EP21 - Mending Medicine: Kimberly Best on Conflict as a Cure

In every operating room, in every ward, in every clinic, and every team meeting, a silent battle brews. Conflict, negotiation, identity. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast, where I, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, Explore the hidden negotiations beyond modern medicine. Let's trade burnout for boundaries and learn the art of healing with precision and power.

Hello, my peaceful warriors. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, and I am so excited to have on the podcast today Kimberly Best. Kimberly is a registered nurse, She also has a master's in conflict management from Lipscomb University. She has multiple certificates in training as a mediator and in conflict resolution and mediation from the University of South Florida, from Pepperdine, from Hofstra. She has been a longtime clinical practitioner as a nurse, but she also has loads of experience. She actually has her own company. She is the founder of Best Conflict. I'll make sure I'm going to say that company right. She has a wonderful blog. She has trained mediators. She is working actively training people in the healthcare space. And honestly, she is kind of what I want to be. So I really aspire to be working at the level she is working. And it is the reason why I'm so thrilled she is on the podcast today. Kim, welcome.

Thank you, Lee. I'm excited to be here. And it really makes me excited to hear you say That you want to do this and your commitment toward it, because I think a rising tide lifts all boats. And the best mediators I know are actively trying to help others succeed in the field. I jokingly say I'd like to work my way out of a job, but we all know that there'll always be conflict. So that's the least of our worries. So thank you for what you do.

Oh my goodness. When I read your website and when I found you and I started reading your blog, I think the one thing that really jumped out to me is your approach to conflict, which I think is one of the biggest things that we try to talk about, which is conflict is not negative. Conflict is not bad. The presence of conflict doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It really can be transformative. And that's like the first thing that you talk about on your website is changing that worldview about what conflict is. What was your light bulb moment, this idea that conflict can be transformative?

Yeah, I think we all know that conflict is normal and it's part of life. Well, do we know that? I mean, that's the question, right? Like, well, I ask people, what did you learn about conflict when you were growing up and you were the source of conflict? And I think we don't learn that it's normal, right? We learn that something is wrong. More than that, we learn Usually that the people are wrong. And I'm a person, and I know that I have been in the middle of conflict quite often, even if that's not my intent, right? So it is just coming to grips, really, I think, as an ER nurse, as a trauma nurse, that things go sideways because it's life and not because people are messed up or bad or wrong or anything like that. It was just kind of the process, I think, of Growing up and recognizing that the hard stuff is not in the way, it is the way. And then equally recognizing that darn, we haven't learned the tools how to do that. And if you don't mind, Lee, I'll tell you how I became a mediator, moved nursing into mediation.

Yes.

And that was going through truly the most conflicted moment of my life, which was a terrible divorce at the age of 50. It was so acrimonious that my family is damaged forever as a result of this. And it was mostly in my case, and I'm not the only one that shares this, but the aggressiveness of a divorce attorney who was more interested in winning than keeping a family together. And then that's again, the nature of divorce going the attorney route. And my brother, who was an educator, said to me, um, have you heard of this thing called transformative mediation, which is out of Hofstra? And back in that day, if you Googled mediation, Google said you mean meditation because nobody knew what mediation was 15 years ago. So—

Right.

I went to Hofstra and I was blown away by recognizing these There are tools, there is a skillset, there's a process that we just haven't learned. And then as I began that process, of course, then I went through the education and things that you talk about, mostly because I didn't want other people to have to go through what I went through. Like, we have a tendency as humans to want to turn our pain into some sort of positive, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And for me, it was a commitment. Like, if I can do this, if I can figure out how to change That email I send, no matter how fair, right, self-righteous, convincing, whatever it is to me, to the other person has a completely different meaning. If I can learn how to do this, then other people can too. And I decided that's how I wanted to spend the rest of my time here. So I think of it as going from working in ICU and emergency physically to ICU and emergency Spiritually, because I feel like people at their worst moments, which is who we are in conflict, is who we are at our worst moments. It's not who we are, you know?

Wow.

So yeah.

You're amazing. The fact that you're able to take something in a horrible experience like that and turn it into something that's going to benefit so many people, let alone healthcare providers, that's power being able to do that. I think it's so interesting because I remember when I came through and I did my master's, and it's been 20 years ago, you know, you're right, mediation was not something that was just high on the radar. We talked about it just by virtue of being in a master's program for conflict resolution, but it was not something that was widely known. And I think it's still something in healthcare that's not even in community in general that's not widely recognized. And I think part of The problem with it not being widely recognized is people feel like they only have a couple of avenues. They feel like they either can shut up or they can go to litigation. It's one or the other. And having the ability to know that service and those people that are trained like you out there, I think that's so incredible. How often do you find that people really reach out to you? Is this something that happens a lot now that people are more aware of the process of mediation?

Well, not as much as would behoove all of us, including the people in conflict, but more than ever before. So I think people like you helping plant seeds of options— mediation is still something most people have no idea what it is. And very often when they do hear mediation, the only experience they've had is maybe mediation for divorce or knowing that it's Tied to some sort of a legal process, which is terrifying to people as well. So just to use it for conflict management, for dispute resolution, for building conflict systems, people have not heard of it too much, but they're reaching out more than ever. So I feel like us evangelical type of people are, and people are starting to see it works. Since it's a new practice, I think we have a duty to do it well.

Mm-hmm.

So that people do see this as a better alternative to what they have now, as you said, ignoring it, or with all that bitterness, you know, that sits inside when you have an unsolved problem or conflict, or seeking the legal course, which is a lot.

I think a lot of times in healthcare, especially for physicians, we tend to be very conflict avoidant. Some of that is that we don't like conflict. Some of that, like you said, we didn't have the tools growing up to recognize that conflict was okay, and therefore we should have a way to work with it and through it individually and also as part of a community. But I also think in healthcare, one of the biggest reasons people tend to shy away from conflict is they don't see a connection between the presence of unresolved conflict and patient care. They don't see that those two are connected. One of the things that you talk about on your website is that 41% of the time, conflict is perceived as having a negative impact on patient care. And I think that's one of the things that you talk about so beautifully, is that there is a connection between having conflict happening in the workplace that's not addressed or resolved, or at least managed on some level. And I think especially since you've worked in ER, ICU, you know, you talk about the speed of which That process moves. You don't have time to go out in the hall if you've got a patient in trauma code and work through a conflict for 20 minutes. You can't do that. But teaching people that conflict can have an impact on patient care, do you feel like that's a gateway to getting people to engage more in the process?

I wish I could find what the gateway is because it is my experience still, particularly in healthcare, and I, I had this conversation earlier today. I was talking to someone. I've created these conflict cards for workplace that I just rolled out this week, and I'm so excited about. And I really want to do healthcare-specific ones, but I have a healthcare-specific online workshop on Thinkific, and it has not taken off like other ones have. So, well, the conversation I had with this person was, I think a couple things happen, particularly in healthcare. My daughter is an ER nurse here in St. Louis where I am, and she has the exact same problems that I had when I was an ER nurse three centuries ago. And her attitude is the same. I've heard, "Well, this just is what it is. It's not going to change." I think part of it is that sad acceptance that things aren't going to go anywhere. I think part of it is. The blame and shame, maybe a fear of admitting we're wrong because we're so tied to fear of lawsuits, fear of litigation. And one of the things I teach, Lee, is that fear is a terrible reason to make a choice. Don't choose to move away from something, choose to what you want to become. And everything around conflict management, teams knowing it, means better outcomes in terms of retention, in terms of patient outcomes, in terms of even mortality and morbidity. I mean, how strange that there's more incidences of not just lawsuits, but mistakes made in healthcare when teams are in conflict because how well are they communicating then?

Right.

I mean, all kinds of subconscious processes start happening. When I'm mad at you, I don't even realize I don't want you to succeed, even if what you're doing is CPR. It's just so complex. But why we don't talk about it more, or why we don't embrace that— how much time do you spend working? Like almost half of your life, at least in going to or from. So much time. Why not make that a good experience for you? So maybe it's for you that you do it. Maybe it's for the patients that you do it. Maybe it's just for the heck of seeing if another way actually works. I don't know.

Yeah.

Maybe it's because what you learn at work and how to handle conflict is also going to be a benefit to you at home and any other relationship you have, because these skills are quite transferable.

Okay. But I do think there's some inertia to that. Like you talked about your daughter who's now working as an ER nurse, and she is dealing with the exact same things that you were dealing with when you were working in that space. How crazy it is that we're still not embracing this idea of Managing and having systems in place to work through conflict as being something that's not only pivotal for patient care, but for our personal wellness and to avoid burnout. One of the things you talked about in your blog, one of the things that I see a lot, and I would love to know if this is something that you see because you also work in dispute system design, is the people who are primarily responsible for helping systems adopt dispute systems, which are going to be more administration and more people in leadership. It's hard for them to see why this needs to be here. It's like, oh, we're fine. Now, I think part of that is, like we talked about, people seeing conflict as bad and so forth. We have conflict. Are we doing something wrong? No. I had a medical student on the podcast a while back, and one of the things that she talked about, and I love this quote and I keep using it, that the practice of medicine is sticky. It's a very sticky world that we live in in terms of us carrying all of our personal goals, our personal motivations. into this realm of patient care, it's going to be a difficult process. And so, conflict as a result of that is to be expected. So, to say that we don't need to have a system in place to deal with it is really crazy almost that we don't admit that. But I think one of the things that you put in your blog was if you look at the average cost of a mediation, which is going to be about $3,000, and you compare that— to the cost of training a new nurse, which is $56,000, having to replace that person, the math sort of speaks for itself. And when we look at the crisis of burnout that we have, I think one of the other things that you put on there is— and I think about things that would convince people to buy into working in a conflict resolution system, actually learning how that system works, actually developing those skills— is the idea That if you have a team that's got really high turnover, and you're constantly having to train people, and you're not asking yourself, why am I having a hard time keeping people on this team? Then the question you'd naturally have to ask is, is there conflict going on that is driving people away? Are you seeing people more and more using some of these metrics to actually seek out dispute systems?

I mean, I use every metric that you read on the blog, because it's mind-boggling to me. Everything you just said is mind-boggling. We know Healthcare shortages have been forever. We've never had an abundance of healthcare workers. And then since COVID it's worse than ever. I did work with a team. It was actually the wife of a physician's practice who reached out to me, and I've worked with them for years. But the first time I worked with them, someone said, if anywhere I'd ever worked had a service like this, I would have never left.

Wow.

Because indeed, you're right. Most of the time, it's for some conflict that people leave. They don't leave work when they're happy. They leave because of conflict. So how much does it cost me to train an entire unit in conflict management skills? Nothing close to what it costs for them to replace one healthcare worker. One. And I'd love to know your perspective since you do this work, Lee, as well. What is it? About an easy, inexpensive fix. And oh, by the way, if you're a manager and you don't want to keep doing this, what I do for this group, I am the go-to person. I onboard new people. I tell them the workplace agreement that is this department, design their work. I don't tell you how you should work and play together.

Right.

I find out how you want to work and play together and then help you decide what that's going to look like along each Step of the way. You want respect? What is respect? What does that look like? How are you going to talk to each other? So I onboard new people, and then if they get stuck, they reach out. If they can't resolve it themselves, you want your teams, you want your people to be able to work out their problems between each other. That's how you build relationships, not going to the nurse manager.

Right.

Imagine being the nurse manager and not having to do that job. There's a million reasons it makes sense. But I don't know. I'd like to know from you why you think this isn't like taking off in a huge way because it's effective, it's not expensive, and you pay a price on the front end in terms of a little bit of work that takes care of the back end. But we keep on paying that back end price for not putting in some front end work. What do you think is going on there?

I think one of the biggest things I see and one of the biggest reasons why people have a hard time sort of wrapping their brain around having a process or having a system for conflict, I think it's twofold. I think the first one is if you are actively seeking out a system to manage conflict, then you're sort of either tacitly or out loud saying, this is a systemic problem. We have a systemic problem. And that's hard for people to admit to. That's hard for them to say, my system needs needs work. Sometimes it's easier for people to say, oh, our system's fine. Oh, all our employees are happy.

That—

no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to say at some point, even if all of your employees are in a really good place, and you've got no turnover, I'm thrilled for you. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have something established so that when the inevitable does happen— I'm not saying it's an if, it's a when— you're going to have a patient go south, you're going to have a family member that's argumentative, something's going to happen. That maybe doesn't have anything to do with your team, but it's in your system. And so, to have something in place to work with it, I think, is really important. But to say it's systemic, it's easier sometimes to say it's an individual. And the healthcare system in general, and with burnout, has definitely done that. It's like, oh, this is an individual problem. It's like, no, this is moral injury, and this is systemic, and we need to address it that way. So, I think conflict goes hand in hand with working with burnout and moral injury. You're still talking about individuals versus systems, which is why dispute systems are so positive and so beneficial. And that's why even if you don't think you have a problem, you should have one. I think that's the first reason. I think the second reason is people still— unless you grew up in a household like you talked about where conflict was something that you learned how to manage, where you actively engaged in that process and you are comfortable with that, There's shame involved with conflict that we feel like we've done something wrong. If I'm in a conflict situation, it's my fault. I have done something. Somebody did something bad, and therefore I walk around with shame from it. I was counseling a surgeon who was in a peer review situation, and he came to me and said, I'm in the situation. I have to go talk to peer review next week. I'm not really sure how I'm going to handle this. And I said, one of the first things we talked through, the reason why he was going. And I said, even if you did something wrong, which I'm not really sure that you did, I wasn't there. But even if you did, you can't be ashamed about it. If it happened, it happened. You can learn and you can be better. And you can walk into this discussion and say, this is what I've learned from going through the process. I realize I may have done X and Y, but this is what I'm going to do to work through this so it doesn't happen again. Because anytime we make a mistake, even if that was your role in the conflict, if we can release the shame that goes with it, we're actually able to do something more positive. So I think those are the 2 things that I see are the biggest obstacles with people sort of engaging in even developing a dispute system.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I love that because what you did is normalize mistakes. And I remember 100 years ago, my best friend and I worked in a trauma unit. And we went out to dinner one night and she got the wrong steak, wasn't done right or whatever. And she kind of had a little bit of a fit. And I'm like, wait, if we make a mistake, people die. And here, you know, your meat's a little undercooked or whatever. I mean, you know, the perspective of it.

Right.

But for some reason, well, lots of reasons around psychology, when we make a mistake, oh, it's just normal. People make mistakes. When other people do, we want to point fingers. So. We have to normalize the fact, and here's what I say, Lee, I say life is an experiment. Every single moment is one you've never been in before. Every moment. And sometimes you're gonna get it right, and sometimes you're just not.

Yeah.

And that doesn't mean you're bad, should be ashamed. Of course, we grow up learning that if we make a mistake, we're bad kids. So there's a reason we do this, but how about we just do it a little bit differently? I also wanna reframe the systems comments that you made. I do some work with the National Association for Community Mediation, and they talk a lot about the system. And I say this, systems are made up of individuals. Mm-hmm. They're people. We have conflict because we are people, not because we're messed up, not because the system's messed up. But as one of an organization I worked with, their CEO said, people are not widgets. It's all frustrating. We're not widgets. The hardest thing to manage is people. Well, we're not managing people. I mean, I object to that. I think our goal is to bring out the best in each person as a manager. It's more of a collaborator thing. But all that to say, it's because we're different and we haven't accepted that because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm against you.

Right.

Or learned how to talk when we disagree. Or what the heck, get triggered, because who doesn't get triggered, disagree, and then go back and fix it. Like, we have all these unexplored options that are built into people, and people make up the system. So if a hospital wants to say, or a doctor's office wants to say, instead of, hey, I just want to admit my system's broken, why don't we just admit that we're people and we're complex? Yeah. And we need to figure out a way how to communicate with different complex people and still have a great workplace culture, patients who thrive and do well, clients and families who are happy to come see us because they know they're not going to fight against us to get something, that we are for them. How do we be for each other? Because all of these things are options. They're just skill sets.

They are.

And as you are working through these skill sets and you're helping people understand how to approach this, I mean, you're helping with communication. Communication, of course, is pivotal in healthcare. But one of the things that you just mentioned in terms of talking about culture, that you're actually building a culture where people are happy to be at work. And I think it's fascinating. A lot of times when you have systems where there's conflict, sometimes people in healthcare think, oh, the patients don't know. You know, if we're having a bad day, if we're having conflict, patients don't know. Oh, that's so not true. Patients know. They're completely aware. And so the idea of using the presence of conflict as something transformative, it's actually something that as you recognize it and teach people how to work within it, work through it, actually build those skills, you actually start transforming not just the individual in terms of how they're feeling at work, you actually start transforming the entire culture. And that's something that I would love to know in terms of, as you're working with organizations, you've worked a lot in mediation. And it sounds like the healthcare system is definitely sort of lagging in terms of where we could be with this process. What has been your experience in terms of working with Smaller systems, larger systems. Do you feel like in terms of working with a smaller system, is there buy-in faster as opposed to working with a larger system? Which kind of seems like an aw shucks, it probably would be harder with a larger system. But in terms of building dispute systems especially, what is that experience like for you?

I love that question. That actually gets me excited. So I think it's a mistake to take a big system like a hospital and expect And that conflict management system is going to work in each department. So for me, maybe I can break it down this way. Everything is made up of smaller systems. And the smaller systems even begin on an individual level. So what works for an ER is not the same process that X-ray needs.

Right.

So you can have overlying guidelines, I like instead of rules, that apply to the big Culture, which is things like people are really reluctant for this. But one of the big things I try to do is if I have a problem with someone, I try to address the problem with them before I go to management. And that fixes things on a gazillion levels. And when you get comfortable learning how to do that, you're going to feel even better about yourself. So you can have a policy like that system-wide, but how that works depends on each unit. And maybe there's always cases where things don't work. So I think I may have lost track of the question that you asked me on that. And if I did, I apologize. You're great. You're great.

I know. And as I was asking the question, it's like, it does, I mean, obviously with a smaller system, as you're designing for a department or an ambulatory surgery center, that's going to be way different than what you're doing for a hospital, something that's a very large system. I think it's also really interesting in terms of the way people get in conflict. I think that people have different styles in terms of working with conflict. It's not just a time pressure thing. I think, like you're talking about working in an emergency room or an operating room or an ICU, that time pressure is going to feel different than what goes on a ward or what goes on in a doctor's office. That timescale is going to feel a little bit different. So you really are having to look at not only what's going on within that system, which I think is one of the great things About being a nurse and having the credentials and the training that you have. Anytime you have been in that world, there's sort of the unspoken processes that go on, but you know, because you've been in that system for such a long time, they're not unspoken to you. They're very familiar to you. And I think that's the other thing that I've really found beneficial in working in this space is that there's things that go on in the operating room. You don't have to explain them to me. I've been in the operating room for 35 years. I get it. But somebody who may not be in that world may not get it the way I do. So being able to bring these worlds together, I think has been really cool to watch. And I do think you're having more and more people who are seeking out this knowledge base. I had a guest on the podcast, I think that's been a couple of months ago, a surgeon from Canada who had done a beautiful article in the Journal of American Medical Association looking at the surgeon-anesthesiologist dyad. And what she did is she followed in high-risk surgeries that when the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, the more they were the same, that 90-day morbidity actually decreased on an order of 4% to 6%. And these are fairly high-risk cases. And she not only found that it decreased, the more that they worked together, the more that morbidity went down. And when I reached out to her and she was so gracious to be on the pod, but it was one of those things that As we were talking, this is something that costs a health system nothing. They're not hiring new people. They might have to work with schedule, but we have AI to do some of this stuff now. All you're having to do is solidify this team. And when we solidify the team, morbidity goes down. As we're seeing more and more of this, I think you're going to see more and more people buy into that.

Can I add something about the whole system thing? So one of the things that excites me the most, I love systems design because it's applicable in our family.

Right.

Your unit operates in a system all the time. Everybody falls into that role. People usually don't step out of that role. You don't have to educate— it's always easier if you do— an entire unit or system. One person changing changes the system. I mean, this is just true, right? Because Again, a system, everything moving the same way. You take one who is no longer willing to play the same game and is going to introduce more positive rules and roles into that system. The first thing the system does is try really hard to pull that person back into what it's used to, because systems like to keep operating. They don't like change.

Right.

And when that doesn't work, the system has to change. And it's the coolest thing ever. So even if it's the one person who says, I'm not going to participate in gossiping about the next shift or whatever it is, one change is going to make a change. And again, first it'll probably be doubling down on trying to get that person to play by the old rules. But if they don't, it will cause a change. Now, those are little shifts. And the one thing about conflict management Like everything, it's like sometimes you celebrate the little shifts. I've always called conflict management planting seeds. Eventually something changes. Now we have enough skills that it can cause a dramatic change, but we're still human. So we're going to go back to what hasn't worked.

Mm-hmm.

And when you have a whole system trained, then you have accountability with one another because you want everyone to succeed. You've removed labels like the difficult doctor and the difficult nurse and the difficult patient. You've removed the rubber stamps that are on people and recognize that we all have our difficult moments and stop defining people that way. And then you identify the problems that need to be solved. You can't solve people. What are the problems that need to be solved? And then you have a forward-moving. process that is geared toward fixing, toward improvement, toward success, instead of what very often happens now is we're geared toward finger-pointing.

Oh my gosh, that's so beautiful. I think that's also when you talk about people engaging in learning a process of conflict resolution, or you're talking about having a department start to work on this. The way that you phrase this is like if you get one person to buy into the idea that actually having a really good way to resolve conflict is not only going to be better for care, but better for you professionally in terms of your burnout and your stress, that if you get one person to buy into that, and then as you get that one person to buy into it, little by little, you've planted a seed. Other people are going to see what that person has. And when they see what that person has, maybe they're smiling more at work, maybe their patient approval scores have gone up. Maybe other doctors are like, oh, I want to work with X person because X person really helps me feel like I'm having a better day. Then you get the other people who start to buy into that process. Because I think one of the biggest challenges in trying to introduce these changes into healthcare, and I definitely feel like I'm guilty of this, so I always think about it's like, I want to see a whole system change. Well, that's not realistic. Yes, that's what I want. Is that actually going to happen?

No.

It's going to be little by little. And as you get that 1 or 2 people, it grows from there. So I love how you process that. When you go into a situation, let's say you're training a floor or you're training an office on conflict resolution, conflict management, where do you like to start with working with that group?

The very first thing I do depends. That's a mediator's favorite answer to everything. It depends, right? When I was taking my training, it's like, oh, everything's, it depends. But it's going to be somewhere geared around first taking the temperature and an assessment of what is going on now. And I want to know what's working and what's not working and what the vision is. And then I like to meet with each single person and each person. So I'm a neutral, which means what you say to me is confidential. I'm not for the success of any one person. However, I had the joy of being Trained by the godfather of mediation in the United States, Ken Kloep. And he taught me the word, rather than being a neutral or impartial, I'm an omni. I am for the best outcome for everyone. That is the organization, the floor, each person in it, and me too. Like, why not? So keeping that keeps me for everyone. And that's a little uncomfortable when systems are used trying to find out who the wrong person is.

Yeah.

And I do spend some time getting the, yeah, but you gotta not like that person over there. But it moves past that surprisingly quickly.

Yeah.

So I meet with everybody and then I sort of figure out based on what I've heard, what the concerns, problems, issues, stuck places are. And again, that's just puzzle pieces. So it's nothing conclusive at all. Then I bring people together. And start to let them design what are the things that need to be resolved here. When I work with each one, I'm teaching tools along the way that may or may not work. And then eventually we all come together and have this conversation about all the things that haven't been talked about before that are being held onto. It is my belief, Lee, for all these years I hold firmly to, people will not move out of their stuckness. Until they feel seen, heard, validated, and then I added valued to that. I have to feel like I matter. And just making a space where people can talk very often provides that. But in the event that somebody is stuck and they don't have some type of personality disorder, which is a whole different conversation, they just still don't feel seen, heard, validated. And value. So we work together until we have designed the workplace that they want. And here's the thing, it's not a one and done. You don't put it in place and then walk away forever. Chances are you're not going to have the turnover you have. When trying to sell this, Lee, I talk about this. Imagine being an HR person. And in the whole systems theory, we all operate as a system. Every single time a new person comes in, you have a brand new system. You have a whole different set of problems. So that whole revolving door is exhausting. It's not just about the money. It's like, how are you going to herd cats or whatever you're doing when your system— you can't get a handle on what the problem is because the system is changing so much that there is always something new. What a great motivation for trying to keep some stability within your system just so that you can breathe a moment without having to put out a new fire or a new set of fires every time somebody new comes in.

Yeah.

I love how you approach this. I love how you are helping them develop the system or develop the workplace that they envision, not the one that you think they should have. It's what are you guys after? Again, you're going to help them get buy-in because you're asking actively, what do you guys want out of your day? What do you guys want out of your clinical experience when you're here? And helping them to actively participate in creating that, because that's huge. People have to, like you said, they're feeling seen, they're feeling heard, they're feeling validated. And once they have that feeling that they're important, that they're a pivotal piece of this puzzle, when they buy into that, the vision Is going to form itself and almost will become something that happens just because you've given them the tools to do it. But it's their vision that's manifesting. And I think that's so powerful because no 2 workplaces, no 2 hospitals, no 2 ORs, no 2 ASCs are going to look exactly the same. And you're helping them see what does our culture look like? I think that's so big. And then I think it also makes it easier, like you said, when you have a new person coming into that, it's like, okay, well now We're different because we have this new piece. But if you've already got a system or if you've already got tools in place to envision that, it's going to be less of a shock. It's going to be something that's more easily accepted and incorporated. I think that's so phenomenal. If you could teach— okay, so I'm giving you the golden ticket. Every hospital, every workplace, every ER, You get to tell them one thing, one thing that you wish they would incorporate into their daily clinical practice. I'm walking into my office tomorrow, I'm going to go see patients, and you get to tell me one thing that would be so beneficial to my life in terms of working through conflict as a clinician. What would that be?

So it's going to be a complex one thing. But I think 2 things come to mind. William Ury in Getting to Yes, talking about the power of respect.

Yes. Yeah, it's just respect.

Uh, but the word humanity is what came to my mind. It is that we are all humans and we are all going through hard stuff and we all make mistakes. And for me, I think part of— maybe grace is the word. I don't know. I think grace, if I had to choose a word, it would probably be grace. I think for me, part of the thing that's always motivated me is I know I'm not a bad person, but I've done a lot of dumb things in my life. And I don't want those things to define me. So how can I do that to someone else? I think that's what grace is, that people have a moment. We all have a moment. Like, we all— I, if I had a longer time, would tell a funny story about being called out by my own son. And when he's like, you call yourself a conflict manager. And he wasn't wrong because—

Yeah.

We're human. So I don't know. And then with grace comes kindness. And kindness isn't always kumbaya. Sometimes it's an honest truth. Yeah, there's a few things. Authenticity comes up. Imagine being able to be you and not perfect and still be OK to be you. That goes with grace probably too. So thank you for the one shot, and I turned it into 5.

Hey, but yeah, that's all right. Honestly, I mean, to think about one thing, I mean, that one thing is very multifaceted. But the idea that we are human and having a human experience, and we understand that we would want to extend the same grace to ourselves that we should extend to other people, but it has to start with us. We have to extend it to ourselves first. And I think sometimes healthcare providers can be very hard on ourselves. We're very, very, very difficult on ourselves. And sometimes that does manifest itself as conflict as well. We're punishing ourselves for past mistakes. We are loath to sometimes let ourselves be imperfect, and yet. If we can't extend that to ourselves, it's gonna be really hard to extend it to other people. And if we are able to learn how to do that, and if it's however we learn how to do that, if it's the seeds of a conflict management system or a dispute resolution design that gives us the space to do that, then how awesome, how fantastic is that? So you're doing that right now, Kim. You are helping people find the ways to be human and extend grace to themselves and other people. And giving them a structure and a space to do it. And that's why I'm such a fan of your work. It's why I'm so happy and so thankful that you're doing the work that you're doing.

Well, you're going to make me cry. I mean, I'm kind of like feeling a little emotional about that, but to the extent that I've needed it too, and I know that there are tools that work that can help us remember that we are so conflicted right now, we are so hard on one another right now, I think, more than I've ever seen in my life before. We are so forgetting that we're all doing our best with the tools that we have, which I do believe that with the tools we have. And yeah, everything that we do has a reaction, has a consequence. And I think one of the biggest things I use, Lee, in working with anybody, the question isn't how do we change the person next to you, it is literally Who do you want to be? When you look at this picture a year from now, a week from now, who do you want to be? Because that's the choice we have. And I think we forget that we don't have to be reactive. We can be proactive and decide who we want to be, and that will change. That's the seeds planting. Yeah. Yeah.

That's beautiful. Kim, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the work that you do, because the work that you're doing is changing the healthcare system in such a beautiful way. If people want to find you or reach out to you, how best would they do that?

Well, Best Conflict Solutions is my company, but Kimberly Best has always been sort of my brand. My name has been my brand, so I'll be pretty easy to find. And I would love to hear from you. I mean, if there's anything I can do to help answer questions on how somebody wants to move forward. And for you too, Leigh, because I see your passion and yeah, I'm at the part of my career where giving what I know so it goes on, you know, is very important to me. So please feel free to reach out.

Oh, that means the world. Thank you. And I will, I definitely will because you have so much knowledge to share. And you started such amazing work and I hope that more and more people will join in that work. I really do. It's kind of why the podcast exists, but also you're just a fount of knowledge and wisdom. And yes, I will definitely take you up on that.

I look forward to it. Same.

Kimberly, thank you again. And to all of our peaceful warriors who have joined us today, thank you for being here with us on The Scalpel and Sword. And until next time. Be at peace.

Every episode is an invitation to speak, to negotiate, to choose. I'm Dr. Lee Sharma. Join the dialogue by subscribing to Scalpel and Sword. Until next time, peaceful warriors, may your choices be sharp and your voice be even sharper. This podcast is a reflection of lived experience and research in conflict resolution. The Scalpel and Sword is not intended as medical or legal guidance. For personal matters, please consult a qualified professional.