Confidence In Conflict Vistelar

Guest Moderator - Brine Hamilton, CHPA
Special Guests - Joel Lashley, Gary Klugiewicz
Today, the largest institution in America for the treatment of mentally ill people is the Los Angeles County Jail, followed by jails in New York and Chicago. How is it that we wound up housing our mentally ill and cognitively disabled people in jails? Is it just a fact of life that mentally ill and cognitively challenged people commit more crimes than healthy and neurotypical people, so they end up in jail? …Or is the answer more complex?
In addition, emergency rooms absorb around 12 million mental health emergency visits a year. These visits can be not only enormously costly but largely ineffective, due to a lack of training by clinical staff to manage their patient’s mental health needs.
In this episode Brine talks to Gary and Joel about how and what kind of trained techniques can have a positive impact on an institution's collective response to a critical incident.
Some key takeaways from the discussion will include:
- The role of a special management team comprised of various professionals in responding to crisis situations within an institution and how consistent interdepartmental training is crucial to achieve a positive outcome
- How treating individuals with dignity by showing them respect keeps everyone safer
- Why employing "Non-Escalation" can be as important as "De-Escalation"
- Using empathy - what is the other person's reality vs. your own - is essential when communicating with someone in severe crisis

On this episode Allen talks to two of the researchers who conducted a study of the effectiveness of Vistelar's training at the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division (MCBHD). They spent countless hours observing as the majority of MCBHD's staff received end-user training that ranged from verbal non-escalation/de-escalation to team stabilization tactics. From environmental services to physicians, participants from across the organization participated in the training and ultimately the study.
The data gathered, through surveys, focus groups, and quantitative data showed an overall positive impact on various concerns that prompted the training in the first place. The training showed some of the following benefits:
Reduced role conflict between different staff members
Improved individuals' conflict resolution skills
Increased safety or perceptions of safety while at work, reduce burnout and turnover

Today, Brine Hamilton is joined by Joel Lashley, the author of Vistelar’s book titled Confidence in Conflict for Healthcare Professionals. Joel has worked in public safety for over 30 years, including 18 years of service in the health care setting. He also co-developed a program for managing the challenging behaviors of children, adolescents, and adults with autism and other cognitive disabilities for police officers, corrections officers, and healthcare providers.
Their discussion dives into the topic of how good report writing and good training go hand in hand.
Some of the takeaways include:
How under-reporting in healthcare settings leads to less safe environments of care
- The elements of writing a complete report
- Why good training leads to better, timely and more complete reports
- How a well written incident report can be used to justify one actions when questioned by those in authority
- How The Persuasion Sequence can be used as a simple roadmap for writing a great report

On this episode, guest moderator, Brine Hamilton, talks to Mike Cummings and Lisa Terry about how to affect change within an organization. Both Mike and Lisa have decades of leadership experience and are recognized experts in the healthcare security industry.
During the interview they focus on the processes they followed for overcoming organizational barriers to creating change. They describe practical and actionable tips to advocate for new initiatives. These include creative ways to tap into available resources, influence key stakeholders and utilizing data in decision making. Mike and Lisa also talk about how to create sustainability to ensure continued and future success.
https://vistelar.com

On this episode, Allen Oelschlaeger is joined by Dr. Jim Bohn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbohn), a change management and leadership expert. He has decades of organizational executive experience and is author of several books. He currently runs his own consultant practice and is a certified speaker for Vistage.
The discussion focuses on the issue of intra-organizational conflict – i.e., conflict that is internal to an organization (rather than with clients or the general public). It is the second episode of a three-part series on this topic.
Some of the core principles discussed include:
How seemingly mundane issues can spur bigger conflicts within an organization
Why intra-organizational conflict is actually a bigger issue within organizations than conflicts will clients or the public
How the issues of power, turf, and fear drive a lot of conflict
The value of having a common goal and leadership focused on driving their team towards that goal
The role of the annual performance review
When a new team is put together, the need to form, storm, norm, perform.
Why leaders need to demonstrate their values, not just talk about them
To learn more from Dr. Jim Bohn, check out his books on Amazon or connect with him on LinkedIn.

On this episode, Allen Oelschlaeger is joined by Mike Panebianco, a past vice president of the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association (https://www.swapa.org) and president of MRH (mission ready human) Performance, a consulting organization focused on peak human performance.
The discussion focuses on the issue of intra-organizational conflict – i.e., conflict that is internal to an organization (rather than with clients or the general public).
Some of the core principles discussed include:
- Even at organization with strong values like Southwest Airlines, intra-organizational conflict still exists. Conflict is inevitable within any organization or team.
- In most organizations, intra-organizational conflict is a bigger problem than the conflict that occurs with clients (patients, students, customers) or with the general public.
- The impact of intra-organizational conflict is significant: sick leave goes up, stress-related illness goes up, turnover goes up.
- In many organizations, conflict avoidance is often a bigger problem that in-your-face conflict
- The airline industry has done a great job of training such that conflict avoidance within the cockpit is a rarity.
- The Total Quality Management movement was largely based on training people to address issues head-on rather than avoid conflict.
More about Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-panebianco-7478bbb