Out of Compassion For Clients

This practice owner is seeking guidance on how to help their team become more empathetic and flexible with clients who may not immediately agree with recommendations. In this episode, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark tackle a common challenge faced by veterinary practice teams: how to improve emotional intelligence and client compassion when dealing with resistant or questioning clients. Stephanie and Andy dive into the root causes of this issue, discussing how mental exhaustion and frustration can lead to negative attitudes toward clients. They offer actionable strategies for creating a more compassionate and client-centered culture, including conducting reset meetings, fostering open communication, and implementing recognition programs for positive client interactions. Let's get into this episode…

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: This episode is brought to you by DaySmart Vet, the all-in-one, cloud-based veterinary software. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Hey everybody, I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark, and this is the Uncharted podcast. Guys, I got a great one for you today. We are talking about a team that is running out of compassion for clients. What that means in this case is the team, if pushback from pet owners, Is getting frustrated it is hard for them to assume good intent.

The owner has reached out to us. They were looking for some training or some tools on emotional intelligence, trying to sort of re spark that compassion, trying to help the team see the clients as human beings and, and just not to, not to feel so beaten down and negative and not to sort of struggle with finding space in their heart for these people.

Now it's easy to say. Well, the team should find space in their heart for these pet owners. Look, if you've worked in the vet clinic for any amount of time, some days are hard. You just get tired. Sometimes you are out of spoons. You are pouring from an empty cup. I get it. There are things that we can do to be better.

There are things we can do to make our teams better. And that's what we talk about in this episode. Let's get into it.

 And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie I'm All Out of Love Goss. I'm all out of love, so lost without you. I've had no formal singing lessons. Did you know that? That's just natural talent that comes rolling out.

Stephanie Goss: It's raw talent.

Dr. Andy Roark: Just raw, very unpolished talent.

Stephanie Goss: Oh, I love it. How's it going Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It is great. It is wild. We are in the full swing of summer now. Yes, I was I want to say it's a cruel cruel summer It's like it's not a cruel cruel summer.

Stephanie Goss: I was going with the, the, the Will Smith Wild Wild West in my head.

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh, oh, yeah, no. I am, my kids pointed out that I am, I am an Ace of Bass fan, which I didn't realize, but then, when they they were, they, they were like, I was like, I'm not, and they were like, yes you are, and so we put it on Amazon Music, and I am. I actually, I was like, I celebrate this whole catalog. 

Stephanie Goss: Alright, I'm here for it. I'm super excited about this one. I'm not even going to let you start talking about what's going on with you because then we'll talk forever and then we'll never get to this never get to this episode. You're cut off.

Dr. Andy Roark: It sounds like you're referring back to our last episode, which, which, was a marathon, and we were slow getting started, but anyway,

Stephanie Goss: No, it was funny. It's funny. So we got an email and it wasn't a, it wasn't a mailbag email. Actually we got an email from a practice owner who was like, Hey, I'm looking for some CE, some education for my team. And in particular they were looking for some training on emotional intelligence. And that they were asking about emotional intelligence is because they're at a place where they feel like the team is really struggling to show compassion for clients, and in a very specific way.

And I thought this one was so relevant to what we talk about on the podcast that I thought we could, I thought we could talk about it. So they are struggling because if a client doesn't want to do or agree with, agree to do everything that's being recommended, or if the client is questioning things that are being recommended or that the team is trying to do.

If the clients really are showing any signs of resistance, the team gets so easily offended. And this owner was like, I'm hearing things a lot. Like, I don't have the capacity to deal with this. I don't understand why they don't just do what we want them to do. Those kinds of things. And they said I really- help me help them be more flexible and more kind towards the clients and This one hit home for me because I totally recognized this having gone through this honestly myself but also with the team and so I thought this would be a fun one to talk through.

Dr. Andy Roark: I think this is a great one. This is a really, really common it's a really, really common occurrence in practices. I, I think just sort of starting off in Headspace. My first thing in Headspace is, this is understandable, because we all get tired. We all get mentally tired.

Just being honest, it is exhausting to assume good intent all day long. 

Stephanie Goss: All day, every day.

Dr. Andy Roark: Like, that is, it takes discipline to do that. We don't think about that enough. It is much easier to just assume the worst about people, or go, Oh, what an idiot. Like, that is a really easy way to write people off, and not to do it. And not have to push yourself to be better, because I don't have to be better, because you're an idiot. And again, I'm not trying to dunk on anyone, because I'm saying, it's, it's easy. That is the path of least resistance. If you want to be comfortable, if you want to be comfortable, and have it, and have things be as easy as possible, just tell yourself that everyone around you is stupid, and when things don't go your way, it's because other people are stupid. It's a one size fits all way to write off any any responsibility you have for being patient, being kind, you know, you don't have to do any of that stuff because people are stupid. And so, again, I say that. I think we've all, we've all been there. We've all gone through that phase of, I just can't deal with this.

And so I'm gonna roll my eyes, discount this person, and, and go on. And again, like, everybody's carrying a burden. I get it. It's not sustainable. It is, the short term benefit is, it's easy. You just do it, and you can wash your hands of any responsibility to re explain yourself, to slow down, to ask questions, to do those things that take time and energy.

You can watch this. The long term impact is, you're going to be miserable. It is a miserable life to lead. It is a sad and lonely place when you think everyone around you is stupid. It is not a rewarding, fulfilling place to be. You're not going to enjoy your job. You're not going to feel like you're making the world better.

You're not even going to be sure the world is worth making better. It is a dark, crappy place to live. But that's, but that's the long term. In the moment, it's easy.

Stephanie Goss: And I think that is well, I'm going to put a pin in it because I want to come back to, I want to come back to that when we get to action steps because that's, that's a, that's a yardstick right there. but I agree. It's, it's really, and that's why I said, like, I recognize this because I, I, I know I've done it.

I know I've gone into a room and just been like, oh, I don't understand why they don't just do what we want them to do right when I come out. And, and it, because you do in that moment. It's so much easier 

to just blow it off than to, A, pause ask yourself, really having empathy is hard, is hard work.

Finding kindness and compassion, asking yourself, well what else could be going on with this person? Okay, that, that's, that's hard. Asking yourself, like, What could I have done better? How could I have done this different? That kind of work is, is exhausting. And when you think about the volume level that a lot of us see day in and day out with clients or in particular, I see, I have had this frustration with my front desk team on more than one occasion.

And in doing some of the prep work to talk about it with the team, forcing myself to sit back and look at just the sheer volume of people that they talk to every single day, day after day after day. It is huge, it is huge. It is at least double if not triple or more the number of clients that we see in the exam room.

And so when we stop to just think about the amount of energy and emotion that that takes to do the job and do it really, really well every day. It's really easy as an employer, I think, if you stop and ask yourself those questions, to be able to give the team empathy and say, Oh, I could totally see where you could be exhausted and be, you know, saying things like this and I don't think this I mean this person was not asking because they were just like I'm so sick of my team doing this things they were not in a negative headspace and asking this and I think it's really important to recognize that it's really easy to get down on

the team. I know that was my personal experience. I got frustrated and I was like, I don't understand why you guys can't just be nice to the clients. Right? And when I forced myself to step back and look at it from that headspace perspective and forced myself to do the work to give them empathy. It's really easy to understand that, but that work takes time.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I, I completely agree. I, that's, that's, for me, that, that is the number one goal we have to accomplish in Headspace is we have to get empathetic because getting mad at the staff for not being compassionate towards the clients is probably just a negativity spiral. We have to get them out of it.

We're, we're going to switch over to an accountability model here. But we need to start in a good compassionate place and just say I understand how we get here, right? If everybody gets tired, they talk to people all the time like it is they are human beings They're working really hard if you can get your head into that place and honestly feel compassionate for your team You are going to be much more productive engaging them than if you grab their flaming, raging sword of justice and say, How dare you not be kind to our clients? Don't you know they pay all of our salaries?

And just, and just take heads, yeah. So, so that, that, that type of justice mindset, or that type of showing your frustration, that, that's not the right play. We, so we just need to, let's get compassionate towards our team, because the more we see them and can empathize with them, the more we can engage them in a kind of open manner, and get, and get ourselves heard, and trust me, we're gonna start tightening the screws because this behavior is not acceptable, but we're gonna start out you know, with the stick. We're gonna start out with the carrot.

So anyway, but that, I think that's it. The last thing I would say from a Headspace standpoint is, my advice is just to sit down, and don't let yourself get wound up here, but sit down with a pen and a piece of paper, and ask yourself, why is this behavior a problem?

And get that straight in your mind. Why is it a problem? What is the downside to the team doing this? Right? And again, we're not going to say this to the team necessarily, but I want you to have it clear in your head. A lot of people go, Ew, I don't like that. I get it. Tell me why. I want you to think about why, because ultimately we're going to discuss with the team why we're going to ask them to make this change.

And so you should have it clear in your own mind what your, what your why is. Now, it's going to be much more powerful if we find their why, but you should have yours ready to go. So, you know. What is the meaning that you hope your employees find in their work? What are the values that are important to your team?

And those are things that are really, if you have answers to those questions, like, Does your team do meaningful work? If so, why is it meaningful? And what are your team values? Like, what do you guys care about? What are you trying to accomplish? What is the impact you're trying to make in this world? And again, just having those things top of mind, and again, I'm not going to roll in with my flaming, raging sort of justice, and and punish people.

But I just want to have my head straight about why is this a problem, and what are we trying to accomplish in the world? Because what you'll find is these behaviors undermine the values that you have and the ability to do meaningful work. No one's like, I serve idiots, and also I find it deeply meaningful and rewarding, 

but that doesn't work. That doesn't work. And so, again, we, we can make them, we can put them into a position of cognitive dissonance. So cognitive dissonance is when I want to see myself in a certain way, but I'm behaving in a different way. And so, if I see myself as someone who loves animals deeply, and someone points out to me that I am not using any low stress handling techniques.

That is hard for me mentally to square because I see myself as someone who is a just consummate animal lover and someone else goes How are you a consummate animal lover when you aren't aware of any of these low stress handling techniques? I'm like, ooh, I don't like that. And so what's funny is when you do that to someone they have to resolve that dissonance or it continues to bother them.

Sometimes you'll just see people and they just continue to be bothered. But I can either stop calling myself an animal lover or, you know, not thinking myself that way. Or, I can go and take a look at this low stress handling and make sure that I am behaving in a way that fits the picture of who I want to see myself as.

And so anyway, but we can do that a lot of times just getting people to talk about their values and how they find meaning in their work and then talking to them a little bit about how they're feeling about our clients right now and they will see that those two things are not in alignment. And a lot of times I can put them into that little headlock and make them make a choice about how they're going to behave. So yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of where I am with the headspace.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I think the last piece of headspace that I would put out there, because this goes action steps for me, is taking a step back and looking at it and asking yourself, is this a team problem? Is this a one person problem or is this a multi person problem? Because how I would approach it from an action step perspective is going to be different depending on the answer to that.

And what I, what I think is important as the leaders to recognize that it's really easy for a person or a people problem to become a team problem very quickly. So what I mean by that is, it's really easy if you have the, if you have the person on the team. So you, you were talking Andy earlier about how exhausting it is to be that person who just looks at the world so negatively and everything is, All the clients are, all the clients are dumb and all of the, all of the people, you know, everything is a negative interaction.

And I actually worked with a veterinarian who was, who was like that. And. they were not in a good place and needed some serious support and impacted the rest of the team so fast. And what I saw was that the rest of the team, even my sunniest like assistants and technicians who would never say bad things about clients, I started hearing them be like, Oh, those clients were so difficult and just little things.

Because that, like, that toxicity is so contagious so fast. And so part of the work here from a Headspace perspective is to figure out, is this an issue that is really the whole team? Or is the whole team's behavior right now a symptom of a bigger problem? problem that really has to do with one person or a couple of people, because how you approach that is probably going to be radically different.

Because if the problem is really coming from one person or two people you know, trying to engage the whole team in solutions is maybe not going to be the most effective way to go about it. So I think that's part of the headspace work is stepping back and looking at it and really looking. A, where it's coming from, but also B, like, the frequency with which it's happening.

Because to your point, it's, we all get tired, right? And it's really, as a leader, it's really easy to have a day or even a couple of days in a row that were bad days, and all of a sudden, I'm like, The, the sky is falling and my whole team hates their jobs and I need to, I need to fix this. Was this actually a problem that I need to fix or was this just a couple of bad days?

And so I think the last piece for me for Headspace is stepping back and doing some of that reflection on really, to your point, what, why is this a problem, but also what is the actual problem 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. 

Stephanie Goss: I think is really important.

Dr. Andy Roark: I agree. Let's let's move forward with the idea that this is a behavior that easy, that has spread throughout the team. And let, because often times, you know, I don't know if there was a person who was originally causing it. I don't get that from the, I don't, I don't know from the, from the letter.

I want to act like this is a systemic problem. If it's a one person problem, we'll address it one way. But, but I, I think a lot of times people go, my team has just gotten into this. Okay. Into this habit. I'm gonna treat it like the team, but I think you're spot on.

A lot of times what happens is people go my team, it's like, no it hasn't, it's Darren. And, why don't you deal with Darren? Oh, cause I don't like conflict. I'm like, look, I, that's, yeah. What happens is you have a team meeting a bunch of people who are trying hard feel chastised, and Darren's not paying attention.

And like, and he doesn't, he doesn't realize, he's like, oh, I wonder who she's talking about. Let's let's take a break real quick and we'll come back and then I got some action steps. I I want to I'll tell you what I would do here.

Stephanie Goss: Let's do it.

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

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

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

Dr. Andy Roark: All right, so When we have whole team problems in behaviors, my go to at that point is what I call a reset meeting. Okay? Now, people always ask, like, when do you talk to people as an individual? When do you do a reset meeting? A reset meeting is is sort of the coming together of a group to talk about a problem that has become systemic.

Again, just to your point earlier, if one or two or even three people are demonstrating a behavior, I don't need to bring the team together and press the reset button.

But sometimes there are behaviors, what is called shifting baseline, is over time behaviors just that weren't normal. They kind of become normal, and then they get a little bit more extreme, and that becomes normal, and they get a little bit more extreme, and that becomes normal, and when that happens, and these behaviors become normalized in the team, it's time for a reset, and it's time to try to re level the team.

The other thing is, if you just start holding people accountable, With no heads up that we're going to start doing this after having not held in one accountable for these behaviors for a long time. It's confusing, it's frustrating. They ask questions like, why is this a thing? Like I, you know, Karen did this last week and nobody said anything to her, and you have to deal with all that crap, and it's just.

Just hit the reset button. And a reset meeting does a couple of things. Number one, it provides amnesty for past behaviors. It is clean slate starting over. No one's in trouble for anything in the past.

We are just going to change our behavior going forward. And so it wipes the slate clean, nobody should feel in trouble no one's being, you know, hassled about anything that happened before this.

It sets clear expectations of these are the behaviors we're going to be looking for going forward. If this is what it means to excel, and these are behaviors that, you know, that are not going to be acceptable, and can we all agree on those things? And those are really the big things is clean slate from behind.

Forward facing sets clear expectations for what we're going to be looking for going forward. And then the last, the objective of the reset meeting is to try to get buy in from the team of, yes, we want to make this change. We agree this change is necessary or that it's going to be beneficial for us. And if I can recruit them into helping me positively reinforce the change that we're looking for, then, then that's what I'm going to do. So, reset meeting. Are you on board with that?

Stephanie Goss: Sure. Let's go. Let's go for it. So if we're gonna have a reset meeting and we're gonna we're gonna talk about making the future changes What does that what does that look like?

Dr. Andy Roark: So whenever we start to have a reset meeting, what I always like to do is start in these meetings, I want to start with a broad conversation, and then narrow it down to specific behaviors. So if I have a meeting and I come in and say, Guys, rolling our eyes at clients is not acceptable. That's, that's very focused. And the chances of me sort of getting buy in to that problem and not making people defensive are probably, probably more low. And again, this is not, I'm not doing reset meetings for every little thing. This is, we have a systemic problem. 

I'm gonna start out wide, and generally what I try to do is I, I usually open up with a fairly low stake, sort of try to get the discussion question, try to get the team talking in a way, there's not a right or wrong answer, but what I'm really gonna start with is, what are we doing here, guys? Like what are we, what are we value? What are, what are we trying to accomplish? What are you most proud of? When you think back on the work that we've done here in the last couple of months, what are you most proud of? Think speci. Think of a great day you had, what made you proud? And I ask questions like that because I'm trying to get people to go ahead and reframe what is important, what are we trying to accomplish?

Because if people frame it as I'm tired, how are we supposed to keep going? We've already framed the meeting into this really kind of a negative way. If I talk out why out wide and go. Why do we do this job? What do we do in here?

Then I can start to get people to talk about making a difference in what they care about and why they got into the profession and things like that.

And then we can go from there and start working towards the behavior that we're trying to reset. So, if I haven't done a core values exercise with my team to some degree to figure out what they care about, I should, I should do that, right? Why do we do this job? What's important to us about our work? When we feel proud about the work that we do here, why do we feel that way?

Those are sort of my opening questions. I'm not going to do all of them, but I'm going to kind of pick one, and ask them basically, what do you want your experience to be when you're here? Alright, The next part of this meeting is it's easy to call reset meetings and bring people together and say, Guys, this isn't working.

Guys, we're not getting it done.

Guys, the clients are not happy with what we're doing. Guys, we're not reaching our goals. And that is so demotivating. You probably felt the wind go out of your sails just listening to me say that. It is so demoralizing. In these meetings, what I'm going to try to do is come together and say, guys, I love working with you.

I am proud of the work that we are doing. You guys are doing really well. You guys are, are, are, are making a difference. And I want us to be even better. I want us to go to the next level. I want us to push forward and make our practice an even more enjoyable place to be. I, I want to make it so that you guys. So you like coming into work and you feel really good when you leave. That's, that's, that's where I want us to go. I want us to focus on those things and how we can continue to improve in those areas. And that hopefully feels much different than, you guys are failing, we need to do things differently.

Yeah, it's, again, it's about keeping it future facing, not beating them down, but just saying you guys are doing a lot of things really, really well. And there is an area that I really want us to work on and I think we can grow in and I think we can make a big difference and impact for ourselves, for our patients, for our clients.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. I think, I think the other thing too, in, in my experience has been having the big picture conversations for me, I have had the most success with coming to the table With my own vulnerability and my own guilt and ownership of that guilt in whatever the problem is. And so for me, I would probably show up for the team by saying, Hey, we've been, we've been seeing a lot of clients lately that I feel like have been.

You know, more challenging or who have had, and what I mean by that is clients who have had a lot more questions or they've had pushback or there's been concerns. And you know, I've caught myself coming out of the exam room and been like, you know, why are they asking so many questions? Why don't they just do what I want them to?

I don't like how that makes me feel. And I've been watching all of us and I realized that maybe it's not just me. Because I've seen all of us kind of being frustrated or, you know, being, whatever you want to say to make them feel like you are taking as the leader. Not only are you taking ownership of your role, but you're taking kind of the lead of, hey, I'm, I'm doing this thing.

And I wonder how you all feel about it, because it creates that safety and vulnerability for them to acknowledge their own behaviors and look at it in a way that doesn't feel punitive, and also brings them to the table to do the problem solving work with you, because when you come, it's really It's easy as a leader to want to say I just want to have the meeting.

I want to identify the problem and I want us to come up with a solution. And when you come at the meeting with that perspective, it's also really easy to shut them down and get them to not engage with you and get them to just be like, Oh, Oh, she's just telling us that we're not doing a good job, or it's easy for them to hear things that are not what you intended at all, but it doesn't matter what you intended.

It's how they received that information. And so for me, the best success here has been to say, Hey, I've seen this in myself. I don't like how it makes me feel. And I was hoping that you guys might be willing to brainstorm with me some ways that I could try changing my mindset or that I could try looking at these appointments in a different way because I don't want to feel this way.

Now, all of a sudden, none of the blame is on them or their behaviors. It is on, it is on me and it opens the door for them to be a part of that solution anyways. Now, You can't do that if it's not true. And if we go back to what I, what we said in the beginning, we all get tired and I'm sorry, but I can't imagine a leader of a veterinary practice out there not being able to empathize and recognize those days when they've been like, God, those clients suck.

Or, you know, like, why can't they just do, why are they Dr. Googling? Like, why can't they just do what I want them to do? We can all put ourselves in those, in that place. And so you should be able to come to the table for a reset meeting like this with your own ownership and put that, put that forward. I've just had significantly better better luck that, that way with 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. No, I, I think you're, I think you're spot on. Anytime that you as a leader can, can own it and say, Yeah, I'm, I'm guilty of this and I want to be better and I want our team to be better. And, and can you guys, can you guys help me? And we can talk about this and how we're going to do better going forward.

I, I think that's, that's, that's really the, the best, that's the best approach. I, I think you touched on this as well. I think, I think we're sort of establishing, Hey, this is. We're going to try to do better. We're going to commit to doing better in the future. That's, that's what we're going to do.

And then asking them, how can we set ourselves up for success? Or how can you guys help me? What can we as a team agree to? That's going to make sure that we're giving our clients grace. Or yeah, and that we're staying positive about the people who we take care of. Like, what can we do? And so, that's sort of how I tend to frame that.

You know, I'm a big fan of what we call positive inquiry. Which is, think about a time that you felt really great about the clients that we saw. Think about the last really good day you had. Why did you feel good? Think about a time that you If you were having a hard day, and maybe you didn't behave as well as you could have, what was, what was making you feel that way, you know?

Is that something, you know, justified? Maybe other people are having that experience. What, what do those days look like? And you can ask those sort of questions. And again, I like to have them talk in small groups. I'll say, let's, let's, let's come up with a list of ideas of what we can do to set ourselves up for success so that we can, so that we can continue to stay positive about our clients, even when we're busy and we're tired. And then you let them turn and talk in groups about what things that we might be able to do. And honestly, it's gold. The process of them having the conversation in the group is hugely valuable just by itself.

Stephanie Goss: I love that. Another, another to add on to yours, it's, it should not be hard. For everybody on the team to think about, tell me about the last client interaction that you had that left you just feeling really good about your, your job and what we do every, every day, like, if we have to really see.

Push ourselves to come up with an answer to that question. We should be asking a different question. Right? And so I, I like particularly to your point, if you have a bigger team, breaking out in small groups is great. 

When you have a smaller team, just round Robin and because usually there's someone who's like, Ooh, I'll go when Mrs. Smith was here yesterday, this is what happened. And, you know, and what I love about that question is it allows you as a team to see what fills each other's cups. Because my answer. For the last great client interaction that I had, maybe radically different than your answer, Andy, about what made you happy about a client interaction, and it allows us to see each other's perspectives, but also allows us to see as a group, how we touch the clients in so many different ways and really gets them kind of talking and seeing some of that on their own, just hearing It's one of those questions where sometimes you'll get the same person, the same person will say the same client, but their interaction is different than the person before because they touched with the client in a different way.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. No, I think you're spot on. I think the big takeaway is here to help people have this meeting and have it go well are don't forget. to talk to the team about what they love in practice and what they love about their clients.

Because if you just go in and say, guys, we're not getting along with the clients.

You know, we, we, we need to feel better about them. How can we feel better about working with the clients? This is all framed up in negative. Getting them to remember the. Joy that is possible from working with clients getting them to reconnect with their why about why they do the work

Both of those are really if you can pull them off and and you should really try no matter what Both of those will help make this Conversation just something positive that people can get excited about the last thing and this is sort of going back to what Stephanie said earlier You know, if you can work into this meeting, if you can take responsibility for being the person who has rolled their eyes at clients and say, I have done this and I want to do better, I think that that helps make everything go a lot more smoothly.

Very relatedly to that, if you are comfortable sharing a story about a time when you were not the best client, And saying, hey, you know, we all have bad days. That, that can help. The, the one that I share, and I've, you've said it on the podcast a couple of times, but, I'll never forget finding out my wife had breast cancer.

And immediately going for a walk and going to a coffee store. And the guy behind the counter when I walked in was like, hey man, how's your day going? And I didn't say anything mean to him. I just said, oh, you know, I'm making it. But in that moment, he had no idea. What had just happened to me and that my world had just gotten absolutely rocked.

He had no idea. And how could he know that? But Who knows what people are going through when they walk into our practices? And again, that's just kind of a story from my life that I'm always comfortable to share. I'm glad I didn't say anything mean to the guy. It never crossed my mind to. But it just, it just occurred to me how he had absolutely no idea what was going on with me.

And again, I just, I have found that it's a quick story that, can remind people, like, we just don't, don't know. And so anyway something like that to kind of help frame it up is hey, we've all, we've all had hard days and gotten hard news. You know, so let's try to, we gotta give people some grace. So anyway, I think that those are the big things for me.

A follow up sort of tangent to this, and I don't know if you want to try to do this at the same meeting. I don't know if we can pull it off in one, in one meeting. It really sort of depends. I really love, if you want client compassion to be something that your team is focusing on, then formalize it and come up with some sort of metrics to track it.

And what that looks like for me is some sort of like a client compassion recognition program. And just say, When you see someone being wonderful to our clients, or when they say something that is truly empathetic or compassionate, I want you to to drop their name into this box and, you know, and I'm going to check it and I'm going to ask you what they did and I just want you to tell me, but I am going to, I am going to give those we're going to do something nice for those people at the end of the month because they're being nice to our clients, but something that doesn't involve you. Policing these people to try to catch them doing something nice, but let them let them shout out each other. Let them recognize each other. But again, it just goes right back into training with positive reinforcement. And so, yeah, just is, is there a program? Is there something fun that we can do to celebrate the people who are our greatest cheerleaders of our clients? What can we do? In the end, if this is something you're willing to work on, you should lean into it, you should mean it, you should try to come up with something really nice, you should come up with, you know, whether it's a handwritten thank you note to that, to that employee, or whether it's a, gift cards for each one, or I don't, I don't know what, it could be anything, but, but you should, you should make it a thing.

Stephanie Goss: hmm. I love that. And I think, I think the last piece here for me is once you've talked about what the challenge is Is inviting the team to be a part of the solution is, is, is what you're doing. And I love that. And also I think sometimes there is the step in between, and I think that this is what, when the, when this practice leader reached out to us is what they're looking for is recognizing that sometimes there is some education that needs to be done.

And I didn't know until I learned about learning styles, how many times a person needed to hear a recommendation. Before it sunk in

and I think I think for especially when you've been doing this job for a long time I think it's really easy to forget What that what you know now? You didn't know in the beginning when you were the brand new CSR when you were the brand new You know vet assistant or vet tech or you were the veterinarian your first day on the job You were knew that you wanted the clients to take your recommendations, but did you know how to make that recommendation in a way that was framed best for success?

Did you know how to chunk and check? Did you know how to, you know, you had to practice all of that. And so I think the step that kind of goes in the middle for me is looking at What is that education that I can do for the team that I can also actively be involved in to look at? Do we really want clients who are robots and just say yes to everything on a personal level?

And this goes to your point about looking at the core values and why are we here? Why are we doing this I don't. I love client education. I love engaging with it. I love when they ask questions. Honestly, some of my favorite appointments to do are the appointments with the clients who use Dr.

Google, because I want the opportunity to learn things that I don't know about or to hear what is out there that I might want to educate myself on more. I also want the opportunity to talk with a client and engage with them and understand their questions and that also, I get it, it gets exhausting. And if I can't, if I can't think about how clients learn, if I can't think about the fact that, I don't want them to be a robot and just accept everything that I say at face value every time.

I want them to ask those questions. Well, then I need to understand that that may take multiple times of having that discussion before someone hears it. If I'm talking to Mrs. Smith in room three and she's got her two year olds. and her five year old and a really bad two year old doodle on her hands. Is she actually going to hear everything that I'm saying?

Or is her reason for putting me off because she literally cannot focus in the exam room? Maybe it's that not that she doesn't agree with me. Maybe it's not that she's having resistance because she doesn't want to do what I'm trying to recommend. Maybe she's having resistance because she's thinking about the fact that, you know, she's got to pick her other kid up from daycare by six o'clock and can we just hurry this up and get out of the exam room, right?

In the moment, doing that work to ask myself all of those questions is the work that we often skip over because it's the hard work. And so I think, I think from an action set perspective, thinking about how can we do some of that team education. How can we look at how do we talk to clients? How do, and doing it in a way that feels inclusive of everybody and that you're taking charge of, Hey, I would like to learn more about this.

I would like to learn more about how do we have. Success for getting recommendations made, whether that's something that you guys can read together, whether that's a team meeting that you can do, whether that's just talking about it and getting ideas for, hey, to your point, Andy, about positive inquiry, hey, think about a time when you made a recommendation to a client and they were just like, Oh, yeah.

That sounds great. Let's do that. What did that look like? What did it? What did it sound like? How did we do that? Right. And sharing those best practices and brainstorming as a group. How do we do that? I think that education piece falls in the middle. And when we do that, when we talk about the core values, when we, when we do the work for the reset meeting, and then we do that education in the middle, then I think having that compassionate recognition for the, the client compassion recognition, The follow up becomes exponentially easier to, to, to recognize because they have seen it. They understand why we're doing it. They have some education behind it. And now they have seen it demonstrated and they know what you're looking for. And then they can continue to, to follow up on that good behavior.

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah. I think you're spot on. I think one of the things I kind of put in here as a freebie bonus idea, I think I would have the reset meeting and I would talk to them about what we're trying to do. And then, as a separate meeting, I would not do this at the same time, it's too much. But I would space this out, probably two weeks later.

Right? So, maybe, maybe a month, but two weeks to a month, not so far that they've forgotten kind of what we're

doing, but definitely not right on time. And I would have a little training module, and so you and I talk a lot about training modules, and I don't know that most people listening to our podcast know that we do this or how we do it.

But, but I would, this is kind of, this is my jam, this is the stuff I really love to do with teams. Here's, here's what I would do. I would have a, a separate meeting, and I would bring people, I would bring the team back together. And what I would do is I would have them sort of sit in a place where I could get them into little groups of four to five people.

And I'd put them like that. And if I had if I, if I was worried about some people not paying attention or things like that, I might assign seats or

I might put my practice manager with people. I might sructure the groups. We do all those sorts of things. And so that would happen kind of organically.

I'd get that set up. So anyway, I get them in. I get them sitting down. I would say, guys, we're gonna do some training today. And so here's what we're gonna do. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna make a pet owner. And I love making pet owners with the team. Okay. And so I'm going to give you guys an idea.

So I'm going to start coming off the cuff here. But I would have, on a flip chart, I would have these questions kind of written down. And I would be ready to first I would open up to the group. And if I didn't get things from the group, I would start calling on people. What I don't do is start with a name.

I start with something else. I would say, Alright, we're going to have a pet owner. How old is this person? What's this person's gender? What kind of pet does this person have? And if we only see dogs and cats, I would say dog or cat. You know,

I would frame it into something that you'd actually see. What does this cat, what's the cat look like?

What there is something different about this cat. What is it? This cat has a medical condition. What is the cat's medical condition? What is this cat in for today? And I would do that and then I would go back to the client because you want a little bit more flavor and coloring around the client I would say What is when you see this client?

What is a defining feature? This client is is she very tall? Does she wear a lot of makeup like what is what just what is and again? We're making a cartoon here, right? Like it's not a real

person. What is a defining feature? You This this client, what is her, what is his or her job? What do they do as a profession?

And guys, that matters because when they tell you this person's a lawyer, they will picture a certain behavior type. Of what we're gonna do. Or

when they say This person is a nurse in their minds, this person's gonna behave a certain way. But now guys, I am creating a real pet owner that they can see. It's not a real, but I can create a fictional pet owner that they can really see.

But I don't wanna use one of my actual pet owners 'cause I don't want us to actually bash a pet owner or, or doing or say anything that would be embarrassing to them. And so this is how I create someone that they can all see in their mind. I love to ask This person has a quirk. What is the quirk?

This person has a nickname that their friends call them. What is it? And why do they call them that? I ask some silly questions like that and the team loves it and they get into it and they will make this wild and zany person. And the last thing I say is, What is this person's name? And, and just tell them, it's not, it's not one of our clients names, it's somebody else's name, what is their name? And then let them name the client. And I jot the, I jot their answers down next to the pre written questions on the flip chart, and then I write the person's name at the top. And now this is our client, and by now, They are probably all engaged. There's no wrong answers to any of these questions. I've, I have asked them to sort of popcorn.

If one person's giving a lot of answers, I will just say, I've, we've got, we've gotten enough from Stephanie. Let's, let's hear, let's hear from somebody else and just, that's how I do it. And I, and I get going. So we make the client and I say, okay, guys, this is the client and this is the pet. And we said, this is why the pet is in today.

Okay. We'll say Donna is her name. When Donna comes in, this is what happens. And I would make a I would make a fake problem. Honestly, what I usually do is pay attention to the practice, and I'll take a couple of problems, and I'll squish them together. Or, I will take a couple of problems and make a new problem that feels very similar to the other problems and put it in there.

Again, I don't want to use something that's out of date. Clearly recognizable something that happened because I don't want somebody to feel like they're being put on the microscope So any but I would make a problem and then I would say great So guys we have we know who this pet owner is. We know who this pet owner's cat is.

This is the problem This is what has happened. This is what she came in. This is what she was told. This is where we are You are the technician going into the room. All right And then I would have them turn to their group and I would say make a plan for solving this person's problem or complaint. Go ahead.

I'm going to give you guys 10 minutes to make a plan on how you're going to solve this. And be, be ready to have a plan and be able to explain or defend your plan. All right, do that. And I would give them 10 minutes. And then I would have them come back and I would talk about how they are going to solve the problem.

Now, when they are telling me. And I would have, who's a representative I need, who's willing to share? Alright, who's willing to share? And again, focus on who's willing to share what their group did. Because that takes the pressure off of the individuals. It's not your bad idea. It's the whole group, and if  people don't like it, well, that's the group.

And so anyway, it lowers the stakes. And again, I'm going to write, I'm going to start bullet pointing the plans out. I'm going to say, who's got a different plan? Who would add something to this plan? And I am going to keep going until we have a robust plan. Guys, all of this is exceptional training on customer service.

And again, They are hearing it from their colleagues who say, Oh, well, I would say this. And they go, really? You say that? And again, learning from each other is so powerful and it is not Andy Roark lecturing on what the best practices are across the world. It's this person in your practice has this idea, this is what they would do.

And you go, Oh, well, I, I, yeah, I would have thought of that. Totally. It's really, really great training. And then after I've got a good list, I would say, great. Yeah. back into your groups. How would you keep a positive attitude while dealing with this person? I want you guys to come up with a list of things that you would think or do or say to keep a positive attitude while dealing with a stressful situation. And I'd give them 10 minutes to come up and bullet point that out. And so this whole exercise, probably going to take about 40 minutes, which is great. If we do a, if people can grab a lunch and sit down, I can do it in one session, like a little lunch and learn thing. But, I should be able to turn this whole thing around in 40 minutes.

And now they have told me what they would do to keep a positive attitude, to keep a good headspace. It is a really good reminder. Of what we're trying to do. No one should feel criticized. It's not even a real case So no one's you know, there's no there's no reason for people to get upset. It's all make believe But guys, I would tell you you can get people to talk very openly this way in a way They would never talk about if you actually tried to review what happened in the practice last week with Miss Johnson.

So anyway, that's that is something that I would again. I really prioritize this stuff . I'm telling you if you've never run a meeting like that. It is absolutely You It's absolutely worth it. It really does get people to unlock and engage. If you're fascinated by running this type of a training session over at DrAndyRoark.com. I have two classes.

One of them is the exam room communication class. And one of them is the Charming the Angry Client class. They both have awesome content. One hour lectures from me broken up in modules on how to run an engaged staff meeting. And so I've got, if you want to learn more, I'll teach you how to, how to run an engaged staff meeting in those sessions.

And then you also get the whole course you actually paid for. So anyway, that's that, that's all I got.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. I love it. This one was fun.

Dr. Andy Roark: I definitely enjoyed it. Cool. Thanks for doing it with me.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Have a great week everybody. Take care and we’ll see you next time. 

Dr. Andy Roark: We will see you next time. And that’s a wrap on another episode for the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it and got something out of it. If you have a question for us, shoot us an email. Send it to us to podcast@unchartedvet.com Or if you’re an Uncharted member, just post in the community and say “Hey Andy and Stephanie, would you be interested in this questions?” And we will be in there like swimwear. That’s what we do at Uncharted. Anyway, gang, thanks for being here. Take care of yourselves. I will talk to you next time!