This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…
When you become the boss, can you still be friends with your team? This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are talking through a mailbag letter signed “Another Lonely Manager”. This manager transitioned from being a tech to being the boss and they are struggling with two questions – Can you expect to continue to be friends with your co-workers when you are promoted and become their boss? And how do you deal with feeling like a lonely leader at work? Let’s get into this…
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving into another letter from the mailbag. We got a letter from another lonely leader. This is a manager who came up from the floor and has transitioned into the boss role and they are feeling a little lonely at the top. They are wondering, can you continue to be friends with your coworkers after becoming promoted and becoming their boss? More than that, how do you deal with these lonely feelings?
Stephanie Goss:
Man, this resonates. This is something both Andy and I have experienced and struggled with at points in our career. We're going to share some personal stories with you along with rolling this out as we do from a headspace and plan of attack perspective. Let's get into this one, shall we? And now the Uncharted Podcast.
Andy Roark:
We are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie. (singing)
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, fantastic. I always love it when you sing for us. How's it going, Andy Roark?
Andy Roark:
Some of them, I'm like, “If I just say it, I'm on the outside and I'm looking in, it doesn't convey the emotion.”
Stephanie Goss:
So much better when you sing.
Andy Roark:
(singing). My favorite one to sing, it's not Michael Bolton, but the guy that sounds like… He's like, (singing).
Stephanie Goss:
Can you please go to Uncharted Karaoke?
Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. I will sing comedically all day long. I will not sing anything that actually attempt to carry a tune. I can't carry a tune a bucket. Oh. But I will 100% do bad impersonations.
Stephanie Goss:
So fun.
Andy Roark:
Singing other songs. Michael McDonald, that's who it was.
Stephanie Goss:
So fun. So fun.
Andy Roark:
(singing) Okay. People are like, “Why do we get this podcast?
Stephanie Goss:
What is happening? We're back.
Andy Roark:
If you ever wonder what the Uncharted staff meetings are like, this is what they're like. All right. I'm just kidding. We're high-performing, high-functioning adults.
Stephanie Goss:
Until Jamie's like, “For the love of all that is holy, can we please get back on topic?”
Andy Roark:
No, that's the real truth of it, is we are surrounded by high-performing, high-functioning adults.
Stephanie Goss:
And we are not.
Andy Roark:
And we've empowered them. That's exactly what it's. All right. That's it. That's really the whole secret. All right. Let's-
Stephanie Goss:
So fun. So fun. This episode is going to be fun. The mailbag has been on fire. First of all, I want to say thank you to all of you guys, because our listeners have been just shooting off emails to the mailbag left and right, which is amazing. We have got some good stuff. We got an email from another lonely leader, which is so good and I am so excited to break this one down with you today.
Andy Roark:
I love a lonely leader email. I'm like, “Yes, let's do this.”
Stephanie Goss:
It is lonely at the top. This is from another lonely leader. They have been commiserating recently with a fellow manager about how they are feeling excluded from feeling a personal connection with the rest of the team. The manager started out as a technician and then still in the beginning of being a manager, worked on the floor regularly. So they were still seen as a technician by the rest of the team, even though they were the manager.
Stephanie Goss:
Over the last couple of years, they have moved into a true manager role and are not on the floor. At the same time that has been happening, they have had some team turnover. And so, now the manager's long-time friends have been replaced, to a degree, with a lot of new coworkers. And so, in the past, this manager was always included when people went out for drinks outside of work, or went out for dinner after a long day. Now that they are not working on the floor and they are in just a manager role, they're not invited when the team is getting together outside of work.
Stephanie Goss:
And so, the question was, can you expect to be friends with your coworkers when you get promoted and become their boss? And how do you deal with feeling lonely and a leader at work?
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, man. I-
Stephanie Goss:
I thought this was such a great one.
Andy Roark:
This is a great question, and I've gotten this a number of times in a lot of different ways.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
I have strong feelings and thoughts on it. I'll just say up front, they are maybe a bit controversial and I understand that. The first thing I will say is, every clinic is different and we all make different decisions. But I will show you some scars and I will tell you some stories. I will tell you why I think what I think and why I recommend what I recommend.
Stephanie Goss:
Fair. I like it. I like it.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I don't even know how to necessarily break this part into headspace and action steps. It's almost like a philosophy sort of thing.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
Let me start with some headspace.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Andy Roark:
And then we'll do a plan of attack. But this is probably more headspace than actual action steps.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Andy Roark:
Okay. Let's put cards on the table so that people can look at the reality of the situation. And so, the first card I'll put down is I'll say, hey, we spend a lot of time at the vet clinic with people. In fact, we spend probably more than 40 hours a week, especially as practice managers, practice owners. We're there a lot.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
And we want to have good relationships with our staff. We want them to trust us. We want them to see us as a friend. We want them to believe in us and to be comfortable around us. We want them to enjoy being at work and us treating them well and making them feel included. That's part of making them feel good at work. When we go to work, we want to work in a happy place. We want to work in a place where we feel included, you know what I mean, where we have some relationships and some connections to people.
Andy Roark:
And so, that's true and we need to put that on the table and look at it. The second thing we have to put on the table and look at is, there is a power differential between the managers and the employees. And as much as we like to pretend it's not there, it is there.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
The fact that you could give this person a raise or cut them from their job and put them on unemployment, that's real and they know it. You have a hat on your head that says, “I can fire you.” I know you don't want that hat, and if you do want that hat, you're probably a jerk and you should change. You should change your… Yeah, that's not a thing you should [crosstalk 00:07:32]-
Stephanie Goss:
If you want to wear that hat-
Andy Roark:
If you want to wear that hat, you should probably not have that hat. Someone should liberate you of that hat. Because most of us, we don't want that. It's not how we want to be seen. But there is some credibility to the idea that it is there.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
And whether you do like it or not, that is real. We have different jobs and I think that's just an important thing to put down. And so, when we start to say, “Hey, can I be friends with these people?” I think that's the first question, right? Can I be friends with these people? Do you agree with that?
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
Okay. Part of it, and I said I've gotten into hot water with this before, so here we go, is I've learned to say, “How do you define friendship?” I tend to say we should be friendly with the staff and the people who work for us. We can care very deeply about these people. But it really does come down to, how do you define friendship?
Andy Roark:
If you're someone who says, “I define friendship as, when you're my friend, I have got your back and I would never let you down,” then what I would say to you is, “Well, that's a hard spot because what if you're their boss and they send you a text that says, “I drank too much last night. I'm not coming in today.” You go, “Oh.” Are you their friend now? Are you going to be like, “Hey, yeah, you and me are cool. I won't tell anybody.” Or are you going to be like, “This is not okay”? What if your friend-
Stephanie Goss:
I'm laughing because I 100%-
Andy Roark:
I know.
Stephanie Goss:
… had to go through that scenario early on in my young managing career.
Andy Roark:
Actually, that's what popped into my head, because you have a great story of being the young manager and people are like, “Woo, Steph, Todd went on last night.”
Stephanie Goss:
They were still drunk and needed to be picked up because they knew they shouldn't drive. They called me and said, “We know we have to be at work. Can you please come get us and drive us so we can change and then go to work”? It was a really crappy position because I was like, “Okay, I'm going to go.” So I drove and I picked him up, and I'm evaluating in my head and I'm thinking, “All right. They can't still be drunk, right? They made a good decision. They walked to where they were. They needed a ride. They didn't have a car. I'll go pick them up.”
Stephanie Goss:
They got in my car and I could smell the booze coming off of them. I was like, “You cannot come to work.” I would be a failure at my job if I let you come to work today and had to navigate those waters of having that conversation and saying, “Go home. I will take you home, take a shower, sleep it off. I will see you tomorrow and we'll have a conversation.” It is hard, hard, hard, hard thing to navigate having those conversations.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Could you tell your friend that you're not going to give them the raise that they thought they were going to get? Could you sit your friend down and do a performance evaluation, with your friend? Again, a lot of it comes down to, how do you define your friends? I need to make that really clear. It's like, I care so deeply about my employees. I mean really deeply, but I have to have a personal boundary there too to say… Do I treat them like friends? Of course, I do.
Andy Roark:
Do I care deeply about them? Yeah, I care as much or more about them than I care about people I do define as friends. But for whatever reason, for me, in my mind, I have to define my relationship with them differently, because I have to balance their needs against each other. I don't want to pick favorites.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
I don't want to have one of my employees is my friend and the other employees not, because that puts me in a hard place and it opens me up for charges of favoritism. I go, “Well, I don't want people to have those thoughts.” Yeah. There's a lot of downsides to me being one of the buddies or one of the friends. And so, again, I don't like conflict. It is just a thing about me. I want to balance all the things and that's a personal line for me that I had to step back from and saying, “I have not been able to think of the people that I directly lead as my friends,” and make that work out in my mind where I felt okay about it, and it didn't get me into trouble.
Stephanie Goss:
I agree and I disagree with you.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, yeah. It's hard. Yeah, go ahead.
Stephanie Goss:
You and I are both in the same camp. My style as a manager is that I am for friendly with my team, but I generally do not have friends. I don't consider my work friends in the same way that I would consider friends outside of work, meaning that while I might do social things in a group setting at work, like I'm not going to go out to the movies or go to the bar with people that I work with other than an organized work function. That's just my personal preference.
Andy Roark:
Sure.
Stephanie Goss:
I have friends who are managers, who are the total polar opposites, who consider some of their team members their best friends. I will say this, I believe really and truly that the dynamic always changes-
Andy Roark:
Yes.
Stephanie Goss:
… when you shift from a peer role to a management role, always without exception. There is always a dynamic shift. I do think that you can stay friends. However, I think that that requires excellent communication skills and very strong boundaries. Generally, those are two very difficult things to possess, and they are skills that take a lot of practice. And so, for most people, they go through a period transitioning from peer to boss, of going through difficult experiences where they learn about the shortcomings of their own or their counterparts, communication skills boundaries or both.
Stephanie Goss:
And for a lot of us, it winds up in the place where we are hurt, or we have a dissolving of friendships. And so, that was me. I tried, and for quite a few years, remained good friends and I would even say best friends with some of my colleagues or my peers, even after I was their manager. Then I went through a period where I had to make decisions and lead things that were not popular and tell them things that they didn't want to hear and have those hard conversations.
Stephanie Goss:
“You're not performing the way that I need you to be,” and have the disciplinary conversations, or the salary conversations or the, “Hey, I am suspending you. I'm going to drop you at home. I'm glad you called me and I'm glad you didn't drive drunk, and I really do appreciate that. You're suspended. Stay home for the next three days and then we're going to have a conversation about this when you come back to work.”
Stephanie Goss:
Having those hard conversations led me to a place where, on a personal level, my choice is I am friendly with my team and I have firm boundaries for myself. I generally don't socialize as social friends with the team members that I work with. That works for me. I also have respect for friends and for people who choose to live that differently and continue to be friends with their team. I will tell you that it does require excellent communication skills and boundaries, because the dynamic always changes.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. There's not a right or wrong way, although there are definitely ways that expose you to a lot more risk. One of the things I heard recently that actually blew my mind is you and I have… I think they'll be fine with me sharing names and stuff, but you Jen Galvin and Erica Cartwright are partners that own a practice. From the outside, it seems to be a great practice. They are two of my favorite people, and they are in such lockstep. I've done it for five years through Uncharted, working with them in their practice.
Andy Roark:
Jen especially has done some and teaching and lecturing with us. She's so smart and so sharp. I can't say enough good things about both of them. They were so tight, and they wear… They've come to Uncharted dressed as the dumb and dumber, blue and orange tuxedos. If anybody remembers those. I love them so much. We had our first ever practice owner summit in December, which was just practice owners, and those guys were there.
Andy Roark:
We were sitting and talking and everything, and they mentioned that they don't hang out outside of work. I was like, “What? You guys don't hang?” They were like, “No, it's just, we've decided it's better for us if I… We love each other at work. We hang out with each other. We are a lockstep. We work hard. And then we've been able to be such good partners because we go home and don't interact. We put our stuff aside and give each other a break from each other.” I thought that there was a lot of wisdom in that.
Stephanie Goss:
They do stuff together as a team.
Andy Roark:
Yes.
Stephanie Goss:
Their team socially interacts and engages regularly. They take their team on trips. They do stuff together and they have that sacred space of, we're going to go home and we're going to… They do do things together and have some social aspects to their relationship. They have really great communication of like, “I'm going to go home and I'm not going to talk to you for the next three days, unless the world is truly on fire because I need a break from you.” I respect those healthy boundaries so, so much,
Andy Roark:
Well, even not getting to the point where it's like, “I need a break from you.” It's, “If I don't take these breaks, then I will get to a place where I need a break from you.
Stephanie Goss:
Right. Right.
Andy Roark:
And if I do take these breaks, I will show up excited to see you and work together.” It's funny. I think you put your finger on one, which is the guaranteed shift you're going to see when you go from working with peers to managing peers. I agree with that. I think that there's also a shift that happens for sure with practice size. I think that when you're running the one to three vet practice and you've got 20 employees or less, you can probably be friends with everybody, you know what I mean? And it seems a whole lot easier.
Andy Roark:
But once you cross that threshold of about probably 20 employees, there's going to be people that your personality doesn't match up with, or you're going to have enough people who are vying for opportunities and things that there start to be some politics involved and friendship in politics. Friendship across the power dynamic, and politics, those things together, I think that make it exponentially harder. I think you see this a lot less in the bigger practices.
Andy Roark:
I can't prove that. I don't have research to back that up, but that has been my experiences. When you have a small practice, everybody works together, communicates, huddles together. You tend to build and maintain those relationships. And then, as the practice grows, it gets a bit harder. Favoritism becomes something that people look for a little bit more and it makes a difference. Again, you and I, we talk so much about our management philosophies, and we talk a lot about picking your poison.
Andy Roark:
We talk a lot about management and leadership being the ability and the constitution, the fortitude to make hard decisions. There's often you're making choices that don't have a great answer. You're choosing between two-
Stephanie Goss:
Crappy choices.
Andy Roark:
… unfavorable options.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. You just are, and that's I think probably why the Uncharted community comes together and why the listeners on the podcast come together. It feels good to know that you're not the only one who's making hard decisions and making these choices. It's hard for me in relationship management to make unpopular choices and have the people affected by those choices be… I don't know, to feel like I have the responsibility of friendship to those people.
Andy Roark:
I can care very much about them and still make the unpopular decision or the hard call and say, “I know you're not going to like this decision, but I'm going to make it.” I think in your mind, the way you think about your relationship with the people that you lead, I think it's very important. Again, I try to avoid military metaphors or things, but I have a friend who went to officer training school. He's in the Marine Corps and went to Afghanistan.
Andy Roark:
We talked about it. In officer training school, they don't hang out with the troops and they don't eat with the troops. They eat with the other officers. The reason is because, hey, at some point, things might go badly and I'm going to have to make hard choices. And I don't want to be connected as a friend. That doesn't mean that they don't care about their people. The opposite is true.
Andy Roark:
But I don't want to push it that far in vet medicine, but I do think, to me, knowing that I don't like making unpopular decisions, there is some level of that too of, I don't want to be so tightly intertwined with people that my choices affect their life. For example, your best friend's a technician and he makes $17 an hour, and you have the ability to give him $1.50 an hour raise. That's a significant thing in his life, and you have that power.
Andy Roark:
If you're his friend, then it seems obvious that you're going to say. But that's not how this works because that means someone else doesn't get that raise and we need to look at, what is our system for deciding these things? Anyway, there's all these strings. I hope that makes sense when I say that the fact that you have… If we never had to make unpopular decisions, if we never had to pick priorities over other priorities, I think it would be a whole lot easier.
Andy Roark:
But the truth is, ultimately, especially as you go down the road and you grow a business, you have to make those calls. I think you can have very healthy relationships with people that you care a lot about, but just the way that you categorize those in your mind, that's important.
Stephanie Goss:
There's two other things that I think are really important. I agree with you 100% because we're going to make decisions that are not popular. I honestly love that you brought up the military reference because it's true. When you're a leader, you have to evaluate people, situations, performance, sometimes really quickly or under pressure, and equality matters.
Stephanie Goss:
It does not go well for anybody when there is an environment where equality doesn't matter in the workplace and where favorites are played, and there is that internal, “They are biased. They like this person better than me. This person got $1.50 an hour raise and there's no transparency as to why.” That never works out well for anybody. And so, I think that there is a significant value in that reference that you gave and I love it.
Stephanie Goss:
The other thing that I want to say is, look, it's totally normal to feel rejected. It sucks. When you're used to being included, and you're used to being part of the party, and you're used to everybody saying, “Hey, we're not going to leave without Stephanie. Let's help you get your work done so we can all go have drinks at the bar,” the first time, the first 10 times that you're in your office and you come out and all the lights are off and you walk outside…
Stephanie Goss:
This was me. We literally had a Mexican food place right across the street from one of my practices. The whole front of the building was glass. I came outside and the clinic was totally dark. I walked outside and I could see everybody sitting together at a table having drinks and dinner. I felt so left out and so rejected. And so, I want to normalize that for you guys because it sucks.
Stephanie Goss:
It sucks the first time. It sucks the tenth time and everywhere in between. That is normal. It's going to feel crappy and it's okay to feel sad about that. Or any other emotions that you might feel, angry… They're all valid emotions. And so, again, this is where I'm going to be vulnerable and say, “One of the best things for helping me succeed at making that transition and continuing to grow in feeling good about the choices that I have made as a leader and as a boss is going to therapy.”
Stephanie Goss:
And so, I took my ass to the therapist and talked through those emotions and said… It really hurt. I did not want to go back to work the next day and face them because I felt so… I was sad, but I was also angry. I was like, “Really? You guys left me out? This really sucks.” And so, being able to work through that is really important. And so, I have to normalize that for a hot second.
Stephanie Goss:
The other thing I think that I see from a headspace perspective, that's really, really important to consider, and this can be a soapbox for us, and so I think we have to be careful here from a time perspective. But one of the things that has shifted dramatically now is that social media and smartphones have connected us in a way or unlike anything we have seen before. And when I started managing almost 20 years ago, that wasn't a thing like.
Stephanie Goss:
I was connected with my university friends on Facebook. I didn't know anybody else on Facebook. That was what we used it for. I didn't know what the rest of my team was doing outside of work, unless I called them on their phone at home. And if they weren't in their house, I didn't talk to them. I could page them and maybe they would call me back, and I'm totally dating myself here. But the reality was, unless we were actually physically in the same space, I didn't know what was happening.
Stephanie Goss:
One of the things that I see a lot of managers struggle with now, is we are so connected and a lot of us are connected by our phones, by social media, by text messages. It is really easy for two things to happen. One, it's really easy for you to feel more left out because you're seeing and hearing things that are happening, that you wouldn't have seen or necessarily heard about otherwise.
Stephanie Goss:
You also are knowing more about what is happening in your team's personal lives in a way that you didn't necessarily before. I mean, let's be real, the OR has always been a confessional room and there's always been dirty secrets shared in surgery, but the reality was it was like those were where you had the deep conversations. Then you didn't hear about all of that drama as much as, “Hey look, I just opened Facebook, and oh, hey, Sarah called out sick today. But look, here she is sitting on a beach with a drink in her hand. What the hell?”
Stephanie Goss:
We have access to that kind of information. That alone has dramatically shifted the dynamics of people being friends with their boss. That's a position I've been in where I've been friends with somebody or friendly with somebody and have been connected with them on social media, and I find out things that I didn't need to know. It's connecting us in ways that we never had before and in a timeframe that we never had before.
Stephanie Goss:
There's 24/7 access to each other and it never was that way when you had to be physically in the same building for those connections to happen. And so, I think it's important to it to have that conversation about what we are facing now as managers, going through that shift, is radically different than what it was like when I first started, and that's a hard place to be in. So I think it's really important to normalize that as well.
Stephanie Goss:
That's the devil in your pocket, comes from that connection on social media, because you will find out things that you didn't necessarily want to know. It can be a good thing and it also can really add to complicating factors in the relationship. So I think it's important to look at that.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I know. I completely agree with that. Yeah. I completely agree. To be honest, the last couple of years, social media connections with people at the clinic, staff and things, I learned more about people's politics than I wanted to know. I learned more about their entertainment taste that I wanted to know. And lots of other things that I go, “I did not need to know this.”
Andy Roark:
There's also, you and I have talked before about hiring and things, and there is a right to privacy. It doesn't matter what I think. What I think and what is the law are not the same. I think if people put things out into the world for public display, then employers should be able to look at them because they were put out into the world of free volition for public display. But that is not what the law generally says.
Stephanie Goss:
Look at you getting your gold star today.
Andy Roark:
I know. Was like but-
Stephanie Goss:
Your HR gold star.
Andy Roark:
That's not the rule, and no one asked me what the rule was and my magic wand doesn't work. You go, “Surely there's no downside to me even looking at this,” and I go, “I have to tell you, there actually is.” Anyway, we'll talk about this when we talk about some action steps. But honestly, social media is something to consider, especially if you're having these feelings of loneliness, is is this connection helping you? We'll circle back to that.
Andy Roark:
But before we take a break, I just wanted to share a story similar to yours. The story that I remember, similar to yours, going out and everybody's across the street, the Mexican restaurant. I remember, I wasn't even the boss. I was an associate vet, but I was starting to travel and speak more and do more stuff. I had cut my hours down at the clinic to part-time. And so, I was working at the clinic like two days a week, maybe two and a half days a week. It was like two days and every other Saturday, something like that.
Andy Roark:
I'll never forget the first time that I'd come in to get something at the practice and there was a doctor's meeting going on. They were just getting started. I wasn't there for the doctor's meeting, I was there for something else. Then they looked at me and then they closed the door and I was on the outside of the door.
Stephanie Goss:
Ouch.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. It wasn't that it hurt. I don't know. It was poignant. It was deeply poignant.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
It was deeply poignant because I was now out of the inner circle because of my frequency being at the practice.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
But I just want to tie that back to what you were saying and say, impermanence is part of our life, is the only constant is impermanence. For when we come back and talk about action steps, the idea that you are now in a different place and your world is different than it was before can cause an existential crisis. I think a lot of us have that moment of the door closing, of seeing our friends across the street, and it dawns on us that we're not the person that we were before, even if we feel the same way.
Andy Roark:
But let's be honest about our lives. Most of us feel the same way we did when we were 14, or when we were in college. But people don't see us the same way and we're not the same way. But everyone kept waiting for some magical event where they're like, “Now I'm a grown up,” and they were shocked it never came. So you see these external things that give you clear signs, like, oh, the past is passed and the page has turned and you're in a new chapter. A lot of times you're like, “I don't know what this chapter is.” And it feels like history has been cut off or taken away from us.
Andy Roark:
And so, anyway, I just wanted to validate that and say, “Yeah, I think a lot of us have that moment where we realize that we're not in Kansas anymore.
Stephanie Goss:
Not the same, yeah.
Andy Roark:
Things are not the same as they used to be.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I love that. I think this is a good spot. Should we take a break and then come back and talk about some action steps?
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Let's do it.
Stephanie Goss:
All right.
Andy Roark:
Hey, Stephanie Goss, you've got a second to talk about GuardianVets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. What do you want to talk about?
Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
And I'm sure you hear from these people as well, like, “Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy, and the phones just don't stop.”
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and GuardianVets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk, and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. And it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic. It was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded. Everybody is drowning in phone calls, and so, we talk about it. We've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast. And every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use them help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com. If you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardianvets.com.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Okay. Okay. It's time for read a break in here and make sure that you know about an upcoming event that you are not going to miss. Mark it on your calendar, Saturday, May 21st from two to 4:00 PM Eastern, which is 11:00 to 1:00 PM Pacific. We have got a workshop from Uncharted founding member and our friend, Dr. Tracy Sands. It is, Retaining Our Team, Speaking Languages of Appreciation in your Workplace. You know that feeling when you have done something that you thought was really nice for somebody on your team, giving them an extra weekend off, a holiday bonus, a pizza party, done a coffee run, and yet you're hearing rumors that people were not excited about it, and certainly not your level of excited about it?
Stephanie Goss:
Have you ever wondered how people could not feel appreciated by what you're doing for them? You're not alone, and that's where this workshop comes in. The truth is there's no single strategy to make your team feel appreciated and engaged as a whole. Every person has their own appreciation language. And a lot of them, especially in veterinary medicine, have nothing to do with gifts or food. Trace is going to teach about the languages of appreciation and help you unlock figuring out how to motivate, train, and retain your team.
Stephanie Goss:
It's a two-hour workshop. It is live and interactive. You're going to really enjoy this. You can get on board. It's $99 for members of the public. So if you're not an Uncharted member, you can still attend. If you are an Uncharted member, it's free, but you do have to register. So head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and you can find the registration information. Again, it's Saturday, May 21st from 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern, 11:00 to 1:00 PM Pacific. You're not going to don't want to miss this one.
Stephanie Goss:
Real quick, before we get back to the podcast, I just have to say a few thank yous. First of all, I have to give our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital a huge shout-out of appreciation. They stepped up to the plate this year for Andy and I, and really the veterinary community as a whole in a big way. They are helping us make our podcast more accessible to the entire veterinary community. They're helping us provide transcripts for every episode of both the Uncharted veterinary podcast and the Cone of Shame Podcast for the entire year.
Stephanie Goss:
It falls right in Banfield's wheelhouse of striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. If you know someone who would like to access the podcast and hasn't been able to because we previously didn't have transcripts, send them to unchartedvet.com/blog. And if you would love to check out more information about equity, inclusion, and diversity at Banfield, you can head on over to the blog too. You'll find every episode transcript along with more information about E, I, and D at Banfield.
Stephanie Goss:
Lastly, I want to say, this is certainly not a last but not least moment. I want to say thank you, a huge, huge thank you to our anchor gang sponsors. We are heading to Greenville, South Carolina in just a few short weeks and we're having our live April conference. We would not be able to do our live Uncharted events without the support of our sponsors. We have some amazing anchor gang sponsor this year and they deserve a special shout-out.
Stephanie Goss:
To our friends at CareCredit, at Hill's Pet Nutrition, and nationwide on behalf of the entire Uncharted community, I say, thank you. We couldn't do it without you. I am so looking forward to spending time with all of you in Greenville. Now let's get back to the podcast.
Andy Roark:
All right. Let's start to unpack some action steps. The original question we got was, how am I supposed to feel and what am I supposed to do when everyone goes out for a drink and I don't get invited, and I feel like I'm on the outside? Yeah. Do you want to go ahead and start what steps we're going to take?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, totally. This is very much coming from my own experience, obviously. It's colored by that, because I went through feeling like it's very lonely as the boss. And so, when I sat down and started to think about, how do I attach this? I think the attack, for me, starts with acknowledging the dynamic shift. Regardless of whether you are going to try and stay friends with your peers or not, acknowledging the shift that has occurred is really, really, really important.
Andy Roark:
Publicly acknowledging or just for you?
Stephanie Goss:
I think both because… The reason that I say both is because I think you have to acknowledge it for yourself, first and foremost, knowing how you feel about it and just saying, “I am the…” I remember going through this period of like… It was disbelief. “I don't feel like the boss. I still feel like the same person I was yesterday.” That took some mental work for me, to realize like, “Oh, wait, I am in charge. I am the responsible grown up in the room now.” That is a shift that really takes some mental energy to work through.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I'm still shocked by that, when I'm like “Who's in charge here? Oh-
Stephanie Goss:
Wait, it's me.
Andy Roark:
Oh, it's me.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right. It's totally true. I think if you do want to stay friends with your peers, I think it is equally, if not more important, to acknowledge the dynamic shift out loud to each other and have a conversation about, “Hey, look, this is a thing that actually has happened, and here's the impact that I can see. How feel about this? What are you seeing? How can we work this out?” Because I said in the beginning, the only way that you can stay friends is if you have really strong communication skills and really strong boundaries.
Stephanie Goss:
And so, for me, it starts with acknowledging the dynamic shift for yourself, but also acknowledging it with the people that you are concerned about staying friends with, or worrying about losing those friendships.
Andy Roark:
Okay. You're going to have to walk me through the second part here. “Now that I have risen above you all, I would like to point out that I am the boss and have the ability to fire you at my leisure. Let's go around the circle and you can all say what you think of me.”
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, God.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I 100% agree with the personal identity. Help-
Stephanie Goss:
Are you sure [crosstalk 00:40:23]?
Andy Roark:
I'm asking you honestly.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Andy Roark:
Help me understand. What does that look like when you're like, “All right. Just so you all know, I'm the boss.”
Stephanie Goss:
No. For me, what that looked like was, “Hey, I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about this. I am recognizing that we are really good friends. And to this point, we have approached the bosses and management together as a united team. And now I'm in a position where I value your opinion and I respect it, and I still have to learn how to work to manage together with our practice owner,” or the leadership team or whatever that structure looks like in the practice.
Stephanie Goss:
“I am worried that there may be conflict of interest. I am worried that you might tell me things that I feel duty bound to share. I am worried about…” For me, there was a whole list of things that came top of mind of like, “This is what I'm feeling anxiety about.” And so, it was just saying it out loud. I'll just say, sitting down with Sarah and having a conversation, “Hey, Sarah, this is stressing me out. I just need to talk through this with you, because I respect you and I respect our relationship, and our friendship means so much to me. And I want to keep our friendship. I need to talk through this.”
Stephanie Goss:
And so, it wasn't a, “I'm going to sit on my throne and everybody appreciate me because I'm now the boss.” It was very much like, “Hey, we have a friendship.” This is a normal conversation. If I was worried or stressed about something, this is the person that I would talk to about that. So it didn't feel weird at all for me to say, “Hey, I'm really stressing about this. Can we talk about this for a second? Because I don't want to lose our friendship.”
Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. That totally makes sense, just to have that candid conversation and just be like, “Hey, let's talk about what our relationship is now.” I think that's interesting. I have to sit with that because I-
Stephanie Goss:
Because there's going to be things that you can't tell them, that they're going to ask you about and you're going to have to say, “I can't talk about this.” That is a weird dynamic shift. And if you don't acknowledge that, let me tell you, that's a hard conversation when all of a sudden you know information and they're pumping you for it. And you're like, “I can't talk about it.”
Andy Roark:
Yeah. It's a whole lot easier to have that conversation when there's not a piece of information that they're looking for… Now that, okay, I think you sold me on that. I think that makes sense. I think the bigger thing, yes. I think you sold me on that. Generally having communications about awkward things is definitely the right way to go. So it's not a hard sell, but I have to get my head around what that looks like.
Andy Roark:
I'll tell you, the bigger part for me was self-identity part. That was really it. And so, I think that the logical progression for most of us is, you have the moment when you come into your office and the lights are all off and everyone has left. You have the moments when you leave the clinic and the team is across the street at the Mexican place and they didn't invite you. You have the moments when the door closes as the staff is having a-
Stephanie Goss:
Meeting.
Andy Roark:
… talk amongst themselves. You walk in and people stop talking and you realize it's because you're their… and you have those moments. I think that hits a lot of us hard. When we find our moment, we have that. I think the step after that is that we get thrown in this existential crisis because we're like, “Who am I? If I'm not one of the gang, who am I and what does this mean for me?” You and I have done a lot of work with corporate groups recently, which has been super awesome. I love building communities inside of groups of practices and getting people to work together.
Andy Roark:
And so, that's been super great. One of the things that I've seen in these groups is there'll be doctors and the doctors will move up to be leadership over a division or over multiple hospitals. They're not in practice as much and they will 100% have that existential crisis of, “Who am I if I'm not seeing appointments? If I'm not a doctor in the exam rooms, what does that mean for me? “
Andy Roark:
And so, this same identity crisis manifests a couple different ways. The thing I say to them, because the thing that I had to go through when I looked at my weird career and started to think, is am I a real vet? Am I still a vet if I'm seeing appointments one day a week or two days a week?
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
Or if I don't see appointments for a month because traveling continuously and then come back, what does that mean? I think most of us have to stop and we have to accept that we are in a different place, that our life has changed. The only way that you can do that, I think where people really screw themselves up is they tie their identity to their previous role. They say, “I am a CBT. I am a technician. I am a real doctor. That's what I am.” And they define themselves that way.
Andy Roark:
So then when they look around and they are not seen as a CBT, they still have that degree. They still have that credentialing, but they're not on the floor and they're not drawing blood. And no one cares about their clinical skills because they're not using them. They're thrown for this loop. And so, what has to happen after that is you have to be able to step away, in my opinion, and you have to say to yourself, “I am who I am, and I am a credentialed technician. I didn't say that I do blood draws. I didn't say that I did these things. I am the manager of this practice. I am the owner of this practice. I am a business owner. And I also practice veterinary medicine.”
Andy Roark:
As opposed to, “I am a real veterinarian and I don't have time to practice because I'm too busy running this business.” I think that latter, that really tortures people. And so, anyway, I hope I'm being clear enough about this, but I think you have to accept that your position is different. Then you have to look at how you identify yourself, because if you identify as one of the gang, one of the cool kids, one of the people on the inside, and then this thing changes and your friends from before indicate to you that maybe you're not on the inside anymore, that's fine if you also agree that you're not on the inside because you're doing something else that you're excited about.
Andy Roark:
It's not fine if you don't identify as someone who's not on the inside, because now you're in conflict. It's called incongruence, is when we look in the mirror and we see ourself and we see who want to be. And then we look at our actual self, and when those two things don't match up in our minds, that causes us pain. The psychological term is called incongruence.
Andy Roark:
And so, I think a lot of us, the pain that we feel of realizing we're on the outside is actually incongruence because we so see ourselves as being connected to the people that we worked with on the inner circle. And now we look around and we are clearly, as I see them at the Mexican restaurant, I am clearly not in the inner circle. That's incongruence in what I see myself being and what the evidence is showing me that I am. And so, you have got to step back and reset your mental expectations and your identity.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. The last piece of acceptance and mental gymnastics is I think that you have to make peace with what it means to be the boss, because you will be the bad guy and people will not like you at times.
Andy Roark:
At times.
Stephanie Goss:
That is really hard for… Especially like I am a people pleaser. I want people to like me. I want to be included. There's no one, I think, ever in the history of leadership who didn't piss somebody off or make somebody upset or make somebody mad like. The reality is at times you will not be liked. Everybody will not be happy with you. You will have had to be the bad guy. And so, it is really important ideally, before you step into that role, to make peace with that.
Stephanie Goss:
If you are already in that role, you have to make peace with that, or you have to get to a place where you're like, “Hey, I can't make peace with this. I'm maybe going to go back to just being a part of the team, because that matters more to me.” And that's an okay choice too. But if you are going to continue to be a leader, it is lonely at the top and you have to make peace with the fact that you are not going to be the popular kid 100% of the time and people will not like you. If you can't get okay with that, you are probably not going to be happy in the long term in a leadership role.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I agree with that. You definitely have to accept that role. The last part I would leave on acceptance… This is my last [inaudible 00:49:11] on the acceptance part is, I think when you and I talk about it, we talk about you're in or you're out. And the truth is I haven't found that necessarily to be true. And so, if people are going, “Why would anyone ever want to lead when people aren't going to like you and you're going to get excluded?”
Andy Roark:
As the Buddhists say, the middle path is generally the right one. I have never been in a place where I go, “Oh, now I'm leading this team. I am now alone.” Like suddenly I'm Batman, I work alone. I am human resource vengeance. That's not how this works. I had to make peace with the idea that I'm not going to get invited to the social gatherings. But instead, when I go to the Mexican restaurant and I see my techs there, I'm going to buy them around of beers. You know what I mean? Or I'm going to send a couple desserts over to the table to show them that I appreciate them. You know what I mean? And just celebrate them.
Andy Roark:
I'll probably go and say hi. If I am invited to come and hang out, I generally go and I pick up the first round of drinks, and it's a nice thing that I do. Then I leave because I do not want to be there when people start getting sloppy. What they do is up to them. I don't want to be there to see it. And so, it's not like you're taking a vow of isolation. Yeah, you're not going into the monastery to not see people anymore. It's like, “No, you can still generally be a part of what's going on.”
Andy Roark:
Oftentimes, there's also this weird, awkward transition of, my role has changed and people aren't sure what to make of me. And so, they step back and go, “What's he going to be like in this role?” Ultimately, they're going to realize that, oh, he's still a nice guy. He's still trying to do his best. He's still going to try to look out for us, do everything he can to support us in our mission.” And things sort themselves out pretty well from there.
Andy Roark:
Anyway, I don't want people to be like, “Oh, they're acting like you just go lone wolf and leave.” No, you're still going to be involved in most things. You just have to realize that you're not going to be right in the middle of the drama and you don't want to be, but you're also not going to be cold and shunning and not involved in these people's lives. You still want to know them. You still want to earn their trust.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. I feel very fulfilled from the relationships that I have with my team or I wouldn't do this job. The connection to them, knowing about when they get married or have babies, or somebody's spouse gets a promotion, or somebody's kid takes their first steps, I still celebrate in all of those things with my team and I'm perfectly okay having boundaries. Like I don't want to know what's happening in their sex life. I don't want to know about their boyfriend spending yesterday in jail because they got in a drunken fight at the bar.
Stephanie Goss:
I'm perfectly okay with there being some boundaries there and I can still feel very fulfilled and connected to them. That's the way that I choose to walk. And like I said, I have friends who were some of my peers when I was a technician. Now I'm a manager, some of my peers as technicians are still my best friends. I think that's fantastic. I think ultimately you have to decide and this is very much where you do you. There is no right or wrong answer, I don't think. I think it's very much individual.
Stephanie Goss:
I think that your point is so, so true, like you're not going to go lone wolf and be Batman, and nobody knows who you really are. There are people who choose that, and if that works for you, more power to you. I think on a personal level, you and I are not that.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. No.
Stephanie Goss:
We approach more of the middle ground and I am fulfilled by that. I really do enjoy that piece. But doesn't mean that I have to want to invite them over to my house for Thanksgiving dinner.
Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. I mean, I completely agree. So [inaudible 00:53:21] to that, I would say, and this is very controversial and some people will react strongly. But consider unfollowing your direct reports, like once you move into these roles. I say that for two reasons. Number one is, you probably don't want to necessarily know what's going on at home, and just that knowledge can cause problems.
Andy Roark:
The other part is, if it causes you pain because you see yourself not being included in the social things that are going on, you don't don't deserve that. And so, my advice to you is to say, “Hey, it's going to be what's going to be. It's not about you.” If it bothers you, don't expose yourself to that. Just unfollow those people. You can always turn them back on if you want to later on.
Andy Roark:
But my advice is just separate yourself. And if you're going to do that… Again, I am a very extroverted person. I get really lonely. I sometimes wonder, I was like, “If I wasn't married, how would I live?” I was like, “I'd have roommates.” I would be 45 year old with roommates for sure, because that's just how I am.
Stephanie Goss:
You're a people person.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I'm a people person. And so, I am not saying, “Go be lonely.” I'm saying, “Take the bull by the horns and go make some friends.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yep. Find the third space.
Andy Roark:
Yep. We talk about third space here. First space is your home. Second space is your work. If your whole life is going from work to home and home to work and work to home and home to work, I worry about you, and I worry about your mental health, and I worry about burnout. You are going to be healthier and happier and more connected and more grounded if you have a place to go that is not the vet clinic and is not your home. It is a place where you go and interact with other people.
Andy Roark:
My advice, ideally, these people don't know that you're a vet. They don't know that you work with animals and or they don't care. Go and don't be Andy Roark, veterinarian. Go and be Andy Roark, blossoming potter. Go be blossoming painter. What if we want to do-
Stephanie Goss:
I was waiting for the garden reference.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. No-
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. There's like-
Stephanie Goss:
The garden club.
Andy Roark:
Blossoming garden club secretary. Whatever it is, that's what I'd be. But no, I mean, I do… Yeah. I have ridiculous hobby. I do improv comedy and no one cares that I am a vet. I practice one night a week and we play in a bar/coffee shop one night a week. I love those guys and I have a rich social life through that outlet. My wife does curling where she slides the rocks and sweeps. I've done seasons of that in the past, and those guys are fun. It's just I find weird stuff like that to do and jump into and I make new friends.
Andy Roark:
I do that because I need to be a person outside of the vet clinic. Yeah, that's my advice, is it is not uncommon to have your whole social life and everything wrapped up with the people that you work in. At some point, you look around and you go, “That's not a viable strategy anymore and I need to find some things that are not tied…” Especially when you're leader, the best thing is to be around other leaders. Plug for Uncharted practice owner conference or, or Uncharted membership.
Stephanie Goss:
The practice managers group. Yeah. No, that would be me. It's not a third space. It very much goes to the second space. But I think the last big thing for me is there is a lot of danger in discussing the challenges of the job, because being a leader is very challenging and it can be very easy to want to vent to your peers. When the dynamic is different, venting is a recipe for disaster when you're doing it with people who now are subordinate and you are their boss.
Stephanie Goss:
So, for me, the hard and fast rule for myself was I had to put up some boundaries about talking about work things with my friends, because I was trying to preserve those friendships and stay friends with them. And so, the best thing that I ever did for myself was finding connections with other managers and or a coach, or a mentor. Especially if you're new to a leadership in a management role, finding someone disconnected from your practice is a game changer.
Stephanie Goss:
And so, for me, that started with a local managers group and connecting with other managers locally, who they weren't the practice right down the street but we had enough in common geographically. We could talk about things, bounce ideas off of each other. My love for networking connection very much grew from there. I joined VHMA, the veterinary hospital manager's association. Eventually led me to joining Uncharted.
Stephanie Goss:
Being able to connect in Uncharted does that, I feel like, so, so well. And it's not just a shameless plug because you have the ability to connect and really transition from that space of, “I am frustrated by this and I just need to vent,” into, “Here are peers who get it and I can say, ‘I'm really hurt right now. I did this nice thing for my team and nobody said thank you. I'm really upset about it. And how do I make this better in the future and be able to ask for help?'” Because people have been there.
Stephanie Goss:
That is the first thing that often happens, is everybody's like, “Dude, I've been there. It sucks. Be okay. Go get yourself a Starbucks, because today is a crappy day and let's figure out how to approach this better in the future.” So making those connections outside of work, I feel like, is so important. It is a game changer.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I agree. Well, thanks for talking this through with me.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. This was a good one. I hope that it helped our lonely leader listener and maybe some of the rest of you guys. If you enjoy this and you have enjoyed nerding out on this kind of thing, as Andy and I both mentioned, this is the kind of thing that we talk about all the time in Uncharted, and you can come join us and hang out-
Andy Roark:
You can.
Stephanie Goss:
… and be part of these conversations as a member of our community.
Andy Roark:
You could totally come join us if you feel like your team is circled up and, (singing). That's it. This needs to be over.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, that's where we need somebody to yank us off the stage.
Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
Have a great week. Everybody
Andy Roark:
Dustin, play us out. (singing)
Stephanie Goss:
That was fantastic. Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast, and as always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question. I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. 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.
Stephanie Goss:
You can always find the mailbag 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.