Conflicting Team Members Who Won’t Talk To Each Other

This week on the podcast…

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss are answering a question you asked in the mailbag! That's right, this is going to be one of those episodes where everyone is asking “Are they talking about my practice? Are they talking about my front desk team? We had a manager reach out and ask us some questions about front desk team members who are butting heads and seem to be at each other's throats. They both have been coming to the manager or the practice owner or both and complaining about the behaviours from their teammate. Both of these team members fully admit they are horrible about talking to each other about the issues first. This manager is at their wits end and wanting to know “do we mediate, do we let them talk it out themselves?” Andy and Stephanie loved these questions. Let's get into this…

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are continuing a conversation that started in our Uncharted community where a manager was asking for some help dealing with two team members who are butting heads. And they keep coming to this person as the manager or it's the practice owner and complaining about each other.
And this manager was like, “How do I deal with this? Do I mediate it? Do I make them talk it out? What do I do?”
And Andy and I had a lot of fun talking about this. I admitted some of my own greatest mistakes as a practice manager when it came to dealing with this in my-not so-recent path actually. We talk a little bit about my lack of poker face and we have a lot of fun. So let's get into this one.

Meg:
And now the Uncharted podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie I'm way too fine to feel this stressed Goss.

Stephanie Goss:
I don't even know what song that comes from, but I appreciate it very much.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's from your anthem that you didn't know you had called “It's About Damn Time” by Lizzo. “It's About Damn Time.”

Stephanie Goss:
That's fantastic.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's funny, my kids play it. And I refuse to admit that there's bad words in songs, even though it's obvious. And so I just sing really loudly, it's about that time. And they're like, “That's not the words.” And I was like, “I'm certain those are the words.” But the name of the song is “It's About Damn Time”.

Stephanie Goss:
So clearly this episode needs an explicit warning right off the bat.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, we come honestly, right off the bat.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, it's so funny, because we had some community members this week who had the stories of their clinics get published. A friend of mine, Robin Brockton, was writing an article for today's Veterinary Business and was featuring some independent practices and some of the things that they're doing differently to live their truth and be their own people in our field, which is becoming increasingly consolidated in some ways.
And so we had two Uncharted community members who had their clinics featured as part of it, or three of them, excuse me. And one of the doctors, I shouted her out in the community because she's new and she just joined.
And she was like, “Oh yeah, there was a lot of listening to the Uncharted podcast to get to the place where I am and where we filled this culture.”
And I was like, “Uh-oh.” She's like, “I listened in the car with my kids a lot.”
And so I was like, “Oh, I'm really sorry for any swearing we did without a warning on it.” And she was like, “Oh, that's okay. They've heard far worse when I'm gardening at the house.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
We've talked about that before. We're pretty darn clean in our nature. So then people are like, “Sure, the kids can listen to this.”
And then every and now, and there's one bad word an episode, and I'm like, “We're probably in the worst place. We probably swear just enough to bother people who are listening with kids, but not enough to be cool for people who are really hardcore like us.”

Stephanie Goss:
Because let's be clear, when we're not recording podcasts.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So hardcore.

Stephanie Goss:
I definitely, yeah, I'm a swearer. And I told her the story. I said, “I'm that mom. My kids learned swear words from Broadway albums in the car when they were toddlers.” And I would sing the bad words and Jackson would go, “Mama, that's a word you shouldn't say.”
He was that kid though who would refuse to repeat them. He wasn't the kid who heard it, learned it, and went to school and was using the words. He was the kid who was like, “Oh, that's a bad word. You shouldn't use that word.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I am not that way at all. I am the closet smoker of bad words. I sneak outside. I'll be on the phone outside and I'll be swearing, like, “Oh, you got to be kidding me.” But then in the house it's like, “Nope.”

Stephanie Goss:
It does. It sneaks out and you're just like, “Oh, Andy's on fire.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I do, when I get fired up, there's something about a couple of bad words to really carry some weight. But I don't know. I keep going. I should just stop. I should be done with profanity altogether. But I don't know, I never quite do it. I wax and wain too. I'll get really good and then I'll just get really bad.

Stephanie Goss:
It makes my world a more colorful place.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'll tell you why I had bad words just starting this episode off, because I talked to the credit card company today. And of course they're just jerking me around with like, “Oh, you have to provide this information.” I'm like, “No, I don't. What are you talking about?”

Stephanie Goss:
You're like I am me. It's been a very Monday, for a Friday.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And they're like, “We don't believe you.” They were like, “You have to fax us this documentation.” And I laughed. I was like, “Where am I going to get a fax machine?”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, who faxes?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm sorry.

Stephanie Goss:
Hi, it's 2023.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm just going to head down to 1990 and then I'll be reaching out to you. Anyway.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh man. It has been a Monday. It has been a Monday on a Friday, that is for sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's been a Monday on a Friday, I agree.

Stephanie Goss:
But I'm excited because we had some conversation happening in, speaking of the community, they're awesome and doing amazing things. And we had some conversation about someone was struggling because they have some team members who are really struggling to communicate well and butting heads a lot. And both have independently come to their department leads or the practice manager or the practice owner and voiced concerns about the other person and working with them.
But they are not talking to each other. And they both admit it. They both admit like, no, I haven't had the conversation with them. They have different styles of just in general personality styles. One is really upfront and vocal, and the other one tends to be more passive and afraid of conflict. And gets really easily flustered when there is conflict.
And so the community member was asking like, Hey, how do we help this? Do we mediate between the two of them? Do we let them talk it out themselves and figure it out? Do we just hope that it resolves itself?
And they were like, I feel like maybe you guys did a podcast on this that I should listen to. And you and I both went, “That is a great podcast that we have not done yet.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I looked for it. I went back and looked. I'm like, surely we've done this? And I literally went back, and I was like, I don't think we have, I never found anything that looked like it.

Stephanie Goss:
No, I love it. So I'm excited. I'm excited.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, yeah, I am too. We get a lot of questions like this.
All right, cool. So let's go ahead and start to lay this thing down. We've got two people not getting along. They're both tattling on each other up to the leadership, and we got to figure out what to do with this. So as we do, let's start with headspace.
Where's your head at when you're looking at this?

Stephanie Goss:
My head immediately went to empathy in two ways. One is I have been this team member, I was this team member early on in my career and in a practice. And then also empathy on the leadership side, because oh boy, I have been there. And I think it is really common, this is the episode where everybody goes, “They're talking about my team, they're talking about my practice.”
And so I think that it's one of those things that we can easily recognize the emotions in. The frustration, the irritation, all of the emotions. I read the question and was like, oh yeah, I recognize this. I recognize this tree. I've seen it before.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I went immediately to frustration. This immediately frustrates the heck out of me. Because I'll just tell you, my emotional reaction immediately is “why can't you just grow up and fix it? Talk to each other like you're not six-year-olds.” And that is the crotchety, immediate frustration [inaudible 00:08:33].

Stephanie Goss:
Old man, “Get off my lawn.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly right. Figure it out like you are not infants. And go on. And that is, I'm just being totally honest, with the emotional reaction I have, because I'm a human being and I have dealt with this many times. But it is wildly frustrating. And that's why it's worth talking about because it's easy to blow this up. And that's why headspace is so important.
And so when we talk about headspace guys, I want you guys to know I like to lay down headspace. It is not because I live in a zen world, it's because I do not live in a zen world and I need to get my head straight so that I don't blow my face off when I load into this.

Stephanie Goss:
So you don't come down the crotchety Clint Eastwood and yell, “get off my lawn.” Because that's how you're feeling in your head.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's exactly what's in my head, is figure this out. What are you, seven? But that's not fair. It's not fair.

Stephanie Goss:
But it's human.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, to empathize with the leader you've got… Here's the thing, here's where this blows me up. This is where I get blown up as a leader, is I have 87 things on my plate. And I have some real fires burning, like real things that need to get fixed. And then I've got Donna and Dave and they're like, “Dave is not talking to me.” And Dave's like, “Donna's just being a nag.”
And I'm like, “Look at my face. What on my face says I'm excited to handle this and I have time for it? Do you see that on my face? Would you look at me, because it's not there. Because I don't.”
And it always gets dropped on top of things that are actively burning. And so the self-control part of this is so important because it really does. It really does needle. It really does needle me.

Stephanie Goss:
It is huge, and I'm going to tell you guys a story. At one point in the not so distant past as a manager, I hit a place where I was feeling really burned out and I was not my best manager self. And I was doing a lot of things very, very wrong. And I was having some conflict amongst my team. And like you Andy, I was like… I'm laughing so hard because I can picture my face, and you have given me the feedback that I have a very expressive face.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You do have it, an overly expressive face.

Stephanie Goss:
I do not have a poker face.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You need to tone down your transparency a little bit sometimes.

Stephanie Goss:
I do not have a poker face. And I will tell you. So I was really struggling with my team and I was really struggling with some of the tattling. And to your point, it would always be when there was fires flaming. And I could not control my face and I could not control the epic eye roll that wanted to happen the second somebody opened their mouth to start tattling on somebody else.
And so I rearranged my office so that my desk, my back was to the door. So that when they came to the door and started to tell me about the thing, I had a few moments to pull my face together so that they wouldn't see my face, which was not, definitely not my best manager moment. And at the same time I get it, and I empathize so hard with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
First of all, sometimes we need a crutch. It's like if you can't control your face, then maybe you should face away from the door. Just at some point you have to accept that me trying to control my face is not working. I need help.
The other thing is when you said that, I imagined you doing that so that when they come in and go, “Dave is really is being a jerk.” You could slowly turn your chair around.

Stephanie Goss:
That was the other thing that I learned.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Like a high back Dr. Evil chair and you could just slowly turn it around and say, “What did you say?”
Anyway.

Stephanie Goss:
The ultimate passive aggressive physical behavior right there, but I will admit, I leaned into it because it's hard. It's really hard not to be frustrated by that. So I empathize with your statement of immediately going to frustration.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's hilarious. I wouldn't do it. But the idea of your employees coming to you and saying, “Donna is making me crazy.” And then you just slowly turn your chair around away from them so that the high back chair is hiding you. That's funny.
Also, Stephanie's [inaudible laughter 00:13:07], is shaking.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh my God. We're off the rails.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay, so hold on. We are and we're not. Let me pull this back around to make the point. What happens is we're busy and everybody's busy, and things are stressful and tensions are high. And that is when the interpersonal relationships break.
So you're not imagining that these things happen when other fires are burning, it's because other fires are burning that these things are happening. It's the overall tension and hustle and pace that cause breakdowns in communication. It's easy to communicate when nobody cares and nothing is at stake, and we're largely bored and got more time than things to do. That's an easy time to communicate.
It's like getting along with your significant other on vacation. That's not super hard. It's getting along with your significant other when you're both trying to go to work and the kids are doing things and the bills are coming due, that's a different beast.
Same thing. And so anyway, I know that felt like a fun tangent, but it also is meant to make the point of that frustration is very real. And that's when people blow themselves up, is because generally the leader is stressed by the hustle and bustle. And the same things that are stressing these people who are communicating are also sitting on our shoulders, so now this feels like a new problem.
And unlike the fact of, I don't know how to get all these pet owners in, I don't know how to get people the raises that they want. You complaining to me about Dave is a very tangible problem, and there's someone who's responsible for it and they're standing in my office right in front of me. And so it's easy to take frustration out on this situation, and I've seen a lot of people get in trouble when they do it.
So the first part of headspace is recognize that this is going to come at an inconvenient time. It always comes at an inconvenient time. And it's just part of the actual underlying drama. First thing is recognize that frustration is a real problem that blows this thing up.
And it's not going to be like, oh, they're going to come to me when I have lots of free time and I'm in a good headspace and I'll deal with it then. Know that that's probably not going to happen. They're going to come to you this time. Okay, so that's it.
All right. Now, there's a significant headspace question that we really need to parse through that I think cause a lot of people problems. And it's separating out two similar but different things. So let me go ahead and put some pieces on the board.
So the first thing, whenever I have two people that are not getting along in the practice and they come to me, we have to talk about the Karpman drama triangle. And so Karpman drama triangle is one of my favorite things. But it's this dynamic, it's called the hero-villain-victim triangle.
And so whenever you have conflict in your practice, look, and you'll see three roles being played. There is a victim who is the person who is being wronged, and there's a villain who is the person who is doing the thing that they're not supposed to do. And there's a hero, which is the person who comes in and saves the victim.
Now, you need to know this if you're a leader, because people will try to graph you into that hierarchy. And you don't want to be there.
What happens often is the victim comes to you, the manager, the doctor, the owner, the medical director, and they say, “There's a villain.” And they want you to go vanquish the villain and save the victim. And that makes you the hero. And so you want to do it because we all like to be the hero. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Because what happens is you train people to be victims and you train them that you are going to be the hero who solves their problem. The answer to the Karpman drama triangle is it to make it a drama line, which is the victim is also the hero who advocates for themselves and works it out with the quote unquote villain. Who also believes that they're the victim and that the other victim is actually the villain. And you know how it goes.
But I don't want to be in this drama triangle and I need to be very wary about getting sucked in. And a lot of people are listening and just putting their hand on their forehead and going, “I am the hero. I am the hero all day long, every day.”
And what I'm saying to you right now is that's never going to end. That's your life. That's your job. Because you have trained people that you'll be the hero, like Batman. How tired does Batman get of that stupid bat signal getting turned on? How often is he like, “Why can't you people just solve problems for yourself?”
It's got to be every night. He's been going on call for years.
And I joke, but think about it for a second. Like, don't worry about it, Batman will show up. You are Batman. I'm Batman. But it's not as cool as you thought it would be. It's exhausting.

Stephanie Goss:
It's true. And I would actually say that I definitely put myself in that space in that instance that I was talking about, because I trained the team. So my thought process in the moment talking about headspace was, okay, if I solve this problem, if I play the mediator, if I help them figure this out, this will go away and I can do the 25 things that were sitting in front of me that I need to do.
But to your point, I just was training them that they didn't have the tools to do it themselves. And so then there was never not a problem. There was always something. And it was a very, very painful lesson for me to learn as a leader, to recognize this is my life and I have created this life. And now how the hell do I get out of this life because I don't want it anymore?
I do not want to be Batman. I do not want to wear a cape. I do not want to have to solve their problems. I want you all to be grownups and solve your own problems.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So clearly this is where the episode ends and we just say the answer is they have to figure out themselves, don't get involved. Right. Wrong. And that is the distinction that I'm talking about making.
Now, there is a distinction between going to people and sorting out their problems and being the hero that fixes the issue. There's a difference between being that and being the coach who works with people on how exactly to solve their own problems because they don't have the tools to solve them.
But I'm going to coach you on how to solve this problem so that I can then step away and you have the tools. It's like if someone comes to you and says, “I'm hungry,” and you say, “Don't worry, I'll go catch you a fish.” As opposed to saying, “Okay, I'm going to go with you and teach you how to fish and then you're going to catch your own fish.”
But you have to go with them. You can't just be like, “Just go find food for yourself.” That doesn't help them. But there is a difference. You can be the person who coaches on how to find food without being the person who goes and finds food every day for these people who are not fighting for themselves.
And so anyway, that's the subtle distinction. I think a lot of people, and myself included, when this happens and I get frustrated, I'm like, I'm not fixing this problem for you, fix it for yourself. Because I don't want to continually be involved in “Dave won't tell me where he put the toilet paper and it's not where it's supposed to be.” Whatever the issue is.

Stephanie Goss:
How about “Dave didn't put the toilet paper roll on the roll holder.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's what it was, okay. But here's the thing. For headspace, you have got to frame this problem correctly. The problem cannot be, “Dave didn't do what he was supposed to do with the toilet paper and I need to fix it.” The problem has to be “Carol and Dave are not communicating, and I'm going to fix the Carol and Dave communicating problem.” And then the toilet paper, which is not a real problem, it's a symptom of the other problem which is communication, that's going to go away. And all the future symptoms are going to away.
Because if you keep focusing on what they're complaining about, you're playing whack-a-mole with symptoms that keep popping up again and again and again. And they will never end until you recognize the real problem is not that Dave parked in Carol's favorite parking space, it is that they don't know how to talk to each other and there's no end to the conflict they're going to have until they figure out how to talk to each other.
And that, my friends, that is a finite problem that you can involve yourself in, that you can set deliverables and timelines and metrics on. And you can attack it like a project, and you can do it and you can have it done, and then you can make it clear that the project has moved beyond your hands and they now have the skills to solve their own issues. And you can be out, but you have to recognize the distinction between those things or this is going to feel like a hopeless, frustrating thing.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes, and I think part of it from a headspace perspective is recognizing… I liken it a little bit to being a parent and that your job is never done. And I think one of the mistakes that I made from a headspace perspective was thinking, okay, if I teach them all these skills, then at some point I can brush my hands and walk away and I won't have to deal with the problems.
And you're spot on, that when we teach them how to communicate, then the job becomes significantly easier. And I think that need to be a coach sometimes is never going to go away.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, never.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that there are a lot of people who lean into, oh well, if I teach them these things, then I won't have to do this part of the job. It'll take care of itself. And the reality is that's part of your job. It will always be there. There will always be the need to be the guardrails and be a support system. And there will be times where you will have to say, what are your tools? Let's review them. Let's go through this. Because it's like being a parent. It never stops. It's always there. Even when they grow up and leave the house, you're still worried about it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, when we were talking earlier, so you and I started off this podcast and we were talking about having a potty mouth. And how sometimes it gets bad and sometimes it's not so bad. And then we talked about the frustration that you feel when people come and they're like, they're having this problem, and it's really easy to not be kind or to be really angry.
And sometimes we're in a good headspace and we just handle it. And I was really thinking, you know what's true? And I was trying to be really honest at the beginning and say, “I have 100% screwed this up.” And I do these headspace things because I have to get into this headspace. The analogy now that I'm thinking about it is a lot of management, a lot of people management, a lot of leadership, a lot of communication, it's like eating healthy.
Where you can get into the habit of it and it's good and you can know all the things, but eating healthy every day all day is really, really hard.
And most of us, we have times when we're doing a good job and we're eating healthy, and then we have other times when we're not eating, we fall off the wagon a bit. I think that that's leadership and I think that's honest. And the idea that we're going to do this and then we're not going to have to manage anymore, that's like saying I'm going to eat healthy and then I'm not going to have to worry about it anymore.
It's like, no, it's an ongoing constant thing that you're going to have to pay attention to and you're going to have to have some discipline. And you're going to fail sometimes, and you're going to have to not beat yourself up. And get back up and just say, “Hey, I'm going to get back on to eating a little bit better.”
Same thing with our patients and our people. It really never goes away. And I think that's good in setting expectations so that we can be kind to ourselves.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And I think the other piece of that from a bright light perspective as a leader is that the good news is is that when we actually take the time to tend and nurture this and we teach the team the skills and they become over time masters at those skills themselves, you create that cultural foundation where now instead of you being the person who has to do all the teaching, now you have multiple teachers who can help bring new people into the fold and teach them those same skills. And now it's not all on your shoulders.
And so for me, that was the driving force for me. It's like I don't want to have to be the only one to do this anymore or feel this way. I want to be able to teach them, not only these two who might be having the problem right here, right now, I want to teach them those skills, but I want to create a foundation where the expectation from within the team is we are going to use these skills and they are going to help create and drive that culture moving forward.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, and that is the positive. I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying you're on a hamster wheel, and you're going to work really hard at being a good leader and good communicator and a good listener, but ultimately it doesn't go anywhere and it never gets easier. And you're always going to be struggling.
You're always going to be working hard. I heard this thing recently that I really like, where life is uncertainty, pain, and hard work. And it just is, and it never goes away. And that's always part of it. And I do think that that's important for just to recognize that that's what it means to be alive. And at the same time, when you do a good job in these regards, when you eat healthy, if you will, ultimately you build healthy habits in your team and people around you. And you train other people how to treat each other.
And so when you fall off the wagon, it's not that big a deal cause other people didn't. You know what I mean? It's not systemic. If you have good relationships with your people and you've trained them to be autonomous and you've trained them to be responsible and good communicators, and then you have a bad day, the wheels aren't going to fall off. You have a bad month, you have a bad quarter, you have a tough year, which some of us have tough years. If you have manifested your values for long enough and you've got good people, and got them to buy into how we treat each other and our values, you can have a bad year.
And that doesn't mean you're a jerk every day, but it means you have hard days. Things won't fall apart. But you have to build that and you build that with a consistency.
So anyway, that's where I want to try to get my head in this is I don't want to blow my face off by getting really frustrated. This is probably going to happen when other things are happening and when I'm already stressed, it just is. That's not imaginary, that's how it is. And I need to accept that this is not the Karpman drama triangle, because I'm not going to fix their problem. I'm going to figure out what the underlying issue is, which is communication.
And I'm going to coach them and help them solve their own problems. But my part, I'm going to go in, I want to fix this issue, and I'm hoping that it's going to stay fixed. And I know that there's going to be breakdowns, there's going to be setbacks, there's going to be times that we may still need some attention on this problem, but for the most part I really want to try to address this as teaching them how to fish for themselves as opposed to me showing up every day and fixing problems and feeding them.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There's a lot of food metaphors going on right now, and they're mixed. There's some fishing.

Stephanie Goss:
My stomach is healthy growling. You're making me hungry.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. It's like you go, “Oh, is fish health food? Is that what he's talking about?”
It's not that deep. I'm mixing metaphors. I'm sorry.
Okay, let's take a break here, and then we're going to come back and let's talk about how we actually do this.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay, sounds good.
Have you done it yet? Have you headed over to the Uncharted website? The one that's at unchartedvet.com/events, and have you clicked on that link for the April conference?
If you haven't, friends, you need to head over and click on that link, and then you need to hit the register button. Because I want to see you with us in sunny Greenville, South Carolina.
In less than 80 days, we are going to be diving deep into tackling internal communications this spring. We want to talk about how do we improve our communications amongst our teams in a whole myriad of ways. How do we set boundaries? How do we have conversations about affordability of pet care and communications outwardly towards our clients as a result? How do we use language and maybe think about changing some of the language we're using to have better communication as a team?
Just previews of some of the awesome stuff that we're going to be talking about. So if you haven't done the thing, if you haven't put your fingers to your keyboard and typed unchartedvet.com/events, go do it now. Because I have hugs waiting for you in Greenville and you should not miss out on this.
And now back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, so let's go back and let's get into having this conversation. So we need to help these guys communicate with each other.
And you do this really well, Stephanie, as far as setting ourselves up for success and having conversations that are going to work with people. The first thing that you need to do, and this is where a lot of people get it wrong, be intentional about the time and the place that you do this. And it is really easy for, Dave comes in and goes, “Brad's doing the thing again and he won't stop.”
And I go, “Damn it, Brad.” And I jump up, I spin around in my chair, then I hop up, I charge out. And I go, “We're doing this now.”
And of course, Brad's trying to actively do something and this is no time to have this conversation. And it's a delicate conversation and I'm defusing a bomb with a hammer and then I make it worse. And then somebody's feelings are hurt and they feel unappreciated and unheard.
And then I got to sort that out before I actually get into trying to fix this going forward. I've literally made another problem for myself. And anyway, if this sounds like the voice of experience, totally not, I've never done anything like this. Never had an issue or a setback like this at all.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh man. Okay, so I love where you're going with this. I would love to take one step back from a starting point perspective and say, so the question was do we mediate? Do we let them talk it out themselves?
And I think where you're going is how do we teach them tools while mediating to get them to communicate with each other?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
And I would say, I think one of the most powerful lessons that I ever learned about coaching and being a leader was the value in stopping, what you were saying, taking not right now, but still engaging with them. And so now the most useful tool for me is when someone comes in, I give them my attention.
So it is an interruption to me, but I'm going to give them my attention and then I'm going to ask them, did they have the conversation with the other person?
And now our colleague from the community said they've acknowledged that they're not talking to each other. But it is very powerful and impactful for me to be able to ask my team, “did you talk to the other person already?”
Because when they say, “No, I did not,” or, “No, I'm really mad and I can't talk to them about it right now.” Cool, let's talk through what you might want to say and how you might want to say it so that you feel prepared to have that conversation.
Because I think that for me, jumping into the mediating didn't remove me enough from the Karpman drama triangle. I was still jumping into hero mode because I was jumping in to help them solve the problem. And yes, I was doing the thing and teaching them the communication tools and ultimately making it better, but the road was significantly longer to get there because I was still trying to jump into that hero role and solve their problems.
And so I think one of the most powerful tools is recognizing that this can be a coaching opportunity one-on-one before it moves into a coaching opportunity you with the two of them together.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, interesting. Okay, I have to think about that. I hear what you're saying. I think my take would be, so the two options given were, do you let them work it out? Do you mediate the issue? And the answer to that is neither. It's neither.
You don't just let them go and work it out, because if they don't have the tools.

Stephanie Goss:
They won't work it out.

Dr. Andy Roark:
They're just going to damage each other more and it's going to get worse.
Mediating the issue of Brad parked in my parking spot, that's not of interest to me either. So in my experience, and you're not wrong. I guess it's probably your personal style. I have to think about it a little bit. I think for me, my take would be I'm going to bring them together and lay the foundation of trust. And I'm going to work on trust and start with ways of working, and then follow those with individual coaching as opposed to doing individual coaching and then bringing them together.
I don't think you're wrong. I think it's what you want to do. Let's explore this a little bit more and I want to figure out where our ideas differ here.
So for me, I want to bring them together and work on them. They're going to have to have this conversation. And so for me, time and place. I want to make sure that when we have this conversation of how are we working… It's a ways of working conversation. But when we have our ways of working conversation, do we have enough time? It should not be in between appointments. It should not be 15 minutes before the start. There should be some time.
And then also it's the place. I want to set them up for success, which means I really don't want other people walking in. I don't want other people coming into the conversation asking what's going on, things like that. This is an awkward conversation to have in a break room. You don't want to have it at the front desk and other people are walking up. The manager's office feels intense to me. I would get them out of there.
I would send them to Starbucks. Our friend Brian Conrad always did that. He would just send employees who are having problems together, he would send them, he'd give them a gift card and send them to Starbucks together. And tell them not to come back until you got this figured out.
And so I do think that there's value in get them offsite, get them out of there. They can be punched in because they're working through issues, but make sure they have time and make sure that they're in a place where they can focus and talk and not feel stressed out.
So that's the first thing that I would lay down to start getting my head straight.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think that you want to lower the stakes. They're already frustrated with each other, that's the reason that they came to vent or tattle or however it felt in your mind. That's the reason that they came to you in the first place is because they're frustrated. And so being intentional about giving space to be human and whatever that looks like, but lowering the stakes for them.
Like nobody's in trouble, we're just going to have a conversation. Because you guys need to figure out how to work together, because the reality is you're both employees and I value you both. And I want you to both be here, and we've got to figure out out a way to make this easier for both of you because you're frustrated, you're frustrated. I don't want to be frustrated, so I'm willing to help you. And we have to change this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
As I think about setting this thing up and going in and what I would say, I think I changed my position. I think that I do agree with you. I think what I would say to them before they had this meeting, I think my intention before this meeting would not be to coach them necessarily, but to try to get them to empathize with the other person.
And I would say, “How do you think Carol feels about this?” Or, “If I brought her in, what do you think she would say? How do you think she's feeling? What would her frustrations be?”
And I think that those are really valuable questions to ask one-on-one separately, because if they go into this meeting in a more empathetic headspace, I do think that you're loading the deck to be more successful.
And so when we first started talking about it, I'm like, how would I coach them before they talk to each other? Now, I think you're right, but I wouldn't aim for this is what we need to do. But I think my thrust ahead of time would be to talk to both of them and try to help them empathize with each other. And then if I can get them to empathize, then I say, “Let's get together and let's talk this out.”
And if I can bring them together in an open mind frame instead of having them come together with their arms crossed, I do think that that probably sets it up as successful. I think that you're probably exactly right, that that's a worthwhile investment of time before the meeting. I think that's a good call.

Stephanie Goss:
So part of it is in what you asked them to talk about. And so I think part of it for me is yes, what is bothering you? And getting to the root of it and figuring out, what are you actually upset about? Because a lot of the times the thing, it's a symptom, like you were saying. It's not actually the thing that you're frustrated about or upset about. And so getting them to ask themselves some questions, one of which I love what you said, one of which is what else could this possibly mean? What else could possibly be going on?
Is it possible that Carol lost her keys when she was trying to get out the door this morning and then she had a flat tire, and she has had a horrible morning and she is just in a really horrible mood? And so her response to you had nothing to do with you at all, but just was a byproduct of how horrible her morning was.
Can we get them into the empathy place? And the best question for that is what else could be going on? But also the secondary question to that is what story have I told myself in my head? And I think that's a big part of the communication toolkit for me, is recognizing, because we talk a lot about assuming good intent. And I think you can't assume good intent until you ask yourself, what am I actually thinking? What story am I telling myself here?
Because usually it's not one that starts with assuming good intent. Usually we're assuming wrong on behalf of the other person. And so getting them to think about what are they actually upset about, but also is it possible that there's something else going on here?
Could they hallucinate a place where there is an alternate reality, where it is happening and it has nothing to do with them? Because that's going to get them into a head space where they are more open-minded and they are more willing to empathize with the other person. And you can't problem solve with somebody until they have the capacity to get past the emotions that they're feeling.
And so sometimes it's having that conversation with them and sometimes it's like, oh, okay, you're really upset about this. And I'm here, we can totally vent about… This is a safe space. I want to listen to you and I want to actually help you solve this problem. And so if you need to call a timeout and you need to walk away from this, especially when team members are really angry at each other, there have definitely been times where I'm like, let's take a break and let's come back to this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
It's okay that you're mad. And this has to actually become actionable, so I want to help you do that. And you can't do that when you're amped up and you're in your feelings. And so I think getting them to think about that, to move them eventually towards the place of coaching in terms of what do you actually want to get out of this? How do you want to solve the problem?
And I think that kind of conversation, especially in the beginning when you're teaching everybody these skills, I think that's where it really has to start. Because it's so much more of an uphill climb to try and make that journey together in a group of three or a group of four than it is one-on-one. Even though you're repeating the process with them each individually, it's more time on your part as the leader. That has just been easier for me to do that kind of one-on-one with them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So to restate this point maybe a different way, make sure we're on the same page. So I am on board 100% with having the conversation ahead of time. My goal in this conversation is not to convince them that they're wrong. It is to make them question if there's more to the story and to think about how the other person… They might not be a ruthless villain, they might also have a point. They might have a perception of the events, because they don't know things or maybe because they see things differently or how their experience is.
And so my point is not to make this person say, “Yeah, it's probably my fault.” It's like, nope, I just need to introduce the doubt, and make them say maybe this person isn't bad and maybe you guys just aren't communicating well.
And then that's where I would take it into a come together point. And so the way that I would do this in my mind is that encouraging, almost demanding that we assume good intent about people.
And say, “Hey, it doesn't sound like you're allowing good intentions on their part. You're assuming the worst in some ways. And how might this be a noble intention that's being misunderstood?”
And then I would set the time and the place, and say, “Let's go ahead and do this.”
So coming into this meeting, and I would bring them together. And then what I would probably do again, I'm saying this is a nagging problem. These people are not getting along. I'm assuming they've exhausted basic work it out strategies. For me, this meeting has the following agenda. And this is not something I would share with them necessarily, but for me it is.
I'm going in, the first thing is I want to state clear objectives. This is not a hangout session, it's not a therapy session. This is about us coming together to talk about how we're working. And I want us to figure out how to work together effectively and get along. And the way that I talk is going to be future facing. I'm not going to talk about what happened yesterday. I'm not going to talk about Brad and the toilet paper incident from two weeks ago.
My goal is not to be the judge of the case from last week. I'm not interested in that. I want to come along and talk about going forward, how do we communicate with each other? What's causing these issues so that we can not have them in the future. I'm not interested in guilt, I'm not interested in a fault, I'm not interested in justice.
And that's it. And I will be upfront about that. I'm going to pour a lot of praise on both of them and say, “You guys are great. I really want you here. I want you guys to work together.”
And so clear objectives, forward facing conversation. I'm going to start with the why. And I'm going to say we are here because you guys are both great. And I like you both, and I want you both to be part of our team. And I need you guys to get along and be able to work together.
And without me coming and being consistently involved, I can't be the referee for you guys. And so start with why. And beyond that we're going to move into commonality and values. And I'm going to start to say, “Look, you guys both do such a good job in these ways and you work so hard, and you're both a great fit for our practice. Because these are our practice values and you both have those values or serve those values. This is our mission and you guys both pursue that mission. You're part of the team, you do great stuff. How much you care is absolutely obvious for both of you.”
And what I'm trying to do is build this framework so they go, “Okay, I don't get along with this person, but we're not entirely different. And we do want a lot of the same things and we both want very similar outcomes at the end of the day. We both want to have a good place to work. We both do not want to be stressed. We both don't want to have to watch our backs all the time. We both want to believe we're making a difference for the pets that come in. We both want to believe that we're providing a good experience for pet owners who need us. We have a lot in common.”
And what I'm really trying to do is make the division between them feel small compared to all the things they have in common.
And so those are the things that I start laying down as I open this conversation up. And so just you know, this is what mediation with Andy looks like. What are we doing here? How are we going to go forward? I don't care about what happened in the past. I'm not going to tell them I don't care. But I'm going to say, “Look, the past is done. It's behind us. I want to go forward.”
And then I'm going to talk about why I want to go forward, it's because I think you guys are great. I'm going to talk about the values that we all share, the things we have in common. And I want to talk about those things, and that's why we're here. And so that's how I'd set this thing up to open it up. What do you think about that?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. No, I love it. I think that it is a great framework. And like you said, it doesn't have to be an agenda that they both have, but I think you have to try and work them towards feeling heard and then work them towards finding the commonality between the two of them.
And sometimes the reality is I don't have to like everybody that I work with. Sometimes you have people that you work with that you actually don't like, and that doesn't mean that you don't care about each other. Because if you both care about the work that you're doing, there can be commonality in that. And so the reality is even if you don't like them, who they are as a person, and I can't imagine a place where you or I or any of our friends would have people on their team who truly were horrible people.
That's not what we're about. We're about having good culture. And so the reality is if somebody is truly doing something that is malicious or has the intent to be mean or harmful, that's the stuff, that's my lines in the sand. That's my I'm not going to tolerate that. So I think we're not talking about that. We're talking about two people who do care about what they're doing, and maybe even about each other.
But even if they don't like each other, they still care. And so there is that commonality. And so I think finding that middle ground where they can recognize, “Hey, look, I that you wouldn't intentionally hurt my feelings or that you wouldn't intentionally be mean to me, but yet when you did this thing,” and actually calling out, what are we actually upset about?
So that's where that pre-work comes into play for me is what are they actually upset about so that you can work them to that place, like you said, of leaning into the commonality and the values to solve the problem, which is okay, is this an instance where we just have hurt feelings and you both need to resolve your hurt feelings? Does somebody need an apology from somebody else?
Is somebody actually doing something wrong? Is a job not being done? What is the actual issue and what do they both need to resolve that issue? And that for me as part of that pre-work is figuring out what is actually going on here and what do they need? And that's a very personal thing, because there are times where I'm like, I am not going to ever feel good about this situation if I don't get an apology from this other person.
If I'm mad at you, Andy, and I might be like, “Dude, I'm not going to feel good about this situation until Andy gives me an apology.” And there are plenty of times where I'm like, oh, I just need to feel like Andy sees that he hurt my feelings and then I move on with it. And it varies situationally and it changes every time.
So part of it is asking them, what do they actually need to get out of this? How do we resolve this? And making it actionable on their part in terms of how do you guys want to solve this problem? I'm not you, it has to be something that is going to work for the two of you. Because ultimately once you find that commonality, you have to drive it forward. And I love your approach of it all being future facing.
And so how do we move forward from this? What does that look like? How do we work, to your point, how do we work together? What are those ways of working? Do we need to put some rules in place for how we communicate with each other? What do we need to resolve this situation? And I think there are tools from a communication perspective that we can teach them that help with all of these things, teaching them how to actually give apologies to each other.
The reality is we are taught as children how to say the words I'm sorry, but we don't actually get the knowledge and the learning, most of us, for what actually makes up a good apology. And how do we do that without… You can apologize, it's one of my favorite things to talk about is you can apologize always. There's never a situation where you couldn't apologize for the impact that whatever happened had on someone else.
It doesn't mean that I think I'm wrong. It doesn't mean that I am even taking it back. Although lots of times want to hear how I've made another person feel, I'm like, “Oh gosh, that was not my intention. I did not mean that. I truly am sorry.”
And at the same time, there's also been times where people have been hacked off and I'm like, “Oh dude, that was not my intention. I'm sorry that you felt that way. And I don't think that what I did was wrong.”
It doesn't mean that you're acknowledging you did something bad, which is something that I had to learn. You don't learn that in communication as a child. And so I think that's part of it for me is teaching them those ongoing tools so that they can start to recognize how they create that relationship together, even if they don't actually like each other, because they don't all have to be friends.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree. I think where we go after, so the commonality groundwork stuff is 100% dependent on what's going on. And I completely agree with you. I don't know how to make a structure to say, “And then you say this.”
I really like your idea of what's going on? What do we need to go forward? I will tell you there are a number of tools that can make this conversation so much easier. And I'm not saying you should have all of these, but you can. A few of the tools that I like and have had a lot of success with is we use DISC in Uncharted. Sure. We used it for our employees and Stephanie teaches it in some of our communication training stuff.
It's a thing that we use to help people work together. And we use it in exam room training and communication training. If you are having team members that are having hard times communicating with each other, DISC is great.

Stephanie Goss:
Super helpful.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's generally very affordable. It's a staff meeting. You can do it in a staff meeting.

Stephanie Goss:
Because it's not about right or wrong. That's what I love about DISC. It's not about right or wrong, it's about how we feel and learning how to take how other people receive information and change what we're doing to have a better approach. It's not a negative thing. That's part of what I love about it so much.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's exactly right. Everyone's got different communication styles, and I feel like you can use DISC to unlock a lot. If you have that doctor that is just dominant or just bulldozes people, that person may be a high D personality. And if you say, “Hey, this is what you are and this is what other people are, and this is how they communicate and how they like to be communicated with. And because of that, they see you as an intimidating person or they're feeling bulldozed by your communication style.”
And then you can also say to the person who feels bulldozed, “Hey, you're not wrong. This is the style this person has. No, it's not because they don't like you. It's not because they think you're stupid. It's because this is their communication style.”
And that doesn't mean that's okay, but it does mean that this is where they're coming from. And it's a nice tool to open those conversations up about why we communicate in different ways. And so DISC, D-I-S-C, you can find it and check it out, but we use it for Uncharted in our team and we use it when we teach exam room communication stuff.

Stephanie Goss:
And I love, because it takes… When you have two people who have different communication styles, ultimately it goes back to what I was saying, which is how are we going to move forward? When you look at DISC and you look at the different styles, you learn, how do we meet in the middle, somewhere in the middle. Maybe it's more one-sided than the other, but how do we both move from where we are to move forward in the future?
It's like how do you take those differences and make something new with it? And I think it goes along with how do we solve this problem? How do we meet in the middle? And I think it's a super, super helpful tool.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The second tool I'd put out here is languages of appreciation. Being able to get positive reinforcement that other people feel, that's an important part of building a relationship. If nothing that you say to the person is seen positively, if you can't make them smile, then you're always starting at neutral. And it's really easy to go down, but you don't know how to make it go up. You don't know how to gain brownie points in that person's eye if you don't know how they like to be appreciated.
And so just having a general way in your staff where you try to assess how people like to be appreciated, it's just a smart investment. It's part of onboarding. I really like it a lot. And Stephanie and I have talked about this a number of times in different episodes, but it's questions like, tell me about a time that you felt really celebrated.
Tell me about a time that you felt really appreciated for a job well done. What did that look like? And I'm trying to figure out, is this an affirmation person? Is this a gift person? Is this a service person? Meaning if you want to make me feel appreciated, jump in and help me. My wife and I have two very different styles. I am a verbal affirmation person. I want you to tell me I'm doing a good job. And my wife is a service person. She wants you to jump in and help.
And I can't tell you how many times early in our marriage, I'd be like, “You're amazing.” And she's like, “Why don't you shut up and help me?” And not really that, but that was basically what it came down to was I am pouring out verbal affirmation for her, and all she wants is for me to come and be involved in the project that she's doing so she can get done.
And it's funny, I'm like, “Oh, I'm happy to do the work by myself. I just want you to tell me that you appreciate me and I'm doing great, and I'm awesome.
She's like, “I don't need you to tell me I'm awesome. I need you to come and help me do the thing, because that shows me that I'm appreciated.”
So anyway, I just used that as an example of different styles. And so anyway, languages of appreciation, if you're interested in that stuff there's a book called Five Languages Of Appreciation In The Workplace, and you can check that out.
But I do like to ask the staff how they like to be appreciated because that can help us to appreciate each other. And then the last thing is a good old fashioned ways of working conversation or a ways of working tool form kit thing, thingamajig.
Yeah, it's not a formal thing. This is a thing you make yourself. But basically it is worth the time to ask people, how do you like to receive feedback? What's important to you a when you about… When you do a good job, how do you want to hear about it?
If someone wants to give you feedback, how do you like to get feedback? Do you like to just get it directly? Do you like to have it come later on? What are the expectations that you like to have in and around your work and around how we communicate? And again, that plugs into the disc thing as well, but I just think anything that we can work on and just say, “Do you want to have one-on-ones? Do you like to have check-in meetings? How do you feel engaged? How do you feel informed? How much oversight do you have? How much do you like people to check over your shoulders?”
Things like that. If you can get some sort of a sense of how people work, a lot of times their ways of working can be very different. And you end up with someone who says, “I love when people check after me. I want to make sure I'm doing everything right.”
And you have someone else who says, “I hate when people check up after me. Just tell me what you want from me and leave me alone.” And those are not wrong. They're not bad people. But when we have someone who says, “I really like to have people check up on everything I do.”
I go, “Okay, how do I get this person to be able to work more autonomously so we don't have to do that?” And people who say, “I never want to be checked up on, how do I get this person to understand, I don't want you to go too far off the rails before anybody notices and comes along to have to make adjustments about things that maybe you just didn't know about.”
And so anyway, if I don't know that that's how you'd like to work or what your ways of working style is, it's really hard for me to help you. And so having those conversations ahead of time can be valuable.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think it's really important, because they're all tools that help them develop empathy for one another, that you're asking them to look at things that help find the common ground. And imagine a place where they could put themselves in the other person's shoes, which is honestly the best tool that I have ever found for getting them to communicate better. Is what does middle grounds look like and how do we get there? And so I think all of those are great resources, because you got to get them to be able to empathize with each other.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree. And so that's what that conversation looks like. It's definitely, I'm not trying to get to the bottom of it. It really is, “Hey, so how do we go forward and communicate? And what do you guys need from each other?”
And honestly, at this point, I might leave the meeting and be like, “Hey, I want to leave you guys here. I want to let you guys just talk it through how you work together, what you need from each other, how you can be happy working together, how you guys can respect each other and collaborate? And when you guys get it all worked out or when you feel good and you guys feel like you have a groundwork for being collaborative and being happy together, then come on back.”
And at that point, because they do need to work through it on their own. And I don't want to be there holding their hand until the end. But I can facilitate this, get it started, talk about why we're doing this and what we need. Give them some tools, and then step away and let them work on it and work on how they want to communicate and how they want to work so that they feel good. And anyway, that's how I would set it up.

Stephanie Goss:
I think the two last pieces that go with that is then you have to know that there're going to be slip-ups; we're human. And you're not going to jump from radical miscommunication to perfection. And so recognizing when there are slip-ups, being able to come back to the foundation that they created together and remind them, “Hey, we talked about this before and this was what you guys agreed you were going to do. Have you done that thing?”
And then the last piece is you got to catch it when it's going good. And so it becomes your job as the leader to start to pay attention to this and call it out. And with the hope that they get excited about the wins. And that's the real Yoda place for me is when they come tell me, “Hey, this thing happened today and instead of getting pissed off at each other, this is what we did to solve it. And I just wanted you to know.”
Because when they feel proud of that, and that comes from training like we would any other simple animal, which is rewarding when the good happens. And so I think that as our job is not just to give them the tools and then walk away, and go, Jesus, take the wheel. That's not how we operate. We have to be able to say, “Hey guys, you guys did a great job today. How do you think this week went?” And have those follow-up conversations to keep that the good ball rolling.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. All right, guys, that's all we got. I hope it's helpful.

Stephanie Goss:
Have a great week, everybody. Take care.
Well gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mail bag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mail bag.
If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message.
You can always find the mail bag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com.
Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.