Finding Your Voice: A Large-Scale Nursing Training in Speaking up and Listening Skills

Background: Training in speaking up skills for nursing professionals provides the groundwork for promoting a culture of curiosity and inquiry. At the foundation of speaking up is psychological safety for team members to disagree, offer alternative ideas, and ask questions. Method: A large-scale training session, Finding Your Voice: Speaking Up & Listening Skills, was designed and delivered to 1,306 nurses at an academic medical center. Results: Most participants reported that the session met the training goals (97%). There was an increase in participants' confidence in speaking up (pretraining 69% +/- 19%; posttraining 73% +/- 15%; p < .0001), and listening (pretraining 68% +/- 19%; posttraining 74% +/- 15%; p < .0001). Leaders showed greater increases in confidence in listening and responding to nurses speaking up (leaders 5.6% vs. nonleaders 4.2%, p < .00001). Conclusion: Nurses benefited from an interactive educational experience by practicing strategies for speaking up and listening.