Nursing the System

🎙 Episode Overview:

When you hear the word “resilience” paired with “nurses,” how does it make you feel? Frustrated? Defensive? Just plain tired? You’re not alone.

In this episode, we’re breaking down one of the biggest myths about burnout: it’s not a personal problem—it’s a systems problem.

Bubble baths and yoga might offer momentary relief, but they won’t fix the core issue: healthcare systems built for maximum efficiency, not long-term resilience.

It’s time to stop blaming individuals for systemic failures and start building systems that can actually absorb shocks and adapt to challenges without burning out their people.

• Why burnout feels so personal—and why it’s actually a systems-level issue.
• The difference between resilience and efficiency in healthcare systems and why they need balance.
• How healthcare systems excel at acute crises but fail at addressing slow-burning, chronic problems.
• Practical strategies for nurses to reframe personal complaints as systemic observations.
• How to advocate for changes using systems language that leaders understand.

• Burnout isn’t a personal failure—it’s a symptom of an overstretched system.
• Resilience and efficiency exist on a seesaw: Too much focus on one will destabilize the other.
• Slow-burn problems (like chronic understaffing) often go unnoticed until they become full-blown crises.
• Observation beats complaint: Framing problems as system patterns (e.g., “Our system is over-relying on overtime”) shifts the conversation to solutions.
• True resilience means absorbing shocks while maintaining core functions.

• Listen with a systems mindset: Notice patterns, not just problems.
• Reflect on where you’ve seen the efficiency vs. resilience seesaw tilt too far in either direction.
• Share this episode with colleagues—it’s a conversation that needs to happen across teams, not just in leadership meetings.

1. Reframe Complaints → System Observations: For example, replace “I’m exhausted” with “Our system relies too heavily on overtime to meet basic needs”.
2. Spot Patterns of Over-Efficiency: Where are resources maxed out? Where is there no room for error?
3. Raise Awareness of Slow-Burn Issues: Identify trends like turnover or increased workloads before they snowball.
4. Speak Systems Language to Leaders: Highlight systemic solutions like better staffing models, flexible workflows, and improved resource allocation.

📣 Heads Up: Something’s Coming!

I’ll be dropping an Easter egg at the end of the next few episodes. Today’s letters are “Y” and “I”. Keep listening—you’ll want to collect them all! 

• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes.
• Share this episode with your team or a leader who needs to hear it.
• DM Claire on Instagram with your thoughts or follow-up questions.
• Leave a review to help other healthcare professionals find this podcast.
• Join my System Sunday email list for your weekly dose of strategy and sanity for nurses leading change in healthcare.

⁉️ Want me to answer your question or scenario on the podcast?

I just opened a new form where you can anonymously submit:

• A leadership or systems challenge you’re facing
• A scenario you want me to walk through
• A question that’s been stuck in your head about your role, team, or impact

I'll be selecting a few to feature in upcoming episodes.

Submit your Q here!

Let’s stop putting burnout on individual shoulders and start redesigning the systems we work in.

🎧 Hit play and let’s get into it.

👉 Resources Mentioned:

• Instagram
• Systems Sunday Newsletter

🎙 Episode Overview:

Season 2 is here—and we’re taking this podcast public. In this kickoff episode, we’re tackling one of the most frustrating dynamics in healthcare: the “Us vs. Them” mindset.

Whether it’s staff vs. leadership, nursing vs. admin, or bedside vs. boardroom—it’s a pattern that keeps teams stuck, burned out, and spinning their wheels. But it doesn’t have to.

This episode is about adopting a systems-thinking approach to shift from blame to collaboration, so we can actually make progress on the problems we care about most.

🔑 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why the “Us vs. Them” mindset is so common—and so limiting.
• How to use a two-step systems thinking approach to break out of the cycle:

1. Look at Yourself: How are you contributing to the dynamic?
2. Look at Others: What pressures, incentives, and beliefs are shaping their decisions?

• Why relationships are systems too—and how strengthening them makes every change effort easier.
• How to ask better questions, understand what drives other people, and build trust without over-explaining or overextending yourself.

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• Every relationship is a system. And when relationships work better, everything works better.
• Shift from frustration to curiosity. Ask yourself: What assumptions am I making? What might I not understand about their perspective?
• Find the overlap. Even when priorities differ, shared goals like better patient outcomes or team well-being can bring people together.
• Stop seeing people as obstacles. See them as part of the solution.

🎧 How to Listen to This Season:

This podcast isn’t just a place to tune in—it’s a place to learn. And here’s the thing:

• Every episode will add something to your toolkit, even if it doesn’t seem directly relevant to your role.
• The best changemakers are the ones who understand the bigger picture, not just their own corner of the system.

So stick around.

📣 Heads Up: Something’s Coming!

And I’ll be dropping an Easter egg at the end of the next few episodes. Today’s letter to collect is “M”. Keep listening—you’ll want to collect them all! 

📲 Call to Action:

• Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
• DM me on Instagram with your thoughts or questions—I’d love to hear from you.
• Join my System Sunday email list for your weekly dose of strategy and sanity for nurses leading change in healthcare.

⁉️ Want me to answer your question or scenario on the podcast?

I just opened a new form where you can anonymously submit:

• A leadership or systems challenge you’re facing
• A scenario you want me to walk through
• A question that’s been stuck in your head about your role, team, or impact

I'll be selecting a few to feature in upcoming episodes.

Submit your Q here!

👉 Links & Resources:

• Instagram
• Systems Sunday Newsletter

🎙 Episode Overview: In this season finale, I tackle the false choice between self-care and systems change, sharing why becoming a systems thinker is actually the ultimate form of both personal and organizational care.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why separating self-care from systems work creates unnecessary tension
• How systems thinking benefits both personal wellbeing and organizational change
• My perspective on why personal development is crucial for effective change making

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• The self work IS the systems work - they're inseparable
• Compartmentalizing our work lives from personal lives often backfires
• Becoming a systems thinker brings more peace, not less

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Reflect on how you might be creating false binaries between caring for yourself and working for change. Consider how these aspects of your life might actually support each other.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Notice where you're putting off self-work in service of systems change (or vice versa)
• Examine how your personal development connects to your change making goals
• Ask yourself: "How are my needs and system needs interconnected?"
• Consider how becoming a systems thinker could serve both you and your goals

📲 Call to Action:

• Follow me on Instagram

🎙 Episode Overview: I share my apartment-hunting story in the Netherlands to illustrate how shifting from competition to collaboration can unlock unexpected solutions and build meaningful connections.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How competitive mindsets shape healthcare, education, and organizations
• Why partnership often yields better results than competition
• My approach to finding collaborative solutions in challenging situations

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• Competition isn't always natural - it's often a cultural narrative we can rewrite
• Most "competitors" are potential collaborators facing similar challenges
• Partnership mindset opens possibilities that competition obscures

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Notice where competitive thinking might be limiting your perspective, and consider how reframing situations through a collaboration lens could reveal new opportunities.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Identify one competitive situation you could reframe as collaborative
• Look for "unlikely partners" in your change efforts
• Ask: "How can we build community around this shared challenge?"
• Examine where militaristic or competitive language might be hindering progress

📲 Call to Action:

• Share this partnership mindset with your healthcare colleagues
• Join Changemaker Essentials to explore collaboration-based change
• DM me your experiences with turning competition into partnership

🎙 Episode Overview: I share my personal composting story to explore why we sometimes act against our values, and how environmental design impacts our ability to do what we believe is right.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why good intentions often aren't enough to drive lasting change
• How to identify environmental barriers blocking desired behaviors
• My framework for making positive changes easier to implement

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• The gap between values and actions often comes from environmental barriers, not lack of motivation
• As leaders, our job is to remove obstacles, not just inspire better behavior
• Simple environmental changes can have more impact than willpower alone

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Reflect on areas where you or your team struggle to act on good intentions, and consider how you might redesign the environment to make the right choices easier.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Identify one behavior you want to change but find difficult
• List the environmental barriers in your way
• Ask yourself: "How can I make this easy?"
• Look for simple system changes that could remove obstacles

📲 Call to Action:

• Share this systems thinking approach with other healthcare leaders
• Join Changemaker Essentials for deeper insights into these concepts
• DM me your thoughts on making positive change easier

🎙 Episode Overview: In this episode, I share a vulnerable story from my early days as an ER nurse that taught me a crucial lesson about capacity and burnout. Through what seemed like a simple incident with my car mirror, I discovered important insights about recognizing and managing our limits as healthcare leaders.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• My perspective on identifying warning signs before hitting your capacity limits
• How I use systems thinking to understand personal and organizational resilience
• The framework I developed for finding your sustainable "green zone" of operation

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• Think of your capacity like an oxygen tank - it needs to stay in the "green zone" for sustainability
• Expanding system capacity requires structural adjustments, not just working harder
• True sustainability requires both engagement and reasonable boundaries

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Listen to my journey from an overwhelmed new nurse to a systems thinker. Consider how my realizations about capacity might parallel your own leadership challenges.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Use my oxygen tank analogy to assess your current capacity percentage
• Follow my approach of setting clear boundary cutoff times for high-intensity periods
• Apply my framework to evaluate if your current pace is both sustainable and engaging
• Look for areas where structural changes could expand your capacity

📲 Call to Action:

• Share this episode with your fellow nurse leaders who are navigating capacity challenges
• DM me with your own experiences and insights about managing capacity
• Subscribe to The Change Channel for more leadership insights

🎙 Episode Overview: In this episode, I share a crucial lesson learned during a 2021 ER triage redesign project: the importance of identifying and including all stakeholders in system changes. Through my experience of forgetting to include the CT department in our communications, I explore why asking "who's missing?" is vital for successful change implementation in healthcare.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How my ER navigated the challenging surge of 2021 with creative solutions
• Why we needed to redesign our triage process during crisis conditions
• What happened when we accidentally left out the CT department from our communications
• How to recover and learn from stakeholder oversight in change projects

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• System changes affect more people than we initially realize
• Early stakeholder identification prevents costly backtracking
• Recovery from oversight is possible with humility and proactive communication
• Complex systems require balance between inclusion and scope management

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Consider your own change initiatives and use this story to reflect on stakeholders you might have overlooked. Remember that mistakes in change management are normal—it's how we recover and learn from them that matters.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Start asking "who's missing?" in every meeting about change
• Create stakeholder maps before implementing new processes
• Develop communication plans that include all affected parties
• Build feedback loops to catch oversights early

📲 Call to Action:

• DM me onInstagram with your thoughts on stakeholder inclusion
• Share this episode with someone leading organizational change
• Think about who might be missing from your current projects

🎙 Episode Overview: In this episode, I dive into a challenging truth: while it's easy to blame "the system," we're actually part of it. Through stories and examples, I explore how healthcare professionals often distance themselves from system problems, and why reclaiming our power and responsibility is crucial for creating real change.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why the "big, bad system" narrative actually diminishes our power to create change
• How the "I'm just a nurse" mindset connects to broader system challenges
• What my quality improvement leader client taught me about underestimating nurses' capabilities
• Why understanding our role in the system is the first step to becoming an effective changemaker

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• You're not separate from the system—you're an active participant in it
• Having less power than others doesn't mean you have no power
• When we underestimate ourselves or our colleagues, we perpetuate system problems
• Real change starts with acknowledging our own agency and responsibility

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Take time to reflect honestly on where you might be distancing yourself from system problems or underestimating your power to influence change. This isn't about blame—it's about recognizing your capacity for impact.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Identify where you might be selling yourself short in your change-making capacity
• Notice when you're using "the system" as a way to avoid responsibility
• Challenge situations where you or others are underestimating healthcare professionals
• Look for small ways to exercise your agency within your current role

📲 Call to Action:

• DM me on Instagram with your thoughts on where you see your power and responsibility
• Share this episode with someone who needs to recognize their change-making potential
• Think critically about where you might be perpetuating limiting beliefs about nurses

🎙 Episode Overview: In this episode, I'm breaking down an important way to think about your professional experience in healthcare: the deep and wide framework. Through stories of my clients and my own career journey, I explore how understanding your experience makeup can help shape your professional growth and decision-making.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How I define "deep" experience (like my client who's worked her way up from CNA to educator in one organization) versus "wide" experience (like my client who's tried almost every nursing specialty)
• Why both types of experience bring unique value to healthcare organizations
• How I've balanced deep clinical experience in the ER with wide transdisciplinary experience
• What your experience makeup tells you about your potential growth edges

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• Most of us don't have purely deep or purely wide experience—it's usually a mix
• Neither type is inherently better—they just offer different advantages
• Understanding your experience makeup can help you identify blind spots
• Your growth edge often lies in moving toward whichever type you have less of

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Take some time to reflect on your own career path and map out where your experience falls on the deep-wide spectrum. Consider how this awareness might influence your next career move.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Map out your own deep and wide experiences in healthcare
• Identify opportunities in your current role to gain the type of experience you have less of
• Use this framework to enhance how you present yourself in interviews or cover letters
• Consider seeking mentors who have the type of experience you'd like to develop

📲 Call to Action:

• Send me a DM on Instagram sharing your thoughts about your own deep/wide experience mix
• Share this episode with someone planning their next career move
• Think about how this framework might inform your next professional step

🎙 Episode Overview: In this episode, I'm sharing a personal story about how I nearly lost sight of my original healthcare mission while following the "expected" path in nursing school. Through this story, I explore how social narratives and expectations shape our choices—both in our personal lives and in healthcare systems—and why sometimes taking the path of more resistance leads to our most meaningful growth.

🔑 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How I discovered the difference between challenging paths and meaningful paths in my nursing journey
• Why I believe questioning "expected" career trajectories in healthcare is so powerful
• How my experience as an ER nurse ultimately aligned with my systems-change goals, despite not being my original plan
• What happened when I recently chose to break from convention and move across the world

🧠 Key Ideas to Take With You:

• The path of least resistance isn't necessarily easy—but it is expected
• Social narratives shape our choices more than we realize
• Challenging conventions in our personal lives builds our capacity to create systemic change
• Having a healthcare license today means you have options—you can always pivot

🎧 How to Get the Most Out of This Episode: Take time to reflect on your own path in healthcare. Where might you be following expectations rather than your genuine interests? Consider this episode an invitation to question your current trajectory with curiosity and openness.

🛠️ Practical Actions You Can Take:

• Examine where you might be on a "path of least resistance" in your career or life
• Ask yourself: "Am I heading where I want to go, or where others expect me to go?"
• Look for opportunities to challenge conventional narratives in your workplace
• Consider how your personal choices might inspire others to think differently about what's possible

📲 Call to Action:

• DM me on Instagram to share your reflections on your own path
• Share this episode with someone questioning their healthcare career trajectory