In this episode of The Scalpel and Sword, Dr. Lee Sharma welcomes back Kimberly Best to explore a simple but powerful idea: if we get better at clinical skills through deliberate practice, why don’t we practice hard conversations the same way? Together they discuss the creation and real-world uses of Best Conflict Conversation Cards, the high cost of conflict avoidance in healthcare, and practical tools that help physicians and teams turn everyday friction into stronger relationships and better outcomes.
We practice knot-tying, codes, and difficult deliveries until the skills become automatic. Why do we still fly blind when it comes to conflict?
In this warm, practical conversation, Dr. Lee Sharma sits down with Kimberly Bes to examine exactly that question. Kim shares how decades in emergency and critical care nursing revealed the damage caused when fear, time pressure, and competing priorities collide without shared language or tools. She explains why she designed a 50-card deck (20 story cards and 30 skill-and-practice cards) that lets individuals and teams build conflict competence one manageable skill at a time.
Listeners will hear how the cards function as both a reflective practice after a hard interaction and a proactive way to prepare teams for better conversations. Kim and Lee walk through high-impact skills such as “the story I’m telling myself,” separating the person from the problem, and the powerful reminder that disagreement does not equal opposition. They also explore why more than half of healthcare professionals identify as conflict-avoidant, how the system has normalized unhealthy patterns, and why learning to be both honest and kind is a professional and personal necessity.
This episode offers an accessible, hopeful path for anyone who wants to stop carrying unresolved conflict home and start building the communication skills that make teams stronger and healers healthier.
Three Actionable Takeaways:
About the Show:
Behind every procedure, every patient encounter, lies an untold story of conflict and negotiation. Scalpel and Sword, hosted by Dr. Lee Sharma—physician, mediator, and guide—invites listeners into the unseen battles and breakthroughs of modern medicine. With real conversations, human stories, and practical tools, this podcast empowers physicians to reclaim their voices, sharpen their skills, and wield their healing power with both precision and purpose.
About the Guest:
Kimberly Best is a nurse, mediator, conflict consultant, speaker, and trainer, and the founder of Best Conflict Solutions. After decades in emergency and critical care nursing, she earned a master’s degree in conflict management from Lipscomb University and pursued advanced training in mediation, negotiation, restorative practice, and conflict systems design. She is a court-listed mediator, FINRA arbitrator, adjunct professor at Lipscomb University’s Institute for Conflict Management, and past president of the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators. She is also the creator of Best Conflict Conversation Cards, Workplace Edition, a practical 50-card deck designed to help individuals and teams build conflict competence one skill at a time.
Website: https://www.bestconflictsolutions.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlybestmediator
About the Host:
Dr. Lee Sharma is a gynecologist based in Auburn, AL, with over 30 years of clinical experience. She holds a Master’s in Conflict Resolution and is passionate about helping colleagues navigate workplace challenges and thrive through open conversations and practical tools.
[00:00:00] Hello, my peaceful warriors, and welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst. You know, one of the things I think about is as a, resident and as a young physician, we practice lots of things. We practice knot tying. We practice doing C-sections.
We practice doing forced deliveries at Parkland . We did a lot of those. we practice running codes. And you think about the fact that the more of those reps you got, the better you got at doing it, and that's what we've always seen in medicine. So if we know that we get better by doing hard things over and over, why don't we apply that to conflict?
Why don't we apply that to the hard conversations? And if we are trying to do that, is there a tool that we can use to give us some guidance to learn how to do that so we don't feel like we're just flying blind in our practice? Well, the [00:01:00] person that's on the podcast today is not only one of my absolute favorite people, she is the ideal person for us to have this conversation with.
I'm thrilled to welcome back to the podcast Kimberly Best. Kim is a nurse, and she also is a mediator. She's a conflict consultant, a speaker, and a trainer, and she is also the founder of Best Conflict Solutions. Before entering the field of conflict, Kimberly spent decades in nursing, including emergency and critical care settings, and she saw firsthand what happens to communication when fear, uncertainty, time pressure, and competing priorities collide She holds a master's degree in conflict management from Lipscomb University and has extensive advanced training in mediation, negotiation, restorative practice, and conflict systems design.
She is a court-listed mediator, a FINRA arbitrator, and an adjunct professor at Lipscomb University's Institute for Conflict Management. She is also a past [00:02:00] president of the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators. Most importantly, and one of the reasons I'm so excited she's here today, is that she's also the creator of Best Conflict Conversation Cards, Workplace Edition, which is a 50-card deck with 20 story cards and 30 skill and practice cards, and we're definitely gonna talk about using those.
Beyond all of those things, she is a mentor, she is a guide, she is a leader, and I really hope she doesn't mind me saying that I consider her my sister. Kim, welcome.
I'm so glad to be here, Leigh, and the, fan club-ishness is mutual. I just adore you and the work that you're doing, so I'm really honored to be here with you.
I'm so glad you're here. When I first got the conflict cards, you sent them to me, and I was able to really look at them and play with them, and I think the first thing that really jumped out at me is [00:03:00] there was so much insight that went into these cards. And of course, this is decades of experience that you've had working in the space.
But what prompted you to create these cards?
Yeah, it was an amazing moment actually. we do these webinars and these trainings, and we give these tools for people that certainly does help them manage conflict better. And it's a lot. It can be a lot, right? And not everybody can do a webinar or training.
So what I wanted is to reach the people who are like, "You know, we're not communicating well. It's affecting not just how I interact with people, but I'm taking this home with me. It's affecting my wellbeing. It's affecting my quality of life. my workplace is," you know, I could use the language you... we use in healthcare.
It is, some kind of a show. I just want tools to be able to do it better. And I figured that doing it this way, you could take one tool and practice it, and [00:04:00] nobody even needs to know, right? Or you could work with your teams and groups and not just practice it, but each tool also has questions that you can share.
What's worked before using them? What hasn't worked? What happens in the scenarios that you haven't had this skill set versus what happens now that you do? And just one skill at a time so that we could build a sustainable toolbox.
I think it's incredible because I do love the fact that the way this is...
i've been to a lot of seminars, I've read a lot of books, I've, done a lot of teachings and tried to absorb things, and I think one of the things that I always find is that when I'm in the moment of listening to the webinar, oh my gosh, yes, that sounds incredible. And then the next day when I'm in the conflict situation, I'm like, "Okay, I know I learned something good, but I can't remember what it was."
So the idea of having something that's very focused and very succinct that I can say, "Oh, let me pull out this one card because I have the [00:05:00] bandwidth right now for one card."
And especially when we're emotionally still stuck in that conflict. You know, like you said, when we go home and we're turning it over, over and again in our minds because we can't let it go, and it does contribute to that already burned out sensation we have when we can't emotionally release that.
So if I have something very practical that I can actually sit there and say, "Well, let me see what I could have done in this situation", and now I have something that's a tool to help me practice that, maybe the next time I'm in that situation, 'cause there will be a next time, right? This is gonna happen again.
I have something there that I can actually practice and it becomes part of my toolbox. It's a great concept, right? Because, you know, we have these hard conversations all the time, but we don't simulate conflict, do we? We simulate lots of stressful things in medicine, but we don't simulate conflict.
No.
I always use in my trainings, always every single one in healthcare, the quote [00:06:00] by, Michelle Guilford of, Sanford, who says that "Learning conflict management skills and the roots and causes of conflict are just as important as any medical training." and it is because the system that we're working in is a conflict system.
Everything is conflict in healthcare, right?
Yes.
And while we have the tools and techniques to manage the stuff medically it's more than the medicine. It's all the interactions. It's the high stakes, the high pressure. And I like what you said about the cards, is afterwards when you go back and reflect, you don't have to pull out a book and try to find that line that gave that tip.
You know, there's 30 cards that have skills. You go through and it's like, separate the person from the problem. You know, find out what the problem is to solve. Don't make the person or the problem. It's like, oh, I was just like, "Oh, my manager stinks," because, you know, you can't solve for your manager, but this stinks because what?
Because your schedule's been bad all the time, because she's not listening [00:07:00] well to you. When you identify the problem, then you can solve for the problem. But you can't solve for people, right? Mm-hmm. So you go back and you're like, "Oh yeah, I made the whole person the problem rather than identify what it was that I need to fix on that."
So it's much easier to do in cards than trying to find it through, the last three conflict management books we read.
Oh my gosh, and what a great insight because as you were talking about that, that's another use for the cards that I hadn't thought about. They're actually a reflective process that I've been in a conflict situation and I'm really trying to understand my emotional reaction.
Well, what did I do? why did I say what I said? Why did I react that way? And I can actually sit down with these cards, and I can use them as that self-reflective process. 'Cause I think that's one of the things in medicine I know my generation is horrible at it. We were not taught any kind of journaling practice.
We were not taught to, actually unpack and discuss these things, [00:08:00] get professional help, get a therapist. Those were not things that were encouraged in my generation. And in fact, it was more of a, you know, to quote Todd Ott in Suck It Up Buttercup , it was definitely more of, just deal with it.
And you never really wanted to talk about it because you kinda felt the people next to you, well, they're not dealing with that. Why am I gonna admit that I'm dealing with that? Why am I gonna admit this conflict really bothered me and I couldn't sleep last night because I was so upset about that interaction?
And now I'm back to work my 12 the next day and I haven't slept, and I'm definitely gonna be in a worse situation. And more importantly, my colleagues and my patients are gonna be in a worse situation because I haven't had the ability to reflect on what I went through the day before, and the cards will help me do that.
Absolutely. And, another use that's a little bit before that, so some of the people who've used them have given me the ideas on what they've done with them, and it's very cool. Yeah. I had someone who was negotiating something between two opposing sides. One wanted this done, one... a whole big [00:09:00] organization having a big talk.
And she came in with the conversation cards first. So the conversation cards are just things to connect around. Remember a time when someone mentored you, what went well with that? What did they do well? I mean, things like the times that things worked. And she said, "I used two or three of those cards, and then I started into the problem-solving.
'Okay, this is what we need to come into some type of agreement on.'" She said they immediately, because they'd spent time talking about what they did well, were not coming into the conflicted part from opposite ends. They were coming in already somewhat connected, which is a practice I always use if I'm working with conflict management or mediating.
I don't lean into just what's the problem, okay, let's jump in. It's find a place where we can come together first. Biologically, it's just easier that way. So I'm like, "Okay, that's brilliant. Yes. Tee it up for everybody to win, like we do in conflict management, for everyone to have the best possible outcome."
100%. And [00:10:00] I always say that it's easier to start here- Yeah ... find what's close, find what's connected, and then you can reach out and you can work on these issues that are out here. But very often, and you've seen it all the time, people will start out here. Yeah. They have an issue. they start with a conflict, and they somehow think they're gonna bring it here, and that's almost insurmountable.
It's definitely very difficult.
Yeah.
So I love the idea of using the cards, using the conversation starters. I don't know if anybody else did this, but when I was a freshman in college and I already knew my freshman roommate 'cause we'd met the summer before, but they gave us, they called it a roommate starter kit, which was basically a set of questions that you sat down and you asked your roommate, and then they asked you, and then you were able to learn more about the person in front of you.
You're essentially doing that with the cards.
Yeah, and I'm hoping to. you know, it's very intentional in the cards too, knowing the kind of things that show up in healthcare. So one of those things is [00:11:00] how, if someone steps on my toes, I go tell you, and you have to be on my side.
And so we're sitting around a group and, you know, this keeps building this way, and we keep putting a wedge between our groups that really need to be collaborating together. So- ... I have a card in there that you can be for someone. I can be for Lee, who got her toes stepped on, without being against someone else.
So I don't have to join in, "Oh my goodness, that was terrible what that person did." And, you know, we don't have to build alliances in that. But that's, not just in healthcare, but as people, that's what we tend to do. And you said, you know, your generation hasn't learned how to do this stuff. I think I've met maybe one person in all the people I've met who's like, "Oh yeah, my parents taught me how to manage conflict."
think about what happened to you when you were a little and you were the source of conflict so many people aren't allowed to express [00:12:00] emotions. Anger wasn't allowed. For some people, anger was bad or evil, right. So we learn to stuff everything and then wonder why we're conflict avoidant.
And most people- Mm ... are conflict avoidant, which is why selling the product that you and I sell, conflict management and people are like, "Oh, don't use that word," but we know- Mm ... conflict is normal. We don't want it to escalate. We want it to be able to be managed for best outcomes for everyone, 'cause we need conflict or else everything is just unchanged.
So conflict itself is good. So this is just the skills that they're not hard. They just, like you said, need practice. And they're hard to the degree they go against our natural inclination and you know, our- ... our brains are hardwired to protect us. and we're asking people, "Hold the protection because this is not a Tyrannosaurus rex in front of you that's going to eat you.
It's another human with needs too."
Yeah.
And just finding another way to have the conversations that actually make teams [00:13:00] stronger.
oh my gosh, I love that so much. And I absolutely agree with you in this idea that so few of us had this modeled for us. Right. And so we definitely become the conflict avoidant personalities.
We know in healthcare, over 50% of healthcare professionals are conflict avoiders, and It's probably higher than that. One of the things I always like to say when I give lectures to audiences about conflict management and sort of talking about these systems, the first thing I say to the audience is, "How many people in here are conflict avoiders?"
And over half, if not 75% of the hands will go up. And then I will say, "I am too. I'm a conflict avoidant personality." And they will look at you a little funny. I'm like, "And so now you're wondering why somebody who's a conflict avoidant personality is standing in front of you with a master's degree in conflict resolution."
I was so scared of it that I realized it was destroying my life, it was destroying my happiness professionally. Mm-hmm. And if I didn't absolutely learn how to engage in this way, that I was never going to be happy professionally. It wasn't gonna be about changing [00:14:00] jobs. The same things, the same problems were gonna follow me.
The same avoidance was gonna be something I had. And as I got better at understanding myself- Mm ... and how I acted in the conflict situation and what was scaring me and what I needed to be able to actually listen and engage in, it made me less afraid. I still have the tendency. I still have the tendency to be conflict avoidant.
That is probably never gonna change. Am I more willing to engage because I have tools like conflict cards? Am I more willing to do it? Absolutely. Which is the reason why I think these tools are so valuable.
Yeah, so that was an absolutely beautiful story. Yeah, I say the same thing. I say I'm good at my work because I've worked hard to get good at my work.
I think it's sacred space sitting in there in somebody's conflict because you're in pain when that happens. Right. So I am good at what I do unless it's my own conflict Because just by that biology, right? When it's us in the middle of there, it's hard to see the [00:15:00] bigger picture. Yeah. Which is why having a neutral, somebody who's not trying to decide who's right or wrong- Right
who wants the best outcome for everyone, is critical. I have my muse, you know? I have somebody I go to when I can't figure it out. Yeah. But I also have the tools that I wish I had. Kudos to you for recognizing what it was doing to your life not having those. I want to add one thing that I discovered, that in the absence of these tools, I value kindness and I value honesty, and I realized that by being kind, I wasn't being honest.
When I say everything is fine and it's not, I'm not being honest. And so learning the skills to be honest and kind, but knowing I don't have to mitigate for your feelings. I might have to say something hard for the sake of conflict, but I can deliver it well and how you deal with that is your growth.
And, you know, you can dismiss it, you can work on it, whatever it is, but that honesty between us gives you an opportunity [00:16:00] to grow as well.
I want you to say that louder for the people in the back because everybody needs to hear that. But one of my things is you pass people in hallways in hospitals and you say, "Hey, how are you?" And the rote answer is always fine. It's always fine. We're not fine 100% of the time. We're not fine a lot of the time, but we're so trained to give that answer, and I agree with you. I think being kind, I don't wanna burden you with what I have going on right now, is the obstacle to being honest, which is I really need help and support right now.
Mm-hmm. So this is my new thing, and I do this with people, and they kind of get a little... When I do it the first time, instead of saying, "How are you?" I'll ask them, "What color is your heart today?" Because it makes them think, and they can't give me a rote answer. If I ask them, "What color is your heart today?"
They have to stop and think about it. And the first time you ask that of somebody, they kind of will do this. And it's like, because I don't want you to tell me you're fine. If you're [00:17:00] really fine, that's great. If you're good, that's great. But can you put that in a color? And then they really have to think about it.
Mm-hmm. And maybe you're the first person that day that's actually made them think about how they feel, but you're also encouraging them to be honest. I really wanna know. I don't want a rote answer. I really wanna know. And if they ask me, then I'm gonna tell them, "My heart is actually kind of brown today because I'm really, really exhausted and I need sleep."
But- ... that's an honest answer. I mean, I'm not being honest with you if I say I'm fine when I'm not, like you said.
You know, it's interesting because I would trust you to be able to answer that question. If you asked me that question, I would trust you. But how many people feel like the person who is asking that question really wants to know?
Because like you said, it's such a rote thing. My thing for that is I put everything on a scale of one to 10. So how are you on a scale of one to 10?
Yeah. There you go.
Everything is on a scale. I love it. How good was that meal- I love it ... on a scale of one to 10? 'Cause I don't want- Yes ... just fine. I wanna [00:18:00] know, is it two or is it nine, you know?
So yeah.
Yeah. There is a world of difference in that.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So I wanna talk about like if we actually were trying to u- 'cause I feel like there's so many ways to use the cards. I think we can use these in terms of leadership development.
I think we can use these in residency programs. I think there's so many uses here. But I wanna take one scenario that I think occurs a lot. and especially I think we are seeing now where we have attendings who maybe have been in practice for 20 or 30 years and we definitely grew up in a very different medical system.
And we see our younger residents that are coming in, that their expectations and their worldview of how professional development and conversations should work can be very, very different. So I wanna look at this one and maybe think about how the cards could be applied to the situation. And this is one where, let's say we have a surgery [00:19:00] attending who's with a resident and they're finishing a case and the case was very difficult.
And so they're coming out of the case and the attending says to the resident, "You need to work on how you communicate with the nursing staff." And the resident immediately says, "They don't respect residents. I'm always the one getting blamed." So there's a choice right now. We're in this situation, and this is a very common scenario.
This is incredibly common. So the attending kind of considers, like, do you double down on the feedback? Do you become curious about the response? So I really think, this is one of my favorite cards, and I use this a lot, and this is the one that I like for this. But I would love to know what you think as well, and this is the story I'm telling myself.
So tell us about this card and What was kind of in your thought process when you think about this card of the story I'm telling myself?
That is amazing because that's most [00:20:00] people. I get that card as a like one a lot, and I actually have to credit learning that the story I'm telling myself.
I think I learned that from Brene Brown.
I also have, maybe Harriet Lerner had something to do with it in some of her books. and I have clients at the end of working with them who are using the story I'm telling myself. So in the absence of knowing, we are hardwired to make up a story, and that story becomes the truth whether we know it is or not.
So that is, "Oh, you walked right past me. You were mad." Now I can get curious about that and say, "Hey, Lee, I noticed when you walked right past me you didn't say anything, and the story I'm telling myself is that you're mad." Right. Or in the situation for this particular thing I don't know if the attending or the resident, I think the attending saying, "Hey, you need to fix yourself," is probably not the best way to have a conversation.
But- ... the story I'm telling myself is that when you interact with a nurse, you tend to be, you know, whatever it was, and you know, naming the behavior. But, [00:21:00] you know- Mm-hmm ... what's going on. I had someone once say, "Well, don't people feel like you're telling them they're making up a story by saying the story I'm telling myself?"
I'm like, "Nope, never had that happen." Yeah. But people, I've never had someone respond defensively to that because I'm not saying you did this. Or I watched you do this, so therefore it's this. I'm literally owning what's going on in my head and giving you an opportunity to clarify it. So it works so well, it's just amazing.
Like, in any kind of mediation, whether family or healthcare, ... people feel like they can say what's going on for them if they can name it that way too. It's not just that it makes it easier to hear. If you can acknowledge, "Hey, I really don't know," and I haven't had anybody struggle with that either.
Yeah. You know? It gets leaned into well. So I think it just takes the temperature down a lot. It leaves room for another story, You know, if I say to you, "I know you were mad at me, I could tell," and you're like, [00:22:00] "No, really I wasn't." "You were. Go ahead and say it." You know, we double down on that-
because we've accepted that as truth. Yes. So I think the story I'm telling myself helps us not accept our conclusion as truth as well.
I love this so much, and I think this is one of those things that you are getting a deeper story. What was the attending hearing that they felt like that communication was poor?
So as the attendant says, you know, when you communicate this way, the story I tell myself is that I really wonder if you respect your staff, and this is a team. This is not just you doing it. You need them to be successful in the surgery. And so the story I'm telling myself is that you're not actually asking the team to collaborate with you.
And so all of a sudden the resident understands, oh, he's not yelling at me. he wants the patient to do well, and he knows building the team is the best way to do that. Okay. So now this conversation has shifted. I think the idea that we can use these way, things as entry points to having these [00:23:00] conversations- Mm-hmm
because we don't know how to have them otherwise.
We do not. We don't. And then, you know, in the back is, behind, so the front of them gives the skill and explains the skill a little bit, and then the back of it is a conversation, and there's like four questions that if you're doing it a team, you don't probably wanna do all four.
You can choose one. But it's like, the one use I statements. how could I feel unheard when I'm interrupted land differently than you always interrupt me? You know? Or the story I'm telling myself is every time I try to talk, you interrupt me. How does that sound different than you always interrupt me?
just each one has a conversation around it and then a part that works. For the story I'm telling myself, what works? The story you're telling yourself reveals more about your fears, biases, and assumptions than the other person's intentions.
It tells us what's going on with us. So you can go deeper diving into them, and I think for me, if you have a team that you work with, imagine [00:24:00] an OR team where everybody has once a week done this and is building these skills together.
Mm-hmm.
You know? Wow. Yeah, right? Because I mean, I know it's a lot to remember one card a week, but like you said, you carry the one card. You know, you carry one card. and it's easy to do one at a time, and I think they're kind of fun too, because they're like most of the time people are like, "Oh yeah, that's not hard, and I've never had that before."
And then it can lead into more advanced things like you do with your trainings, Lee, and I do with mine, which is the listening skills and the really practicing good communication and mediation skills training. Not to make everybody a mediator, but those skills, how to listen well and all that kind of stuff a deeper dive into this.
But this is a box of tools that I use in mediation regularly that apply to all of our conflicts at any time
Absolutely. And one of the things that I think that's always struck me when I do these kind of things, and I'm sure you've seen this too, [00:25:00] is that when I start telling these stories, I mean, these are lived experiences as you have as well.
You, I mean, you've witnessed, you know, decades of conflict in the ER and, ... in ICU. So when you're talking about these scenarios, when you go into these teaching situations and you're coming up with scenarios, what I think is always interesting is that the commonality of these scenarios, everybody has lived them.
And so when you start giving people these scenarios, and then you give them CARBS, then you give them something very practical to actually guide them through it, which is not a way they've ever been through it before. They've had this conflict happen multiple times. They've never had somebody give them a tool to actually learn how to insight, dig into that conflict, and then come through it with a deeper understanding of self and other, and then carrying that into the next conflict situation.
Yeah.
That is where the magic happens.
Yeah. And just to circle back to the beginning, it is just a skill set. and part of the reason I did this was pushing [00:26:00] back on that we have difficult people. All of us are difficult when we're in conflict. Shutting down and walking away is difficult if you're on the other side of that and wanna finish the conversation, I rarely see difficult people when I'm working with them. I see people who are just stuck in a conflict because they don't have the skills All you need is the skills. It's just the tools, learning the tools, and practicing the tools, and having support, which is why having your team do them too or some of...
a friend do it with you, someone where you can support each other in the process and critique the process as you're doing it. you have a graduate degree in conflict management. Isn't it fun to learn these skills? Like,
oh, it's not as hard as surgery.
it's so interesting to me because having had this, when I'm sitting in meetings and I'm watching conflict unfold, I literally am just sort of sitting there going yep."
I was in a hospital meeting once it was a closed meeting with the partner of surgery and one of the hospital vice presidents, and she was just getting ripped to shreds by some of these other surgeons. And I'm [00:27:00] sitting here in my head, I'm analyzing it. When I get out of the meeting, I draw everything out and I'm drawing the relationships out, and I messaged her and I was like, "Can I meet with you at some point in the next week?"
And she's like, "Sure." I was like, "What's it about?" And I was like, "Well, I have some insight after this meeting we went into, but it's not really related to the topic, it's something else." And she's like, "Oh, yeah, sure." And so I was like, "I don't know if you knew that I do this. I do these trainings and I do conflict management."
And she's like, "I didn't know that you do that." I was like, "Yeah. So let me walk through this meeting with you, let me walk through what happened, and let me walk with you in terms of what we can do next time to keep very focused on the topic." Because what happened is it evolved into personal attacks on her.
And so as that evolved, and I could see it evolving, she kind of, you know, didn't have the tools, like you said- Mm-hmm ... to actually keep it focused on the topic at hand. I was like, "Let me show you what to do. Let me tell you what to do the next time this happens to you, because this will happen to you again."
And she was like, "I had no idea that I could learn this."
And I think that's the thing, is that as you become more and more aware of these [00:28:00] tools and of these things, you start to look at everything around you as an opportunity to practice.
This is an opportunity. I think what goes hand-in-hand with that, for those of us who work in any conflict-ridden situation, which is everywhere, that you become less afraid of engaging because you have a tool, you have something.
I have a way that I can engage in this. And The other thing you said, and I think this is really important, is the idea that having these tools leads to curiosity, and curiosity will lead to mastery, because that will make you do it more and more. The more curious you become, the better you will get at it, and tools like the cards help you do that
Yeah.
You know, I want to say in the work that you do and for all the folks listeningI know when I first started doing this work in the first early talk I d- I gave, someone said, "Don't use the word conflict. No one wants to hear that word." But people are beginning to see the value in this.
So we hold these [00:29:00] things we're thinking. There's so much shame around, you know, what good people or bad people, that conflict is bad. But what I have found is more and more people doing exactly, Leigh, what you did and what I did is say, "Wait a minute. This is a broken way to talk to one another." And I think, I recently did a trauma-informed course, and, to realize that healthcare is a trauma system.
It's a trauma system. it's not this is just the way it is in healthcare. It's this is the way it is when it's broken. Yeah. And we have normalized it so much. We've normalized a system that's not our best. A healthy system will change, adapt, and grow. I say that because more and more people are.
More and more people, physicians reaching out for coaching. I had a physician in a big West Coast hospital that had a hard HR conversation and called and wanted coaching before she went into that because she wanted to show up the way she wanted to show up. People are [00:30:00] starting to seek it out knowing, thank heavens, that the way we've been doing it isn't working, and "I'm not looking to defend myself."
I am to some degree, but I'm looking to be understood.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. And as a coach, if you come back defending yourself too much, talking too much, not listening to the other person, you're not gonna be understood. You'll probably be shut down a little bit. Um- Right ... so how to, again, just like you would in a mediation, help people succeed in hard times.
But people are starting to look for it, and the more people that get on board with saying, "Hey, this is not okay," that incivility is up in healthcare, that violence- Yeah ... is up in healthcare, that- Yeah ... burnout's up in healthcare, that people don't want to go to work. I mean, a third of your life or more is spent in this.
Why not do it, invest in your wellbeing? And get as proficient at that as you are at starting IVs and delivering babies or whatever you do because- Yeah ... this matters as much. This'll make you a better practitioner, but it'll make you a happier human. And [00:31:00] lastly, someone reached out today and said, "You know, I feel like if I do this, it won't only help me in this situation, it'll help me in the rest of my life."
And I just wanted to write back, "Amen." I didn't. But I wanted to be like, "Yes. How wise is that?" Because overall you will communicate better too.
Oh my gosh. Kim, that's beautiful. That is absolutely beautiful. And I thank you for saying in such a insightful way about the brokenness of our healthcare system.
Mm.
That we should not accept it in the state that it's in. Yeah. And, I think understanding that we don't have to live in it. I've seen way too many doctors that just assume that we have to live in it because it is what it is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's like, I refuse to be that person. I refuse to be the person that says that this is just what healthcare is.
Mm-hmm. You know, I'm gonna be the person that wants to change it. And the more that I have engaged in this, the more [00:32:00] people I have found who feel the same way, and it has given me hope for what healthcare can be. The more people I meet and the more people like you that I interact with, this is the foundation of my hope that healthcare will be better.
And it may not happen tomorrow. It may not happen six months from now. It may not happen 10 years from now, but I want it to happen at least for my children, and hopefully for my grandchildren. I want them to have healthier healers. I want them to have that, because that's just gonna make the system better for them.
If you had... Because these cards are all incredible, and I love them all, but if you had to pick one that was one that you feel like, I don't wanna say your favorite- ... but maybe one that you feel like seems to stand out as something that- people tell you that they really like as one of their favorite cards or one that you find yourself drawn to?
Do you have one?
Yeah. You know, probably the one that is most intentional in here is card number one. [00:33:00] And, the card number one is "Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm against you. It means I'm different than you."
Yeah.
And in a space right now where it's not just healthcare but all of us are feeling the weight of disagreement and distrust and, it's just everywhere. When people talk and if you don't agree with them, then you become an enemy.
Yeah.
we need to be different. You and I talked about somebody that we both love that you are very different from, and those differences bring a new strength, right? Yes. We need those. So I think for that one, to consider that people who don't agree with you aren't against you, they're just them.
They have their own ideas, their own beliefs, their own whatever, and that's when getting curious and finding out more about that person, you usually find out that you have a lot more in common than not. I think that there's a call to rememberrespect and civility always. There is no reason not to treat someone respectfully under any [00:34:00] circumstances, right?
Yeah. Just respecting the humanity in people. So, yeah. I think, like you said, for your children, for your grandchildren, for me, it is, okay, somehow we've gone sideways and think it's okay to treat people in a way that is not acceptable for people to treat us.
Yeah.
And how can we find a balance back to be the people we wanna be in this situation when we look back on this, right?
And hope it's contagious.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, Kim, you have once again demonstrated why you are my hero- ... and my mentor and somebody that I aspire to be. Thank you for being a light, and thank you for the work that you're doing, and thank you for opening up the path for those of us who are also trying to pursue this work and see how absolutely vital it is for us to do so.
Thank you.
you're a gift, Leigh.
We are gonna put a link to Best Conflict Solutions to purchase the cards. We will put that in our show notes. [00:35:00] I encourage you to get them if you are doing any kind of leadership workshop, if you're doing any kind of training. But also too, I will put the link for Best Conflict Solutions in the show notes.
so is that the best way for people to reach out to you, Kim?
Yeah.
Fantastic.
I can't tell you how grateful I am for you to be here. Thank you.
Always a pleasure.
For all of you who joined us today, if something today resonated with you, please share it with a friend, share it with a colleague.
Check out the Conflict Cards. They are amazing. And for all of our peaceful warriors who have joined us today, thank you so much. And until next time, be at peace.