[Sharon]

Think of an example of when you adjusted your communication to meet another person’s style. Are you a thinker, feeler, doer or imaginer? Why do you believe that is your style? Share your example and thoughts on the discussion forum.

[Melanie]

I wasn’t able to choose only 1 style. I am definitely a mix of both a doer and a thinker. I always have an action plan and am goal oriented. I like to see results and track progress. I also love logic and structure. I like to follow a process and am very detail oriented. I believe these are both my styles because of the example I am about to share. With a previous employer, I was responsible for performing file/chart audits on my colleagues. This meant I was reviewing their work and documentation. Were things clear and concise? Were they clearly documented? Were the correct processes followed through the patient journey? Were they behind on tasks and if so were they able to explain the delay in work performance? Were all Adverse Events reported on time? etc. I also took part in creating our Work Instructions and Standard Operating Procedures with my Managers. This meant I had to be very well versed in our processes and procedures in order to perform Audits and to review my colleagues’ work.
When reviewing my findings with my colleagues’ I had to adapt to their style of thinking to understand why some files/charts were incomplete or missing information. I had to take in their understanding of a process and either review it or offer some tips/tricks on how to manage certain steps within the patient journey. Some wanted a second opinion before they were comfortable doing a specific task or process which they didn’t fully understand or see logic in. You have to communicate openly and honestly and work together and collaborate to succeed and help each other learn no matter what your style may be.

[Suzanne]

I am definitely a mix of doer and feeler. I love bringing ideas to the table with solutions and can envision how things will play out and be effective. I am a productive person and thrive on organization and efficiency. I am also an empath and can put myself in someone else’s shoes to relate to how they are feeling. I find as a nurse in a FHT there is a lot of talking to patients about situations they are going through in regards to illness, mental health, caregiving etc that it is nice to have a down to earth conversation with some of them about things that I have gone through or tips of how I have handled a situation and patients do appreciate how you can relate to them. I have also been a member of several rapid task forces and it is satisfying to come up with a process quickly and put it in to play so that we can try something more effective and efficient so that things can run smoothly.

[Maame]

I agree with your post I am also a doer and feeler love to bring ideas to the organization to make the environment a better place. I also have brought my thoughts and ideas to unit meetings’ to help with change within the environment.

[Andrea]

I am definitely a Thinker and Feeler with a bit of Doer mixed in. In my day-to-day work as a palliative care nurse it is important for me to connect with patients and their family emotionally. Because we help patients to palliate in their homes, I also have to be a problem-solver and know the background and details of each situation.
I sometimes have a hard time communicating effectively with Doers in this situation as there is no set “To Do” lists. Each patient has a different course of palliating. Family members who are “Doers” tend to focus on tasks to be completed instead of sharing the journey with their loved one.
I can see now, I need to adjust how I am communicating with Doers by being better prepared with some initial steps they can act upon.

[Sandra]

I definitely understand this with palliative care. My grandfather has been palliative since October and here we are 4 months later and he’s still here. There have been others in hospice that have come and gone but for some reason he’s still holding on. So I get that there are different stages of people in palliative care.

[Melanie]

I can see the potential for all 3 of those styles when working in Palliative care. There are many levels of care and communication for those on that unit. You also can’t help but get attached to those you care for and their families during this extremely difficult period. Compassion and empathy for their journeys and helping them to cope and find resources available to help them prepare for what’s ahead. It’s heart breaking as well as rewarding at the same time working with these patients and their loved ones.

[Heather]

I found this post relevant to my life and I lost my mother a few years ago and I noticed that there were many different styles of communication used by the hospice staff and they all had value in certain areas and moments during the care process. Sometimes feeling was needed and often thinking and doing was what made all the difference.

[Sandra]

I am definitely a thinker most of the time when it comes to my work. The previous job I had we had a lot of patients come from out of town to get procedures done like angiograms and pacemakers. Sometimes these patients would wait weeks in their home hospital then weeks in our hospital until they could get the procedure done. I thought to myself how come they don’t cancel the out patients for a few days and get the in patients done so it can clear up some beds and actually find out if the patients really need stents or surgery. A few of us nurses talked about it and went to our manager about the idea, but we were told that the out patients have been waiting usually 6 months which is crazy long. We understood where our manager was coming from but again from time to time they do hold out on doing out patients to get the flow back in the hospital with beds.

[Heather]

I think that I am a doer and am becoming more of a thinker and feeler as I go along in my career. I supervise pow’s and often have to meet with them to discuss areas where they need to make some changes in their practices. I have found that many of those that struggle have become so oriented toward doing that they leave out the feeler aspect. I had an issue with one worker who was being quite neglectful and I found that the only way I could get her to understand where she was lacking was to ask her if the care she was providing would be acceptable if it was her parent. I think at this point she understood, that feeling isn’t everything but it does guide a fair amount of our practice as nurses. I am finding that all traits of communication styles have value and really help to communicate effectively.

[Andrea]

I agree that our communication style changs as we go along in our careers. I think the fact that you can recognize that and shift your communication style and help others to shift their ways of approaching patients is amazing. you must be a wonderful leader already!

[Suzanne]

I agree with that…I find our communication style changes as we progress in our career and we become more confident and have more life experience to relate to people. It’s nice to bring the realism to healthcare as well.

[Maame]

I believe the two styles I can associate myself with are doer and feeler. The reason why I feel adamant about these two styles is for one I like to get things done.Finding ways to make the unit a better environment is very essential to me. That’s when the feeler style comes into play because I want my colleagues to feel like their opinion matters on a issue we are trying to tackle. I had a situation at work in which a colleague was very argumentative and dismissive and never wanted to colloborate on ways to distribute the shift duties evenly.
She always believed why not push the duties on the other shifts, her shift is too busy. I had to make her understand that the work is stressful for everyone and pushing all duties isn’t fair onto one shift, there should be a common ground. Slowly but surely she began to be more open minded and realized with the pushing of work duties to the other shifts unfairly can cause burnot in which we don’t want.

[Taraneh]

I am definitely a feeler with a dash of imaginer. I am very in tune with people’s feelings and and the emotional side of tasks, but I also love to look at the bigger picture and all the ways that the end goal can be reached. In my role I have had to deal with many types of communicators and still learning to approach each effectively. Being in a nursing supervisor role, I find a lot of the team I have are feelers along with myself, but although I am the same communication type, I do find difficulty in keeping communication productive and task oriented.

[Author]

Posts