OR Manager - March 2018 - 20

Leadership
Continued from page 19
where people are engaged in the work
and take pride in their organizations.
These two steps will be discussed in
other articles in this series.
The healthcare crisis within
Surveys by Gallup, Press Ganey, Modern
Survey, and others on employee
engagement have found that only about
one-quarter of all employees are engaged
in their work, and much has been
written about bullying and lateral violence
in the healthcare workplace. Our
own literature review showed the word
" bullying " in nursing journal titles 115
times over the past 5 years. And our
culture assessment survey of 42 hospitals
and healthcare associations found
that more people disagreed than agreed
with the statement that they work in a
positive and respectful culture.
That is the healthcare crisis within.
If every employee and provider at every
hospital, long-term care facility, and outpatient
clinic in America strongly agreed
with the statement, " Our people reflect
positive attitudes, treat others with respect,
and refrain from complaining,
gossiping, or pointing fingers, " we could
more effectively cope with the impositions
of the external healthcare crisis.
Eradicating TEN from the workplace
is almost always the non-negotiable first
step toward building a more positive
and productive culture of ownership.
TEN exacts an enormous toll on employee
morale, patient satisfaction, and
productivity. It is a leading contributor
to stress and burnout, compassion fatigue,
and turnover.
Because emotions are contagious,
an emotionally negative healthcare
workplace can cause iatrogenic emotional
harm to patients in hospitals
and residents in long-term care settings.
In her New York Times article,
" No Time to be Nice at Work, " Georgetown
University professor Christine Porath
cites a survey of more than 4,500
healthcare professionals in which
20
OR Manager | March 2018
The Florence Challenge Certificate of Commitment reminds staff to maintain
behavioral changes. All images courtesy of Joe Tye. Used with permission.
71% tied disruptive behavior, such as
abusive, condescending, or insulting
personal conduct,
to medical errors,
and 27% tied such behavior to patient
deaths.
Employees have the right to a workplace
that is free from fear, bullying,
gossip and rumor-mongering, and
chronic complaining. Managers can
support their staffs by declaring the
workplace to be a " Pickle-Free Zone "
(PFZ), just as a smoke-free zone protects
workers' health. A PFZ is any area
where TEN is not wanted or welcome.
A PFZ doesn't prohibit people from discussing
and resolving legitimate problems;
it just means they are not welcome
to whine about them.
The Pickle Pledge
People used to smoke everywhere-in
hospital cafeterias, nursing stations,
restaurants, taxi cabs, and even airplanes-and
those who were bothered
by it could do little to change their circumstances.
When the former Surgeon
General, C. Everett Koop, MD, called
for a smoke-free society in 1986, many
people wondered what he'd been smoking.
Cigarettes contain an addictive
drug, and they were heavily promoted
by industry under the guise of what was
called protecting " smoker's rights. "
Today, virtually every hospital in
America has a smoke-free campus. One
never hears the term " smoker's rights "
or the question, " Mind if I smoke? " The
smoking section in most restaurants is
out back by the dumpster, and if anyone
were to light a cigarette on an airplane,
the air marshal's role would not be to
arrest the smoker but rather to save him
or her from being assaulted by fellow
passengers. The change in our culture
has been nothing short of miraculous.
TEN is the emotional and spiritual
equivalent of cigarette smoke. Scientific
research has shown that toxic attitudes
and emotions are detrimental to health
and longevity. And one toxic negative person
can pollute the emotional climate of
an entire department the way one person
lighting a cigarette instantly pollutes the
lungs of everyone else in the vicinity.
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OR Manager - March 2018

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