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Episode 35: How to be a “people whisperer”

October 15, 2020

Episode 35: How to be a “people whisperer”

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October 15, 2020

Episode 35: How to be a “people whisperer”

October 15, 2020

Dan:
Sean, welcome.

Sean:
Thanks, Dan. Great to be with you today, and great to just talk about leadership and impacting nurses.

Dan:
It's been top of mind for people across the country, I think, and even more so like how do you lead through crisis and a lot of those things. So we'll dive into that a little bit more, but what have you been up to lately in this crisis? I'm sure you're getting calls left and right for people to get some support in their leadership journey.

Sean:
We have, and it's really changed the dynamics of what we do. With our leadership and executive coaching, we're always working with our clients on building their leadership toolbox and helping them hone their skills and how they can use their existing tools even more effectively. But what we've seen with COVID and then going into the racial issues and the inequity issues around the country, we found leaders are really stressed with the human side of it. Right? It's not just about leading anymore, leading their unit, leading their teams. Their teams are struggling. Their teams are struggling emotionally. They're struggling with their mental health, and leaders are trying to support them.

Sean:
So we found with our sessions, our sessions have really morphed into this whole aspect of, how do you truly understand people? How do you understand what motivates them? How do you pull them out of the difficulties of life so that they can continue to execute on the job? Because business still has to move forward, and especially with nursing. There's actually been a greater need for nurses because of COVID, and so nurses are not getting a break. Their pace is accelerated, so what do we do for them to build them up? It's been a huge part of our work, really, since March.

Dan:
I think it's such important work. What themes are you seeing related to leaders? What questions are they asking? Where do they really need help at the moment?

Sean:
It has kind of morphed. Initially, like back in March and April, especially with our nurses and the nurse leaders that we work with, it was those quick pivots. Right? They're converting different wards of their hospitals into wards for COVID. They're basically busting through bureaucracy and red tape to get stuff done because they had to. And so we're helping them navigate that, but then also helping them to see, what are those pieces of red tape, and what's that bureaucracy that you do not need to bring back in?

Sean:
That conversation is prevalent right now, because a lot of those COVID units are converting back into what their original purpose was. And so before where it took a hospital maybe two months to four months to make some big changes or to change how they were doing something, they realized with COVID, they could do it in days. And so how do they keep that agility in that nimbleness into what is going to become a new normal? So that's been a huge dominant theme. Of late, though, it's morphed to the fact of ... Obviously, the mental health issue and the burnout's been there for a while, but we're kind of getting into this kind of a stale phase of like, it's not gone away, we're coming into flu season, and people are just tired. They don't know what to do next, because don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Dan:
Yeah. Those are actually both two interesting areas to dive in. From the mental health side, what are some tips and tricks that leaders can do to keep their teams just well and even focused. I've experienced the same thing. It's kind of like, "Oh. It's going up. We got to ..." The adrenaline's there. Then, COVID's going back down, and you're like, "Yeah. Okay. We're going to be over it." And now, it's just kind of this steady state of daily infections aren't really changing, the care isn't really changing. It's just this weird kind of limbo. So what are you telling leaders to do during this time?

Sean:
Here's the interesting thing. We're telling them a couple different things. I'm going to share that with you, but here's the crazy thing. It really isn't about COVID and about the crisis. These are things that leaders need to do all the time, no matter what. It's just a little bit more vivid right now because of what's going on with this crisis. The first piece of it is this, is that, as a leader, as a nurse leader, as a leader in healthcare, number one is you have to lead yourself first. If you don't have the ability to stop and look at yourself and evaluate, "What am I thinking? What am I feeling? How am I really handling things today?" you're not going to be able to lead others. This is what I've found, is leaders need to know what refreshes them.

Sean:
So if you've gone hard for two to three weeks, what is it going to be? Is it going to be having a party on your back deck with some friends to relax and de-stress and refresh yourself? For some people, it's maybe going off alone and reading a good book or having a glass of wine, whatever it is. But as a leader, you have to know what refreshes you, and you have to have an accurate picture of where you are and be able to lead yourself through it. Because if you can't lead yourself, you can't lead others. So that's the first aspect of it, but then you do have to lead others. There's a lot of great definitions of leadership out there. I like the simple things, because I'm a simple person. I think the greatest one is leadership is influence and influences behavior. So are you behaving like a leader?

Sean:
Leadership is all about people. Right? It's not about our processes. It's not about what we do in our job as a nurse or as a leader. Leadership is about people, not processes, and so, do I actually know the people that I work with every day? I don't mean know all the intimate details of their life, but do I know what their normal pace of speech is like? Do I know how they normally like to go about things? Do I know some about their life and some about their family so that I know them well enough that if I see them at work someday and I can tell they're just not really on top of it that day, maybe it's mental health, maybe it's burnout, there's just something that's not right, I know them well enough to see when they're off?

Sean:
Because it's amazing how many leaders don't recognize the signs. Their employees are giving them, because they don't know their employees well enough to see that they're actually off. So leadership is about people. Get to know your people, tap into who they are, and then you can lead them more effectively. Leadership is influence, influences behavior.

Dan:
I love that. Yeah. One of my mentors called leadership 90% relationships and 10% process, and I think that rings true. It is. It really is looking for those cues, those artifacts of people's state and being tuned into it. I think we, sometimes, as leaders, focus too much on the outputs, the numbers or the final piece, instead of actually seeing how people are working through the process as they're getting to those outputs and the variations in it and noticing, even if there's bags under their eyes. Are you getting enough sleep? Can I tap into those things, and actually equipping leaders with tools to have those conversations with their teammates.

Sean:
Absolutely, and one of the greatest tools I've found for this, and I cannot tell you where it came from. It's probably been put out there by multiple authors and everything, but it's this acronym of HALT, H-A-L-T. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. HALT, and the phrase behind it is this, is that if you are two or more of those right now, you are not at your best place to work or lead effectively. When I think about COVID, how many of us are hungry because we're go, go, go? We're angry, because life isn't the way that it normally has been. We're lonely, because we've been cut off from everybody because of social distancing. And we're tired, because it seems like it's been going on. So a lot of us are experiencing all four of those, which means we're nowhere near our best self, and we're not doing things as effectively as possible.

Dan:
Yeah. That's a great point, and it ties in with one of the foundations of clinical education, too, which is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Each one of those is one of those things. If you don't have food and sleep and security, you're not going to be able to focus on the other things that are going on in your life, and so that's a great tip and something easy to use.

Dan:
As you talk to nurse leaders about that, do they resonate with that framework? It seems like ... I was talking to a nurse executive the other day, and she said, "I take care of my team. I use my nursing assessment skills, but instead of on patients, I'm using it on my team." I thought that was a really cool way to frame it, but I'd love to hear your experience with nurse leaders and how they start assessing their teams or maybe where the gaps are as nurse leaders, and they maybe forget that piece as they move up the ladder.

Sean:
Yeah. I like what you just said there about that other nurse leader. It's great that she's doing it in that context. Most of the people that we've run into so far that we're working with are not even doing it intentionally. Right? They're not focusing in on, where are my people, what's being done, because they've been caught up in the whirlwind. I mean, nursing is a whirlwind to begin with. With COVID, the pace of that has increased even more. Then, when you consider the idea of travel nurses where we don't actually really know them, per se, they're in there for a period of time, for 13 weeks, 26 weeks, we don't know them very well, how do we tap into this?

Sean:
So we've actually found ourselves trying to get them to stop and to look around and see what is going on with your nursing team, see what's going on around them and how are they responding to patients, because most of them aren't even doing it. That, to me, is like ... My biggest phrase about leadership is that leadership is intentional. You can't hope for something to happen. Nursing leaders right now can't say, "I hope COVID's done soon so we can get back to normalcy." It's not going to happen.

Sean:
We can't say, "I hope that might seem gets back on board. I hope that my team gets refreshed. I hope that their mental health increases. I hope I can bring you more nurses." Hope is not leadership. Yes. We do want to have hope for those things, but leadership is intentional. I am intentionally going in every single day to try to tap into my people, because that's leadership, to see, where are they today, what do they need from me today, how can I set them up for success today? If you're not intentional, you're not providing everything your team needs.

Dan:
Leadership is definitely intentional, and I think, when I talk to leaders, as well, they feel overwhelmed with that. They're like, "I already have these meetings, these huddles, these things, and now I got to add this other thing. I got to go find out about my colleagues' pets and kids." It becomes overwhelming at some point, especially with some of these nurse managers who have 150 employees under them. What are some tips for them to kind of integrate those conversations into their daily work, so it's not in addition to, it's just part of how they show up?

Sean:
Identify the people on your team that do that naturally and bring them in as influencers. So here's the crazy thing about it. Nurse leaders and all leaders need to realize that your leadership position is not because of your title or what your role is. Your leadership is because of your influence, and so these nurse leaders have got nurses on their teams that do know the people on the team. They do know what's going on. They are observing these things. If that's not your natural tendency, then tap into these other influencers to understand the people and ask them questions. You know?

Sean:
So if I'm the nurse leader, Dan, and you're on my team, and I see that in you, once a week, I'm going to be coming to you saying, "Hey, Dan. What are you seeing on the team? Is anybody stepping up? Is anybody really dragging, or do you have a concern for anybody?" I want to take your answers to heart and respond to it with those individuals. That's the crazy thing about this, is that everybody on your team can be a leader, because leadership is influence. Right? That means I can influence other people on my team. So if I know my people and I can tap into their gifts that has nothing to do with the profession or their great abilities in nursing, but their people skills, than I'll let everybody on my team begin to lead one another. That's where success comes from.

Dan:
Yeah. I love that, and that goes right into leveraging the network and not just relying on this formality or this hierarchy to connect with your team, or these formal huddles and meetings and things, but really tapping what Everett Rogers called the opinion leaders, the people that have the influence, the informal networks, that can see those things and see those patterns every day. That's a great point. You also talked about the idea that leaders are dealing with a lot of red tape, and because of the crisis, that red tape went away a little bit faster. They were able to break down some of those barriers that had been there a long time. One of the things that would be a travesty, I think, is if we went backwards to the way it was. So how are you coaching leaders to forget that red tape and kind of build upon the innovations they've were able to do quickly with crisis as the catalyst there and not end up going backwards?

Sean:
The first piece is to actually have a debrief meeting about it. I've been challenging them to do that like a month or two ago, and they've been doing it. Right? They sit down, and they're going back to March. They're like, "Okay. What did we do? What did we do to convert these units from their normal purposes into COVID units? How did we respond to this? What sorts of red tape did we not follow because we had to do these things?" So part of it's having that debrief meeting and saying, "What did we do? What should we, for lack of a better phrase, what should we not have done but had to?" and then, asking the followup question, "Out of this list of all the things that we did, which pieces of this do we not want to go back to? What part of the red tape, what part of the bureaucracy really does not serve a purpose for us and we don't want to go back to that?"

Sean:
Then, when you have that list of those things, of, "These were the things that were our bottlenecks and were slowing us down and preventing us from being innovative, but even more than that, being really effective with our patients," once we've identified those, how do we feed those up the chain? It may be to your assistant CNO, or to your CNO, and then ultimately even to the CNE, because the health system needs to understand these barriers were broken down, but are they really necessary barriers? So have the meeting and know what they are. Process what all that was, and then push it up the chain.

Dan:
That goes back to that being intentional about it. A lot of the responses have been in a reactive mode, because we're leading into the unknown, and we don't have all the data. And so we're having to kind of process in real time and make these realtime decisions, but then, I think the act of leadership then is, "That's fine. You can fight the fires. Were in a fire, but now how do you take it and see those pieces and actually redesign the system based on the inputs that you had during that time?" I think that's a really nuanced skill, because it feels good to fight fires as a leader. You get that adrenaline. You're excited that you solved that problem, but long-term, that's not sustainable for you or your team. And so it really is zooming out back to that system view, I think, and then changing the system so that next time, you're evolving forward rather than just reacting again.

Sean:
Absolutely. Absolutely, and the interesting thing about COVID is nurses and nurse leaders have been hit in a major way, obviously, because it was a health crisis. But this is impacting every single industry out there, and there are other industries that have had to make pivots and break down their own bureaucracy. And so what I also like about the situation right now is nurses and physicians and health systems are in the spotlight because of the fact that it's a healthcare crisis. I think this is an opportunity right now for those same nurse leaders in health systems to actually influence the culture of business and talk to businesses about how they're able to navigate this and get the job done in a crisis.

Dan:
Yeah. Well, and it's also opened up a lot of interesting leadership roles, at least from the Trusted Health standpoint. We've seen nurses going to movie sets now and actually not just taking COVID swabs and that kind of thing, but actually working with producers to set up new practices for those shows and movies to start refilming. It's just interesting, and I don't think that would ever have been done before from a safety perspective.

Sean:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). No.

Dan:
They have EMS on there, but actually having kind of nursing leadership or physician leadership in different areas of the world to stay safe, and I think that that's because we've highlighted the work of both nurses, which is usually misunderstood, it's been misunderstood for a long time, and the work of the other healthcare professionals. It's just in the limelight, and so how can we use that knowledge and that expertise in other areas of the world? I hope it leads to some really cool innovations related to them.

Sean:
That's a great story. I had not heard about that or thought about that with the movie sets and such, but what a way for healthcare leaders impact our culture way beyond the hospital.

Dan:
Well, and then, also, that puts a nurse in a very interesting leadership position, too. You're working on a movie set, potentially, with producers who probably haven't interacted with nurses in a professional manner at work before. And so what are those skills that those nurses need now in order to influence people that have been doing it one way for a long time and now have to kind of change all their practices? It's kind of a cool place to be.

Sean:
It really is, and it is about leadership again. Right? I know I'm sounding like a record already, but it's about influence. And so yes, these nurses have these expertise, and they can go in and make recommendations to a movie studio or television sets of these producers. But it's still about people. Right? So why are we doing this? We're doing this to protect our people and helping them understand why it needs to happen and the benefit of it happening. The great thing about leadership and influence, your role is irrelevant. Right? So you could be the lowest person on the totem pole without any leadership responsibilities, formally, or you could be the president and CEO. The role's irrelevant. You can influence other people and lead in a powerful way.

Sean:
And so when you're going into new realms, such as totally changing sectors into a movie set, or maybe in athletics and things like that, trying to set up safety protocols, number one, realize that they called you there. They want to hear from you. So speak up. Don't go in shy. Don't go in thinking, "I don't belong here. I have this imposter syndrome." They've called you in there because they see something from you, so speak up about it. But here's one of the great things about leadership where I think every leader struggles, and here's what it is. Then, this story brings this out. Whatever you are gifted in seems like of little value to you, because you're gifted in it. You understand it. It makes sense to you. So nursing in this sense. Right?

Sean:
We think, "What I have to share isn't going to have an impact on a movie producer. It's not going to have an impact on a professional sports team owner." Well, here's the thing. It will, because they don't know those things. Just because you're gifted in it and have expertise in it doesn't mean that it has little value. It's quite the opposite. It has incredible value, because 95% of the culture does not know what you know. So speak up, and speak up about the basics. Let people know why we do what we do. Then, you're going to influence them. They're going to follow, and great things are going to happen.

Dan:
Yeah. That's great advice for nurses. I think sometimes nurses tend to take the back seat in situations where there's other leaders involved, and we definitely have an expertise and a confidence to make recommendations, to bring a whole new viewpoint to the situation. You're right. We were called to that area, and so let's step up and lead how we can. One of the things that you've talked about in the past is how to be a people whisperer, which I love. I was a big fan of the dog whisperer when I had my dogs, but would love to hear how you define what a people whisperer is and maybe some tips leaders can take on to become one.

Sean:
Yeah. I wrote about this in my book, and really, yes, it goes back to Cesar, the Dog Whisperer. Right? So you already hit on that piece of it, but my wife calls me the people whisperer. That's why I tagged this phrase, because she was giving reference to Cesar, the Dog Whisperer. Then, she said I'm the people whisperer. Really, all that was referring to is the fact that we can ask great questions of people to really tap into who they are rapidly. Here's the great thing about this. This isn't from an arrogant basis. People want to talk about themselves. Okay? They want to be asked questions. They want people to know them. We could look at a TV show like Undercover Boss.

Sean:
I'm sure a lot of your listeners have seen Undercover Boss before, where a CEO goes undercover, puts on a disguise, goes into different stores for their organization, and they meet employees. In every single episode, when they go to meet an employee, they'll pull that employee aside during a lunch break or something like that and start asking them questions. They'll find out that, "Hey. I never had anything. I didn't get to go to college," or, "My parents have been sick, and my dad died a year ago," or whatever the case is. But they get these intimate details about this employee's life, and it's like a first conversation. Right?

Sean:
Well, why does that happen? Because when people take the time to ask us questions about us, we, as people, naturally are built up for relationships, and we are willing to share those things. So being the people whisperer's asking the question. Every time we start a coaching engagement, we have our big coaching launch, and the second hour of this three hour launch is what we call the personal deep dive, which is how to be that people whisperer. Right? We'll ask them, "Tell us your life story. Go back to where you were born. Tell me about mom and dad, your siblings, what you did in school." They walk us through their whole life in an hour.

Sean:
Now, you don't need to go that deep with everybody. Okay? But here's some interesting dynamics about that personal deep dive hour. Over 90% of our clients cry during that hour. Okay? Not because we've done anything unique, but because no one's asked them their story and they tap into things that are real and meaningful for them. Now, most leaders don't have time to go an hour with every single one of their employees. That's fine. Just start having the conversations. "Why'd you choose to get into nursing? Why'd you choose to go to that nursing school? What's been your biggest win so far as a nurse? What's been your biggest challenge as a nurse?" and even just questions like, "Tell me about your family."

Sean:
People want to talk about themselves and be known, and so if you showed genuine interest in them and ask those human perspective questions, you'll be that people whisperer and tap into them. One of the huge benefits that comes out of that is, like we talked about earlier, you'll know them well enough to know if they're off on a day or if there's a mental health issue. But even more than that, because you know them and they feel like they know you, they're going to buy into your influence and leadership even faster. There'll be those early adopters that help drive change in your organization.

Dan:
Do you find that leaders that tap into that aspect of the human condition, the relationship, the personal details of some of their team members, have better retention?

Sean:
They do, absolutely, better retention, because I'm sure you've heard this phrase before in various shapes and forms, but people quit bosses. They do not quit companies. Or, to make it personalized for your audience, nurses do not quit hospitals. They quit nursing leaders. Right? And so if we're quitting because of our leader, not because of our organization, the inverse is true, too. If my leader knows me, and I know my leader, and I'm willing to go to the wall for that leader, because I know they're willing to do that for me, I'm sticking around. Retention increases dramatically, but it's not only just about retention. What we find with the leaders that we coach is they get promoted quickly, which means they have to backfill. Well, who are they backfilling with? They're backfilling with those people that they've invested in who have also grown to begin to influence the organization themselves. So it's not just retention, but it's actually upward mobility as a result of it.

Dan:
That resonates really well with me, and I've definitely been in that position of leaving a manager and not an organization. I think we, and we wrote about this in the book we wrote about innovation leadership. There's this idea of a toxic leader, which is one that is ... It's all about them. It's all about control and kind of decreasing the energy of the team so that they can be the shining star. I think what you described is the exact opposite of, helping an organization thrive, helping a team actually evolve and grow.

Dan:
So as the leader moves on, they've set up the foundations for the rest of that team to continue to grow and not feel a void in that space, but to actually step up and fill it. I think there's a lot there of just thinking about organizations as these living systems, and the leader is there to cultivate that. You kind of mentioned it, but the leader's role is really to make their job obsolete, to bring the team together so that the leader doesn't need to be there anymore. When that happens, the leader can move on, and the team can step up to that next, the next level of performance. So I love all those tips.

Sean:
Absolutely, and I love the stuff that you've done about toxic leadership. I've heard you as a guest on some other podcasts talking about that. So you are much the guru on that side of it compared to me, but here's the interesting thing. We do have those toxic leaders, and they have personal issues that need to be dealt with. The organizations need to deal with them firsthand. But there's a level below the toxic leader where it's not really about them. Okay? So they're not like that toxic person. They just don't know what to do to get out of their own way. But part of what the problem is is this, is that as we move up through our career, we move up because we get noticed for doing a good job.

Sean:
I'm emphasizing the word doing there really quick. Right? I do a very, very good job as a nurse. I have great bedside manner. I get things done. I'm filling out my charts. I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do, which means I get noticed and I move up. Okay? Well, now that I've moved up to a manager position or something like that, I still think that I have to keep doing those things, but there was a huge change with my promotion. My scorecard changed. My scorecard as an individual contributor was, did I do all these 15 things accurately, on time, and get it done successfully? But now that I'm a manager, those 15 things aren't on my scorecard anymore.

Sean:
Now it is, does my team of seven or eight or 10, are they doing those 15 things effectively? And so if my 15 people are doing the 15 things well, I look good as a leader. The problem is I don't realize the scorecard changed. So I'm still trying to do everything, and so it's this total mind shift, this change of I, now, as a leader, have to invest in my people so that they can do those things. I no longer do them. I invest in the people.

Dan:
Yeah, and I think that's really the story of many nurse leaders, at least in their initial kind of step into the leadership realm, which is, "I was a great nurse, and now I'm tapped to be the charge nurse, or the nurse manager, or assistant manager." But being a great nurse isn't the same as being a great leader, like you said, and so what are some ways that a new leader who's stepping into that role or contemplating that role can assess themselves and actually shift their perspective from, "Now, I got to be a great nurse manager. I'm going to go help these nurses, and I'm going to really relate to ... Now, I got to influence these people differently. I have a whole different scorecard," like you said? What's the best way to transition there?

Sean:
One of the first things you've got to do is you have to sit down with your new boss and even your boss's boss. I call the boss your one, and your boss's boss is your one over one. You have to sit down with them when you get that new position and really identify and lay out, "What are the expectations of me? How am I going to beat you evaluated as a nurse leader," right, charge nurse, whatever the case is. They should be able to articulate those things, and so once those are articulated, then I have to make that transference back to, how do I get this done through my people? Then, it's tapping into them, and so a lot of what we've talked about today applies as the answer to the question you just asked. I am that new leader, and especially because oftentimes, I've moved from a peer to a boss. Right? Because I was in that unit, working with those nurses. Now, I'm supposed to lead them. How do I do that?

Sean:
Realize and let them know it's not about you, as the leader, it's about them, and that you're there to invest in them. Be the people whisperer. Get to know them on a different level. Help them understand the expectations so that you can lead the entire team to meet the organization's expectations. So it still goes back to people and having those conversations, and by the way, vicariously through that, that first conversation with your one or your one over one, we're also teaching you how to lead up.

Dan:
Yep. It's an influence in all directions. It's not just your team. You have to be able to manage up for sure and influence the decision making there, and you have a viewpoint as a leader to provide a lot of insight for someone as ... Especially as they get higher up to system-level leadership, they can't see all the detail, and so how do you create and craft the message to influence those decisions is a key skill, I think.

Sean:
Absolutely.

Dan:
Sean, one of the things we like to do at the end is hand off a piece of information to our listeners, a nugget that allows them to take something into tomorrow and change the way they practice leadership. What would you like to hand off to our listeners?

Sean:
I think my handoff would be this. All of you nurses and nurse leaders, be intentional. You're only going to get where you want to go by being intentional, and the intentionality comes by tapping into the people. Leadership's about people and people only. It's not about your processes. So be intentional, get to know your people, invest in your people, lead your people, and great things are going to happen.

Dan:
What a great way to wrap this up. Sean, where can leaders find you? What's your consulting website, and where do you live online?

Sean:
Sure. The company that I work with is called Renogize Professional Coaching, and you can catch us at renogize.com. That is R-E-N-O-G-I-Z-E, .com, and the company has a LinkedIn page. We have a Facebook page. My personal LinkedIn is where I do a lot of my own personal traffic of things. We also have a company YouTube channel to do a vlog. So there's a lot of ways out there, but we'd love to talk to you and see how we can invest in you and invest in your healthcare system to help you go to the next level.

Dan:
Love it. Go check out Sean and Renogize, and Sean, just really appreciate you being on the show today. Thanks for all the tips and tricks, and we'll put all those links in the show notes.

Sean:
Great. Thank you, Dan. Great to be with you, and all you nurse leaders, keep leading well.

Description

Our guest for this episode believes that skilled leadership is, first and foremost, about being what he calls a “people whisperer.” Sean Olson is an executive coach with more than 20 years of experience helping individuals and teams reach their full potential. In his role, he has worked with dozens of healthcare and nurse leaders. 

Sean is a firm believer that being a nurse leader is about people, not processes and that knowing and being connected to one’s team is the single most important part of the job. 

Sean and Dan talk about how to cultivate those relationships, particularly when you manage a large team and can’t stay tapped into every single individual. Sean also talks about how he’s coaching clients who have seen their rate of innovation speed up as a result of COVID-19, and want to keep that pace even after the pandemic subsides.  


Links to recommended reading: 

Transcript

Dan:
Sean, welcome.

Sean:
Thanks, Dan. Great to be with you today, and great to just talk about leadership and impacting nurses.

Dan:
It's been top of mind for people across the country, I think, and even more so like how do you lead through crisis and a lot of those things. So we'll dive into that a little bit more, but what have you been up to lately in this crisis? I'm sure you're getting calls left and right for people to get some support in their leadership journey.

Sean:
We have, and it's really changed the dynamics of what we do. With our leadership and executive coaching, we're always working with our clients on building their leadership toolbox and helping them hone their skills and how they can use their existing tools even more effectively. But what we've seen with COVID and then going into the racial issues and the inequity issues around the country, we found leaders are really stressed with the human side of it. Right? It's not just about leading anymore, leading their unit, leading their teams. Their teams are struggling. Their teams are struggling emotionally. They're struggling with their mental health, and leaders are trying to support them.

Sean:
So we found with our sessions, our sessions have really morphed into this whole aspect of, how do you truly understand people? How do you understand what motivates them? How do you pull them out of the difficulties of life so that they can continue to execute on the job? Because business still has to move forward, and especially with nursing. There's actually been a greater need for nurses because of COVID, and so nurses are not getting a break. Their pace is accelerated, so what do we do for them to build them up? It's been a huge part of our work, really, since March.

Dan:
I think it's such important work. What themes are you seeing related to leaders? What questions are they asking? Where do they really need help at the moment?

Sean:
It has kind of morphed. Initially, like back in March and April, especially with our nurses and the nurse leaders that we work with, it was those quick pivots. Right? They're converting different wards of their hospitals into wards for COVID. They're basically busting through bureaucracy and red tape to get stuff done because they had to. And so we're helping them navigate that, but then also helping them to see, what are those pieces of red tape, and what's that bureaucracy that you do not need to bring back in?

Sean:
That conversation is prevalent right now, because a lot of those COVID units are converting back into what their original purpose was. And so before where it took a hospital maybe two months to four months to make some big changes or to change how they were doing something, they realized with COVID, they could do it in days. And so how do they keep that agility in that nimbleness into what is going to become a new normal? So that's been a huge dominant theme. Of late, though, it's morphed to the fact of ... Obviously, the mental health issue and the burnout's been there for a while, but we're kind of getting into this kind of a stale phase of like, it's not gone away, we're coming into flu season, and people are just tired. They don't know what to do next, because don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Dan:
Yeah. Those are actually both two interesting areas to dive in. From the mental health side, what are some tips and tricks that leaders can do to keep their teams just well and even focused. I've experienced the same thing. It's kind of like, "Oh. It's going up. We got to ..." The adrenaline's there. Then, COVID's going back down, and you're like, "Yeah. Okay. We're going to be over it." And now, it's just kind of this steady state of daily infections aren't really changing, the care isn't really changing. It's just this weird kind of limbo. So what are you telling leaders to do during this time?

Sean:
Here's the interesting thing. We're telling them a couple different things. I'm going to share that with you, but here's the crazy thing. It really isn't about COVID and about the crisis. These are things that leaders need to do all the time, no matter what. It's just a little bit more vivid right now because of what's going on with this crisis. The first piece of it is this, is that, as a leader, as a nurse leader, as a leader in healthcare, number one is you have to lead yourself first. If you don't have the ability to stop and look at yourself and evaluate, "What am I thinking? What am I feeling? How am I really handling things today?" you're not going to be able to lead others. This is what I've found, is leaders need to know what refreshes them.

Sean:
So if you've gone hard for two to three weeks, what is it going to be? Is it going to be having a party on your back deck with some friends to relax and de-stress and refresh yourself? For some people, it's maybe going off alone and reading a good book or having a glass of wine, whatever it is. But as a leader, you have to know what refreshes you, and you have to have an accurate picture of where you are and be able to lead yourself through it. Because if you can't lead yourself, you can't lead others. So that's the first aspect of it, but then you do have to lead others. There's a lot of great definitions of leadership out there. I like the simple things, because I'm a simple person. I think the greatest one is leadership is influence and influences behavior. So are you behaving like a leader?

Sean:
Leadership is all about people. Right? It's not about our processes. It's not about what we do in our job as a nurse or as a leader. Leadership is about people, not processes, and so, do I actually know the people that I work with every day? I don't mean know all the intimate details of their life, but do I know what their normal pace of speech is like? Do I know how they normally like to go about things? Do I know some about their life and some about their family so that I know them well enough that if I see them at work someday and I can tell they're just not really on top of it that day, maybe it's mental health, maybe it's burnout, there's just something that's not right, I know them well enough to see when they're off?

Sean:
Because it's amazing how many leaders don't recognize the signs. Their employees are giving them, because they don't know their employees well enough to see that they're actually off. So leadership is about people. Get to know your people, tap into who they are, and then you can lead them more effectively. Leadership is influence, influences behavior.

Dan:
I love that. Yeah. One of my mentors called leadership 90% relationships and 10% process, and I think that rings true. It is. It really is looking for those cues, those artifacts of people's state and being tuned into it. I think we, sometimes, as leaders, focus too much on the outputs, the numbers or the final piece, instead of actually seeing how people are working through the process as they're getting to those outputs and the variations in it and noticing, even if there's bags under their eyes. Are you getting enough sleep? Can I tap into those things, and actually equipping leaders with tools to have those conversations with their teammates.

Sean:
Absolutely, and one of the greatest tools I've found for this, and I cannot tell you where it came from. It's probably been put out there by multiple authors and everything, but it's this acronym of HALT, H-A-L-T. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. HALT, and the phrase behind it is this, is that if you are two or more of those right now, you are not at your best place to work or lead effectively. When I think about COVID, how many of us are hungry because we're go, go, go? We're angry, because life isn't the way that it normally has been. We're lonely, because we've been cut off from everybody because of social distancing. And we're tired, because it seems like it's been going on. So a lot of us are experiencing all four of those, which means we're nowhere near our best self, and we're not doing things as effectively as possible.

Dan:
Yeah. That's a great point, and it ties in with one of the foundations of clinical education, too, which is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Each one of those is one of those things. If you don't have food and sleep and security, you're not going to be able to focus on the other things that are going on in your life, and so that's a great tip and something easy to use.

Dan:
As you talk to nurse leaders about that, do they resonate with that framework? It seems like ... I was talking to a nurse executive the other day, and she said, "I take care of my team. I use my nursing assessment skills, but instead of on patients, I'm using it on my team." I thought that was a really cool way to frame it, but I'd love to hear your experience with nurse leaders and how they start assessing their teams or maybe where the gaps are as nurse leaders, and they maybe forget that piece as they move up the ladder.

Sean:
Yeah. I like what you just said there about that other nurse leader. It's great that she's doing it in that context. Most of the people that we've run into so far that we're working with are not even doing it intentionally. Right? They're not focusing in on, where are my people, what's being done, because they've been caught up in the whirlwind. I mean, nursing is a whirlwind to begin with. With COVID, the pace of that has increased even more. Then, when you consider the idea of travel nurses where we don't actually really know them, per se, they're in there for a period of time, for 13 weeks, 26 weeks, we don't know them very well, how do we tap into this?

Sean:
So we've actually found ourselves trying to get them to stop and to look around and see what is going on with your nursing team, see what's going on around them and how are they responding to patients, because most of them aren't even doing it. That, to me, is like ... My biggest phrase about leadership is that leadership is intentional. You can't hope for something to happen. Nursing leaders right now can't say, "I hope COVID's done soon so we can get back to normalcy." It's not going to happen.

Sean:
We can't say, "I hope that might seem gets back on board. I hope that my team gets refreshed. I hope that their mental health increases. I hope I can bring you more nurses." Hope is not leadership. Yes. We do want to have hope for those things, but leadership is intentional. I am intentionally going in every single day to try to tap into my people, because that's leadership, to see, where are they today, what do they need from me today, how can I set them up for success today? If you're not intentional, you're not providing everything your team needs.

Dan:
Leadership is definitely intentional, and I think, when I talk to leaders, as well, they feel overwhelmed with that. They're like, "I already have these meetings, these huddles, these things, and now I got to add this other thing. I got to go find out about my colleagues' pets and kids." It becomes overwhelming at some point, especially with some of these nurse managers who have 150 employees under them. What are some tips for them to kind of integrate those conversations into their daily work, so it's not in addition to, it's just part of how they show up?

Sean:
Identify the people on your team that do that naturally and bring them in as influencers. So here's the crazy thing about it. Nurse leaders and all leaders need to realize that your leadership position is not because of your title or what your role is. Your leadership is because of your influence, and so these nurse leaders have got nurses on their teams that do know the people on the team. They do know what's going on. They are observing these things. If that's not your natural tendency, then tap into these other influencers to understand the people and ask them questions. You know?

Sean:
So if I'm the nurse leader, Dan, and you're on my team, and I see that in you, once a week, I'm going to be coming to you saying, "Hey, Dan. What are you seeing on the team? Is anybody stepping up? Is anybody really dragging, or do you have a concern for anybody?" I want to take your answers to heart and respond to it with those individuals. That's the crazy thing about this, is that everybody on your team can be a leader, because leadership is influence. Right? That means I can influence other people on my team. So if I know my people and I can tap into their gifts that has nothing to do with the profession or their great abilities in nursing, but their people skills, than I'll let everybody on my team begin to lead one another. That's where success comes from.

Dan:
Yeah. I love that, and that goes right into leveraging the network and not just relying on this formality or this hierarchy to connect with your team, or these formal huddles and meetings and things, but really tapping what Everett Rogers called the opinion leaders, the people that have the influence, the informal networks, that can see those things and see those patterns every day. That's a great point. You also talked about the idea that leaders are dealing with a lot of red tape, and because of the crisis, that red tape went away a little bit faster. They were able to break down some of those barriers that had been there a long time. One of the things that would be a travesty, I think, is if we went backwards to the way it was. So how are you coaching leaders to forget that red tape and kind of build upon the innovations they've were able to do quickly with crisis as the catalyst there and not end up going backwards?

Sean:
The first piece is to actually have a debrief meeting about it. I've been challenging them to do that like a month or two ago, and they've been doing it. Right? They sit down, and they're going back to March. They're like, "Okay. What did we do? What did we do to convert these units from their normal purposes into COVID units? How did we respond to this? What sorts of red tape did we not follow because we had to do these things?" So part of it's having that debrief meeting and saying, "What did we do? What should we, for lack of a better phrase, what should we not have done but had to?" and then, asking the followup question, "Out of this list of all the things that we did, which pieces of this do we not want to go back to? What part of the red tape, what part of the bureaucracy really does not serve a purpose for us and we don't want to go back to that?"

Sean:
Then, when you have that list of those things, of, "These were the things that were our bottlenecks and were slowing us down and preventing us from being innovative, but even more than that, being really effective with our patients," once we've identified those, how do we feed those up the chain? It may be to your assistant CNO, or to your CNO, and then ultimately even to the CNE, because the health system needs to understand these barriers were broken down, but are they really necessary barriers? So have the meeting and know what they are. Process what all that was, and then push it up the chain.

Dan:
That goes back to that being intentional about it. A lot of the responses have been in a reactive mode, because we're leading into the unknown, and we don't have all the data. And so we're having to kind of process in real time and make these realtime decisions, but then, I think the act of leadership then is, "That's fine. You can fight the fires. Were in a fire, but now how do you take it and see those pieces and actually redesign the system based on the inputs that you had during that time?" I think that's a really nuanced skill, because it feels good to fight fires as a leader. You get that adrenaline. You're excited that you solved that problem, but long-term, that's not sustainable for you or your team. And so it really is zooming out back to that system view, I think, and then changing the system so that next time, you're evolving forward rather than just reacting again.

Sean:
Absolutely. Absolutely, and the interesting thing about COVID is nurses and nurse leaders have been hit in a major way, obviously, because it was a health crisis. But this is impacting every single industry out there, and there are other industries that have had to make pivots and break down their own bureaucracy. And so what I also like about the situation right now is nurses and physicians and health systems are in the spotlight because of the fact that it's a healthcare crisis. I think this is an opportunity right now for those same nurse leaders in health systems to actually influence the culture of business and talk to businesses about how they're able to navigate this and get the job done in a crisis.

Dan:
Yeah. Well, and it's also opened up a lot of interesting leadership roles, at least from the Trusted Health standpoint. We've seen nurses going to movie sets now and actually not just taking COVID swabs and that kind of thing, but actually working with producers to set up new practices for those shows and movies to start refilming. It's just interesting, and I don't think that would ever have been done before from a safety perspective.

Sean:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). No.

Dan:
They have EMS on there, but actually having kind of nursing leadership or physician leadership in different areas of the world to stay safe, and I think that that's because we've highlighted the work of both nurses, which is usually misunderstood, it's been misunderstood for a long time, and the work of the other healthcare professionals. It's just in the limelight, and so how can we use that knowledge and that expertise in other areas of the world? I hope it leads to some really cool innovations related to them.

Sean:
That's a great story. I had not heard about that or thought about that with the movie sets and such, but what a way for healthcare leaders impact our culture way beyond the hospital.

Dan:
Well, and then, also, that puts a nurse in a very interesting leadership position, too. You're working on a movie set, potentially, with producers who probably haven't interacted with nurses in a professional manner at work before. And so what are those skills that those nurses need now in order to influence people that have been doing it one way for a long time and now have to kind of change all their practices? It's kind of a cool place to be.

Sean:
It really is, and it is about leadership again. Right? I know I'm sounding like a record already, but it's about influence. And so yes, these nurses have these expertise, and they can go in and make recommendations to a movie studio or television sets of these producers. But it's still about people. Right? So why are we doing this? We're doing this to protect our people and helping them understand why it needs to happen and the benefit of it happening. The great thing about leadership and influence, your role is irrelevant. Right? So you could be the lowest person on the totem pole without any leadership responsibilities, formally, or you could be the president and CEO. The role's irrelevant. You can influence other people and lead in a powerful way.

Sean:
And so when you're going into new realms, such as totally changing sectors into a movie set, or maybe in athletics and things like that, trying to set up safety protocols, number one, realize that they called you there. They want to hear from you. So speak up. Don't go in shy. Don't go in thinking, "I don't belong here. I have this imposter syndrome." They've called you in there because they see something from you, so speak up about it. But here's one of the great things about leadership where I think every leader struggles, and here's what it is. Then, this story brings this out. Whatever you are gifted in seems like of little value to you, because you're gifted in it. You understand it. It makes sense to you. So nursing in this sense. Right?

Sean:
We think, "What I have to share isn't going to have an impact on a movie producer. It's not going to have an impact on a professional sports team owner." Well, here's the thing. It will, because they don't know those things. Just because you're gifted in it and have expertise in it doesn't mean that it has little value. It's quite the opposite. It has incredible value, because 95% of the culture does not know what you know. So speak up, and speak up about the basics. Let people know why we do what we do. Then, you're going to influence them. They're going to follow, and great things are going to happen.

Dan:
Yeah. That's great advice for nurses. I think sometimes nurses tend to take the back seat in situations where there's other leaders involved, and we definitely have an expertise and a confidence to make recommendations, to bring a whole new viewpoint to the situation. You're right. We were called to that area, and so let's step up and lead how we can. One of the things that you've talked about in the past is how to be a people whisperer, which I love. I was a big fan of the dog whisperer when I had my dogs, but would love to hear how you define what a people whisperer is and maybe some tips leaders can take on to become one.

Sean:
Yeah. I wrote about this in my book, and really, yes, it goes back to Cesar, the Dog Whisperer. Right? So you already hit on that piece of it, but my wife calls me the people whisperer. That's why I tagged this phrase, because she was giving reference to Cesar, the Dog Whisperer. Then, she said I'm the people whisperer. Really, all that was referring to is the fact that we can ask great questions of people to really tap into who they are rapidly. Here's the great thing about this. This isn't from an arrogant basis. People want to talk about themselves. Okay? They want to be asked questions. They want people to know them. We could look at a TV show like Undercover Boss.

Sean:
I'm sure a lot of your listeners have seen Undercover Boss before, where a CEO goes undercover, puts on a disguise, goes into different stores for their organization, and they meet employees. In every single episode, when they go to meet an employee, they'll pull that employee aside during a lunch break or something like that and start asking them questions. They'll find out that, "Hey. I never had anything. I didn't get to go to college," or, "My parents have been sick, and my dad died a year ago," or whatever the case is. But they get these intimate details about this employee's life, and it's like a first conversation. Right?

Sean:
Well, why does that happen? Because when people take the time to ask us questions about us, we, as people, naturally are built up for relationships, and we are willing to share those things. So being the people whisperer's asking the question. Every time we start a coaching engagement, we have our big coaching launch, and the second hour of this three hour launch is what we call the personal deep dive, which is how to be that people whisperer. Right? We'll ask them, "Tell us your life story. Go back to where you were born. Tell me about mom and dad, your siblings, what you did in school." They walk us through their whole life in an hour.

Sean:
Now, you don't need to go that deep with everybody. Okay? But here's some interesting dynamics about that personal deep dive hour. Over 90% of our clients cry during that hour. Okay? Not because we've done anything unique, but because no one's asked them their story and they tap into things that are real and meaningful for them. Now, most leaders don't have time to go an hour with every single one of their employees. That's fine. Just start having the conversations. "Why'd you choose to get into nursing? Why'd you choose to go to that nursing school? What's been your biggest win so far as a nurse? What's been your biggest challenge as a nurse?" and even just questions like, "Tell me about your family."

Sean:
People want to talk about themselves and be known, and so if you showed genuine interest in them and ask those human perspective questions, you'll be that people whisperer and tap into them. One of the huge benefits that comes out of that is, like we talked about earlier, you'll know them well enough to know if they're off on a day or if there's a mental health issue. But even more than that, because you know them and they feel like they know you, they're going to buy into your influence and leadership even faster. There'll be those early adopters that help drive change in your organization.

Dan:
Do you find that leaders that tap into that aspect of the human condition, the relationship, the personal details of some of their team members, have better retention?

Sean:
They do, absolutely, better retention, because I'm sure you've heard this phrase before in various shapes and forms, but people quit bosses. They do not quit companies. Or, to make it personalized for your audience, nurses do not quit hospitals. They quit nursing leaders. Right? And so if we're quitting because of our leader, not because of our organization, the inverse is true, too. If my leader knows me, and I know my leader, and I'm willing to go to the wall for that leader, because I know they're willing to do that for me, I'm sticking around. Retention increases dramatically, but it's not only just about retention. What we find with the leaders that we coach is they get promoted quickly, which means they have to backfill. Well, who are they backfilling with? They're backfilling with those people that they've invested in who have also grown to begin to influence the organization themselves. So it's not just retention, but it's actually upward mobility as a result of it.

Dan:
That resonates really well with me, and I've definitely been in that position of leaving a manager and not an organization. I think we, and we wrote about this in the book we wrote about innovation leadership. There's this idea of a toxic leader, which is one that is ... It's all about them. It's all about control and kind of decreasing the energy of the team so that they can be the shining star. I think what you described is the exact opposite of, helping an organization thrive, helping a team actually evolve and grow.

Dan:
So as the leader moves on, they've set up the foundations for the rest of that team to continue to grow and not feel a void in that space, but to actually step up and fill it. I think there's a lot there of just thinking about organizations as these living systems, and the leader is there to cultivate that. You kind of mentioned it, but the leader's role is really to make their job obsolete, to bring the team together so that the leader doesn't need to be there anymore. When that happens, the leader can move on, and the team can step up to that next, the next level of performance. So I love all those tips.

Sean:
Absolutely, and I love the stuff that you've done about toxic leadership. I've heard you as a guest on some other podcasts talking about that. So you are much the guru on that side of it compared to me, but here's the interesting thing. We do have those toxic leaders, and they have personal issues that need to be dealt with. The organizations need to deal with them firsthand. But there's a level below the toxic leader where it's not really about them. Okay? So they're not like that toxic person. They just don't know what to do to get out of their own way. But part of what the problem is is this, is that as we move up through our career, we move up because we get noticed for doing a good job.

Sean:
I'm emphasizing the word doing there really quick. Right? I do a very, very good job as a nurse. I have great bedside manner. I get things done. I'm filling out my charts. I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do, which means I get noticed and I move up. Okay? Well, now that I've moved up to a manager position or something like that, I still think that I have to keep doing those things, but there was a huge change with my promotion. My scorecard changed. My scorecard as an individual contributor was, did I do all these 15 things accurately, on time, and get it done successfully? But now that I'm a manager, those 15 things aren't on my scorecard anymore.

Sean:
Now it is, does my team of seven or eight or 10, are they doing those 15 things effectively? And so if my 15 people are doing the 15 things well, I look good as a leader. The problem is I don't realize the scorecard changed. So I'm still trying to do everything, and so it's this total mind shift, this change of I, now, as a leader, have to invest in my people so that they can do those things. I no longer do them. I invest in the people.

Dan:
Yeah, and I think that's really the story of many nurse leaders, at least in their initial kind of step into the leadership realm, which is, "I was a great nurse, and now I'm tapped to be the charge nurse, or the nurse manager, or assistant manager." But being a great nurse isn't the same as being a great leader, like you said, and so what are some ways that a new leader who's stepping into that role or contemplating that role can assess themselves and actually shift their perspective from, "Now, I got to be a great nurse manager. I'm going to go help these nurses, and I'm going to really relate to ... Now, I got to influence these people differently. I have a whole different scorecard," like you said? What's the best way to transition there?

Sean:
One of the first things you've got to do is you have to sit down with your new boss and even your boss's boss. I call the boss your one, and your boss's boss is your one over one. You have to sit down with them when you get that new position and really identify and lay out, "What are the expectations of me? How am I going to beat you evaluated as a nurse leader," right, charge nurse, whatever the case is. They should be able to articulate those things, and so once those are articulated, then I have to make that transference back to, how do I get this done through my people? Then, it's tapping into them, and so a lot of what we've talked about today applies as the answer to the question you just asked. I am that new leader, and especially because oftentimes, I've moved from a peer to a boss. Right? Because I was in that unit, working with those nurses. Now, I'm supposed to lead them. How do I do that?

Sean:
Realize and let them know it's not about you, as the leader, it's about them, and that you're there to invest in them. Be the people whisperer. Get to know them on a different level. Help them understand the expectations so that you can lead the entire team to meet the organization's expectations. So it still goes back to people and having those conversations, and by the way, vicariously through that, that first conversation with your one or your one over one, we're also teaching you how to lead up.

Dan:
Yep. It's an influence in all directions. It's not just your team. You have to be able to manage up for sure and influence the decision making there, and you have a viewpoint as a leader to provide a lot of insight for someone as ... Especially as they get higher up to system-level leadership, they can't see all the detail, and so how do you create and craft the message to influence those decisions is a key skill, I think.

Sean:
Absolutely.

Dan:
Sean, one of the things we like to do at the end is hand off a piece of information to our listeners, a nugget that allows them to take something into tomorrow and change the way they practice leadership. What would you like to hand off to our listeners?

Sean:
I think my handoff would be this. All of you nurses and nurse leaders, be intentional. You're only going to get where you want to go by being intentional, and the intentionality comes by tapping into the people. Leadership's about people and people only. It's not about your processes. So be intentional, get to know your people, invest in your people, lead your people, and great things are going to happen.

Dan:
What a great way to wrap this up. Sean, where can leaders find you? What's your consulting website, and where do you live online?

Sean:
Sure. The company that I work with is called Renogize Professional Coaching, and you can catch us at renogize.com. That is R-E-N-O-G-I-Z-E, .com, and the company has a LinkedIn page. We have a Facebook page. My personal LinkedIn is where I do a lot of my own personal traffic of things. We also have a company YouTube channel to do a vlog. So there's a lot of ways out there, but we'd love to talk to you and see how we can invest in you and invest in your healthcare system to help you go to the next level.

Dan:
Love it. Go check out Sean and Renogize, and Sean, just really appreciate you being on the show today. Thanks for all the tips and tricks, and we'll put all those links in the show notes.

Sean:
Great. Thank you, Dan. Great to be with you, and all you nurse leaders, keep leading well.

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