What's This Episode About?
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle an email from the mailbag. We received a note from a multi-site Medical Director who is feeling very frustrated with the way that their practice managers are running staff meetings. Meetings happen once a month and seem to have become a two-hour laundry list of things to lecture the team about, sometimes the same topics over and over. Our medical director is wishing that the staff meetings would become something that the team not only wants to have but look forward to leading! Let’s get into this.
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Andy and I got a great email in the mail bag that we are going to dive into this week and I love it, it is definitely one of those episodes where both of us are probably going to soapbox a little bit. We got an email about staff meetings, and making meetings worth it. And it comes to us from a multi-site medical director who is really struggling with the fact that all of their practice managers at each location that they're in charge of seem to have a similar problem.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Which is that the team meetings seem to be a drag, they are boring, they are two hours filled with checklists and to dos, and things, and information that needs to be disseminated to the team, but this medical director is really struggling with feeling like this could be more fun. This could be way more engaging and they want to know how do you decide what's most important to discuss because every time it gets close to a meeting, it feels like there's hours worth of things on the agenda. How do you keep everybody on track during the meetings? And most importantly, how do they turn the meetings into something that the team actually wants to participate in, and is in fact taking ownership of and making their own? Let's get into this one, shall we?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And we are back it's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie. Where does the time go Goss?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Where does the time go? How's it going Andy?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Good gosh, here in the middle of the holiday rush that is what I am asking myself. I can't get anything done.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I know.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
No one is available and then I'm not available, and there's emergency elementary school drama practices being called that I'm like, “I'm sorry, that's not a thing.” And then it is a thing and I'm like that's ridiculous. And there I am at 2:55 PM on a weekday in the parking lot of the elementary school, and I'm like if you said to me, these people have so much power over you I would've been like [inaudible 00:02:16] no they don't. Elementary it's an elective program. Let me tell you Stephanie Goss, these people have me by the ear lobe and they take me where I'm supposed to be.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Oh, that's funny.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I am a captain of industry, I publish podcasts that thousands and thousands of people listen to every week and they're, “Shut up and be at 2:55.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Shut up and be here on time.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And I'm like, “Okay, I'll be there.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Oh, that's funny. It is a very, very busy time of year, and the time is flying. We just got back, I just got back from being in Greenville with you for Practice Owner Summit, and I sat down at my computer this morning and looked at the calendar and went, holy crap. I haven't finished Christmas shopping. And it's funny because I started Christmas shopping like in August thinking, oh, all of this stuff is going to take forever to get here this year, and I did start ordering stuff early, but I left the bulk of the big things that I hadn't done yet. And I sat down this morning, I went, oh my God, is Amazon going to get things here in time?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And had that moment of panic. So yeah, the time is flying, I can't believe the new year is almost here. And when we were in Greenville and we were saying goodbye to everybody, and normally when we leave it is very sad because it's like, oh, it's going to be like six months until we see each other again. And it was very exciting and also scary that I was having conversations with people and I was like, “Oh, I'll see you next month in Orlando.” And it tripped my brain out because I'm like, wait, are we actually going? Are we traveling again next month? It's crazy how fast the time is flying.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Oh yeah, I agree. I heard reports from the Fetch Conference in San Diego, and I like that conference.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah, me too.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I really like San Diego and they got a great venue and the people are really good. Adam Christman is-
STEPHANIE GOSS:
That's where we met for the first time.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Say what?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I said that's where we met for the first time.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It is, it is where we met first. See, I knew I had a warm nostalgia feeling there. Yeah, Adam Christmas, Adam Christmas, Adam Christman over at Fetch he's doing a real good job and he should be really proud. So they're doing good work, but I heard great stuff from that conference and it's like, oh yeah, it's good to have people that I know saying, “Hey, we got back together and it was really good.” And then we were at the Practice Owner Summit and people were like yeah, this is great to be back together. And I'm going, oh, it's happening?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's actually happening.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. I'm excited, I'm very excited for everything that to 2020 has in store for us, 2022, I mean, has in store for us. Let's not repeat 2020.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's still 2019 for a lot of us.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
That's kind of how I feel. Time has ceased to exist. Anyways-
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Pick up where we left off.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Speaking of being very, very busy, we had a great question from the mail bag about making time for something, and I thought this one would be a great one for you and I to get into. So we had a message from a medical director who is overseeing a couple of location practices, and they are really struggling to plan team meetings with their practice manager. Because they said there's always so much to go over during meetings, and they are having them currently two hours once a month, and they are struggling with fitting all of the things in during those meetings. And so what it winds up being is discussing the same things over and over again; communication, training, client problems, time and attendance issues, scheduling tips, et cetera.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Like the list that people sometimes have in their clinic of we need to talk about this at the next team meeting, and then it winds up being a whole laundry list of stuff that could have potentially been an email. I know we're going to talk about that, but it's like the to do-ey kind of stuff and not actually working on the business. And this medical director is really struggling because they're like, how do we make this more or impactful first of all? And how do I get the managers to lead the meetings in a way that makes it feel like it's the team is leading the meeting, and not so much a we're the leaders and we're going to tell you what we want and how we want it. Which is how that checklist of things that need to be talked about comes across, and so they were asking for help with how do I do this?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah. No this is a great question, there is a lot of stuff here. I think we're going to have to pick and choose how we navigate this because there's so much stuff here, but I think we can do a good job of helping this person. I think that's how I'm going to set it up is let's help this person as much as we can in the amount of time that we have.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Love it.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And then this is always fertile ground, and you and I talk a lot about this in a lot of other places, in a lot other ways so we will ultimately make our way across all of it, but today let's do the most good in the time that we have
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Love it. So-
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Which is the takeaway from the question overall, is how do you do the most good in the amount of time that you have? There's a comment that I reference a lot when we talk about staff training, we talk about staff retention and people leaving, and it's got two veterinarians and one of them says to the other one, “What if we train these people and they leave?” And the other one says, “What if we don't train them and they stay?” That feels very much like this problem with meetings.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Sure.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Where it's we take so much time meeting with people and we don't have time for it, and the other vet would say something like, we don't have time not to meet with these people because we're so busy.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
That is going to need some editing, that's not exactly the flow, but hopefully that makes this like I can feel that way, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
The initial thing is what if we train these people and they leave? And it's sort of like we just don't have time to have a meeting, and I'm like, that's the same, that's the same thinking it's the same mentality where on first blush you go, “I totally understand why someone would feel this way.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Sure.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It really is one of those things. Meetings have a terrible reputation, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Everyone's like death by meeting, and we always have meetings, and I can tell you that Os our little team has grown to a half dozen of us and is growing beyond that. I am looking at our calendars and going, man, we have a lot of meetings. We have a lot of meetings. At the same time I go, this is what it means to run a team of this many people. And I look at our metrics and I say, oh, we're crushing it.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
We are doing so much work. Our work output is going way up, even though I feel like we're doing lots and lots of meetings. The reason is because we know what the point of meetings is, and we don't do crappy stupid meetings. And so we can come back to what that means and how it means.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
So anyway, all of that to say death by meeting is a thing, I think meetings have a bad reputation, and the idea that we are going to run teams that busy beyond their capacity without meetings or with few meetings, I think that's false thinking.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Team meetings like this fall very much into that category that you and I get into when we're wrestling with practice leaders and medical directors and stuff, and they're like, “I don't have time to have one-on-one conversations.” And we're like, “You don't have time to not have one-on-one conversations.” It's same thing and that's where I see this conversation going is I got news for you, less meetings, more efficient meetings probably not the answer in this case.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I would 100% agree, and I probably would start off by saying that this is a subject that I'm passionate about, and I will probably soapbox a few times during this podcast episode, but I will tell you guys as listeners I have been in this doctor's shoes in terms of feeling why are we even doing this? Because it feels so wildly inefficient and ineffective. And I hated meetings, and I was like let's just not have any. And I will tell you that there is a book that I read at that point in my career that changed my perspective and ultimately the outcome of it, and learning how to have better meetings changed my life from a career perspective.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And that sounds crazy dramatic, but totally true, and I am a 100% in the camp of you don't have time not to not work on your business and am really passionate. I mean, we just talked for a week with practice owners about how do we make the time to work on the business? And meetings is a big piece of that, but I think that it's a struggle for people to get their heads there because to your point, meetings have such a bad reputation. And so I think the head space piece of it when tackling this is really, really important.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Are you not going to mention the name of it? You're like, “I read a book that changed my life. I'm not going to tell you what it is.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I'm going to get there, but we got to talk about the head space first.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Oh, okay good because there's people losing their minds right now with pen and paper, they've already got audible open on their phone, and you're like, “No, I'm not going to tell you that no.” The reality is meetings have a purpose.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And you cannot fit 10 pounds of content into a three pound bag, and that's what this sounds like because we're meeting once every four of six to eight weeks and surprisingly, we don't have enough time. And because we don't have enough time, everyone is frustrating and so you know what we do, we do less frequent meetings because they're so frustrating. And I'm like oh, that's a bad spiral to get into.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Oh yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
That's like saying I fight with my spouse, so I'm talking to my spouse less frequently, you know? I get it and it makes sense at a very base level, but we all can see this is not how we get where we want to be.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I agree. And this is a really common space to get to especially right now, right? We are overwhelmed, there is so much happening in everyone's practice, and the idea of how do I take time off of the calendar because you can't squeeze it around other things. I mean, when I talk to people who are like, “Oh, we meet quarterly or we meet twice a year as a whole team.” The reason that that is the case is usually because they're like I don't know where else to make this fit, and this is the only time in the schedule. It's such a hassle to get everybody here, this is how we approach it.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And then it becomes really easy to get overwhelmed because you're trying to cram three months worth of stuff that has happened to your point, you're cramming your 10 pounds into a three pound bag and it is so overwhelming. And so I think I totally see why you get to this place, because when you think, okay, these meetings you're sitting through it and you're suffering, you're suffering through it, and at the end of the meeting you're like, “That was so damn ineffective, we did nothing. That was a waste of my time.” Why would you want to do it more frequently?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I can totally understand where that mind frame comes from now, is my mind frame is like screw this, we're spending so much time and so much energy and from the practice owner perspective, so much money to get everybody here to close the doors or to have relief come in to cover the phones, or however you're managing it at your practice. That is an investment financially in the team, and when it feels very wildly ineffective, it is very easy to push back and be like no, let's cut this off of the list, but I think that that is very much the wrong way to approach it.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Oh yeah. I agree. I think there's two different things there, right? There's meeting failure because of not having enough time to do what you need to do. There's meeting failure because you have a poor plan or you have failed to plan. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And then there's the part of a lack of engagement, meaning we don't pull the agenda off, we have the agenda and it's a great agenda, but people don't engage. And I can tell you buddy, you and me as professional lecturers and speakers when you're talking to an audience that's not engaged, it's Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain only to have it roll back down. Sisyphus is a guy, he pushes a boulder up a mountain and that's it, that's what I was trying to get at. Holiday brain. So anyway it's brutal, and all three of those things are different reasons that meetings fail and most of us dabble in all three of those frustrations.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah, totally.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
So let's get into the head space here.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Okay.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
So how do we fix this? So we're looking at it, we've got these challenges, where we're infrequent staff meetings how do we get everything done? Where do we go from here? And so for me with head space the first thing we have to do is unlock this problem. Because when I'm looking at what our writers sent to us, this person is locked into the idea of okay, I have one meeting every four weeks and I have X amount of content and it's too much content for that meeting and so people are getting frustrated. How do I say the content in a different way so that it gets into this format that we have? Or how do I add another meeting, and then how do I break this stuff apart?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
But it's very, very easy to say my meetings aren't working, and so the solution must be centered on meetings and meetings themselves. And the first thing of head space I want to do is unlock that thinking, right? I want to open this up and give us a lot of options, because there are so many options for how we handle this and it's easy to get myopic and that's a trap, right? That's inside the box thinking, so how do we unlock it so we can think outside the box? The way that I have had success in unlocking it is to say, what's the point? The point is not to have a staff meeting.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Right.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And there's so many people who are like yes, the point is to have a staff meeting.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Right, you're just checking that box.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I read in a book that we should have staff meetings, I went to a lecture and some management guru said every other week we need to have a staff meeting, and once a month at minimum. And that's what they said, and now I am required to do this once a month because that is what I've been told I have to do. And I'm like, that's nonsense. What is the point?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And so this is where I start to people a little bit, and I'll say, “Is the point of a staff meeting to share information?” And they will say. “Yes.” And I will say, “No, there are so many ways to share information and a staff meeting is one of them, but if you are just passively giving information to other people, there are more efficient, more effective ways to do that.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Like an email or Slack, or Workplace from Facebook, whatever the thing is that you're on, or Post-its in the break room, or printed off letters that go into their mail. I mean, there's a million things if you think outside the box, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's videos of you talking to a camera and saying the things and then sending it out. If there's no back and forth, if this is not a collaborative thing, it shouldn't be a meeting it should be an email, and we've all been to meetings where we're like, “That should have been an email.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And so if it's just to give the staff information, that's a poor use of meeting time which is super valuable. Is it just to ask questions? Probably not. Again, same thing as if I just need to know, “Hey, straight up I have a question, I need a response from you.” Again, there's other ways to do that, I can use our team communications, I can pull my key opinion leaders in, I can do a survey of three or four people instead of the whole staff and just say, “Hey, I'm trying to get a feel for where people's heads are.” I mean, there's a lot of things that I can do that don't take meeting time where I can get my questions answered, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Is it to get consensus? Yeah, now we're getting somewhere. Is it to show transparency and say that we're open to feedback, to make people feel heard, to make them feel like they have autonomy and agency and that management cares what the workers think.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Right.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
That they're not just cogs in the machine, and that's a big part of this. Getting emails with directives makes you feel like a cog in the machine, so the big things for me is okay, what is required or what requires a meeting? And if you do that, 80% of the thing that I see in staff come off meetings come off the list.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah, for sure. I agree with that a 100%, and I think the way that I now approach it is I would say your number one rule for yourself is to ask yourself that question can I share this for information with my team any other way besides the meeting? And if the answer is yes, then it probably is not worth having it as a meeting. Now, I would say that sometimes you need to share information and most people are well, but I'm sharing important information and it needs to be personal. You guys, we live in the current millennia, there are so many other ways that you can make it personal without it just being a faceless email.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
You can record a video for your team, you can have them have a short meeting with their department and have a leader deliver that information, you can break it up into a bunch of different ways. And I think this is where to your earlier point Andy, it's very easy for us to get stuck in the box and think that this is the only way we can use this tool. And so I would say tool number one is to ask yourself the question that you did Andy, which is what is the point? And then when you know what the point is, ask yourself can I deliver this information any other way? And if the answer is yes, probably a meeting is not the best way to deliver it.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah. I mean, think about the alternatives, right? So here's the next part of the head space, right? So we've sat down and we're like, okay, why a meeting? And what requires a meeting? So here's a list of things I have to do, what of these things requires a meeting? And then the next question is what are the alternatives to the meetings? And you and I have already mentioned a number of them, right? There's email, there's the communication platforms like Slack and Workplace and things like that, there's one-on-ones with your team leads.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Do you need to get everybody to gather, or can you get your head techs together and have a talk with them and then say, “Hey, pass this down in your rounds.” And people are like, oh, no rounds. Yes, rounds or whatever ways that the team leads, that your head tech communicate with your other techs. Is that effective? And if this is like yes, this is a technician thing, and we need to advance this idea, this program, we need to get feedback, whatever can I have one-on-ones? Or can I gather my head technicians together and have a meeting of just the four of us?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And we all talk about it and hammer everything out, and then they go forth and carry the message and make sure that the other techs know what's going on. That's a huge deal, and most of the default is, oh, I'm going to just tell all the techs at once and I'm going to do it at our staff meeting. This is just one example of how you get the word out. Can I have a doctor meeting? Can I talk to the medical directors and have them communicate this to the other doctors in a doctor meeting? It's a lot easier to have smaller meetings than it is to everybody together, it just is.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
One-on-ones to your champions if you will, it's a really effective alternative. Video messages as you said, that's a great way for me saying, “Hey guys, here's a thing, and I'm going to send it to you. And in this video, I'm going to ask you a question and I want everybody to respond to the question and send me an email with the answer to the question, whatever.” But just things like that to try to get people to engage and make sure that people have signed off on the video or whatever. But they can watch it on their own time on demand, they can come in at the start of their shift everybody watches the video, just let people know, but then it's not gathering everybody together.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And it's asymmetric, they can do it again, they should get paid for it, they should be on the clock, it should be a work thing, but I can let them know. And the last thing is you said are the mini meetings, which are like hey, can we just pull the CSRs together and do this? Can we just pull the techs together? Can we just pull the doctors together? And a lot of times that's an efficiency that makes a lot of sense, and again, it minimizes what we have to do when we get the whole team together because that should be really very valuable time.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah I agree with that, and I think that those are great ways to approach it. And again, you guys it doesn't have to be this huge orchestrated thing, and I know that we have some people listening who are like but then I have to record a video and I have to edit it and… No, no, it doesn't have to be big and fancy, and it also doesn't have to be awkward. Think about like when you're Face Timing or video chatting with somebody, you're seeing their face, you're capturing the emotion and you're not face to face. And it's thinking in that perspective and our friend, Stacy Santi is the one who got me turned onto using a product called Loom in my practice a few years ago.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And she started using it with her team, and she was just like when I used to have to send an email, but I wanted them to see my face I started doing this with my team and it was a game changer. It's a free app and you literally just use your webcam to record your face, and I just sit there and would tell them, okay, hey guys, here's this thing and present the message with the same emotion and the same them being able to see my face and my body language that I would in a team meeting, but now we're not having a meeting. And now I took that thing that would've taken 10 minutes or five minutes out of the meeting, and I sent it to them to watch.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And it doesn't have to be like big important stuff either, it can be a hey guys I wanted to tell you all that I was thinking about you this weekend. I'm so excited about our holiday party coming up, don't forget that it's on this day and time, make sure it's on your calendar. Can't wait to see you, right? It's about making things personal, and I think that that's what a lot of us by default use our team meetings for, for a really long, it's all of that stuff that I want to say because I want to say it to their faces. And I think we can limit ourselves in terms of how we think outside the box because we think it has to be this big production, and that's not what we're talking about. They're really, really simple ways to capture that energy and excitement and pass it on to the team.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I would push that even harder, and so this goes right back to my thing of what is the point of this? Why exactly are we doing this? I'm sorry, if you are like I'm going to make a video because I want to impress my staff with the level of polish of my video editing skills to make them think that I am much more handsome than I am in real life. Like got to look good, I'm going to need some foundation, all right? Get the glare off my nose, gotta make them think that they work for a top shelf organization, that's all lunacy.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Right.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
None of that stuff is the reason that you're doing this, and honestly it's counterproductive.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
If I was an employee and my boss was like here's a highly polished video of me asking you to please remember to clock out at the end of the day, I would be like what is this nonsense? I'd be like this is why I make the wage that I make because you have a video editing thing to do. The point of the video is not to impress them, honestly, it's to humanize yourself to them. That is the benefit of the video over the email, and so filming it on your phone is not just equally good, it's probably better because it's you saying, “Hey guys, I wanted you to hear this from me. This is the unpolished truth, I'm not editing this because this is not a script, it's just me telling you the truth and just trying to be open.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
So you understand, you hear it from me, and you hear why I'm doing what I'm doing or hear why this decision was made.” That's it, and so honestly it's amazing how much people think that the point is to make something that's polished and professional. And it's like no, the point is to humanize yourself and have them see you as a real person talking to them, and that's what we're going for with the video. And so if you take that mentality, doing the types of videos that we're talking about it'll get a whole lot easier and less stressful.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Totally. So from a head space perspective, I think the three things that we covered are super important, right? So get out of the head space of meetings have a bad reputation, they can be very effective and very useful, and you have to plan smartly for them. Looking at it from the perspective of what is the point of this? Why are we doing this meeting? And to that end limiting things that really only need to be delivered in a meeting format, the things where we're getting the team feeling excited, where we're getting them feeling seen and heard, and really it's a collaborative process.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
That stuff stays on the meeting schedule, and we look at leaning into alternatives for all of the stuff that can come off the meeting schedule now. So reminding everybody, “Hey guys, you have been doing a really bad job of clocking out, I've been fixing lots of time card mistakes. I need you to start to do this thing.” It's amazing to me how often that kind of stuff is on meeting agendas, and that is the first kind of thing that should come off the list because there's about 16 other ways that you could deliver that message to a team in your practice. So is there anything else that you can think of from a head space perspective, or should we dive into how do we actually attack this?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
The last thing I'll say about a head space perspective, right? Is when we go the meetings and we're trying to figure out what to do, it's in line with thinking outside the box, but it's more about thinking what is possible. It's easy to go in and say, “This is too much and we have these meeting and we don't have enough time.” And that's a very closed mindset. Really, it was funny I heard some of the Uncharted practice owners talking months ago and we were talking about rising wages of support staff and these people were going, “How do I pay for this? I want to keep my staff and I want to be competitive and I'm just trying to make these numbers work.”
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And one of our practice owners said, “We have to shift our mindset not from what's going to happen, but to how do we do this? And really just think about how do we make this happen because it's required.” And I thought that was really powerful, the idea and shift in mindset to all right how do we make this happen? As opposed to, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening and this is the pinch that we're in. I think it's the same thing with the meetings, I think shifting it to, how do we make this happen? I think that's really the mindset we need to get into.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Is not a scarcity, not a limited mentality of, there's not enough time, there's enough time, but okay let's look at the things we need to accomplish and how do we make this happen? Let's get creative and I think that is a fun head space, I think it's a rewarding head space, but I think that that is a requirement if we're going to be able to move things around and make this really go.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I agree. I love it. Okay. Let's take a quick break and then come back and talk about how do we actually do this thing and make them more productive?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Hey everybody, it's Stephanie. I just have to break in here for one second and make sure that you know about an awesome opportunity that is coming up that we do not want you to miss. We are back, we are back in person in April in Greenville. That's right, our flagship conference in Greenville, South Carolina is happening in person for the first time in three years, and we are so, so excited to be back with you guys. It is happening April 21st to the 23rd, so put that on your calendar now. And if you head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/April, you can find all of the details as we sort them out.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
You will get to see the schedule as soon as we have it, you will get to see information on the speakers, we've got an event FAQ, you can shop our uncharted gear, we've got safety information if you're wondering about being back in person. So if this sounds like something you would be interested in, head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/April and reserve your spot. This event will sell out, we cannot wait to see you so don't wait to put this on your calendar. You do have to be an Uncharted member to attend. You can find out all the details at the website. We'll see you soon. Now, back to the podcast.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
All right. Let's get into what we're actually going to do with this.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Okay.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
You ready?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
We've beat around the bush a bit here, but let's get into some action steps.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Okay. So before we start action steps I'll say that if you are struggling with getting into a good mindset about meetings, I'm going to tell you guys the book now. So if you are really struggling with that and you're I don't know how to like meetings, there's a book that I read, it's called Death by Meeting it's by Patrick Lencioni and I'll put it in the show notes for you guys. But it changed my mindset so radically about I was in that space of hating meeting like why are we doing them? And I really struggled with how do I make that switch to where you and I are going next, which is the action steps.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And reading it changed my perspective entirely, and made it so much easier for me to flip my head space perspective and think about how do I actually do this thing? So if that's you and you're struggling check it out, it's a quick and easy read. You can find it in the business section at your local bookstore, but it's totally worth reading because getting into the action steps and the starting, especially if you're living in that place of I just want to cancel all of the meetings because I just hate this, we're not getting anything done, it really helped me make that mindset shift.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yup. Let me go ahead with action steps. I'm going to put a simple little thing on the table that sometimes doesn't occur to people, virtual attendance is a thing.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And so is recording the meeting for people who can't make it. And I'll just say it up front because the amount of headaches I have seen with people going, “But people are on different shifts and they don't want to come in on their day off.” And I go, “I wouldn't want to come in on my day off either.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I totally get it. It's a vortex for me, I go in there and then four hours go by.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I get it and so hey, it's not that hard to set up a laptop in the back of the room and put Zoom on it and send people a link. That's not a problem, get the nice Zoom that lets you be on for more than 40 minutes and just do it.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes. Absolutely.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Whatever your jam is, there's Google Hangouts, whatever works for you, but it should be easy for people to jump on from home and at least see what's going on and participate as needed. So think about virtual meetings just as far as people jumping in. Honestly, even just getting things done in some cases just a good old virtual meeting where people don't have to drive in, that means a lot so I like that. And then also recordings, because I see people who are like, “We've got three people that can't make it.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Record it and those three people can see it. It's not ideal obviously, I want everybody to be there bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready to engage. This is the real world and it's real practicalities, and sometimes we have to get done the best that we can. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. So I think that's two steps in one. So step number one is stop thinking inside the box of everyone has to be at this meeting, and if everyone isn't here we can't hold this meeting. That's step number one, and step number two that can help you with that, but also can just be for other is to record the meetings. You have a record, you can go back to it, it makes it easier to take notes and make sure you didn't miss anything, and also it helps you eliminate that thinking of everyone has to be there. And then the step 1(c) I guess for me is look, if people are spending their time dealing with your meetings, whether it's in person or recorded, you have to pay them.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
So quit thinking that we can have people just remote in from home and we're not going to pay them for their time, or we're not going to make it worth their while. You need to be very aware of what your state rules are as well, because if you ask them to participate and work, you may have to pay them for a certain period of time. So this is time that is so well worth it to me, and it's an investment and there's no going around it. Investing in your team by having them participate in the meetings is one of the best investments that you could make as a practice leader I think, and just make sure that you're paying them for their time.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Let me tell you, and we should look at it that way which again, goes back to my point of what do we need to accomplish here? What is the point? Because these are not cheap, I think a lot of the staff doesn't think about the fact it's like oh, everyone is here and they're all getting paid and no clients are coming in the building. And I think I can tell you as a business owner that exact thought has driven me up the wall before, I'm like, “This is so expensive and there is no revenue coming out of this.” It is the cost of doing business, it is an absolute requirement to have these meetings and get everyone on the same page.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And if you who don't believe it, you are in for a long time of frustration before you figure out that this was worth the investment. What's funny with staff meetings is, and this is why they're so much of a problem with this, this exact question is because staff meetings are that thing that when you don't have them and you don't have them things just to break, and there just starts to be friction and tension.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Sure.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
But there's no one who bursts into your office and says, “I'm quitting because we haven't had a staff meeting in forever.” No one says that, there's never this direct pain where you're like a lack of staff meetings or a lack of good staff meetings are the reason we're having these problems. That never happens, all that happens is when you start doing staff meetings and you do them well, like when you start doing one-on-ones and you do them well. Over time and it's not the first time you do it and everything is fixed, it is over time your life gets better.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And your business runs more smoothly, and your practice runs more smoothly, and you are more profitable, but it never comes back to your staff meetings are the reason for it. I've talked to so many people who have gotten on the train and they have done it and their practices have done well, and they've fallen off the wagon and they've seen those tensions creep back in. And they will say to you, I know it's because we're not doing a good job with staff meetings. And that brings me to the next head space point that I want to make, and I say this just because of our conversation at the very beginning about this is holiday season when we're recording this and things are bonkers, be kind to yourself.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
There's always going to be times when it's easier to do these sorts of things, and at times when it's harder to do these sorts of things. And if you're hearing this in the holiday season and you're like, “We need to have a staff meeting immediately.” I would say, oh, whoa, whoa, this might not be the time right here right now to pull everyone together. It might be the time that we start to make a plan and we figure out how we're going to start moving in this direction, and getting people back on board and starting to work a program that works for us.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. I love it. So to your point, I think where we have to start action steps wise is begin with the end in mind, and ask ourselves what is the point? Why are we having this meeting? And then prioritizing what are we going to do within the context of the meeting, right?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah. So first thing is remove the things that can be done in other ways, things that can be emails or multiple emails or whatever. Just remove the things that can be done in other ways, remove the things that are information that are passive, that are non-emotional, right? So take this off and then let's prioritize the things that are left. And the way that we prioritize, it will be different depending on where you are in your business and what's going on. If you're up to your neck and you're like we're drowning then you should still have a staff meeting, and your staff meeting should be all about how do we not drown?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
That should be it, anything that is focused on us handling our caseload without just being swallowed up that should all make the list. And what are we going to do about birthday parties now that the cake store we like is not in business, you know what? We can just talk about it, that's one of our key opinions we'll find another way to sort that out. That might not make the list. And right now there's people slamming their hands on their desk going, “You don't understand the cake store's importance in this. Everybody's going to quit if we don't find a comparable cake store.”
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Anyway enough silliness, it sounds simple, people get it wrong all the time, they're like, “We need to do announcements.” I'm like, “No, you don't you're buried, cut to the chase.” I know everyone is tired, I know everyone's working hard, I am so proud of you, I want to help you. Let's go ahead and start to brainstorm ways that we can make our workload lighter. What can we do to make our job easier so that we are not so exhausted all the time? Everyone take a couple minutes, write down on a piece of paper ideas that you have just think about your job and how you might make things easier or what could be made easier for you, and take a few minutes to write that down.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And we come back, we're going to discuss in small groups what we think might be a good idea, or what are some small things that we can do, and what's some big things that we can do and boom, and go. And now we're off and running in a meeting, cut to the chase, talk about the things that matter. So what do you need? What is mission critical for the team to move forward? What empowers others to move forward independently? It's amazing how often as a leader or a manager, I will carry these things around on my to do list and I'm like, I don't know and this is not all that important and blah, blah, blah. And it's something where if I just met with Stephanie and talked to her, then I could delegate this her and she would go and do it and it would move forward and it would be off my list.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
But until I talk to her she's unaware and this thing just sits there, and so anything where you say, “Aha! I'll have a team meeting and I will hand these things off, and then they will disappear from my plate and other people will be able to implement them, and our team is a whole will move forward.” That is a good thing. Anything where I am holding up the process that should get prioritized so that I can push this thing off my two do to list and get it rolling forward through the efforts of others, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Things that are likely to spark emotions should get prioritized. People misuse email all the time, and I see people who are having these heated exchanges and they're writing paragraphs and paragraphs long emails explaining themselves because they're clearly fired up. And I go forget it, if you're writing more than three paragraphs this is not an email. If this is something where you are feeling emotions or the other person is feeling emotions get off of email, that's not an email conversation. It's too easy to misinterpret tone and things like that, which is why we end up explaining ourselves and it's becomes this massive stupid thing that's multiple pages that no one's going to read, and the whole thing is just a nightmare.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
If it's something that people are going to be emotional about at all, it needs to be done face to face. It may not need to be in a whole team meeting, but at least needs to be face to face and so that stuff gets prioritized. And then the last thing is what's the best return on investment? When you're looking at this, and our writer says, “We've got so much to do.” And I'd say, “All right, what's your 80/20?” Meaning what is the 20% of things that will give you 80% of your rewards? Let's do the things that are either urgent and important, or that are important, let's not do the things that are just urgent or that aren't even urgent, they're neither urgent nor important. So where do you get the biggest return on investment?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And I think that's the hard part is because for people who don't like meetings or people who don't understand why you're having meetings. And a lot of times unfortunately, leaders in our practice fall into one of those two categories and from the email that we got, I suspect that our medical director here is struggling because there are some practice managers within their team that fall into one of those two categories. They either don't understand why you're having it, or they are not excited about having the meeting, and so the hard part is that they tend to drive it not from the place of investment and return on investment, but from that place of I'm checking the box. And these are just things that I feel like we have to do, and so I'm going to talk about it at the meeting. And so I think that is a really important thing is why doing this?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Why are we doing this?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And be ruthless.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Be ruthless.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Be cold and calculating not to your people, to your agenda. But when you are looking at the meeting, you need to be ruthless, is this what we are here for yes or no? If the answer is no, no. If we start to go down side paths and tangents, we say, “Hey guys, it's a great point. We really do not have time to explore this very much today. I'm going to put it on our parking lot, I'm going to add it to the agenda for the future. I will meet with the people who brought this up and we can talk through it a little bit after the meeting is over in the coming days so I can process it.” Just do not let this meeting go away, pull it back, be nice, but be firm and just say guys, we have very limited time and I really want to make sure we hit the things that are maximumly important for all of us. And so this is very important it's very good, but we need to put a pin in this.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. And I think that there's two things there that I would like to unpack a little bit when we get there, because I think it's important to talk about how set up the meetings and I think that's where we're going next. But when it comes to the agenda and also to the team and during the meeting, I agree with you, you have to be ruthless and I have some suggestions for how do we get whoever's leading the meeting, whether it's the practice manager or the medical director or just a team lead, whoever is running your meetings how to get them thinking about how do I be a little ruthless?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
How do I take things off the list? Because the reality is you made the point earlier about the work always expands to fill the time, and it's the same with a meeting. You could go into a meeting with a plan to talk about three things, and if you let it 95 different things could come up from your team. And half of them, more than half of them probably were not worth discussing at a meeting, and it's so easy to get sidetracked.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's so easy. The best meetings are ones where you go in and you think there's no way I have enough content to fill this time, we're going to be done in 20 minutes. That's a great meeting because you're not going to be done in 20 minutes, it's going to be a jampacked thing. So not only do you have to go in with the idea of, oh, there's no way I have enough content to fill this time, you also have to be ruthless on top of. Because a lot of people are like, “We've got plenty of time.” I assure you that you do not, and if you are slack about it then you will have no time, and you won't even get to number three on your list of three things.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's ridiculous, you got to be ruthless.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
So how do we prep?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah, I was going to say the next thing is not putting together the agenda, the next thing is prep, right? So pre-wiring is a huge thing, I don't to go into meetings if I do not know what is going to happen. I do not like to put forward ideas if I have no idea how people are going to feel about them. Ideally, I want to go into a meeting and know exactly how everybody feels, and I want to know what people like and what people don't like. And I want to know who is going to be for it, and who's going to be against it, and who doesn't care, and what it would take to get the people who are against it to just not care?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And what it would take to the people who don't care to think this is a good thing? I want to know all those things as best I can, and that's pre-wiring so start the meeting before the start of the meeting. Start to talk to the people who are going to be involved, encourage your team to prepare so that you have greater efficiency at the meeting, right? If things they can be thinking about, if there's things that they can be working on, if there's things they can bring with them to the meeting so that they're looking on it, let them know that, right? Going from zero to 60 at the start of the meeting is really hard, if you say to people, “Meeting tomorrow, here are three questions you need to have thought about when you come.”
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Bang, bang and bang, you're going to get better meetings. And yes, some people are not going to read them, and yes, some people are going to totally ignore them, but some people are going to read them and those people are going to get the ball rolling, and they're going to be more prepared and we can move forward. So encourage prep before the meetings, have the conversations with your people ahead of time so you know what's coming and this is not, I'm going to ask a question and I have no idea what's going to happen. That's how we end up getting derailed because someone will say, “I hate this thing with a burning passion.” And no one will want to respond to that and you're blindsided by it, and you don't have a good response to the thing that they said because this is news to you, that stuff just derails meeting so fast.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. Part of-
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Get your-
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Oh, go ahead.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I was just going to say get your key opinion leaders on board, right? So this is the last thing I would say in the prep is every practice has got key opinion leaders, they are non-positional leaders, meaning they may not have a title. Some of them do have a title, of course, but they may not have a title, they're just the technician that everybody looks up to, or they are just the CSR who's got the big personality that guides others along or sets the tone. Don't be surprised by those people, if you can recruit those people in one-on-one conversations before you have the meeting and ask them for their help in getting conversation going at the staff meeting, again, these are all shortcuts that gets you to engaged meetings faster.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. I love it. Part of the prep for me and because it relates to the agenda, it for me is what are we going to talk about? And what I would say to this medical director is if your practice managers are leading this meeting, have them write their agenda and then review it. Okay, if there's something on the list about the team holiday party, I want to know what are we talking about relating to the team holiday party? Are we getting a poll to talk about where we're going? Are we talking about budget? What is it? And I think a lot of times too many of us make the mistake of letting the agenda be way too broad, and so part of the planning and the prep for me is writing an agenda and then refining the agenda.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Because part of it is looking at the time constraint that we have for this meeting, and getting a sense of how long are these things going to take us? Because when it comes to running effective meetings, part of it has to be sticking to the agenda and staying on time, and so one of the things that I would ask myself as a manger and if I was the medical director and my manager was running the meeting is what is going on this agenda? And how much time do you think that we need to accomplish and feel like this is resolved and we can cross it off of the agenda? And get them thinking about that ahead of time, and have some back and forth. So me that's part of the pre-wiring is some conversation from a leadership level perspective of what are we doing?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Why are we doing it? And how much time do we think that this is going to take? Because I think you have to look at the whole agenda very holistically and say, “Okay, we now have six things on this list. It's probably going to take us an hour to get through are the first three, so we might need to take three things off the list or restructure what we're talking about in this first meeting, because there's no way that we're going to get through all six things.” Stop setting yourself up to fail before you start. That is one of the biggest flaws for all of us with meetings is that we shoot ourselves in the foot before we even get started by putting way too much stuff on the list, and not having a plan for dealing with how do we get through that list? And also what do we do when things come up that don't pertain to that list?
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah, I completely agree. One of the simple tricks that is super helpful, I like to have some clock times picked out, meaning let's say I have three things that we're going to do in this meeting. So let's say, I know it's going to take a few minutes this to get people in and get them sat down, I want to be on item number two by 25 after, and I want to be on item three by 40 minutes after. And those will be the numbers that I'll have in my head, is we are off of this at this time. The reason that I say that is because a lot of people will say, “Item number one is going to be 15 minutes, item number two is going to be 15 minutes, item number three is going to be 15 minutes and then we'll have 50 minutes for questions.”
DR. ANDY ROARK:
No, you won't. No you won't because it will take time for people to come in, and people will want to talk more about this and that. And the other thing is you will forget what time you started and you will say to yourself, we're on item number one and it's 25 minutes after, and you're but I don't think we started, we definitely did not start at the top of the hour. And you lie to yourself and then you look around and your 15 minutes have gone out the window. You've got to have some clock times where you look up and say, at this time I need to be moving to the next thing.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
I like it. And then I think the other that is super helpful tool wise is that as you get started and as you're focusing on making your meetings more effective, the person who is trying to run the meeting should not be the person who is also keeping track of time. That should be a separate person whose sole job is to focus on to your point Andy, if by 11:25 we want to be on agenda item number two, someone who's not trying to herd the cats and direct the flow and the conversation needs to be the one to keep tabs on the clock. Or if you're running a timer or a stopwatch that has to be a separate person to help make that most effective, because it's way too easy to get lost in the chaos when you're trying to do all of the things.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And that's how so many of us set up our meetings is okay, the practice leader, that was my job for a long time as practice manager you're going to lead the meetings, and I thought I had to do all the things. Keep track of the clock, take the notes, lead the meeting, and my meetings were an absolute disaster for years because I was trying to do all of the things. And so there are some very specific jobs that you can set up and get the whole team to help support and make it go much more efficiently and effectively.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah so love it. Delegating jobs like that I love it, super important. I'll give you another trick is to give those jobs to the employees that tend to check out, or that are distracted, or the ones who can't stay off of their phone. And you can be like, “Hey person on your phone, you're going to be the note taker.” And now they are taking notes.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), they're engaged.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And say, I'm going to collect these notes and I really appreciate you having good notes. “Hey, person on your phone you're going to be the timekeeper, and you're going to let us know at these times.” And put some stress on them, put some pressure on them where they're like oh man, I better pay attention because this is a thing. And if they don't do it, then we're going to talk to them after the meeting and be like, “Hey, what happened? I asked you to do this thing and you left me hanging there.” Again, it's just a nice way honestly to draw some of those people back in or people that you want to engage with bring them into the meeting and give them a role, and that is a way to just pull those people into what you're doing.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. I think the last like big chunk is, as we mentioned, I think you have to be ruthless when it comes to staying on track and on time. And so from an agenda perspective, I would say that you probably could get through a fraction of what you actually think you can get through. And so being ruthless with what stays on the agenda and what are you actually going to try and talk about, I think is really important. And one of the things that was most helpful to me, because you and I talked in the beginning about if we're eliminating all of the at busy work stuff from our meetings, and we're having meetings to talk about things that make the team feel seen and heard.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
One of the most important pieces of that is creating a parking lot or a dumping ground where you put the things that are said, or that are brought up that need to be circled back to. Because if you let things come up and you don't follow up and come back to those things, that is the quickest way to make the team feel like well, I spoke up in a meeting and then nothing happened with it so nobody listens to me, nobody cares, right? So in order to stay on time, there is going to have to be moments where you say, “I think that we need to talk about this and we don't have time to talk about that today.”
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And I will tell you that the Yoda level trick for me has become to ask my team, is this new thing more important than this old thing that you guys said you wanted to talk about? And I only use that when I don't have my own agenda. Sometimes as the practice leader there are things that you have to get done and have to talk to the team about, and sometimes there is no choice and things have to stay on the parking lot list whether I like it or whether the team likes it or not. Because I have to have some hard conversations with the team.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
However, if it's the kind of team meeting where we're talking about something that the team brought up and it's a problem, we're having a client service problem repeatedly and we're trying to brainstorm how do we fix this problem? If something new comes up and the team feels really into it, and the timekeeper has called, “Hey, we're at time,” one of the Yoda level tricks that I have started to use with my team is to ask them, okay, we're at time, do you want to table the next piece of the meeting that you guys said we needed to talk about to talk about this new thing? Or are we okay as a group with putting this new thing on the parking lot list and we'll put it at the top of next meeting's agenda, right?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
This is where getting their buy-in and having them actively engage in making the thing their own is so, so important. And so a parking lot list for those of you guys who are what is she talking about? Is really just a list where you are writing down all of the things that come up that are not a part of your agenda that you need to talk about, that need further small group discussion, that need input from your practice owner or somebody who's not there that day. It's anything that can't get addressed in that moment in time during your meeting, and you're just making a list.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And then the most important part about the parking lot is you figure out how are we going to come back to this? So at the end of every meeting you need to take some time to say, this is when and how we're going to address every item on this parking lot. And then put an action plan so that the things get dealt with before everybody breaks up and everybody knows what the plan is moving forward.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
I like it. I think that's good. The last thing I would say is, and we bring this up every now and then when we get into leadership meetings, I think a lot of people feel the stress or the pressure to have an answer, or to have a response, or to have a plan, or to commit to something when the team gives it to you.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It is always fine to say something like this is really good stuff, I need time to process it. I'm going to follow up outside this meeting with some more questions and that's it. And put that pin in it and just step away. So I think that's a good, and it's a good way to stay on time too. This is a great discussion, I want to get through the things on our agenda. I have heard a lot from you guys, this has giving a lot of ideas, a lot of processing. I'm going to be following up with some of you guys and asking some more questions. Thanks for having the conversation, let's move on to the next thing.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And remember, if your why is to make people feel heard, and to see how the team is doing, and to get their buy-in, you can accomplish those things and still step away and say, this is always great. I heard what you said, I took that away, we're out of time we need to move on. And yup, you may not have come to a a 100% uniform consensus today, but you moved the ball forward, you got the discussion going, you communicated the information, you got the feedback, you made it feel collaborative, and you made people feel heard. Just take the win, take the win and go on.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And now the big win is can you stay on schedule and get through as many things as you can on your list as possible? And if you came in with an agenda and you get through your agenda, you should take some time, you should have a bath and some champagne. That's a big win, people don't give that enough credit for the win that it is.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And I think that that is applicable on the flip side as well, sometimes stuff comes up that is your team might need some time to process, or during your pre-wiring you discovered information that has yet to have been brought up in the meeting. That has happened to me a lot, where I know something is coming, but nobody has had the guts to say it yet and so I will say, “You know what? Okay, we're going to pause this here, I would love everybody to think about this over the next week or whatever.” And then if there are any remaining opinions before the leadership team discusses this further or whatever your next move is, invite them to give you that feedback privately or in a follow up meeting.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Because sometimes we all just need to process and think, or especially if you have people on your team who are working on their emotions, or they're the ones who tend to have big opinions, like if I've been told, “Hey, you have a lot of strong opinions and we need the opportunity for other people to talk in the meetings.” I'm not saying that I've ever been that team member before, then I might be really trying to sit on my hands and bite my tongue and let other people talk. And so having the opportunity to follow up and say, “Everybody think about this, and then we're going to circle back to it,” can be just as an effective tool for your team as it is for you.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
It's also quite possible that you had things on your agenda that you said, does this need to be involved in the meeting? And the answer was, yes, this is a meeting. And then you had the conversation, you didn't get to resolution, but it may no longer need to be in the meeting. It may have been you did the meeting part, and now this can be an email, or now this can be a small group meeting, or now this can just go to the front desk and we can talk up to them and get consensus, because that's where this is going to happen.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
And so just because you didn't reach ultimate resolution, one of the things I've seen people do is they just keep things on their meeting, on their meeting agenda for the next time and you go, did you do the meeting part? If you did the meeting part, we may be able to do this another way and keep the ball rolling and not take up time in the next meeting.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yes.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Stephanie that's all I got. You got anything else?
STEPHANIE GOSS:
You just sparked me, the very last thing we talked at the beginning about what is the point of this? And if we could disseminate this information in another way, we need to look at alternatives. The other question that I would ask myself when I'm asking does this need to be a meeting? Does everyone need to be involved in this discussion? And we didn't really talk about that, but that is such an important question because if you have stuff on your whole team meetings that's really only pertains to part of your team, it doesn't need to be a part of the whole staff meeting. Especially if you're struggling to get everybody together, that is another question to ask ourselves on a regular basis.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
And to your point that you were just making Andy, if you've had the discussion now it might be able to be a CSR team meeting to come up with a resolution. Like we've talked out the client service problem, everyone's weighed in and given their opinions, and now I'm going to let the CSR team and their team leader figure this out and come up with a solution to present back to the whole team at the next team meeting. But that subwork can happen in smaller groups, and I think that that's a trick that a lot of times we miss because we think, well, we have everybody all together so we'll just talk about these things that really only pertain to one group.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
Yeah. Great points Stephanie and thanks for talking this through with me.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Yeah. This is a good one. Have a great week guys.
DR. ANDY ROARK:
See you guys.
STEPHANIE GOSS:
Well, again that's wrap on another episode of the podcast, and as always this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mail bag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast, or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mail bag at the website, the address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
