In this week's episode of The Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss dive into a letter from the mailbag. It's from a kennel technician grappling with a toxic workplace culture. This dedicated individual is working tirelessly in the kennels for experience requirements for vet school. However, the atmosphere within the kennels is far from supportive, with the kennel manager engaging in gossiping and making side remarks. Despite reaching out to the practice manager for assistance, the situation remains unchanged, leaving the kennel attendant feeling frustrated and unheard. Andy and Stephanie provide valuable insight about looking at the big picture and how to navigate these kinds of conversations. 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.
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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 getting into an email that we got through the mail bag asking about how we can encourage change in processes and flow in the hospital.
This one was a really great question and it led Andy and I to have some conversation obviously about the question that we got asked, but as we do we may have sidetracked a little bit down a few rabbit holes and talked about our own experience with change, particularly change in our team over this last few years as we have grown and learned the hard lessons of what happens when a team grows and gets bigger and you have communication challenges and you have to learn how to work together without stepping on everybody's toes. It is super relevant to this example. Let's get into this.
Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie Goss.
Stephanie Goss: How's it going Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark: It's good. It's crazy. My life is radically changing by the day and I am holding on by my fingertips as things take off.
Stephanie Goss: 2024 is a year of, is a year of change.
Dr. Andy Roark: It's like changing a bull rider on the saddle, and a bull rider not on the saddle, that kind of change is how it feels. I was traveling and I, my daughter came down to me, my oldest daughter, who recently got her driver's license, and I said to her, I'm leaving.
I'm flying away. I'll be gone for a week. And my flight is at 7am, and I have to leave the house at 5:30am, and tomorrow's the school day. And, if you still want to drop me at the airport, you can have the car while I'm gone. Otherwise, it'll be parked at the airport and she was like, see you at five, dad. And she did it.
Stephanie Goss: All right. Look at her go.
Dr. Andy Roark: She got up and did it and she's just, she is living her best life. She's just living her best life. It's awesome to watch someone who gets great joy from being able to go to Starbucks and then consignment shop. And then just read things at the bookstore and come home and she's like boom freedom.
Stephanie Goss: Oh man. But also, I mean, how convenient to be like, Hey, we need some more milk to be able to make dinner. Do you want to go to the store and not have to be the one to leave.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Oh I have been looking for things for her to do
Stephanie Goss: For sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: Just to let her do them but is a hundred percent like I want A different flavor of toothpaste today. I need you to go to the store.
Stephanie Goss: Go to the store.
Dr. Andy Roark: And she does yeah, I should I have resisted the urge to send her looking for products that don't exist like I need a left handed toothbrush. Let's go ahead.
Stephanie Goss: You're so mean.
Dr. Andy Roark: I need you to go, I need you to go get the the electric muzzles from the vet clinic. I don't want
Stephanie Goss: They’d be like–
Dr. Andy Roark: I want the ones with the USB, I want the ones with the USB plug. Those are the muzzles I want.
Stephanie Goss: Oh man, I can totally see their faces.
Dr. Andy Roark: One time,
Stephanie Goss: My dad is a big giant jerk.
Dr. Andy Roark: It would work one time. Yeah.
Stephanie Goss: No, it is. it's a year of, it's a year of change. It's a busy year too. Like it started off with a bang and Oh we're rapidly coming up on our April conference and
Andy Roark: we're reaching ludicrous speed here.
Stephanie Goss: It is starting to reach lightspeed.
Andy Roark: It, we started with a bang. We rolled out the Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate at VMX and then everybody saw it, and then they were like, Holy crap! We've got two people that we moved into a management role who got zero training when they got promoted, and this is eight hours of the best Uncharted leadership content training stuff on demand, on their phone, whenever they want, This is, they should have this immediately. And also could they do the hybrid model where they do the uncharted cohorts so they meet in person as well? And I was like, yeah, that sounds great. And after the thousandth person I was like, We should assess we, do we, have the time to train all these people?
Stephanie Goss: Yeah do we even have the time to train because we're also, we're hitting the road and we've got our May road show. Everybody keeps asking me and it, that was so funny at VMX. Everybody was like, I heard you guys are hitting the road. Does this mean an Andy and Stephanie tour bus? Because I want to get in on that party bus.
Dr. Andy Roark: It is. It's a big, it's a big bus with our faces on the side.
Stephanie Goss: I was like, could you imagine an Uncharted party bus? it would be quite. Quite amazing. But,
Dr. Andy Roark: driven, it'd be driven by my 16 year old. Cause that's all that's in the budget. And it would be a death trap.
Stephanie Goss: but I'm excited about, we're going to be in Atlanta in May. And so I'm excited about meeting some local clinics. And it also sounds like we have some Uncharted clinics from out, you know, other areas that are bringing some of their team down to work on team training and, you know, kind of bulking up the leadership essential skills within their team.
So it's going to be 2024, man. It is. It is the year of change. Lots is happening.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it is. It is. So, anyway, the boy, the April conference is right on top of us. Communicating in a sea of noise I think is a real good topic right now. It's a lot of tightening the screws, getting those client reminders on point, getting clients back in the building, keeping them engaged, because, like, boy, the floodgates that opened up during the pandemic are closing, and it's gonna start.
It's going to start being more and more important to, to engage those clients, get them back on the program, and like, this is what we did forever and ever, but I think a lot of us just, we just gave up on that because we didn't have to when, we were book solid all the time, and so, anyway, I think a lot of people are probably starting to panic.
It's not, you're not alone but now is the time. It's been great to ride this raging river, but now it's time to start paddling again but, start paddling before you come to a full stop is all I'd say. That's what we're doing in April.
Stephanie Goss: But going back to your, going back to your my least favorite lyric choice we've got it. We've got a good one this week because we got a mailbag from a kennel technician, which is awesome. I said to you, it's been a hot minute since we had something from the kennels. And this one is actually a really good one because it's a kennel attendant who is also working in addition to their relief in the kennel, they are working on their volunteer hours for vet school and their experience hours for vet school. And they are struggling because they feel like the culture in the kennels in their practice is pretty, pretty toxic. And so There is a kennel manager for whom this kennel attendant feels like they are acting fairly unprofessional.
It seems like they are gossiping with the other team about this person making side remarks. They're hearing things You know second hand from the other kennel team members about the kennel manager talking smack basically about them and they're super frustrated. You know, they said that they've talked to the, practice manager and it, they're getting reassurances that the situation is being dealt with, but it doesn't seem like the behavior is changing at all.
And so they're like, look, I don't like, I have too much stuff on my plate. I'm trying to get ready for vet school. I'm trying to get my hours. I don't have time for the drama and it's exhausting to try and do. My job in an environment where I feel like the rest of the team is being poisoned against me.
And it just seems like from everything that they shared, this is a pretty toxic environment. And so they are like, look, I know that this isn't good on my mental health, but I really need the hours for vet school. what, would you guys do? And so I thought this one was was an interesting one.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh we could totally–
Stephanie Goss: It could get a little spicy.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah, it's definitely, it's, I gotta, I don't know, I'll tell you what I would do. But, first, we gotta set up some headspace here. But, yeah, this is challenging. I sat with this letter when it came in a little bit, and I was trying to get my head around the perspective of the person who wrote to us.
And, often I'm like, okay, how do we get into this position? I wonder, and this is just It's just sort of, sort of thoughts in my mind, but when I look at this, part of the thing I wonder about, the first question I would ask someone who's looking at it is our writer, are they? Are they willing to advocate for themselves?
Because I see a lot of situations kind of like this. And I'm not saying it's the writer's fault at all. Don't get me wrong. But I'm kind of like, how did we get here and how did this shape up? And sometimes it's around self advocacy. Where if we're someone who goes along to get along, there are toxic dumps that we can end up in.
And it's just funny, I've just been thinking a lot about it. Life is interesting that way. Where, you know, I don't buy the idea that you should be the squeaky wheel all the time. And I don't really, I don't think that people who are the first to complain whenever something is not exactly what they want, I don't think those people ultimately get ahead.
I think that there's a lot of people who are quick to jump in and talk about they're unhappy and this is not okay. And at some point, if it's a rarity, you listen to them. And if it's every day, there's something they're unhappy about, there's something new. Those people quickly kind of get tuned out.
And so, I don't think that's the way we want to go. At the same time, if you're somebody who doesn't advocate for yourself, you don't stand up, you don't say, “I'm not doing this.” Oftentimes, people will just assume you're okay, and just Keep going the direction they were going, and sometimes that means not that you're stuck in a bad place, but you're in a place that's actively getting worse.
Like, whatever the water you don't like is, they're continuing just to kind of pour it into your bucket, because you haven't said that is not what you want. And so, so there's kind of that too. And again, I'm trying to put this on” the writer, but I'm just kind of rolling it around of “how exactly do we get here?
I think that there's a big question that I have here as well that I would put back to our writer also. The big question at Headspace for me is, What do you want? Like, what are you trying to do here? And I I had this really great conversation at a recent vet conference and this guy I know said to me, How do you assess your strengths and weaknesses, Andy?
I want to figure out where my weaknesses are and I want to work on them. And so how do you do that? And I sat there and I thought about it for a while and finally I said back to him, I think you're asking the wrong question. Like, I, that's, I don't think that's a good question. And I said, I really think that just thinking about your weaknesses for the sake of cataloging your weaknesses so you can work on the things you're not good at, I think that's a really bad strategy.
I think we all have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of energy, and working on something you're not good at just because you feel like you should, that's, I, don't think that's a good use of time. I said, I would not frame it that way. I would say to you, what the heck do you want to do next?
And then you tell me what you want to do next, and then we'll look at the personal barriers you have to getting there, and that's what I would work on. But cataloging your strengths and your weaknesses, that doesn't make any sense to me, really from a functional, practical standpoint. So that's been sort of my mindset of really, I think a lot of us need to be kind of pragmatic, and what the heck are we doing here, and what are we doing next?
And so in the case of our writer here, who says, I'm in the kennel, I'm putting up with this horrible situation. I've gone to the manager and it's not getting better, what do I do? I'll say, what's your next play? What are you trying to go, like, where are you trying to go? Because I don't know. Looking at what I'm looking at here, I'm going, I'm trying to, I'm struggling a bit to see how we get from where we are to someplace positive.
I don't know that I buy– and again, I could be wrong. You know, our writer says, I want to go to vet school, I want to go to vet school. I'm doing my internship. I'm getting my hours so I can go to vet school. And it's just, this is, I'm not saying they're wrong. And that may be what's required, but to me, that would be the picture of a stupid system where the hours I put in getting beaten up in the kennel are supposed to somehow make me a better doctor? That's ridiculous.
Stephanie Goss: I agree with you. And I think for me, from a Headspace perspective, like one of the first questions I think that if I was in their shoes that I'd be asking myself is what am I, to your point, where am I trying to go? What am I trying to accomplish here? Because if I want to get into vet school, I can check the box and say, I've worked 9,000 hours in a hospital, but if I can't. I'm going to bring some pretty damn good reasons why working 9,000 hours in the hospital impacted me on a personal, professional, developmental level for going to vet school that I'm giving the same kind of answer as the person who says, I've known since I was five years old that I wanted to be a vet, right?
Like it's, that everybody has to do something. So how is it setting you apart? And while diversity in your answers. Is very important and overcoming adversity is very important. You also have personal choice in this matter, whereas when you think about other circumstances of diversity not, you know, not being able to access the same kind of resources as your peers growing up in a foreign country and having to struggle with, you know, migrating to the U.S. to be able to accomplish your dreams. Those kind of examples of challenge and adversity are significantly different than saying, I had a job in a kennel, and it was awful and toxic, and I didn't do anything about it. Right? Or I chose to, or I chose to just put up with it because I knew that I needed my hours and I hated it and I learned about what I don't want to do.
But, you have freedom of choice in a way that others, in circumstances of adversity don't necessarily. And so I think for me, the headspace piece is, what are you, trying to accomplish? And what are your priorities? Because I do actually think that you have a lot of choice in this situation.
And it's really easy when you are in an environment where it's just sucking the life out of you to feel like you have no choice. I empathize greatly with the writer. Because I've been there in plenty of situations in my life. Where it's like, this is horrible and I feel like I don't have any other options.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I think that there's this old school mentality in vet medicine that you have to pay your dues. And I still hear people talk about that. You have to pay your dues.
Stephanie Goss: It drives me crazy.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I mean, this is the classic example of paying your dues in that, here's this person, they're working in the kennel, getting knocked around, and it's like, okay, help me get my head around, if I'm on the admission board, how this person taking a beating in the kennel is, it means anything as far as whether or not they will be a good doctor.
And so I think that's, I think that's bonkers. Even taking the kennel part out of it and just being like, I'm putting my hours in the vet clinic. At some point, I'm skeptical of the value of this. All I can get out of talking to admissions groups for vet school is this, and I think this is valid.
A lot of people don't know what they're getting into when they say they want to be a vet. And it's a hard job, and you get your butt kicked a lot, and it's frustrating. And it ain't a puppy kitten business. It's a human being's business. That's what it is. And so if you get into vet school with the idea that you're going to snuggle puppies and kittens, and you're here because people are gross and you don't like people, I would say that was a failure on the part of the admission board, because you shouldn't be here.
Stephanie Goss: Those shouldn't be your only reasons, and if they are, you shouldn't be here, yeah, for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: Correct. Exactly right. And so, I do think that you can make a strong case for looking more. I don't know, looking upon a vet school applicant who says, I understand the life of a veterinarian because I have spent a significant amount of time in the clinic. I have worked with clients.
I have worked with pets. I have handled the workload, the stress load. I have gone through the experience of going home and trying to unplug and I have coping strategies for those things. And I. understand the demands that are going to be put on me emotionally and from a time management standpoint as a doctor.
I do think I go, okay, well, that is a strong position for an applicant that it's hard to teach in vet school. And so to me, I go, yep. But I always thought that the reason to do hours in a vet clinic ahead of time is so that you can go into veterinary medicine as a doctor, eyes wide open. And so again, I circle back around to our writer and I go “I don't know how being in the kennel is necessarily helping you understand what you'd be getting into as a doctor” and again, I don't want this to be critical of a writer, but it's just, it's where my head is when I'm sort of thinking about what do we do here. So anyway, to your point about the, you said, well, you said, you know, well, I've got these 9,000 hours.
I think if you're going to go this route, and there are hours and things that you're going to try to get to go to vet school, at some point you check the box for having enough. And I think a lot of people miss that. I think a lot of people are like, Why did he get to go to vet school? I had 8,000 hours in a vet clinic and he only had 2,000 hours in a vet clinic.
And I'm like, 2,000 hours is plenty to know what a vet clinic is. and how it feels and how it works. I don't think you're scoring bonus points when you get beyond a certain number. That's probably in the low hundreds more than it is in the thousands, you know?
Stephanie Goss: Yeah, for sure. And, the other thing too that I think is important going back to what you were saying before this is that when you're looking at the length of time that you were in the clinic, I think that there's probably, it would be interesting– we should pick somebody's brain who's on an admissions committee or one of, one of the deans and ask them the perspective because I would think if I, just me as a, human being with my experience in vet med, if I sat on an admissions committee, for me, it would absolutely be I mean quality over quantity. I’m looking for someone who went into a clinic and had the opportunity to try all kinds of things. If you have someone who said, well I worked over ten thousands of hours over the last, you know, five years, but I was in the kennel.
It was a super toxic environment. I learned a lot about what I don't want to do in veterinary medicine. My assumption, and I, we all know what assuming, you know, what they say about assuming, right? So I could be wrong, but my assumption would be. Oh, you didn't probably get a lot of other opportunities because if you were in a toxic environment, there's two pieces of play.
One is there has to be trust to allow for opportunities to happen in a practice. And so if you were working in a toxic practice, did you get opportunities to go work in the exam room with clients? Did you get opportunities to sit in on surgery? Or were you not given those opportunities? So from, the practice side of it, and the other part going back to the writer that I think sits on your shoulders when you are in a bad environment or you have something that truly makes you miserable. I think about it in the school context, like, I will admit I am a procrastinator my, my, ADHD and anxiety, like, I, I can procrastinate things, and I will tell you when I have a thing that I have, like, been dreading or that I don't want to do either because I don't understand it or I don't like it or whatever, I don't get a hundred percent return on the investment that I put into it because I'm so focused on getting through the awful thing that I don't want to do that I'm not looking at it with a whole and open heart and mind, if that makes sense.
And so I think when you think about our writer, if they are existing in this truly toxic kennel environment. How much are they actually absorbing from their experience in the clinic? Because they're probably dreading it. They're probably just trying to get their work done at a quality level that matters to them and get the hell out of there.
I would, if that was me and I was going to work every day and I, and someone, or multiple someone's were making me miserable, I would want to show up. Do the minimum that I needed to do to be professional and get the job done. And then I would want to go home. And so from an admissions perspective, I would definitely have to question that. And I would look at it from a quality over quantity perspective.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. No, I completely agree with that. I think the lessons here I like to put forward to people is beware of the implied shortcuts where people are like, okay, what, you want to go to vet school? You should get hours in the vet clinic. And my question would be, why? And so if I'm on the admission committee and you come in and you sit down and you say, I worked 3,000 hours in a vet clinic, then, all I'm going to say to you is, What did you do there?
Stephanie Goss: What did you learn?
Dr. Andy Roark: What did you learn? And you're like, I can mop a floor. Like, boy, you wouldn't believe the messes I know how to clean up. I'm like, I, that doesn't, it doesn't help. You know, but again, the only reason that you would ever buy into that is because you buy into the. paying your dues model, which is just, it's, garbage.
It's, and I don't really think it gets people where they want, where they think it takes them either. So I think there's a lot of people paying dues that nobody really cares about. And so anyway, I'm not trying to dunk on this other than to say, I think you and I are both in agreement about what are you doing this job for?
That's it. I think we're both probably asking the question of. If you have gone to the manager and you have said, this is going on and they say we're working through it, what is your incentive to wait it out? You know, because now we're starting to get into where we're going to go with that. Some action steps.
But for me, it's about there's going to be some cost benefit analysis here. And if you have said. This is what's going on and it's making me miserable and they're like, Hey, trust us. we're working on it. That may be totally true. They may entirely be working on it and it takes time to work these processes and they cannot be public.
They have to be private and that is true. And do not owe it to them to spend your life waiting. For them to fix it and that like, and I hate saying that as a business owner because there's lots of times when I say, Hey guys, we're working on something. It's going to take a little bit of time before it gets smoothed out and run smoothly.
If somebody was like, I don't owe it to you to wait like that would hurt. That would hurt my feelings. but also if you're like, Hey, look, I'm going to leave in three months and I don't think you're going to fix it in the next three months. And I don't want to be miserable for three months that, you know, that would change that math and so I don't know that's part of it as well as you've gone forward and you've advocated and now they've said we're working through it I want to say that's a very valid thing for them to respond and I think it's good to not have the expectation That they're doing they've done something wrong.
I don't think that's true. But also Let's call a spade a spade and look at where we're trying to go, what we're trying to do, what our timeline looks like, and, where we hope to end up with. You know, the last thing I would say too, is again, jumping back to our, what are you, trying to do here? I suspect besides getting the hours, they're probably hoping to get like a letter of recommendation and things like that.
Stephanie Goss: Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: If you're in the kennel working with a kennel manager who hates your guts and is toxic and is terrible.
Stephanie Goss: Right. What kind of letter of recommendation are you gonna get?
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, exactly right. Now you're not even gonna get that. You know, I don't know. That's, that, those are all the questions I kind of have from a headspace standpoint, is really, what is the math that we're doing here?
I think to turn this to a positive way in Headspace, you've always got to believe that you have options. You've always got to believe you have options. You always have to believe that you have power to make your situation better. And sometimes that's by leaving, and sometimes it's by advocating for yourself, and sometimes it's modeling the behavior that you want to see in the culture, and being relentlessly Ted Lasso optimistic. Like, you always have power.
You're not trapped here, you do have choices. I just, I think that's kind of where I want to kind of leave headspace and say, okay, we've done these things and we're, I think a good deep thought about, what am I trying to accomplish here really? And, You've got to eject the sunk cost fallacy. The idea that I have stuck it out here for a year, and it's been terrible, and if I leave now
Stephanie Goss: I’m starting over.
Dr. Andy Roark: and, then I'm starting over, and the vet, school's gonna ask me, why did you leave this clinic? And I'm gonna have to say I couldn't take it. And like, that's, catastrophizing, that sunk cost fallacy. If you would not start working at the clinic now, then I'm not sure that you should continue working at the clinic.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah. I think the last thing that I would say from headspace perspective, cause I, I agree with you on, that piece. I think the last thing that I would say is that there are right and there are wrong actions and sometimes managers do get it wrong. And so going back to what you said, I absolutely agree.
Like as a manager, I know that I can't tell the team all of the information, like navigating things on the backend from an HR perspective is hard and tricky. And it is my job as an employer to provide a safe workspace for every employee on my team and that includes being a psychologically safe workplace. And so if I have a team member who comes to me and tells me particularly about bullying I have a responsibility to do something about it.
Now that doesn't mean I have to tell them what I'm going to do, but if our writer went to their manager and they said, Hey, this is what's happening in the kennels. This is what the kennel manager is doing. I need help. If I was the writer and that manager didn't look at me and say, I'm really, you know, like, I'm really sorry that this is happening.
I want you to know that we're dealing about it. You know, we're dealing with it. we're working on it and I need you to be patient. If they didn't say something to you, like, I can assure you that no further bullying will be tolerated, especially if you have a zero tolerance policy in your handbook as a team member.
Like, if they're not giving you reassurance, if it's just an open ended, yes, we're working on it. It's okay for you to say, I. I need to, like, I need to know what are, is there a timeline? is there an active plan? So for me as a manager, my goal was always to not share details, but make the team member know what they could expect.
And so if I absolutely, if we had a zero tolerance policy against bullying, which it did in my practice, if somebody came to me in this situation, I would absolutely tell them. This is unacceptable. We do not tolerate it. We do not tolerate bullying. I, you know, I can't talk about individual cases and rest assured that this kind of behavior and using a specific behavior will not be tolerated.
Right. If I was that employee, I would feel I'm not really good about that, leaving that meeting because I would be able to walk away feeling the assumption that they are going to action what I just shared with them. And going back to your point about control, then the control goes back to me. So if I feel like nothing has changed, then I have a, then I have a choice to make.
Do I go back to them and say, “hey, you told me that things were going to change and they haven't.” Do you choose to walk away because somebody told you, Hey, they were going to change it and they didn't. There's lots of things that could go. It could go lots of different directions after that, but the control is still yours.
And so I guess I would say from that perspective, like If you have a manager who is being toxic and involving themselves in negative behaviors, like that's, wrong behavior from a man. It's wrong behavior from anybody's perspective. If it's a bull, if it's a bullying situation and if it's just toxic, it's still wrong from a manager’s perspective.
That’s where your point early on about asking for help is so important and I would encourage our writer, I would try again, maybe. But maybe you're also at the place where you're like, Pfft, I can't handle this anymore. Which is okay, you know, it's okay. No judgment. But I think that's important.
Dr. Andy Roark: Just get out of my action steps. Get out of my action steps. Stop it. We're going to take.
Stephanie Goss: Sorry, sorry! It's like we're, it's like we're mind melding. It's
Dr. Andy Roark: It's, it's kind of scary.
Stephanie Goss: We need a break. I can't handle it.
Dr. Andy Roark: We do need, we need a break. We need a break from each other. We're like, we clearly spent too much time together. Well, that's it. I will always…
Stephanie Goss: Well, let’s take a quick break.
Andy Roark: Well, we will, but I have to say now, I will always remember when Maria Prita came on to work with the two of us, and we would just look at each other, and a decision would be made, and she was like, I don't understand. No, we'd never discussed this. I was like, you were standing there when it was decided.
Stephanie Goss: It's just, this is happening.
Dr. Andy Roark: Stephanie said, well, I don't care. And then you raised your left eyebrow. And then we all started walking. I don't know what happened. Anyway, alright, that's it. Let's take a break.
Stephanie Goss: Hey friends, you have heard Andy and I talk on the podcast about our Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate. And because you have, you know that we designed it with every member of the team in mind, because we believe that everybody on the team should have basic, professional, personal business development skills in their toolbox to be able to help make, maximally effective, efficient, and excellent team.
And so we are bringing you one more way to have access to our certificate. That's right, you can take it asynchronously. our wonderful partners at NAVC are bringing it to you through Vetfolio. So if you want to take the certificate online, you can do that today.
And if you are the kind of person who's like, I need my CE to be in person, or you have learners on your team who you think would do better going through it together in a group live. We've got you, because we are hitting the road. We are going to be live and in person in Atlanta, Georgia May 5th and 6th, and we are going to jam pack two days full of the entire certificate program, but it's going to be live and in person and we're going to do it Uncharted style, which means we're going to talk about your practices. And so, if you have been thinking about, man, I would love to do this certificate, but I would love to do it in person. Now's your chance.
Head over to UnchartedVet.com/ONTHEROAD. That's O N T H E R O A D, and, you will find out all the information about this upcoming road show that is happening in Atlanta, in May, and future dates and locations. And now, back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, let's get back into this. I've got a fairly tight little action plan here that I would put forward.
Stephanie Goss: Let’s see how much we're in each other's heads this
Dr. Andy Roark: Okay, do you want me to go first or do you want me to go tit for tat? Like I'll go, all right, here's my first one is make a contingency plan.
And I would do this for a couple reasons. Number one, it's always good to have a plan. Number two, it will make you feel better about your situation. If this is awful and you're out. What are you gonna do? And lemme tell you, I promise you, the path to vet school will not be closed because you leave a kennel job that's crappy.
Like I, I promise you it won't be. But you should have a plan so you're not just sitting at home playing Balder's Gate three on your PlayStation. And I don't know, I think people play that. I'm not allowed to have a PlayStation. It was when we had a…
Stephanie Goss: I was like, I don't even know what that is.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah, no, because you're not, you clearly don't hang out with the 20 year old male technicians like I do, and they tell me about their video games and I'm not allowed to have a PlayStation because it got taken away when we had a baby we had a baby, Allison also took my PlayStation away, I've not been allowed to have one again.
Stephanie Goss: No, my video game nerdiness is, Animal Crossing or Dreamlight Valley.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, anyway. Don't, not, that's not the contingency plan.
The contingency plan should not be to play video games.
Stephanie Goss: Don’t go play video games.
Dr. Andy Roark: It should not be that. It should be something different than that. Anyway, step one, make a contingency plan. Because, one, if the worst thing you think can happen is that you leave, or you If you quit or you get fired, we can make that go away real fast by making a nice little contingency plan of what would you do?
And so I think you should, you should Go ahead and lay that down. If you have friends that work at other vet clinics in the area, you might be time to go for some Starbucks. Uh, It might be time to get a beer and just sort of say, you know, I'm sort of looking around for my next opportunity.
I'm just kind of wanting to know if there might be other things I could do. Start kind of warming up that, the possibilities for you to go somewhere else. But that's the first thing I would start with.
Stephanie Goss: And, I think you know, we have gotten mailbag letters before from people who have shared details that, you know, we may not have talked about, but if you are someone who lives rurally, because I want to recognize the challenges. As someone who lives in a rural location, we still have a decent amount of vet hospitals and we have friends who are part of Uncharted who like the next closest vet hospital is like a two hour drive or a three hour drive.
So I want to recognize the challenges that go along with that. And sometimes there, we have gotten letters where people are like, there is no other option. if I, leave this clinic, there's no other option and I hear, that and I want you to feel like we see you and I would also say that this goes back to, and I recognize that, take this with a grain of salt because I'm not on a vet school admissions committee and I would say if as a professional, if you told me you had this experience, here's what you learned from it, And because you're located in an area and might have circumstances that make it so that you can't leave that area, there are still experiences, life experiences, and job experiences that you absolutely can get that are going to look as good, if not better, on a vet school application that show your dedication because you can speak to what you did in addition.
And so for a lot of us, like when a door closes especially if we were in love with the idea of like, Oh, I'm going to get a job at my local clinic and I, this is going to be great because it's five minutes from my house and I'll get all my hours when we fall in love with an idea like that. And then things change.
It can be really easy to feel like I have literally no other options. And so I just want to say to like, step back and think about that because you really have no other options. I don't think so.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yep. You and I met someone who just got accepted to vet school when we were in Orlando. And we went to Universal Studios to do the Jurassic Park Escape Room. And the person running the game was like, Oh, I
start vet school in the fall. Yeah, exactly. Like, I start in the fall. I'm like, Oh, well, she's out there running escape rooms at Universal Studios and got into vet school.
Vet school is really about– the best thing you can do is make yourself interesting. I think it's that. but anyway, we'll circle back to that. I think you're, spot on. So make a contingency plan. What are you doing? Where do you go from here? I think the next thing for me is, at this point, I would state my position to the management, and I would state it clearly.
I would go to them and I would say, look, we've talked about this. I know you guys are working on it. And then I would, not in a bold way, not in a threatening way, not in an aggressive way, but in a clear is kind way, I would tell them what I need in order to continue to be here. And basically at this point I would say, I need to move out of the kennel.
And be where I am closer to medicine so I can get the experience that I need. And where I cannot be in this environment because it's really, it's not working for me. And so I don't know if you have a position for me like that or if there's a spot for me. but I am going to need to if I'm going to stay with the clinic, I'm going to need to move out of the clinic, out of the kennel.
And I'm going to need to do it probably in the next week or two. And I would say it to them, and I, and that's the thing, I would mean it. I would 100 percent mean it.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. And taking one like half step back. The only thing that I would do first is I would probably just. Even if you think you did it clearly the first time, I would reiterate and address. Or if you didn't do it the first time, I would address the things that you know for a fact or that you have experienced yourself directly.
So in terms of giving them examples of behavior particularly with the manager and like the reason that you, you need to, make the change, like lay that out for them. So, you know, I came into work and I heard, you know, I walked in and I heard, You don't have to say who it is, but I heard two kennel team members talking about this.
And the only other person who had that information was this manager, Sarah. So I didn't tell them. And so the only way that they could have found out is through this person. And I really need your help addressing this because I feel however, you know, however it is that you're feeling, but like when you say to them what you need, and I love your idea of saying very clearly what you need to have change.
Like, make sure to talk about the things that you've experienced yourself and not just, like, relying on the stories of others,
Dr. Andy Roark: I don't know if I would, I don't know if I'm with you on this one. Like, so, I hear what you're saying. So, let me talk through my thoughts here. So, I hear what you're saying, and you're saying, I'm going to go in and for the record, I want to state that this is what was said, or this is what was done, or these are the specifics of what is bothering me. And I can see value in that. I think that my concern walking in, and some of this is your communication style and what you want to do, I think. I think my concern is, if I was going to go have this meeting, I would have already done what you said, so I'm not saying I wouldn't do it, but you're saying restate it, and for me, I'm okay, if I'm going to this meeting, what I don't want is for this meeting to turn into a debate about what happened in the past.
Stephanie Goss: Oh yeah. I was trying to say, if you haven't done that, I would do that now so that you are, you're addressing the issues so that when you ask for help and you say, hey, in order for me to stay here, like, I, this is really, you know, like, I'm not happy. And this is really impacting me.
I can't stay in this kennel position. So in order for me to stay here at the clinic, this is what I need. Like, if that comes out of left field for somebody, like as a manager, if you just said, Hey, in order to stay here, I'm going to need a, you know, a 20 an hour raise. If I have no context for that, I'm going to look at you and say goodbye.
You know what I mean? So like the half step back would be if you didn't do that the first time, and they may have when they talk to them, but we didn't get that information. So if you're in a situation like this and you haven't had that clear conversation with your manager, like I would absolutely make sure to have that conversation
Dr. Andy Roark: I can get on board with that, but I would be wary, I would read the room really well, as well as I could, and I would make sure that this is not turning into a debate or a, you know, a court case about what happened. 'cause at this point, I don't care. All I care about is I'm getting outta here.
I, and like, and at this point I would say. I'm moving, and that you've already told them that they were, you know, what you needed, and it's not happening. I want to move out of here. I don't want to be in the kennel anymore. And so I think that would be the statement I would make is I need to not be in the kennel.
And I will take another half step back and say, I would open up with talking about what I like about the clinic, how I think the clinic practices a good medicine, why I think the clinic is a great place for me to be, being grateful for the opportunity to be here, and I would say all of those positive things.
And then I would say, I don't feel like I'm getting what I need in the kennel. I'm not having a good experience. I, it's really, I'm becoming quite frustrated here and I've really decided that in order for me to continue to be here, I'm going to need to be out of the kennel. I'm going to need to move into the treatment rooms or work as an assistant or help with the front desk or whatever the other options are, but I'm going to need to move there.
But I, I think that for me, that's, very much it as I have to say to them, this is my position. And again, clear is kind and it's not. Threatening or confrontational and I would tell them all the great things about their clinic and why I want to still be at their Clinic and then you got to follow through and so if you say I need to move and they don't move you Then you need to tell them know that you're you'll be gone in two weeks Or whatever the exit plan is but to me It's not a negotiation if I'm this unhappy.
This is a, this is, yeah, it's not a threat, it's a promise. This is me saying, this is where I am and this is what I'm going to need. And if you can't give this to me, I understand. And I will always say good things about your practice, but I'm not going to be able to be here. And then I’m going to follow through.
Stephanie Goss: I love what you said about saying the good things about the clinic. And I think that is really important because I think every single one of us should have some sort of litmus test that allows us to say that it is, true or not. Like if you can't look at them in the face and say that you're learning things that are going to help you for vet school.
Like, what's the point? You know what I mean? Like, if you can't, if you can't do that, then I, for, on a personal level, then I, like, for me, I would be like, this is not the place for me. Like, that would make my decision for me. So, from a headspace perspective, on a personal level, like, deciding do I stay or do I go, one of the questions you know, we've gotten that question a lot in the mailbox, and I think this kind of falls in line with that.
If you can't. So if you don't think about good things about your experience there, then why are you there?
Dr. Andy Roark: Yep.
Stephanie Goss: You know, and it really, it seems simple, but like, that is the number one piece of advice that I share with people is like, take the time, sit down, you know, write yourself a list. And if you can't think of like, Three positive things, because sometimes, the answer absolutely is, it's a paycheck that pays the bills and meets my needs.
And that is okay. And if that's the only reason and you can't come up with at least one, if not two more other reasons that make being in that position worthwhile. Life's too short for me on a personal level. Like, I don't want to stay there. And so I, you know, I ask people like, sit down and really think about like, what are some of the positives?
And if you can't come up with like three, maybe take a look at that, is all I'm saying.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it kind of related, related to that for me. The last step for me would be, if I decided I was leaving, I would sit down and I would write down why I was leaving. And I would write that for me, because I tend to have a, you know, I tend to have rose colored glasses later on or get nostalgic. And this is not about anything other than, I want to remember what happened.
Stephanie Goss: Yep, mm hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: That away, and so I would write that down, kind of like, when you have a termination or you have a hard conversation with an employee and you document it. What did they say? What happened? but you never know when it'll come in handy and you'll want to be able to say, well this is what happened, or this is why I felt this way.
And so I would write it down. And then I would put it away, and then I would leave it alone for a couple weeks, maybe a couple months, and then I would come back, and I would pick it back up, and I would think about the time that I was there, and I would think about the reasons that I left, and then I would start figuring out how to tell the story of what I learned. So that when you go and you interview for vet school and they say, tell us about a time you dealt with adversity, or tell us about a time that you, or tell us what motivates you to want to be here. I would say, well, I worked at a place that and this is what happened, and this is sort of the hardship that I had there, and this is what I learned from dealing with it, and this is how I want to make vet medicine better, or these are the things that I would take forward when I wanted to create a place for, pets to come and for people to work.
And I just, I think that you can always make, well not always, but sometimes you can make lemonade out of lemons that life gives you. This doesn't have to be a mark of shame and I wouldn't, you know, I'm not talking about shaming a clinic or bashing them or talking about them by name even. But, you can learn a lot from working in a bad job.
And honestly, some of the best, some of the best leaders I know are people who got their butts kicked and don't want other people to have their butts kicked. Like we've worked with a number of, I mean, this independent practice, but a lot of the corporate groups, there's a lot of wonderful doctor mentors and chief of staff and regional leaders who came out of that school and got absolutely smoked and said, Ooh, I don't, ever want someone to have an experience like I had and so I'm dedicated to smoothing the way and growing doctors and making sure they have a good experience coming in and they're dead serious about it, but it's because of that exact story that I'm encouraging you to write down and that's where it comes from. So anyway, you can take that and turn it into something that's meaningful and motivating and something that you can talk about what you hope to accomplish as a veterinarian.Yeah.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah and I think from a leadership perspective, I think that is the mark of a good leader is that sometimes it doesn't go right. Like we want it to be a great experience, right? And like the reality is sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't go right. Sometimes it is an absolute shitshow and it's what you learn from the mistakes.
It's what you choose to make out of the situation. It's how you approach the adversity that matters in the long run. That's just like for me, that's a personal core, belief. And like I, you know, when you were talking about what did you learn from it? Like that for me, honestly, is a big part of why I do the educating that I do now, because I had a horrific experience in terms of leading in a practice and that was just a toxic, dysfunctional environment, and I look back and I wouldn't undo it, really. I wish that there was things that had gone differently, but I wouldn't, if I could do my life over again, because I learned a lot of lessons about what I– about what I don't want, what my boundaries are, what they need to be moving forward because they weren't in that moment, what I want from a mentorship position, what I want in a work relationship. Like I learned a lot of valuable lessons that maybe I would have still learned them otherwise, but that shaped me into who I am and so I wouldn't choose to undo it.
And so I think that I love your part about reflecting on it and really thinking about it because I know that helped me. Immensely as a leader, moving forward to say, I don't want my team to feel the way that I feel now. And so I'm going to do something about it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, the middle of success feels like failure, you know, and
Stephanie Goss: mmm-hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: you’re not at the admission to vet school success. You're halfway there, which feels like failure a lot of the time. So yeah, that's all I got. I hope this helps.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. This was a fun one. Take care everybody and
Dr. Andy Roark: Maybe we'll see you in April at the Uncharted conference in Greenville. We'll see.
Stephanie Goss: Or in Atlanta in May.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah. All right. See you guys.
Stephanie Goss: Take care.
And that's a wrap on another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Thanks for joining us and spending your week with us. If you enjoyed this week's episode, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It's the best way to let us know that you love listening. We'll see you next time.
