Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Troy Cicero, Sr.. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Troy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve done, people will forget what you’ve said, but people never forget how you make them feel.” -Maya Angelou
This statement speaks volumes as to what needs to be recognized internally with employees and their work experience. The quote above is always pertinent for patient experience. My company, MulticultuReal Communications, began a relationship with a healthcare organization, dating back to 2009. Extensive results were accomplished. It has been over a decade, but there is a good sense that the synergy is still there, and maturity of both organizations lends to even greater potential, pathway of success, and substantial impact and outcomes.
MulticultuReal Communications previously provided the following services to this healthcare organization:
• Worked with leadership on Leadership Development and created Service Excellence Behaviors
• Lead yearly Service Excellence and Cultural Competence training to all employees
• Assisted in Service Excellence Strategy, Philosophy, and Cultural Competence that led to this healthcare organization being named one of the Top 100 Workplaces of 2010, 2011 and 2012 by the Chicago Tribune, as well as many other deserving accolades

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” -James Baldwin
These are indeed tumultuous times in our world and workplace. Workplace relationships, respect and results are directly impacted by what is going on in the world, on many levels. We all bring our own unique values, beliefs, and life experiences to work every day. Though we are on the same team, those differences often surface cross-culturally; when conflict arises, tension escalates, trust declines, and respect diminishes… manifesting in strong emotions, negative attitudes, unprofessional behavior, low morale, and poor performance. The question becomes — What is any organization willing to commit, to create an environment where people want to contribute their full talents, gifts, and skills to the success of the organization? More importantly – What is an organization willing to commit, to convince its employees that they are seen, heard, valued, and respected?

“All the people like us are WE, and everyone else is THEY.” -Rudyard Kipling
Silos in the workplace are a threat to communication, teamwork, innovation, morale, retention, performance, and safety. The need has never been greater and the time is now… to find, establish, build and maintain – Common Ground in the workplace. From Common Ground… establishing, building and maintaining healthy, respectful, productive relationships can occur.

The employee and leadership situations, issues, challenges, and training needs that existed have been:
a) Curriculum customization, content, connection, communication, collaboration
b) Introduce training to new hires; new employees don’t feel connection to the organization and culture
c) Employees need to be culturally sensitive
d) Virtual vs in-person training?
e) Proactive behavior (Emotional Intelligence) vs. Reactive behavior
f) Running on fumes; drained / exhausted
g Tools, skills, strategies, awareness, accountability, and application
h) Feedback… “This organization is all about the patients”… “What about us employees?”
i) Lost who we are. Need to restart / refresh / restore
j) Service Excellence Behaviors… need to revisit and revamp
k) Positive energy and sustainability when key principles are applied and exercised
l) Haven’t provided what they need
m) Teamwork is needed. They need to feel that we are all a team
n) How to manage emotions (frustration (acknowledge), irritation (align), anger (advocate), etc.)
o) Eliminate apathy, and advance empathy
p) Additional research for cutting-edge material and curriculum customization
q) Increase capacity of Team Leaders and Supervisors through greater comfort, confidence and competence to lead by example
r) How to effectively, mindfully and skillfully engage in difficult conversations (i.e. Patients showing up or calling in upset, leadership and employee tensions, and peer-to-peer situations)
s) “WOW” Service Excellence experience!
t) De-escalation needed. 4 Steps for De-escalation: 1. Check in with yourself (airplane oxygen mask example) 2. Identify what happened (e.g. “Oh, that’s frustrating…”, or “Oh, I see where we missed the mark…”, etc.), active listening, empathize, paraphrase 3. Commit to care and compassion (establish as the rule for each person within the workplace culture) 4. Check in with “them” (to make sure that “they” (internal and external) feel heard, valued and respected, and a priority, and that a solution is forthcoming)
u) Us vs Them (employees / patients)
v) We need to empower the employees
w) Employees want to be cared for
x) This is reactive… We want to position this as proactive for next 5 years
y) Strategic Plan FY22 – FY24, tied to Service Excellence Training – 1. Invest in Current and Future Employees (We’re all culturally different. Want them to feel not only empowered, but supported by the organization) 2. Provide an Outstanding Patient Experience (… directly tied to this training) 3. Invest in Whole Person to Advance Equity and Improve Outcomes
z) Protect our image, good name, and reputation

In 2023 we revived our partnership and embarked on a professional development journey entitled… The Journey to Service Excellence. The goal was to effectively train all Front-Line Staff, Team Leads and Supervisors. The three (3) Training Modules and Timelines were: Establishing Service Excellence – January 2023; Building Service Excellence – May 2023; and Maintaining Service Excellence – September 2023. This long-term initiative was a targeted strategy to establishing a philosophy and culture of Service Excellence.

The goal has been to access and assess all possible data and information, and identify and customize the most appropriate, most effective curriculum to address needs and issues and enhance culture and climate within the organization. Consequently, internal customers will know and experience that they are valued (i.e. employee satisfaction), and concurrently, external customers will know and experience that they are valued (patient satisfaction). Internal must happen before external could ever happen. The client / our customer is extremely satisfied with the results. We deliver Service Excellence with great aptitude and tremendous expertise.

Troy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Troy Cicero, President of MulticultuReal® Communications, Inc. is a dynamic, engaging, and highly effective consultant, speaker, facilitator, and trainer who established his company in 1994 with a compelling Vision — A global leader in creating environments of inclusion.

Affectionately known as ‘America’s Chief Skill Officer’, Troy has created a formula and framework for individual and institutional accountability which encompasses 7 strategic focus areas: Leadership Development, Emotional Intelligence, Cultural Competence, Service Excellence, Team Building, Conflict Resolution, and Change Management.

His clients include corporate, healthcare, education, banking, manufacturing, government, law, law enforcement, and non-profit organizations.

Troy holds a B.A. Degree in Marketing from Loras College, where he serves as Regent Emeritus. He is on numerous boards, has received numerous community awards, and runs a very successful Mentoring Program called ‘CARE’ Camp.

In his spare time, Troy enjoys playing basketball, golf, reading, and spending quality time with his family.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Building my reputation within my market has been a labor of love. I love what I do. Training and consulting in human and organization development is my purpose and the passion that ensues carries me on the long haul, the journey.

Connecting on a human and authentic level, respecting differences, building healthy and productive relationships, leading by example, empowering leadership with knowledge, strategies, tools and skills, being extremely reliable, delivering on a consistent basis with quality and excellence, creating environments where my audiences and participants feel safe and empowered to explore, engage, exchange, and evolve, customizing material that allows for fun and focus interaction, leading the adult learning element, staying attentive to each and every person, bringing culture and strategy knowledge that advances and honors the vision, mission, values, and goals of my clients, and staying 100% responsive and accessible to my clients are the synthesis of what contributes to my reputation. The exhaustion of just sharing all that and anyone reading that is how I could feel sometimes, but I really don’t feel exhaustion, because I like people and they “pour” into me when we are joined together in partnership for the common cause of learning, growing, developing, solving, and succeeding.

Any advice for managing a team?

My advice for managing a team is understand Vision-Alignment-Execution (in that order). Then, have a clear vision. speak the vision clearly and often, role model behaviors that demonstrates the vision, communicate expectations so that team members can align their behavior with the vision, celebrate when they align with the vision, provide feedback when they don’t align with the vision, describe what success looks like, and describe it so people can visualize and know when you get there.
Maintaining high morale is a matter of making sure all team members feel seen, heard, valued and respected. Pay should be good, benefits should be great, work-life balance should be emphasized, there should be no workplace bullying, leaders should lead by example, lead with accountability of their own behavior, and honor mission and values of the organization. There should be quality training and development in service excellence, that builds awareness (of self, the human dynamic, unconscious bias, etc.), encourages connection, facilitates communication, inspires collaboration, prohibits microaggressions, discrimination, and all isms, allows skill practice in how to resolve conflict, and details each person’s role as “keepers of the culture.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.multicultureal.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-cicero-17305740/