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Podcast

Oct 16 2024

Can RVTs and VPAs Coexist?

Should veterinary medicine introduce a mid-level practitioner role? With the landscape of veterinary care changing, there's a proposal in Colorado to create a Veterinary Professional Associate (VPA) role, sitting between licensed technicians and veterinarians. In this episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss discuss the potential impact of expanding technician responsibilities and how this could redefine roles in general practice. What does this mean for access to veterinary care, the utilization of support staff, and the future of our profession? They explore the nuances of this issue, touching on staffing shortages, licensing, and the evolving structure of veterinary practices. Whether you're a veterinarian, practice manager, technician, or a passionate veterinary professional, this conversation is a must-listen as we navigate the possibilities and challenges ahead. Let’s get into this episode!

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


Upcoming Events

🌟 Check out Dr. Andy Roark's Article!

Dr. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. He is the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and DrAndyRoark.com. He has been an award-winning columnist for DVM360 and his popular Facebook page, website, podcast, and YouTube show reach millions of people every month. Dr. Roark has received the NAVC Practice Management Speaker of the Year Award three times, the WVC Practice Management Educator of the Year Award, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Veterinarian of the Year Award from the South Carolina Association of Veterinarians.

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Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/


Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, we have an email in the mailbag from a technician who is living world reality in Colorado right now. And for those of you who have your head buried in the sand, like I have had, know that there is an initiative on Colorado's ballot to enact a mid level veterinary practitioner.

It is happening. It is already on the ballot for November and this technician and manager is asking some great questions about whether licensed technicians and a mid level practitioner can coexist. This one's spicy. Let's get into it.

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie Weekend Working out Goss.

Stephanie Goss: Oh, that is,

Dr. Andy Roark: Weekend Working Out Goss.

Stephanie Goss: That's good. That's not that's not the song lyric I thought you were going to go with.

Dr. Andy Roark: I didn't think it was. You were like, I thought of one for myself, I wonder if it's the same one. I just thought, the answer is no, Stephanie Goss. I can assure you. If you had known the song I was going to pick, then I would have just, I would have left. I'd have been like, what is that? You just do the podcast. 

Stephanie Goss: I did know that song, but I, I thought of something else when I thought of this mailbag question. I was singing in my head. It's the end of the world as we know it. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, mine is more optimistic. I have more positive can do approach than you.

Stephanie Goss: it's the end of the world as we

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it's funny. It's funny how often we could just do take this job and shove it and like it was just like we did every episode we could sing that song and just be done.

Stephanie Goss: How's it going Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It's good. There's a lot going on here. I did my last improv comedy show for a while on Friday night. And I decided to rotate kind of off of the team that I've been on for a long time and take a season, at least a season off and and it was good, it was just, it was one of the sad things where I think it's sad.

My hobby was starting to feel a lot like my job, it would, it was the seeing it on my calendar was not sparking joy. I, what really got me was I, I started to feel like my hobby when I saw it on my calendar, it felt exactly the same to me as like a work thing on my calendar. It wasn't bad cause I love my job.

So I wasn't like, I'm not like near, but I'm just like At 3 p. m. I have to go and, participate in this meeting to make this decision. And then at 7 p. m. I have to be downtown to go and do improv comedy. And like just my feelings about those things were pretty much the same and I thought that's not good. You know, that's not good.

This is supposed to spark joy. It's supposed to fill my cup and it didn't it didn't feel my cup. It is it was another thing on my schedule And so I finally decided I was like i'm gonna be done for a while and that was painful But I'm glad I did. However, so I did this show on Friday and my daughter came along and she was in the audience and it was really fun and it was, it was a good show.

And then on Sunday, I went to a work thing for my wife and there was a bunch of faculty members from Furman University there and their spouses and this guy was there and, and we were just talking about whatever and, and someone mentioned I did improv comedy and he, he said, Oh, I'm always, I'm fascinated with improv comedy.

And he'd lived in Chicago and he'd seen the groundlings and second city and all these other improv comedy groups. And so he was really into it. And I started talking to him and he had never done it at all. And really didn't know much about how it actually works. And he was like, how do you practice?

How do you practice improv comedy? You're supposed to make it all up. And so I sort of explain the theory behind creating theater on the spot. And there's a lot of theory behind it and there's a lot of skill and there are tons of techniques and ways to challenge yourself and improve your skills and your timing and things like that, and so we just started talking about that and as I was talking to him, I could feel my enthusiasm like winding back up, I was, it was funny and talking to him. I remembered all the things that I really loved about it. You know what I mean? And like, oh, and he would ask me questions and I am just chomping at the bit to, to explain more of, Oh, you do it this way. And this is how we set it up. And these are some of the things that you look for.

And these are things that are really challenges to overcome. And, and I just, I love the idea of making theater on, on, on the spot and reacting in the moment in front of an audience. And it was funny, it took someone asking me questions about it for me to refine that spark. And then I was like I'm glad I took this time off.

And I suspect I will, I suspect I will be back on the ground in, you know, in, in six months or 12 months or something like that. it was just it was one of those interesting things about how we fall out of love with our hobbies and how we can fall back in.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Oh, that's funny. there's seasons in life and sometimes it's a season for it. And sometimes it's a season for a break and scheduling less than saying no to more. And,

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Stephanie Goss: and it seems like that's that's where you're at. And that's, I like that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think you're I think you're spot on. I I think that's it was funny I was I was talking to my kids were asking me about stuff because you know they're my oldest is getting close to going to college and she's I think she's feeling a lot of pressure to have her life figured out And so we were very much talking about that phases of life and seasons of life idea of, you know, you want different things at different times.

And I don't know why I had that same mentality of stopping something is failure or putting things down as failure. The fact that I did improv comedy for 10 years, And then took a year, stopped for a year. Does that mean that I failed? Does that mean that 10 years of practice and work and shows were a waste of time because I did not get famous?

Which was never the goal. You know what I mean? And then one day, I just stop doing it and I go I think that's I think that's been a lesson for me as a goal oriented person I think one of the healthiest things about improv comedy for me is there's nothing created by it. It's you know You go and you do this show and no one who's not no one who's outside the room will ever know what you did.

No one records it. There's no there's no memory of it I mean, it's your own memory in your mind, but even then I found improv is really hard to remember and so You There is nothing to improv, except the process of doing improv. And I think that is something that's really healthy for me to be reminded of again and again and again.

Because to me, if it doesn't end in a goal, a certificate, a metric, an outcome, I'm always like was it worth it? And I've, it's something I've, I've had to really try to stretch my mind around to be a happy adult.

Stephanie Goss: I love it. Speaking of stretching our minds this one might stretch some people's minds, 

Dr. Andy Roark: Stretch their adrenals, that's for sure.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, it's gonna probably fire some people up, but I feel like it's about time just, Take a deep breath. Everybody take a deep breath.

Collectively. We're going to talk through something. And timing wise, when this episode comes out, I'm just going to say that it is, it's a chaotic time in the world. And it is It's election season and there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of shouting and sometimes it happens within our own field and we're going to talk a little bit about that.

But I also want to start from a place of hope and positivity, Andy Roark since you said I have such a negative worldview and I just want to remind everybody that no matter what, you have a vote. You can use it and I don't mean that politically. In terms of our scenario here. So we got a mailbag from a technician who is licensed technician and they said, Hey, I recently read Andy's article where you were talking about GPs defining their future and leveraging technicians in general practice.

And so they said, as an, as an RVT and a practice manager, I love it. And this person lives in Colorado and for anyone who has been living with their head in the sand, which was me hi, it's me, I'm the problem, it's me. Until recently, I didn't, I mean, I knew the mid level practitioner thing was a discussion in veterinary medicine, but I didn't actually know it was on the ballot until just a couple of weeks ago.

And this technician lives in Colorado where the veterinary community is in an uproar because there is something on the ballot for this November about creating a mid level veterinary professional associate, is what they're calling it in Colorado. So a mid level practitioner that would be between technicians, licensed technicians, and DVMs.

And so their question to us, one of several, is do, we think that it's possible to elevate our licensed technicians by expanding their scope of practice and add mid level practitioners into our field. And so they were saying that, they, after reading your article and thinking about it as a manager, they see the need for more bodies.

And more people in our field, we have a vastly underserved communities around the world, but in the United States, specifically where we're practicing we have a shortage of technicians. We have a shortage of doctors. We have an overwhelming amount of patients and clients, and there are a lot of people who are not being served.

And so they said from a manager hat on, I can see where a mid level practitioner is an obvious answer and as a technician, obviously, I want to see technicians being trusted more and allowed to do more because we are already licensed. There is already a structure in place to vet what technicians are allowed or not allowed to do.

And so they said, I would love to see us trusted with more. Could we imagine, or could we hallucinate, a place where technicians could be allowed to do things that would make an impact in terms of access to veterinary care, like allowing techs to establish a VCPR and have that valid client patient relationship prescribing meds?

Could technicians become mid level practitioner and could there be a practitioner stage between absolutely no experience in the kennel and licensed technicians. What does that look like? And so they said, you know, this topic has already created such divisiveness in the veterinary community and it's really disheartening.

They understand how adding that mid level practitioner role might threaten people who are in existing roles. And they said, as a, as a manager, as a practitioner, all of these things together, I feel like if we don't make changes to set us up for success in the future, we're all going to burn out because we're in this place where people are leaving the field in droves.

And so they said, we, I want to know what your standpoints are on this issue. And I thought this is beefy and meaty And it's almost time for the election. Like, let's talk about a hot topic. Let's get a little sassy.

Dr. Andy Roark: I really like your rock the boat intro to the mailbag. That's good. Just get that out there. Get out. Get out vote.

Stephanie Goss: Get out there. Look I'm just saying everyone has a vote.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Stephanie Goss: How you choose to use it as is personal. And it's true here. Everybody has an opinion and everybody has the ability to make an impact here. And so I'm curious to see where you go with this.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I'm happy to talk about this. And I'm also going to use this as an opportunity, to talk about managing when the future is largely unknowable. And so I think that this falls into my category of managing to the unknowable future. And so, yeah, that's kind of where I want to talk about. All right.

Let me summarize the article that they were referring to at the very beginning. Quite simply my position has been. One of the ways that we can keep care affordable for pet owners and stop doctors from being overwhelmed, cause we have a shortage of doctors is to leverage our paraprofessionals and have them do more and the more things that we're not paying veterinarians to do, but we're paying paraprofessionals. We should be able to have more affordable services because of those things. And so it's not about charging what you would charge for a doctor to do a thing and having a technician do it. It's about charging less than what would require a doctor because a doctor is not doing it.

And I think we could theoretically give our support staff a raise. I think we could actually decrease the prices of some services to the pet owners, and we could also increase accessibility, meaning they can get in more often, and we can also reduce the workload on the veterinarians. And so to me, all that stuff makes sense.

The example of this, which most people have already seen, is technician vaccine appointments. Generally, practices charge less to get vaccines done with a technician than they do with a doctor. And, if we get pets back in and they get boosters with a technician, It's usually easier to schedule those appointments.

The technicians get to do it. They get to use their skills. They feel engaged. And the price point is lower for the pet owners. It's sort of an all around win. And so that's been kind of my thing. And so I think that's where we need to go to paraprofessionals. But then the question becomes, if we have paraprofessionals that are doing more and more of the wellness stuff, then what are doctors going to do?

Are we taking the job away from the doctors? And the obvious caveat here that I haven't heard anybody say is if you really want your technicians to work at the top of their license, then that is going to require that veterinarians also work at the top of their license and there is plenty of space for veterinarians to be doing more technical work, working up sick patients hospitalizing cases, just doing more, more types of aggressive, more aggressive, more sort of a higher standard of care sort of work.

And so I, it can all work. But everybody's going to have to shift around a little bit. We can't have the technicians doing all the wellness work and then veterinarians comfortably doing wellness work as well. Cause then you got everybody who's just doing wellness work and, you know, how does that fit?

So anyway, that, that's the basic gist of the article. I promise you, it's much more eloquent than the way I made it sound but that's really it. 

Stephanie Goss: We’ll put a link if you haven't read it. We'll put a link to the article in the show notes. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. So this person's point of, I really liked the idea of of the support staff doing more and then the doctors sort of being able to do more and kind of practice at the highest part of their license as well. So that's kind of where they're starting. And then, and then what are we doing here with the With the VPAs, the veterinary professional associates.

So this is sort of the mid level practitioners. I call them probably mid level practitioners just because it's easier for me to remember and then versus our RVTs. Okay. So let's start with some headspace. The big things for me. Is if you are the practice manager here and you're in a practice and this is happening around you just to just for your to protect your peace and to make this podcast something that doesn't get me burned at the stake I Let's talk about Let's talk about what we actually have power to do and not what should happen, because if you get into what should happen, it's this big theoretical thing, and it's all these different contingencies, and I have, I'll just state up front, I have no idea what's going to happen.

I have no idea if it's going to pass. I have no idea if it does pass. I don't know what the interactions of RVTs and VPAs is going to look like. I have no idea about any of those things. I don't find it productive at this point, to say whether this should pass or this shouldn't pass or we should do this and we shouldn't do this I think all that we can do really in a productive way is to say this is what we are looking at.

What action steps are we going to take? And so that's kind of how I want to approach this if you're in colorado It's already on the ballot and there there are schools that are turning these people out to fill this job they're already in place. And so these things are happening. That doesn't mean I'm saying they're going to go through smoothly.

And like I said, I don't know how that exactly how they're going to work with the structure we already have but they're already in place. It helps me to think about things like this where there is a ballot initiative as a force of nature I think the healthiest thing that you can do in your mind is to say there's a storm coming and i'm not going to run around and shake my fist at the sky, you know? It's am I concerned sure i'm concerned when I hear that there's a hurricane bearing down on South Carolina. Like I I get concerned.

I really hope we don't end up in a situation where we lose power for a week and it sucks But There's a fairly limited number of things I can do. I make sure I've got gas for the backup generator and, you know, and, and that's about it. I think this is important. There was Elizabeth Warren had this sort of public letter about corporate consolidation and vet medicine a while ago.

And my advice to people was the same thing then of Elizabeth Warren is so far outside my sphere of influence. She might as well be a solar eclipse. I just, I have no power over what one of the US senators does. All I can do is look and say, what am I going to do in my little practice? And, and I just, I think that's true for a lot of people, as far as dealing with this, we'll talk about, we'll talk about advocacy and shaping the profession in a moment, but for the most part, as far as figuring out how to react, I think getting a proper perspective on

the size of the events in motion is going to make you a lot a lot happier. I think that I think it's important to believe that the future of veterinary medicine is fragmentation. And so it's been something I came up with years ago. The future of vet medicine is so many practices doing things in wildly different ways.

When I was a young doctor, basically vet medicine was practiced in a standard form. And there was, there were different sort of levels of care and there were some, higher end practices and lower end practices. But for the most part, we were all really pretty much running the same playbook.

And it's not that way anymore. We've got concierge doctors that just do house calls and come to your house. This was before, when I graduated, the whole home hospice was, and I knew it was happening, but it was not mainstream at all. It was really niche. And then it really took off in 2009 with Lap of Love.

And but that was just, wasn't a thing. You couldn't be a doctor that only did. Hospice care and euthanasia and you saw two appointments a day. Yet here we are. I remember I remember mostly reading as a vet student when Banfield was coming up in our profession, people hated Banfield.

The idea that there would be vet clinics inside of Petco or PetSmart. They hated it. And it was some bad blood, and the doctors that. We're shamed back in the day, and I saw a parallel to that when we saw the vaccine trucks, and I don't feel like the resentment is there like it used to be at all, but there for a while.

But if you were a veterinarian, you worked at a vaccine truck. Oh, my God, you were pariah. And people were like, how could you? How dare you? And now I think we sort of come to accept like, okay. This is an accessibility of care thing. There are people that, that need this service. This is good for others. It's not going to put the rest of us out of business.

You know, we're going to find people who want what we have that continued spreading out of the clinics, I think is what's going to continue to happen. I think you're going to have some that really leveraged support staff. And then I think guys, I think you're going to have other practices that don't have techs.

I could literally see a vet and an assistant being the only people that you would see at a practice, and you're probably going to play it. You're probably going to pay a premium price because you only talk to the veterinarian, but some people will pay that price and that, I suspect if you're that clinic, you probably limit the number of clients that you will take on.

And I guess the concierge model is I'm going to have a thousand clients. And they're all going to pay me a flat fee every month. And I, and they have my cell phone number. And you go, that's not how we do medicine. It can be and a lot of people 

Stephanie Goss: do it. 

Hmm. hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark: And so anyway, I think that's the future.

And when you look at the VPA or mid level practitioner or things like that, I suspect it's going to happen in some states. And it's not going to happen in other states. And you're just going to see styles of practice some places that you're not going to see other places, but I don't think this is going to be sweeping, everyone gets reset.

I could be wrong, but I really doubt it.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I think from a headspace perspective, that is where I started to, which is that this is a conversation that is full of nuance and the differences across our even just our map here in the United States are vast, right? So, to your point, it's really easy to fall into the kind of should thinking and should, what should thinking looks like for someone who is practicing currently in Colorado, maybe vastly different than should thinking looks for someone who is practicing in Alabama or, you know, New York City, or like we have always had differences in veterinary medicine based on where we are.

And I think this is an example of one of those conversations that has to be nuanced because of those differences and a lot of the conversation that kind of runs parallel to this is we already have those differences and we see them in our existing licensed staff or lack thereof in some states that don't require licensure and so I think remembering that this is a conversation that is full of nuance and remembering that there are a lot of differences.

I think that it's really, really important. I love that you started with the eliminating the idea of should from the conversation, because I think that I love your example of the vaccine clinics, because I remember when I first started in practice as well, and the idea that we would refer someone to a vaccine clinic was

Dr. Andy Roark: Heresy. It was heresy.

Stephanie Goss: it was heresy. And I remember the very first time I was sitting at the front desk and I remember I was talking to a client. It was kind of an older client and they were, she was just like, she was very emotional. And she said, I'm on a fixed income and I'm really struggling. And I had just given her a treatment plan for what it would cost to come in for an annual visit.

And she said I cannot afford that. What can I do? And I knew that the answer was, to talk to her about like our clinic answer and our standard of care was to talk to her about care credit and the payment plans that we offered. And I had already talked to her about, I knew that she already had Care Credit because she had had her pet in the week before because it had been sick.

And I said, there are other options. And so then I had a conversation with her about the vaccine clinic that operated at the feed store across the street from us. And we hung up the phone and she was, she was thrilled and she was just like, thank you so much.

And what she said to me stuck with me to this day. And it's been over 20 years. She, she said, I, this is why I'm a client there because you see me as a person and I will bring Mia in for care with you when she really needs it because you're helping me afford the basic everyday care by sending me to the vaccine clinic.

And I remember hanging up the phone and I remember just feeling my coworker who was older than me and was the lead at the time. I feeling her just stare boring into my back. And she was just like, what did you just do? And we had this conversation and it came from this place of having a scarcity mentality and feeling like if we refer clients to other places, there won't be enough work for all of us.

We'll go out of business if I send a client to the vaccine clinic. And when you step back from that emotion in the moment, the reality of that is yeah. Equally heresy, right? Like it really, are we going to go out of business because we send a client who, who needs it somewhere else? No. You know what happened?

We got two new clients because that client went and was telling other people about how kind we were and about the conversation she had with me. And she sent two of her friends in as referrals. And so we gained two new clients because we met her where she was at. And I think there's, It is really easy to fall into this headspace of all or nothing thinking when we're talking about the things like the shoulds.

And so this, just like political conversations and other conversations that we have in our industry, I see so many of us falling into this giant trap of It has to be this way or that way, and there's no in between. And that is how I have seen this conversation about mid level practitioners set up, is if we introduce mid level practitioners, it is the end of the world as we know it for technicians.

They're all going to leave the field, the ones who've worked so hard to get their license. They're going to be so angry about this. They're all going to leave the field. And we're not going to be like, It is that black and white, all or nothing thinking. And so for me, the headspace is really simple about remembering that this is a conversation full of nuance, remembering that we all are coming from a already different space.

And so if we want this conversation to be at all productive as an industry, we have to stop thinking about it as all or nothing and come to the table prepared to accept those three things from a headspace perspective or it's going to be a completely unproductive conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark: I think you're, I think you're spot on. It's I saw some conflict recently, on social media in the vet sphere about this, uh, practice that decided they were not going to do nail trims anymore. They said it was it was stressing out the staff and they the doctor who owned the practice hated doing nail trims trims anymore. We don't do it And boy that divided people up and there was a lot of people apparently and she made a video about it. The owner did about being really criticized like how could you do this?

This is your job. You need to do it and it was just it was really this strange highlight of how people get things fixed in their mind of this is what it should be and this is how they work and how dare you do them differently. and everybody should just accept that and get ready.

Is it going to be good or bad? Whenever I have things like this that are large scale or sweeping and multifactorial and you really don't know exactly what's going to happen. The best story that comes into my mind is the story of the Chinese farmer. And this is the old parable about the guy whose, um, whose horse runs away and the neighbor says, Oh, that's terrible luck.

And the farmer says, well, we'll see. And then the horse comes back and it's got another horse with it. And the neighbor goes, this is amazing. You now have two horses. It's incredible. And the farmer goes, Well, we'll see. And then his son goes, Rides one of the horses, the new horse, and he falls and he breaks his leg and the neighbor says, this is terrible.

And the farmer says, well, we'll see. And then the military comes through recruiting men to go off to a battle where they're all killed. But because the son's leg is broken, he doesn't have to go and he's not killed. And you know, and it just, goes on and on and on that way.

My wife and daughter do Olympic weightlifting and they had this coach that they've worked with for some time and she was great and she had changes in her personal life and had to, and decided she was going to quit coaching and she told my wife, I can't coach you guys anymore. And Allison was devastated. She really, she was like, this is the person and we've got this great rapport with her. And we've got, all of these things worked out and we've been working with her for years. And this is, we're losing this stability and who's going to work with us on our schedule and all of those things.

And it looked really dark. And then. She was introduced to someone else who she had kind of met in passing years ago. And this person was like, sure, I'll coach you. Let's do a trial. And this person is amazing. And, and again, it's not even about being better than the previous coach. It's just, the style is completely different.

The way they communicate is completely different. I think Allison feels very refreshed and recharged. And my daughter really likes this person and it's just, it went, but it went from this is terrible too. This is great, and it never would have happened if we hadn't been pushed out of our comfortable place by this coach saying, I can't coach you guys anymore.

So anyway, is it good or is it bad? It's impossible to know. And I just think that's a really healthy thing to to think about. And it brings me to the sort of the final point I want to make in Headspace. And I see this a lot. Beware of focusing intently on an uncertain future.

Stephanie Goss: Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark: There's, when we look ahead and we don't know the future, and guys, we never know the future.

Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows how these things will be implemented? There's just, there's no way to tell. There's this weird seduction about ruminating about the future and planning for the future and coming up with contingency plans. They're all useless, yet this is real time and real emotional energy that we're burning.

Looking at a scenario that we do not have the clarity to navigate at all. And I see people do that all the time. And What we can do right now is to say we foresee a future where support staff will be leveraged more fully and in a more advanced capacity

Stephanie Goss:Mm hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark: than they are now. I think we can all agree with that.

What can we do right now to begin modernizing our own practice? Let's do those things. Is that going to move all the way to a VPA? I have no idea. But, We can go ahead and start building workflows to leverage our paraprofessionals and our support staff. We can go ahead and start working with the staff that we have to handle more of our communication and customer service and start to build norms around the direction we think things are going without knowing exactly what the future is going to bring.

I don't think it's going to be possible to start making protocols of how we're going to leverage these people, which a don't exist yet. And B, we haven't hired yet. You know, I, I don't think that makes sense. I think that you can start marching in a direction, doing the things you can actually do, working on the things that are in front of you.

And you can make your practice better and you can take better care of your clients. And by the time you get that far down the road, you will have clarity about what the future is going to be, and you will be able to do that. Continue to implement and innovate the big mistake. I don't want people to make is analysis paralysis.

And I see that a lot. We are so worried about what's going to happen. We're going to have meetings and conversations and draw things on white boards and use post it notes and send emails to each other around something that is so uncertain. We were never going to. We can't move forward, but we feel like we're doing quote unquote strategic planning and I go you're hypothesizing, you're writing a fantasy novel, you know, you just, you don't, you don't have the ability to actually do anything.

And so my advice is resist the urge to ruminate on a wildly uncertain future. Put your finger in the wind, see which direction is blowing, start moving your practice in that way in a measured. Organized, just keep everybody on board sort of way, and then you'll be ready to go if those opportunities open up, and if you don't open up, you still will have a better practice.

Stephanie Goss: How do you feel about Headspace? You feel like that's pretty solid? I mean, that covers the things I had on my list here.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I think I do. I think I really like that. You called out all or nothing thinking. I think that's a really big thing to call out. I don't think our writer has it. I think she's looking at possibilities The all or nothing thinking, I think is important. The catastrophic thinking of this is going to be bad.

And then the techs are going to fight with these new people. And then the people who are technicians are going to be angry and they're going to leave and then they're going to, you know, whatever, like that's catastrophic thinking. Be beware of storytelling. When we say these rich corporations are going to force this through when they've bought the politicians and they're going to make these things happen and like, just.

Those are all stories that, that we make up in our minds. Just, I see those exact things all the time. Try to avoid getting sucked up in. It's just not productive for you. It's not going to make you feel better. It doesn't help you make choices. Just remember forces of nature. Go ahead and decide where you think the industry is going and where you want your practice to go.

And remember the future of medicine is fragmentation. No one's going to make you do anything. Your practice can be what you want it to be and what your clients need it to be. And just control the things that are in front of you that you can control. So that's the headspace for me.

Stephanie Goss: Okay. Why don't we take a break and then we can dive into some, are there actually action steps? I have some ideas. 

Hey friends, our dear friend, Dr. Amanda Donnelley, just released a new book that you should have on your shelf as a practice resource, it's called Leading and managing veterinary Teams: the Definitive Guide to Veterinary Practice Management. Not familiar with Dr. Donnelley? She recently did an episode on this very podcast about accountability in our teams. 

And if you missed it, definitely check out episode number 273. When the vet won't go faster because Amanda is a wonderful guest. And if you don't have a copy of her book on your bookshelf, you need to head over to Amazon and get yourself one today. You'll thank me when you're loading up your brain with tips and tricks on how to affect positive change in areas like culture, team development, daily operations in your practice. How to implement effective team training programs, how to recruit and retain the best employees and so much more. Amanda has absolutely jam packed this book with amazing resources and you can find even more on her website to download after you purchased the book. The resources are like a hidden treasure map. 

And the book is the key, which is so Uncharted. I absolutely loved it. So head on over to Amazon and grab your copy. Now there's a link in the show notes below. And now back to the podcast.  

Dr. Andy Roark: All right. All right. I think our action steps are pretty short in this regard. I mean, but I still want to lay them down just for this 

Stephanie Goss: I think if we don't talk about action steps, right? Like we're just, aren't, aren't we just contributing to the shouting into the wind? There are things that we can do. And so rather than getting spun up and wringing our hands, I think that there are a few solid action steps, and I think that's, for me, that's where I try and lean into the conversation, otherwise it's just gonna be a kick in the adrenals.

Dr. Andy Roark: totally. So there are things you can do. Here they are. The first thing is get educated on what's going on in your area in terms of mid level practitioners. Like this is coming, it's on the ballot in Colorado. It is going to come to other states. You can just bet on it. Get educated on what is on the ballot in your state.

And there are there are groups that are working on this. If you want to get involved and see which groups are active in your state, reach out to your state veterinary medical association. And so that's number one is get educated. Number two is get involved in organized medicine. And again, I have been skeptical of organized medicine in the past.

I have not always been a pro, AVMA state VMA guy. I've never been negative, but I've been, I've been neutral. I am less neutral now than I have been in the past. If you want to be involved in what happens, you need to understand what's happening. You need to reach out to your local organizations.

And if you can donate your time. And be a part of the committees that are working to make recommendations on how mid level practitioners would be used or how technicians would be used so that mid level practitioners are not necessary. And again, there's a lot of debate around that. Do not sit in your own practice, twiddle your thumbs, get angry, and not make your voice heard in any sort of a meaningful way.

Even if you say, Andy, I do not have time to be involved in these things. You need to be a member of your state and local organizations.

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark: stroke them a check, give them some resources so that they can advocate because people who want to they want to have our way, their way in our industry.

They have got resources and the local VMAs in my experience are generally good people who are trying to look out for veterinary professionals. They really are. They need resources. And so if you're not a member of the AVMA and you're not a member of the state VMA, then you're And you're not donating your time in a leader position.

I think that you're, I think that you're a sailor and you're not a captain here. You know what I mean? You're gonna, you're gonna go along and you're gonna deal with what happens. That's a choice. I'm not trying to shame anybody, but I believe that right now, veterinarians specifically, But all veterinary professionals, this is the time to use your voice.

And what that means is you have got to be collaborative. You have got to find ways to work with other veterinarians. Anywhere that you have veterinarians coming together, we should be talking to each other. We should be talking about what we want in practice and what we think our role as veterinarians should look like.

We should be advocating for veterinarians and veterinarians involvement. We should not dig our heels in and cross our arms and go, no, we're not doing any of this. It's all bad. We're not doing any of it. If we do that, we are going to get the door closed in our face and we are going to be excluded from the conversation.

We have got to engage, hear what people want, including pet owners, including including corporations that are going to have a big voice at the table. And we have got to navigate. And be firm about what are deal breakers for us, but we also need to come with solutions that are going to take care of pet owners and get pets the care that they need.

And so anyway, that is my call. If you're really eating up about this, there are things that you can do that's kind of my, my action, across the industry, there's a, decisions are happening now and I think this is an important time if you want to be involved, you can be involved, but people need to step up and lead.

There's a lot of empty seats in leadership committees that would really benefit from having vets that care, that are open minded about the future and that want to actually guide this in a way that's going to, that's going to work for everybody.

Stephanie Goss: And I think, for me, it I agree, and those were my two as, as well, and I think It goes beyond, for me, obviously, as a paraprofessional staff, it goes beyond the veterinarians, and I will say I have my own, beef with, and have in the past, and to now with, AVMA in terms of being inclusive of all paraprofessionals.

And just because we don't have a voice at that table doesn't mean that we don't have a voice at the table. And so again, this is an example for me of all or nothing thinking where I have seen a lot of paraprofessionals say, well, we can't be members of the AVMA. And so how do we have a voice? And so I think for me, it's about, we said, be engaged in organized medicine.

We didn't say become a member of the AVMA. That's not the only way to be involved in organized medicine. And I think there, again, it's another illustration of that all or nothing thinking in our field where we think that's the only solution. And so I think educating yourself in terms of what's going on in your area and then recognizing that you can make a huge impact at your local level.

Can you make an impact on a nationwide level? Yes, And it takes way more bodies and way more voices to make that impact at that higher level. And so it has to start with the local level. And so getting involved to your point, Andy, and your local VMA, but also getting involved in the other organizations that are out there, whether it is your local tech association, as an employer sponsoring your employees.

to be a part of local organizations and not because you want them to think the way that you are, but because you're empowering them to have a voice and you're empowering them to create a world of veterinary medicine that they can see themselves in. And it's again, you know, I said in the beginning, like this is going to be charged and it's hard for me to not liken it to the political landscape in our country right now a little bit, but the reality is I believe everybody should have a voice and what I have to accept if I believe that is not everyone is going to have the same voice as me and I'm still going to advocate for everybody to be able to have a voice.

And so I think it's the same way with our team. We, there are things we can do as employers, as bosses, as peers and colleagues just advocating, making sure that young technicians coming up know what organizations are out there. I can't tell you how often I talk to young technicians, young managers who have been homegrown, right?

Who are growing from within. We've already started building that future as uncertain as it may be, we have already started building that future by growing people from within our practices. And so often I talk to them and they have no idea that organized medicine exists. They have no idea that VHMA, that NAVTA, that all of these associations and groups and organizations that are out there, they have no idea that they exist.

And so I think for me, part of educating yourself. in what is going on in your area has to do with what are the licensure requirements? What does the landscape look like when it comes to a mid level practitioner? What is the scope of practice for veterinarians? All of those things. And it also goes to educating yourself on what does the local landscape look like?

What are the local associations? Are there groups that your team can join? How can you get involved to your point? How can you not be, uh, paying member and put dues towards things that you believe in, but also how can you volunteer your time? Because that is something that organizations generally need more than anything else is people who are willing to show up and help.

And, That's the power of it is that you get a choice to your point. You can join an association that is for house call vets. If that's your passion, if that's the space of veterinary medicine that you want to impact, you can join the anesthesia nerds. You can, there's a million different local areas that you can impact based on what you believe in and the medicine that you want to practice.

So we've got to stop that all or nothing thinking and recognize that we need to educate ourselves and that we have a choice to engage in organized medicine. And it's not as black or white as to say, you If you're not engaged and involved with AVMA, then you're not a part of organized medicine. And I think too often we fall into that.

We fall into that trap.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I think that, I think that you're spot on. I think beyond that, if you say hear that for what it is, I, I really am a big believer that vet, I speak to veterinarians. But this is also true of our technicians. It has never been more important to be connected. than it is right now and so whether it's, whether it's being an Uncharted, whether it's being in the American Animal Hospital Association, whether it's being in your state VMA, the more you have access to other veterinarians so that you can talk as a group and say, What are you guys doing?

This is what we're doing. We can share information. There's going to be a lot of power at the state level for your state practice act. And being involved in how that is adapted with changing rules being introduced across the country, that stuff really matters. And so anyway, we do have the ability to be heard.

We are not powerless, but it takes group action and you should do the things that make you feel good. You know, you should be as involved as you want. To be don't feel powerless inside your practice. Go ahead and get in the habit of training, of empowering, of delegating, of featuring your paraprofessionals.

And just don't, don't know what your practice is. Now, your practice act is now. And start building up the use of these technicians, of your assistants, of your CSRs, and just go ahead and start moving in that direction. The worst thing that you can do is sit back and say, boy, we're going to do a ton with our support staff as soon as massive legal changes are made, then we're going to flip a switch and go fast.

No, you're not. You, go ahead. If that's where you want to go, if that's the general direction, most of us are underutilizing the support staff we have now. We could go ahead, we could focus on the training that is available to us now and having people do the things that they can technically do now in the State Practice Act.

We could go ahead and be working on those things. And so, don't sit back and feel like you're not allowed to get started. You can go ahead and get started. And then you can accelerate as opportunities open up for you. But don't wait until you get a big waving green flag before you get started. Go ahead and start today.

So yeah, that's what I'll get for access steps.

Stephanie Goss: I love it. I love it. What do you think we're going to get burned at the stake

Dr. Andy Roark: I hope not. We'll see. I said, I go back, please don't write me emails and say, I disagree with your beliefs about what should happen. I don't want to argue about what should happen. I said, I, I have been much happier in my life being a pragmatist and saying, what is happening and where are we in the process and what power do I have right now?

And again, I think I'll leave you this. So here's a story. Have you ever heard the parable of the second arrow, Stephanie? The parable of the second arrow is a Buddhist, sort of a Buddhist proverb, and the idea is and I'll give you the paraphrased version, but basically the Buddha says to one of the disciples, does it get hurt to be shot with an arrow?

And the guy says, yes. And he says, does it hurt more to be shot with a second arrow? And the person says, yes, and the point the Buddha goes on to make is the arrow is the actual problem. The second arrow is worry about the future and the second arrow is optional. And so we cannot avoid the pain of the present.

We can avoid often the pain of worrying about the future. So anyway, my hope today is that we did not take away the pain of the first arrow. Change is always going to happen. It's going to be uncomfortable. We're going to have to navigate it. My hope is that I helped convince you to not get hit by the second arrow.

Stephanie Goss: I like it. I like it. All right.

Dr. Andy Roark: All right, guys. Thanks for being here 

Stephanie Goss: That’s a good ending spot. Have a good week, everyone.

Dr. Andy Roark: See you gang.

Written by Maria Pirita · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: communication, culture, management

Oct 09 2024

Can They Do Homework On the Clock?

A medical director is having trouble navigating the balance between supporting paraprofessional staff in tech school and ensuring they have the necessary technical skills for their role. In this episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Stephanie and Dr. Andy Roark discuss a specific scenario where a veterinary assistant, allowed to study on the clock, is struggling with skill development. The conversation turns into a thoughtful debate about trust, team expectations, and the challenges of leading a veterinary team with fairness and empathy. They explore how communication and adjusting expectations can prevent feeling like the “bad guy” while supporting staff in skill growth. Let's get into this episode!

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · 308 – Can They Do Homework On The Clock?

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody, I'm Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. And this week on the podcast, we are tackling a letter in the mailbag from a veterinarian who has moved into a lead chief of staff role in their practice. And they're really struggling because this practice has some particular quirks that they've inherited, including veterinary assistants who are quite in school being allowed to do homework on the clock.

This vet is struggling with not only wondering if they did the right thing with how they approached it. They're also struggling with the aftermath that seems to be happening within the team. This was a interesting one. We got a little spicy. Let's get into it.

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie, it's the end of the world as we know it, Goss. Oh man, how are you doing, today?

Stephanie Goss: I I thought that would might be what you were going to use, but I was waiting for you to sing it to me. And I was singing  it in my head. 

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s the end of the world. They kind of chant the song, which is good. 

Stephanie Goss: Yep. It's good for, it's good for your singing. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I love that old Tommy boy clip where they're singing it in the car and they get about six lines into it and then it just kind of runs away from them. That's my favorite. One of my favorite little, little, little clips.

Oh, man. 

Stephanie Goss: I am good. How are you? 

Dr. Andy Roark: I'm good. I'm good. Things are, uh, moving fast these days, you know, the fall has really kicked into high gear, 

Stephanie Goss: This year has just like. I feel like that's a sign that you're getting old AF is that every year you say, Oh, this year has just flown by. But I really feel that way about

Dr. Andy Roark: I mean, the fourth quarter of the year is right up on us. And again, now it's like Q4. I remember we were getting started. I was writing resolutions for the year and like doing predictions and, oh my gosh. Yep, another year in the books where I wildly, inaccurately predicted how the year would go.

Stephanie Goss: And all of the things that you didn't have on your bingo card at the start of the year. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh my gosh. This year has been completely bonkers in the world in general like in the world in general assassination attempts late candidate swaps for the election just absolute chaos.

Stephanie Goss: I had one, I had one this morning, like, it's so funny because so you and I both have over this last couple of years, but for me really in particular this year, I have really backed off of my consumption of social media and, 

Dr. Andy Roark: Good for you.

Stephanie Goss: and on, on occasion, I'm just like, let me see. And I, it's funny because I am very intentional about my choices and I'm.

And I'm old. So I'm not generally on the TikTok but I watch my things on the Instagram reel, like the boomer that I am. And, uh, I was watching some reels this morning and I could tell you, I did not have it on my bingo card. Just like I did not have that Snoop Dogg would be like the star of the Olympics on my bingo card.

I did not have on my bingo card this year that RuPaul would be teaching the young Gen Z's how to change the attire on their car and be a at home mechanic. I saw that, I swear to God, I saw it on the Instagram Reel today and I was like, I didn't have that on my bingo card, but that's freaking amazing.

Where did you learn how to change attire? Oh, a drag queen taught me. Like I just made me, made my, it was fantastic. If you haven't seen it, you should go and watch it cause it was amazing. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Was it demure? You know? Like, like I didn't That was also Didn't see that coming. There's other things like that that have come up on, online. Do you know who Theo Vaughn is? 

Stephanie Goss: No. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Theo Vaughn is this, Comedian, right? And he's from Louisiana and he rocks like a hardcore mullet.

You know what I mean? Like, 

Stephanie Goss: a mullet? Okay. Yep. This tracks. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Picture, jean shorts and a mullet You know what I mean? And like a little goatee. And, and he leans into that, like that's his shtick, right? And, he's, he's a comedian. I don't know where he falls on the political spectrum, but he's edgy in some ways, but I, I do a lot of comedy and stuff, so, so I, I tend to see a lot of comedians and stuff.

Uh, he's, he's interesting in, in that way. I saw him on the Instagram Reels. He has a podcast, right? So comedian, mullet, jean short podcast. In the last month, he interviewed Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. He's interviewing Donald. He's got jean shorts a sport coat and a mullet and he's interviewing the Donald presumably like Mar a Lago, and again, I don't want him this to be political or anything 

Stephanie Goss: We're sure. 

Dr. Andy Roark: The idea that this comedian again, no shade against him as a comedian. He's just he's like the um, 

Stephanie Goss: That’s so random. 

Dr. Andy Roark: He's like a modern Jeff Foxworthy like Uh huh. That's uh huh. Yep. Jeff Foxworthy interviewing the Republican presidential nominee, you know, like nominee.

He's not even the primaries and I'm just like And Bernie this and Bernie Sanders on the other side the week earlier He got Bernie and was like the idea that this is 

Stephanie Goss: Not on my bingo card. 

Dr. Andy Roark: .. what media is today. It's just had never would have happened when I was a kid, Bill Clinton was not talking to, you know, there's, there's, I say as podcasters.

Yeah. And it was just, again no, I don't, I don't know what that means and there's no shade or anything. But I, as I watched it, I was just like, 

Stephanie Goss: It means we're old. 

Dr. Andy Roark:  Goodness, gracious, the world is a different place than it was when I was young. 

Stephanie Goss: This whole intro makes us sound like the boomers we are is, 

Dr. Andy Roark: It totally does. I really wrestle with that. It's so funny you say that.

I was like, I feel like I'm becoming the old person who doesn't exactly recognize the world anymore. And like, I'm not that old, but I'm like, but, in my defense, I don't think the world used to move this fast. I think the difference between the world in 1960 to 1990 would be. And the difference between 1995 and 2025, I think those are radically different things.

I mean, that's, the pace has clearly picked up. But, goodness gracious, there's just so much change. But, alright, anyway, I, sorry, 

Stephanie Goss: Yes, yes, so the, take the takeaways, 

Dr. Andy Roark: If you're feeling like the world's changing, you're not alone. You're not alone.

Stephanie Goss: Go watch. Go watch RuPaul. Learn how to change a tire. Tire. Change a tire. Okay, so we have got we've got a great mailbag letter today though that I want us to dive into. 'cause it is a little bit of, is it the end of the world? So we've got a letter from a lead lead. Vet at a practice and, um, 

Dr. Andy Roark: a medical director?

Stephanie Goss: medical director, Chief of staff what have you. But they're, they're a doctor, right? And so they but they're in a corporate group and they have not worked at this practice location, but they have worked at several other local practices. They joined the practice and they learned that the paraprofessional team, in particular, they have some vet assistants that are going to tech school. And at this location, apparently previously the assistants had been allowed to work on schoolwork during their downtime. So they were allowed to the, they were in tech school, the school is being paid for in part or in whole by work as a benefit, which is something that happens sometimes, and they are also getting paid on the clock to work on their schoolwork.

And so, there is in particular, this vet is struggling because they have an assistant who is struggling with their technical skills. And they're getting close to being done with their program, and they still don't have all of the technical skills that this doctor would expect that a soon to be licensed technician would have.

And they're seeming to prioritize doing schoolwork over practicing and working on technical skills. And so, the doctor had a conversation with the hospital manager because they said, look, there's, I've been here now for a while. I've been watching all of the assistance. There are some gaps in their skill set that I would like to rectify so that we can improve our patient care, that we can work more efficiently, more effectively, all of those kinds of things.

So they had a conversation with the assistants and this one in particular had, it sounds like a meltdown and because they said that they felt threatened and singled out and said all kinds of, uh, things in the heat of the moment. And this chief of staff or medical director is like, what do I do with this?

It doesn't seem like, and none of the other hospital locations I've worked at ever allowed their staff to get paid to do school on the clock. These team members need to work on their technical skills. How do I enforce this, get them to work on this, but also how do I get them to look at themselves critically and recognize where they are lacking in skills? How do I get them to reprioritize their time? And most importantly, they asked, how do I earn the trust and respect of these team members who now are, for all intents and purposes, looking at me like I'm the root of all evil because I've told them you can't do schoolwork on the clock anymore.

And I thought this was a great one. I have some thoughts, certainly from the manager perspective, but I thought we could have some fun diving into this one.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Yeah. I have, I have, I have thoughts on that.

Stephanie Goss: I figured you might have some thoughts. Uh 

Dr. Andy Roark: You know, when you look at something from the outside and you see someone making mistakes that you made yourself like 20 years ago and you're like? and again, you like, you love the person cause you're like, I know exactly what you think. I know exactly why you think that, and I know exactly how this is going to go, because I did exactly what you're doing, and it did not go well, it blew up in my face.

Stephanie Goss: You're like, I I see that. I see that gopher trap because I stepped in it. 

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah, in a way it makes this, makes me really happy, because it validates mistakes that I made early in my career, and I'm like, oh good, here's someone else who had the same thoughts that I had, and the same explosion in the face is happening again.

alright, um, I think we're gonna go ahead and need to, we're gonna need the theme song right up front, because we're going to Camp Tough Love, 

Stephanie Goss: Camp Tough Love

Dr. Andy Roark:   Camp Tough Love. here. Here we go. All aboard. 

Dustin Bays: All  aboard! Get ready for a SAFE talk. You might need a stress walk. That's what we do at Camp Tough Love!

Dr. Andy Roark: All right. So Camp Tough Love. Um, I get yeah, so I get it. I get where we are and I say this to this writer with love and we're gonna fix this.

It's all good. We're gonna fix it. First thing we gotta do here is Flaming Raging Sword of Justice check and I get it. I get it You're there and 

Stephanie Goss: Maybe it's a little late for that.

Dr. Andy Roark: It's, it is late. It is late, but I just want look slowly down and off to your dominant hand and if there's a flaming raging sword in it you have pulled the flaming raging sword of justice and put it to use and I feel like where is a cleanup job from the flaming raging sort of justice is what I feel like this is and so okay not insurmountable all good, but I totally understand.

You're there. You're busting your butt. This person is not where they need to be as far as skills. It's probably frustrating to work with someone who doesn't have the skills they need and then you look around and are they practicing their skills? No, they're working on homework for a class that they're taking while they're on the clock.

I get it. And I think we can all, if you think about that for a moment, we can all imagine snatching the sword of justice and taking some heads, making, making the justice happen. We can all get it. However, the Flaming Raging Sword of Justice cuts both ways, and we've got some self-inflicted wounds now to deal with.

And so that's it. So I just gotta say that up front. Okay, from a headspace standpoint, number one, Flaming Raging Sword of Justice check. Number two, the way that we talk about decisions we make with our staff, it really matters. Okay. 

Stephanie Goss: Mm example I want to put forward is the difference in fees and discounts.

Dr. Andy Roark: If I run my vet clinic and I said to you, Hey, I'm going to charge you a fee to use your credit card. Or I'm going to charge you a fee to come on on the same day of the service. I'd probably make you mad. 

Stephanie Goss: Mm 

Dr. Andy Roark: I instead. said to you, I'm going to give you a discount for paying in cash, or I'm going to give you a discount booking further than one day in advance. You'd probably be okay with it. 

And it's amazing how that matters to people because ultimately charging fees versus giving discounts is often the exact same thing. It's the exact same thing.

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. Because how many people are still going to whip out their wallet and pay with credit card? 

Dr. Andy Roark: Plenty of them. Exactly right, but they're going to be really mad about it if they have to pay a fee, if you're upcharging a fee. If you get a discount for paying in cash, you're like, great, well I wish I had cash, I'd get a discount, but I don't have, I don't have, I can't get the cash discount. It's the exact same thing.

And, when we have when we have staff members that are taking advantage of a policy, It's important that we try to not make them feel like we're taking something away from them. Now, our writer says, none of the other hospitals in our group would ever let this happen. This is not supposed to be part of the job.

They're not supposed to be getting this. And I say, I understand, however, the mind of your team, they're not getting. They're not getting a perk. 

Stephanie Goss: Right, 

Dr. Andy Roark: is just what it means to work here. 

Stephanie Goss: right. It is what it is. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, exactly right. They're not, they have not been enjoying a benefit. They have been just working and now they're taking a penalty.

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And I think that that's really important to 

Stephanie Goss: Because you joined the team. 

Dr. Andy Roark: You join the team and now their compensation, if you think of it like that, part of their compensation is being able to work on their homework and get paid. That's a nice little perk. If you can get it, you should take it because it's a sweet perk.

You're taking that perk away from them. So you came in and they lost a perk that they were actively using. Just like the fees and the discounts, we can navigate this, but we need to get smart about how we communicate what's going to happen when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, the iterations to get from where we are to there. But just remember that that's a big part of it 

Stephanie Goss: And I love that you put, I love that you put it in that headspace because the parallel that I'm sure some of my fellow manager colleagues listening immediately made because it's the parallel that my mind jumped to the second that you said it that way. And I hadn't thought about it this way previously.

I immediately jumped to the age old debate in veterinary medicine where the manager or the practice owner is like, Oh, I suddenly became aware that the IRS has rules about what we're allowed to discount and how we're allowed to do it. And so we're going to follow the IRS rules and the team loses their mind because they don't view it as you're trying to follow the rules.

They view it as you're taking away a benefit that they have had. And it's it's that same exact, it's, that same exact scenario. 

Dr. Andy Roark: It's exactly that. So I think that's, that's because that's the first part, right? The fees versus discounts, the way we talk about what we're giving and taking, it, it really matters. The idea about what the job is important. Okay. This is coming from a guy that has all remote employees.

An unlimited vacation in his company. And so you better believe that I have questions sometimes about how people are spending their time. I just do. There's no way you could run my business and not have some questions about what people are doing. And I still choose to do that. We don't have tracking software.

We, I, again, I don't. It's unlimited vacation. I shifted my mindset a long time ago to what are the outcomes that I expect from people. And I think that the mindset of This person is clocked in for this many minutes and they should be doing this and that. I think that's becoming increasingly sort of antiquated in some ways.

I don't want people to lose their mind thinking about that. But I do think it's hard in the modern workplace. And I think fewer and fewer people really look at it as I'm on the clock and this, these minutes are worth this. I think more and more our society is shifting to the idea of what is the work output or outcome that this person is being paid for and it was it was just interesting. 

I really think that when the pandemic hit and a lot of people went to working from home, that became very clear because what people found is that they could get their whole entire job done in less time when they were working at home.

And then the debate became well, I'm paying you for 40 hours. You should be working for 40 hours. And other people said, I'm doing my job. And I'm getting done in 32 hours, that should be fine. And it's really, and there's not right or wrong, it's really what have you agreed to, is the answer. What are the expectations of what have you agreed to?

I can imagine some people's blood boiling right now, but bear with me. There's nothing wrong with saying, this is the work I expect you to get done, and this is what I'm paying you for. Which is how we run Uncharted. Like I, we have work outcomes. That are expected and paid for. I don't I'm not tracking people's hours.

Other side is to say this is exactly how we're doing it. And your hours matter. That's what you're paid for. There's not a right or wrong. It's just everybody needs to be in agreement about what it is. And there should be clear expectations about this is how it looks when I was. When I was an associate vet, I was not a brand new baby associate vet, I had been a vet for a long time.

And I worked, I was working this practice years back, it's not the practice I'm currently at. But in this practice there were a couple of kennel kids, and I call them kennel kids because they were kennel kids. They were 16 to 18 years old, like they were high school kids, coming in and working. And they would come in and they would work, and they would wear their headphones and listen to music, and they would practice dance routines. I'm not kidding. They would practice dance routines together, and they would film them for social media. 

And they did it on the clock. That was just, you would go back in the back, and they would be hanging out filming each other, doing dances.

And it happened a lot. It came to a point where, it kind of bugged me, not really, I didn't, I was not relying on them to get my job or my work done, they were not really involved in patient care, but it does it catches your eye when you're busting your butt and you go into the break room, and they're there, cooking a meal in the toaster oven, and What are you guys, what are we doing here?

And so I, I actually said something to one of the owners. I was like, hey, you're being too soft on the kennel kids. You're being, I mean, you're being too soft on them, man. They're, they're hiding in the back. They're, they're goofing off on social media and stuff like that.

And he really blew me off. And he said he said, they're, he said, don't worry about them, Andy. They're fine. They work hard. And I, so I let it go. I said my piece. I said it to him. If it was my business, I'd appreciate if somebody said something to me of man, might want to look at this.

But not my business, not my circus, not my monkeys. And so he said that and, and, and I said, okay, fine. And I, I let it go, but I've thought back to it a number of times. And of course, it makes me go, am I the bad guy? In the 1980s comedy movie, he's like, oh, those kids should be working harder.

I don't know that I was, but I think, and I've sort of had some inferences here. I think that what he was saying was, we probably, he probably paid those people minimum wage. And I think that he saw that flexibility and that time with their friends as part of their compensation. For more information, visit www.

FEMA. gov And so I think he was probably fine for them to film videos and bounce around and then when the staff called for them on the overhead, they showed up and they did it and that was how it worked and I sat with that for a while and I think what I saw was I think the conflict in this letter, which is this idea of it.

These people are clocked in and they're getting paid. They should be working. Versus we know what the expectations are and they know what the expectations are and they're going to hang out on the clock and wait to be called and that's fine. And I know that as the employer and I'm writing their paychecks and I'm fine with that arrangement.

Stephanie Goss: Yes. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Then I think that that's got to be okay. You know what I mean? Then that's fine. It really comes down to what's the expectation. But that's when I was like, Oh, that's an entirely different way of looking at employees than how I have. And I think it's also fine to say, that's not how our vet assistants were treated.

And that's not how the front desk was treated. And that's not how anybody else was treated. But also, I suspect all those people were getting paid a different level than the young kennel attendants. 

Stephanie Goss: And I think, so I think there's a couple of things in what you said to, to unpack. One is, I think the key point there is that understanding on all sides what the expectation is, right? So, you as an associate in the practice, you're working hard, you're busting your butt. It's not your business.

So you don't know what he has worked out with them. And so you say something, but he could have clearly worked out with them. Look, I don't, as long as the pets all have water, they're walked regularly, they're cleaned regularly, they, like whatever those things are, and we, you know?

we call on the overhead and you, and you're paged and you come.

Then the rest of your time is yours to do with it what you want, right? Like, that could have been a conversation that happened with them. If he has that clarity and they have that clarity, that's great. Where it becomes a problem is when there isn't the transparency across the board. And I think that happens in practices more often than not, right?

Where, to your point, it's kind of like the pay piece. There may be some benefits that one group gets, but if there's not transparency across the board, of course it's going to create drama when another group finds out what they're getting if they don't understand the why, right? And so I think that's, I think that's part of the solution and the process here is to figure out how do you actually communicate the expectations. Both, to both sides, immediately involved, but to the rest of the team as a whole. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Totally. Yep. I agree with that. So it's, it is a part of it about, is about expectations. The other part here for me in Headspace is Phil Richmond, Dr. Phil Richmond says this really well. When he says when he has an emotional reaction when something makes him mad, the healthiest thing he can do is stop and say to himself, why am I reacting this way? I think that's a question I would put to our readers to say, I get it. I think I understand why, but why are we reacting this way? Is it about the lack of skills? Is it about this, the sort of a justice mindset of, if you're on the clock, you should be working for the company? Is it the fact that people at other clinics don't have this perk, and these people do have this perk, and there's an unfairness thing?

Dr. Andy Roark: Again, I 

Stephanie Goss: Do you feel taken advantage of? Like, what is the underlying emotion? 

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly, but I think that that's really important from a Headspace standpoint to figure out what do you really need here and what's, what's driving this on your side. Because ultimately we need to put that flaming raging sword of justice down and it's hard to do that if we don't understand why we feel the need to pull it in the first place.

And so there's, there's that. I, so that's kind of that. I, I, those are, so those are sort of my, my, my big, Headspace here is bleeding into the action steps. But I think that's good for me, for Headspace.

Stephanie Goss: I agree with that. I think the bus trip to Camp Tough Love is definitely warranted. Like we've got to look at where you're at. And I love how you how you pointed out how Phil approaches that. Cause I think it's really healthy, right? Like asking ourselves the question, why do I feel like this?

And that's a question that only the writer can answer, but I think it's really important to sit with that because I think that's going to help. you figure out where you go from here and whether it's a productive path to walk down or not. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. And let me wrap up Headspace here by restating what I said, hopefully at the very beginning. I'm not saying that our medical director is wrong. I'm not saying like this could, is this totally valid? I mean, I think it's a totally valid thing to say is, no one else in the organization is getting paid to study on the clock.

And this person who's studying has got real holes in his or her clinical skills that are hurting our team. That's not a bad thought to have. That's not wrong. I think it's, I think most of it goes, yeah, it's totally, it's totally legit. Everything that we have laid out has been Trying to get the perspective of the other side in view and to start to get real strategic about what we're going to accomplish so I'm good with that for headspace.

Let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll get into action steps 

Stephanie Goss: Sounds great. 

Dr. Andy Roark: All right, so action steps here. It's easy–what are the sayings I've come back to recently a lot is the old environmentalist saying of think globally act locally right?

Stephanie Goss: Okay. 

Dr. Andy Roark: So I think that it's okay to think in a global sense about what is fair and what does it mean to be on the clock and have those thoughts but ultimately the action that we take is not at a global level like I'm not making employees across the country change I am working with Sarah who is trying to pass her courses, her high school courses, college courses, that I am working with Sarah who is trying to study for her exams, and I need to see her as a person, understand what is important to me, understand what's important to the clinic, and then go and engage with her in a way that does not involve the flaming raging sort of justice.

Okay? And so the first thing that I want to do here Is relax the tensions. I'm going to do that in two ways. Number one, I'm going to take the time component off of this. Listen, this kennel assistant VA, whatever, they have been doing this for some time now. The building is not going to fall down. If it goes on for another six, eight, 12 weeks, 

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Andy Roark: This is how it's been.

Stephanie Goss: Right. How is it going to make a difference if you change this today versus changing it two weeks from now, two months from now, end of the year? 

Dr. Andy Roark: I mean, that's it. Yeah. End of the year. When, when the semester is over. It's not. There are some things. One of the things I've learned as a leader, I think I'm good at this. You always question if you're doing it right, but I think I'm good at this is, I have gotten to the place where I recognize mistakes I have made in my judgment.

And I have not grabbed the steering wheel and spun it to try to correct. I have taken the steering wheel, gently turned it, and rectified the mistake that I made over the next three months. You know? And that has gotten so much better. And been so much easier, and it has been so much better for people's trust in me, because my team does not feel like things are being snatched away from them.

They are being told that next year, we're not going to be able to do this anymore. So everybody just know that. And then we roll right on up, and I give them a reminder at the beginning of December. And then we change and everybody's okay. And there's maybe some grumbling, but it's not if I weighed in on the Wednesday and say, starting Thursday, there will be an organizational change that will affect all of you.

Stephanie Goss: It feels very, it does feel very reactive. And it also, when it's time bound like that, and it's urgent, it also is very easy, from a headspace perspective, assuming good intent on all sides, it's very easy for that to feel punitive, even if it's not, because it feels so abrupt.

Especially when something has been going on for a long time and that's the conversation, going back to what I said about the IRS, like that's the conversation that I have with manager peers all the time is well, how long have they been getting vet services for free at this clinic? And if they say, well, the owner has been doing it for the 20 years that I've been here, but I've, I know that we need to do this to be in compliance with the IRS.

Okay. That's not the best choice. If they've been doing something for 20 years and you want to roll up in and be like, sorry guys, we're going to change this tomorrow. There is no world where that doesn't feel punitive to somebody. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh, yeah, that's 

Stephanie Goss: And it, it's not that that's the way you intend it, but that's still the way they're going to feel.

Dr. Andy Roark: Of course they are. Imagine that you're the only person who smokes cigarettes in your practice. And then suddenly there's a policy about what is required for every person who smokes cigarettes in the practice. There's no world where you don't say, Hey! This is a hundred percent aimed at me because then you're the only one smoking cigarettes. Of course the smoking policy is aimed at you like it is and like you're going to take it personally.

It's the same thing. It's the same thing here. There's only one person studying for tests on the clock She's gonna catch on when the test plus studying policy has changed 

Stephanie Goss: Well, and even if there's multiple, it still is going to feel punitive. You know, like that's just the way the human mind works, 

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I mean, especially if you talk to the person. This is the thing, is if you go and you say, Hey, I've noticed this, I'd like to make some changes, and da da da da da, and you talk to them, and then you change the policy they really feel like they're singled out.

And again, I get it, I'm not saying that changing the policy is wrong. This is 100 percent about how it's being perceived by the team. Yeah, I have no doubt they feel singled out. I totally get it. And the truth is we are making this policy adjustment because of this person. And so they're not wrong.

Anyway, it's, it's part of it's that. My, my big thing here as far as removing stress is one, to try to lengthen the timeline on this and say, this does not have to get fixed today. I agree that it needs to be corrected, but as soon as we lean back a little bit, we can make this happen much more smoothly.

And so that's sort of the big thing for me is, that's sort of my, my first action step is to take that constraint off of yourself.

Stephanie Goss: I think that's really smart and I think you also can add to that because you can, there can be things that are time bound, right? So like you, as you said, okay, is it, what is it going to hurt if we go another, you know, three weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, whatever. If there are things that are life threatening level urgent, right?

Like we cannot have a patient on IV fluids where the pump is alarming and they're being ignored so that anyone can work on their school work. I don't think that there's any member of a team who cares about patients who wouldn't understand that rationalization and not, and be able to separate the personal feelings and the emotions from that.

So I do think that it is totally okay to, if you can, as, and it's hard I want to empathize with our writer because I feel like we've done a lot of pointing out, pointing the mirror in their direction and saying, maybe we pulled the flaming raging sword of justice a little fast, right? And that hurts.

Dr. Andy Roark: It's okay. 

Stephanie Goss: And in order to fix it, if you can get to the space where you can recognize, okay, there are things I can do to fix this. If you can let yourself get even okay, you may not love the idea of continuing to let them do it, but if you can get okay with it and try and find the middle ground, it is also okay to put some parameters in place to say, okay, Mike, you're in the middle of your program.

To be honest, if I was in this person's shoes, I could even be talked into a year long or even a two long, two year long period if there were some other parameters put in place, right? If the thing that was really bothering me was the fact that pets were sitting in soiled kennels or they were, you know, the alarm was going off and they were being ignored or if there were things that for a patient care reason felt urgent, if you came to me and said, okay.

“Hey, look. I feel like maybe I went a little too fast and I want to apologize for that. I really, you know, I really want to try and come to a middle ground. Here's what I would like to do, right?” And then you told me, Hey, I would, I would like to, eventually we're going to have to get to a place where this is not a perk anymore.

That's, if that's the decision you make, fine. If you tell me what the timeline is, and you give me a little bit of, you throw me a bone, and I give a little that's what compromise is about, right? It's about the give and take, and can we come to this from that place, if you can get to that headspace, it's, you're going to have a much better outcome as a leader, and it's going to be much more palatable to, the team as well, if it feels like there is give and take, because although no one wants to be called a dictator, no one wants to be told, you know, you're I think you're the root of all evil.

If you come down on them and you say, it's, this is the way it's going to be. I understand where they're coming from. You know? 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yep. I agree with that and that was on my on my list as well Is does this have to be all or none? Meaning are your two choices: this person studies and doesn't do their job or Studying is now banned fully and again, I don't think I don't think something being banned fully is a bad idea But does it have to be fully banned today?

And also I'm not convinced that you can't do anything today. I think the other part for me and again, this is sort of an action step headspace. But I think for the action step here as far as lowering the stakes to is I need to get curious and go Talk to me about what's going on with your classes. How much do you have left?

“What are you trying to do? What is your study schedule? What are you trying to accomplish? Because I want to I want to support you And I have some needs of things that need to get done in the practice and then maybe, maybe the arrangement can become, you can study, but only after these things are done Or, yeah, that, you can study after these requirements are met something like that.”

And that's fine. I would personally, I would take a position like that where I would say this is my immediate needs and then you can study around this and then know that you're not going to be able to study next semester. So we're going to let this ride till the end of the year. We'll get you through your fall exams,

Stephanie Goss: Current load. 

Dr. Andy Roark: and your current load because again, it's quite possible this person committed to their case or their 

Stephanie Goss: It's a class load. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, their case load, or their, what, class load, yeah their class load, based on the understanding that they would have time to work on it. And if you take that away from them, now they're hopelessly overloaded with classes. And again, they be paid to study? I don't, again, I don't know, but they made choices with the belief that they would be, and that belief was based on the fact that they were allowed to in the past.

And so I get it. Let's see if we can support them through the short term. And then this is one of the things we're going to correct over the long term. And so anyway get curious. Figure out if this can be somewhere between all and none. Think about an incremental phase out over time, let people know it's coming and then go from there. 

Stephanie Goss: Mm 

Dr. Andy Roark: The other alternative you have, and this might fit in with the conversation we said before, you can go forward and not really address the studying thing. If, and this goes back to, what are we really upset about? If it is, this person does not have the skills they're supposed to have. 

You don't have to tell them Take the studying away from them to just say to them, your clinical skills are not where they need to be.

And this is the, we need to figure out a program that's going to get your clinical skills where they need to be in the next 12 weeks. Let's figure out what that looks like. And you don't have to take away the ability for her to study. You just give her the requirements of what it's going to take to continue to be there and to, and to meet the requirements for a job.

And maybe she can continue to study that. Maybe she can just get significantly more efficient in other areas. And now she's doing everything she was doing before. Plus she's meeting your standards. Plus she's still finding time to study. What do you care? You're paying her the same amount. She's doing the thing that she, that she wanted.

Now we all know that's probably not going to happen. There's probably going to be some sacrificing of study time to get these things done. 

Stephanie Goss: I think it's that knowledge that it, that it is. Likely not to work out that way that makes people, that makes leaders tie those two things together. And this is where I want to say to our writer, like, you're not alone. Like Andy said, in the very beginning, this is a gopher trap we see coming because we've stepped in it.

And so, you're not alone in making that, that gut response to tie two and, two and two is equaling four in your brain. And in this scenario, and I think you're spot on, Andy, and if you approach it from a different perspective, and you let one thing set to the side, and you actually focus on what is the problem here. Is the problem that they're doing schoolwork, the root, like reading this, and again, we only hear one, see one side of the story, but reading this email, my thought was the problem is not the fact that they're doing schoolwork on the clock. The problem is that they don't have the skills that they need.

Those are two different problems, but it's the tying them together that as the team member who is involved immediately feels punitive. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah it's if I want my kids to spend less time on their cell phones, I have found it's much easier for me to sign them up for extracurriculars, take them to the swimming pool, yeah and, and have family movie night than it is to take their phone away. And like, They spend less time on their phone when we're on a hiking trip together.

And it's sort of like, I didn't take their phone away. I just gave them something else that we were doing that needed to get done. That doesn't lend itself to a phone. It's kind of the same thing for that. So anyway, I don't mean that to be manipulative. And I would go back to the whole thing of, maybe this person is really relying on this time because they thought they would have it from past precedent and I really don't want to screw them over. And at the same time, this is not a sustainable long term. 

So anyway, I think hopefully that comes across as a little trip to Camp Tough Love. As far as the way that we sort of approach it and the decisions that we make about shutting down this thing that they perceive as a perk.

And then a shift in mindset over to what do I really feel this way? What do we really need to accomplish? Can we meet them in the middle? Can we phase this behavior out over time so that they know going into next semester They're not going to have study time and that's fine? They knew it going into the semester like can we do some things that are not going to cause them to panic?

But are going to take a little bit of time and make this problem just go away And I really do think if we can take those if we can take that mindset and we can take those softer steps We can gently take this little perk away from the employees in a way that, that is not going to be a big deal because the vast majority of your employees, they're not doing this.

They don't care. We're just going to, we can support this person out, close the door behind them and lock that door. And honestly, guys, that's the way a lot of business gets done and it will make you happier and it'll make your team happier. There have been a lot of things in my career that have not worked the way I wanted.

And instead of just shutting them down. I let them ride out until some created deadline. Whether it was the, the first of the summer, the end of the year, the Thanksgiving holiday, the next conference that we were putting on, and then we're not going to be doing this anymore after that. And a lot of times it's just better to let this annoyance go on.

Until a natural conclusion point and then end it in a way that everybody's cool with than it is to try to squash this annoyance and then deal with the collateral damage that comes from that.

Stephanie Goss: I love that and I agree with that and I want to offer, like, where I want to end is, I want to offer some food for thought on the opposite. On the opposite side of that argument because I think what you, you know, you talked in the beginning about the world has changed and employees showing up and doing 40 hours of work versus doing the job that needs to get done in 32 hours and being okay with that.

I think that's really important and really relevant. And I also think it's applicable here. When I think about our industry and I think about the changes. We need credentialed technicians, we need qualified, rounded credentialed technicians. 

And so food for thought, just on the other side of the argument that I would offer is I know what it's like to be the manager who's trying to find a technician for years on end.

It's a really hard place to be in. And so most of us turn inwardly, right? Which is exactly what this practice is doing. They're like, Hey, we're going to grow it from within. So we're going to take our assistance and we're going to encourage those who want to go to school. And we're going to support them in ways that can look like them, paying for school or offering them the opportunity to do cases on the clock, whatever it is.

And I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. And I think as an industry, when I have talked to my peers as, and colleagues as a manager, there is this headspace as an industry that we look at it like. So negatively, like why would we allow them to do schoolwork on the clock?

Why would we create that environment? And I would actually argue that it is a way for us to help. It is a solution, not a what's the word I'm trying to say? Not a, not a negative, right? In the, in this, And if I, if I think about it and I think about my own practice, because that's how I used to feel like I, you know, I used to be that manager who, if my, myself included, went to tech school, if I left the practice, you know, within two years of working finishing my degree, then I would have had to pay my practice back.

And for a long time I did that and now my beliefs have radically shifted and I feel the way about this as well if we want to grow and develop. We know that our paraprofessional staff, most of, a lot of them are living, I won't say most, a lot of them are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of them are vastly underpaid for the work that they do.

If we want to change that, we have to think about ways that we can impact that and make a big difference. And this is one of those ways that I have seen firsthand can make a big difference for team members if we can support them. Now, that's not to say. And please hear me when I say this, that's not to say that I don't still expect them to do their job.

Dr. Andy Roark: I heard Stephanie say that they get to sit at a desk and just do their school work and you’re going to pay them.

Stephanie Goss: No, no, that's not what I'm saying. And I do think that it's important to look at really being clear about those communications. And I think that's a step that we often miss. And thinking about what you said about the practice owner that you worked for. I love that.

the idea of a world, and I love it because this is a world in my own practice that I helped create, where I can have the conversation with the team members and the expectations are very clear. Here's the job I need you to perform. This is your first priority. And if we can accomplish this job, if you can have the skills that you need to be qualified for it, I have no problem with you spending, The extra time working on schoolwork within these parameters, right?

And it's such a, most of us think about it in an automatically just by default in a black and white thinking like, well, if I give them an inch, they're going to take a mile. And I think we have, I think that kind of mindset is very self damaging. I think we have to change that as an industry. And so on, I just want to put it out there because we talked a lot about, well, we can take this benefit away and that is one choice.

And it may be the applicable and the right choice to make in this practice. Again, we only see one side of the story that we get in the mailbag letter. And so I don't think there's anything wrong with doing what you said, Andy, and I agree with it. Like we can take it away. And if we do it, let's do it in a, in the way that we described.

And I just want to put it out there that there is another potential, which is maybe we create a world where we help provide more texts to an industry that desperately needs it by shifting our mindset as leaders about how we could approach a situation.

Dr. Andy Roark: I just, I think one of my, one of my fundamental beliefs, and I'll, I'll shut up after this, but one of my fundamental beliefs is there is no should in in, in any of this, in this life, there is no should

Stephanie Goss: Four letter 

Dr. Andy Roark: It's “what do the two affected parties agree on?” Eyes wide open, clear expectations.

And so, that's what we do in our company. As I say, you know, you're remote, you work at home, I don't track your hours, and you have unlimited vacation. I'm going to be clear with you about what your salary is, I'm going to be clear with you about what the deadlines are that we have coming up, and we're going to talk about the workload that you have, and if I don't feel like you're producing enough work, I'm going to tell you that gently, not in a mean way, and if you feel like you're being overwhelmed with work and your salary is not supportive of the level of work that you have, that you're doing, I expect you to say that to me and let's keep working on it.

And as long as we can come to an agreement, we both feel good about, then this just works out. And it's the same thing. Am I opposed to having, I don't know, let's say a kennel technician that makes Let's, I'm just pulling numbers out of the air. That makes 12 an hour and gets to study on the clock instead of a kennel technician that makes 15 an hour and does not study on the clock at all.

No, I'm not because the 15 an hour person is generating more work at the end of the day than the person who is spending part of their day studying. Basically it's, it comes down to, if I believe that this person, you know, that I'm getting one extra hour of work from the kennel person who's not studying, then I'm going to try to compensate that person for that hour.

And the other person that may be clocked in the same amount of time, but they're not doing the same work as the person who's not studying. And there's that. And again, now we're getting pay scales and stuff. There's a million ways to look at this, and it doesn't, again, It doesn't matter about what should be, but it really comes down to what do both parties agree to that it's fair and it needs to be in balance for the rest of the team, there's. 

It's not fair for one vet and the company to agree that Dr.Goss is going to make five times more money than all the other vets and they both agree to that. So that's it. It's there's some other parts of this, but anyway, it's a long way to go. There's a lot of gray here, but I hope we didn't come down too hard on the writer. I, again, I, I meant what I said at the beginning of, I laugh and I chuckle because I a hundred percent have been here.

I have lived this. I have had these thoughts. I have had sweaty palms about what people are doing with their times. And I, I get it. I totally get it. You gotta be careful and don't blow your face off here. By rushing in and ripping the wires out of the bomb that you see. It's nah sometimes we're gonna let this clock tick down for a while before we deal with it. And that's, that's okay. 

Stephanie Goss: Yep, I love it. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, that's all I got!

Stephanie Goss: Have a great week everybody, take care! Dr. Andy Roark: See ya, everybody!

Written by Maria Pirita · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: behavior, communication, culture, management, Technician, Training, Vet Tech

Oct 02 2024

Training on ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the WRONG Way to Fix Your Client Service Problem

A practice leader is struggling with younger team members' reactions to client disagreements. The leader is frustrated with the team’s hypersensitivity to client interactions, particularly around money and customer service, which is resulting in feedback that the practice feels cold and transactional. In this episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Practice Management Super Nerd, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark explore how to shift the team’s culture towards empathy and understanding, while also addressing issues of emotional intelligence, client interactions, and accountability. They emphasize the importance of avoiding generational stereotypes and focus on actionable strategies to create a supportive, client-centered environment. Let's get into this episode…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · 307 – Training On 'Emotional Intelligence' Is The WRONG Way To Fix Your Client Service Problem

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions 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. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving into the mailbag. We've got a great letter from a practice manager who is asking for some emotional intelligence training for their team. Now there's nothing wrong with that. 

Emotional intelligence is one of the things that I'm super passionate about teaching our teams. But the more we got into this conversation, the more there was probably some stuff going on under the surface that we needed to look at more than whether the team needed emotional intelligence training. This was a fun one. Let's get into it.

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie Where is the Love Goss.

Stephanie Goss: Oh, that's fun. I, you're, I want to hear, I want to hear you sing it. Where…

Dr. Andy Roark: I was listening to an older…

Stephanie Goss: is the love?

Dr. Andy Roark: I was listening, see, there you go. I was listening to an old episode of our podcast this morning. And I said that song and then I sang it. And I was like, I wonder how much cringe I'm inflicting on people across United States and Canada every week. If my daughters heard me singing, where's the love on a podcast?

Like they would cringe so hard with referred embarrassment for me. And so I was like, ah, so funny. 

Stephanie Goss: That's the best part. That's the best part. I also feel the same way, cringing wise about my giggle, but everybody tells me that's their favorite part. How's it going, Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It's, boy, it's great. The fall, suddenly, is rolling up in South Carolina. The dog is demanding to be outside on the porch, instead of in the house. It is just a joy to be outside. I'm looking for things to do. Like I'm happily pulling weeds just to be outside. It's absolutely beautiful.

The neighbors had a neighborhood gathering a couple of days ago. And one of the neighbors was like, I smoke brisket. And I'm like, this is, I love this.

Stephanie Goss: You're like, it's fall.

Dr. Andy Roark: What- it's fall, the leaves are going to, are just about to start changing the temperatures dropping. There's brisket, you don't eat brisket in the summertime.

At least I don't. It just, the thought of it makes me sweat. But brisket in the fall, that's what I'm talking about. I'm a, I like pumpkin as a flavor. I'm looking for pumpkin bagels. I'm looking for pumpkin beer.

Stephanie Goss: I was just having this conversation with a friend who, with a girlfriend because it's basic. It's that basic time of the year where everybody is all about the pumpkin spice, latte and the pumpkin spice, everything at Starbucks.

But I was having this conversation because I have a friend who was like, yeah, you know, she's all about the Starbucks, but she's like my mom, man, the day that Costco puts out the pumpkin pies. She's like, she's there. And I was like, really? There are people in the world that love pumpkin that much that they're like, Costco has put out their pumpkin pies and I'm going to go get one.

Dr. Andy Roark: There are these certain things. Okay. So let me, wax romantic here about pumpkin pie. There are these things in our life. That becomes special to individual people, right? I drink one glass of eggnog everyyear. It's just one. I don't, I don't want, I don't want a carton. 

I just, I have to, I try to find it without buying it. Otherwise I can, they have small amounts too, like you can buy singles now. I drink one glass of eggnog a year and I don't even particularly like it, I don't think, but I have so many memories wrapped up in it and there's a feeling and it's this it's this visceral reminder of a season in a way that I felt when I was young.

And so it's really important to me. And so I, I don't know if other people have, I'm sure people have those things. And again, I don't buy it by the carton. I don't, please don't mail me gallons of it. Like I love people who are just generous. They're like, 

Stephanie Goss: That’s your ice cream now. Yeah,

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah, again. I would eat a bowl of eggnog ice cream in December, and it would be a wonderful thing for me, but I don't need a carton of it, you know, I really don't, but I would be so thrilled if someone gave me a little bowl and I feel that way about, about pumpkin stuff as well, it's I am not here to suck down pumpkin coffee and get, pumpkin  milkshakes and like, but yeah, I have decided, like, the eggnog thing, I don't drink a lot of beer, I don't drink, I honestly don't drink at all, hardly anymore, but but I will find a pint

of pumpkin beer at some point and I will drink it outside and I don't know how But to me i'm like I will go to a tap room That has outdoor seating and i'll wear my flannel and I will go there at some point and I will get a pint of pumpkin beer and I will drink it and it will just be this wonderful 15 minute experience for me and then I'll go on, but the fall, it just means something to me. 

Stephanie Goss: They're strong sciences. So that explains the association both taste wise and sense wise that we have as humans tied to experiences or memories. And so there is science behind that. Like you said, the visceral reaction of it's like when I smell for me, one of those is I smell cigars and I immediately think of my grandfather or I smell where there's candies because he always used to keep them in his pocket for us when we were kids.

And so it's that that you just have that visceral reaction that takes you back to that time and place in your life. And there's strong science behind that. So that makes sense. That makes super sense. But noted, Andy will not be lining up for Pumpkin Spice Day at Starbucks

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Probably not. Probably not. I, again, there's just, there's just little things that I do love, like you said, that just anchor you to those times. But I said I was gonna wax romantic about it. I think that's a beautiful part of life. And like, this falls into my celebration of rituals.

And I always say we should have rituals. We should have things that we do that are special. I don't know, like I said, the fact that I drank one glass of eggnog. Is much more special than if I started buying half gallons and going through them like and drank it every day. I don't think I would love it as much and so anyway But that goes back to practice and stuff as well I think that there's I think that there's things that we can kind of lean into It's all about tying things to purpose and and to tying them to things that people will remember I don't know if you start the year at your, practice in a certain way, I think that can be, I think that can be wonderful.

You know, I think, go back to like, our friend Jenn Galvin always, she's always involved in these community outreach projects and stuff. And I can't think of a specific example, but I'm confident that they have rituals they do, whether it's participating in a local parade, you know what I mean?

And you just go, this is what we do. We get ready and we do our little float and we do our little parade. And you go, well, that's silly. I was like, but it's important. It's important. It's a thing that we do every year. It's a tradition. I really think that building tradition, I think people miss that. I just, I really do.

Stephanie Goss: I think it's intrinsically tied to our sense of community too, you know, and just the greater sense of community. Those rituals, those things that we do collectively as a, as a culture. It's the same within the culture of our practice, right? Like we, we have an established culture and we might do things in, within that culture.

We might do things that connect us to the bigger community, but it's those kind of, I think about it like you know, when you slice a tree and you see the rings and you can count how old it is and think about it that way. Like our practice is at the center of that ring, but then if you, and that, that would be.

our team, right? Like us as a group. And then if you go out, then our, then we have our clients and then we have, the general public who comes in contact with our practice. And then our community as a, as a larger organization. And then beyond that, our connection to veterinary medicine, there's all these rings that go out.

And I think that you're not wrong, that those things that we do, the rituals that we have as a, Culture connect us to those broader communities,

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I think you're right. I just, I feel like the world is changing a lot and I'm such a proponent of rituals and small rituals because I feel like a lot of those things are getting sort of swept away and they're getting swept away because. I think that we live in a society where more is more.

It's like, Andy, you like a pumpkin beer? Well, have you had pumpkin vodka? How about pumpkin, milk, just plain old pumpkin milk, you know? And I'm like, I don't, I don't want pumpkin vodka or pumpkin milk, but surely Andy, how about, how about signing up for this pumpkin related streaming service?

Like, I, no, I don't, I don't want any of that. I just, I just want one pint of pumpkin beer. 

Stephanie Goss: But it's totally, it is totally true. It has become so to your point, like it has been, The, it has been spread, like on, on everything. It is the homogenized approach. Like it's being applied. 

Dr. Andy Roark: pumpkin cream cheese. cream cheese. Well, I was going to say, perfect illustration and I'll, I will leave out details and people can fill in the blanks.

Stephanie Goss: But as a former sex ed teacher, I got an email yesterday and I'll let you guys imagine what kind of pumpkin things were advertised in it, but it's, it is across the board. It takes away, I think, that meaning. You know, when you have

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, oh yeah, from back in the old days when the emails you got had, had things that were just

Stephanie Goss: and not safe for work things, that are pumpkin 

Dr. Andy Roark: is not a work email that you're receiving is what I'm, is what I'm hearing

Stephanie Goss: It was not my Uncharted email. It was my Uncharted After Dark email. Listen, we got good feedback from our listeners that they like when I take us off the rails sometimes, 

Dr. Andy Roark: That takes us off the rails into a part of town that I've never asked to go to.

Stephanie Goss: It's okay, it's okay. It's good for you. You just hold on. Hang on. We're getting there. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Hang on. Buckle up, Andy. 

Stephanie Goss: Buckle up, Andy! No, I think that it's a, I think that it's a good conversation. And I think that to your point, When we make it intentional and we make it special and I, given that we're, this is coming out this episode is coming out.

We're a couple weeks before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. And I, so my practice in California before I moved to Washington, There was one thing that we did every year that we connected to both our greater community and also was ritualistic to us. And that was we, our whole town, we lived in a farming community.

And so we had a lot of Hispanic community members. And we culturally in school as kids, we learned about Dia de los Muertos the same way we did Halloween. And it was a part of our culture, community culture. And we as a town celebrated it. And there was different events that happened over the course of the month.

And one of those pieces was our clinic hosted the pet altar. We had an ofrenda that we set up in the lobby and clients, but also the community as a whole were welcomed into the practice to bring offerings and memory share memories of departed pets, bring in pictures. And our team, part of our tradition was we actually closed the practice for an afternoon and took a couple of hours and we decorated the whole lobby and we set up our ofrenda and we had we celebrated with cultural snacks and drinks and we really celebrated it as a team.

And it was a tradition. It was one of those things that we did. And it was one of those things that as a team, we looked forward to every year because we got to we got to include ourselves as real human beings. So my girlfriend and I, who I worked with at that practice, we're super crafty.

We got to create things for it. We had a team member who was Hispanic. And so she would Make food for us to try. That was from her family and her culture. And so it became this thing that was greater than us as a group in a practice. And so when you talk about creating those rituals, those things that not only bring us memories as teams, but also tie us to our greater communities, I think about things like that.

And I think you're not wrong that we have a lot of practices in veterinary medicine that have those unique things that tie them to their greater community or that have those kind of rituals with their team. And I, I love that. I'm here for it 

Dr. Andy Roark: You just blew my mind with that. I, that just makes me so freaking happy. I, I love to Dia de Los Muertos. I just think it's such a cool holiday. It's just, the family part of it is just so freaking cool. And, but just to the point of making a ritual, like for your, for your team to have some sort of tradition.

What a freaking amazing tradition, right? It's got the arts and crafts stuff. That's team building. That's spending time together doing stuff. Doing something that's low stress. That's not about medicine. Just there's so many beautiful pieces to what you lay down. And it's like, I don't know what it costs as a business to say, we're going to close early and we're going to do this and we're going to let the community come in.

I don't know. I don't care. To me, it's, it's gotta be worth it. It's you'll never be able to calculate that ROI for the bean counters, but you gotta believe it's there. It's there in employee morale. It's there in community engagement. It's there with just making life something worth, worth participating

Stephanie Goss: Well, and being tied to the greater, The greater, that greater community, you know, I, I agree with you, like there, there is not that calculate, you can't calculate that return on investment.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, as soon as you try to, it just, it, it kills it too. Like there, there has to be things going back to my point about like, everything has to be monetized to the max. It's like, we kill so many beautiful things when we, do that. And so again, I understand we got to pay the bills. This is a business podcast.

I get it. And I think in this world, having little traditions like that, will become more and more valuable because they are rarer and rarer. And so anyway, I just I could just talk about this forever But what a what a beautiful sentiment. I'm really glad we talked about this. Let's let's talk about that Let's talk

Stephanie Goss: Let's talk about that episode, but no,

Dr. Andy Roark: We gotta we better get this show on the road. 

Stephanie Goss: There is a point, there is a point to this. So we were, so we had a, we had a great mail bag question that at first glance maybe is like has nothing to do with what we've been talking about, but I can't wait to dig into into it because it has to do with culture, right?

We got a mailbag. We have, I'm assuming it's from a manager or a leader in their practice, but they're struggling particularly with some of their younger team members. And I'm going to go ahead and make an important distinction that if you are the practice owner, the practice manager listening right now, and when I say younger generation, you say millennials, I'm going to say wrong.

And I wish that Dustin could insert a big buzzer 

​

Stephanie Goss: and when I say younger generation, you say millennials, I'm going to say wrong. because these are not millennials. These are Gen Z and even Gen Alpha are starting to be hired as kennel kids in our practices. And so we need to start thinking about that. Because it's a very distinct difference, but they're struggling with the younger generations because they are struggling in two ways,

and I have experienced these as a manager, one is the adulting and knowing how to adult. And the other is having in specific is having compassion for their clients. And so this leader is struggling because they feel like there is a lot of judgy behavior happening with the team. And when the team feels like they're getting pushback from clients or there's anything that doesn't go exactly according to plan with a client, the team has the attitude of like, I don't have the mental capacity to deal this deal with this and there's this behavior of let me run to my manager to take care of it like this client is angry and I experienced this and the best example would be when the front desk would call me and they'd be like, I have a client on the phone who's yelling at me.

And I would say, okay, well, tell me what that looks like. And they're like they just said this. And I'm like, so they didn't actually yell at you. They just told you something that you didn't maybe know the answer to, or didn't like the answer to, right? This leader is having that kind of experience.

And so they're struggling with feeling like the team is super hypersensitive and reactive to clients. And especially when it gets into the money territory, as all of us can imagine, it gets even stickier. And so they're like, look, I have tried the coaching. I have tried pulling them aside. I've tried talking through how I am handling situations. This leader is just super, super frustrated. And they're, they're also now getting feedback from the community and from their clients that the customer service aspect comes off as very cold, very not welcoming being all about the money. And this leader is like, that's not who we are. So how do I change this?

How do I change the tide? Because this is not sitting well with me. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Okay This is a great question and we see this we see this a lot. All right. I want to go ahead, let's start with headspace as we usually do. Now, hold on for a second, because we're going to get a little bit philosophical here. And this is going to get, this is going to get real broad, but I promise I'm going somewhere pretty concise with this. I think that as leaders, we have got to pay attention to our own emotions. And when we start to feel like we are looking at a societal problem, we need to take a step back. Because that is wildly unproductive. It is wildly unproductive, right? If if I'm looking at my staff and I go, Ah, that's the problem with young people.

No accountability. That is such a, it's probably unfounded. It's probably stereotyping just because we're saying young people. But just, just walk with me. If I say, Ah, it's a problem with people in America today. There's no accountability. Okay. That's a monumental, it's an existential problem. You are not going to fix it.

You're not going to fix it. It is so far beyond your capacity. It makes you feel helpless. It makes you feel angry. Everything kind of falls into it. It is completely unproductive headspace. And so the first part of headspace for me is to say, Hey, reject the idea. I just I don't like talking about problems as generational problems And i've gotten flack for that because i've never done anything about generational styles.

I don't try I just I don't like it I do I understand that there are trends based on people hitting certain developmental Milestones at similar times with certain things going on in the world around them. I understand that people who were in school when COVID hit and everything shut down, they're going to have some trends and behavior and future perspective based on that.

I get it. I don't from a management action standpoint, believe that it's really helpful for me to deal in generational trends. It's much more helpful to say, all right. Let's look at the people that we have and let's address the specific behaviors that we're seeing without stacking them up into generational trends.

I think we pile these things into trends, societal trends, because we like to make sense of the world. That is antithetical to actually fixing problems in your practice and enjoying your day. And whenever I start to feel really crappy, it's generally because I am zoomed way  out, looking at the world with a caveman brain that was evolved to juggle problems That has to do with a tribe of a couple dozen people, right?

Like it's just i'm not built to take whole world problems.

Stephanie Goss: Or the flip side of that, where you're zoomed so far in, and I think this, email was a great example of that because it started with this leader asking, Hey, I need some team training on emotional intelligence, right? So it was zoomed in laser focus where they had said, My problem is on my team doesn't have enough emotional intelligence.

How do I train them on it? But if you open that lens a little bit, is that really your problem?

Dr. Andy Roark: Ah, I like that. I like that a lot.

Stephanie Goss: Or is there some stuff going on? So I think it goes on both sides, the zoomed way 

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh 

Stephanie Goss: the zoomed way in.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I think you're right. There's a framing issue here for sure So I just want to start with that whenever you're looking at your team and you say that's the societal problem. You need to stop because you have just said that's a problem. That is so big No single person could ever I'm like, you just frame this up in a way that's completely impossible for you to deal with.

So anyway, let it go, let it you don't have to fix the problem of society, but we are going to fix the problem inside of our little vet clinic that we have power over. So that's one. So number two, the thing I want to get to is I see three issues here that are laid down. So the first is emotional intelligence.

The second is expectation setting, and the third is accountability. So we'll start with those three.

I want to talk about emotional intelligence, and I think you're right in that there's really framed in here. I think there's two ways to think about it. You could either say what you said, which is, Boy, you're really framed in tightly.

I'm not sure if that's really your issue. I, it's funny you said it that way. My thought was, I could say, okay, cool. I'll buy the emotional intelligence thing for a moment. But I will say this. There are some problems that we do not fix directly. Okay, or that are much more challenging to fix directly and the analogy I'll give you is imagine there's a traffic jam that you have to navigate

you can get into that traffic jam and try to maneuver your car around all of the other bumper to bumper traffic and get through it or you can recognize a traffic jam and make a turn onto a side street and just drive all the way around this thing and not deal with it and get where you need to go.

That's how I feel about this statement about emotional intelligence. I don't think you want to wade into emotional intelligence for this specific problem about customer service, especially around angry, upset people. I, I think that if you go to your team and you start talking about emotional intelligence, it's going to become this huge thing and it's all multifaceted and it's just don't even if we fix the customer service client empathy problem, the emotional intelligence, in quotes is going to get taken care of. It's, you're going to be fine. And so, I am much less likely to go and say to my team, we need to work on emotional intelligence and more, guys, tell me about, tell me how you feel about working with our pet owners.

Like, how does it make you feel to work with our pet owners? And like, that's, it sounds much more roundabout. It is, it's me driving around the traffic jam. And we're gonna, we're gonna fix this problem, but I'm not going to wade into emotional intelligence. I think there's another way to do it. That's going to get us where we need to go.

Stephanie Goss: And I think going back to your analogy about the big whole world problems that no one can fix. You can collectively brainstorm as a team solutions to a problem like, Hey, tell me about how you guys feel when a client gives you pushback about an estimate because they tell you that they have no money. Tell me how that makes you feel. You can dive into that with them as a group and still make progress. That's actually a problem you can solve as a group. Whereas talking about emotional intelligence, everybody on your team is going to come at it from different perspectives, different levels, different backgrounds.

If you have the conversation, tell me how you feel about it, when a client pushes back from a financial perspective, you're going to be able to laser in. on the team members specifically who may have some emotional intelligence work to do that you then can help them with as a, as an end result, right?

Whether it's self awareness or, the ability to, gauge others and judge behavior whatever the emotional intelligence skills are that they are struggling with or lacking. That actually gives you a crystal clear picture. You won't get that if you try and come at it from a, Hey, let's work on emotional intelligence skills.

You're not going to necessarily get, you might get to the same end result, but to your point about the traffic jam is going to be a whole hell of a lot messier 

Dr. Andy Roark: I think you're going to get bogged down here and it's just, it's, yeah, it's, it's not a good effective use of your time and resources.

There's three things we need to do. So I said, we've got emotional intelligence.

We've got expectations, accountability, the three steps for me. And we'll get this in action steps is number one. We need changed the culture around clients, the way we think about clients, the way we feel about them, what success looks like. And if we changed the culture around clients, I think the empathy part will resolve itself.

People are like, how do you treat empathy? And, or how do you teach empathy? And the thing is, I don't think you do. I think you get. I think you work to help people understand others and then the empathy will follow. I can't make you empathize I can help you to understand and if I do that and you're not a complete psychopath or sociopath then I think that you'll you know What I mean empathy is kind of a natural thing when we understand the other people I do I think people are innately good. I really do. 

Stephanie Goss: Don't be, don't be a psychopath like Andy. 

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah, it's there's some people who are just like i'm I don't care burn them down. I don't see those You have to be, you have to be really evil to be like, I don't care, burn it down, and I'm going to go to vet medicine. Like, Dr. Evil, you know?

Like, I went to evil medical school. It's just, it's a next level evil. So anyway, I don't think that's usually the case. So number one is change the culture around the clients. Number two, we need to set expectations for who deals with hard clients.

And then we need to build accountability for dealing with customer service challenges and that can't happen without without training and support, but ultimately change the culture around the clients set expectations for dealing with the clients inside this new culture and then after expectations are set we start to hold people accountable and obviously we can't hold people accountable if we don't support them and train Them and get them the skills that they need.

But that's it. It's a it's a that's a three step. That's a three step plan Yeah that's, I think that's what I got, and then we can come back and talk about how you actually do that for me in the action

Stephanie Goss: I can, I actually, so I wound up in a very similar place, so I can totally buy into that. And if you are listening to this episode and you didn't listen to the last episode that, that we did, we did one, uh, it's episode 306. about a team that is struggling with bashing clients and changing on a broader level, changing the culture around dealing with clients.

You should go back and listen to that episode because we walked through specific steps on how do we start to actually make that cultural change too. it's so funny cause we did not plan this, but that one just came out as well. And so, you're looking for a resource there, that, that's a good one. It's 306.

Dr. Andy Roark: You got anything else for Headspace?

Stephanie Goss: No, I think that's good. Let's get in. Let's get into the action steps.

Dr. Andy Roark: Cool, let's take a break and we'll do that. 

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Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, so we're getting into action steps here. There's, this kind of weeds a little bit into Headspace, but it but not really. the first thing I think you need to do here is get curious about how the staff really feels about clients and why there's a lot of, talking about, the clients report that the staff seems cold and they seem to be about the money and, and I understand that.

And I would hear that and the owner says, or the manager says, you know, that's not who we are. Okay, we gotta do some work here. You know, I don't know what's going on. I think there's a lot of assumptions about these people don't want to adult or whatever. Like, maybe that's true. I don't know.

Do they really not have the skills? Do they really think that they just can't even, or they don't have the bandwidth? What, what's going on here?

Stephanie Goss: I will being honest and candid, uh, say that as a manager, when you are frustrated because people are asking you to do their job regularly. And that was my perception. Like when my team would be like, Hey, I have this client on the phone and they're yelling at me, can you please talk to them?

What ultimately, when that happens consistently, if it's a one off, okay, fine, no problem. But when it's happening consistently as a manager, I, without even thinking about it, not intentionally, unintentionally, immediately switch to a headspace of like, why can't they just do their jobs? Like, why am I having to do their job with that for them?

And it came from this place of frustration. And so now I'm applying generalities to them. Well, none of them know how to do this. And they can't adult. And I just don't understand. It's really easy to spiral into that negative headspace when you're feeling frustrated about something else. And so I love that you started with the getting curious and the other piece that goes hand in hand with that which is what else could this possibly mean?

And I think you probably have to do some headspace work with a finger pointing back at yourself before you point the finger at the rest of the team and ask yourself, What am I actually frustrated about here? What am I actually feeling emotions about here?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, there's a potential to blow this whole thing up right here in a good way. Meaning I know this, this is going to sound trite when I say it, but I promise it's true. The number of times I've gotten to this step with somebody who's having a problem in practice and said, look, we got to go get real curious.

And the person goes in and pulls the staffer individually and sort of says, what's going on? And the people say, I Hand the angry client off to you because I don't have anywhere to take phone calls and there are clients standing at the desk looking at

me while this person is talking to me and It's just it is too much and the whole issue comes down to oh They're kicking you these calls because they're stuck in a public place in front of your other clients and just can't execute what you're asking them to do.

And you go, oh. And the whole, this whole like emotional, it all goes away. And I know that sounds like it's ridiculous and you're like, Andy, that, that does not happen. It's never that simple. It's amazing how often it is that simple. It really shocks me where there is a totally understandable, or at least partially understandable reason that you get and you go, Oh, yes, I can at least see where you're coming from.

And that, that happens a lot. And you're like, Oh, they would tell me. It's amazing. What people just leave out of their reports, if you will. 

Stephanie Goss: I think the majority of the time it comes down to three, it comes down to three things. It's either a logistical problem, like you said, there's not the space for the conversation, they're worried about having it in front of other clients, something like that. It is a training issue where someone says, I know we're supposed to tell them, this is what you have to pay for and why, but I'm not actually sure that I understand that why or I don't, you know, I, I just don't know how I'm supposed to do that or it comes down to a training issue or the third piece is often an experience piece where.

They had it go badly with a client, and now they're worried about it, or they have their own concerns over money, and so they're feeling uncomfortable having the conversation, and so I think usually when you ask the questions and get curious, you get an answer that falls into one of those camps and that is that is solvable that is a problem that you can put on the table and say hey gang this is the challenge how this is the problem.

How do we fix it?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I agree with that. So related to getting curious, the first part of getting curious is what the heck is going on here, and let's try to figure out how to have that conversation. I would probably have it informally. I'd probably have it as one off conversations with one person, as opposed to engaging with a group, things like that.

The other part of getting curious is things that I probably would talk to the group about meaning everyone who's involved in this issue and it would sound like a team building activity just a little discussion with the team with the staff whatever but my opener would be something like What do you guys think the ideal?

Path for an upset client is let's say that someone is upset. They have a real problem. How do they engage with us? Where does that go? Who do they talk to help me understand in your minds? What does that look like? And then I'm going to follow up. If they don't give it to me, I'll follow up with the questions of at what point do you think it's acceptable to send somebody up the chain?

Like, when does that happen? What are the criteria for that? And I really like this as a group discussion, because then. One, it's not them saying to me, Hey, I want you to take this call, and me going, do you think it's acceptable for me to take this call? It's in front of everybody, and we're all talking about it.

And I have found that I can get generally positive discussions out of this. I think that it helps people to hear what other people think. Now, granted, you need to read the room a little bit here, and kind of know what you're walking into, and if you've got people who are going to be militant, and angry, and pounce on you, it might not do it, but for the most part, I think this honest, candid discussion works fine.

It's okay. If they say things you don't agree with, the point here for you is not to publicly debate them. I see a lot of people who go in there like, all right, got it, Andy. I'm going to go into this meeting. I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to hope that they give the answer that I want. And if they don't

give the answer that I want, that I'm going to publicly debate them in front of the rest of the staff. I'm like, no, no, 

Stephanie Goss: Been there done that. Made that mistake. 

Dr. Andy Roark: You're gonna, you're gonna go in there with, exactly, we all have but you're gonna, you're gonna go in there with a notebook, and you're gonna say, I just want to understand what you guys think, and what's important to you, and you're gonna dutifully write down what they say, and then you're gonna shut up, and you're gonna say, thank you very much, I just wanted to hear this is good, this helps me a lot.

If any of you have other thoughts or comments, or things you didn't share today, and you want to, things, comes to you, come and let me know. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit with this, I'm gonna process a little bit. And you're gonna go away, and you might end up writing a rebuttal. You might be like, Hey, I heard all of you.

These are the realities of what we're dealing with. Or you might be able to say there were three themes I pulled out that I really want to talk about and just, but I don't know what you're going to get. The important thing is to go in there and really try to listen to them. Oftentimes what happens is it does a lot of good for them to hear that other people are not on the same page as them and what other people, how they do their jobs.

And the last part, is we need clarity here in what we're looking at, right? one of the biggest problems that we deal with in these cases is we're managing to something that has not been spoken out loud. They haven't told me when they're going to escalate a call up the chain.

And I'm kind of making assumptions about what their criteria is. I really want them to answer the question of, At what point do you want to escalate this call? Or do you think you should escalate this call? Because if I can get them to say it, Then we can have an honest conversation about it. when it's needed I do it now we're arguing about what does need mean?

And again, we're not even fixing the problem. We're still trying to figure out what happens but if I can make them tell me with some level of clarity In their mind what constitutes a call that needs to be elevated then I can take that I can write it down. I can ask them. Why is this the level for you?

You like, what is it about these calls that make you feel like they need to get escalated? And now, buddy, now we're in the good stuff. This is where the solution lies. This is where I'm gonna find my key that unlocks the gate and gets this problem opened up and ready to go.

Stephanie Goss: There's two really important pieces that come out of that too, because when you have that conversation collectively as a group, and to your point, when you ask them, like, when do you escalate it? And whether you do it You know, privately or you just let them bring it out.

The reality is in most teams that have more than, you know, five or six people, you probably have one person on your team who is the cowboy and they've been around the block and they're, they'll tackle any client. So they're going to have the answer of, I don't like, unless someone's threatening physical violence, I just deal with it.

Right. And then you're going to have the person on your team who maybe is the newer person, maybe is more introverted. Like whatever the reasons are, they're just like I, you know, they're the ones who escalate things more frequently and they're going to have a reason for that. And so now you have the two ends of the spectrum within your own team and you have the ability to say, okay, so if Amanda is over here and she feels super confident and she can do this, Hey Amanda, I would love it if you could help me.

And let's talk through what that looks like for you. How do you talk to them? What do you say? How do you get them to calm down? And now it's not you as the leader who is doing that work. You have the ability to lean into the team for the solution and help get them to a more middle ground, which would probably be your ideal solution of, okay, there's probably some happy medium between Amanda standing there while a client is threatening to punch her in the face.

A manager should probably be involved before that, right? But I don't need to answer every call where a client is looks sideways at someone. Part of your job is to deal with the client service at the front desk, you know what I mean? So I feel like we're picking on the front desk, but it's a great illustration for the, for the conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I, I completely agree with that. So once we've sort of had this conversation and we've done the curious part and we've done the investigation for me, I think we need to start talking about resetting the culture. And again, this is very much pending what they say. Is the underlying issues. But let's just say that they don't like the clients, or, or that they're not comfortable with or that they're cold towards the clients.

it's always hard to negatively reinforce culture. That's one of my favorite sayings is, you're not going to punish people into a good culture. You're just not. I've seen it happen. Tried many, many times. It doesn't work. You have got to positively reinforce your way into culture. And so for me, I would start to have a culture meeting, right?

Remember culture comes from the top as well. And I would take that as an owner, as a manager, as a medical director, you have great power in setting the tone about how we look at clients and how we talk to clients. Now you can't snap your fingers and make other people talk differently, but the way that the practice talks about its clients sends a message to the employees about what is expected.

And so I might go ahead and start a client appreciation push. That's unrelated in its stated purpose to the issue at hand. If you're getting these responses or or reviews that people are cold, I think it might be time to circle up the troops and just start to talk to them about our clients. Not in relation to anything in particular, but just guys What do our clients mean to us? What do you like about our clients? Our clients take a lot of effort and energy. Why are they worth it?

Guys, think about the times you've gone home at the end of the day and felt really good about your job. When were those days? Did the clients you see play a role in those? 

Stephanie Goss: hmm. Mm hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark: And, and I would start to put together some sort of a meeting or something around that.

And then just lean into the idea that we want to honor our clients. We want to respect our clients. We want to celebrate our clients. And, and then start to, to figure out ways to do that unrelated to the telephone problem. And again, this, it takes a while. I would, I wouldn't tie this to training or anything.

I would just start to work on it. And then I think I would take that and own it as the team lead and say, what can I do to manifest the way that I think our clients should be treated and talked about and just start thinking creatively.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah I love that. And it's fun. I think as a leader in this, this is where it goes back to like my team loving, participating in, in Dia de los Muertos, like this is that same opportunity because let me tell you, when I have asked. My team questions like, close your eyes and tell me about your favorite client. The difference in the answers that you get is so awesome. And you learn things about your team and you also learn things about your clients. Like you learn about Mrs. Smith who might have, been sharing the story about her pet at the front desk with, you know, Sarah. And then she finds out when she comes in that you know, Sarah's out because

her partner is sick or something like that and takes her a home cooked meal. You don't even know about some of that stuff that our clients do for us in the team and help create that fabric. And so I love your point about, about trying to get them to talk about it in a different way and inspiring that what is going to set you apart? Like what about your clients makes them a part of who you are as a culture?

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly. And then how do the clients tie to your values? And then I would say related to that, remember I said, you can't punish your way to good culture. You need to flip it around. I would start an initiative to celebrate people who celebrate the clients. 

I would get back into the uncharted, positive reinforcement that we teach of finding specific examples of when people go above and beyond to support our clients, to celebrate our clients, to make our clients feel valued. And I would start shouting those people out and celebrating them and however you want. And it can't be you, the medical director, hoping to catch people in the act. We need to start a program where they can shout each other out, where we ask them very clearly, if, and when you see someone who's living our values and, and going above and beyond to take care of our pet owners, I want you to drop the I want you to write it down and drop it in this box and i'm gonna we're gonna do something nice for them.

It doesn't have anything big. It can be it can be their favorite candy bar It can be five dollar starbucks gift cards. It's things like that But now you're showing your team what matters you are positively reinforcing behaviors you want. You're patting people on the back making them feel appreciated and recognized for going the extra mile and delivering the behaviors that you want and so don't smack them on the hand for not being nice. Give them a candy bar for being wonderful.

Stephanie Goss: And so I'll tell you one, one of the ways I think this will illustrate your point perfectly, Andy, and it's one of the ways that I have screwed this up. So we went through a period where we were getting a lot of negative reviews about team related client service related stuff. And I, it got brought to my attention because my boss was like, Hey, We're getting a lot of these reviews and I need you to deal with it.

And so as a leader, I felt pinched. I was like, Oh crap. Now I'm on the hot seat because the team is not having good customer service. And so as a manager, I was thinking through it, what I thought was logically, which was, okay, let me look at the reviews. Let me find out what they're complaining about. Okay.

Let me help these people by giving them further training. I'll point out what's being done. And correctly, we'll talk through it, we'll get them to the right answer, and then the behavior will change. How it came across to the team was that the only time they were hearing about client reviews was when they were the negative reviews.

And so they were like, we only get smacked, and we have a sit down with you to talk about what we're doing wrong. We never hear about the positive stuff because I was like, Oh, we need to fix this stuff. We're on the wrong side of the 80 20 rule. And it took me a while to realize that until I had a team member go, don't we ever get any good client reviews?

And I was like, well, yeah, we get tons of good client reviews. Well, how can we never see any of those? And I realized that I was doing it wrong and I was doing it backward. And so I switched it up for myself, and I was like, Oh, that's a good point. And I started focusing on the positive. And so I started having the team be able to see all of the reviews instead of just the ones that we needed to fix, right?

Because we focus on the problems. We're problem solvers by nature in medicine. And so it was like, Oh, here's something that's broken. I want to fix it. But really, it was about, let's talk about the Let's talk about the good. And so very easy version of that was to say, okay, when somebody gets called out by name or by position where we can identify them in a positive way in their review, I'm going to reward them.

And that was such an easy switch for me to make as leader. And to your point, Andy, be able to reward that positive behavior, but also how uplifting for the team to be able to say, Hey, guys, at the end of the day, we're doing our team huddle. And I just want to take two seconds and read you this review that came in today from Mrs.

Smith. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I'm completely on board. All right. So action steps so far, get curious, get curious about what is happening? Why is this happening? Get curious about how they actually feel about the clients and then get into resetting the culture. And starting to jumpstart the culture, let's get positive about our clients.

Just top down, not, this is not a program for the front desk. It's is a program for everybody. Let's make sure that we're getting clear messaging from the top down about what our clients mean. And then let's start to positively reinforce lateral celebrations of people who are going up and beyond for our clients.

Number three is we got to create some kind of guidelines, right? They're not rules. But there are some guidelines. Yeah, exactly. About when and why clients get escalated up the chain. And so let's talk, let's try to come up with some, at least some guidelines. And that's all about trying to set expectations.

And really, I said, problem number one, we said emotional intelligence. Number two, we said setting expectations, setting guidelines and making the guidelines collaboratively with the team, or at least that's how we set expectations. If they say if the client raises their voice. They should be escalated if you say oh, okay Then the expectation is now the client who raised their voice gets escalated And so we need to work that out the way that I would do this Yes, and this is super uncharted style.

This is stephanie. I teach like this all the time. I really love it's it's case challenges is what we call them. I would make up an imaginary front desk person with the staff. We'll all come up with Denise and we'll come up with her together and we'll decide how old she is and how many years she's been here and blah blah blah and what her hobbies are and we'll come up with some fun things and we make imaginary Denise and then I'm going to give Denise a challenge.

I'm going to say Denise is talking on the phone to a pet owner who says these things and does these things. Now do not use something that happened in the practice. People will immediately recognize it. They'll get really defensive. Take something in the practice and modify it to something different. If somebody called about a client a cat that got a bath and something happened, change it to a dog that was boarding and something different happened.

And the staff, they, again, it should not be recognizable, but the theme should be the same. You know, like, they should the client being upset should be understandable come up with it. This is Denise This is what she's saying. The person calls this is what they say to her and this is how they say it Okay, so I start with that number two, and this is important.

I don't have them talk to me directly I have them turn to their partners or work in small groups and come up with a plan Of how you would respond and that lets them talk low stakes quietly to each other and they validate each other and decide that this is an acceptable plan and then I get these groups to share their plan back out to the larger group and we can all look at them.

I don't judge them. I write them all down. And we look at them and say, Oh, what do we like about this plan? Is there anything we would change about this plan? Is there anything that other groups would do differently here? And again, it's not about shaming. It's not about grading. It's about getting them to discuss what they see.

It is amazing how often one group will have a plan and another group will have a totally different plan and they will look at each other like they're from different planets and then. Like comprehension just dawns like, oh, I wasn't even thinking about those things. And so get them to do it based on their discussions of what they come up with about how they would handle these cases.

Let's start to make those guidelines about when we might escalate phone calls and then apply appropriate training. And so if they, if they're like, yep, we need to send this up. It is totally in bounds for you to say I want us to do some training on this so that not every one of these cases gets escalated and if you're like, but how do I train?

I'll put a quick plug in for the Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Course online. It's drandyroark.com it is a mega best seller. I've sold a lot a lot a lot of these courses. They are made for the team to watch together and to discuss what they do and how they do it in your practice Anyway, drandyroark.com Check out the it's called Charming the Angry Client and is made for teams. But it is a great training resource. And so I got that one for the creating guidelines. That's kind of how I would do that. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay. And that, and that sets the expectations for the team, right? Which is here's when, because ultimately in a situation like this, part of what is probably missing is that there is not a clear expectation two ways. What they can, when they can expect help from you and when you can expect them to solve their own problems, right?

And that, that's what comes out of that kind of conversation and creating the guidelines because you're having that group conversation. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And so that's, we talked about the emotional intelligence part, which we broke up into pieces and turned into a culture part, and then we talked about the setting expectations part, which is what we just did, and the last thing is the accountability. And so for me, after we have. Investigated after we have sort of recommitted ourselves to the culture and building the positive culture after we have talked about some creating some guidelines on how we're going to handle upset clients and use those guidelines to identify holes in our training.

Then it's time for us to hold people accountable to following the guidelines. And so, this is the time when we're going to start reviewing cases that get escalated up. And there's a couple reasons for this. Number one, if somebody kicks me a case up to deal with and I'm like, yeah, they should have kicked me this case.

I'm gonna say that was the, just so you know, that was the right call. You should possibly reinforce them sending cases up that they should send up. If it's not and i'm like, why am I dealing with this? I would go back and say to them. Hey, walk me through the the thought process on escalating this case.

What was going on? Why did you decide to do this? Now a lot of times what's going to happen is the person talking to the practice owner or the manager a very different tone than they did when they talked to the front desk. That is a crap tastic behavior, but it's out there. And so do not think that you got this rosy, nice person and the front desk was a bunch of chickens and just is like, nah, they may have had a very different experience you had.

And so just know that and be okay with it.

So part of it's going back and saying Talk to me about why this this came up just so I understand what were they doing and lean into it as far as you know Is there are there skills that we need to work on? Is there support that you need? Guys, I talk a lot about the path of least resistance and remember your employees your staff will often take the path of least resistance.

And if it's easier for them to hit the switch button and send the angry person to you, than it is for them to deal with the angry person, they're going to be more likely to hit the switch button and kick it to you. If they know they're going to kick it to me, and then I'm going to come and we're going to sit down and review the call, suddenly just dealing with the call might be easier and faster than kicking it to Andy.

And I told you this the punishing but I want them to get better because I don't want them to keep kicking it to me But the thing that happens is that path of least resistance. Coming to me is not the least resistant path because we are going to talk about why you send it over to me So I can make sure you have the resources you need and you're going to have to talk to me and it's going to be you know, not not a bad thing But it's going to be a thing you're gonna have to deal with And just that level of what I call intentional friction is often enough to make people say, you know what?

I'll just deal with it. And so we can subtly introduce that. And the last thing here is get serious about diving into these things. if you're not recording phone calls, it might be time to try recording phone calls for a while. You don't have to do it forever, but we might want to have a recording so that when the person says, yeah, they're being nasty, I said them to you.

I'm going to listen to that phone call and see what they said. And, I might bring you in and we'll listen to it together and talk about what could we have done differently? How, you know, how could we've handled this another way? And again, it's just about having that conversation of like, let's listen to the same thing.

And so anyway, at some point you're going to pick your poison. You're either going to record the phone calls and then sit down and talk to the person about them, or you're going to bring them in and do sort of a postmortem on the phone call that they escalated, or you're not going to do those things and you're going to continue to answer the phone. And deal with angry people. Now, you pick your poison. Do you want more phone calls you deal with yourself or do you want more phone calls or sit down meetings where you work with people so that they can better deal with the angry clients? Those are your two options. One of them gets a lot easier over time and the other one does not get any easier.

Stephanie Goss: I have a, I have a hint. No one should answer yes to the first one. 

Dr. Andy Roark: and the last thing I would give is maybe a circle back to headspace here too is know that if you're the leader or the manager Your goal should not be to get to zero where no one ever 

Stephanie Goss: Yes. 

Dr. Andy Roark: to you. That means that they're, that means that they're, exactly. That means that, that they're afraid to send things to you.

There are going to be some things that they're just not going to have the power to fix. And, You should be okay with that. There's going to be things that happen that honestly, just emotionally, the pet owners are going to want to talk to the owner or the medical director or the manager. You know what I mean?

And like, if they don't hear from the manager, they're going to be upset. And again, those things are few and far between, but when they happen, don't get upset about it. Just know that sometimes it's going to happen. It should not be an everyday occurrence for you to, it should not be a once a week occurrence for you, but it should happen.

And that's, that's fine. We're working to try to reduce the call volume you're dealing with by 80%. Not a hundred percent.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah. The, the other thing, the only other thing that I would add to your, to picking your poison and your your options besides the recording the calls. That was a game changer for me and my practice was adding video because body language and communication makes such an impact. And especially from where this leader is talking about, there's reviews from the clients that talk about something like the client, the, the staff comes across as cold or they come across as all about the money.

Well, what does that actually mean? What does it look like? What does it sound like? What did it feel like? I think in terms of getting to the root cause. And instead of focusing, focusing on it from an this goes back to once you open the lens wide, then you can narrow it back down. So if you do have a team member that is struggling with some emotional intelligence, and maybe their struggle is with, you know, the self awareness, maybe their struggle is with empathy or social skills.

Those are actual emotional intelligence skills that they may need more training on. And you get that. You get that glimpse into it by being able to see what they're doing here, what they're doing. And I know that a lot of people are opposed to that because they don't want to make it an environment where they feel like big brother is watching in their practice.

But let me tell you, it was a game changer for the whole team. They all hated me when I said I was bringing cameras in and it made the biggest

difference on how we worked with clients in the end. And it was huge. And even some of the biggest detractors at the end were just like, this is actually really helpful. Like I hate seeing myself on camera, but this was really, I'm really glad that we did this.

Dr. Andy Roark: We are out of time. Thank you, Stephanie Goss. Uh, thanks everybody for tuning in. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, have a great week, everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark: See you, gang!

Stephanie Goss: Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. We really enjoyed it and we hope you did as well. I just wanted to take a quick second and say, if you aren't currently on our untreaded newsletter, you should head over to unchartedvet.com/assemble Yes, that's right. 

Like the Avengers are assembling because we have got an amazing free resource to share with you. If you head over to the website and you sign up for the newsletter, you get your own copy of our superhero game created by our team. To allow the superheroes on your team to assemble. It's a great way to get your team talking, get them to know each other, get them working together, improving team cohesion and communication. 

And it's a low stakes fun way to engage with your team. Doesn't take very long. All you gotta do is sign up for the newsletter and you'll get a free PDF in your inbox. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Written by Maria Pirita · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: communication, culture, management

Sep 25 2024

I Hate That The Team Bashes Clients

In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss tackle a mailbag question from a technician struggling with negativity in their clinic, where team members have started complaining about clients after a recent workflow change. The hosts discuss how small behaviors like eye-rolling and client bashing can create a toxic work environment if left unchecked, especially when clients might overhear. They explore the importance of setting personal boundaries, leading by example, and addressing frustrations constructively to maintain a positive workplace culture. Tune in for practical strategies on how to approach tough conversations, support your team, and foster a respectful clinic atmosphere, all while protecting your own peace of mind. Let's get into this episode…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · 306 – I Hate That The Team Bashes Clients!

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions 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. This week on the podcast, we've got a letter in the mailbag from a technician at a practice who is struggling with some of the recent changes that their new practice made because they feel like it's impacting clients.

It's not the way that you think this time, the team is venting and talking negatively about some of the clients that are really struggling with the changes in the new workflow. And this technician is really frustrated with listening to this kind of client bashing. Let's get into this. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie Now We Got Bad Blood Goss. We used to have mad love, but baby now we got bad blood.

Stephanie Goss: I think you just made Maria Prita's dreams come true by singing a T Swizzle song on the podcast.

Dr. Andy. Roark: I was at the CrossFit gym and there was a Taylor Swift song on and the coach said, all right guys, we got two options. We can listen to Taylor Swift or, and all the women in the room stopped and looked at him in a way and he was like, or, we could listen to a different Taylor Swift song.

And it was just, I just, I saw it like, they shut that mess down. This was just like yesterday. I was like, oh, we're still in this place where you better tread lightly if you're trying to turn the Taylor Swift off. Anyway.

Stephanie Goss: I love it.

Dr. Andy. Roark: It was pretty intense. How are you doing today?

Stephanie Goss: I am doing okay. It is busy. Things are busy. This episode is coming out where we're in the end of September and schools just started back. Things are crazy busy. I, your kids went back way early this year.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Oh, yeah, we're like in week three. We're already homesick. That's where we are. We're so far into the school year that a kid is missing the back half of the week with covid.

Stephanie Goss: Oh, no.

Dr. Andy. Roark: We are just amped this school year is getting absolutely squished down in another month. We'll have had our first boyfriend and breakup and then it'll be time to graduate. That's how things are going to go. It is absolutely flying by.

Stephanie Goss: It's crazy. I have, I have my first experience. Both the kids are now in high school, which is frightening because I feel like they were both just babies. But speaking of bad blood, we had our first, rough experience of the school year. Besides the fact that on day two, I had to have the conversation with my kid about why are you already missing schoolwork?

Like it's only day two 

Dr. Andy. Roark: Day two. 

Stephanie Goss: what's happening here?

Dr. Andy. Roark: Like, look, I don't want to freak you out, but so far this is not going well.

Stephanie Goss: But, but we've hit, we've hit that stage where my youngest he is his father in miniature, except for he's my kid when it comes to school because he is really, really smart.

And he is lazy AF. He knows, he knows exactly how much effort he has to put in to score the lowest A possible. And that is the, that is all the effort he puts in. And he's so he's, he skipped he skipped two grades already because he's. He's just, he's that kid. So he's a couple of years younger than the rest of his class.

And we've hit that stage where his friends who the age difference hasn't mattered until now are really in the throes of being teenagers. They're 15 now and he's, you know, he's 13. And so 

Dr. Andy. Roark: That's a big difference, right? 

Stephanie Goss: it is, especially in

Dr. Andy. Roark: and a 13 year old that's a big difference. Like the difference in a nine year old and a six year old is not, it's not as big as

Stephanie Goss: Yes. Yep. And so we're feeling that age difference really for the first time.

And so there was some drama earlier this week because the boys were teasing him and they were just being. teenage boys. And I tried to rationalize that with him. But of course, in the moment he's feeling all the bad blood and it's emotion. And he's like, F these guys, they're such jerks.

You know, I'm just like, listen, you're giving them exactly what they want, which is to get a rise out of you. And you've just, it's the territory that comes along with being the youngest kid. And I remember that being, cause I was almost three years younger than the kids in my class,

Dr. Andy. Roark: That's why we pick on you at Uncharted, because you're the youngest employee.

Stephanie Goss: I know, I know.

Dr. Andy. Roark: And so we all just

Stephanie Goss: It's not, that's the funny part. That's what I, that's what I love about Uncharted is that I'm one of the oldest and it's one of the first places in my entire life where I've been the oldest kid in the class.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Just buckle up, Goss. It's all going to be good from here. So get ready for the good times to roll because it ain't going back.

Stephanie Goss: How’s things in the household besides the COVID?

Dr. Andy. Roark: besides the COVID, it's fine, it's good. You know what's funny I just want to, speak for a second on the teenage boy thing is like I think back about my life and when I was 15 16 years old I I remember that and the place that I have come to realize is I think a lot about interpersonal relationships that I had at that time in my life and They weren't always great And there were kids I did not get along with who hurt my feelings, and there were kids that I probably hurt their feelings.

And I think about some of the ways that I talk to people or treated people, and it's not my proudest moment looking back, and so I've really thought deeply about it and kinda say, you know, what does this make me as a person, as I look back and say, whoa, there's a lot of, I wasn't the nicest kid to other kids, and there were kids who weren't nice to me, and I was probably just passing it on down the line. I was wildly insecure. At ages 14, 15, 16, probably up to about 18, things started to level out a bit in that regard. I started to have some, started to have some friends, you know, that I I don't know, that I trusted their perspective. And then I got to a place where I was I realized, most people, I just, I don't like that guy, and I don't care what he thinks.

But boy, up until that part, it really was insecurity that drove a lot of the decisions that I made and things, and I, the question I've asked myself again and again throughout my life is, could your time in those ages have been better. And the answer is, I don't know that you can be 15 years old and not have that insecurity.

I think it's baked into the program, but it's so easy to look back and go, Oh, well now I would make a different decision. And I was like, well, you wouldn't feel that way now.

Stephanie Goss: Mm

Dr. Andy. Roark: It's almost unfair to criticize the decisions that you made early in your life because you just, you weren't the person that you are now, and you can't have been the person you are now.

That's part of just being a teenager and going through that period. I look at my kids and I hear the story that you tell about your son and it breaks your heart because you see it and you see that insecurity just writ large But there's nothing that you can do to make that insecurity go away.

And you know, you have to try to talk to your kid and say, this is, it's going to be okay. This is going to pass. Why do you think they feel that way? And you can do all of those things, but it just, it doesn't help very much because they just can't see it because they're in it. 

I think that probably the hardest part as a parent is just being there and being supportive and trying to help them get perspective in the limited way that you're able to get perspective when you don't have that much experience. When your hormones are raging, when you're insecure, when you don't know who you are as a person. It's just not a fun experience. And, I don't know, I've thought a lot about that, obviously, as the father of two teenage girls.

It's just, boy, it's tough. It's not a part of my life I would want to go back to.

Stephanie Goss: Well, it's funny too, because, you know, I apply the things that we teach in Uncharted and, and really like the communication tools that I have learned and are in my toolbox and I apply them at home as well. And so we had this whole conversation about how you express to someone and how you have the hard conversation, right?

I don't like the way you're treating me. I, if we're going to be friends, I don't want to be treated this way. And talking about boundaries and everything like that. And he's he's just gonna, he's just gonna laugh at me if I say that to him. The sad part is he's not wrong because they're teenage boys, right?

So I was just like, I know buddy. And I said, I, you just got to hang in there. Like it will get better. I promise. And so then he's, we were sitting on the couch together having this conversation and he got quiet for a second looks at me and he's like, it's okay, mom. He's like, I know that they have no frontal lobe development yet.

He's like, he's like, it'll, it'll be fine when they actually grow up. He's like, but I'm never going to grow up because I don't want to be an asshole.

Dr. Andy. Roark: That's, that's what it means to grow up.

Stephanie Goss: Yes! I just, oh god, I just died. I was like, this kid, man, he was just but speaking of jerks, we've..

Dr. Andy. Roark: Oh man. 

Stephanie Goss: We've got a good, we've got a good mailbag this week and I'm excited to talk about the bad blood here. It's interesting. So as I said, speaking of jerks, but we got an email from a technician who works in a practice and they're really struggling because they are in an environment where the team is doing some bashing of clients and in, in reading through it and reading it.

You know, obviously we only get one side of the story when we get a mailbag. But from what we read I don't think that this is actually jerky people in their practice. I think this technician is just really struggling because they've had some changes in their practice. And in particular, they have made some significant changes to their workflow.

And a lot of the feedback from clients about the changes have been wonderful. The clients are super happy with it. And there are some clients who were used to the old workflow and don't really like change. And probably some moments where the workflow has fallen apart because it's new. And so there have been clients who have complained about it.

And the team is using the defense mechanism, not unlike a teenager of, it's not our fault. So they should just deal with it. And doing that kind of client bashing and talking smack about like, why are they having such an attitude? I can, in my head, I can imagine.

Dr. Andy. Roark: why don't, why can't they text like a normal person?

Stephanie Goss: Right, exactly. Like, I can imagine.

Dr. Andy. Roark: You know, like totally.

Stephanie Goss: Right? I think we all can imagine that kind of client bashing because we've all, I think we've all heard it. And certainly, you know, I think if we're really honest with ourselves, we've probably all done it at some point.

Dr. Andy. Roark: I was gonna say, we've all done it. Yeah,

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, you know, I think about it. Like, I've done it. But so this technician is struggling because they're like, I feel like we have a great team.

I feel like our practice owners take care of us. Like I really enjoy working at this practice and it weighs on me how I hear the team talk about our clients because I don't like it just in general. But then also there's a physical environment in this practice where it's a small building and they're like, I think sometimes the clients hear us say things and that really bothers me.

And they're like, I don't know what to do. I feel like I need to talk to the practice owners about it, but can you help me figure out how to have this conversation? It's a hard conversation. And this one peaked my interest for a variety of reasons. And I'm super curious to hear what you, uh, what you think about it.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah, I like this one. This is super, super common. A couple things we just laid out up front. You touched on this, but context is important. Small building,

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm.

Dr. Andy. Roark: exam room right up on the front desk. Small team. So, we're not talking about 35 people. We're talking about less than 10 in the practice. I think this is a really well thought out letter.

I really like this person's idea and perspective. I think they're really trying hard. I thought it was really cool that they said, I'm coming into this practice and they questioned themselves, which I think is really good. I think introspection is good in limited amounts. I think introspection is good.

Naval gazing can go way off the rails, but just thinking like, is this possibly me? She said basically. Maybe it's just me and I'm just sensitive because I'm coming in from a new place and I'm seeing it. I thought that was, I thought that question of, am I taking this too seriously? I thought it was a great question.

I also like that she mentioned, you know, this is an independent practice and she's like, I feel like I should talk to the practice owners. But also, I'm not sure if I'm overblowing this or if it's worth, or if it's worth going through. going to them. So that's sort of the context that was also laid down in this letter.

This is a great letter. She gave us a lot of meat on the bone, really gave us some good context to understand what's going on and then asked the really nice question of kind of what do I do with this?

And so I want to pick up on something that you said as you sort of laid this down, Stephanie. You said the team is saying sort of negative things about the clients who are making mistakes as they get registered online or do whatever, and as they check in and blah, blah, blah. And you said, well, you know, the team is using this defense mechanism. And I think that's spot on.

And I think that's a really great place for us to start headspace is assuming good intent on all points. Parts so of course assuming good intent on the part of the clients is always good and like that should be a well taught skill that everybody just has and say just when in doubt assume good intent on the part of the client and repeat We have to assume good intent on everybody's part.

So assume good intent on the part of the people that you're now working with, because it is not going to be good for you to assume that you work with a bunch of jerks or bullies or toxic people or insecure people or whatever, I think the healthiest way to look at this is a self defense. mechanism or a coping strategy and a writer even said that like I think this is a coping strategy. Or they say that it's a coping strategy if it gets come up just for them to deal with frustration.

Stephanie Goss: hmm. Mm hmm. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: I think assuming good intent all around seeing it as the defense mechanism that it is I think that's important.

I think you can see it as a coping strategy. I think that's fair to say. I would say that bashing clients is a coping mechanism like drinking alcohol is a coping mechanism. It is. It does help you cope. It has long term consequences, especially if it gets out of hand. You know what I mean? And so it can be a coping mechanism and still not be

Stephanie Goss: Doesn't mean it's healthy. Yeah.

Dr. Andy. Roark: a healthy mechanism, especially at volume or over time. So anyway that's it. So that's sort of the first, the first thing that I started. And so that's a headspace for me. The other thing I really love, I'm just giving a love fest for this letter, but the other thing I really love is how transparent this person was when they write in and she says, she didn't use the term, I need to protect my peace, but that's what I took from it, was she was like, I just can't, I don't want to do this. I don't like bashing clients, its not fun, she, it was, it's funny, she did not say, it's bad for patient care, it's bad for workplace culture, she said, I just, I'm tired, it makes me tired, I don't like being around it, and I was like, bless you, child like, bless your heart.

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Dr. Andy. Roark: I really do that level of I'm not trying to say what's best for other people. 

Stephanie Goss: I know what I 

Dr. Andy. Roark: I know what I want. Yes. That is such a position of power. And I think a lot of times we fall into this. It's bad for culture. And I read somewhere that client bashing causes all of these things.

I think there is something so beautiful and pure and true in saying to yourself, I don't enjoy this. I don't like being around it. It changes the way that I feel in my day. I'm like good. I love it. I love that sort of insight into yourself and being honest about how you feel because when we get into action steps. I'm going to use that to really unlock this little path that I think is valuable. So anyway, that was part of my headspace in getting started.

Do you have anything in getting started in headspace? I want to get into some strategy sort of headspace philosophy but just as far as when you read this letter were there other things that you want to pull out?

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. No, I think you covered them. I think this was a wonderful letter. There's love for the clients, which is great because so often, especially right now in our industry the last five years have been exhausting and people are tired. And we've talked about it on the podcast, like letting yourself use that as an excuse to slide down a slippery slope isn't okay, but it is also part of reality.

And so that's why I said, I think that it is a defense mechanism because it's hard. It's hard when you feel like you're adapting. We know, listen, we know we don't like change in veterinary medicine. And even when you've got a team that has a super positive can do kind of attitude, change is hard.

And you get in there day to day and you're busy with the clients. And then a client doesn't do the thing that you want. It's really easy to slide down that slope. Like I said, I, I've done it where you, you're just smack talking like, why can't they just do, what we want, or, that client, even the situation it may not even be about that client, but you're irritated because your last appointment was late because they didn't follow the new protocol. And then you go in and you get stuck with a client who's being difficult. It's really easy to blame the whole thing on something that has nothing to do with the actual situation, right?

Like all of those things make sense in my brain as to why this team may be acting some of the way that they are. And I really love that this writer skip to where we usually have to work to get on the podcast, which is okay, let's consider all of this. But then also you have to set all of this aside and think about yourself.

This writer was already there, which I love. And it was certainly makes our jobs a little bit easier, but I love that you said it, you know, assuming good intent on the part of the team, because I think that's, I think that's important. I think that we've, I think we've covered those big ones.

I've got two, two things from a headspace perspective for the writer to consider that help bridge the gap to figuring out what their action steps are going to be. But the basic stuff, I think you covered.

Dr. Andy. Roark: All right, cool. Still in headspace I think that it's smart for this writer to worry a little bit about what's called shifting baseline. And that's the idea of behaviors, negative behaviors, especially towards clients, can become entrenched. They become just common. It becomes what we talk about.

And then once that happens, it's much harder to get it out of the culture. It's at first we start off and we don't say anything negative about clients. And then we roll our eyes at the clients. And nobody says anything. And it becomes a thing where we communicate with each other by rolling our eyes.

And now, we're all okay with rolling our eyes. And then it becomes muttering under our breath and nobody says anything and now we have still agreed that rolling our eyes and muttering under breath does not constitute bashing clients in our mind. That’s shifting baseline. 

Stephanie Goss: Right. Cause the clients can't hear it. Right?

Dr. Andy. Roark: However you justify it, no one rolls into practice the first day, throws the doors open, says grand opening and immediately starts gossiping and bashing clients.

Those are insidious behaviors that creep in a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and they get normalized and then the next level appears and that doesn't get knocked down and so then that gets normalized and the next level and it builds like that. It's like a, I don't know, it's like a spreading infection, right?

It doesn't. You don't suddenly have staph all over your body. It starts in a little spot, and if it doesn’t get killed.

Stephanie Goss: mm hm. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: So anyway I, shifting baseline is real, and you can also catastrophize these things, right? Just because somebody has a bad day and rolls their eye, that can doesn't mean you're headed towards a workplace culture meltdown, necessarily. 

Stephanie Goss: Right, toxic cesspool.

Dr. Andy. Roark: You know what I mean? Exactly, toxic cesspool. And again, we see people who are like, I heard so funny. There's an old far side comic about the cowboys sitting around a campfire and one of them says, whoa, Cletus just said a discouraging word. And it's. And I think of that as whoa, did you just say a discouraging word?

It's not catastrophic. It happens to the best of us. We don't have to have a panic attack. But also I think this person is right to have their eyes on this and go Ooh, is this gonna be a problem? Is this gonna get worse? So anyway shifting baseline is real but we don't have to catastrophize.

And the last thing I would say in Headspace, and this is sort of for our writer, this is a person who's not the boss, but they're seeing these behaviors and they want to engage. At some point, you get to pick your poison. And what picking your poison looks like here is making the decision of do you want the comfort of not saying anything or of going along with the behavior?

And then there's not going to be tension between you and the other employees. You know? but they're going to continue to talk to you about how stupid the clients are. Like that's the downside. Or, are you going to figure out a way to indicate that you're not on board with this conversation? Maybe not be the most popular person for a day, or maybe not be included in all of the conversations that are happening in the practice. There's no way out. You're either going to be in.

Stephanie Goss: There's some impact.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Exactly, you're going to be in, or you're going to be the nerd who is out, and being in has its own set of problems, because you're going to keep hearing about this, and you may hear about it more. So anyway, that's,

Stephanie Goss: It's it's 

Dr. Andy. Roark: I wish that wasn't true. 

Stephanie Goss: Just like in high school, right? It's like if you're, you're, you're in the in crowd and that has, you know, its consequences. I think about them, you know, I think about, again, dating ourselves, like I think about mean girls, like you're in the middle of it and that's got its own set of problems and consequences or you can be on the outside of it.

Dr. Andy. Roark: It’s funny that we brought up about highschool in the beginning. It was not planned as far as tying to this. We hadn't discussed it at all other than we were just sitting down and talking. But it really does line up of like, Do you want to hang out with the mean girls? And if you do, you're going to be kind of expected to be one of the mean girls.

And you're going to deal with the problems of being around the mean girls. Or, are you going to indicate to them that you don't want to be involved with what they're doing. And there's fallout to that. Now hopefully, the people, and again I think it's important to come back to this. The writer, I think, was very clear.

These are not mean girls. These are not mean people. They're just, this is a little thing that people are doing. Generally, it seems to be a nice place to be. And so, again, I don't think it's get on board with the bullies and beat people up. Or, be beaten up by the bullies. That's not where we are. And so, the stakes are much lower than that.

But, I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we said at some point, if we didn't say at some point, you're going to have to kind of pick your poison and choose the less of two, not completely ideal options. That's okay. That's just life. But we're going to have to do it.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. It's funny that's where you ended because I ended up in a similar space, but in a different way. I think in order to decide the way that you tackle this and what action steps you take, I think from a Headspace perspective, I think the work that our writer has to do is really sit back and think to your point, how do they really feel about this? 

Is this something that bothers them enough to want to pick the poison of saying something about it? Or are they gonna, are they gonna live with it? And I think the fact that they wrote in and the way that they wrote in tells us that their poison is that like, they want to deal with this because they like the practice and they want to be there.

And so they want to do something to make a change. And so from that, that's where for me, the headspace in this specific instance is in order to figure out how you're going to drink that poison. I think the writer needs to think about what do they actually control in this situation. I think you brought up one of them already.

Like they can say something to the team. And there's positive potentially consequences and negative potential consequences to that. Their solution that they indicated in a letter was that, well, I feel like I need to talk to my practice owners about it and get their, get their help. And that is, that is also, a valid option.

And I think there's two questions that they have to ask themselves. What do they control? And I think they, a lot of us haven't done the mental work when we get in a situation like this, that the writer has already recognized. They can't control what other people are doing, but they can control their response to it, and they're ready to control that response to it.

But if they hadn't done that work to figure out what do they control in this situation? That's the first step. And then the second step is, who actually can change this situation? And I think that's the bridge between the action steps and the headspace, because who can make a change in this situation?

You have to decide, can your practice owners actually make a change, and what change can they impart here, or does the power in this situation lie with the people who you're working with, with your coworkers? And I think doing some headspace work in figuring out how you want to approach this is really important because I think you, as you pointed out, Andy, there's, there's no way around this.

At some point you do have to pick your poison. And if you're going to approach it, there's going to potentially be consequences positive and negative on, on both sides. And so thinking about who can make the change here and approaching it from the position of the person who has the most power to make changes, probably a really smart step in terms of action steps.

Do you want to take a little break and then we can dive into action steps and how we approach this.

Dr. Andy. Roark: I do. 

Stephanie Goss: All right, let's do it.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Let’s do it.

​Stephanie Goss: Are you a veterinary practice owner who's ready to take control of your business and your life? If so, you should join us for the Veterinary Practice Owners Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, December 5th through the 7th. Our Uncharted POS, Practice Owners Summit, that is, a get together of, um,  around the industry who want to get together and figure out how to make their businesses work for them, not the other way around.

It's designed to help practice owners like you master the art of business ownership. And this year we have got a great lineup of leaders who are coming to the table ready to present workshops and also help us facilitate three days of awesomeness. We've got four badass female practice owners who are all bringing their own take and perspective on practice ownership to the table.

We have got a veterinary practice broker who is coming to talk about exit strategy and money. We have got some of our team, myself, my partner in crime here on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Tyler Grogan, CVT. The three of us are going to be your ringleaders for this weekend of fun. It's all happening in Atlanta, Georgia, and I want to see you there.

So head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/events to check out not only the practice owner summit, but all of the events that we have coming up between now and the end of the year and into 2025.  

Dr. Andy. Roark:  So for action steps, for me I think I know where this person's kind of going. I think they've done a good job of sort of laying out their thoughts and things like that. One of the big things that I would say, and I liked how they set or set up their headspace. This person is a paraprofessional.

All right, so for action steps, for me I think I know where this person's kind of going. I think they've done a good job of sort of laying out their thoughts and things like that. One of the big things that I would say, and I liked how they set or set up their headspace. This person is a paraprofessional.

They're a staff member, they're not in charge, they're not the manager, they're not the lead CSR. They're just, they're one of the team.

Speak for yourself is something that we can always do like this is the maturity that I wish I had in high school that I didn't have, but I would have now. And so when I say speak for yourself, the way that we communicate is important, right? 

If I say to you, Stephanie Goss, you stop client bashing. It's bad for this practice and it undermines what we're trying to do here and it damages the culture. That's going to sound very different to you than to me say, hey, I'm sorry, I can't talk negative about clients.

It just, it gets me down and then I just don't enjoy, I don't enjoy my day if I get into that headspace. I'm sorry. Isn't that different?

Stephanie Goss: Those two things feel very different.

Dr. Andy. Roark: They feel very different. And one of my things here is, and I just found this to be, it's putting your own oxygen mask on. I'm not, especially because this person is new in the practice, they're not an established leader.

But even if you are an established leader and you use language like that, it will carry weight because people look to you as a role model, you know, to some degree. And so, there's great power in not saying, this is bad, this is not how we behave, this is not in our values, just saying I can't. I can't get into, I can't get into client negativity, it just takes a toll on me and it, puts me in a bad mood and it tanks my day and so I, I can't go down that road.

Stephanie Goss: Well, I think it's really important to pick apart the difference there because in the first version, anyone is immediately going to be put on the defense when they feel like they're being chastised. 

Even if it's a gentle, you know, even if you're gently chastising them, they're going to immediately feel defensive and our human lizard brain mechanism for defense is to immediately deny or defend or lay blame elsewhere to protect ourselves, or, you know, we're trying to protect our little brain. And so that's not going to be very effective. But when you, you choose this, the latter, you're making it about you. It's not about them.

It's about how you feel and how it impacts you. And so they can choose to brush it off or, play it down or be like, Oh, you're so, you know, you're being so ridiculous. You're being so dramatic. It doesn't, it's not a good look for them because here it is. You're being honest and open and like, Hey, I like working with you. And I don't, this makes me sad. And I don't want to be around that. Like 

Dr. Andy. Roark: This makes me sad. Oh, that's a good one.

Stephanie Goss: Someone someone can choose to be rude back, but it's, it, that it's never going to look good. And so when we talk about it in that high school kid context it's Oh, yeah. Okay. Maybe I want to choose my words more wisely.

Maybe I want to choose my battles more wisely. So it's really important to pick that apart because using that language that makes it about you and about how you feel is so much more powerful. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: Sure, it's the old, it's not you, it's me breakup which I also learned about in my teenage years. Yeah, , but it's, it's exactly that is. I love it. I think it's a great way. I think what I would say to our listeners, figure out what the one sentence response is that feels right coming out of your mouth.

And whether it is I can't I have, try to think about exactly how to say it. I can't get negative about the clients. It just makes me sad. that's it. Say that. And then slightly sort of turn your chair and, and move on. Don't shame the person. Don't get mad at the person.

Immediately re-engage them on a different subject. Ask them a question about something totally different. Don't make it a thing. But that one line I can't, dude, I, I love our clients. It's, I have to love our clients. In order to enjoy my day. And then go on, and that, that's it. But really, you can do it.

You can say it with a smile on your face. It's not a condemnation of them. It's not them, it's me. And I just say, hey, I'm I am new. I gotta have a good outlook on our clients, or else my days just are not fun. 

Stephanie Goss: It still puts, it still does the appropriate and kind work that the writer did for themselves in their letter, which is, it's just setting a boundary. It's just saying to somebody else, hey, this is how I feel about this. And I don't like it. It doesn't have to be you don't have to go from where you're feeling today to having a sit down conversation with the practice owners, right?

Like this can be a multi-step process. And it comes off in the end if you have to go there, right? If you put up boundaries for yourself and if you say to the team, Hey guys, this really bothers me. It makes me really sad when we talk about clients. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna work on my records over here because I don't want to be a part of this.

However, it feels comfortable for you to say what you're going to say. You've now taken a step and if they continue to do the thing, if you've put up a very clear boundary and you can say and demonstrate, Hey, this is what I did to take action. This is how I approached it. You're starting the process so that if you have to have the sit down conversation with your practice owners, it looks very different when you go to your boss, whether it's a whatever.

And you say, Hey this person is doing this thing that bothers me. Well, as a manager, my first question to you is going to be, what have you done to try and change that? And if you tell me, well, I'm talking to you, I'm going to say, turn right back around and walk out of my office and go have the conversation with them first, because I can't do anything about it at this point.

If you haven't even talked to them, there's nothing I can do. That's going to actually solve this problem. But if you can go to your leader and you're like, here's the challenge that I'm facing. Here are the steps that I've taken to try and solve this problem already. I need your help to figure out how to move forward from here.

Those are also two vastly different conversations. And so from an action step perspective, I think that it's really, really important to set that boundary for yourself. And it's a simple thing that you can do.

Dr. Andy. Roark: I want to say more about setting the personal boundary, and then I think that there's a step in between the two that you laid down, that we can use, that I actually like. Alright, so, setting the boundary, I agree, just communicating to people like, like in a very soft way, I I'm out, this is not, I don't, I can't go here mentally, it's just not good for me.

I think that's great, and I think, honestly, Most everybody will respect that especially if you just say it makes me sad. For my own mental health I have to I love our clients. I have to love our clients. That's just what I need and then be done. That is actually a really powerful thing. 

Now, will they go and talk to each other probably so But you shouldn't have to you shouldn't have to be around it a full stop And so you shouldn't have to be around it and that's that's okay. If they're talking right next to you, you can say the same thing of like guys the, it makes me sad when we dunk on our, when we dunk on the clients, even if they deserve it.

It just erodes my desire to help them, and I just, I, I don't want that. And you can be done. So you can say those types of things. Again, these are not things I would have said to the guys acting like jerks when I was 15, but if I was magically back there, I would say these things, and they would say, Oh, that guy's not as cool as I thought, and I would say, 

Stephanie Goss: hmm. I don't care. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: about how cool you think I am. Like, I don't care. Um, that's, but again, that comes with perspective and time but that's where, that's where the happiest place to be is in that same vein. This person says, you know, the clients are in the building and they do this and the exam room is right there up at the front.

Uh, my very similar boundary is if somebody says something and there's a and there's a client in that room, I'm going to put my finger up to my lip. In the universal, we need to hush. 

Stephanie Goss: There’s a client right there.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah, shh. Exactly right. I put my finger up to my lips and then I'm going to point at the exam room and, and when someone's not around there, I would just say, guys, the clients can hear everything we say up at the front desk. And that's it. It's again, it's not saying. You're undermining our values. This is a toxic behavior. The clients in the room can hear everything. As soon as there starts to be anything, I will point at the room and raise my eyebrows and just,

Stephanie Goss: And that's really smart because what it's going to do is make people reconsider not only the behavior that you're hoping to curb. But also think about all the stuff we talk about in the day in a, like, especially in a female dominated field where we tend to get close with our coworkers. If you said that to me, I would immediately turn tomato red because I would be thinking about the conversation that we had about, the weekend out at the, at the bar or, you know, like whatever other things had been discussed.

And I would be thinking, Oh, a client might have heard that. And there are some of us that might not care. And there are others that would immediately be like, Oh, I better reconsider what I'm saying. You know? So we need that reminder, especially for those of us that have a tendency to get excited and be a little loud,

Dr. Andy. Roark: yeah. I'm not, I might also overplay or overstate maybe the transparency of the walls a little bit. I would err on the side of caution as far as hey, you know, they can hear things in there. Just for that reason. So those are fairly simple passive sort of things that I can do to protect my own peace and to just kind of send the signal to those guys like I guess I'm not really on board.

A lot of times a single person or two that kind of takes that perspective can sort of keep things in check. Now if you have someone who is determined to be negative, to be angry, to gossip, they're just going to go around you.

Stephanie Goss: Mm-hmm

Dr. Andy. Roark: This goes back to what Stephanie said at the very beginning of, what do you control?

And like, you're not the boss of these people, you're not their manager you can't control. If they want to go back to the back and say negative things about the clients, you're not in a place to police that. And, if that does happen, you're going to have to decide how you feel about that.

Continuing to be here and what you're at what your steps are. Okay, so that's that the other action step I would put on the table and I say this in all honesty as a business owner if you are seeing these kinds of things I would appreciate not a formal report not a demand for action, but a proportional heads up Meaning, I would love for one of my front desk people to pop their head in and say, Hey, I don't really know if this is a big deal or not, but I'm starting to hear some grumbling about the clients being dumb when they're engaging with our, you know, new check in system. And I'm not participating or anything and it's not a lot and the things that they're saying are not terrible. But I just it's given me some prickles about being worried that it's a behavior that might catch on. And so I don't know if you want to do anything about it or anything but I at least wanted you to kinda know.

And there is, it may be something that's starting to get started, and we almost never get that as business owners. And I can't tell you how often people show up and go, Everything's on fire! And I'm like, Why didn't you say this six weeks ago? I was like, well, it wasn't on fire then, it was just gently smoldering. And I'm like, I wish you had told me it was gently smoldering. I could have easily dealt with it before the building was engulfed. But often it's, I don't want to say anything, I don't want to say anything, now it's too bad. Now it's the sorcerer's apprentice, right? When Mickey Mouse has got the magic, he gets the magic wand and he's trying to clean up and he doesn't want to say anything.

And before any, the wizard shows up and fixes everything. It's complete pandemonium and the whole wizard's laboratory is flooded. And there's bucket wielding mop people everywhere. And just like, if you had had immediately said, Hey, I'm just noticing this living bucket is making a mess. I could have fixed that very easily.

And so anyway, that's maybe a bit of an odd metaphor but you get where I'm going.

Stephanie Goss: I do, I love it and it's so funny that you said that because I'm gonna, I'm gonna maybe Jedi mind trick that one, one level up, because I think you and I, you're in my head.

Cause we have the same action set, but from very different perspectives. I think the way that I might suggest approaching it, As a team member and also as the manager is if you came to me and you said, Hey, I'm seeing this thing. I don't know if it's really anything to worry about. I'm not necessarily participating in it, but I just want you to know about it.

I'd be like, are they trying to start drama? Like I'll be honest. That's the first thought that would go through, would go through my head. And maybe that's just 

Dr. Andy. Roark: I would not have that thought. Okay.

Stephanie Goss: That's just the difference in our perspective, because I think probably first with the manager hat and second with the owner hat.

But if you came to me and you said, Hey, we were getting, we've had great client feedback on the changes in our workflow. We've had some clients that have struggled with it and it seems like the team, it bothers the team. There's, there's some days where we've been in kind of a funk and there's some gossiping and there's some conversation happening.

I wonder if we can review. the new protocols as a team and talk about what is going well and what we might be able to help the clients with because I just feel like that would make all of our lives even better. I am going to action the mess out of that as a leader and an owner because you're coming to me not only with a problem that impacts our clients, but you're coming to me with an easy solution.

It's hey, can we just talk about, can we just, as a group, can we talk about this workflow? I am like, that's going to light me up and I'm going to be like, why yes. And also would you like employee of the month for bringing something like this to my attention before it's a giant, one star review flaming us on Yelp. So very, very similar, but in very different very different ways of going about it.

Dr. Andy. Roark: yeah, if you, if I was the business owner and you came to me and you said that, just hey, this is a thing that's, that's going on, and just wanted to put on your radar and blah blah blah, I would probably nod my head, and then I would add it to the agenda for the next huddle or whatever.

And granted, context matters. This is a small group, it'd be really easy to pull everybody together. And so I like to think that we're having little huddles, whether they're in the morning, of like, hey guys, let's just run through our day real fast. I think that's so great, especially with a small team. Oh, chef's kiss.

But, I'd wait, I'd put on my agenda. I might not do anything about it today. Might not even be tomorrow. But, next time we get together, I'm gonna pull everybody together, I'm gonna say, guys, I want to do a quick run through on our new check in system. How's it going? How's everybody feeling about it?

I feel like it's going well. I feel like we're working well together. How are you guys doing? Great. How do you think the clients are doing? Are they getting it? Are there ways that we can support them? Things like that. And then, I would see where the conversation goes. And then at the end, I would say, Hey, I know that there's clients who probably struggle with this.

And I know we've introduced something new. Guys. Do me a favor, be patient with these people. They're trying, new technology is always gonna be hard. There's always gonna be people who are struggling. Remember that we're dealing with people, they're stressed out, they haven't done this before.

Remember, like, let's just all agree to give grace to clients and make sure that we're being positive and supportive. It doesn't do us any good to get frustrated at them because then we're just frustrated and they don't even know that we're frustrated and it just, it brings us down and It doesn't make anything any better.

And so anyway, if you're getting to the place, if clients are really struggling, I want you guys to let me know and we will figure out other ways to support them. So it's important not to say don't complain. Also, we're not going to do anything to help you. If it really, if it really is to a point where people are struggling, let us know.

We'll make adjustments. Otherwise, remember to give grace. Remember to assume that everyone's doing their best. Know that some people are not. going to be good with technology. Imagine that your parents were trying to get in and they were struggling and treat them, treat the clients like you treat them. and so that's, I, I would say something like that.

And then let's see how it goes. But it is, I would start with that level of very soft touch, but we would talk about it as a group. And I would try to open up the floor to get agreement for those guys that, yeah, it doesn't help us to get frustrated. Yes, it is. I would try to validate them. It's easy to get frustrated, especially when people are struggling with technology.

Know that's never going to go away. It's all, we're always going to have to deal with it.

Stephanie Goss: I was going to say the same and I might even say, you know, we've we've all had those moments where we want to, roll our eyes or make comments about the clients, myself included, like you get that difficult client. And the first thing that you want to have slip off your tongue is, why do they have to be so difficult?

I get it. I do. You're validating the scenery for them. And also. I also know that we care about the clients. And so I, I have to, in that moment, what I have to do is just try and take a deep breath and set it aside. And what I would like you all to do is if you find yourself again, not saying you're doing the behavior already, but I'm thinking future facing.

If you find yourself in a position where you feel like you just want to complain about a client or you can't stop rolling your eyes hard enough and you can't set it aside let's figure out a mechanism to let me know, right? 

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah. Come, come and tell me and like,

Stephanie Goss: that's because that's probably when we need to look at it and see what is actually going on here, right?

So you're giving them permission to feel that way. You're just asking them to do something healthier behaviorally with that emotion and that feeling and that's a better long term outcome for them as a person, but also the team as a whole.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah, I spot on. I completely agree. That's what I would do. Again, as a member of the team and not the manager, not the team lead, things like that you've got a limited number of tools in your toolbox. I hope that we sort of showed you a couple ways to kind of use them, but I really think Sort of summarizing all of this, remember to assume good intent on the part of your colleagues, think of this as a self defense mechanism, speak for yourself, protect your peace, let people know like, ah, this is no good.

The old like point, pointing over at the exam room and, just indicating, hey guys, there's somebody in there.

Stephanie Goss: Hmm. Right. Mm

Dr. Andy. Roark: Or saying to them, hey guys the clients are going to hear what we talk about in that, in that room. In that room, so everybody, everybody just beware. Mention it to the practice owner. That's, and in proportion, I really like when the writer says, I'm not sure if this is a big problem or not.

I'm like, as a business owner, I'd appreciate if you came to me and said, I'm not sure if this is a big problem or not. It's funny that you would think of that as drama. Maybe it's the high school girl versus high school guy experience. I'm like, no. But again, I don't really care if it's stirring drama because I'm, I'm not going to fly off the handle and have an all hands emergency meeting and, and put up a PowerPoint about, about the importance of workplace.

I'm just going to say to everybody, how's it going? You know, and that's it.

Stephanie Goss: That makes sense. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: I wouldn't make a big presentation of it. I would just talk to everybody and tell them they're doing great and ask them how they feel and ask them, you know, how they feel about the clients and remind them that our clients are great and that we, benefit from assuming good intent on their part and we should feel good about helping them not frustrated.

Stephanie Goss: Let's see what happens. 

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah, that's it. So I, anyway, I, we, we rarely get questions from this early. In the downward spiral. I'm like, oh, this is this is easy. We can just apply a little pressure to the steering wheel here. I think we can get out of this little rut. This is this seems very doable. So anyway, great letter really appreciate our our listener putting it to us. Really good. 

Stephanie Goss: Me too. This was great. Have a, I think that's all we've got, right?

Dr. Andy. Roark: I know I'm good with that. That's great. Yeah. 

Stephanie Goss: Have a great rest of your week, everybody. Take care.

Dr. Andy. Roark: Yeah. Take care everybody. See you later

Stephanie Goss: Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. We really enjoyed it and we hope you did as well. I just wanted to take a quick second and say, if you aren't currently on our untreaded newsletter, you should head over to uncharted vet.com forward slash assemble. Yes, that's right. 

Like the Avengers are assembling because we have got an amazing free resource to share with you. If you head over to the website and you sign up for the newsletter, you get your own copy of our superhero game created by our team to allow the superheroes on your team to assemble. It's a great way to get your team talking, get them to know each other, get them working together, improving team cohesion and communication. 

And it's a low stakes fun way to engage with your team. Doesn't take very long. All you gotta do is sign up for the newsletter and you'll get a free, free PDF in your inbox. so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Written by Maria Pirita · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: communication, culture, management

Sep 18 2024

Frustrated With Breaks… And Not Taking Breaks

A practice manager is frustrated by team members delaying lunches and taking disruptive trips to the breakroom, which leaves the afternoon understaffed and creates tension among the senior team. In this episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Andi Davison tackle a challenging mailbag question: how to manage staff taking breaks, ordering food, and maintaining workflow. Dr. Roark and Andi break down how to approach this situation from a place of curiosity and empathy, exploring the reasons behind these behaviors while still maintaining boundaries and fairness. They share strategies on addressing break policies, fostering a positive work environment, and ensuring everyone feels supported while keeping operations running smoothly.

Andi Davison has been on the wild ride of veterinary medicine since 2001, having started as a vet tech and eventually becoming the veterinary care manager at the University of Florida's large animal hospital. Alongside her veterinarian husband, Dr. Mike Davison, she opened Davison Veterinary Medicine, serving mixed-animal clients for nine years. Now, as a Positive Change Agent with Flourish Veterinary Consulting, Andi is committed to helping veterinary professionals thrive, drawing on her extensive experience to promote positive change in the industry.

Tune in to learn how you can create a healthier work environment by approaching conflicts with kindness and setting clear, manageable expectations for your team!

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · 305 – Frustrated With Taking Breaks.. And Not Taking Breaks

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


Upcoming Events

🌟 Get Sh*t Done Conference 2024 – Unlock Your Practice’s Potential!

Feeling like the chaos of practice life is holding you back? On October 23rd, join us for the Uncharted Get Sh*t Done Conference, a live virtual event where you’ll tackle challenges head-on. Customize your learning journey with interactive workshops and hands-on sessions focused on building resilience, improving team communication, and mastering customer service. Ready to work on what matters most to you? Let’s get sh*t done—together! Register now and reclaim your practice!

🌟 Transform Your Practice at the 2024 Practice Owner Summit!

Ready to take control of your veterinary practice and achieve the balance you’ve been searching for? From December 5-7, 2024, join fellow practice owners in Atlanta for the Practice Owner Summit. Discover essential business strategies, work on your long-term vision, and connect with peers who understand the unique challenges of ownership. Learn from industry experts, step out of the day-to-day grind, and leave with the tools to make your practice thrive. Sign up today and start building the future you deserve!


Episode Transcript

Dr. Andy Roark: Hey everybody, I am Dr. Andy Roark and this is the Uncharted Podcast. Guys, I got a special episode for you today. I am here with Andi Davison, and we're taking a question from the mailbag. Andi is a friend of mine, and she is speaking at our GSD virtual conference coming up. And we have a question from the mailbag about people being late taking lunches and taking these sort of frequent trips to the break room to get food and things like that.

So there's people who are taking breaks that maybe they shouldn't. There's people who are not taking their breaks when they should and lunch breaks are backing up and then we're not being staffed appropriately for the afternoon. And how rigid should we be about these things? I don't want to be a, I don't want to be a tyrant and at the same time I'm getting pretty irritated and I think the rest of the team's getting irritated too.

What do we do? It's all about time management and getting people To work when they should and to not work when they shouldn't. I think you'll enjoy this. Let's get into it 

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and I am here with the one and only Andi Davison. How are you today?

Andi Davison: I am so good. Thank you for asking. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I love having you on the podcast. You're one of those people who makes me feel good when I talk to you. I like to talk to you because I know that I'm gonna leave the conversation with a smile on my face, just feeling good about myself and the world.

And so you just, you have that power. I think we all hopefully know that person who just makes us feel good, who kind of radiates when they come into the room, and I I think you're one of those people, and so, anyway, I love getting to spend time with you.

Andi Davison: That's super kind. Thanks.

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh well, it's true, for those who don't know you, you are a credentialed veterinary technician. You are also a Positive Change Agent over at Flourish. Do you want to talk for a second about what that means? Like what you do at Flourish?

Andi Davison: Oh yeah, absolutely. So over at Flourish I am a full time positive change agent and we are basically a consulting company in the veterinary wellbeing space. And so what we do over at Flourish as a team is we basically take the science of human thriving and we translate it into things that make sense to veterinary professionals and things that veterinary professionals can implement into their lives every day so that we can thrive at work instead of just survive our work every day because I know that is so possible and I want to be a source of support for that out in the vet community

Dr. Andy Roark: On October 23rd, you are going to be speaking at the Uncharted Get Stuff Done as we'll just call it for right now. You are doing a keynote on resilience building resilience for your team and for yourself, and then you're doing a workshop. Tell me a little bit about your workshop.

Andi Davison: Oh, the workshop is going to be fantastic. It is focused around setting and accomplishing meaningful professional goals. And I love it because not only is it engaging and is it's interactive, but we all have goals. We all have professional goals. We all have things that we want to accomplish and chances are we've all,

tried to accomplish things before and haven't been super successful at it. Why is that? And what can we do differently? And how can we set ourselves up for success so that we can accomplish the things that we really, you know, that are really important to us. And so this workshop is focused on that and it's really gonna, you know, we're going to talk a lot about the science behind goal setting and we're going to dig really pretty deep into what that looks like and what that looks like for you as an individual and how to take that science and create a plan for yourself.

So what can I do to make sure that I don't have a lot of stress? That will set you up for success, no matter what the goal is that you're looking to accomplish.

Dr. Andy Roark: That's the GSD conference is a virtual conference. It is on October the 23rd. It is just, it's one day you guys check it out at unchartedvet.com. I'll put a link in the show notes, but it is our whole one day conference on how to actually just get stuff done. And so anyway, so Andi will be there for that.

It's going to be a good time. Andy, I got a question in the mailbag that I kind of want to run through and break down with you. You okay with that? Sure.

Andi Davison: Yeah. Let's do it.

Dr. Andy Roark: We got a letter. I love this letter. It says, Hey podcast team, I could really use some advice on managing breaks and food delivery at my practice. Here's what's going on. So when they said food delivery, I was like, is this a staff meeting question? It's not here's what's going on is, and it's driving me a bit nuts when I ask someone to go on break, they often respond with, oh, I have to order my lunch.

This makes me irrationally annoyed because I bring my lunch every day and I expect others to be a bit more prepared. Sometimes I have people that need to get something done before they go, but that something turns making all of the lunches and the early afternoon appointments late. So, the first person doesn't go to lunch, cause they gotta get this thing done first, and then they're taking their lunch break, and the other people are waiting for them to come back, and then everything ends up running late.

On top of that, I have three younger team members who wait for each other to arrive, which varies from 7 to 9 a. m., before ordering DoorDash breakfast or coffee, they do this while on the clock. Once the food arrives, they leave it in the break room, but they keep going back and forth to eat between their duties.

This behavior is really disruptive and feels unfair to the other team members. I'm trying to pick my battles, but this situation is particularly challenging. I don't want to come off as too strict, but they bend the rules every chance they get, and I don't see their behavior and they don't see their behavior as problematic.

My senior team members are also annoyed by this. Am I too strict to create policies on food delivery and eating snacking during work? How do you manage breaks effectively otherwise? All right, Andy, that is the question. 

Andi Davison: Such a good question. 

Dr. Andy Roark: It is a great question. 

Andi Davison: Right? 

Dr. Andy Roark: Let’s break this down Uncharted style.

Let's start with headspace. The group that's going in and out of the break room and just like continuously it's like, you know we're just dipping in here and grabbing something. It's not disruptive but it is and it like it's annoying and it's like it's the little things about like I can't help you I've got my hands are full and the walking, you know, it's one thing if you really walked in there grabbed a thing and walked back out but you don't you walk in there and then you have to get the plate out or you know Wash your hands or do what and just it's kind of these constant little distractions and if you do them all the time, they really they do add up and people get irritated. Especially when you're kind of having a rolling brunch and they're like I haven't gotten to pee because I'm holding these pets and trying to get this work done and when I look around for you, it's the inopportune time that you're not in the room because you're on your way to or from the break room. And I totally get it. So let's break this down the Uncharted style and let's just start with headspace here. If you're this person Andi, where would you try to get yourself emotionally? What– philosophically how would you look at this problem?

Andi Davison: issue, because I don't know if it's a problem, but issue is so important because for this particular manager it's going to be critical in my mind, for them to really tap into their curiosity. Because you know, jumping to, you know, Emotions, jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, isn't going to serve this person very well.

And to really kind of slow down for a second and adopt a mindset of curiosity, I think is going to be really helpful for everybody. You know, kind of. Okay, so this is happening. Why is it happening? I would love to understand more about why it's so important for these particular staff members to wait for each other to arrive before they order their coffee.

Why does this person feel the need to get whatever it is done before they place their door down shorter? And just really, want to know, like genuinely be curious about that. And I think that alone is going to open up some doors and start a really valuable conversation. That's going to lead towards a little bit more productive solution to what's going on there. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I think you're, I think you're spot on with this as far as the why. It's easy for me to say, hey, look. I know you feel like you need to get something done before you go on lunch break, but then it sets everybody back, and I need you just to go on lunch, don't know what pressures are being put on that person.

There's nothing more demoralizing than having the manager say to you, you need to leave, and having the doctor say, don't you dare leave. Like, that's really not fair, and I see that, I totally see that. In order to get, um, people, especially support staff, out the door You need doctor support to get them out Otherwise, they really trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. I've seen that. I have seen that many times. And so, I think that your start with curiosity is absolutely healthy and fair. We always talk about having safe conversations, so, like, I know that this irritates our writer, and when you're irritated is the worst time to have the conversation.

The classic management strategy I see is, I'm gonna let this behavior go until I'm having a bad day, and it happens, and then I'm going to snap and have the conversation, and I'm like, that's a terrible idea. 

I see all the time. So, S is, can you sit next to this person?

Can you smile at them? A is assume good intent. hey, let's assume that these, the young staffers in the morning are, let's say that they're, what is the best possible intentions they have?

They're trying to be inclusive of each other. the people who are staying late to get one more thing done before they go to lunch, they're probably trying to help the pets. They're probably trying to help the clients, the doctors, the practice. They're probably trying to do what is most valuable in the moment to support our values, which are things like providing compassionate care and things like that.

And so, it helps me to go, okay, this person is probably trying hard, they probably just don't understand the ramifications or the fallouts of, you know, of what this behavior is doing. F is, has this person been set up to fail? Which is, Have we told them this is not acceptable or have they, have we communicated the frustration that we're feeling or things like that?

What here is my fault is like, can I own any part of this? If I didn't tell them that this wasn't okay and instead I told them, yeah, sure, we're, you guys can have food in the break room, then I kind of set them up to fail. It's kind of my fault. If I can own that, it's going to make the conversation easier.

And the last thing is end result. And this is, I think, something that I think is really sort of philosophy and something to sit with a little bit is. What do you want the final outcome to be? Is it that no one eats other than when they are clocked out and out? That's okay. Is that really what you want?

Or is it just that we've gone too far and we need to swing back and there need to be some parameters, you know what I mean? And I don't know what the answer is. You really kind of have to look at your culture and your people and and the why and how this is happening. But I think before I talk to them, I should at least know what's going to make me happy.

Because if the only thing that's going to make me happy is, you need to be off the clock if you're going to go and have a break and eat, then I should not go in there and be like, I don't know guys, you feel like just doing less of this? Like, don't let them do something that you're still going to be mad about.

That's not fair to them.

Andi Davison: That's a great, that's a great sort of scaffold to literally wrap your head around, right? To help you get into that mindset, mind space. And in listening to you talk, something that really stood out to me there, Andy, is that curiosity fits into all of those. It absolutely fits into all of those. And the one that I love and the one that I'm going to pull out is the idea of assumptions.

Because you're right, like, okay, well, we need to make positive assumptions. We need to make better assumptions. And the word assumptions is something that we as human beings are going to do no matter what. Whether or sometimes we'll make negative assumptions. I mean, we're human, right?

The key with it and where the magic comes in is to test those assumptions. And that's where curiosity happens. So you can go, gosh, you know, I'm sure that you're just trying to get one more thing done so that you can help out the patient before you go on lunch. Are they? I don't know. Let's ask them about it.

You know, it really seems like. This is what's happening. Do I have that right? And play with that curiosity so that you can take those assumptions and understand them and understand if you're correct and give that other person the chance to go, Yeah, you got it. Or no, I actually have a totally different reason as to why I need to get that done. And then you can understand more. And I think that curiosity will really play down across the board. 

Dr. Andy Roark: One, one more part of the curiosity thing I want to put forward too is, you know, the way this is written, I often have to check and see if other people are as affected by this thing as I imagine they are. So, There are things that are my pet peeves that other people do not care about, you know?

 And I will go, golly, this is I assume everyone else thinks, I'm trying to think of a good example, but it's things like, I don't know, um, imagine, imagine there's a radio station on that you just do not like. It's like, oh, country mornings. Country mornings are the worst. all like. no, we're kind of, we're at least neutral.

Kind of find 'em like, okay, this is just an Andy thing And I'm just gonna cope with it, you know? Or, um, maybe nobody else care. Maybe nobody else cares that they're dipping out and grabbing food. Maybe it's not as big a deal as I think it is. Maybe just by weird random chance. I am very aware of every time they go in there, and I assume it's happening a lot more, but maybe I'm seeing every single time and there's not more than what I'm actually seeing.

I don't know. So I think that curiosity into, Hey is this a thing, or or am I making it a thing? I think you have to be careful about how you ask that, and hopefully you have some trusted confidants where you can say, Is this a thing I'm seeing? And it feels like a lot to me, but I just wanted to touch base with you guys, have you noticed this?

And see what they say if they're like, oh yes, it is a problem, it is a headache. I go, great, I, the scenery has been validated, and now I agree that this is a battle worth fighting. If no one else seems to see the issue. Maybe it's just me. And that might not mean that I won't have the conversation, but it might change how I have the conversation. it might change the stakes of the conversation. Things like that. But I've definitely seen people have conversations and they say, Everyone is upset about this. And the truth is one else was upset about it. And you end up kind of, when the rest of the team comes together and says, No, we were all fine with it.

You end up kind of looking like, uh, more of a bad guy than you needed to.

Andi Davison: Yep. 

Dr. Andy Roark: The last part for Headspace for me, and I think it comes down to the question of, Am I being too strict on policies? You know, how do you do these things? The last piece I'll throw in for Headspace is the old question of what is kind. And this has guided me through a lot of hard conversations. And I would say to this person, they're doing a thing and it's making you mad. And, let's say, it's frustrating the doctors and the other staff. Do you think it is kind to these people to not say anything to them and let them continue down this path that is causing increasing resentment from the people around them?

Is that kind to them? I would say probably not. It's definitely not kind to them to let them keep doing something that's making me more and more resentful and that is going to get them on my bad side and, you know, limit their opportunities to do other things or their usefulness in my eyes to the practice.

Because I didn't tell them, Hey, you're doing a thing I don't like. I think if I was doing something that the boss didn't like, I would really hope that they would say something rather than just stew in their office about Andy and how big a jerk he is and how useless he is. Like, for goodness sakes, like, I don't want that.

Why don't you, why didn't you say something to me? And so, I think that's the big thing for me here is what is kind. And so I think we've, I think we've set Headspace up pretty darn well as far as assuming good intent. Investigate, investigate. Is this a big deal to other people or just to me? And then, we'll see.

What's going on with these people? Why are they feeling compelled to get one more thing done? What types of things are they staying to do? Do they not understand the impact of waiting until nine o'clock and then going in and out of the break room? Like what, let's try to figure all these sorts of things out.

And then we're gonna have a whole lot more clarity about why this is happening. and then I think we'll be able to have a conversation with them. That's not mean. It's honest and it's kind. Uh, and it's about trying to set them up for and make sure that they're seen as a positive force in the practice and that they're not frustrating in ways that they weren't even aware that they were doing.

Andi Davison: J ust to kind of it out really think that it's key to kind of think about that.  And your end comment about, is it kind, right? To let them continue on doing this, frustrating people, trouble.

What does that look like? And how kind is that to the team? And how kind is that to, um, one another? And kind of jumping off of that, considering the concept of conflict and working conflict into that.

Because nobody wants conflict. Nobody enjoys having conflict. Nobody wants any of that. And sometimes it's kinder to have that difficult conversation, and sometimes it's kinder to sort of lay that out and encourage conflict so that you can work through that together in a curious way in order to better support everybody in the team in a way that is going to set them up for success.

And I think that if as a manager or as a, as a leader, you are able to kind of get into that headspace, you will see this as an opportunity. As opposed to a problem or an issue or an eye roll, right? Oh my God, they're doing it again. You're going to see this as an opportunity to support them and really help the team be more cohesive.

Dr. Andy Roark: I completely agree. You wanna, um, you wanna take a break and then come back and we'll do some action steps here? 

Andi Davison: Yeah, sure.

Stephanie Goss: Hey, are you someone in your practice who likes to Get Shit Done while we've got the online event for you? It is happening October 23rd, And it is an online event And that is our Uncharted, Get Shit Done. 

And this year I'm super excited because we have some new faces. Coming to share their experience and information with us. We have got the amazing and brilliant Andi Davidson. she is a technician. She works with flourish, veterinary consulting, and our friend, Josh Vaisman. 

And she is going to be doing our general session for GSD. She's going to be talking about rock star resilience from burnout to brilliance. We've got communication skills and tough conversations with another technician, Rebecca Rose. We have got Andi back for a workshop on crafting and achieving meaningful goals in practice. 

We have got our friends, Jen Quamen and Ryan Smith. Jen as a doctor and her partner, Ryan is a professional coach and they are going to be talking about customer service and the customer service experience triangle. I cannot wait for all of this amazing content that all has to do with getting shit done in our practices. 

If you haven't yet head over to uncharted vet.com forward slash G S D that's G for Get. S for shit. D for done. She had done and check out all the information about how you can register and join us in October.

Dr. Andy Roark: Let's talk about action steps. I want to put the first one on the table. I think you already said very clearly. I think investigate has to be your first action step. I think you need to just without being accusatory. We just need to talk to people and kind of figure out. Hey, I noticed that you didn't get out for lunch until 11:30, and you're scheduled to get out at 11 yesterday.

What, what happened? And this is, this is not the big conversation. It's not a showdown. When I'm investigating, I want to make sure I speak in specifics. Not, hey, I notice you're never leaving for lunch on time. What's up with that? It's much better if I can say to someone, hey. Earlier today, I saw you didn't get out for lunch.

Yes, you clocked out at 11. 30 instead of 11. What's going on? Just as far as getting out the door. I want to make sure you guys are getting out the door on time for your breaks, but there's clearly there's things that sort of trip people up. What, what's going on? What's keeping you in the building?

And that's it. Not accusatory anything. Information gathering up front. Remember, keep it low stakes. This is not punitive. They may say something really awful, like, I just didn't feel like going. And that may make your blood boil. This is not the time to have the correction conversation. This is the time to have the information gathering conversation. And so just gather the information. Great. I just wanted to understand, make sure I had all the information. Talk to your people. Don't make any changes. Don't make any corrections until you get the story straight. And then, again, figure out, is this really a big deal or is this in my own mind?

And then, after you've done your investigation, then we can start to move forward. 

Andi Davison: Yeah, and I think too in that sort of stage in the game, it's really important to bring some nice, big, vague, curious questions, right? So being specific about what's going on is super important. But that question, that why is this happening, what's going on with that question to me really needs to be vague.

And it needs to be a big, broad, curious question that invites the other person to share whatever is going on with them. So for me that could sound something like, You said, you know, Hey, you were supposed to head out for lunch at 1130 and I noticed that you didn't get out until noon. Help me understand what was holding you back and let them go, right?

And be quiet. There's the hard part. Oh, there's the hardest part is to ask that one big question and then wait and let them answer it and listen to whatever it is that they're going to say. Gosh, you know, I really wanted to get, I don't know, this fecal done real quick because I knew that this dog was going home and I wanted to make sure we had the meds to go.

And that was important to me because this dog belongs to Mrs. Blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. Great. Listen to them. And then you get to come back and go, you know, I can tell that it's really important to you that we have the meds ready to go for the dogs when they're ready to discharge. 

And that means a lot because that helps our our flow, you know, that helps our flow go. And we need to figure out a way to make sure that everybody gets their lunch on time. What do you think about that?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah,

I love that. I do agree. I love those big questions, even one that I was thinking there of when you ask and say What you know, what was going on?

What was holding you back? And they said well, you know I had to get this fecal done and things like that. I think my next question will be something along the lines of tell me about that and getting out. Do you feel like you're supported in being able to put tasks like that down? Or do you feel like if you don't do them, they're not going to get done?

And what I'm really digging for there is, has this person been set up to fail? And I think that that's an excellent response is, I knew the client was waiting, I wanted to get this done. In my mind, we have got to get our practice running so that we can tag people out. And again, now we're sort of getting into the business part more than the communication part.

For me, especially if you're having people backing up, we have got to take breaks seriously. Now, in old school vet medicine, breaks just kind of happen. You know what I mean? And we hope that we got lunch. It's not that way anymore. I'm glad it's not that way anymore. But, people getting out for breaks and getting out for lunch, that should be chiseled into stone today.

That's the modern workplace. That's how we take care of people. And we can't have people not getting out and then backing other people up into the afternoon appointments. These things really do have to happen. It's not fair to our staff to say, I'm not going to provide you with support to get you out of the building, but I'm going to hold you accountable to not being out of the building on time. That's not fair, and that's them being set up to fail. And so I really want to understand, are you not leaving because you don't feel supported? Or you don't know that handing off is an option? Or are you not leaving?

Because you really can't hand off, and there's not, we're not staffed for it, or the doctors are not allowing that to happen. Not to villainize anyone, but I, I really do have to understand what, what is actually happening here, what is perception, and what is reality. And so I, I, those big questions are really important.

Not just, why did you make this choice, but then, what is true here, what is an assumption this person is making, and what is a systems problem? That is setting this person up to fail.

Andi Davison: That. That's key. That's key for this person to remember when they're going into that conversation, right? Because, gosh, you know, this is what I'm seeing. Help me understand. There's that curiosity. Help me understand more about why this is happening. Why are you not getting out to lunch on time? And then, oh, it's because I want to get these fecals done.

Okay. If we were to help you get out to lunch on time, what would you need in order for that to happen? And listen to what they had to say, right? Because then you don't have to go through your list of assumptions of, oh gosh, is it because this? Is it because that? Is it because this? Is it because that?

They know what's holding them back. They know they're supposed to go to lunch at 11 and they're not going till 11:30, right? They know the reason. And when we can say, gosh, you know, What would you need in order to get out to lunch on time? They know. And then it's great. And then we get to be quiet again, which is super hard, and listen to whatever it is they have to say. 

And then we can support them in whatever that is. And then not only are we being curious as a manager and as a leader, we are listening to our team. They feel heard. They feel like they belong and that they matter because we are giving them that opportunity to be a part of the conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark: I'm gonna try not to have this conversation in the office. I, I'll just say that. This is one of those conversations that the way we frame it can dictate how intense it feels for the staff member. I think if I call a staff member into my office and say, Hey, I noticed you didn't leave until 11:30.

That feels much heavier than I want it to feel, and I don't know how to tone it down if I'm calling them into the office. I really, again, I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, I'm not saying that that's not what needs to happen based on the clinic or whatever, where people are. I really would like to catch this person in the hallway kind of by themselves, not in front of other people, but just to say, Hey while I'm seeing ya, I got a quick, I, I wanted to ask you about something just real quick.

And I'm going to try to do it in a non threatening, sort of neutral environment. Something that's not going to make them feel like they're getting called in and sat down to ask a heavy question. And I just really feel like trying to keep it light and just gather the information and not something that's scary.

I think that's really important. And again, every client's a little bit different about what kind of space we have. But I would really like to try to make this super casual. It's not a sit down 20 minute meeting. It's just, Hey, you know, if you have a second, can we, can we talk to this? Help me understand what's kind of what's going on just so I know something like that.

Do you agree with that? Or am I making this too informal?

Andi Davison: No, I actually do agree with that. And that brings up a question that I have for you. So if you were in a clinic and the owner of the clinic came up to you and they said one of two things. The first thing, Hey Andy, I need to see you in my office right now. The second thing, Hey, Andy, I need to talk to you about something sometime in the next hour.

When would be good for you? Which of those two invitations are going to make you feel like you have been invited into the conversation and that your opinion and that your presence there matters.

Dr. Andy Roark: I think in both cases, my opinion and my present feel like they matter. But also, I do feel like in both of those cases, I'll be honest, my blood pressure went up. In both of those cases, I've come to my office now, or in the next ten minutes. I'm like, oh, both of these are bad. Both of these feel bad and scary to me.

Andi Davison: Well, it's principal's office, right? Like I need to talk to you. Okay, so if both of those make your blood pressure go up, what would help? Because I honestly, I have this conversation a lot and I had it with a group just this last weekend about the getting called to the principal's office, right? And like, everybody freaks out because they assume that it's something terrible and bad because we have no idea what it's about.

And it was funny. It's fascinating because some people want to know what it's about. They want to know, hey, when you got, when you've got time, maybe in the next hour, I'd love to talk about lunches. Just pop by my office and we can talk about that. Or hey, we need to talk about lunches. Are you free right now?

Just that, hey, we need to talk about this can sometimes alleviate that, oh God, what's going to happen? You know, I'm going to get yelled at. What's going to, what's going on? And like, does that resonate with you too?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it's definitely the existential dread is part of it. I think you can make it even softer if you say, Hey I'm thinking on how to get people out for lunch on time and I wanted to pick your brain. Do you have time to stop by or can you stop by as something I'm working on today? Can you stop by before the end of the day just to share your share your thoughts?

And and that's not none of that is untrue. I am Interested in getting people out for lunches on time, but that in a way i'm sharing what that is and then also Making it, presenting it in a way where I'm saying, I'm going to talk to other people, and I am going to talk to other people. And so even that, I think sharing with them what I'm talking about, I think that makes it much I think that that makes it less scary.

Andi Davison: It's more invitational all the way around, right? You feel like you're being welcomed into the conversation as opposed to dragged in kicking and screaming.

Dr. Andy Roark: I love the phrase I'd like to get your thoughts on I'm gathering information on, I, hey, I'm getting my thoughts straight about this. Hey, I really want to try to support the team in this way, and I'm trying to get input from, sort of, key members of the staff or from people I know would understand something like that.

But I kind of tell him what I'm what I'm working on, but not enough. Hey, I want to talk to you about the fact that you were 30 minutes late leaving for lunch today.

Andi Davison: Right.

Dr. Andy Roark: And it's just that it's a subtle difference, but I do think it makes a big difference. I think the classic, Can you come to my office? I need to talk to you or can you come in tomorrow first thing so we can talk?

I think that is really hard for a lot of people. I think people who are prone to being anxious or worrying, I think they really hate that and so I try to give them a bit of a heads up about This is the problem. I'm trying to solve and I was wondering if you could talk with me about it.

Andi Davison: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll tell you, I'm going to be a little vulnerable here. I had a situation like that happen back in the days of managing a technician team and baby leader, like ages ago, right? And I needed to talk to a staff member, right? About something that was not a comfortable conversation.

It was a difficult conversation. And I made that mistake. Hey, I'd like to talk to you in my office tomorrow morning. And that poor staff member worried and worried and the whole team worried about it. And I thought, no gosh, you know, I'm letting her know it's, it's, she's can plan it. And looking back on that, I could have done that so differently. And it's something that if I could change it, I would. Easing that anxiety by saying something like, Hey, you know, I'd really like to talk to you about lunches. I've got some ideas. I'd like to hear your input. You know, what are your thoughts on this? Maybe we could talk about it that more tomorrow morning.

That would have been so much more productive for me to do as a manager. When I had to have that talk with her. And so that I'm so glad you brought that up because it's key. It's really important to remember how much everybody else is going to freak out about being called into the manager's office and to do it in a way that is inviting and is curious and sets them up for success.

Dr. Andy Roark: You know the other way that you take the edge off of this and take that fear away is however you're going to deliver this conversation, uh, if it's negative, you should be delivering conversations that are positive in the same way. And so, think about it like this. If I say, Hey I'm doing some stuff, uh, and I need to get your insight.

Can you stop by my office before you leave? And they say, Oh my gosh. And then they go in and you say, Hey, can no one is better than you at doing this particular thing, and I'm really trying to figure out how to get the rest of the staff to kind of take up these behaviors. Help me understand, how did you learn to do this thing that you're doing, whatever it is?

Would you be willing to help me do some training with the staff, things like that? Just, again, I really love what you're doing. Do you have advice? How do you think other people are struggling? Do you see pitfalls that are tripping other people up? I just want to get your insight on this. Boy, after getting asked to stop by to help me brainstorm a thing a couple of times and feeling really valued and feeling praised or say, Hey, can you stop by?

Listen, I just wanted to tell you, I saw you talk to Mrs. Jones this morning and the compassion that I heard in your words was really moving. And I just, I was so proud to have you. On our team when I heard you talking, you know, it was just Absolutely excellent. And I just want to tell you that I was I was proud.

Anyway I just want to say thanks a lot because that was I thought that was wonderful, you know giving people that type of positive feedback. One, it's just great management strategy. It's, it's not, I hate saying management strategy makes it feel cheap. It's not, it's about creating a great environment.

I always say, you know, I, I really believe that people are simple animals. And I, I, I say that. No degrees associated with this, anything. But a lot of times what we know about training dogs and cats, it's the same thing as the experience that we create for people. 

And so I would not take my dog into the same room only to trim his toenails. Because he would hate that room. You would see it very quickly. You know what I mean? If you have a dog who hates having their nails trimmed, the only reason they go into this guest bedroom is to get their nails trimmed. How long is it going to take before they start locking their legs and sitting down and doing the donkey stance to not be dragged into that room?

It's not going to take very long. And people are no different, like if the only reason they come into your office is to hear bad news, or to answer hard questions, at a, caveman stone age level, they're going to start panicking real fast. And just the easiest way is to not let that happen.

It's to make sure that we're engaging with people in positive ways, the same way we're going to engage with them when we have harder conversations. But it is to stop that wind up of I'm going into the nail trim room. I don't want that, but you have to kind of work your way out of that. And that means pulling people aside, having conversations with them when things are good and, you know, and filling their cup way more often than you have to drain it out.

Andi Davison: I often think of that concept as building social capital, right? So you're putting money in the bank when you have the opportunity to do that. The key is that you find genuine reasons to do that, right? Like don't, don't be all weird and like make stuff up and be superficial about it. Find genuine reasons.

It won't be hard, I promise, right? But, find the opportunity to deposit money in the piggy bank so that you build up social capital with this person. And then that way when you have to have a little bit more of a difficult conversation, when you have to make a deduction from that piggy bank, you're not at a zero balance.

You still have a little bit of money in the bank. And that person knows that, you know what, Dr. Andy knows that I'm good with clients. He's pointed it out more than once. He really appreciates me because he tells me that. So that when you have to go in and have a conversation that's like, hey, you know, we need to talk about trying to get out on lunch on time.

It's not like a total connection relationship cohesion killer because you've already got that social capital with the team and with that person so that they know where you're coming from. And it's way more productive that way.

Dr. Andy Roark: I think the next action step for me, and we talked about this before, if required we might have to talk to the doctors to get buy in. And this is around, this is around breaks and lunch. The number one reason I see support staff not getting to their breaks or not getting to their lunch is they're feeling pressure, whether it's real or perceived.

They're feeling pressure that they need to finish up what they're doing and just handing something off and leaving is not acceptable. And so the first people I have to get to buy into this is the doctors. And I have to talk to them and say, Guys, we are required to give these people their breaks.

We want them to have their breaks. It's something that is really, really important if we have enough employees that if they don't get their breaks on time, they get backed up and then everything backs up and then you guys end up without help in the afternoon. And I don't want that. And so I am going to start pushing the staff to take their breaks and to get out for lunch on time.

I desperately am going to need your support and getting them out the door. Which means if they're scheduled for lunch, in my dream world, you would not allow them to keep working. You would tell them at the top of the hour, I need you to leave. And say, can you support me in that? What are your concerns and do the same thing with the doctors and they're gonna say well What if this happens and there might be some caveats, but let's make them feel heard and let's figure out what it what is possible. But I think my next step is if it comes to getting the staff out on time The number one hurdle is not necessarily doctors wanting to keep them the doctors either not knowing that's going on or that that's a big deal or the doctors are totally supportive, there is a perception from the staff that we're letting the doctors down if we leave.

But again, I'm going to need the doctor's buy-in in all of those cases to help correct that perception of the staff. I want to talk to the doctors before we have the conversation at large, because I don't want the doctors to undermine me in front of the team.

Andi Davison: Absolutely. And I think a really effective way to do that is to pull on a common goal, right? It's easy to do, especially in Vet Med, because We have the amazing opportunity to provide care to animals, right? And we want to do what we can to always provide the best care to our patients. And that's a beautiful goal to build upon.

You know, it's, I know that it's important to all of us that we provide the best care possible to our community of animals. And in order to do that, we need to function as a team in a way where we can be smooth, right? Like a smooth machine. And I know that we all want to get there. And in order to do that, we're going to need to figure out a way where everybody can get a lunch and get a break and figure out what that can look like.

If you can start that conversation, even with the doctors, because they're, they're in on that goal. Everybody's that we're all the whole community is in on that goal to say, Hey, you know, we all want this common thing. How can we adjust the lunch problem or break issues or whatever, in order to help facilitate that same goal.

What would that look like? And that's a beautiful way to start a conversation like that. To get buy-in from everybody because they're really gonna buy in on a goal that everybody can believe in and get behind.

Dr. Andy Roark: I agree. I think for my next action step, there's a fork in the road here. And the question is, do we talk to the team or do we talk to individuals? And people kind of have their favorites. I see a lot of people who hold team meetings because they don't like conflict. And so, they would much rather have a team meeting than to say to the two people that are doing a behavior, Hey, I need you to, I need you to change your behavior, or hey, I need you to work with me on these things.

If, in the case of the young people who are waiting and then ordering DoorDash and then dipping in and out, I don't think you need to have a team meeting unless there's other things going on other people are doing this I don't think you need to have a team meeting I think you need to pull those three people aside and compassionately talk to them.

Just say guys I love you. I'm want to support you. You know, I I want you. I want you guys to to enjoy being here. I want you to I want you to be fed all those things are important. This is what's happening and this is this is this is your action This is the impact the action is having on the rest of the team and that's why we need to make some changes.

And so I would either talk to them, in the case of the people getting out for breaks and lunches and things backing up, that's probably a whole team conversation, because there's so many people that are involved in that, most likely, everybody probably needs to hear the same thing. So, I'm gonna pick my path of is this a one on one or, or two or three people and me just talking things through, or is this a whole team meeting?

But if it's a whole team meeting, it's what I call the reset meeting, where I want to bring the gang together. I want to explain to them what the problem is, and I want to frame it up in terms of the problem for the team. I don't want to say, You guys are not getting out on time and it's causing things to back up and it's making the afternoon a mess.

I want to say, It's important to me that you guys get your breaks. And that they're not all squished together and that you're not feeling guilty when you're going to take your lunch break because you're leaving chaos behind. And you know that appointments are starting and all those things are important to me and I want us to be that type of place and I want to support you guys in getting what you need.

And so, I need to talk with you guys about how we're going to get people out on time for breaks and for lunches so they don't back up into the afternoon. I call it a reset meeting because everybody needs to hear it. And I give amnesty at this meeting, right? No one's going to get in trouble. I'm not bringing up anything negative from the past.

It's not about people finding one more thing. It's just let's decide how we can go forward together. Let's commit to making this happen together. And I'm really gonna try to get buy-in. I'm really happy to have a conversation about what this looks like logistically. How, how do we actually make this happen?

I'd love to use their ideas to make this happen. But, everything before this, I'm, we're gonna let go. After this, I'm going to start being much more attentive about when people aren't getting breaks, and I'm going to say something early. And so that's my thing, is starting to hold people accountable without letting them know, hey, we're taking this seriously now.

To me, that's often frustrating and it's kind of playing whack a mole. It's better just to tell everybody this is, we're changing this, we're fixing this, and if you're not getting out on time, I'm going to start, I'm going to ask you what happened when you get back, and just, just know that, because I really want to be on top of this, and so they know what's coming, expectations have been reset. All of those things are the benefits of sort of this reset meeting, and that's why I call it that, is just sort of to reset how we work together in the end.

The new order is going forward, and we're going to restart with sort of holding people accountable as far as not just ignoring it when people leave a half an hour late. We're going to start checking in, and just very gently, I mean, people are getting written up or they're getting in trouble, but I'm going to say something because now I'm paying attention, and you know I'm paying attention.

Andi Davison: Being able to reset those expectations I think is key, right? To go, hey, okay, now let's get all on the same page. Because then you're, you're again, you're bringing out that curiosity that, gosh, did, did everybody know that this was a thing? Let's make sure that everybody knows this is a thing. Which is why having everybody in the same meeting is really valuable because then they're all there, everybody's part of the conversation, everybody knows the words that were said, and everybody understands the expectations, and I think you touched on an important kind of concept there with laying out what the expectations are so that everybody can be held accountable.

And I think it's important that the, you know, leadership and management be a part of that as well. How are we holding the team accountable to be able to get out and have their breaks on time? And how is leadership being held accountable because it's a two way street, right? It's not all, well, you gotta do what you got to do.

And I'm going to make sure to get after you next time I notice because now we've reset everything. That's great. But what's going to happen if I don't hold up my side of the deal? How are we both going to hold each other accountable for those expectations? And that's a great opportunity to have that conversation, right?

When everybody's in the room together in the reset meeting.

Dr. Andy Roark: Absolutely. And you're spot on too in that a lot of times the accountability part is not for the technician. That's not getting out on time. It's for the veterinarian that continuously keeps the techs and seems daily, whoever is scheduled with them is not getting to take their lunch break on time.

And the person after is not. And very often the person who's not getting to leave is not the problem child. It's the doctor problem child that's that's holding that person there. But again, we need to have this conversation. We need to not only put it on the support staff to leave on time. We need to put it on to the doctors and the managing staff to support them in getting out on time.

And we really need to work together and collaborate on this. The last thing I would say, I've touched on this before, but I would say it again. It's whenever we want to do a reset meeting like this or start talking about these changes, remember to start with why. Remember to explain why we want to make these changes.

Remember to frame it in terms of the things that the staff cares about and that you care about sort of emotionally. I like to frame these things around patient care. I like to frame them around wellness and taking care of our people and enjoying our work and our clinic culture and things like that.

Don't get sucked into, and I've seen this, don't get sucked into, hey operations is looking at our, at our time cards and says people are not taking breaks and they're supposed to be and so in order to keep corporate happy you need to be taking your breaks. That's wholly unmotivating to people.

It doesn't make them feel cared about. It's not motivating to the doctors. I need to give up my helper, because corporate wants this person to hit this number. And again, I get it. And I understand, like, no, corporate wants to make sure people are getting their breaks. But at some point we really need to convert the language from these are HR boxes we're required to check to guys, this is what it actually means in our practice, in our culture, in our lives and that's why I want to go after it.

It's not about checking a box on the HR sheet. It's about doing what our staff needs in order to enjoy their work and to not burn out and to keep going and to take the best care of our pets possible.

Andi Davison: Absolutely. And as leaders we get to interpret that, right? Like, yes, there are demands from HR and corporate. And as leaders, we get to interpret what that looks like and how that builds our team up and how that creates a better work environment and a more thriving and flourishing place for people to come to work every day.

And we get to interpret it that way. That way, and we get to share it with the team with that type of a reflection so that we can build our curiosity upon that foundation of that big common goal of, you know, we really want to take great care of our community. And we really want to make sure that everybody that walks through this door feels like they are part of the family and they are welcome here with their animal.

And that's something that we can all agree on and then move forward from there. And so, yeah, that's, that's such a, that's such a, that's such a beautiful burden of leadership and management, right. Is being able to interpret some of those things in ways that are truly beneficial for the team in the building and the staff doing the work. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Andi Davison, you are amazing. Thank you so much for being here and talking through this with me. I am so looking forward to working with you on October 23rd at the Uncharted GSD virtual event. Guys, tickets are open and available right now. Grab a spot if you haven't. The best way to do the Uncharted virtual events, just so you guys know, is is bring a couple people from your practice, your leadership team, uh, your team leads, things like that, especially for this one.

It's open across roles. Get your whole leadership team in and jump in, do the workshops, check out Andi's keynote speech, hear it together. And that's going to let you guys all discuss how you do it in your practice. I heard this. You heard that. How do we do this? What do you guys think about that?

And if nothing else, it is so worth the conversations that you guys will have as a leadership team following the event. It's just is the best investment is the way to do it. The practices that send multiple people who, and then go back and sort of circle up afterwards about what they took away.

It is absolutely worth it. These are really affordable events as, as virtual events. They don't, they require minimal time off the floor. Just it's a great opportunity. So Andy, I'm looking forward to work with you there. Guys, thanks for being here today. We will talk to you again soon.

Andi Davison: Bye everybody. See you soon. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And that's what we got guys. Thanks for being here. Andi, thanks for joining us. She is such a, she's such a pleasure to work with. I really enjoyed talking with her guys.

Take care of yourselves, everybody. I'll talk to you later on.

Written by Maria Pirita · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: communication, culture, management

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