Culture Change RX

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In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff is joined by Heather Mallette, founder of The Decision Line, for a practical conversation about executive decision-making in the age of artificial intelligence.

Drawing on more than 20 years of human resources and leadership experience, Heather introduces the concept of the judgment gap and explores how healthcare executives can use AI to challenge assumptions, consider alternative outcomes, and make more informed decisions without surrendering human judgment and accountability. Sue and Heather also discuss communicating difficult decisions, recognizing when employee resistance may actually be a valuable warning, and using AI-driven efficiencies to create more time for meaningful leadership.

Because AI can create capacity, but leaders decide how to use it and remain responsible for the decisions they make.

About Heather Mallette

Heather Mallette brings more than 20 years of human resources experience across healthcare, manufacturing, and organizations of varying sizes. She serves as president of Toledo SHRM and is the founder of The Decision Line, where her work focuses on executive decision-making and the role of human judgment in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Connect with Heather Mallette

Website: https://www.thedecisionline.net

LinkedIn: Heather Mallette

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

Your leaders care deeply and work hard but are their efforts producing the results your organization needs? In this episode, Sue Tetzlaff shares a replay recording from a recent national webinar that overviewed Capstone’s five-step approach to move from leadership by default to leadership by design, with clear practices, intentional development, and onboarding that sets new leaders up for success.

Sue explores why training alone isn’t enough and how ongoing mentoring, retraining, and supportive accountability help leaders put learning into practice. You’ll hear practical ways to assess your current approach and choose one next action to strengthen it. When you strengthen your leadership team, you strengthen the organization.

ACCESS WEBINAR SLIDES

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff is joined by Capstone Transformation Coach Julie Conissette for a practical conversation about getting more value from employee engagement surveys.

Sue and Julie discuss how to improve participation, protect trust and confidentiality, identify the right priorities, involve leaders and employee-driven teams, and most importantly, close the feedback loop by showing employees what changed because they spoke up. Because the survey itself does not create improvement. What you do with the feedback does. 

More about Julie Coneset:  Julie Coneset is a Transformational Leadership Coach with Capstone Leadership Solutions who brings more than two decades of human resources and leadership experience in healthcare. Throughout her career, she has led employee experience and training teams, served on a hospital Steering Team for more than 16 years, and helped coordinate more than 50 Leadership Development Days. Julie is passionate about helping healthcare leaders strengthen employee engagement, communication, and workplace culture. In her work with Capstone, she partners with organizations to build compassionate, high-performing environments where people and teams can thrive.

Connect with Julie on LinkedIn.

More episodes with Julie:

Episode 114 - Rethinking Hospital Week and Other Celebrations

Episode 98 - Inside the Capstone Playbook: Helping Hospitals Begin Their Transformation

Episode 60 - Maximize Leadership Training: Tactics You Probably Overlooked

Episode 7 - Employee-Driven Improvements, Communication, & Training

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this solo Culture Byte episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff challenges healthcare executives to consider an uncomfortable question: When a capable person struggles in a management role, what responsibility does the organization have for that result?

Because promoting a great employee doesn't automatically create a great leader.

Leadership requires an entirely different body of knowledge and skills and organizations have a responsibility to help new managers develop them.

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff is joined by Capstone Chief Transformation Officer Courtney Kloehn for a practical conversation about moving from strategic clarity to execution certainty.

Drawing from content developed for Capstone's annual Healthcare Executive Forum, Courtney and Sue discuss the alignment, leadership ownership, and organizational systems that are necessary to consistently turn strategy into results.

Because strategy creates direction. Execution creates results. But systems create certainty.

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this solo Culture Byte episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff explores the power of praise and why intentional positive feedback is an essential leadership tool for elevating behavior, performance, relationships, and workplace culture.

Through several real-life leadership stories, Sue demonstrates why praise shouldn't be reserved for exceptional performance—and why some of the employees who most need positive feedback may actually be receiving the least.

Because what gets recognized gets repeated.

Connect with Capstone Leadership Solutions

Capstone Leadership Solutions partners with small and rural healthcare organizations to strengthen leadership, strategy execution, organizational culture, and long-term vitality.

Visit: Capstone Leadership Solutions

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff welcomes Rodney Johnson, DHA, founder and owner of The Practice Society, for a conversation about practical innovation in healthcare, and one creative solution designed to better align an organization's largest expense with the timing of its revenue.

Rodney introduces Workforce Rx, an approach that combines payroll processing with payroll funding and 60-day payment terms. He also explains additional options that can include employee benefits and a turnkey employer-of-record model.

But this conversation goes beyond payroll. Sue and Rodney explore what healthcare can learn from other industries, why independent medical practices may need alternatives to hospital ownership, and why some of healthcare's best innovations aren't complicated new ideas, they're practical solutions that can be implemented using the people and infrastructure organizations already have.

Connect with Rodney and The Practice Society

Website: practicesociety.com

Email: [email protected]

Phone/Text: 806-679-1240

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

Most communication breakdowns aren't communication problems. They're system problems.

In this Culture Byte episode, Sue Tetzlaff breaks down the difference between push and pull communication, and why so many teams stay stuck waiting for information instead of actively seeking it. She unpacks how a simple, predictable communication rhythm changes the experience for everyone involved: when people know what's coming, how they'll receive it, and when to expect it, they stop waiting and start engaging.

The result is a shift from communication as a one-way broadcast to communication as a shared responsibility.

If your organization struggles with rumors, disengagement, or "nobody told me" moments, this short episode offers a practical reframe worth 15 minutes of your time.

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff is joined by Capstone Transformational Coach Julie Coneset to explore one of the most overlooked drivers of employee retention: the onboarding experience.

Drawing on nearly three decades of rural healthcare HR leadership and firsthand experience leading organizational transformation, Julie shares why onboarding extends far beyond paperwork, policies, and orientation checklists.

Together, Sue and Julie discuss how organizations can intentionally connect new employees to the organization's mission, culture, relationships, and expectations—creating an experience that increases confidence, belonging, and long-term retention.

Whether you're an HR professional, department leader, executive, or frontline manager, this episode offers practical ideas you can begin implementing immediately to make every new employee's first year a success.

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

Send us a Message

In this episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff welcomes Theresa Hollinger, Chief Nursing Officer at Grant Regional Health Center, to discuss how Grant has sustained nursing excellence through intentional refinement of its “nursing bundle.”

Although the Nursing Bundle has been embedded in Grant's culture for years, Theresa explains why her team recently chose to pause, reassess, and strengthen their approach following a couple patient safety events. Rather than abandoning what was already working, they used the opportunity to clarify expectations, reduce variation, strengthen communication, and engage frontline staff in raising the standard even higher.

This conversation offers practical insights for nurse leaders who want to build - not just launch - sustainable nursing excellence.

Connect with Our Guest

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.grantregional.com/

The Virtual Patient Experience Boot Camp is designed for healthcare leaders and team members involved in patient experience improvement, communication, quality, culture, and organizational change, including:

• CEOs, COOs, and CNOs
• Patient experience leaders and improvement team members
• Nursing and department directors and s

Hi! I’m Sue Tetzlaff. I’m a culture and execution strategist for small and rural healthcare organizations - helping them to be the provider and employer-of-choice so they can keep care local and margins strong.

For decades, I’ve worked with healthcare organizations to navigate the people-side of healthcare, the part that can make or break your results. What I’ve learned is this: culture is not a soft thing. It’s the hardest thing, and it determines everything.

When you’re ready to take your culture to the next level, here are three ways I can help you:

1. Listen to the Culture Change RX Podcast
Every week, I share conversations with leaders who are transforming healthcare workplaces and strategies for keeping teams engaged, patients loyal, and margins healthy.

2. Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Get practical tips, frameworks, and leadership tools delivered right to your inbox—plus exclusive content you won’t find on the podcast.
📩 Subscribe here

3. Break through to the next level of greatness in your organization with help from my team and me.
When you’re ready to be the provider and employer-of-choice, we’ll help you implement proven frameworks that strengthen culture, improve experience and ensure your organization thrives.
You can email me at [email protected] and put “BREAKTHROUGH” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.