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Aug 31 2022

We Have A Manager…They Don’t Manage

Uncharted Podcast Episode 193 Cover Image

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Have you ever worked somewhere that the team felt frustrated at the lack of accountability for repeated mistakes and the drastic differences in work ethic between staff members? When frustration like this extends over time, the result can be cultivating an office environment with a huge increase in tension, gossip, and bickering. Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss tackle a mailbag question from a veterinary technician who is grappling with a hospital environment like this. They feel like their practice owner and manager haven't really addressed things from the perspective of the team but this tech feels they might be open to suggestions on what to do and how to approach the situation. Our vet tech says they are “not really sure where to even start with coming up with an overhaul in training/rewards/consequences..” and asked for input from Andy and Stephanie. These are great questions and common challenges we are excited to talk about so let’s get into this…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 194 – We Have A Manager…They Don't Manage

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

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


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


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Episode Transcript

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

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

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?

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

Stephaine Goss:
Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

Stephaine Goss:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving into another letter from the mailbag. It came to us from a technician who is a senior technician in their practice and they are struggling with feeling like they're in a practice where they have a manager entitled, but they maybe are not actually doing what should be done as a manager and this goes to talking about addressing behavior, bad behavior on the team, accountability, consequences, policies, procedures, protocols, culture as well. This one is a big giant can of worms and Andy and I had so much fun opening it and diving in. Let's get into this one.

Meg:
And now, the Uncharted podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back it's me, Dr. Andy Rourke and Stephanie gossiping folk Goss. Some Missy Elliot gossip. I'm not going to rap like Missy Elliot does not because it can't just because no one will listen to the rest of the podcast. So I'll just be like, “Play that again. Rewind that.” So we can hear Andy rap like Missy Elliot. Hello there Stephanie Goss, how are you?

Stephaine Goss:
I'm good. How are you?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm good. My pitiful dog is stuffing his face between the arm of the chair and my leg. You know what I mean? His golden retriever part is coming out. He's a love sponge. He's not good, but he is a love sponge. Don't stop petting me, dad. Well yeah, and let's just be honest. He has reason to be concerned because he's feeling insecure and he should be because his position was definitely threatened recently. So I took Allison, we went hiking and we drove up to this trail.

Stephaine Goss:
Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And it's up, it's up near Bristol, Tennessee and it's called the Devil's Bathtub and it was this awesome trip. It was like eight or nine miles long, but you have to cross the Creek like 10 times, so you have to take your boots off and everything.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, so I am not taking this fluffy, goofy dog, but he's being boarded as Allison and I take full advantage of our kids being at camp for the last time of the summer. So we go up there and we get to the trail hit and I get out of the car and this dog, he was some sort of a rat terrier mutt. He comes tearing up to me like, “Oh man, I've been waiting for you.” I mean you know that experience where they… He came running straight to me like, “I am so glad you're here.”

Stephaine Goss:
Right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And he had a tag that said Bandit on it, and so Bandit was all about hanging out with me and Allison, and so as soon as he comes and he celebrates, he's like, “Let's go.” And Bandit leads the way to the trailhead.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “This is kind of weird.”

Stephaine Goss:
Where are your people?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, was like, “Where are your people?” Yeah and he's an intact boy too. So I'm like, “It's not unusable I bet for Bandit to be out.” And so anyway, so bandit decided he was like, “Yep, I'm with you guys. Let's go hiking.” And that dog, Stephanie, he stayed with us for like five hours. He navigated the entire trail all the times we had to cross the stream. He would go down. He knew exactly where he was going. He would run down and then cross over a log that's like 25 yards off the trail, or he would just hop from stone to stone. And it's funny, we'd watch him and would see what stones were loose because he'd jump on some of them they would shake.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm like, “Oh, I'm not stepping on that one.” But I told Allison, I was like, “We're like six miles in and I was like we might have a new dog.” And then whenever we stopped to take a snack, he was right there. He was insistent that he also have a snack, and I was like, “This is not your first rodeo.” This dog has 100%, I bet he hikes that trail every day and suckers every day, give him granola bars and all sorts of things and so we got back to the house or to coming back down the trail.

Stephaine Goss:
Didn't his people ever turn up?

Dr. Andy Roark:
No. Oh no. So we're we're we are a half a mile from the end of the trail, and I was like, “Seriously, what are we going to do with this dog?” Do we just drive away and leave this dog?

Stephaine Goss:
Right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
He definitely seems to know what he's doing and so anyway, in the last half mile he just started getting farther and farther ahead of us and he didn't even say goodbye, which kind of hurt. It kind of hurt when he didn't look back over his shoulder. He just kind of ultimately left and Allison and I were leaving and we went to the trailhead, we got in a car and as we drove away, he was there laying on a front porch of this little shotgun shack.

Stephaine Goss:
Oh my gosh. How funny.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I was like I bet Bandit's life is greeting people with the trailhead, hiking with them, eating their granola bars and snacks, and then coming home and crashing out at his house. Like I bet that's 100% his life. So anyway.

Stephaine Goss:
Oh my gosh, that's funny.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, so Skips a little bit insecure and he should be because anyway, I am confident Bandit is also not a good guy. Like Bandit is probably aptly named. I think he's a con man the whole way. He was super fun. He's like that friend in college you had. Super fun, cannot be trusted. That's Bandit.

Stephaine Goss:
You already have a dog that cannot be trusted. So adding another one into the mix.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly.

Stephaine Goss:
I can only imagine.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Like a rugged outdoor bad dog. Yeah, I don't need two bad dogs together. They would run cons as a team on me and my wife.

Stephaine Goss:
Oh my gosh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway, that's what's going on. So Skipper is still insecure ever since I came home and smelled like Bandit, and oh well. Sometimes you got to get the pressure on. You just be like, “Hey buddy, I could have you replaced in a heartbeat if you eat my sandwich off the countertop again.” 100%, you know how many dogs would love to live in this house with me? You better get your stuff in line.

Stephaine Goss:
Get it together Skipper.

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

Stephaine Goss:
Oh man. Well, I'm excited we have a great mailbag question today or series of questions. So we got a letter from someone who is a technician and they have been at their practice for six years and they have kind of grown in their role after having joined the practice as a technician, and now are one of the senior techs on the team and they love surgery and they love their team. They love the overall experience at their practice. There's a lot of good. They're really struggling because there seems to be a big problem and it has to do with what they say is a lack of structure, and that's one of the questions I want us to dive into. I think they do have a manager, but it sounds like maybe this manager, the actual job for this manager is maybe not practice manager.

Stephaine Goss:
So we're not super confident on what their responsibilities or the level of duties being assigned to this person, but they do have a manager and they are not actually managing because there is a lot of lack of accountability with the team when it comes to the jobs. So when mistakes get made, things happen over and over again. Doesn't seem like anybody's really held accountable and then sometimes there's consequences, sometimes there's not. They said sometimes someone has been talked to about issues and nothing seems to be getting done, and then other times people are randomly let go and nobody sure is this an accountability thing, is it not? So there's that challenge and then in addition to that, that has been helping cultivate in an environment where there is tension and gossiping and backstabbing, bickering kind of behavior amongst the team, right?

Stephaine Goss:
Because people are not being treated the same and everybody is seeing that, and so they said, “Well, the practice owner and our manager, haven't really dealt with it and I do feel like I have a good relationship with them, and I feel like they might be open to trying to put some policies and protocols in place.” They're not doing that on their own and so could I suggest things to them that might be helpful? And they said, “I'm not a manager, I haven't been trained and so I don't even know where to start.” And in particular where to start when it comes to overhauling training, rewards, consequences, those kind of things because that's where they see the challenge in this, and so they were asking if we had any input or advice because they would take it all.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Let me tell you what I love about this format is when things come to the mail bag, they generally, by the time I see them, they get to my desk, the identifying information has already been stripped out of them, which means I have no idea who writes to us and I really kind of like it because then I can always just say, “Look, I don't know what's going on your practice.” I don't have any idea who this is. I just read what you send me and take that as the full context that I have and then I tell you what I think. And I have the feeling if someone came up to me and spoke to me and said to me directly, this is what's going on. I would really have to balance their feelings a lot more. You know what I mean?

Dr. Andy Roark:
And things like that, but when I'm like, “Look, I just read what was there and I told you what I thought.” And I don't know what else is going. I don't know what the story is.,I'm not there. I haven't seen your practice. If I have seen your practice, I don't know your practice you're talking about, and it liberates me to be much more honest and candid than I would ever be. If someone raised their hand at a lecture in front of 300 other people and were like, “What do you think about this?” And I'd be like, “Oh boy.” I have to make sure I take care of this person who's been brave enough to ask me a question, and so with all that said, let me just say at the very beginning, everything in this letter could be 100% accurate and starting in about three minutes, I'm going to act like it is and go based on that belief. Between now and then I'm going to point out.

Stephaine Goss:
I can't wait to see where this is going.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah and again, this might mean absolutely nothing and I don't want to even get upset or anything. Whenever I see a letter that comes and it says, “This is my first practice that I've been at.” There's immediately some flags for me about questions, right? And again, and so the writer here is like, “Hey, this is my first practice and I've been there for a number of years and this is what I see.” And I always point this out because when people ask about management stuff is if you've only worked it one practice and you've only seen things one way, there's always the possibility that the grass is greener on the other side and again, I'll come back to this, or what you think, you go, “That can't be normal.” And the truth is that's 100% normal. All practices are are in the same weird boat and do these annoying things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I have to just put that out of like, “No one's held accountable and people disappear, and blah.” And I go, “Okay, if this is the first practice that you've been in, it is quite possible that what we're seeing is the normal level of people not being held accountable and just trying to make a business go.” And so I don't have enough information to know whether what we're perceiving is really truly over the top or if this is a normal level of dysfunction of an American business. American or Canadian business. Does that make sense why I say that?

Stephaine Goss:
It totally does and I think you're not wrong. That's one of those things where one of the biggest pieces of advice that I give to people is work at more than one practice. Even if you love your practice, spread your wings, girlfriend or guy because whoever you are, you got to get out there and you got to experience things because every practice is different and there are so many different ways to do it, and only with that experience and seeing you… Three things can happen. You can go somewhere else and the grass can be greener and you can recognize, “Oh, that was a mess and there really is a better way to do this.” You can also go somewhere else and realize, “Oh my God, this other place is so much more of a dumpster fire. We actually had our shit kind of more together than we thought we did.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephaine Goss:
Sometimes that's a surprise and I think your point is a solid one, which is a lot of the times you go other places and you recognize this is a variation on a theme, and everybody really struggles with some of these issues.” And it is actually yeah normal and it falls… If you imagine normal like a shade of gray, there's lots of different shades to it, right? And there could be things that are more normal and less normal and so I think this is one of those things where you're not wrong. It is worth recognizing that every practice goes through this at some point or another.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Totally. Well and so I just wanted say that and that's why I said we're going to take about three minutes here just to call out and go whenever I see somebody who works in one practice and they say this is abnormal and these are not meeting standards, I always go. Hm, I don't know. I try to kind of gauge this and say okay, is this the grass is greener. I haven't worked other places and so I think that we're doing bad, but maybe we're not doing bad. I always like to put that up front and say, “I don't know this practice. I don't know this person.” From now on, I'm going to assume that the level of transgressions that we're talking about exceed, well, what is normal? And we're going to spend the rest of the episode going on about that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But I always just like to call that at the beginning and go sometimes people don't get held accountable or it doesn't feel like they get held accountable, and sometimes there's not a plan, and sometimes there's chaos and sometimes we're not privy to the conversations that happen behind the scenes. And there's a certain level of that, that's just normal. I'm just going to go forward and making the assumption that we are beyond that, but it's just important to call it out just so that when people start to talk about these things, they don't immediately jump to this is awful, or Andy says that no one should ever be uninformed about what is happening. I go, “Okay, that's not what I'm trying to say.”

Stephaine Goss:
Okay and I would agree with you, and I think for me, there's a big split here in both of us say should is a very dangerous word, right? And there are two things here. One is HR related and disciplinary and what does accountability look like, right? And the other is cultural, is teamwork, is gossiping, is bickering, is talking behind each other's backs, right? And those two things can be tied together and at the end of the day, the hospital leadership should be responsible for both of those things, and as a team member who is a leader within the practice, but not necessarily the manager, you have a responsibility when it comes to the cultural piece as much as your leaders do when it comes to the HR piece, and the rules and protocols and policies and all the accountability piece. That is something that you can help and support and be a part of, but I'm glad you brought up the point Andy, that it's HR related, right?

Stephaine Goss:
So it will always live in a world of gray because you cannot know everything. You are not in a position where legally, you should know all of the things, and so that's one of those things where there's a split here for me and there's two separate issues to be talked about, but I think from a head space perspective, the important part for me is what you said, which is that when it comes to the HR stuff, you just have to remember that you are never going to know all of the things nor should you know all of the things, and so you have to start from a place of assuming good intent because you don't know the whole story.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep. Totally. All right, I love that and that's the opening head space place I think is let's just put it on the table and say a lot of this stuff sounds like HR issues because we're looking at management and we're questioning HR policies and procedures. No, I'm sure this varies by the state. You and I speak nationally and internationally to people so we tend to speak in the most rigorous of terms. You are not supposed to know what is going on from a disciplinary standpoint with other people in the practice. You're not supposed to know that. It may look like people are just getting verbal warnings, and then one day they're being fired. There may be a robust process going on behind the scenes of writing people up of corrective plans. It is illegal for the people doing that to let the practice know that's what they're doing.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so you might say, “No, I am very aware that these things are not happening.” I just always put that forward and say just know that you are not going to be privy to all the things that are happening and that's a frustrating thing and we talk to employees all the time who go, “I make these reports and I tell people what is happening and this is going on and they say, okay, and then nothing seems to happen.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I always have to try to talk those people down and go, “Hey, I don't know what's happening. You can assume good intent and believe that a lot more is happening than what you know about, and the company, the business, the practice is not allowed to give you updates or tell you what they're doing.” They simply cannot do that, and so there is some of that. So I think know that's the thing. Come with a positive outlook and believe that, “Hey, maybe there's a lot of things going on that I don't know about and that may be going on.” And so that's just a good positive head space to start from.

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah, I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So start with empathy is the other thing, and I say this, and I hate you say start with empathy because I am the boss who tries to run the show and you try to make a great place for people to work that's not a military installation where there are rules and drill sergeants yelling at people, do this, don't do that, and there are punishments being meted out. And at the same time, people still need to treat each other in the ways that mash up with the core values, and they need to treat each other in ways that are professional and in ways that get work done. And so it's always that balance and I just have to say that as a business owner, I don't think people generally realize how hard that balance is to strike of this is not a police state.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And at the same time, we still need people to do what they say they're going to do and treat each other with respect, and so man, that balance is really hard to strike and it's easy to stand in a place and say, “Boy, we should have more structure. We have more accountability.” And then it's also easy to have too much and go, “Oh, this is awful. We can't do anything. We're being in trouble all the time. My boss just rides me. I'm getting written up for everything.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I've seen both of those scenarios and everybody who's managing a practice is trying to balance those things and so there is some giving grace. That doesn't mean that we don't need to fix things because we all, we always need to work on them, but again, this is just about giving grace, starting from a place of empathy and saying, “I bet these people who are managing the practice are doing their best and they're doing their best.” And they push in one way and then there's push back and they sort of wrestle back and forth with that, but anyway, that helps me get into a positive healthy space where then I can start thinking about what am I going to do in this situation? But I don't know. That's about it for me for Headspace.

Stephaine Goss:
I think the other piece of empathy, I'm glad you said that and the piece that I would tie to that is as a team member, in veterinary medicine, one of the best pieces of advice that I could give is something that I learned the hard way, which is that I don't know, I wish there was an actual percent, but I'm just going to give you Stephanie's gut sense.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure, shoot it.

Stephaine Goss:
90%. I would say 90% of the people in veterinary medicine who are running practices as either a manager, owner, medical director, combination of all of the above have no formal training in business and leadership. It's really high, say 90, maybe it's less than that. Vets went to school to be vets. They didn't go to school, the vast majority of them to be MBAs. We have some doctors who are vets and who have their lodge degree or whatever, and have supplementary education that supports it, but there are way more managers and practice owners in veterinary medicine that don't have that kind of education and support than there are managers who do, and so one of the things that I always tell the team is when it comes to getting into that head space, just taking a step back and remembering that it makes it so much easier for me to assume good intent, because we don't know what we don't know as human beings.

Stephaine Goss:
And if I can look at somebody and be like, “Oh, Andy went to vet school, he didn't spend all that time learning the ins and outs of HR and management, that's its own separate degree.” Right? And so if I think about it in that context, it becomes a lot easier to ratchet down my frustration or anger or whatever to a level that feels manageable sometimes, and so I agree with you, I think the big part of the head space for me is that you have to start with empathy and that makes it easier for me I think to start with that empathy, because I can look at them as a person and be like, “Yeah, it's easy to give you the benefit of the doubt. You didn't go to school for this.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think that's super important. I really like that a lot. The last thing about head space that I want to put honestly, I'm done with head space, but there's one more thing I want to put on just as I'm thinking about our action steps that's what thinking ahead is there's a bunch of things going on here, right? There is accountability, they said there's not a lot of structure, there's gossip, there's these people not only getting verbal warnings and then being let go, and there's a lot of different things here and so know that there's a lot of different things going on in this question about what's happening, and again, Rome wasn't built in a day and this is not one question of how do I get my practice organized so all these things goes away.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It sounds like there's a lot of different things going on and we need to make some structural modifications and changes, and that's going to take time because it's not a one tweak, one light switch flipped problem. This is a lot of different things. So again, settle in a little bit with some patients and then let's take a break and then we'll start to work through this, shall we?

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah, sounds good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in here real fast and give a shout out to Banfield Pet Hospital for making our transcripts of available. That's right, we have transcripts for the Cone of Shame Vet Podcast and the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. You can find them at drandyroark.com and at unchartedvet.com. This is a part of their effort to increase inclusivity and accessibility in vet medicine. We couldn't do it without them. I got to say thanks. Thanks for making the content that we put out more available to our colleagues. Guys, that's all I got this time. Let's get back into this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, let's go ahead and talk about where we are, and let's talk about trying to work this into a reasonable place. My goal coming out of this is to have an action plan for the team I guess is what it would be. What I'd be working for is not to have all the problem solved because there's a bunch of different things going on and I don't have clarity on exactly what that is and it's just too much. So I think when we talk about action steps, my idea is not to build an action plan that solves the problems. My action steps are to build a collection of action steps that will walk us down the path of solving the problems in an organized, ongoing way. That how I'm looking at this. How do you feel about that, Stephanie?

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah, I think I'm heading the same direction you are with where to start because for me, I think some of it, a big piece of it is what are you trying to get out of this? Because there's so there's a lot to unpack. To your point and it is a multi-pronged challenge and so before we can say where do you start? The best question I could give you is what do you want to get out of this?

Dr. Andy Roark:
What does success look like?

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah because if you can't define that for yourself, I don't think you can figure out where to start because where you're going to start is going to depend on that question, and there's a couple different ways they could go, right? But think you got to ask the question.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like it because it's a big multi tentacle beast problem. This is mixed metaphors. We need to get a North star. Sorry, I'm going to step back and go this a long journey we're talking about. We need a North star. We need to know where ultimately trying to go and that's the first thing is what does this look like when it's done? What do you want the practice to be like? How does that actually look in your mind as far as finding the balance of accountability and autonomy for people to kind of do what they want and to be themselves and express themselves and interact independently, things like that. So where are we trying to go? What does that look like?

Dr. Andy Roark:
So set that North star and so I would start with that. The other thing that I would say is remember the spiral staircase, right? And business is a spiral staircase, which means you're always looking and you're like if I could just get to that next level, everything would be great, and so you work hard and you get to the next level of staircase and it turns and you know what's there? Another staircase and guys, that's life and that's business and there's always going to be next staircase and so just put that in your mind. The big thing for me is North star, what does this look like? What do we want our practice to be like? If you haven't done your core values exercise, I would do your core values exercise. If you don't know what that is, consider getting your leadership to join Uncharted and check out our core values workshop that we do where we figure out what do these people care about?

Dr. Andy Roark:
What does the team care about? What do you want the practice to be from a meaning and purpose standpoint? And when you have those things, it makes your priorities a lot more clear. It makes your action steps a lot more clear. You understand kind of what needs to happen first that's going to make the biggest changes to the things that you care about. As a start, we start with the core values exercise. What is our practice, meaning and purpose? And I guess that's kind of North star as far as where you want to go, but I really would do that exercise because it's going to get everybody speaking the same language. It's going to get everybody talking about where they want to go and what they care about, and once I have my core values, how do you eat an elephant?

Dr. Andy Roark:
The answer is one bite at a time. I would start to pick my priorities of what are we going to tackle first? And then I would just start to chip away at the problem, and I love it's a truthful reality, it's backed up by research, but I love the truth that we as human beings tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years. It's just know that this is going to feel frustrating as you start to work because it's going to take a lot longer than you think it will, but if you stay at it, in five years, you are not going to believe where you are and how far you've come.

Stephaine Goss:
Yeah, I like that and I agree with you about the North star piece of it and so to help get to that point and to get to the point where you could start to look at core values in some of the things there that are cultural and that require some experience to help set up and facilitate and figure out where do you even start with that? For me, I would start with a brainstorm and kind of a brain dump, and whether you do it on paper or you do it in your head, I would ask our listener or our writer and anybody else who's in this situation to think about what actually is bothering you? What is frustrating about your practice and make a list and write it all down and be as specific as you can.

Stephaine Goss:
Is it how the team is treating each other? Is it that people are getting let go, and you don't know why? Until you pinpoint what is actually bothering you and what's bothering the rest of the team, I think it will be very hard to figure out what that North star is. So that step number one for me is doing that brain dump and trying to actually get it all out and figure that piece out of it because the first piece for me I think falls between that brain dump, which is a personal thing and you can do on your own, right? And the North star, which is going to have to involve the rest of your team. If you're talking about core values in figuring out who you are as a group, there's a step in between there for me for this person, which is something that anybody on the team could do.

Stephaine Goss:
And so our writer said, “Look, we have some challenges with the team, gossiping, feeling like there's tension amongst ourselves, and bickering.” And this is where you don't have to be the manager. You don't have to be a senior technician. Any member of the team could have the daring and the bravery to say, even if it's to one other person, “Hey, I feel like we have been really stressed out. We've been picking at each other lately, validate the scenery and find out do they see it the same way? Are you seeing this in your head one way and everybody else is seeing it differently?” And so for me, it would start with what can I do as a team member in this position and where I'm going with that is trying to figure out why it's happening.

Stephaine Goss:
Because one of the most powerful tools that any member of the team can put in their toolbox is having a set of rules that you guys as a team agree to play by, and that I don't mean rules like what are your policies and procedures and how do people get disciplined for things? What I mean is we're all human beings, we're going to show up at this place and we're going to work together. How do we show up for each other? Do we tolerate talking about each other behind each other's backs? Is that a cultural standard that we have set, and if it is and you want to change it, take someone being brave and speaking up and saying, “Hey, I think that this is a problem.” Right? And that's a really scary place to be because you run the risk that you stand up and you be brave and you say it and no one else backs you up.

Stephaine Goss:
But I pretty much could guarantee you that if you're feeling the way that our writer is feeling, there's probably somebody else on your team who's feeling the same way too, and so it's about taking that step for me, it's about starting with doing some sort of brain work and self work to figure out what is actually bothering you so that you can kind of figure out your plan of attack, and then as far as the cultural stuff goes, I think you're spot on Andy and I would say to this team, they need some work figuring out where to set up their culture and a good in between step for me that doesn't require it coming from a leader is the ability to say, “Hey, I feel like maybe we've been having some gossiping and it doesn't make me feel good. I don't like getting talked about and I don't like talking about other people. Would you guys all be willing to agree that we're not going to talk about each other behind each other's backs?”

Stephaine Goss:
And then say, “Okay, we're going to agree to this.” And I love writing it down and capturing it and putting it up on the wall. It could be as simple as writing it on your board in the treatment board. Maybe it starts with one rule. Maybe it starts with 10, it's different for every team, but being able to say like, “How are we going to show up? How are we going to treat each other at work?” That for me is a place to start with the cultural issues if this team has never done any cultural work before.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I agree. I like that a lot. I think you're right on it. So I think it's funny. I like your approach better than mine. My thought was…

Stephaine Goss:
Wait, let me revel in that for a second.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like yours better than mine. I would abandon my plan to do your plan. So I was about to start talking about priorities and how we set priorities of the things that we change first, okay? And so we talk about the North star, we talk about the team core values and then I was like, “All right, then we're going to set priorities.” But I really like where you were is if you set the North star and you set the team values and you include the team in those values, then the next smartest thing is not for me as a leader or a leadership team to start hacking away on things. It's to go to the team and say, “What about this really bothers you guys? What changes would you like to make? How do you guys feel? What would you like to do?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And you are always better off to do what the team wants to do as far as making cultural changes because that is where their energy is. The hardest part of making changes as a leader is getting the team energized and bought in and motivated to make those changes, and so the smartest thing, especially when you've got a list of 50 things that you could do, the smartest thing is to say to the team, “What do you guys want to do?” Because that is going to require less management, less motivation, less coaxing, less following up, less holding people accountable than anything else. And so that's why I say I like your idea better than mine. I missed that trick there in the setup. I'm really glad you said that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So the first thing I do is take that list and go to the team and say, “How do you guys feel about this? We're going to focus on one or two things, what would you guys like those things to be?” And then let them do it. At some point, you're going to have to start driving the bus and making decisions yourself about what you want to fix, and when you do that, my sort of shortened, dirty, priority sitting exercise is to say, “Okay, you're looking at these things that you don't like or things you want to fix and you don't know where to start.” The worst thing you can do is not pick something, it's to try to hack away at everything, you'll always feel overwhelmed, you'll always feel like you're failing. It's just too big. You have got to pick a small thing and do it and then pick the next thing and do it, and that's why I said the thing about we overestimate what we can do in a year, underestimate 10 years. You've got to start walking.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You can't stand in the parking lot with Bandit, looking at 15 different trail heads and not deciding where you're going to go. Pick one and walk, and so that quick dirty way is what causes you the most pain, which means what is the thing that is triggering you, that's making you angry, that is causing the most fallout with the pet owners. What is the biggest pain point that you have? Number two, what is the greatest frequency that you have? What is the one that is bothering you every other day, every other day we have a client complaining that they can't get on the schedule. I'd say, “Well, that sounds like a frequency driven issue that we should prioritize.” And the last thing is what can be one and done meaning what is a thing that we can do, and then it's done and everything else benefits from knocking that thing off the list.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So for example, let's say that you have this big list of things that are causing problems, and one of them is the printer is broken and I'm like, “Oh, that's a thing that we can fix today and then the ability to print will help us get everything else done.” And so go fix the printer today. It's low hanging fruit, it's visible, get it done and then print to your heart's content and that will help you get other things done. So those are my things, and again, there's not one that's like, “Oh, take pain over frequency or one and done over the other things.” I think for me, my mindset is if this is a Tetris game, what is the annoying piece that is blocking up all the other pieces?

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm going after those first and then I'm either going to go after what is causing me the most pain or what is happening again and again, and if I could just get it fixed, then that pain would go away and right now, it seems like every time I turn around, I'm dealing with this issue, and so I don't think there's a right answer. I think it very much depends on the circumstances, but I would start using those criteria to pick things off of your list, work on one thing at a time. If you fix one problem a month, you're like, “That takes forever.” It's like, “No, it doesn't.” In 10 months, if you fix 10 cultural problems, you have done an amazing turnaround.

Stephaine Goss:
Yes and I think too, the writer asked, look, I recognize I'm not the boss, I'm not the owner, I'm not the manager, but I feel like they would be open to feedback or suggestions. Lean into that. Have the conversation with them and just saying, “Hey, I've been thinking about this and this is what this is what's really bothering me and I just really would like to know how you guys feel about it because I'm not the leader and this is bothering me. So I can't imagine how you must be feeling about it.” And see if they bite. See if they see if they give you anything. See if they're willing to help you because even if, look, this could turn into a full-time job for you if you let it. Sometimes this is how people become. This is sometimes how people become managers because they can't keep their mouth shut, and that is the story of how Stephanie Goss became a manager because I asked the questions, right?

Stephaine Goss:
And yeah, there's a longer story to it, but this could become a full-time job for you writer if you want to and it also could just be you've been at this practice for five plus years. Lean into the relationship you have with these people and just say, “Hey, this is stressing me out. I've been thinking about this a lot and I wanted to know how you guys feel about it and help them figure it out.” Because maybe it's just that they need a push. Maybe they need to just hear. I can't tell you how many times in my career as a manager, I had a team member who I had a relationship with who I valued their opinion, and I respected them, asked me a question that turned on the light bulb or was eye opening of like I knew that it was bothering me, but I didn't realize it was bothering everybody else.

Stephaine Goss:
And that was all of the motivation I needed as the leader to jump into the deep end and say, “I'm going to work on this, I'm going to tackle it. I'm going to fix it.” And so it doesn't have to be you learning the skills to do all of the things that you just talked about, Andy because I think that could be really daunting too, right? Like if you don't have any of that experience, how could I learn about priorities setting? How could I learn about how to talk about vision and mission and core values with people? That can be really intimidating. It could be as simple as giving somebody the push to figure that out on their own. If you are the writer and you're like, that this is something I'd be interested in learning more about, there's also nothing wrong with educating yourself.

Stephaine Goss:
And this is the last piece of advice I was going to say or suggestion would be this sounds like great potential where if you are a floor leader or you are a middle level leader in your practice and you have an interest in continuing your own development, this is a great time to find a mentor. Find somebody who is an experienced practice manager or a hospital administrator who has a different job than your practices, office manager, or homegrown manager who doesn't have any training and learn about their experience, learn about their skill sets and figure out how to bridge that gap and that education and that learning process is not a quick one. So it's not the first place where I would start, but it certainly would be an opportunity for you to learn more and connect with your peers and just soak it all up and because you can learn so much, and really quickly I think.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree. All right, I think there's been a wildly big beastly question to get our arms around, but we did it and so yep. So there we go. Guys, that's what I got for you. I think that's sort of where I am. I hope that we gave people good things to think about and didn't muddy the waters too much as this was a big unwieldy, tentacle beast that's in between us and our North star. How hard is that to follow?

Stephaine Goss:
I think it comes back to it takes a little bit of positivity. Just to start with some good thoughts and say, “I don't like this. This feels negative and feels not good to me and this is how I can be more positive about it.” And if that's you dealing with it, if it's that asking somebody else to deal with it, but figuring out what exactly is really bothering you and what feels the most important because you're not wrong, Andy. It is beastly and there's multiple things happening, and so I think figuring out where do you start is the heart of it. So this was fun.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Awesome. Cool. Thanks guys, everybody take care of yourselves.

Stephaine Goss:
Have a great week everybody.

Stephaine Goss:
Hey friends, have you been over to the website lately to check out all the fun and exciting things that are coming from the Uncharted Veterinary team? If not, you should stop right now and head over there because we have got some awesome stuff coming late summer and into the fall and winter and I want you to be there with us. We have our Get Shit Done Conference coming in the fall that is happening in October before that, we've got a workshop coming in September from my dear friend, Dr. Phil Richmond. He's going to be talking about avoiding toxic teams, how to create psychological safety in our practices. We've got the amazing and wonderful technician, Melissa Entrekin, who is leading a workshop in October about leveraging technicians, making practice less stressful for you, them, and your patients, and all kinds of other fantastic things you are not going to them to miss out on.

Stephaine Goss:
So if you haven't been over there lately, head on over to unchartedvet.com. You can hit forward slash events if you want to go straight to the events page, but that will show you everything that is coming and remember, if you are an Uncharted member, your membership gets you access to all of these workshops that we do on a regular basis for free, and if you are not currently a member, you can check out the membership information because it will save you big bucks throughout the year on accessing all of the workshops, and it scores you access to the conferences when we have them, like Get Shit Done for less money. That's right, get a discount and who doesn't love a good discount.

Stephanie Goss:
Thanks so much for listening guys, we'll see you soon.

Written by Dustin Bays · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: boss, lazy, manager, toxic

Jul 13 2022

How to Know If You Are The Toxic One?

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Have you ever asked yourself the question “Am I toxic?” This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a letter from the mailbag that asks some amazingly self-aware questions. Our listener said that they have seen/heard a lot of information about toxic work environments and toxic employees (as a group). They haven't seen a whole lot of discussion about how to tell if you might be toxic. Or heading in that direction. They are asking great questions about how to frame their headspace to think about this and also how the heck to handle it if you do think you might be a bit toxic. Let’s get into this…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP – 186 – How to Know If You Are The Toxic One?

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


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Date: July 27

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


Episode Transcript

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

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast Andy and I are diving into yet another topic from the Mailbag. You all have been on fire lately and I am here for it. This one was amazing. No exception. It was so great. It came to us from a listener who said, “Hey look, I've heard you and Andy talk here. And I've seen in lots of other places about toxic work environments and toxic employees, but I haven't seen a whole lot of information about how to tell if you might be a toxic person and also how do we prevent toxicity from forming? What might trigger it, et cetera. And I definitely haven't heard anything about what to do if you think that you might be the one who is becoming toxic.”

Stephanie Goss:
I absolutely loved this email and all of the questions that this listener asked us. And I cannot wait to dive into this conversation. Andy and I had so much fun recording this one. I hope that it is fun and helpful and engaging for all of you to listen to. So let's get into this one shall we?

Stephanie Goss:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Andy:
And we are back, it's me Dr. Andy Roark, and Stephanie don't you know that you're toxic, Goss.

Stephanie Goss:
I was really hoping that you were going to sing Britney Spears for us.

Andy:
Oh man.

Stephanie Goss:
That's really what I was hoping for.

Andy:
So I'm hanging out with my 11 year old because I'm driving her around to camp and everything. And the day I have listened to Dua Lipa Levitating three times today and it's lunch time and she sings all the words.

Stephanie Goss:
How fun for you?

Andy:
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
You know what? I have a Christmas present suggestion for you.

Andy:
Oh yeah. What is that?

Stephanie Goss:
AirPods.

Andy:
AirPods for my kids? Oh yeah. Oh, here you go. Just plug yourself in.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I really have been trying to focus this year on more intentional time with the kids as a family and really have been trying to ratchet back the screen time. We had the conversation with our pediatrician who was asking about screen time. And he was just, “Yeah, now's the age where we really need to ratchet it back.” And I was like, “Okay.” So I've been trying, but summer has hit and we had some camp stuff and now we have a week where we've got stuff happening, but they're not going anywhere during the day. And so during the pandemic, when they were home and I'm trying to work and we were just kidding, we were just getting ready to start. And I had just hit, set everything up and hit record. Then the door to my closet office open. And the kid walks in and it was like, “Here, I brought you this, you left it on the counter.” I'm like, “Okay, that's not important. And I told you not to interrupt already.” But it's that time in the summer.

Andy:
You left it on the counter and I thought you might want it. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And bless his heart. I appreciate it so much.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
But I will admit, I unlocked the time limits on their devices and gave them headphones and was, “Here, go with God, have fun.” I need a couple hours of peace to work, please.

Andy:
That is the modern parent thing right there. It's sort of holding out against the onslaught for screen time, especially when you're working from home. It's like, “Oh, it's just brutal. It's just brutal.” I have a Christmas gift for you.

Stephanie Goss:
A lock for my door?

Andy:
Yeah. It's a lock for your closet. It's an exterior lock for your closet. Totally wig out any service provider who comes to your house, “Why do you have a lock on outside of your closet?” Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
We're just not going to talk about that.

Andy:
Yeah, no, exactly.

Stephanie Goss:
It's uncharted after dark answer.

Andy:
Exactly.

Stephanie Goss:
What's your actual Christmas present though?

Andy:
We got a message through social media from one of our Australian listeners. And he says that in Australia, the word doodle is slang for the male anatomy. And so every time we talk about playing with my doodle and taking my doodle for a walk and how I have a bad doodle, he just has to collect himself for a half an hour, and it made me so happy and so mortified at the same time.

Stephanie Goss:
I wish you guys could see Andy's space right now, because he's blushing quite nicely. This makes me delighted.

Andy:
Oh yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And I will also say that is fantastic. And we thought we were a work appropriate show, but maybe apparently not.

Andy:
I guess not.

Stephanie Goss:
Not in Australia anyways.

Andy:
I know it's not in Australia but in the rest of the world we get an explicit label in Australia, but we couldn't explain before now, but now I get it.

Stephanie Goss:
Thanks. I am now not going to be able to refer to skipper Rourk.

Andy:
I know as Andy's doodle.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh God.

Andy:
Yeah. All right.

Stephanie Goss:
This is going to be a fun one to edit. Okay. Moving on.

Andy:
Yeah. Let's move on from this. But I knew how happy that would make you. And I was like, “I just have to share this with Stephanie.”

Stephanie Goss:
I think there might be some good uncharted after dark edits that come out of this one. Speaking of listeners though, we have a good Mailbag topic that I've been waiting for us to be able to get to this one I think is fun and I'm excited to dive into it. So we had somebody who said just recently, you guys had done a podcast and talked about being toxic actually, which is where this came from. And they said, “I hear a lot of discussion here on the podcast, but also other places about toxic work environments and toxic employees. And I'm struggling to find out how to tell if you are the toxic person in that situation, and also how to prevent toxicity from forming in the workplace, what might trigger it, et cetera.” And they said, “And I really haven't heard a whole lot on what to do if you think you are the one who's toxic, right?”

Stephanie Goss:
And it was funny to me because when I read it, I started thinking about it and looking through stuff and there's tons of reference material out there and research information about what is a toxic workplace. How to tell if people you work with are toxic?

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
So there's not a lot of stuff geared towards how do you decide if you're the toxic one? And they said, “Recently you guys were talking about a person becoming toxic and one of you said that there's no going back which found it sounded really final and kind of terminal to me.” And they said, “I'm really hoping that's not the case for me.” They recognize that they feel a little toxic right now. They don't want to continue to be that way. They also don't want to leave and go be toxic somewhere else. They just are feeling really stuck because they want things to improve at the practice that they're at and for themselves.

Stephanie Goss:
And so they said, “I fear, I think that some of what I think are toxic feelings and behaviors are coming from a place of, I started out really optimistic and I was really positive about change that was happening in the practice. I had a lot of ideas. We were working together. Things like improving patient care, efficiency workflow but I feel like at this point it's starting to be kind of lip service. They're saying that things are going to change and then the changes aren't happening the way that they're promised. And when I combine that with my own, they said my own stubborn streak, that means I don't want to take no for an answer.”

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
“And that I hate being ignored. I feel like I am asking repeatedly for change and it's not going anywhere. And so they were just like you know, I know that there are other options. I know that I could leave, but I am an associate doctor. I see so much potential in this practice. I want to help change. And I'm wondering what I can do so that I don't become the toxic one here because they said, I feel like I'm just stuck in a big giant rut.”

Andy:
Yeah. I like this. I have this question. I've heard a couple different versions of it over the years. So I think it's good. I think it's good when people have that question of, “Am I becoming toxic?” I think most of us go through periods like this in our life at some point.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
I have asked myself that question. In fact, I think I called you and said, “Okay, I'm going to tell you something and then I need you to tell me, am I the toxic asshole here? Thank you.” And I've had that conversation.

Andy:
Well, originally I liked this so much is that you can see exactly where it comes from. So okay, let's put ourselves in the position of this associate and you're in this practice and say, it's a corporate practice or leadership's not there or the leadership there has fairly limited power in what they can do in their short term, right?

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy:
It's not a small ship now. They are one member of a huge fleet that is all trying to get their stuff organized together so they can move in one massive formation and you see massive potential. You are making suggestions. You are asking for changes. You are seeing obvious things that you think would work on the ground to make life better for everyone, and you're getting some lip service, but nothing is happening and so you're getting frustrated with the fact that these things are not changing and you're seeing obvious places where things could be improved, and they're not being improved.

Andy:
Just imagine for a second that you're working in an inefficient system that causes you to do extra work every day, just because you don't have the tools that you need to make your life better. I think that would bother all of us.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy:
And what happens is, and we see this in our lives, it's the death spiral, meaning I'm unhappy and so I show that I'm unhappy. And I cross my arms and I disengage, or I cross my arms and I get frustrated, and I speak to you in a more curt manner, which decreases the chances of you doing the thing that I want to do.

Andy:
And maybe it makes you feel more defensive, which then makes me feel like, “Well, I'm not getting anywhere else.” And then you start to ignore me because I'm negative every time you see me. You start to avoid me. People stop taking me seriously because I'm complaining all the time, which then makes me more angry because I'm being ignored and not taken seriously. And so I act out more and you see this, we've all seen this with a person who had a good relationship with the practice or with a sports team or a volunteer organization and they start to butt heads or they get frustrated and they show their frustration, which causes people to back away from them, which gives them more frustrated.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy:
Until ultimately the whole thing crashes and burns. And this is not uncommon. And I think the fact that this person sees opportunity for improvement and so much potential and is making these recommendations, oftentimes that plays a critical role in being this sort of toxic. I'm using the word toxic not really in a literal sense but it sets them up pre-toxic, which is really ironic because if they didn't care enough to make suggestions, if they just were punching the clock, then they wouldn't be bothered so much so they wouldn't get so frustrated and angry, which wouldn't make the whole thing worse.

Stephanie Goss:
It's funny, because I had this literal conversation with someone yesterday and coming to that place of the reason that you're so upset and the way that you're acting is because you care which is a good thing, inherently is a good thing. The outcome still has to change, right?

Andy:
I agree. The other point that I want to make is I have said many times, if you have a toxic person in your practice, generally, the only way that toxicity is going to end is if that person is removed from the practice or if you leave the practice and I said that a number of times. There's a big caveat to that I want to make right here because it's really important.

Andy:
If you have a toxic person who is not interested in not being a toxic person and who is not willing to put in the work to become a non-toxic person, then everything I said was true.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
If you think that you are the toxic person that's different because you do have the power to change your behavior.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
We all have the power to change our behavior. You may not be able to change what's happening to you, but you do have the power to change how you respond to it.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
And so it is a hundred percent in your control if you think that you are being in a toxic mind space, whether or not you continue down that path.

Stephanie Goss:
Yep.

Andy:
And so I want to put that forward as a point of light at the beginning. So let's talk about some headspace you want to?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, let's do it.

Andy:
All right. Cool. All right. Am I the toxic person? So I just said, we all go through periods of this, right? Your reputation is based on your pattern of behavior. I have been toxic for a day. I've probably been toxic for a week or a month or maybe even a quarter at times in my life when I was frustrated or as down or I was burned out or I was whatever. I think we've all probably gone through those things. If you are dealing with someone who's going through a divorce, they're probably feeling a bit toxic, and that's understandable. We're all human beings. Most of us can't compartmentalize everything and be perfect every day. We're not built that way. And so there is a natural variance around the mean where everybody has bad days.

Andy:
I don't care how good you are. We all have bad days. When we talk about someone who's really becoming toxic. What we see is a consistent pattern or a progression in that negative direction that says, “Yes, I'm becoming toxic.” So how do we know if we're there? And for me, there's two tests-

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy:
… that we do. The first one is and parental advisory here. There's some language coming. It's the a-hole test. I'm going to say the word. I'm just building up to it. We got a letter one time saying, “Hey, I love [inaudible 00:14:12] to show with my kids.” And I've never forgotten it. I'm always like-

Stephanie Goss:
I know. I already made a note to have our editor bleep my comment earlier because I was like, “You need a comment.”

Andy:
There is a famous quote. And I can't remember who says it. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Basically it says, “If you wake up in the morning and you meet an asshole, then you met asshole. If you wake up in the morning and everyone you meet all day is an asshole then you are the asshole.” And I have found that to be a good measure for me.

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy:
If I'm mad at everybody or if I'm mad at three different people, I'm probably the one who is causing the problem. If I get up and I get into a spat with my wife and my kids frustrate me, and my technician is irritating me in my first appointment. It's not about my wife or my kids or my technician. It's about me. I have no doubt that I am. I am the one.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
And so if you are beefing with multiple people, and it's the pet owners, and it's the staff, and it's the other doctors, and it's the management, you are the common denominator in all of these beefs and you need to consider that you are the negative force here.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think you're spot on. And I think that I was going to interject earlier when you were talking about being the toxic one. And I think how we use the word is really important because I think a lot of times the word can be used very loosely when it shouldn't be. Like you said, everybody has a bad day. Everybody sometimes has a bad week or something is happening in their life and they grow through a period of time that's even bad. And I think that's why the analogy you just gave is such a great one, because the question is, are you having a bad day? But there are still things that are good and interactions that are good. There are people you can work with just fine like is it everybody or is it you? And I think that's really important. And I think too often, I'm glad we're talking about it more in our industry.

Stephanie Goss:
And I think that too often, we use the word toxic to describe people and situations that are maybe not actually toxic and/or are very transient versus a sustained period of behavior that really needs some further examination. And so I'm really glad you said that because I think it is important to look at are you the common denominator?

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Is it you or really are there things, is this temporary? Are you having a bad week? Are you having a bad day? But at some point when you wake up and you're having a bad year, that's a period of time where maybe you should start to take a look at that, right?

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
So I think that's really important. It's a piece of judging how are we using the word and are we using it correctly?

Andy:
Yeah. I agree with that. Let's sort of define the term here. So for me, there's the term, there's how we use it. So the term toxic to me, the reason I like that term is because to me something that's toxic leeches into the environment. It corrupts the area around it. And so if someone comes in and they're just having a bad day, if they're not coercing other people to have bad days, if they're not making other people unhappy or ill at work, then they're not toxic. But to me, toxic has this leeching effect of being contagious affecting the area the people around them.

Andy:
A toxic is something that kills, meaning nothing moves forward because this person just undermines it and causes it to die. And so when this person is the cause of a death of progress, and this person is affecting those around them in a negative sort of sickening sort of way, that is a toxic person. That is toxic. The way that we use it is we say that people are toxic and that's lazy language and I'm very guilty of it.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Me too.

Andy:
Their toxic behavior is different from say, the person is toxic because when I say Stephanie Gosk is toxic, I'm not talking about Stephanie's behavior anymore. I'm talking about her as a person. That's the pretty significant step. And I do think that we throw that around and we say, “That person is toxic.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
What we mean is that person is exhibiting toxic behaviors.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
At some point, if you exhibit toxic behaviors for a long enough and consistent enough period of time, then it is highly understandable that someone would say that person is toxic, but I think we jumped to that much faster than we probably should.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, no, I agree with all that. And I think it's interesting because when I was getting ready for this and I was looking at it, I read an article from the Harvard Business School and they had done a big research study about toxicity at work. And one of the things that they did was kind of define it. And I really liked the way that they looked at it from a truly stark perspective. It was when the behaviors are harmful to the other employees or the organization. And it was nice because when I was reading it, I started thinking about it, I was like, “Okay, you can have somebody who is acting in a way that is negative and even borderline toxic.” But for me it was a stark separation of when you have somebody who is intentionally or even unintentionally doing things that are harmful to other people or to the group or to the company, that's a really clear indication to me.

Stephanie Goss:
And for me, it was like, “Oh, okay. That becomes easier to separate out from the behavior in the moment.” This is a thing or things that are being done versus somebody's having a really bad day or really bad week because I think that there are cases where you can have somebody who hasn't doesn't have a behavioral pattern, but does instantly have harmful toxic behavior. They can make a choice to do something behaviorally that is toxic to the business or the group. They could steal. They could harass other people. They could do things and that in and of itself is a very stark and separate definition, right?

Stephanie Goss:
And so for me, when I started thinking about it and we were getting ready for this episode, I was like, “I really think we need to look at how are we using that word.” And so I really like what you said about leeching out into all of the other things, because I do think that there's… You have to look at the impact to others. To the team, to other people in the company that your company touches and also to the organization itself.

Andy:
Yeah. Well having negative thoughts and feelings or being frustrated, that's being human.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy:
That's not an awful thing. We all have those times.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy:
Being frustrated and conducting yourself professionally is a feat of strength. That is something to be respected because everybody does it. And so getting angry or upset or frustrated, that's not failure. That's not a bad thing. It really is what do you do with that? Do you hold onto it? Do you express it in a positive, productive, or just healthy way? Or do you take it and spread it around and sort of undermine what's going on around you? So back to sort of our assessment, the first part is the a-hole rule. Am I beefing with multiple people then it's probably me.

Andy:
The other one is a straight up self behavior analysis and this is just at the end of the day, stopping for a second and saying, “Okay, what are behaviors that make people toxic?” It's cynicism, it's negativity, right? It's saying hurtful things to people, or just saying negative things to people. It's making fun of things. It's gossiping, it's refusing to participate. It's those types of behaviors. So we all know where they were honestly, and this is why it's hard for the individual to change, do a self-assessment. At the end of the day, what toxic behaviors did you do today? And we all probably do something during a day. You know what I mean? If you were like, “Oh, I did gossip this morning.” Note that, and try to do better. It doesn't mean you're a toxic person, but if you come up with five toxic things you did today, and tomorrow, you're going to come up with three or four more.

Andy:
You need to take note of that. And a lot of it is just having the wherewithal to say, “I sat in the staff meeting and I crossed my arms and I did not participate. And when it was over, I told Stephanie that I thought the meeting was stupid. And I said that.” Do you have enough self-awareness to look at yourself that way and realize that you made that decision. Did I act in a passive-aggressive way? Someone asked me my opinion, I told them, “It was fine.” Was I being passive-aggressive? And it's just straight up asking yourself honestly. What did I do here? Here's the balance, right? “What did I do to make the lives of the people around me better and happier to make the practice more positive? And then what did I do that would shine a negative light on people around me or the practice or the things going on there.” And if you're way out of balance, you need to recognize that and start to make a change.

Andy:
I don't think she minds me telling the story. I've said it a number of times, it happened a long time ago, but I do. I remember my wife who is a very positive, very, very strong person. She was hanging around with someone from a place that she was working early on, who just had a very cynical sense of humor and was just sarcastic. And I remember it affected her. And at one point I said to her, I was, “Hey, you seem really unhappy because every time you bring up work, you mention these things that are not nice or not fun, or that bother you or make you angry.”

Andy:
And she started, she thought about it and she looked at it and she said, “You know what? You are right. I'm saying all these negative things and I actually like my job.” And she noticed that in the end, the answer for her was to distance herself from this person who kind of lived in that headspace. But it was something amazing that I saw in my life with someone being self-aware enough to recognize their behaviors when they were sort of pointed out and go, “Oh my gosh, I'm doing this and I'm don't want to do it. And so I'm going to make a change.” And she did. But I just think when I talk about what is your behavioral self assessment, that's what I'm referring to is looking around and going, “Man, I make a lot of cutting jokes about our practice and they're not uplifting their they're kind of down pushing.”

Stephanie Goss:
And I think the other piece of that that's important because the whole point is that you're self reflecting. So nobody's going to judge you for it. It's your own thoughts. I think it's also really important to look at not just your behaviors but your thoughts, because to your point earlier, you maybe in a situation where you are containing yourself outwardly, but I know I have been in this space where I go to work and I'm keeping it together. And if you asked my team, they would've said my usual self, maybe a little quiet or the normal, but I wasn't outwardly doing anything. But if you asked me to self reflect on the inside, like the negativity and the negative talk, the conversation I was having with myself in my head.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
I would've told you, “Oh yeah, this is not so great.” Because I hit all of your points on the self-assessment. I just wasn't doing any of it out loud. I was sitting in a staff meeting going, “This is a freaking joke. Why are we having this meeting?” So I think it's really important when you are self-reflecting to look at it from both sides of the coin, because I think you can absolutely be having that conversation in your head and that negativity is renting space in there, but it's just not spilled out in an outward way where people can see it yet.

Andy:
I think that head conversation, I think that's a stepping stone to toxic behaviors.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
There's that quote from Lao Tzu that I love. And I may not get exactly right, but basically it's, “Beware your thoughts they become your words. Beware your words because they become your actions. Beware your actions because they become your habits. Beware your habits because it becomes your character. Beware your character, it becomes your destiny.” but that first part of your thoughts, they go first.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes.

Andy:
And then the next part is the manifestation of those thoughts and I think it's probably only a matter of time. So when you catch yourself having those thoughts, I call it the headspace hand break is when I catch myself arguing with an imaginary person in the shower. That's a flag for me.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
I'm like, “Why am I in this combative headspace?”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
And if you find yourself in that space again, and again, and again-

Stephanie Goss:
That's when I know it's time for therapy.

Andy:
… I was going to say something needs to change.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
There is something going on that needs to be addressed because even if I'm not undermining the team, which is good. I don't want to live in a negative headspace.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
And if this is a place that I'm saying whether it's because of something that's going on in my practice or because of something that's going on internally with me, I need to take steps to deal with those things. And the last part of headspace that I would say for this is when you have these revelations, right? When you look at this and you go, “Oh my God, I think it's me. I think I am. At least living in this negative headspace, if not yet manifesting it.”

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy:
This is not a, “I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this problem is going to be over. I'm going to stop.” This is going to be a path back. So resolve yourself to working back to a positive place and just know, “Oh, you know what, I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and I'm going to start getting better and getting more positive. And it's going to take some time.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think that's part of it because I think it becomes much easier for other people to give you grace when you start with yourself because we're all our own worst critics. And if you're beating yourself up, your behavior is not going to change as much outwardly for other people to be able to see it and acknowledge it as well. So it's got to start with you and it won't happen overnight.

Andy:
No, I agree. You got anything to add to headspace?

Stephanie Goss:
No. You want to take a break and then… Okay. Well for writer, they feel like this might be where they're sitting. What do we do with it?

Andy:
Yeah. We can work on that. Let's take a break.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Hey everybody, this is Stephanie and I'm going to jump in here for one quick second and make sure that you know about a few things that are coming up that I'm pretty sure you're not going to want to miss, but before I do that, I have to say thank you. Thanks to a generous gift from our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital, we are now able to provide transcripts for all of our podcast episodes. And we have to just say, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Andy and I have wanted to make the podcast more accessible, and when we were pondering the idea of how do we make transcripts a thing our friends at Bandfield stepped up in a big way and said, “Hey, we are striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the profession. This fits with that mission for us. And we would love to sponsor it.”

Stephanie Goss:
So the 2022 podcast episodes are all now being transcribed and brought to you by our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital, to check out the transcript and find out more about what Banfield is doing to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the vet profession. Head over to unchartedvet.com/blog and you can find each one of the podcast episodes and a link to find out more about equity, inclusion and diversity at Bandfield.

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

Stephanie Goss:
It is a really, really important topic. It is one that I think needs to have a lot more discussion in veterinary medicine. And we are really excited to be bringing this one to you. It is happening on July 27th. It is a 7:00 PM Eastern session so it is two hours. It will be over at 9:00 PM Eastern, which means 4:00 to 6:00 PM Pacific time. And it is $99 for members of the public. And it is free as always for our Uncharted members. And this workshop is awesome. We also have more coming up throughout the summer and the calendar at unchartedvet.com/events is constantly being updated. I encourage you if you are not currently an Uncharted member to head on over to the website, check out what's coming up and remember that all of our workshops like this are free for our Uncharted members. And now back to the podcast.

Andy:
All right, well, let's talk about some action steps. So we've talked a bit about, am I the toxic person, if I am, does happen mean I'm doomed and I hope we've come to a good healthy place on that. We need now to do a little root cause analysis.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy:
And so if I'm, I can control how I react to it, to the situation, and if I'm reacting in a toxic way, I'm going to fix that. But I also owe it to myself to get into a healthy place where I'm not just suppressing negative emotions that I'm having because I don't want to keep working in a place where I'm going to have these negative emotions again and again and again.

Stephanie Goss:
Right.

Andy:
Part of it just comes from deciding how you're going to respond and deciding that you want to, there's the phrase, “Choose happy.” And it gets crapped on a lot.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
But it really does work and a lot of times we choose kind of how we respond to our situation. One of the things I want to point out just from this letter, and this is something that I have wrestled with in my life, okay? Is the idea of should.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Andy:
Should is a dangerous word that sets a lot of us up for frustration. And when we start thinking about what people should do and what the practice should do and how things should be done and how clients should behave.

Stephanie Goss:
There's a lot of potential disappointment in there.

Andy:
There is so much potential disappointment and no control. No control. I can't make the practice do anything, I mean, the clients do anything. One of the things that I learned in my life that was super helpful is to try to take the word should out of my vocabulary because it doesn't matter what the practice should do. All that matters is what they are doing or what they're going to do or what say they going to do-

Stephanie Goss:
Or can do. Yeah.

Andy:
… and what they can do.

Stephanie Goss:
Yep.

Andy:
So thinking about what they should do is not helpful.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
And I think that we should set that aside because that makes people frustrated. And so I think that we can go to the practice and say, “Hey, there's a problem that I see. I have some ideas on how we might move forward in a different way. Can I present those to you? Or would you be open talking about them? No. Okay. All right.”

Andy:
And then I go away and it doesn't help me to say, “Well, they should listened to me.” That doesn't help, but I go away and say, “You know what, I presented them with a problem and with solutions and they didn't want to talk to me.” And that's where we are and I am going to make decisions not based on what they should do, but based on the reality of the situation. So I always try to want to point that out and just say, “Hey, there's lots of things the practice should do, but you should not sit and think about what they should do. You should make peace with the fact that they didn't do it, or they did do it and they will continue to do it and what is possible doesn't matter.” And I think that causes a lot of pain in a lot of different areas. We've all worked with someone and you say, “Man, she should just be more positive and this will-

Stephanie Goss:
Everything will be fine.

Andy:
… all be better.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
Exactly. “She should just get along with the other person. And if she did, then this would all be great.” You know what she's not getting along with the other person and we have discussed it and she's not going to get along with the other person. And so dwelling on what they should do and how things should be it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't help.

Stephanie Goss:
And I just want to point out, you're starting with the frog here, because this is probably the hardest of all of the things we're going to talk about to do.

Andy:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
Because it's a radical mind frame shift, and it is something that has to be a repeated conscious behavioral choice to change from thinking and shoulds to thinkings in cans or mights, or maybes when you're trying to eliminate that is, again it's not one of those things that happens overnight. And it's something you have to tell yourself and because you will slip up and you will… And even when you've been practicing that for a long period of time, you will still have times where you're just like, “Ugh.” And it just comes out and it takes practice and conscious effort on your part to reign it, to rein it in and make the change.

Stephanie Goss:
I'll tell you guys on a personal level, on a really similar way since I first started in veterinary medicine, I took a class and I learned about the concept of transformational vocabulary. And it's what you're talking about, Andy. It's about taking a word that generally has a negative connotation and flipping it around so that you're using things that come from a positive perspective and a really big one and also a very difficult one for me was the word but.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Not in the anatomical sense, right. So think about how many times in a day I say, but this, but that, and what I realized is that when you say the word but it does have a very negative connotation and most of the time people stop listening because they feel like you're just no one and when you hear it, when you're receiving it in the sentence, if somebody says to me, “But Stephanie.” I disconnect from that because I feel like they're going to dismiss whatever I said, because they've put the but in there. And there's a whole backstory behind it, but our team at the time was having a significant challenge with some negativity and so one of the things that we chose to tackle was the word but.

Stephanie Goss:
It wasn't just me. We were all in. The whole team was working on this and I'll tell you guys, every single day I caught myself but-ing all over the place and it… Should tell you, it takes time and it takes practice. And so I've been in veterinarian medicine almost 20 years now and I still catch myself saying, “But.” And the change for us was instead of saying but we're going to say and. So it's, “Andy, I can do that and here's more information that I need you to have.” It changes the sentence from, “Okay but.” And it has a very different feel to it. And I've been doing this for that long and I still catch myself regularly. And I'm like, “But I mean and. Yes and.”

Andy:
Yes and [crosstalk 00:39:06].

Stephanie Goss:
It is hard and so don't… The reason that I'm started this part of the conversation was don't beat yourself up because you will fail and you will fail again and again and again. And the thing that makes all the difference in the world is the intention that you put behind it on a personal level. And so if you're trying to make that change to should, I think when we're talking about toxicity, it's really, really important, and it's a very hard thing to do. If you get started and you're in a role, and then you slide back into thinking in the context of shoulds like, “Oh, if she would only do this.” “If only the client… I wish they should do this. Why aren't they doing it?”

Stephanie Goss:
If you find yourself thinking that it's going to happen and give yourself the grace to say, “oh, okay.”

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
But also know that you were in… See, I just did it, and know that you were in control of it and you can change that.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
You can make the conscious choice to say, “Okay, I did it and I'm going to reframe that thought for myself.”

Andy:
Yeah. We can all work on our buts.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. We can all work on our buts.

Andy:
We can all work on our buts.

Stephanie Goss:
Life lessons from Stephanie Gosk for the week.

Andy:
That's right.

Stephanie Goss:
We can all work on our buts.

Andy:
Yep. And playing with your doodles, good things so. That's Andrew works lesson. Oh God.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh. This episode definitely needs a disclaimer at the front of it. All right.

Andy:
I'm sorry. I couldn't, I was like, “You should just let that go.” And I just look at you.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Okay.

Andy:
That nine year old living me was like, “Nope.”

Stephanie Goss:
That's fantastic. So we ate the frog, right? [crosstalk 00:40:38] The should is the big, big piece of it. Okay. So then if we let go of the should and we recognize we have no control and people are not going to do what we want them to necessarily, and we can't influence that and we can't change that.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
We can control ourselves if we tackle that piece from an action perspective, and we start looking at things from what do I have direct control over what can I change then what else do we need to think of from the plan attack?

Andy:
Yeah. I want to make a bigger deal out of what you just said. So yeah, I do think there's the mindset. And then there really is the, “What do I have direct control over what can I change?” And that's it. Just say, “What do I not need approval to do here? What ownership do I have?” And that's the way that I work up the cases. The way I go into the exam room. The way I treat the technicians. You know what I mean, the way that I work with the clients. I have great control over a lot of things. Can I be happy with just the things I have control over? And really thinking about what do we actually control and leading into that a lot of times that can give us the outlet that we need to feel like we have some control, like we have some autonomy.

Andy:
And so think about the autonomy that you do have, and a lot of times that can be sort of a salve for the irritation of working inside of a system that's not perfect. I want to talk about the three sort of pieces of advice I tend to give people when they're trying to get an organization to change with them, right? And so you've got some ideas and you see some ways to move forward. Three pieces of advice, number one is start small in your asks. I think a lot of times people go, “I never ask for anything and this is the one thing that I want and it's a huge thing.” And they get frustrated.

Stephanie Goss:
I never asked for anything, but I just asked for a $60,000 ultrasound machine. And they said no.

Andy:
And they said, no, how could they do that? And I go, “Okay.” It's like buying something on credit when you've never used your credit card before.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
You have no credit.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
Start small in your asks. Are there little things that would be fairly easy for them to do that would make your life better or the life of the staff better?

Stephanie Goss:
Can you buy them a printer?

Andy:
Exactly right. Well, I love your story about that of coming into the new job and saying, “What can I do in the front desk? We need a printer.” And you went at lunchtime and bought it. And they were like, “This is amazing.” Those are the things that you go, “This is a $75 ask. Can we just do this.” But are there small wins that we can get, right?

Andy:
Number two is lean into pilot programs. If you go and you make an ask and it requires the whole hospital changing, that's scary. It's a much easier ask to say, “Can I do this just from me and my tax for six weeks and try it out and see how it goes. Is that possible?”

Stephanie Goss:
Yep.

Andy:
And to make the stakes slow, make the ask small. Then the last thing is align your programs with the company motivators. And if they are trying to increase senior wellness visits, how does the thing that you want fit into senior wellness? If you want to update your anesthesia protocols, how does that translate into dental health as the company says, “We're prioritizing dental in the next quarter.”

Stephanie Goss:
Sure.

Andy:
Right? Just take a moment to think about what the management leadership is going to care about and think about how your ideas could support and improve their ideas. Ideally, what I really want is I want to not worry about the credit. I just want the change to happy so my life is better. And so I would like to take an idea to my manager and give it to him or to her and say, “What do you think about this?”

Andy:
And I would like for them to take that idea, get excited about it because it matches up with the initiative that they're being asked to carry, and then let them turn around and hand it up the chain of their boss and go, “Look at this idea.” And let them have the credit. That's fine. I get to do the thing that I want to do, but that's only going to happen if I can go. And they may not have the vision to see what I want intersects with what they want, but if I can help them see how this is going to help them meet the requirements that are being put upon them. A lot of times I can get them much more excited than I would otherwise be able to.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think those are great. And then I think the last thing for a plan of attack from our writer was really they were like, “I feel stuck because I know that I could of course go somewhere else and there's all these things that impact that and it's a choice.” And I appreciated that they clearly had been listening and had recognized that we said, “Look, you were in control of this and there's one way that you can choose to go.” And I think being an associate, whether you're associate veterinarian, whether you're a member of the paraprofessional staff, when you are not the business owner, you have to recognize that you are not in full control but to your point, there are still a lot of things that you can control, and I think too often we overlook those. And at the end of the day, ultimately the last thing in terms of deciding, “Am I going to… Is this the right environment for me? Or am I toxic because of the environment.”

Stephanie Goss:
There's two pieces that I have to look at which is if you're not in control and someone else is when the same things happen over and over and over again, at some point it's not a surprise anymore. It's your business model. And so if you're an associate vet or you're paraprofessional staff member, and you have been asking for change, or you have been, there are things that the owners have been blatantly brought, had awareness brought to them about. Doesn't matter what it is when it's repeated over and over and over again, it doesn't change that. At some point you need to recognize, “Okay, I recognize these trees. I think we've been in this forest. This is not going to necessarily change.”

Stephanie Goss:
And so then you have to start looking internally about what control do I have here? Can I live with this? And this goes to something you and I talked about quite regularly, which is you got to pick your poison. So can I live with this? How much does this really bother me? Can I live with it? Can I deal with it? Can we compromise? Can I have a small change that will make me feel immensely better? And I'm just going to let the rest of it go or ultimately, is this a thing or are these a series of things that if they don't change I can't live with because if that's the case, the control is solely in your hands.

Stephanie Goss:
You can stay where you are and you can be miserable. Go somewhere else and maybe you have it different but only you can control that. And so I think from the plan of attack, I think it feels very optimistic to me, even when someone is recognizing that they may be feeling kind of toxic where they're at, because realistically there is a lot of this that is within their control. And I think it takes the self-reflection, like you said to look at it and figure out how do I feel about this? What do I need here? What am I going to do about it? And it may still ultimately mean a change which is scary. And it's why most of us are just like, “Well, I don't want to have to leave my job.” Well, I get that and what if you leaving your job is the best thing for you or for your family.

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
You still have choice there and I think that's really important. And really for me, let me look at it through a positive lens, right?

Andy:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
I could change it around. Doesn't have to be final. You were talking earlier about the self-assessment if I'm recognizing as our writer is I am feeling this way, it is not terminal. It does not mean that you need to be sent off the island. You can still make the choice to change things.

Andy:
Our job is a relationship. I say that all the time.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
But I really do. That's how I look at it. Our job is a relationship. And if you're in a relationship and you go through the process of acceptance of the other person and the reality of the relationship, and you look at yourself and you say, “What am I doing to contribute to the problems in this relationship and how can I change them?” And you do both of those things and you look at the relationship and say, “I have tried acceptance and I have looked at my own role in this and tried to make amends for it and tried to correct the behaviors that I was doing that were contributing to the toxicity relationship.” You then after that say, “I've done these things, is this relationship worth being in.” And then you've ultimately, you don't have control of the other side of the person in a relationship.

Andy:
And if you have told that person what you need or told them, meaning your job, what you need and what you need to be happy, and you have tried to do the things on your side that you can, and they're not willing to meet you where you need to be, and they're not going to meet your needs that you need to do what's what's right for you, and that's probably leaving the relationship and hey, leaving relationships is not fun. I'm not just like, “Hey, I want to get out of this.” And anyone who's been in a great long term relationship can tell you that they take work.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Right.

Andy:
And they take sacrifice. I mean, I can give you a bunch of Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes. I'm doing a lot of quotes today. Ruth Bader Ginsburg quotes I love. One of hers was, “Marriage is 60/40 both ways.” And I love that. The idea that everyone feels like they're giving more in a relationship, that's just what it means to be in a relationship.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
And the other thing that Ruth said was, “In marriage, it's good to be a little bit deaf.” And I think that goes to the acceptance as sometimes you're just like, “Yep. I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear this. And I'm just going to go on and just be happy in what I'm doing.” And I think all that's true, but at some point you look at the relationship and if it's not what you need then you have the choice of staying in this relationship or leaving the relationship and if you're going to be angry every day that you're in a relationship, God, a good divorce beats a bad marriage.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Andy:
That's kind of it. And man, there's a lot of metaphors today from that. But anyway, you get the idea that is really how I see it. But start with yourself and the things you can control, which is what is your headspace? What changes can you make in your behaviors to make this all better? How can you communicate your needs in a more productive way? And ultimately if you do all those things and your needs are still not being met and you are frustrated every day, I'm sorry, but I think you're going to need to make a change because you only get to go through this life one time and you don't want to be miserable five days a week.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Not at all.

Andy:
Awesome. Well, thanks for talking to this with me.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. This was a good one. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Have a fantastic week everybody.

Andy:
Yeah. Everybody take care of yourselves.

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

Written by Dustin Bays · Categorized: Blog, Podcast · Tagged: culture, toxic

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