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languageofcaring.com MAY 2015

ON THE QUALITY PATIENT EXPERIENCE

RESHAPINGTHE CULTUREOF CARE

Insights, tips, tools and resources to help you achieve the unparalleled patient, family and employee experience

© 2015 Language of Caring

Soapbox: Mindset is Everything!

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

1 Soapbox: MindSet iS everything!

2 two giftS for you

3 Quoteworthy

4 newSbyteS

5 Staff Meeting idea

6 StreSSbuSter

By Jill Golde, Partner, Language of Caring, LLC

I learned long ago that we are very likely to see what we look for. If I walk into my house, assuming that my kids or my husband didn’t do what I asked them to do, that is the first thing I will see. And, I’m likely to get aggravated and raise my voice before I even have the opportunity to see what’s true. If I’m

listening for criticism, I’m going to hear it. And, if I’m open and curious, I’m going to hear and learn much more.

We bring our expectations, mindset and baggage with us to every interac-tion. And, in the absence of information, many of us fill the gap with negative possibilities or assumptions, not positive ones. This gets in our way. It makes it harder for us to be effective. In our work in healthcare, it can stop us from bringing our best selves to every interaction. And the people we take care of, whether they are colleagues or patients and families, deserve our best selves!

“Yes, but….!” I know that some people think, “I can’t change how I feel and think. It’s just how I see the world. My perceptions are my perceptions.” As humans, we are perceiving and judging all of the time. But in fact, we CAN change our filters or the lenses through which we see our experience. And in so doing, our perceptions and our judgments change too. We can “wipe our glasses clean” and see things differently.

Getting to Neutral

I’m not even saying we need to wear rose-colored glasses. I’m saying, we need to shake off a negative mindset and at least “get to neutral” in order to be effective. We call this reframing. I was first introduced to reframing by a mentor and colleague, Judy Dubin from The Cramer Institute. The Cramer Institute advances Asset Based Leadership. Reframing opens endless possibilities and can make the most difficult interactions and con-versations possible. In his wonderful books Learned Optimism and Flourish, leader of the Positive Psychology movement Martin Seligman presents the research base for the power of reframing AND provides tools and techniques that help us sharpen this mind-bending skill.

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“Attitude, mindset, self-talk …affect our effectiveness, our impact and our sense of well-being”

Getting Practical

How does this matter in our jobs? If we bring a negative mindset and don’t check it at the door, we are going to see a lot of patients, families and co-workers as difficult. We are going to jump to conclusions about people before they have a chance to be otherwise. And, we will be hard-pressed to bring our hearts and our compassion to the situations we face.

HOW can we get to neutral? For me, reframing begins with two things -- self-talk and mindfulness.

Also we can choose to be mindful -- to focus on what’s happening here and now. Before approaching a person or situation that we expect to be difficult, we can take a deep breath and push “reset,” and enter the patient’s room all eyes, ears, and heart – bringing freshness, openness and curiosity to whatever will transpire.

While I know that reframing is powerful, I also know that it isn’t easy. My 15 year old daughter is always reminding me how quick I am to jump to suspicions and negative possibilities. Still, I work at it, because I know it’s a life-enhancing skill -- worth my ongoing effort.

Attitude, mindset, self-talk: These are decisions. And the decisions we make affect our effectiveness, our impact and our sense of well-being.

More Resources about Reframing

• Wendy Leebov talks about reframing in this powerful video clip. Wendy’s sister Linda passed away recently after years of debilitating illness and comebacks. Eight years ago, Wendy taped this appeal to us in healthcare to reframe the idea of “difficult people” as she told her sister’s story.

• Read “The Reframing Skill at Work” by Kathryn Britton. The article ends with this powerful line: “Face up squarely to matters of fact, but make positive choices in matters of interpretation.”

I CAN THINK: OR:

The nerve of this person to talk to me this way!

This is not about me. They must be struggling with something.

The patients here are so difficult. How could he do that to me?

I wonder what he was thinking or feeling that made him do that?

She always resists every good idea we try!

I wonder, from her perspective, what good reason she has for not wanting to do this.

These patients are just looking for drugs.

I wonder what is going on with this person. Seems as though his life must be difficult.

We can choose self-talk that gets us to neutral.

NEWSBYTES

QUOTEWORTHY

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Your first gift: In honor of our 77th issue of HeartBeat (We’re beginning to lose count!), we want to celebrate you and the more than 8000 other HeartBeat subscribers with a VERY special toolkit gift to support you on your PE quest.

Icebreakers, Energizers and Mind-Benders:51 QUICK Employee Engagement Activities to Transform Your Meetings and Huddles

We pulled from past HeartBeat issues our favorite “Staff Meeting Ideas” and “Cage-Rattling Questions”, and compiled them into one booklet for easy pickup and use by work teams. These quick activities spark sharing and discussion in ways that make your team meetings productive, thought-provoking and fun.

Just click here to access your toolkit and, YES, you are welcome to share it with others in your organization!

Your second gift: On the next page, you’ll find a poster we created for Patient Experience Week. You can use it all year long! Click here for a print-ready version.

“We would have better healthcare organizations if ‘CEO’ stood for ‘Chief Energy Officer’!”

Leslee Thompson, President and CEOKingston General Hospital; Ontario, CANADA From Keynote at Beryl Conference, 2015

• What JOY talking with you at our exhibit and learning with so many Champions at the Beryl PX Conference in Dallas! We relished the en-thusiastic engagement of the 55 who attended our preconference work-shop “Leading Your Patient Experience Strategy to the Next Level.”

• Cleveland Clinic Patient Experience Empathy + Innovation Summit; Cleveland; May 17-20. Join us for a breakout session on “Physician Engagement: How to Get Physicians to the Table and Keep Them There.” If you’d like to set up a private consultation with Wendy Leebov, Partner or Carla Rotering, VP Physician Services, contact wleebov@languageofcaring.com; 215-413-1969.

TWO GIFTS FOR YOU

THANK YOU for making a difference to our patients and families and to each other.

Achieving an unparalleled patient experience and a culture of caring through exceptional communication!

ONE PERSON CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH

“”

“People never forget how you made them feel.”Maya Angelou

“When someone says to us, ‘I care about your suffering,’ a deep healing begins.”Thich Nhat Hanh

“You have not lived a perfect day even though you have earned money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”Ruth Smeltzer

“The antidote to exhaustion is not rest. It is whole heartedness.”David Whyte

languageofcaring.com© 2015 Language of Caring, LLC

STRESSBUSTER

© 2015 Language of Caring

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Taking Stock of Our ServicesDevote a staff meeting to discuss how your department is doing in serving its customers.

1. List your key customer groups (E.g. patients? Family members? Coworkers?)

2. Have people pair up. Ask them to discuss with their partners:

a. 2 service strengths they observed during the past month in relation to each “customer” group

b. 2 service problems that bothered them

3. After pairs have talked for a few minutes, reconvene the group and ask people to share their results. Summarize key words on a flipchart.

4. After all have shared, invite people to draw conclusions. Ask:

a. “What should we feel great about regarding our service?”

b. “What do we need to pay special attention to this month in order to improve our service?”

c. “What one problem do you wish we could tackle once and for all? And how?”

Click here for Five Simple Everyday Ways to Develop Kindness & Generosity (from Mindful.org)

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STAFFMEETINGIDEAS

STAFFMEETINGIDEA

© 2015 Language of Caring

Achieving an unparalleled patient experience and a culture of caring through exceptional communication.

Spread the Resources • Forward this month’s Heartbeat email to others.• Share and tweet the following link: http://languageofcaring.com/

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Received this from a colleague? Sign up today!

Jill Golde, MA, Dorothy Sisneros, MS, MBA and Wendy Leebov, EdD—partners at Language of Caring.

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