Help: Am I Witnessing a Mutiny?

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek, Stephanie Goss, are in our mailbag to tackle a question from an associate vet who is struggling with a peer. Their fellow associate seems to be having a hard time. Let's get into this…

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

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

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. We're back this week with another letter from the mailbag. This one comes to us from an associate veterinarian who is having some challenges with a fellow associate. Only they're not challenges that they themselves are having. They're challenges that they're observing within the rest of the team. There's a lot of change happening, and this doctor is advocating for even more change and getting frustrated when it's not happening and going above the manager's head. There's a lot of drama happening here, and Andy and I both looked at this letter and couldn't help but think, is this associate watching a potential mutiny happen? Let's get into it and find out.

Speaker:
And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie Yo Ho Ho, and a bottle of rum Goss. We've got a mutiny Goss. We've got a mutiny.

Stephanie Goss:
We've got a mutiny. We've got a mutiny. I don't like mutiny.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We got a good one in the mailbag today.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

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

Dr. Andy Roark:
How is it going? It's crazy. The college recruiter came to the high school and now Jacqueline's, like she thinks she's leaving tomorrow. So it's like you're 15, you're not out of here just yet. But she's serious. My oldest daughter is my wife's child for sure. And so she definitely wants to get this right. And so at first we had a lot of panic because my daughter goes to the Fine Arts Center, and so the colleges that came there rolled up hard with fine arts programs. Well, my wife teaches biology as a STEM professor, and so Jacqueline comes home and she's like, “Look at this place.” And Allison was like, “I've never heard of this school.”
It's because they only have theater. That's the only, it's a four-year college with just art stuff. And so of course, I think Allison and I both were taken aback a little bit by that. Oh. And so Allie freaked out, I think. Allison freaked out. She was like, “What do we do? She's going to go to the school I'd never heard of that just does art.” And again, maybe that's your jam, but for a veterinarian and a science professor-

Stephanie Goss:
She's a science teacher.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's an unexpected pill to have to swallow all of a sudden. But the nice thing is I was like, I know Jacqueline. She's just like Allison. And so I introduced Jacqueline to the US News and World Reports. I was like, “Hey, Jacqueline, look, all of these colleges are ranked with lots of data.” And Jacqueline was just like, “Oh my God.” So now she has, I kid you not on her wall. She has a map of America and it has concentric circles around Greenville drawn based on driving time. She's like, these are within two hours. These are within four hours, these are within six hours.
And then she has pins and she put pins where the schools were, and then, I'm not kidding, got a piece of thread and goes from the pin to a post-it note on the side that has the school. And she's just making notes and it looks like she's solving a murder investigation, trying to figure out where she's going to go to college. But she's talking about, and her younger sister, Hannah, who's 12, is just really depressed because she's like, “Jacqueline's leaving.” I was like, “She's not leaving. Everybody calm down. She's not leaving… “-

Stephanie Goss:
Oh gosh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
“… Just yet”. Hannah's like, “Jacqueline's going.”

Stephanie Goss:
I was going to say she's gotten her driver's a permit. She's not even driving yet. She's planning her college-

Dr. Andy Roark:
She's not driving yet, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, she's planning her college escape. That sounds like my house too.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
It's crazy how quickly the year goes by. I was thinking about it for Uncharted, but I was thinking about it because of at home, I was looking at the calendar and I'm like, Holy crap. My kids' birthdays in a week and that's in the fall, and there's all this fall activities and holiday conversations are starting, and whose families are we visiting this year? And I'm just like, wait a minute, where did this whole year go? It has just flown by. And then I started thinking about work and all the things that we have coming and looking at that calendar, it's like, man, it is just a steady march from here until the new year. There's a lot. There's a lot happening.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it's going fast. Boy, September just disappeared. That was the fastest month I could remember in my life of just, and it's here and it's gone.

Stephanie Goss:
Yep. And now it's the halfway through through October.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We're halfway through October as we're recording this. Yeah, it's flying up. So we've got our practice leader Summit right around the corner and then on from there. Oh, man.

Stephanie Goss:
I know. I was just talking about that with Tyler Grogan on our team yesterday. I said, “Hey, you know what? The time is going to fly by between here and Greenville in December. And I cannot wait. It's going to be so much fun.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
We've got cool stuff. Tyler and I had been working on some neat program stuff for our practice owners and practice managers. It's going to be really cool.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I'm excited. Well, hey, let's get into today's episode. So you said we have a mutiny on our hands.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We got a potential mutiny on our hands.

Stephanie Goss:
This one was really interesting to me because, so the email came to us from an associate veterinarian. And they work in a corporate practice. And so they're not the boss, they're not the leader in this situation. And so it'll be interesting to see how our conversation flows with this one, because I think there's questions that the writer is asking, but then also the bigger picture questions of the practice leadership here. So an associate vet who loves their practice and they were hoping for some input and advice from us on what to do about a fellow associate veterinarian.
So they have somebody that they have been working with and ever since they came on board, they've been advocating for big change in the practice and which is awesome because the practice was ready to change. But there are things that the practice manager and the medical director have not always been in agreement with the associate vet who's proposing the change on. So lots of things that they're bringing to the table that the leadership team is like, yeah, let's tackle that. Let's take it on. And then other things that they do not agree with for a variety of reasons. And so it sounds like from our writer's perspective that this doctor does not being told no. And so when they get no for things that they would like to see change, they are causing some drama and stirring the pots and causing what has tipped over to this place of moving beyond themselves and involving other team members and the paraprofessional staff, the technicians and the front desk trying to recruit them to their side of the argument and push the change through, it sounds like, on their own.
And so this associate vet was like, “Look, I love this practice. I care about the team on both sides of this. I care about the relationships that I have with the associate doctor that I work with, and I also care about the team. And I feel like this is starting to get really messy and toxic. And this practice manager and this medical director are working really, really hard to guide the practice through the season of change as we grow. And it feels like this doctor is undermining all of that, and I'm worried that this thing is about to blow wide open.” And so they were asking for help knowing what they could do to help support this situation where the practice leaders are getting routinely submarines by this associate doctor with the rest of the team.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Did you mentioned it's a corporate practice?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that that's important in this case, because a lot of times it speaks to how much control leadership has about the requests that are being made. And you and I don't exactly know what the requests are that are being made, but I do think that's important. It's important flavor when we start talking about what we do here. All right, I am committed this time. This is the time when I'm not going to turn this into what managers should do. And I'm going to actually answer the question that was asked of us. I think a lot of people ask this question, they're like, “I'm not in a position of power, but I see this going on in my practice and what do I do about it?” And so I'm going to really try hard to not put on my leader, coacher hat and be like, this is what your medical director should do. Although now that I say that out loud, I'm like, well, I have thoughts on what that is, but I'm not going to do them.

Stephanie Goss:
See, this is why I said it was hard-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Real hard.

Stephanie Goss:
… Because I did the same thing. I sat down and I was like, okay, let's think. And I thought as we do, I was trying to divide my thoughts into head space and action, and I was thinking about the writer and I was like, what can the writer actually do in this situation? And I made my little list and then I was like, what could the hospital leaders do in this situation? And that list was far longer.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It's a much longer, more empowered list. Yeah, I agree.

Stephanie Goss:
And so I was really struggling and I was like, well, we'll see where Andy and I take this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, no. But I think this is good. I mean, I love the fact that this person's an associate vet and they're like, I've got this other associate vet. I think that's awesome because a lot of people, a lot of times, we're not somebody's boss and we've got a problem and we see something happening in our practice and we don't want it to go badly. And here's the other thing too. If you have to work at this practice and then you see a train wreck shaping up, don't think that's not going to affect you.

Stephanie Goss:
Right. Absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I mean, I just think that that's true is that we all got to swim around in this fishbowl, and if you come here and make it a sewer, I still got to live in it. And that's not, boy, that's a good metaphor, but that's not helpful. You know what I mean? Don't act like you're not affected by that. And I think the way I look at this, like a mailbag question on hard mode, because boy, you don't have a whole lot of tools. This is a limited tool engagement. I go, all right, we can get creative here. We can MacGyver this, we can duct tape a spoon to a lawnmower and just we can whip this pudding.

Stephanie Goss:
So many mixed metaphors here.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I was MacGyvering something. Ultimately I came up with a lawnmower that has a spoon attached and basically it's an egg beater.

Stephanie Goss:
You're talking MacGyver and my brain is still back on when you started talking about the toxic sewer and swimming in it, my brain immediately as a child of the eighties was on Ninja Turtles. And I'm just picturing glowing, radioactive little-

Dr. Andy Roark:
We'll fix that mutated turtle.

Stephanie Goss:
… veterinarians and support stuff running around. All right.
Okay. Let's talk about head space.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, cool. So head space. So the first thing I got to say in head space, and I don't say this, it's limited value to say to people, I wish that you had done this in the past, or I hope you did this in the past. Sure. But I still think that I just got to give a quick shout out to good old relationship lever here. We talk about the ways you get people to do things. There's two levers you can pull. There's a relationship power and there's organizational power. Organizational power is I'm your boss, I have a leadership role, I have a formal position and I'm going to tell you what to do and you're going to have to do it or else you're going to have to deal with some sort of formal consequences. That lever sucks. It's just not a very useful lever for anybody, but it is a lever. I think a lot of people look at.
The other lever is the relationship lever, which is just, Hey, I like you and you like me and you believe that I have your best interest at hearts and I care about you as a person. And so if I need something, then you are going to at least listen to me and you would kind of like to help me out because you believe that if the roles are reversed, I would want to help you out. And that is hard to establish once things start to go off the rails. And so I just throw this out as my initial sort of point of order. This is why it's good to be friends with people you work with. Even if you don't need anything, if you have the same job, anything, it's just good to know people around you and to try to take care of them and to listen to them and to know so that at some point in the future if things start to shift, you can have the, I don't know, just the human, the capital, the political capital to kind of get heard.
And if you don't have a relationship with that person, then you don't have that capital. Then you're somebody who's kind of coming in and trying to talk to this person who doesn't really know or trusts you. So anyway, I just think that that's good rules to live by. I don't mean to take relationships and make them transactional, but there's a lot of reasons that we should be friends and we should try to know the people that we work with. And situations like this where you see somebody kind of starting to make things toxic, if you know that person and you have a good relationship with that person, it's a whole lot easier to try to talk to them and just, you might not be able to get them to change how they feel, but you can at least get them to hear what you're saying and maybe temper their actions. And a lot of times that is the difference between things being a rough patch and really becoming a toxic mutiny.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Well I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast before multiple times now about being friends with people that you work with. And when you say you don't mean for it to be transactional, I hear that because I know that we've talked about you don't have to be friends with the people and at the same time, nobody goes into veterinary medicine because they don't have a heart and they're not caring. And so we are working in a field of people who do care about what they're doing and the people that they choose to do it with every day and work side by side with. And so we're not just widgets. I mean our field is not a field where we're working in cubicles and we're just a number in the big giant sphere. And so I think that that's really important here because even if you're not friends with the people that you work with, you have relationships with them.
And your point about that being, it is really important here because you need to be able to look at them, especially when things get hard and look at them and say, I know this person as a human and therefore I know these things about them. I can tell myself this story in my head for good or for bad. So when you know someone and you work side by side with them and you have seen how, to your point, they have reacted to things in the past, you can choose to tell yourself a story about their intentions. And we talk about that a lot on the podcast.
And I think that this is where that becomes really, really important because when you have a relationship with that person, our writer for example is like, Look, I like this associate vet. I work with them. I think they practice good medicine. I'm telling, they didn't write all of this. I'm telling myself I'm hallucinating as if I'm them. I could look at them and say, I like this person. I think they practice good medicine. I like being on their team. I want this to go well for them and I care about the manager. I care about the team. Those conversations in your head or the shower conversations that you have with yourself when you're trying to sort this stuff out, those become much easier when you do have a relationship. And to your point, you're not starting from ground zero when things are already bad.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree with that. So I think that that relationship hopefully that you already have in place, I think is key. We talk a lot about, so the metaphor I always use is you need to build the bridge before you need to walk on it. And that's just kind of how I feel about relationships with the people that we work with is people that you lead or just your colleagues. It's not about who someone is in their role in the organization. It's just if you want to be effective regardless of your role, it helps to have good relationships with the people around. And that's just pruning the garden. You know what I mean? It's just constant maintenance and watering that relationship and taking care of it. But that really, you just never know when that's going to come in handy. So I start with that.
The second thing for me with head space is, and I think this is kind of where you tend to go with these things as well. I think you as the associate vet, you kind of have to take stock on what you can control. And this is a general piece of advice I give to associate vets all the time because the number of people who get hung up on what should happen and what should be and who should do what or how we should run our practice, I see it all the time. And that is the path to ruin in a lot of ways. It is a recipe for frustration. It is a recipe for happiness. I think in order to be happy as an associate vet or as a technician or as a CSR, you have to be able to balance the desire to make things better around you with acceptance of how the world is and the things that you don't control.
I think a lot of us are struggling with that just in life in general. It feels like I got this idea right now that I'm playing a lot with, I think the world is too big, Stephanie. I don't think that our human brains were made to know what's going on across the entire world. I don't think that we were made to see literally a thousand people doing things as we flip through Instagram. I just don't think that we're wired to take in all that information and to see all of these people and to compare ourselves to all of these people. I think the world is too big and the amount of control that we have gotten while the world around us has gotten so big and we're now aware of this whole world, our control has not changed at all.
We are aware of so many more things and we have absolutely no control beyond what we used to have 50 years ago. We just don't, we still have the ability to affect relationships, to help the people who are right in front of us. We have the ability to decide how we talk to people. We have the ability to just figure out how we're going to spend our free time, but that's about it. We just don't have any more control. So anyway, I don't mean to take that tangent too far, but I think that that's true. And I really do think that that whole thing falls back into one of the thing it takes to be happy as an associate or as an employee basically is looking around and saying, I see all of these things now and I see social media and I see what people are saying and doing in their free time and like we didn't used to see that and we have no control over that stuff. And so I think a lot of it is what do you control? So the next part of head space for me, I think is just kind of running through what do we control here? And so when I'm looking at this, I think that our writer can control what she says to the other associate vet. She's a hundred percent has control in what she says there. She's got control over what she says to the staff and how she interacts with the staff. She's got control over what she can say to the management or how she wants to approach them. But that's about it in regards to this situation. I don't know, what control do you have? Well, you could talk to the vet, you could talk to the team, you can talk to the management, and I think those are your cards. You know what I mean? And the things that we don't have control over is how the associate perceives the practice or the management or the team or vet medicine in general. Of there are people-

Stephanie Goss:
Or what they do either.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Or what they do, you cannot control their behavior. You cannot control other people. But even the perception thing, I've seen this a bunch of times, is you'll work with somebody and they will just go, “God, can you believe how awful this place is?” And I'm like, “I am not having an awful time here. I've seen some other places and I got to tell you, every place has got bumps, right? Every path has got bottles. I don't perceive this as being a horrible place.” But I'm sure I'm not the only one who's heard people. They will talk in this horrible dark language about the abuse in their practice. And sometimes maybe that's true, and if it's true, I don't want to down play it, but there's other times when you can say, “What are you talking about? Where is this deep angry language coming from?” And again, maybe they're having experiences that I'm not having, but I think we've probably all seen people who just for whatever reason, they take a view that is much more severe than what we take.
You can't stop people from taking that view. You can talk to them, you can seek first to understand why they have that view. And I think that's good of investigating and saying, “You say this place is hell. I think you called it hell. Why do you feel like this is hell? What is the thing?” And I think that sort of questions can open up the conversation, “Wow, you're really upset about this thing. That really doesn't bother me. I've worked in other places where, what we have is wonderful. I haven't seen that.”
But anyway, but you can't control their perception. You cannot control what they do. You can't control how the staff decides to feel. If the staff is like, yeah, we're going to get fired up about this, and there's a staff of 15 or 20 and you're one associate vet, you can't tell them to not be fired up about it. Again, you can decide what you're going to say and how you're going to engage, but you just don't have that level of control. And this is the most frustrating part. You can't control what management decides to do. You can't control what they do with the staff. You can't control what they say to the staff. That doesn't mean you can't talk to them. You can decide how you're going to communicate. But again, all of this stuff, you're really kind of playing with your one arm tied behind your back just because you don't have that control.

Stephanie Goss:
Now, it's interesting because it is a frustrating position to be in, I think, to look at it and realize that there is not, if you were the associate in this scenario, there's not a whole lot within your control. And part of the conversation when I have had this conversation with peers in the past has been that's also, it's the blessing and the curse, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes.

Stephanie Goss:
Because the blessing is it's not your job.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No.

Stephanie Goss:
That responsibility does not sit on your shoulders. You are the employee who gets to come to work, do their job, do it well, and then go home at the end of the day. That doesn't sit on your shoulders the way it does. If you are in a leadership position, the trade-off to that is that you've given up that control over being able to potentially impact to direct the change. That doesn't mean that you can't impact the change as a member of the team, but you give up the control to direct the change when you're not in that leadership position. And so I think it's the blessing and the curse here because the writer is in that position where they're facing all of these perceptions, like you said, that probably from, I'm guessing from their email, make them feel the shoulds. They want to fix this. They feel like things should be different. They could be different. They're seeing it through that lens. And it's a very frustrating place to be in, to feel like you want things to be different and you don't have any control over directly managing them to be different.
I think from a head space perspective, I agree with you. Part of that for me is the conversation with myself over what can I control and making peace with the fact that what I can control is limited and I'm going to have to be okay with that because the trade-off is I've chosen to be the employee. It's maybe a long-term difference story with yourself. If you're looking at this and you're like, oh, okay, I don't want to be in this position again in the future and I would like to be in that leadership role. And then we move into the conversation about all of the options for what someone in a positional power position in this practice could do. But for the writer right now, I think part of it is just that acceptance of what you can control and knowing that the things that you can control are fairly limited.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I didn't perceive the shoulds in this letter. I didn't. That's something I've seen again and again and again. Just whenever we hear from people who are seeing conflict in their practice, and it's how I felt, boy early in my career. And again, I tried to reign it in, but I chafed, especially the bigger hospitals that I worked in where there was a, I mean, again, you have to have strong rules in it. You have a lot of people your managing, and I understand that now in a way I didn't when I was young, but I had these ideas about how this should be or that should be. And it's funny, life is funny. I think life has a sense of humor. And so it puts you in a position where you have strong feelings about things and then over about 20 years it puts you into the opposite position where you are the one running the things and you get to say, that was so silly.
And then you'll see young veterinarians, fresh new grads come in with big ideas about how you should be. And I'm not saying you dismiss those people and you definitely don't want to. But at the same time, I hear some of these same ideas that they had when I'm now juggling this much bigger operation and I'm like, yeah, I remember being, I think we're probably raised that way. I think it's probably part of the human experience is that when you're in your twenties and your thirties, you see problems. You're like, I can take them down. And then when you're in your forties and you fifties, you're like, I've seen problems like this before. And I recognize the nuance here and what it means to turn a ship of this size and you can't know that until you do it. And so anyway, it's just one of the beauties of life, but it's never going to go away.
Now I want to pause here with head space, because you're exactly right. There's a dichotomous approach that people often take with these things, and you touched on both sides of it. And so a lot of people look at and they say, I've got two options. I can join the fight, I can pick a side and I can go to battle. Or I can, and I've said this to myself, this was actually a tool that I used for a while, which is, it's just a job.
I can just decide this is just a job and I'm just going to show up and the cards will kind of fall where they will and I'm just going to do my thing. And sometimes if you're someone who cares too much, you might have to choose the, it's just a job. And I have told people there's nothing wrong with that. And what I've generally found is, it's just a job is a mantra that can help me to accept things that are really bothering me. And just because you decide to say to yourself, it's just a job, that doesn't mean it always has to be just a job. That doesn't mean that you don't care about the clients that you serve and things like that, but it can be a mantra to help you accept things that are out of your control to say, it's just a job. I don't own this place. I'm not in charge. It's not my circus, it's not my monkeys. That can be a mantra you say to yourself to help resolve this.
I think that ultimately the best position to be in for head space, and the one where I'd really like our associate vet to be is in this beautiful place in between where you say, I'm going to show up and I'm going to accept what is, and I am going to be happy and I am going to put my thumb on the scale and try to exert some influence without joining this battle. So I do have some power to change people's perception of what's going on, and I don't have to do a dramatic speech to the staff, but through my words and actions over time, I can a hundred percent have a calming directional influence over this situation that's not taking sides or joining the battle.
And I think that my friends, that's really the enlightened position is, I can accept the people and what they're feeling and what they're trying to do, and I can see how this is going and I can recognize that I don't have a lot of power here, but I am going to set some boundaries for myself and I am going to try to be a good influence on this situation. And I might lean a little heavily into influence and see how it goes, and I might lean back a little bit and decide it's just a job and I'm just floating along. But I think that there is a balancing act right there where you can get that really makes you a Jedi, and also it makes you a wonderful asset to the practice. You can be this, I don't even know how to describe it, but you can be this calming, stabilizing force without joining the management. You can do that. And without joining the mutineers or the rioters, you don't have to not have an opinion.
That's the other part is that you can have an opinion and also be a force of stability and to sort of counsel people to talk through their issues, to not assume bad intent on the part of others and things like that.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, you can lead from within the team.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You can absolutely lead from within the team. But even then, I have seen people who are like, I'm going to lead even though I don't have power. And the truth is the team doesn't want to hear what you have to say. I think it's kind of like some things I've seen in parenting in my life where when I was a young parent, I thought, boy, when my kid has a struggle, I'm going to lean on them. I'm going to fix this, I'm going to intervene. And then only after the first week or so did I realize that you have no power. Look, these kids, you do not make them. They are who they're are, they came out 98% baked. You've got a little bit of power, a little bit of influence. It's mostly the environment you provide.
But it's kind of that thing of like Hannah is worried that Jacqueline is leaving and Hannah needs her time to process that. And I'm here for her and I'll talk to her and I'm going to keep talking to her because the conversation keeps coming up. But I can't sit Hannah down and give her a motivational speech and make her accept that this is not happening right away, but at some point your sister will leave. It's going to have to be a continued process of supporting and kind of guiding and being there for me when she wants to talk to me. And again, I don't mean to take relationships that work back down to talking to children, but that relationship and that support is the same. So anyway, I think that you can be, again, to be enlightened. The enlightened doctor is to be able to look at the situation without getting upset about what should be or what shouldn't be, but just to accept what is and to take care of yourself and to have influence that you can have that's good and positive.
So the very last part of head space for me is just as you're thinking about this and you say, what do I do here? And we'll get into action steps, but the old golden rule continues to be a great guide is just if you were management, what would you want? And if you were the team, what would you want? And if you were this other associate veterinarian who's probably struggling, who seems to be upset, who seems to not be happy, what would you want? And I think just giving some thought like that of if it was me in these other roles, how would I like someone to approach me? What would be beneficial to me? I know that sounds simplistic, but a lot of times that really is the best place to get your head when we start to talk about action steps.

Stephanie Goss:
For sure. I can agree with that. Do you want to take a break here and then come back and talk about some action steps that this associate can use?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's do it.

Stephanie Goss:
Hey friends, I just wanted to talk for a quick second about the maths with you all because I've been thinking a lot about the workshops. And normally here's where we tell you what's coming up and we've got some great stuff happening. So you're going to want to head to unchartedvet.com/events and check out the upcoming calendar. But I want to talk about maths because if you are not already an Uncharted member, you can attend any one of our workshops and pay $99 a piece. Most of them are just $99. You can do it as a one-off great and fine. However, that adds up really quick. And if you do the monthly workshop with us, and I've seen some of you there as repeat customers, which is amazing, but you could spend almost $1,200 over the course of the year doing workshops with us.
Or you could pay $699 and get a 12-month membership, which means you get all of the workshops that we do at no extra charge. You also get access to our amazing conversation in the community, our community members and all of our community resources. And it is hopping over there. We've got conversation 24/7, we have got activities, we've got book club. We're writing our handbooks together in Handbook Helper Group. This year we are talking about development and leadership growth, doing our development pathway. This year we are doing hallway conversations where we're talking about topics. These are sessions that are community led, community driven, it's topics about things that are going on in your practice that you want to talk about with your peers. All of that is happening and it's all included for your $699 membership.
So simple maths, do you pay almost 1200 for the year or do you pay 699? If you're not currently a member, you should head over to the website and use this argument to convince your boss, “Hey boss, I need to be a part of this amazing community because Stephanie told me so. And because she's telling you that you will save money.” Hopefully that works, but I couldn't resist. I hope to see you at our upcoming workshops. Again, unchartedvet.com/events for everything that's coming. And now back to the podcast.
So I think you and I both landed in the same place in different ways, which is we have to look at what does the writer actually have in their control in the situation? And recognizing that doesn't really necessarily feel like a lot. And there are some things I think that they do control. And so I think from an action step perspective, for me that would be where I would start, which is what is actually in my control? And if I was the writer, I think that there's a couple of things that I could be in control of. And I think we kind of talked about them a little bit when we were setting up the head space, but one of them is what I can say and who I can say it to. And so I think it's worth talking about how do we potentially have a conversation with the other associate vet? How do we have a conversation with the manager, with the team, et cetera. But the things that I say, the other is how we're acting. We talked about that a little bit as well.
And so I think thinking about what do I control when it comes to my actions. And then that kind of leading from within the team, what do I control when it comes to how I show up, how I act, how I'm leading from within the team, and then also how I can show up for the people that are involved in different ways. And so I think that those things are going to look different for each of the people involved. But I think if I was this writer, the way that my brain works, I would sit down and not dissimilarly probably to how Jacqueline drew her circles on the map. I would sit down for myself and say, okay, what are the things that I can control and actually do when it comes to my relationship with the associate vet?
And I would start there and then work my way out in those concentric circles like Jacqueline's map, which is the associate vet, the manager, the medical director, the team as a whole. And then potentially because this is a corporate practice structure, the field leaders that are involved in supporting the practice as well, it sounds like there's been some engagement and some interaction with them as well. So I think they become a circle there, but that's kind of how my brain would approach it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I'm the same way. I think as the associate vet, you got three conversations that you can have. And when I say conversation, I think this is important. I think when you have non-positional power, sometimes the best approach is not to have a meeting. It's not just sit someone down and have a conversation. It can be, sometimes you have to look for your openings because you're not the boss of these people and they didn't want to hear you lecture. And as soon as you start to call them in and sit them down, they're going to get defensive. They're not going to like this. It is going to make the dynamic feel weird. They're immediately going to peg you as being on the other team. And so I think one of the things to really do this well is you have to have a little bit of patience.
You have to kind of know what you want to say and have thought through it. And then you have to sort of look for the opportunities to engage in a way that feels organic and not forced. And I think that that's important. I think that that's an interesting trick. Now, when your management, that's still a good tool, but you do have positional power and it's a lot easier for you to say, “Hey, let's have a talk. We need to talk about something.” It's much harder to do when you're talking about peers. And so I don't know. Let's start with the associate that way. You want to start?

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, yeah. Let's do it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think for me, let's start with our SAFE head space. And again, I know it's a little bit of head space, but just remember the SAFE acronym that we use all the time. So S, can you sit next to this person? Can you smile at this person? The day that you are sick of hearing them complain about the practice is not the time to have the conversation. It's nice if you can get into a good zen head space about things and the opportunity presents itself. Now, what's hard here is that when you're in this head space and you can sit next to this person, you can smile at them. You are going to want to not have the conversation because everything is good and I feel good. And you know what? It's not that big a deal. And so there's really discipline here in saying, I'm in a good head space with this person and I have decided this is important enough to talk about.
And so I'm going to push into this potentially difficult conversation because I decided to do it. Even though right now in the moment I'm not triggered, I'm not angry, I'm not frustrated. This is a time you're most likely to be successful. And so you have to have the discipline to have the conversation. S, can you sit next to this person? Can you smile? A, are you assuming good intent? And I think that that's really important as we go and talk to this other vet, are we seeing them as a toxic person because that language will color them in our eyes.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes

Dr. Andy Roark:
So A, can we assume good intent? F is failure. Has this person been set up to fail? And I think that's a really good place to look at this because a lot of times when we talk to employees or we talk to other people on our team and they say, “I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this decision was made.” My question is, do they have all the information? Do they really understand why that decision was made? Do they know what's reasonable or what tends to happen at other practices? Things like that. And so if they don't have information, then maybe they've been set up to fail. Maybe they haven't been told a straight story. And the last is the end result is what do you want to accomplish? I don't think the end result here should be, I'm going to make this person love their job.
It's, Hey, I just want to give them a little bit of perspective and say every practice has problems. And part of being in a larger organization is that the ship turns much more slowly and there's lots of other people who probably have conflicting views on the same topics and they have to get heard. And it's just part of being a piece in a big team is that, so that's probably the E part, the end result. So SAFE, I would put that in my mind. I would remember what the associate vet, it's not your job to initiate this conversation. It's not your job to fix this situation or sit this person down. You shouldn't feel obligated, which is why you can wait until the opportunity arises. And then if or when the opportunity arises, I would ask this person about why they feel the way they do, and I would tell them I'm concerned, I'd say, “Well, you seem really unhappy. I'm hearing a lot of really negative things from you.”
I've had this conversation with people. And that's the end of the conversation right there. As I say, “Man, I just got to tell you, you seem really unhappy, man. I feel like every day when I talk to you, there's something that's really bothering you.” And they'll go, “oh, no, no, no. Oh, no. I mean no, I don't think I'm really unhappy.” And I'll say, “That's just how it sounds to me. We used to never talk about headaches at the practice, and I feel like a couple a times a day they come up now.”
A lot of times it's that you can jolt into place. And again, if they don't have any self-awareness, you can't. But a lot of us just, we don't really see ourselves or sometimes we don't recognize the thought patterns we've fallen into. So something as simple as that can make a big difference. Talk about what your perception is, how you're seeing it, how you say, “This is what I'm seeing when we have these conversations.” And then focus on the future, try to keep it positive, try to push them a little bit into like, “Well, if they're not going to do what you're suggesting. I mean, what are the alternatives? I don't think you should be miserable every day.” And just kind of start to move them in that direction.

Stephanie Goss:
Well, I think that there's really, you hit it because for me there's really the two areas where you could actually potentially affect change with them or to have a conversation again in the context of your relationship. So you know this person, you like this person, you like working with them. And so I love your point about focusing on the interactions and the things you can do to continue to build that relationship so that you can lean into that relationship and have the conversation with them and just say, Hey, “I'm worried about you.” Or, “It seems like you're not yourself.” Or however it feels right for you to phrase that conversation. I think the other piece besides, so there's two sides to that. One is your concerns for them. The other side is that the impact for you of their actions in your relationship.
So you have the ability to say to them, “Hey, when you talk to the team about the things that…” I'm just going to call her Sarah, “Sarah, the practice manager does. When you have conversations with the team in the treatment room about her, it makes me feel really uncomfortable because I don't know how you are, but sometimes I tell myself stories in my head. And so when I hear you having conversations in the treatment room with the techs about Sarah, sometimes I go home and wonder, oh, is she having conversations about me when I'm not there? And so that makes me worried for myself and the rest of the team, and it really makes me uncomfortable when I see that happening. How can we change that? Because I know you're not intentionally a mean person. I know that you wouldn't want to make me or anybody else feel that way.”
You have the ability to lean into how does it impact you as a person, as a tool there. And the third one is also the impact that you see. You see the impact potentially on them not feeling themselves. You can talk about the impact that it has on you. You also can talk about what you see as the impact to the team. And that can be a really important, especially with associate doctors, because I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say some things that might upset some people here, but vets are like cowboys sometimes. What do we call them previously? Fighter pilots.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, fighter pilots, yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
And there's a little bit of ego involved. And the reality is the support staff does look up to the veterinarians and they carry influence and weight. And so sometimes to your point earlier about shocking them or jolting them a little bit into looking at their own behavior, sometimes it's pointing the mirror back, but looking at their behavior and how it's impacting the rest of the team.
And so that can, with associate vets in particular be a really powerful leveler is to point that mirror back at them and say, “Hey, this is how I see you impacting the rest of the team. And I'm not sure if you have noticed this, but they really look up to you. And so I know it can be really easy to get frustrated and say things off the cuff and the team doesn't know when you're just necessarily, when you're blowing off steam or when you might be serious about something, when you say something in their presence and they hear it, that impacts them and it impacts the way that they react and act with you and also impacts the way that they act and react with Sarah as well. And so I just wanted to have a conversation with you about it because doctor to doctor, I feel like I can… ” You have that commonality, you have that relationship. So I think that that's the third piece of the conversation lever that you as the associate doctor could pull with them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I think the last part for just coaching with dealing with the associate, I think gossip rules apply here, which is when this negativity comes out, don't engage with it. Just withdrawal from the conversation. You can be friendly without participating. You can say things like, “I'd rather not go to a negative place about this.” And you can kind of gently shut down those things. It takes two people to gossip. It takes one person to talk and one person to listen. The same thing is kind of true about spreading negativity, it takes one person to start this negative sentiment and the other person to be willing to listen to that negative sentiment. And so you do have some subtle power there as well.

Stephanie Goss:
I think that that's really important too, because again, not to go back to having kids, but I've been thinking about this a lot because I have been working with my kids on the power of their own boundaries. And I think it's really important to remember that there are two sides to that. There is, you can control what you choose to do action wise. You can choose to participate in gossip, but you also could choose to listen or to not listen. And we're taught, I think as children, we're taught not to do the golden rule, do unto others as we want unto us, to think before we speak. We're taught all kinds of platitudes like that about how we should act and interact with other human beings.
And I don't think that we're actually taught a whole lot about, at least I wasn't about the power of being able to say, “I don't like hearing that. That makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to feel like you would be talking about me behind my back. And I feel like based on what you just said, that you're doing it about them. And so I'm not going to engage in this.”
But we don't learn the tools for how to walk away. And I've been thinking about that a lot as a parent because we've been going through some mean girl drama and some friends drama with teenagers, and I have been trying to teach them that they do control that and they do get to control, it is okay. And I expect it of them to say, “That's not kind. If you were really my friend, you wouldn't talk to me that way.” And so if you really care about this teammate, you wouldn't talk about them that way either.
And I think that the reason that I'm babbling and bringing all of this up is because I think that that's something that's really important that we can learn how to bring to the table as human beings. And I say that because I learned how to model that behavior sometimes really well, sometimes horribly for my team by seeing someone else who was really, really good at it. And I'll never forget the first time that I heard someone in a treatment room situation say, “That makes me feel really uncomfortable. I feel like you're gossiping about the other person and I don't want to be a part of this conversation.” And then just walk away.
Not to be vindictive or bitchy or snarky at them, but just this is a boundary for me. I'm not comfortable with this conversation and I'm going to walk away. And I remember in the moment it was wildly uncomfortable, but then the conversation stopped and I was like, oh, hey, that's really powerful. And that person was like, “I didn't realize they sounded that mean. I didn't realize they sounded that, was I really gossiping?” Again, pointed the mirror back at them in a way that made them be able to look at it and look at their own behavior and shake them up. And so I think that that's a really, really powerful tool. And I think we have more control over that as individuals on the team, what that boundary is and how we set those boundaries for the things that we engage in or choose not to engage in.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Talking about the team. So we talked about talking with these, talking with the team, and again, I don't imagine this being a sit-down conversation with the team. It's just more of a way of interacting with the team. It's just be the light you want to see in the world. That's it. If you're worried about people getting down or being negative, be positive, be optimistic. Talk about the practice in a good way. Talk about the things you enjoy. Remind them of the differences that they're making. And again, it's not about a dramatic Braveheart type speech that rallies everybody. It's just kind of the consistency of noticing the good things and pointing out what's good and what's positive. And so I think it's a part of it. If the team starts to bring up negativity or things like that, I tend to engage them with questions. I don't want to tell them they're wrong, especially if you're talking to the staff, support staff, it can come up as condescending if the doctor's like, “You've got it really good.”
That's not really it. But I'll say things like, “Why do you say that? I'm not not having this experience. Tell me why you are perceiving this as unfair treatment. Help me understand.” And those are just subtle questions that you can have with people and you probably tend to have them one on one as they come up with people that I'm working with or stuff like that. You can do that stuff. Remember your positive reinforcement when you see people who are not buying into the negativity, tell them, “Hey, I just want to tell you I love working with you because you're positive, you're happy to be here and you see the bright side of what we're doing and I just want to say thanks. I just enjoy spending time around you. Thanks for making my day brighter.”
And it can be little things like that. That way you're encouraging those other people who are also trying to hold up candles in the darkness. Yeah, you can do those things. That's the big things for me is you have great power as a doctor to shut stuff down if you use the tools that Stephanie was talking about as far as like, “Hey, no, no, I'm not enjoying this conversation guys.” You do have great power. And you can do that without being critical of the other doctor or trying to start fights or anything like that. But you can subtly shut things down and you can subtly positively reinforce things that you want to try to grow. And again, you can manifest and exhibit the behaviors that you think you'd like to see in the practice.

Stephanie Goss:
I think the only other thing that I would add to that about the team would be, I think you lead with your own actions and positivity, and I love your pointing out of the positive reinforcement. And I think you also have power because of the relationship and I guess the hierarchy in a practice, in the sense that the staff does look up to the doctors. And so if I was this associate, one of the areas where do have power of influence is to create just those, continue nurturing those relationships, your own relationships with the support staff in the sense of make sure that they know that you are an open door and that you want to support them and that you want to listen to them. And so it can be as simple as you're in surgery with them and ask them, “How are things going for you? How's work? What do you love about work?” And asking them questions and being curious just as a human.
But also by doing that, you're laying the groundwork where if they do have a concern or they do have something, if they bring it up to you, then you also have created a situation where you have the ability to influence by saying, “Hey, you know what? That's a great point. That sounds to me like you should have a conversation with the associate doctor directly or with the practice manager directly.” You're creating opportunities for you to lead from totally within the team. It's not about being in a position of leadership. It's about leaning into those relationships and being able to look at this person and say, “Oh yeah, it sucks that you're feeling that way. You should do something about that.” You can be an agent for positive change in that regard by making the team understand that you do have the open door. And the only way that that happens, even from within the team is to build those relationships with them and be intentional about it.
And it would go the same way for the associate as well, which we talked about. Just leaning back into that relationship of, Hey, we're both doctors and we both love what we're doing here at the practice. Let's focus on building that relationship because then your ability to speak to them, your ability to act and lead by example, falls on both sides of that. And then you can actually be a support for all of those people as things continue to grow and change in the practice. And it's the same for this associate doctor. They clearly have an affinity for the manager and they like the manager and there's definite empathy there and they see that. Tell them, remind them that you see them, that you see the good hard work that they're doing, positively reinforcing them. You can, as the person who is on the outside and not in the middle of the drama, you have the ability to be the perspective and give that positivity to all the sides here. And I think that that is, if I was in this person's shoes, that is the most powerful tool I think that you have.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. The last part for me is talking to the management. And to me, this falls into my, what is kind. I always want to do what is kind. Is it kind to not say anything to the management about what you see shaping up? I think the answer is no. I don't think you owe them a whole lot. It's not your job to manage the practice. And I think that's, hear me out when I say that. I don't think you owe them a lot, but I just think sort of common courtesy and just being kind would be to stick your head in to ask if you can chat with a manager for a second or with the medical director or whoever and just say, I would just say, “Hey, look, I'm concerned about a couple of things and I just wanted to make sure that they're on your radar.” And then I would say, “These are the behaviors that I'm starting to see.” And you can decide how direct you want to be.
I'm not trying to go and rat on the other vet and be like, Well, she said this and then she said that. But what I would say is something along the lines of, “I think that the other associate vet is, she seems to be feeling a bit resentful about how things are going. And I'm starting to hear some negativity about the practice and I'm starting to hear it back from the staff. And so I'm worried that… ” And again, I don't know what the specifics are, so I don't know how widespread this, I don't know if this is one issue or if this is a couple issues or if there's a pattern here, but I would like to give them a heads-up and say, “I'm feeling like there may be a culture change kind of happening. I don't really like where it's going. And so I just want to put that onto your radar and just say, I'm a bit concerned about how this is happening and where it's going.”
And hopefully that's all you need to say. It's amazing how often I'll see people and they're like, “And nothing happened in the practice, it just got worse.” And I'm like, “Well, did you tell the managers?” And they were like, “No.” And I'm like, “Well, how did they know?” I was like, “Well, they knew when everybody started yelling at them.” And I was like, “That's kind of late in the game.” They could have deployed a lot more tools if they had known this was-

Stephanie Goss:
A heads-up.

Dr. Andy Roark:
… if they had a heads-up, if they'd known this is where things were going, but they don't know necessarily. Again, it just depends on the leaders. If you're a job of a leader, remember that relationship game we talked about the very beginning. Hopefully you've got good people who will say, “Hey, look, I'm hearing some stuff you might want to be aware of.” And again, it's not about selling people out or getting other people in trouble. I think that's an important point. I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, Andy says I should go turn them in. I should tell on them.” I'm not saying that. I think you should give the management a fighting chance to try to stop your practice from turning into a cesspool. That's what I think. That's how I look at it.
But that doesn't mean, again, you can be friendly without joining up. You don't need to pick sides in this battle to say, “I'm kind of worried that morale is sliding down and that people are starting to get sort of a negative view about some things that are going on. And you might want to work on that a little bit and see.” And then it goes to the management, which let me begin. Let's do head space for management really quick. No, I'm just kidding. We're not.

Stephanie Goss:
That's a whole other episode.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's a whole other thing. We're not going to tell management what they should do, but basically that's how I would kick it up the chain. And they need to get a plan. And the truth is the plan depends on what the heck is going on. What is the person upset about? What are they saying? What's the staff saying? It's a whole other thing.

Stephanie Goss:
The nice part is that's above your pay grade. You don't have to worry about that as the associate. You just have to put it on their radar.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Totally. And here's the thing, again, if you get your head in the right place, you can accept your position and also decides you want to be an influencer and somebody who's a sort of a force for good, then you can hopefully maybe positively affect the head space of the associate vet. You can hopefully positively affect the head space of the team. You can sort of manifest the positivity into the theme that you want to see. And then hopefully management's going to engage and they're going to start trying to make things better. And very quickly we can swing this thing around.
It's really, I mean, it's like managing a chronic condition. Early diagnostics are the key. And it's funny, but I've seen these things turn around pretty fast. If you can have a couple of good conversations, you've got to have some push from the management. People have to believe that things are going to get better or that they're going to change in the future, or at least they're heard or they're cared about. But you can swing these things around. You don't want to wait until the clinic is divided and people have drawn battle lines and they're making plans-

Stephanie Goss:
Or people are leaving. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Or they're leaving. Yeah. Just do it sooner rather than later.

Stephanie Goss:
All right, well, I think if we go on any longer, we're going to get into what should this manager do, which like I said, is a whole other episode. We're done. That's it. That's a wrap on another podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We're out like Jacqueline Roark looking at colleges. We're out. We got to map. And some-

Stephanie Goss:
We're 15 and we're three years down the road.

Dr. Andy Roark:
…rings and we're driving away.

Stephanie Goss:
Have a great rest of the week, everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark:
See you everybody.

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