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The Practice of Presence
Listening…truly listening…is one of the most powerful tools in any relationship-driven field In high-stakes environments, whether you’re leading a team, supporting a client, mentoring a student, or caring for a patient, presence isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. Presence means showing up with your full attention. It means listening not just for what’s said, but…
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The Cost of Complaints
Fully resolved complaints can preserve millions in patient lifetime value — while unresolved ones quietly drain revenue, trust, and referrals. Here’s a LinkedIn-ready article titled “The Cost of Complaints” with embedded financial data and citations. The Cost of Complaints In healthcare, complaints are often treated as noise, a nuisance to manage, a form to file,…
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Three Keys to De-escalation for Trust Recovery
When someone is angry in a healthcare setting, it’s easy to assume they want compensation, confrontation, or control. But most of the time, what they’re really seeking is resolution, reassurance, and repair. When we respond with emotional intelligence, we can turn a moment of trust rupture into a moment of trust recovery. Here are the…
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Understanding Displaced Emotion and Responding with Grace: It Might Be Their Birthday Cake
When people lash out, we often focus on the words they say or the behavior they show. But in moments of crisis, those reactions are rarely about what they seem. This story begins with a birthday cake, but it’s really about grief, fear, and the invisible weight people carry when their world is upended. In…
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Confrontation vs. Collaboration: The Intent That Changes Everything
Conflict is inevitable. But how we approach it determines whether we build trust—or break it. When we enter a difficult moment with the intent to win, defend, or deflect, we’re not resolving, we’re confronting. And confrontation, no matter how polished, is a power play. It’s about positioning, not connection. It may feel satisfying in the…
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Statistical Significance vs. the N of One
Data is my love language. I’m a complete geek about it. What’s interesting is that I’m also known as a storyteller. I often say that data gets people to the table, but story changes how they work. So how much data do you need to identify performance improvement opportunities? Well… it depends. You need both…
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Absorbing Anger: The Counterforce of Calm in Conflict
The Physics of Emotional Absorption In physics, Newton’s Third Law tells us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But in emotionally charged human interactions, especially in moments of anger. The most effective response isn’t equal. It’s intentionally opposite. When someone is yelling, we don’t yell back. When their speech is pressured, we…
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From Margaritaville to Meaningful Service: What the Tax Collector Taught Me About Experience
I never expected a trip to the DMV—well, the Tax Collector, as we call it in Florida—to leave me reflecting on the essence of service. But that’s exactly what happened when my husband and I went to pick up my new Margaritaville license plate, a special tribute created in honor of Jimmy Buffett’s passing. The…
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Forget the Numbers Hear the Messages
There’s a paradox I’ve wrestled with for years: I’ve built tools, frameworks, and dashboards to help teams interpret experience data—but part of me wishes they never saw the numbers at all. Why? Because the data isn’t the point. The human experience is. When teams fixate on NPS, top box scores, percentiles, or statistical significance, we…