Phil Wilson (00:00)
Lori King, welcome to the Left of Boom show. It’s great to see you.
Lori King (00:04)
Great to see you, Phil. Thanks for having me.

Phil Wilson (00:06)
Yeah, it’s always great to see you. So we’d like to start off with our guests, just maybe give a little quick background. So tell us a little bit about how did you end up in healthcare labor relations consulting?

Lori King (00:19)
Yeah, well, I’ve had an exciting career. I started as a staff nurse and then was also an executive. And I was the CEO of two state nurse associations, Montana Nurses Association, Ohio Nurses Association. And then, now I have my own consulting business where I help employers navigate.

workplace issues, building healthier, stronger, more engaged teams and more positive work environments. But I think, you know, what kind of got me to doing what I’m doing now is the associations that I ran were hybrid, right? They were both union and non-union. So I gained a lot of leadership muscle for navigating the politics and the emotion of differing, you know, diverse

diverse points of view. I had two boards. One board was a labor cabinet. The other board was a professional overarching association board. Some of the professional board members were employers of nurses that sat on the labor cabinet. And so I also say, I guess in jest that I got a quick master’s degree in navigating the insulation

union designated organization, non-union designated organization. you know, protecting the rights of the nurses that were represented by the group or by the organization. And yeah, it was a delicate balance. I say it was probably the most chaotic job I have, but I honestly enjoyed every minute of it because

Phil Wilson (01:53)
It sounds very complicated.

Lori King (01:55)
It was very complicated. was an employer as the CEO. had a represented staff of 48. So they were represented by an independent union.

Phil Wilson (02:08)
So you had to negotiate with that staff union as the CEO of the union.

Lori King (02:13)
Yes. Yes. So I have negotiated contracts, I guess you could say on both sides, labor and the employer side navigated ULPs grievances and strikes on both sides. And I guess I kind of skipped over, but as a new grad, that’s how I learned about unionization.

You know as a condition of my employment to be a part of the union at my small hospital I was handed a contract in HR and You know, I’m I’m a natural leader. I think my core values are leadership, you know integrity Growth and so that was my conduit that was that was my platform as a new nurse to To use that platform to lead and and try and make the workplace better

Phil Wilson (02:59)
Yeah, great, great. So help me, I mean, that’s a really unique background. It may be an N of one, but like it’s a unique set of experiences that you bring to your clients. How does having that union side experience help you with your current clients that are either, probably many of them are also represented in probably

many are not represented. How does that experience play in with that work?

Lori King (03:28)
Yeah, I think the experience is just having an appreciation for the diverse views. if I think about your question and how it helps with the client work is that I think there’s perspectives on both sides. And I don’t think either.

either the employees or the employer have really a good appreciation for the perspectives they come from often. And it’s not because it’s ill-intended. I think we’re so focused on the work that we do and the responsibilities that we have in our role that it creates a clash that we don’t understand. turns into blame, maybe, you know, some…

workforce issues that we’re navigating, we don’t understand why they exist. I think that’s why they exist.

Phil Wilson (04:14)
Right. Yeah. I think there’s and this is true, I think across industries, but I do feel like in health care, maybe more than many others, there’s like the the the economics of health care, the the labor issues, you know, just trying to staff and find people. You know, it takes a lot of work to get to the point that you can be a nurse, that you can be a doctor. And and so just the

The pool of talent is limited. The demand for that limited pool of talent is going up as the baby boomers, their healthcare needs are skyrocketing. And it’s just this perfect storm of conditions that there is no good solutions. And I feel like that causes a lot of this, maybe lack of empathy would be one way to put it, or just

desperation and kind of grabbing at straws at things that probably aren’t really good solutions, but it’s like we got to do something. Tell me a little bit about sort of how the intersection of those things are kind of playing out in the labor issues that you’re helping companies face.

Lori King (05:19)
Yeah, you know, I think back to, you know, being so focused on the role that we play in the industry that we’re in and in healthcare, healthcare is a business. And there are people in that are charged with the responsibility of making sure that it’s a healthy business that’s, know, financially solvent so that we can provide services, etc. Then you have the frontline clinicians and the workers that are

delivering the care and what goes out the window when you deliver care is any business consideration. You’re dealing with a human being and whether they’re a very important person or they’re someone who’s homeless and maybe dealing with drug addiction or really down and out, all of that goes out the window.

you’re dealing with a human being, they may or may not have family there that are also looking at you. And the only thing on our mind as clinicians is, what can I do for this person in front of me that needs help, that I need the resources, I need my workload to be manageable, I need to walk away knowing that I did what I could and what they deserved to deliver care and get them the best outcome. And I think that that’s…

And I might have gone a deep on that, Phil, but I do think that, you know, we’re so focused. I once had a CEO that I, or a CFO that I encouraged to go around. It was on the heels of the pandemic, but I thought, you know, I always tell leaders in healthcare, your team, they can’t trust who they don’t know.

They have to be able to put a face to the name. They don’t need to know you intimately, but they need to say, yeah, they you know, they need to feel like we care. So the CFO went rounding, picked ICU first. He was by himself, a little uncomfortable. He’s not a clinician. He’s a guy, he’s numbers guy. He walked up to the nurse’s station and said, just checking in on the team. You know, how are things going? And

Someone, it was very busy. Someone made the comment, my gosh, it’s so busy. Every bed is full. And the first thing he said is, that’s music to my ears. Because his focus is finance and the financial health of the organization, which is critically important. But you can imagine how that went over.

Phil Wilson (07:45)
sure. And I mean, I think the flip side of that is also true, right? Like the clinicians a lot of times to, you like you said, they don’t think about it as a business. But if you if you don’t pay attention and have some financial literacy about how that business operates, and it’s true in any business, but I think it’s especially true in health care and especially true today in health care. If you don’t

have a sense for like how that works. You’re not going to be able to deliver care if there is no hospital to deliver the care in. Right. And there’s a lot of places that are losing, you know, care centers because they just can’t financially work. so it’s both. But yeah, probably not a good time to be Yeah, you don’t go down to a packed ICU.

interrupting everybody like that, you know, that’s number one, you know, just interrupting them and then go like, man, I’m sure glad it’s so busy down here that that’s probably not the not the best way to to intro yourself.

Lori King (08:47)
Yeah. No, I think, you know, we prepared the team for him coming for sure. But it was just his, he was looking through a different lens. That was a learning lesson for sure. And I think to your point, you know, one thing that we really could be doing better in the healthcare industry is, closing that gap. I think employers could do

a way better job, not only just sharing the challenges and what’s going on that they’re navigating every day, trying to make sure that they financially solve it, but also all the good things that they’re doing. They’re just not, they’re not doing a real good job of adding to their very full plate, communicating through a labor lens. But when we think about what’s going on currently in healthcare, I think

that we’re gonna see a lot more labor concern and issues, I think, if we don’t do a good job of communicating. Because things like 70 % or more of the care that we provide in hospitals is Medicare and Medicaid. Those are agencies right now that we see administrative changes and funding ranges going on. And those are external pressures that if we don’t…

Even if our sophisticated smart workforce is paying attention to that, we need to pull it forward because of the lens they’re looking at. The other thing that I saw AHA, American Hospital Association put out a recent report in the last week, and we’re looking at all the talk about the tariffs. it was like, I think if I remember right, was 80 % of devices

and healthcare supplies we obtained from outside the US. So these are financial pressures that as clinicians, when everything goes out the window and you’re looking at a human being in the eyes taking care of them, you know, we need to be, and then we see operational changes that were like, this doesn’t make sense. It’s not helping take better care of these patients. If we start to talk about the things we’re up against as employers,

to our teams, they’ll understand better what we’re trying to figure out. And they might even come up with some good ideas on how we can cut costs and navigate the economic waters.

Phil Wilson (10:59)
Right. Yeah. Like it’s way better to sort of collaborate around that than to just come up with a good idea that looks good on a spreadsheet and then go, here’s how we’re doing it. Right. Why don’t why don’t I think that’s a good place to pivot to sort of what like what are some of the key labor issues that that you’re helping your health care clients kind of navigate through?

Lori King (11:09)
Right.

Yeah, I mean, I think in healthcare always, well, like we just talked about, I mean, I’m really focusing on we’ve got to do a good job in educating our teams from the business side of healthcare and bridging that gap. So that’s definitely one. think there’s some cultural things in healthcare, you know, from a labor relations standpoint that create issues. Nursing,

focus a great deal on nursing. It’s the largest employee population in hospitals. And it often creates a feeling of feeling devalued or not respected by other employee groups. sometimes, we have to make sure that decisions we make for one employee group that we’re considering how is that gonna impact the perception of

the other employee groups. And I do find even where employers have, you know, their nursing employee groups feel valued and respected and they’re proud of the employer and they’re proud of where they work and the care they deliver, then they begin to speak up on behalf of their colleagues and the rest of the team saying, we have it, but you’re not taking care of them or, you know, so I just, I think,

that that’s definitely another area is just making sure that we’re looking at things globally across departments and across employee groups. Communication, I mentioned, is a biggie. And that’s in the industry, any industry, right? But communication can always do better with that.

Phil Wilson (12:59)
Yeah, you mentioned nurses and that’s kind of like the prototypical, you know, organized group or a lot of, you know, organizing happens around nursing. But there’s, there’s a lot of organizing in some other, you know, unique populations. Maybe talk to our listeners a little bit about some of these other groups that are organizing.

Lori King (13:19)
Yeah, well, you know,

entry level positions in healthcare are, know, there’s a lot of competition. There’s a lot more competition. used to be that, you know, if you could get your foot in the door at the hospital, you know, you were, you really hadn’t made because you had great benefits and great pay. you know, was, there was a growth opportunities. And I think, you know, now

healthcare competes with other industries when it comes to base pay. the expectations of the workforce is different. think the new workforce is more focused on what’s in their paycheck and they’d almost rather have an extra week off than higher pay sometimes even. So we have to kind of adjust to that. I think the other thing,

that I find with positions, some of the entry level positions in healthcare, and I’m talking EVS, food and nutrition, some of those support positions like patient care techs, mental health workers, they’re not making enough to turn the wheel. A lot of them have a couple of jobs, and especially in certain areas of the country, like I do a lot of work in New York.

Simple things like how we manage their schedule. If we don’t give them more than two days off in a row, or if they’re jumping from day shift to evening shift to night shift, then it’s hard for them to make the wheel turn because, like I said, a lot of them have second jobs. And so they’re trying to fit two schedules together. I see that all the time. Economic pressures are real. And I see that across industries.

Phil Wilson (14:56)
I mean, that’s a, yeah, so I think that’s totally right. So you’ve got kind of like the entry level pressure where across the labor market, a lot of these entry level jobs, know, wages have gone up and there’s a lot of competition around benefits and some of these jobs you can even do from home. so like there’s, if you were trying to get your foot in the door in healthcare, you you might be willing to kind of.

Compromise a little bit in those areas, but if you can go down the road and have a less stressful You know make a little bit more money Have a better schedule. You know, you’re you’re gonna choose to do that, So I think you have you know, you have that that issue but there’s also issues at the top part of the house, right so like doctors and You know you you’ve got you know a lot of more sort of organizing and

and pressure there. Maybe tell us a little bit about that.

Lori King (15:50)
Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a lot more physicians and the provider group worked, talking physicians, PAs, nurse practitioners, and on. Yeah, think, you know, there was a shift when hospitals began to employ them out of private practice.

Phil Wilson (16:00)
Residents, right?

Lori King (16:10)
they are now employees. And if they don’t feel like they can be influential in their work environment, or they’re being told what to do without being drawn in to provide their insight and their input on how things should go, then we see them go outside of the organization to try and get their voice a different way.

It’s interesting this perspective having been on both sides and being a provider myself, actually a cardiac nurse practitioner. very proud of that. see patients 200 hours a year to maintain my license and prescriptive authority in case I ever go back. But I have an appreciation for what’s going on from both sides.

know, decisions are happening quick. We’re navigating a lot of challenges in healthcare. But in healthcare, we’ve got to draw in those that are providing care, physicians, and bring them along with these decisions. Otherwise, you know, creates that divisive culture. Yeah, it’s…

Phil Wilson (17:16)
I’ve got a friend who’s a physician in a health care system that, well, one of his friends, was also they’re trying to adopt a lot of technology, right? And so they are not so much AI, but I’m sure AI, the issue that I’m thinking about was just more telehealth, but being able to see a patient without physically being there with them.

the physician didn’t feel comfortable doing that. And the healthcare system believed that it was safe and was, you know, was within protocol. you know, when you’re dealing with a licensed professional and that’s both at the physician level and even, you know, the clinician level, you’re, if you’re being asked to do something that you feel just isn’t safe or isn’t

You know, you feel like you may be putting your own license at risk by doing it. Those create like major problems. And these are kind of like, you know, keep you up at night problems and you want to have power to do something about it. And if there’s not a lot of collaboration and discussion and, you know, and it’s just being imposed, then like you just said, you go, well, I’m going to go seek power elsewhere.

Lori King (18:28)
Yeah. Well, and there is a way to deliver safe care in a way that meets the business needs of broadening the services in ways where maybe we do telehealth or different ways of service delivery. But we have to pull the conversation together, those providing that service too, to find out, to get their take on

how we roll that out. You one of the things that I would go back to in terms of in this, think is kind of on the same lines. That’s a huge pain point for both the workforce and healthcare hospitals is emergency departments right now. And so we’re looking at how do we see patients in a different way? And I think the providers,

in or questioning how we’ they know they’re also que you know, we’re boarding p have capacity for the my projection is that’s goi we’re gonna, you know, wit

Phil Wilson (19:29)
It’s kind of the only place, it’s the only place you can go. Yeah. It’s like the only place you can go where like, know, someone is at some point going to have to see you. Yeah. And if you don’t have any options outside of that. we’re, yeah, we’re kind of, I’m with you. Like we’re creating our own bigger problem, just like the more that, the more that we try to make things more efficient.

Lori King (19:48)
Absolutely. And, you know, it puts more financial pressure on the hospital when there’s more uncompensated care to deliver and it puts more pressure on the workforce because the workload increases because we have more volume. so we do start to look for creative models of care or, you know, ways to deliver care. But it’s it’s again, I keep saying this, but it comes back to bridging that that gap of what are we thinking from a business standpoint and how we

how we carry out the services and how we pull that together with those that are providing it so that we’re making those decisions together. Richer experience anyway. so, yeah. ⁓

Phil Wilson (20:31)
Well,

and you just get better care, right? Yeah. Well, so, you know, there’s like all of this, you know, these these issues and one of the things that tends to boil down to is is staffing. So maybe talk a little bit about, you know, we’ve worked on these together where this is just a you know, it’s like it’s it’s the big issue and everyone is like we want ratios or we want, you we want certain

guaranteed staffing for us to feel safe that we can deliver care. Talk a little bit about that and then how that, again, going back to kind of financial literacy and doing a good job of communicating around sort of why we do things. Just maybe talk a little bit about that staffing conundrum, because it’s a big problem.

Lori King (21:17)
It really is. And it’s the main problem and has been forever. You go back in history and hospitals have been trying to solve workforce issues and staffing, the best way to staff. I’m pretty vocal. I was very vocal when I was lobbying for the nurse associations at the state and national level. And I’m vocal now to whoever will…

sit and listen to me about legislating healthcare staffing is, it’s just not a good idea to be having lawmakers making decisions on how to staff our healthcare system because we have a law that passes and then they’re the ones making the rules and the rules don’t make sense. And we see it, I’ve looked at this across all the states and there’s,

Some that have ratios and some that require public reporting. Some that have, you know, require staffing committees and the rules around them. One of the rules that doesn’t make sense just to give an example, because I think this is kind of hits at home is there was a rule in New York that said that, you know, hospitals had to provide hours per patient.

day in ambulatory care settings. And that’s like apples and oranges. There’s not hours per patient day in ambulatory care settings. But lawmakers wouldn’t know that. They just picked up on the fact that that’s a data point that makes sense in health care, but it’s just not across the board. When it comes to ratios, if I might be so bold,

The reason that we can’t just staff on numbers of nurses and numbers of patients. And I think that that’s proven in that, there’s pushback on this and saying that there’s studies and research that say that ratios work. And yes, the workload of the healthcare team is directly related to patient outcomes. If we have less of a workload, then we can provide better care.

I mean, it just, makes sense. we have legislated numbers, like California, for instance. You know, they’ve had ratios, you know, outlined in the law by department since, actually since 99. In 2000, I think it was, I want to say 18 or 19, they added some additional pretty hefty penalties on when employers go outside of those ratios.

At any time, for any period of time, I think it’s thousands of dollar penalty per instance. So if you have one floor, three nurses go out of ratio, that’s three instances. think it’s 20,000 an instant. So it’s like 76,000. So you’re having a bad day trying to staff a unit. You’re at risk. But here’s the thing, a very strong law, very strong penalties.

they were already holding patients in the ED a long time ago because they couldn’t put patients out on floors when they didn’t have the right ratios because the law kind of created this unadulterated consequence. But if you go back in last three years, which is well beyond this law being put in place and the penalties, Sutter, Kaiser, Stanford, those nurses have all gone out on strike over workload. Didn’t fix it.

And I think if there was a magic wand for ratios, if ratios actually worked and if that message that unions give that will get ratios for you or if somebody’s lobbying for that hard in-state legislature, if it worked, hospitals I think would be doing it. Hospitals, that’s an equal priority for the hospitals. see these

nurse leadership teams would love not to be spending all their time trying to navigate staffing issues. That’s what they spend the predominant amount of time on is, know, staffing the units, navigating call-offs, navigating high census, low census, changes in patient acuities, breakdowns of equipment, changes in skill level, know, managing the team. It’s a lot. And there’s not a simple answer to this complex problem.

Phil Wilson (25:25)
And and you said it it’s work, you know, the number of nurses to number of patients is like a dumb way. It is a super you didn’t. OK, that was my word, not yours. But that’s OK. Like it is a hamfisted proxy for what you’re really trying to deal with, which is what sort of a patient acuity situation are we dealing with? What is the skill set of the the talent?

tool that I have that’s available to deliver care to this group. And, you know, it will oftentimes make way more sense to pull somebody from a unit where there’s low acuity and we’ve got, you know, less experienced folks can handle the stuff that’s going on down there. But we have to like staff with somebody who has more experience than necessary. And they’re kind of having a smooth day because they’re sort of over.

staff or what they have to deal with while you have a crisis going on upstairs where you could desperately use that experienced person. Like that’s how you really do staffing and to force you into a situation where you have to staff improperly and poorly is totally counterproductive.

Lori King (26:34)
Yeah, and I do. I see that. And, whether it’s a clause in the contract or something that, you know, the state law is driving, we’re shuffling. We’re shuffling staff to meet the requirements of a contract in the law. Not always what’s best for the patients and the need of the environment. A couple of things I wanted to.

bring up too on this is, you know, I think the American Nurses Association, you know, some of the national labor unions out there that are pushing these, you know, legislative and lobbying actions are trying to meet the request and the command of what their members want. I’ve been there.

the push and the momentum of what your members expect that are paying dues and belong to your organization, you have to go that direction, the direction that that momentum’s pushing you, even if it’s not maybe the best. And I think the best leaders in those organizations are the ones that are able to articulate and move their organizations and their boards and the leaders in their organizations.

to do something different, but I think it’s just too much of a force. So to me, that’s why I love doing what I’m doing. I’m not in that world anymore. And the political pressures and the guidelines of, let’s see, that you don’t talk about, the things that the bounds of the discussion that you have when you’re in those roles,

They don’t just owe you, they’re not, I don’t think driving good policy. But I tell you in this space, I love what the state of Virginia is doing. So the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association and the Virginia Nurses Association, there isn’t a state staffing law there. But there was some momentum in moving that direction. They decided to come together

and work jointly together to address the issues outside of the legislative process. And they’re doing great work together. It’s not easy. And they have the pressure of, you know, the financial pressures of the hospital. The UNA has the pressures of members, the hospital association members, but they’ve agreed to roll out staffing committees in all their hospitals across the state.

And those staffing committees, they’re not prescribed by law. So every hospital can pull those together on their own. They’re made up of 50 % frontline staff, 50 % management. They’re working together to create staffing plans that make sense for their size of hospital, their patient population. So I’m rooting for them to be successful in that. that’s what I think is best.

I think those decisions need to be made in the walls of the hospital where you have critical smart thinkers that know what they’re doing and they’re living the needs day to day.

Phil Wilson (29:31)
And it’s different, like different communities and even different parts of different communities have sort of different needs. And so the idea of doing something at a statewide level, you know, for a state like Virginia, for example, or really like most states, right? The needs for a healthcare center in a highly populated city that has, you know,

a lot of different types of acuity and different types of issues and, you know, then then some place out in the country. And, you know, so so you kind of have it makes way more sense to do what Virginia is doing, which is like we will work together kind of facility by facility and we’ll have a kind of a framework for how we’re going to do it. But the results at each facility probably will be way more unique to that facility. That makes way more sense than trying to do something legislative.

Lori King (30:20)
Yeah, I think it absolutely does. And, you know, I’ve looked at all these things inside out and backwards. Obviously, I have a very, very high level of personal interest in patients having good outcomes in our workforce, being healthy. I mean, that’s another kind of why behind what I do is when I was in my doctoral program, you know, we talked a lot about the research that says that if the health care team is healthy,

and thriving them, patient outcomes are better. So I’m like, well, that’s my sweet spot that like, that’s where I’m, I’m going to be. But when I look at, you know, these initiatives in different states, the laws, some of the contract language that I see, and I see a lot of contracts trying to, know, where unions are trying to address the issues too, at the bargaining table, that, you know, they’re, it’s, it’s not effective when it’s a

penalty fine type situation. We’re checking boxes, you know, we’re turning in staffing plans. The state’s not doing anything with those. The community can look at them, but they don’t understand them. And I would even venture to say that a lot of the healthcare professionals look at the staffing plans and don’t fully understand. Some are a page, some are 150 pages.

It’s just, it’s complex. Yeah, there’s been a lot of articles out on one of the, there’s a clause that’s in a couple of contracts in New York where the employer agreed that if they fall behind in the, they fall below the planned staffing for a unit, actually have to write,

the nurses attack for every instance. And it’s really…

Phil Wilson (32:10)
creates an incentive to call off like it yeah like that’s that’s a terrible

Lori King (32:16)
So there’s never been more call-offs. I mean the call-offs skyrocketed

Phil Wilson (32:21)
that’s, yeah, who could have predicted that?

Lori King (32:24)
Well, exactly. And the employer, it’s almost less expensive for them to just pay the fine than try, than solve the problem by hiring more people or navigate. mean, there’s all kinds of things wrong with it. Besides the fact that when you have a good, well-intended employer, then you’re trying to set a culture of there’s going to be issues. There’s elasticity.

in the work environment. Sometimes it’s less of a workload and sometimes it’s more. And we kind of plan for that. But when you have employers that are penalized or fined, that says that they did something wrong. And sometimes we’re going to fall behind and not hit the mark when it comes to staffing because things happen fast and we haven’t been able to pivot fast enough, et cetera.

And so it’s just, it sets a culture of, you did something wrong. So now you had to pay us. And then it sets that, culture of, you know, the workforce to your point. Like if we call off, we would get more money. We’re working hard anyway, it puts pressure. It’s just a lot. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not helpful.

Phil Wilson (33:30)
Well, let’s switch gears to something that’s a little bit more optimistic. So we’re kind of coming towards the towards the end of our time. Going back to like where we started, where you have this unique kind of a foot in both sides, you you co-sponsor a conference each summer. And there’s another one coming up in in August. So tell us a little bit about the Big Sky Labor and Employment Conference.

Lori King (33:53)
Yeah, so I just love this conference. It’s a passion of mine. I met my husband in this work and we came from different points of view. In fact, if people looked at us at the time, they’d say, man, how do those two even get along?

And we created this event because we found that as we talked about labor and employment issues, we found we have the same goal. We just had maybe some different ideas on how you get there. I also felt strongly that I was most effective in my job lobbying for health care issues and trying to address the concerns of the members of the association.

when I went towards bold conversations with people that would likely push back on our initiatives. so anyway, we decided to pull together the Big Sky Labor and Employment Conference where we bring together the most unlikely discussions and conversations. So we bring labor leaders together with employers.

policy and decision makers out of DC, put them on panels, no stuff.

Phil Wilson (35:06)
and even knuckleheads like me.

Lori King (35:08)
I’m so looking forward to our panel this year. It’s going to be fantastic. But yeah, to have discussions about we know what our differences are, you know, but where where can we find some common ground and move forward? And I think our vision for that people love to come together. I think I kind of had to talk Roger into that, to be honest, because he was like, you know, you’re not going to get those people in the same room and they’re not there. You know, they’re going to be there.

their discussions are gonna be hindered by the role that they’re in. And we don’t find that. We pull together and they’re excited about exploring the conversation and talking at a deeper level about why they come from their vantage point. The ultimate goal, Phil, would be that we’re bringing people together that will take that conversation outside of the conference and leverage the connection that they make to say,

let’s do have a deeper conversation about how we can move the needle. I, along with probably so many people, am so frustrated at the pendulum swing with the administrations. And what we’re seeing now is obviously, I mean, just like, you know, buckle up. But this pendulum swing doesn’t help employers. It doesn’t help employees. You know, these changes in rules, it just goes back and forth. And it’s…

And it’s the same old frustration. It’s costly and it doesn’t help our work environment and our employees in the nation. Like we really need to be doing things different. I hope these conversations will go outside of Big Sky. That was the vision. think, you know, this is our fifth year and it just keeps getting better and better.

Phil Wilson (36:41)
It’s a super unique conference for anyone that’s listening that hasn’t ever been. I would encourage you to look it up. It’s a room unlike any other. you will have you’ll have top labor leaders, you’ll have top management side folks, have policymakers. You you you like I’m excited. I’m really looking forward to being able to talk with smart folks on.

you know, what we call the other side. But I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all about improving the lives of working people like that’s that’s what gets me out of bed. I know that’s what gets the union side out of bed. So, you know, the way that we’re doing it right now sucks. And I want to have conversations about, know, like we, you know, Washington starts spitting out labor reform that is not about

what’s good for working people. And whether it is on the employer side or on the union side, it’s a bunch of stuff that’s like, here’s what’s on the unions or what’s on their wish list. And then the employer’s wish list is just like flipping back all the stuff that was on the union’s list last time. But if we actually think about how could we reimagine the way that we do this, you can have some really productive conversations.

I’m looking forward to being able to do that. I’ve missed the last couple and every time I miss everyone’s like, my gosh, that was even better than last year. So anyway, I’m looking forward to be back.

Lori King (37:59)
Yeah, it’s so rewarding to pull the most unlikely people together and watch them be thirsty for more conversation. There’s an excitement of bringing opposing views together. When you come together, knowing you’re going to have opposing views, respecting those point of views and wanting to make some kind of forward movement, it’s like,

It’s really special. really is.

Phil Wilson (38:25)
All right, we’re gonna, we’ll do a quick round of just sort of questions for fun. So let’s start with fashion. Scrubs, when I first saw this question, I was like, is this about TV shows or, I’m going with fashion. So scrubs or suits?

Lori King (38:40)
my gosh, I like them both. It’s a good problem to have. So I mean, if I had my choice, I’d be wearing both 50 % of the time. But ultimately, you know, I find myself more in more in a suit. Okay. Anyway, but

Phil Wilson (38:55)
I you picked that up. All right. Well, How about, well, favorite leadership book and then just like any, and it could be leadership or not, but just like any book recently that you’ve, that you want to shout out.

Lori King (39:10)
Okay, well, this is from all genuine intent, yearbooks, Phil, because they’re short, they’re easy to read, they give good points. And I say that with all genuine, you know, every genuine cell in my body, which is why I love our work together too. And I think that one of the things that I learned and I…

I wish I would have learned long before, you we have all of our stuff about ourselves. We could look back and cringe a little. I’m begrudgingly grateful for all the lessons, but what I learned through one year books is, you know, that hero assumption and that assuming good intent. You know, I could have done such better, so much better job at assuming good intent in people.

and not always feeling like I was under the attack. Although, you know, in unionized environments, and when you’re a union official and you’re running those organizations, you know, it’s easy to kind of always feel like you’re under attack. I got into the habit of feeling that way, and you yanked me right out of that. So I’m grateful for that.

Phil Wilson (40:16)
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I well, I know it’s I have the same problem. So I mean, like the last book, you know, I I need to coach myself sometimes to make the hero assumption. So it’s not, you know, it’s it’s it’s true. You’re never finished, you know, growing as a leader. That is that’s for sure. Yeah. What. So one of my favorite lessons on leadership you taught me, you tell

you tell a story about sort of like where you should sit. So like just tell us real quickly about that. That was an early experience that really made a big difference in your your career.

Lori King (40:50)
I love it. It’s called take a seat. And you know, there’s science that says that if you sit with somebody, you know, there rather than stand, then their perception is that you are more prepared to listen to them, you spend more time, and they will share more. It’s a richer conversation. And so when I became a nurse practitioner is when I was exposed to this, this, this research, and I thought, well, I’m going to

you know, sit down in my patient rooms. So even if there’s not, you know, if it’s full of family or, you know, whatever, I would lean against the wall or give some sort of indication to the patient that, you know, that I was there and present. And there were, I think there were some times when I picked that up on some critical patient conditions that they wouldn’t have otherwise shared with me because they had shared with several people before and they weren’t heard.

And so they thought, well, I’m not going to say that again, because they obviously don’t care about that. I love, I love that take a seat. It’s a, provides safety. It makes richer experiences for interacting. And I’ve translated that into leadership. So I think, you know, when we’re working with our teams as we lead, that, you know, we, take a seat with them. you’re branding in, the healthcare environment, you know, sit down in the nurse’s station. Don’t just do a drive by because they won’t share.

But if you sit down and you ask them, you’re giving them an indication that you have time. And it also gives you opportunity when you go to stand up to give them an indication that you need to wrap it up. It’s hard to wrap it up if you don’t have a physical way to send that message. So it doesn’t take more time, I’m convinced.

Phil Wilson (42:28)
Probably in some cases takes less time, right? Like, know, because you give that signal and they’re like, okay, conversations over and you can just, you you can, you can move, move on. I love that. I, you know, I use it. I even use it here, you know, like I, I like to go in and plop down in the office and you have, and you have a different conversation than if you were standing up and talking to someone in the doorway and it, you know, it depends on, you know, on

the situation, but yeah, that makes a big difference. Just get on the same level and it’s just a signal. a different, it’s gonna be a different conversation and you will share more and you’ll connect.

Lori King (43:05)
Yeah. And then the last one I’ll say again, that you taught me, like this is why I just, you love, you know, you work with each other and you share your experiences, but that one last question, you know, you sit down, you have that conversation no matter how brief or how lengthy, but at the end just, you know, is there anything else as long as we have this time? Because you’re unearthing something. Yeah.

before it becomes a greater issue. And again, you’re indicating that, you I care what you just shared with me and I care to know if there’s anything more on your mind. And it can always wrap back if there’s not time to address it. But there are some very simple things in leadership that we can do to connect and engage with our team and diffuse some of those issues that fester, you know, just by adding these tools in. anyway, it’s all good stuff.

Phil Wilson (43:54)
That’s a I learned that question from the coaching habit. So Michael Stainer, that book, but he calls that the awe question, which is and what else? But that’s, you know, yeah, is there anything else? And that’s a that’s a great just and there’s a lot of times you’ll have a full conversation with someone and you think it’s done. And as the leader, you know, if you don’t create that space for them to go, well.

You know, there was this one other thing, which is actually the thing they wanted to talk to you about the whole time, but they just didn’t really feel like it was it was ready. And then by giving that just kind of like, want to hear more. What else? They’re like, OK, well, I’m going to I’m going to say it. And, you you have to create that space for for your teammates. Lori , great conversation, as always, I, you know, I.

Lori King (44:37)
Yeah.

Phil Wilson (44:42)
I don’t get to see as much as I used to and I miss that, but I will see you in Big Sky and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. So thanks.

Lori King (44:52)
Thanks for having me. We’ll see you there. Okay, bye-bye.

Phil Wilson (44:56)
Bye.