What's This Episode About?
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a challenge from a practice manager who has quite the challenge and an incredible opportunity on their hands. This manager previously had a practice owner who didn’t deal with any of the interpersonal conflicts, gossip, or lack of communication skills on the team. Now they have moved on out of the picture and this manager is being supported by leadership to address the issues. They have been approaching the gossip culture and lack of direct communication in a fantastic coaching way. And it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction. They are wondering what to do next to stop having the same conversations over and over and get the team communicating with each other directly. Let’s get into this…
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss. And this is another episode of The Uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, I think this is going to be one of those episodes where we have a lot of listeners who are wondering, “Are they talking about my clinic?” I think this is one that a lot of people can relate to simply because we have a problem in Veterinary Medicine and that is we have a lot of people in positions of leadership who struggle with dealing with interpersonal conflicts. And as a result, we have a lot of things that are left to fester for probably too long.
Stephanie Goss:
And this is a case where we had a manager who has been in a position where they have some toxic interpersonal behavior that has been happening between the team for quite some time. And their prior practice owner never wanted to deal with the interpersonal drama and so, they just swept it under the rug. Now, that practice owner is out of the picture and this manager is feeling empowered to deal with it and is wondering, “I seem to be having the same kind of conversations with my team over and over again. At what point should I expect them to figure this out, and expect them to have open communication amongst themselves without me having to handhold?”
Stephanie Goss:
Let's get into this one. And now, The Uncharted podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie, people are talking, talking about people Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
How's it going. Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's awful. It is freaking awful. I appreciate you asking. I made a deal with Jamie Holmes, who I talk to every morning, that we are going to stop asking each other how we're doing in the morning because it's just been 2022, every day has been like, “Why do you ask me that? Don't ask me that. I don't want it.” My whole family is sick in different ways. They all have different illnesses. And bad dog Skipper Roark has discovered a deep and unending love for cough drops. And so…
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, no.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… he seeks them out and they give him diarrhea. So now, I have cough drop diarrheal golden doodle Skipper to deal with, on top of sick children, who don't go to school, Stephanie Goss. They've been in school in four times this year.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, no.
Dr. Andy Roark:
See? I'm at the end of my rope here. I can't keep doing this.
Stephanie Goss:
And I will say I have deep empathy for you because that, I remember that stage about last year where you're not doing it by choice and you don't know when the plan is going to shift again. Are they going to go back to school? Are they not going to go back to school? That place sucks. Whether it's weather or the unexpected. If I plan for, like now my kids didn't go back after the pandemic and we're doing a homeschool coop. But I know that they're going to be home and we have a plan and a structure and everyday has a schedule and we're running it and it feels fine and it doesn't.
Stephanie Goss:
But in that limbo land, like you're in, because you guys had that big storm, so they were home and then, the weather made them sick, I feel so bad for you and Allie.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes, but when you said you could empathize, I thought you could empathize with menthol diarrhea for a minute. And I was like, “No, this is a special kind of hell. I don't know if you can empathize with this. What?” I was like, I said something to our friend, Shelly Adrian, Shelly. Dr. Shelly Adrian is the Purina Institute Ambassador for the US and she's awesome.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, God.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And she's Uncharted, she's great. And anyway, well, so she does a lot of lectures on nutrition and communication. She's doing that and I was talking to her about awfulness. And she was on a webinar, Stephanie, recently and she's doing this presentation and her dog comes into the screen and starts yurking behind her as she's lecturing. And everyone can see this dog just standing behind the lecture or just. And she was like the powerlessness, just to be like, just to be tied to this screen.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you can see yourself in the screen, so you can see what's behind you and everyone watching and I was like that made me feel a little bit better about the position I'm in, just because yeah, it can be worse. Skipper could be yurking in front of the international audience while I'm powerless to stop him. There'd be a video of me going, “Get out.” Dragging him off the carpet, how you do. You know what I mean? “Off the carpet, off the carpet, off the carpet.'
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, man. Okay, well, clearly we are going to be on fire for this episode.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I'm beyond that. I'm beyond that. I think it's actually let's do some work. We're bringing this back in.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, so I'm not going to ask you about how you're doing. We're going to move on.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think we're past that.
Stephanie Goss:
We are going to talk about communication problems. We're going to be talking about communication problems in a team. So, I was recently talking to another manager who was excited and also feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. And so, they are excited because previously they had been a private practice and they were recently made the transition to being a corporate practice. And so, the reason that they were excited about this is because previously they had a practice owner who was really not into dealing with the people, and didn't want to take action, when team members should have had some accountability happening.
Stephanie Goss:
So, this manager is like, “I'm finally in a position where I am empowered, and I can make some cultural changes and some shifts. And so, I am super excited about this.” The challenge is that the team has kind of come along through the transition, so there have been some years of some bad behavior, some gossiping, passive aggressive behavior amongst the team, the real people, stuff that, let's be honest, I've watched a lot of practice owners just ignore because they don't want to deal with the conflict.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Participant:
And so, this manager is like, “Look, here's what I'm doing. When somebody comes to me, I'm saying to them, I'm kind of asking them a question, ‘Why are you talking to me, you should be talking to this other person, because I can't do anything about it.' And I'm trying to help them. If they want help, trying to figure out what to say, I'm totally happy to talk to them. But I'm trying to get them to talk to each other. And when they're just like, ‘Well, I don't want to do that,' then I have offered to help like, ‘I'll be there with you. I can mediate the conversation.'”
Participant:
But the team is basically refusing to take responsibility and accountability for any of their problems with each other. And so, my manager friend was like, “Look, I'm at the point where I feel like I want to look at them and be like, ‘Look, what do you want me to do about it? I can't, if you're not willing to talk to the other person and deal with this on your own, this is interpersonal conflict and I don't know how to help you.'” And so, they were really struggling with “How do I get out of this cycle? Because I feel I'm constantly coaching them and it's going nowhere,” or “Everything seems to go okay and the conversation seems to be resolved, but then the behavior is continuing to occur.” And so, they were like, “At what point should I expect them to be able to do this on their own? When can I bow out of some of these conversations? Because I'm feeling super, super frustrated.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. This sounds like a lipstick on a pig situation to me. And yeah, so okay. I am super thrilled about this. I'm like I love this so much because we're going to go work on it.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, the first thing I want to talk about is, if you have a couple of employees who don't get along, then you have an employee problem, probably. And if you have a whole team who doesn't get along and you're sorting out different problems every day, you don't have an employee problem, you have a culture problem. You have a significant under the surface problem.
Stephanie Goss:
Fair.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, it sounds like we're using employee tools on a culture problem and that is just a recipe, that's menthol diarrhea. It's just, it's not going away. It permeates. I could just go deeper. But it is, you don't want it. That's the take home. It's a special kind of thing that you don't want and if you don't have the right carpet cleaner, you're out of luck. And we're going to talk about culture cleaning carpet, culture carpet cleaning.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm sorry. I haven't sleeping well because everyone is awake in my house. I'm just, I'm really holding on. Okay.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, good Lord.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. Let's start. Let's start again. Okay, here we go. All right. This is not a coaching problem for myself. This is a cultural problem. Okay? And so all right, we're going to get back up. We're going to get off the silly drain, and get back to work. Here we go. All right. Talk about elements.
Dr. Andy Roark:
First thing we're going to talk about when we look at this. Okay, so we had this owner, practice owner who was there and they took our hands off the wheel, and they didn't want to deal with the conflict and things became what they are. This is a shifting baseline problem. So remember, shifting baseline when we talk about culture, shifting baseline is the phenomenon where we have a normal team or practice. And then, the owner just doesn't want to get involved in the conflict, so things get a little, they get a little bad. We get a little bit.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We start to have some gossiping. We start to have some people who snipe at each other. We have some people who maybe figure out that if they can get in the manager's office and talk then they don't have to work as much in the treatment room because we got to. And we find all these bad things. We've been figuring out that they show up a little bit late. Nobody is saying anything. Just five minutes late. And that becomes normal. The norm becomes, and we gossip a little bit and we share some snarky things to each other.
Dr. Andy Roark:
In the end, it shifts a little bit more. And now, we're saying a little bit more snarky things and we're arguing a little bit more often and we're showing up 10 minutes instead of five minutes late, but 10 minutes is pretty normal. Now, norm on time is 10 minutes late. That's the new on time and it just slowly slides. It was not fine and then all of a sudden, it switched and now, everybody's fighting with each other. That's my point.
Dr. Andy Roark:
This is shifting baseline. It takes a long time and has been a slow creep to the behaviors that we have now. And so, the idea that we're probably going to step in and have a couple conversations that's going to jump back to where it was, that's probably not true. This has slowly grown to be what it is. It can be fixed, 100%, it can be fast, but this is going to be a process. And so, the first headspace is, “Okay, we need to put to bed the idea that if you have the right conversation, this is going to go away tomorrow.” Those are expectations that are going to frustrate you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
This is a systemic problem, not insurmountable, we can do this. And it's not the worst systemic problem by far, but just go ahead and set expectations for yourself. This is going to take some doing to unpack and just be okay with that. And so, this is going to be, this is my 2022 project, that's what it is. I'm going to work on it and that's how this is going to go. So, shifting baseline, I'm going to start with.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, why does this happen? It's funny, there's two things that I see there are good examples of the next point I want to make, which is present bias. So, we talked about shifting baseline, now, we're going to talk about present bias and present bias is the natural inclination we have to do the thing that is easiest or the most pleasurable in the moment, even though it is not the best thing in the long term. We are wired to prioritize things that immediately give us something good, as opposed to delayed gratification, potential benefit in the future.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, the first place we see this where it really screwed up is the practice owner. Because in the moment, not just not dealing with it is the easier thing, because nobody wants to have these hard conversations. So when you look at it down the long view, not having these conversations is bad and leads to a toxic workplace that nobody wants to be and just constant headaches and things you have to deal with every day. But in the moment, “I don't want to deal with this,” is the easiest thing to say where you get an immediate reward compared to going and dealing with.
Dr. Andy Roark:
For the manager, when we see I want to say a lot when we have these sort of problems or people not getting along, we see present bias is “I'm going to jump in and moderate these two people. I'm going to jump in and fix this thing right now. I'm going to jump in and put this dumpster fire out. Because it's easier for me just to jump in and do it than it is for me to make them work out themselves and circle back up with them and have them muddle through it and get hurt feelings without me being involved.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so the present bias is “You come here and you come here. I'm just going to moderate. I'm going to make you two act like adults.” And now, you're going to do it and now it's done. And that's easiest thing in the short term. The problem is I have now trained these people to do what? To come to me with their problems. And so, present bias when you're fixing communication problems can very be, fair will be that you have trained people to come to you whenever they have a problem. And now, you're spending your whole day sussing out the root cause between two people arguing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And they should be able to fix it themselves, but they have been trained to come to you and make you involved. And now you're involved in a bunch of stuff that really is not your job, and it really doesn't make you happy and it's really not where you want to be right, but we put ourselves in that position because the easiest thing in the moment, just to wait in and fix the problem. So, that's present bias. And I just, I point that out. Because, man, a lot of us spend our days putting out dumpster fires and I always talk about present bias and see if any light bulbs go off because people go, “Oh, I'm may and yeah.”
Stephanie Goss:
And for those of you guys who are listening going, “Oh, Jesus, that's me,” you're not alone.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
In fact, I remember very clearly the moment my light bulb went off in the middle of Andy and I doing a podcast actually, where I was like, “Uh-oh, he's talking about me. This is me. These are the choices I'm making with my team in the clinic.” And it was, I remember it really super vividly because I was having this internal dialogue and turned bright red, and you were like, “Are you okay?” It's like, “Yeah. A light bulb just went off. It's fine.” It's really easy because that's how we're wired as human beings, so if you're sitting here listening to this, don't feel guilty.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, you shouldn't feel guilty.
Stephanie Goss:
Give yourselves some grace because we all do it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's a trap for people who are perfectionist, who want to get it right. It's a trap for people who are helpers and supporters.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep, people pleasers.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that's Stephanie is she wants to help. She wants to serve and so, she jumps right in and does it. It's just, it's a trap. It's laid for good people. When it comes to this, the shifting baseline, the “I don't have time to deal with this,” that's a very different trap. And we get there in a very different way, but I'm going to take on all the dumpster fires is an easy trap for people who care a lot. And so you shouldn't feel bad, but once you see it, you have the responsibility to then go, “Okay. I need to make different choices.” It comes back when we start talking about this and the dumpster fires and fixing the interpersonal problems, the moderating and mediating, things like that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It comes back to the Karpman Drama Triangle, which is something I like to talk a lot about. And so, the Karpman Drama Triangle is the hero-villain-victim triangle. And so, in most conflicts, there's a villain. There is the person who is the bad guy. They have wronged someone else. They have taken a case that was not their case. They have failed to put back the travel sheet where it was supposed to go and now, it's lost and that person is a villain. And then there's the victim who is the person who has been wronged by the villain and they have come seeking aid. They need to be protected. They need to be saved. Stephanie Goss. And the last is the hero, and they want you to be the hero. The victim wants the hero to vanquish the villain and restore justice in the social norm.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is the Karpman Drama Triangle. You don't want to be the hero. You don't want to be the hero. You want the victim to be the hero. That is the answer to the Karpman Drama Triangle is to make it a line where these two people have a problem and they work it out and you're not there. The problem is we want to be heroes. Everybody likes to be a superhero, especially in Vet Medicine because we attract that personality type. We want to jump in and we want to save victims from villains and we want to right wrongs. It's never ending. It's never ending. The victim will find more villains and the process continues.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Well, and-
Participant:
And so, the headspace has got to be, “I don't want to be your hero. I need you to be your own hero.”
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and that's why I think this whole episode goes back to what you said at the beginning, which is that this is a culture problem. This is a big messy thing. This is not something that is solvable, because this manager is already doing that. They recognize this, whether they knew about the Karpman Drama Triangle or not and said, “Okay, I can coach you. Let's talk about how do you want to say this. I can help you address it.” They are doing that.
Stephanie Goss:
They are looking at this victim and saying, “I don't want you to be the victim. I want you to be able to be your own hero. Let me help you solve that.” That is great management. If that was a Band-Aid that could solve this problem, it would have worked already. And so, the fact that there's still blood hemorrhaging around the Band-Aid tells us that maybe this is not a Band-Aid problem.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, it sounds like they're doing it at the individual level and we need to address this at the organizational level, at the practice level. And so, yeah, no, but I completely agree. I really was really impressed to see the way they approached it where it sound like they're 100% coaching this way. But it just keeps happening, it's happening all around them in different places. But I still like to lay that out just because I feel there's enough people who need to hear it. But I think you're right in your assessment that understanding the Drama Triangle is not the problem that we're having here today.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I think the sort of last part for me in the headspace, as we think about this, and say, “This is a cultural problem.” And you put your finger on this early on, you got to forgive yourself, you got to forgive yourself for what happened in the past. You didn't cause this problem. We talked about how the circumstances were different. We weren't getting the support. These behaviors were allowed to manifest. Shifting baseline happens. It's a natural thing. It's how humans sort of drift and they become established. It's not your fault, but now, we're going to deal with it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You need to be kind to yourself and you need to be patient, and you need to not focus on where we are right now, but let's focus on the future. Let's talk about making this better. Let's talk about get it back on the track. But as long as you keep looking into the future, you're going to be just fine. When you get frustrated about how things are and how they were allowed to be, that's not a productive headspace and it's just not going to move you forward where you need to go.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think about that movie that was playing in my head when you were just talking. It's like, I'm going to date myself here. There was a TV show when I was a kid, where the girl could point her fingers at each other and freeze time. And then she could think about what was happening or reset what was going on. And then magically, she could make it undo and then she could move on with a purpose.
Stephanie Goss:
It's that moment for you. It's taking the time to say, “Okay, I'm going to forgive myself. I'm going to think about how do I move this forward in the future.” And you're calling that timeout both for yourself and probably with your team and say, “Hey, we need to have a little bit of a reset here. Regroup, get yourself together and then think about how are we going to push this down so that we are looking at it in future facing tense.” Because I think that that's really, that's really, really smart.
Stephanie Goss:
I totally understand why you said that because when the team looks at it, when you do start to talk about it with the team, if they're looking at it, it's very, very easy to fall into the, “Well, so and so did this or last week this happened.” No good comes of that, especially when you're hashing it out at a team level. You're never going to get anywhere. The team has to look at it from a future facing perspective of, “What do we want to do tomorrow if something this was to occur?”
Stephanie Goss:
Because then it's not about the blame game. It's not about Lauren and Jessica pointing fingers at each other going, “Well, you were talking about me in the hallway yesterday, and I heard you.” Like that, the blame game does nobody any good. You have to get yourself and the whole rest of the team in order for it to be actionable to look down the road at the future.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. Let's take a break. And then we'll come back and we'll crack this thing open.
Stephanie Goss:
Sounds good.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey, everybody, this is Stephanie and I have to jump in here for just one minute to make sure that you know about a few things that are happening that you are not going to want to miss that are coming to you from us. That's right, the team behind The Uncharted, but we have a bunch happening in February, in March and April, so if you have not headed over to the website recently at unchartedvet.com/events, you need to hit pause right now. And check out all of the workshops that are coming.
Stephanie Goss:
We've got an awesome improv comedy workshop that is coming to you from our friend, Dr. Adam Liddell. If you're not into improv comedy, you think about it this way, Adam is going to take some of the tenants of improv acting and bring it to life in practice. And teach you how to feel comfortable with guiding those conversations with your team about what do we say and how do we say it, so that we can improve our client service interaction.
Stephanie Goss:
I don't know a single peer, myself included, who would not have jumped at the chance for this as a manager. So, if you haven't headed on over to sign up for that, you should. We've got the remaining part of our strategic planning course, which Andy and I are talking about, at the end of this episode today. There is an upcoming session that is specific to this week's episode. If you want to sign up for that, you can and more. There's tons of workshops coming across calendar up at the website, so you should head over there and check it out.
Stephanie Goss:
And before we get back to the podcast, I just have to pause for a second and say a huge giant thank you to our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital. Andy and I have wanted to bring transcripts to the podcast for a while now. We've had multiple colleagues reach out to us and say, “Hey, we've heard wonderful things about the podcast, but it's not accessible to us because it's not transcribed. Is there something that you can do about that?”
Stephanie Goss:
And we were wanting to make that happen and Banfield stepped up in a major way and said, “Yes, this goes to one of the core beliefs that we hold, which is that we want to make veterinary medicine more accessible and inclusive across the board. And so, they have sponsored the transcripts for us for 2022 and we couldn't do it without them and we are just so appreciative.
Stephanie Goss:
So, if somebody who would love to access this and maybe haven't previously, because it has not been transcribed, send them to the blog in unchartedvet.com/blog. Every single one of the podcast episode is there. They can find the transcript. And they can also find more information about all of the awesome programs that Banfield is offering to increase equity, inclusion and diversity in our profession. So, thank you guys. And now, back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, let's get into that. Let's get into how you actually fix this. Are you ready?
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, let's do it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I mean, we talked a little bit about it at the very beginning. You have to trust the process, you have to accept that this is not going to be a single conversation. This is like we have to fix something under the surface and so, it's just going to be a little bit more involved. And this is going to be an investment of time. It is worth it. This is going to be worth the process.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is going to be worth putting in the time and having the conversations and getting everyone as a group on board, as opposed to playing Whac-A-Mole, where we're dealing every day with individual conflicts. And so, yes, this is a bigger upfront investment, but it's going to pay off. And so, I think people should have that expectation, just at the very start.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, and I will tell you, if you are in a position like this as a manager, and you're looking at solving some of these big cultural challenges, the best gift and the best tool that I ever gave myself was the idea of under promising and over delivering. I was going to say that backwards and didn't. And so, when you look at this, if you tell yourself, “I have a cultural problem. This change is going to take me two years,” and it happens in six months or 12 months, you feel really dang good.
Stephanie Goss:
And if it takes two years, you've set that expectation, so you're okay with that. And I will tell you having inherited more than one practice with deep cultural challenges over the years, I was miserable the first time that I was in that position, because I wanted the change to happen so much faster. And I set unrealistic expectations for myself, and then I felt crappy about my role as a leader and questioned my abilities to manage because I thought I was doing something wrong, because it wasn't going as fast as I wanted it to go. And I will tell you that the next go around, setting the expectation that, “This is a long game. This is not something I can fix in 30 days, 90 days, even six months.” I am talking about a year and a half to three-year turnaround.
Stephanie Goss:
If you have deep rooted-cultural problems, giving yourself that expectation and then let me tell you how good it feels when it happens a little bit faster. Even if it's just a little bit. It's just that it's that under promising and being able to over, whatever. You know where I'm going with that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep. No, you got it. No, I agree. I think you start with these expectations, right? And then the next part is investigation, we need to get into why this is happening. There's something underlying that's causing this is. Is this really a gossiping problem or is gossiping a symptom of another problem? And often gossiping is a symptom of another problem.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Some of the main problems that I see with gossips are bullies. There's a lot of bullies that use gossip as a weapon to control information to cause some in group/out group stuff, to beat up on some people, to keep leverage on people are their cliques. And again, cliques often run with bullies, because bullies tend to form cliques. But yeah, is this a clique problem of the front versus the back or the AM shift and the PM shift. Is there a group of friends that kind of sticks together and they don't like other people and other people don't like them?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Is this a pot stir problem? And pot stirs are people who like drama and you know those people. You know their name. They just feed on it. They enjoy it. I don't know them. I can't be in their head, but to me, it seems that they just look around and go, “He's pretty quiet. Let's start some stuff.” You know what I mean? What can I make happen?
Stephanie Goss:
I don't understand it, but there are 100% people that are wired that way. They drive when there's drama happening.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. And I don't even think it's a conscious thing, but they just for whatever reason, it's just, it's what they do. I don't know if it's a thing that people do to get attention. I don't know, if it's a way that they connect with people is being in drama with them, but there are pot stirrers that just. And some of them are so nice, but they just always have drama swirling around them. The last one is the info broker and they are people who have tried to affect their status…
Stephanie Goss:
Yes, power.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… through their access. Yeah, they try to get power through access to information. So, they have it and they get it and they dole it out in strategic ways, just to try to lift themselves up and to make them. It's essentially them trying to make themselves valuable by what they know and what they share. And they often want to make what they know juicy and interesting and so, they spice it up a little bit. And now, we've got a real problem.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, those are just some of the things that I see that drive this, but a lot of it is your internal diagnostics of if you're treating a gossip problem and you've got a bully, your gossip problem is not going away as long as your bully is there unchecked. It's just not. And so, you can keep talking to the team, but if the pot stirrer continues to stir the pot, you're going to continue to have these problems.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, we need to do some diagnosis and try to figure out, what's going on here? Is gossiping and conflict, is that really the problem? Like we just genuinely don't each other? Or more likely, is this a symptom of another problem that's going on under the surface? And what is that?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think the next place is kind of where this manager started, which is you have to have a united front on a leadership level to deal with cultural change. And so, unfortunately for this manager, previously working with practice owner who wanted nothing to do with the communications problems, like I've been there. That is a crappy place to be a manager because your hands are tied behind your back and you cannot affect the change.
Stephanie Goss:
And if you are in a position now where you have the support and the agreement at a leadership level to affect change, that is the ideal scenario. And if you are not in that place, that's the place that you need to get to because you cannot fix deep-rooted cultural issues if you do not have support from the whole level, as far as leadership team goes. Whether you're working as a medical director or it's you. You could take outside of this example, if you're in private practice if you have practice owner, or if it's multiple practice owners, and one is in agreement, the other is not, there has to be a united front on addressing this, and how you address it, or it's going to go nowhere.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah and that's so sad. It's so sad. And you and I see it all the time that the manager…
Stephanie Goss:
All the time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… who's just given her heart and she's not getting support from the other leadership. And like you, culture comes from the top. It really does. And one person no matter how much they want it, when the rest of leadership doesn't support or when they undermine either actively or passively, God, it's the most demoralizing, demotivating road to go down. And we see people who struggle with that. So I mean, I completely agree.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You got to get buy in at the leadership level. So, I'd say to this manager, “Hey, new leadership, it's time to get buy in” with your Medical Director, with your Area Chief, or whatever your structure is. But it's not just getting by and like, “Hey, I need you to support me in general.” It's like to say, “Hey, this is specifically the problem that I see. Will you agree that it is a problem?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And again, when we talk about getting buy in with people, getting people to buy into an action that or action plan that you have already decided and set up is actually really hard, because it's not their idea. And they might have done it differently and you're like, “Hey, I'm here.” And even if they do it, even if they would do the same way that you have done it, they didn't think it all the way through. And so, when they see the plan you're proposing, it may not look like what they would do or they don't understand why you want exactly what to do these specific steps.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, it's really a hard way to go. The best way, and again, and so, this is a culture problem, it's going to take some time, don't get buy in on the plan. Get buy in on the problem. Go and say, “This is the number one problem in our practice. Do you agree? And here's some examples of how this problem manifests and what I see.” And speaking specifics, which means, you should be documenting if you don't do anything with it, other than to say, “Here's six examples from the last three months of these types of behaviors that I'm seeing.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, get buy in on the problem, right? Veterinarians and people in that mess are generally pretty problem-focused people and if you give them a problem, they like to fix it. So, go to leadership first, and just say, “Hey, this is the problem that I see. Do you see this problem as well?” I go to the team after that or at least start to have some of these conversations about culture in general. And so, I've got the other leadership on board, so you see this problem and get them get them to say yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And once they'll say, “Yeah, yeah, I see it,” now, it's time to start laying the groundwork. And this is why I said, this is an investment because you're going to say, “Hey, you're not fixing the problem.” And I go, “Yeah, I am. It's just don't look that way yet.' But at this point, I've got people in there arguing and they're fighting, and they're not getting along. It's time to have a conversation about our values as a team. It's time for us to talk about why we do what we do. Why do we come to work here? What's your favorite thing about working here? Why is this a better place to work than the three other hospitals around us? What do you love most about your job?
Dr. Andy Roark:
And let's build some commonality. Let's lay that on the table and let the whole team say, “You know what? This is what's important about our team, and this is what we care about and why we're here.” And it might be a serving the patients. It might be serving the community. It might be taking care of the clients. It might be giving back. It might be because we love to learn. It might be because we pride ourselves on the best patient care in the area.
Dr. Andy Roark:
None of those are wrong, they're all fine. I just need the team to come together and say, “Hey, I like that and you like that. And it makes me proud and it makes you proud. I think that's what we're here for.” Because if I can't get the team to agree that there's a reason that we're here together, I'm never going to agree to get them to come together and work together. There's got to be something that makes it worth coming to work with these people and making my relationship with those people work and so, it's setting the larger context.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If you think about it like a marriage counseling, it's coming together at the beginning and committing to the marriage. They're like, “This is a thing that I want to be a part of and this is why. And now, that we have both seen the value of this and agreed to the value of it and committed to it, now let's start to talk about what we're actually doing.” And so, that's the same general idea here.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And I will tell you as a manager, who's been in this position, it can be hard to keep a positive headspace and to feel excitement for playing the long game, because you're just so tired of dealing with the BS, you just want to fix the problem. And I will also tell you that I have never done this. I've never started with the why and started by talking about values and asking questions.
Stephanie Goss:
Like the examples you gave Andy about like, “Tell me what your favorite part of your job is. Tell me why you like working here. Why this specific hospital? What makes this hospital different than any other hospital that you've worked in? I have never asked those questions and not been completely surprised by at least one person's answer.
Stephanie Goss:
And that is why I do it because it changes your whole frame of mind, when you can look at these people who you're so frustrated with, and I swear to God, I just want to look at them and wring their necks. And then somebody says something, and I'm like, “I didn't see that coming. That's great. I can work with that.”
Stephanie Goss:
Even if you do it as an exercise for yourself, I will tell you that that helps with staying in a positive frame of mind because we don't ask it. We don't ask it enough and at all, and giving them the chance to start over and start at the beginning, even if they're reluctant. And let me tell you, I've sat in plenty of these meetings where they have all been looking at me like, “This is total BS. Why are we here?” But you just got to, I keep the smile on.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, it starts that way. It always starts that way. It really does. They're always going to look at you. The way that you and I did this at The Uncharted Strategic Planning meeting when our team got together and sort of started to talk about what we want to do and where we're going in 2022. I think my question to the group was, “When you think back in the last year, what are you most proud of?” And I like that question.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it was really insightful to go around and have each person sort of say, “Well, this is what I'm most proud of that we do.” And it was really a wonderful bonding kind of experience. And I came to understand people in a slightly different way and go, “Oh, it's funny that that's, that's the thing that made you most proud. I love it, but it wasn't my thing, but now, I see that it's your thing.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I go, “Okay, I know how to talk to you now in a different way.” You know what I mean? Or I understand why you're behind some things and not behind other things. And it was just, it's nothing short of just trying to understand people. But the other thing is when you say, “What are you most proud of,” is just a super positive way. You're not going to get a lot of negativity from that. You're not going to go to your vet team and be like, “What are you most proud of?” “I'm most proud of how Carol doesn't suck so much as the rest of the CSRs.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
No one is going to say that. Maybe, they will, but I doubt it. I think we have a very straightforward problem if someone stems from that. But yeah, it may sound woo-woo, but it's really not. It really is about what are we doing here? So, yeah, those types of questions just to get people to talk to them about what you care about. And you might not tie this to gossiping. In fact, it's a process. Just having a talk. Maybe it's just the CSRs. Maybe it's the whole team. It depends on your system and where you are and how you're set up. But it is really just, it's just a process of figuring out, “Hey, what do you guys like here? What's important to you?” And sort of collecting those things.
Stephanie Goss:
And I actually would take that and expand it even further, I would hazard a guess that if there's deep-rooted cultural challenges within a practice like this practice, it's easier, far easier to build psychological safety with smaller groups than it is with bigger groups from the start. And so, my suggestion would actually be as the leader at tackling this, I would 100% do some smaller meetings. Start with just the CSRs, start with just the tech team, start with the kennel team.
Stephanie Goss:
Break it out into a smaller group because if you can take three to five to 10 people, and get them talking and agreeing on things and then layer. And then take a separate group of three or five or 10 people and get them talking about things, then your job of building the bridge becomes exponentially easier. Because you have information from those groups that they don't have about each other yet, that helps you do your job to build that bridge. And help create that layer of safety because you can spot the commonality and you can help use that to the long-term advantage of the conversation. About be like, “Hey, look, I met with the CSRS and they said these awesome things about the tech team and the tech team had these things to say.”
Stephanie Goss:
So knowing that you guys all feel that way, this is how we can move the conversation forward. I would strongly argue for that versus if you have a really small team and you have only five people, sure, you could totally attack this all out, right? But if you've got a medium to bigger size team, it is far easier to take smaller groups and layer them on top of each other than it is to go all in.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I completely agree. And again, it depends a lot on your team. It depends a lot on the problem, right? If this is a CSR problem then I might just start by talking to the CSRs and try to iron things out. It really depends on the specifics of what's happening. If you're going to work in groups, and there's some real benefits to working in groups as opposed to working with the whole practice. Especially if you got a bigger practice, this may be too sprawling a conversation to have with a big group.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, the classic approach that we started talking about in Uncharted, we talked about getting our leadership on the same page, right? And then we talk about getting the doctors on the same page. And I would do the exact same way is I'll get the doctors together. And I would say, “What do you guys like most about being here?” And then I would also say, “Hey, do you guys see this problem going on in the team?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I would give the doctors the problem and say, “We have people that there seem to be arguing all the time. And we seem to have a lot of interpersonal conflict. Do you guys see that? What insight do you have about why that's happening? What are your thoughts? I want to fix this. I want to make this better. And I could really use your advice, and I could really use your support.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And now, I'm recruiting the doctor into this. I'm showing them the problem. I'm asking them for their advice, and doctors love to give advice, we do. I will give you all the advice. I have literally 170 podcasts. You're listening to one of them right now, of me giving advice, unsolicited. Like it's just Exhibit A of doctors who just give advice. That's this guy.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, I also think to your point earlier about doctors being problem solvers is super valid here. If you unite them around the problem, now it becomes a puzzle that they can solve.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So, bring the doctors in and just say, “Hey, guys, do you see this?” Because remember, culture comes from the top and if you can get your fellow leader on board, and then if you can get the doctors to say, “Yeah, we don't like this. And if we see something, we're going to say something about it.” And that's the powerful thing is the doctors to say to the technicians they're working with, “Hey, guys, let's not talk about people who aren't here, okay?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Whatever the specifics are that you're facing, but getting the doctors on board. And just to say, “Yeah, we don't condone this behavior, and we're not going to participate in it,” that's a huge win. And then, I go to the key opinion leaders. I go to my head techs. I go to my big personalities, the ring leaders. They might have a title, but people look to them.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I would say, “Hey, guys. Let's talk to you guys. People look up to you. Hey, do you guys see this? I want your insight. Why do you think it's happening? Can you help me? I talk to the doctors and I really want to make this change. But I know you guys are really important because people look up to you.” And now again, I'm still trying to recruit these people.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you see, it's going to take some time to meet with each of these groups of people, but I'm slowly turning the soil, so that I can start to grow something beautiful. And at some point, I'm going to meet with the dissenters. I'm going to meet with the people who are the ones who've seem most likely to have arguments with people. And I'm going to say, “Hey, look, I want this to be a good place to work. Why do you think these things happen? Do you see that we're having a lot of conflict in our staff?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I may be kind of vague about not trying to go in and have a disciplinary talk, but just to sort of say, “Why do you think that we have conflict the way that we do here?” And see if I can get them on board. And the last thing is, at that point then I go to the rest of the team. And now, if I've done it right, I've got the leaders on board. I've got most of the doctors on board. I got most of the big personalities and key leaders on board.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I can get some enthusiasm, so by the time I roll it out to the rest of the team, I should have a pretty darn good amount of support. And I also shouldn't be surprised by the pushback that I get or what people say. There should not be someone who goes, “Well, we can't get along when so and so is doing this, that you've never heard of.” Man, if I've had all these meetings and no one's mentioning this big obvious problem, I can't imagine that happening. That would just be too far of a stretch.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And that's really key for me, I learned that lesson very early on as a leader. And it's one of the tools that I use the most is, I don't ever want to go into a group conversation like that without knowing what the outcome is going to be to a degree. And so for me, it is all about I want to get those people siloed out in a safe space and hear what they have to say. So, that I hear it for the first time in private and have time to process it. And have time to come up with my game plan before I get whacked with it in front of everybody in a team meeting.
Stephanie Goss:
That's the goal. Good, bad, and ugly. It doesn't always have to be bad or ugly. Sometimes, you want to hear that good stuff, so that you can punch it up even more. So if your doctors are like, “Hey, I watched this thing happen, but then so and so did this and I really was proud of what they did.” “Look, that's a great example. Let's think about how we can get the rest of the team to do what Jessica just did.” Those are the things that I want to know, ahead of time so that I can game plan, so that when we do talk about it with the whole team, I'm not caught off guard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I agree. I think getting that game plan down is key. Working sort of through those groups is a really nice way to kind of break this up into bite-sized manageable conversations that I can do. And then ultimately, I'm going to try to get under the team and really, if you want to really do it well, ask the team how they want to handle it or what they want to do or what rules they would like to see in place. And you'll be amazed. Honestly, if the ideas come from them, they tend to buy into it more than they're ever going to buy in ideas that come from you or me.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, I think, Stephanie, you do this really well. You're very good at sort of saying to the team, “What rules would you guys like to have or how do you think this should be approached? And what would you like to see done or what reward? How can we reward people who are or whatever term the team uses, our cultural warriors, our happy people, our smiley people, our people who are lifting others up?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
How do we recognize those people? How do we reward them. And you'll see the team get really excited about the idea of shutting this stuff down, because they don't, nobody likes to work in a place where gossiping is going on and people are getting arguments all the time. And we've talked a bit about psychological safety in the last couple of weeks.
Dr. Andy Roark:
This is a perfect example. I don't want to go to work where I'm always watching my back and people are going to get mad at me. And they're going to say stuff about me that's not true. I don't want that. And so, if you say any, “What can we do about this? Are there rules that we should have? How do we approach this? How do we celebrate people who aren't doing this? And who were supporting people and lifting them up?” I'm like, I can get really excited about that conversation.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, if you're-
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm a doctor, so I'll give you advice.
Stephanie Goss:
And if you're sitting there listening to this, and going, “Oh, pick me, pick me. I want to learn how to do that.” We actually are going to have a workshop at our April Conference, which is coming up. If you haven't checked it out, we're going to have a workshop on psychological safety with our friend, Phil Richmond, talking about how to build this.
Stephanie Goss:
And yes, to your point about agreements, that was something I learned early on in my career. And one of the things that I realized after spending years feeling very disappointed and frustrated, because it seems like no matter what I did, when it came time to get feedback from the team, there was I struggled with hearing that they didn't think that I was doing a good enough job holding people accountable. And I really struggled with that, because I spent a lot of time focusing on putting systems and protocols and processes in place, so that we could have team accountability.
Stephanie Goss:
And it took a very, very long time for this light bulb to go off. And I mean, I sat through multiple reviews, and then went home and cried my face off, because I was like, “Everyone thinks I'm a crappy boss.” And that wasn't what was being said, but it took a really long time for the light bulbs go on. And it ties back to appreciation in a way for me, which is that, we have all, most of us have heard of the languages of appreciation at work. And we think about the idea that people like appreciation in different ways.
Stephanie Goss:
Accountability looks different to different people and it took me so long to flip that light bulb on and realize that what I thought was accountability, and what I was working towards what systems and protocols and processes was not what accountability looked liked the rest of my team. And so to your point, when you're asking the team, “How do you want to handle this?” the word that I specifically use is, “How are we going to hold each other accountable?”
Stephanie Goss:
And then I asked them, “What does that look ?” And I will make them close their eyes and tell me, “Okay, if gossip is our problem,” and I use myself as the example. “If I was in the treatment room, and I was just talking smack with Andy and I was just talking about Jessica, and this is exactly what we were talking about. Tell me, you describe to me, my eyes are shut, what does accountability look in that moment?”
Stephanie Goss:
What do we say? What do we do? How does it sound? Is it loud? Is it soft? Is it private? Do I say, “Hey, can I talk to you away from everybody else?” What does that actually look ? Because accountability looks very different to different people. And once that light bulb went off and I started having those conversations, for the first time, I started being able to affect change and feel like I was being, I was doing what they thought of as my job.
Stephanie Goss:
Even though I've been my job all along, I was able to change the perception around accountability because it does look different to different people. For some people, accountability looks like, “Look if somebody does the wrong thing, I want them to get written up.” Okay, I know what that process and protocol looks like. I know how to document employee disciplinary issues. I know how to discipline somebody out of a role when it is appropriate. But it doesn't look that for everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
For some people, it's just like, “Look, I just want them to not do it again.” Okay, well, but how do we make sure that that happens? What does that system look ? And so, it's asking that question about, “What does the accountability look like?” And then asking the better question, which is not, how do I, Stephanie, as the boss hold you guys accountable? It is how are we as a team go and hold each other accountable?
Stephanie Goss:
Because if Andy and I are in the treatment room gossiping about Jessica, and Dr. Sarah walks by and hears it, I want Dr. Sarah to say, “Hey, you guys. I really don't think that that's a conversation that you should be having in the treatment room or at all, honestly. If you have a problem with Sarah, you probably should go talk to her. That is what I want accountability to look like amongst the team. The team has to talk about that. And they have to all come to an agreement about this is how we're going to hold each other accountable because it can't just be Stephanie, as the manager policing everybody, because ain't nobody got time for that.
Stephanie Goss:
And I don't, as much as my kids, they believe I have eyes in the back of my head still, I don't have eyes in the back of my head and I can't be seeing all things at all times. It just is impossible. And so, this is where we have to get their buy in and ask them, “What are the rules? How are we going to show up for each other? How do we want to handle it when we screw up?” Because we will screw up. We are building new habits. We are building new systems.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure. And as you say, we've got habits at this point. And that's the sad thing is that these have been allowed to become habits. And so people will do them.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes, years of it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. And so, you just know, like I said, we're in this for the long haul. It's not going to be perfect, but we're going to keep circling back. And then we're going to have some follow-up meetings and be like, “How's everything going? I'm starting to see an uptick in these behaviors again. Can we review our rules? How's everybody feeling about it? Are we still comfortable holding people accountable, as we said?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And just having those conversations again, but bringing it back up to the surface and working on this. Because we're working on culture, it drives everything else. And it takes time to change, especially when people have built habits, but it is worth it. So, yeah, I think that's great. How do we hold each other accountable? How are we going to measure and reward drama free behavior? How do we celebrate the people who were setting a good example?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I really, I keep going back to that. It's so hard to police culture. It's easier to reward the people who live it the way that makes you proud. And so, how do you catch those people and lift them up. And then the last thing… go ahead.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, I was just going to say that one has to be multimodal, because appreciation looks different for everybody. And so, that's another conversation that you have to have as a team and recognize that for some of the team, if we can all break a habit and we have good healthy behavior and we can document that. Maybe for some of the team, success and reward would be amazing if we had, a taco truck come by and feed everybody after work one day.
Stephanie Goss:
But for a bunch of the team, it's not going to check their box when it comes to appreciation. So, this is about getting to know your team as people and recognizing how do they all value appreciation? And can we find commonality around one specific issue and come to an agreement about what does that look ?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I agree. I think that's so true. And the last thing is, now, that we have had this conversation, now that we have talked about what's important, now that we have talked about what we believe in and what our values are, and what the problem is, and how we're going to hold each other accountable, now is the time to start holding people accountable.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I really emphasize start, and this is why I started the beginning by saying, we're talking about the future.
Stephanie Goss:
Right. Not the past.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We are not starting now and retro actively trying to punish people who have been bad actors in the past or poor performers. That's gone. It's over. We have all talked about why we're happy to be here. We've all talked about what we see. We've all talked about what we agree to do to make this place better. And now, we start to hold people accountable in a meaningful way. Clean slate for everybody. I'm not holding anything against anyone, but now we start.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we start building our naughty list and our nice list. And when people have problems or when we hear about gossip or pin, when people start to come and they're bringing conflict and things like that, we can start to have a coaching conversation. We can start to give them feedback and say, “Hey, this is really something that you should be dealing with yourself. Hey, we're here, that we're having these conversations. What's going on?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And when people are caught spreading gossip and doing things that are damaging to the culture, we need to hold them accountable. And if they show that they are unwilling to change or if they show that they have values that simply do not match and run counter to our practice, meaning, “I'm going to cause drama. It's just who I am. It's just what I love to do.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And the core values of the practice are, we're very kind and and happy place to work. That person is a bad value fit. And they need to go. That's it. you know what I mean? But ultimately, it's not about, “Hey, you were gossiping, and you need to go.” That's not how this happens and it's not even about, “Hey, you continue to gossiping, and I'm writing you up for gossiping.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
At some point in the conversation, now that I'm holding people accountable, it's going to change to “I have talked to you multiple times about your behavior and you keep saying that you're going to change your behavior, but you're not changing your behavior. And now I'm going to talk to you about your unwillingness to change. Take it on board with the team and your truthfulness because you keep telling me you're going to change and then you're not changing.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that's ultimately why that person is going to be let go is because they're not being truthful and they're not willing to change and to get on board with our practice, or they're a bad values fit. They just, they do not believe what we believe here. And they're just a bad fit, and it's not going to get better.
Stephanie Goss:
And for those people who struggle with how do you hold somebody accountable and how do you let somebody go for what a values fit looks ? I would say that going back to the team agreements, if you have conversations with your team, there should be a Code of Conduct. There should be a line in the sands that everybody on the team agrees that these are immediately actionable offenses, if I mistreat a patient, if I leave a patient without water. Those are things from a patient perspective that people could look at and say, “I could see where someone could get let go on a first offense for those things.
Stephanie Goss:
It's the same with behavior. Theft is a big one, That's on our nonnegotiable list with my team at every hospital I've been at, because if someone steals from us, it's a nonnegotiable, and we're going to let them go. It is also similarly, our code of conduct and ethics is we want people on our team who are truthful. So, if I have team members who are lying, and repeatedly, telling me that you're going to do something and not doing it is lying in a way. You're not telling me the truth.
Stephanie Goss:
That becomes easier to say, “Hey, look, this is our code of conduct that we all agreed to. This is our Code of Ethics,” whatever you want to call it, that fits for you and your team. But having those lines in the sand of, “These are the one and dones. This is where we draw the line in the sand and say someone is going to get off our bus, if they can't get on board with these things.” It makes those conversations a no brainer. They are not hard conversations to have.
Stephanie Goss:
We think about them being hard conversations, because we haven't taken the time to define where that line in the sand should be and get agreement from the team as a whole. Because a lot of us have some of that in our handbook, but it's the thing that we hope that people read when they start employment with us. It's not something that they participated in making necessarily, or that you've talked about, on a regular basis with a team that everybody knows. It's not a living breathing thing.
Stephanie Goss:
And so, this is where another exercise that is so invaluable is take the time to build a Code of Conduct. Build an Ethics Clause for your handbook as a team and review it every year, at least, so that the team knows, “This is where our line in the sand is drawn.” Because then those conversations are so easy to have.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I agree. And for people who are struggling with evaluating employees and having those hard conversations, I think this podcast will probably come out a little bit late for that. On February 23rd, you and I, Stephanie are teaching our Evaluating Employees and Loading the Bus Workshop in Uncharted.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, I think this, I think that we'll already have done it when this episode drops, but if you're Unchartered member it will be in our Knowledge Library and you are welcome to check it out. It's a workshop that you and I run about every year, just because people really like it and they really need it. So, anyway, that is there if you're an Unchartered member. Check it out.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, that's it for me, Steph. I don't think I have anything else. Do you?
Stephanie Goss:
No, that's it. Have a great week, everybody. Take care. May you have less menthol diarrhea in your house than Andy has in his.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes, yes. That's how we measure, “How's your year?” “Didn't have any menthol diarrhea.” Sounds like a good stuff. Must be living right. All right. All gone.
Stephanie Goss:
Take care, everybody.
Dr. Andy Roark:
See you guys. Bye.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, again, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mail bag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mail bag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care, everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
