Welcome to Working with Different Personalities. I'm Angela Sindrick, a critical care pharmacist and PGY2 Critical Care Pharmacy Residency Program Director from Geisinger Medical Center. It is a pleasure to be here with you today as part of the Leadership, Empowerment, and Development series from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. I have nothing to disclose for this presentation. The objective for our time together today will be to discuss strategies to effectively engage with different personalities in the workplace. Life is full of different types of people with different personalities, and I think we all know that culturally diverse people enrich our perspectives on problems and their solutions. We bring diversity of thought to the table. That cognitive diversity helps us to analyze information and problems from many different facets and helps us to really achieve the best solution or the best outcome for the patient. And if we can learn to work together in healthy and productive ways, we can really accomplish great things. This collaboration truly begins with introspection. We have to know ourselves. What is our role on the team? What skills do we bring? What value do we add? How would we describe our own personality? And are we truly open to new ideas and to collaborating with other people? As we do that, it's key to remember that ultimately we control how we perceive and interact with our team, and our perception is our reality. And our thoughts and our feelings will ultimately determine our team's influence on us in the project as well as on our own well-being. As we create our perspective of our team, it is absolutely essential that we let go of labels. The introvert, the optimist, the visionary, the pessimist, the complainer, the cheerleader, the champion, the nurturer. Whether we ascribe these labels to personality traits, character traits, cultural backgrounds, or emotions, each of them comes with a set of preconceived notions that ultimately can bias our ability to see our team's full potential. Personalities are complex, people are complex, and it's important that we keep an open mind as we seek to have meaningful collaboration. In doing so, we take a step towards building a culture of respect. And we're going to define respect in relationship to the basic idea that every human being, regardless of all the ways that we differ naturally from one another in terms of our age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, culture, training, or intellectual or physical ability or disability, has unconditional intrinsic value, inherent dignity, and worth. And to create cohesion and collaboration, we need to understand that the basis of our ability to form a relationship is just that. You're a human being, I'm a human being, and it's time for all of us to embrace the talents of all team members and to bring our best to the table. Keeping our culture of respect in mind, it's time to get to know our team. What are the roles of all the team members on the team? Do you truly know all the roles and responsibilities of the people that you work with every day? If you're not sure, ask. What are their talents? What motivates them? What drives them? What do they aspire to, both professionally and personally? And then what is their communication style? Different people have different communication and working habits. Talking about those preferences up front can prevent misunderstandings later. It's okay to ask someone, how do you prefer to receive information? Would you like to talk on the phone? Do you want to text? How about an email? What's your preference? Now that we know who we are and who our team is, and that we're going to be respecting one another and working together, our ultimate unifier is our shared goal. A shared goal is what attaches meaning to our performance. And that makes it easier for every individual to get invested in the project. Why are we here? Is it patient care? Is it a project? What are we trying to achieve together? How will we achieve that aim? When will we interact? How will we interact? What are our deliverables? What's going to be expected of us at the end of the day? What's going to be expected of us collectively? And then what will be expected of us individually to bring back to the shared pool of knowledge or to the shared pool of meaning? And then how will we know if we're successful? Is that going to be a patient care outcome, a publication? Whatever it might be for your project, we all need to keep our eye on the prize. What is it that we want to achieve at the end of the day? That emphasis on why we are here really does attach meaning to the performance, and it can help take our project to the next level. Now that we have our shared goal, we can begin our collaboration. This is a really exciting time, and it's a time in which we need to remember that at every turn we must ditch the drama, and we need to remind each other of that as well. And why is ditching the drama so important? Study-based research has found that the average employee spends over two hours per day in dramatic activities, whether that's pontificating on all of the resources that we wish we had to do our job to potentially expressing how if our organizational structure was magically different that everything in our professional lives would be remarkably better. When we do that and focus on citing our circumstances as the reasons why we can't succeed, we undermine our own success. And Sai Wakeman, a motivational speaker in her pivotal book, No Ego, shares with us a really powerful message. And what she shares is that our circumstances are actually the reality in which we must succeed. It could always be better. We could always have more resources. We could always have a perhaps slightly better situation, but these are our circumstances, and we can and we must succeed. So as we take that shared goal, don't apologize for it, and especially don't apologize if it's an aggressive or aspirational goal. That's okay. It's okay to have big dreams, and it's okay to want optimal patient care outcomes. And as you do so, don't negotiate the non-negotiables. I couldn't possibly show up for rounds. I'm just too busy. You will show up for rounds because we have prioritized rounding at the bedside as an important patient care outcome. As one example, focus on the facts. Here's the reality of our situation. Here's our patient care situation, our project. Let's not have that subtext about what could have, should have, might have been. Let's focus on what is, and how can we use the tools and the strategies that we do have available to us to be successful. We also need to understand that accountability is a mindset, not a skill set. We all have to be in. All of the players on your team need to be in. Being part of the team means that we are all accountable, which also means that when we're crafting the team, we have to work with the willing. Finding people that are going to collaborate with you and to be actively engaged is essential if you'd like your project to be successful, so we're not wasting dramatic energy just trying to bring them along or to get them on board. We have to also understand that as we navigate projects and we navigate the workplace, change is inevitable. So let's just greet change with a, good to know. I was expecting you, and we're going to work collaboratively together through this change, and the entire team is going to be better for it. Will the interactions always be perfect? Absolutely not. We're all people. We're human. There are going to be nuances to our interactions that are not always going to be 100% perfect. That's okay. And will there be conflict? Yes, there will be. And in fact, I'm going to encourage you to cultivate conflict. We said at the beginning of this presentation that different personalities and diverse viewpoints enrich our patient care environment and enrich our projects. The only way to hear those voices is to share some control and provide opportunities to express those different opinions. And when that happens, conflict has arrived, and that's okay. As this occurs, I will encourage you to actively listen to those different perspectives. Take a moment to really hear what the other person has to say and think more about where they may be coming from and how their focus or their perspective could enrich your thoughts and your perspectives. And collectively, we need to then start shifting our mindset. It's very tempting at times when we're working with other people to have a mindset of, well, we just can't agree. Maybe, but let's shift our mindset to how can we agree? Let's let that be the mindset, and let's let that be our focus, because remember, we have a shared goal. Reinforce that shared goal. Back to that why are we here? Why are we here, and how can we agree to get there? Because we know that if we use all of our talents to get there, that we will ultimately brainstorm the most innovative solution to that patient care problem, to that project, to that large health system initiative that we may be part of, and that all of our ideas together are going to be much better than any idea that we might have had that was of a singular focus. In summary, different personalities enrich our perspective and ultimately enrich our healthcare team. And there are some key strategies that you can keep in mind to help you effectively engage with the many different personalities that you'll encounter in your professional career. Know yourself, let go of labels, truly build that culture of respect where every person on your team feels like they add value. Solidify a shared goal, ditch the drama, and remember to cultivate that conflict because it is truly crucial to the ultimate success of your team. Thank you very much for your kind attention today. I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you as we shared information about working with different personalities. I'd like to thank the Society of Critical Care Medicine for having me. It is an absolute pleasure to be a part of the Leadership, Empowerment, and Development series. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time for additional information. I am available at aacindric at geisinger.edu. Thank you.

workplace engagement

diversity

culture of respect

team roles

communication styles