management

This week on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Stephanie Goss and her special guest co-host, Maria Pirita, CVPM dive into a discussion about how to navigate the tricky waters when you go from being friends and a part of the team to being their boss. In this case, the new practice manager is facing an even more uphill battle because they aren't quite sure that the practice owner has their back. The team sides with decisions the old practice manager would have made and if the practice owner doesn't wade in, this manager is left feeling like they have no friends AND no one respects them. Good thing Stephanie and Maria aren't afraid of swimming through the uncharted waters. Let's get into this.

LINKS:

UVP: I'm the Boss, Can We Still Be Friends?

UVP: If You and I Hang Out, Does Everyone Need To Be Invited?

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

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Upcoming Events

HEY, PRACTICE MANAGER, THIS DAY IS FOR YOU

There’s no one else like you in the veterinary practice. Managing the business. Moderating conflict within the team. Fixing broken printers, again. You wear more hats than anyone else in the practice. All of these look great on you, of course. That doesn’t mean the challenges of leadership don’t phase you. Managing people effectively in a field that is tied tightly to emotions and high-speed decision-making is a constant learning experience. You need tools and strategies to take the reins and guide your team through it all…and support for you too. 

It’s time to connect with your fellow practice managers to share what gets you excited about your role, find solutions for what needs your focus now, and discover new ways to shine even brighter as a manager. Come join us for this one day, virtual summit! A community awaits you.

Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast. This week I'm joined on the podcast by my colleague Maria Pirita, CVPM. Maria is a force of nature. She is so much fun. And this episode is going to be no exception because we are going on a wild ride. So buckle up friends, we are going to be talking about the challenges of going from being friends with the team to being their boss. And this is something that both Maria and I know something about as managers in our management journey, we have experienced it ourselves. We both have some thought. And I wanted to share this special episode with all of you because we are going to be having an awesome workshop that is going to be happening at our virtual Practice Manager Summit on this very same topic. So let's give you a little teaser of it now, and there's more to tell us about that to come later in the episode. Let's get into this

Announcer:
And now The Uncharted Podcast.

Stephanie Goss:
And we are back. It's me, Stephanie Goss, and today I have a wonderful and amazing co-host in my colleague and co-worker and partner in crime in all things Golden Retriever-ness, the amazing, the wonderful, Maria Pirita, CVPM. Welcome to the podcast Maria.

Maria Pirita:
Thanks Stephanie. It's always so much fun to talk to you. So I'm excited to be here.

Stephanie Goss:
I am glad you're here. I think that this is a great episode for you and I. And when I read this mailbag question, I was like, “Who needs Andy Roark to do this episode? I'm going to do this episode with Maria Pirita.”

Maria Pirita:
That's right. I hope you're listening, Andy Roark.

Stephanie Goss:
He might be regretting his life choices when he listens.

Maria Pirita:
He's like, “Mm, I don't know about this.”

Stephanie Goss:
I may be getting fired again. For those of you listeners who don't know, the running joke in Uncharted is that it's not an Uncharted event if Stephanie Goss does not cry because I cry very easily. And I am a, you know how some people are a sympathetic barfer, I am that, but I am also a sympathetic crier. And so if other people cry, then I cry. But also, Andy fires me on the regular is the running jokes. Anytime something goes wrong or anytime something gets screwed up, it doesn't matter whether I had anything to do with it. The answer is, “I guess we're going to have to fire Stephanie Goss.” So I have a feeling that this episode is going to be be one of those episodes where Andy regrets his life choices and regrets letting us loose.

Maria Pirita:
We'll see. We'll see. It's up to you audience, make sure you like this episode a lot and leave us tons of reviews. Just kidding.

Stephanie Goss:
No, I love it. So for those of you who have not been introduced to Maria before, A, I would love to know what rock you're living under in VetMed because she has been on the podcast so far already this year, I think multiple times now at this point, between doing some episodes with me and Andy and both of us, and she is doing a lot of presenting in the Uncharted world and outside of it. You tell us though, for anybody who has been living under that rock, how you found us, where you came from, what your background is.

Maria Pirita:
Oh man. I feel like it's totally normal if people don't know me because it feels weird to think that they would, but I am everywhere. The reason why is because I love talking to people in veterinary medicine. I think the people that work in VetMed are just so uniquely amazing. And I have Golden Retriever energy, so every time I go to conferences, anytime I go anywhere, I'm just talking to everybody. And so usually, that's how people know me. But my background actually comes from leadership outside of veterinary medicine at first. A lot of the food and retail industry. And then when I started in veterinary medicine 10 years ago as a receptionist, I took a pay cut for better work-life balance from retail, which is the running joke. And then I started as a receptionist. I worked as a veterinary assistant before I was promoted to the marketing manager. And then eventually, a hospital administrator for a multi-doctor practice. And so I was doing all of the veterinary stuff for about 10 years.
Like I said, in that process, I loved talking to everybody in VetMed because I feel like the people that work in our industry are just so passionate about not just animals, but also people. And I think that that's always so refreshing and fun to see. So I would talk to a lot of people at conferences and in the online communities and forums. I think that's where I met you Stephanie as one of the online groups before we started working together on Uncharted. And so usually-

Stephanie Goss:
I was actually a Maria Pirita fan before Maria-

Maria Pirita:
Oh, thank you.

Stephanie Goss:
Knew that I was a fan. I had seen her posting in a bunch of the manager groups that were in together and I thought, this girl has great energy and you were really fun and you're always so positive, which is something that's important to me.

Maria Pirita:
Oh, thank you.

Stephanie Goss:
And then I heard you on another podcast, actually, I think I heard your episode on our friend Clint's podcast. And I was just like, this chick has some good things to say, and I was a fan girl, I was intrigued. And so I started watching the things that you were doing. And when I knew that we were growing our team, I said to Andy, “Hey, I might know someone who might that be a good fit for us.” And so I take full responsibility for bringing Maria Pirita into the Uncharted fold.

Maria Pirita:
That's right.

Stephanie Goss:
I don't let Andy claim that victory, although he will try. So now all of our listeners know the truth.

Maria Pirita:
It's true.

Stephanie Goss:
And no one's going to let him get away with it.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah, it's true. That's so funny, its because it feels like it was so long ago, but when we first met, but yeah, you're right. It was a podcast that I did, The People of Veterinary Medicine, it was the first podcast that I ever did, I think. And I remember mentioning The Uncharted Podcast and how that one was really good. And then, yeah, I think I did a few lectures since then and was just trying to help as many people as possible. And before you knew it was like, “Hey, I know you and I know you.” And when the time came to that, I had to leave my clinic because of my husband's job, we were moving. I literally reached out to a lot of my friends in the industry and was like, “Hey, I'm going to be looking for a job. Do you know of anyone that's hiring?”
And when I reached out to Stephanie, I swear I thought she was going to tell me like, “Oh yeah, these five different companies are hiring.” Working at Uncharted was a total dream, and I did not think that that was even going to be a possibility. And then she told me that they were actually, they had some positions. And so I was obviously ecstatic, and I do think that I accidentally manifested that. I don't know if I ever told you this story, Stephanie Goss, but I forgot about this. But essentially, when I was the marketing manager of a clinic in 2013 and I had found Dr. Andy Roark, and I don't think Uncharted Podcast was out yet, but I was a big fan when it did. And I think in 2013. Around 2015 ish when Uncharted started, I used to joke around with my team like, “man, that Dr. Andy Roark guy is so great. I'm going to work for him one day.”
And I said it as a total joke because I didn't know where he worked. I didn't know anything. And that was the running joke was that you don't even know this person, right? You're not going to work for him. And I forgot that I used to say that because it had been years until one of my friends that knew me at the time was I told him, I was like, “yeah, I just started his job with Uncharted Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss.” And he's like, “Hey, remember when you used to say you were going to work for them?” And I was like, “oh my gosh, I totally forgot that I used to say that.” And yeah, so I'm not surprised because the universe and things, but.

Stephanie Goss:
So you manifested it-

Maria Pirita:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
With your positivity. And we're going to talk about that positivity and being a Golden Retriever a little bit today. But I want to give a big shout-out to our friend Clint Latham. And if you have not listened to The People of Veterinary Medicine podcast, you should start and you should listen to Maria Pirita's episode. This should be your very first episode. So shout out to Clint because his podcast is awesome, and Maria's got an episode on there and you should check it out.
But the reason that I was like, Hey, hi, I need to do this episode with Maria is because I got a question in the mailbag about isolation, which anybody who's listened to the first couple of minutes of this is like, “Hi, these are two of the most bubbly hyper people ever. What would they know about being isolated?” And I thought this letter was perfect for both of us because we both came to our positions in the practice through moving up in the practice. And so we both started out not in a management position and moved around and we got a letter in the mailbag from a veterinary assistant who has been in the field for a long time, and they have just in this last year moved up into a practice management role. And their circumstances are a little bit unique in that they are working in the practice with the practice owner who has a hand in managing the practice. And their practice manager who has been managing to this point is still involved in the practice as well. And that is actually a position that I have personally experienced as well. And so I think I have some unique perspective maybe there in terms of working with the people who are your predecessors and who are still involved in the clinic and trying to grow things and change things when they're still involved.
And the heart of this email, which I think resonated with both you and I was just this general feeling that this is someone who is overwhelmingly positive, they're excited about their position, they talked all about the passion that they have for their position and for the industry. And they are really struggling because they feel like they are watching themselves go from the perky, happy Golden Retriever, cheerleader if you will, which resonates with both of us to someone who feels like they are the villain and who feels like they are getting blamed for a lot of things. And they're really struggling with coping with the idea of going from being liked by everybody on the team to being the villain in everybody's story. And so ultimately the question that they asked was, because I'm feeling this way, am I doing things wrong? And they gave us some great examples about things that are happening and things that they are trying.
But really the end result is that they have moved from a position of being a part of the team, into a role as a leader. And they are now in the unique position that you and I both know very well, which is that as a manager, you are not going to be everyone's friend and you are not going to make everybody happy. And they are struggling with that space of feeling like they're working so, so hard and they are trying to stay positive, and that weight of feeling like you're the bad guy is sitting really, really heavy on them. And so I read this and I was like, oh, hi, you and I are both Golden Retrievers and we love to talk to people and we love other people, and we came from the team. And I think we both said we saw a lot of ourselves in this. And so I thought it would be a fun one for you and I to talk through together.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah, absolutely. As soon as I read the question, I was like, yes, yes, 100% I will do this episode because I have absolutely been there and I've been there multiple times actually, because I think that this is a unique problem. I'm sorry. I think this is not a unique problem to veterinary medicine. This is a leadership situation that can happen in any industry. And the first time that it happened to me, it was actually when I was the assistant manager of a pizza place. And that was the first time that I really, really felt that pressure of friendship and it was really, really hard. And then again, I felt it again in veterinary medicine, very similar to your situation, Stephanie. Mine, the practice manager had stepped down, but she had put in her notice, and so she wasn't there anymore. But a couple of the people that were on the team were still, her best friend was there, her son was there. So there was a lot of people that were still there that were in connection with the former manager that had stepped down. And it is a very difficult position to be in for sure.
So it's similar but not quite the same as your situation or this person's situation. Because I didn't have to deal with the previous manager being there for that long, but it's almost like it felt like some of those things that remained behind were still similar to the situation, I think. And so I'm excited to dive into this for sure.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Okay. So let's start with headspaces as we do. The first thing I think that's really important is that it is really lonely at the top, and Andy and I have done a podcast in the past, I think it's actually called, Is Lonely at the Top. And I'll throw the link to that in the show notes for everybody. But if you haven't, especially if you're a writer, if you haven't listened to that episode, take a listen to that because I think it is that transition to being the leader is really, really hard. We've done a couple of episodes, in fact, Andy and I just recorded an episode about being friends with people on the team that's coming out before we do this episode. So it is about, oh, I don't know what the title is. Anyways, I'll link that in the show notes as well. But it's about fraternization but not the naughty kind.
It's about-

Maria Pirita:
It's important we note that.

Stephanie Goss:
It is. It's about being friends with the team and how do you balance if you do have a friend on the team and hanging out with them and that stuff. So there's a couple episodes out there that I think are really important. And I think the number one piece for me or where I would start with headspace is recognizing that it is hard. It is a really hard job and it is lonely because ultimately at the end of the day as a leader, and it doesn't matter whether you are a manager and you are in charge of directly supervising people's performance, I would argue that that actually makes the position harder, not easier. Or if you are a leader in the practice in the sense that you are a practice owner or someone who is not directly necessarily supervising all of the other team, but you're still making decisions, it is very, very lonely because at the heart of your job is making decisions. And when you are a decision maker, you can never make everybody happy.

Maria Pirita:
Absolutely.

Stephanie Goss:
And so I think from headspace perspective, getting straight with that and leaning into that is a part of evaluating the job process that I don't think we spend enough time on. We think about do I have the skills to do the job? Am I excited about the possibility of trying new things? Do I have the skill set it takes? We think about all of those things. And yet I know from my personal experience, I didn't often ask myself the question of do I want to be in the position that this job is actually going to put me in? Because our initial thought is, oh, this is success. And success means climbing the ladder and it means growing and stretching and getting new titles and trying new things and all of the exciting things that come along with that, because a Golden Retriever, right? We look at the shiny objects and we're like, “Yes, this is awesome.”
And at the same time, the reality is when we grow in that way, especially in the practice, we should also be asking ourselves the question of this means I'm a decision maker if that's what the job entails. Do I understand the pros to that and do I understand the cons to that? Because there are pros and cons, always. There are always two sides at least. And I don't think, I know myself, I didn't weigh the gravity of that. And I think it's one of those things that I don't know that you can, until you experience it, you have to get into it. But I do think that it's important to ask yourself, do I understand what this job is actually going to be asking me to do? Because I think the answer for most of us is probably no.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah. Or I think we do think we understand, so that becomes an issue. But yeah, I find that also a lot of that isolation happens because practice manager is such a unique position within your practice in general. There is usually, depending on the size of your practice, multiple veterinary assistants, multiple receptionists, or maybe even multiple doctors, but there's almost always only one practice manager. And so I find that part of that isolation comes from you are in a unique role of you've got orders and decisions, like you said, coming from the top and you're still trying to keep your team in mind, but there's only so many people that you can talk to about your situation, or at least it feels that way within your clinic, right? Because you don't want to share things that you shouldn't be sharing. And so I think that that also causes some of that isolation on top of the fact that we, and it's hard for us.
Actually, in my situation, it was a little unique because I took a long time to accept the practice manager position because I was a little different in the sense of I loved being a marketing manager because I didn't have a team and it was just me and it was really fun. And I knew that being a leader in other industries, I knew that there was going to be some stuff that came with it that was going to be significantly more difficult. I did not understand the gravity of how difficult that was going to be for me at that time because I'm like, okay, well let me think about it. And so I did even take, I took probably about a month I want to say before I accepted the position, and I started helping with some things here to help my practice owner, but I think it took about a month because it initially wasn't something that I was trying to get or be. I was very comfortable in my marketing position.
And like you said, it was one of those things it's like, well, it is to go up, right? I want to move up with the company and so I can do that, but I understand that there's going to be some things and I am absolutely a Golden Retriever. And at the time, I was friends with everyone and I was like, this is going to be really, really difficult. And so I need to really-

Stephanie Goss:
It's going to change.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah. I think I needed to sit down. And what helped me was to sit down and think about, okay, well why am I even considering because there's a reason why I'm considering it, right? And it ultimately for me came down to being the fact that I really wanted to build a different culture and I wanted to build something a little bit more unique in the sense of I have the leadership experience that could really benefit this clinic and I know what I have to do, but I also know it's going to be a lot of work. I know I recognize when you're trying to change a culture, it is going to be a lot of work, you are going to have to put that work in. And so I think I recognized that it was going to be a lot of work. I still underestimated how much work it was going to be I think in my experience. And then it took me a while to figure out that I could share some of my experiences, maybe not with the rest of my team, but even though there's only one practice manager in every clinic, every clinic has a practice manager. So that's when I started really network into the who else is a practice manager that could help me along this process. And I think that that made a difference too.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay, so hold that thought, because I think that is for sure on my action step list is talking about the value and the power in connecting with our colleagues. But I want to circle back to something that you said before. You mentioned that, which I think dovetails really nicely to the second piece of headspace, because no matter what, you said, you were looking at the reasons why you were taking the job. And I think that that is really, really important.
And in our email, our listener and our writer has a great why that is very clearly defined. They said they wanted to create the workspace that I wished that I had had in the industry in my first 15 years in practice. And to create an environment that is filled with healthy and happy support staff who know that their bosses and their work care about them and so that they are able to better care for their patients in return.
And while a lofty goal, and I'll explain why I think it's lofty in a second, not that I think that it's unattainable, not that, but I do think that it's a lofty one. It is an amazing why and it's very clearly defined. And I think that that is wonderful and I want to applaud them because for a lot of us, it takes them soul-searching, like you said, to figure out why am I actually doing this? What is my why? And then even if we know our personal why, it's usually in my experience with myself and my peers, not clearly define enough that I could share it with another person. And so kudos to this writer because they can very clearly define it.
Now, I want to explain my lofty comment that was not a dig. I think it's an amazing why. And the reason why I think it's lofty ties to my second piece of headspace, which is that in order to create a healthy, happy, supportive environment, the first part of their sentence was that they wanted to create the space that they wished that they had had. And so I think what they're wanting to accomplish, even though it is change for the better, it is still change. And from a headspace perspective, I think it's really, really important that we address the elephant in the room, which is that change is really, really freaking hard and veterinary medicine hates change.

Maria Pirita:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know if I did that right. Mm-hmm. I just need to make sure I did it right, because it's absolutely a very yes, 100%. I'm so glad you said that. Change is hard.

Stephanie Goss:
Change is hard.

Maria Pirita:
It's so hard.

Stephanie Goss:
Even people who love change and who thrive in the environment of change, Andy Roark. Even for people like our beloved boss who love change and get excited about it, it is hard. Change is hard. It is hard for human beings. And if you've not read the Amazing Works by Dr. Brené Brown, if you have not explored some of the positive psychology stuff that is out there, I think that's a great place to start because it's all about unlocking the science behind our little caveman brains, and our little caveman brains just tell us that change is hard. And when we have an environment where we feel safe and we have the basics that we need to sustain ourselves, the hardwiring tells us that we should stay in that space and not move from it because we are safe and we are protected and we have the things we need. And so asking a whole group of people to change and go away from what they know, even if they're not super happy about it, even if they don't love it, they're getting their basic needs met, the inertia required to make that change is immense. And so I don't think that it is an unattainable goal, but I do think that it's lofty from that perspective because it is going to require building that inertia for the whole group. And that is tough, tough work my friend.

Maria Pirita:
And I think we also have to acknowledge that it's going to take time. And so based on this email that we've received, I think this person said they were in a year and a half-ish, and I want to acknowledge one thing real quick. You are so wise, the reader that submitted this in or this listener that submitted this in is so wise to sit and be like, “This is where I'm at and I have this situation and I'm coming to people who have been there or know maybe what to do.” But I think that if you're already listening to this podcast or other veterinary management podcasts, you are so wise because you're going out into the resources that you know have. And so I think that that also needs to be said is that you're coming here to a place in which we talk about these things and you're going to get some feedback on what can be done.
I'm going to tell you right now that it's going to take time, it's going to take work. It is absolutely possible. I've seen it happen. But like Stephanie said, it's a lofty goal. So you need to understand that it's going to take work and it's going to take time. And so I'm not saying it's going to take another three, five years, but it could take another year for you to really see the big changes. And a lot of times that's how it goes. You go work out. Work out is my brain right now because that's what I've been doing, but it's been three months of working out regularly and I am only down 20 pounds. And it's been three months. Okay. I'm tired.

Stephanie Goss:
You're working hard.

Maria Pirita:
It's a lot of work, but also we have to look at it as progress. I am already down 20 pounds, I'm only 10 pounds away from my goal, and so this is very similar. I love that you can define your why. I love that you know that I love that you're here, that you're wise enough to recognize that, hey, I need guidance on this. And then also, don't be afraid to celebrate where you are. Because I'm sure some changes happen for the better and you need to be able to recognize that and have a metric to look at it beyond that too. So I think that's also needs to be mentioned in the headspace piece.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, totally. So knowing that it's hard, it's lonely at the top, you're not going to make everybody happy. Your role as a decision maker means that you're going to make people unhappy in fact. And probably repeatedly over time, knowing that you're not in this alone, this is really common. A and B, there are other managers out there and so we're going to address that in action steps. I think it is a possible goal and it is possible to change, but to your point, remembering that it is going to take time. I think those are some pretty good headspace pieces. Is there anything else from the headspace perspective that you can think of, Maria?

Maria Pirita:
No, I think we covered it. I think that's, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Okay. Then why don't we pause here for a second. I've got some action steps that I want us to dive into and I want to get to the heart of the question that they asked about being a villain in everybody's story because that's going to be the fun part. So let's take a break and we'll come right back and dive into some action steps.
Hey friends, I said it at the beginning of the episode, but I am delivering some info for you that's super important, which is we have one of my favorite events coming up. That's right. We are doing our Practice Manager Summit. It's something that is near and dear to my little manager heart, and I'm super, super excited because I am going to be sharing this experience with some of my favorite people in veterinary medicine and someone that I am excited to fan girl over because I have been following her for a really long time and I've never had an opportunity to meet her and I'm super excited about it.
So if you are a manager listening to today's podcast and you have not checked out the info, head over to unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events and you will be able to find the Practice Manager's Summit page and sign up to see all of the information about the program and the workshops. It's one day virtual summit. It has got a price point that I am hoping fits into everybody's CE budget, because we would love to see you there. It is going to be jam-packed. We've got awesome speakers and I'm going to tell you a little bit more at the end of the episode about that workshop I said at the beginning was coming, so stay tuned. And now, back to the podcast.
Okay, so let's talk about some action steps because let's talk about being the villain. So this manager asked specifically, how do you cope with going from being liked by all to being the villain? And they gave us some really, really great examples that I thought were so awesome. And so, because they're so basic, and so I think this is going to be one of those episodes where it's so funny how often I get messages, text messages from friends messages on Instagram or Facebook from people who are like, “Hey, I was listening to this week's podcast. Were you on a fly on the wall in my clinic? Because I swear to God, you guys were talking about me.” And so I think this is going to be one of those episodes.
But they were like, one of the examples was I gave some extra tasks to someone on the team who was asking for some more responsibility, and they heard some backhanded comments from other people on the team that now that they were playing favorites because they were giving that other person extra things to do and not everybody else. They made some announcements about following safety guidelines, and this is one of my favorites, this is where I know that other people are going to feel heard on this. The thing that I did was God forbid that I make everybody wear their radiology safety equipment.

Maria Pirita:
Oh, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
So one of the first things that I did was because I was just brush out of tech school when I started as a manager and I was like, hi, none of us are wearing our gloves when we take x-rays, and I know, I know, I know how bad it is. We all know the things that we're supposed to not go into X-ray without where it's our lead apron, it's our thyroid shield, it's our dosimeter badge , and it's our freaking gloves. And yet, I know I'm not the only person who's going to say this big, no, no out loud and say that we take X-rays without our gloves.
I see them, I still got a radiologist cringe when you would send out the films and you'd see somebody's little phalanges in the image, they weren't wearing their gloves, right?

Maria Pirita:
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Goss:
So I remember vividly telling everybody, “Hey guys, we have…” Because we got a notice. I was in California at the time and they take everything seriously. Government-wise. And we got a notice that they were coming to do an inspection of our facility. And so I was like, “Holy crap, we better be following the rules.” And so I put out a notice to everybody and I was like, “Hey, we have to start wearing gloves when we were taking our X-rays.” And you would have thought that I was Cruella de Ville, people that I hung out with every night, we would go out to the bar and I literally would be sitting there with them having a drink and all they would be doing was complaining about how I was the meanest person on the planet, because it was so much harder for them to do their job and wear gloves when they were taking X-rays.
And it sounds so ridiculous, but I remember in the moment laughing it off with them but also inside feeling like, are you guys serious right now? I'm just asking you to do your job. I don't understand. I get it. I get that it makes it harder. I get that positioning is more difficult. I get that the gloves that we were using 20 years ago were not super user-friendly, not that they're super user-friendly now, but they are more user-friendly than they were back then. All of those things. I totally get it. And at the same time, it was hard for me to feel, I felt what this listener felt, which is like I am Cruella here apparently, and all I'm asking is for you to do your job, right?

Maria Pirita:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Because as a technician. I learned in school, I knew the reason why. I knew the why behind what I was asking. My friends did too. But it was easier for them to complain and to poke fun at me. And they weren't doing it, they weren't being spiteful, they weren't being mean. No one was like, “Bitch please.” It wasn't like nobody stood up to me in the treatment room and was like, “F-off, I'm not going to do this.” But it still was that environment of here's the thing that I'm doing because I'm trying to follow the rules. I'm trying to make sure that we don't get fined when the inspector comes to the practice, and yet everybody is giving me a hard time over it. And so I think it's really important to recognize that from an action step perspective, that there is always going to be your role is to enforce people doing their job.
Your role is to make decisions that are not going to make everybody happy because the reality of being a decision maker is someone will always be unhappy. And it's like being a parent. It brings immeasurable joy and there are still times where I tell my kid, “Go brush your teeth,” and you would think it's the end of the world. I'm not telling them for my own, because it's fun. I'm telling them because I don't want their teeth to rot out of their face and I know as adults they don't want to either, but they're still going to argue with me and yell at me and they're freaking teenagers now. My parents who are listening, get me here. It's the same with our team. And I think it's really just important to recognize that there will always be perception by the team that does not match up to the reality of your position.
No, I'm not asking you to wear your gloves in radiology because I'm literally trying to make your life more difficult, but the perception of my friends at the time was I'm asking them to do a thing that is making their job more difficult in their minds and maybe realistically to some degree is true, and so therefore I'm the bad guy. That's just reality when you're a decision maker in the practice. And so I think from an action set perspective, understanding that and acknowledging that ultimately goes a long way to smoothing things out and making the road be a little bit more even. I started acknowledging it and calling it out to the team when I realized it's not going to make everybody happy. I don't know that it made it better, but to be able to say to them, “Hey guys, listen, I know it's easier to take X-rays without your gloves on. I've done it and this is why I need us to make this change. And I am not asking you to do something I'm not going to do. If you see me walk into X-ray and not put my gloves on, I want you to call me out on it too, because asking you to make this change for a reason.” It's acknowledging that and understanding that their perception can be negative. I think calling that out makes a big difference.

Maria Pirita:
And I love what you said about understanding that perception because that was on my list as number one too because even if it's just moving or shifting examples, right? Because the one that stuck out to my brain is, oh, I gave more responsibility to this one person and they think now that I have favoritism, and how funny is that that you gave more work to somebody and they were like, “Oh, you must like her more because you're giving her more work.” It is hilarious. But we have to understand what perception does, right? And perception, even though we know that there's probably a good reason why you gave this work to this person, whether it be her skills, whether it be that she had the capacity, whatever the reason it was, you have to understand that because you are now in a management role, there's always going to be that perception of favoritism whenever we do certain things.
And so keeping in mind that that perception is always going to be there. There are some things that I had to do, especially with certain team members in the sense of like, “Listen, I know that back when we were friends, I used to go out and get us both coffee, just you and I. But because I'm in a management role now, I'm only going to get coffee when I can get coffee for the whole team, because I don't want people to think that I'm showing favoritism towards you because they already know that we were friends before I wasn't a manager.” We have understand the perception, so understand the perception in the sense of if you're going to lunch regularly with one person in the clinic, there's going to be the perception that you like that one person better than anyone else. And so later on when you give that one person the job or the task, you're fighting the perception that that's going to be there no matter, even if the favoritism is not there, the perception for the rest of the team is there. And that can cause enough of a reality in their brains to create problems, to gossip, to have that feeling of, “Well, the only way I'm going to get ahead is if I'm her favorite,” and things like that. So understand that that perception is going to be there no matter what.

Stephanie Goss:
And I love that and I love your example about coffee because such a good one. One of those things that it's easy to think of. And I think your point about giving them more work to do is super solid because gosh, who would've thought that giving someone more work would indicate favoritism? But it is true. And so I think just for me, another piece to unlocking that and creating open door if you will, an open door for my team. Because I think the other thing from an action step perspective is to figure out how is this manager learning about a lot of this? And I suspect from their email that they're learning a lot of it third hand. So other people, they feel like they're getting talked about behind their back and they're probably hearing about it from one or two people on the team. Maybe people are saying things to their face. But I know in the beginning for me it was getting fed that information by the people who were my friends and who were like, “Oh, hey, just so you know, today in the treatment room everybody was talking about this thing and they were all mad about it.”
And so I think it's important to recognize how are you getting that information because that is really unhealthy environment. And while it is good in the sense that you are learning about things that you wouldn't maybe know about otherwise, it is also really unhealthy because no matter how much those people care about you, the information that you're getting is always filtered through the telephone filter of the fact that they love you and they care about you. And so it is to be their perception of what happened. And so it does not ever allow you to judge for yourself what is happening. And so as a leader, the best thing that you can do is create an environment and create safety and space for your team to speak up and say those things to your face, even though it's a lot harder to take, it's a lot harder for your team to do paving that road so that they feel comfortable and confident asking you, “Hey, I saw that you gave Maria extra things to do the other day, and I don't think that's fair. Because I think that we all should have the opportunity to do that extra work.” Who says that?

Maria Pirita:
It had to have been fun work. It had to have been fun work as the only thing. It must have been-

Stephanie Goss:
Okay, so let's just say they got to do a fun project or something that everybody was excited about. Because honestly, the best thing for me as a manager would be for someone to say that to me because then I have the opportunity to pause and think about why did I actually make that decision? Because when we do that, we are forced to actually examine our own bias. Did I give it to Maria because I trust her and I know she'll just do it without complaining? I shouldn't tell my team that in those words.
And if there's truth to that, I also should create a space where I can give them that kind of feedback. “Oh, I knew that Maria would up for the challenge and she would be totally willing to do whatever I threw at her, and she let me know that she was done with all of her daily checklist. So I knew that she needed something to do today.” I would love to consider you for things like that in the future. It would help me if I knew when you were done with your tasks the way that I did Maria so that I could consider that. And also, I need to know what you're up for. So let's have a conversation about what you're interested in and what you'd be up for, what do you like about it? And are you excited about actually doing this thing? Because she was really excited about the project, but is there another project that might interest you? It opens the door to have those conversations and call out the reason why I made that decision in the first place.
And sometimes honestly, the reason is Maria was standing there and so I was just like, “Hey, I want you to go do this thing. You're standing there, you look like you don't have anything to do.” Because the reality is that's how we make a lot of those decisions. Sometimes there is thought and forethought in the way that we react as a manager. And also, we're trying to keep 10 million plates spinning at once. And so sometimes there's not thought in it. And I think that the value for me, the Jedi mind trick was really getting to the place where I created the safety amongst my team for them to both share those things with me to my face, and also for me to be able to be honest with them and tell them. This is hard because especially if you are one of those people who says what you think without a filter, hi, it's me.

Maria Pirita:
It's me.

Stephanie Goss:
I'm the problem, it's me.

Maria Pirita:
All I can say is you should have seen me in high school. It was a lot worse back then, okay?

Stephanie Goss:
I really had to work to develop that filter because young manager Stephanie would have said, “Oh, Maria was literally standing around. And so I gave her a job to do.” And that may be okay to say that, but may also require a little more tact or a little more finesse to be useful as a tool to be able to say something like, “Oh, I knew Maria was looking for things to do because she communicated to me that she was already done with her checklist. If you would love to take on other things, just let me know when you have some free time and I'd be happy to give you something to do.” Right? I'm saying the same thing, but it's the way that I'm saying it that's very different and they create different responses and different environments with the team, and that I think just takes time and skill.
But I think that goes to the heart of the feels expressed in this email from this manager have to do with the fact that I think that they're probably hearing a lot of this secondhand. And so recognizing that how you're hearing it, even if you're hearing it with the best of intentions is being filtered through their perception. And so the best thing for you as a leader is to work really hard. And again, this is Rome is not built in a day. You have to lay the groundwork and this is going to take time, but creating that space where your team feels safe and confident and comfortable sharing those things with you directly.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah, absolutely. And that actually goes with what I had written down for my second step was really to acknowledge the shift in things. And what I mean by that is the shift in your role as a practice manager is something that you do at some point have to acknowledge. And I remember when I was in the clinic setting and I had somebody that came up to me, “Yeah, I noticed you don't go out with us for drinks as much as you used to.” And I was like, “Yeah.” It's one thing. For one, I had really moved far away and so it was a little bit harder. And for two, I had to explain to them that… And what she meant with us was she meant with us three, three out of my team of 15. And I had to explain to her at that time being like, “Hey, yeah, I'm trying to go less unless the entire team is there.” And truly, sitting down. And we had a discussion about what that meant because I didn't want people to think…
And I had that discussion from her view like, “Listen, you've worked really hard to where you are right now and we're friends, and if I do these things go only for drinks with the three of you, there's going to be this perception of favoritism and when that happens, you will get some of that heat. And I don't want that for you. People will start to think that the work that you've done, the only reason you're promoted to anything is because we're best friends or they'll give you the cold shoulder if they think that you are getting less work than I am. And so we have to address this, not just that this is better for the clinic and for myself, but it's also better for you in a lot of ways.”
And so having that discussion early on and setting your boundaries early on as a manager is really, really important. Because I think sometimes too, and this comes from what you were just saying of getting that third party, the information almost from a third party source right? You need to be able to set that boundary early on of like, “Hey, I appreciate that you're giving me this information. I need to know when this happens in the moment so that I can go in there or if there's a certain way for us to submit this.” Sometimes it is just the way in which it's communicated because I think immediately of like, “Oh, well everyone in the treatment room was talking about how they hated that this happened.” Immediately, I'm going to question everyone, or was there just a few people? That's a big deal. Was it everyone? And they were talking about they hate it or were they talking about how they disliked it? And were they talking about that they hate this or they just dislike the certain way which it was done?
You are 100% right. You're getting the information completely filtered. And it could be to protect you or it could be to get just their perception of how it was. To them, it might've been everybody, but really everybody was only three out of your team of five. There's still two people who don't care that they have to wear their gloves. And it's just one of those things of setting the boundary of when you come with information like this, I need specifics of when did it happen, how many people were there who has an issue with me so that I can address it with them in the moment.
And I think you also mentioned a couple of different tools that can be used. One, you said making that a safe space for everybody. Absolutely. I want to create the space of having this open door. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to be available all the time. And this is something that I talk about in my communication boundaries when I talk about this. And which is coming up actually, I have a boundary setting a workshop at Practice Leadership Summit in December if anyone is going to that specifically for the practice manager and practice owner relationship.

Stephanie Goss:
Love it.

Maria Pirita:
But what I was getting at was that you can set those boundaries early on about, “Hey, when you come to me, this is how.” But there's also tools that can be used. So for example, like anonymous forms so that everybody can feel comfortable bringing up information with you if there is a situation. And then things like one-on-ones. What is the cadence of them being able to bring up things when they're unhappy? Because if somebody brought this up at a one-on-one with me of, “Hey, so-and-so got more work and that's work that I would've really liked to do.” That's something that I would've hopefully heard during a one-on-one, not coming from somebody else telling me that they're upset that I gave it to this other person. And the information's just going to be better that way because you're getting it firsthand, not from other people. So I think you mentioned a couple of those tools there, which are important to address.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think one of the tools that was most helpful for me there was learning the power of starting wide. And young manager Stephanie, I remember vividly several times hearing things third hand and then going to the person and being like, “Well, I heard that this happened and I want to address it.” Even though I'm trying that conversation with the best of intentions, it's confrontational. It's immediately going to put them on the defense or on the offense. They're going to either get heated or they're going to be like, “No, I didn't participate in that conversation.” Because who's going to admit that they were standing in the treatment room talking smack about their boss immediately putting them in a no-win situation. And so, one of the most valuable tools that I ever learned to use as a manager is just, how's it going? And then shut up and listen to their answer.
I love that you brought up, I think that that is such a powerful environment. And your team's going to be afraid of it. If you've never had regular sit downs with them, they're going to feel like they're getting called to the principal's office. And this is where you've got to let some of the things go that have been happening. I know that you're upset about it. I know you've been heard because they've been talking about it. I know that yesterday they may have been talking smack about the fact that you suggested let's have daily rounds to check in and make sure how everybody's day's going. Whatever the thing is, they're hacked off about it, but you've got to let it go. Let it channel Elsa, move on from that shit. Because you have got to get to the place where they are talking to you and bringing up current real-life examples that they are telling you about directly so that you can actually do something about it because the hearsay is not going to help anything.
And if you create that safety and then you sit down with them and you've created an environment where they're telling you about things and then you're like, “Hey, I want to talk to you about these things that you've been doing over the last three months,” you're undoing all of that work that you just did and you're immediately putting them right back on the defensive. So you've got to let it all go. And you've got to figure out how do you create that space moving forward. And so if you're not sitting down and having regular check-ins with them, start purely with the intention of asking them, how's it going? Is there anything at work that you're loving right now? Is there anything at work right now that's making your life more difficult? There are some really easy questions that you can ask and we can… Google is your friend. Friends.
I get asked all the time like, “I don't even know what would I ask in a one-on-one? What does that look like?” There are some great blogs out there about what does a one-on-one look like? What questions can you ask? I have a list and I get asked all the time. I think my list has, I don't know, it's coming up probably on 200 questions of things that I can ask on all different topics in one-on-ones, I got them all from Google. And from reading blogs and hearing what other managers are asking. And someone will bring up, we'll be talking about one-on-ones in a manager's group, and somebody will say, “Oh, I asked my people this question.” I'm like, “Oh, that's gold. I'm writing that down.” And then I adjust it. But it's starting wide and asking the question, how's it going? What do you love about work? What is making your life more difficult?
And then whatever they give you, if they give you nothing, great, thanks for spending the time sitting talking to me. I would love to touch base with you again next week. You conditioning them, you're training them. Andy says that all the time on podcasts. Humans are simple animals. And how do we train them? We do the same thing over and over again and we reward the behavior when it's good. So we just say, “Hey, thanks for checking in with me. Nothing's up. I just wanted to start talking, because I want to know how things are going for you. Because my goal is to create a happy and healthy space where you all love coming to work. I just want to know how it's going. And then let them walk out the door and then do it over again the next week, the next week, the next week, the next week.
And if they tell you something, then it's your job to say, “Great. I want to work on that. How can we problem solve that.” And take the examples. And they won't, most of the time, start with something big and earth-shattering that you're going to get excited about, but you take the small things and you build on them. Because eventually if you follow that path, over time, you create that space where Maria comes into my office and I'm like, “Hey Maria, how's your week going? Is there anything at work that is making your life more difficult?” And if we've spent that time and energy, then Maria has the space to say.

Maria Pirita:
Yeah, why did you give somebody more work than me? How dare you? And it's going to be real and raw, just like that.

Stephanie Goss:
How dare you?

Maria Pirita:
Because you've built trust and confidence over time. I would say-

Stephanie Goss:
Then I would, no, I don't. I am sorry that you were offended that because literally there was zero forethought in me making that decision. Andy just happened to walk by my office and looked like he needed something to do, and I was like, “Hey, do you want a project?” And he said yes. So next time knowing that you're interested in it, tell me what things you'd like to work on. Because I would love to know what I can send your way. Then it creates that space for us to have that back and forth conversation.

Maria Pirita:
And it creates this developmental piece too. I mean, if you think about it going into that example further out and being like, well, the reason why I liked it is because it's fear free and I love fear free. And it's like all of a sudden now maybe this becomes your fear for cheerleader because now you found out that they're really interested in it.
And there's one thing that you actually said, Stephanie Goss, at a lecture once, of yours that I attended to, and it was one of my favorite things that I still to this day say to young practice managers is that performance reviews are called reviews for a reason because they're review of the performance that has happened, it shouldn't be the first time that they're hearing that. And so if you're having regular one-on-ones, you're able to let them know how they're doing, get excited about the things that they're doing, and that review is indeed a review, but it shouldn't be the first time that you're bringing up what they're really good at or their goals or where they want to develop. You should already have that information and then reviewing it at the review.
And so I think it's a really good space to build connection with your entire team. It helps address things that can turn into gossip. This bottom line when you're hearing it around from the clinic, that's what it is. And so it can help you address a lot of that gossip. It can help you set your boundaries early on. It can help you acknowledge what their goals are and what they're working on. And really just one thing to keep in mind on that is that it's not going to happen overnight, like we talked about with earlier. Stephanie said it 100%, it is creating that space for them, and it's not going to happen overnight. So maybe the first time they're not going to be as open with you right away, but keep it consistent, keep it going. And they will at some point be like, “Okay, I'm going to open up this time.”
And let me tell you, when I first started one-on-ones in my clinic, half of the people were like, “Oh, cool. That sounds great.” Half of the people were like, “Another thing for me to do. We don't have the time for this.” And so just acknowledge that it's change. And we talked about this, change is going to be hard and you're going to have people that don't want to. But I will tell you, the people that were like, I don't have time for this, were some of the people that had the longest conversations with me in those rooms because they had a lot to say actually. And our relationship got so much better over time because we were sitting down regularly. So just know it's still change. It's still going to be a windup, it's still going to take time to really get it going, but once you see the results of it, you'll feel it almost. You'll feel the results and you'll be like, yes, this is something that I'm going to continue doing for a long time.

Stephanie Goss:
And then I think the last thing on building connection, you talked about building connection with the entire team, in terms of doing one-on-ones and being overly communicative and sharing the information that everybody needs with everybody in every possible way so that there can be no doubt about what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it, I think is that you have to build a support network that doesn't include people in the clinic. And I think that that's important for two reasons.
One is that everybody needs a sounding board. And for a lot of people that sounding board is they go home and they have someone, whether it's a roommate or a partner or a spouse or their parents, and they're just like, “Let me unload my day.” Right? That's human nature. It often when it's someone who loves us and cares about us is just venting because they want us to make us feel better because they care about us.
And I think it's really important to find people in your workspace who actually understand and can help you turn it from venting into problem solving, because they help you make the conversation productive. And if you have someone in your life that you can go home to, you are getting the best of both worlds. If you have someone you can go home to and they help you turn it productive, and they ask you those challenging questions, great. If you don't, and that's I think the majority of us, because the people we live with that care about us just want us to feel happy, find that space, and find those people and find your community. Because being able to ask, “How do I solve this? How do I problem solve this? What should I try? What can I do?” To your point early on in the episode, finding the space where you can go and ask those questions both from people who have been there before, but also from people who have that bright-eyed, bushy tailed. I'm super excited. The camaraderie of putting a bunch of those people together is huge.
And so I think finding a space, whether it is a group of fellow managers in your local community, you and I are both big advocates for local manager groups. I ran ours here for a long time where there's value. And people who live in your area who see the same client issues you do in connecting with each other and looking at each other not as competition, but as allies and as resources for surviving the job, because it is hard. Or whether it is looking at that same environment on a massive scale like the VHMA, the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association, or the bigger national groups, whether it's finding a group of peers on Facebook, which is kind of how you and I got to know each other more.

Maria Pirita:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
Was in a Facebook group.
Shout out to our friends in VPMU. So if you're not in a practice group and you're on social media, there's plenty of them on Facebook and you can find your niche. VPMU is a little bit sassy, a little bit salty. It's a lot fun. There's a lot of truth tellers in that group, which is I think part of why you and I love it. It's very real and it's not for everybody. And there are other practice managers, groups that are a lot more structured, that have a lot more, let's talk about the systems and structures that we have seen work. There's groups that talk just about finances. There's groups that just talk about HR, whatever your need is-

Maria Pirita:
Marketing, yes.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, it's out there. And so I think looking at that and finding your place, obviously if you're not in Uncharted, you should be a member of Uncharted because it's the best place ever.

Maria Pirita:
Absolutely. Actually, I was just going to say, I'm pretty sure there's a recorded workshop, magical one-on-ones that I did earlier this year. And if you're a community member, you would have access to that, just saying.
But also you would have a network of amazing people-

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Maria Pirita:
People in veterinary medicine that are just doing wonderful things, and it's a very positive community. And I think that's one of my favorite things about it. But I was also going to say too, if you don't find one, start one.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. I love that.

Maria Pirita:
100%. That's how they all got started. And so most of them have, there'll be usually I'm a big fan of doing the local ones and the big ones. And I will also say that if you're ever at a conference and you see myself and Stephanie Goss, come up and say hello to us.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Maria Pirita:
Because we are Golden Retrievers.

Stephanie Goss:
Love people.

Maria Pirita:
We love talking to people. And that is 100% how I made a lot of my connections. I still think about this day how I went to Chicago Veterinary Medical, yeah, CVMA Association. It was a local conference, and Eric Garcia was talking about marketing. It was a marketing manager at the time, and in his talk, he said, “Oh, add me on Facebook if you want. Let me know. I'm always wanting to help and reach out.” I don't know how many people actually did that, but I did. I went up to him and I was like, “Hey, I loved your talk just now. It was so good. I was like, I'm totally going to add you on Facebook. I was wondering if I could pick your brain about some resources.” And he's like, “Yeah, email me and I'll send them to you.” And so he did. And I remember him giving me some advice on my website at the time.
And so what I'm getting at is don't be afraid to just go up to people at your local events and say hello. And even if it's somebody that's a speaker, because believe it or not, find the people that you want to be like and put them in your network somehow, whether it's you know them on social media, they're going to be sharing the information over and over again. I oftentimes see a lot of the posts from Eric Garcia and I'm like, wow, that really hits home for me. And so I think a lot of it is we are what we consume. And so that's why I used to listen to this podcast Uncharted on my way to work every single day because it would motivate me in just the right way to be positive, to be fun and to get actionable. And so you are what you consume, and that includes your network of people. And so I highly recommend that you put practice managers in that because they're going to understand your struggle, but also people that might not be practice managers. Because at the end of the day, when you're a practice manager, you're also IT, you're also the marketing department. You're also all of these different things that I think there's different roles, but absolutely your network is where you're going to have a lot of help and a lot of guidance.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay, this was awesome. And two things. One, we're out of time.

Maria Pirita:
Surprise, surprise.

Stephanie Goss:
Surprise, surprise. And so we're going to wrap it here. And two, if our writer is listening, they're like, “But wait, they didn't talk about the other half of my letter.” And so this is going to be a two-parter because there is me, at the beginning of the episode, I talked about having commonality with them because it is hard. You and I both have worked in an environment where someone who is in the position or a practice owner is still involved and you're making decisions with them there. And so stay tuned for part two of this, which is how do you be a leader and still work with people who may not be behind all of the change that you're trying to make, because change is hard. So stay tuned for that and more of Maria Pirita, thanks for joining me today.

Maria Pirita:
Anytime. Thanks for having me.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, take care everybody. Have a great week.
Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I love talking with Maria. This conversation today was no exception, and I hope that you all enjoyed it. And like I said at the very beginning, and I dropped in the middle of the show, there's a workshop that falls along these lines. So if you are someone who has been or is currently in the position of moving up in your practice and going from being friends with the team to becoming a boss, you are not going to want to miss our Practice Manager Summit, which is happening in February. And my dear friend Tami Lind, who is a technician, she is so, so funny. She is just a force, and I am so excited for you all to get to meet her at Practice Manager Summit if you haven't had the experience. And she is a manager at Purdue in the vet hospital, and she's experienced the journey and is doing a workshop about what it means to go from being a peer to being a manager. And I'm super excited about this.
We've got some other awesome speakers as well. My good friend Mike Falconer is coming back to Uncharted and going to be speaking about language and emotions of groups and teams. And then I said I was going to fan girl, and I am because Amanda Donnelly is going to be with us. And Amanda is someone who I have followed since I was a young manager and I've never had the opportunity to meet her, and I'm excited to do it virtually. She is going to be doing a session about creating a culture of accountability.
So if this kind of stuff, today's episode, any of these topics sound like they're your jam. Oh, and I'm going to be doing a workshop about managing team conflict, I guess. I hate talking about myself, so I totally forgot that. But I am going to be doing a workshop about managing team conflict. So any of this sounds like it's your jam, head over to the website, unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events and find out more and sign up today because we want to see you there. See you next time.

This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss chat about the personal and professional challenges faced by a new veterinarian who started working at a practice where she previously functioned as a technician. They dive deep into how behaviors and perceptions from her past role have affected her current role, leading to conflicts of priority and time management. Andy and Stephanie walk through their thoughts on how to establish boundaries, leverage teamwork, and handle these challenges. The conversation also navigates strategies for better self-awareness, handling requests, and the concept of creating ‘friction' to narrow down responsibilities. 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.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are taking an email that came through the mailbag from a new grad who is back at the practice that they worked at before vet school, during vet school, and now after vet school because they loved it so much.

It's got a great team, great culture, great leadership, and this new grad is struggling with finding balance between, uh, the team trusting them. And the team may be asking them to do too much work, tech work, and they are trying to balance all of their doctor duties at the same time and they are finding themselves on the struggle bus.

This one was fun. Let's get into it. 

Announcer: And now the Uncharted podcast.

Andy Roark: And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark. And the one and the one and only Stephanie, same as it ever was, Goss.

Stephanie Goss: How's it going, Andy Roark? 

Andy Roark: It's good. How are you?

Stephanie Goss: You know, I am, I am hanging in there. It is, it is heading into the fourth quarter. It is always busy at this time of year. It feels like, you know, it's, you have kind of this lull that happens when you have kids I feel like. When they go back to school and there's summer crazy has ended, there's like this six week period where things are kind of a little bit calm and then this time of year I feel like this is when it hits and then there's Halloween and then there's fall break and then there's the holidays and it's just all rushing to meet us and so it's busy. It's busy.

Andy Roark: I did not have, I did not have a lull like that. I remember the kids going back to school and me being like, holy crap, how do we get all of this done? And it has not, it has not slowed down for me. I've been, I've been just feeling like, boy, ever since, you know. Yeah, mid-August. I feel like it's, it's, it's just speeding up.

I, I feel like it's, I feel like it's going to slow down. I, so here's my thing is, it’sinteresting. So what happens for me is, you know, in the fall work, it was super busy until December and then, when you send people an email, you try to do something in December, they're like, this looks like a 2024 problem and then they just do not respond.

Stephanie Goss: After December 15th, everything slows, it slows down. That is true. And you know, it's funny because I remember when a few years ago. When our company kind of faced up to the fact that a lot of the people we work with the last two and a half, three weeks of the year are really quiet.

And budgets aren't set for 2024. Nobody has any answers. Everybody's on holidays. And so, we made the choice as a company to look at that and be intentional and take some time off. And I remember the first year that we did it, you and I were both just like, let's record a podcast, because we both were just like, I can't just sit here for two weeks and do nothing, like, we've got, like, let's get, let's get some stuff done.

Which tells us probably something about our workaholic tendencies, but also I think now we've leaned into this healthy mix. I feel like I'm in this healthy place, I actually really enjoy it. I enjoy when it slows down and actually being able to spend time with the kids, and do things and not feel the pressure of work.

And I also really like when it gets quiet because I like having that creative time. And I like being able to, you know, be like, hey, do you want to, you know, you want to jam out on some, some ideas and, you know, plan some things and gives me time to do some, You know, reading and get inspired and that kind of stuff.

So I actually, I really like this time of year, but I am with you.

Andy Roark: I think it's because we're older. I don't– I've thought about this a lot. 

Stephanie Goss: Is this your way, I was going to say, is this your way of getting back at me and telling me I'm old too?

Andy Roark: Yeah. Welcome to old age. No. So I thought a lot about this, right?

I thought a lot about this in that I, I have definitely come very far in being able to just relax a little bit and kind of let things just be. 

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Andy Roark: I do. I think there's an age component to it. I really do. In my thirties, I would work so hard. I'd be like, I need a break. And then as soon as I got a break, I'd be like, “why isn't there work to do? Clearly we're failing. This is the beginning of the end”  And I would, and I would forget it was always that it was always either, you know, stress about working too much. 

Stephanie Goss: Feast or famine.

Andy Roark: Yeah, exactly. It was feast or famine. And I just, I really struggled to find a sort of middle ground. And then I think, you know, when I hit, for me, a lot of things happened when I turned 42. That was, that was when I burned out and kind of got depressed and everything. I sort of just got a, a different perspective on what the heck are we doing here? I think that was a big deal for me, but I think it kind of, it kind of took that, but I don't know, maybe other people can get it earlier in their life, but I had to be in my, in my mid forties before I was like, you know what? This is okay. It's going to be okay. I, this, this personal development thing I'm working on right now is this, and it's like I, I don't know, everybody's got to make their own path and stuff, and this may sound just ridiculous, but I noticed, Stephanie not long ago, how much my perception and perspective of the world changes in a week.

You know what I mean? Like, the number of times it'll be Friday and I'll be like, God, this was a terrible week. Ah, this is awful and blah, blah, blah. And then the next week I'm like, Hey, great job, everybody. We're the best team. I love our stuff. I love what we're doing. You guys are the best. Man, I hate to go away for the weekend.

I'll see you on Monday. And I'm like. And then I realized like one week ago, I was ready to pack my suitcase and go live in the forest. Like, because that's where I was going to end up anyway. I was like, I was looking, I was literally figuring out which bridge I would live under. I was like, that's, and it's been one week and I'm like, this is amazing.

I don't think I'm alone in that. But I have, I finally recognized how different four days make me feel. And so when I start to be panicked or overwhelmed, I'm like, you know what? I am going to, I'm going to get to Thursday and I'm going to see how I feel. And then I, I, I don't feel like, I don't feel like I'm powerless because I have a plan to reassess on Thursday.

And that has helped me to enjoy the moment a lot more, you know what I mean? And so it's helped me to like, get into like downtimes and go, you know what? I am not going to freak out until the 1st of January. Then we'll see where we are. But I, I had to, I don't know. 

Stephanie Goss: Note to self, put Andy's January 1st freak out on your calendar.

Andy Roark: Yeah, exactly right. You're like, happy new year. Like shut it Goss, we got work to do.

Stephanie Goss: Hey, Ron Sosa, if you're listening, put that on your calendar, prepare for the meltdown. No, I am I, I am with you. I, I do think that there's something to that age or I was going to say, you know, influence. I am a really slow learner, but I feel like after six years of listening to our good friend Eric Garcia talk to me about unplugging and finding harmony in your, your work life I don't think there's work life balance, but, you know, finding, finding that place where it's good. Like, I, I'm, I'm with you. I definitely lean more into the, I like there to be some unstructured.I won't say unproductive because I find when I'm wildly productive but I need some time to just kind of, like, do the things. And I actually am finding that I'm looking forward to them. Whereas before I used to dread feeling like there's no schedule. There's no, like, I should be doing something.

There's work that's got to be done. So I'm, I'm with you there. I am excited about today's episode speaking of living in a box under a bridge in the woods we got an email from a new grad but this is a new grad, I love this email so much. We got an email from a new grad. Who is apparently a long time listener of the show and said wonderfully kind things. And so I want to say thank you for being a listener. And I've always wondered if students listen to us and this made me feel good because they were like, I listened to you all through vet school. 

Andy Roark: That made my day.

Stephanie Goss: I know. Me too. I love it so much because I love the students, but I always wondered like, do they, do they listen? Anyways so it's a new grad. They are working at a, at a practice that they worked at before vet school and which is awesome. And they're struggling with something that I, it makes total sense to me.

And there's a couple of different ways that I've seen this before. Which is, so they you know, kind of grew up in this practice. And now that they're back in the practice, they're struggling with the image that the team has of them, because they worked previously in the practice, and they worked as a technician before vet school, and they came back all excited to be the new grad, as they should be and they love the hospital.

They, you know, they, it's got a great culture. They've got great leadership, great medicine. They're struggling to find some balance right now because the team is asking them to help, a lot, which is, which is a wonderful thing. And they're struggling because they're getting asked to help the other technicians and the other support staff with all of the things that they used to do before they became a vet. So patient care, you know, drawing blood, placing difficult catheters, those kinds of things. And they are struggling not because they don't want to help the team, they absolutely do. This is a practice that highly leverages their support staff. And so they are struggling with the fact that the, the support staff is being used And they are kind of getting asked to do a lot of support staff tasks by, by the other support staff, not by the doctors.

And so they're struggling to find the balance because they get behind on their schedule and then they feel stressed out. They feel like everybody's waiting on them because they're helping out the rest of the team. And they are struggling because they have gotten feedback from the management team that although it's being delivered very kindly, like you're not a technician anymore, please delegate those tasks, like use your time to be the doctor and practice medicine.

And at the same time, they're also getting feedback from the hospital leadership like, thank you for being a team player. Thank you for supporting the techs. Thank you for helping out. And so they're like, these two messages seem at odds. Like, don't do the thing, but also thank you for doing the thing.

And so they are struggling to find the balance where they can be helpful, but also get to be a doctor and make space for themselves in this practice as a doctor. And I just thought this was such a wonderful challenge. And I'm excited to, I'm excited to talk through it with you.

Andy Roark: Yeah, I, I, I like this a lot.

Okay. I love this. I love that this person came up in a practice and they liked it there and they liked the culture and they went to vet school when they came back. I think some people are like, Oh, you shouldn't do that. I disagree. You should– every case. Is, is different. You should do what you want to do.

If there's a place that you love being, then you should be there. And I just, I, I think that that's, I think that's great. This is not at all uncommon, right? We have people who are, who are doctors who are, who were techs at a place and then they change roles and they come back and, and people remember them.

It's called the anchor principle, right? The way that we. The way that someone was when we met them is how we tend to remember them. Like I, I still have people every time they introduce me to someone, they're like, I knew Andy in vet school and it's like, I graduated vet school 15 years ago, you know but, but that's, but that's how they remember me and, and they'll tell me, I still remember this.

It's like, I'm on–I can see 50 from where I am, like I am not, not a vet student anymore, but again, but like it's, I don't take it in a bad way.  But it's a good illustration of how people remember. And so anyway, so this, this does sort of happen. I love this message in that like there's the question about sort of going back to the practice that you were in before and I do get that and wrapped up all around it are a lot of sort of the insecurities or the communication challenges that come with just being a new grad. 

Stephanie Goss: Yes. 

Andy Roark: Just being a new grad going into a practice has a lot of weirdnesses and things like that and sort of trying to find your Place in the practice in the world.

So I think I think this is, I think this is good. 

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. 

Andy Roark: Let's let's get it. Let's get into some headspace. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay, 

Andy Roark: Ready? 

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Andy Roark: All right, cool. All right. So you're this vet and you're getting pulled into doing a lot of tech stuff and the management is starting to be like “hey don't do tech work”  and the techs are “hey, we need help”  and you know and just this person says they're sort of running behind and so they're kind of stuck in the middle. They're kind of trying to balance it.

All right, headspace. If you're this person, you know what it's good to be wanted. And it's good to be capable. It's good to be someone who someone says, “Hey, can you place this catheter? Hey, can you do this?” And there's a lot of vets out there who would say that they, they might secretly say it, but they take great pride in being able to hit veins that other people can’t hit or place catheters that other people can't place. And I get it. I think it's fun to take pride in that. It's good to be wanted. It's good to be liked. It's good to be trusted. It's good to have the staff to say, “Hey, you're my friend. Will you help me out?” And the reason all of those things are good are, you know, we talk a lot about leadership and, and, and running effective teams if you're a doctor.

And I always say, you know, there's two levers that you can pull to motivate people. There's the organizational power and relationship power. Organizational power is “Hey, I'm the vet and you're the tech, so you need to do what I say.” That lever sucks. That's a dumb lever. Don't pull that lever. Nobody likes that lever.

The other one is, “Hey, I like you and I trust you and you like me and you trust me and I need your help and I, you know that I'll be there to help you and that's how we get things done.” That's a great lever to pull. And so like you're clearly in that relationship. Building relationship power place, which is going to be good and healthy in the long term.

I think that's really good. 

Stephanie Goss: Yes. 

Andy Roark: I want to, I want to frame this up as some stakes here because I think it would be easy to be this doctor and to feel like you're failing. Like, ah, I'm doing all this work for the techs. At least for me, especially as a young doctor, I would catastrophize, I'd be like, they're just, they're gonna ask me for stuff and then I'm gonna do it, and then they're gonna ask me for more stuff, and I'm gonna get farther behind.

Stephanie Goss: I'm never gonna get outta the treatment room. 

Andy Roark: I'm never gonna get outta the treatment room, and I'm not gonna see my family, and I'm not gonna get married. I'm not gonna have the kids. I'm not gonna do any of the things that I want to do, and ultimately I'm going to grow old and I'll just, just. Die here.

And you know, and then, then the hospital will just follow the ruin. Cause nobody could do what I do. It's ridiculous. Everything's fine. It's going to be fine. This, this, this is fine. This is not insurmountable.

Stephanie Goss: Insights into Andy's brain. 

Andy Roark: I know it's ridiculous. It's not. It's not all or none, right? It's not.

I'm not going to help the techs. I'm going to stand here with my arms crossed and they will be my instruments because they are fully and completely leveraged. Or I'm going to do all the tech work that people ask me to do. And that's what I like. It's not all or none, it doesn't hurt you to help somebody, and at the same time, it's not going to be the end of the world if you're not available to help somebody.

Like, it's okay, we got this, we're going to sort through it, it'll be fine, but do not beat yourself up if you decide to help somebody, and do not beat yourself up if you decide not to help somebody, because I know people who do that all the time. They kick themselves for helping and they kick themselves for not helping.

And I'm like, Ooh, you put yourself into a horrible position. Why are you doing this? And they're like, I don't know. 

Stephanie Goss: Yes, that was, that was me. That was me as a manager at my last practice. And Andy heard about it regularly. It's a hard spot, but I, but I think that this new grad has a really good outlook and they gave themselves the answer.

I think this is one of those episodes where they answered their own question because they asked the question about finding balance. And I think that that your point that you just made is, is so important that it's not all or nothing. It's about finding that balance base. And I agree with you. I would say really.

The number one thing from a Headspace perspective for me is you're trusted, and that is a good thing. All of these things that are happening are indications of the strength of your relationship with the team, and that is important because that will help you with the action steps. And so I think leaning into, like you said, it's good to be wanted, it's good to be capable, it's good to be liked, all of those things are true, and it does not have to be all or nothing, I think is so, so important.

Andy Roark: Yeah, I, I agree. So I want to, I want to lay down a couple other things here. So say, get this, I do, I love the way this person wrote. I love the question about how do you find balance. I think there's, there's wisdom in that question. That makes me very optimistic. I really, I like that presentation. All right.

There's, there's a couple of things here that I don't know. And so I get questions like this and I always do kind of run in the back of my mind. What is, what is really happening here? 

Stephanie Goss: Okay. 

Andy Roark: And so You know, you were talking before about, the image that the staff has of this doctor, right? And so, so the person was like, Oh, you know, I, this is, this is sort of the image they have of me as of a technician.

And I said, well, you know, we don't know what other people really see. And so it's, it's the perceived image. It’s how the doctor believes that they're being seen. Sure. And so I go. Do they really see you as a technician, or do you think that they see you as a technician, but in reality they see you as a doctor they really like, who's awesome, and who will help them?

I don't know, but it's easy to tell ourselves stories. There's this communication technique that I really like to have hard conversations where it sort of goes basically it's, let's say you and I were doing, we're having a conflict and, and so you were doing something and it, and it bothered me.

And so let's just say you and I are co-lecturing, right? And I feel like you're sort of cutting me off or sort of stepping on my feet and sort of taking, taking control. Let's just say. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay.

Andy Roark: The basic setup would be, “Hey when you do this thing, when you sort of kind of, when we step on each other and then you take control of the conversation, the story I tell myself is ______. It’s that you know is that you don't think that I know what I'm talking about or that you don't think I'm doing it, right? I'm sure that's probably not what you mean, help me understand. You know, let's work through this. And that’s the story I tell myself and so when I look at this and I go, “you know, the techs are doing this because they still see me as a tech”. That's not what this person said. But I would say the story you tell yourself is that they're doing it because you're tech, but I don't really know if that's true and so I think, I think having some, allowing yourself to say, “I'm not really sure how they perceive me, this is kind of the feeling I get, but maybe that's not, I don't really know,” I think that that can help us be more open and flexible in kind of how we deal with the situation, as opposed to saying this is definitely a perception problem that the staff has. Maybe they have it. Maybe, maybe they don't. I don't, I don't know. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of playing with that. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay.

Andy Roark: From a headspace source, you know, a headspace point, you know, the other, the other sort of question I have is what are you, what are you doing in the treatment room is what I would want to know.

And so, again, it's not, this is not. I'm not trying to poke, I'm not trying to poke, but I want to know honestly. And so if you're the doctor and you're in the treatment room, are you doing something that sends the signal that you're available? That's what I'm trying to get at. 

Stephanie Goss: Sure. 

Andy Roark: You know, like what are, what are they seeing?

Cause where does perception come from? And so I, when I think about if I'm running behind, if I'm running behind. It's very rare for someone to ask me to help them because I'm usually head down doing stuff. You know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm typing up my records. I am, you know, moving to the next room. I've got a telephone receiver in my hand.

Like, you know what I mean? I'm doing it. And so that would be part of it. It's just sort of running the audit and being like when you get asked, this is sort of the diagnostic phase, when you get asked, what are you doing? Are you standing there? Are you waiting for your next room? Are you, you know what?

Yeah, how is this interaction happening? Because I do think a lot of what you say and how you say it comes along with the context. I think it's pretty darn hard to look good if you're a vet and you're standing there with your hands in your pockets and someone's like, can you help me? And you say, well, that's technician work.

I think that's a bad look. You know, I think it's a bad look. I think if you’re head down typing up your medical records and somebody goes, can you help me? And you say, “I can't, I, I am already behind for my next one. What do you need? Is there some, is there somebody else who could support you?” I don't think that, I don't think it looks bad.

You know what I mean? I think that's being honest and that's kind of where it comes around to me with this. Again, I was going to say in the headspace, one of my favorites, “clear as kind.” Which is when they say, “Hey, can you help me?” And I'm, and I'm running behind for my appointment. I'm going to say, “I, I, I am running behind for this appointment. Is there anybody else who can help you?” And if there's nothing, I'm, I'll help them, you know what I mean? I'll, I'll do it. But I'm going to, I'm going to kind of push back on that. There's, there's this idea that we talk about a lot, you know, you and I are both big fans of positive reinforcement training and that's for humans.

That's not for pets. It is also for pets, but for both pets and humans, positive reinforcement training, right? It's this belief that people are pretty simple, no matter who they are. And if people exhibit a behavior and they get positively rewarded for that behavior, then they're probably going to do that behavior again.

And what my thought here is like, okay, I want to, I want to do a quick assessment of what is, what is the behavior and how is it getting rewarded? So, is it the case that the technicians look around, they see this doctor, they know that he or she will jump right in if asked. And so they ask, and the doctor drops what they're doing and immediately jumps in and helps.

And if you do that, it's good, in a way, that you have jumped in and helped. However, you have to be really careful about training your staff to ask you to jump in and help them do their jobs. 

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Andy Roark: And so, you know, part of the thing in the headspace here is I would just sort of say, maybe this is action steps, but I, I want to introduce the idea of a little bit of friction into this equation, meaning I don't think it's wrong.

And this is true, we teach this to our managers as well. It's definitely not wrong to help people. I want to help people. However, I'm a big fan of helping people with a little bit of friction, which means they have to need my help. You know, we, we all know people who jump in and help and give their time and their energy and their hearts just at the drop of a hat.

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Andy Roark: And I would say, I, I think. I think you would be better off if you made people ask twice, you know, before you, before you poured your heart and soul into whatever they ask, because you see those people and they're always just completely overwhelmed with work. And a lot of times they're not that appreciated.

That's the thing is people just, they're so used to asking and you just go, sure, I'll do it right away. No problem. At some point they go, well, it's not a problem for her and she's just super happy to do it. And so she doesn't need it to be thanked or appreciated. And so anyway, you don't take this too far.

But I do, that would be a question I have is, what are you doing to sort of create friction? Are you dropping everything and immediately helping people out? Or are you saying to them, which I often say, they'll say, Hey, can you help me with this? And I will say, I am, I am going to, I'm about to finish this record up.

And when I get done, if you still need my help, then I'll jump in and help you. And then I go and finish them and I finish up my record. And often they will find someone else before I get done with my record. And, and, and that's just kind of the way it is. But but that brings me sort of to the last point, which is, which is priorities and thinking about what your priorities are.

I think as a doctor, especially if you're getting some pressure from management to be doing doctor things, and you're getting pressure from technicians to do technician things, remember that you can't be all things to all people, and you cannot make everybody glowingly happy. At some point, you have to decide what your priorities are, and you have to work to your priorities. Which means, for me, Getting, seeing my own patients is a higher priority for me than seeing other people's patients.

Stephanie Goss: Mm hmm. 

Andy Roark: It is, and I don't, I hope that doesn't make people mad, but it is true. Like, I have patients that I am responsible for, and I have clients that I am responsible for. They're the clients who came to see me, and so if you, if I am getting ready to go into an exam room and somebody else is like, “hey, I would really like help with this patient that I'm working up for this other doctor.” My higher priority is going to the exam room or is to go to the exam room. Now, if you say, no one has helped me, it's been 30 minutes, this, I was like, you know what? Fine. I will, I will help you because I'm a, I'm a nice guy. 

Stephanie Goss: Well, and that's, that's teamwork. Right. Like recognizing that everybody needs to give and take.

And so that other doctor's patient, there's a big difference between you're just the first person they saw. They've literally been holding the pet for two seconds, jumping in and helping versus I have been waiting. This client has been waiting. Can you please help? Those are those are two very different things.

And I think that that's really that that perspective is really important.  

Andy Roark: Yeah. So, so that those are, those are the things that I would start to kick around as this, as this doctor, just to get your head straight, you know, and again, we'll talk about sort of conversations and how to kind of have conversations.

But feel good that you're wanted and that you can do all these things and that's great. Be gentle with yourself. This is you'll never get it right. You're always looking for the balance. And the idea with this funny with balance is I think a lot of people picture in their head, like, I'm going to get this perfectly right. To me balance is not balance. Balance is the alternation that you're alternating between overdoing it and not doing enough. Overdoing it and not doing enough. And today I overdid it and tomorrow I didn't do enough. That's balance. Like when you zoom out and you look at the week and you look at the month, the year, your career, that's balance is alternating days of doing too much and not doing enough.

And so you're, you're never going to get it perfectly and keep it there. Just, just be kind and gentle to yourself. Right? Remember do a quick self assessment and say, what am I doing? What am I, am I doing anything that is inviting people to ask me for my time to help them with technical work? Am I, you know, am I, am I, am I standing around, you know, should I, I mean, it's just basic simple things in the clinic.

Like there are certain places that I know that if I go and I stand, people will ask me to jump in and do stuff. They just will. Because that's where stuff is happening. And I also know that if I want to get my charts written up, there's a computer back near the surgery suite. Nobody goes back there after surgeries are done.

I can sit down there and I can bang my stuff out and people are not going to ask me for anything. And so when I have free time. I hang out in the place where people are going to ask me to do stuff. And when I start getting behind, I'll be back there at that, at that, you know, back workstation hammering out my work.

That's not bad. That's just about me pursuing my priorities. Priorities being, I have clients that I am responsible for as a veterinarian, the technicians are responsible for the pool of pets coming in. I have clients that I am responsible for. And so my higher priority is getting my clients taken care of and it's the responsibility of the techs to deal with a pool of pets.

And so anyway, that doesn't mean I can't help them. But when it comes down to, do you take path A, which is going into the exam room, to take path B of going to help with somebody else's patient, I'm going to the exam room because that's my priority. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. I like that. Do you, I know we already started kind of talking about some of the action steps.

Do you want to take a break and then jump in with maybe some action steps and how to have some of the conversations? 

Andy Roark: Yeah, let's do it. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay.

Stephanie Goss: It's finally here! That's right. Our very first Uncharted certificate. What's that, Stephanie? Well, I'm glad you asked. See, Andy and I had a conversation along with some members of the Uncharted team where we were wondering, what skills does a leader have to have? And we talked about the fact that as leader, you have the ability to shape your team's culture.

And there are some very specific skills that are needed, and unfortunately, those kind of skills are most often not taught to us. And so we sat down and outlined seven of the crucial building block skills that any leader should have, and we are putting it out into the world with our, in partnership with our friends at NAVC and VETFOLIO.

We have launched the certificate through VETFOLIO's platform. So it is seven workshops. That are all broken out into modules. We start with talking about building trust and relationships, how to set a vision for a team, and even more granular, how to figure out what your core values are as a human, as a smaller team within a bigger team, and as a practice as a whole, and then how to use those core values to make decisions, to communicate, to really run your practice as a well oiled in sync team. We talk about communication styles and using disc as a tool for how you communicate better and more effectively as a team. We talk about how to give feedback, how to do coaching, and that applies whether you're someone's positional boss or not. We have to talk to each other as human beings in practice. And so we dive into how do we do that and how do we do it in a way that feels less scary than it might feel to some of us. We talk about how to get team buy in, how to get everybody excited about ideas and initiatives in our practice.

We talk about how to set priorities and then how to achieve those priorities and get stuff done. I am thrilled that this is now available for all of you and there's much more where this came from. So head on over to unchartedvet.com/certificates. That's right. Certificate with an S at the end and check out the leadership essentials course.

You can get the link from there to Vetfolio. You can buy one piece, you can buy all seven and get the certificate as a whole, but either way we are. So excited. And now back to the podcast.

Andy Roark: All right. So, so let me start talking about this a little bit as far as the first action step for me. Well, the first action for me is to run your diagnostics. Like, where are you? What are you doing? When people ask you for help, what exactly are you doing? Where are you standing? Do you have your hands in your pockets?

Do you look available? Are you standing there waiting for your technician to come back to you? Then my thought would be maybe we need to change this up because if you stand there and wait for your tech, you're going to end up getting grabbed and pulled into other things. Maybe you need to be going to where your technician is.

Maybe, you know, maybe we need to figure out a workflow that gets you out of the treatment room so that you get to work with your technician as opposed to getting pulled into other things. I don't know. So, run your, run your audit, run your diagnostics on, on how you're getting pulled away, right? The second thing is introducing friction.

It is, you are not the go to person to do technician work, right? You, you're capable of doing it, you're competent, people will ask you to do it, and if you are the fastest path to getting what they want, they will continue to ask you for that. Do not be afraid to introduce some friction so that other people are more appealing than you are.

That doesn't mean being a jerk and dragging your feet. There's nothing wrong with saying. I'm not going to be available for a couple of minutes. I need to make a phone call before I can help you. If you haven't found somebody, when I get off the phone, I will certainly help you. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah.

Andy Roark: And it is starting to get your phrases down like that, that introduces that friction. So I'll help you, but I'm probably not going to be your easiest solution. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. 

Andy Roark: Action step number three, clear as kind. Work on your phrases of politely saying no. You know, how do you, how do you gently redirect someone who helps you when you don't have the time to help them because you have your own fires burning?

And we can sort of talk about what that, what that sort of looks like.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. I think that the gentle part is hard. Not because people don't want to be gentle, but because it's like, Oh, I don't, you know, you want to help. And so you're like, I don't want them to get mad at me because I say no.

And like, that's, I have had the internal, argument and knowing, like, if they're, in my thought, in my head, I'm assuming good intent, and the story I'm telling myself is, if they're coming to ask me, they've probably waited and asked everybody else. Like that, I'm assuming good intent on their part, and so, and so, If I'm telling myself that story, then it becomes really easy to say, of course, I'll come help you because I'm sure you've asked everybody else in the building.

And I will tell you, once I started, I was, I was this person, but as a manager and some of the coaching that Andy gave me was introducing friction. And it was amazing how when I started asking, I struggled with asking the question, have you asked anybody else? Because to me that felt mean, I guess? Or, I don't know, offensive?

I didn't, I didn't want them to be offended. Like, I didn't want them to assume that I was assuming, I didn't want them to think that I was not assuming good intent, and so I struggled with how to ask that question. So for me, the preferred path became, and the language that I felt comfortable with was your alternative, which was I, this is, I'm finishing this thing, giving them a specific time point.

Like, I, I need two minutes, I need five minutes, whatever. If you haven't found anybody else, then I can come help you. And it was trying to figure out what words felt comfortable for myself. And trying to figure out how to ask that question. Is there anyone else available? And get over the, like, guilt I was putting on myself. Because I, just because I asked them that question doesn't mean that I was not assuming good intent on their part. Like, it is also okay to say, I'm assuming that you've asked everybody else for help, right? Because then it gives them the opportunity to say, oh, well, no, I actually haven't. And it was amazing to me how many times they were, they, in the beginning, it was just like, Oh, well, but I assumed like, no, I just came to ask you because I know that you can help me and we can get it done really fast.

Andy Roark: It is really common. I want to play another part of this because we're sort of talking about, about sort of why this is important. I'll tell you one of the things that I didn't realize that I was doing to employees early in my career is this. And so, and you, you will remember this as soon as I start telling the story, I, I tend to move fast and ask people to get things done.

You know, like, like, Hey, we're, we're doing these things. And I have been truly blessed to work with wonderful people like Stephanie Goss in my career who desperately want to do great work and really bust their butts. And so I would say, Hey, Stephanie, can you do this thing for me? Or, Hey, Stephanie, can you help me with this?

And she would say, yes. And I didn't realize all of the things that she was juggling when I asked her, can you help me with this? And the way that I would find out, and this is not necessarily with Stephanie, but this is a pattern, was the person would break down. They would be, I would be like, can you help me with this?

And they would cry and I'd be like, I'm sorry, why are you crying? Like, you don't have to, you don't have to help. It's like, I can do this. Why are you crying? And they're like, because I have all these things and I'm way behind that you're going to be upset because I didn't do this thing. And I'm like, I, I just, I had no idea.

And so I really, I had to. Have, I developed a speech, I developed a speech that we do at Uncharted when I say to people when they come and work, listen, I am going to ask you to do things and I need you to communicate back to me when you have other things that you have to deal with. And if you're getting overwhelmed, I need you to say that.

And the best, the way to do it is the way that, that I think works best for our employees that I hold up as an example is I will say, Hey, can you help me with this? And this came from Jamie Holmes, but Jamie will say, okay, I am, I've got these other two things that you asked me to do. Is this a higher priority than those, or do you want me to do this after I get done with them?

You know, or she'll say. Okay, I am working on this other thing. Do you, are you able to wait for this until tomorrow, you know, or something like that. But the pattern was the same. It is, I received, she received the request. She said, this is what I am currently juggling. What is the timeline? For your request, or how fast do you need this?

Or is there someone else who might be able to get to this first? And, and I, I, I, and I use her phrases as examples for the rest of the team because I do not want people to say, yes, I will help you. And then they go home and they cry because they're overwhelmed and they're burned out. And I'm saying all this because I truly believe the technicians do not want this doctor to get in trouble. They don't want this doctor to get behind.

They don't want this doctor to get in trouble with the management. They they just they don't they're just in the moment. They're like I could use some help and she's really good and she's standing right there. And so they ask, you know and so anyway, but I but I say that In that, as the person who makes the request, I want the person receiving the request to communicate their needs back to me because I don't want to burn them out and I don't want to make their life hard and I don't want to ask them for a favor if it's going to make them go home and feel like they're failing.

I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to do that, but I can't know, that's the case if you don't communicate with me. And so getting these phrases down of, “Hey, have you asked somebody else?” I think that's important. The piece that I would add into the wording that you said was, I really like I really like sort of Jamie's approach of when they say, Hey, can you come and hold this cat?

And I say, I'm getting ready to head into a room. Have you, is there anybody else you could ask? Or have you asked everybody? That, that doesn't sound bad to me. It doesn't sound bad. Other people would say, ooh, that's too much conflict, Andy.

Stephanie Goss: Right. 

Andy Roark: Like, that's too much conflict. And I get it. I don't like conflict.

I used to be very conflict averse. I'm still fairly conflict averse. I don't enjoy conflict. However, I will tell you as I have gotten old, as I have aged.

Stephanie Goss: He's not afraid to hold up his get off my lawn sign.

Andy Roark: It's not that, I've just had enough bad days that I know where this goes. You know what I mean? I have been soft and non confrontational so many times that I know exactly where it goes.

And I spent so many afternoons or evenings being mad for having to do something that I was nicely asked to do and immediately and enthusiastically said yes to. That finally I realized this is ridiculous. Like I'm angry you in control. I'm resentful because I said yes, right to this thing. When they asked me, yes, that's bonkers.

Yeah, but it's just, and again, and so at some point it sank in and so I said, I don't like confrontation. But you know what I hate more? Just going home and being angry or feeling like I'm overwhelmed or feeling like I'm in trouble.  And so I'm going to pick my poison, which is what we do a lot as managers and leaders. We pick our poison. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. 

Andy Roark: And so you're going to pick your poison one way or another. You're either going to say something fairly soft. And respectful, like we just said, or you're going to say yes. And then you're going to deal with the consequences of saying yes. And being in doing technician work instead of doctor work, I can't tell you which one to do.

And here's the other thing too. Some days I'll pick a different poison.

Stephanie Goss: Right.

Andy Roark: You know, some days I'll just do the thing because I'm in a good mood. I'm not behind schedule and I'm happy to help other days. I just can't, I can't even. And so I am going to I. I am sorry. I am absolutely buried. Is there anybody else you can ask?

I am absolutely buried. Can I take a look at it when I come out of this appointment? If you don't, if you can't find somebody else before then, and I will say it and it, that may some, for some people, that's, that's a conflict that they go. Ooh. To me, that's not a lot of conflict. And I am fully aware of the pain of not having that conflict.

And so I will experience less pain if I suck it up and say the thing.

Stephanie Goss: Yes, so, okay, so for me it's an and, not not an or, but I, I hear you on the either or phrasing, and I agree with you, so I think part of it is figuring out what you feel comfortable with to introduce that friction, and I think the idea for me shifting the language in my head helped a lot when I stopped thinking about it as being mean to them, or, you know, in my head, the story I was telling myself was that if I said no, I was being mean to them, or I was not giving them what they needed, and therefore I was a horrible boss, and I was living in a box in the woods, like that was the catastrophizing I was doing, and so for me it was about switching that that language.

And I love your, your calling it friction because that was easier for my brain to be like, Oh, I'm not telling them. No, I'm telling them what I can do for them. By saying I need to finish this chart or I have to call this client back because I told him I would call them by 10. I will come downstairs as soon as I'm done and if you still need my help, I would be happy to help. Right. Like it's a, it's a yes. And what it's just like client service. What can I do for them? So that was part number one. And then the and is also when we think about training them and we think about the positive behavior, the other piece of this for me, action steps wise, besides the ones you said, which is giving them the touch of friction, is is a communication. And so part of it for me is telling, asking them for their help and saying, Hey, I want to help you when you really need it. So it would help me a lot if when you came to ask me for help, you let me know to your point about Jamie's wording. What is your time frame?

Is this immediate? Or have you asked somebody else and start training them to do the thing that you want? And so I asked, I, I did ask my team. I said, Hey, when you got, I'm happy to help when you come and get me. Can you please be just really specific? I've asked everybody else. Or there's no, we've been waiting for, like, to your point, we've been waiting for a half hour.

This client's been waiting. I really need some help. Can you come downstairs in the next five minutes and help me do this thing? Because that helps me. Give them more yes or no answers like I know what they need and it helps me frame my needs as well And so asking them for that help and so I just went to the team and I said, hey, I'm really struggling. I really want to help you guys.

I love you. I know that you're overwhelmed. I know you're short staffed. I want to help you and I'm struggling to stay on top of my duties and my schedule and I'm trying to find some balance. And so I could use your help when you come and ask me, could you please try and tell me these two things? Like, what have you already done and what is your time frame?

And I was amazed at how much that helped. My, even just my own emotions and instead of getting super irritated that someone was coming in asking me for help again, I knew that if they were coming to me, the chances were they had already asked everybody else for help and they were going to tell me exactly what they needed and when they needed it by.

And it was amazing how much that helped me be able to, um, take the emotion and the, the frustration at not being able to stay on schedule out of it. And it was both of us helping each other, you know, I knew what they needed. And then it was like, if they said, if they said to me in the next 10 minutes, then I said, great, let me make this really quick client phone call.

They're not going to answer. They've already told me that I just need to leave a message two minutes. I'll be downstairs, right? Like then it's really clear communication on both sides and nobody has to feel. hurt or angry or any of the things that that happen when things are unsaid and it's like to your point clear as kind and so asking them for help was really was really really important and that was gonna be for me the the big action step is like acknowledging to them. “I love that you guys trust me I love that you want to ask me for help and I'm kind of struggling because I'm trying to like trying to be a good doctor and I'm trying to take care of my clients and my patients and that means I need to stay on time and so can you help me do that by…” and then ask for what you need?

Andy Roark: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. The last in the moment trick that I have that I use is this, and it is, it is refusing to do the technician part. And so here, here's, here's what I mean. And this writer put it really nicely, it's like we have, we have well leveraged technicians, we want them doing what they do.

And then I'm getting asked and I'm coming over and I'm doing the technician part, so the catheter placement, the blood draws, the cytology reading, whatever it is. Right, they're doing that. One of the tricks that you can use as a doctor is, you can refuse to do that part, and the way you do it is, you take the assistant position and push the tech into the tech spot, and so for example, like what this looks like is, let's just say that I'm, busting it, hustling around the treatment room, and one of my techs is holding this dog, or this cat, and he says, hey, Dr. Roark, can you get blood on this cat? I will say, no, but I can hold that cat so you can get blood on it. 

Stephanie Goss: Right. 

Andy Roark: And then, and then I will go in and hold the cat and push him into the blood draw place.

And so at first you might say, but Andy, you're still helping. It's like, I am, but I'm not letting them dodge the stressful part, you know, and I'm continuing to push them to develop these skills. And I'm still holding this as this is what the technicians do. It's not what I do. And so I am not going to draw blood for you, but I will hold the pet for you.

It's also funny, too. It's. It's fascinating that people will ask you to draw blood, but they feel bad if you restrain the pet. Does that make any sense?

Stephanie Goss: It doesn't make sense, but it absolutely does make sense. 

Andy Roark: Yeah. It doesn't make sense, but it does make sense. And you're like, Ooh, and it's funny because I will say, I, I'm not going to try. I will hold the cat and you can draw the blood. I will do that. And then there are a couple of things happen here. They have not been relieved of the part. 

Stephanie Goss: Right.

Andy Roark: That they were hoping to give away. I'm like, no, you're, if you ask me, I'm still gonna make you do the thing. You're still gonna have to and now you're gonna have to do it with me, the doctor, watching you do it.

Which I know stresses them out. I'm not trying to make it more stressful. But when the doctor is holding the patient and you've got the needle in your hand, you, I'm here helping you. I, it just got more stressful for you because I'm here. And again, I'm not, I'm not trying to play this up. Don't think that I'm, I'm trying to make it worse.

It just, it's just the way it settles and it feels. And that by itself is the friction I was talking about before of, I really rather not have him holding the pet. And me having to do the thing. And then the other part is for whatever reason, people will see me holding, holding a dog or whatever and they, they're not okay with that. They don't like seeing me in my, you know, in my slacks. Hold it, you know, holding this, holding this pet. And so I have found that people will get loose and be like, Dr. Roark, let me, let me take that. Let me take that pet for you. Maybe I'm doing it terribly wrong and that's why they're doing it.

I don't think so. I think that they just genuinely, maybe I'm a terrible holder and no one's ever told it to me. I don't think so. I'm fear free certified. I've done the thing. But they seem a whole lot, they're a whole lot more willing to push me out of the way if I'm holding the pet than if I'm holding the syringe and pulling the blood.

They're not going to come and push me out of the way. But here's the thing. I want to be pushed out of the way, so I'm going to go and do the thing they're most likely to push me out of the way. And that is holding the pet. Now, if I have,if I have an assistant, a young technician, I mean young in her, in his or her career I can take a coach role here and they'll say, Hey, will you draw this blood?

I'll say, I will not, but I will hold this and I will see if I can help you get blood on this, on this cat. And I've got a little bit of a coach role. And again, that also, reinforces my role as the doctor, right? And I'm not trying to be condescending. I'm not condescending. But again, all these are weird.

Stephanie Goss: You’re teaching.

They're weird politics to play, but just let me put that in your head as, as a play. And I do use that one a lot. I just, I have found it to, I have found it to work. I found it to work well, and it still empowers my tax. It gives them, it keeps them doing the things that are in their license that I want them to do.

And it also, it also gets me out of there fairly quickly. I feel like it, I feel like I still get points for helping and also I'm not going to be their first choice to ask to, you know, to, to hold in the future because it's stressful. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. And I think the end result getting, getting out of there faster is, is the bonus. Because I think if we think about it from the perspective of this practice, this new grad told us they have a great culture. Their culture is leveraging. the paraprofessional staff at the top of their level. And so you're just reinforcing that. When you ask them to do the thing, and I'll hold it for you, you do the thing.

You're reinforcing and living the value of the practice. And the unintended, or intended unintended benefit, side effect, bonus, is that you get out of it, usually to your point faster, because people will come by, Oh yeah, let me hold, let me hold that pet because it's easier to step in mid thing and hold a pet than it is to step in midway and to somebody who's drawing the blood, to your point, and I think that it doesn't it's really easy, it could be really easy to look at it from the perspective of, oh, that's like, you're just, you're playing mind games, but that's not what it's about.

It's about reinforcing the values and living the values of this practice and to your point, being it. being that coach instead of the player and supporting the team. Like, yeah, I want to support you guys. I'll hold it for you. You do the, you do the thing, you know, and I, I don't think you're not refusing to help them.

You are still helping them and you're supporting the culture that you've, that this practice has built that attracted you to it in the first place. Like, that's why this new grad loved it. You know, was because they thought they had a great culture. So I think that's a, I think that's a win win.

Andy Roark: Yeah, no, the last one I got is not on the floor.

This is kind of the last, this is the, the, the last play for me is if it's really gotten out of hand and you feel like you're getting pulled all the, all the, all the ways and the things that we're talking about before as far as sort of communicating the moment are not working and there's not subtle changes to make, it's time to go to management and ask for help.

And so what that looks like is the leadership team can do what we call a team reset, which is where it's where you bring the team together and you say, guys, Dr. Smith is is Dr. Smith was here as a technician and I know that you guys are all friends with him. And we want to make a shift to make sure that he's not getting pulled into technician work so that he doesn't fall behind seeing appointments.

And so I'm going to ask you guys, and this is great, I wouldn't do this at an all hands meeting. I would just do this as a technician meeting, but just be like, Hey we're trying to keep Dr. Smith on schedule. Or yeah, we, we want to make sure that we're utilizing Dr. Smith as a doctor. Guys, please, if there's someone else that you can ask for help, please ask them first and blah, blah, blah. And we call it a team reset because a lot of times if we have behaviors that are in the practice and they're widespread, having individual conversations is inefficient. Yeah, absolutely. At some point, it's better to bring everybody together, tell them why you're making the request and what your request is, and then start to do or lean into doing the in the moment feedback that we talked about, which is after everybody's been told, then I, if I was Dr. Smith, I would lean hard into the things we talked about before because they've gotten, they've gotten a reminder. They've gotten a heads up about why we're trying to make this change. And it won't be the first time that they've heard of it. And so anyway, I don't know if that's necessary. A lot of times we can kind of work it out in the moment if it's not a big deal, if it's really widespread and especially if management is giving you a hard time and saying, “Hey, you know, we want you doing doctor work, not tech work.” I might push back and say, I need your help letting people know that I have a hard time saying no, and I need their help in not getting sucked into the technician work. 

Stephanie Goss: I, I love that. And I think that the Jedi the Jedi trick is as a, as a manager, as a leader is remembering and recognizing that the anchor principle is real.

And so whether it's the practice owner's kid who's gone to vet school, but grew up in the clinic and the people who've worked there forever, see them as the teenager cleaning the kennels, right? Or the doctor like this who worked as a technician and just recognizing that people are going to see that person as how they were when they first met them.

And so from a manager perspective, I've been in this scenario twice and, and the way that I went about it the second time was very different from the first because I learned living this experience with a new grad who really did struggle. And so the second time around, When they started, I started off on the right foot and I said to the whole team, Hey, today is Dr. Roark’s first day.

And I just want to remind everybody, like he kicked ass, he went to vet school, he worked really, really hard. And so I know that you all know that he's super capable of helping out on the floor. I know that you know that he can draw blood and everything. And I need to ask everybody's help because today is his first day as a doctor.

And we want him to be successful as a doctor. And so let's remember. You can absolutely ask for help. Ask everybody else first, right? Like, let's support each other. Let's remind each other. Let's try and, you know, help each other. Like, let's just be extra cognizant of it. And asking them for the help right out of the gate really, really made a big difference.

And just gently calling it out. In my case, it happened to be. It's a situation where there's a practice, practice owner's kid and I said, you know, they're, they're an adult now, you know, like they're, they're, they're, they went to vet school and they can, they can do, do all the things. So like, let's just, you know, let's just recognize that and, and be supportive of them.

And it went well. Significantly smoother, shockingly, than the first go round where they had to come and say, I'm really struggling because everybody keeps asking me for help and I really want to help, but I'm so behind on my charts and I just don't, you know, I don't know what to do. Please help me. And so I think recognizing that as a leader, if you're in this situation, like that's, that's the next level trick.

Andy Roark: Yeah, no, I agree. Well, cool. That's, that's what I got. I don't know. I hope that that's, I hope that's helpful. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I think this was this was fun. Hopefully it helped our, our new grad listener. Have a great rest of the week, everybody. 

Andy Roark: Yeah, everybody take care of yourselves.

Stephanie Goss: Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message.

You can always find the mailbag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can. Email us at podcast at uncharted vet. com. Take care everybody and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.

On this week's episode, Dr. Andy Roark and veterinary practice management nerd Stephanie Goss look back at the past year and talk about some of the the leadership lessons they've learned. Together they discuss learning to lean into the uncomfortable things, how learning to have patience is key as a leader and how slowing down is sometimes necessary when you want your team to eventually get faster. Let's get into this episode….

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

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast. And sadly, we are down to the last two episodes of this year's season. But, we've got some good conversation and I'm hoping that the holidays don't keep you all away from listening to this episode and next week's because they were really fun discussions.
So this week, Andy and I had a great conversation. We kind of took a look back at 2023 and talked about some of the leadership lessons that we both individually learned through our work in Uncharted as a company, through participating in conversation with our Uncharted community members and our experiences in the clinic over this last year. So lots of lessons learned. Some of them really, really good ones, some of them a little challenging, maybe a little bit painful. But ultimately, this year was a year of growth and we had a really good time getting into the weeds, discussing some of our favorite lessons learned. So now let's get into this.

Announcer:
And now, The Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie, another Turning Point of fork stuck in the road, Goss.

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

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man, it's crazy. We're sitting down here to do our end of the year episode. But as we're recording it, we haven't really started the holiday yet. And so I'm just kind of like, I wonder how I'm going to feel when we get to the end. But yeah, things are good here. Just looking ahead. I thought that things were going to slow down a little bit right around now, and they have not. They have just-

Stephanie Goss:
Kept on going.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, they've just gotten super, super busy. But we are getting ready to unleash the top secret project, which is, it feels weird to be talking about it because it's not out yet. And so we have kept this thing under wraps for a long time. But it's our Leadership Essentials Certificate that we're partnering with VetFolio to put out. It's a big deal. And whenever I think about the future, I'm like, man, I wonder what people think of our certificate? Because boy, we worked hard it.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I am excited. This has been a fun thing. I remember when you and me and Ron Sosa were sitting together and brainstorming, where could we go? Right after Ron came on board, our team had changed, we were imagining the future and we just started nerding out about what are the things that our community members ask us for and what are the things that our experience in practice tells us, in terms of people needing? And we were all excited about the idea of creating foundational building blocks to then help build on when it comes to leadership and business-

Dr. Andy Roark:
… stack going, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Business skills. And so I am excited for this and I am excited… I think much to the team's dismay, sometimes you and I get excited about the thing that we're doing because we're also excited about the five things that come after that. And so I am excited about this and I'm also excited for what I know the future could hold, and all of the other things to come because we've got so many ideas. 2024 is going to be a good year. I am excited. Lots of new things coming.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's going to be a big year. It's going to be a real big year. It's funny, when we were planning this thing out, I knew at the time we were planning it out. I was like, this is the biggest project we've ever really tackled. And we're in it now, buddy. But people don't recognize it was a dozen massive flip chart pieces of paper laid out. It was like, you've seen the top half of the first one so far. But this thing is going to be huge. But it's exciting, it's super exciting.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, it is. And it's funny because this time of year is normally, like you said, normally we kind of get a lull here in the fall and we get a chance to catch our breath. And I remember in the clinic it was the same way. School would start and then there would kind of be this lull before the holidays started and we did boarding and stuff and you're always busy over the holidays, you do boarding. But there was always kind of this time period where everybody got to catch up and I just feel like it's been going, going, going. And here we are, we're recording this at the beginning of November and we're talking about 2024. We're already planning events and I literally just recorded a podcast with Tyler from our team and our friend Eric Garcia, and we were talking about VMX and things that are happening in January. And so the world feels like it's on fast-forward right now in a lot of ways.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think a lot of that is us and kind of where we are. And so I was thinking about the last year sort of for us. And so we've been banging away on this project with Vetfolio behind the scenes. And man, they've been a wonderful partner. I've really loved working with them. But this thing was a huge lift and we needed a partner to do something of the scale that we're setting up to do. But it's been a lot. We ironed out those details and we're filming this stuff. And with the Leadership Essentials Certificate, the whole point was to make a learning tool for the things that people really need to have if they're going to manage other people.
And again, you have to get real specific about that and you have to really drill down. But just to say, look, if these are the things I could give you before you start leading other people or as you're leading other people. And for a lot of people, if you've never had any management training, this is if I could have you for one day, that was the general idea is if I had one day to help you as much as I could, what would I do? And that's you and I have been working with groups for the last three years, four years. And boy, we've done a lot of training and a lot of workshops. And this was you and me in Greenville looking at all of our stuff and saying, “Let's build it. Let's build the first one.” And we did.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I'm excited because some of my favorite stuff is in this. I think we approached it very, very holistically when we were talking about it. Where do I wish, if I could rewind time and look back at new manager Stephanie and I would want… I don't know so much. I didn't really think about it in the context of how to manage other people. I think I look at this first one as what is this stuff that I wish that I knew before I started running the practice? Because we do talk about stuff that's relevant to working with other people. There's content in there about communication styles and we've got stuff in there about giving and receiving feedback and coaching and those kinds of things. And at the same time, part of it is also about how do you bring a team together and how do you start to work together as a team?
So I'm really excited for that. I agree with you, that's the stuff nobody teaches us. That's why I said I'm really excited about there's so much more because you and I have big ideas for the lessons that we didn't learn in terms of managing people, how to communicate with each other, the kind of leadership stuff that we both learned a lot of it by trial and error, but also then going and seeking our own learning and knowledge outside the industry. And so I'm really excited for all of the things that are to come. But it's interesting that you brought up looking back at the year because we were talking about what could we do here at the year-end for the podcast? And we were talking about we've got all of this stuff coming up and we talked about should we flip it forward and talk about what's coming in 2024. And I think we're excited to do that.
But today, we're not going to do that. You might think we are because we started that way. But today we wanted to talk about this year. And I said we had so much fun having the conversation with each other about some of the lessons that we learned and leadership lessons that we learned. And it's spawned some great conversations for me with some of our friends in the industry on their lessons learned and stuff. But I said, how about if we talk about some of the lessons that we learned this year?
And I think one of the pieces of feedback that we get most commonly from podcast listeners is that they love when we talk about what's happening in our lives and in our own experiences. And we've learned so much and we've grown up so much in so many ways as a team, as a company, and as an industry. There's been so much change this last year. And so I think you and I were like, yeah, let's talk about this last year and kind of our top takeaways, like what are some of the things that we learned that we want to move into 2024 with? And so I think this one will probably be a little bit different. We'll probably dive into a little bit of headspace and action. Subsequent more than anything. I think we wanted to have a conversation about what are some of the things that 2023 taught us.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I kind of gave up on New Year's resolutions a couple years ago. Probably more than a couple. But this just never worked for me. And I don't know, I was always kind of like, “This isn't going to work. What am I doing here?” And I started thinking about, I really like having an end of year ritual. And the ritual that has worked for me and really stuck is a good reflection on the last year. And what have I learned? What would I take away? What am I glad that I experienced so that I can take that forward? And it's much less about committing to something in the future and more about just stopping and sitting with what happened in the last year. So I really like that. It's just sort of a way of, I don't know, enjoying life a bit more.
And so when we start talking about this and we're looking here, we're here doing our end of the year episode and we're sort of looking back, it's been a fascinating year. It's been kind of a tumultuous year for me personally. But not bad. It's been hard, it's been a hard year. It's been a hard year. I'm happy to talk about that. I said this to somebody recently, “I can tell you, I can look you in the eye and tell you that I am better at my job now than I was a year ago.” I have no doubts that I'm better at my job than I was a year ago. And it's because of hardship.
And so it's funny, because the only way that you know that you're better at your job is by struggling. Because if you don't struggle, you don't know that you're better. I can look back and go, “Yeah, I would do that differently. Yeah, I would set that up differently. Yeah, I would've intervened faster there and slower in this other place. And I know why I would do that, and in the future I will do that, which is why I know that I'm better.”
But you have to be able to look back and say, a year ago, this is where I was and I would not do that again. So anyway, that's kind of where I'm, as I sort of look back on the year. No regrets and everything has worked out really well. But boy, it was a year of growth for us. Just sort of looking back, for me, a couple of things happened. We basically doubled in size. Our team doubled in size. And boy, that really stretched our infrastructure. The way we talk to each other, keeping people on the same page was a much bigger problem than it's ever been in the past. Just the way that we communicate, sharing information, just those sorts of things, that stuff was a big deal.
People's job descriptions was a much bigger deal than it's ever been before because we have so many people and just not having people step on each other's toes. And again, these were all challenges. We've handled them at some level. But just as you grow quickly. And then also it's a combination of growing quickly so your infrastructure gets stressed. And we're going to tie this back to vet clinics because it's the same thing there. But you bring in, you grow quickly. You go from two doctors to four doctors and support staff for those doctors, it's the same thing. But the systems that you have get stressed. And then onboarding is really an art. There's significant art to onboarding. And I learned a lot about effective onboarding, when you can't just baby one person. I've always been able to bring on one to maybe two people at a time and really baby that person.
But man, when you've got half dozen people kind of onboarding at the same time, you can't baby them the same way. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot about doing that. And so boy, I learned a ton. Personally, it was funny. I was looking back and I kind of have a journal and I just sort of jot things down and every now and then, and I was paging through it over the weekend just because. And I saw notes from last Thanksgiving and it was last Thanksgiving and my wife was just starting radiation therapy.
She held off on starting it until after the Thanksgiving holiday. And so I was Thanksgiving and I was wondering what this was going to be like, and things like that for breast cancer. And everything has gone great because people always want to know, you brought it up… but last year was a lot of uncertainty and it was a lot of perspective taking for me. I don't know, work just didn't seem all that important for a good part of the year. I think that's probably a good thing. That's something I'll hold on to forever is clarity of perspective about what really matters. But anyway, that's where the story of my year I think, and I'm happy to share the lessons that I learned. When you think back about the story of your year, Stephanie, how do you see it? What were the big factors for you?

Stephanie Goss:
It's funny because I think mine for completely different reasons is very parallel to yours. I think the lesson, as far as the team goes and our growth and change as a company has been a lot. My first lesson that I thought of was we learned very much the hard way, I guess, is by doing that what works with one doctor doesn't work when you have five. And I knew that because I have done that journey in the clinic and yet, I don't know why I expected it to be different in our company. But it is true. There is growth in the things that you pointed out, knowing how to communicate with each other, having clear roles and responsibilities and job descriptions. We went through that journey together as a group.
And I think the thing for me this year, as far as work goes, this year was a lot about learning to step back for me.And it's interesting because I would agree, I think you have grown so much. I can see so much growth in you and change in you over this last year, and I can see it in myself. But I remember when we were onboarding a bunch of our new team members all at once and it was fun and exciting and it was also painful for me because, and I mean that in a good way. My whole career to this point, being in the clinic, onboarding is my jam. I love it, I love talking about team culture and building and that is my place. And this year was really, for me, was about stepping back and leaning into the pleasure of getting to watch you do some of that. And with a bigger group. You've done it with our smaller team, and it was really fun to watch you grow and change as a leader.
And there have been moments when we've done podcast episodes where I'm like, “Oh, Andy said it first.” He said, “What would your handbook say?” Or he's like, “What would you do with job descriptions?” And it's been really exciting for me. And at the same time, it's been really hard because I am a natural doer. I want to help. I want to get things done. And so the inclination for me is to go into problem solving mode and just do the thing. And so this year I think the growth for me and the lessons have been about learning to step back and sit back.
But I would agree with you, the number one at the top of my list was definitely that idea that what works with one doctor doesn't work with five. And you've got to figure that out for yourself. And there's no going around it. It is the mountain that everyone has to climb. There is no going around it. If you make those changes, you will have to figure it out. And the journey to figure it out is going to be different. Our journey as a team was different than anybody else's because we're made up of different human beings that bring different things to the table. But the actual journey is the same, one that all of us have to go on. There's no skirting around that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's important. No, no, I think that that's really important. I think that was one of the lessons for me as well, is it's always great to get advice. And there's definitely smarter ways to approach problems in other ways. There are some problems that are just going to be painful, they're going to be hard. And a lot of it revolves around other people and human beings, meaning you are trying to get a group of people onto the same page and get them to communicate. It's not a computer problem where you're like, “Oh, if I run the right code, everything will click into place.” You go, no. And especially you've got people who have done things a certain way and now you're asking them to do it a different way. And I don't think there's any way that that's not hard. It's always going to be hard.
I don't care how graceful or smart you are. I think that I kind of naively thought that I could talk my way through it in a fairly pain-free way. And I don't think that's possible. It's too complicated. There's too many people, have too many different expectations and wants and needs and concerns and fears and insecurities. And you're just going to have to manage your way through that. And it doesn't have to be terrible, it doesn't. But I don't think it's an easy path. But I think the alternative which is not doing it, I think that's a worse path.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. It's funny that you said that because I think the second thing for me really was getting to this place where I realized and truly I think understood that for true growth to happen and for us to really get to a happy place, but get to a place of good communication and safety and where when you just walk in the door to the clinic and everybody is happy to be there, you've got puppies and kittens, everybody's working well together, the emergency walks in the door and it just runs so smoothly and everything just gels. When you have a day like that, to get to that place where everything just jams so smoothly, it takes the hard work and it takes being uncomfortable. And there will be painful parts and that growth, we don't grow without discomfort.
And so I think for me, the second thing was really focusing. We did a lot of focusing as a team and as a group this year on communication. Because when you're small, it's like when you have one doctor and you're all working in the same space, you can shout out things to each other and communicate across the room. When you move into a 4,000 square foot building that has upstairs and a downstairs, you have to learn how to communicate differently because it doesn't work to just shout across the treatment room to somebody else and have things happen. And it was the same for us within our team. And so we did a lot of focusing on communication and the foundational stuff. And so I think for me, the lesson that I learned is if we really truly want to create a space, and I knew this from the clinic, how important psychological safety and good communication within a team was, I knew how important that was because in the clinic I had experienced it being really, really good and I had experienced it being really challenging and the space in between.
And so I kind of knew that lesson. But again, I don't know why. I just assumed it would maybe be radically different not being in the clinic and doing it as a team. But I just really came to that place where I realized that if we want to have psychological safety and we want to communicate really well and we want to work really well together, when you're a group made up of human beings, you all have to get okay with being uncomfortable and leaning into the fact that it's not always going to be puppies and kittens and it's going to be hard work. And we have to be okay with that discomfort. And I think this year was a lot of learning that lesson for me of just sitting in the moment.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, there's a lot of unpack there. I think the defining if overarching theme for me, if I had to be like, what was the Andy Roark chapter? The title of the chapter this year was patience. It was learning to sit in discomfort, as opposed to just flailing around and trying to fix things because sometimes we flail around and we make it worse than if we just sit with it for a little bit. And I guess I would start with that. I would say it's patience.
So key things for me this year, I was thinking about this recently, and it came to me, so we do our all hands meetings on Friday, we get everybody together and talk about how the week went. And we had a lot of meetings that were absolutely great and we were like, “Man, this is amazing. Everything is going really well,” high five. And we keep a really positive attitude. But then we had other weeks where things would sort of end and everybody would kind of be like, wah wah. It was hard. All right, we made it.
And again, we're human beings. And so even with the most positive culture, you still have these times when you're like, “That was hard.” But the thing that I realized at some point about halfway through the year was how radically different one Friday was to the next Friday. And there would be Fridays where I'd be like, “This is amazing. This is the best job ever.” And then next Friday I'll be like, wah wah. And when I realized how often I went from one to the other in one week, it kind of clicked in my brain how much can change in one week. And so that was one of the first things about patience is there's things that happen and you go, “Oh my gosh, we've got to fix this. This person can't continue to believe this or say this,” or whatever. And it's like, it's amazing how much just a little bit of time, 48 to 72 hours makes in how you feel about things and how big they seem.
And it's always scary to talk about things that are big or try to fix big problems. I'm just trying to think of an example to make up. But it would be something like just say that you had an angry client, you had an angry client at the clinic. Man, the day that happens, it feels big, especially if the thing they're angry about feels valid. You're like, “This is awful.” It feels so huge. If you can just not freak out for 48 hours, if you can just get through two days, three days most, it's not going to seem like that big a deal.
It's like, yeah, it's a thing. Yeah, we're going to have to deal with it, but it is not catastrophic. And I finally had that emotional maturity I think to say, just because you are wildly uncomfortable right now doesn't mean you have to do something. You can just sit here and relax and you can start to think about what you want to do. But if you give this a couple… I'm not talking about not calling the client, we deal with the client. But just as far as perspective on the team and the company, it's amazing how much a couple of days will give you peace and help you get some better perspective.
So anyway, that's true. It's true, dealing with people, you'll have a behavior that you don't like and it feels like if you don't jump all over this right now, it's going to be catastrophic. And the truth is, as long as you don't let it go, probably in a couple of days it won't seem like that big a deal to you. It won't seem like that big a deal to the person who is involved in it. And it can just be an easier conversation in some cases just to give things a little bit of time.
And the last part is sometimes, it's funny, I'll go home and I'll be exhausted. So you're just kind of burned out and you go home and you're like, “This is terrible.” I think the knowledge that, you know what? I bet that I won't think this is terrible at the end of the week. If I still feel like this is terrible one week from now I'm going to really think about doing something differently.
And I learned to say that to myself and I would make a note on my calendar, pay attention. And the truth is, a week later I'm riding high, because I got thank you notes and somebody was really excited about what we did and we had some wins, some great outcomes. And it's just amazing how often I can say to myself, all right, I'm going to make a note of this. And if in one week I still feel this way and I continued to feel this way, we're going to get serious. And we're just going to see where we are. It's amazing how often a week later I'm like, “You know what? That was not a big deal. I was taking that way too. Not a big deal.” So anyway, those are the first part of patience that I kind of learn.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, that makes sense. I've been thinking about it a lot in the context of the podcast, and we get such wonderful emails in the mailbag. And that's one of my favorite parts of my job is getting to read through all of the messages from all of you listeners, is so much fun. And I think about it and I was looking back at a lot of the letters that we got this year and realizing how many of them had to do with the uncomfortable. And a lot of it has to do with conflict, a lot of it has to do with communication, miscommunication, challenging personalities, toxic cultures. There's so many different facets of it. And at the same time, I think at the heart of it for a lot of us is discomfort and the hard stuff. The reality is we can't ignore the hard stuff.
And so I think I love your perspective because I think a big part of the healthy work this year for me was defining some of those rules for myself and giving clarity to those rules of what am I going to do for processing time? How am I going to decide if this is uncomfortable? To your point, is this uncomfortable in the moment because all having a bad day or is this uncomfortable and I actually need to do something about it? Whether it's dealing with a client who is maybe over the top nasty to someone in the practice or dealing with a team member who was having a bad day and was really mean to another team member. Okay, you can recognize that they're having a bad day, but that doesn't necessarily mean the behavior doesn't need to get called out.
And I was thinking about how often we get messages that have to do with avoiding the uncomfortable, because it's part of the human experience. None of us want to deal with the discomfort and the suck. But I think that has been part of the journey. And honestly, one of the things, we have several people on our team and you are one of those people, but because you'll acknowledge and you do not like conflict. You are not a conflict person. And I have seen you grow tremendously, I think, in terms of the way that you approach it and the way that you're looking at it. And we have our teammate, Tyler has set some goals for herself this year on communication and it's been really fun. She and I have had some really great conversations about the hard conversations and how do we have them and working through some of them. And it's amazing how often, as human beings, we tell ourselves stories in our heads and how often we make things so much bigger than they actually are.
And it's amazing how many times I've had follow-up conversations with friends, even with my kids or with you where it's like this thing that we were dreading and then we deal with it and we deal with the conflict. We're like, “Oh, that really wasn't as bad as I was expecting,” or “It was as bad as I was expecting, but I feel so much better for having dealt with it.” And I think that's part of what I love getting about getting to do this podcast with you is we get so many of those messages from people who are like, “What do I do?” And I always laugh at how often you all give us the answer in the letters. People know what they need to do, but they're just afraid of that uncomfortableness and the conflict.

Dr. Andy Roark:
They're hoping that we'll tell them something that they don't. It's like you clearly know what has to happen here.

Stephanie Goss:
100%.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, so you and I talk about communication styles a lot. And so actually, back to our Leadership Essentials Certificate with VetFolio, Stephanie's got a session on communication styles because people communicate differently and that, as a thing is one of the sessions that we covered because it's so important. Anyway, when you teach that, one of the things that I love is the fact that there's research backing up the idea that our communication styles can absolutely change over time.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
My favorite example of this is, and I hate to gender it, but the research is this way. One common time that we see people's communication styles is in mothers, when women have children. That is a time in your life when your communication style might actually change and it tends to become more direct because you often have little people and you don't have the time to not be clear about what you want. And it leeches out into the way you talk and the way you communicate with others. And so there is research saying that… it's in women, but I don't think it probably has to be. But it's people when they have little kids can get more direct in their communication. And you understand why. I think that this 100% also happens if you are leading a team and that team gets to be a certain size because when you've got… first of all, when you're not in charge, you can be non-confrontational AF. And when you have a couple of people, you can do the soft touch. You can kid glove them, you can be like, “Hey buddy, listen, how you feeling? Things good?”
And then you can take 27 minutes to get around to, “Hey look, could you wipe down the exam room when you're done? Is that okay?” And you can do that because you've got three people. And at some point though, you get enough people, it's just necessity. You're like, “Hey, I need you, don't forget to wipe down the exam rooms, please. Thank you my friend.” And that's it. And you say it because that's all the time that you have.
And I definitely hit that part of my life of just being like, look, that's it. The way I started this journey, this is what we teach when we teach conflict management stuff. But it's like for me, the big motivator was at some point I realized I have to pick my poison, which means I can either spend 27 minutes asking someone to walk down the exam room, which I don't have, and I can do it again and again because people are going to keep forgetting, and I can live with that suffering of having to have this long thing. Or I can live with the suffering of just being direct kind and I can do this well, but I can live with an awkwardness of saying, “Hey, I have to ask you for a favor. Will you do this thing for me please? Thank you my friend, I really appreciate it.” And then go on.
And I'm like, boy, the suffering of the latter is a lot less than the suffering of the former and I don't want any more suffering, and so I just do it. But I recognized it and you were not there. It was when Maria and I were working together and you were out. I regret it because I wish you'd seen this, because you would've absolutely died. We were working together with this group in person. And so me and Maria Pirita were there and we were doing case studies. And we told them, we said, “Okay, you've got this. You have a gossip problem in your practice, and it's coming from the lead technician.” And that's like you've diagnosed it. Let's go ahead. Let's jump, how do we address this problem? We were just talking at a high level. So great, that's what it is. How do we address this problem? And the first person raises their hand and goes, “We hold a team meeting about gossip.” And I just sat there and I looked at this person, I was like, that's Andy Roark from seven years ago.
I saw this person so clearly. And I almost burst out laughing. It was so funny, like you have gossip problem and it comes from this one person. Hold a team meeting about gossip. And it's funny because this other person who'd been a manager for a long time was like, “I would just go talk to the person, tell them it's not acceptable.” So I asked the person who said that, I was like, “Why do you say that?” And she's like, “Because I hate conflict.”

Stephanie Goss:
That's true.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's so funny. I said to the group, okay, what's going to happen when she goes and has a team meeting and another person goes, “The people who really try hard and bust their butts are going to freak out because they think the meeting's about them. And the person who's doing the gossiping will be like, that person needs to shut up.” And it was this perfect picture of conflict averse Andy from eight years ago just being like, “Guys, I need to bring everybody together.” As opposed to just being like, “Gosh, you're killing me. You got to stop, buddy. You got to stop.” So funny. But I saw my younger self in this person, in that moment.

Stephanie Goss:
It has been fun this year to look back and see, okay, we've grown. Whether it's seeing changes that we have made as a whole group, or like I said, there have been moments where I have watched you and I've been trying to be good about telling you. Because as a leader, one of the painful lessons that I learned in the clinic was just because you're the leader doesn't mean that you don't need to hear feedback, and good and the constructive. You need both. And so I've been trying to be intentional about giving you praise the way that you praise the rest of the team because it is important to hear it back. But there have definitely been moments where I've sent you a message and I'm like, “Do you see old Andy? Do you see yourself in what is happening right now?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Again, you can do it with five people. With five people, you can be everybody's friend and bounce around. But when you cross the 12 person mark heading up at some point, I'm like, there's just not enough hours in the day to not be more direct. That does not mean you just had an episode when we're recording this. You had the episode with Phil Richmond that you two did that just came out. And I didn't listen to it, but Phil Richmond… just kidding, it was a great episode.
Phil Richmond has this saying where he says, “Honesty without empathy is cruelty.” And it's like you can be direct. That does not mean you have to be cruel. You can be very nice and also just matter of fact about what you need. But that's been a huge thing that I learned is picking my poison and just say it.
And I'll also tell you, when you have more people, oftentimes not saying it clearly… talk about picking your poison. It's a lot worse poison to sort it out later because people imply different things and then you're cleaning things up and you're trying to get people back together, when you could have stopped it all by just saying, just so everybody knows this is not what we're doing. I just want to be clear. I'm not interested in doing this. This is not where we're going. And some people are not going to like that. But I'm going to say it clearly now and then we're going to go on. But I do not want to have to sort it out individually later on.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, it's like you were saying, when you have a bigger team and you don't have the 27 minutes to have the roundabout conversation before you finally ask somebody to do something. You want to be more direct and be clear. And the level up that we've kind of been learning to make as a group and as a team is not only do you have to be clear, but you have to think ahead and set it up for success to be like, what is my expectation? I don't just want it to happen this one time that you clean the exam room, but I need it to happen every time. And so figuring out how to be clear and really leaning into Brené Brown says clear is kind, and really leaning into how do we make our expectations known? And I think that kind of goes along with the idea that the bigger the team gets, it really is a different process.
And you can say to somebody when there's three of you, “I want you to go clean the exam room,” and it can get done really clearly. But to your point, when you say to a team of 10, “I need somebody to go clean the exam room,” not only is there going to be the, “Well, is he actually talking to me? Do I need to go do it? But I'm doing this thing and that's more important than what you're doing.” And there's all of that. But then there's also, if you ask 10 people how to go clean the exam room, you're probably going to get at least five different answers. And so if I as the leader have an expectation in my head, I need to be able to communicate that really, really clearly. And so I think that there has been a lot of that growth for us is figuring out that clarity. And I think a lot of the lesson that we both have learned, but that I think has been kind of your mantra for part of this year is we need to slow down to be able to go fast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Stop reading my mind.

Stephanie Goss:
But I really do think that recognizing that change happens and it does not happen overnight.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, gosh no.

Stephanie Goss:
We're a change averse industry where if everybody listening probably can think of at least two people on their team who hate change. Because that's just us vet med, you know?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love change.

Stephanie Goss:
I know.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's freaking hard. It's hard. Changing yourself is hard. No, I'm going to tee up on this. That was exactly my next point and where I was going is one of the big lessons for me was slowing down to go fast. And I have always gone fast to go fast, and it has worked really well for me. Don't get me wrong, I get more stuff done than anybody I know. Again, I'm not trying to… it's not all positive stuff.

Stephanie Goss:
The cappuccino machine at work.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It is. I crank out espresso and I get stuff done and maybe not things that need to get done, but they get done. But I have always gone fast to go fast. And so going back to the example of cleaning the exam room, and I learned with this growth and really in the last year, this goes back to patience, because this is really hard for me because patience is not my strength. But me, my growth in the last year has been developing the internal strength and it is strength. It is an effort for me. It's exhausting for me to hold back and to not go around individually and tell everybody to clean the exam room because it's not done yet. Because what I found is if I just, “You need to clean the exam room. Hey, somebody clean the exam room. Guys, can somebody clean the exam room?” What happens is nobody can clean the exam room right now and I'm mad, but I have no idea what they're dealing with. And so I'm being unfair. I'm getting frustrated.
And the people who care the most are the people who are feeling the most pain because they know that I'm angry or they know that I'm frustrated and they're doing their absolute best and they still can't get there, and that makes them upset. And those are good people that you don't want to burn out. And so the first thing is, my instinct is go around and rattle cages until it gets done, which works at a small scale. But then what happens is everybody gets loose at once and they all show up in the exam room at one time and now they're arguing with each other over who's supposed to clean the exam room, or someone's in there cleaning it and someone else says, “Hey,” after they're three quarters of the way done, someone sees them and goes, “Hey, I already did that.”
And they're like, “Oh, I wondered why this is going so fast.” But still they just spent time doing something that somebody else had already done because I asked another person and they're doing it in radically different ways. I know it sounds silly, but all these things are true and they're an analogy for everything else that happens.
And so hear me out. As the team has expanded, I have had to learn to be patient. And yes, I would tell someone, “Hey, could you clean the exam room? Hey you, can you clean that? You person, can you do that for me?” And just ask and just be okay with it? But if I want to fix this problem, ultimately, it involves slowing down. It probably means bringing all the techs together, not just one, which means I probably have to wait until the end of the week or next week when we have a meeting and I'm like, “I got to wait until next Wednesday to tell everybody about cleaning the exam rooms?”
Yes you do, because otherwise you're just making noise, you're sending Slack messages or emails saying they're getting a ton of them. And it is like going fast means everybody hears the same thing and they hear it together. And they can all ask questions and they can all get the same information. And now we're all on the same page and we can all move forward. And it might also mean the doctors need to be there. It might mean that I need to speak separately to the doctors, the doctors get this information. And you go, “That's ridiculous.” In my experience, I shot myself in the foot so many times the last two years of pushing to go fast and then spending twice as much time doubling back because some people did not get the message and they're frustrated or they were confused or they didn't know what was happening.
And honestly, at some point, it becomes faster to wait until next Wednesday and do this right and communicate it to everybody and then start holding people accountable than it does to run around and try to have a half dozen side conversations, which are just going to confuse people and they're going to talk to each other and get information at different times. It's just going to be a mess. And so that internal strength to add the problem to the agenda next Wednesday, as opposed to attack the problem right now. God, that's hard. But it is like I'm learning. But it has been so challenging for me. But it's good, but it's good. I know it's the right thing to do and I know I am proud of how far I've come in doing that. Man, it's not easy.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, well, you should be because you've worked really, really hard. The whole team has worked hard, but as a leader you really leaned into this is a challenge for me. This is not my strong suit and I recognize that I have to overcome it and so I'm going to work on it. I think it's the same too I think from the clinic perspective because I remember being in the practice and I remember growing it very quickly and feeling like all of these things are breaking. It's all breaking because we've got 10 new people that we're trying to train at once. Coming out of Covid and we had hired a bunch of people and it was great and everything was falling apart. And I remember feeling like, we've got to plug all these holes right this second. And there was so much flailing about, trying to solve all the problems at once, and it was really, really painful and it was messy and there was lots of confusion and lots of miscommunication.
And the lesson of learning to slow down and just telling myself, which has really become a mantra is that you've got to slow down. Rome was not built in a day. And the only person that has the expectation that this problem get fixed tomorrow is probably actually me. The reality is maybe it's the kind of problem that clients expect that you fix right away and knowing how to prioritize those things. But the vast majority of the challenges, particularly when we're talking about communication challenges and conflict challenges within our teams, those things don't change overnight because they didn't get that way overnight. It's like that stank mouth that comes in and you get that chihuahua mouth and you open it and the owner's like, “I need to get on your dental schedule tomorrow.” Yes, yes, there's disease here. And yes, we've got work that we need to do and full well that you're probably going to extract half that mouth. But it didn't get that way overnight.
And it is okay, we can do the education, we can start the steps and we can get them on the schedule three weeks from now when we can fit them in. It does not have to be an emergency. And it's funny how we know that and how easily that comes when it's the conversation about that chihuahua mouth. But when it comes to our own teams and it comes to the human beings, we struggle so much with that, myself included, to remind myself, I don't have to fix this overnight. And even if I want to fix it overnight, I can't fix it overnight. It's going to take time. And we have to sit with that discomfort sometimes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
God, you and I are so up in each other's heads right now. But that was say you talk about sitting with discomfort, that is sitting in discomfort. And to know, yes, this is a problem and it is not a high enough priority for me to pull the resources away and direct them at this problem to make that worthwhile. And so I am going to sit here and allow this problem to continue. Not because I can't fix it, not because I don't know how to fix it, because it's not the right time to fix it. And I have other priorities that we are addressing, and this is going to get fixed, but not right now. God, that's hard. But it's absolutely vital.
Let's take a short break here and then we'll come back and I want to talk about what I've seen in you in the last year and the number one… because you've grown as well. I'm going to fluff your pillows when we get back. Fluff your pillows and talk about the growth I've seen in you and what it's meant to me. So let's take a quick break and we'll get back.

Stephanie Goss:
It's finally here. That's right, our very first Uncharted certificate. What's that, Stephanie? Well, I'm glad you asked. See, Andy and I had a conversation along with the members of the Uncharted team where we were wondering what skills does a leader have to have? And we talked about the fact that as leader, you have the ability to shape your team's culture. And there are some very specific skills that are needed and unfortunately, those kinds of skills are most often not taught to us. And so we sat down and outlined seven of the crucial building blocks skills that any leader should have, and we are putting it out into the world in partnership with our friends at NAVC and VetFolio, we have launched the certificate through VetFolio's platform.So it is seven workshops that are all broken out into modules. We start with talking about building trust and relationships, how to set a vision for a team, and even a more granular, how to figure out what your core values are as a human, as a smaller team within a bigger team and as a practice as a whole.And then how to use those core values to make decisions to communicate, to really run your practice as a well-oiled, in-sync team. We talk about communication styles and using DiSC as a tool for how you communicate better and more effectively as a team. We talk about how to give feedback, how to do coaching. And that applies whether you're someone's positional boss or not. We have to talk to each other as human beings and practice.And so we dive into how do we do that and how do we do it in a way that feels less scary than it might feel to some of us. We talk about how to get team buy-in, how to get everybody excited about ideas and initiatives in our practice. We talk about how to set priorities and then how to achieve those priorities and get stuff done. I am thrilled that this is now available for all of you and there's much more where this came from. So head on over to UnchartedVet.com/certificates. That's right, certificate with an S at the end and check out the Leadership Essentials course. You can get the link from there to VetFolio. You can buy one piece, you can buy all seven and get the certificate as a whole. But either way, we are so excited. And now, back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. So you've been very kind, but I want to point out one of the things that I saw with you as-

Stephanie Goss:
Wait. Before you change the subject, you have to put on your own crown because I'm super proud of you, friend. This year has been really, really hard and that is one of the lessons you have taught me and I have learned and I have changed, and I'm becoming more comfortable with being in the spotlight. But you too, it's the same. You deflect the compliments and you're going to sit here for a second because the growth as a leader has been huge.
And I think it's funny because one of the things we did with our community this year was have them look back and force them to hold the trophy, man. Take the time to let it sink in. Because to your point about setting New Year's resolutions, so often, we look ahead from the perspective of like, well, this was a hot mess and so here's how I'm going to fix it next time. And I think this has been, just the conversation so far, has been so much fun because thinking about the things we're talking about, there's been a lot that has gone sideways, but so much that has been good about this last year. And so much growth, and I think it's really important for you as a leader to just sit here for a second and be really proud of yourself and your team and the kind of space in veterinary medicine that you're helping us all make because it is a good place.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, thank you very much. That really means a lot. So I will hold that trophy. I appreciate that.

Stephanie Goss:
Good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's been good. And again, we said we had a big year, we tackled really big projects and some of it didn't work. You know what I mean? And we ran into headaches and we're like, this is not the solution we thought it was going to be, and we're going to backtrack. And that's just what it is. Some of the things that I've seen you do well, one of it's the personal thing and was the organizational thing. But your comfort in stepping up and presenting in public and being in the spotlight, that was not what you like. You like doing podcasts where you sit in your closet and you just talk to me, and that's basically what it is. You're just like, “I'm very comfortable.”

Stephanie Goss:
It's a true story.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It was so funny how off guard I was caught the first time you had a panic attack going to talk to 50 of the nicest people that I knew. And I was like, “What is wrong with you? We talked to literally 10,000 people a week on the podcast.” And you were just like. I was like, “There's like 50 people. They're all nice. We know these people.” And you were like, “Oh my God.”
And then I saw you this year in a room of like 600 NABC, and I couldn't get into the room. They were like, “I'm sorry, sir, this room is full.”

Stephanie Goss:
You can't come in.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It was so funny. I only got in because Eric Garcia was there and he has power and let me in. That's the only reason I got in. So what is that? But from the organizational standpoint, you have really grown in running and managing big projects. And we just didn't do a lot of big projects.
But the classic Stephanie Goss approach, which I hope you don't mind me letting the cat out of the bag, but it was procrastinate, procrastinate, panic, and get it all done. And like, bam. But that doesn't work when you're doing international programming. You know what I mean? And we're setting down one year agendas for these projects that we're working on. They're just huge. And you have adjusted and adjusted and pushed farther forward and just grown your discipline in being, “I know that there's no screaming deadline right now. But I also recognize and understand the scope of this project and know there's an internal deadline that I've created that has to be honored and met and communicated.” And I just feel like neither one of us, buddy, had experience in running projects of the scope that we have been doing recently.
And so sort of tying that back to the vet clinic, at some point you're talking about getting AHA certified or you're talking about changing your PiMS system, or you're talking about building a new building. Those are projects of a scope so far beyond starting an employee the month program. Not even remotely. And you got to manage them differently, and you have got to really lean into that patience. You've got to think farther ahead, you have to be disciplined in starting the work and setting your own deadlines. I'd like to hear you comment on that, but you and I are both creative people and I worked the same way for a long time in that deadlines would show up and I would stay up all night and get the stuff done. And at some point, I ain't young enough to do that anymore.

Stephanie Goss:
True story.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But then the other thing is the project gets so big you, it's not a one night project. You need to be work long. And so what I have seen from you in the last year is your ability to run big programs and we're running some big programs has just really leveled up multiple times. So congratulations to you on that. That's what I have seen in you and I've mentioned other people.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. And I think it's so funny. I have no problem with you calling me out, part because that is just my personality since I was a kid. I'm a procrastinator. And I work well under pressure. Our friend Phil Richmond, in fact, he and I will often text each other when we're doing our last minute procrastination work because we're two peas in a pod in that way. And I also think that being in the practice honed that for me in not a really healthy way. And it's funny because when we're recording this, I had just recorded an episode with our friend Eric Garcia and Tyler Grogan, and we were talking about our experiences unplugging because I thought that'd be fun. This is our second year of it. And so we're doing a look back on what changed this year.
But one of the things that we were talking about was recognizing how some of this things that became skills for us in the clinic actually probably were pretty unhealthy. And this was one of them. So as a manager, I put everybody else first and you take care of the clients, you take care of the patients, you take care of the team. Everybody else comes first and then all my work starts. And so I learned how to be the master procrastinator and work under the deadline and the pressure because that was what I thought the expectation was of me. And in doing a lot of personal work this last year, I did a lot of painful work looking at myself and looking at my career. And what I recognized is that the majority of the time, I put that expectation on myself. Nobody else said to me, “I expect you to work a 10 hour day and then take eight hours worth of work home and get it done.”
I did not. I was avoiding conflict in not saying, “Hey, you've given me 25 things and I have time to do 20 of them. Which five things would you like me to put on the back burner?” I was afraid of that hard conversation, whether it was with my practice owner or my field leader when I was in corporate practice. I put a lot of those expectations on myself. And so I think that was one of the lessons that I learned. And Eric and Tyler and I kind of got into that in the episode and I'm excited because it was a really good conversation about how often we let the clinic environment, we celebrate that. We celebrate those days where we don't take a pee break or we work so late. Because we're constantly one-upping each other. It's like, “Oh, let me tell you about the week I had.”
And I think that that's a really unhealthy place to be. And I found myself there. And when I switched to being out of full-time practice and working full-time with you, it was a big shift for me to kind of look back at some of that and recognize that I wasn't necessarily ending my full-time practice career on a good note, and that there was a lot of unhealthy things happening. And I think that that is true. And so that has been work that I have really had to do this year is recognizing that in myself and like you, recognizing that this is a superpower, but it's not a healthy superpower, the ability to procrastinate and work well under pressure and get things done. And so I have had to be really intentional about it, and I am still very much a work in progress, and I still screw it up.
And there are still days where I'm like, “Oh God, I'm going to put that off because I just can't.” And also recognizing that it isn't just me, but in a much healthier way. Because it wasn't just me in the practice, but I put everybody else's needs before my own because I thought that that's what I was supposed to be doing. And I think this year for me has really been about dismantling some of those ideas about what it means to actually work together and be a part of a team and recognizing that everybody has different needs. And sometimes it means putting other people's needs before yours and sometimes it means stepping up and saying, “I have 20 things on my plate and you've given me 25, Andy, I need your help. Which five would you like me to take off my plate today? Because I can't do it.”
And when we've had those hard conversations, the things that have been reiterated to me by you have been that like, “Oh yeah, I never would've expected you. I would never want you to take that home.” And that's where I mean so many times as a manager, I put that on other people, but it was the story I was telling myself in my head. There are so many times where I told myself, “My practice owner is going to be mad if I don't get this done, so I'm just going to take it home and get it done.” Whereas if I really stopped and asked them, I don't think that I would've gotten the same answer that I let myself tell myself in my head.
And so I think that that has been part of it is for me, that's definitely has been the third lesson, is that getting curious about things and challenging the stories that I might be making up in my head has been the best gift that I've given myself this year is when something happens just asking, is there more to this story? What else could this mean? Could I be making something up in my head? And really slowing down to ask myself those questions, because it is really hard work.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think that there's a level of discipline, again, that comes with growth of when it's a small group and it's all for one and one for all, and we can only do as much work as five people can do. I think throwing in and helping everybody as much as you can, I think that's noble. At some point, the hospital or the business gets so big that if you throw in on every emergency, you will never go home. You know what I mean?
And so I think that's a good way to look at it. And so at some point, it's the discipline of as you grow, it's staying in your lane. It's staying in your lane, which it sounds so counterintuitive. But it's sort of like as the organization gets bigger, it's more helpful to stay in your lane than to just dive in and try to rescue other people. It's better for the other people, it's better for you. I think that that's really interesting. But anyway, all of these things are just things that you think you learn as you get older. And at some point you get tired and your choices are, I'm going to readjust my workflow and my expectations and I'm going to kind of set some boundaries in how I do it.
And it feels like you're letting the team down. Sometimes you're like, “I'm setting boundaries,” which means I'm not going to work as hard. And it's not even necessarily that. It's just looking at what's truly important and saying, “This is how much energy I have to give or how much time I have to give. I'm going to make sure that I'm putting it into the place that matters the most.” And again, that's that discipline and that patience. And boy, it's hard. It doesn't come naturally. It is an intentional choice that's challenging.

Stephanie Goss:
100%. And I would say that that was the most powerful thing that I took away from this year, and I think is a good ending spot. One of the stories that I told myself as a manager and with our team was that I have to be available. A good teammate means being available. And I was the manager who would answer the call. I answered the phone in the middle of the night, I answered the phone at four o'clock in the morning. I thought that I was doing a good job if I was constantly plugged in and constantly connected to my team. And it was no exception when I came on board with our team.
And it was interesting because when I started working with our team, I was working around my clinic schedule. And so the expectation was that I was doing work at odd hours. And I just realized this last year that I told myself a lot of stories about that in my head in the sense that I was like, “Oh, I have to be there,” and if somebody asked me to do something, I got to get it, I got to do the thing for them. And what I realized the most powerful lesson that I learned this year was that I had a moment where I recognized I am getting crispy. I am a little burnt out, and I am tired and I am frustrated, and we're going through so much change. And if I'm going to keep going, I've got to make some changes. And I took my work email and I took Slack off of my phone entirely. Didn't just turn off, removed them both from my phone. And it was just like, the world is going to explode.
And you know what? The world did not explode. The world did not end. And there were times where there have been things that have been important. And what I realized is if it's really important, you guys all know where to find me. You can pick up the phone and call me. And that's how I know that it's important. As a manager, I was so afraid of that. I was so afraid of disconnecting and taking email off my phone or not being available to my team. A lot of that was wrapped up in what I was telling myself about what it meant to be a good leader.
I think it was so funny because I was so afraid of it. And now, I actually look forward to coming in on Monday and starting the day and not feeling like I'm starting behind. But nobody actually had the expectation… if Andy gets an idea and he sends me a message over the weekend, he's telling me because he's excited to talk about it. He's not telling me because he has the expectation that if he sends me a message on Saturday that I'm going to pick up and start working on the thing that he sent me. But there was something in my head that the voice that was telling me like, “Oh yeah, I'm really excited about this too,” and if I want to be a really good employee, then I'm just going to go ahead and get the thing done because I know that we have other appointments and I know that we've got other stuff on our schedule is not dissimilar to the clinic. And I think that that was a really powerful life lesson for me this year, was learning to lean into some of those boundaries.
And I think some of it comes from, we often get told how often that our listeners say to both of us, “You guys just seem to know and be talking about the thing that I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.” And it's so funny for both of us because I can't tell you all how often Andy and I will do an episode and go, “Gosh, that has so many parallels to what's really happening behind the scenes or in our own lives right now.” And it's true for us as well. And so I think that that was very much the case. We got a lot of great emails from the mailbag this year that really helped us go, “Maybe we need to look at this.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been a good year. It's been challenging in a lot of ways, but challenging in good ways.

Stephanie Goss:
I am looking forward to 2024, and I hope all of you are too. It's going to be fun to see everybody out there. And it seems crazy to be thinking that we're recording this in November and we're already talking about events in January and February and beyond. But I'm looking forward to seeing everybody out and about in the vet med world in 2024, and there's lots of exciting things coming. It's going to be a big year.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Cool. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.

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