you try to get your spouse to go to a certain restaurant, or you children to go to bed, you are selling. When you sit across from someone in a conference room, you are either selling or being sold. Think about it. Artificial Intelligence is whether or not you are using the latest technology to your advantage, to master your day. Emotional Intelligence is whether you react immediately and rashly to a situation, or can you wait a few seconds and give a calmer response? The higher your emotional intelligence, the calmer your reaction and your team’s reaction. High emotional intelligence is a sign of a true leader. People who complete our signature coaching coarse show, on average, 20-30% increase in emotional intelligence. Business Intelligence is how to set up a 6- to 7- digit business, including a business plan, to give yourself the freedom and flexibility to build your own lifestyle. Spiritual Intelligence is the final spoke of the wheel. This is not religion. This is whether or not your values are in alignment with your day to day actions. Are you achieving the morality and significance you want out of life?  

My passion is to battle burnout, specifically burnout in healthcare. I’ve worked as a physician for thirty years. I’ve seen a lot of broken people trying to heal other people. That’s not the best way to help others. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase physician heal thyself; or nurse, or nurse manager. Well, it doesn’t work if we’re beating ourselves up all the time, and of course, we can’t do it without change from our executives as well. So, I started my coaching business. As soon as I announced that I was opening my business, I disclosed that I would be doing this in healthcare. Friends asked if it would work in Information Technology as well. The answer is, “Yes! Of course, it would work for IT.” And the company immediately expanded into that arena. You see, I also have a background in Healthcare IT, so It was an easy segue for me. Not long after, I was asked if it would work for burnout in parents of Special Needs Children. As a Pediatrician who has cared for many of these children and their parents, I am acutely aware of the struggles these families face. Yes, it will work for these families as well. Consequently, we are currently training a Coach who is interested in working specifically with such families. She is the mother of two Special Needs children herself.

I truly believe in what I am doing. I have seen it work. When this system is put into place, here are the outcomes. We see an increase in staff satisfaction. We see an increase in patient satisfaction. We see fewer errors. Because staff satisfaction increases, staff retention also increases, which saves organizations money. The reduction in errors also saves organizations money. We see good nurses and physicians stepping up and becoming leaders, not just good at what they do, but true leaders. There is an increased sense of teams within various units of the hospital. Anxiety for an organization can go down. Your organization can become a magnet where people want to come to work, which has positive effects on recruiting.

So, yes, this is what I do. If any of this interests you and you would like more information, reach out to me. There are buttons on the website that allow you to set up a free 30 minute consultation. Also, here is the link to our Free Happy Hour, which is an informal way to get additional information in a group setting. You choose which is best for you.  https://virtual-happyhour.eventbrite.com

What does it mean to trust someone? What does it mean to distrust someone? More importantly, what does it mean to have trust in the workplace? There are many definitions of trust out there on the internet. However, trust at work is a ‘boots on the ground’ feeling of safety. As Merriam-Webster puts it, “if you trust someone, you believe that they are honest and sincere and will not deliberately do anything to harm you.”

Many of us in healthcare no longer have that kind of feeling of trust. It was broken either before or during the pandemic.

It may have been broken during the pandemic in many ways. Here are some examples. It could have been broken when administrators withheld PPE because of fears of a future shortage, despite having plenty of PPE on hand at that point in time. It may have happened when PPE was given only to a few people who had contact with patients, but not all staff who had contact with patients. It may have happened when some staff members stole PPE for personal use out of fear and were not penalized, even though this put their colleagues lives at risk.

These were all things that I saw firsthand. When I raised concerns, I was told that my concerns did not matter. My concerns did not matter. Let me say that again: my concerns did not matter. That undermined my trust in my administration, in the process of reporting problems, and in the entire system more than anything. So, let me ask you this. Are your people’s concerns being heard? This means all your people, from housekeeping, to surgical techs, to administrators. Are their concerns being heard? If not, you need to be finding a way to rebuild their trust. Today. Not tomorrow. Not next week.

Loss of trust is a driver of staff turnover, of staff dissatisfaction, and of burnout. People who can’t trust their employer won’t stick around. People who can’t leave will no longer be effective, productive employees. This creates at the least unhappiness, and at the worst an unsafe workplace or a toxic work environment or both. So, I ask you, is this the structure you want to be building in your organization? Or would you like to learn about alternatives?

All week long, I’ve been posting and showing you our research about what happens when employees lose trust. Information about how different people react to this loss of trust. Some will stay for a bit out of a sense of responsibility, or a need to try to fix the situation for others. However, if this situation goes on long enough, you will drive away all your best talent. No one wants that. I’m here because I have a system that prevents that from happening, backed by technology and research and a community to help you implement it all.

Sometimes a breach of trust is unintentional. After all, we’re all human. It happens. We make our apologies and move forward mending fences. Sometimes, it’s a systems error and our experts are tasked with finding a path out of that mess. We are tasked with listening to them without emotion or blame. It isn’t always easy, yet it is possible.

The difficult times come when trust is broken repeatedly and systematically and the people in power tolerate it. There are many reasons this happens, and the only cure is culture change. #Culturechange starts with #communication. I know, I know. Some of you were wanting me to say to burn the whole place down. There was a time when that would have been my answer, and it would have made me feel better. It would not, however, have solved the problem.

Effective communication is the answer. Effective communication is a process that involves listening for people’s values; listening so intently that you start valuing the other person on a higher level. Now, you might say, “Well, the person who broke trust isn’t going to do that.” Maybe. Let me remind you that hurt people, hurt people. More than likely, that person who broke trust doesn’t feel valued. Perhaps they’ve never truly felt valued. No one has ever listened to them and acknowledged their pain. You can be the one to change that. You won’t know until you try.

Here’s the thing. When you listen for someone’s values, you learn what is important to them and how they want to be valued. You learn how they want to be spoken to, loved on, recognized, cared for, all of that. Odds are, they aren’t getting that. Odds are, they aren’t getting even a small portion of that. You could learn how to make them feel better about themselves. How to make them feel worthy. If they felt worthy, and worthwhile, they might not have a need to tear others down by breaking trust in the workplace.

This seems perfectly logical to me. If you’ve not been exposed to these ideas in the past, then this can be an epiphany. That’s okay. Now that you know, go out and speak to people as if they matter. Build relationships based on values and build trust. Here’s the hard part. There are four basic personality types, and they all view trust differently. Look at my LinkedIn posts from this week, as they spell that out, item-by-item, for each personality type.

You see, your number one asset is people. We believe we can help you keep your people. If that involves culture change, then we have a system for that. Our system is simple, fast, and incredibly implementable. Let me help you build trust.