Continued from Part One:

The Cosmic Connection—Kathleen Heinrich, Cynthia Clark and Susan Luparell—snowshoeing in the mountains of Idaho.

Morin: I hear you talking about more than just the topic of civility. I hear passion about that, which is one level, but I also hear how to establish effective working partnerships as almost the bigger concept. You come together because of a common passion, but what you’ve been describing is how partnerships that have clear expectations, that are well-articulated, really do contribute to individual and group performance. I hear you saying that your relationship is predicated on mutual respect and that mutual respect, in turn, creates an environment where it’s safe to share ideas, a place where you know your ideas are going to be respected and valued.

Heinrich: That’s right. We’ve come up with three “T’s” as a theme that is common to our respective work. Cindy may talk about nursing practice or students’ perception of faculty, Susan about classroom management, and I about faculty-faculty and faculty-administrator relationships. But, consistent throughout is the need for truth telling, transparency and trust. While Susan and Cindy have their own style, on the first day of class they each discuss with students ground rules that involve telling the truth, being transparent and establishing trusting relationships.

Luparell: I should point out that, even though the topic of incivility is a passion for me, I don’t necessarily suffer from its consequences in the formal academic setting, nor does Cindy, at least not to the degree we hear from workshop participants. Sometimes I hear the stories and think it’s almost hypocritical for me to be the one talking about it, because I don’t really have these experiences. One of the reasons our partnership works so well is that I don’t feel the need to hold my cards that close to the vest in terms of not letting these gals know what I’m thinking or, similarly, keeping my students in the dark about what I’m thinking. The students know what I’m thinking, and they know why I’m thinking it. They know what’s driving my decisions, and I think these gals do, too. We’re willing to just kind of lay it out there, and once you do that, it diminishes the opportunity for misunderstandings based on unfounded paranoia, or whatever. So, truth telling and transparency make for success in the classroom as well as success in our partnership.

Clark: Although we live under the banner of civility, there is a humility that comes with that and an understanding that one is not perfect. There is a certain forgiveness that needs to occur—forgiving one’s self, forgiving others and coming together in meaningful, critical dialogue and open communication. People want to know, “What’s the magic bullet for dealing with incivility?” If we were to provide one, it’s coming together to communicate with intention and purpose, and to afford a modicum of forgiveness.

Each semester, my students and I co-create classroom and clinical norms and engage in mindful discussion about creating a safe learning environment for debate, argument and social discourse. One of the things I say to them on the first day of class is, “There will likely come a time this semester when I will offend you.” I pause, they look at me, and then I add, “But it will never be my intention.” I then ask them, “How will I know if I’ve offended you?” And we have a great dialogue about how conversation, communication and conflict negotiation are important and how we can collaborate to negotiate difficult situations. So it really builds on not just norming but creating a culture. We can’t know everything about every dimension of a person, so I tell them up-front: “I’m going to make mistakes. You will, too, and we’ll talk them through.”

Morin: At the beginning of this conversation, Cindy mentioned “developing instruments.” I assume that evidence is at the fledgling stage at the present time, but what are best practices, and how have we devised them?

Heinrich: Maybe one of the best practices is what we were talking about with the Cosmic Connection—the partnership agreement. Being a pioneer means trying things out and experimenting. Evidence that partnership agreements work, for example, is found through the experience of making them. I use partnership practices with everyone from co-authors to people who come here [to Connecticut] for vacation, to make sure we are all on the same page, whether we’re writing an article or wanting to have a fun getaway. Now, Cindy is pursuing evidence at a different level but, I would say, as far as best practice is concerned, it’s learning what works from students, faculty and administrators and trying it out.

Luparell: You’re exactly on target, Karen, in assuming that the evidence for what works in fostering civility is at the fledgling stage. Cindy has done a lot with her instrument development to achieve stronger levels of evidence. A lot of it is anecdotal, and the problem with anecdotal evidence is, because of personality types, etc., what works for one may not work for another. But what works for me is to approach classroom management the way the three of us approach our professional relationship. We have to consider ourselves to be in partnership with students, and then do the things that we know work in other professional partnerships—the truth telling and transparency, for example. I love what Cindy says to her students on the first day of class. I do something similar; I talk about the role of trust. We have to trust each other and each other’s intentions.

Clark: Not only in my type of work, but for lots of people, stress plays a significant role in triggering incivility. When you read the literature on workplace violence, it’s clear that stress is a huge factor, one of the root causes. So we need to address stress, how to cope with it. We need to talk about self-care. If you read the Joint Commission’s work on root causes of different things—from suicide to wrong limb removal—it’s poor communication. So, to me, good communication is a best practice, and communication can be taught. I teach a cluster of leadership courses, and have for years, in which I have people self-assess their level of emotional intelligence or capacity for communication, so they are aware of their strengths and places they need to grow. So those would be a few types of evidence that I would mention.

Luparell: As we focus on classroom management and come to grips with how we are going to foster civility in ways different, perhaps, than we are doing now, we in education will need to become more reflective about our practices—not only faculty practices but even things like how we set up our collective curricula and how we demonstrate, by the way we run our programs, that we value students. It will be painful. Are there things that intrinsically add to stress and lack of trust? It’s likely to be a Pandora’s box, but I truly believe that’s the level we have to get to if we are really going to get a handle on this issue.

Heinrich: With regard to reflection, I think the most important insight I’ve had in studying civility is that we must begin with ourselves. If I had a best practice that’s really quick and easy, it’s measuring your zest quotient (ZQ). Imagine you’re wearing a “zestometer.” Instead of measuring the miles you walk, as a pedometer does, a zestometer measures the amount of zest in your professional interactions. After each encounter, ask yourself, What is my ZQ? If 10 signifies the most zest (least stress) and 0 is the least zest (most stress), what does your zestometer register? If your ZQ is anything below a zest-filled 10, you’re in joy-stealing territory. Administrators hiring me for workshops often say that faculty members don’t realize when they’re involved in an interaction that is uncivil. By measuring your ZQ after each interaction, you’ll recognize incivility when it happens. This is an act of self-care and a best practice that’s easy to incorporate into your professional life.

Morin: So, in review, I’m hearing accountability, number one—both faculty and student accountability—but I’m also hearing about the need for increased awareness of what’s going on in the environment that might also affect one’s ability to interact appropriately. Since this is STTI, I should mention that there is tremendous fodder here for research, to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the phenomenon. What are some final pearls you can leave with us regarding civility and partnership?

Luparell: In terms of civility, if someone were just picking up an article and reading about it and thinking, “Oh my, I’ve also experienced this,” my pearl is that you can change the environment in which you find yourself. Whether it’s helping students remediate their behavior—and I should say that I wholeheartedly believe that most students we label as nasty just don’t know how not to have inappropriate behaviors—there are methods, strategies, things that people can do to understand their situation differently and then interact and perform differently, either with students or colleagues, to improve their environment—drastically improve their environment.

With regard to the partnership that Cindy, Kathy and I have established, professionally, it’s been life-changing, and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. I was floundering in many ways in terms of my scholarship and what I needed to do and wanted to do. Suffice it to say, in addition to being personally life-changing because of the friendships, it has been professionally life-altering in the most positive of ways.

Clark: With regard to civility, the pearl I would share is that this work—whoever is doing it, students or faculty—takes courage and leadership at all levels. Whether it be the level where you are, Karen, as president of the honor society, where you are looking at creating welcoming environments, or whether it’s courage for a student and a faculty member, or two faculty members, to sit down over a cup of coffee and sort it out, I think there is a tremendous amount of courage and deliberate intention involved. But there is also infinite reward that comes from that coming together and taking the lead, whether it’s formal or informal, in addressing these issues. So I’m a strong believer in the role of leadership and bold, decisive action.

The partnership between Susan, Kathy and me has been transformative. I will never, and can never, be the same as a result of being part of this Cosmic Connection. And I don’t see it ending, ever, except through death. I’m forever altered and transformed by knowing Kathy and Susan. You were right on, Karen, when you observed that, while civility and incivility might be what brought us together, they are not what keeps us together.

Heinrich: I have tears in my eyes from what Cindy just said. My pearl for RNL readers is, nurture your optimism. Nel Glass, a nurse educator-researcher, spent seven years interviewing faculty in Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States. Even though stressful interactions are rampant among faculty colleagues, she found that nurse educators are optimists. They believe that zestful workplaces, where faculty and administrators work and play well together, are possible. Even when these optimists are not teaching in a zestful workplace, they trust that they will, eventually. So, to the readers of RNL, keep your optimism and stay true to it. This may mean that you do everything you can do to bridge the gap between stress and zest in your workplace. If that doesn’t work, screw up your courage and consider moving, confident that you will find a zestful workplace.

With regard to partnerships, I would say to readers: Start looking at your world through partnership goggles. When you meet an intriguing colleague, ask yourself the two partnership questions: “How can you help me? And, how can I help you?” When you do, you’re going to find potential partners all around you, partners who are ready to help you and ready to enter into the kinds of transformational experiences that Cindy, Susan and I have enjoyed for five years. So, start looking at your world in a different way, and you’re going to find so much support for yourself and for your work.

Morin: Excellent. I want to thank all of you for your courage and leadership in tackling what I see are related issues—fostering civility and developing positive partnerships. I thank you very much for taking time to share your passion and expertise with our audience. RNL

Karen H. Morin, DSN, RN, ANEF, FAAN, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International, is graduate programs director and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing. Cynthia Clark, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, is a professor of nursing at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, USA. Clark’s principal body of research is in the area of fostering civility in nursing education and practice, including the role of nursing education in preparing future nurses to address incivility in the practice setting, faculty-to-faculty incivility, and intervention studies. Susan Luparell, PhD, ACNS-BC, CNE, assistant professor of nursing at the College of Nursing, Montana State University, Bozeman, is an experienced critical care clinical nurse specialist and teaches a graduate course on effective clinical teaching. Kathleen Heinrich, PhD, RN, educator, author and speaker, is principal of K T H Consulting in Guilford, Connecticut, and author of the book, A Nurses’ Guide to Presenting and Publishing: Dare to Share.

Reference (cited in Part One):
Lashley, F. R., & de Meneses, M. (2001). Student civility in nursing programs: A national survey. Journal of Professional Nursing, 17(2), 81.

Previously published RNL articles on the topic of civility:

By Cynthia Clark
“The sweet spot of civility: My story”
“Why civility matters”
"What educators can do to promote civility”
“What students can do to promote civility”
“From incivility to civility: Transforming the culture”

By Kathleen Heinrich
“Joy-stealing games”
"Joy stealing: How some nurse educators resist these faculty games”
“Full-circle moment: Recognizing the joy stealer within”