Gallop Says

Gallop repeatedly says nurses are the most trusting and ethical profession! We have had that honor 17 of the 18 years Gallop has conducted this poll. We score higher than other healthcare professionals, higher than law enforcement, and higher than educators. And, it is true! We are trusting, we are ethical, and likewise, we are caring, and we work really hard.

Unfortunately, we are also uncivil. In fact, depending on which research article your choose, it will reflect that up to 99% of nurses have either witnessed or been exposed to incivility while at work.

The shocking truth is that most of that incivility is not coming from the physicians or patients. It is actually coming from other nurses! Eating each other alive continues to thrive! That we eat our young has been a part of the dark side of nursing culture forever. I recently read an article where a newbie academia questioned how/why the tenured professors treated her with incivility...Lawd - If academia can't get it right, is there any hope for the rest of us? Incivility is real - in Nursing, we DO eat our young! But we are not that singularly focused. We can be uncivil to most anyone. I lived it when I started in nursing 25 years ago, and I can assure you, incivility is still rampant today.

The question is not really why it exists, the real question is when? When is the leadership team going to take responsibility, draw the line in the sand, and say Incivility Ends Today. The question after that one... at what point will leaders make the decision to take the steps to create a culture where the expectation is not only that "nurses treat patients with courtesy and respect," we honestly expect our nurses to treat each other (and everyone else) with “courtesy and respect?!” A side note question is, are we sure we treat our team with courtesy and respect? Every leader in healthcare has the tools at their disposal to be able to answer yes to these questions. The challenge is in figuring out how to put these tools to use. No scripting, no gimmicks, just use what already exists within your organization!

It honestly comes down to... Do you as a leader want to change the culture on your unit or in your building? Do you want every employee to show up and be accountable for their behavior? Do you want the civil employees to not have the stress of working among those that skipped a few lessons on empathy and kindness? Do you want to help your uncivil nurses break the cycle of disruption that they created and can't seem to break free from? Or, do you want to permit/promote an ongoing toxic culture rampant with incivility?

I believe that most of our uncivil nurses (and other uncivil staff members) are at the core good people. A few maybe not, but you are the key to managing those behaviors as well (ultimately their choice - feel it, fix it or fake it -more to come on this topic in a later post). These same people who show up at work, make life miserable for their colleagues, and then repeat it on a daily basis, are the same people who host Superbowl parties, coach their kids sport's teams, are room parents, go to church weekly, etc. The disconnect in how they behave at work versus in their home life has always been a fascination to me.

I have spent years as a nursing leader ending uncivil disruptive behavior with the positive engagement and quality scores reflecting that it had been eliminated. I hope each of you realize that every measure on your dashboard is impacted negatively when incivility exists! I spent my doctoral years researching incivility. For my DNP project I applied what the research reflected (and it overwhelming aligned with the methods I had used to end the incivility for my teams) to help other leaders end incivility on their units.

My DNP project reflected that in a mere 90-days, the perception of peer behavior related to disruption had decreased by 9%. Imagine what can be accomplished when a leadership team implements a zero-tolerance process every single day! Imagine how 9% in 90-days can snowball into dramatic behavioral improvements over 6-9-12 months when leaders take action to end incivility. Your staff will appreciate your efforts and you will have peace of mind. Today is the day to make the decision, to take the first step! When you make that decision, let me know how I can help you to take your first steps! #EndIt! #endincivilitytoday #YourNursesDeserveIt #YourPatientsDeserveIt #YouDeserveIt