What's This Episode About?
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are walking through their take on a conversation that Stephanie recently had with a fellow manager. This manager reached out, at their wit's end, asking “Please, tell me there is some sort of training/tools I can use because my team is struggling with acting like we are all team players! This every person unto themselves thing has GOT to stop.” We thought it would make a great podcast conversation to have with you all so let’s get into this…
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Stephanie:
Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast.
Stephanie:
Hey gang, this week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a walkthrough of a conversation that I recently had with a fellow manager who is on the struggle bus with something that I am also familiar with. I have experienced this at more than one point in time in my career, and that is asking yourself the question how in the heck do I get everybody to start acting like team players? Is there trainings that I can take, tools that I can use, tips and tricks? Please help me, because oh my goodness, it is every person unto themselves and I want to stop this. The backstory is that this manager friend had some things that were happening, had some one-on-one conversations, seems to get better for a little bit of time, and then slips right back to the way it was. Andy and I thought this would be a great one to talk together and share with you. Let's get into this, shall we?
Stephanie:
And now, The Uncharted Podcast!
Andy:
And we are back. It's me Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie, there is no I in team, Goss.
Stephanie:
How's it going, Andy?
Andy:
Oh man, we're hanging in there? One foot in front of the other.
Stephanie:
Yeah?
Andy:
Yeah, we made it through January and now we're surviving February.
Stephanie:
Yeah. The beginning of this year felt like it was 10 years long. That is for sure.
Andy:
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie:
Yeah. But we've got lots of fun stuff coming up and I keep looking out on the horizon. I can't believe we're already in the second month of the year. It felt 10 years long but also the blink of an eye.
Andy:
Yeah, no, no. We're paying our dues, too. It's going to be a good year. I'm convinced. I'm saying to myself it's going to be a good year. I'm going to get through the craziness that is January of 2022.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah. We have got a good one today. I'm excited about this. I was having a conversation recently with another manager who was asking for recommendations for tools or trainings on how to be a team player. The backstory is that they said we've had some one-on-one conversations with people when it seems like individuals have struggled with cooperating as a team. And that works for a little bit, but they're kind of at the point where it just seems like there's a lot of every man for themselves and no one is really cooperating in a way that they have before. They were just like, “I feel like everybody could use some focus on how to be a team player.” It's funny, because when this conversation happened, just it's one of those ones that I've had before and I've certainly felt like that, like “Where do you start? Where do you even start with that?” Because it's such a big question. I thought it'd be fun for you and I to talk about.
Andy:
Yeah. I like it a lot. I think that's a super fun one. You ready to start unpacking it?
Stephanie:
Yeah, let's do it.
Andy:
All right. Let's do it. Okay, so team is not working as a team. What are some resources for that? It's kind of a cart before the horse approach, I think. Not being a team player is not a problem itself, it is a symptom of a problem. There's no here's the fix for this behavior. You are powerless to fix this until you figure out why it's happening. That's really the opening position, right. So it's a diagnostic opening here is the first thing. It's not, “Hey, here's how you fix it.” It's, okay, let's run some diagnostics and figure out why people are not working as a team. And then once we figure that out, then we can totally get into some tools and some ways to approach it and stuff like that.
Stephanie:
Okay. So we can't start until we put our medicine hats on and we're going look at it from the diagnostic perspective. That makes sense.
Andy:
Yeah, totally. Yeah. There's a ton of different things this could be. Are we having teamwork problems because we have a trust problem? Like, people don't know each other and they're not comfortable around each other. Is it a training problem? Like, they don't know how to work in or how to jump and assist each other. They don't know what the protocols are so they can interface with other people to get the job done because they don't want to be in the way, but they don't know what they're supposed to do, and if they do something wrong and people are going to snap at them, and they're just kind of like, “Oh, I'm just going to go do something else totally differently so that no one gets upset at me because I'm not doing it the wrong way.” I have 100% seen it. Like, “He's not a team player.” It's like, “He's terrified because everyone yells at him as soon as he starts to do something because he's not doing it right.”
Stephanie:
I laugh because it's true. I think we've all seen it.
Andy:
Absolutely. It's not even the person is untrained. They're just not trained in your way. Often the people who really struggle with this are who have experience and they've worked at another hospital and they came to your hospital and they're like, “I know how to do this.” And people are like, “What the hell are you doing?” You know? Then they're really taking aback and their ego's kind of bruised. Is this a training and onboarding problem? Is it a communication problem? Right? Are people not communicating their needs? My wife will occasionally just lose her ish at me and be like, “Why aren't you helping me?” And I'm like, “I'm sorry. I had no idea you were struggling.” No one told me no one told me that there was a thing that was happening that I needed to be involved with.
Andy:
“Why aren't you helping me?” I didn't know. I'm sorry. I was happily doing my own thing and that's why. I was not aware. We've all had that problem, too, of like, do they know what's expected or do they know that people need help or do they know how to ask for help? You know? Or does the team know to ask for help? All sorts of things.
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
Is this a system problem? Do you have a workflow set up that leaves people isolated? Do you have your practice staffed where there's people who they're not trying to be a lone wolf, they're just doing other things or they're doing the workflow system as it is and it doesn't really allow for them to get help or to give help because they're doing one thing, and other people are doing another thing, and they're in the radiograph room while other people are in the treatment room, and there's just the workflow that we have doesn't really facilitate us coming together and working as a group. Which may not be bad, but it's just, I don't want to keep going to somebody and going, “Hey Dave, man, you're not a team player.” And Dave's like, “I don't see anyone to be a team player with because-“
Stephanie:
There's nobody else in the treatment room.
Andy:
There's no one else in the treatment room. That's exactly it. Everyone else is working in the exam rooms and no one invited me. And you're telling me I'm not a team player. Is it a values problem? Right? Is the team not on board with all for one and one for all? Are they not like, “Hey, we're in this together.” I think where most of the team was like, “Hey, we're a team and we stick together and we all get done with our work and we all go home together,” meaning leaving at the same time. Maybe y'all go home together. Maybe it's just a big clown car that everybody takes back to their house. I don't know. Whatever people do in your … once they leave the building, they're not your problem. Just let them go in their clown car and live together.
Andy:
But they're like, “Hey, we all get finished. We all leave at the same time.” And one person's like, “I don't buy into that. It's every man for themselves and I am out of here at six o'clock and I will walk out and leave all of you guys drowning because that's what I do.” And again, there are some positive things to be said about the person who is serious about going home at six o'clock. It's just a values mismatch whenever other people think we're in this together and we're all going to finish and help each other so that we can leave as a group as quickly as possible. that's what I mean when it's got a values mismatch.
Andy:
Is this an incentive problem? Right? Do incentives match team play? It's funny. There's a lot of times, like you look at doctors a lot, right, and they'll get paid on production. It's like, “Hey Andy, you're going to get paid for what you do in the exam room.” And then they're like, “Andy, why aren't you hanging out with the staff more and why aren't you doing more staff training and why aren't you leading lunch and learn meetings?” And I'm like, “Because you pay me to go into the exam rooms and that's the only thing that you pay me for.”
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
Right? I don't advocate that position, that's not how I really feel, but that is the exact conversation that happens is you say we've incentivized this person to sometimes work by themselves and then we ask why they don't jump in and work with the team. It's like, “Well, the system is not set up to drive that behavior.”
Andy:
People are simple. You know what I mean? They respond to incentives and disincentives. And so sometimes when I say, “Hey, why isn't the team working together?” I go, “Well, what are their incentives to work together?And what are their disincentives to work together?” And a lot of times there's disincentives for them to work together, and so we want to dig into that.
Andy:
Is this a self identity or self worth problem? You and I talked a couple weeks ago. We had the cowboy or cowgirl tech. The people who take risks and we talked a lot about does this person see themselves as someone who works alone, who does things that other people won't do, that works harder than every one else and doesn't want to be slowed down by them? Is it a confidence problem? Is it a thing where they say, “Well, no, one's going to help me, so I'm just going to go do it myself because I guess people don't like me.”
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
You know? People, we all go through stuff and we can all feel that way. Sometimes we don't feel like we're worthy of help and so we just don't ask for help. We're like, “I guess nobody wants me because they see me standing here but they're not jumping in and doing anything.” And I go, “Hey buddy, let's talk about how we see ourselves.” And then maybe that gives us permission to ask other people for help. You know?
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andy:
There's the problem, we talked a lot about it in Uncharted this comes up. I think a lot of us came up with this idea that we are the helpers. We don't get the help. You know? We don't ask for help.
Stephanie:
As an industry you mean?
Andy:
Well as an industry, even as in individuals. I think for a lot of us, I don't just say this for myself, I remember the period of my life when I saw myself very much as the helper, as the one who helped other people. And then one day I was roller skating with my daughter. We were at the roller rink.
Stephanie:
Was this the time you broke your ankle roller skating?
Andy:
Yes. Yes I did.
Stephanie:
Okay, just checking.
Andy:
Yes. Yep. There were some 80s hits playing and I was like reliving my glory days at the roller rink and then my daughter just goes down, and she yanked me down, and my ankle just popped. And then these little kids were jumping over me like I was an obstacle on a course. They would jump and then touch their skates with their hands as they jumped over me. I'm sliding myself off of the roller round, crying and my daughter's like, “Daddy, are you okay?” I'm like, “I'm fine. Just I just got something in my eye when I fell down.” It was awful. I had a boot and I had crutches and the whole thing. And my wife kept going, “Why won't you let people help you?”
Andy:
Like, “Your daughter feels so guilty and all she wants to do is make a sandwich for you.” Like, “That's all that she wants and you are not letting her. Why are you doing that?” And I'm like, “I don't know. I'm embarrassed just to ask for help or to let someone help me.” Maybe I'm the only person who feels that way. I don't think so.
Stephanie:
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Andy:
A lot of times when we say you're not a team player, it's like, “I don't see myself as someone who asks for help.” It's like I'm not trying to be a jerk, just it's a self identity thing. Right?
Stephanie:
Sure.
Andy:
And a lot of us came up where being silent and being strong is what's rewarded and what's what's aspired to.
Stephanie:
And when I was thinking about this episode, a lot of this for me is in the head space realm, and when we talk about action steps it goes to our safe acronym for me in a lot of ways. But I think your point about you don't know why you wouldn't let your kid help you, a lot of that is the stories that we tell ourselves in our head, and it's so much background noise that is happening. I think about it in the context of being a parent and just I've always been the one to do the things and just get done it the house. Right?
Andy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie:
If the dishes are in the sink, I'm just going to do them. And in my head, I'm getting frustrated and mad because I'm like, “Why can't anybody else do any of this?” But the trueness of it is that I stopped asking because I just was like, “Nobody's going to do it.” And so I stopped talking about it. I think that's really, for me, the key to a lot of this from a head space perspective. A lot of it is wrapped up in that self identity, but also the thoughts that we tell ourselves in our head: the stories that we make up, the things that were the narrative, that dialogue that is happening, most of the time completely unconsciously. We're we not intentionally thinking, well, even if I ask Hannah for help, she's not going to help me, so I'm not going to ask her. Right?
Andy:
Right.
Stephanie:
That's not the dialogue that's happening in your head, but there is something in your head that is happening that is like, “Oh, I'll just do it myself.” You know?
Andy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephanie:
Like, I don't want to burden anybody, so I'm just going to get the things myself. I hear that because I do it all. I think all of us do it. I certainly do it all of the time. I can think of lots of examples where that has happened to me.
Andy:
Yeah. Some people are just shy. If you're in a clinic of extroverts and everybody else is just talking and being, “Hey, I need this and can you do that?” Other people are just introverted and they're not the outspoken, “Hey, I'm here. I'm available if someone needs me.” Or, “Hey, can someone come and help me out with this so I can do something else?” It's just not their natural necessarily to vocalize what's going on in their mind, and so they're just naturally quiet. If they're unusual in their practice for that reason, that can come off sometimes as being a lone wolf or an isolationist.
Stephanie:
Well, and I think on the full side of that, I will say that I have felt as a bubbly extroverted kind of person when I am in a team that has a lot of more introverted or quiet people, the flip side can also be true, that I can feel singled out and single myself out and not be as extroverted as I normally would because I'm seeing everybody else be quiet and I'm trying to temper myself and not be too extra for them. Right?
Andy:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
You know? It's like, “I don't want to overwhelm them.”
Andy:
You over correct.
Stephanie:
I don't want to be a little too much for them. And so the opposite happens where then, and I have had people say to me, “I think that the team doesn't think that you like them.” And I'm like, “What? I'm just over here trying not to be the golden retriever and like lick all over them and then now they think I don't like them.” Right? That is 100% a thing that can happen on the flip side. We all can think of those teams where a lot of people are introverted and you have the one or two extroverts and that is probably some of the narrative. And so again, a lot of this comes back to you have to talk about it.
Andy:
That's hilarious.
Stephanie:
And you have to figure out where it's stemming from.
Andy:
You are the golden retriever that demands to be petted. You know what I mean? That just like sticks your head under people's hands. You're like writing that back in. Like, “Why doesn't she like this?” “Look, she's just retraining herself.” She totally … Just go get her excited. Just be like, “Hey Stephanie, how you doing? How you doing, Steph? How's it going, Steph?”
Stephanie:
It's like the puppy that's had obedience school and they're and they're sitting there just quivering and shaking because they want to jump and just love on you and they know they're not supposed. That's a lot of times how extroverts feel in a group of introverts. It's hard.
Andy:
I feel so seen. That makes me so happy. That makes me so happy. Oh, man. Okay. The last part of this, which I have to sort of say, and again, I don't know the person who asked this question, but I do have to put it back to a leader. I will say sometimes the, “Hey, this person is not a team player,” is a boundaries problem. You know what I mean? In that sometimes, and again, I don't know this person so I'm not saying this, but I have 100% seen clinics where the culture is to not have personal boundaries. And so when someone says, “I have personal boundaries,” other people go, “Hey, buddy, you need to get on board with the team.” I have seen that right?
Stephanie:
Yes.
Andy:
And so I put that back to the practice owners and say, okay, if you've got one or two people who are not on board with the program, are they not on board with the program because of any of the other reasons that I listed or are they not on board with the program because they're kind of setting some work-life boundary things and maybe what the team is doing is not something that they really want to be a part of? And maybe they're not wrong for that. I don't know.
Andy:
Let me sort of make this a little bit more clear. Let's just say that there was a pandemic. Just try to imagine there was a pandemic. And just say that you were kind and shorthanded and then pretend someone got sick and couldn't come in that day. If you call your technician on her day off and you are like, “Hey, can you come in and work today?” and they say, “No, I'm sorry. I can't. I have plans,” and don't elaborate. I'm not convinced that they're not being a team player.
Stephanie:
Yes.
Andy:
I think they may just have worked their work week and decided that they didn't want to in, and they're not under any obligation to come in because they weren't scheduled to come in, and they said, “No, I'm not going to do that.” That's not them being a bad person or that's not them failing to be a team player, that's just them setting some boundaries and telling you what they're willing to do and what they're not. And again, I don't know that that's happening here, but I do have to put it on because sometimes when I hear managers, leaders, owners saying this person's not a team player, I say this person is not on board with the lack of boundaries that the rest of the team is on board with.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I 100% hear that and I see that. I have gone through that. I think that's a natural growing pain. Both individually in terms of clinic size and also culturally as an industry, like when you make this shift from a very small practice where everybody is intimately connected, because it is very small, and you depend on each other it's like that. I hear lots of clinics talk about that family feel. You know? And when you make that shift in size, that is a natural growing pain to where you're going to start to have people who are like, “I've got plans. No.” And I have done it, it is very easy to look at that and be like, “Well screw Sarah. She's not a team player.” Right? Like that, “I would cover for her. Why won't she cover for me?”
Stephanie:
It's very, very easy to have that thought be the first thing that pops into your head and feel frustrated, so I hear that. I think that's a challenge for us as an industry, back to your point about self identity, we all thought of ourselves as family first. A lot of us thought of ourselves as family first kind of environments in our practices and business second for a really long time, and a lot of us are making the shift because of the tremendous growth that we've had as an industry over the last few years of growing in size and scope and capacity. And so, that's a natural growing pain. I think that I can imagine or hallucinate for a second that there's some people listening, going, “Oh,” and feeling guilty because maybe that's where their head was at. I just want to normalize for everybody, that's a really normal response. It's what you choose to do when you recognize that as a response that makes all the difference. But I totally have been there. It's really easy to feel like that.
Andy:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's super easy to get there. And I think your point about clinic size is a good one. I mean, when you have a small clinic and there's just a couple of us, we all kind of have to flex and we all kind of have to cover. But what tends to happen is that clinics get bigger. There's more chaos, let's be honest. A bigger clinic has more chaos because they have more cause they have more people.
Stephanie:
Yes.
Andy:
And so if the idea is that people are going to sacrifice themselves to help manage chaos as the organization gets bigger, you have people who are constantly being called to sacrifice themselves to deal with chaos, and ultimately that's the path to burnout. Right?
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andy:
You might've been able to jump in and help when it was six people, nine people, and we could get chaos under control, but then you move up to 35 people and you go, “Oh, this chaos never really seems the end.”
Andy:
There's this normal progression. And again, I really do think that it's a cycle of business. Right?
Stephanie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Andy:
When you start off and you start doing this, you're kind of backs against the wall, your a little startup, you've got your own little mom and pop shop. People are there for you and hopefully you take care of your team and they take care of you and you all have a vision and you all want to do this and we work together. And then just over the years, that harder to do, and as the business grows, it gets sort of harder to do. Just it's a natural maturation process. I don't want to shame anybody for having to go through that. I think we all have to go through that.
Andy:
And at the same time, I always have to keep this in context, right? There is this thing that I always say to people who are on the staff, who are like, “Well, why should I ever come in and cover a shift? Why should I ever help?” And I say, “Guys work is a relationship and you should treat people like you want to be treated in a relationship and you should demand people treat you like you want to be treated in a relationship.” And if you go into this relationship and you say, I am not going to do anything at all that I'm not scheduled to do, and I not going to make any accommodations to try to help, then you should probably expect that's how you are going to get treated when you want accommodations.
Andy:
Maybe you're fine with that. I just kind of feel like we all need to see each other and kind of help where we can and still take care of ourselves. It is a balance. It's not just how dare you ask an employee to fill in, because I think it's totally reasonable to ask. But I think it's also totally reasonable for them to say, “No, I have plans.”
Stephanie:
Yeah. I want to put a pin in that and come back to it, because something you just said is at the top of the action steps for me. I think this is a really healthy list. We talked about is this a training problem? Is this a communication? Is this a systems problem? Is it a values problem? Is it an incentive problem? Is there some self identity or self worth problem happening? Is there a shyness or introversion or extroversion problem happening? And is it boundaries? I think the last thing from a head space perspective is that once you think through maybe where is this stemming from, not knowing the background here, I think the other question that you have to ask is it has to do with pattern.
Stephanie:
Is this the whole team? Is this one or two people? Is it happening repeatedly? Is it surrounding just a specific issue? Is this front versus back? I think that there's a lot of things that as a leader you need to look at in terms of patterns and process around what's happening in your investigation process before you plan your plan of attack. Because the reality is it's all good and fine to start to do some of the things that we're going to talk about in the action set process. With anybody at any time, teamwork should absolutely be a part of your culture. If you have one or two people that are toxic about a specific thing, the whole team doesn't need a meeting to talk about that. You need to talk directly to those one or two people about the specific pattern of behaviors that you're seeing. I think that's the last thing for me in terms of head space is I think you really need to get clear on what is happening and why is that happening.
Andy:
Yeah. I completely agree. I think just from a diagnostic standpoint, and as we talk about figuring out what's going on, whether or not this is one person, or a group of three people who hang out together, or all of your CSRs, or your whole team, that's part of the diagnostic process. Right? It's not a self worth thing if none of your technicians are team players. It's like, I mean, it could be they've all got this same thing going on under the surface, but I doubt it. The probability is pretty low. It's probably a training thing or a systems thing. You know what I mean? And so, look at the people who are involved and that will give you some insight to maybe what you're doing and how we break this apart. But I completely agree. The way that we approach this when there's one person who's not a team player versus half the technicians and two of the doctors. Man, there's something different there.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Do you want to take a quick break and then we can circle back and start talking about some action steps for how we might actually do this?
Andy:
I like it.
Stephanie:
Okay.
Andy:
Hey, Stephanie Goss you got a second to talk about Guardian Vets.
Stephanie:
Yeah. What do you want to talk about?
Andy:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing. I'm sure you hear from these people as well. You know? Like, “Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.”
Stephanie:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Andy:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about Guardian Vets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and Guardian Vets can jump in and take some of the load on the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. It really is a godsend.
Stephanie:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help, but at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices. Because everybody is shorthanded, everybody is drowning in phone calls, and so we talk about it. We've talked about Guardian Vets a lot on the podcast. And every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Andy:
Guys, if you're not familiar with Guardian Vets, if you think that you could use them help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com. And if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free, so check it out. Guardianvets.com.
Stephanie:
Hey. Hey you. What got happening on your calendar in March? Because the Uncharted veterinary community has lots of things coming up that I don't think you're going to want to miss. First up in March, we have an awesome workshop by my friend, Dr. Saye Clement. Saye is going to be talking about client curation with us. She's going to teach us how to learn to identify the types of clients that you want for your practice. And then what are things that you and your team can do to attract those kind of clients specifically? It's happening March 13th at 12:00 PM Eastern time, 9:00 AM Pacific. It is a two-hour workshop. Put that on your clinic calendar, take a lunch break, go in late for the day if you're here on the west coast. It is $99. It's free as always for our Uncharted members. You can sign up unchartedvet.com/events.
Stephanie:
And then in the back half of the month on March 24th, my dear friend, Brett Canfield is doing a presentation that I am super pumped about. He and I are going to do some tag teaming on this. I am his wing man, moderator, and I am so excited for this because I went to Brett at the beginning of the year and said, “Hey, you are the person that comes to mind when I think about this topic because you live this and you help teams breathe this, and I want to bring this to Uncharted and to the veterinary community at large.” And that is the idea of more than an EAP. What can we do to make wellness happen in our practices? Brett is going to talk to us about the benefits of programs like EAPs, but beyond that, what are some ways and things that we can do to create sustainability for our teams? Again, this is a two-hour workshop. It's $99 for the general public, and it's free for our Uncharted members. It's happening on March 24th at 2:00 PM Eastern time, so 11:00 AM Pacific. This one will hit my west coaster's lunchtime and mid-afternoon for those east coasters. It's a two-hour one. So again, make sure to check out unchartedvet.com/events for all of the upcoming events and registration.
Stephanie:
And I want to take a quick second to pause before we head back to the podcast. I have to show some serious gratitude to our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital. Andy and I have wanted to do transcripts for the blog for a while because we've had multiple colleagues reach out to us and say, “Hey, I've heard great things about the podcast. I would love to listen, but this is not accessible to me.” While we were trying to figure that out, our friends over at Banfield stepped up and said, “Hey, we see you, and this is something that fits our values and our culture as a practice. We want to increase diversity and inclusion in veterinary medicine and we would love to help with that.”
Stephanie:
They stepped in a big way and are sponsoring all of our transcripts for 2022. So if you know someone who hasn't accessed the podcast because there weren't transcripts available previously, send them to unchartedvet.com/blog. They can find all of the transcribed podcasts for 2022. They can also find out more, or you can find out more, about all of the things that Banfield Pet Hospital is doing to increase diversity, inclusion, and equity in veterinary medicine.
Stephanie:
And now, back to the podcast.
Andy:
Okay, let's get into some action steps, Stephanie Goss!
Stephanie:
Okay.
Andy:
We've got sort of a vague problem here. We've talked a bit about doing some diagnostics. How do we fix this?
Stephanie:
I think it starts with what we were just talking about before, which is that you as a leader, I think have to do some investigating and have to get curious about what is happening and maybe do some looking at some of the why without trying to zone in immediately or zoom in immediately and be like, “Let me fix this problem.” I think this is a holistic diagnostic process, right, where you have to look at the whole and try and understand what is happening and why it's happening.
Andy:
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. The way that people really screw this up is, and honestly, I think kind of the original question kind of hinted at this pitfall, what are some resources, what are some tools? I'm like, “You're already trying to fix it.”
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
You're already trying to fix it.
Stephanie:
Yeah. True story.
Andy:
It's totally understandable. But that is the biggest pitfall with this thing of why isn't this person working as a team? Like, okay, before we get into it, we need to approach this with a spirit of curiosity. I want a detective program. Put your little Sherlock Holmes hat on and your magnifying glass and just go and just try to figure it out, and resist the urge to go, “Yep. That's it. That's the reason.”
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
Dave is self conscious. Resist the urge. But just ask. And people go, “What do I ask?” Be like, “Hey, Dave, why aren't you a team player?” It's not exactly that. That's exactly what we're going for.
Stephanie:
I'm picturing a manager in their Sherlock Holmes hat with their magnifying glass and a bright police light shining in Dave's face. Like, “Hey, Dave.”
Andy:
Oh, yeah. “Dave, have a seat. Where were you yesterday afternoon in the treatment room when everybody else was working as a team? I'll give you the answer, Dave. Not there.”
Stephanie:
That was the movie that was playing in my head for anybody who was wondering.
Andy:
Yeah. That's great. I like that. So, okay. So, yeah. So then what do we actually ask?
Andy:
The question is just, “Hey, I want to pull you guys in real quick. I've just been looking at our team. I've been thinking about how we work together. Give me some insight. Do you think that our team works well together? And if so, why? And if not, why not?” Or, “I'm really focused on trying to get our teamwork to improve and just to make sure that everybody's supporting everybody. What do you think we do well and what do you think we could do better?” It's just that. That's a real open-ended question. And again, I'm not saying, “What do you think Dave does well and what Dave can do better?”I'm not talking about Dave, I'm just talking about in general what do you think about how our team communicates? What do you think about how they work together?
Andy:
Here's another thing. I may be looking at when Dave's not a team player and everybody else is like, ” I love Dave.” Like, “Honestly, he didn't say a whole lot, but he just shows up and does stuff and then rolls on. And Andy's not around when it happens, but we think he's great.” And I'm like, “Oh, well maybe I'm the one here who's missing this.” I want to start super broad and just try to kind of suss this out. What's what's going on and why does this happen?”
Stephanie:
Yeah, I think for me where I would take it back a few steps and I would say actionably the first thing for me as a leader is that I have to approach it in a few different ways from the safe space. We talk about this a lot on the podcast. But the assume good intent is a big one for me because we make up stories in our head. And especially if somebody on the team has complained about Dave not being team player, I am going to have a preconceived notion in my head about that, and so assuming good intent and ignoring the voices in my head is really, really important here in terms of how you approach this. I think doing a safe check on yourself and thinking about like, can I sit next to these people or am I really ticked off because I have seen some really bad behavior in the last week and I've seen them not helping each other, not cleaning, not pitching in? And I'm kind of irritated at them.”
Stephanie:
I've been there as a manager, and how many of us have then gone in and attacked it without really being safe to sit next to the person. Right?
Andy:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
That's our ask. Can I sit next to them? Am I assuming good intent? Am I ignoring the voices in my head and am I thinking in a good head space about this as a whole?
Stephanie:
Then I think the next one is really, really important, and this is where I said earlier I want to put a pin in this and come back to something you said earlier. You were talking about talking to the team about boundaries. I think when it comes to teamwork, a team generally doesn't just have happen when a group of people show up at the same place to do the same thing. What I mean by that is you can have people who could show up at a park and play a pickup basketball game. And they might work together just fine and they might win. But when you think about team in the true sense there is a purpose, there is something that is bringing all of those people together, and they're talking about it. So much of the teamwork perspective, I feel like in my experience in veterinary medicine, has been expected without being talked about. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a clinic where the expectation is that if we have a hit by a car walk in the door at five o'clock that everybody's just going to stay no matter what.
Stephanie:
Well, I might be that team member who has to pick my kid up from daycare by 5:30, and so that unspoken agreement doesn't work for me. And I don't think that it's wrong for me to be able to say, “Hey, this is a boundary for me.” The problem comes from the fact that we don't talk about things like that as a team and we only deal with it when it explodes and gets messy. Which is I suspect what is happening with this manager is like, “Hey, there's some unspoken things that have been happening. We just assume that everybody is to do the same job and do it the same way, and so we just expect that everybody should know not only how to work together, but want to work together.”
Stephanie:
For me, the F, and has this person been set up to fail? Has this team been set up to fail? This is where I have to look at those fingers pointing back at me. When you point your finger at somebody else, there's multiple fingers pointing back at you, and I have to look back at myself and say have I set this team up to fail? I would say again, let me normalize this for a second, you are not alone. The vast majority of us do not talk about this stuff with our teams regularly or often enough. We might have. We might do team building a couple times a year. We might even have a strategic planning meeting at the beginning of the year with our team where we talk about our mission and our vision. We might even talk about our values, mission, and vision regularly at our team meetings.
Stephanie:
But I can count on a very small number of fingers the teams that I have seen over the years that organically are having open and safe conversations like this with their team about setting the expectations and talking about what does teamwork actually look like? What should that feel like? What matters to everybody? If I think that it's a pandemic and we're already shorthanded and Sarah gets sick and has to be home, I could think in my manager head, well, if I call Andy and ask him, “Hey, can you pitch in because Sarah's out sick could you come on your day off?” I could think and tell myself very easily in my head a story that of course he's going to want to come in because he should know that if he was out sick, that I would expect Sarah to cover for him too. But that's unspoken noise in our heads. We don't voice that. We don't talk about that being an expectation.
Stephanie:
And so until we take it as a few steps back and start to have meetings like the one you were talking about, which is like asking some of those open-ended questions and starting the dialogue with the team, I say that a lot of the F in safe rests on us as leaders where we have truly failed the team. And I don't say that to make anybody feel guilty or be mean, but I think that this gives us a really good foundational place to start of like you cannot come this problem trying to fix this actual problem in the moment. You need to zoom out and realize that this is a long play and you're going to start now to fix it over time. You're not going to immediately solve the problem of feeling like you saw some bad behavior where people weren't being team players in the treatment room this last week. You're not going to solve that by showing them some videos on teamwork or starting to talk about what does a team player look like? That's not going to fix it.
Andy:
Yeah. No, yeah. I completely agree. You know, I think your point is really good. When we say, “Has this person been set up to fail? What can I own? What is my fault as a leader?” A lot of people get defensive and they're like, “Dave's not a team player, Andy. Why would I assume responsibility for that?”
Stephanie:
Sure.
Andy:
I would say, “Well, the reason is because if you assume responsibility for it or as much responsibility you can, then you can actually do something about it. And if you assume no responsibility about it, you have almost no power to fix this.” Because you cannot change Dave. Only Dave can change Dave. And then that's it. If you think you can change Dave because you're his boss, you are set up for some hard lessons that you're going to learn in the coming years.
Stephanie:
Wrong.
Andy:
Yeah, exactly. You're not going to change Dave. It is healthy and deductive for me to say, “Dave's not bonding with the team or interacting with the team. I as the leader of this team have great power in facilitating that happening. What can I do to grease the wheels? What can I do to set the expectations? What can I do to make everybody comfortable? What can I do to onboard? What can I do to mentor? What can I do to make sure everyone knows their value and their worth and that they feel appreciated and that they feel comfortable communicating? What can I do to make sure that my team knows each other and trusts each other and sees each other as individuals? I have answers to all of those questions. But they only happen if I say, “What can I do here?” And so that's why I think it's so important.
Andy:
The other thing too is people go, “But Andy, I don't have the answer, buddy. I don't know how to do this.” And I say “You don't have to have the answer.” No one expects you to be perfect. No one expects you to know what you're supposed to say to people to gel together. No one's looking at you like some football movie from the 90s where the team comes together because of the rousing coach speech. You're not Rudy over there. You don't have to pull everybody together.
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
There was a great conversation in Uncharted this morning, in Uncharted community. Some of the people were talking about when they had people out and then they would call for help. And what does it mean if people say no, and how do they say no, and is that okay, and how should I feel about this?
Andy:
Somebody said, and this was just a great thing that I would expect from this person, they were like, “Our team got together and we talked about it and we said when people get sick, what do you guys want to do? Do you want me to call you on your day off and ask you to cover knowing that some days you'll be the one who's here when it's shorthanded and sometimes you'll be the one who's at home who gets called? Do you want me to call and ask people? Do we not want to call?” And their team decided that the days off were more important and they would rather work shorthanded than have someone called on the day off. And I go, “That's freaking genius.”
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andy:
That's brilliant. That's beautiful. It's wonderful. They told you what they want and they said, “We would rather work shorthanded.” And I go, “Well, that is decision the team.” I will honor the decision of my people and I will support them. And then all of this goes away because the expectation is you're not going to call me on my day off, even if you're shorthanded, because we have decided that those days off are our team cares about.
Andy:
You can have that conversation. I mean, you can listen to your people. And somebody goes, “Well, but Andy, they're not going to reach consensus. They're going to divide down the middle.” That's fine. We can at least make sure everybody gets heard. Then we can start to talk about what we're going to be able to do, or the middle ground that we're going to meet, or how we're going to work this out.
Stephanie:
I think that's a great example of one of those cultural conversations that I think one of the shifts in mindset that has to occur from being a good leader to being a great leader is it can't just be a one and done. That's awesome, and having that conversation is so fantastic and it's more than a lot of other practices are doing. And then we have to start to think about how do I make this a living, breathing thing? How do I revisit this? How often do we revisit it as a team? That when you have two people go on maternity leave and three people move and now all of a sudden you have a new team, is it fair to them to assume that what the old team wanted is what the new team will want. Right? That's the kind of work that we as leaders, that's the stuff I love, like all day long would love to be working on that kind of stuff. I think it's really important to remind ourselves.
Stephanie:
And so, one of those tools is, look, if you have some of these things that your team agrees on and you start to build in, because I think talking about teamwork and having these conversations is fantastic, then start to build that into adding new people to your team. One of my interview questions has to with that. I ask them what does short notice to cover a shift look like for you and I ask them to tell me more about their thoughts on would you rather work short versus getting called on a day off? If that's something that's built into the fabric of your practice, you should be asking new people about that. You should be continuing to have that conversation with your team on a regular and on ongoing basis, and so I love that and I think it's so, so true.
Stephanie:
It goes back to what we were talking about, about the ownership of this as a leader is really important, and the whole process is going to be so much more engaging and success school in the long run when we have team buy-in. We know that team buy-in starts from the ideas coming from them. So you've got to talk to them. You've got to ask them what they think. Because like I said, you can have the idea in your head that teamwork looks like if I call you on your day off because we're sick that you're going to pick up and come in. But if the rest of the team feels like your day's off should be respected, then really I'm being the not team player, not the team, me as the leader, is not being the team player. I think I love that and I think it's super important.
Andy:
Yeah. I think things sort of going hand in hand with that as far as sort of setting your team up for success and trying to look at what fits here and how do we meet the needs of the people that we as leaders serve?
Andy:
Another big part of it is how do you positively reinforce the behaviors that you want? I talked about incentives for teamwork. What does that look like? It's a whole lot harder to police culture than it is to positively reward it. And so, if you want people to be team players, what are their incentives to be team players? Do they get pats on the back? Do they get gold stars? Do they get recognized? Do they get shouted out? What is the good stuff that happens when they work together as a team and cover for each other? Because I see a lot of this stuff. People will say, “Well, you need to be a team player,” and that only means bad stuff for me. Like when someone says, “Andy, be a team player.” I'm like, “You want me to do crappy stuff that is not my job to do.” Like, that's code for, “Andy, do crappy stuff that's not your job to do.” Yeah. And I'm like, “That sounds awful.”
Stephanie:
Oh my god, I'm laughing because it's so true.
Andy:
Yeah. What does the positive reinforcement look like? Do you celebrate people who jump in on our team, who live those values?
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
And you should. If this is important to you and it's important to the team that we're team players and we have team values and we look out for each other, are you recognizing and rewarding people who are looking out for other people and who jump in? Do they get rewarded, incentivized, promoted? Do they get developmental opportunities? I don't know. Do they get warm fuzzies from doing this? Or do they get extra shifts on Saturday?
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
That's what a lot of us get. Anyway, it's starting to think about, okay, just from an incentive standpoint, how do you incentivize the behaviors that you want to be? How do you reward people for jumping in and working together?
Stephanie:
I think the important part about that is that we know that we have a lot of listeners who are practice leaders, and the overwhelming thing that can happen listening to what you just said, Andy, is that we can very easily internalize for ourselves how are you going to reward them, what are you going to do about it, into the you meaning me singularly. It's really easy as a manager to get overwhelmed and think, well, now you're telling me I've got to figure out a positive reward system, and I've got to place the culture, and I got to be giving them gold stars, and when the heck am I going to have time to do that? The you is not singular here, you guys. This is how do you as the leader start the conversation so that the you becomes the team.
Stephanie:
I will tell you that is a thing of beauty when maybe it starts with you. I know in a handful of my clinics, that totally was the case. It was me saying, “Hey, I see you. Thank you for doing a good job.” But when you light those sparks and you give it enough air, when it lights on fire and the team takes off, that is when it really matters. And I will tell you, I have seen practices have a shout out board or a snap board where they leave each other positive comments. That's coming from the team. You know?
Andy:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
Yes, the doctors are putting stuff up there, and yes, the managers probably out of to that board too, but I will tell you that in my most recent clinic, the vast majority of those comments came not from me or my medical director, they came from the team themselves. That is how you harness the power of the you, because you, as a singular person, cannot do all the things. You cannot catch everybody being good. You know? This is where you invite the team to do it. Heck, invite your clients to do it. Ask them to give feedback when they have great team interactions. You've got to think about how do I make this a part of the cultural fabric so that you can crowdsource it because you as the manager can't do it all. Can't.
Andy:
Right. No, I completely agree. Well, I mean, I think that's pretty much what I got. I mean, a lot of it's going to depend on what your diagnostics come back as and where you sort of recognize your underlying problem to me. But I feel like those are really solid steps. You know, get curious, investigate. Why is this going on? Why is this happening? Remember to assume good intent, right? If you go in to deal with this problem having already decided this person is not a team player, you've already labeled them as something negative and you have labeled them as the problem. And then this other person is now the problem. And that person may not be the problem at all. There could be a million other things like systems, cultures, values, communication standards that are the problem, but we've kind of jumped past that. Right?
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andy:
Take as much ownership as you can. How do you facilitate this? How do you stimulate this conversation? Are you talking to the team to get their buy-in? You and I are teaching strategic planning in Uncharted right now. We talk a lot about establishing team cultures and team values and things like that. That stuff is key if you want to bring people together.
Andy:
And then we've got to think about how we incentivize the behaviors that we want to see. That's team play. Again, I think it's a really great point of you listener, you manager, you don't have to be the person who figures this all out. But you can easily be the one who starts the conversation and say, “How do we reward people for the awesomeness that we want to see more of?” Because it's a whole lot easier to do that than to catch people and try to punish them for not being a team player. Because what's that even mean?
Stephanie:
Right.
Andy:
You know?
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andy:
You were objectively not being a team player. You're like, “How could you prove that?” It's like, “Well, everyone else wore jerseys and you didn't wear one.” It's very hard to catch people not being on the team in a way that they accept.
Stephanie:
Right. Well. I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, define team with your team. What does that look like? What does that mean? Do they actually know each other or are they in a stage where they're just showing up to work and they're at the same place? And so you have these expectations for them that they haven't talked about. Who are they to each other? That's an easy place to start. Do some team building. There's a million resources out there for getting to know each other, doing icebreakers, team building stuff like that. Start some of that. Start small. Start some of that at your team meeting. Ask them a question. If you could go if you go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you want to go?
Stephanie:
Look, if we have that conversation as a team and I hear something that you say, Andy, that makes a connection to me, I'm going to start a conversation with you about it. It's those little tiny baby steps that add up to the bigger steps that let you build onto, okay, now we all kind of know each other. We've been having some conversation about who we are as people. It's easier to ask people to appreciate each other, to vocalize that, to have harder conversations about, “Hey guys,” to your point earlier, I wanted to circle back to this. You were talking about start wide and start the conversation with, “What do you guys think about teamwork? Do you think it's going well? So, tell me.” Like, “Why? Do you not think it's going so well? Well, why is that?” Right?
Stephanie:
Those conversations happen much more successfully and easily when people know each other and there's some safety that has been built out there. Starting the conversation really wide like that enables you to then have the follow-up conversations, because maybe the team player a problem is happening because of the system's problems or the communication problems. The solutions for those individual reasons as to why it's happening are going to be exponentially more effective if we have a foundation of these people know each other and there has been some prior background conversation and safety created, we have some rules in place for them to have conversation with each other and it be a safe space to have that conversation. My best advice would be to start there, as you said. Start wide. Ask them a big, easy softball question and just let them talk about it. Get them to know each other as people and then start drilling down over time on the actual diagnostic problem that you figured out for yourself as to why it's happening.
Andy:
Yeah, I think that's great. Awesome. Thanks for doing this with me, Stephanie.
Stephanie:
Yeah, this is good. Have a great week everybody.
Andy:
See you, guys.
Stephanie:
Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. 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 podcast@Unchartedvet.com.
Stephanie:
Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
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