I heard you do free executive team communication assessments. Is it really free? What’s the catch?
Yes, it really is free. In the course of our assessment, we hope to discover at least one or two helpful tips that you can use immediately to increase efficiency and effectiveness. We would like to earn your business if it’s a good fit and if you believe our services can add value for you. No one solution is right for every situation, or every company. The assessment is one way for us to determine fit and value.
Because people are what run business, and Next Element is in the people-business, more often than not, we discover workplace inefficiencies stemming from relationship and communication problems. One of our goals is to advance the success of the businesses in our community. When you succeed, our whole community succeeds.
Here’s the only catch. We will travel up to 3 hours from Wichita to do the assessment. If it’s further than that? We can discuss options that address travel and lodging costs.
Three Tips for Being a Healthier Doctor
Doctors have higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, and burnout than most people.
A large majority of medical residents say they would keep working even if they had vomited all night, saw blood in their urine, or experienced extreme anxiety.
Why? Because doctors are great at denying their own need for care. And, they work in an incredibly high-risk industry.
We’ve been working with physicians, nurses, and healthcare systems for 15 years, and we want to share with you our three most effective tips for staying, or becoming a happier, healthier doctor.
Face Fear
There are two emotional experiences that are so difficult to acknowledge, yet so crucial for health. And we consistently uncover them lurking beneath most self-sabotaging risk behaviors in doctors. The first of these is fear.
Fear of litigation. Fear of failure. Fear of letting someone down. Fear of making a mistake. So many aspects of our current healthcare climate create fear, yet it is impossible to fully control. Unless, and until doctors can experience, express, and share their fear with themselves and supportive others, this fear will be buried and come out in predictable ways. Self-righteous attitudes, rigid and dogmatic beliefs, perfectionism, and suspicion. The very thing they crave – to be respected and admired – is sacrificed. Instead, they settle for false power over others, perpetuating the very fear they are avoiding. The ultimate consequence of this behavior is forsaking everyone around them until they are alone.
The second of these key emotional experiences is the acceptance of loss and grief.
Accept Loss and Grief
Most patients have medical problems that will never be fully resolved. Chronic, recurring, life-style problems are the order of the day. This is really sad. And, the life of being a doctor involves incredible loss. Loss of life, loss of control, loss of predictability, loss of health, loss of freedom. A doctor who is able to authentically grieve the sadness of these losses will be healthier and happier. If this grief and loss is denied, predictable negative things will happen. Overworking, attempting to over-control everything and everyone, critical attacks on those who can’t think, obsessive preoccupation with time, money, and fairness. These behaviors are all fruitless attempts to control and prevent loss, and the grief that goes with it. The ultimate consequence of this behavior is even bigger losses. Loss of job, loss of privileges, loss of important relationships.
Invest in Relationships
Doctors work so hard to get where they are. They have passed exams, put in their time, been scrutinized by their peers. The majority of doctors are technically competent in their job. Competence is not the biggest problem.
The most important thing is quality of relationships – with self, patients, and peers. Happy patients don’t sue. Happy employees do better work. Happy doctors make fewer mistakes. Invest in relationships. Invest in communication skills. Invest in improving the quality of each and every interaction with the people in your life.
These tips are easier said than done, and it may require professional guidance and support. It will be worth it.
Go be afraid, be sad, and be connected. Your heart, soul, mind, and patients will thank you.
References: “When the Doctors Need Doctoring”, May/June issue of Psychology Today Writings by Dr. David Shapiro, Penn State College of MedicineClose Channels, Build Trust
The more I teach and use perceptions, parts and channels, the more I wonder if these may be the most cellular building blocks of trust. However grand you care to define trust, it all boils down to, and starts with, closing channels and matching perceptions.
Why do we communicate, and what are we looking for?
According to the Process Communication Model (PCM), there are five main channels, Interventive (protecting), Directive (telling), Requestive (asking), Nurturative (caring), and Emotive (playing). Humans communicate and are in relationship with each other by protecting, telling, asking, caring, and playing. And, logically, there can only be five channels because a) there are only five parts that initiate a channel, and b) if more than one channel was initiated by the same part, they wouldn’t be behaviorally distinct and distinguishable. Can you even comprehend how delighted it makes a Workaholic that PCM is so astonishingly logical?
The Rule of Communication
PCM trainers have taught the diagram hundreds of times - all five channels on one page, easy to see which parts go together, what personality type prefers each channel, and how to distinguish those channels that do double-duty. A great one-stop visual to summarize the Rule of Communication.
Trust at the most basic level
Here’s what enamors me; the Parts that close Channels. Scanning the right side of this diagram, notice that only two parts do all the work – the Emoter and Computer. Every Channel is closed by one of these two. I’m leaving out the Interventive channel since it’s not personality-specific. “Obviously,” you might be saying to yourself. It wouldn’t work or make any sense for the other parts to close a channel. Yeah, I know…I get that. Stick with me…
If the purpose of communication is to tell, ask, care, and play, then what is the end goal of communication? Based on the parts that close channels – there are only two end goals; safety and execution – “Am I safe with you?” and “Can I count on you?” My Emoter transparently shows you how what you’ve just said is resonating with me – where you stand with me. It fosters psychological safety by being transparent while providing the initiator with candid, non-attacking signals about where they stand. The Computer executes – does stuff, plain and simple.
Closing the Nurturative and Emotive channels with the Emoter sends the message “You are safe with me.” Closing the Directive and Requestive channels with the Computer sends the message, “You can count on me.”
From this cellular starting point we can begin building the larger context of trust in relationships, organizations, and communities.
Close Channels, Build Trust
Closing channels builds trust one interaction at a time. This is why we tell our clients that trust is made or broken from here forward. Trust begins now.
“Priorities, Process and Kleenex”
Like any good business team, we’re continually re-sharpening our focus, ensuring that what we’re spending our time on is achieving the results we want. To that end, we spend a couple of hours in a team meeting every week. Admittedly, the busier we get the more challenging it is to carve out this time. However, we have deemed it an important part of our business, so we give it priority. We know our success is dependent on providing excellent services for our clients. And we believe our success is also dependent on our ability to encourage and motivate each other in meaningful ways, and holding each other accountable to higher and higher standards, both professionally and humanly. The only way we can do that is to carve out time to be together. If this is ever relegated to the bottom of the priorities, NE could very well cease to exist. We believe in this that much.
Now about priorities… something dawned on me in a team meeting recently. We use “minutes” as an outline to direct the content of our meetings. These minutes start by listing our 5 year, 3 year, and current year goals. We have to know what our goals are before we can decide how our time is best spent – Business 101, right? In this recent meeting, I realized that one of our most important goals was at the bottom of our minutes! Ergo, we ended up spending less, or worse – no time on one of our most important goals! So, we spent some special time together to discuss our goals – did we still have a shared mental model as to what they were? And how could our minutes, the driver of our meetings, be more intentional toward our priorities? It will be interesting to see the results of our re-focusing on our priorities.
Here we are, a new company, we have no excuse for being in a rut. We’ve read all the great books about business, we are fabulous trainers in soft skills, we’re savvy in communication, we’re self-efficacious. Yet here we were, neglecting our priorities! This small, and yet large thing that had been going on for months unnoticed, made me realize just how easy it is to get into a comfortable stride, at work, at home, at church, anywhere. And to quit growing. The problem with stagnation is, it won’t be long, and you will find you are no longer effective, no longer contributing, no longer relevant. Ouch!
Our number one goal is now affectionately called “NEP” – or the Next Element Process. First and foremost, we engage each other in meaningful, accountable ways, then, and only then, do we move onto the content of business.
So now Nate asks me if I’ll write a blog post about all this. I’m with Jamie when it comes to feeling a lack of mastery in the social media realm. I tried once before, and it didn’t work-out.
During my last attempt to write something, I learned a lot about myself. Learning about myself isn’t something I enjoy. Turns out I’m not as perfect as my persister part has led me to believe. (If you don’t know what I mean by “persister part” – come to one our PCM seminars) And, I have learned that it is only through pain and discomfort that I can grow, and become a better person. And I would like to be a better person, in theory anyway. So, turn on the spotlight, face me toward the mirror, and be prepared to hand me a tissue and give me a hug!
People that know us, frequently tell us how wonderful it must be for us to work together. It is. And it’s hard. Because we believe in accountability, in practicing what you preach and teach, the standard is pretty high around here. And we’re all human, we all experience different levels of distress for various reasons on any given day. Some days, you just want to be lazy. Some days, your rebel part just wants to be ‘onry. Some days, we only see what we want to see, and our preconceived perceptions can get in the way of truth, just as it can for anyone. That’s when the tissues come out.
Despite how difficult some days can be, I would not trade the time I’ve spent with my partners for anything. With them, I am expected to trust, to keep learning, to close channels. (Sorry, another PCM reference) And in turn, they trust me, they give me their patience and encouragement when I’m struggling, and they keep me humble. I’ve decided humility is a necessary component for most persisters to grow. I’ve never been one to believe it’s okay to rest on your laurels, and that we owe it to ourselves, and those in our lives to keep learning, to keep improving. NE has been a good fit for me and this ideology.
Yes, it is difficult, and sometimes painful working with people that hold you to a high standard of accountability and growth. And, it’s wonderful.