management

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Stephanie Goss has gone rogue! She invited Tyler Grogan, Veterinary Technician and Uncharted Social Media Goddess as well as Eric Garcia, Marketing and Social Media genius/guru of Simply Done Tech onto the podcast. Fair warning – when Stephanie gets to have dear friends on the podcast, shenanigans ensue and this week is no exception. You may have heard Eric lecture or write about a topic near and dear to his heart – #unplugging. If you haven't heard about it, you are definitely in for a treat. Stephanie and Tyler were both inspired by Eric's invitation to veterinary medicine to unplug from social media and technology and lean into being present for periods of time in your life. All three of them lined up time this summer and this episode is their get-together to discuss what went wrong, where they struggled the most, what went perfectly right, and whether they will do it again. You all be the judge – let's get into this.

PS – As mentioned in the episode, you can check out Bored and Brilliant. All things Eric has written on unplugging can be found here https://ericgarciafl.com/unplugged/

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

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

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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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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.

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Episode Transcript

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Andy Roark:

Hey, Stephanie Goss. Do you got second to talk about Guardian Vets?

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. Whatever you want to talk about.

Andy Roark:

Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing. 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 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 Guardian Vets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. And it really is a godsend.

Stephanie Goss:

Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after-hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded. Everybody is drowning in phone calls. And so we talk about it. We've talked about Guardian Vets 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 Guardian Vets, if you think that you could use some help on the phones or up at 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, guardian vets.com.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss. And this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. I have got an intro coming to you as part of the episode because I am being joined today by some very special guests. This is a very special episode for me. It is the subject that is very recently near and dear to my heart. It is near and dear and a bit of a passion project for one of our guests and is something that our third guest experienced along with me this summer. We are talking about unplugging. Let's get into it.

Andy Roark:

And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Uncharted Podcast. I am Stephanie Goss. And today I am joined by two of my favorite people in the whole wide world. I have my fellow teammate, Tyler Grogan from the Uncharted team. Tyler is a veterinary technician. She is a social media mastermind, marketing guru in training and an aesthetic genius. Tyler brings you all of the things that are beautiful as far as Uncharted goes. And we are also joined by my dear friend, Eric Garcia, who is a marketing guru and social media genius. He's not here to talk with us about any of that today. The three of us are here today because we are going to talk about one of Eric's passion projects, which is unplugging. Welcome to the podcast, you guys. Hi.

Eric:

Hi. It's so good to be here.

Tyler Grogan:

Hey, Stephanie.

Stephanie Goss:

Hi. I am so glad you guys are here for our listeners. This is going to be an episode filled with giggles and laughter because we have literally been talking for the last few minutes, getting ready to start recording. And I have already cried with laughter, so be prepared. This will have even more shenanigans than Andy and I's normal episodes, and I appreciate every bit of it.

Eric:

I'm excited for it.

Tyler Grogan:

I have no idea what to expect.

Stephanie Goss:

Poor Tyler. So those of you guys who listened to the podcast regularly, poor Tyler got voluntold for this. She was listening to an episode for her job trying to pull quotes out to post the social media quote and heard me say, oh yeah, by the way, we're going to have an episode upcoming with Eric, and Tyler's going to be on with us. And she was like, I'm sorry, I'm what?

Tyler Grogan:

I was like, that's a great idea. I'm so glad that I knew that it was happening, but I guess I'll see you guys on the podcast soon. And here we are, the genius of Stephanie Goss.

Stephanie Goss:

Eric said before we were recording, that's probably your style and he's not wrong.

Eric:

It is. Totally is. That's a hundred percent Stephanie Goss.

Stephanie Goss:

If you were ever wondering what it was like to work with Stephanie Goss, that's a preview ball and told. But we are here. I am super excited for this episode. So Eric, tell us a little bit about unplugging and how you got there. You talk about this a lot. So a lot of people may have heard it, but kind of give us the origin story.

Eric:

Yeah, so the origin story actually started about nine years ago, I was reading fast and company, and there was this guy who was talking about how he spent a whole 24 hours without technology. He was talking about the effects that he had when he did it and how he was able to.

Stephanie Goss:

Did his palms sweat? Was he shaking?

Eric:

Believe it or not, from the article he actually did very well enough to the point where it didn't scare me away.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay, fair.

Eric:

I think you're starting to share some of your perspective, which I'm very curious, and I have a prediction about how your experience went. He did it for a day and he talked about how amazing it was. I challenged myself to do it for 10 days because I thought if I'm going to do something, I'm not going to do it small. I'm going to-

Stephanie Goss:

Go big or go home.

Eric:

Exactly. And it came at a time where I was just experiencing this fatigue from constant connectivity. I think a lot of people don't realize how much of a distraction email, text messaging, social media, our fricking phone and all of the technology around us actually is in our day to day lives. It causes stress, anxiety, and I'm not someone who is normally an anxious person. I'm not someone who normally becomes stressed easily. I started feeling all of these symptoms. And when I read his article, it really opened my eyes that maybe this is something that I could benefit from. It really hit home because that prior year I had the opportunity to go to Europe for just vacation first time ever. And I remember we went to France, we saw the Eiffel Tower. It's like this magical moment. But the moments leading up to that were filled with checking my email, being on social media and consuming a whole bunch of content that ultimately kind of carried into my experience and my vacation.

Eric:

I think a lot of times we don't realize that when we're on vacation, we consume content on social media that doesn't necessarily always make us feel good. We will get an email maybe about a problem that's going on at work about a new project that landed on your plate. And here you are supposed to be in this moment. For me, it was supposed to be enjoying this beautiful Eiffel Tower, but I couldn't stop thinking about those things that were distracting me prior to. And so I said, I'm not going to let this happen anymore. And so I decided to take 10 days of unplugged, which unplugged to me has there's dual benefit to me, it's not just unplugging from technology, which is perhaps the biggest part of it, but it's also to unplug from work and to have conscious efforts where you're saying, I'm going to truly enjoy myself. I'm not going to be tied to work. I'm not going to answer emails, text messages and things like that. And so I did it and I did it for a whole 10 days, and it was amazing.

Stephanie Goss:

That's so freaking impressive because that's like zero to 900.

Eric:

Yeah. 100%, ten days. It is, but it's amazing.

Tyler Grogan:

What you said about how there's a couple different components to you of what unplugging means, which was unplugging from technology in general and then unplugging from work, that was something that Stephanie and I, I think we both did seven days where we tried to do seven days of unplugging. And right from the get go, my first question was, well, wait a minute, what does that mean? Like defining what it was and from what your experience was, it sounds like you really completely unplugged, like weren't texting, weren't checking email. Were you communicating with people on the phone? What's the level of unplugged from technology that you did?

Eric:

Tyler, I'm actually really happy you asked that question and shared that because I think sometimes I forget to define what it actually means. I'll kind of share with you how my thought process has evolved since I started originally, and it still rings true to today. Unplugging means you're not sending text messages. You're not on social media. You're not going online on websites and surfing. You're not doing YouTube, anything like that. For me, the exception was that I would use my phone to listen to music. Everyone knows music transports you to wherever you want it to go and to take you. And so music was a big part of it, but my phone was always in airplane mode in the beginning years of it.

Eric:

For example, my mom watches my dog. So she knew where I was going to be at to be able to get a hold of me. And so for me, unplugging was just no technology at all from your phone mostly and iPads and things, don't try to get creative with it.

Stephanie Goss:

He's looking at me, you guys. He knows about the iPad stash in my bag.

Eric:

From this phone, but I can still use this phone. So not anything like that. Don't try to get creative. So I was very staunch on saying that if you're unplugging, you've got to do it like that, and that's the only way. And I felt that way for years. And I still feel that you have to truly unplug by doing that for a certain period of time, Jay Sheti who has this great podcast and great guy that really kind of gets into the mindset, very positive mental mindset, he talks about how you need to go through both extremes. I didn't really find this out until recently. And I thought he'd really eloquently put it together to say that you have to experience both extremes. So you have to experience the extreme of constant connectivity, right? So all the messages from all the things, and then to experience the complete opposite extreme, to be able to then find that balance between the two. So for me it was that one extreme, and I would bounce between the two extremes.

Eric:

Where my thought processes evolved is I've had friends tell me, well, it doesn't just have to be that. I've had friends tell me that maybe it's just selectively choosing what you want to unplug from. So if you think you have a toxic relationship with social media, then maybe unplugging for you would be not going on Facebook or Instagram, maybe it's unplugging from email or whatever it is that you want to try to escape. So I'm fine with that. And I call that unplugged moments where you have periods of time throughout the day or on the weekend where you do that. But I think to truly harness the benefit of it, it's just nothing. All of it goes away.

Stephanie Goss:

So, Tyler, tell us a little bit about your experience this summer. So both of us had known about Eric's idea from an industry perspective in how toxic social media can be and just how connected we are. And both of us had for different personal reasons had talked about, okay, let's make this the summer of challenge, and let's do this. And so, Tyler, tell us a little bit about how you came to your unplug journey this summer.

Tyler Grogan:

Sure. Right before I was about to travel to Canada to speak at a conference there and spend some time with my friend Saye that you guys probably know from Uncharted and beyond, but we were going to go to explore the national parks there. I had basically a three week trip planned to Canada. I saw Eric's post on Instagram. It was like, hey, guys, I'm unplugging for the next month. And I was like this might be the opportunity to try this. And so I messaged him and was like, I'm going to do this for a week. And he was like, okay, let know how it goes. I was like, okay, I will. Well, then I hear Stephanie later on the podcast right before I leave.

Stephanie Goss:

You can't put something like that out publicly and post on Instagram and then not expect me to jump on that and be like, oh yeah, okay, you're voluntold. That was the moment. Just in case there was any doubt. I saw the message on Instagram from Tyler and was like voluntold, done, over with.

Tyler Grogan:

So I set myself up for that. But anyway, so right before I was about to leave, I saw that and I was like, okay, well now I really have to do this. I said, I'm doing it. I have to do it. So my plan was that I was speaking at a conference. So I wanted to share about that experience while I was doing that but then right after we were going to travel to the national parks, and I already knew I was going to have limited connectivity just because of where I was going to be. I was only going to be with Saye, and that was going to be about four days and then three days following in Ottawa with her. And so I decided that was the week.

Tyler Grogan:

So, much to my dismay, when I got to our Airbnb in Yoho National Park in a small town of 200 people called Field, I found out they had fantastic wifi. And I was like, oh, okay, well, this takes away some of the barrier for me to be using technology, but I'm going to power through. I had a really interesting experience with it because like it kind of came in phases. So the first few days we were very like, we're going to be out hiking. When you're out hiking, obviously you're not on your phone, but right from the beginning, I was like, but my camera is on my phone and we need the GPS on my phone to get to the places we're going to go hiking, and we need music because we're going to be in the car for a really long time. And I've got to check on my cats. And I've got to make sure that the person we're meeting in a few days knows where we're going to meet. And I'm like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?

Tyler Grogan:

I was like, logistically, how am I going to actually do this? And so I had this conversation with Saye, I was like, look, I have to do this. I've been told, I'm doing a podcast. I have to do this. So how are we going to make this work? And she's like, okay, in classic Saye fashion. She was like how are we going to define success of you doing this? I was like, this is some coaching. I like it. And so I have notes that I wrote down. I'm like, what are the rules? And I was like, no social media and no email. Before I left, Ron, our executive director disconnected me from Slack, which was incredibly helpful. It was very easy for me to go and just in my kind of like almost automated motion, I realized click on the different icons of social media or of Slack just to open, and it almost was like an unconscious thing.

Stephanie Goss:

Muscle memory.

Tyler Grogan:

I removed the icons from the homepage and Slack, the first time I tried to open it, inevitably, even though I said, I'm not going to do this, the first time I tried to open it, it was like, you can't do this because you're not even-

Stephanie Goss:

Access denied.

Eric:

I love it.

Tyler Grogan:

I was like, oh, that's good.

Eric:

Go Ron.

Tyler Grogan:

There were a few phases where like I could go into ad nauseum amount of detail. But I think the first, really big question that came to mind was like, what are the rules? That's why I asked, what does unplugging actually mean? Because to me, I was like, if I'm not completely unplugged from technology, then I failed unplugging. But the reality was like, I actually needed the tech. I felt like I needed it, and maybe we could have found ways around it. But I felt like I needed the technology for a significant number of reasons that I was like even traveling outside of my normal day to day, this is going to be really difficult.

Stephanie Goss:

You and I talked about, okay, you're using… Eric was doubled over dying in laughter as Tyler was describing what she's using her phone for. But it's true. Tyler and I had this whole conversation about, we have these computers, like it's more than just a phone, right? So we have these computers in our hands. And we don't think at first glance about all of the ways that it's interconnected. And so Tyler and I had this conversation about, well, I'm taking pictures with my phone, and I don't want to disconnect from that because I want to be able to capture moments and much more intentional moments, I think, than normal. Tyler and I had some conversation about how it forced her to think about how often she's using it for that and what she's capturing versus like, oh, let me just selfie.

Stephanie Goss:

When we think about let's do it to post on social media, we don't think about it with the same level of thought. I think that we think about it when we're looking at it as this is my camera. I'm not lugging camera equipment with me. This is my camera. I'm trying to capture this moment. And it's hilarious to me because as Tyler and I were having this whole conversation about what we each did, Eric, you're going to laugh, neither one of us thought about airplane mode. Both of us were just like we… This is our moment of there's a light switch, dummy, and you just flick it on and off. Neither of us thought about airplane mode. And we both were just like, what are the rules?

Stephanie Goss:

Like it's funny because both of our heads went to what are the rules? How do we define this? We were like, let's channel Eric. What would the rules be? And so when we had the conversation afterwards, Tyler and I were both like, we have so many questions for Eric about what are the rules and how do you define it? Because neither one of us thought, oh, that one button does all of the things. But to Tyler's point, she needed GPS. So there are pieces of it. And that was one of the questions we had for you because you and I have had that conversation, Eric, about using your phone to use Pandora stream music or whatever.

Stephanie Goss:

And I think that was part of the big picture thought for me this time was what am I going to try and use my phone for? And figuring out like Tyler, are there hacks and easy things that I can do to make my phone more restrictive so I don't just muscle memory hit that button and be like, oh, let me text or let me send a Slack message to everybody? And still be able to access the pieces of technology that don't count yeah or are needed to your point.

Eric:

I'm sweating because this is just so funny, and I feel like I've led you to failure.

Stephanie Goss:

Let's be clear, you're sweating before I even tell my story.

Eric:

I'm excited. This is like-

Stephanie Goss:

Also, let's be clear, you have not failed. You have not failed us. In fact, that's part of why we wanted to do this podcast because-

Eric:

This is great.

Stephanie Goss:

… we had conversations with you, both of us individually, before we did the thing and asked you for input and guidance like, hey, we're going to do this thing because both Tyler and I recognized one of the core things for Uncharted is, look, if you don't have a partner and somebody to help keep you accountable, it doesn't actually happen. And so Tyler and I both recognize we need accountability partners, and so we approached it from different perspectives, right? For Tyler, one of her accountability partners was having the conversation with you and trying to figure out what are some of the rules and then continuing that conversation with Saye and people who she was going to spend time with. But also one of the accountability partners for her was Ron. How do I unplug from work? And I approached that in a very different way, which is part of my failure.

Stephanie Goss:

But I also had a conversation with you about like, look, let's get real. Eric knows me very, very well. For those of you who have not heard this story, Eric and I met and really started our friendship probably about six years ago when we were at Fetch in San Diego. And I actually went there so that you and I could sit down and have some conversation about social media. But at Fetch, you were doing a workshop on unplugging. And it was really funny because I was still in practice, and I was very active on social media at the time. And one of the things that I had volunteered for was live tweeting the conference.

Stephanie Goss:

And so I find myself sitting in Eric's lecture about how to unplug, and I'm literally like sitting there with my phone in my hand thinking I have this assignment, there's this thing I'm supposed to do, and I'm in this class telling me not to do the thing. And I was sitting there and my palms were literally sweating. And I put my phone in my back pocket and thought, okay, if I sit on my phone, maybe I can actually listen to him. I caught myself in the first five minutes taking out my phone to repeat something on social media that Eric had said, because I thought it was great. But then I was like, dude, I'm not actually even listening to this, and so I was really trying. And so I literally put my phone in my back pocket and like leaned over to one side so I was sitting on it.

Eric:

You did well.

Stephanie Goss:

My hands were sweating, but I made it. It was like a 50 minute lecture, and I think I made it through like 35 minutes without touching my phone. And that was the first time. But I'll be honest and candid with you guys. That was probably the first time in I don't know how long that I went 30 minutes without the phone being in constant reach because I recognized in that and then in followup thought and work on myself that I have an addiction to my phone, and it is a very powerful one. And when I started looking at my own life and recognizing I am using it for good things, I am capturing my kids' childhood, I'm capturing moments, but I'm also missing a lot of things because of what I'm doing with my phone. And so that led Eric and I on our friendship journey about sharing this also recognizing that I have been in long term recovery for a very long time and recognizing that's one step at a time.

Stephanie Goss:

For me, I cannot go zero to a hundred because I will fail. I have to take it in small bite size pieces. And so that was the first step that day recognizing I have a problem and then starting to work on it. And now six years later, it's taken me six years, but six years later I was at the point this summer where I was like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to actually unplug for days on end. And unlike Tyler, I was like, I can't go to seven days, but my family had a trip planned, camping. We were going to kind of be out in the middle of nowhere. So like Tyler, I thought, okay, here's a physical barrier to being able to get online. Also like Tyler, I get there and discover, hey, the whole world has wifi now.

Stephanie Goss:

And so we're camping with kids. We're not really that off the grid. So there's wifi where we were. But my thought was, okay, I can do this. We were going to be there for four days. And I thought three nights, four days, I can do that. That feels like a sustainable amount of time for me. I had very mixed results. Not going to lie. I'm going to tell you guys, Tyler probably earned a B plus on her unplugging. I don't know how she graded herself.

Eric:

We're grading now, okay?

Stephanie Goss:

I would say she probably earned herself an A minus, B plus. She did a really good job. I was like, these are the things. I wouldn't say that I got an F, because I did ultimately unplug for two days. I would say a D minus was where I landed.

Eric:

I'm curious about that. Tyler, why would you grade yourself a B plus?

Tyler Grogan:

Those were not my words.

Stephanie Goss:

How would you grade yourself, Tyler?

Eric:

Yeah. How would you grade yourself?

Tyler Grogan:

I think I would've given myself probably like a C minus on unplugging.

Eric:

Let me reframe something and then see if this changes how you grade yourself. So unplugging is mostly about constant distractions. So constant distraction would be social media, would be texting, would be email, would be those things that we interact with consistently. There are exceptions, using GPS isn't breaking the rule, right? I've been places where I've had to take it off of airplane mode to turn it on for GPS. Admittedly, I've had places where I've gone because I was going somewhere on vacation and I had to message the guy’s Airbnb. You can do those things, it's what you can't do is you can't, you kind of start to fall out of it when you go on social media or you take a peek at email or when you see a text message or thankfully you were disconnected from Slack, or if you went onto Slack. It's okay to use it to convenience you for those little situations. Or did you relapse when it came to work and social media? Where do you feel? Would that help you give yourself a better grade?

Tyler Grogan:

Well, yeah, let me elaborate a little. The work side of things, I was disconnected from Slack, and I absolutely was very conscientious not to check my work email. So I feel like that was an A plus, like work disconnect was an A plus. I felt the outcome of that when I got back. I was able to do that for that entire trip, disconnect from work. And I came back feeling recharged and ready to get back to work. So that was definitely A plus.

Eric:

Can I just quickly jump in on that? I think what Ron did well, and I think a big lesson to take away from here is that Ron took the initiative of disconnecting you from Slack. I think as a leader… Wait, did that not happen? Did you ask him to?

Tyler Grogan:

I'm laughing because Stephanie and I had two different experiences with that because Ron, as a leader did succeed but also did ask us if we were okay with us being disconnected. The first day I had to answer, I knew I had one email for work that I needed to pay attention for before my trip started. And I answered it. He saw me answer the email, and he messaged me immediately and was like, I am going to disconnect your work email. And I was like, no, you don't have to do that. It's okay. I knew this one thing was coming. I promise I won't do it again. But, Stephanie, when she was asked, gave a much different answer than what I said.

Stephanie Goss:

So it's funny. This was really part of what I was curious to talk through with you, Eric. I run everything for my calendar and my whole life through my work calendar. Better or for worse, my work calendar is where I keep all of the info. And so like Tyler, I also did some preparation and was like, okay, and I told the team I'm going to go, I'm going to unplug. And I thought that I set myself up for success in that I had the autoresponder on. I had been telling people, I think about your basic rules, you communicate ahead of time, you let people know, you put on your auto message, so people know that it's coming. I did all of those things. And then for me, my plan was I have a couple of days where I'm going to be somewhere else, but I'm going to be working remotely, and then I'm going to unplug and I'm going to go.

Stephanie Goss:

I worked those days, and I reminded everybody, hey, starting this day, I'm going to unplug, I'm going to do the thing. We didn't have the conversation about Slack or any of that. And I actually am kind of glad because my immediate gut response was I don't handle that loss of control. Even if it was my boss, if someone told me I'm going to take this away from you, that would have had a visceral response. I would not have felt good about the experience because I wouldn't have felt like I was an active partner in it. If it was a discussion about like, how would you like to do this? I think that I would've been more open to that. And that was part of what Tyler and I were talking about.

Stephanie Goss:

Because Ron was like, hey, this worked out so great for Tyler, maybe this should be our company response moving forward. And several members of the team were just like, absolutely not. We will lose our shit if you tell us that you're going to do these things. And so it was a conversation about how do we come up with rules that support each other as a team? So my immediate gut response was that. I recognize that that's part of the addict talking is that I need to be in control here.

Eric:

A big part of the addict talking, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

And so I do recognize that. We'll come back to that. Anyway, I set myself up. I did what I thought was the prep work to be like, I'm going to be gone. I had update meetings with everybody. I met with Andy right before I left. We ran through all of the things like this this is a sit rep, this is a status report, this is where everything is at. I'm going to hit the pause button. Everything will be fine for the four days. I've gotten everything to a place where I could drop off the face of the earth for four days and it should be fine.

Eric:

So real quick just on that point. You know you're unplugging.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Eric:

You told everyone.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Eric:

So why did you still feel the need to be this connected if you made the conscious effort to leave it behind?

Stephanie Goss:

Because for me, I knew because I was choosing not to remove… I was like, I'm not going to turn things off of my phone. I'm not going to… I knew the messages would still be coming. People are used to me having the instant response. And so for me it was like, hey, I'm going to go. But also I need you to understand that I'm serious about this. I'm really not going to not going to answer. Then I immediately failed.

Eric:

Yeah. And that's normal by the way. I mean, I don't ever expect anyone to come back from this the first time and either, A, love it, or even, B, have done an amazing job at it because it's an entirely different thing that you have likely never done in your entire life, except from before you started working and we relied on our parents and depending on that.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, when we had actual phones? And if you left the house, no one could find you for days on end, and it was fine.

Eric:

That's a very normal feeling. I think it's really important for people to recognize that that's a very normal feeling. But you're right, that response that you had is exactly the reason that you should continue to try to work on that. I feel that companies and practices should have very strict disconnect policies, and I think it would make people like you very anxious but I think at the end of the day, it would-

Stephanie Goss:

I took my Xanax before we recorded this, so I'm fine. We can talk about it.

Eric:

I wish we were all sitting down at a bar and having this conversation, but I think it's very important for the businesses that we work for to set those examples. For example, we have a very strict unplugged policy. When you're hired on board, there's an unplugged policy that you sign that says when you are out, you are out. Email gets turned off. Slack, all of that gets turned off because that employee is going to be a million times better when they come back and they weren't bothered at all.

Eric:

We don't purely do it because we want them to be better. We also do it to help them because not everyone can do it. And so I hear what you're saying, and I genuinely like the approach of, well, let's tailor it to that person, but I don't actually think that would be helping you in the long run.

Eric:

Because unplugging isn't about checking messages and triaging, that's not unplugging. That's just going to work and checking your email. Here's the reality, Stephanie. If I were in your situation, if I were quote/unquote unplugged, but I still triaged email, I would be in 100% your shoes. In fact, I had a similar situation happen. I had both extremes happen. I remember one time I came unplugged, this was a few years in, we had a brand new employee working for us. I came back, and as you can imagine, one of the reasons people don't unplug is because like there's millions of emails. I expected that. That is built into my unplug time. I come back, I spend a day and a half just doing email.

Eric:

This one year, and this was the most bizarre experience for me, and I learned to like it, but I didn't in that moment. I came back, I probably had easily 300 emails or whatever, and that employee responded to a majority of them because it redirects to that person to say you should go to-

Stephanie Goss:

If you need help, this is your person.

Eric:

Right. They were asking specific questions. Someone had a negative review. How do I respond? This person wasn't really hired on to do those things. They know what they're doing, but that's not what their job was. And so this person responded to everything. I came back, and I'm reading it. And I was like, I probably wouldn't have said it that way. And then I read some emails and I was like, wow, that was actually probably better than I could have said it. I remember when I was done, I'm not kidding you, I was probably caught up within two hours after being gone for over 10 days. I was like, I don't like this. I don't like this at all because you just did my job, and, yeah, you didn't do it in the way that I would have done it, but you really didn't do it in a way that was going to lead us to the company was going to crash.

Eric:

And I remember thinking like, oh, letting go of that control and letting someone step up to the plate and fail to learn from those failures actually ended up being one of the best things that could have happened because now that employee is the one who things are directed to, and I have the confidence knowing. And they know what they did wrong, and they know what they did really well. And so I think that's a very normal response though, and I know that letting go is hard, but I think slowly letting go… And I don't think maybe four days is probably the best thing for you right out of the gate. I think for some people, it works. I think, Stephanie, you just need to start with like a Saturday.

Stephanie Goss:

But I hear what you're saying, and I actually recognize that. And so for people who are like super control freaks, I recognize the addict in me says, don't take away that control. And that is actually what is needed. And so I do the work. I recognize that. So I would do it differently. And so for me, I felt like this is a total failure. And Tyler and I were having this conversation. And one of the questions we had for you is I said, I know Eric has policies, and I know that his company is set up that way now. And so the question Tyler and I had was, you jumped into this zero to 60 on a personal level, how do you then start to have those conversations with your team? Because I'm thinking about all of our listeners who are like, I would love to go. I mean, that was me as a practice manager. I would have loved to step away literally for a 12 hour shift and not get 19 text messages and phone calls.

Stephanie Goss:

How do you move in that direction so that you do have company policies, that you do have protocols, that you do have processes in place and still have buy in so it's not just me, Eric, as the business owner saying, this is how we're going to do it and you either take it or leave it, but how does the team be a part of that?

Stephanie Goss:

Because Tyler was like, well, this is what we did. And I was like, oh, I don't know if that would work for me. And I know other people on our team felt the same way. And so we were like, can we have a discussion about this? And maybe ultimately the decision is still, this is the policy and protocol, but everybody in order for there to be buy in, everybody needs to feel heard. Right? And so for me, as the manager mind was turning, I was like this is where we need to have the conversation with Eric about how do you get there as a leader? How do you start to have those conversations with your team? Because it's not easy.

Eric:

Yeah. I think it's really critical because this is what happens sometimes is people will say, well, can we have a copy of your policy? We'd love to institute it. And then they go back to their practice and then they just distribute it in their com boxes or by email. And they're like, hey, we now have this policy. That's obviously not how we should ever implement a policy. It's like a cell phone usage policy or social media policy. It's like, hey, I heard from this person. We shouldn't be using our phones on the clock sign this policy and it's like, well, hold on. So to that point, it's really important, I believe, to have a conversation with your team during a team meeting where you carve out ample amount of time to talk about, A, the benefits of saying, hey, listen, we value your mental health, it's extremely important. We want you to be able to leave work and enjoy life outside of work. It's to say that we're doing this to prioritize you and what we're going to do so you can relax is we're going to have redundancies in place.

Eric:

There are going be other doctors that are going to see your cases. There are going to be other technicians that are going to fill in shifts. And everyone's going to have a turn to where they will eventually be on vacation and we'll be able to do this and kind of explain the logic behind it. Talk about how it prioritizes the employees.

Eric:

I think this is funny because a lot of times practices are like, oh, we prioritize mental health and it's like, well great, but how do you do that? And this is one of the many examples of how you actually do that and how you actually say, well, we can say one thing, but here's how we're going to prove it. And then I think a big part of that conversation is to say, you might not like it, but we're doing this for you, and we're doing this for us, because you're going to be a better employee at the end of the day, and you will learn to enjoy a life outside of work. And I think what's dangerous though, and I can say this about the practice that I used to work at with peace and love, I even saw the person yesterday. I think where we start setting ourself up for failure is when we are accessible when we're on vacation. And the message that we're sending other people is to say, well, if I'm accessible on vacation and you can ask me questions, then you're going to be expected to do the same.

Eric:

And we kind of champion that. We're like, yeah, oh, you can do it, email me. I love work. It's not about that at all. It's about just-

Stephanie Goss:

I'm in the hospital, but you can message me anyways.

Eric:

But let's be real, that probably happens every single day. Right?

Stephanie Goss:

I say that because I've been that manager literally in the ER sending my team that message. It's fine. I have cell phone reception in the ER, just message me. It's fine.

Tyler Grogan:

My gosh.

Eric:

Oh gosh. Listen, now, part of that would be, I just don't want to focus on what I'm actually dealing with.

Stephanie Goss:

That's true.

Eric:

I can see validity in that, but yeah, I see where you're going.

Tyler Grogan:

Well-

Stephanie Goss:

But it is. Go ahead, Tyler.

Tyler Grogan:

Well, there's another piece of the conversation though, that I think that we didn't have as a team, which was, let's agree to put these things down until this person comes back. I see how you would feel saying, look, I need to pause this because I'm going to take a break. But when I come back, it's the first thing on my list. And then someone saying, oh, it's fine, I can definitely send that email. But then having a very important piece of information, like you said, not available to them and then something gets blundered while you're away, I can 100% see why that would be really hard to deal with.

Stephanie Goss:

And that was my first response, right? I was just like, I had this conversation with Andy. He knew that this was where things stood. Why didn't he tell you? You know what I mean? At first, I was mad at Andy because I was just like, dude, I handed this off to you. And then in further conversation to Tyler's point, it was about, we didn't have team agreements. And so the team was like, Ron said, no, Andy actually told us that. He said, you should wait until Stephanie gets back because this is her thing, and she's doing the thing. And so I was like, okay, immediately all the misplaced anger at Andy goes away. And he's like, but we were trying to help. And we just thought, oh, we'll just check it off and it'll be done and we can move on. And it was that learning lesson.

Eric:

What also kind of goes with that though is I believe that there's rarely anything that needs to be addressed right in that moment. Right? Continuity business will continue whether you're there or not, but there's rarely… That was a problem I had myself was I'll tell you for example one of the biggest challenges was I unplugged maybe a year ago. I don't know. The pandemic is kind of a blur. It was during the pandemic, and I was literally unplugging in between this massive project that I was working on with Royal Canin. I remember I was plugging back in hours before I was set to kick off this multiseries event being translated in seven different languages. Like it was this big thing, and I could have easily said, well, I don't want to. I'm not going to plug in until after this, but I did. I unplugged right in the middle of that.

Eric:

I did all of the most core things that I needed to do, but there was nothing that would've been urgent that was going to change the course of that project because it was already set in stone. And so I don't think that there's hardly ever anything. I think Stephanie kind of going back to this also reminds me of when, and I don't know if you remember this or not, if you were tweeting, but in that session then… What was Fetch called?

Stephanie Goss:

I was CVC then.

Eric:

CVC sorry. At that CVC conference-

Stephanie Goss:

We're dating ourselves because we're old.

Eric:

I know. We really are.

Stephanie Goss:

I had to reach for them like, oh wait, it's not CVC, it's Fetch. Let's call it by the right name. But it was CVC then.

Eric:

Yeah. I remember this veterinarian toward the end of the session, and she was crying and she was saying that she could never unplug because a pet owner, a client of hers, sent her a message on Facebook and was asking a question about her pet that was in some sort of emergency. This veterinarian who's a solo practitioner decided to unplug, take vacation, prioritize herself, not be online, not answer any questions. When she finally plugged back in and she checked on that pet owner, the dog had died and the owner said, well, it's your fault because I was waiting for a response from you. And she started crying and she said, I could never unplug again. And that was a really heartbreaking story because I've heard that numerous times since then, and I don't agree.

Eric:

I think it's easy for me to say because I'm not a veterinarian, but I don't agree because there are systems that can be put in place. There should be auto responders on Facebook that should link to the emergency clinic when you call. So there are things that you can do. And our dear friend, Megan Brashear, in the lecture that her and I give together on setting boundaries, she said, you're not the FBI. You're not that important. I don't care who you are. You're not that important. And there's nothing that needs to be done right in that instance.

Eric:

Now, it would be different if you were leaving for 30 days at a time, but what's really cool is there's also a book called No Rules Rules Netflix. For me, it was also a life changer because they talk about how there's no vacation policy and people can take as much vacation as they want, and they can do it at whatever time they want because they let people know… They set this expectation that you're not going to do it at a time where there's a million important things going on. You're going to find the right time and you're going to end those projects. And anything that comes in after that isn't going to be urgent. And I think about this is executives do this, all level employees, engineers, people who are responsible for the streaming, all of these employees will do this. And one of the cool things that Netflix does is that when they kick off their team meetings, if someone was on vacation, they actually put that employee on the spot and they say, hey, what'd you do? We want everyone to know what you did, and we want you share pictures.

Eric:

And even the executives will kick off a team meeting. And they're like, I was just in Fiji for five days and I loved it. And here's what I did. And they do that because they want other people to see that they can also do the same thing and they also should do the same thing. And so I really think it's important to kind of always keep that in back of mind. It's easier said than done, right? I mean, it's definitely easier said than done, but I think it takes practice, but it can definitely be done with the right practice.

Stephanie Goss:

It can. I will say I felt like I failed miserably. I had a meltdown. Jenn talked me off the ledge. I put my phone away for the remaining 48 hours of my unplug time. And I had a great time with the kids and my family and was like, okay. And I stopped. I didn't check email after that, because I was so upset. I didn't check email and I didn't set check Slack. I did a really good job of that. I used my phone for pictures and stuff like that, but I didn't post on social media. That was a hard and fast no go for me. I was like, I can't be on social, it's toxic.

Eric:

Awesome.

Stephanie Goss:

I did really good. I felt really good about it. It was like, okay, it was a little win. And then since then, I have had several… You were not wrong. Go take it one day at a time. And so that has been my challenge for myself, and I'm stretching it into longer, longer periods of time. So it's like can I spend the whole day, and can I really be present? For me, I've recognized that like the temptation of having the phone in my hand is huge and I've recognized, and this is part of the recovery process long term for myself, is recognizing that I am one of those people where the addiction tendencies are really strong and I can't have the temptations.

Stephanie Goss:

It's the same way with me with caffeine. If it's in the house in any format, it doesn't matter if I don't like it or not, I will consume it. And so for me it has been about that with my phone as well. It's actually been a benefit because I have leaned back into… I used to be an avid photographer and loved using my camera and had almost quit using my camera for years because I had my cell phone and the cameras on cell phones get better and better. And why wouldn't I use what's in my pocket. Right? And I don't have to lug gear. But the kids and I have been doing adventuring this summer, and I have picked that back up. For me it is about I have to leave it at home and it's making sure that if we go somewhere, I leave it in the car or I leave it in my purse, and I will catch myself.

Stephanie Goss:

If it's in my purse and the kids are doing something or they're playing with their friends, we just recently spent a day up at the lake, and they're in the water. I was sitting there drying off and was like, oh, just pull out my phone. I was like, I can't. I can't do it because the next thing you know I'm on social media and stuff like that. So for me, it's been a really painful, but good personal journey and recognizing I am so in awe of people like you and Tyler who were like, let's jump in and I'm going to do seven days or do 10 days. Also, part of why I wanted to do this was to say there are people listening and I see you.

Stephanie Goss:

I feel you because that was me. I couldn't make it through a 50 minute lecture the first time I met Eric, but here I am six years later, and I've made it for days now at a time, and I am working my way up. So the learning lesson for me was that I want to do what Tyler did. Maybe not in the same way that she did, but I want to go longer. I want to be able to do things. And so I'm working my way towards that. I think Tyler had a similar experience where it was like I went and some things went really, really well. And I gave her a really high grade on purpose because she's too hard on herself. And she did do things really well. And she also recognized… Tyler, I would love to hear from you, what are the things that you would want to do different next time, and how do we take our own personal experiences?

Stephanie Goss:

And to your point, Eric, how do we bring that into the company? And how do we start having those conversations as a team? Because we both independently and together recognize the impact that it had on us, but also the ripple effects of that experience on the rest of the team intentionally and unintentionally.

Tyler Grogan:

The other half of my grade was outside of the work piece. And this was where I had a lot of questions for Eric because things I would do differently, I was like, I don't really know how or why I would want to do this differently. And part of the experience on the personal side of unplugging, where like unplugging from technology completely was, what about the downtime? Because I don't know if this was your experience because you said your first unplugging experience, you traveled to France, and I'm not sure if you were on your own or if you had people with you. But part of that was, I was with somebody else. So they had access to their phone. So they'd be showing me things on their phone or things like that, which I felt like, okay, that is what it is. I'm not picking up my phone and doing this.

Tyler Grogan:

But there was a lot of downtime, especially when you're traveling. And then also the second half of that week was spent back in a normal kind of environment of like we're not always going to be out hiking all day where we don't have service and we're not being present in a moment of sitting on the couch and watching something together on TV can be much different than being present actively doing something. And I was like, that was where I struggled because we got back and suddenly we're in a normal home environment. And we're spending some of our time in between going to have meals or doing things together, just hanging out. And so you're normally on your phone scrolling through whatever or talking or, oh, let's look up this new thing that we both want to know more about.

Tyler Grogan:

Those were the parts that I was like, okay, how I would want to maybe do this differently, but how could you do it differently? And also I felt like there were times I wanted to talk to tell my mom about how my trip was going or tell somebody how it went speaking at the conference the week prior. I was like, is unplugging from that taking away from me?

Speaker 1:

Tyler asked me, am I actually breaking the rules?

Eric:

Yeah, so-

Tyler Grogan:

Yeah, because that actually is something I want to spend my time doing is talking to somebody. And so I was like, it's the two extremes and then what's falls in the middle I was like, this is okay.

Eric:

That's just it. Again, first off, I should have kicked this whole thing off by saying I'm not an unplug expert. It's just my experiences and the experience from my friends. But I think, Tyler, what you bring up is really important because even my unplugging has evolved. So for example, in the early stages of it, for the first few years, like I said, my phone was on airplane mode. It's evolved in the sense that my dogs are older now. My mom does watch my dogs. Elvis had a back issue, so I'll keep my phone on, but it'll be on do not disturb. And I'll FaceTime my mom. So that'll be like, hey, how are things going? How are you? I have a very close relationship with my mom. My friends on the other hand hate when I unplug, because I even unplug from them, and I got a lot of crap from my friends.

Eric:

And then I'll see threads of text messages that they'll forward me or that I will be on that I won't see until I get back. And they're like, oh, he's probably unplugged. And he's not talking to us. And this is unacceptable. I do think to your point, one of the things I'm learning is that maybe it is okay to send text messages to my friends and be like, hey, how are you and check in. It's just making sure. But see, I've had the experience of knowing what a true unplug is to know that that won't leak into something else. My biggest fear with that was, and the reason I went cold turkey with text messages, is my biggest fear is I would get a text message that would be related to something that I'm trying to avoid for an extended period of time.

Eric:

But I think there are ways now, like you can prioritize messages from friends and suppress other ones. So I think there're apps within our phones that give us better control than we had before. I think another thing that's really important, two more items. One, is I had someone I remember one time she's like, well, it sucks when you unplug and you go out to dinner with your friends and no one else is unplugged because at some point during dinner everyone's on their phones and I'm just sitting there. And I told her, I said, well, try to make it a game. I'm not condoning people to drink or anything like that, do what you want. But what I told her was like, if you happen to be at a bar or somewhere where there are drinks and that's what you're doing, then make it a game. Make everyone put their phone into a hat or something. And the first person that reaches for the phone has to pay the tab for that night.

Eric:

And so challenge your friend to do that. I remember that person that I recommended that to followed up with me months later. And she was like, I got to tell you that was a lot of fun. We started having these in depth conversations that we didn't. And this happened to me as well. I was friends with someone for my whole life, and there are things that I didn't know about them that were going on. And it's just amazing how the moment that we pick up our phones and everyone else starts to follow along like a domino effect that we lose that ability to connect deeper with that person.

Eric:

And then the third thing is is you're going to be bored, and you have to embrace that boredom. And that was a learning curve for me is like, I'm bored. I don't know what to do. And it's interesting. I'll be honest. I was never a reader. Now, I love reading. I'm reading all kinds of books now. I wrote an article while I was unplugged. You can choose to channel that in productive ways. I started my book a few years ago, albeit haven't gotten back to it. But I started that when I was unplugged. You can find things that you can do. I had someone one time tell me that she cleaned out her house that she's been needing to do forever. It doesn't sound fun, but the feeling that comes from setting goals or from cleaning your house out or from writing an article or accomplishing something, psychologists approve that dopamine hit that we get from that.

Eric:

And so it's that productive, that good feeling that you leave from it. And I will tell you when I'm unplugged and I'm bored, that's where I come back and I create some of my favorite lectures. That's where I come back and I'm truly inspired to do new things. My recent unplugged, it's been two weeks now and I have been exercising again because that's been a goal that I've set. And so these things, if you let your mind get to them, will actually allow you to be happier at the end. The problem is is we're so distracted that we never get our chance to let our mind be bored, to tap into the most creative part of who we are.

Eric:

Even at a stoplight, we pick up our phone and we're like, let's check Instagram. You don't get to be bored anymore, and boredom is such a brilliant thing. Yeah. So

Stephanie Goss:

It's totally true. I feel like I gave myself a D minus on this whole unplugging.

Eric:

I'd give you both an A. I don't think you're giving yourself credit.

Stephanie Goss:

Wait, I will say like the thing that came out of it… I feel like I failed, and I also was exceptionally proud because ultimately for me one of the pieces was I love to read. And for me, I was so looking forward to I'm going to unplug, I'm going to sit by the campfire and I'm going to read. I read 12 books in the week that I was gone. I was like, I feel really, really good about this.

Eric:

That's awesome.

Stephanie Goss:

It felt really accomplished. And to your point, Eric, the creative juices were going, I worked on website. I felt good, and I felt good about some of those choices in technology. I know, Tyler, you felt similar in a different way.

Tyler Grogan:

Yeah. I felt like in the end I realized that my relationship with social media in general had already changed where I wasn't really looking to it for entertainment as much anymore. And I was just kind of like, while it was muscle memory, it wasn't something I missed a whole lot. So that was an interesting discovery. But I also kind of journaled each day just to keep track of… And one of the things I would journal was a moment that I felt most present. I really feel like I was looking out for that. I shifted my perspective from looking at it. I don't know. I just paid attention for those moments a little bit more. And when I realized that I maybe was taking that away from myself for the opportunity to feel that, I think I can see that differently now.

Tyler Grogan:

And then some of those memories that I felt like now that I have when I was really present in the moment, those are some of my favorite memories from the trip. So more than the pictures that I took on my phone. But I feel like once I figured out, once I called it from the beginning an experiment, and I figured out what unplugging worked and what didn't for me, it was overall like a really good experience. My challenge now to myself is to translate that into my normal day to day life like Stephanie's kind of experimenting with. Like one day at a time still implementing those moments, like you called them unplugged moments, that's what I want to work on now.

Stephanie Goss:

I would agree with that and take it one step further, which is I think you were spot on Eric about for me especially, it gets one day at a time, but what I recognized with this experience was I did, although I was upset and there was a lot of turmoil and stuff I had to work through in regards to work when I came back, I recognized that I read all these books, I hung out with my kids, I spent quality time with my family, that felt really good. When I started talking to my therapist about it, analyzing myself, I recognized that I don't even get a weekend. I don't even give myself that on the weekends on a regular basis.

Stephanie Goss:

And so to Tyler's point, I started looking at how can I apply this first to having what lots of people would consider a normal life and actually leaving work at 5:00 PM on Friday and being able to have Saturday and Sunday where you don't work and you do a thing. Like, for me, that was the first challenge. And I think I probably will set myself up. I haven't put the dates on the calendar yet, but I am looking ahead to next year of what does that look like, and can I go a little bit longer baby steps, right? I'm not going to try and go 10 days. I'm not going to a retreat where nobody talks for days on ends. That is not me. I can never do those things. But how do I take it one step up? And the rest of this year, it is about how do I make that apply to my life as a whole so that I start to have a little bit more balance because it's very unbalanced.

Stephanie Goss:

I think our whole team has learned from this, and we have talked about it. I just have to say thank you to you because it has sparked conversations for us as a team about how do we change ourselves as a business recognizing that first step starts with admitting it, right? It's recognizing we have a problem, and how do we work together to figure out how to meet the basic needs, but also to the points you brought up earlier, sometimes that is the addiction talking and sometimes the control has to be taken away from you. And that is probably okay. And it took me quite a while.

Stephanie Goss:

I did my unplugging and so did Tyler in the beginning of summer, so June. We're two months after that, recording this, now it took me two months and multiple therapy sessions to work through my emotions. Let's be real. I was not in control and I was real mad, but I feel really good about it, and I feel positive about the changes that we want to make. I think, Tyler, you want to do this again, right?

Tyler Grogan:

Oh, 100%.

Stephanie Goss:

And I know you're addicted to it, Eric, because now it's multi times a year. When it first started, Eric was like I'm doing this once a year, and this is a thing. How often are you doing it now?

Eric:

It depends.

Stephanie Goss:

It's not a process.

Eric:

Yeah. There are times, there are definitely two extended periods of time throughout the year that usually fall within a holiday period because it's important to spend-

Stephanie Goss:

Schedules.

Eric:

Yeah. But sometimes I just do it when I'm like, I've hit my limit.

Stephanie Goss:

Need a break.

Eric:

Yeah. And when I know I'm responding to emails in a short manner when I know I'm getting frustrated, when I know I'm getting mad at things that I shouldn't, and then I know that's for me. And, listen, to both of you. I think it's very critical for people to share their experiences with unplugging, and the two different perspectives that you have I'm not surprised because everyone's going to have an entirely different experience with it. Everyone's going to have their own rules. Everyone's going to have their own thing that they're trying to accomplish. I think as long as we can celebrate the art of being able to unplug and celebrate the different ways that we do it and that we talk about it and that we encourage other people to do it, I think it can really help our colleagues, our friends and our peers be their better selves and be happier and more productive.

Eric:

And so I appreciate the platform and I appreciate both of you taking on this challenge and doing it yourselves. Stephanie, I'm going to be honest, my prediction originally was going to be that you hated it a hundred percent and that you never wanted to do it again. And you proved me wrong. You hated it 90%.

Stephanie Goss:

Let's be real, I hated it a hundred percent. Well, that's not true. There was moments like Tyler said where I really enjoyed. I was like, dude, I'm engaged. I love my family. This is the whole freaking reason I went on vacation because I actually do love them. And I love my siblings and my parents. I want to spend time with them. And so those moments were good. The rest of it, you're not wrong. In the moment I hated it a hundred percent, and I was like, screw this, I'm never going to do it again. But I will say, the gauntlet has been thrown, the challenge has been accepted. I will work on Andy Roark because I think that this would be a fun challenge. And then we'll have to have you back for round two to hear how Andy handles it.

Eric:

I'm very curious, very curious.

Tyler Grogan:

I think we all are.

Eric:

Not just Andy, how everyone around Andy handles it.

Tyler Grogan:

That's true.

Stephanie Goss:

Fair. I love it. Poor Andy. He's going to listen to this and be like, I did not sign up for this, guys. You're fired.

Eric:

This podcast will not air.

Stephanie Goss:

No, I love it.

Tyler Grogan:

One thing I want to say before we're done is that I do think that the timing of this was kind of the right timing because I think the last few years with the pandemic and the level of connectivity has increased to such a degree that we were seeking each other out because we couldn't physically be together, and a lot of the connection was taken away. And so coming out of that and having the first opportunity to spend quality time with people that were really important in my life in person and just one on one was I think that that was the right time to try this.

Tyler Grogan:

Thanks, Eric, for really throwing that out on social media; Stephanie, for volunteering us to do this podcast so that I felt that I would disappoint everyone if I didn't actually do it.

Stephanie Goss:

Voluntold.

Tyler Grogan:

Because it was exactly what I needed. It just made me appreciate that much more the personal time that you get with people in your life. So thanks, guys.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it.

Eric:

Thank you both.

Stephanie Goss:

I love you guys. This has been so much fun. This might be our longest Uncharted episode to date, but hopefully everybody's hung in there. They're like, oh my God. This conversation was so great. I had so much fun, and I think Eric would challenge all of you.

Eric:

I would.

Stephanie Goss:

Wherever, if you want to go in, all in, and you're like, I'm going to do 10 days or you're like can I do 50 minutes, wherever you fall, we are here for it. And I want to hear on our social media how it's going because I love this challenge. Eric, we will follow up because there will be a discussion with Andy.

Eric:

Done. I cannot wait. This is part of the reason I want it this year. I can't wait that long.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it. Take care everybody. Have a fantastic week.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey friends, have you been over to 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. I want you to be there with us. 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. 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. 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. Who doesn't love a good discount? Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll see you soon.

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Have you ever judged someone on your team when you happened across them sitting down at work and staring into space? Or heard someone say “If there is time to lean, there is time to clean!” Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss loved this short but complicated question from a manager wondering what to do about a fellow manager on their team who tends to look at things from a snapshot perspective – they see what is immediately happening and judge, without giving the team the benefit of the doubt or asking more questions. As you can imagine, this doesn't always go over well with their fellow managers or the rest of the team and they want to know what to do to help teach this fellow manager to stop being so judgmental and start looking at things differently. Let’s get into this…

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

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

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

Upcoming Events

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.

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Episode Transcript

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

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

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

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

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And I'm sure you hear from these people as well. Like our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.

Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.

Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and GuardianVets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support and it really is a godsend.

Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help but at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded, everybody is drowning in phone calls and so we talk about it. We've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”

Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use 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. Hey everybody. I'm Dr. Andy Roark and this is the Uncharted Podcast. Guys, Stephanie Goss and I got a good one from the mail bag today. Have you ever worked with someone who judged the people around them? They would look, they would see somebody sitting and eating their lunch and be like, “She never does anything.” And they would make these snap decisions and judgements about people. They would sum up their whole character based on the behavior that they saw at that moment. That is a judgemental employee.
What do you do about it? How do you fix it? How do you talk to this person? How big a problem is it? Do we need to work with the whole team on it or is this an individual problem? Gang, Stephanie Goss and I unpack it all. If you have got a Judgy Judgerson in your practice, we got you covered. Let's get into this episode.

Speaker 3:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie, no judgment, Goss.

Stephanie Goss:
I love it. That might be the most appropriate title for this episode ever.

Andy Roark:
Totally.

Stephanie Goss:
I love it.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
How's it going?

Andy Roark:
It's good, man. Again, Summer winding down. My youngest daughter has been talking all Summer about how she wants to go to a baseball game-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And we went to the local minor league game last night.

Stephanie Goss:
How fun.

Andy Roark:
It was flipping great. We got these great seats. Big spender, I spent $13 each for them. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Amazing.

Andy Roark:
Amazing. I honestly… There is something really wonderful about minor league baseball, like $13 for a seat. You know what I mean? You go, you don't have to really… You hang out and you got to half watch it and half hang out and-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And she got to eat hot dogs and we got shell… The peanuts and shells.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And so we broke the shells and she was like, “Can we do this?” And I was like, “Yeah, you just drop them.” One day I'm going to find a Texas Roadhouse and just blow your mind.

Stephanie Goss:
Wait till she finds the bar where you can just drop the peanut shells.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
It's college kid.

Andy Roark:
100% why.

Stephanie Goss:
That's going to be right up Hannah Roark's alley.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. It was a big win. So yeah, we went… It was not a good game, but she didn't know. She was like, “This is great.” I was like, “Good.”

Stephanie Goss:
That's so fun.

Andy Roark:
We may or may not have had ice cream in the seventh inning. It was-

Stephanie Goss:
Don't tell our mom.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, totally. It was pretty fantastic. So that's what's going on with me. How about you?

Stephanie Goss:
I love it. About the same, the kids and I are just hanging out and enjoying the heck out of Summer. They were like, “Can we have ice cream for dinner?” And I was like, “Yes. And then we'll eat second dinner and…”

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
It's just that it's about having fun. We did a hunter killer mystery together last night, which is-

Andy Roark:
That's fun.

Stephanie Goss:
Like an escape room in a box kind of situation.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I did those.

Stephanie Goss:
And it was you uncharted and you introduced me to escape rooms and I fell in love with them and then I introduced the kids to them and they have totally been digging it. And we did one with their school, through somebody we've used for uncharted and they loved it so much. And so my mom got them this one and I loved it because it was Nancy Drew. So total nostalgia for me-

Andy Roark:
That's cool.

Stephanie Goss:
Growing up when I did. And the kids have no idea who Nancy Drew is, even though they have books on their bookshelf that are Nancy Drew books but so it was great. We had so much fun and it was good. We're trying to lean into spending some intentional time together and turning off the phones and doing the fun stuff.

Andy Roark:
I think that stuff is really important. I think a lot of people are really looking for that these days. I found myself playing a lot of board games-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Recently. And there's one and I can't remember what it's called, but it's this weird… It's this puzzle game of just wooden blocks that have to fit together in a certain way and it's just really ingenious in how it's made and I'll come up with the name of it in the future. But Hannah and I… She's out of camps and stuff and so I'm looking for things to do with her.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I'm working and everything but when I get loose, I can't come home and flop down. I want to come home and engage with her because I know that she's hanging around and waiting for me to get finished. And so we've been playing board games and stuff like that. I am a huge escape room junkie. I love those. Hunter of killers are fun, my wife and I did those. The ones that I really love and they are challenging, but a quick gift recommendation for anybody out there who likes puzzles or mysteries or things like that to do together with people, there's one called Curious Correspondence.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And that's… This is not sponsored by Curious Correspondence but if anyone from Curious is listening-

Stephanie Goss:
If you want to sponsor us.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Give me a call. Let me know because I'll be your guy, because I am 100% on board with your product. Allison and I have done the first adventure, the whole adventure and they send you like one thing a month, but their puzzles are really good. And they are not easy. It takes us a couple of days to work through the things. But those are really well done, but I am 100% with you as far as trying to find things that are intentional that people could do together.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, and it's always hard, right? Because you guys might not know this about me, but I'm a bit of a control freak. And so when the kids drag out a book or drag out a board game and they're like, “Can we do this one?” And my first instinct is if it's something that I don't want to do or the book that I hate, my first instinct is to be the mom that's like, “No, not going to do that.” And so I really do have to fight that instinct sometimes. And then last night it was like, Riley pulled out this one and she was like, “Let's try something we haven't actually done,” because we have a whole stack of things and I had had it in my head when now you said let's do a game, I was thinking of the thing that I wanted to do and I was like, “No, let's do it.” And we had so much fun and it was great. So yeah. Summer's going well. It's a lot of fun.

Andy Roark:
You told me a long time ago your favorite board game. What's your favorite board game?

Stephanie Goss:
God, I really… The kids and I really dig this game called Fluxx is-

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Okay.

Stephanie Goss:
And we now have like seven different decks and I really enjoy that one. It's a game where their rules change constantly throughout the game hence the name Fluxx. And they have all different versions and they have a super nerdy fantasy version now that's got like Harry Potter, esque and a Lord of the rings esque characters and cards. And it's a lot of fun. What do you guys… You guys play a lot of games.

Andy Roark:
We play a lot of board games. Yeah. I picked up Fluxx after you recommended it and it is fun. I had a good time. We played as a family. You played Ticket to Ride-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
Recently, which is a train game. I tell you when you get four people playing, it gets really fun really fast.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
That was… That way… I'm not a train guy, I was like, “We have a train game?”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
I was really impressed with that. There's a couple of games that we get a ton of mileage out of, the Exploding Kittens. We play a lot of Exploding Kittens. We play one called Trash Pandas, which is a card game.

Stephanie Goss:
I love Trash Pandas. So fun.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. We play a lot of Trash Pandas. And then we play… I'll give you my recommendation, there's one called Kingdomino-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Which is super fun and we play a lot of that one as well. So-

Stephanie Goss:
We have that. I haven't played it with the kids yet. We have that one. I think the one you were thinking of the kids and I found it is called Dragonwood and-

Andy Roark:
That's what it was.

Stephanie Goss:
I love that game. So much fun. If you like D&D kind of style games, Dragon went super fun and even my… Jackson was I think seven or eight when we started playing and he could figure it out. So it was great. Great for them and they actually… We got the harder version of it. I think it's Dragon Quest or Dragon Realm, something like that. And it's… They love it. It's so much fun. And that was… It's funny that you said that, because that was the game that in my head, I was like, “We can play Dragonwood, we play Fluxx and…” Right? Because that was the Nancy Drew mystery, but it was so much fun and I would 100% do something like that again. I was like, “This is not… This is definitely one of those one time use games,” because now that they've solved it, obviously we can't do it again, but totally worth the time.
Because I thought about it and I was like… My first thought as a parent was, “Well, that was a waste of money,” and I know my mom spent $25 on this thing and so I'm thinking, “That's it.” But when I stop and step back and think I would've spent way more than that if I took them to the movies for two hours or if I took them to a baseball game or whatever. And so I'm like, “That was actually…” We spent an hour and a half together and we had a lot of fun. It was totally, totally worth it. And it can have new life with another family.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
So it's super, super fun. Anyway-

Andy Roark:
That's my gauge on entertainment. That's how I gauge entertainment and I think a lot of people get lost in that. I gauge everything against the fact that a two hour movie cost me $15 right now if I go to the theater. And so if I do something with a family of four and it takes us three hours and it costs me $50, I'm like, “That's a reasonable deal.” If everybody was into it and we had a good time, I'm like, “That's what entertainment for a group costs.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
But that just… Anyway, that makes a lot of that stuff more paldo to me, because I'm totally with you, it's $25 and then you do it and you're like, “Well that's done.” Yeah. I can't look at it as a comparison to a deck of cards. You got to look at it as how many people enjoyed it and for how long do they enjoy it? All right, let's let's do some actual work here. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Let's get to work. So speaking of judgemental and judging, because that's how you kicked me off with my name today. We've got a great mail bag question. I actually really like this one and it's funny because it comes from a colleague and someone that I actually know in real life who I have worked with before. And when I saw a pop up in the mailbox, I was like, “That's a great question.”

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
But it also has sat there for a while because I thought, “How do we…” This is a… It's a big one and it's a vague one and so I'm super interested to dive into this with you. So we got an asset said, “How do you get coworkers to move past a snapshot mentality?” And they said, “I have a fellow manager on my team who sees everything in a single view format without doing a deep dive into what's really going on.” And what they mean is, they gave an example. Like for example, if this person sees someone sitting down their automatic assumption and where they go to every time is that person is not doing anything or that person is lazy. Right? And it's those kind of snap judgments and they said this happens repeatedly and with people across the team.
And so it causes grief, obviously, as you can imagine with the team there's perception that this person is mean, that they're picking on people, that they're a jerk and also it causes conflict amongst the rest of the managers, because there are lots of people on the team who are like, “Dude, what's your problem? Why do you have such an attitude?” And so they were like, “How do I get… How do I teach that? This person happens to be the lead of this management team and was like, “How do I…” This has to be a skill, right? “How do I teach people to have some empathy and compassion and be a better leader and not make such rush snap judgements.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I thought that was really an interesting… That was an interesting question. It was an interesting question. I think there's plenty of stuff here. I think that the important thing to think about is the question here is how do I deal with this behavior in my peer? Because that's what I'm hearing.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
The way I would do it if I was the boss of this person is a little bit different, but not wildly different, there's a lot of similarities. Well, let's start with some head space, you're ready Right.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
So do not fall into the trap of doing to the person what you complain about the person doing to other people.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Meaning say, if this person is always coming up with snap judgements and labeling people and then they're grumpy and I'm not saying that's what we get from the letter, but you know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I immediately want to make sure that I'm not following into the thing that I don't like about this person.

Stephanie Goss:
Right. It's easy to get into the negative head space.

Andy Roark:
Exactly right. And say, “Well, this is what they do.” Look, everybody's got their strengths and everybody's got their weaknesses, right? And everybody's got mental shortcuts that they take and they have ways that they look at the world. It's just interesting. So I coach improv comedy and I really enjoy it. And I had a player. As part of the coaching… So I'll coach a team for a season and so I work with this group of people throughout a whole season and one time I was halfway through the season. And generally at the halfway point, I sit down with each of the players individually and say, “How do you think the season's going? What do you see your strong suits as? What are your weaknesses? What do you want to focus on in the second half of the season. These are the things I see you doing well and this is where I think that you can grow.”
And I do a one-on-one evaluation with each of these players. And so I have… I love the diversity of people that we play with. And we have some people who are older. And so I don't think you'd mind me telling the story. When I was talking to one of my friends who is on the team and he came in and he's 78 years old and he does improv with us and he's great. And he had a frustration. He said, “I get so frustrated because other people see me doing a scene. And then they jump in because they think they can do it better than me.” And that really bothered him. And I talked to him about it for a while.
And ultimately what I said to him was, “You've made this assumption that people are jumping in because they think they can…” They're jumping into the scene that he's putting on or he's creating and making him leave that scene there, they're tagging him out of that scene.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
So he's being moved off the stage and they're continuing on with this thing that he helped create. And I said, “You make this assumption, these people are jumping in because they think they can do it better than you.” I say, “I watch you do these things. I think that you are creating things that are fun and exciting and people want to be a part of what you've created and so they're jumping in because they want to be a part of what you're doing. I don't think that anyone thinks you're not doing it well, I think that you've succeed in creating a thing and then other people want to play in the universe that you have created on this stage. And I was going to say I think that, that's a real strength and I think it shows what a strong season you're having as far as creation and comedy and theater and things.”
And so anyway, I know that's a weird story to bring forward, but it stands out to me is I have this person who was having great success, but in his mind, the explanation was, “These people make… They jump into my scene because they think they can do it better than me.” And I look at it and I say, “I think these people are jumping into your scene because you're doing a great job and they want to be a part of what you're doing.” And that's the story that's in my head as I look at this question about the manager and they see these people in a snapshot and we make assumptions about why they are behaving the way that they are. And so if I was going to talk to the person, I would tell them that story because it is a story I say, “Hey-

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
This is a thing that I've seen in my life and I want to tell you a story about someone in improv comedy.” And then I would bring it back in order say, “My friend was wrong because he… These people had great respect for him and they were doing these positive things, but didn't look that way.” And I would say, “I see you sometimes and we have these conversations and I wonder if you don't have a similar perspective sometimes of making assumptions about what people are doing and things like that, that aren't exactly accurate.” And so anyway, that's… If I was their boss, I would probably maybe tell that story and things like that. But I don't know, I just want to be… From a head space standpoint, that story of my friend at improv is very similar to how I look at these experiences when people make snap judgments. They tell themselves stories about what other people are doing. And the sad thing is my friend was unhappy doing improv-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Until I got him to believe, no, this isn't happening because people don't like you or they think-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Less of you, this happens because they do like you and they're and you're and got him to look at this different way and suddenly he was thrilled and he was happy to be on the team. And he took this as a compliment and praise and then I told him, “I'm going to lean into making sure that people don't jump in just because they want to participate in what you're doing. They need to… I'm going to make sure people don't take this away from you, just because they're excited about what you're doing. They need to bring something new and different.” And I could communicate that to the team as I saw it and say, “Hey, pay attention to these things and…”

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Anyway, I was able to adjust the problem in a way that was positive for everybody.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I really like that. And I think that there's a piece of… I think it's a good example and illustration, as you were telling the story and you… The clear difference in mindset between thinking that people are jumping in because they could do it better than him versus they're jumping in because they're excited. Those are two radically different things and there's this quote that I love by Steven Covey and it says, we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.

Andy Roark:
That's good.

Stephanie Goss:
And it's such a good quote. And I heard it when I was just getting started as a leader and a manager and realized a few things about it. It resonated with me so strongly and I realized like, it is true. And to your point, we evaluate ourselves using this exclusive access that we have in our heads to the story that we're telling ourselves in our heads, right? Only we know what's going on in our minds. And there are… We know about our intentions, we know about our motivations. We also know about our own insecurities, our own worries, things that have happened in the past that have hurt us or who have gone really well. All of those things go up and roll up into a ball and are part of the self-evaluation that we make on how we're choosing to act, right?
And those internal thoughts at best are only partially known by the people around us. And even when they know they may not be understood well, or they may be interpreted very differently. The actions that we live by and our behaviors is what counts to the people around us. And so for me was always a reminder to say, “Hey, look, the team doesn't want good intentions, they want good actions, they want to be supported because they will judge you like.” That is human nature. We are all judgemental. There's no escaping, every single one of us on the planet at some point throw stones and judges other people. Right? And so I think it's really important to think as a peer, if you can recognize that and you can recognize that how you act matters, you can have some influence over your peer and to your point early on, how you address this as a peer and how you address it if you were their boss is two different things.
And ultimately, I think this might be a little bit of an episode where we visit camp tough love, because if you are truly just a peer, at some point, your hands may be tied.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And there's not a whole lot that you can do, but you can always choose your behavior and how you interact and how you lead by example. And so for me, thinking about that quote and thinking about like, we judge ourselves differently than everybody else judges us. And if we want to think about not having judgment by the rest of the team or passing judgment, we have to think about how are they looking at it, not how are we looking at it because our perception is skewed.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I agree. The big things for me when I start talking about things like this, the question that we wrestle around with is what is my responsibility to give feedback to a peer.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
And I don't know that. I wonder… It really depends on the culture and the structure. Are we in a place where we give feedback to each other, do we have a system to do peer evaluations?

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Do they do 360 degree evals? Is this a thing where maybe that person's direct boss asks the other managers and says, “Hey, we're all going to give feedback on each other and you're going to give it to me and I'm going to use it to do evaluations with people. So tell me the strengths and tell me any weaknesses that you see in colleagues,” and-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
There's a million different ways to do that sort of things where if the higher ups wanted to get feedback from others about how someone was doing so they could give that person that feedback. If this is drilled down to a PR, it seems like a pretty condensed nugget of pointed feedback to say, “This is a behavior that we see,” there may be mechanisms for that. And honestly, a lot of times I think that the easiest thing would be to go through that mechanism and say, “Here's what I see in Steve. He's great. These are the things he does well. This is the big thing that I think he struggled with.” And you may have a mechanism like that. And if that's the system and you give feedback to the boss and the boss gives feedback to the person, then I would just go through that system and that's not wrong.
It's like we like for the technicians to talk to each other and give each other feedback but honestly, a lot of times let's be honest, the best thing they could do is pass it to the practice manager and allow the manager to give that person feedback or to give them an evaluation or things like that. It really depends. We've all looked at people that are our colleagues or our peers in the workplace and been like, “Do I want to give this person some constructive criticism? Is it worth the risk to me to do that? Is it my place to do it? Would I want this person to give me feedback?”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And I think a lot of us are like, “Sure, I would.” And go, “Would you really?” And I just think that those are all dynamics that are specific to an individual practice.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And so I'm not saying don't do it, but I am saying we sometimes have to ask ourselves what feedback is appropriate to give to a peer versus what feedback is appropriate to go through a review process versus what feedback is more appropriate just to keep to ourselves, unless someone asks us. If this person isn't asking for feedback, do I go, “Okay, well, I'm going to let go.”

Stephanie Goss:
So I think I agree with you on a big chunk of that and I disagree with you on part of it.

Andy Roark:
Sure.

Stephanie Goss:
And so… But before I get into that, the disagreement piece of it, I think it's important to roll back for just a second, because I think your point is about what type of feedback you're giving is spot on. Right? And so here's the thing, the reason why a lot of us struggle with giving that feedback, particularly peer to peer, like is it actually my job to give them the feedback? My answer to that, this is where I disagree with you, is always yes. I don't have any right to say something to their boss or go above them if I haven't had the conversation with them directly, that's a fundamental core belief of mine.
I didn't always have that belief, but it shifted radically for me early on in my career. And I don't feel good. There were times where I said something to somebody else's boss and the change happened, but I never felt good about the change and what I realized over the course of working on communication skills and in therapy was that I felt guilty because yeah, the change had happened, but it had happened because I told on them or I [inaudible 00:25:25] knocked them out. Right? And so there was… For me, there was this guilt factor of like, “Okay, I really did want that change, but I didn't want the consequences of them feeling like they got told on,” because I went through that myself and it feels really crappy.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And so for me, a core fundamental belief is like, look, I can say something, but I have to have had the conversation with that person directly first. And so we've talked on the podcast before about some of the rules that I've developed for myself to make that an easier process. But I want to step back for one second because I think a lot of it has to do with the type of feedback that we're giving to that person. So I think that something that you and I are very passionate about is how do we give feedback? Because so much of our jobs… Especially as leaders, but everybody on our team should be able to give feedback. And unfortunately for all of us, peer feedback is not something that… It is a skill. It has to be learned and then it has to be honed and it is not something that most of us learn in everyday life.
We don't learn the tools to truly give constructive feedback. And we all know this because we felt the results of very critical and not constructive feedback where we felt like people are just being mean, they're smack talking us. Right? We've all felt that on some individual level in our practices, in our career. And so when I think about feedback, I think a light bulb moment for me happened when I saw this model in a class and I don't know, off the top of my head where it came from. I'll put it in the show notes for you guys, but there is this concept about this feedback bullseye. So close your eyes and imagine that there's a target, right? Like a shooting target and you have the rings and there are four rings and the big outer ring is green and that is the impact ring. Okay? And so this is about talking to people about what impact their actions or their words, or… Have on you, on the rest of the team, on the group as a whole. That's the first ring.
The second ring is behavior. So what behaviors are happening that are impacting the team and those two rings are tied together, right? That makes total sense. And then you get one ring down and you could talk to somebody about their motivation. What is motivating them to behave this way and act this way that then has impact on others around them, rippling outwards, right? And at the center of that bullseye is someone's motivation. What is motivating them to… Sorry, the center is their identity, who they are. They are a mean person. They are just a jerk and this is why they are motivated to behave this way and this is how it impacts the team, right? That ripples out. When I saw that and the person who was talking about it was explaining, “Look, your job should always be to stay in the outer two rings because they are the majority.
They are the biggest, they are the brightest. They have the most impact.” When we judge someone for their motivation or we talk about their identity as a person, we get nowhere. And yet that's where we often as humans lean into when it comes to giving peer to peer feedback. Well, I think you're just being a jerk. I don't like why you're choosing to do what you're choosing to do. I disagree with that, right? We are judging the identity and motivation. We can't change that. That's not something that we can affect change on. When we talk to them about the impact that their actions have on the team. When we talk about the behaviors themselves, when you use this tone of voice, when you speak to someone in that way, when you stand there and cross your arms, those are things that we can give clear examples for, and we can impact change.
And that's a behavioral model that we don't teach. And so most of us, when we're trying to give feedback peer to peer, we don't know how to phrase it. We don't know what to do with that feedback. So most of us, to your point, Andy lean into, is it really my job? I'm not really equipped to do this. So I'm just going to say something to their manager if I have the opportunity and it's probably going to course correct better if it comes from them. And I would really argue that it is all of our responsibilities to be able to have those conversations with each other and say to your peer, like I should be able to say to you, “Hey Andy, when you talk to Sarah like that, it makes me really sad because I actually… When I hear you, what I hear is judgment.
And if I was her, that would make me feel pretty crappy about myself or the job that I was doing or whatever. I don't want to feel like that. So how can I help you do that less because it makes me really sad.” Right? Then I'm talking about the impact that your behaviors had on me as a person. I'm not talking about how Sarah felt and being empathetic and I'm showing that I could have compassion for her. Right? And that feels very different than, “Hey…” I'm just going to go ahead and tell our boss when we have an opportunity to give feedback that, “Hey, Sarah's a jerk and she's managing in a way that I don't think everybody likes.” Those two things feel really different.

Andy Roark:
Sure. No, when I say I would talk to the manager, I guess what I was trying to say is, I think a good evaluation process involves feedback from multiple people and going and being like, “Hey, you work with Stephanie Goss, what are your impressions? What are her strengths? What are her weaknesses?” I would say, “These are her strengths and this is her weakness that I say.”

Stephanie Goss:
No one person has the whole story.

Andy Roark:
Exactly right. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Right? You have to do your job.

Andy Roark:
Right. I am not going to go and tell Stephanie's boss, “Hey, I wasn't affected by this but she exhibited behavior that I was… It's not how I would do this.” I'm not going to do that. But that's what I meant when I said, “Is it your job to go and have these conversations?” And I still go back to it. Unfortunately it does depend on culture-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
To some degree and what is acceptable and how we do it. So, okay. So what I want to do here, I want to start to get into the meat and potatoes of this. And so I think the first thing we ought to do is… I think just to be complete, we should lay down real quickly, why is the behavior that's being exhibited a problem? And so I would just put forward, as you said, to me the big thing is assuming someone's identity based on a behavior is a dead end, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Saying that person didn't show up and so they are lazy, not, they did not appear when they were supposed to be there because that's a one time thing that can be corrected, adjusted but no, they, as a person are lazy. That's lazy thinking and it's sloppy thinking and it leads you in a management hole because you can't change who someone is and it makes it easy to write people off. And that is a… Writing people off is not growing them, that's giving up on growing them.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And so that is a problem. The classic ideas of seek first to understand, yeah, assume good intent. All of those things are important and take your pick of which one you want to motivate you. But they really are behavior, not identity when we give feedback. All those things are important in making people feel seen and still being able to give them feedback. And obviously when we look at people and make judgements about why they are behaving that way and who they are, we damage relationships. Right? We isolate things. I'll also call out. This is a classic anxiety… Yeah, this is a classic anxiety symptom of catastrophizing, right? When you look and you see someone not doing a thing, you go, “That person is worthless. They don't do anything. They get… They're so lazy.” I'm going… That's catastrophizing. You are looking at one thing and telling yourself a story in your head and then behaving as if that story was true.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, and for just a second, I think we have to normalize… This piece really resonated with me because I have been this manager where I've judged. I've looked at somebody who's sitting down and I'm like, “Dang it. There's so much to be done. Why are they just sitting there?” Right? I totally understand why you can make that judgment. We all do it. And I think we have to normalize the fact that it is impossible to go a hundred miles an hour, 10 or 12 hours a day, every single one of us is human. We need breaks. We need to sit. We need to do nothing. Just because someone works for me does not mean that they are going to move nonstop for the 12 hours a day that they are working on my team. That is an unrealistic, unfair assumption and I think we have to normalize the fact that everybody on our team deserves the opportunity to sit and stare into space or do nothing-

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
At times during their shift. Right? That has to be part of the conversation but because we do what you're talking about, because we have a lot of anxiety, because we have a lot of fear, a lot of concerns, we can very easily look at one time and turn it into a thousand times.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that's where as a leader, your job is not to judge the one time it's to… And not even to go looking for the pattern, because if you go looking for it, you will find it and that drives you into the negative rabbit hole faster and faster. Right? But it's about when it actually happens. Being able to say, “Is this behavior happening over and over again? Does this have an impact on the rest of the team or do I need to recognize this, say this is a human being who's sitting here for five seconds, cool. Good for you. I'm proud of you for sitting here and taking a break,” right? When do we start to have that conversation as leaders?
And I recognize that, that's a little bit of a soapbox, but that is part of breaking that cycle because historically as an industry I have worked with and four way more bosses who look at it from the other side of the spectrum where it's like, “Oh my God, you're sitting down for five minutes, you're lazy. Why aren't you doing your job?” That's not normal. That is very abnormal behavior. And it is something that I think we need to recognize that we're doing and work on trying to fix.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. One of the, probably, the least enjoyable experience I had in that school was when I was doing large animal internal medicine rotation. And I was there during the day and I was involved in this ultrasound and so this clinician was doing this ultrasound and I was there and I was taking notes or whatever. And I was talking to him and I was really involved in what was going on. And it was a case that I was working on everything. And so anyway, so that happened in the afternoon. And then I was on call that night and I got called in about 10:30 at night and I was there until four in the morning and I don't do well staying up overnight.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
I'm never an emergency. [inaudible 00:36:14] I just… I don't. And so the next day I'm back in rounds, it's like 3:00 in the afternoon and the clinician starts drilling me with questions from the ultrasound on the previous day. And Stephanie, I couldn't remember.

Stephanie Goss:
True.

Andy Roark:
It was… I just… I didn't-

Stephanie Goss:
You're half asleep.

Andy Roark:
I mean, I was dying and so I didn't… And he was hitting me and he was getting angry that I didn't know these questions. And he just came after me in front of everybody, as far as just asking me a question and then another question and another question on top of it.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And he got really upset and he was like, “Why don't any of this stuff? I was here with you,” and blah, blah, blah.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And really went after me. And I didn't say… I didn't tell him I was up all night because it didn't seem relevant at the time, but that was the one time in vet school I was publicly chewed out in front of my colleagues. And it was funny. He came up… I still think about it sometimes. He came up to me later in the day and he said, “Hey buddy, I just found out that you were here all night. I'm really sorry about that earlier.” And I was like, “Okay, well, thanks.” But it didn't change the fact that he embarrassed me-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, chewed you out in front of everybody.

Andy Roark:
In front of everybody.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And what's funny is I liked that guy. I liked him before and I still like him after. But I think a lot about it's he had no idea what I was doing and not what I was doing in my personal life, like what I was doing in the hospital in the middle of the night, doing these other things.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And so I think about that sometimes when I see someone sitting down or zoned out or whatever, and go, “I remember when that guy came after me and I had done nothing but work as hard as I could. And man, it made me feel so bad.” And so anyway, that's just a story from my life that I remember about making assumptions about… I wasn't sitting there, but I just… I didn't have the answers to those questions. And it's funny, everybody's fighting battle we don't know anything about and anyway, I've always remembered that. So that's a story that I file away for things like this. So I just think that's important to really remember.

Stephanie Goss:
And so it's hard, right? Because our writer can see that and they can feel that. And they're like, why can this person not have that similar mentality? Right? How do I get… That's why they wrote to us, they're asking, “How do I help this person who is a peer get over that?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that's where I said early on, we might take a trip to camp tough love. I think the reality is, I don't know how much control you have over that as a peer. And I think the things that you… So it's a little bit of head space, but also a little bit of things to control. You can control what you can and you can lead with empathy. You can lead with compassion, you can model the behavior, right? You can, Andy you as a leader, experience that. And so it enables you to look through the lens differently now when you see it happening to other people, because you had that experience yourself, right?

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
So our writer has the capacity to look through a different lens than the person who is… That they're writing about, who's doing the things. And the reality is you can only control what you can control. And so you can control yourself. You can control how you lead, how you engage with compassion, with empathy, with other people, and also with this person and you can model the behavior and you can talk to them. Those are all things in your control and are actionable steps and camp tough love, you can't control it all. If you're not their direct boss, there's only so much you can do to help affect change here.

Andy Roark:
Let's take a quick break and then let's take a crack at it. Let's see what we can do.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in here real fast and give a shout out to Banfield the pet hospital for making our transcripts available. That's right. We have transcripts for the Cone of Shame Vet Podcast and the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. You can find them at dr.andyroark.com and at unchartedvet.com. This is part of their effort to increase inclusivity and accessibility in vet medicine. We couldn't do it without them. I got to say, thanks. Thanks for making the content that we put out more available to our colleagues. Guy,. That's all I got this time. Let's get back into this. All right. So let's get into this here for a second. Now you're right. Caveats at the very beginning, you cannot change someone who doesn't want to change.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And you should always remember… We talk about that a lot.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
You cannot change someone who doesn't want to change. You can always model the behaviors that you want to see in others and that you think should be part of your culture.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And that is a power that you always have.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And I do think that those two things are really important. If you want to have a chance of helping this person and you see these things, the first thing that I think is required is a trusting relationship.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
I think is extremely hard to have this conversation with someone that you don't have a relationship with-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
Or that you don't know or that you don't have any trust in.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Have you given them positive reinforcement in the past? Have you told them the things that they're good at? Do you know their hobbies? Do you know their spouse? Have you had dinner with them? Have you had lunch with them? Do you talk to them? Do you have… Just do you know them?

Stephanie Goss:
Do you have a foundation?

Andy Roark:
Do you have a foundation?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And if you don't have a foundation, I would say, you, my friend are on thin ice, and this is going to be very hard.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And that is something that you can't do right now, today, you have to build it over time, but there are… This is why we want to know our colleagues. This is why we give positive reinforcement whenever we get the chance. Right? Because when we have something that might sting a little bit to here, we can give it inside of a relationship of trust.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
And so that's the first thing I want to say is, “Well, you could… If you have a very strong trusting relationship, you could say these things.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
I would say them directly to you and to your face and I wouldn't think twice about it if we were peers, because I care about you deeply and you know I care about you.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
You know I'd anything for you.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
And so if I said, “Hey, I see something, I just want to bring your attention because I've seen it a couple times and I just want to put it on your radar.” I would just say that to you, but I can do that because we have a very good-

Stephanie Goss:
Right. Foundation.

Andy Roark:
Trust-filled foundation and relationship. And so I just think that's a big part of it. And then I think you've really got two options. If you want to do this and you're trying to get your head around it, the first question I would say to you before choosing an option is what is kind. And I talk a lot about that. If you were this person, would you want to get this feedback? Would you want to know that you were getting this? And why would you want to… If you were… Sorry, if you were this person, would you want to get this feedback? Would you want to know that someone had seen these things and why would you want to know? And put that into your mind is what is kind, what is kind to this person, what is kind to the staff and what is kind to the other peers, the people who are direct… Weigh the options up and say, “Okay, is this the hill that I want to potentially die on?”
Which hopefully I'm not going to but is it worth this risk to me? So but-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
But do it, right? Okay. So what is kind. And then you got two options. So the first one is to go, if it's bothering you and you feel like this is mounting, and you have a good answer to the question, why today. If you're like, “I'll tell you why I'm going to do this today,” and you have a good reason why this needs to happen today then your best friend, in my opinion, is developmental feedback. You go in and say, “Hey, I want to talk to you real quick about something that I'm seeing.” And then I would give them… I always give them the good stuff first, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Say, “I've seen you do a lot of things. I think these are the things that you are really good at. This is the stuff that you do that I admire the most. This is the things you do that really, really impress me. There's one thing that I look at when I look at you and I look at all the balls that you're juggling that I just want to bring to your attention as a potential for you to have an easier time.” Right? And that's what I call it developmental feedback. I'm not telling you, you're something wrong-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
I'm telling you, I see an opportunity for your life to be easier. I see an opportunity for you to make better headway. I see an opportunity for you to get more out of your people. I see an opportunity for you to have less stress and get fewer people pushing back against you.

Stephanie Goss:
It's future facing.

Andy Roark:
Right. It's 100% future facing.

Stephanie Goss:
It's something they can do something about because it's not something that's already happened.

Andy Roark:
Absolutely.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And so definitely, if I'm giving peer feedback, I don't want to talk to my peers about what they screwed up last week-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
Right? Because it's over, but it's future facing. Right? I can't fix what happened last week, but I can say, “Hey, I see an opportunity for the future to go more easily. And I just wanted to put it on your radar. This is a thing that I've seen.” And so that's the developmental future facing feedback. That's how I would say it, is not, “You messed up,” but, “I wanted to bring this up. I just want to tell you, I see you excelling in all of these ways. I think these are real strengths of yours. There's one thing that I wanted to put on your radar that I think could make your life easier and here it is.” I just say, “I've seen it a couple of times.”
And again, this may be… I may have seen it the only times it ever happened, but I just saw it a couple times and I just wanted mention it to you. And then you say it, right? The other thing is the mention, which is you say it when it happens. And so when they look at the person and they walk away and they come in and they close the door to the manager's office, say, “God, she's so lazy.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
That's when you say, “Hey, I need to talk to you about something.” And then you say, “I've heard you say things like this a couple of times and I know why you say it,” right? Empathy first, show some empathy. I know why you say it. We've all felt that way.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I recognize that because I have done the same thing. Right? You're setting the ground equally as peers.

Andy Roark:
Absolutely. And then you say, “When you look at… When you see someone sitting down, you seem to get frustrated with them in a much bigger scale than what is warranted given what's going on. And I just… I think it might damage your relationship with those people. I think it makes you unhappy. And I think it makes it harder for you to manage those people because you can't do anything with a lazy person-

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy Roark:
But you can 100% address inefficiencies in time management.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
And so then I would have that feedback like that. And again, I call it the mention because I'm not going to give them a 45 minute guided lecture with PowerPoint-

Stephanie Goss:
Great.

Andy Roark:
And documentation, I'm just going to say, “Hey, I may be off base here, but this is what… This is a thing that I see. And I just… You said that, let me just say this and you can tell me if I'm right or tell me if I'm wrong. I don't know. This is what I see.” And then you say it and then you let it go.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And I would add to that too. You can say, “I don't want you to feel native like that. So how can I help?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Whatever you've told them is the thing… Because then it's a mention, like you said, you're doing it in real time, it's the thing that's just happened. And it isn't just like, “Hey, I think you just acted like a jerk and now I'm going to turn around and walk away.” And that's the end of the conversation, right?

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Because that doesn't feel good either.

Andy Roark:
Sure.

Stephanie Goss:
It's like, “Hey what's… Do you need a break? Do you need to talk? How can I help?”

Andy Roark:
Yeah. This only works if you lead with empathy. You have to like this person-

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy Roark:
And come to them as someone who is on their team and who wants to help them not as, “Hey, I'm not your boss, but I'm going to give you some tough love.” And so the tough love is for the writer who says you can't change anyone who doesn't want to change. I would not use tough love on this person because I'm not their boss. I'm going to use empathetic communication to say, “Hey, I see you and I hear you and this is my concern.” And then I'm just going to say, “What do you…” And then I'll even end with, “What do you think of that? Or does that sound reasonable? I might be completely off base.”

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy Roark:
And just let them go, but I'm not trying to tag them and say, “I have diagnosed you.” I'm going to say, “I don't know. I seen a couple things, let me ask you a question,” and then put it down.

Stephanie Goss:
And so here's where I agreed with you when I said I disagree and agree. So here's where I agree with you. So I think you have to… For me, my personal role is I… Look, I have to talk to you first. And if I talk to you, particularly, if we've now done the mention or had the conversation like, “Last week you said that too, and now we're having the conversation again,” then for me is… I have to ask myself the question, look, do I control their direct future? Am I their direct boss? And if the answer to that is no and I've had the conversation, particularly if I've had repeated conversation with them, then I have no qualms about talking to their boss and the context for me in talking to their boss, even if it's not a 360 review process is happening or there's something else that is happening that would make me give that feedback to somebody who is soliciting it.
But I would have no problem talking to their boss and the way that I approach that is to say, “Hey, I had an interaction with Sarah yesterday and I asked her how I could help and this is like the third time this week and then it happened again this morning. And so I could use your help as her boss in figuring out how I can be a better peer for her, how I can support her more.” Now you are effectively making them aware of the situation and you are doing it in a positive way because you are coming to them, asking them for your help, for how you can be a better peer. That looks and feels and is, I think, so much better than, “Hey Andy, you should know that Sarah's out there being a jerk to the rest of the team.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
You're the manager, you deal with it, but I just wanted you to know.” How many times as a manager have I sat in the office and someone has come and unloaded on me and basically said, “This person's acting like a jerk, I don't want to have anything to do with fixing it, I just need you to be aware of the problem because it's your job to deal with it.” No, no, no, no. That's not how this works. You have some responsibility as a peer. And so I have no problem talking to the actual boss about how I can help them. And I'll tell you why, because the answer is that if you ask to actively be a part of the solution, it benefits you too. And that sounds crazy but follow me for a second. So if I say to them, “Hey Catherine, you're her boss and I'm struggling with this. I would like to be a better peer for her. Did you know that this was happening? I need your help trying to figure out how to address this.”
You're bringing it to her attention, then you're going to talk through it. Right? And ultimately if Catherine decides that Sarah maybe should have some leadership training or some sensitivity training or some critical conversations, training, I as a fellow manager, can also get in on that because I always want to continue to improve myself. Look, the fact that you writer are sending us this email tells me that you care, that you are doing good things as a manager and that my friend, that is the sweet spot because you always have room to learn new skills, to gain new knowledge to grow. And so if you engage with the leadership to help solve this problem, you have the potential to benefit yourself as well in terms of gaining skills and this person will benefit as well. And so it is a win-win I think on both sides in that regard, only if you approach it from the perspective of, “Hey, I want to help. I want to learn. I want to grow,” and not from the place of, “Hey look, she's a jerk. This is your problem.”

Andy Roark:
Yeah, totally. I completely agree. Cool, man. I think that's the best advice that I got for this person. I hope it's been beneficial just to walk through the exercise of, do we have this conversation? Do we not have this conversation? How do we get our heads around this? What is the underpinnings of the problem that we're seeing in the other person and then how do we actually approach this person if we decide to do so. So-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy Roark:
I feel like that was a good… We wandered a little bit there, but I think that we ultimately got around to all the things that I really wanted to get around to.

Stephanie Goss:
Because look ultimately you pick your poison and so you can be miserable and you can keep seeing this behavior happening over and over and over or you can do something about it and your hands might be a little bit tied if you're their peer and you're not their boss. And it's not to say that it's hopeless and there's nothing you can do. And so-

Andy Roark:
Correct.

Stephanie Goss:
Do what you have in your control, pick your poison and you can do what's in your control and you can try and impact the change. And then at the end of the day, you have to recognize, is this the hill I want to die on? And if so that's a choice or am I going to stay quiet about this and I'm just going to let it go, I'm going to ignore it? Those are all conscious decisions and that's ultimately where it's like, you have to pick your poison and figure out how do you want to live with this situation?

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And hopefully it involves you wanting to change it because I don't want to be miserable.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I'm with you.

Stephanie Goss:
Somebody like that.

Andy Roark:
I am with you.

Stephanie Goss:
Have a fantastic week, everybody.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, everybody. Take care of yourselves.

Stephanie Goss:
Take care. Hey friends, have you been over to 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. 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. We've got the amazing and wonderful technician, Melissa [inaudible 00:53:42] Inchkin, 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.
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. 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.

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Could you imagine working in a practice that literally doesn't write more than the presenting problem and any treatments done during an exam in the medical chart? 😳 Gives me the cold sweats just thinking about it. This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a letter from the mailbag from a CSR who has found herself in this situation. Our writer was previously a manager so she is well aware of the standards that are required legally for charts. The level of medicine seems quality and sound but the charts leave a lot to be desired. This CSR and the rest of their team feel like they are left holding the bag when clinics/insurance companies as for more info and they have to say “that is all we have.” Let’s get into this…

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

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

Upcoming Events

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We all have them on our teams! Talented folks whose skills are needed and attitudes leave something to be desired. Find out how to lead and coach as we explore the not-so-secret ways to repolarize our most cynical and cantankerous crew!

Date: July 13

Time: 7pm ET/4pm PT – 9pm ET/6pm PT

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Episode Transcript

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of The Uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a letter that came in through the mail bag that, I have to be honest, completely caught me by surprise. They sent me an email and said, “Hey, I joined this practice and I am shocked that there's not soap notes for our charts.” And at first I read this and I thought, “Oh, well, what format are they using? Are they using chronological format? Are they just not using SOAP?”

Stephanie Goss:

Maybe the doctor went to a school where they learned something besides SOAP. I don't know. I thought, that's a little different, but. So, I sent an email back and I got a clarifying email back, who said, “No, no. It's not only that we're not using the SOAP format. We are using the soap format, but really, the charts aren't just getting written up. Patients come in and it says, “Here for an exam,” and then there's not a whole lot of notes or they come in for a surgery and there is more details, but it's not in the SOAP format. It might be written up on an anesthesia sheet or something like that. And it sounds like this practice is doing awesome, Medicine and yet the charts are a hotness.

Stephanie Goss:

And I have to tell you, there's not a lot of messages that I've gotten in the mail bag that have caught me off guard, but this one definitely did. And I couldn't wait to dive into this conversation with Andy. This is going to be a fun one. Let's get into it. Shall we?

Stephanie Goss:

And now, The Uncharted podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie, write this down, Goss. Can I get stuff out of that? Yeah, and I don't want you to go write this down. Some Alan Jackson from the '90s.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it. It makes me so happy.

Dr. Andy Roark:

My wife is very cosmopolitan. She is a college professor. She loves some Alan Jackson. I mean, it just-

Stephanie Goss:

Hell, yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It just comes out of her. And if I put on some…

Stephanie Goss:

Who doesn't?

Dr. Andy Roark:

… Alan Jackson-

Stephanie Goss:

Who doesn't like some Alan Jackson?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh, yeah. She dances around the kitchen to Alan Jackson. It's so silly and God, I love it so much.

Stephanie Goss:

I love that. That makes me like Allie even more.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh, yeah. It's funny. Anyway, it's those little things, you know what I mean, in life?

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Where you know about people and you just, I swear. I think about that sometimes and I'm like when I die and people come together as for a funeral, I want people to talk about the quirky things that I do like dance to Alan Jackson, because I think that's how you really know people. You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think that's who people really are. And I think we talk a lot about these formalities. But I think a story that captures a little piece of who somebody is, I think that's just magic and I love those stories. But anyway, but yeah, I think about that sometimes of what stories or what little quirks really…

Stephanie Goss:

What is, yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

… encapsulate my wife or my kids. And anyway, it's just, it's fun stuff.

Stephanie Goss:

Alan Jackson, I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's so funny.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's because we listened to that when we were dating. And so, it's one of those things that always sticks around. It's so funny.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, that's fantastic. How's it going?

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's crazy today. It's half day at school, so I've been running around. I took kids to school and then I turned around and I went back and got the kids again. And I was like, “Why do owe do this?” It's because legally, they have to be at school for three hours to get credit for a day. And so, they're like, the school board is phoning it in. They're like they got three hours and eight minutes they were at school killing it. I spent three hours and 12 minutes in the car line in dropping off and picking up, but whatever, anyway.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, man. Yeah, that was me last week. I am glad school is done. Report cards have been had. Lockers have been cleaned out. It feels good to be on summer break.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh, man. Time marches on, it's just. And we are into the summer and the kids are like, “The swimming pool is open.” And it's just, there's funny things like that in life that are signs of the season. Just, we were cutting up watermelon for Memorial Day and eating it and I was like, “I guess it's summertime,” you know?

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, yes, yeah, no, I love it. I love it. Well, I love this topic that we're going to talk about today. I'm super pumped about this.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's a good one.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, we got a mailbag question. And this is funny because I actually had to go back to the Mailbag writer multiple times and ask clarifying questions. Because I was like, “I want to make sure that I actually have the whole story.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yep. Yeah. This one's hard to believe. This one's hard. Yeah, this one's hard to believe in its entirety. Okay.

Stephanie Goss:

I was shocked and I was just like, “I'm sorry, what?” So, we got a Mailbag question from somebody who's been in the field for a really, really long time. They had been a manager and wanted to cut back and so, they have been working reception. And so, they've been at the front desk and they joined a new practice. And since joining that practice, they found themselves very shocked because apparently the practice actually doesn't really write SOAP notes. And I thought, “Oh, well maybe, it's just learning a new practice management software.” Maybe they're putting it in a different place.

Stephanie Goss:

Because the comments were like, “Sometimes there's communication notes and sometimes there's info attached to the surgery.” But overall, a lot of the times it's missing information and we get calls from other vets in the area, the ER specialists, et cetera. And we get calls from insurance companies who are like, “Hey, we need more info.” And this manager was, or this writer said, “I find myself having to say, ‘I'm sorry, like that's all we have on this record.'” And so they were saying, “I feel like I know legally what's required, but I'm not sure do I even bring this up? Am I just not knowing where things live?”

Stephanie Goss:

And so, we went back and forth and I was asking some questions and I was like, “Well, every practice management software does it differently and has their SOAP format set up differently.” And so I said, “Is this really that? It's just maybe it's hidden?” But as it turned out, no. They actually just really aren't writing up charts. And really, the focus is on capturing some surgical notes, but the standards, or what we would assume to be standards, seem to be missing.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, they were like, “I don't want to step on anybody's toes because I'm just a part of the front desk team here. I'm not the manager, but I feel like this is really wrong. And it really bothers me.” And they said, “I feel like we're practicing a good level of Medicine and a quality level of Medicine, and at the same time it really concerns me that nothing is getting written down.” So, there were like, “How do I even approach this?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. When I first saw this and they were like, “Oh, they don't write down SOAP notes.” And I was like, “What format do they use then?” No, no, no. It's not that they don't write down SOAP notes, it's that they don't write down notes.

Stephanie Goss:

That was the first response I had to them. I was like, “Are they using Problem-Oriented Medical Records?” Are they-

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I'm like interesting. Yeah, and yeah. Are they just writing paragraphs? No. Nope. And then also, examples of the type of records that are there. There are things like SPADE and the date.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. And that's it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And that's the record, SPADE. And so, that's what we're talking about here, guys. So, anyway, there's-

Stephanie Goss:

So, let's just say for the record, both, Andy and I, were mind boggled.

Dr. Andy Roark:

That was, yeah. I had to sit with this for a little while.

Stephanie Goss:

And per day and age.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. It's like an ugly truth that you knew, but you didn't really want to believe was there. You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's, yeah. I don't know of a good analogy to give other than like [inaudible 00:08:20]. When I really think about it, am I surprised that their practice is out there? No. But I don't want to believe that there are, you know?

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Yeah, no, not at all. I think about it and I think about when I started in Veterinary Medicine. I haven't been in Veterinary Medicine as long as our Mailbag writer and so, it didn't surprise me because I think back to my first clinic and like that, we had paper charts and you were writing everything by hand, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, there was a lot of shorthand and a lot of shortcuts and it was like, “Here's the date? They're here to be SPADE. Our records have more info about anesthesia and suture and stuff like that. But compared to what technology makes happen easily now with hybrid records or with completely paperless records, it is amazing to me how little we did back then.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, when I read this, like you, I was like it feels like an ugly truth, but then my thought was, “Well, I could totally see some old practices where there's an older generation of veterinarians who when they went to school and learned like that was what they were doing. And I could totally see where… in veterinary medicine there, how many things do we do in our practices every day that we're doing them, because that's the way we've always done it. Right?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Goss:

So, I see this being one of those things where if we have an older generation veterinarian where that's how they've always done it. I could see that being the case and yet at the same time, I was really shocked because I was like, “They're not right.” Nothing? Not suture. Were there any problems? Not anesthesia note. Really nothing? Just the date and that they're here to be SPADE, like “Oops, that's what you get.” So, yeah, it was surprising.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Well, so I want to talk about this and then I want to add a little bit of nuance to it. And talk a little bit about the practice that writes up most things. But not all of the thing. There's way more unwritten charts than you would like, because I feel like this is an extreme case and it's going to let us really tee up in a couple of ways. But I don't think that most practices are at a, “Help me. We don't have medical records.” I think most are at, “I have a doctor that doesn't do medical records and all the other doctors do,” or you know?

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Or “We were pretty lax about it and we miss a lot of charts that don't get written up.” And that bothers me. So, I'd like to address this problem, but also lean a little bit more towards those shades of gray, less extreme cases because I think that's where most of our listeners, who wrestle with these problems are going to live.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay, that sounds good.

Dr. Andy Roark:

All right.

Stephanie Goss:

So, where do we start?

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think we could start with Head space. I think we could start with Head space and you have to get your head around it. And so, let's just say when you're working at a practice where this is happening, to some degree. Whether it's every record or some records. I think the first thing is that you need to figure out how you feel about this because it is going to affect what you do from here.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So, when we talk about Head space and I would talk to this person, now this person is reaching out and they are a paraprofessional. They've been a manager and they are working as a paraprofessional. Not a credentialed vet tech, but another professional in the practice. I had some concern when we started out. It was like, “Oh, man.” I'm always a little weary that we make a podcast and people are like, “Oh, my gosh, that person is talking about our practice.” And they'll be right.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then I thought about it. “These people don't listen to our podcast.” The people who write up zero records, they're not listening to this podcast. I'm pretty certain. But anyway-

Stephanie Goss:

For the five practices who are listening, just went, “Wait, are they talking about my practice?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, I know, I know. So, anyway, let's get our heads straight about how do we feel about this. Now, it's an important differentiator because if you are a doctor at this practice, that's your license, my friend. Again, I'm not telling you what to do, but I'm saying you need to have eyes wide open and if there's no medical record and you get taken before the state board, your bum is grass, as my dad used to say. And that's it you're toast and that's not good. And honestly, I've talked to a number of people. I talked to them. Generally, I'm very interested in talking to people who sit on the state boards.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Just for the Cone of the Shame podcast. And I'm always just interested in what the experience is like of going to state board and what's really going on there because I think it's really important. And the number one piece of advice that I have gotten from a half dozen of these people at different states is, “For God's sakes, Andy, just write down what you do. You're doing good medicine. Just write everything down and you're going to be fine.” And that is the saving grace. And they say, “The people who get nailed are the people who don't write anything down. And then they got nothing. They got nothing to fall back on and they're torched.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so I just go, “This is dumb.” It's just, it's dumb for you as a doctor. It's your license. And even if you're working in a practice and this is where we're going in the shades of gray a little bit. Let's say that you write up your records by other doctors in your practice, who don't write up your records. If there is a case that you are involved in and then it gets transferred over to them and then it comes back to you later on and the whole thing goes sideways and crashes and burns. And you end up in the state board, this is going to make your life significantly harder because there's big holes in the story.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And you might have written everything down, but other people did not. That's a stress that I don't want. And so, eyes wide open. And again, if you're a credential vet tech, you're going to feel some of this because you have a license to protect.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Exactly.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, you need to be thinking about that. If you're a non-licensed professional, so like this person working up at the front, it really becomes a bit more of you don't have a license on the line or anything like that, but you need to think about how you feel about the work that you're doing. I have a problem working in a place where I'm really embarrassed about something that happens. And I just, that's a weird life thing for me is that I can't tell a lie. I'm a terrible liar. I am. Just, I'm not a secretive person. I just, I have a big mouth and I talk a lot.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, my life is just better if I work at a place where I'm proud of what we do and I don't have anything to hide or anything that I'm embarrassed by. And so, I just learn that along the way and I just go, “Yeah, I really like to work in a place where…” Every practice has got its flaws, but they're not flaws that bother me deeply. And that just makes my life a lot better. And so, start to have those thoughts about, “What are the repercussions here and do I feel good participating in a hospital where this is happening?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And it would bother the heck out of me to send records to another practice and have them say things like, “Is that it? Is this all you have?” And you're like, “Yeah, that's all we have.” That would bother me every time I did it or even if they didn't call and I faxed it, I would still send the fax being like, “I'm feeling embarrassed about what I'm sending to you.” It would just nag at me.

Stephanie Goss:

Well, and I think that's why our writer wrote in. They are the ones answering the phone and talking to clients and talking to the insurance company when they call in the other vets clinics who are like, “What? That's it?” We can't do anything with this. We need more information. And they feel like they are the ones answering the phone, so they are the gatekeeper. And coming from the front desk, I want to do my job. And whenever I felt like I wanted to support my team and so for me, I would do everything possible to try and find the information myself before I had to ask somebody else on the team.

Stephanie Goss:

And it would have driven me absolutely bananas if I constantly had to go ask somebody else, “Hey, what'd you do on this case? Hey, what'd you do with this patient?” The fact that I can just look it up. Even if it was a paper chart, the fact that I couldn't look it up and say, “Oh yes, Mrs. Smith, I see that this was the medication that we gave Fluffy.” The fact that I couldn't answer simple questions like that would drive me absolutely nuts. There's no way that I would want to work in a practice like that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, I agree. So, that's the big part of my head space is, “What is the risk to you and what are you willing to tolerate?” And then the step beyond that is to start to say, “Okay, what level of action am I deciding to take here?” And to me, there's a couple of different things you could do. You could say nothing. If you say, “Hey, I'm not a doctor and I'm part-time here. And they haven't asked me what my opinion is and I'm just going to do my job and go on.” I think that that's a choice that you can make and a lot of people would make that choice and just say, “Hey, I'm going to believe that they know something that I don't.” And they're the ones, “You have licenses on the line and so I'm going to go on.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think you could do that and I think a lot of people would do that. I think more people or probably most people would fall into the next two categories, which is, “I'm going to say something and then I'm going to sleep soundly because I said it.” And they may totally ignore me, but I am going to go on record saying, “I am bothered by this. I have concerns about this. And I just want to bring it to your attention.” Or making it some conversational point with the manager, with the owner. “But I am going to bring this up, so that I have the peace of mind and said that I saw this and I said something about it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I think that for me is the easiest position as far as balancing what I feel is personal responsibility and feeling like I'm doing the good thing. And also, accepting that I'm not the boss here and I have very little power and no one asks me for input. But still, I'm going to bring this up. And I can't make them do anything with it, but I will at least have a clear conscience.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then I will continue to say, “Am I comfortable here?” You know what I mean? If I bring it up and they don't do anything, maybe I go, “I don't like this. It still bothers me.” And if it continues to bother me or there was another instance and usually, what will happen is there's some instance, there's something that happens that really shines the spotlight right on it, you know what I mean?

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then you go, “I not doing this anymore.” And then the last level is to say, “I'm not messing around with this. That thing has already happened. And I'm really bothered and I'm going to go, and I'm going to tell them, I'm planning to leave because of this. And if you convince me that things are going to change in the next 30 days, I'll consider staying around. But unless there's a significant change coming, I'm going, and I want you to know why I'm going.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And you can do that and that's not wrong either. So, all of those things and this all fits into the degrees. If you're working at the practice and one of the doctors occasionally forgets to write up their notes, I'm probably not going to go and give an ultimatum that I'm going to leave. You know what I mean? I will pick one of the top two, you know?

Stephanie Goss:

Right.

Dr. Andy Roark:

If you're at a place where it happens all the time you did that, that's going to influence us. So, there's degrees in nuance in which of these paths you take, but I really think that those are your three options.

Stephanie Goss:

I agree. I agree with that. I think the other thing from head space perspective for me, too, probably before I even start figuring out for myself where does my head land on it, is you got to assume good intent. Because if you're coming at this from the space of they're doing this intentionally for a bad reason, you're probably going to approach it more towards the latter, which is, “I don't like this and I'm just going to quit.”

Stephanie Goss:

And I've had people leave the practice because they felt strongly about something that they didn't ever ask any of the questions. And when I found that out after the fact, like I wish they would have asked the questions. But I think it, when we get into that head space of like, I assume that they're doing this for a reason and it's really easy to spiral yourself in a negative way, I think, if you don't assume good intent.,

Stephanie Goss:

And so, the second part for me is get curious and ask those questions. And so, before I started tackling it, I would want to make sure, and again, this is just me, but I would want to make sure. Could I be missing something here? Are we recording stuff? Are they doing a surgery sheet and maybe they're writing all their notes on there? And it's supposed to go in the chart, but it's not part of the chart. You know what I mean? I would start to ask those questions of like, “Am I missing anything? What are we doing and why are we doing it?”

Stephanie Goss:

And I would use being new to your advantage. This is where you say, “I just want to make sure that I really understand. Help me understand this. Can you tell me how this is supposed to look because I feel like based on my previous experience and other practices, this feels very different. I wouldn't say like I feel like there's lots of things missing. I would probably lean into the middle and I'll just like, I feel like it feels pretty different and I want to understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. And asking those questions to make sure that you have all of the answers.

Stephanie Goss:

When I went back to our Mailbag writer and I was like, “Is it possible that they just haven't shown you where this stuff lives? Is it really?” Because it really can't be that the charts are empty. And so, I think that's, for me. It's about assuming that good intent and getting curious and asking a lot of questions, because I think you're going to need to ask those questions and maybe not, maybe your mind is already made up and you could figure out which level of Andys you sort into. But it totally makes sense to me, Andy, that's your next step is what are you willing to tolerate? What are you willing to live with? And then, what level are you falling into?

Stephanie Goss:

Are you just going to put your head down and do your job because you decided you don't care about it or do you care and you're either going to say something, so you can sleep at night? Or you're going to say something and say this, “I feel really strongly about this. And if this doesn't change, here is how I need to move forward for my own personal satisfaction.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

To me, there's two things in what you said and I think you're spot on with both of them, but I separated these out. So, the first thing, the head space thing for me is in your mind, consider the idea that you are missing something. That there's something that, not you're making yourself leave, but genuinely, “This seems weird to me.” And rather than just assuming it's not getting done. Let me just assume that it's possible that something else is happening that I'm not aware of, especially being a new person.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, doing that and just going, “I could be wrong on this,” that is going to affect how you think about it and how you talk about it and you approach it. And that type of curiosity on yourself tends to make your conversations with other people go better. You know what I mean?

Stephanie Goss:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Because you're genuinely just saying, “I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything here.” And it takes the danger or the fear or the stress out of it for you and go, “I don't know. I don't know. I could be missing something here.” So, in your own mind saying, “Maybe I've been set up to fail” Maybe I am just not aware of this.” I think that's a great healthy head space to be in. The why I say it's two things is one, is you do that to yourself in your own mind. And then, the first action step for me is asking the question.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. Got it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so when you go to engage, I would start with that curiosity and that's how I would engage.

Stephanie Goss:

Got it. Okay. I like it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Well, that's what I got for head space.

Stephanie Goss:

Those are your notes for head space?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

Should we take a break? And then come back and talk about how do we actually ask questions about this without knowing what the heck are you doing?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. Let's do it. And yeah, we'll start with the question and we'll wind up from there.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay. I love it.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey, everybody. This is Stephanie. And I'm going to jump in here for one quick second and make sure that you know about a few things that are coming up that I'm pretty sure you're not going to want to miss. But before I do that, I just have to say a thank you.

Stephanie Goss:

Thanks to a generous gift from our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital. We are now able to provide transcripts for all of our podcast episodes. And we have just to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Andy, and I have wanted to make the podcast more accessible. And when we're pondering the idea of how do we make transcripts a thing, our friends at Banfield stepped up in a big way and said, “Hey, we are striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the profession. This fits with that mission for us and we would love to sponsor it.” So, the 2022 podcast episodes are all now being transcribed and brought to you by our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital.

Stephanie Goss:

To check out the transcript and find out more about what Banfield is doing to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the vet profession, head over to unchartedvet.com/blog and you can find each one of the podcast episodes and a link to find out more about equity, inclusion, and diversity at Banfield.

Stephanie Goss:

And now, hey, party people. I am going to jump in here for one quick second and make sure that you know about a workshop that is coming up. It is called Navigating Neurodiversity: Your clients, coworkers, and self. And it is with the amazing Dr. Amanda Doran. Amanda is an Uncharted member. She is a wonderfully kind and funny person and she is going to be leading us through a conversation about learning how to navigate interactions with different individuals and creating a culture within our practices that is both supportive of and inclusive of neurodiversity. It is a really, really important topic.

Stephanie Goss:

It is one that I think needs to have a lot more discussion in Veterinary Medicine and we are really excited to be bringing this one to you. It is happening on July 27th. It is a 7:00 PM Eastern session, so it is two hours. It will be over at 9:00 PM Eastern, which means 4:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 to 6:00 PM Pacific Time. And it is $99 for members of the public. And it is free as always for our Uncharted members and this workshop is awesome.

Stephanie Goss:

We also have more coming up throughout the summer and the calendar at unchartedvet.com/events is constantly being updated. I encourage you, if you are not currently an uncharted member, to head on over to the website, check out what's coming up. And remember that all of our workshops like this are free for our Uncharted members. And now, back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So, let's go ahead and talk about taking action on this.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:

All right. So, as I said before, the break, I think the first action step is to ask the question. It's to be curious. I think this is a really low stakes way and I'm all about lowering the stakes. It's having low stakes conversations that don't feel scary to people. But still introduce important ideas into their mind, hopefully, in a way that they will realize what is going on and parse through the possible implications and decide to make an idea and a plan and take action on it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, going in and genuinely going with curiosity and going to the manager and saying, “Hey, I may be totally missing something. And I just want to understand and just make sure I'm not missing anything.” And I love that opening phrasing, “I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I just want to make sure I understand. That is a very disarming phrase.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, then I would show the manager, one of the medical records and say, “I just got a call about this person's records. And when I look at them, these are the only things that I'm seeing. And I have sent some of these to practices before and they call and ask if there's more. And I tell them that there's not. But I just want to confirm is this really all that we have on these cases? Is there somewhere else I should look?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And honestly, anyone with half a brain is going to read between the lines. What I'm saying is I've been doing this a long time. And is this really what we're doing here? And honestly, their reaction will tell you a lot. If they get really defensive really fast, you just learned a lot. And if they say, “Yeah, what else would be there?” Then I go, “Okay, this person needs some education on what good medical records look like. But what am I dealing with here? Am I dealing with somebody who's given up? Am I dealing with someone who just doesn't know any better?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

If I had to bet and again this is 100% just instinct, I was completely wrong on this. But if I had to bet, I wouldn't be surprised if they closed the office door and said to you, “Let me tell you a story about how we got here.” And then they tell you about the battles that they fought and lost spectacularly trying to get people to do what they're supposed to do. I would not be surprised by that.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that is a good call. And I think part of it, too, is it's a little bit head space, but also for me a little bit action, which is like, “Look, we recognize that,” like you said, “not everybody loves to write records.” And there's always going to be people that write more and less. But at the end of the day, the written records, they are patients. They are patients in paper form. So, Fluffy can't get on the stand in front of a medical board or Fluffy can't get on the phone and talk to Mrs. Smith about why something was or wasn't done for her. Only our records can do that and our team accessing those records.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, from the head space perspective, I think thinking about it from very much for any member of your team, you should be able to pull the lever here about pet care and patient care and wanting to take care of our patients and make sure that we're doing right by them because this writer was like, “Look, they're practicing a level of Medicine that I agree with and I believe in.” And I just don't understand why there's no record of that. And so, I think this for me, when addressing it, like you said, whether you're asking the questions openly with that.

Stephanie Goss:

And they're answering them openly or whether you're having that closed door conversation, learning the background, the ability to be able to say, “I want to take care of Fluffy.” And I love your example of being able to say, “I just got a call about this record. Here's what I'm seeing. And this isn't the first time. And this is how I've answered it in the past, but I could be missing something. I really want to make sure that I'm not.” Because then if they tell you, “No, there's nothing else.” That is what it is. Like you said, you have now learned a whole lot. And I think it makes your moving in the head space about how you make decisions a whole heck of a lot easier.

Stephanie Goss:

And if you do get more information and more background, and maybe it's like we have fought these battles and this is the background on it. It's still thinking about it from the patient perspective, I would still be willing to go to and do that battle over again from the perspective of, “I want to help us really good care of our patients.” And being at the front desk like I really believe that this is our ability to speak for Fluffy. This is my way of being able to help her and so, I want to help us get in a better frame of mind or be in a better place to be able to answer questions that people are asking us, “How can I help with that?”

Stephanie Goss:

It helps bridge that gap between asking the questions and asking for change and coming at it from that place of patient care. And I can't imagine, even if you have a super old school veterinarian who didn't have to write massive records when they went back to school. And it's like, “It's my practice. This is the way we're doing it.” And I won't care what anybody else thinks.

Stephanie Goss:

I still think that I would feel good about having a conversation with that veterinarian and saying, “I know you care about your patients. And I care about our patients, too. And this is why I'm struggling because I view this as us taking care of the patients. And when it's missing, it makes it really hard for me to help support you.” And I don't think that you could say that to anyone even that veterinarian that I'm picturing in my head and not have them go, “Hmm, maybe that's something I should think about.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I agree with that. So, I 100% agree with where you're coming from. But I would counsel here a little bit of a little slide of hand and I agree with where you're coming from and your motivations. And I promise that we're going to get there, but it's not going to look like that's where we're going for a minute. So, just bear with me and say, trust me when I say that's where we're going.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:

All right. And so, we go into the practice manager and I would start with the practice manager because it's their job to manage the practice. And so, especially if this seems routine, then I would say, “This is the way our practice functions.” If it's not routine, even then I would still go to the practice manager because if it's the practice manager's job, I assume the practice manager's job is to oversee medical record quality and medical record systems and unless, you've got some weird job descriptions that tends to fall into their purview. So, even if it's one doctor and I had concerns or questions, I would still probably go talk to the manager.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And here's the thing, okay? So, file this away, my friends. Doctors can take critiques of their medical records very personally in my experience. And the reason is they feel like a criticism of their records is a criticism of their medical competence. And again, it depends on the individual and that's not everybody. And I would not have a problem with someone critiquing my medical records and I'm happy to talk about it and listen. And I always try to get better. And I can also defend my position and why. I write what I write and things like that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

But I'm happy to have that conversation because I'm not super insecure about that stuff. But other people are not that way and there are some people, and we all know doctors, who can't take being criticized before it really hits them and they get real defensive real fast. What I want to avoid ending up in an old West style shootout with a doctor in the street. You know what I mean? Where they're standing at one end with their hands on the pistols and I'm standing out and they're like, “Draw.” I don't want that. I don't want to shoot out with them over this thing.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I want to be smart in how I introduce this. And I want to get heard and I want to understand what's going on. And so, I go to the practice manager and I ask the questions and say, “Help me understand, is this going on?” And guess what happens? They might close the door and say, “I cannot get these doctors on board.” And then they'll just tell you what the problem is or what the holdup is. They might just act like, “No, this is what we do and it's totally fine.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

If they don't tell me what the holdup is, I want to find out what the holdup is. This is called root cause analysis. Before I make any statement or a stand, I really need to know where this is coming from and why it's coming from, so I can know what I'm up against before I take a stand. I just need to know where is the pressure going to come from? And what's it going to look like?

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, if they tell me, “Hey, this is has come down from the doctor, so I can't do anything about it.” I'm going to say, “Why? Why is this coming down? Why did they feel that way? What did they say when you talked to them about it? What is their concern? What seems to be the push back?” And I'm pumping the manager for information, because I want to understand, like, “Why is this happening? Help me understand.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

If I don't get that volunteered information from the manager and they start to say, “Well, this is just what we do or that's who the doctor is,” or it's just they indicate to me that they don't think it's worth the effort to try to correct this, I want them to understand my why in asking. And so, one way this conversation ends is I go and say, “Hey, is this right?” And they're like, “Yeah, that's what we do. Not a big deal. That's just how we handle it.” And then, the conversation stops. And so, I don't want that, so I needed to keep going.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Remember when we start to talk about things like medical records, honestly, a lot of these things, there are some people who will be motivated by data. And you can talk to them about aha standards and you can talk to them about state regulations, and you can pull that stuff out if it's important to you and say, “Well, I didn't know the State of South Carolina says this.” Or “I know that aha has these things in their guidelines. I suspect this is not an aha practice given the fact that they don't write any medical records.” And so, that's not super motivating.

Stephanie Goss:

I know that this is not an aha practice.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. That's not super motivating. I think I would probably go in and they said, “Well, that's just what we do.” And I'll say, “You know I worked at a practice one time and two doctors got called into the State Board.” And I remember the pet owner was really adamant that they had done something wrong and they had not done anything wrong. But I remember, there was a man and a woman and I remember the man lost 20 pounds in the four to six weeks before he got cleared. And they looked awful every day because they went through this stress. And they had good records, and I've heard that is the number one thing that saved them and saved other people.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, I would really reconsider this. I'm just, I'm really worried about what would happen to the doctors, given what I've seen before. And so, that's me trying to get them to engage in a conversation. If they still blow it off, then I'm going to say, “This person does not want to. They don't want to engage with me.” But ultimately, I'm trying to explain to the person I'm talking to, “Hey, this scares me.” Not bothers me, not makes me angry, not in a judgmental way. I'm not saying, “This is shotty medicine. This is inappropriate.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

Now it might be and we can come around to that. But at least in getting the conversation open, I want to use nonjudgmental language, which is, “I'm not saying these guys are bad. I'm not saying they're not doing good medicine. I am saying that I've had friends who went through this and they were saved because of their records. And I don't think it would have gone well at all for the doctors here because of this stuff. And it's really just about trying to keep the conversation as productive as possible and not trigger that defensiveness. And again, I'm using that to try to get this person engaged, so I can understand what is the hangout here? Is it that it takes too much time? Is it that the doctors don't like the medical record system or was there a plan that we were going to have scribes and we never got them? I don't know what's going on.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Yeah, yeah. That makes total sense to me and I think trying to get on their side and being able to have that conversation about knowing what can happen as a result is a super impactful tool and a good one to pull out of your toolbox, because you do care about them. You're enjoying your job. You want to work here. You believe they're practicing a good quality of medicine. You just need to understand what is happening here, because you don't want them to not be able to defend themselves. Whether it's to an owner or to an insurance company or to the board, it doesn't matter. You don't want to feel powerless.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, for me, working at the front desk, every time I had to have a conversation with the doctor about their medical records, I usually approach it from the place that I want to help. I don't want you to have to get on the phone and have this conversation. I want to just have it for you and be able to give Mrs. Smith the answers that she needs. And so, I just want to make sure I understand where I get this information from. Because in your head, I'm thinking, “I'm not a mind reader. I can't go into Dr. Roark's head and know what he talked about in the exam room with Mrs. Jones because I wasn't in the exam room.”

Stephanie Goss:

But if I look at a chart and I could read back to her what you recommended, I can certainly have that conversation and save you that half hour on the phone, right? And so, I think your point about not everybody is that way, there definitely are people who will take any question of the medical records as a critique against their medicine is a super valid point. And I think it's definitely something that you have to frame really, really well.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, it's funny that you brought up the aha standards, because that's a feeling that was a part of it for me. And I would suspect, our writer as a previous manager would know what some of the resources are, but for any of our listeners out there who are just getting started or learning. The reality of how do we actually address this, is that everybody. I think everybody needs to know that every state is different. So, every state is going to have actual specific requirements.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, if you're getting curious and you're asking like you can look it up for yourself and find out what does your state practice act or medical act actually say about what your records have to include. And some of the states are super vague. There's not a whole lot there. They've got some basic stuff. And then you have other states, California was one of them, that really lays out. Tells you that you got to cross all these Ts and dot all of Is.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I think for your own knowledge, like learning what is your state requiring? And then looking at what are the aha recommendations are wonderful because they do give a great outline. And also, respect the fact that there is going to be shades of gray because every state is very different. And so, when I think about learning or coming at it from a gentle perspective, when I think about what do we do here in our practice, because every practice is different. And every practice within every state is still going to be different.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I would take being a new member of the team and use that as a tool and be able to say, “I want to know, where do we record? What medications of pet is on in our records? Where does that go?” Asking about something like, “Where do we put what diets a pet is on or medications or their vaccine history?” Coming at it from that place of curiosity and asking, “I want to understand how we are doing things here.” It goes back to what you were talking about earlier, asking the question in a very gentle way. Because I'm not accusing them of not putting it in there. I want to make sure I'm not missing something. And I want to make sure I know where this goes here in our records within this practice.”

Stephanie Goss:

Which feels very different than saying, “I know that our state requires that we record this information. I'm not seeing it in the record. What am I missing?” Those are two very, very different conversations. They're both, they're saying the exact same thing, but it feels very different to the person who is receiving…

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I agree.

Stephanie Goss:

… that question.

Dr. Andy Roark:

There's two types of presentations that we want to do. And so, the first one is the gentle presentation that's meant to not put them on the defensive. And the second presentation, which we'll have going on, especially this is a great conversation that if we're going to talk to that specific doctor is I might have strong feelings about patient care when I look at medical records and those are very, very valid. And I might mention those feelings, but to me, the most effective way to have conversations like this, we're talking about changing behavior is to talk about what the person who's doing the behavior cares about.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so, for example, when we talk about medical records, things that motivate doctors would be, in some cases, patient care and not the patient care of the doctor. But I would make the case, “Hey, when we transfer patients, other doctors don't know what your plan was and they're not carrying out your plan.” And so, you can see that that's still, it's not a very critical approach. It is a benefits approach of, “Hey, we want other doctors to be able to follow suit with what you had planned.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Your reputation. “Hey, I want to make sure the client,” because the clients get copies of the records and they call for them and I want them to see that they're getting treated. And I want them to see the care that's being offered and what their patients or what their pets are getting when they come in here and I want to make sure that's clear to them. It's the standing in the vet community is, “Hey, the other vet practices see these.” And often ask us if there's more information.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I don't want us to be perceived in negative light with the other clinics in the area. There's a simplicity in the life-balance argument, which is, “Hey, I want you to be able to go and be off and not have people calling you and asking you about what your plan was.” I want you just to be able to lay it down and then to leave and to know that the next person is going to know what the plan is. And also, when somebody else doesn't write up the chart or with somebody else as the case, I want you to be able to pick up their chart and have the information that you need to make this job easy and not have you going back and starting over again.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then the client experience in the exam room. It's like, “Hey, I want our doctors to be on the same page,” so that when a client comes in and sees the vet, they haven't seen before that person stays up fumbling around. The client has confidence and that person that they know what's going on. And so, all of those are very soft ways to set this up. But it's all different ways to try to get at what that doctor cares about or what's going to motivate them. But those are the things that I bring up. And I'm very selective about what sorts of leverage I try to use to move the person in that direction.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. I think that makes total sense because who isn't going to want to hear that somebody else on their team cares enough about them, that they don't want them to get called on their day off. I just feel like there's no defense to that. Even if I'm a doctor and even if I'm the doctor who does have insecurity and feels worried about my medicine being questioned. If you came to me and you said, “I just want to make sure that you can take a day off and that we don't have to call you and ask questions.” I can't imagine that you could be bothered by that. It's just, it's feels very disarming in a good way.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I really don't want to go the state board at all. And if I do, I really want to have great medical records, like I really want that. And so, I am highly motivated by that. And also, by not getting called on my days off. And again, I don't blame doctors who are like, “Hey, I'm looking at your case. I have no idea what you were thinking or where you were going. What do you have going on?” I don't blame them for that and I'm not getting mad.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I kick myself for not being like, “Hey, this is where I am. And this is what the idea is. And if you feel like this idea is not good or you want to try something else out, God speed. Go for it.” But at least you know what I was thinking and where I was going and that was two weeks ago. And so, you're looking at something totally different now. You have the benefit of hindsight that I didn't have. “Here's where I was going, but take it. Make the call and go on, but you don't need to call me. And I don't need to get involved back into this because I laid everything down and gave all the information that I had.”

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, yeah, no, I like that. I think this is one where ultimately I think the final answer is you have to pick your poison, so I think this is one where if you're working in a practice, this goes back to your head space. You have to decide where you live. Are you okay with this? Are you not okay with it? Are you going to be able to say something and then sleep at night or do you need to say something and ask for a change. And what is that change going to be?

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I think ultimately, we talked about different ways that you can approach and the different levers that we can pull. But ultimately at the end of the day, I think this is once you go on your fact finding mission and you ask good questions and you're coming from that place of curiosity, and you're here asking, “Tell me more.” At the end of the day, you have to decide if the practice is willing to change or are they not, and if they are, great. What do you need the change to look like for you to feel good and sleep at night? And if they are not, what are you going to do about that?

Stephanie Goss:

What is going to make you be able to sleep at night because the answer may be that you can put your head down and go on from there. And the answer may be that you cannot. And you need to know that and be able to have a plan to move forward because ultimately, I think you're going to have to pick your poison here at the end.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I think that's the advice for everybody, regardless of where they are on that spectrum from nothing is written up to once in a blue moon, a chart gets missed. The steps are still the same of you going through collecting information, figuring out why this is happening, figuring out what the pain points or resistance points are. Making a presentation about why you think this is important or what your concerns are. And then assessing what the response is and deciding how severe a problem this is or how strongly you feel.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I would say to the person writing, if you were a doctor or a licensed vet tech, I would tell you I'd cut and run, just because I would say this is too risky. This is too risky to my license, my license. I worked too hard for this license to worry about it getting tanked like this. And that stress would bother me enough then I would be like, “Hey, look, there's plenty of opportunities for me out there. I'll go somewhere else.” Those are generally my thoughts on that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And again, as a paraprofessional, you have a little bit more leeway because no one's expecting you to make those medical calls you. But I still think you just want to think about what you need to feel good about the work that you're doing. And then there's nothing worse than going in and not feeling good about what you're doing with your time in interview.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. And I think that it's also not wrong that every member of the team contributes to the level of medicine that you practice collectively as a group within the practice. And there, I find nothing wrong with the front desk team wanting to be active, engaged part of that process. And so, I want to interview, especially when I interview people with experience, I want them to tell me what do they want to be a part of, medicine wise. Just because they don't have a license, just because they haven't gone to school doesn't mean that they don't have information to share that is important and valid.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I think it's good and healthy for the front desk team to think about what level of Medicine do they want to be a part of. And that's when I interview as a CSR or looked for new clinics as I grew in my career, that absolutely was a piece of the interview process for me is, “Tell me about your Medicine. Tell me about what you're doing. What about your standards of care. I wanted to see, are they using paper charts? Are they using hybrid? Are they using completely paperless? What are they doing and how are they doing it?

Stephanie Goss:

Because at the end of the day, there were things that were important to me that I wanted to have in place to feel like I could go to sleep at night and feel good about what I was doing. And that, what that is for everybody is going to be very individual, but there's nothing wrong with asking those questions. And I would say you should be asking those questions.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Nope. I agree. I'm on board. All right. Yeah. I think that's good. I think that's the advice that I have.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think this is, to some degree, is a common pain point for a lot of people. Not to this degree, but to some degree, it definitely is. I hope that that's been helpful.

Stephanie Goss:

Listen, I think this is going to be one of those episodes where we're not going to have very many people who are like, “Are they talking about my practice?” But I do think that this is going to be one of those episodes where you step back and say, “Today, I'm going to be happy about the dumpster fire that is my practice.” Because there are practices out there that have bigger problems than I do. And sometimes that reminder is just as important, so you're welcome. You're welcome everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Awesome. See you, everybody.

Stephanie Goss:

Well, gang, that's 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 bag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the Mailbag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care of everybody and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.