What's This Episode About?
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a practice manager. The entire world is struggling these days with short tempers, disgruntled with life attitudes, frustrations shared publicly about things that weren’t always so public before. Everyone in veterinary medicine has been impacted by at least one grumpy or short-tempered person since this pandemic began – Andy and Stephanie both certainly understood where this manager was coming from. Their question is – when the team handles frustrated people day after day – how do I keep the client negativity from wearing on them? What protocols can this manager put in place to handle clients who are negative or angry to help shield the team from the emotional impact? Let’s get into this…
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Upcoming Events
February 17: What Vet Med Can Learn from Improv with Dr. Adam Little
Just a few seats left in this awesome class with Dr. Adam Little – you are not going to want to miss this one! This workshop will focus on group activities that will help participants creatively (and with a bit of humor) address common issues felt in practice. This approach will allow us to build empathy for other stakeholders in the veterinary practice relationship, generate new creative approaches to dealing with these challenges, and work on methods to break down barriers in teams that can paralyze progress. Get comfortable with another way to approach the dreaded “role-playing” so you can confidently lead your team on creatively and interactively brainstorming what to say and how to say it in those uncomfortable or uncommon situations!
April 21-23: The Uncharted Veterinary Conference, LIVE in Greenville, SC
The Uncharted Conference in April is our flagship event. In celebration of 5 years serving the veterinary profession, we have shifted the focus of this conference inward. You’re not looking to grow your business outwardly – you’re looking for ways to build resiliency and reignite your love for your career. During this 3-day adventure in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina, you’ll be discussing topics like hiring for culture, creating the story that becomes your path, and building smoother, more simple ways to practice. This event is open to members only. Registration for this conference closes on April 1, 2022. DO NOT MISS OUT – Snag your spot today.
A UVC MEMBERSHIP IS YOUR KEY TO FINALLY GETTING THINGS DONE AND GROWING YOUR VETERINARY PRACTICE.
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, Andy and I are catching up on a conversation that I had with a fellow manager over the holiday break. We were discussing something that their team is really struggling with, and they were asking for some help because they have a practice that is continuing to accept new clients. They're one of the only ones in the area, and there's a lot of negativity coming from clients as a result of that. Existing clients are mad they can't get in. New clients are mad that they have to wait and everybody seems frustrated. My manager friend was asking, “How do I keep this negativity from the clients from affecting the whole team? What can I do to support them? What do I do to shield them from the negativity? How do I boost morale?” I thought it was a great question and one that I really had a lot of fun getting into with Andy. Let's get into this. Shall we?
Speaker 3:
Now, the Uncharted podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey. We are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie, I will be your shelter in the storm, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
I like it. How's it going, Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, it's good. It's good. This part of January is the Monday of the year. That's what I've decided. Monday is the day when it is just wide open, doing all the things. Everybody who thought of things they wanted to do over the weekend just trying to talk to me about them all at once and it's just pandemonium, this part of January is the Monday of the year. I'm just trying to make it through Monday.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, it is crazy and it's funny because our team took time off after the holidays and it was really quiet and-
Dr. Andy Roark:
It was too quiet. It was too quiet.
Stephanie Goss:
It was too quiet. It was too quiet.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I was like, “Why are …” It's like when your kid disappears and you're like, “Where are they? It's real quiet.” That's me. Instead of a kid, it was you guys. It was a half dozen employees.
Stephanie Goss:
It's totally true. Then Monday morning happened and it's like, when it's been too quiet and then you walk in the bathroom and you find your toddler in the toilet with your makeup smeared all over their face. That was how Monday felt.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I love our team. They had a week off. Everybody, I think we were really blessed that everyone on our team seems to really love their jobs and like what we do and think that it's awesome. So we, when they get a week off, they all quietly work on their own ideas and pet projects and things that they're pumped about. Then I just open the front door and people are like, “Hey, I got a week's worth of ideas I've been sitting on.” Boom. I love it. There is that thing about if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. It's like, I'm working my tush off, but I still really like it and I like what we do and I like new things.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is simultaneously exhausting and also awesome. Thinking about this, it's the Monday of the year, there's this really great headspace if you can get into it of looking at your job as a challenge. There's two kinds of challenge. We talk about challenges. What we're really saying is, what is sucky? What is hard? What is difficult? But then there's also the challenges of a video game or a sports event or a hobby that you're going to do where you're like, “I'm going to paint this picture that's probably beyond my skillset. But I'm going to do it and it's going to be a fun challenge.” If you can get your head about your work into that mind space, man, it's amazing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's where I am now is I'm like, “I have got way too many things going on and they are challenging, but I feel I am up for this challenge.” I am 100% feeling positive stress. Oftentimes, you can get your head in that position if you want to. If you can, God, it's awesome. It's re-energizing and rewarding to be like, “Yeah, this is not easy and that's fun.” If it was easy, it would be monotonous. I don't know. That's where I am right now. 2022 so far, I am looking at it as a worthy motivating challenge. I'm going to try to keep my head in that place as long as I can, because that is really a sweet spot. I go to bed at night feeling like I did good work and excited about tackling the challenges of tomorrow.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I mean, I'm excited about this year as well. Like to your point, there's so much good stuff coming down the road, it's hard to not be excited about change. At the same time, it's easily overwhelming because to your point, it feels like Monday. Mondays can be overwhelming. I'm excited for today's podcast because-
Dr. Andy Roark:
I was just just going to say-
Stephanie Goss:
… I was talking to a manager friend over the break and catching up and they run a fairly large to mid-size practice. They have multiple doctors and have a bigger team, and so they were asking for help. They are struggling with something that I suspect is kind of probably common for practices who are still taking new clients. They are one of the only practice in their area who is accepting new clients, all of the other GPs, particularly the smaller one and two doctor practices in the area, stopped taking new clients because they just can't handle the caseload. My manager friend was saying, “We actually are feeling really blessed right now because we are not fully staffed, but we have enough team to handle the caseload. At the same, because we're the only ones taking new clients our appointment schedule is really full. We have existing clients who are getting ticked off at us because we can't fit them in yesterday. Then new clients who don't understand why we're telling them it's a two week wait for them to have to get in to be seen.”
Stephanie Goss:
They were saying their team is really struggling because they feel like they are getting hit on both sides with constant negativity from client interactions. Because everybody is frustrated with wait times, with how long it takes to get an appointment, with how long they're on hold to talk to somebody, all of those things. Everybody is having to navigate changes again for a lot of places to COVID protocols and lots of practices are going back to curbside or making changes because they are shorthanded or they have people out. We're kind of in a space, it reminded me a lot of where we were probably three to six months after this whole thing started two years ago.
Stephanie Goss:
Where my manager friend was like, “I'm just exhausted because it feels negative all the time. I'm trying to keep it to myself because I don't want my team to see that I am struggling, but I am really struggling because I feel powerless. I feel like the clients are mad and they are disgruntled with the team constantly. I need help with figuring out how do I keep the negativity from the clients from affecting the team. What can I do to kind of shield them and be their buffer and how do I boost their morale? Because I am worried we're not having the problem that a lot of practices are of handling the caseload.” She said, “I've heard you guys talk about that on the podcast and that's not us. We can handle the caseload. I just don't know how to handle the negativity.” I thought this was such a good one for you and I to talk about.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I like this a lot. There are three pieces to this that I see. Man, this is so timely and it's so good, but let's start to go ahead and break this apart here. Let's start with headspace, shall we?
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Sounds good.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. There's three pieces of this that I see. Number one is, I want to shield my staff from negativity. How do I shield them from negativity? Number two is, how do I deal with the clients that are complaining from a strategic standpoint? What policies do I have for dealing with the actual problem of things that the people are complaining about? Then the last part is, how do I support the wellness of my people? A little bit different than how do I sort of control the negativity? How do I engender the supportive culture that we need and lift people up? Those are the general three ideas. I want to start with the biggest pain point that I see. So try to put the most useful advice right here at the very beginning. Again, I could be wrong here and no one could be feeling this way that I'm about to say, but I'm not wrong. Here we go. I'm just going to go ahead and say, I would bet you that the vast majority of people who are interested in this problem are having the following problem.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I am making an assumption, which I do apologize for, but I think this will be helpful for a lot of people. The number one pain point here is the belief that I, the manager, can control the negativity that is heading towards my staff. I talked to a manager literally three days ago, and I was talking to this person and she was telling me how she was exhausted because she was making changes to save, and that's the word she used, to save Angela at the front desk. Angela at the front desk is a rockstar. She's amazing. She is fantastic and she is tired and she is talking about how she might quit. The manager cannot have Angela quit because we're shorthanded and we need Angela and she's great. So the manager is helping on the phones whenever she can. She is having the text come to her, the manager, instead of anything that needs to go up to Angela because Angela is fragile and we don't want to push Angela over the edge.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Then any client that has any sense of frustration is being referred away from the front desk to the manager so that Angela doesn't get called in sure to oversee it because we have to save Angela. My advice to her was, you need to get realistic about your power to save Angela. The truth is, if any of these things are going to cause Angela to throw her hands and quit, she was going to quit anyway. She was already there. The point being, I'm not saying I don't care about the mental health and wellness at the front desk. Of course, I care about them. But the idea that this manager can throw her body in front of all of the bullets flying at the front desk and absorb them all so that not one of them hits Angela and causes her to quit, that's just not realistic. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If she is so burned out that she's going to quit, probably she may need to quit. That may be the best thing for her. It may be the best thing for you. It may be the thing that needs to happen and you should come to peace with that.
Stephanie Goss:
That's a hard thing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is hard. It is-
Stephanie Goss:
It's a hard thing for people to wrap their head around.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… and we want to believe … Again, I hope I'm not butchering this into delivery of the point that I'm trying to make is, you don't have the power to save your staff from your clients. The clients have direct access to staff. I cannot absorb the negativity. I can't shield them from it. Now, there are lots of things that I can do, and we're going to talk about what those things are. But the first thing that you have to do as a manager, as a practice owner, as a vet who's stressing about their people, is get realistic about how much control you have. The answer is, very little. You need to be smart in how you use that control, but at some point, if you were staying awake at night worrying that someone is going to quit and thinking that you're going to throw your body in front of negativity to save that person, you are wrong.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You are beating yourself up and you are putting unrealistic expectations on yourself. You do not have that power and you need to recognize that and relax and take care of yourself and approach this from a healthier, more nuanced perspective. That's going to let you actually do things that matter, but also is going to protect you emotionally. I see people who have someone who quits at their practice and they fall into a puddle and accept blame for that. I didn't save this person. You don't have the power to save this person. Let's get realistic about what is possible and be kind to ourselves and approach this from a way that's healthy for us.
Stephanie Goss:
I mean, I think that's super fair and I think it's a good headspace to be in. I think that's the hardest. Getting there is the hardest thing to do because we care. We care about our people. We care about the team. The conversation that I had and I'm sure the one that you had, you're coming from a place of good intention. When you were telling about talking to the manager that you were just talking about recently, that made sense to me and resonated to me because I've been there and done that. I've gotten myself into trouble by being that person who's like, “I'll jump in and help save them.” It's good human, decent human being human nature to want to try and help. I think getting into that space is really hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I guess the analogy I would give is, I care deeply about my children and I care deeply about my staff. They're different, but I care about them. When people on the playground are mean to my kids, you better believe that I feel the urge to go to the school and hang out. Like, “When's your recess. I'll be on the playground.” But that's not realistic. You know what I mean? It's like, I can't shield my children from all of the negativity of the other kids. There are things that I can do to protect my children. There are things that I can do to put them in situations where they are not going to have to deal with a bunch of crap they shouldn't have to deal with. You better believe I'm a to do those things, but at some point, if I believe that my children having a negative interaction with other kids and coming home crying is a failure on my part in parenting, I'm going to have serious problems with my own mental health. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Wellness. I guess that's the analogy I'm trying to draw. A lot of us think that we can protect our staff from the clients that they are alone in the exam room with. I can't protect them. I can support them. I can put them in a position to succeed and keep them healthy and happy, but I can't be there to protect them every day, all the way. I think the first thing it's accepting that I can help up to a point and that I need to be honest about am I helping up to the point that I can? Beyond that, I have to say, I cannot stop negativity from occurring at some points.
Stephanie Goss:
I mean, I think that's super fair. I hadn't thought about it from the perspective of trying to stop trying to save the team because ultimately at the end of the day, they have to interact with the world. You can't be the human shield. I had been thinking about it from a headspace perspective from the opposite side, which is that conversely I can't really make clients do a lot of things that I want them to do either as a manager. There are lots of things that I can do. To your point, I can put policies and protocols in place and I can have zero tolerance for a lot of things, and there can be consequences. I can fire clients or there can be other consequences, positive and negative, for their behavioral choices. At the end of the day, I can't control it. I can't make them do it. I can only control how we, as a team, as a company, how we respond to the things that the clients do and say. Right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I mean, it's like being a military commander. I'm not there on the ground to keep these soldiers safe. What I have to do is create plans and protocols and policies and situations where my people are going to be safe because that's the level that I have. But I'm not in the foxhole when the actual fighting happens. That's the best analogy. I hate using military analogies because they paint the picture of the pet owner as the villain or as the adversary, and that's not true. But that's the best analogy I can give as far as what we have to get ourselves into realistically, in order to have a reasonable expectation for our role in these conflicts.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure. That makes sense.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's the first thing I guess I'd say. Is zero negativity should not be the goal. It's just it's-
Stephanie Goss:
Unrealistic.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. It's beyond our capacity. I think your point about pet owners too, is like, this is the reason why the zero negativity is not a goal is because we don't have any control over pet owners. They are going to do what they can do. I'm not saying I throw up my hands and go, “I don't care.” I'm going to put policies in place to protect my people, and we're to talk about what those are and how we do those. At the same time, realize that they are still going to run into negativity. That can't be removed. The example I'll give you for this is, remember when the pandemic started and we told pet owners to stay in their car and we put a sign out in front of the building that said, please stay in your car and text this number?
Dr. Andy Roark:
We put a sign on the door that says, go back to your car and text this number. Then we locked the door and clients still, they walked past the sign in the parking lot. They looked past the sign on the door and they jiggled the door handle and then put their hands and face against the window to peer inside. They pointed at the door as if you had accidentally locked them out. Remember that? There is no amount of signage and policies that are going to stop clients from bringing this nonsense to your people. It's going to happen. The same thing is true with negativity.
Stephanie Goss:
That's so true.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The idea that you are going to make signage and policies and language that will stop negativity from coming to your people is nonsense. Know who we're up against. Know who we're dealing with and be honest about it.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I mean, it's totally true. When I think about it, there have been moments where I have reminded myself, just remember the day where the client literally picked up the sandwich board sign that was blocking the door and moved it to jiggle the door handle and put their eyes and face up against the door and find out why we weren't unlocking the door for them. I reminded myself of that on a regular basis. Like, “You can't control this.” People are just going to do what they're going to do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, you can't. No matter how good your policies and planning are, they will go around it. It will happen, and so just resign yourself to that. I say all of this because the strategy is not to end negativity. The strategy is to systematically remove negativity 80%, and then 80% of what's left, and 80% of what's left. I want to add policies so that 87% of pet owners stay in their car and the front desk can deal with the 10% that still walk up to the window and ask what's going on. As opposed to not having any signs and 100% of the people walk up to the window and ask what's going on. I think that that's what we're going for. I'm trying to get people into that headspace of, “Okay. I want to do things that remove negativity and remove 50% more negativity and remove 50% of that negativity. Those are the things that I want to accomplish.” Then try to set it up that way so that it's realistic in the expectations of what's coming.
Stephanie Goss:
Is there anything else when we're thinking about this? Because your points about accepting that we can't control the situation and that we don't have the power to protect everybody, they're going to interact with clients. We know that we can't get to zero negativity because that's not actually a thing. But from a headspace perspective, when I was thinking and prepping for this, I was struggling to think, what kind of headspace do I need to be in to actually tackle this and come at it from a solution driven perspective? Because that's really important, and that's always the second half of what we do here on the podcast. Is talk about how can we actually tackle it. But I really struggled with thinking about what else from a headspace perspective? Was there anything else that you thought of in terms of how to get there?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. To get out of this, if the answer is not throw myself in front of negativity, then what is the answer? In order to get to the answer, in order to make this production, you have got to zoom out. This is one of those problems where, by the time you get to this problem, it's too late to grab the steering wheel. You're not in a good position to grab the steering wheel. You have got to intercept this problem before it gets to this problem. That is the answer. You have got to zoom back out. It's not about absorbing negativity so it doesn't get to your team. It's not about throwing your body in front of clients to not let them have negative interactions with your staff. It's about zooming out and taking the bigger view, which is quite simply, what can I do to build a positive practice culture to absorb this? What organizational boundaries and protocols can I put in place to remove a lot of this crap before it gets on my team?
Dr. Andy Roark:
What are wellness resources that I can put forward for my people to help support them along and along? Those are the three things really from the organizational standpoint, for me as a manager. Under that, I want to empower individual people to believe that they have personal agency and to believe and enforce their own personal boundaries. I can talk a little bit more about what that means when we get into action steps, but that is the answer for me in headspace. Is let go of the idea that you are going to shield your people or that you can make your people stay or that you can make your people happy or that you can save them on an individual level. You are the battlefield commander, step back, get a clear view of the situation. What are you doing to build a positive culture that is going to support them knowing that clients are going to be frustrated? What policies and procedures and boundaries have you put in place to take care of them and what wellness resources do you have for your people?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I love that. I think the only thing that really stuck out for me besides if you are feeling very negative about the whole situation or you're feeling really overwhelmed or upset about the negativity, whether you dealt with it on the client side that day or you dealt with the team side at day, obviously not being triggered when you have a conversation with people is really important. But there was something that really stuck with me after this catch up call with my friend, which was, they made a comment about not letting the team see how they felt and how it was affecting them. I would say that if you are the leader, a, I think it's important to be vulnerable and honest with the team and share with them. At the same time, they are not your therapist.
Stephanie Goss:
This is where I'm going to insert another plug for, this is hard. Being a leader right now in the middle of everything that we are dealing with is really, really hard. If you were in a position where you were trying to manage the struggle and not dump your emotions or feelings onto your team, or you're trying to figure ow do I share a little bit of it because I feel like if I open up a little bit with them, I might volcano, because I've been there, this is where having your own support system, including a professional when you need one, and having somebody to talk to about your own feelings and emotions before you tackle it with your team, was the best thing that I ever could have done for myself as a manager.
Stephanie Goss:
The ability to have a conversation with somebody outside, get some perspective, wrap my brain around it, sort through my own feelings, it made it so much easier for me to come in and have conversations and maintain positivity with the team no matter what the negativity or the reason for the negativity. Over the years, I found that I was able to handle those situations so much more smoothly when I had done some planning for myself. If you're in a position like this, I would just say, you got to take care of yourself too. It's like you put the oxygen mask on before you can help anybody else. This is definitely a similar situation because the negativity is affecting my friend. I know that, and so I would say, it's important to take care of yourself first before you try and take care of the team and the clients too.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I think the healthiest way to look at this is, you are part of the team. What we're talking about is vulnerability with moderation. Vulnerability with boundaries. Meaning, I'm not going to come apart. At the same time, then I guess that's why I hit so hard on this idea at the very beginning of, you're not saving your people. The reason is because you are in it with them. You are getting negativity as well. I think the way that you talk to your staff is, everybody should try to drop this idea that you are a superhero that's going to save them. You're not. You are on this boat with them and you're all there together. The healthiest conversation you can have is, “Hey, guys, I feel what you feel. What can we as a team do to make our situation better?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
You listen to the people, but that is the healthiest mindset to have. I'm not Superman. I can't fly around saving everyone and I am being affected as much as you are being affected. Let's all just be honest about that. Now, I am with you. What are we going to do as a group?
Stephanie Goss:
I love it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I just think that that's super key. But that level of vulnerability, I think is important. I think there's complete charade when you're like, “I don't want the team to know that I don't know what to do.” Why not? You don't know what to do. We've all been around people who clearly didn't know what to do and they tried to act like they did and they just destroyed their credibility. We've also been around people who had great credibility, who said, “I don't know what the answer is. Let's figure this out together.” You go, “Okay. I can work with that person.” I think that is the forgiving healthy headspace to get into.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Well, do you want to take a quick break here and then we can come back and talk about how do we actually tackle the challenge here?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's do it.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey, everyone. It's Stephanie and I just want to jump in here for one quick second and make sure that you know about a couple of things that are coming up that you may not want to miss. Andy and I just kicked off our Strategic Planning Workshop Series. We've been doing this at the top of the year, every year for the last few, because it gives us a chance to talk about how do we set the team up for success when we look ahead at a coming year. We've done the first session already by the time this comes out, but you can still join us for the remaining three. We're going to be talking about setting vision, mission, talking about values with our team and really living and breathing it versus something fancy that just goes up on our wall. We're going to talk about loading the bus, getting the right people in the right seats and moving forward.
Stephanie Goss:
Then we're going to talk about KPIs and what do we need to look at from a numbers perspective to smartly manage the practice and also how at our team bought into that. You can join us for that. Then the other thing I want to make sure you don't miss is, we have a class coming up on February 17th. It is a workshop that is being led by my friend, Dr. Adam Little. This is a workshop that Adam did for us previously at an Uncharted event and we heard so much great feedback about this, that I wanted to figure out a way to bring this to you guys virtually. Adam Rose to the challenge and I am super stoked about this. You're not going to want to miss it. It is called What Vet Med Can Learn From Improv. Adam is going to be talking about how to learn, how to take the fundamental foundations of improv and apply it not only to comedy, but to life and practice. So how do we learn to think quick on our feet and be more comfortable with what is often the uncomfortable or the unexpected?
Stephanie Goss:
That workshop is kicking off on February 17th. Registration is still open. You can find out about these and more at unchartedvet.com/events. Now back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. Let's get into what we're actually going to do with this thing. The first thing that I want to talk about, I said there was three parts of this. I said that there is the control part. Like, what can I control and what is beyond my control? I said that there's the strategy part and there's the wellness part. The strategy part, this is where we're going to get into the action steps, the strategy part. I don't know this practice, I'm just hearing what they're saying. At some point, I do have to ask the question, if no one else is taking new clients and you are taking new clients and taking new clients is making the new clients unhappy and your existing clients unhappy, I have to question, and I just got to ask, are you sure that taking clients is a good idea?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because it sounds, and I could be wrong, it sounds like you're trying to make everybody happy. There is an old quote that I really like, I don't know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to make everybody happy. I'm like, “Yep, that's it.” I 100% see practices out there that are ticking off their long-term clients and doing a crappy job serving new clients and their team is getting beaten up. I'm going, “What in the world are you doing?” They usually give me some explanation about, “Hey, well, other clinics aren't taking people.” Stuff like that, and I see some of that. But at the same time I go, “If we take the long view, you burning out your staff, having them quit, making your long-term clients angry because they don't feel prioritized, they feel mistreated, and doing a poor job serving new clients, that's not good.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
There's no long-term benefit that comes from that. That is the worst long-term outcome. This is one of those things where sometimes setting some boundaries and saying, “We're not taking new clients, period.” You do the most long-term good because you retain your staff and you are able to continue to work in the long-term with a good, happy, motivated team. As opposed to saying, “We are going help everybody.” Then people just drop like flies and then you have a skeleton crew of burned out people that are just laboring away at a job that they don't enjoy. That's just the first question I got to ask. Are you trying to make everyone happy to the point that you are damaging the long-term good you could do?
Stephanie Goss:
Well, I think it's a really good point. I think it's one of the things that I asked. Was, “Okay. If we are two years into this at this point and your existing clients still have the expectation that they would be able to be seen within a seven to 10 day period, what have you've been doing for the last two years?” Because I don't know very many practices who over the last two years have been able to continue to serve their existing clients in that short of a time turnaround that we may have been able to accommodate pre-COVID. That was the part of it that I struggled to wrap my brain around, and I asked. I was just like, “What are you guys doing to manage expectations?” From a solution perspective, that certainly is part of it. For me is, maybe you don't have to stop seeing new clients because I think to your point, I appreciate the clinics who are still trying to serve new clients.
Stephanie Goss:
Because there's the conversation about, should you be penalized just because you became a pet owner now? People are like, “Well, you should have had a a pet sooner.” Whatever. There's lots of reasons, or I just moved here, whatever. There's a lot of reasons that people, through no fault of their own, could need a new vet. I appreciate what they're trying to do and at the same time, the question I would have is, what are we doing to manage expectations for our existing clients? Because how anybody got through the last two years and didn't get to a point where clients should kind of be expecting at this point and understanding and have been educated over the last two years on the fact that we can't operate the way we did before, things have had to change and we need a longer runway.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I hear that. I guess that I'll push back a little bit in that, if you have a healthy cat or a dog that's two years old or three old, that means it was one year old when the pandemic started. Which means you have been to the vet exactly twice in the last two years. You know what I mean? Again, they don't think about this. You know what I mean? When you've got a healthy pet at home and you're an architect and your spouse is a plumber, you don't think about what is going on at the vet clinic except when you need that. I guess I 100% can see how the education would not happen for people. You know what I mean? Over a two year period, if they haven't been coming in on the regular.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure. I would push back on that and say, okay, well, what is your team doing when people need to book appointments? How are we communicating? Because sure, your point is super valid. We have a huge amount of our client base who aren't the frequent flyers. We have, all of us do, a huge amount of clients who come in once a year or twice if we're really lucky. So they're not going to get it. But what are we doing to communicate that? I would look at that and I would encourage all of us, especially those of my colleagues who are still seeing new clients, to think about what are we doing to educate our existing client base and managing those expectations?
Stephanie Goss:
Because it's the failure to manage those expectations, I think, that leads to a majority of the disgruntled nature on the part of our existing clients, because we're not doing enough to communicate to them. To the point in the story that you told earlier, we should learn from the man who stuck his up against the front door and peeked in the window. We have to tell them a bajillion different ways because one and done, or a sign, literally a sandwich board in front of the door, is not going to be enough. We have to manage that expectation and just accept the fact that we're going to have to repeat it until we're blue in the face. This was one of the things early on in the pandemic that I really tried to lean into almost like a mantra to myself. Is I reminded myself about a lesson learned Disney teaches their employees.
Stephanie Goss:
If you think about it, park employees at Disney get asked 100 times a day, what time is the 5:00 parade at? They get asked questions that seem really silly. They literally just asked me what time is the 5:00 parade start at? Well, the answer is in the question that you just asked. But as an employee, the culture of Disney is very much, you're going to answer that question whether it's the first time or the 100th time you have been asked that day with a smile on your face. Because for the client who is asking you that question, it's the first time they've asked it. That for me really became a, yes, it's exhausting to answer the same questions about why you can't come in the building over and over and over again.
Stephanie Goss:
But the client that I'm talking to in that moment on the phone, it's their first time hearing it. Part of managing that expectation, for me, was leaning into that Disney model for myself and with the team of like, how do I do this with a smile on my face and remind myself that the person on the other end of the phone or the person outside the building that I'm talking to, it's their first time asking those questions and having the interaction?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let me put this into a framework. What I would say is, the first part of solving this problem is organizational boundaries and policies. I need to handle as much negativity as I can with policies so that the few people who are still frustrated are a manageable number. We have reduced that over. We start with policies. Whenever we talk about boundaries and policies, it all is based on expectations. People don't get upset about what they get. They get upset about the difference between what they expected to get and what they got. That's what they get mad about. To your point, people who are showing up and they're not expecting a wait time, we have put ourselves in a position to have them be mad at us because their expectation is they're going to walk right in.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's kind of like if I go to a restaurant and they tell me, “It's a 45 minute wait, do you want to wait?” I say, yes. Then I wait 20 minutes, I think that's great. I'm happy to have waited 20 minutes because I thought it was going to be 45. A lot of this is setting the expectation. Do they know what's happening and what's coming on? We have got to communicate clearly. If they're not going to be allowed in the building, we need to tell them when they book the appointment. Then we need to send them a reminder email that says, Hey, remember to expect to stay in your car. There needs to be a sign when they pull up that tells them, Hey, by the way, stay in your car. Then when someone comes out, they'll be like, “Thank you for waiting in your car today.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
That is the level of communication that we need to bring across. The thing is, people say, “Oh my gosh, Andy, how many touch points am I supposed to have really?” I say, “You know what? Start with a couple and if people continue to walk up to the building, then add more.”
Stephanie Goss:
Add more.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. If people don't realize what was happening and they're mad at the front desk, we need to add more. A lot of that is just saying, what are people upset about? How could we let them know this again before they come into the building? Continuing to rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and push those things forward. But when we talk about setting policies, it's expectations about what they're going to get and what they can expect from you and just say it. If they want to go somewhere else, fine, they can go somewhere else. But they knew upfront before they decided to come in. It's patient rights and responsibilities. I'm a big fan of this with negativity. We should tell clients, this is what you can expect from us and this is what we expect from you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If they not adhere to the responsibilities of clients, then we can say to them, “Hey, this is what our rights and responsibilities are. This is how the visit went. We are not going to be able to be your veterinarian anymore.” Put that forward, but have a framework for what behavioral standards you expect. If they can't follow those standards, then they can go somewhere else. This doesn't happen a lot. It shouldn't happen a lot. If you're communicating expectations, you should not have people who are violating rights and responsibilities very often. But when they do, they can go somewhere else. If you're really trying to see your clients plus new clients coming in, I don't know why you feel like you have to let clients who misbehave stick around. They had their shot and they did not treat me the way that I require being treated, and so they're going to go somewhere else. I think we should all get happier with that.
Stephanie Goss:
I think part of the challenge is, in the course of the dialogue was, we take a stand against the super naughty clients. Like we're letting clients go when they're acting badly. The ones who are screaming at the CSRs when they get told they can't get in two weeks, those are the one-offs that are easier to deal with. But I think the reason that the conversation was happening is, if someone acts very angry or acts super crazy, it's easier now to deal with those than ever before. Because I have seen our industry start to take a much stronger stand for ourselves in terms of not tolerating that kind of bad behavior, which is fantastic.
Stephanie Goss:
I think the harder part when it comes to negativity kind of seeping into the team in the practice, is that it's really easy to ignore when you have a client who seems frustrated or snaps at you on the phone or whatever when it's a one-off. But the reality of the world right now is that everybody's tired and everybody's grumpy. In my own personal life, I'm just thinking about it like, it is far more often that I engage with somebody who is grumpy or irritated about something. When you stack that person after person, after person, all day, every day, it may not have anything to do with you. They're just grumpy. That is the exhausting part and I think that that is the negativity and the frustration and the little things that build one after the other.
Stephanie Goss:
I think that is what was part of the struggle here, is, how do I keep the team positive? How do I keep them feeling like they can be the Disney employee who can brush off the frustration and negativity when they get asked where the restrooms are for the 100th time in the day? How do I keep that pep happening? That's a lot harder to do because you can't control that with policy or protocol. I can control the naughty clients with policy and protocol really easily, but how do I impact the morale and the frame of mind for the team is I think a lot harder of a process.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. There's no one thing where you're like, “I did this and now that's fixed.” It comes down to, the employees who answer the same question again and again and who feel good about it or can put a smile on their face, they have a couple things in common. The first one is, they believe that what they're doing has a purpose. They have to. No one can answer the same question again and again and again and their only motivation is because they get paid X number of dollars per hour. You can't. You have to believe. The people at Disney have to believe that they're creating magic and that they're making an experience in the lives of the people who are asking these questions.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's the only way that I could do it. Is I would have to believe that this is an important thing that I'm doing and it's meaningful. So I'm going to answer your question again and again because I truly want you to have a magical experience here and for this to be a vacation that you remember for the rest of your life. So the same sort of thing with our clinic is, and it sounds a bit circuitous to get there, but the truth is, they have to believe in the values of your organization and what you're doing. They have to believe that their work matters. They have to believe that they serve a higher purpose, a greater good. If you believe I'm doing this for a reason that matters, then you can put up with a lot of stuff.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that that's the first part. Is, you have to have a purpose and values that your team can see and that they buy into. The culture has to be modeled by the formal leadership. Meaning, ownership has to say, “I like this work. It's hard work, but it's good work and I like it. I treat you with respect and you treat me with respect and we treat our clients with respect and I am respected, and I'm going to model that for you. Hopefully you'll feel that way as well.” But the other part of it is, in psychology it's called deep acting. I like my clients. I choose to like my clients. I choose to like my staff. I choose to like my other doctors. I choose to like the guys that I work for as an associate that … You know what I mean?
Dr. Andy Roark:
One of the things, when I say, “Hey, how do I make my clients or how do I help my team get back up if they're having negative interactions with the clients?” Is, do not under any circumstances allow your relationship as a team with clients to become adversarial. Do not allow the whole like, “It's clients.” Because once you're dealing with negativity and you have started to go down a road of, these clients are a headache, everything just compounds and steamrolls. You have to keep going back to, “Hey, everybody's fighting a battle that we don't know anything about. If they didn't care about their pets, they never would've come in in the first place. Hey, these are good people in a hard time. They're trying to do right. They're frustrated that it's hard to get in. Let's be patient with them. Remember they're good people and they are are people. They put food on the table for us and they do take care of their pets and let's remember to lean into the good that our clients do.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
That may sound simple, but, man, there's really strong research behind it. I have just found it personally so helpful in my own career to decide I like my clients and I like the people that I work with. As long as I stick to those guns, things tend to work out pretty well.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. No, I totally agree. I was just looking to try and figure out what number it was, but you and I did a podcast at the beginning of last year about what to do with the grumpy team and grumpy clients, because we had a team that had gotten to the place where they were starting to become anti-client. We talked a lot about what do we do with that? I'll keep trying to find the episode, but I think that that's super important because it happens so fast. One, you slip up because you're frustrated and somebody's like, “God, clients suck.” Then before you know it, it's really easy for the whole team to develop that anti-client attitude. I agree with that. I can totally see why it gets there fast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. The last part I would say too is, you have got to generate the positive moments. Is play as a big a role as you can in the positive moments. If your team is getting negative interactions with clients, and say that they're getting three a day, how many positive interactions do they need to have to offset that? Because it really is a ratio. If I go in to work and one person says something to me today and it was negative, then 100% of the things I heard today were negative and that's awful. But if I get seven good things, pats on the back and one negative thing, I go, “Mostly it was good. I tend to put extra weight on the bad thing because I'm a human being, but for the most part …” Those are just very different experiences. You see that a lot in the leadership literature, things about giving positive and negative feedback. There's a number, but I'm not convinced it's a very valuable number. But the number is something around five.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You're supposed to have five positive interactions for every negative piece of feedback that you deliver. It is something that was beared out in the study. But again, I'm not convinced that number is the precise mathematical number. I think the point is valid though, of you better have more positive interactions than negative interactions. As a team leader, I want to think about how do I increase the number of positive interactions my teams have. Meaning, how do I lift them up? How do I make them feel appreciated? Then the depths of the positive interactions. Meaning, how can I throw extra light onto the good things that happen? Because it's easy for those things to get minimized. When clients say nice things, am I amplifying those nice things so that the whole team hears them? That's something easy that I can do.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. It's funny. I think that that makes total sense and the number never made sense to me either. But what makes sense to me is when you are feeling negative and someone tries to combat that negativity by sharing something positive, it feels natural and intuitive to want to help by trying to counteract and find some balance. You've tipped to one side and it feels negative, and so human nature told us we should try and balance that out. My own human experience is that when that happens though, it doesn't feel positive. It pisses me off because it feels really argumentative in the moment as that person. I'll give you an example. We were having an argument recently in my house because the kids over the break, they're home, they're stuck inside, they're sniping with each other and at each other constantly.
Stephanie Goss:
The fighting is just driving both me and their dad crazy. We wound up having a big argument because I was like, “I am so sick of them fighting.” He was just like, “Well, all kids fight. They're not that bad. They get along really well.” I was like, “Oh my God, I just want to throttle you right now because they're driving me nuts.” Because I was mad. I was like, “Why aren't you helping me?” I looked at him and I was like, “I don't want you to tell me that it's not that bad. I just want you to understand. I just want you to say, I know. I understand how you're feeling. Stop trying to fix it.” Because he was like, “I'll break them up. I'll send them to separate rooms. It'll be fine.”
Stephanie Goss:
I was like, “No, that's not what I want. What I want is you to say, I hear you. I see you. I see your frustration.” That's hard because human nature is to try and combat it. I think for me, the first step comes out of that human place of argument. Which is you have to seek to understand. I think when it comes to dealing with the team feeling very negative, I think the important part is to validate them. The caveat for me is try and validate on middle ground. You don't have to make their negative behavior okay. It is okay to tell them, you can't act like this. But they do have to feel heard or it's just going to continue.
Stephanie Goss:
So, a, telling them that you are listening. “I hear you. I see you.” Those are very important steps as a leader. Then trying to find the middle ground where you can say, “Okay, let's talk about this piece here.” Or agree with something, find some middle ground, common ground between what they're feeling and where you are, because that's the only way to have the positivity truly take effect, I think. Otherwise, it's very easy for it to be viewed as dismissive or toxic positivity. Like, “I'm telling you that everything is falling apart and you're just telling me that it should be sunshine and rainbows.” We've all been there and felt that frustration.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, I think that's really valid. I'm really glad you said that. The key for me in this, and this is why I said you have to zoom out, because if you zoom in what happens is, it does feel exact with like what you're saying of something bad happened and now I'm going to counter it with something good. I feel like that is a bad place to be and it does feel like toxic positivity. The team says, “This person was really awful.” You say, “But this other person was great, so we're good.” But that feels dismissive. The best analogy I'll give is how I feel about one star reviews, and you've heard me talk about this a number of times. When someone leaves a one star review, I think a lot of people feel desire to jump on and counter that review.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't recommend that. My thing is, if someone leaves an honest review and they're angry, you don't counter them with, “But here's the good things that we did.” You say, “I hear you. I hear you.” Then quietly behind the scenes, you accumulate five star reviews so that their are one star review happen in this much larger context of good things. I think it's a very, very important point about positivity and creating positivity. I am not using positivity to combat negativity. I am using positivity to build a positive contextual framework so that when this negative thing happens, it happens amongst a lot of positive things. It is not a light saber battle with the red negativity light saber against the green positivity light saber.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is 100% there's just good stuff. I am just making other good stuff in the world so that when bad stuff happens, I'm not countering it, but it's bad stuff happening inside of an otherwise positive context. I think that's so important to make that distinction. I'm really glad you brought that up. I talked in the beginning about being realistic about what leaders can control and what they can't control about how we set policies to reduced negativity coming at our staff as much as possible and about how building a good culture that is not reactionary to negativity, but instead is separate ongoing positive culture is vital. The three ideas that are key points for me that I just want to touch briefly on at the end here, number one is support staff wellness.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We talked about policies. We talked about culture. The last part is wellness. You and I talk a lot about employee assistance programs, things like that, to make sure that our staff has a safety net. Things that you can do to support your staff. Be on the lookout. I don't want my people to burn out. I want to support their wellness however I can, regardless of the negativity that we're getting. Again, the same thing as like positivity, not countering negativity, I don't want wellness to counter negativity. Like, “Hey, you guys are getting beaten up, so I'm doing this to try to make it okay.” It's like, no. A culture of wellness and supporting staff wellness in an ongoing way is really critical. All right. The next part that I think is overlooked a lot is personal agency.
Dr. Andy Roark:
When I talk about personal agency, from a psychological standpoint, it is vital that your staff believe they have options. If any of your people come to believe that they have to take abuse from pets owners and there's nothing they can do about it, they are done. They are toast. They are going to burn out. They are going to quit. They are going to leave. No one wants to believe that they have no options or that they are trapped. This is where some of the negativity from clients can get really. For God's sakes, we have got to figure out what are your employees options when a client is misbehaving, when they're being nasty, when they're bringing down negativity. It should at least be, “Hey, you need to know that you can come and get me the manager at any time. You need to know that I will not be mad if you come and get me. I will step up for you. You can put the person in an exam room and I will come in there and I will handle this. Or I will back you up.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Or I will put someone who has the power to either accommodate-
Stephanie Goss:
Do something.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… or set boundaries to this client. You know what I mean there?
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Don't let your people feel like they don't have any agency. Like there's no choices they can make. They're stuck and they have to just take it. The last part is personal boundaries. At some point, everybody needs to take care of themselves. There's no leadership position that can replace personal boundaries for the employees. This is on all of us, is prioritize your own health, prioritize your own wellness, set boundaries and communicate those boundaries to other people. There's no policy that's going to ever make that need go away. At some point, we are all going to have to say, “Hey, this is how I expect to be treated by my clients, by my boss, by my coworkers.” Live those boundaries.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think that all makes total so sense to me and totally supports the last piece that I had, which goes back to the original question that we talked about, which was how do I boost the team's morale? I think that, for me, that all supported and dovetailed into what you're talking about. Because boosting the morale is not super, super hard, but it is time intensive. When things are overwhelming, when clients are acting naughty, when the team is upset and frustrated, that's the exact time when we need to take the time to do it and we don't because we feel overwhelmed. The things that were on my list in addition to yours were, don't talk to them. Meet with them and then listen to what they have to say. Give them the floor. Hear what they have to say what is causing the problems?
Stephanie Goss:
What are the stresses? Listen more than you're talking. That is the number one morale booster that most managers forget to reach for that tool. It's such a simple one, but it's the one that is the easiest to … Our brains go to problem solving mode and we try and fix it before we actually listen. So meet with your team and listen. In addition to that, we have to give them tools to give us feedback and take feedback from us. You and I talk about that a lot on the podcast, but this is one where we have to open the door to them and ask them to give us feedback. What's not working for them. What is working for them? The same goes for us. We have to have those tools to give and take.
Stephanie Goss:
We've got a bunch of podcast episodes that go along with that and courses that you and I have done through Uncharted. But I think that that's really, really important when it comes to morale boosting. Is the ability to give and take feedback is so important and leaning into developing our team. People don't stay in jobs they don't have good morale. They're not happy if they don't see a path forward. Not only do you help them figure out a path forward through the negativity that's currently happening with clients, but back to what you and I talked about, where if 10 good things happen in a day and one crappy thing happens, it's a lot easier to overlook the crappy thing, the same with their viewpoint for themselves in your team.
Stephanie Goss:
If there's lots of good stuff coming and happening, if they feel like they are heard, if they feel like your door is open and they can speak to you about what's on their mind, if they feel like they are supported, that there are development opportunities for them, and that they're also appreciated, it's a lot easier to overlook the crappy stuff that comes along. The last one goes along right along with that, which is, have fun with them. Figure out a way to make it fun. Because when things are negative, when clients are grumpy, the phones are ringing off the hook when everybody is shorthanded, the fun goes right along with listening to them in that, it's the first thing that we overlook because we feel like we don't have time for it. But I would argue that none of us have time not to make time for it.
Stephanie Goss:
We have to figure out how to support them and have fun with them and lighten that load so that people feel like they can leave those bad things at the clinic when it happens and walk away and feel like they still had a good day at work.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think that that's so important. I think a lot of people are sort of problem focused people and they say, “My team's experienced this negativity. We need to talk about the negativity. We need to focus on the negativity. We need to fix the negativity.” It's one of those weird things in life, and I'm grasping for another example, there are things … I guess the old saying that I've heard is, muddied water is best cleared by leaving it alone. So the idea. There definitely is a scenario where addressing negativity and talking about negativity and harping on negativity, doesn't actually help your team deal with negativity. It's almost like if you're in a relationship and there's something that you and your partner disagree about and you talk about that thing all the time. You know what I mean?
Dr. Andy Roark:
You're like, “We have to keep working through this.” At some point, maybe just do what you do. Maybe if you just put it down and focus on doing the things that you love to do together and that you enjoy as a couple and things like that, it's funny how sometimes stuff doesn't matter as much when it's in the context of these other things. Sort of I butchered that metaphor, but I hope people get it.
Stephanie Goss:
No, it makes total sense.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Yeah. I was talking to my wife not long ago and she was telling me about a headache at work, and I fell right into that trap of trying to fix the problem. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I was like, “Did you say this? Did you say that? You could put together a document that says this.” She was like, “Stop. I don't want you to fix the problem. I just want you to hear the problem and understand the problem. Remind me that care and that everything is going to be okay. Then I'll fix the problem, but I need you to just be in it with me for a second.” Boy, if you're a goal-oriented problem solving, smart goal setting guy like me, I suck at that. It's a learned skill.
Stephanie Goss:
It's hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I really do think for a lot of the culture stuff, setting up our people to keep them safe and to fix the problem is good. But we also have to be able to step away from that and just let them be human. Also, just to step away from that and say, “Hey, I can't control what people do, but I can show you how much I appreciate you and I can talk to you about what I like about you and about the work that you do. I can and show you the value in what you do in the world and I can remind you that you are important. You're important to me and you're important to the people that you work with.” That's not addressing the negativity of clients, but it's part of overcoming that negativity.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I love it. This was so great. I really had fun with this conversation and I hope it was helpful.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, definitely. Always the hope. Always the-
Stephanie Goss:
I know. Have a great week, everybody. Take care.
Dr. Andy Roark:
See you guys.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, again, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. As always, this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. I would really love to see more things like this come through the mail bag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mail bag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag. Or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care, everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
Facebook Comments