How to Delegate Effectively as a Nurse Practitioner: Interview with a Leadership Coach
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Show notes:
When we’re nurse practitioner students, we’re so focused on the clinical aspects of our jobs that most of the time when we graduate, we’ve caught by surprise.
There’s an entirely new role we need to step into as well: delegating, supervising and managing staff members.
It’s especially tricky when you’re supervising someone, but you’re not technically their boss-- like medical assistants and nurses.
And it’s also difficult because as nurses, we’re so used to working as a team, pitching in, and it feels like we should just “do it ourselves” when it comes to delegating.
How to Delegate as a New NP
In this week’s video, I’m interviewing executive and leadership coach Jackie Kindall with the questions from the audience about delegation and managing team members as a new nurse practitioner.
We cover:
Why it’s actually a not helpful for us to “do it ourselves” and how delegation is actually helpful and important to do
The common pitfalls new nurse practitioners and leaders experience when it comes to delegation and supervision
How to effectively delegate and troubleshoot when things are not going well
If you liked this post, also check out:
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well hey there it's liz rohr from real world np you are watching np practice made simple
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the weekly videos to help save you time frustration and help you learn faster so you can take the best care of your
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patients in this week's video it's an interview a very special interview with a dear
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friend of mine jackie kindle she is a leadership and executive coach and
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she works with leaders in all sorts of spaces has over 25 years of experience
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and she's answering questions today that were submitted from the nps in the community to ask
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specifically about leadership questions related to becoming a nurse practitioner the main areas we focused
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on were about starting off as a nurse practitioner pearls pitfalls and guidance about
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delegation the other part was about supervising staff that are not your direct reports
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and how to effectively do that how to communicate clearly how to set expectations and how to give feedback
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especially when it's uncomfortable we also talked about the steps to take if things are not working well
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and the proactive things we can do to keep them running smoothly so i really hope you enjoy this
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interview i had so much fun and jackie is such a wealth of knowledge but yeah without further ado here is my
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interview with jackie awesome well welcome jackie um do you want to start by introducing yourself
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sure thank you for having me liz my name is jackie kendall and i am in fort lauderdale florida as
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of three months ago i do executive coaching i really i work with leaders
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emerging leaders people who are aspiring to be leaders all the way up to ceos helping them become more effective
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at leading every day i also do a lot of consulting diversity equity and inclusion
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consulting and all of these things together are really aimed to create
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a culture that is inclusive where everyone has an opportunity to be their best self so i'm happy to be
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here today with you talking about leadership which is my number one passion
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that's awesome oh my gosh jackie i'm so excited um there are so many things we could
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talk about i think the context of the main struggle that new nurse practitioners have i guess
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there's like we talked about before like there's three kind of like main main things that people struggle with so
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i think the context is that new nurse practitioners when they graduate potentially have worked as a nurse in
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the hospital before or not and so they might have some delegation experience but they might not
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and so it's like so much of our schooling is focused on the clinical aspects but then we in the real world
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we have to be managing people in a way that we didn't always expect or be prepared
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for um which includes a lot of delegation to like stepping outside of the role that is comfortable as a nurse
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and stepping into a new role of leadership which is very uncomfortable and can you and ownership over like the
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things that you need to delegate to other people to do your job effectively and i think the main thing that people do
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is hold on to jobs because they can just do it themselves uh and yeah let's talk about that
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so i think the person like i guess like from the con the question being like from the context of a new provider what
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are like the main what are the main pearls advice guidance you have for people stepping into that
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new leadership role in that context yeah so the first thing i want to say is you're not alone
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i mean i can tell you the over hundreds of leaders that i've worked with that is always an issue
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when you first become a leader after being an individual contributor someone that didn't manage people is
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delegation some people either don't delegate they hold on to those things because they're comfortable
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and they make them feel like oh i know how to do this so at least i'm going to be
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because you don't know how to lead when you first begin to leave you have these technical skills and you
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want to hold on to them i think it's it's like it's like that comfort blanket that's what i think yeah
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so i think you know we want to normalize the fact that um delegation is very difficult and
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there's that other piece where some of the things that you need to delegate you want to keep because they keep you
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sort of feeling like you're you're you're contributing um so
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one of the things that i want to say also is the most important thing about
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delegating is being really clear on the expectations so a lot of times what i see
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is there's assumptions so i'm giving this to you and the
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assumption is you know what to do and you know it's one thing you know what to do and therefore i'm
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not going to intervene um i hear a lot of a lot of new leaders saying i don't want to micromanage
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they know how to do it so i just give it to them and then when it starts to go downhill
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and what they're doing doesn't align with expectations then there's the oh it's not working um
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what do i do and a lot of times they'll say oh let me just take it back and do it myself
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not realizing that then you've signaled to the person that you delegated to that they've failed
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that creates a whole a host of other issues conflict um you know people being
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demoralized disempowerment and so we must be clear when we delegate like what are the
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expectations we have to over communicate we need to be sure that we're delegating to someone
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that has the capability of learning to do the thing that we're delegating right so i'm not going to delegate
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something and set someone up for failure if they've never done it that's fine
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delegation is a way to help people grow but you have to be there to support them as they learn so being
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clear about what it is being clear about how you're going to measure success so that's the other thing a lot
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of times we're not clear about what good looks like when we delegate
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because again we're assuming that they should know what good looks like oh my gosh yeah
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yeah right this is so resonant it's like ding ding ding and like for so
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many new nps i talked to you too like they like so resonant but yeah go ahead right
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i mean we were good at it so i think a lot of times we just sometimes we just really want that other
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person to be good at it too like we were and we assume that they are we give them the benefit of the doubt and for the person that you're
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delegating to if you've not been clear about what good looks like they're assuming and they don't want to
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come and tell you that they're stuck because then that says something about them i don't want to
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i want to make sure that they know that delegating this to me was a good thing um if it's something they wanted to
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learn how to do and so you you you know it's just this lack of communication and oftentimes what
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happens is the end result doesn't mean expectations and now you have to deal with giving
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performance feedback which is also something that new managers
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uh that i've worked with typically are really hesitant to do right because it feels
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feels punitive and you know just i don't i i don't want to have that conversation i
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don't like conflict and you know we could talk about that as well so i i think to sum up what i just said
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about delegation it's really important to be clear about expectations to be
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there with the person what i suggest for for uh leaders is to say we're gonna
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check in in two days right and i'm gonna check it and see what support you need um
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how it's going it's okay to say you're stuck or it's okay to come and
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ask me questions in between like just making it open and okay that
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if they're learning something new you're there and it's okay to ask questions creating that you know i think
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of it like a smart goal like you know creating those what are the measurements um you know when are we gonna check in
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what's the time what's the deadline what's the deadline because that's another one sometimes we don't
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tell people when we want it to be done yeah we'd make a lot of assumptions
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we make a lot of yeah and i love that i mean i think that it's like
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i've been doing i've been an np for about six years and then i was a nurse for six years five or six years before
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that and i still am learning this like i'm still not great at this and even just you saying that like
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making i'm much better now at communicating what i want but i'm not always clear about
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the success piece and that time piece like those are a lot of specifics that i think that we're assuming and we don't
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we don't think about and i think you're right like i think when i hear about it from nurse practitioners it's like
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this assumption of they're already good at it or they're micromanaging or i'll just do it myself because
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they're so used to coming from this team environment where it's like we all pitch in and it means that we're a team player
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when in fact like you giving something to somebody else and empowering them to do so
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is is a lot different and i and i love what you said about when you when you just do it yourself it
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communicates to them that they didn't do a good job it potentially communicates a lot of negative things to them
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and i think that we discount that sometimes when we're taking all things ourselves but like that is so
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core to a team to team formation right absolutely and i think the if we were to
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sum it down to one word it's communication yeah we have to be in frequent
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communication and we have to check in and we have to say how's it going we have to say you know what can i do to support you um
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you know how confident do you feel in doing this what you know what resources might you need
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there there just needs to be a lot of communication and and we have to manage ourselves as well so that
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we're not swooping in and taking over so there's you know there's this balance with you
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don't want to be a micro manager and every day come and check in because that drives people um but you also don't want to
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like drop it off and abandon them so setting those expectations
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in advance of when we're gonna check in and how so that when you do check in based on
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when you said you would the person's not assuming they don't trust me they're micromanaged
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here they come again here comes liz asking me again now we've already had you so nice right
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we've already created those expectations and you know the boundaries and
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you know if this happens come to me um you kind of baked it in at the very
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beginning and you're continuing to follow up so that's that's the best recipe that i know for
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effective delegation and like do you know doing it yeah and
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and um do you have a sense i think for me one of the things i struggle with is
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like that might i definitely struggle with that micro management piece and like i never want to
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and i i work on the way that i communicate such that it is always coming from a place of
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kindness and curiosity but i also worry about like i don't know like being condescending or something
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like over explaining something that's obvious to somebody um and being insulting and maybe that's just a me thing
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like do you have any is there a line for you is there like a rule of thumb when it comes to communication
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in terms of like how would you know if you're over communicating or is that not even a problem is it is it just fine to assume that like you
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have a lot more of a barrier with over communication than you think i i think that when it comes to
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delegating there's really no such thing as over communication i think that we can signal
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i'm going to explain it to you thoroughly um my intent in doing so is to make sure
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that i don't assume you know that you know how to do this i want to make sure that i'm really clear
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so i'm gonna you know i'm gonna go through the whole thing some of this you may already know which
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is great um you may have questions which is also great but i'm going to give you the whole detail
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and so just having that conversation up front so that you you then have been really clear about
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what your intent in your intent is and sharing all the stuff yeah all the details
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so they don't think well what you think i'm stupid no i'm just making sure we're really
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clear this is all about clarity and i know when this was delegated to me
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i would have appreciated having all these details and so that's really what it is um yeah and i think we got to get into
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the mindset of why it's important to delegate in the
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first place so i also see that people feel i don't want to i talked to a new leader
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about a month ago and she said i don't want to delegate because the things that i need to delegate
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aren't fun and i don't want them to think i'm just giving them the grunt work
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and um so i'm just doing it myself well what's the impact of you doing it
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yourself then you're not getting the strategic work done that you're being paid to do and you're
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expected to do and so how did you learn how to do the job you're in
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well those things were foundational okay so um don't rob your employees of the
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foundational things that will help them grow and that's what delegation is it's helping people grow
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and learn i love that i love that so much yeah it's so awesome but yeah i just
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love how like you're even just explicitly saying like i'm saying this because x y and z
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you know like just that level of transparency is like i don't know that's just like it's like
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why would that not occur to me i don't know i just like i don't think i've ever been that explicit in terms of like hey i'm explaining this to you because
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you know like that kind of thing um but that actually brings me and i think the reason that's on my mind and
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it kind of brings us to the other part of it is that there are one of the things that
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i struggled with as a new grad was that i came in as a brand new nurse practitioner i didn't know what i was
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doing i didn't know anything about leadership and i started working with a medical assistant
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who was technically like i was supervising her in air quotations because i
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she wasn't my direct report but i was on the hook to influence slash supervisor i don't
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know what the term is there and then you have the other kind of like dynamics of like she's been there for 10
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years she's significantly older than i am and she doesn't love her job
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and she's like always mad at me like anyway that's like interpersonal conflict but like i guess the thing that
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the the reason i that's another potential reason that is difficult to delegate is because
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you have potentially some either interpersonal conflicts or performance feedback type of
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situations or defensiveness from the people that you're trying to supervise but then
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you're also not their direct supervisor so this is like a very layered question because there's so many parts
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but like yeah because then i think that then like another question that springs out of that is like
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so how do you do that when you're not a direct report they're not your direct report what are the steps to mitigate that
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and like maybe that's a whole another topic but um yeah what are your thoughts just about i guess that i guess setting
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expectations going into performance feedback like if you have if
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you have pearls about that or advice or guidance about that and then the interpersonal conflict piece perhaps
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sure so i'll start with you know the
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needing to manage people who don't report to you directly so that is that's difficult
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for new managers and and you know people who've managed for a
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while i think the most important thing to starting the relationship is for the person that they report to
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directly so whoever their whoever their you know solid line manager is
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yeah to say to them that um you know you're also going to
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report to liz on a dotted line so in corporate they have the style of line and dotted
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line what it means is both both men both people you you report to both people right this
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person's writing your performance review and this person is directly responsible for your performance but
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this person also is in in the mix yeah so for the person that um the medical
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assistant reports to directly yeah signal that you're also going to be
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um you know reporting to liz and she's responsible for managing these aspects
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so that sets you up for success so the person is not thinking well i don't have to answer to you
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right you're not my you're not you're not the boss of me so yeah i could tell you some horror
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stories jackie i i i have experienced some myself um
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and it's even challenging you know when you're having to influence peers as well so
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to me i think getting you've got you know i keep going back to getting clarity at the very beginning
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about what your role is as it relates to them and what their role is as it relates to
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you and the expectations um starting with those expectations is really important
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and i think the other thing is developing the relationship a lot of times when we
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have these conflicts it's it stems from like i've assumed
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you're into you've assumed mine and when we assume it's usually nothing empowering right
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we like our brain have brains have that negativity bias where we just if we don't have the information we're
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filling in the gaps and it's it's with something that's that's not helpful
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and so the more i know you live yeah you could walk in and say something
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crazy and i'm like well i know liz she must be having a bad day like i'm gonna give you the benefit of a doubt right
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and i'm going to give you grace because i know you and so what a lot of new
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managers do is put on their manager count and now i'm in this role and i'm not going to you know you have to
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you have to develop those relationships i don't mean you know going to happy hour every friday with the person or whatever
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but creating a professional relationship so you know what their goals are and what need what
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they need where they want to go and you're having a conversation about that
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and they know what your expectations are and you know letting letting them in a
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little bit um into your heart and who you are as a as a human so creating that human to human
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connection so that when you have to give feedback they know it's coming from a good place
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yeah right and so making sure that they understand what your role is
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as it relates to them is key and then making sure that you're developing a
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relationship and when there is conflict you have the same approach like i need to have a conversation with
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you and the purpose of the conversation is you know there are some things that i see that
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you're doing that could um result in you not being successful
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and i you know my role and my responsibility is to make sure that you're successful and so
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i want to have this conversation with you and that's it you know it's it's it's clarifying your
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intent upfront again about why you want to have the conversation and then being very specific about
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the behaviors what you notice what they did what they didn't do the impact so the
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[Music] center for creative leadership has a feedback model and it's s as in sam b is a boy i
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right so it's what was the situation yesterday when we had the conversation
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um what was the behavior you said x y and z or you did x y and z or you didn't do x
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y and z and here's the impact so when when you did or didn't do x y and z
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this is this is the impact this is what happened um you know a lot of times if we just
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follow that it makes it harder for the person to be defensive because we've not described how we
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interpret the behavior right we've said you did x y and z or you said x y and z
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now sometimes people will say no i didn't well you know yes you did but a lot of times if you're being really specific about
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what you've what you witnessed or what they said or you know here were the expectations for
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how you do this thing and you know here's you know what i'm seeing
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and being specific and having examples here's the impact and you know they added in intent so
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you know tell me about your intent and doing it that way as opposed to this
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and then just having the conversation yeah and then being clear about in the future here's what needs to happen
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what can i do to support you in doing it this way or in getting this done or whatever the
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change is that you're asking for i love that so much because it's like so
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clear and it's so matter-of-fact and flat and it also is still very human-centered where like
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like like to just that just the comment about like i want you to be successful
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like wow you know that's such a different feel than most right that i ever see or i've
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experienced who's gonna get mad at that totally and also and also the curiosity the
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the like uh like if we can just keep in mind we're gonna automatically assume the worst
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and like can we automatically catch that reframe it into curiosity and then also like i love algorithms and
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like frameworks to use because it's just like a cheat code you know it's like sbi okay i can remember that
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here's the impact and tell me more about that because every single time i've asked that if
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there's more information that you would never know and i've had and i've had situations either as a nurse or a nurse
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practitioner where i was i was given feedback from from a kind of caring supportive
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curious place and then a presumptive you why did you do this you did this wrong
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and it was like oh well here's like the whole other back story and actually this was the best option
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and it's like oh okay you know and just it lands so differently yeah or the person you're giving
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feedback to and it helps with culture um and and i think that's like one of
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the the kind of last points i wanted to to touch on there's like so much we could talk about but i know
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we leave it here for now um but the i guess when it comes to so the situation i see
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so often unfortunately is that there's understaffing to start with and then um there's a lot
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of issues but i'll just i'll just touch on them and then you can pick which ones you want to talk about but okay so we're understaffed we're trying
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to hire for example medical assistant i'm primarily focusing on medical assistant and np relationship because that's the main kind of like delegation
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leadership role there's also nurses too but um in terms of the delegation roles but
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specifically for that we're understaffed we're struggling to hire somebody we hire somebody there isn't a great onboarding process
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they are overworked and underpaid and then there's some behavior issues and there's no supervision like there's
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like so many facets of things potentially that could go wrong that i see going wrong and i think on the unfortunate thing
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that i see over and over again is that somebody has either either underperforming or has
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some behavioral issues and please tell me if there's like a better way to phrase behavioral issues because that feels like not
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human-centered to say but like there's some challenges and this person has been kind of shifted
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around to all the different providers and then the new np gets like stuck with
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a bad situation and they just have to handle it yeah so that's like a that's like a
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whole mix of all the things we've talked about so far but if you have any advice about that like i recently talked with a
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mentee who had a medical assistant specifically practicing outside of her scope
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so that's a lot more clear where it's like you're trying to do the job of a nurse or nurse practitioner and that's clearly not your role responsibility is
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dangerous for patients but then the other kind of like softer version is it's just kind of like a bullying
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problematic experience in the workplace like a word vomit but any comments you
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want to add or advice or guidance about that it's a really common unfortunate situation
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it's it's not uncommon even in corporate instead of having the bold and
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courageous conversation and dealing with the performance problem and that's just what i would say is a performance
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problem or performance issue or land performance um instead of dealing with it you know shuffling the person to another
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department yes and the problem with that is you know they're never given the
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opportunity to to self-correct um if they're shifted to the next place and
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the other problem is i think a lot of times leaders underestimate the impact that
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not that that failing to deal with non-performance has on the people who are performing
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if i'm coming and i'm giving it my all and i'm invested and you know my manager is you know
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giving me you know accolades and recognition um but this other person is here
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either treating me poorly or being abusive or bullying you know
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even the patients um just not performing over time that erodes my motivation
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it can erode my motivation to show up and and and play full out because
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well this other person's still here and they're still you know they're still getting all the same benefits that i'm getting and i'm
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i'm you know giving all this extra effort it's sort of like when you have you know um you get a basket of berries
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and you have that one berry that's got all moldy and then how that molds all the the
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whole thing yeah totally that's moldy berry out of the basket and so
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not to sound cruel um but i believe giving people clear feedback and making
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sure they understand the expectations giving them the support they need to meet the
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expectations and if they can't or they don't want to because sometimes it's a skill and
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sometimes it's a will like a willingness yeah you want to um you you have to part
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ways i mean i i you don't want to get to that point but sometimes it's not a good fit sometimes
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it's it's just not going to work as long as you as the leader have given you know every opportunity to connect
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with that person on a human level understand what their challenges are have those conversations
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um and give them the opportunity and support they need if you've done that and it's still not working you're doing
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everyone including that person a disservice i mean i can't tell you how many people
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have said like being uh fired from a job was the
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best thing that ever happened to them like it sounds crazy but no one wants to
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show up to work and fail and when people are failing they generally know it's not working in
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their bones and sometimes even just having that conversation to say
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this like we we tried all these things this is not working like what what is it that you um
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what else do you need or do you feel like this is the right role for you like let's have a conversation about it
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like human to unit um you know to your point earlier sometimes just opening that window allows for such
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a rich conversation and it doesn't always end well right sometimes people are
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are mad and they're they're you know sometimes they even sue right yeah or
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wrongful determination and that's the most unfortunate um reality of being in a leadership role
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is it's not always going to work out well but you cannot just ignore it because that's not going to work out well either
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yeah and please don't pass your burden on to another
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nurse practitioner because that's that's just unfair to everyone yeah i
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mean i think the unfortunate situation that i hear about so often is that
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i mean i directly had that experience as a new grad it was like i'm sorry liz you just have to put up
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with this for now and i wasn't privy to the whole situation yeah
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the person who's actually directly supervising them but um yeah it was really it was really
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challenging but i feel like in terms of like going backwards in my own experience and
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imparting like hopefully people like watching this can take all of these things and like start implementing them
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i can hear already how scared they are to like have those conversations but i
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feel like i don't know i feel like i guess some another kind of framework that i usually
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recommend and i welcome your feedback about this is like it sounds like especially with your
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with your advice is like have a com so if you're not directly supervising them having a conversation
31:05
with the person who is directly supervising him which is usually the office manager talking about that what that looks like
31:11
just being very plain and candid about it yeah before any quote-unquote problems happen you know
31:17
um and then having honest direct conversations with the people setting expectations and
31:23
then um like you said that sbi kind of framework for feedback and then i think like the other part is
31:29
that when things are not going well to speak up because i think it's that same stuffing
31:36
thing of like oh i'll just do it i'll just do all the jobs i i don't want to complain
31:41
i'm lucky i'm i hear this all the time i'm lucky to have this job i can i'll put up with anything for a year
31:46
so i can get experience and then i can get more kind of like leverage for a new job um but i think i guess like the the
31:53
general recommendation that i have is using what you've already talked about like
31:58
putting things in writing and sending them to the right people um and i don't know i
32:05
don't know if you have any feedback about about that particular process but i always tell new mps and i learned this on the job
32:11
is that basically if you didn't doc if you don't document it in hr context it didn't happen i don't
32:16
know if that's true but we always say that in nursing is that if you didn't talk to it happen legally speaking but right it's
32:22
true it's true so that's a whole other um a whole other lane
32:27
so if if if there are performance issues and you're having you know performance
32:32
conversations and expectation conversations you know it is important to take notes as a supervisor and at a certain point
32:40
if you if you get to the point where you're having to give like you know for in the in the traditional
32:45
progressive discipline um uh process you're having to give a verbal warning
32:51
we've had these conversation coaching conversations um and you know we're still seeing
32:57
i'm still seeing um the same performance issues so you know at this point you know if it
33:05
doesn't if you don't do x y and z then this could lead to termination of your employment like that's the verbal
33:11
warning and then you have to document that sometimes some supervisors will send an
33:16
email to the person as a reminder other others just you gave the verbal warning you take your notes about it and
33:22
then you send it to hr or i guess in this case the office manager um i don't know if if
33:29
um if you all do like written warnings oh yeah no for sure i think in terms of
33:35
the traditional hr process that usually is what happens i think that like it's more of a tangential you're contributing to the
33:42
situation but you're not you are not the person giving the verbal or written warnings you're just kind of passing that along to the office manager
33:48
and to your supervisor got it they can take that amazing but yeah you're right
33:53
you have to document so what i was talking about earlier is really more leading up to that like yeah
33:59
conversations that you're having and the clarity that you're giving and the feedback and all of that but if it's a
34:04
pervasive issue yeah um then yes while you do have the document and
34:10
and all that fun yeah i know you used to work in hr jack used to work
34:15
in it being head of hr so i mean 25 years
34:21
or so yeah 25 years or so i was in human resources
34:26
and so five years ago i left to start my own practice um and you know in hr i was over all the
34:35
disciplines so the employee relations which is this part uh the the learning and development
34:41
which was always my favorite part and that's you know the lane that i'm in now but yeah the the
34:47
those are the you know not the fun parts of of hr but i really see like a leader's role as
34:54
coaching and helping the employee grow yeah so i i tell a lot of the
35:00
leaders that i work with um this desire to shrink away for this habit of
35:07
shrinking away from feedback happens at all levels so i like to think about it if you're coaching
35:14
you know uh do you watch sports not really sort of okay all right i like
35:20
playing sports i like soccer and yeah okay all right so what soccer so say you were the soccer coach
35:27
and you you know start the season and you see you people are understand you you're
35:33
clear about the expectations and you see you know one of the players doing something and you know if they did it
35:39
slightly differently then they would have more results but
35:45
you wait until the end of the season and you say you know here's what i saw
35:50
over this last season and um you know
35:56
now i need to put that in your performance review do better next year like you would never do that but that's
36:01
what we do at work yeah sometimes yeah people get that performance review and they're like
36:07
what i did where did this come from yeah it's a surprise i never knew no one
36:13
talked to me and if someone would have talked to me eight months ago perhaps you know i would have been more
36:18
successful and then the team would have been more successful so you're giving that feedback so they
36:24
can be so the team can win so they can win like thinking about yourself as
36:30
as a coach from that perspective and i love that and i love that like
36:35
just like your general positivity and i think i'm like noticing as i'm asking these questions and presenting these
36:40
situations that i have a lot of frustration because i've seen it for so long and like really
36:45
like the ideal worlds we're trying to build are like what exactly what you're talking about and i think so
36:51
often we all get really frustrated with the issues that we're having and it's like hard to remember that like
36:57
what is the purpose here what is the point the point is that we're all going to succeed and we're all going to do well and i think like we i think we all i think i
37:03
know that at a deep level and other nps know that but i think sometimes when we zoom in to like the
37:08
issues that are in front of us it's hard to remember that aspect of like you know we're
37:13
coming at this from a human to human success supporting everyone's growth and development and
37:19
learning and all of that stuff and yeah yeah it's absolutely like
37:26
having those real honest conversations with this other human being um
37:32
and i also think the more people know we can't have this conversation without
37:37
talking about empathy right yeah so the more the more people know that you are
37:42
invested in them as human beings and that you care about them and that
37:48
you are your your empathy is is at that level
37:53
where you're you know taking action to make sure that they succeed the more the more we're able to establish that
38:00
connection the easier it is to have these conversations and the more people will
38:06
do their best work right if i work for when i've worked for leaders
38:12
who were empathetic and who cared about me as a human being
38:18
and it wasn't anything that i wouldn't do or try to do um when we are in these situations
38:25
and we know there are a lot of leaders out there that shouldn't be in leadership role right i mean it's not for everybody so
38:32
when we're working for a leader who only cares about our productivity
38:37
who only cares about the bottom line at whatever cost it's it's some people are okay in that
38:45
environment and there are some people who aren't they're not going to do their best work because what's the
38:52
motivation you're i'm just a widget to you and so
38:57
that empathy is is really critical yeah yeah and i think that's like
39:03
another thing that i hear a lot about um in terms of np is going into jobs like that and i
39:10
think like my my general advice for for people in that situation is like
39:16
i don't know i think i just like the cautioning against like i don't know just like be careful with
39:22
that right because it's like i think people can be so hopeful that things will change and like i can put up with anything and
39:28
it's like also like you need to take care of yourself and like not like if you are doing the
39:34
steps if you're following the framework if you're giving feedback if you're reaching out to your supervisor your colleagues all of that stuff
39:40
and it's still not changing are they like well that's just how it is like ding ding ding you have your answer and
39:45
like can you live with that or can you not live with that like can you continue to show up to a job
39:51
where that is the answer like is if you're just gonna hope that it changes do you know what i mean like
39:56
i think that there's this like false hope situation of like people thinking things are gonna change and it's like
40:01
you've followed the steps and you've seen the patterns and you've seen the objective data and here's where we are i mean you can
40:07
have again another explicit conversation like listen really concerned about this maybe not listen right
40:14
like hey supervisor i'm really concerned what are we gonna do about this issue where we've communicated feedback
40:21
and it's not resolving and it's impacting me in this way like and then you get your answer i
40:27
guess i don't know i guess i guess that's like them there's so many things that i want to like tell all the endings
40:34
certainly one in terms of dysfunctional workplaces like it's important i don't know and i don't
40:39
know if you any thoughts about that in terms of like if things can change or if they don't or if it's you know like where to call it i
40:46
guess where to call it it's such a personal choice yeah i think
40:53
not like i really believe we all deserve to be
40:59
content at work right i mean i think that if work is causing
41:07
stress to the point where you're noticing you know that dread in the morning and
41:12
the stomach aches and all of the unfortunately many of us have been in
41:17
those situations where we have like physical responses to being in a situation that
41:23
is just unhealthy for us yeah um it's not personally for me it's not
41:29
worth it yeah no i would i would i would my hope is that we all find
41:34
that culture that um allows us to to like be the best versions of
41:40
ourselves and we find that fulfillment like it's it's a it's a blessing and a
41:45
privilege to do work that i would like for me that i would do
41:50
for free if i could somebody else will pay my bills and so creating that culture and
41:57
being in a culture where you know there is joy not all the time that's not
42:02
realistic but most of the time it's joy and fulfillment and growth and
42:08
connection um we we don't have to put up with anything less i think there are a lot of times
42:14
where people feel like well the grass isn't greener on the other side right like this is this this is the situation
42:22
that i know and if i leave what if it's the same like or worse yeah it works i know that it's fine here
42:29
i can tolerate this yeah or i can i think alternatively too like
42:34
so many nps they just have such big hearts and like they want to change the culture they
42:41
want to make an impact and not leave because leaving means that they're giving up or
42:46
something yeah and it's like and i think i don't know i guess like i don't maybe last question like do you
42:52
feel like they're like what are your thoughts about when it comes to
42:58
building a culture like if there's a really unhealthy work culture in terms of the influence that
43:04
one nurse practitioner has or even a group of nurse practitioners like what is your thought about that in those
43:09
in the settings that you've worked in in terms of like top down versus bottom up like that kind of thing
43:16
so before i answer that i do want to say that um
43:21
working to change a culture is really good right
43:26
and if you find that your efforts have have not materialized
43:33
and it's too much for you and you need to go then that's not failure like as long as
43:38
you know you've tried your best to make it to make a change in the impact right
43:43
so culture change takes a long time and i think that's the thing
43:49
that people underestimate is how much effort and how much work because as cultures cultures have have evolved over
43:56
time and it takes a lot of intentionality a lot of tough decisions a lot of rough
44:02
conversations um and a lot of stamina to change to change the culture
44:10
and it won't change if everybody is not aligned right and so
44:18
um yes cultures can change from the bottom up if people are if they are empowered
44:26
right to do that i work with one organization where um they have uh employee resource group
44:32
and employee research groups are just working so hard to um
44:38
get the attention of senior leaders and um over time as the senior leaders are
44:44
listening to the feedback and they're they're hearing and they're saying oh okay yes
44:50
wait a minute this is something we need we need to pay attention to as well so it can work um but it's it's really hard if
44:58
the the leader or the person at the top is not um aligned with the culture
45:05
change because they're the ones that um you know i i really believe and i i know
45:12
i'm going to get this wrong but there's a john maxwell saying about you know everything rises and falls you know on
45:20
leadership that's not the exact quote because i can't remember it right now but yeah that's really where where it starts
45:26
and so getting that alignment with the leader
45:32
around what culture we want to create and then giving it employees the opportunity to
45:37
um to buy in and be part of that culture change process being really intentional about what we're trying to create what does
45:45
it look like what does it not what behaviors support this culture what behaviors don't and what are the
45:51
rewards for supporting the culture and what are the um consequences for showing up in a way
45:59
that's not aligned with our culture and being willing to tell people that
46:05
aren't aligned with this culture that maybe this isn't the place for you um [Music]
46:11
i remember i don't know maybe 10 years ago with netflix um if you want to like
46:17
learn about culture change look up netflix because they did a lot of work i think it was about 10 years ago
46:23
they actually went through this whole process of you know articulating what the culture
46:28
is and um giving people the opportunity to opt out if they they didn't want to they didn't
46:35
want to they weren't about that yeah so culture is important
46:41
um everything i think everything i don't think there's
46:47
anything more important in an organization than than its culture i can't agree more i mean i think yeah and
46:54
i and i think that's like i i so appreciate the way that you're saying that is that like
47:01
i don't know like it's just it's such a bigger thing than i think a lot of us acknowledge and i think that because so many nps
47:08
are so ambitious and so caring they really do want to make a really big impact and they do things like make policies and
47:15
procedures where there aren't any and doing feedback and like doing all the things that they're trying to do they're
47:20
doing all the right things you know but it's there's only so much like it is so important that we have that heart in
47:26
that energy but at the same time recognizing that there is a limit if we're not all on the same page
47:31
because i think that's the unfortunate thing that i've seen a whole bunch of like trying and trying and trying and
47:36
then it's like it's just like butting heads or like not you know it's not coming through or it's like not
47:42
taken seriously or it's not acknowledged and it's like okay you know it's just important to i think to keep that in mind because like
47:48
there's so much that we can do but like there is a limit too that we have to get it's the right thing to do to protect ourselves
47:55
at that point if it's really not working right and you have to know it's personal
48:00
choice and you have to know when it's not working for you and i think that the thing that i would end on is change is hard
48:08
yeah right and so the more we are we stay connected to to our why
48:15
as a result as it relates to why we are invested in change the more we stay
48:21
connected to that the more we're able to say okay this is a really rough day
48:27
but here's why we're doing this [Music] just the same thing as when you know you
48:34
you start your own your own business and thinking about why did i do this there's
48:40
there were those day i remember year two days where i was like okay why did i do
48:47
this again because right now i want to just start applying for jobs
48:52
burn it down right write it down oh yeah that's right you know applying for jobs does not
48:57
align with your why you know and so um same thing with culture change
49:02
it takes time and it takes effort and um there will be rough days but remembering
49:08
like why you're why you're invested in changing the culture in the first place yeah i think that that courage i do
49:15
think that there's the ability to have such a significant impact in your role as an mp but you also have
49:21
to know where you're trying to um where your efforts are when your efforts
49:28
are futile you know and and i'm not saying give up too soon but i'm
49:35
also saying not stay in a place for for 10 years and have nine of those years be miserable
49:43
so yeah and that goes with for any role absolutely we deserve more than that
49:50
i'm a human being that's so true it's so true and it's like it's so important for the longevity of
49:56
being in specific to nurse practitioners sorry for my fam specifically for nurse practitioners too
50:03
like it's so important that we sustain this career especially right out of the gate and
50:09
like you said like even starting starting a business is different than becoming an np but they're very
50:14
similar in some ways because it's a huge role transition huge responsibility and i think a lot of
50:21
people can get into that place of like why did i do this in the first place [Music] i think i should go back to my old job
50:26
where i knew what i was doing you know yes absolutely there's so much
50:32
but going back to why you why you became an mp in the first place like what was it that energized you about that
50:38
yeah and how you know letting that be your fuel yeah and holding on to that hope and
50:45
holding on to that vision too and like not letting that go out because i think a lot of times and i feel like this is probably true in the
50:51
corporate setting as well like regardless of your type of job but it's it's easy to lose passion over time
50:57
when you're frustrated so it's like so just like reconnecting constantly yes and i think the thing is we don't
51:03
realize when we're when we are in a perpetual state of frustration how that impacts how we show up
51:12
you know so we can't see that we're now the person stinking it up at work oh my
51:22
god that's so funny that's the whole other side of it it's so true well thank you so much jackie
51:30
you're the best you so much i really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you i could talk about this stuff all day absolutely absolutely um
51:38
where can people find you to learn more i certainly i mean i've talked about this with you already i can't wait to work
51:44
with you in terms of leadership training um but yeah that's like that's something that you're doing right
51:50
for people in corporate settings primarily is that correct you're doing like a training for people who are sorry you
51:56
you tell you tell us where they can find you and from you
52:01
so they can find me either on instagram um at kindle evolve k-i-n people always
52:08
put the e but it's like it's spelled like kind all oh christmas jackie
52:16
that's my last name so at kind all evolved the word evolve
52:21
um on instagram or that's my website cannulibomb.com i'd love to you know if
52:28
anyone wants to have a chat or has additional questions i am um working with leaders all the time and
52:36
i created a program that launches in september for uh new leaders and talking about
52:42
some of this very this very um just some some of these very same topics so that's
52:49
why your your request to do this was quite timely yeah totally and um i think it's like
52:56
applicable for new nurse practitioners but also like there's a lot of mps who are going into
53:01
management so even if you know there's there are people who are not new grads in my community and
53:06
um i know that that is something that i considered after a couple of years of practice leading a medical as a medical director
53:13
um and that's yeah a whole other skill set so like i'm gonna pass that along to your
53:18
mp colleagues if you're not going into leadership positions yet if you haven't grabbed the ultimate resource guide for the new np
53:25
head over to realworldnp.com guide you'll get these videos sent straight to your inbox every week with notes from me
53:32
patient stories and bonuses i really just don't share anywhere else thank you so much for
53:37
watching hang in there and i'll see you soon [Music]
53:50
you
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