Tips to help you manage a diverse staff
Experienced manager offers proven strategies
If you supervise a case management staff, you know it takes a variety of skills to work effectively with different personalities. One experienced nurse executive has found some effective management strategies and communication skills to manage her diverse staff.
"To manage a large staff, a supervisor must first be visible," says Karen Waltenbaugh, BSN, MS, clinical nurse manager for Prentice Women’s Hospital, a division of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "You have to look and listen for potential problems and make an effort to interact with your staff in informal situations."
As part of her "visibility" campaign, she regularly spends time with each member of her staff. Some of her strategies are:
• Eating meals with staff. "I eat lunch with my staff at least once a week," she says. "It’s so important. They are more relaxed. Their guard is down. I often learn about situations which they don’t have time to tell me about when I pass them in the hall."
• Keeping the office door open. "I only close my door for private meetings," says Waltenbaugh. "If my door is open, my staff know that they have permission to stop and talk."
• Dropping by once a shift. "I make an effort to visit each unit once in the morning and once every evening," she notes. "This means I can see the night shift as they leave in the morning. I can see the morning shift as they start their day, and I can see the evening shift before I leave."
• Rewarding good work. "I have several ways to recognize staff members who have done a good job," she says. "If we’ve had a really hard week, I bring a bucket of doughnuts in on Friday and tell everyone, I really appreciate how hard you’ve worked this week,’" Waltenbaugh notes. "I also have certificates that I hand out for special efforts. One copy goes to the staff member who did the good job. The other copy goes in the staff member’s personnel file."
• Listening effectively. "You can’t solve problems with your staff if you aren’t hearing them," she says. "It sometimes helps to clarify the problem, if you repeat back to the staff what you think they’ve said. Use their own words and repeat back what they’ve said, just to make sure you really understand the situation."
For example, when a nurse complained that six new patients were admitted during her shift and the situation was "unsafe," Waltenbaugh repeated the nurse’s words back to her. The nurse admitted the situation was not "unsafe" but merely "very busy and stressful." There is a large difference between "unsafe" and "busy," she notes.
Similarly, a nurse once complained that a patient care technician was constantly touching her. "When I repeated her description of the tech’s behavior back to her, she admitted that the tech wasn’t touching her but was standing very close to her, which made her uncomfortable. It was simply a matter of two very different personality types — one very touchy-feely, one very reserved — clashing."
• Softening criticism with positive strokes. Staff often are more responsive to criticism if you give positive recognition at the same time, says Waltenbaugh. For example, a patient care technician had numerous communication problems with peers because her demeanor made her seem uncaring, and Waltenbaugh had received numerous complaints from the technician’s co-workers. One day, the technician was responsible for transferring a woman off the maternity floor. During the transfer, the mother was called to the special care nursery because her baby was dying. The technician went with the mother and stayed with her until after the baby died.
"I used that moment as an opportunity," notes Waltenbaugh. "I went to her and praised her for going above and beyond the call of duty. Then I said, You have the potential to do wonderful, caring things. Your co-workers have the opinion that you are uncaring, and I simply don’t believe that’s true.’ I used the situation as an opportunity to encourage more positive behavior."
Are you a hawk or a dove?
Of course, nurses and other staff are individuals, and managing staff requires a variety of communication skills. Waltenbaugh says it helps her communicate more effectively if she first identifies the personality type of each staff member. "I’ve found that most of my nurses and techs fall into one of four personality types. Understanding the individual’s personality type helps me solve problems more effectively," she says. Sharing these tips with your staff also helps them deal more effectively with co-workers, physicians, and patients, she says. Those four personality types are:
• Aggressive. "These people are very confrontational," says Waltenbaugh. "Sometimes, they are simply intimidating. Sometimes, they are almost hostile."
When managing this type of personality, she says, it’s helpful for supervisors to step back and not get pulled into the aggressive behavior. "Physicians also can be very aggressive and intimidating. My director once had a physician in her office who continued to raise his voice. She simply kept calling him by name very softly. Eventually, he realized that the louder he got, the softer she spoke. He realized he was being inappropriate and began to back down."
• Sarcastic. "There are people who simply love to be sarcastic. Everything they say sounds like criticism. It can cause a lot of friction and hard feelings between staff members."
Sarcastic personalities often don’t think before they speak, says Waltenbaugh. "Try saying, You made me feel as if you were criticizing the way I handled that situation.’ Often, they immediately deny they meant to be critical. Very few of us feel comfortable enough to call attention to inappropriate behavior in others, but it is often effective in diffusing an uncomfortable situation."
• Unresponsive. This is the type of person whose opinions you’re never sure of, she says. "You don’t know what they are thinking. You’re never sure whether they understand your instructions. It’s hard to know if they are shy or simply don’t like to share their ideas with others."
This type of personality must be approached one-on-one, she says. "You must draw them out on an individual basis. Tell them, We’ve been working together for some time, and I haven’t had a good opportunity to get to know you. I’d like to know how you feel about X and Y,’" she suggests. "It’s important to give the individual the feeling that you believe they have good ideas to share."
• Super ego. "We need these people around, because they aren’t afraid to take on responsibility and tackle hard problems," notes Waltenbaugh. "However, if we’re not careful, a few super egos can overshadow the entire staff and prevent others from contributing valuable ideas. It’s sometimes useful to knock your super egos down a peg or two by gently pointing out the times they may have done something incorrectly."
When all else fails, and two or three staff members with conflicting personality types clash, she suggests supervisors turn to role-playing games. "Having staff members act out a situation often helps them handle it more effectively the next time they are faced with a similar situation.
"I once had to prepare for a meeting with the nurse’s union steward. I asked a friend to play the part of the union steward to help me prepare for the meeting," she says. "My friend was so difficult that the actual meeting with the union representative was easy by comparison."
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