Nurses take care of sick people and help to make sure that they remain healthy. Nursing is not a competition nevertheless they do have conflicts between day and night shifts. Shift change shouldn’t have conflicts! Nurses like Jessica and Evelyn don’t get along with each other. Jessica is a day shift nurse whereas Evelyn is a night shift nurse. Jessica works hard during the day of feeding patients. She deals with visitors, doctors, management, and tries to make sure that she does everything just right, so that the nurse Evelyn won’t be able to find anything wrong.
Evelyn writes complains about night shifts different from day shifts. She tends to find things that the nurse Jessica has done wrong during the day and points it out in shifts change. The night shift is about watching over sleeping patients until the morning. It is also where a patient crashes and doctors have to be paged and procedures done.
The day shift on the other hand is rarely quiet. Most visitors come during the day, nurses serve all the meals, and what is important they have to see management often displeasing most of the time. There are advantages and disadvantages to each shift, but its really bad when nurses won’t do their jobs aside from no emergencies, and leave things for the next shift. One day Evelyn shows up at work twenty five minutes late. The nurse Jessica had to cover her three times. She tells Evelyn that she is not going to cover for her anymore. Evelyn started shouting at Jessica and a lot more. The supervisor walks in just as it looks like Evelyn is going to hit Jessica. Verbal aggressiveness is “tendency to attack the self- concept of people instead of, or in addition to, their positions on issues in order to inflict psychological pain” (Infante 2010, p.304).
Potential issues: Interpersonal relationships at work: How to get along with each other. According to the author Dev Patniak, companies prosper when they create widespread empathy. In addition, the absence of empathy leads both nurses, Evelyn and Jessica to be unfair at work. If it is opened in the workplace between the two nurses, they gain lots of trust, motivation, and work well with each other as well. Communication theories are created to describe, and resolve effectively conflicts among coworkers for instance, nurses like Evelyn and Jessica. The theory of elaboration likelihood in this situation explains how peoples' attitudes are formed and changed through persuasion. …” it has been described as “the most promising recent theoretical development in persuasion research” ( O’Keefe, 1990.)
Besides, empathy is important to problem solving. It prevents arising conflicts. The best ways to persuade and encourage empathy: 1) Persuade and teach employees skills such as; listening, understand each other, and be great listeners. 2) Hire employees of great characters and communication skills. In few words, hire those who get along with each other and able to collaborate with each other at work. 3) Know each employee and be watchful as well.
In addition, empathy is definitely a trait lacking in the workplace. The books Crucial Confrontation and Crucial Accountability both written by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Greeny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Patterson, Greeny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzler (2010) discussed a communication concept called CPR-content, pattern, and relationship. The content is to understand a single event, pattern is reoccurrence of an issue and relationship is what is happening to the individuals involved with the problem (Patterson el at., 2010). This method will help the manager decide which approach to take when communicating with Jessica and Evelyn. Empathy is a great tool used with problem solving skills to prevent conflict. In addition to empathy cognitive dissonance theory helps as well? As defined by Infante, dissonance can be a motivation for change “The more the mental discomfort (dissonance), the more we are motivated to change something to make things comfortable” (160). Combining the theory with empathy training could assist in a solution.
The theory of planned behavior in this situation describes that controlling our attitudes, beliefs and behavior shapes human's intention of speaking and behaving. Humans feel tense or are not easy at talking or meeting each other. So, it is important for them learn how to create relationship and become productive people of our society. Lastly, communication theories explain and bring positive result to people who are capable to use them and maintain real social and behavioral change working group. The only reason why social and behavioral change occur is because of conflict that happens between people for example the two nurses. Social change is critical and important otherwise the resolution and success would never be realized.
References
Patterson, K., Greeny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R, & Switzler, A. (2010). Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
nfante, D.A., Rancer, A.S., & Avtgis, T.A. (2010). Contemporary Communication Theory Dubuque, IA: Kendal Hunt.
Perloff, M. R. (2005). The Dynamics of Persuasion (5th ed.)
Patniak, D. (2009). Wired to Care (1st ed.)
Selby, J. (2007). Listening with Empathy: Creating Genuine Connections with Customers and Colleagues.
MS in Communication
A.Xh
