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Managing a Neurodiverse Clinic Doctor

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast Episode 206 Cover Image

This week on the podcast…

Dr. Amanda Doran joins Dr. Andy Roark to discuss managing (and being) a neurodiverse doctor. Very little of the conversation is specific to veterinarians as opposed to other members of the vet healthcare team, and everyone in the clinic can benefit from this conversation. We cover common behaviors as well as resources and management strategies for supporting a diverse group of individuals across an organization. Let's get into this!

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 206 – Managing A Neurodiverse Clinic Doctor

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


About Our Guest & Recommended Reading

Dr. Amanda Doran: @dr_amanda_doran

Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life – https://amzn.to/3c7ZL5i


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Episode Transcript

Banfield Pet Hospital Logo

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.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome, welcome, welcome, boys and girls to the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I am here with the one and only Dr. Amanda Doran. We are talking about managing the Neurodiverse Doctor. We start off talking about that, then we talk mostly about being a neurodiverse doctor and what that is like and what that experience is like. This is a fun episode, it is a make you think episode just about how people are different and about working with people who see the world differently in your practice. I think this is one of those things where we talk about neurodiverse doctors and really we're just talking about is people are people and people are different, and we all have different skills and strengths, and things that we're good at and things that exhaust us, and things that we're not good at.
And we're not cookie cutters. We're our own beautiful distinct human beings. And when you understand that, then a lot of ideas for how to support people become really clear. And so anyway, this is a fun conversation. It's a neat make you think sort of conversation. It's a good reminder about the humanity of our professionals, so whether you are a doctor, or a tech, or front desk, or manager, I think this is going to be just a good general episode to hear. Guys, without further ado, let's get into this episode.

Meg:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Amanda Doran. How are you?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I'm great. How are you?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, I'm doing great. It is good to see you again. It has been a minute. How are things going?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Oh, good. Living the dream. Northern Minnesota's very beautiful several months of the year. The rest of the time it is hot.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
But it's gorgeous right now.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's awesome. Well it's good to see you in person. You actually came down and stayed with me and my family a couple of years ago pre-pandemic.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Right before, yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it was right before working on some business projects and that was a awesome thing. And the family says, hi. What are we doing here? We are here, so those who don't know you are Dr. Amanda Doran, you are doing some speaking and writing, especially particularly kind of in the wellness space in vet medicine. You are an associate vet with Minnesota Pets, which is a home hospice veterinary company. And you do a lot of different things. You have a lot of different interests. I love it. I'm a big fan of people having what I call a third space, which is things you do that are like not normal home stuff and not work stuff. And so you have a booth at the farmer's market called Wicked Witch of the West End.
And you also have, you just told me, I was actually humbled. You have 35 cherry tomato plants. I have three tomato plants that I have fought all summer long just to have, and they have a high tomato failure rate. Let's just say that there is a lot fewer harvested than grow on that thing. But anyway, welcome to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. I asked you to be on because you did a workshop for Uncharted very recently that was extremely popular and well attended and it was on managing the neurodivergent doctor. And boy, we got a lot of positive feedback on that session. A lot of people who said they wanted to know more, they weren't able to come to the workshop. And so I just thought that would be a great opportunity to have you in to kind of run through this topic with you. And it's something I really honestly don't know a whole lot about. This is a weakness of my own and so I'm really excited just to start breaking this down, you ready?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah. Thanks. Good to be here. I feel like we only scratched the surface in the workshop, so definitely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I know. Well that was the feedback that I got was there's a lot there. Well, let's just start out at a high level when we talk about managing the neurodivergent doctor, what are we talking about? Give me an idea going into this workshop, and again, neurodivergent can mean a million different things. Help me start to piece this together in my mind. I want to get my head around what am I talking about? I think a lot of us are probably managing neurodivergent doctors and we don't even know that we're doing that. Many of us may be neurodivergent doctors who have not yet realized or recognize that that is a part of who we are. And so talk to me a little bit about that. What does that look like as people come in? Paint me a picture in the clinic of the neurodivergent doctor, if you don't mind.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Absolutely. Yeah, so I think definitely newer terminology that we're talking about. And so I think kind of neurodivergence as a term was really developed to help talk about and develop acceptance for people with autism. But the umbrella's gotten a little bit bigger and includes a lot of other different conditions in neurodivergence. And probably the most common one I think we do see anecdotally and I have personal experience with is people with ADHD. And so these might be people who are having a really hard time managing time, or managing different tasks, or they might have problems with memory, or organizing things, or starting projects and following through, they might have some challenges with emotional control, or paying attention, or focusing, they might get sucked into the vortex of time in the exam rooms, and might have a hard time consistently following goals, especially with something that they're not interested in. And we are neurodiverse as a population.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, so like goals that were set from someone else?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah, if it's something that people don't have a strong interest in, they might have a hard time working towards that goal.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay, so going back to those things, do me a favor, pick back up. And so you listed time management, task management, organizing, emotional control, paying attention, pick back up with neurodivergence. We're all sort of a diverse group and just kind of I think that's a laundry list of behaviors sort of help to put that into an organized framework, I guess. How do you start to look at these things?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I guess essentially what neurodiversity means is that within our population of humans, we have a variation of cognitive function, right? Our population is neurodiverse, and in kind of thinking back to like back to basics of left brain versus right brain and kind of logic versus creativity and how we process things and how we engage in projects and how we perceive things and even how we solve problems. We all have all the things, but we do different things differently. And there's kind of this societal standard and then many people have traits that make it easier for them to adapt to those standards. And some people have traits that maybe are leaning a little bit more towards right side of the brain and make it more difficult to adapt to those expectations or those cultural standards that we have.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Does that kind of make sense?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah, no, it does. I will tell you sort of, okay, I like the way that you're starting to lay this things out, so I'll just sort tell you a position that I sort of have on the way that people's minds work and where it comes from.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder when I was in the second grade. And the doctors, the psychologist who did the child testing, told my parents not to expect too much from me. I probably wouldn't go to college, I probably wouldn't go on and do these other things. And my dad was a surgeon, so I think that that was the idea my parents maybe had. Now this was in 1982, which is the stone ages for child psychology, things like that. I am, listen, this is how I think about it, so I said something, I have a friend and her child was just diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and he is about seven years old now, I think.
He's probably second grade, something like that. And my friend had just gotten the diagnosis of her child had ADD, and she was obviously kind of worried about what does this mean and things like that. And what I said to her was, I'll tell you based on my life experience, we live our lives in a construct. I think that was made. We've got this crazy system, pardon the phrase, but we have this ridiculous system where kids are supposed to go and sit on their bottom for six to eight consecutive hours with a 15 minute recess break, which is what elementary school kids get now. And that's how their success is measured, is their ability to sit still and to take these tests that are put in front of them. And I say, this is ridiculous. Think back about how evolutionarily we came along.
The kid that never sat still, that was always exploring, that was always sort of investigating and doing new things, that loved to socialize with others, that kid's bound for success in the wild in a lot of ways. But that's not what success today looks like in the modern society that we have. And so when I think a lot about that, I will say that a lot of my career success comes from my inability to calm my mind in a lot of ways. I'm known as a pretty creative person. I like to think that I'm a fairly innovative person. Innovation and creativity come from smashing disparate ideas together, taking something and combining it with something else. And that's just kind of what my brain does. But if you are looking for somebody who can come and sit at a desk for eight consecutive hours and push paperwork, I'm not your guy, I'm never going to make it. And that's just the way that I am wired.
And so when you talk about neurodivergence and you talk about all the different types of behaviors that we see people who are not organized raising my hand, people who have problems paying attention, raising my hands, people who forget things, raising my hand. I check those boxes and that's sort of where I am. And so my big thing is I think that people have often thought that they is normal and abnormal and I reject that categorization. I would say what's what is beneficial is often context specific. And some of us may not thrive in the classic academic or classic work environments because that's not how we're wired. But that does not mean we are wildly successful in other ways or in other, I don't know, pathways. I know doctors who are forgetful and they can't stay focused and they're creative and funny and kind of, there's people who are sort of scattered and they bounce all over the place and the clients love them, the client, the techs are driven nuts by them, but the clients love them because they're fun and they're engaging.
Yeah, exactly right. Amanda is raising her hand. Exactly right. And I go, that's not a downside to me. And that's why I wanted to bring you on here was my position very much is I don't buy this normal/abnormal categorization in a lot of ways. I think that we all have strengths and we all have weaknesses and we're all very different. I think understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are is absolutely vital to your career success. I think having an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the people that you manage, I think that, that's vital to being a good manager. If you take someone who has a hard time organizing and push them into a position where they are going to organize come hell or high water, you're often going to burn that person out rather than have them figure it out. That's just my position. I'm curious how that sounds as I say it?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's going to make some people miserable. This makes me think of this book that I read recently by Marcus Buckingham, it's called Love Plus Work. And he was one of the people that developed the Strengths Assessment and he talked about strengths and weaknesses in a way that I'd never heard before. And it changed a lot of perspective for me and not so much as strengths are things that you're good at and weaknesses are things that you're bad at, but strengths are actually as things that give you strength, give you energy. You don't have to be good at it, but do you like it? Do you want to do it? Do you want to get better at it?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
And weaknesses as things that you don't like, you can be really, really good at things that you hate doing. There is definitely some things in general practice that I had to adapt to and put masks on for and cope with that from the outside looks like strengths because I was really good at it, but I hated it. It left me completely drained at the end of the day. And so-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh interesting.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I think as employee and manager kind of working together to help people find what are those strengths? And it's not, like you said, not necessarily giving people things. Like if you don't like organizing, you're going to have a hard time doing it. Are you in the right seat on the bus following your strengths, finding that love in your work and if you have that drive to want to do the thing that you like, even if you're bad at it, you can put in the hours to get better at it. And I think we don't always know what those things we are, we don't feel like we're allowed to follow those loves. I feel like that was one of my challenges in practice. I feel like I have to do this but I don't really want to do it, but I'm good at it and people keep telling me I should keep doing it but I kind of hate it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah, finding those strengths and redefining, what does it mean. A lot to unpack there.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There's a lot to unpack there. I completely agree. Okay.

Stephanie Goss:
Hey friends. It's Stephanie and I'm jumping in here for one quick second because there's a workshop coming up and it is one of the last ones for this year of 2022. And I want to make sure that you don't miss it because it is coming to you from my dear friend Maggie Brown Bury. Maggie is a former emergency veterinarian who lives in Newfoundland, Canada. And a few years ago Maggie made the decision to make a change and she moved out of ER medicine into being a relief veterinarian. And I remember Maggie telling us within weeks of opening up her schedule, her whole first year was booked. And so we asked Maggie to come and do a workshop for how to get the most out of the relationships that you build as a practice with your relief veterinarians.
Because more and more practices as we face the veterinarian shortage, are struggling with needing to have relief doctors on their schedule maybe more regularly than we would have previously. And he's got some great ideas after working with a ton of different practices on how you can leverage that relationship and set yourself up for success, set your relief veterinarian up for success, and set your clients up for success, so if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and find all of the information about the workshop and how to sign up. I hope to see you there. And now back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
One of the things I always talk to people about when we talk about employee management is there's two different questions that I usually ask about employees, is when you're trying to delegate something away, you're like, Hey, would you do this thing for me? The question is, does the person get it? Meaning do they understand what you're asking for or what needs to happen? And the next question is, do they want it? And to your point, there are a lot of us that are good at things that we don't enjoy. This is an interesting idea of your strengths are things that give you strength and your weaknesses, you might be good at them, but they take strength from you, they take effort. There are things that I am good at that people ask me to do and they are exhausting and there are things that I am good at, people ask me to do that once you ask me to do them, I'm not going to stop.
I'm just going to get going and I am going to shake hands and kiss babies or kiss hands and shake babies, whatever, I'll just get going. And I'm not going to quit because I love doing it. But I think that's a really interesting way to think about it, so is this being good at something and wanting to do that thing I think are entirely different. I also really like your thoughts about when you are someone who has different skill sets, when you have these things that make you happier, that fill you up and things that don't. And you got to march to the beat of your own drum as a lot of us do. I think that there is a lot of weight in the veterinary culture on behaving in a certain way and following certain norms that have been laid down. And again, I'm just sort of talking off the cuff here, but you can't tell me that… We all took the same path, right.
We all went through undergraduate to become veterinarians and then we went through vet school and then there's some strong cultural norms in vet medicine and we all think that a veterinarian looks a certain way or acts a certain way and the technicians look a certain way or act a certain way or things like that. And I feel like there is this implied pressure to conform in a lot of ways. And I have found, and this is so stupid and simple, but for years people have asked when they ask for any career advice or anything, I always tell them the most valuable thing that I have ever found that I tell everybody is if you want to be successful, figure out what you like doing and figure out how to do more of it and figure out what you don't like doing and figure out how to do less of it.
And I think a lot of people don't think they have permission to do that. They're like, no, I have to do all of the vet things. And I go, no you don't. You're talking to a guy who literally works one day a week in the vet clinic and otherwise does what he wants to do. I was doing Facebook and people were telling me I was ridiculous and why are you spending your time doing Facebook? And I was like, it worked out for me in the long run. But those, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed expressing myself and this was before I didn't enjoy Facebook anymore, but at the time I enjoyed expressing myself and doing those things and other people, I mean I made these goofy, I don't know if back in the day I made these goofy videos that I, there's videos out there of me in a dog suit, a hundred percent running around.
And I remember well respected colleagues of mine being mortified on my behalf that I was making these things and I was like, I think it's funny. I am having a good time and I get that it's not your thing but I can do it. And it makes people laugh and I enjoy it. It makes me excited about that medicine so I'm going to do it. I really like that you said that it was like, I think some of us maybe need permission to say I'm not going to function the way that the other doctors do in the practice and I'm going, Hey buddy, as long as you can make that swing around and balance out with other people so their needs are being met and that you are not leaving other people hanging, go forth with confidence and do it.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah. Well, I think if anything it helps. It's helped me show up better every day when I do work, when I'm able to do those things. I think more so than balance or harmony, it's this idea of resonance. There's never going to be this perfect scale where it's like okay, my work and my life are balanced. It's kind of taking that it's like a dance that you have to do those other things. I remember hearing everybody say that in vet school. Oh yes, you must have these things outside of veterinary medicine that you do.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
But I feel like it's one of those lessons where you got to get burned. Some people know fire back because they've been told, well you got to figure out for yourself. Nobody knows what you love. And I think a lot of times we're conditioned to look for that external validation of people saying, yes, you're doing the thing. But it's a huge shift to shift that internally and follow what your weird little heart wants.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I completely agree with that, but I think when we're talking about managing people who are just different or who marched to the beat of their own drum.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Or just have different skills, I think that not waiting for someone else to validate you is so important. And I think it's really hard. I think a lot of us who approach the world of differently, I think a lot of us live in shame, you know what I mean? Why can't I keep my calendar the way that other people do and why can't I just sit down and do these things that other people just sit down and grind through? And I say, look, we all have to figure out how to get those things done. We all have to figure out our own ways. But I completely agree with you as far as I think that we need to think about what makes us happy and making sure that we're doing the things we need to do.
But beyond that, the fact that the other doctors don't work one day a week, they work six days a week or four days a week, that doesn't affect me. That's not what I'm doing right now and that's not taking anything away from them. But I'm not doing it and I'm not feeling bad about not doing it. This is kind of where I am and what I'm doing. And so I think a lot of us need to hear that as, hey, this is fine.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
As far as the work life balance stuff, it's funny you bring that up. I had a conversation literally yesterday with a good friend of mine and we were talking about work life balance and I've never been able to categorize work life balance like a lot of other people can. I've never been able to be like this in my work self and this is my home self. And it is just, again, because of I think, the way that I see the world or whatever, that split has never worked for me, so I'm a big fan of Danny McVety calls it work life integration and it's just sort of like, I do a lot of different stuff.
I mean I write about that medicine when I'm at home and sometimes when I'm at the vet clinic on my lunch break, I'm doing other things and just I hang out with the technicians and we'll talk about our hobbies and just geek out about whatever the TV shows we're watching are, things like that. But I just mix those things together. But for me it's an outlet that works and keeping it separate just doesn't work for me.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But it totally works for other people. And so I would never tell someone else, don't prioritize life balance. I would just say, well life balance for me looks very different than it does for other people. But I know after 15 years of doing it this way as a professional, this works for me and that's it. Well let's bring this back around to what this looks like professionally and working with others.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so we talked about managing sort of a neurodiverse doctor. We all have these different ways of approaching our job, of what we're good at. It's funny that when I said What does this look like? You listed a long string of problems, you know what I mean, of like oh they forget this. So this person, they don't get that done and they don't do this. What's funny is that when we ask about a neurodivergent doctor, people don't say, oh well these are typically creative people. These are people who bring diversity of perspective to the scene. These are people who often have ideas that others haven't thought about. They're think they're people who maybe have a different perspective when you ask what's going on that you just haven't rolled around and considered.
And I go, we always think about the things that we see where people don't match up in a positive way to the benchmarks that are set, but we don't really stop and say, well why do they exceed these other areas so strongly? I think that that's an important thing to consider when we talk about sort of neurodivergence and neurodivergent doctors is you cannot look at this as a detriment. What you have to do is look at the person as a specific package and start to identify what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses. And I love the idea of the strengths as what fills them up, what makes them stronger. Do you agree?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Absolutely. And yeah, kind of what we talked about a little bit before in veterinary medicine, we kind of live by this kind of strict calendaring, very planned timeline and that makes some people very, very miserable. And you can very much struggle to manage time and to be productive when kind of the processes and practices that you're using don't match those natural tendencies that you have.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
And so I think when we think about neurodivergence, at least personally as I've started talking about it, people are coming and asking me all the time, how do I help this person who gets sucked into the Bermuda Triangle in an appointment? Whether that's in practice or an in-home euthanasia where they just completely lose track of time. And I think realizing that it's not an intentional disregard, like for some people it is actually a sensory issue and time doesn't exist if you're not looking at it. And so yeah, I was definitely that doctor who you'd send a search party because I was still in the exam room, well after the time it should be over, so I feel like that's where it comes up the most.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I definitely see that. I think that to me, again, it depends on the individual a lot. I think classic organization and focus are often things that we see in doctors. What have you seen that can be helpful in setting, I know this is such a broad category of individual, it's hard to drill too deep into specifics, but in general terms, what are the steps that practices take to make these people successful and to bolster them up and to make them feel comfortable and happy in the workplace?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I think the biggest thing is making sure that there's space to have those conversations. For people to be vulnerable and not blame them and see it as an intentional disregard for time. Helping them be able, you might have to help them a little bit in developing some of those skills, so consciously tracking time, like when are you going in, when are you coming out? What's happening in there? What appointments are these happening in? Are these appointments that give you strength and you're just so excited to talk to these people and help them? Or are these strengths that are weaknesses and it's sucking your energy to be in there and you feel like you can't get out?
Making sure everybody I think it's important for, but especially people who are neurodivergent, making sure you're taking breaks and eating food and going outside and getting exercise. Maybe having an afternoon coffee, because I think you do have a natural tendency to forget to do some of those things. I worked in the practice that didn't have clocks in the room and I found that really challenging. I felt rude always looking at my watch. But unless looking at the clock, I don't know times exists. And even when I was in general practice, kind of having buffer time in throughout the day to make sure I had a quiet place to go with no noise to catch up on my records so that I wasn't doing other things.
Because there's always 10,000 things going on in the treatment room and you want to help people. But unless I had a quiet place with no distractions, I couldn't get my records done before the end of the day. And I think another thing that would be helpful too is doing some role playing with language to help move visits along. I think sometimes we don't necessarily know the words to help people get back on track and be like, okay, what is our intention for this appointment? What is our desired income? What words can we give people to have light, moderate, or more heavy nudges to get us back on task? And I think those skills kind of develop over time, not the classes that they have in school always.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh no, I love it. I just wrote down words to move appointments along. I'm like, oh, that's super great. Okay, so what I hear you saying, and this all makes total sense with me, I really love it. Assume good intent. We talk a lot uncharted about assuming good intent and just say, this person, they're not running late because they don't care, they're not failing to fill out paperwork because they're jerks and they're disrespecting you or blah blah, blah. Assume good intent. Everybody's trying their best. Some things come easier to some people than other people. I think that's just a great opening head space. I love the idea of just asking what happened. When this person is running late instead of saying, you are not going fast enough. It's going, Hey, I'm noticing that you're getting stuck in these rooms or you're spending a lot of time in certain rooms.
Why do you think that is? Is there something, and the rooms that you were in, why do you think that ended up being a trap? I also love flipping it around. I'm a big fan of positive inquiry, which is asking people about what worked well and then figuring out why it worked well, so you can know other places, so I can say, Hey, yesterday I felt like you were really moving efficiently through the exam rooms. I felt like you were doing a great job as far as staying on time. And that's what the tech said. What was good about yesterday? Why do you think you were you able to do that so well? And that can often give you some insight into, oh, this is how I support this person. And they go, oh well, yesterday I saw these types of appointments or I had this set up, or yesterday my technician was doing this thing that was helpful for me.
And I go, ah. And now it's not, Hey, tell me about why you're failing. Tell me about why you're running behind. Tell me about why people are frustrated.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Great.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it's tell me about why these appointments were particularly good. And I've just found that, that is a very soft, nice way to get, it's to help me to help you you know what I mean? Help me help you. I don't know what's going to be helpful for someone else, especially someone who sees the world differently or perceives it differently than I do or has different strengths than I have. I'm like I don't know how to help you because I don't have the skills that you have, I have different skills and I really like that. And then the big thing is, and the way I just phrased it is the way I would phrase it talking to the person, is not what can we do to get you to conform?
What can we do to fix you? No, it's what can I do to support you? How can I help you? How can I lift your workload? How can I make your time here more enjoyable? How can I help you meet the needs of the staff or any of those things? But how can I help you? How can I support you? What would you like me to do? What would make your time here easier? What would set you up for success? What does a great day of appointments look like for you? Those are all the types of questions that I try to get to get in there and develop specific action steps to support this person at an organizational level without making them feel like, oh, you are coming up short and so I need to give you a crutch. It's not that. And I don't want anybody to feel that way.
And that's not true. It really is more you kick butt in a different way than the rest of the doctors do. And so I need to make sure that you have support for your style and I need to understand what that would be, because I don't know your style as well as you do. And then I really like your point about enforcing breaks. I just, it's funny as you say that, I go, oh man, that makes so much sense of, hey, we've all had doctors that we have to stuff a sandwich into their hand and be like, you need to eat this. When was the last time you went to the bathroom? When was the last time you drank water, Amanda? We've all had those conversations, right?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Have you seen the sun today?

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's so simple. Yeah, exactly. But that makes so much sense when you say that. And I go, oh, and it's an easy thing to do and it's a good thing to do, right? I mean, many of us work in states where breaks are enforced. A lot of us work in states where that's not necessarily true. We should still do it. And I just think that this is a good thing. It's one of those things where sometimes you slow down to go fast. And I find that that's really true in taking care of our staff and our doctors, especially with some people. I have to get them to slow down so that they can feel better, and so that they can focus, and so that they can then be productive and we can go fast. And so I think all of those are really, really great. Amanda, do you have resources that you really like? You mentioned one of the Love and Work book.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm going to check that out. It's not one I'm familiar with. Any other resources that pop to your mind that you think are particularly useful that you like?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I do like reading books about time management, particularly related to neurodivergent people because I feel like a lot of the kind of more popular books, some of those things don't work. And so even people who may experience neurodiversity, even looking into like ADHD coaches or other people to help with non-traditional kind of executive functioning I found is really helpful.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Part of that is I don't really remember names very well.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure, gotcha.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
What does somebody search for to find that, because you're talking about this thing, and I'm like that makes total sense to me. It's not a genre that I'm familiar with. What are some of the terms that when you look like you said executive functioning, coaches, ADHD coaches, things like that-

Dr. Amanda Doran:
ADHD Coaches.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Are there certain terms that you kind of look for?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Yeah, I feel like ADHD coaching is a big thing that's becoming more popular. Or maybe just noticing it more and even kind of learning more about time and how different people relate to time and how it varies for everybody. We talked just briefly about those kind of languages for progressing with visits. I'm doing a talk at the hospice conference later in the fall kind of talking about how to do that with in-home euthanasia visits. And yeah, just kind of recognizing some of the more traditional approaches for kind of “neurotypical” people. If you feel like you're struggling with them as a neurodivergent person, it may be that there are other resources that can be helpful, so ADHD coaching is something that's really helped me and those people are full of resources.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's awesome. That's really, really cool. Amanda, where can people find you online? Where can they follow you and keep up with your adventures?

Dr. Amanda Doran:
I do have a website @dramandadoran.com and the little social media on the Instagram @dramandadoran. And you can also find Wicked Witch West End on Instagram too. But most of my projects and other things that I've done on that Dr. Amanda Doran website, and if anybody has questions or wants to reach out, my email address is dramandadoran@gmail.com.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Awesome. That sounds great. Well thank you so much for that, guys. I'll put links to everything we talked about down in the show notes.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Thank you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Everybody have a wonderful week. Amanda, thanks again for being here.

Dr. Amanda Doran:
Thank you, Andy.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our show. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Got to give us a special shout out to Banfield the Pet Hospital for making transcripts possible. Speaking of inclusion and accessibility in vet medicine, Banfield makes transcripts possible so that people can more easily access the information in this podcast. And they didn't have to do that and we could not do it without them, so I just got to stop and give a shout out to those guys. Guys, if you got any questions for us, shoot us a question in the mail bag. The email address is podcast@unchartedvet.com and Stephanie Goss and I are happy to tackle that. I'll be back with the goddess Stephanie Goss next week and we will see you then. Take care, everybody.

Unforgiving Doctor is Ticking Off the Staff

This week on the podcast…

Bret Canfield joins Dr. Andy Roark to take a MEATY question from the mailbag. When you have a doctor who came from a toxic clinic and now has serious trust issues with staff, how do you coach him or her through that behavior? Are you at risk of driving this doctor away? Let's get into it!

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 203 – Unforgiving Doctor Is Ticking Off The Staff

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


Upcoming Events

JOIN UNCHARTED! https://unchartedvet.com/registration/

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More Resources From The Episode

Belbin Team Roles: https://belbinnorthamerica.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjw0dKXBhBPEiwA2bmObTTWlmfL57KtkwfIdV74o5ksSzg_Usn4bbdKrQGgztenwwRDgCTa_hoCCRcQAvD_BwE

Radical Candor TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yODalLQ2lM&ab_channel=FreshBooksUniversity

Crucial Conversations (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes-ebook/dp/B093Y3N433/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crucial+conversations&qid=1660245538&sprefix=crucial+%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1


Episode Transcript

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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.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I am here today with the one and only, Bret Canfield. Guys, I'm going to introduce Bret in just a minute. He has been working with Uncharted for a couple years now. I like to have him on lectures and conferences. He's a fantastic lecturer. He and I are going to be breaking down questions from the mail bag. It's all about we have a project owner who is a golden retriever and we have an associate vet that's the opposite of a golden retriever and they get along well, but the staff doesn't handle this mixture of the two doctors.
Also, our non-golden retriever tends to be a bit critical when people make mistakes and it's off putting, especially to new staff members. It's a coaching conversation, guys. It is a really good one. I hope that you guys will enjoy it. Also, at the end of this episode, I mention that Bret is going to be joining me and Stephanie Goss at our Uncharted Practice Owner Summit. I'm not sure with the dates, but I'm going to tell you right now that the Practice Owner Summit is in person in December. It's the 8th through the 10th, confirming that. Yup, it is December 8th through the 10th in Greenville, South Carolina, my hometown at the Westin Poinsett. We are going to be getting together. It's only open to practice owners. It's only open to practice owners who are Uncharted members.
So, if you are one of those people, if you're both of those, go ahead and get registered. You can't get registered yet. Registration is coming. Click on your calendar. Mark yourself out of the clinic, December 8th through the 10th. If you are not an Uncharted member, but a practice owner and you're like, “I want to hang out with other practice owners,” go ahead and get your Uncharted membership. Guys, let's get on to this.

Meg:
Now The Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Bret Canfield. How are you?

Bret Canfield:
Fabulous. How are you doing?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm doing really well, man. I really appreciate you coming here and making time to work through this with me. How have you been?

Bret Canfield:
Life has been good. I mean, it's veterinary medicine so it's chaotic and it's busy and hectic and we wouldn't have it any other way, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe short breaks. Maybe short breaks for me if we could. Turn down the volume a little bit sometimes, but for the most part, no, I agree. It's pretty good. For those who don't know you, you do a lot of things. You've been working with us at Uncharted for a couple years now, coming in, doing sessions, lectures. I have pulled you in. I pulled you in for a number of different jobs that we do because you are an outstanding facilitator and thinker. You do a great job of getting people talking, of making conversations go to good places. It's just a skill of yours that I've always admired.
I aspire to be as good a facilitator one day as you are, but you were also the director of organizational development for Summit, which is probably a side thing that you do when you're not hanging out with Uncharted and doing stuff with us. But anyway, you are a person who has really good insight. I have a question that I think you have a very specific set of skills for this question and I was hoping you'd unpack it with me. You up for it?

Bret Canfield:
I'd love to. I think you may have oversold me just a skosh, but let's give it a whirl anyway. I like it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Here we go. Great. We got a question in the mail bag. It's from a longtime listener, first time caller. She's a practice manager. She's got a privately owned, two-veterinarian, small animal clinic. The practice owner and the associate vet have wildly different personalities. So, while they get along, we have had difficulties with new staff. So, I really like the way she sets this up. So, she describes the practice owner, I'm assuming that our writer is she, she describes the practice owner as being basically a golden retriever of a person, which I love, because that's one of my favorite breeds. She loves everyone, is always on the move, is pretty laid back, has no attention span. The staff love her and she loves to teach newbies.
When someone makes a harmless mistake and is accountable, she always tells them, “Hey, I f-ed up more than anyone. It's how you handle it that matters.” I would just put a pin right here and say, I love this person. I'm ready for it. I'm ready to go work with this vet right now. The associate is the opposite. She has a great relationship with the practice owner and with me. After a rocky six months, she now has one technician that she trusts and another that she at least likes. She came to us from a toxic clinic and she knew she had some neurosis from that. We hope that our laid back, respectful, and positive culture might help relax her some. In a lot of ways, it has.
The one thing that hasn't improved is a biggie though, she is consistently off-putting with how she treats new people. I've had multiple new people come to me frustrated and upset about not knowing how to communicate with her. The practice owner and I have both tried to talk with her about it. “If an employee makes the smallest of mistakes, she immediately doesn't trust them with anything. She will frequently complain about something little that an employee did after the fact.”
So, let's go ahead and just start with that. Things seem to be getting worse, instead of better. We 110% want everyone who works here to treat each other with respect. How do we address this? What actions can the PO and I take? That's the question that we got. I want to just go ahead and start to open that up. Bret, do you have initial ideas on this question? Have you seen anything like this before?

Bret Canfield:
Yeah, it's a great question. It's a doozy, because it involves a whole lot of different factors as a lot of our questions do. I do feel like I've seen this before. I mean, one of the things that I love and that I'm very passionate about are elements like team dynamics and communication and culture and things like that. This particular question seems to touch on a lot of those. Right off the cuff, here are my first reactions. The first thing I'm going to say is this is actually a really good thing. It just doesn't feel like a really good thing yet. The reason it's a really good thing is because you've got the two veterinarians in this practice, they communicate very, very differently.
The reason that's such a good thing is because when I've been into practices that have a really, really, really fundamentally hard time changing their culture and really struggle, it tends to be because there's several people in the clinic that all communicate the same way. Once that happens, unfortunately, it's a very narrow communication scope. So, God forbid you have a client come in that communicates differently than the way that you all communicate, you might have absolutely no capacity to deal with that person. The fact that you've got some variety of team dynamics, some diversity of team dynamics could actually be a really good thing. We'll see if you and I can unpack that in a little bit and figure out how to make it a good thing, make it feel like a good thing.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's a very positive way to look at this. I definitely like it, right? Yeah. So, let's start to unpack this. So, I like what you're saying about diversity of team dynamics. I think that's really interesting. Let's get into headspace. So, the way we break these cases down, first thing we do is talk about headspace. The second thing we do is talk about specific action steps. What do we say? How do we say it? So, let's get into headspace. I really like your idea. I think you've already framed this in a really, really positive way of this is just a different team dynamic. I think that that's really great. I think if you identify the associate that as a problem, then anytime you label a person as a problem, you've got issues.

Bret Canfield:
Absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
People don't change all that much. Behaviors can change. People don't change. I don't get that necessarily from the writer, but there's some degree of that. So, I really do like that a lot. I have a fantasy that lives in my mind is that if you set a perfect culture and you've got a really positive place, you can overcome almost any challenge with good positive team culture.

Bret Canfield:
Agreed.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I appreciate that the writer said, “She's come a long way and things have gotten a lot better in a lot of regards.” I say good. That jives with what I've seen. At the end, a positive culture does not undo past traumatic experiences or a hard-ingrained patterns of behavior. So, this all tracks with about what I see as far as the impact we can expect to make. So, I guess in headspace, what I would say is again, I think this person who's writing has already done a lot of really good things of saying, “Hey, this is something that our doctor picked up at a previous practice. That was a really bad experience and a lot of these are coping mechanisms.”

Bret Canfield:
Yeah, she's been hurt before.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right.

Bret Canfield:
It happens. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. She's had trust violated probably in a formative time. Especially if you're a young vet and you get burned a couple of times, those lessons tend to stick with you. So, I think that just all of this is a really healthy headspace to start coming from. So, I really like that a lot.

Bret Canfield:
Agreed. Yeah, agreed. I think you nailed it. I mean, I think whenever we look at people as problems, then we're setting ourselves up for failure. There's some great literature written about the difference between a problem and a paradox and they're not the same thing. I always look at a problem as a surgical experiment. There's an issue, you find the issue, you remove the issue. Sew the culture back up, you're good to go. Most of this stuff, it doesn't work that way. This is derm. This is internal med. It's muddy, it's messy, it's diagnosis by exclusion. It's management, not necessarily just surgery. I think this is a similar situation. I don't think that this is a problem.
I think this is a paradox. I think that you've got two different people that communicate very, very differently. Both of them probably think that their style of communication is the right style of communication. So, from the headspace perspective, I think that's a big part of it. Like anything else, I think that some of what we're talking about probably relates back to expectations and agreements. I think part of what we're talking about absolutely relates to communication and team dynamics. I think part of what we're talking about always bubbles up to culture. It always bubbles up to culture. So, there's a few different ways to look at this from a few different lenses.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Talk to me a bit about expectations and agreements. So, you put that out and say some of this comes from expectations and agreements. Get me into the headspace where I'm thinking about expectations and agreements. Help me understand where you're coming from when you say that.

Bret Canfield:
For sure. I mean, whenever I look at a problem like this, when I'm trying to work with somebody who communicates differently than I am, I have a lot of expectations in my head and I might not be aware of those expectations. But if I'd like to communicate a certain way, I often don't understand or don't appreciate why somebody might communicate differently than I do, because to me, there's a right way to communicate. It's the way that I communicate and I don't understand why somebody would do it differently. We do that a lot.
So, in this case, the practice manager may have already done a bang-up job of communicating with this associate vet and saying, “Fabulous associate vet, there's 99 things that you do right. That being said, I am going to challenge you on this one. I do think sometimes you can come across as distrustful. I think that you can come across as inaccessible and I want to challenge you and work with you on that. I want you to understand that this is really important. So, as we have our conversations moving forward, I want us to agree instead of it being an expectation that only lives in my stupid little noodle, I want us to agree that this is something that is happening, that it's something that we can work on together and it's important.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I would talk about how to do that when we get into action steps. I think that that's really true. It's taking this thing that's going on inside my mind as the manager and bring it out and externalizing in a place where we can all look at it in a really productive way. The other thing that I see when I read through this question and some of these little examples that came along with it, one of the things that I say and I don't know if this is the right term for it, but I think of it as a justice mindset.
So, there are people who are like, “There is one way to do it. If that person didn't do it, it's because they lack integrity. They're supposed to follow what's in their handbook and they did not and that shows a failing of their moral character. They have let our patients down.” That may sound extreme, but I see that mentality sometimes. It's about fairness and acting in a way that lets me trust you and things like that. So, what really is a minor human mistake in this person's mind becomes this person can't be trusted and more so this person has hurt me. I think a lot of us maybe go into that mindset sometimes.
I've seen people who are struggling with depression or burnout definitely go into that mindset, but I think some people live probably from past experiences, they can live in that mindset where if they feel let down, it's a one-strike and you're out policy. Now we're really into some people's psychology, but what I'll say is if you're a person who has that mindset or you find yourself going innately to that behavior, that's really career-limiting for you because everybody makes mistakes. If they get written off as a person when they make a minor mistake, then you're going to be real lonely for a long time. So, I do see that. So, we have to figure out how to work with those people.
So, that brings me around to a piece of it for me really is I may have this problem figured out about what we need to do and where we need to go, but I need to make sure that this associate vet feels very heard and that they feel understood in their behavior and they feel seen for the way that they approach these things. Because if I try to say, “Look, you are jumping to this conclusion and you're mistreating this person and that's not healthy and that's not reasonable,” I'm really dismissing this what this person's concerns are.
I'm not saying I agree with them, but I need them to at least feel heard and feel that they have a valid concern about yeah, it's true. Sometimes if you don't hold people accountable or if we don't enforce standards, then medical quality can slip down to an unacceptable level.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That does happen. That is something that we're very aware of and you're not wrong to be thinking about that. I think just having that conversation, getting that part out into the open, that oftentimes can set that person at ease. So, I think between the two of us, I think we've really come up with a nice little combination of acknowledging this associate vet's concerns and where they're coming from, setting expectations about what they're doing and what the impact that it's having and how we want them to behave, and then also just going on and challenging them to make some improvements while also still keeping a good focus on the things that they're good at, not letting this become the focal defining point of them as a doctor.

Bret Canfield:
In fact, I'll jump into that. In my experience with team dynamics, one of the most interesting points I keep coming back to is that we often have a mentality where people have strengths and people have weaknesses. I think it's not necessarily more complex than that, but I think it's different than that. I think the truth is that oftentimes our biggest challenges don't come from our “weaknesses,” he says with air quotes. I think that our greatest challenges actually come from our strengths, either unfocused or in excess. So, I would even also look at this associate vet and say, “This person doesn't have a problem with trust. This isn't a weakness.” This person is probably and I'm totally guessing, I know very little about this person, but they're pretty good at medicine, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I'd make that guess too.

Bret Canfield:
Part of the reason that they're distrustful sometimes of staff is because they probably do have very high and very exacting standards of success. It probably makes them a very good clinician. So, part of the challenge here is that making sure that this person's strengths don't become their dragon. It's like you said, Dr. Andy, I think that the other challenge is that we'll sometimes look at the team and say, “Okay, I like the way this person communicates. They communicate the way I want people to communicate, but this person communicates badly or poorly or I don't like the way this person communicates.”
I think one of the mindsets we have to have in looking at this is that I think we need to honor the uniqueness, even celebrate the uniqueness of this associate vet and her approach, but I think that we have to help her become the best version of herself. So, let me put it this way. I look at this associate vet like a little bit of a cat. They're not going to trust somebody right away. They're skeptical. You got to earn everything. You got to earn their trust, earn their affection, earn their loyalty, earn their respect. And then you got the owner who's a golden retriever who seems like-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, a golden retriever.

Bret Canfield:
I don't know you but I love you. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The cat's not broken. The cat's not wrong.

Bret Canfield:
That's right. That's right. You're never going to turn a calico cat into a golden retriever and you're never going to turn a golden retriever into a calico cat. If we try to do that, there's going to be a lot of suffering.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I like that a lot.

Bret Canfield:
I think we're allowed to say is, “You be a cat but you be the best version of that.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
The best cat. Be the best cat. She's like, “You're trying to be a golden retriever. Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry.” Yeah.

Bret Canfield:
Right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, that's perfect. It's great. Basically, I talk a lot about most of our strengths are double-edged swords. Most of them are. Being charismatic has strengths and it has drawbacks. This vet can make friends with anybody. Yeah. They're also always 30 minutes late because they can't get out of the exam room because they're being friendly.

Bret Canfield:
Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Everybody's got strengths that at some point become a weakness. You have people who are great at spotting potential problems. The downside is they have a habit of coming off as the Negative Nelly who craps on everything. Well, they're very good at avoiding catastrophe by seeing potential problems, but there's that downside to that same skill. So, yeah, I like that lot. One of my favorite sayings for this is don't ask a fish to climb a tree. I think that that is true too. I'll give the example that I see from this all the time is so we have a profession full of perfectionists and our perfectionists are really in a bind right now, because they got too much work to do and not enough time to do it.
This, Brett, is the perfectionist crucible, because it needs to be done and it needs to be imperfectly and there's more work than I can possibly do. If I give this to someone else, they won't do it as well as I'll do it or they won't do it the way that I do it. So, now, I as a perfectionist am really in a vice grip and there's no way out of this. It is how it feels and that perfectionism makes them a wonderful clinician but it really hinders their ability to delegate and rely on other people and to adapt to a high workload beyond how many hours they have in a day. So, anyway, but that's what I see a lot and it almost feels like that when we talk about this vet. Okay.

Bret Canfield:
Yeah, agreed.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's what I got for headspace. I feel like I'm in a pretty good place to start putting together an action plan. Philosophically, anything else we need to be thinking about?

Bret Canfield:
I think we nailed it honestly. I'm going to declare victory and we can start polishing our laurels.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. I think we can just break right here and have a beer.

Bret Canfield:
We crushed it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This is done. It's done. All right. Okay. So, let's take a break for a second and then we'll come back and do action steps.

Bret Canfield:
I'd love it. Let's do it.

Stephanie Goss:
[inaudible 00:20:13]. Hopefully, this is a big, hairy, audacious goal, hopefully, we'd be able to make you feel better and feel like you have some tools in your toolbox to help make hardships and conflict in your practice a little bit easier to deal with. So, if you would love to come and join us, head on over to the website, unchartedvet.com/events. You can see the registration for this and all the rest of the things that we have coming up, because we got really more good stuff coming now. Back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. [inaudible 00:21:53]. As veterinarians, you may love having two golden retrievers, but in our metaphor, a practice with two golden retrievers is exhausting because they run everywhere and they love on everybody. At some point, you need a cat to be like, “Hey, look, let's bring this down.”

Bret Canfield:
That's right. They're not going to be in the OR until 2:30 in the afternoon every day and you're not going to run an hour and a half late on every exam.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly.

Bret Canfield:
Look, having two golden retrievers is great as long as every single client you see only wants golden retriever energy, but I doubt that that's the case.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I can tell you as a fellow golden retriever, it's not the case. There are clients that are like, “That guy's too much. We need to turn him down.” All right. Yeah. All right, cool. Let's go ahead. Let's go and make some action steps. So, you're the practice manager. You've got this doctor. What I would say, this is going to be a coaching conversation is how I see it. I don't know if you see it that way, but you've got this coaching conversation. How do you set the table, Bret? So let's get into the nuts and bolts. What does this look like?

Bret Canfield:
Yeah, great question. I would absolutely have a coaching conversation with this vet. Honestly, I would also probably have a second component, which is I would probably adopt some stuff from a holistic team perspective as well, but let's talk about the coaching conversation first. Because I think that absolutely has to happen.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right.

Bret Canfield:
This calico cat is extremely conflict-averse based on what I'm hearing. So, one of the things that I would want to do is make sure that this person felt very, very safe. I would make sure this didn't feel like an attack. I would make sure this didn't feel like an intervention. Because I think once you get somebody into that place, they're going to hit threshold, they're going to shut down. Their fight, flight, freeze, fidget is going to kick in and they're probably not going to be receptive to the coaching.
So, from my perspective, I would probably just lay some groundwork and probably say the quick version is what we touched on earlier, which is like you do so much stuff that is going well and I hope that I've done a good job acknowledging those things. If I haven't, I'm going to work hard, because I really value you and I really value what you bring to the team, so much so that I think there is actually an area that we can do better.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, let me jump in here for a second and just say I love that you show vulnerability first. I think that that's a really important part of this conversation. I think it's a really good skill is to say, “Hey, if I haven't communicated that, it's something I'm working on is to make sure that I communicate these things ahead of time.” I love it. I think going into a coaching conversation with the ability to own anything that you can own and I don't want to say criticism, but essentially lay some criticism on yourself and say, “Hey, look. This is the thing that I'm working on. We're all trying to get better and I'm going to keep working on it.”
I think that is a great way of going first by saying I'm going to accept some negative feedback from myself and commit to working on that. That really hopefully says, “I'm going to do this. I'm going to go first. It's not me calling you in here and criticizing you. We're talking about this, but I'm going to own as much as I can and say look, I have things to work on as well.” So I just want to jump in and praise that specific point before we get too far and say, I really like the way you set that up.

Bret Canfield:
I've learned from some really good folks that if you approach any coaching conversation from an authoritarian standpoint, a command and control standpoint, it's not going to usually be well-received. I think the truth is none of us are perfect. If you can go into the conversation with that in mind, there have been even times I've sat down with somebody and I've said, “I've been thinking a little bit about this conversation and I'll be honest, I'm a little bit nervous because I don't want this to happen.
I don't want you to walk away from this being offended. I don't you want you walking away from this thinking that you're not exceptional at your job. I'm going to try really hard to do a good job and to try to prevent those things from happening. But if I screw up, I'm just going to ask for your forgiveness in advance because I don't want those things to happen. You're really important.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love it. Yeah, that's great. Well, man, that's gold.

Bret Canfield:
I think once you've done that, I think you just lay out the challenge and say, “Here's the behavior that I've observed.” I think again, as much as you can own it yourself, it's important, because if this person's automatically distrusting and you say, “Hey, I've gotten some feedback from the team,” their mind is immediately going to go to, “Who talked? Who squealed? Who told you what? I want to know. I have the right to face my accusers.” You do not want to open that particular barrel of monkeys.
So, I would say here's what I've observed. I've observed that you have very high standard in terms of what you expect the staff to meet, what you expect from yourself. I think that's a really good thing. I think the way that high standard comes across sometimes is I think it comes across as you being distrustful of the team. I think it also comes across sometimes as you being somewhat unforgiving of the team. Our practice manager who submitted this did an outstanding job of submitting a couple specific examples to us. I do the same thing in that conversation, because that way, it's not some nebulous thing. I would say, “Hey, for example, last Thursday, here's an encounter that I observed.”
And then I think at that point, you have to do the hardest thing for me personally, which is to shut up for five seconds and say, “Quick pause. That's where I think we are. Give me some feedback.” One of the ways I'd really like to ask that and there's a very tactical reason is I'll say, “Now, is this something that you're aware of? Is this something that you also see as a challenge for you, or is this more of an optics problem?” What I mean by that is this isn't what's in my heart. I don't feel like I'm distrusting, but the team is perceiving that I am, because it gives them an out.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I really love that. I want to validate a couple things you said and then-

Bret Canfield:
Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… explain a few places that I think are important. One, I think you're right about the authoritarian approach to feedback, but God, Bret, so many of us think this is supposed to be authoritarian. I coach vets, especially vets in larger corporate groups, where they have an established evaluation process, which totally makes sense, but it is an evaluation process and it happens once a year or twice a year and people come in and they get evaluated. I'm like, “Well, then I'm the evaluator and I will evaluate you.” The whole thing feels like it's supposed to be authoritarian or militaristic, where you come in and I will tell you, soldier, what you did and what you didn't do. I think that that whole vibe sets people up for failure from the very beginning.

Bret Canfield:
Agreed.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It really needs to be conversational. So, I like that you just called that out, but I really think that that is a wild misperception in evaluating giving feedback is it's supposed to have this power inequality between the person giving the feedback and the person receiving. It's really not. The best coaching feels peer to peer even if it's not.

Bret Canfield:
That's true.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So, I really like that you said that. Again, we go back to I love you give a couple examples of how to be vulnerable of opening up and saying, “Hey, if I make a mistake with this, please forgive me and know that you're really great in your job.” I really also like very much that you pause and say, “Is this surprising? Does this feel valid in any way, or is this off base?” It's funny the way I talk about the perception problem versus the reality problem, I really like that you set it up that way. I tell a story sometimes of I was busting my butt and my wife was teaching abroad. So, she went for a couple of weeks to Ecuador and she was teaching. She's a college professor, so she went and she was teaching.
It's a really hard job, where she has to go to Ecuador and teach about biology to college students. So, she's working up for the team and she did it, but she was gone. The kids were much younger. So, I had young kids. I had a bunch of work coming down the pipes and I was working really hard. So, I just decided what I would do is I take my kids up to my parents' house for the weekend. I would take them up there and they would get great grandkid time and I would tuck away and just do work. So, I went up there and I didn't set that expectation with my parents. I just showed up with the kids and they said, “Hey, we're going to come.” They were excited.
And then I disappeared into a room and just worked up my laptop for two days. And then when I was leaving, my dad was like, “Son, I'm worried about the relationship you have with your kids.” Man, that hit me like a hammer. You know what I mean? I was like, “Oh, my God. My dad said that he's worried about the relationship that I have with my kids.” I was really appalled by it. So, I called my brother because he knows me and he knows my dad and he is my best friend. So, I said, “Hey, well, dad said this to me. Man, I'm really wrestling with it.” He said, “Andy, I've known you for 40 years, you have a great relationship with your kids. You have a perception problem. All that he saw was you showing up, dumping your kids, and going into a bedroom.”

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
He thinks this is the norm and how you live your life. You and I know that this was 100% not the norm. This is an exceptional circumstance where you changed your behavior radically because you thought that that was something you needed to do. So, he said, “You have a perception problem.” That was the best example in my life of going, “Oh, he's right. I do have a great relationship with my kids. I know I do, but my father's perception of my relationship was not accurate.”
So, I really like that you called that out and said, “Do you think this is a perception problem?” That can 100% percent be true. People will say, “But Andy, if the whole team thinks that she's curt or she's mean, then surely that's not a perception problem because everyone thinks it.” What I would say is part of culture is collaborative creation of narratives.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Once people start to talk to each other, it is possible the team has decided that she's angry, unforgiving. The truth is she's like, “Well, I just don't know how to tell them that they didn't do it right and they're taking it really personally.”

Bret Canfield:
I think you're allowing that possibility. I mean if you say to somebody, “Look, I know what's in your heart. You're obviously a distrusting person. You obviously don't care about your team,” again, that's not going to be a good coaching conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Nope.

Bret Canfield:
Dr. Andy, you got two choices, right? Let me put it this way. The choice of “Hey, this isn't actually a challenge,” that's not a choice. You do have a choice though. Is this a challenge that you acknowledge is happening in reality and that you're aware of, or is this a challenge where you're like, “That's what's in my heart. I'm not a distrusting person. I like our team so you guys are wrong”? No, there's still a challenge to be addressed. The challenge to be addressed is you are coming across as being distrusting or curt or whatever word you want to use, right?
The good news is in this particular scenario, the solution to both of those challenges happens to be the same, right? If somebody says, “Yes, I'm distrusting in my heart,” okay, let's talk about the solution. If they say, “I'm not distrusting in my heart, but I'm coming across that way,” it happens to be the same solution, which is now let's have a conversation about how to change the how, how to change how you're being perceived, how you're coming across.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That can be very collaborative too.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We can say, “Well, this is the perception that we're getting. What do you think?” Quite honestly, if it is a perception problem, the person who was there saying the things and doing the things probably has more insight than I do about what they might do differently. Of course, there's ways that I can smooth this over. I can be a messenger and a peacemaker and go to the staff and say, “Hey, guys, this is something that I've heard and I want you guys to hear the other side of it and let's give grace that we wish that we would receive from other people.”

Bret Canfield:
Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Again, I wouldn't say to the technicians, “How dare you miscast our beloved doctor?” I would say, “Hey, we're all doing our best. Nobody wants to feel preached at or judged. I get it. At the same time, no one communicates perfectly all the time. So, we want to make sure that we're assuming good intentions in our colleagues and the people that we work with and start with that.”

Bret Canfield:
Well, and that's why I said the second component to this I think has to be more of a holistic conversation as a team about our culture, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that you put that out there.

Bret Canfield:
There's a couple quick things to dip into. Thing number one is you have the coaching conversation with your calico vet, but then you have conversation with your team and say, “Folks, we've had a coaching conversation. Now I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty because I don't air out other people's dirty laundry any more than I would air out yours, but we've had a conversation. This is something that we're working on together. Now I need you all to hit that reset button. I need to hit that reset button, because otherwise, what you're going to get is a lot of confirmation bias.”
Once the team has decided that this person's curt, any slight example of this person being curt, they're going to have out their little clipboards and they're going to be like, “Oh, she did it again. She did it again. Oh, she was curt.” It's like time out. I love your word, Dr. Andy. We're going to give this person some grace. We're going to assume the good. We're going to recognize that this is challenging and we're going to allow this person the opportunity to be better.
The other thing I would probably do is I'd probably take the team through a workshop or maybe even a couple workshops on things like courageous conversations. You and I talk about resources so I can geek out about that all day, but there's a few established tools for, “How do we as a team get better at showing each other that we do care about each other and that we're willing to challenge each other?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, lay it on me. What are your favorites?

Bret Canfield:
I mean first one right off the cuff is Kim Scott's Radical Candor. It's a great book. It's an even better TED Talk in my opinion. It's 14 minutes of your time well spent.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right. I'm going to link that in the notes.

Bret Canfield:
I love it. That's a good one. I love the book Crucial Conversations. I think it's very powerful. The only thing that I'm worried about with that is that there's a lot of steps and there's a lot of meat on that bone. Sometimes when teams go through that, they start to overcomplicate these things. In my opinion, the number one most important thing about having what I call courageous conversations, the number one most important thing is to have them. Yes, there are rules. Yes, there are strategies. Yes, there are tactics, but the number one communication problem in our industry and in fact in the world, it's not miscommunication, it's not rude communication, it's not curt communication. It's the absence of communication.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. We're in the business of fixing problems that are established, but I think sometimes if you can use the way back machine and jump back a little bit and start to lay down some different patterns of behaviors, you can make a lot of things much more easier and much easier on yourself. So, for example, one of the things that I feel like is an unfair advantage that places with good culture have is that they give a lot of feedback. The great thing is if you give a lot of feedback, then giving feedback and coaching when you get to this point is really easy because it's not a hard thing. What's really weird is when you give no feedback and now you have to have a conversation with this person. I look at you and I say, “Well, just make it casual. Try to make it not a big deal.”

Bret Canfield:
They can't.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, it's a big deal.

Bret Canfield:
They got a whole laundry list of stuff that they haven't talked about for a year and it's like, “You did this.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly.

Bret Canfield:
You did this, you did this. Wait, there's more. This, this, this. It's like, “Now, I feel like I'm on a trial,” right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. Well, even some of the advice that I see people giving, I've given for giving conversations, like lower the stakes, go off-site, go out to dinner. You think that's going to lower the stakes? If you have never ever had coffee with this person offsite before, you think inviting them to go to coffee with you is not going to send up warning flares-

Bret Canfield:
To the whole clinic, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
… and danger bells.

Bret Canfield:
All of a sudden, people are going to be like, “Hey, whatever you do, don't go out to coffee with Dr. Andy.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's exactly it. Yeah, totally. So, a lot of it is just if you can get in the habit of giving feedback all the time, this is super easy.

Bret Canfield:
Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:
People go, “That sounds awful.” Positive feedback is feedback. Again, it goes back to that militaristic command and control ideas. No, tell them what's great. Praise them for what they do. Praise them for wins. Ask them how things are going.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Ask them how they thought the day went yesterday. What did you guys think? Hey, how did this go? Just ask them so that you can ultimately be like, “Hey, how did you think things went yesterday? What's good? Hey, what are you working on developmentally? What do you think your goals are for the next year as far as a doctor? I can make that roll off my tongue because I say crazy stuff like that all the time.

Bret Canfield:
Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, what do you think about that?

Bret Canfield:
It changes the culture. What we're really talking about is microdosing communication, microdosing feedback. Instead of me waiting until I review every year to get you a giant huge honk and bolus full of feedback, how about we just say stuff every day like, “Hey, Dr. Andy, nice job”? You're like, “And, but.” It's like, “No and, no bud, nice job, hard stop, mic drop,” or vice versa. Hey, I love you. I think you could have done this one thing just a little bit better. They're like, “Tell me what.” It's like, “No, that's it. You just could have done this one thing a little bit better. You're okay. I'm okay. Everybody's okay.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm going to push you on this a little bit in that when I do feedback stuff, you say, “Hey, great job,” I think the real magic is give them an example. Speak in one level more specific than that. Hey, great job doing this thing. Hey, I saw you talking with the vet student who came to visit today and you were showing them around. You've had their full attention and I just wanted to say, hey, I know you're busy. I really appreciate you doing that. That was great and you put on such a good face for our practice. I just want to tell you that.

Bret Canfield:
Agreed.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's that one click better than hey, good job or love working with you. It's trying to hit that a little bit more specifically.

Bret Canfield:
Yeah. Well, I'm on the field a lot. I mean I'm on the floor a lot. So, one of the things I'd love to try to do is give feedback in real-time. So, even then when I say, “Great job,” I'm standing there for a minute, I'm in surgery, I'm watching a new technician or whatever, do something, do a difficult task. They do it and I'm just like, “Hey, we need to do a quick time out. That was awesome. Am I the only one who just saw that?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Bret Canfield:
And then you don't even need to double click on it because you're there. It's happening. You were there at that exact time. If you give somebody applause in the moment, they know what it's for. If you give them applause two days later, they're like, “What did I do again? I don't remember.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well and the other thing too is you do that five times and you can say something like, “Hey, could you work on this for me?” They go, “Okay.” It's because they feel safe.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because you've told them that they're great five times before you told them this.

Bret Canfield:
That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The other thing that I want to say, so you had mentioned before if we get the specific feedback or say, “Hey, this is the complaint that I've gotten,” so sometimes there's coaching, meaning this is generally where we need to go. Sometimes there's feedback in response to a specific thing that happened a couple of days ago. So, let's just say this person got into an argument with the vet tech on the floor. Let's just say. Well, I need to address that. So, I'm going to have to talk to them about this specific thing that happened. My big go-to and this helps me, because I'm like you, I have to twist my own arm to shut up and let other people talk. But I know how important it is. My favorite thing is the two most powerful words in management are, “What happened?”
So I just really like to say, “Hey, I heard that there was a bit of drama on the treatment room floor yesterday and that you were involved. What happened? What happened?” I coach improv comedy and I have a team that I coach. I really love this team. I went out of town. You would love this. I went hiking with my wife for a week and we just went up to the Appalachians. My cell phone didn't work most of the time and it was great. I got back and I had asked someone to coach the improv team for me while I was gone.
While I was gone, there had been an altercation at improv practice and someone's feelings got hurt. It was 100% had to do with some feedback and someone's feelings got hurt. They felt defensive or they felt it was act. They got really upset. So, I came back and I'm walking to this group of people. They've all saw what happened but I did not see it. I really have to say something about it because some people's feelings are really hurt. So, I walked in and I said, “Guys, I heard about practice last week. What happened?” That was all I said. Someone goes, “I'll go first. I think I made a faux pas.” They were like, “I think I made a faux pas when I did this.” It was great.

Bret Canfield:
That's so powerful.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It worked so well. So, again, you got to have good people who were willing to say, “I made a horrible misstatement yesterday last time, and I tried to be helpful. The way I did it, I could understand why that would make someone feel like they were being attacked, but I never meant it that way.”

Bret Canfield:
Totally.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then we start off and it just ironed itself out beautifully in about five minutes. Everyone felt good and felt heard. I say, “Okay, let's do some improv.” That was it and that was the end of it. People talked and it was great. But that was just an example from last week of, “I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. This could be really tense. What happened, guys?” They told me and they sorted out in a meaningful way. So, I thought it was really good.

Bret Canfield:
It's a great way to guide things if you're a talker, like you and I both are. The team and I were joking around just having some lighthearted fun, because things have been so intense. One of the things we were doing is pointing out each other's verbal quirks. What are the words that you always say that maybe you don't know you say? I asked the same feedback. When it came to me, I was like, “Okay, hit me. What are some of mine?” They said, “Tell me more.” I said, “That's my version of what happened.”
So, I'll be in a conversation with them and they'll start to talk to me. It's my way of shutting myself the hell up for a second because what I want to do is I want to jump in with solutions. When I say, “Tell me more,” it's my way of saying, “I want you to work through this for a minute. Frankly, I don't have all the information I need.” I think stuff like that can work. I've one more thing burning desperately in my heart. Can I share one more thought with you on this scenario?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, of course.

Bret Canfield:
My one other thought and this has taken this whole idea up to 11, but my one other cultural thought is that I absolutely love team dynamic tools. I absolutely love psychometric instruments. So, for a practice manager, if you haven't taken the team through something like DISC or Myers-Briggs or Insights or True Colors or Canine Colors, I can't recommend those things enough. In fact, there's one that I especially love that most people in our industry don't know about, and it's called Belbin, B-E-L-B-I-N, Belbin team roles, developed by Dr. Meredith Belbin in the UK many years ago.
The reason I like these tools so much is that once you have the team go through and it helps them identify their communication styles, et cetera, it's a very non-aggressive way to call out certain behaviors without coming across like you're criticizing somebody's soul. So, instead of saying, “Yeah, Dr. Andy, I think you're a very distrustful person,” if I can say whatever you're doing, “Hey, you're a bright red,” or “Hey, remember when we went through that thing and remember when your communication style was very heavily weighted towards this, I think that's what's happening here. I think you're zigging and they're zagging.”
It makes the whole thing much more call it scientific rather than having it be, “Hey, I'm openly criticizing your personality.” So if it's something I'm a huge believer in, if anybody ever has any geeky questions about any of that stuff, I'll talk about that stuff all day long.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes to Belbin as well. We teach DISC in Uncharted just for that same reason as that.

Bret Canfield:
I love DISC.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You get people out and there talking about their communication style. I love it, because again, everybody's got their favorite, but we teach DISC in Uncharted. Stephanie is a great implementer and teacher in DISC, but we use it a lot just because it's quick. You can recognize yourself and you can recognize other people really quickly in their style and what style they're using. And then again, I think probably the most powerful part of any of these is what you said, which is it shifts us to talking about the communication or the behavior and shifts us off of from talking about person. That just makes genuinely more productive conversations.
One last thing I want to jump back to that you brought up before we go, I love the holistic team perspective. I love going to the team after we've talked to this person and saying, “Hey, guys, we're going to have to reset button,” because you're right. Otherwise, it's confirmation bias. We've all worked really hard with someone and then sent them out and then the team immediately reacts to them based on their previous history. We just see it going right back into the old spiral, where it's like, “Okay, I've got reset button hit on this person,” but if we don't hit the reset button on the rest of the group, this pattern is going to pick right back up. I need both sides of this equation to stop pushing into the pattern and let's try to establish a new pattern.
So, I love that. I was just going to say, when we talk about a team approach, that does not necessarily mean a team meeting or a staff meeting. It might, but I think it's super awkward to bring the team together and be like, “All right, I've talked to Dave. This is what we talked about.” So I just want to be clear and say, hey, a lot of times these are private conversations, just saying, “Hey, I can't really get into details, but I want to let you know, I'm working with this person and they are really committed to trying to break out of this habit and I want to ask you to help with that. So, press the reset button, let you know and try to be supportive and open to the idea that they're trying to do better. Let's see how it goes.”

Bret Canfield:
Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Give some grace, but that can definitely be a private conversation. Usually, when we talk about things like this, there are certain people who have personality conflicts specifically and those are the people I really want to make sure I talk to, because they are going to be the ones that they're most likely to have a negative interaction with. So, for example, let's say that I have a technician on the floor who tends to take things very personally. That may be the person who's going to be who tends to be most affected by this or maybe the most vocal person who has these interactions and then goes and tells the rest of the staff or they vent about it or whatever.

Bret Canfield:
Or the most influential person. Absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. Recruiting those people onto your side as you try to make this coaching adjustment, I think that that's a good use of time and energy.

Bret Canfield:
Agreed. Well, the truth is if we're really going to be a team, this is not clockwork, right? Like I said, it's not surgery. You can't just take the clock, pull out the part that's bad, fix it, put it back in, and not touch anything else. This is biology. This is an ecosystem. If you change one thing, you change everything. I do think it's important. As you said, Dr. Andy, to also close the loop, because one thing that happens to us a lot as leaders in veterinary medicine is someone will approach us with a problem.
We'll often go work on that problem, but as far as that original person knows, I don't know what the hell's going on. Sometimes just sitting down with somebody and saying, “I appreciate you telling me. I have had a conversation with this person. I'm not going to share the details of that conversation, but here's what I need from you moving forward,” now, we're doing a good job and we're taking a holistic approach, which I think is important.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that's awesome. Bret, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you online?

Bret Canfield:
Good question. I don't have the social media presence that I would like. I keep promising I'm going to do it and I keep not doing it. But between now and then, everyone can always just reach me on my email. I live for this stuff. Best email to reach me on is just bret.canfield@cast.net. Dr. Andy, please feel free to put it in the notes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.

Bret Canfield:
If I can ever be of service, I love this industry, so I'm happy to geek out over it. The challenge, of course, is getting me off the phone.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Definitely. Well, anyway, guys, thanks for being here. Bret, thank you so much for being here. Guys, take care of yourselves, right? Talk to you later on.

Bret Canfield:
Always a pleasure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That is our episode, guys. That's what we got for you. I hope you like it. Hope you got something out of it. Bret is fantastic. That's why we have him work for us in a variety of different ways. He's really a joy and a pleasure to be there. Let's see, anything else I want to tell you before you go? Banfield Pet Hospital, I got to remember that always in the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. [inaudible 00:51:03] inclusivity in our profession. So, we couldn't do it without them. Always trying to thank those guys. Gang, take care of yourself. Be well. We'll cheer you on.

They Hired A B*tch So Now What Do We Do?

Uncharted Podcast Episode 197 Cover Image

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss dive into the mail bag and come out with a wonderful question from a lead LVT who is struggling with a new hire that they are hearing some not so nice things about through the local vetmed grapevine. The world of veterinary medicine is a very small one – does that mean it is unfair to judge someone before you even get to work with them? Let's get into this.

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 197 – They Hired A B*tch So Now What Do We Do?

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


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Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.


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LEVERAGING TECHNICIANS – MAKING PRACTICE LESS STRESSFUL FOR YOU, THEM AND YOUR PATIENTS!

Join us as we discuss ways to balance leveraging technicians while creating a positive culture of respect for all team members! We all recognize that every member of the veterinary team is valuable. In this workshop, we will:

  • Explore how to create trust among your team so that veterinarians will fully utilize technicians and technicians will fully utilize veterinary assistants
  • Discuss how to cultivate a well-balanced team resulting in less stress for everyone to create positive client and patient experiences.

Join us on Wednesday, October 19 from 7-9 PM ET/ 4-6 PM PT for $99 (FREE for Uncharted Members!) Register here

All Uncharted Veterinary Community Workshops are LIVE! You will be able to ask the instructor questions that help you address your practice’s unique problems. This will not be 2 hours of silent screen time. Gear up for interactive, fun learning!


Episode Transcript

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Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, we have another great e-mail through the mail back from a technician at a small GP who has a new hire coming on that they feel like might have a bit of a bad reputation. Andy and I get into talking about the fact that vet med is a very small world, and answer some of the questions that this tech asked about. Are they catastrophizing? And if they are, how do they actually deal with this? This one is so fun and I'm super excited to share it with you all, so let's get into it, shall we? Oh, and real quick, if you're listening to this episode and you have kids around, there is some language in this one. Andy and I try, but we don't always succeed at censoring ourselves here. So, you might want to hit pause if the kids are in the car with you and now let's get into this.

Speaker 2:
And now, the Uncharted Podcast.

Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only, Stephanie “I'm the bad guy” Goss. Oh, not my best.

Stephanie Goss:
That's okay. I don't mind being the bad guy once in a while. How good is Andy Roark?

Andy Roark:
It could be worse. That's where I am. It could be worse. I feel like there's a lot of people who are struggling with things these days and I've had some of my close friends reach out really recently and say things like, “Boy, I worked so hard on the culture of my practice and now, everyone has quit. No money.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And I've had other people who'd say, “I'm going through a really hard time and I've had a lot of pets that I care deeply about passing away and I'm not strong enough to not let that affect me. And so, if I act different when we're together, I just want you to kind of know that's going on.” And I think about those things a lot. I hear advice to other people say…. So for example, with the turnover thing, when I say, “I have a friend who's struggling and he's had a huge staff turnover.” I know there's people out there who say, “Well, maybe he's not setting the culture the right way,” or “Maybe he's not leading the right way,” or “Maybe he's not hiring the right people.”

Andy Roark:
And I hear those things, but I've been really thinking a lot about this, Stephanie. I just kind of want to put it here at the beginning because it's something I'm really rolling around with. I've got this idea that there are sages, and hustlers, and backpackers.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
Okay. So, sages, and hustlers, and backpackers. And the sages are the people who try to convince you that if you are smart enough, you will get this right.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
The key is there's knowledge that you don't have, but if you had the knowledge, if the person told you the right things, then you would be one of the smart people and you would-

Stephanie Goss:
And you could change it.

Andy Roark:
… You could change it. You'd avoid it. You would avoid the pain because you are smart and you know the thing. And the hustlers are the people who are on Facebook and Instagram talking about how they're grinding, and they're working hard, and they're up early and they're seizing the day, and they're making it happen because they're working so hard. And I think both of those people are largely full of shit. I'm sorry, I do.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I think we're all backpackers.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
And what I mean is, we are all out there just walking in the woods, and we're making our way. And some of us are carrying heavy packs and some of us are carrying light packs and generally, we have cycles, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
That's just backpacking, as we have a full pack and you go in the woods, it's real heavy, and at the end of the trip it didn't weigh as much because you've gotten a lot off your back and you've eaten a lot of food and stuff. And so, some of us have heavy packs, and some of us have light packs, and sometimes your pack is heavy, and sometimes it's light, and sometimes you're getting eaten by mosquitoes.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Sometimes you're not, and sometimes there's beautiful views, and sometimes there not. And sometimes, it just rolls up and it rains on you for days and days, and you just walk in the rain, and you didn't do anything wrong and you're not failing, you're just walking in the rain, and I think that that's really important. And yeah, if you're smart, you can do better packing job and you can pick a better trail sometimes. And there are some people who just hike in circles and they come back to the same roadblocks, the same landmarks, and they don't realize that they're going at circles. They're like, “There's that same pain in my butt again.” [inaudible 00:04:38]-

Stephanie Goss:
Guess I'll keep going.

Andy Roark:
… right around and they just do it again. If you're seeing the same landmark, you should change what you're doing. And we all need to rest on our backpacking trip, everybody needs to rest. If your ideas, I'm going to walk, and walk, and walk, and never rest, never take care of myself, you're in trouble. At the same time, there's a lot of people who take a lot of rests and they don't get very far. And so anyway, that's where my head is these days and I hope that that's helpful for other people because it's been really helpful to me recently. I'm like, “You know what? We're all just backpacking. And sometimes, you backpack in the rain and there's nothing you can do about it other than, except that it's just going to rain and you're going to walk in the rain for a while and you didn't do anything wrong. You don't outsmart the rain, you don't outhustle the rain, sometimes you walk in the rain.”

Stephanie Goss:
Glad that you talked about this and I think the metaphors is very appropriate, and it's one of the things that makes me love what we do here on the podcast and what we do in the Uncharted community because I think it's so true. And I think even the most experienced backpackers get hit with rain. And the only way to get through it is you just keep picking your foot up and put one foot in front of the other. And it's one of the things that I love here because this is kind of a safe little space because the reality is like you can be really good at your job and you can have done it forever and you're still going to get hit with rain once in a while. And so, I think about our friend too and it's like, you can do all the right things, you can have all the right systems, and protocols, and processes, and it still falls apart.

Andy Roark:
Sure.

Stephanie Goss:
And that's one of the things that I love about our community, is the willingness to recognize that. ‘Cause I think, especially on social media, there's this pressure to feel like you have to make it look like everything is perfect. And we get caught up in like, “Oh my God, their clinic has it all together.” Nobody's clinic has it all together all the time. It's just total BS, you guys.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Honestly, that's what I love the most. That's what I probably would've loved the most about Uncharted is, one of our core values is vulnerability. And so, there's nothing that makes you feel better when you're walking in the rain, and you've had this problem, and you've gone through this thing. And then, someone that you respect, someone who you knew is just objectively successful, comes up and says, “Oh, man. I did that. I remember walking through that. God it sucks.” And you go, “Oh, you've been here? You've got something like this?” And they're like, “Oh, yeah buddy.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And when you go, one, it's someone showing you that you're going to come out the other side, which is valuable. And another thing is it convinces you that it's not a foolish mistake, it's just sometimes, you get rained on, and everybody gets rained on. So anyway, I've been thinking a lot about that recently. But if you're out there and you're struggling and you're feeling like, “Man, things are not going well. This must mean that I'm failing, or I'm not strong enough, or I'm not smart enough.” I don't think that that's true. I think we're all making our way. And hey, if you want to walk with some people, come and join Uncharted, and we walk together, that's what we do. But we're all still walking, and you still got to carry your own back, and you're still going to get rained on, but at least you won't be alone. And other people can tell you what they've seen on their journey as well.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
So anyway, that's that. Anyway, I don't know who needs to hear that, but I suspect someone does.

Stephanie Goss:
I think there's more people that probably need to hear it than don't, because it's hard right now. And honestly, I'm stoked about, we've got GSDA Conference coming up in a few short weeks. I can't believe it's already September. The clock is just moving on by.

Andy Roark:
[Inaudible 00:08:28].

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that's where a lot of us are at. Life is crazy. Everybody's shorthanded. Everything is nuts for everybody. And so. I'm really excited about spending that time in that space together as a group to just say, “Look, sometimes it's great, and let's lean into the positivity because when it sucks, it's really hard to find that positive motivation.” And there's nothing better than being on that trail and having another group of backpackers to just sit and wait out the rain with.

Andy Roark:
Yeah,

Stephanie Goss:
It feels good.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
But we have a great mail bag question for this week. Speaking of waiting out the rain, we got a question from a technician in practice who is a leader and they're asking for some friends or some advice for waiting out the rain. So, they are the lead in RVT in their practice or lead tech, and they have someone who's been hired, they have a practice manager. And so, the practice manager has hired somebody, and they said the vet world's very small in our area. And fun fact, the vet world in general, is very small. Doesn't matter where you live, you can live in New York City or you can live in the middle of nowhere Kansas, it is small no matter where you live. And so this tech is like, “Look, I'm hearing some pretty negative things from mutual acquaintances in our area about this new hire. They have super [inaudible 00:09:57] words, like they have super strong or super dominant personality. And one person said, ‘Look, this person is a straight up, capital B word.'”

Stephanie Goss:
And so, their practice managers was like, “Look, we're shorthanded. I think that we need someone, particularly someone who has a level of experience as this hire, badly enough to give them the benefit of the doubt and just see what happens.” And so, this technician is torn because they're like, “Look, I get it. We do need help. And we've worked really, really hard to get to a place as a team where we have, a great team, not toxic, works together, and they're afraid. They don't want that to change.” And so, they were asking, “Hey, how do you approach onboarding someone where you might know some things about their history? Do you view it differently than you would a new hire that nothing about?” They were asking themselves, “Am I being unfair to judge before this person even starts? And they're just worried about, “Am I catastrophizing this or is there actually potential that this could be a train wreck?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Both. Guess, it's both.

Stephanie Goss:
Right?

Andy Roark:
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Wait. Here we go. We actually get a fair number of questions like this about like, “Someone new is joining and this is what I've heard. What can I do?”

Stephanie Goss:
This is 100% going to be another one of those episodes where people are like, “Are they talking about my practice?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I'll tell you the other part of this, this is not the question that we got, but this is a version of this question that I've gotten before, it's the owner or the medical director writes to us and they're like, “I just hired this person and now the team has come to me to tell me they have a horrible reputation. This is information I would've liked to have had yesterday.”

Stephanie Goss:
Again, true story.

Andy Roark:
We've gotten those gotten letters too.

Stephanie Goss:
True story.

Andy Roark:
All right. Well, let's already unpack this. So, let's start with headspace as we do.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
Do you want to start with sunny headspace or not sunny headspace? What do you like to start with?

Stephanie Goss:
Let's start with the sunshine.

Andy Roark:
Great. Let's start with the sunshine. How about the golden rule? Like, Okay, if I was going into a new job and someone there had heard that I was a jerk, I would want the people who didn't know me to at least give me a chance.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
I would want that.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
I'll tell you a story. I don't think I've ever told this story before, but I'll tell you a story. I remember at a Facebook group, it's been years ago, and it was a group and there was a bunch of technicians in this group, and I had posted something that had been shared from the Doctor Anywhere page into this group, something like that. And I was looking around, as you do when you see something show up in a group, you're like, share that and wander. And people were like, “Oh, this is really good, and blah, blah, blah.” And then, there was this one person who said, “If you want to know what it's really like to work with him, let me know. I have the dirt,” in the comments.

Stephanie Goss:
Seriously?

Andy Roark:
And I look at this person. I never met this person in my life. I'm like, “I have no idea who you're.” But I was bothered.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
It was very conspiratorial. And so, I commented back to this person and I said, “What's the dirt? I would really like to know.” And I thought that they would kind of back down or maybe delete their comment. But no, they wrote, they grabbed their flaming, raging sword of justice and said, “Ah. The fact that you would comment shows how defensive you are and then you clearly have-“

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, gosh.

Andy Roark:
At that point, I was done.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
But they went on the attack that I had said, “What is the dirt? Because I've never met you and I'm curious as to what you think you know,” and it just escalated. And I thought about that and it really bothered me because I was like, “I don't know who this person is and they're telling other people they have the dirt on working with me.” And so, I went back to my text and I was like, “Hey, what's the dirt on working with me? What could possibly be there?” And they looked and they were like, “Oh, this person works with someone who left our clinic a while back.” And so yeah, there's probably some gossipy stuff going on over there.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I wouldn't worry about it. And I ultimately said, “Dude, what else are you going to do?” So, you let it go.

Stephanie Goss:
Let it go.

Andy Roark:
But man, it always bothered me because I really bend over backwards to be good to work with. And if I'm not good to work with, I want you to tell me I'm not good to work with. Because I, honest to God, take the feedback and change or at least change what I can do, because it's real important to me that the support staff and the other doctors enjoy being around me, and that I treat people well. And so, to see that or have that reputation put out, man, that hurt me and that bothered me, enough that the fact that I still remember the interaction today. And so, I can empathize with the person coming in and being like, sometimes, people say stuff or put stuff out that hopefully, is not remotely true, but man I would hate to have people judging me and making decisions about how they're going to treat me based on some rumor about how I'm supposed to act.

Stephanie Goss:
And the other piece of this that I will say that has been one of the most powerful lessons that I have learned as a manager but also as a human being is, sometimes, things are a result of environment. And so, I have worked with technicians, and support staff, and doctors in my career where I have worked with them in one environment, and it was an awful experience, and then, they go on to a completely different clinical environment and it's like night and day. And so, I think for me, give people a chance is really important. And I think, again, I'm looking for repeated instances of problems but you got to give somebody a chance. And so, I think that's how I try and approach people when I do reference checks or background checks as a manager and I'm talking to people who have worked with somebody before and I'm asking them questions, one of the things that I'm trying to figure out is situational.

Stephanie Goss:
What is their environment? Yes, I want to hear the information that they're sharing, and if someone shares something to me, that's deal breakers, obviously, that's important. But if somebody's like, “Well there was some drama, there was problems with gossiping or whatever.” I'm going to ask more questions because I want to know what were the circumstances? There's a million different reasons but I want to know and because what I'm trying to figure out is, is there a higher potential for this to be replicated in my practice environment? Because we all have different teams, we all have different makeups within our practice. And so, I agree with you, I think everybody deserves a chance. And also, I want to know what is potentially different about my circumstance and situation then than theirs.

Andy Roark:
Well, totally. I have a good friend and her mother passed away, and man, she was a different person for six months.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
No shade. But boy, it was a hard time, and I'm confident she's not alone and having an experience like that-

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, yeah.

Andy Roark:
… that really rocked her to the court. And it wasn't like, “Oh, she's having a bad week.” It was like, no, it was six months. Again, I know this person as a friend. Was it depression? I don't know. But they definitely changed, their behavior changed for an extended amount of a period of time, and then, ultimately it changed back. But all that to say, sometimes, we meet people at a hard time, and it's something they're going through. I really like your point about environment matters. I remember friends growing up that they were together, and boy, they were both kind of mean. And then, their friendship broke up, and suddenly, one of them was the coolest, nicest person I ever met.

Andy Roark:
I'm like, “How are you cool?” And they were like, “I didn't realize being around this other person was really affecting me in a negative way.” It was incredible to see this turnaround in this individual. So, I think you're really right in that. There's a lot of things like that. They change over time. I don't know. I think giving people a benefit of the doubt sometimes, it makes a lot of sense. And we all kind of cycle through things now. That's the sunny side. Now, there's not sunny side as well. There's a difference in behaviors and patterns-

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
… and I put a lot of weight on this.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
I hear people misspeak all the time, or say something that's hurtful, or snap at other people, and that's a thing that happens to the best of us. We all get angry. We all have hard days. We're all carrying heavy backpacks.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And just we wake up and we don't have enough spoons to get through the day. If you know spoon theory, it happens to all of us, and we act out. And that's not a pattern, that's an action. There are other things that are patterns.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Where this person snaps a lot and this person routinely gets frustrated and raises their voice as opposed to the person who has raised their voice literally one time in 10 years.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
We've all seen practice owners at the end of their rope raised their voice, and it was like, “Boy, was that wildly out of character for her,” or “Boy, that's just another Tuesday for her.” But that pattern matters. It matters.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And so, the only reason I bring that up, is if you have multiple people come to you, pointing out a type of behavior that they have experienced, or seeing, or heard about in different times and places, then I start to say, “Maybe this person didn't have a bad day. Maybe there's a pattern of behavior here.” And I definitely would be foolish to not, at least file that away. I don't want to judge that person, but I would also be foolish to dismiss that out of hand and not consider the possibility that there is truth to what is being put forward.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And I think that's truly true. And when I thought about this, I thought about this letter and thought about what they were saying. To me, things like strong or dominant personality, or acting like a straight up B, my question is, what does that actually mean? Is it behaviors that they're seeing? What do those behaviors look like? Is it things like tone of voice? Is it the way that they talk? What does that actually mean? Because that could mean a million different things, and that could be something that is in my control to influence or affect change, or it could be completely out of my control if it's truly personality. And those are two very, very different things for me. And so, I agree with you. I think it's worth looking at, “Is this something I can impact or influence or is it not?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, one last example I want to give, because you were there, you were with me when I was talking to Ron Souza, our executive director for Uncharted. And he talked about when he lived in New York City and became a New Yorker, and he left New York, and he had to change the way he communicates because the way that he would be like, “No. Do this, I need this, get this.” And apparently it was culturally acceptable in New York City and that's how people communicated very directly. That's not how they communicate during in other parts of the country. And I realized that I was like, I would tell people it's to do things and they would cry and I was like, “Oh my God.” And it's like we all have these different ways and styles where we behave in one way and it changes later on anyway. Yeah, I guess just my point is we all have behaviors. We are all making our way. Pay attention to behaviors and patterns especially, but again, everybody should get a chance. I think that that's my thought on giving people a chance

Stephanie Goss:
And I really believe strongly in that. Because on the flip side of that question, I know you were going to turn us to a little bit of the reign, but I would also say from a sunny side perspective, what if it's great? And I say that from my own personal experience. When I was a manager and I left my first clinic and I went to work as a practice manager for the first time and I went to work in a practice, and it was very appropriate here. I had heard some things about the practice but I was like, I have evaluated things for myself and I feel like there's potential here and I am excited about having a chance. And so, I was like, “I'm going to set those things aside and I'm going to think about it. What if it could be great? What if those things aren't the experience that I have? If I say no just because of someone else's experience, am I going to be passing up on an awesome opportunity for myself?”

Stephanie Goss:
And so I was trying to go into it with a great head space and a dear friend of mine who I've known since I started in the industry and they're in industry, she's a works for one of the manufacturers, came by and I was so excited and I was just like, “Hey, guess what? Guess where I'm going to work?” And I told her I got a job as practice manager and I'm super, super excited, she literally burst into tears.

Andy Roark:
Oh no.

Stephanie Goss:
And she was just like, “Please, tell me that you're kidding.” She's like, “Take it back. Don't go there.” She's like, “Please don't go there.” And I was so taken aback and I was just like, “Oh, no. Okay, this is not a good sign.” But I was just like, “I'm going to be cut.” This is me sunny, hopefully optimistic. And I was just like, “But I'm really excited about the opportunity and so I'm still trying to frame it in a good way.” And for me, it was interesting because ultimately I learned so much in that practice, and there was a lot of negative, and a lot of bad. And looking back with hindsight, as only you can with hindsight, it's like high school, would I choose to repeat that? Not a chance in hell. But I learned so many lessons that I would not have learned, I don't think if I hadn't taken that route.

Stephanie Goss:
And so, for me, part of it is, from a head space perspective, is when you choose to give people the benefit of the doubt, sometimes for yourself. And sometimes, the question that I ask myself is, “What if it's great?” And I think that there can be a lot of good in that, not in a toxic positive kind of way, but I do think it's worth the mental exercise to ask yourself, “What if your team needs a strong personality? What if your team needs somebody who's a straightforward, shoot from the hip kind of communicator? What could be great if someone like that came into your team? Maybe there's possibility there.

Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. I'll tell you, I definitely have some good friends who rubbed other people the wrong way.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I have some prickly friends. But as I say that, I have some prickly friends who are, you don't want to cuddle them and they don't want to be cuddled. They're like the cat. If you hug them, they're just going to freak out. It's not going to go well. But they're still a good companion to have around. And so, the fact that someone doesn't get along with other people, you could only put so much talk in that you have to go and make that decision for yourself. The other thing that I've really been focusing on a lot recently, which has worked really well for me, I am very much about protecting my peace these days, as the world is tumultuous and there's plenty of things to get upset about. Very few of more things that I can actually control.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I've really settled in a lot into, I'm going to protect my peace and focus on the things that I can control. And part of protecting my peace is, for me, is trying not to fix problems that don't exist. That seems like a no brainer, but a lot of us spend a lot of time trying to fix problems that do not actually exist yet. We're like, “But it's going to exist but it doesn't exist yet.”

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And so, don't spend too much time on it. I think it's a mental game we play. We're like, “Well, I'm going to go ahead and think about what would happen because I'm prepared.” And what I would say is you are fighting over a problem that has yet to occur.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And I have found that that's generally a waste of my time and a limited emotional energy. And so, in this case, that's exactly what I would say to this person too, it's give grace, golden rule, recognize patterns and go ahead and think about what that means, and don't expose yourself foolishly if you have reason to be cautious. Other than that-

Stephanie Goss:
You'll reach when you get to it.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly right. Well, especially since you are not the one who decides whether or not this person gets hired.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
They're hired, they're coming. As of now, they have created exactly zero problems for you. They have done zero things that are worthy of concern or response. And so, protecting your piece to some degree is the ability to put this down and say, “Well, we'll see what happens, and when it happens we'll deal with it at one way or another.” And so I know that that seems simple, but I got to tell you, a lot of people really miss that trick of like, “Oh, you are fixing a problem that does not actually exist. You think it's going to exist but you have no idea if it actually will.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
The other part is say, fix problems that are in your control. And so you say, “You didn't get to choose whether or not this person was hired.” That was not your decision and this out of your control. They are coming and you can't control that either. And so, in this space, I would say, put your feet up in a lot of ways you should. The best advice from a headspace standpoint is I don't know what any of this is going to be. I'm going to wait and see and then I'm going to react to it based on what actually happens. Not just what I'm worried is going to happen.

Stephanie Goss:
Any other headspace thoughts?

Andy Roark:
Yeah. That's the big one. I guess the last thing I would say in headspace is, you got to have faith in the culture to some degree. Cultures are not made of glass. Now, they can be broken, they can be toxified, sure. But a good culture is not fragile. And honestly, high performing teams tend to self-regulate.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
It's a piece of advice that one of my mentors gave me is if you have people who get along and they work well together and they get things done, toxic people who come in, they often just get excluded or pushed back out. They generally, they have a bad time in a team that works well together and stays positive. And that's not always the case, but a lot of times it is.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that that's super true as a leader in the practice, when you have a good culture and this person was like, “We've worked so hard to get here.” When you have that culture, you'll know. And I will tell you, having been in a place that had not so great culture and growing to a place that had great culture, when I read this letter I was like, “Oh, this could have been me writing this letter at one point in my career.” And I'll tell you, that person came into our practice and when things started, I was the first one to know. The rest of the team was like, “Look, we already tried talking to this person and this is what happened. We need your help.” And you'll know. And it won't be a long process if you do have a good culture, to your point, the team will self-regulate either, they'll stand up and take care of it themselves because you've taught them really well, and they are going to protect and communicate well as a team, or they will try their best and then they will let the practice leadership know.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, that's exactly my point too, is a lot of times, these people will come in and they won't make it through the first time. If they're really a problem, they're not going to make it the first 90 days or into the first 90 days. If you're a leadership team is honest and committed to having a good culture, they'll catch this.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And again, I think sometimes, here's the thing, I think a lot of times we think in very absolute terms where the practice owner is like, “Hey, we need some help. We need some help, we need some skilled labor, we really need it. And so, I'm going to hire this person and give them a chance.” And it's easy to say, the only options were don't hire this person or hire this person and commit-

Stephanie Goss:
And everything's-

Andy Roark:
… having them forever.

Stephanie Goss:
Yup.

Andy Roark:
It's like, “Nope.” The owner said, “We're going to try this out.” And he brought this person in and I will tell you that's the position that I take a lot of time to say we really need someone and I feel good enough to give this a try, but also I'm going to cut mate, if this doesn't work, we're going to pilot and try it out.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And this sort of goes back to the stages that I was talking about at the very beginning. I think a lot of times people are like, “Oh if you hire the right person there will be no question and the person will appear.”

Stephanie Goss:
And everything will be magic.

Andy Roark:
And they will match your core values and achieve immediate spiritual alignment with the rest of the staff. And you all go in harmony and never would there be a way of a wave of discord. That's not-

Stephanie Goss:
Total bullshit.

Andy Roark:
… a lot… Exactly. It's total BS. If you find a perfect person, hire them. I am a huge believer in hire talent when you find it, make it work. Get them on, and if they're great, get them on and figure out how to make it work. And that has always worked out for me. I am also a realist who says sometimes you need help and the help that is available is not the help about which legends are written, the help that's there, and you say, “I am going to try to make this work and if it doesn't work then we're going to cease and desist.” And that's okay too. That's a very likely and possible in survival law.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. And ultimately, and seriously the last thing now, this is really the last thing, but I see people wrestle with all the time, and it came into my mind too, is we don't change. People don't like change. How many times have we had a friend group… You have a friend group and you're like, “This is my group of friends.” And then somebody, what a jerk, brings a new friend into the friend group, and you're like, “Oh, the dynamic changes, we're doing different things, we're talking about different things.” At first, that's weird. And a lot of people like myself, I'm like, “I don't like this friend group anymore.” And-

Stephanie Goss:
And it's painful, sometimes.

Andy Roark:
… It is painful. And then, the friend group adjusts and it's a different experience hanging out with the friend group. That is life.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Your team is going to change.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
There will be people who will come in and there'll be people who will leave, and it will never end. There's the old Buddhist saying that you can never step into the same stream twice. That's true. You put your foot down, you pick it up, the water moves on and you put it down again and everything is different. The molecules are different, the part of the stream is moved on it. It's the same thing with teams is, there is no permanence, there is no stasis. And it's always scary to add new people or shake things up. Not shaking things up is impossible. The Buddhist definition of pain is trying to hold on to time and keep it where it is and that's yeah, that's fine.

Stephanie Goss:
And again, on the flip side of that, what if it's great, things are great now, but what about if you add somebody and it could be even more great. Just because things are good doesn't mean that you should stop moving forward. And for better or for worse, it could go not so great, but what if it gets even better?

Andy Roark:
Absolutely. So anyway, that's the head space. Okay. I think should probably just sort of leave it there. I think we've sufficiently muddied the waters to say a lot of things are out of your control. Don't try to fix problems that don't actually exist,

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
… yet. And then, do unto others while still being smart.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
They pay attention to reputations and at the same time give people a chance. I messed up. I'm going to figure how to make this head space thing into an action, Steph, and then we'll do the next section.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
Let's take a break. And after that, I'll figure out how to put in the action step to make it sound good.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Sounds good.

Andy Roark:
Hey Stephanie Goss, you got a second and 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 phone never stopped ringing.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And I'm sure you hear from these people as well. 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 book 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 some help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out, it's guardianvets.com. And if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So, check it out guardianvets.com. All right. You want to get some action steps?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, let's do it.

Andy Roark:
All right. So, you are the writer here. This person is coming in, this person does not have a good reputation. Among people that you trust and you are worried about the culture and the impact this person's going to have. Well, let's make some action steps. What are you doing here?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Okay. So for me, the first thing that I have to do is answer one of the questions that was asked, which is, how do you approach onboarding with someone that you've heard things about differently than any other hire? And my answer to that is, “No.” You treat them in the exact same. And so, for me it's a head space thing, but it's also an actionable thing. I just pretend when I'm interacting with that person, I don't know any of the things because you got to give everybody a chance. And the only way you can do that is if you try and forget. Now, we all know that that's easier said than done and that we're going to have bias and judgment. So, actionably, it's about two twofold. One is a little bit of pretend, a little bit of fake it till you make it. And the other is what we talked about in headspace, which is being aware.

Stephanie Goss:
And so, if things do happen, make note of them, but don't treat them any differently. Don't approach it any differently. In fact, I think you actually have to work harder at onboarding a person that you might know some things like this about, because I want to try. I don't want it to be at the end of the day, the worst thing for me would be to feel like I was in control of this piece of the experience and I screwed this up. At the end of the day, as a leader, I wouldn't want to look backwards and say, “Oh, I could have done better.” Maybe that's the overachiever in me, but I'm going to probably work harder to get to know them, to try and set a good stage. So I wouldn't approach it differently in a negative perspective, but I might approach it a little bit differently from a positive perspective, if that makes any sense.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, yeah. No, I agree with that. I would tie on to that and say, assuming good intent. Again, we talk about this. Every week, is just, “Hey, I'm going to assume that this person is trying hard and I want to be a good person.” And then again, that's just me getting into a good head space where I can work with them and feel good. So, I would say assume good intent. The next part of this, which may or may not have been the part I won't really want to talk about in the last [inaudible 00:39:38]. The next part of this is, be kind first. Okay? So, be kind first. Now, there's this book called Give and Take by the psychologist Adam Grant.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
And you can read the book if you want. You don't have to. I'm gonna tell you the whole book right here. This is the whole takeaway. In this book, Adam Grant says, “There's three kinds of peoples. There's givers, there's takers, and there's matchers.”

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
And givers are people who give off themselves. They give their time and energy and to other people. And there's takers, who are people who do not give. They only take from other people. And there's matchers, who are people who basically keep score. If you give to me, then I will give back to you. And if you take from me, then I will take from you. And I did something for you, now I expect you to do something for me. And those are the three types. Now he looks at givers, takers, and matchers, and says, “When you look at success, however he defined it, where do these people fall out? Who is at the top of the success ladder and who's at the bottom? And what he found was it's givers, at both the top and the bottom. They're very bimodal.

Andy Roark:
And the difference between them is that givers who never stop giving, they get parasitized, they get taken advantage of, and held down, and they end up unhappy.

Stephanie Goss:
At the bottom.

Andy Roark:
… and at the bottom. And other people have just taken their credit for them, taken their heart and soul. But givers at the top, also give. The difference is the givers at the top start by giving. They are the first ones that jump in and help to give their time and their energy. But then after they jump in and give, then they switch to a matching strategy, which means I'm going to give first.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
And if you jump in and give as well, and we have a mutually beneficial giving relationship to each other, I'm going to keep giving. But if I jump in and give and give, I suspect that you're a taker and you are not giving back.

Stephanie Goss:
Right. Then I'm going to switch to a matching strategy and be like, “Well, I'm not giving you anymore.” And if you change strategy and decide to be a giver, then I'll jump back in, I'll switch back to being a giver. And that sounds really simplistic and it probably is, but gosh, how powerful that is. And I really believe that there's a lot of truth in that is you should be a giver. We should all be a giver. But also, we should be realistic about the truth of the world and say, “I'm going to give first without expecting compensation. I'm not matching, I'm giving, but I am also going to pay attention and I'm not going to get taken advantage of and held down and things like that. I would say the same thing with this person as they're coming in, I'm going to be kind to this person.

Andy Roark:
Yup.

Stephanie Goss:
I'm going to put myself out there and try to support them and try to make their onboarding easy. And if they jump in, and they're appreciative, and they accept this help and show that they want to be here, I'm going to keep supporting them. And if I jump in and try to help them and they blow me off or act like I'm inconvenience them or things like that, then I'm not going to be there to support them. I'm going to step back away and I will support as needed as desired, but I'm not going to throw myself into this in a way that's going to allow me to get taken advantage of.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that this person who wrote to us has the unique opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the team-

Andy Roark:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
… because the reality is it's small world. And if you're hearing things, some other members of your team might be hearing things too. And so, you have the opportunity to set the tone and be the leader here. And on the flip side, you have an opportunity because you were there first. You are a senior member of the team, and I would hallucinate that your practice owner and your practice manager trusts you. And so, as an owner, as a manager, if my lead tech came to me, if there was challenges and told me what those challenges were, because we have built the trust bank, which you talk about a lot, I'm going to look at that and say, “Your word is not the be all, end all, but I'm going to have a whole lot of faith in what you're sharing with me and your perspective.” And so, you are going to have the ability to influence on that end as well.

Stephanie Goss:
And so this person was like, I don't have a lot of decision-making power. The practice owner was like, “I think we're going to do this.” And they've already hired the person. And so, it feels crappy to feel like you don't get to make that decision. And at the same time, that does not mean that your hands are tied. And so I think from an action perspective, I think you're so spot on, Andy, about let's be kind here. And you have the potential to set the tone for the rest of the team, and you're going to assume good intent, you're going to give this person a good opportunity and a good chance, and you're going to be observant, right?

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And you're going to say, is this a one off? Are these repeated behaviors? And It's hard because it's easy to think, Well, I'm just going to watch them and I'm going to keep score. It's not what you're doing either, right?

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
It's really truly about giving someone a good opportunity but also being open and honest and saying, “Is this working? Is this not?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that completely. The other part of that was really dovetails on all of it says, “If you want to be able to influence this new person coming in, then creating a relationship with that person as quickly as possible-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
…. is your best option because you're not going to be their boss.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
We talk a lot about trust and relationships, and that was really important. And so, this person coming in, you giving first, you assuming good intent, you trying to support this person as they come in. They might not be a nice person, but if you have a relationship with them, at least you're going to probably, hopefully, be more comfortable in that. And then, also, you're going to be in a place where you can maybe affect those behaviors, maybe be able to sort peer mentor this person because they are looking to you, or they know you, or they feel like over the first couple of weeks that they were there, they built up some trust, and you might very well be able to help guide this relationship.

Andy Roark:
The worst case is that you try to build that relationship and it just does not work. And we're back to our matching strategy and you say, “Hey, I tried to get in there and tried to build this relationship, and tried to help this person, and give to this person, but it's not working.” At some point you have to say, “I did the thing. I gave it my honest try. I really wanted to make this work, I set myself up there.” And that brings me to the last action step, which is, never forget that you are not trapped. And a lot of times, you don't get to decide what happens in this life, but you always get to decide how you respond to it. And so, if you are losing sleep at night and you're like, “This person is coming, and what if this is terrible? What if it's awful?” Then I would say, this is the best job market in a hundred years. Just pile that away, for what it's worth.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
You've always got options. You're never going to be trapped.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
So anyway, the last thing I would say is,” I'm going to give it my best and maybe it'll be amazing.” And the worst case is it won't be amazing and it will be this person will toxify the place and leadership will not intervene, and I'm going to communicate to them, and they're still not going to intervene. And ultimately, I'm going to decide that this is not how I want to spend my days and I'm going to go somewhere else. And I would say to you, “Is that really the worst scenario that you can imagine? Is that really a horrible, horrible, horrible thing?” Probably not.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And it's hard because in the moment it feels crappy. You think, “Oh, I've worked so hard and we're in this great place, and what if it's all ruined?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And so, I think the thing to remember is, it's not permanent. This person getting hired doesn't have to be permanent. But also, to your point, Andy, like you being where you are, also doesn't have to be permanent. And I think our human nature brains are like, we're going to… Then a writer asked, “Am I catastrophizing and is this going to be a train wreck?” Well yeah, you are catastrophizing.

Andy Roark:
Definitely, catastrophizing. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
It is it going to be a train wreck? Maybe. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a great thing for you. Maybe it's a great thing for your team. And there have been plenty of times where I've looked back in hindsight and in the moment, and I can tell you I felt that way, really honestly, leaving my last three practices, in the moment, it felt like the end of the world, for differing reasons every time. But it felt like the worst possible thing that could happen, to walk away from that. And yet, I will tell you, that with hindsight in perspective, it was the right thing for so many other reasons.

Stephanie Goss:
And so, I think we tend to feel that, we just see that, feeling trapped, and we get so afraid, and for me, that's where, “Oh, man.” Living in that emotional place and it is not fun. It's not ugly. I mean it is ugly and it feels crappy. And so, I think, just don't forget that, what you said, Andy, is so true, that you can only control how you respond to it. And so, don't feel like you're trapped because you're not. And to your point, it is the best possible job market that it's been in forever.

Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. Exactly. Right.

Stephanie Goss:
Just [inaudible 00:49:14] that away.

Andy Roark:
And I stand here and say this like, “Oh, and you can do this and give grace and blah, blah, blah.” It's like, “I am a master catastrophizer.” Let me say, “How many times have we talked about me up living in a box next to the river?” For a long time, that was 100% a staple in the podcast.

Stephanie Goss:
Pretty much.

Andy Roark:
That was me talking about how this decision was going to have me living in a box alone.

Stephanie Goss:
Probably the first two years that you and I worked together, that was a regularly occurring conversation. I was talking Andy off the ledge because tomorrow him and his girls were going to be living in a cardboard box in the forest 'cause everything was going to fall apart.

Andy Roark:
Most of the staff meetings were people saying, “You're not going to live in a box, Andy.” I was like, “That's it. That's it. We're all out jobs.” And they're like, “We're not out of jobs.” At the time, everybody was super part-time, they're like, “This is not even our real job, Andy. We're all fine.”

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, man. I love it.

Andy Roark:
That's all I got. I hope that's helpful.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
Remember that we're all backpackers. And sometimes, you see big thunder clouds ahead, and sometimes they blow on by, and sometimes you get rained on and you're going to have to walk at the rain a little while, but it's nothing you can't handle. It's really not.

Stephanie Goss:
Super great analogy, I love it. Have a fantastic week everybody.

Andy Roark:
See you guys. Take care.

Stephanie Goss:
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. 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 a stock 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.

Do You Want To Be A Doctor AND A Tech? Can I Change This Practice?

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast Episode 196 Cover Image

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Can you lead people to water and make them drink? This week's episode starts out with a mailbag question where the writer already has part of their answer. And life is always a little more complicated than at first glance so Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss dive into this mailbag entry from a veterinarian who is considering joining a new practice. This practice is quite different from what this vet is used to AND wanting. They want a practice that utilizes their technicians for more than nail trims, where the DVMs aren't doing tech work and that is more efficient. This DVM wants to know “Can I hope to change this practice and how do I start the conversation with grace?” This one is seemingly uncomplicated but Andy and Stephanie always find a twist. Let's get into this…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 196 – Do You Want To Be A Doctor AND A Tech? Can I Change This Practice?

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag


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Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.


Upcoming Events

October 6-8, 2022 – Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Virtual Veterinary Conference

This 3-day live, interactive virtual conference features a customizable learning journey for practice leaders who are tired of being overwhelmed and want to get their practice back under control. Explore how you’re working, isolate challenges, diagnose pain points, share best practices and pull together a sustainable plan to overcome obstacles.

While Uncharted Membership is always encouraged, you DO NOT have to be a member to join us for GSD! Non-members, here’s your chance to see what all the buzz is about and get a taste of the Uncharted experience.

October 19 – Leveraging Technicians: Making Practice Less Stressful with Melissa Entrekin, LVT

In this workshop, we will:

  • Explore how to create trust among your team so that
    veterinarians will fully utilize technicians and technicians will fully utilize veterinary assistants
  • Discuss how to cultivate a well-balanced team resulting in less stress for everyone to create positive client and patient experiences.

Episode Transcript

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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.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey Stephanie Goss. You got a second to talk about GuardianVets?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. What do you want to talk about?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. 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.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians knew about Guardian Vets. 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 to 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?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use some help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out. It's GuardianVets.com and if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out. GuardianVets.com.

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast.

Stephanie Goss:
This week on the podcast, Andy and I got an email in the mail bag. It is from a doctor who asked us ultimately a question, “Can you lead people to water and make them drink?” The answer to this is no. And therefore Andy and I are taking you on another journey to Camp Tough Love with this one.

Stephanie Goss:
That's right. We've got a doctor who is looking at a practice that maybe isn't all that they want it to be, and they're wondering, how do I change this practice? The answer is they are answering their own question in the email. But we've got some ideas and we had a lot of fun diving into this one, so let's get into it, shall we?

Speaker 3:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie you-can't-make-me-love-you Goss, that's how it is. No, I can't make you love me. Is that what it is? Can't make me. Help me out Goss.

Stephanie Goss:
I don't know. I don't even know where you're going with that

Dr. Andy Roark:
Can't make me love you. Now I can't even remember what song it's from. I Can't Make You Love Me. Is that what it's called? Oh, I had it in my head and then when the pressure was on, I was like, “I can't remember the lyrics.

Stephanie Goss:
I can't remember the song.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I Can't Make you Love Me? I did it anyway. Hello.

Stephanie Goss:
Anyways. Hi.

Dr. Andy Roark:
How are things?

Stephanie Goss:
Things are good. How are things with you?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, they're crazy. It's first week of school. Of new school. New school. So I got one kid that's going to middle school for the first time and I got one kid that's going to high school for the first time. It's been a-

Stephanie Goss:
It's been insane.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… hectic, stressful week. Oh it's insane. And the most insane part are parents learning the traffic pattern at the school. And that is a real problem. This high school, let's be honest, I think that the most tortuous part of taking my kid to high school was the idea… Picture this, this high school was taken and it was plopped down on a couple of two lane roads. And this is a big A high school. There is no way that the infrastructure of this high school can handle the number of students driving themselves, which is already horrifying. And parents dropping their kids off.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's just complete pandemonium, and absolutely baffled my wife on the first day. And I went the second day and I… First of all my wife is, she's a perfectionist, Grade A, near perfect score on the SAT. She gets it right and she knows the rules and she follows the rules.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And on the first day driving my kid, I was stuck in traffic and I see children everywhere just walking through down the road. And I'm like, “Where are all these kids coming from? There's thousands of kids wandering to the school. They don't live in this neighborhood. What is happening?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then I was like, “Oh, everyone else has already given up on this system and they're just dumping their kids off a block and a half away from school. That's the only explanation.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
So I started driving around the neighborhoods around the school and I saw, I was like, I see it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure. And I'm catching people. I went home and I told my wife and I was like, “Forget this. We're dropping Jacqueline off at Half Mile Lake, a half mile from the high school.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
It should be called half mile from the high school lake, and it should have a little drop off zone. And Allison was like, “Oh no. Oh no. You have to go through the car line and drop our child there. And then you have to drop the child off.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that brings me to something that I have really learned in the last few months. Stephanie Goss, I have learned that… I don't know why it took me 45 years to learn this. There are moments in my life when I can choose peace, or I can choose engagement and to defend myself in my position. And I have learned that I choose peace.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so she says, “No, you have to go through the drop off line.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I said, “Mm-hmm. Well I think it's admirable that you do that.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that was the end of the conversation. It was, “You know what? If you have to go through the drop off line, I'm not going to talk you out of it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
The funny thing is that my high school daughter just looked at me was like… It was awesome. It was this inside, father-daughter. She gave me, she's in high school, she doesn't want to get dropped off by me and my Subaru in front of the high school. She's like, “Half Mile Lake it is, Dad.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm like, “Yeah.”

Stephanie Goss:
I can totally imagine the look on Allison's face. She's like, “No, You actually know the rules and do the thing.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. She's like, “Here's a series of eight different streets that you can take to get you close the drop off and then only one person has to be nice and let you in and then you can drop the kid off.”

Stephanie Goss:
Hard pass.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I was like, “Or I can just slow down and she can tuck and roll.”

Stephanie Goss:
Jump out.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Like a freaking air drop. The door's open. I'm like, “Go, go, go.” And out she goes. And we're both happy with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
She's like, “How long were you in the car line?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I was like, “Car lines are, they're tough. They're tough. And that's all I'm going to say, car lines are tough.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
“How long were you in the line though?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
“Honey, it's not about the minutes in line.”

Stephanie Goss:
Oh my God.

Dr. Andy Roark:
“It's really about just being at peace with the choices that we make and how important an education is. That's really what I think about.”

Stephanie Goss:
It explains so much why we make such good partners, because I'm a hundred percent the same way. Literally, so my kids haven't gone to public school since the pandemic started, but when they were still at public school, I can't with the carpool line. And they have always taken the bus, but occasionally there would be some reason why they would have to get to school before the bus could get them there, whatever.

Stephanie Goss:
I'm like, “Do you have your backpack on? You strap into your car seat.. I'm literally going to roll up. You're going to open the door, you're going to jump out and I'm done. I'm not sitting here, I'm not messing around. Screw this, because those lines are ridiculous and fierce.”

Stephanie Goss:
And my kids were like, “Okay, we're on it. Like jumping out of a plane.” That was it. “Bye Mom.” Slam the door. Goodbye. Go on my own way.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, my rebellion really came and this is just… So the first lesson of this podcast is protect your peace. You don't have to be right. You can just let people believe things that they want to believe sometimes.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
45 years ladies and gentlemen, it took me to realize that I can just go, “Okay.” And go on with my life. I feel real grown up.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So that's the first lesson is, protect your peace. You don't have to be right. You can just let someone be wrong and just go on and be at peace with yourself. And the other part is this, and here's the story. All this started back when I had one kid in elementary school and one kid in middle school, so last year. Last year I kid in middle school, and a kid in elementary school.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And when you go pick your kid up at this elementary school, it is a well-oiled machine.

Dr. Andy Roark:
If the Germans ran a carpool line, like BMW put together a carpool line, this is the carpool line they would put together. Just plug in kids into cars, boom, boom, boom. It is like a three minute carpool line. The principal of the school has a walkie-talkie, and he is at the driveway, at the entrance of the driveway. And everyone has cards and he's pointing at each parent so that you were seen, because he points right at you. And you see him saying your kids' number into the walkie talkie. And people are just scurrying back at the school and they're just snatching kids up and just boom. And man, that line moves.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The middle school, which is dealing with kids that are-

Stephanie Goss:
Don't want to listen to adults anymore.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… sixth grade or over. But honestly, objectively speaking, they're smarter people.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
They're smarter than the elementary school. Objectively speaking, they have twice as much life experience as the kid at elementary school.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This should go better because you're dealing with people with twice as much life experience. It is a complete shit show at the middle school. There is no one at the car line. Kids are literally wandering along the line of cars looking for their family. And they're not on the sidewalk, they're in between the cars, wandering. They're completely lost.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then one parent can't find their kid and so they just stop. And every [inaudible 00:10:57] Yes. And every other parent waits for… Boy into elementary school, if you can't find your kid-

Stephanie Goss:
Get out of line and come back.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. You get out of line. And they are on it. They will shift your car if you don't move it.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I tell you, I'm only so aware of the middle school line, because once you've been through the elementary school line, you're spoiled.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You know what I mean? And the two schools share a piece of land. There's like a big field and one school is in one corner and the other school's in the other corner. And one of them, you could just see the elementary school parents just plowing through and you're sitting there for long periods of time. And the fact that you can see someone else who is running a system that is working, and you are just sitting still, makes you so painfully aware and irritated. Because you know how much better this could be, and it's just not because people don't have their stuff together.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so that is the other lesson in leadership is, boy if people see what a good thing is and then you don't give it to them, they recognize it. And anyway, those are my two life lessons from the carpool lane so far this year.

Stephanie Goss:
So everybody's like, “Okay, they're off the rails already.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
They were like, that was a solid 10 minutes of carpool metaphors. But I'm telling you there's gold in that. Listen to that 10 minutes again.

Stephanie Goss:
I actually think that there's some lessons in that last story about our question today. So we got a great question in the mail bag from a doctor who is looking at starting to work with a practice now. They are not currently employed at this practice. So, that's how it has to start. They're not currently employed but they're looking at a practice. And they have recognized that this practice does not utilize the team in a productive way. The doctors are basically being doctors and technicians, because there is one technician for three doctors. And the technician is doing assistant work like nail trims and drawing blood work versus utilizing her technical skills as a licensed technician. So that's problem number one.

Stephanie Goss:
Problem number two is that they said, “Okay, well so of course because of that it seems like the doctors are on the edge of burnout. Maybe some of them are already there.” And they said, “I'm a doctor, I've been out of practice for quite some time. And I've worked in plenty of practices that just have given up saying that, ‘Well we just have to work with what we've got because we're rural and we don't have a lot of a large talent pool. And so it just is what it is.'”

Stephanie Goss:
And so they are like, “Well if I join this practice, I'm going to have more experience than some of the other doctors. And so I am wondering could I even hope to come to them as the new fresh face and be able to bring my experience to the table and say, ‘Look, I think we could change this. I think we could be happier. I think that we could be more productive. But it requires change.'”

Stephanie Goss:
And their question was, “Can you lead people to water and make them drink? Can I hope to change this practice? And how do I start that conversation with grace, if there's any hope there?”

Stephanie Goss:
I just thought that this was such a great question and I do think that there's some hidden lessons in your carpool soapbox that relate to this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
If people haven't learned, the reason that I tell stories at the very beginning, it's often that they do tie into the point. I will say not always. Sometimes I'm just chasing deer out of the yard with a cowbell, and it doesn't have anything to do with anything else. But often these things are tied together. And it's because I'm thinking about what we're going to say and then I'm just thinking about what's happening in my life and I put them together.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Anyway, I love this question. This person doesn't need an answer from us. They literally said, “Can you lead people to water and make them drink?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, I'm sorry if you're writing an email to the podcast about leading people to water and making them drink… The whole reason people say the whole thing about the horse leading to water and making him drink is that you can't do it. It's the whole point of the saying. That's where… Guys, you can't.

Stephanie Goss:
I was like, “Well you could force them to drink. If you force people to inhale water, they drown. And a lot of times they probably die.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Here's what I love is the person who wrote to us sees the situation so clearly they actually summed it up as, “Can you lead these people to water and make them drink?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Your read on this is so good. It's so good that I have bad news for you it's real good.

Stephanie Goss:
You've given us the answer.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yes and no. Yes and no. But I wanted to hit on that, at the very beginning, because let's call a spade a spade. I don't want to drag people along like… Yeah, I can't make you love me, you can't make me love you. I don't remember. It was one of those. You can't make them love you if they don't. I think is how it goes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Anyway, the person writing it has got a pretty good read on this. I'm going to call a spade a spade here and say, this looks dicey. I'm just going to be honest. It looks dicey. There's some things we can do that might work, but it's going to be a bit of a long game.

Dr. Andy Roark:
My question to this person was why do you want this job? Why do you want this job?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
In all seriousness, and again, I hate when people ask us questions and I say things back to them that are hard and I don't want it to shake people up. But my question back, and I get the impression this is a mixed animal practitioner who's got a pretty matter-of-fact style. And I would say to this person, Why do you want this job?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You're looking at this and you see these people working themselves to death and not using their techs, and just hustling all over the place. And you're like, “Yeah, that's the place for me,” with the job market that we have now? Why is that?

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I suspect that there's probably a good reason. It's probably they're in a very rural arrow, something like that. But that'd be the first thing I would say is, given that you're already looking at this and wondering about it, you sure that this is a job you want? And so let me just ask, if you're going to take this job, I think the first… and we're talking headspace now as we always start out with headspace, my first thing is realistic expectations.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This is the way this practice has run for a long time. And you might be the most senior vet when you come in. That doesn't matter. That's how they've done it from the top to the bottom. Everyone has run this way. This is their normal and that's how they feel comfortable. And even if you try to get them to change to a better way, change is still scary. Even if it is undoubtedly better, it's still hard and scary. And you're getting a big group of people to move.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And these people don't know you. You're brand new, you don't have strength of relationships or a lot of trust built up in the trust account. And so can you make this work? Yeah, I mean I think you can. There's a chance you can. It really depends a lot on how they respond to the things that I'm going to recommend for you to try. But it's possible. I would just say have realistic expectations that this is going to be an ongoing source of… I hope it's not frustration, but it's going to be a sustained effort on the part of our writer to integrate into this and to not get swept up in the chaos.

Stephanie Goss:
My thought from a headspace perspective was very similar to yours, which is that asking yourself the question, why this job? For me it was like, this feels, from what the writer has given us, a situation where don't be blind. Look at it. Look at it and call the spade a spade, and then ask yourself the question of why. Because there may be a real driving factor, geography plays a part for a lot of areas of the country where people are there because maybe their parents are there or their spouse has a job there or whatever.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.

Stephanie Goss:
Whatever the reasons, you've got to understand your why before you go into it, because you cannot go into this blind. You've already told us this is a situation that is less than your ideal. And so for me, in order to get into a good headspace and think about what an action plan would look like, I agree with you, it has to start with why are you doing this? Don't be blind about it. Do your homework, and then figure out how do you move forward with all of that in mind.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think the other piece of headspace for me, other than what we've already talked about, there was really only one other one for me, which is recognizing from the beginning, that if it doesn't feel like it could be a perfect fit, and it feels like you already have significant challenges, I think you have to go into it recognizing that there is probable impermanence to this decision. And so I don't think-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Probable impermanence. Yeah, I like it.

Stephanie Goss:
It may go wonderfully, and surprise you, and could turn out to be your dream job. But from the descriptor we got, this is not your dream job. And so the probability that this is an impermanent situation, and this is a trial run is very high. And so from a headspace perspective, for me, it's about recognizing that. And if you are okay with that, sure, go ahead. If all the other reasons line up, there's got to be some driving factor. Or to your point, Andy, with all of the jobs out there, if there wasn't driving factors, you wouldn't even be asking this question. So, recognizing that the driving factors exist, fine. But you also have to, don't go into it blindly. Recognize that this may not be a permanent solution and be okay with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep, totally. And I think that's really key. And again, it just goes back to expectations. One of the boundary things that … and I say this because it has helped me a lot in my career. There are times when you go into situations like this, and the healthiest thing you can do is in your mind headspace decide this is just a job. This is not defining me, this is not my dream job. This might not last for more than a year. It might be a one and that's it. You sign a one-year contract for the moment.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it takes a lot of pressure off people. People are like, “I have to take the right job.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “It's a one year contract. We're going to do this for a year. And then you're going to decide.”

Stephanie Goss:
See what happens.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. “Am I staying here or am I going to go do something else now?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is all the weight that there is to it. And if you put that in your mind, it will take a lot of pressure off of your shoulders to get things right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, this is a one-year contract, it's just a job. We're going to see how it goes. It is not going to make or break your success as a veterinarian, anything like that. So those are the big things for me as far as just headspace, protect your peace. Just like I said at the very beginning, this might not end well and that's okay.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You might try to tell these people, and honestly, this is exactly why I told the story. You might tell these people there is a better way. And they go, “But you can't do it that way. You have to go in the car line.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And you have to be able to say, “Okay, okay, you know what? That's the thing. I don't have to go in the car line, but okay.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
But that's, again, I don't even really like that. I'm always someone who's like, I want to get on board with what people are doing. But at the same time, I am not going to sacrifice myself, my happiness, my mental health just because everyone around me is doing that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Anyway, those would be the things I'd put forward in headspace is, protect your peace going in. So that's it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Now I think we have done a good job of being like, “Oof.” Now it's time for us to actually talk about what are we going to do here? So let's say we take this job and we're going into it. I am not fatalistic. I am a positive, optimistic, upbeat person. I'm going to play the best game that I can with the cards that I'm dealt. And so before we do this, actually let's take a break, and then you and I will come back and we will talk about how do we play these cards? What is our best shot for making this into something workable in the short term that might actually turn into something really good in the long term?

Stephanie Goss:
Yep. I like it.

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everyone, I just want to make sure that you know about some upcoming events from Uncharted that you are not going to want to miss. We have a workshop that is happening in October. It is the wonderful, the amazing Melissa Entrekin, LVT. For those of you who don't know Melissa, she is an amazing technician and she helps out our team on the Dr. Andy Roark side of things, on the medicine side of things. And she is doing her very first Uncharted thing. And I am so excited about this.

Stephanie Goss:
Melissa is going to be leading a workshop for us in October. It is happening October 19th and it is called Leveraging Technicians, Making Practice Less Stressful for You, Them, and Your Patients. I cannot wait for this one. It is going to be happening at 7:00 PM Eastern. So that's 4:00 PM Pacific on the 19th. And it will be a two-hour workshop, which means it'll be over at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific.

Stephanie Goss:
It is, as always, free to our members. So if you are an Uncharted member, head on over to the website at unchartedvet.com/events. You can click the register button and register for free. And if you're not a member of Uncharted, you can join us. It's $99 for the workshop. Or you can look at all of the awesome upcoming events that we have, and it may make sense, very quickly, for you to say, “Hey, I'd like to get an Uncharted membership, because you get all of this stuff for free.”

Stephanie Goss:
So come join us for Melissa's workshop. You don't want to miss it. And hopefully, we'll see you in the community soon. And now back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Alright, so we are going to go ahead and talk about, how do we kick this thing off? So, Stephanie, you've taken the job. You are the doctor. You have signed on the dotted line. You're in this thing for a one-year contract. What are the steps that you're going to start to take to actually try to make this thing fly?

Stephanie Goss:
The question that I have, that is part of my answer to your question is, are you… Because I think, so they asked two more questions, right? They said, “Can I hope to change this practice? And then how do I start the conversation?”

Stephanie Goss:
So for the can I hope to change this practice piece, I think the other piece that falls between headspace and action for me is are you stepping into a position of positional power within the clinic where you actually can enact change? Are you buying into the practice or are you stepping in as a leader, medical director, senior doctor, whatever? Because the path I think that you take to addressing it, there is one path that is, “I've signed a one-year contract, I'm just a staff veterinarian. I'm an associate. I don't have a responsibility or the authority to implement changes.”

Stephanie Goss:
That feels very different than, are you actually stepping into a position where you can make decisions and can impact it? So that would be part of the question for me because going back to where we wrapped up with headspace, I think if you are stepping into a position as a leader, the headspace piece of it there, as you pulled it out is this is a long-term play. If you're stepping in and you can make change, this is not a one-year change plan. This is a long-term change plan.

Stephanie Goss:
And so, I think that's important to think about for a minute. But if you're stepping in and you're like, “I'm an associate vet. I'm going to sign a one-year contract and I'm going to see…” That's where I think, for me, the third question they asked is most relevant. Which is, how do I start the conversation? How do I start that process? I think that looks a lot different from that seat than it does from a seat of, “I actually have power and authority to make some of these changes on my own or with the rest of the group.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't think it looks as different as most people would believe it does. I hear what you're saying about being the medical director and coming in. You do have some positional power, but I think I just want to dissuade anyone out there who hears this and goes, “Oh yeah, if you're the medical director you can totally change it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, I don't-

Stephanie Goss:
Oo, I don't think it's any easier.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No. That's exactly it. Yeah. It's different. I do agree it's different. I'm not that much more optimistic in being the medical director versus being a regular doctor, because having positional power is nice. Relationship power is what gets people to actually change. They have to trust you and believe that what you are doing makes sense, and that they can get on board with what you're doing, and that they're going to be successful themselves if they come along with you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I think some people think it like, “Oh I'm the medical director, of course they're going to trust me now.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “No. I've never had that experience really.” I think that people overestimate what being a manager or medical director does for them as far as getting people to change. And they underestimate what they can do as a non-positional leader. They underestimate the impact that they can have without a title. And I think that those things are important.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So I do think that that is a good distinction. Are you a formal manager or not? Based on this letter, I'm going to assume this person is not a formal leader. Just that they have may have more experience than the other doctors, but they're not coming in into a leadership, a formal organizational leadership position.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I do like that.

Stephanie Goss:
I agree. And so I think for me, how do I start the conversation? I think the answer is you have to give it time, because there is no relationship, right? And so you're talking about the most effective way to lead from the middle is relational power. There is no relationship. You're a brand new doctor, you're new to this team. And if you're asking this question before even taking a job, it's a great question to ask, but the answer could change dramatically once you get to know people. And so that, for me, is a bit of the pickle here is I don't think you can… I mean you could walk right in the door and be like, “I want to change this. How can we make this happen?” I don't recommend that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't. No.

Stephanie Goss:
Probably not going to the way you want it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no.

Stephanie Goss:
Probably not going to go so well.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So I agree with you on this. So step one for me is, relationships are going to be your biggest tool. So the first thing to do is just build relationships. Just meet people. Just get to know them. Get to know what they care about, get to know what their pains and their frustrations are. Don't do anything, except figure out what bothers them, and what is important to them. And why do they do this job? And what are the values of this practice?

Dr. Andy Roark:
And you say, “But I don't know what the values are. They're not written down anywhere.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I would say, what gets celebrated here? What gets positively reinforced here? Those are the values. And so figure out what these people care about. Figure out what their pain point is.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And people always say, “We know what their pain point is. They're working themselves to death.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I say, but that may not be how they perceive their pain. Their pain point might 100% be, “We're not able to see all the pets.” And if you go in and start talking about saying fewer pets, they're going to fight you even though you are clearly trying to help them in your mind. They're freaking out because they're not seeing all the pets, and you're trying to talk to them about seeing less pets. That's a mistake.

Dr. Andy Roark:
What is the alternative? The alternative is to say, “Well they care about seeing all the pets.” You need to talk to them about resting and about being able to keep themselves up so they don't burn out. And then they don't see any more pets. And that's how I approach that. It's not, “We're going to see fewer pets.” But, “We're going to keep you healthier and keep you around here, so you don't burn out and quit. Because that is the antithesis of seeing more of the pets.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, but you can't take that approach if you don't know what they care about. So, number one is you've got to get to know them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Number two, and this is really tied into that, is start with why. What is their why? Why are they doing this? Why are they working so hard? Why are they working the way that they're working? Is it because the doctors don't trust the technicians? Well then we need to figure out how to get them to trust the technicians. Is it because they have never had any sort of a structure or a program and they just simply don't know how to not step on each other's toes? It's always been this way and just no one ever got organized, and got consensus about what we're doing? Is it because the doctors all practiced wildly different medicine so we can't have a protocol?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Those are all very different. They can all be addressed. None of them are snap your fingers easy but they can all be addressed. But for God's sake, if you don't know which one is the number one cause, then you are going to be over there talking about what you care about and it's not even connecting to what other people are seeing or feeling. So build their relationships, and then figure out what their why is.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then when you start to talk to them, talk about what your why is. And your why should be them. It should be about compassion for them.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It should not be, “I don't want to work this hard.” That's not motivating. It should be, “I've never seen a place working as hard as you guys are working, and I'm worried about ya.” And that feels very different than, “I don't want to work this hard.”

Stephanie Goss:
I agree. You have to connect with them. And in order to do that you have to know what matters to them. And you have to be able to frame your needs inside of what matters to them for this conversation to be most successful. And so I think it's important to lead with the fact once you've made that connection that they matter.

Stephanie Goss:
Right now that's a potential. They could matter to you, but you're not even coworkers yet. So you can't say, “You know, matter to me, I care about you.” You could say it, but it's going to come off as false if you don't have that relationship. So you have to take the time to connect to them and then you have to lead with the why, which I think is a pretty obvious one. And you said it really well. You don't want people to burn out. None of us want our colleagues to burn out. And so, you can talk about that in so many different ways, but you have to be able to make that connection.

Stephanie Goss:
And for me, the second piece of how do you approach it, comes with the in-between because getting to the place where you have the connection to them, that's going to take time. You have to build the relationship, you have to get to know each other. And there are things that you can do to build relationships more quickly. But it's still going to take getting to know each other in a little bit of time.

Stephanie Goss:
Let's just hallucinate and say that you're really good at building relationships. You got to work with them, I would think for at least probably a few weeks before you could start to maybe even broach the subject. And so before-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Before you even start to needle along, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
What do you do in those first couple of weeks while you're doing that? And so to me, the answer there goes, okay, you could lead by example. So if you've decided that this is the job you're going to take for whatever the reasons are, you don't have to work the same way that they are. You can lead by example. You can have a conversation with that technician and say, “Hey, I want to leverage your skills, I want to utilize you more. So when we work together I would like to work in this way. Is that okay with you? How does that work for you?”

Stephanie Goss:
You can then show them things and do things and try things. And say, “Hey guys, I've noticed that you do this this way. Tell me more about that because I'm used to doing it this way. And I would love to understand the why.”

Stephanie Goss:
You can start to poke at some of those things and lead by example, which goes directly to your point Andy, about the carpool line. Allie's going to do it her way, and that's okay. And you're going to be okay doing it your way. And Jacqueline's on board with that. And when she's with you, she'll hop out of the car two blocks away and be just fine. And when she's with Allie in the car, she's going to hop out of the car at the school's door, and she'll be fine with that too. It's that same thing with the rest of the team, the technician and the support staff. It's figuring out how do you lead by example while you're concurrently building those relationships I think.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to put a little framework on this. Okay, so we started off talking about what do we hope to accomplish? Where strategically are we trying to go? And now I think with the last thing you just said, we have switched over into that's a great idea, that's a great plan that we're trying to go. If we're taking this job, how do we tread water and not get sucked into the chaos that is here while we build that trust? And so I think you're exactly right. I think leading by example is a super positive thing, A good way to go.

Dr. Andy Roark:
As I said at the beginning, I think a lot of us underestimate how much power we have as a non-positional leader. Remember your positive reinforcement. It's so funny, people are like, “Is it okay for me to give feedback?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, positive feedback is always okay. No one is going to say, “How dare you praise me for being good at something. How dare you point out a success that I had and how impressed you were. How dare you?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
No one does that. It's just funny when we say “Can I give feedback?” What we mean is can I give negative feedback?

Stephanie Goss:
Right. Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that's how much we discount positive feedback is that when we say feedback we mean negative feedback. And I go, “No, you can a hundred percent see the things that you like and praise them and you can go ahead and start training your techs the way you want them to go, just by telling them what they do that you love and asking them if they'll do more of it. And telling them that how much of a difference it makes and say, ‘Hey I love that you do this. Could I make you a little request of you? When you do it this way, which is awesome. Would you be willing to make this modification or would you willing be to try it this way? Because I love what you're doing, and you would blow my mind if you did exactly what you're doing plus this one other step. Would you be willing to do that extra thing for me? It just makes a big difference.'”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that's all positive, it's all grateful, it's all thank you stuff but man you can read with lead positive reinforcement. And the last thing that I say, and I think this because I think this is real important because I said I'm going to call a spade a spade here. And I don't want to hand wave away this or act like, “And then that's the answer.” Because that's often not how this goes. This is always hard.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The best thing that you can do, and I say this especially to this writer because they have indicated that they are a senior doctor. And I don't know how you do this when you're a young doctor. But if you've been in the game 10 years, 20 years, you have a pretty good idea of what your boundaries are, or you should. You should know what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do, and how you're willing to be contacted on the weekends and how you're not willing to be contacted, or if you're willing to be contacted. You should know those things. How blood work is handled when on your days off and things like that. And so part of it is setting personal boundaries, if you want to set personal boundaries, you don't want to set them up when you're in the middle of a relationship, if you can help it. The best way to set personal boundaries is to set them up at the very beginning before … you know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You set some boundaries before you go on your first date, and then they're a whole lot easier to enforce than trying to establish them later on in the relationship. And so being upfront about just asking the questions, it's not making demands. I would not be like, “Hey you're going to do this and you're going to do that.” But I would ask very pointed questions about, “How do you do this? And how do you do that? And if I wanted to have a technician with me to do this thing, could I have that and how would that be scheduled?” And it's just asking those questions.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So what's funny is a lot of people will say to me, “But Andy, what if I ask these questions and just sort of say, ‘Hey, I just need you to know I'm not going to come in on my day off.'”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And people go, “You would say that at a job interview?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “You would.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And they were like, “But what if you don't get the job?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “But what if I do get it and they make me come in on my day off? I would much rather not get the job.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'll give you an example. So when I moved to Greenville, this has been a decade or more ago, I went to this practice and I was interviewing there and I really liked this practice. They were mixed animal practice, and I only do small animal. And they said, “Great.” They said, “We are mixed animal, and we a notice you don't do mixed animal.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I said, “Yes, that's true.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And they said, “Well would you be willing to take call? Because in order to have mixed animal, we do take call and the other doctors all take it. And so, you would be seeing mixed animal on call.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I knew that I was doing… I mean I was already traveling and speaking and doing all these things and I had a young family. “Guys, the truth is, and no shade on anybody. I'm not taking call. I'm just not.” And again, I don't-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. That was a need for you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. That's just where I was. And so I just said no. I said, “I would like to be here, I think this is great. I don't do mixed animal, and so I would not be able to be on call. And I totally understand if that doesn't work for you guys, but I just need to be honest upfront about what I need.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And they still hired me. And whenever it came up, “Why doesn't Roark take call?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I said, “Like I said at the job interview, that I'm not doing it. And I have always said that and that was the deal when I came on.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And after a year or so, our clinic quit taking call. We quit doing mixed animal. We quit taking call. I put that forward. It's because I wanted that job. I wanted that job. And every instinct in me was, “Tell them you'll do it. Just tell them that you'll do it. You'll figure it out. You'll shadow another doctor and get it down enough.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And it just was me saying, “No, no, I'm not going to do this and I'll go find another job if I have to. And I understand if it doesn't work. If you guys are going to be resentful because I don't take call then don't hire me, because I don't want to be in a place where I'm going to be resented. But I'm just going to be open with you about what I want to do.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, I put that forward as far as personal boundaries, the more of these things that you can set up, not in a jerk way, not in a make demand way. Ask questions so that you can open up the conversation and just say, “Hey, this is really where my lines are. This is really what I need.” And if they say they're not going to hire you because you are not willing to dance in the streets of CrazyTown, then move on.

Stephanie Goss:
You dodged a bullet.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You dodged a bullet. Yeah, you just did.

Stephanie Goss:
And that's the hard part, right? Is that, I get the sense from our writer that they may end up be in a position where they feel like they don't have another choice. And that's okay. Sometimes just calling that spade a spade and saying, “Look, right this second, I don't have a choice. So if that's the case, how can I make the best out of this situation?”

Stephanie Goss:
And so you could have looked at that and said, “Right now I need this job. It feels like it fits. I will agree, concede, do on call in the short term, and in the back of my head I know I'm going into this knowing that this is not going to work for me long term.” You could have done that.

Stephanie Goss:
The other choice that our writer has is if they're back at… And sometimes that's okay. You guys, we're humans. Sometimes life throws curve balls at us. And sometimes we are choosing between the lesser of two evils and sometimes that's okay. It is okay to look at a job and look at it with that level of impermanence and say, “Right now, while I have parents who are dealing with terminal illness and I need to be right near them for the next year, I am okay making that sacrifice.” That is an okay thing to say. And that's a personal thing to have to decide.

Stephanie Goss:
If your back is not up against the wall, that is where it goes back to that do your homework. If there are things that matter to you as a doctor when it comes to being a technician, if you're like, “I don't feel comfortable doing these things. I don't have the skillset to do these things,” you need to be asking those questions upfront.

Stephanie Goss:
And I love that you said during the interview process, Andy, because too many people wait until they've accepted the job and then start asking those questions. And then they're disappointed and frustrated. And so if there are boundary lines for you, especially because the questions that this doctor has is about being a technician, because the other doctors are working as a doctor and a tech because they're not utilizing the technician that they do have and their skill set. I would ask those questions as part of the investigative process during the interview.

Stephanie Goss:
“Do I have to answer on weekends when you call me? Can I take a tech and ask them to do these things with skills that I would expect them to have?”

Stephanie Goss:
I'm going to just give an example, if you're in a state where technicians can do dental extractions and you're a doctor who normally lets your texts do it, if they have that skillset, you should be asking that question. Because if their answer is hard no, you have to decide if that's a line in the sand boundary for you or not.

Stephanie Goss:
And to your point, it is far better to know what those things are, like on call, like answering your phone on the weekends, like not being able to utilize your techs to do the things that they're allowed to do by the state's law. Whatever those boundaries are, it's far easier to have those conversations before you get into it, than already signed the contract, not have your back be up against a wall, get two or three weeks in and be like, “This was the wrong choice.” Because you just wasted your own time, plus their time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep. I completely agree. And again, some of that comes from experience. Being a doctor who has worked in a couple of places… And I don't even know if you can do that really well if you've worked in one place. I think you have to work in a couple places and be like, “Okay, let's see. I see general variances, these are the questions I want to ask.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But what I would say on the flip side is, it's funny, both doctors and practices have this twisted idea that the point is to hire the other person and I want to hire them. And the reality is no, you want to understand the other person, and make sure it's a good fit.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I think that a good practice asks those questions. Because it doesn't benefit anyone to get someone hired and then have them be angry or resentful or to refuse to play the game. And so if you are interviewing a young doctor, you should say, “Hey, just so you know, this is how we communicate with doctors on their day off. Or this is the level of communication we expect with doctors when they're not in the hospital.” [inaudible 00:46:17]

Stephanie Goss:
How do you feel about that?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly right. And people go, “Oh my god. Andy, you ask them that?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I would say, “Yeah, because I sure as heck rather find out if we have a problem now than when they're board.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And again, there's a lot of people who are so focused on getting a doctor hired that they don't want to ask questions they might not like the answer to. And they promise the moon to the doctors. And then ultimately, I don't know how that ends other than-

Stephanie Goss:
Not, Well

Dr. Andy Roark:
Not well. But I swear to God-

Stephanie Goss:
I tell you [inaudible 00:46:46].

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. But you see what I'm saying though, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Those practices are out there and I go, how do you think this is going to end? I don't know.

Stephanie Goss:
That's the most powerful lesson I learned in interviewing as a manager. And what you're talking about, Andy, there's a great story about the guy who founded Zappos and his cultural belief. The idea was he would pay people during the interview and onboarding process to not take the job. And I remember learning that story and I remember the first time I heard it and I thought, that's like you're crazy. Why would you pay people to not take your job? Aren't you trying to get people?

Stephanie Goss:
And his belief, and the culture that he was creating at the company was, “No, look, we want to know who we are and we want to find people that are a fit for us.”

Stephanie Goss:
And I will tell you guys, that is the most powerful lesson that I ever learned as a manager when it comes to interviewing. Because the reality is my interview process now is dramatically different than it was when I started out as a manager, as a result of learning that, and some painful lessons by making wrong hires along the way or giving into that, “Oh my God, I need a body in a seat and so let me just hire somebody.”

Stephanie Goss:
And every single time I regretted it. And now I have no problem asking those questions during the interview process. And I love teaching. Because to your point Andy, it's hard to learn that if you don't have the perspective of having worked in multiple places. Because the grass is always greener, you don't know what's happening on the other side of the fence.

Stephanie Goss:
And I love working with vet students and talking to them about, “Look, these are questions that they should ask you, but if they're not asking you the question you need to ask them. Because it's just as much about finding the right fit for you as it is for them trying to find the right fit for themselves as a clinic.”

Stephanie Goss:
And so asking those questions, I would far rather go through an interview process now as a manager and have somebody say to me, “Thank you for your time. I don't think this is the right fit for me.” And I have designed my interview process to be supportive of that, because I would rather have that than have somebody take the job, not have it be the right fit for them, and go to lunch the second day and never come back.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think that's a great analogy. Tony Shay, I think his name was. And he would offer people $5,000. I can't remember if it was to not take the job or if it was that 90 days to quit, it was one of the two.

Stephanie Goss:
To not take the job I think.

Dr. Andy Roark:
To not take the job. Yeah. Anyway, no, I'm on board.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, that's it. The big things to come back around to are, it's not impossible to go into the situation. It is very hard. And I just want to be upfront about that. If you're going to do it, set a plan that involves change over time. Realistic expectations. Protect your peace. Just set good personal boundaries for yourself so you don't get sucked up into this. Get in there, start meeting people, figuring out what they care about. Start building trust and ask them about what's important to them and why they do things the way that they do. And then that's going to give you the best opportunity to have these conversations and to make some changes. That's all I got. Stephanie. Anything to add to that?

Stephanie Goss:
No, I love it. That's it. Hopefully, this was one of those ones where the trip to Camp Tough Love wasn't too painful. But, this is another Camp Tough Love, because I think as our writer gave us the answer in their questions. You can impact change, but you cannot force this to happen.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well if nothing else in this episode, I came up with the phrase dancing on the streets of Crazy Town, which I'm sorry, I heard that coming out of my own mouth and I'm like, “This is gold. I'm going to protect my peace from people dancing on the streets of Crazy Town.”

Stephanie Goss:
I love it. Have a great week, everybody. Take care.

Dr. Andy Roark:
See ya everybody.

Stephanie Goss:
Hey friends. Have you been over the website lately to check out all the fun and exciting things that are coming from the Uncharted veterinary team? If not, you should stop right now and head over there, because we have got some awesome stuff coming late summer and into the fall and winter. And I want you to be there with us.

Stephanie Goss:
We have our Get Shit Done Conference coming in the fall, that is happening in October. Before that, we've got a workshop coming in September from my dear friend, Dr. Phil Richmond. He's going to be talking about avoiding toxic teams, how to create psychological safety in our practices.

Stephanie Goss:
We've got the amazing and wonderful technician, Melissa Entrekin, who is leading a workshop in October about leveraging technicians, making practice less stressful for you, them, and your patients, and all kinds of other fantastic things you are not going to want to miss out on.

Stephanie Goss:
So, if you haven't been over there lately, head on over to unchartedvet.com. You can hit forward slash events if you want to go straight to the events page, but that will show you everything that is coming. And remember, if you are an Uncharted member, your membership gets you access to all of these workshops that we do on a regular basis for free.

Stephanie Goss:
And if you are not currently a member, you can check out the membership information, because it will save you big bucks throughout the year on accessing all of the workshops and it scores you access to the conferences when we have them, like Get Shit Done, for less money. That's right. Get a discount. And who doesn't love a good discount. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll see you soon.

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