Will Clower

Consider the language, when you hear people say "We need to 'break down barriers' to communication, and 'create new structures' for healthy cultures." It can sound overwhelming ("wait, now I have to break down things and create other things?"). But sometimes the smallest things can create the largest effect. Like truly listening. When a person feels heard, they are less likely to shut down on you and share any resentment or hurt w other employees. They're more likely to give helpful feedback, and share positive feelings with others. It seems so simple -- almost passive -- to just be a better listener, but that's exactly the seed that grows into the far more dramatic "breaking down" and "building up" of communication and culture.

How to identify your values ... for MedWell, it's been such an organic development of those values over the past 20 years that we never wrote them out. We just always tried to serve (members, clients, partners) as best we could. But if I ID'd them now, I'd put them in 2 categories: internal values, but also external. Internal values are the principles that guide how we interact with each other -- the importance of creating a culture of respect for all employees from the CEO to the newest hire. External values are the principles that guide how we interact with the world, our clients, partners, & members -- doing the greatest good for the greatest number through collaboration. Even if this means we don't take the lead.

What I've done is to be transparent with leadership, regarding the need to communicate our values through words and actions. I've let them know that their communication of those values should be done in their own way. Just be yourself, and connect from the heart. There were no explicit guidelines or cookie-cutter routines to follow. If I'd created some kind of fill-in-the-blank mad-libs for them to fill out and read, it would be inauthentic to them, and seen as such by employees. More importantly, leadership needs to own our values for themselves. Once they do, they'll communicate in a more genuine and powerful way for employees. So I provided general guidelines and trust them to communicate to their teams in their own way.

Modeling values in an organization can help create a culture that employees can believe in. It's critical because any chatGPT can spit out a vision/mission statement -- they're just words on a page, and employees will be skeptical until what they read aligns with ... A) what they hear you say, and B) what they see you do. By contrast, modeling values through actions and policies creates authenticity around them. And this makes it more likely that others will adopt those values (which makes it more likely that others will adopt them, and so on). In this case, the old saying is quite correct: actions really do speak louder than words.

I agree completely with this. If patient and provider are "talking past one another", they may each be making sense to themselves, but not to each other. A way out of this trap is to get back to a common ground of beliefs that you both share, and work outward from there. If you build a foundation of being on the same team, with the same goals, it becomes easier to chart a mutual path you can both embrace moving forward.

Active listening can diffuse tensions between the care provider and patient. Just keep in mind that a care provider listening actively is not the endpoint. Active listening is a means to that endpoint. The true goal of active listening is for the patient to feel truly heard. That's why followup comments are so important, when you express back to them your understanding of the conversation. Once your understanding aligns with theirs, you've established a basis for true communication -- and in the process developed the trust needed to diffuse the patient-provider tension.