Latest / Nurse Leadership Dumpster Fire / Bonus: Comparing when I was a nurse
Transcript
- speaker-0: To Nurse Leader Dumpster Fire. Today we're going to talk about a mistake. This one is going to be about comparing when I was a nurse at the bedside. Let's talk about something that sounds like connection but isn't. When leaders say when I was at the bedside, it often lands completely wrong. Not because your experience doesn't matter, but because healthcare has changed and your team knows it. So instead of feeling understood, they feel compared to or dismissed. If we really want to connect, we have to stop leading with our past and start getting curious about the present. speaker-1: Exactly. I'm Cindy. And we're both Masters Prepared Nurse Leaders who are on a journey to help other nurse leaders avoid some of the mistakes and disasters that we learned in the beginning of our journey. We don't want anyone else to have to learn things the way that we did. We believe in elevating nurse leaders to create dynamic and high performing and cohesive teams that will lead to improved patient outcomes and happier staff. speaker-0: And I'm Teresa. So the mistake when I was a nurse or when I worked at the bedside, et cetera, you will hear versions of that, like in meetings, in boardrooms, or just out and about, right? As you progress on your leadership journey journey, it might irk you a little bit. And if it doesn't irk you, it probably will bother your staff or bother the other people you're leading, most likely because while there's an intent to make a connection when we say these things, because you're trying to be like, I was a nurse too, like I get it, right? That's that's what you're doing. And that's what all of us are doing when we say things like that. But what it comes out is comparison and lack of empathy. And none of us entered this field with a complete lack of empathy and trying to do that to people. That's not our goal. speaker-1: Yeah. I actually had a nurse manager who was leading a staff meeting recently and she had was trying to talk about a vision going forward. And when she was talking about that, she inadvertently said something like, I want this unit to be like how it used to be. And I had to go talk to her afterwards and I was like, You gotta be kind of careful when you say things like that, because if I'm a new nurse and I hear you say, I want this unit to be how it used to be, I don't really know what that means. And I might feel like you're saying I'm not good enough. And so we kind of talked through it and we I coached her to rephrase that to say the things that I used to love about how things used to be are these things. And that's the goal that I want to get to. But when you when you say it like, let's go do it how when I was a nurse and I used to do it like this, you know, it just it doesn't sound the way that you think it's gonna sound. speaker-0: Yeah, it kinda comes off like you you're not you're just not as good. The other team was speaker-1: Yes. When I did it I did it better. Yeah. So you should probably do it how I did it. speaker-0: Or we just were better and we just had better attitudes or whatever, right? Like those little things will pop out. So picture it. Like the staff are overwhelmed. They're short staffed. Acuity is all over the place, sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes just a thousand one-to-ones, whatever it is. And someone says, Well, when I was at the bedside, we managed with less. That one is the one that comes up to the top pretty frequently. Yeah. But the problem is speaker-1: Things are not the same as they used to be. Documentation is crazy. You're documenting things all the time. Back when we started out on the electronic medical record journey, the goal was to have to work less. But I think what's actually happened is we have to document more everything, everything you do. We used to do focused assessments. Now we do head to toe assessments every day, every shift, every four hours. We can't just say, ⁓ I called the doctor. You need to say I called the doctor. And This is what happened and this is what we're doing and this is what I did. ⁓ so it's just i things are not the same as they used to be five years or ten years ago. speaker-0: summarize in a note before and you could say we checked on the patient every 15 minutes on this one-to-one. We did all these things, the whole shift, like yada yada yada. Now you have to show that you did that in every 15 minute documentation or whatever situation it is. So ⁓ while the intent is to do that, it might just make the room just shift and all of a sudden people are shutting down. They're no longer engaged in what you're saying. And over time, burnout, stress, and responsibility can shift how that empathy is gonna come out. Yes. So speaker-1: And I think, you know, we know that we used to be bedside nurses, but the staff don't always know that. And it depends on the level of trust that you have. So if they see you as a boardroom nurse now and you're in an executive suite and you say something like that, that doesn't mean anything to them. They don't know what you used to do. They don't know what when you were a bedside, what kind of nurse you were and what kind of work ethic you had. You know, the farther away you've been from it, the less that that that statement has any meaning at all. Right. So just be careful. When you're using that. speaker-0: And just to clarify, over time, burnout, stress, responsibility can shift how that empathy I'm speaking about the leader, not the I I realized as I said that I was kind of like, ⁓ I wonder if that came out as like what I was speaking to. So you as the leader, when you're saying when you mean to s be empathetic by saying that, it's it might come out wrong. Just try to avoid that statement. Let's and we're gonna go over ways that you can reword those types of statements here as we get through the video. speaker-1: ⁓ yes. Thing to point at. Yeah. So we in our journey, we are all about finding ways to prevent disconnection and increase connection. So let's talk about a few tactics that we can do to make sure that we are not contributing to that mistake. speaker-0: And maybe how to the other thing I wanted to point out is how can we also maybe politely call out some of our peers that might be doing this? speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, so true. Because I don't think that we even notice when we do that. Like you said, this is a good intention. I'm trying to relate to my staff and maybe they don't realize, maybe that they just haven't thought through that, that that is actually causing them damage and it's going to make them have a higher workload because the trust is gonna go down and that means you're gonna be doing more micromanaging and you're gonna be your dumpster fires are gonna be getting bigger and more frequent. speaker-0: Yeah. So those tactics are like when when we're talking about yourself, like ask yourself, am I being curious or am I comparing when you're saying those things? So that's a first thing. That's a ch self-check-in thing when you're when it's like, okay, when I say these things, how what is what is my meaning? speaker-1: That's such a good way to say it about being curious because I think when we go, what happened or why did that happen? It can even in your head, the language that you're using, that can sound sort of punitive and and demeaning. But if you say, I wonder why this happens, or I wonder why that person responded that way, that completely changes the dynamic, even in your own head. And when you change the dynamic in your own head and how you hear it, it's going to come out and how you say it. speaker-0: is and your facial the body body language thank you but the other the next one is like am I trying to find a solution in my experience or am I minimizing theirs without realizing it making sure these are those check in moments, those brief spots like when I'm saying when I was a nurse or when I was at the Fed side, are you asking yourself, am I being curious, am I trying to find a solution in my own experience or am I minimizing without realizing it? Like telling them they're being babies without actually saying it or speaker-1: We're even trying to self-soothe. I mean, I have a friend who's a therapist, and she was telling me, you know, when you're in the room and you're you have somebody talking to you and they're sharing a really painful thing, that we often have this instinct of we want to make it feel better, we want to give them a hug. And she was like, That's my reaction, that's not their reaction. Right. And so I think really focusing on that inner awareness of why are we responding that way is really going to help just help us to differentiate if we should be. responding that way. And if we should be demonstrating that in front of people in public and, you know, revealing your RBF face that you didn't realize what's going on. You know, there's a mug that I have that says, despite the look on my face, you're still talking. And there's a reason that I got that mug. So I've been working really hard to try to not have that mug be meaningful anymore. speaker-0: So basically asking yourself, what is the end goal? And is this getting me closer to that end goal? speaker-1: Yes. So so like Teresa said, sometimes you might need to give this feedback to your peers. And it's not an easy conversation to give. But I think those of us that go into leadership, we usually want to be better leaders and we want to know if we're doing something that's detrimental to the building of our successful teams. So if you don't offer them that feedback, you're not even giving them an opportunity to rise to the occasion. So you can't just give that feedback straight up to be like, hey, you, you are ruining your team and you suck. And that's probably not gonna be very helpful. No. So what do we wanna do? speaker-0: think one statement you could do is be empathetic because their intent was empathy most of the time. Unless they had some of those background things. But it's start there. Start with that little bit of empathy and ask them, Hey, when you said that, what what were you thinking? speaker-1: Or maybe you could say something like, I noticed you said that and I wanna tell you something because I realized I used to do that too, and I realized it was actually very detrimental to my growth and how I was showing up for my staff. So if you can relate to that experience and you can say, I've been there, man, and I know what it's like and tell trust me, I know you didn't mean it to come out that way. I get it, but I don't think that other people heard it that way. Yeah. speaker-0: Identify any current barriers that are creating any finger pointing. Because sometimes that might be part of like so what I mean by that is like the the your peer is saying that, but you want to be careful in how you give that feedback. So there's no like, well, I heard you, kind of how you said initially. Yeah. Like, well, you did this thing and you are bad. Yes. Like creating shame when giving your peer feedback is not not exactly what you want. speaker-1: Yes, you want to come out with kindness. And I think another thing that's really important is whenever I'm giving feedback to somebody, whether it's a peer or a staff member or an employee, I try to give them a tangible thing to focus on. You know, so I have some really black and white employees, and sometimes I have to show them, this is what you said. When I read that, I interpreted it as this, and here's why. I think instead you could say something like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and give them an alternative. So, you know, don't just give the feedback of you did it wrong, but give them a solution. That is going to go much further than if you just say, You did it wrong and you suck and you should probably stop being a leader 'cause you're failing. It's not gonna go very speaker-0: Another thing you could do in the moment is maybe just redirect. Yes. Just, you know, like, ⁓ I wonder if we maybe need a new solution, you know, with our current barriers or whatever. Like so when they're in the room, you guys are discussing something and they say something like, Well, when I was a nurse, this is what we did, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, well. Let's talk about what our current barriers are and maybe like just redirect, reshift the focus. And then you can give that feedback later if you're able to. If it's not somebody that maybe you have a close relationship and maybe you can't, find someone that you know and just maybe point it out and see if they're willing to, if they noticed it as well and utilize the people in the room to help that information get back to them. speaker-1: So the next time that you feel inclined to say, When I was a bedside nurse, we did it like blah, blah, blah. Maybe try saying something like, Tell me what's making this hard for you. Why are you having this challenge? What's changed that we need to consider? What's different about your experience from my experience? What do you need from me as your leader? My understanding is, you know, when I you could say something like, You know, I I was a bedside nurse. I know it was a long time ago. This was my experience. What am I missing? What's different now? Please help me fill in that gap. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a really good one you can use even in the boardrooms because maybe somebody else in the room has been at the bedside more recently and they might have that information or they work directly with the frontline and they might have more information. So that's a really good one to be like when I my understanding or back when I was, but I feel like things might be different and I'm not gathering the whole story. What is that story? What does this look like? Mm-hmm. speaker-1: So connection is not built by proving that you've been there. That's the take home. It's built by showing up for where people are right now. You need to make sure that you can relate to them in this moment. And if we can shift from comparing to being curious, we don't just become better leaders. We become leaders that people actually trust. And when you have high trust, we're gonna be talking about this probably in every single video. High trust means you are gonna be more efficient. You're gonna get more done and you're gonna have a better quality of life so that you don't burn out because you need to be able to keep in the game because your staff needs you. So just Yes. So thanks for listening to our discussion about ⁓ when I was a nurse, why you shouldn't do that, and some alternates about what you can do in the future. speaker-0: The truth. Don't make the same mistakes we did, because I said this before. So like and subscribe, hit follow. Come, come, stay tuned. We're gonna keep doing that.