Communication Across Generations:
Bridging the Divide on Healthcare Teams

Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast — Episode 84: Communication Across Generations with Vicki Landers. Host: Klaus Grim, PA-C CPC ELI-MP. Guest: Vicki Landers, PT (coach at Transforming Healthcare Coaching).

Klaus Grim: Welcome everybody to a new episode of the

Transforming Healthcare Coaching. I once overheard a senior physician say to a colleague,

"This new generation just doesn't have the same work ethic we did."

And then I heard, a young nurse once said to me during a coaching session, the oldest, "

"The older staff are so resistant to change. They think their way is the only way."

Both were exhausted. Both were brilliant at their jobs. Both were convinced the other generation was the problem, but here's what I've noticed coaching healthcare teams, we keep having the same conversations across different decades, blaming each other for challenges that we have nothing to do with age and everything to do with how we are choosing to see each other. And today we're exploring how healthcare teams can bridge the generational divide, not by ignoring our differences, but leveraging them. Because the truth is we need each other more than we realize. So Vicki, I'm joined by Vicki Landers today, one of the coaches at Transforming Healthcare Coaching. And Vicki, we've had you on an episode before, and I think people already know you, but I'd love to hear a little bit about you and why we're talking about generations today.

Vicki landers: First of all, I'm super happy to be here. I, I love talking with you and I love, I love sharing this kind of information with people. Um, My background is I'm a physical therapist who, uh, moved from physical therapy clinical practice into management and leadership and actually moved into the world of strategy and, um, IT analyst application and a lot of communication.

Uh, I, uh, spent a great deal of time translating, uh, IT and technical speak to clinical and clinical and to IT and technical speak and what I found along the way is that communication is so important and styles of communication um, are really important. And the, honestly, I'm going to give you my bottom line right from the beginning and the bottom line is -

nobody's communication style is good or bad. They're just different. And when we as people can accept that younger generations have been enculturated to communicate away older generations were enculturated to communicate a different way. If we can just embrace that and let go of that judgment, it would move us forwards so much. Um, and, and let go of that judgment and actually open up that opportunity for us to actually communicate and learn more from each other.

Klaus Grim: Wow.

Vicki landers: There I just summarized us.

Klaus Grim: you, you summarized this episode completely already. We can end the call now. So I love the background that you have, obviously as a physical therapist, as a, as a, you know, coach, but, um, with your background in communication. But I guess what, where's your, oh, what passion developed as a result of generations?

What were you hearing that said, "Hmm, maybe we need to talk about this a little bit more?"

Vicki landers: I think it was fascinating. I was orienting a young clinician, she was a nurse and I was trained doing some training with her and it was technology training. And in the conversation with her, she's, this is a girl who was 24 years old. This is about, I don't know, eight years ago. Um, She says to me,

"I hate technology. I don't want to deal with this."

And I was completely confused. I was like, wait a minute. You are of a generation that got brought up with cell phones and computers. And, and. And so I got to me to thinking that, you know, we have this idea of generational expectations, but that not everybody fits into that mold.

And that was like the first, that was like my first thing that I was like, okay, things that this, these, it, it really was more about expectations of people, um, that it sort of expanded into talking with the younger clinicians um, and students. And one of the things that I also heard people say was,

"Well, oh, I don't want to make a phone call. I don't want to talk to them."

Whereas, um, some of our, our nurses who are more baby boomer generation, they're like,

"Please don't make me send another email. Can't I just talk to somebody?" Um, And so one of the struggles there that I noticed was that our, the older generation nurses didn't want to send an email to a younger nurse.

And the younger nurse didn't want to answer the phone call when the um, nurse who'd been around longer was trying to get ahold of them. And so I just, it's sort of the observations of of what we grew up with and are used to was starting to get in the way of people actually being able to do their jobs really well.

Klaus Grim: Wow. I think those are some very great examples of things I still see every day, right. Is, Is a lot

that

um, shock that you have when you, when you hear somebody say a challenge and unable to come up with a solution. Um, It's the same thing that I think um is happening today with you know, residents and, and senior physicians, right? Um, is this expectation to work these crazy hours? And I think that's why so many changes takes so long to happen right where like,

" Well, I worked the a hundred hours, I never slept and I did all this."

So they need to be doing that. That's what's going to make them a great physician, right? And we know notoriously that lack of sleep and poor nutrition, lack of exercise, lack of mental health days, um, and care is, is destructive to a human being and doesn't lead to the growth of a healthcare professional or professional in general. So, um, you know, it's very interesting that generational, challenges continue to be present. And so I'm curious with some of these conversations you've heard and been around. You know What have you been doing about it and, and how can we begin to change our language?

Vicki landers: So, I think first of all, it, you know, coaching obviously helps people see that they're telling themselves stories about other people. But I think, you know, you know, if anybody's listening to this, I think the biggest thing that you can do is work to suspend judgment and just be a neutral observer. And watch yourself when you start to have a reaction to the, to the lack of, or the way that somebody else is communicating, um, or the way that somebody, or what what they're they're saying.

And and try to remove that little nugget of judgment in your head and just be present with them. Um, One of the things that I like to talk about when I talk about, um, communication and, um, intergenerational conversations is this idea that um. I've completely lost my train of thought. Hold please.

What was I saying?

Klaus Grim: we're talking about generations. Um, um, one way you like to think about it. Um.

Vicki landers: I have my piece of paper in front of me. That's or my document.

Klaus Grim: ask a different question too if you need to.

Vicki landers: Um, ask me another question because I totally lost my train of thought there. It was a good one, but I'm, and I'm certain it'll come back. I just don't remember what it was.

Klaus Grim: we we will bring her back up. That's no problem at all. let me see what next question. I actually, I was scrolling

through what, what I want to ask you next. Yeah.

Vicki landers: Oh, I know what it was. So one of the things I like to talk to have people think about is that if I'm trying to communicate to you, so I want to get a message across to you. It's my responsibility to figure out how you can receive the message best, because you may or may not care about what it is that I'm trying to tell you or trying to convey to you.

You may or may not be interested. And so you're. You don't have the imperative that I do because I've got something important that I want to share with you. So as, as leaders, so when I was running staff meetings, I needed to understand how the people in the room could receive my message if I was giving a new regulatory update, or if I was teaching somebody about a change in the software that was going to impact their workflow.

Um. So I would think about how was I going to craft this and who was going to be in the room? And I don't know if everybody knows this, but right now we have, you know, we have six generations of people on the planet. Four of those generations are in the workforce. So we have that um, Baby Boomer Generation, GenX, Millennials, and GenZ.

So I had to think how, and I had all of those in the room. So I had to think about how, how the message was going to be conveyed. So it was always,

"Okay, we're going to do this verbally in person. Can I make a video? Can I send this in an email that has bullet points and has the important stuff at the top, and then the rationale at the bottom. Can I send it in Tweet length things?"

You know, I had to think about what was going to be the way that was going to get to that person the best in the way that they could actually receive it, because that was my job. Um, Not their job, it was mine. And so, I think that's something that I really like people to consider is that the app, the impetus is on you to figure out the best way and not to get mad at the other person because they're not receiving it.

Modify how we're doing it ourselves, and it's much more likely that somebody's going to be able to receive it better.

Klaus Grim: I love that. I love how you you really took that outside in approach where you're like,

"Okay, let me take a step back. We have all these different generations in, in the workforce. "

I've had this experience with, um, different generations where uh, how they respond to certain things and and, um, how they would better receive information to, to understand and grow and, reduce potential pushback as a result of bringing up something that's you know, important for the job. One thing you mentioned was 'remove judgment'. And I think that is a very tough thing to do. Um, Granted, we, you know, it's something I practice every day. Um, I'm no way in any way perfect. You know, So for somebody who's new to this concept where, you know, this idea of of, um, not getting upset about other generations and how they impact you know, your day-to-day life while at work? How can maybe somebody start to start removing some judgment in their life to have this outside in approach that you developed?

Vicki landers: So it is hard. I mean, it can be hard. But it starts it, For me, it starts with awareness. Just starting to notice when I'm judging, and as humans, we tend to judge three things. We judge other people, we judge ourselves, and we judge situations. Um, A lot of times, you know, in, in healthcare and in work, we are judging situations a lot and we are judging other people a lot.

Um, So the thing is, just to start noticing it. You know, I've had clients who've actually done a judgment journal. Where they, they start to write down when they notice that they're judging other people and they'll find trends. You know, I, I judge people about their tone of voice. I judge people about their intellect.

Um, I judge people with how fast or how slow they think. Um, And that awareness starts to let you sort of let go and recognize that it's really about me, that judgment is, is truly about me and not so much about them. Um, And I think, you know, this is that one of the things that we start to discover when people start to look at their judgements is that a lot of times we are putting on other people and judging other people for things that we don't necessarily like about ourselves.

So that's always the next step. And when you can shift how you um, think about that, about yourself, what happens is you can stop judging other people. It actually becomes not even a thing anymore. Um. So judgment journals are a really nice way to start noticing if, and you know, and when we're talking about intergenerational stuff, you can, you can think about am I judging them because of, um, because of their behaviors?

Am I judging them because of of, um, what they are or they aren't doing? And then start to give people grace because you know, again, we're not good or bad, we're just different. When we can give that grace, let go of the judgment, and start to recognize that we're all serving for a shared purpose, um, that goes a long way towards improving um, interprofessional communication.

Klaus Grim: Yeah.

Vicki landers: Yeah. I'm about to segue off into shared purpose. Um, we're, We're in healthcare to take care of people. And I think if people can remember that, that's also a great way to let go of judgment because if you accept that the give the benevolent assumption that the person next to you who's working with the patient at the same time is there to help the patient and you're there to help the patient, then it, then it becomes much more collaborative and we stop thinking about how annoying maybe the other person is in some other way.

We're there to take care of people

Klaus Grim: That's a great grounding

Vicki landers: so.

Klaus Grim: when we start to notice judgment. And I totally agree with you where it comes from the awareness and how to start getting awareness is writing these things down, maybe a journal um, picking up on cues. But I think the biggest thing for me, when I started to recognize these things. What was that? What is it saying about me and who I want to be as a person when these judgments do show up? Right? Because they're right. A lot of it is us and our own internal perceptions and um, and a judgment is oftentimes made without any good information, right? We're, we're making judgements by our first look. Right?

Vicki landers: Right. And we, we tell ourselves stories based upon our own history and our own background, and we make all stories and assumptions about other people and other people's intent. Um, that's, oh, That's something I really like people to think about is like, what? "What are you assuming about someone's intent?"

Because we tend to assume that our intent is always good and other people's intents um, are maybe bad or um, different than our own. And, And we make these these, these biased assumptions about other people, um, when we don't need to. And it, but again, it's about us. It's about what we're doing and what's going on in our own heads.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, and I think what's especially important for the audience now is is to maybe start to think about the generational factors about,

"Is this judgment based off of that? Can I see things from a different lens? Can I see things from their shoes? And I think that's something that I try and do as well is, you know, we all walk different paths and um, and the reason where they are right now and the judgment you made at that moment could be something that you had no idea . Right? It could be something as catastrophic if you're judging the way they showed up to work, you know, dressed a certain way . Right? You may be like,

"Oh, um, you know, they don't care about their work"

or, um, they're, uh, you know, uh, that they're just a messy person, for instance. Right?

Where it could be,

"Well, maybe they're struggling at home. Maybe something really is going on in their life that is happening."

And you asking them how they're doing could shift that. Right? And so if you ground yourself in the reasons of why you got into medicine, oftentimes that changes so much. And the way I like to see it is that's the type of person I'd like to be is, is somebody who's aiming to be some more positive. Somebody who's trying to make more positive changes in my own culture, in the healthcare environment that I'm in. And so that's another way that I, think I can recommend to, to, to see things from removing judgment.

Vicki landers: Demonstr, When I heard there it was demonstrating compassion

Klaus Grim: Yeah.

Vicki landers: and just compassion and a and a, and a curiosity and a recognition that that we don't know what's going on with other people. Um, And I think uh, there's, there's a book that was written, um which I am not going to remember the author's name at the moment.

Um, But it's all about how our intellect changes as we age. When we are young, our brains are, are more adept, more apt, more apt to be innovative and creative and come up with new solutions because we don't have this whole history and the neural pathways that are so, um, so ingrained and. The older that we get, we may not have that, that innovative creativeness, but what we have is this wisdom that actually makes connections and sees a bigger picture much, much more easily.

So we have this breadth of knowledge. So again, neither kind of intellect is good or bad. But they, and they both exist. And so, you know, younger, um, younger generations, um, just because you haven't been on the earth as long and you haven't had the same amount of experience, um, you know, listen to the people who've been around longer, um, for those nuggets of wisdom because they've can put connections together and um, those of us who've been around longer, you know, listen to the creativity of, of people who haven't gotten stuck in their ways.

Because the, that creativity is going to, what is going to be what makes healthcare be able to continue to exist because, you know, we are in a really um, challenging time when it comes to you know, rapid continual innovation and changes within payment models and you know, changes within ownership structures and private equity and you know, all of this stuff that's currently happening.

Um. We need everybody on the healthcare side of this to really come together,

Yeah,

and use the wisdom and use the creativity, and without both, um, we're going to struggle.

Klaus Grim: I really love this um, viewpoint right with generations is to begin to see the you know, the, the good or no, not to see the good or bad because, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're both good in their different ways. Right? Um, The different strengths that each generation has that you see embodied in somebody.

And and I think one thing to be clear here too is not everybody in each generation embodies esteem stereotypes. Right?

Vicki landers: Right, like the 24-year-old who uh, didn't like technology at all.

Klaus Grim: That, that, that's judgment. And so I love this, this model though is to, to know your audience, know your team, know the people that uh you're working with, right. Um, and what

Vicki landers: Yes.

Klaus Grim: see things and the challenges they may experience and leverage these as tools, um, to help them, but to also help the team.

So I'm, I'm curious for the healthcare leaders that are listening here, how can they begin to maybe leverage different generations into fostering more of a positive culture, and leading to just more growth when they're just still struggling with so many challenges as a result of these dynamics.

Vicki landers: I think the first thing is paying attention. Listen to the people you're leading. Listen to how they talk, listen to what their concerns are. Um. That listening is such an important part of communication in general. Um, If we are not listening, we're not paying attention, and I'm not talking about just listening to words.

I'm talking about listening with your eyes, you know, watching people's behaviors and, and cr creating that. Collaborative nature. Um, So not pitting people against each other, you know, creating a situation where I like to say we're all sitting on the same side of the table. So the problem is on the other side and we're on this side trying to solve it as opposed to us being across the table with the problem in the middle.

Um, So really thinking, allowing people space to share their ideas and their thoughts. Respectfully and share them in a way where everybody gets heard, but that the, that the leader is really listening to how everybody is communicating so that they can have a better idea of how to communicate back to the folks that they're leading.

You know? And that's in team meetings, that's in one-on-one conversations. Um, And we really need to be listening closely to the people that we're leading before we can have any hope of, of moving them in a direction where they're being more collaborative and being more accepting of of the variety of generations that we've got in our workforce right now.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, that's a, that's great wisdom right there is is really listening to those you work with, which I think is a hard thing to do when you're constantly in meetings and, um, maybe you're working alongside them on the front lines, um, and different shifts and, um, you know you feel like you already know them, right

because you hear of the constant challenges in the environment or other people's complaints. But have you really sat down with with each of your team members and looked at their behaviors, their dynamics? Are they, They may be somebody who wants to create change but doesn't know how to do so, and just asking them, you know, um, just simple questions about what's going on? How can I support you? What's working, what's not working? Right? And you may get more information about how to make these changes in your environment just by listening. Right?

Vicki landers: Yeah, and I like, I, one of the things I like is that, you know, performance reviews are not an annual event.

Klaus Grim: Hmm.

Vicki landers: Performance reviews are ongoing. I really like, you know, it's a collaborative conversation and performance reviews is how are you doing and how can I help you feel better and do better, you know, what do you need?

And listening to the, listening to the people when they say that, it's like, it's like joint commission. Does I, I have a friend who just started working IT in a hospital and he's cracking me up because he's like,

"Oh, the window for Joint Commission has just opened at this hospital."

And I'm like, "Yeah."

And he's like, "I bet that that makes everybody nervous."

And I'm like, "Well, yes, and there's this idea of continual readiness.

If you're doing all the things that you're supposed to do all the time, then when they show up on site, it's a little uncomfortable, but you already are doing all the stuff you're supposed to do."

So it's the same thing. You know, if you're a leader and you're communicating with people all of the time, they should already know what they're supposed to do. But you as the leader, need to be really paying attention and really talking to them and figuring out what's important to the individual so that you can support them in, in a way that's meaningful to them, because, you know,

somebody who is of the baby boomer generation is going to need and want support in a completely different way than somebody who's a new young clinician.

They're just going to be different, and there's nothing wrong with that. You just need to listen.

Klaus Grim: There's nothing wrong with the differences that happen in our healthcare teams. We just gotta listen as the first step to figuring out what the solution can be, which is going to be completely unique for your organization and your team. Um, But first step is always awareness, right? And so,

Vicki landers: Awareness and attention and listening.

Klaus Grim: And so we as healthcare professionals are, um or I guess as a society and everybody always expect it to be from your supervisors and managers and leaders and organizations to be the change in you, uh, to make you happier in your environment and to deal with these generational issues and challenges. Obviously, we are at agency for our own changes. And so what would your advice be for the healthcare professional? Who is struggling with generational cha changes. So from the, you know, senior charge nurse who's tired of the millennial nurse, where it may be seen, they have less resilience or the, you know, new grad who feels like the, um, senior staff or just completely resistant to, to changes.

Vicki landers: You know, I, It goes back to, um, first give yourself grace for being frustrated it makes complete sense that this is a challenging time. It's a challenging situation. Uh, So that's the first thing. Give yourself grace. Be like,.....

"yep, I don't like this. This is uncomfortable."

And then the next one is going back to the 'who can I be?'

"Who can I be in the situation that might influence other people? Can I approach this not from a victim or a conflict perspective, but maybe could I put the lens of compassion? Can I put a lens of curiosity on?" Um,

Because it'll make us feel better. Uh, you know, if you're, If you're frustrated with something and you decide to look at something from a compassionate, uh, angle, it feels a lot better than conflict.

And you know, start to develop. Um, There's some really interesting research about empathy and about how when healthcare providers get training and empathy, that it actually changes the culture of the organization. And the really fun thing is it changes patient outcomes. So not only are you improving how you feel, but you're improving how your, uh, coworkers are the culture of your organization and patients win, win, win.

Klaus Grim: My gosh. you're the queen of seeing things from different lenses. I could just visualize just like wearing glasses, flipping the lens and right. Love it because it just, it just flows so naturally just to be like,

"I'm looking at it this way. Put the lens up. I can look at it this way."

The way you just mentioned, and I think that is a beautiful pearl to leave our audience with, is that you are at choice to see things differently and you just need to be aware at the moment when you are seeing things a certain way from a victim or conflict mode, right, to um, a way that you would want to show up. Right? And so that you're not feeling um, the judgment, you're not feeling anger or, or whatever emotions are present that are not serving you at that time. And so, Vicki, as we come to a close, any final tips or pearls for the audience when we talk about different generations and the challenges that we experience, but um, some solutions that we can, uh, create as a result.

Vicki landers: Remember that if you are a older generation, you were once young and you were once just like these people who you may be getting frustrated with. You may not think you were, but you were. And for the people who are younger, take a look and think about who do you want to be as you move through your career and through your life.

Who do you want to be? How do you want to show up? Um, And learn from the other generations.

Klaus Grim: I love that.

Vicki landers: So that's my open up. And, and, And see what you can learn from people who have had a different life experience than you.

Klaus Grim: And we're not stuck in our ways. I think that's one thing too that, you know, I think we're all so used to living day by day, you know? Um, just the way it is, the way it is, right? When it really doesn't have to be that way. When you know it, these emotions and the way you're looking at things may not be serving you.

It doesn't have to be that way. And you have now developed some tools and tricks to begin to see things a little bit differently that serve you, colleagues, your patients a lot better. And, um, um, one thing that comes to mind is that I find that a lot of young healthcare professionals don't see themselves as leaders, or they don't see themselves at agency for change, that it should be coming up from, you know the government and your manager and those above you to make these changes for you to make you happy. Right? But only you can do that. Only you can make yourself happy. And obviously there needs to be systemic changes within healthcare. We all know that. But you need to be the change first for yourself and for the healthcare system as well.

We all are not perfect. Right? So that's

Vicki landers: Yeah, the only thing we can control is how we're showing up and we have no hope of influencing anything around us, if we're showing up feeling like a victim or showing up in conflict. Um, And if we can help manage self-regulate our our ourselves, then we can actually start to have a positive influence.

Because the thing that people don't realize is that well. This is one of my things. Leadership is not a role or position or a title. Leadership is behavior and everybody's behavior influences the culture. If you're a leader and a manager, you may have a little bit more power, but you, everybody influences everybody else.

So if I'm showing up as a victim, I'm pulling everybody down to my victim hood. If I'm showing up with compassion and curiosity, I'm pulling everybody else into compassion and curiosity. We have so much more power to do that than we realize. So we end up with culture by culture, by chance, instead of culture.

By choice, we can, we can choose how we show up, which will influence our organization, which I just think is the most, it's such an empowering feeling. It's how we show up, influences everybody around us and, and you can choose you know, how do you want to influence people?

Klaus Grim: Thank you so much. This is a superpower that I hope you're able to to master. Um, but starting with

awareness

will lead you towards that. So thank you everybody. If there is any comments, please send us one. And we're from wherever you're listening, we read every comment and we'd love to hear where you see generational challenges.

And if you've tried out one of these tips that Vicki and I share today and tell us did it work, and what do you want to hear next? So thank you Vicki, for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Vicki landers: Thank you so much. This was a great time.