This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management wiz, Stephanie Goss, tackle the intricacies of performance improvement plans in the veterinary setting that aren't all negative. The traditional approach has been carrot and stick when it comes to performance management. We know that approach is damaging to good culture where there is an environment of self-driven improvement and goals. This time, the mailbag brings us someone from the corporate world who is struggling to find balance between uplifting their team by creating psychological safety and still protecting the practice from a legal perspective through documentation of mistakes. The duo explores the dichotomy between transactional leadership and transformational leadership, shedding light on how both are truly necessary to run great cultures. Let's get into this episode!
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Upcoming Events
🚗🌟 Uncharted is hitting the road, and veterinary leaders, you're invited to join the adventure! Dr. Andy Roark, Stephanie Goss and Maria Pirita are bringing the Uncharted Leadership Essentials Roadshow to Atlanta, Georgia, on May 5th and 6th. Imagine two days of dynamic, Uncharted-style engagement where you'll dive into the Leadership Essentials Certificate program with real-world discussions about YOUR veterinary practices.
This isn't your average CE event – it's a jam-packed, fun-filled experience that promises insights, camaraderie, and memories. Can't make it to Atlanta? Fear not! Future dates and locations are in the pipeline. Rev up your leadership journey at UnchartedVet.com/ONTHEROAD and secure your spot for a transformative ride!
An Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate provides you with seven crucial building blocks to lead with confidence at any level and achieve excellence in your veterinary practice.
Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/
Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted podcast. And this week on the podcast we have got a great email from the mailbag. We had a chief HR officer for a group of hospitals write in and ask us about how to create some better ways of covering the HR needs to document things, have paperwork and cover our own butts, if you will.
And also creating an environment and a culture in our hospitals where employees and team members feel valued, their psychological safety, and everybody actually maybe even enjoys the process where we get to talk about growth and development. This one was so fun. Just a warning, I get a little hot under the collar and there's a lot of soapboxing maybe, but hopefully in a very good way.
Andy and I both had some really strong thoughts, and opinions on this one and it was so much fun to talk through this. Let's get into it.
Announcer: And now, the Uncharted Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark: And. We are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie, the Winds of Change, Goss.
Stephanie Goss: I thought you were gonna say the wind beneath my wings and start singing Bette for me. But you know.
Dr. Andy Roark: You love it when I do that one but no. Nah.
Stephanie Goss: How's it going Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark: It's really good. Yeah, things are good around here. How about you?
Stephanie Goss: You know, it is good. I was really crossing my fingers for a white Christmas here in the Pacific Northwest. And so far it is looking like it is absolutely not going to happen. But we have had a different, we have had like a massive fog in. We got a national weather alert the last two days because we have just had this crazy fog and it's so weird.
Like you go outside and everything is silent and still, and it's beautiful in a very different way. But the kids are definitely like, “When is it going to snow? When is it going to snow?” I don't know. I'm not the weatherman, but I will say being in Greenville when we're recording, this is a little before the holidays.
And I was just in South Carolina and North Carolina for two weeks before, at the beginning of December and the December sunshine is real, real nice. Like I came back to the rain and cold in Seattle and I was like, Oh. I mean, I usually love winter here. Like I love the rain, but I will say it's one of the first times that I've come back and been like, I kind of maybe want to go back to the South.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it's pretty nice. It's been cool. It's been cold in the mornings, but it's warming up nicely during the day. But yeah, things are good here.
Stephanie Goss: Things are busy, man. We're getting ready to like kick off. It's so funny because this time of year for most people, over this last week, I've started getting all of the we're out of the office until the new year emails because so many people take the last week or last two weeks of the year off.
And so I've been seeing that. And at the same time, I want to like. There's a part of me that wants to hibernate when I look at our calendars and I see everything that is coming in the first quarter of the year because it is going to be busy. And at the same time you and I are, I think, very similar in this way.
I'm sitting here and I'm looking at everything that is coming and I'm like, you know, just like Dr. Evil, like, let's get there. Let's do it. You know, like I'm excited for the new year and everything that is going to come because there is some fun new things happening with us in the new year and I'm excited to get to it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Oh, yeah, we've got, we got a bunch of stuff right stacked up front. We've got the Practice Manager Summit which is in February. So right off the bat, yeah, so if you're a practice manager, this is a one day virtual summit that's just for you, only for practice managers is always very well attended.
So that'll be, that'll, that's hitting in February. And then in April, we've got the Uncharted, oh, then, well, in March, we've, got the Uncharted Cohorts launching. And then, April, we've got the Uncharted Conference in downtown Greenville, which is going to, I think it's going to sell out for sure, because it's the last time we're going to be in downtown Greenville for
Stephanie Goss: For a while.
Dr. Andy Roark: For a while.
And so I think a lot of people who have come in the past are like, that was amazing. I was like, well, you better come back. It's going to be amazing in the future. It's just going to be amazing, very different. So I think that's probably going to sell out. And then and then in May, 5th and 6th, Sunday, Monday, you and me and Maria Pirita and Tyler Grogan, we are doing a two day Leadership Essentials Certificate workshop format in Atlanta, Georgia.
We got a sweet little venue. It's going to be so cool. And then it'll be us and we're going to cap out at probably 60 people or so that we can take, but we're going to run our certificate there and just it's going to be two intense days of working with us, getting everything that that I think someone who leads and manages other people should have.
And so, that doesn't mean it's remedial. I was, we called it the Leadership Essentials Certificate, and I was worried that people were going to be like, oh, well, I've been leading a long time. I don't need it. I'm like, no, this is, it's not the, basics. It is the essentials. And so, if no one's ever given you any training on Vision and values on effective trust building strategies on getting team buy in on coaching and feedback on setting priorities on delegation This is going to be the most valuable training I think that you can have that's what we try to build it out to be.
So anyway, that's fun.
Stephanie Goss: and the other thing that I'm excited about for May is like, I'm, excited about the certificate and being able to, for people to be able to access our content asynchronously on their own time and not necessarily have to be an uncharted member. Like you actually. Get a better deal when you think about it.
If you are an Uncharted member, because our Uncharted members get access to the certificate as part of their membership, but for, you know, you, can do it asynchronously. But what I'm excited about doing it in May is the ability to actually like carve out two days. to work on your practice and think for yourself about your vision and your values and your own team and how do you communicate.
And we talk about DISC and we look at, you know, like the ability to do that and then interact with your peers and talk about how they might be doing things in their practice around these topics and get ideas and get excited. Like that to me is invaluable. And I'm so excited to be able to do that, like out in different locations.
And, you know, we had. Started to hit the road pre COVID and then the world shut down. And so I'm excited to go back to you know, that piece of our vision as a group and get out there and go to different regions and, you know, explore the country and really be able to, you know, experience, experience all the different clinics out there.
So I'm pumped for that. It's going to be a good year. We've got a lot coming for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: It's gonna be a busy year. No doubt
Stephanie Goss: Well, we've got a great email today. We got an email from a chief HR officer in a corporate practice and which I, love this because one of the things that I love, I know that, you know, when we started Uncharted, we started with a lot of independent practices and we started with a lot of people who were doing their own thing and being indie rebels in vet med. and I love that. And I think we still, as a group and as a community, that's the one thing that I hear from people, besides people saying that we're a little we're, a little cult-like is you know, cause we've got tattoos out there in the world and, you know, we got to own that.
But beyond that is this, like, It just seems like the indie rebels, you know, and I love that. I love that flair about our culture, and I would say that it's really true. And at the same time I think the landscape of veterinary medicine has shifted tremendously over the last, you know, even just the last five years.
And you know, I have always, it's funny because when I joined Uncharted, I was managing a multi site private practice. And I transitioned to a role working in corporate practice and I was still a community member. I was working on the team as well, but I was still a community member. And so I had the privilege of being able to see things from both sides and have really been involved in having, walking through the changing landscape in veterinary medicine as we've seen more and more corporate programs emerge and more companies emerge and things grow and shift and change.
And one of the things that I always try to bring perspective to with the community that I appreciated about working in corporate medicine was t0he benefits of working in a bigger company that has access to resources, like people in HR positions who actually have gone to school to learn about HR and learn about the rules around hiring employees and who have the training and education in a proper way versus myself, who in the beginning, you know, young manager, Stephanie, I was learning by flying by the seat of my pants and learning by making mistakes, not because anybody actually taught me what I was supposed to be doing. And so I tried to soak up all of that knowledge when I went to corporate practice. And so I think it’s been one of the fun things about the changing landscape is the ability to, as independent practices, look at it and say, Oh, just because we're independent doesn't mean that we can't also model that.
That behavior of, we still have a responsibility to get us educated and do all of that. So anyways, I am like super excited because I think this is a great example of where we can learn something from corporate medicine. So we got this letter from a Chief HR officer who was like, look, I know that there is a significant value in creating psychological safety in the team and making the employees feel heard and valued.
And at the same time, I also know that from a legal perspective, our job as employers is to document and there is a facet of that, is kind of CYA, cover our ass, right? And so, they said specifically there is this movement to have performance improvement plans. And they were like, I hate that term because there's gotta be a better way than just having the stick that we're whacking people with only when they're doing things wrong. And they said, what about the idea of having a balance between the carrot and the stick and not just making the HR process and the paperwork only be about the negative? How do we transform that so that we're doing the right things by an HR standard and we are documenting things the way that we're supposed to, but also making a culture where the employees feel heard and respected and valued and safe to be themselves and flourish as employees?
And so like my little HR geek heart just ate this email up and I'm so excited to talk about this with you.
Dr. Andy Roark: I love this a lot. You and I have actually, we've talked a lot about this because, you know, we, I think we actually have more Uncharted members at this point that are in corporate practices than are in independent practices. We, yeah, we, it's a lot, we do a lot of work in the corporate space and we work with a lot of corporate practices.
And again, it's just evolution of Uncharted in a lot of ways, but it's the same, it's the same problems. It has different, skins.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: And some different rules. It's, the same work.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. And that's, we're all doing the same job.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah,
Stephanie Goss: And that's the funny, that's the funny part about it is every, we get so caught up in a feeling like our problems are unique, but that's what I love about having community is that you get out there and you see. Oh, the other side of the street has the same problems, and sometimes they have more hot mess problems than I do, you know?
Dr. Andy Roark: The thing, I just, we're speaking in broad strokes here, right, because, every independent practice is different and every corporation is different, and even inside corporations there's a big variation, but like, basically, they fall, there's sort of two different ways that you can struggle, right, running a practice.
One is That you can be so systematized that people don't have a lot of autonomy, right? They don't get to freestyle, they don't get to make choices, everything is a bureaucracy basically. You can be a bureaucracy that takes forever to do stuff and people can't make decisions and get stuff done.
Or, you can be on the other end, which is it’s the Wild West. And we don't have systems, you know what I mean? And
Stephanie Goss: It's a free for all.
Dr. Andy Roark: every day we're hoping this thing lands.
Stephanie Goss: Yes, I have worked in both of those practices.
Dr. Andy Roark: And, sure, and again, broad strokes, our independent practices tend to be more on the side of Wild West as far as the problems they face.
And our corporate practices tend to be more on the bureaucracy side. Everything has a system, everything has a protocol. We don't, we're not really empowered to make decisions here or get things done. Just. You know, there's just, there's a lot of guides and a lot of processes that have to be followed and it's wonderful for us to work across that whole spectrum because you learn a lot from the practices that have a lot of systems.
Stephanie Goss: Oh, absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark: And then you also say, well, in this case, having some autonomy, allowing people on the ground to make the call, that is so much more efficient.
Than, you know, than having this, big process that they have to go through and it's a balance. It's it's a yin and yang, but it's been wonderful for us to work with both. So anyway, but we, you and I have worked with a lot of corporate groups and things, and this is a type of question that we get a lot from the corporates. And it's a lot about the performance improvement plan. And they all have different acronyms and what they call it.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: But basically, nobody wants this to be a terrible process. And it's a lot of emphasis on how do we document, how do we give people objective feedback? How are we clear about what people need to do to get bonuses?
And, at the same time, how do we not make it so it's all about the numbers? And how do we make it so that they don't think that we're heartless? Because we're not. and how does it not feel like this terrible measuring of you based on the dollars you bring in and we don't want it to be that way and And so it's just, it's a fascinating challenge.
It's definitely something that we've run into, but I'll, and I'll say this again. When we talk to our corporate practices, they're like, how do we give these developmental programs in a way that don't make people feel like we're all about the dollars? And then on the independent side, we have owners who say, how do I get my team to understand that we have to do things a certain way without talking to them about the dollars and making them feel like it's all about the dollars?
It's just like the, at the end of the day, everybody's got to pay their bills and everybody's got to pay their staff and nobody wants to, it's not all about the money and nobody wants to make people feel like it's about the money, but it's also, it's obviously required at this point that we talk to people objectively and use actual numbers to talk about performance and things like that.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. And I want to kick us off from a headspace perspective with that. So I think that the most important thing and where we have to start with headspace perspective is if your job is to be on the HR side of things as a leader, whether you have formal training or not. It is absolutely imperative that you remember that performance discussions, performance documentation, HR documentation is a two way street.
And for most of us, and I found this to be true in corporate practice even more so than in private practice. It is often easy to slip into looking at as a one way street in the sense that when you are working for a bigger company and there are more layers and more people involved, the ask for documentation becomes even bigger.
And so it's very easy to focus on only the improvement side of things. It's like you're doing a great job and I only need to document the things that are not great, right? And it doesn't matter whether you're corporate or you're private. So many of us slip into that mentality of it is, I only have to document the things that could potentially need to fall under the cover your ass scenarios.
And the reality is managing people is absolutely a two way street. And we have to start from a headspace perspective with remembering that. And if you don't have a process and a system to document as much of what is going right, if not more of what is going right, as you do with what is going wrong, then you are absolutely looking at it with the carrot and stick approach.
And you are never going to have success with creating Happy team members, because if all you talk to me about is the stick, and I only get carrots when you want something from me, of course I'm going to become disillusioned as an employee.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I agree with that. All right, let me, for Headspace, let me lay down a couple things. So there's two big pieces I need to lay on the table so we can look at them. And so basically, I always start these conversations with two different leadership styles. And I want to emphasize that one is not better than the other.
When I lay them down, everybody's like, oh, that's the right one. I'm like, nope. They are both tools that should be used and balanced.
Stephanie Goss: yes,
Dr. Andy Roark: So the first is called Transactional Leadership. And this is tit for tat. This is, if you do this good thing, you will get this reward. If you do this mistake, you will get this punishment.
It is the carrot and the stick. That is it. You clock in, you give me your time, and I give you this hourly rate. That is Transactional Leadership. It's 100%, give me this, I'll give you that. Okay. The other leadership style is called transformational leadership, which sounds so much better. It's not, it's just different.
Basically, transformational leadership is collective commitment. It is the belief that we are a team that's doing work that matters, and we are all in this together. It is about shifting the mentality from focusing on myself as an individual to focusing on our team.
The difference in me running five minutes late and being mad because I'm going to get in trouble and me running five minutes late and being mad because I'm going to let the team down and those guys are doing a bunch of work and I'm not there to help them and it makes me feel crappy because I want to be there for them because I know they would bust their butts to be there for me.
And that's transformational leadership. Now, it seems obvious, like, oh, that's better. It's not better. And you can't just use one exclusively.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: These are two different tools. And so from a headspace standpoint, what I got from this question was, Andy, we've got the transactional part down. If you do this, you get ahead.
And if you fail to do this, then you get punished. Like, we got that down. That never goes away. There will always be a thing where there are rules. You broke the rules. This is the punishment for breaking the rules or this is what we said success looked like and you crushed it and you're getting celebrated because you did the thing and nailed it. And we can use both of the tools. And we need to. And this is what I think we're being asked here, is how do I roll in some transformational leadership into our assessment and development program? And so I think that's, I think that's what we're going to work on today, is how do we start to introduce those things into our assessment and development programs.
Stephanie Goss: And well, I think your point about transformational leadership just sounds so, like, transformational. I want there to be like sound effects that come after that, right?
Dr. Andy Roark: I hate that. I hate that name.
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Dr. Andy Roark: just, it's so woo and it sounds, but like transactional leadership is fine. It is clear rules. It is clear expectations. If that's the only tool you use, it sucks. Like, but like people don't want to get held accountable. But also I will tell you transformational where you go, there are no rules.
Everybody's just here because they want to be.
Stephanie Goss: Because we love each other and we want to care about each other. Uh Huh. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: That doesn't work either. It doesn't. And so anyway, that's why I always start this by going all right, these are equal and I hate that one of them is transactional and one of them is transformational
Stephanie Goss: I need some kind of sound effects there from Dustin. But no, I think it's the same way too, in terms of just pure language. And this email gave us a great example, performance improvement plan, right? And that was something that I, actually knew about in private practice and used in private practice, but it's the tool.
It's a big tool in the toolbox when you get into bigger hospitals, doesn't matter whether you're corporate or independent, because it's a way for people to manage behavior that's going on. And if you step back and you think about it, performance improvement plan is looked at solely in the negative.
Across the board, as an employee, as an employer. I hate it having to deal with PIPS and have conversations with people about improvement, because the framing for it and the only lens with which most of us view it through is negative. And if you step back and you look at it, It is actually the same as transactional versus transformational, which is the language absolutely sucks, but there is nothing wrong.
And we should all aspire to improve our performance. We want to grow and develop as employees. And if we think about it through that lens and think about, there is always room for me to grow as a human being. If you think that you don't have room to improve, you're kidding yourself. And I don't, like, you know what I mean?
Like I, we all have places where we can grow and develop and improve. And yet we look at the language through that negative lens and we only use it as the stick. And so I think that's another example of where we step back and we look at it and we say these two things actually. Both matter and both have to be present.
There should be improvement in the self-directed, I want to grow and develop, and you should be able to have, every member of your team should be on a performance improvement plan because there should be some sort of plan for growth and development. Most of us only use them when we need performance improvement and the negative, like you're not doing this thing and if you don't start doing this thing, here are going to be the consequences.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah I, feel like I talk about this a lot recently in our podcast, but it's just, it's simple, but it really is, I think, a core part of my sort of personal philosophy and my life philosophy is the relationship that workers have with their job is a relationship. It is a relationship. You should be treated how you want to be treated in a relationship.
And I can't imagine having a friend call me up at the end of the year and say, you know, Andy you were late to our guy time. Like, Six times. And you know, we've been keeping track, and you actually bought three fewer rounds of beers this year than you did last year. And, you know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: And it's just, I can't imagine that, of being held that way.
And, like, and our fun metric you took a dip this year, Andy. You took a dip, you're, we're down ten percent group fun. And I want to know what steps you're going to take to get that group fun rating up in 2024. This is insane! But at the same time, also, if I had a friend and they consistently didn't show up and they let me down, and they, you know, and they, just they, flaked out, I'm just, I'm not going to, that's not going to be a strong relationship.
It's not going to be a relationship I'm really excited about.
Stephanie Goss: Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark: But that's not how we measure that relationship, and so I feel like my advice here, and we'll sort of start in Headspace and we'll talk about how to do it in Action Steps. For me, you have to, I, I think that the personal development meeting needs to be reimagined into an, honest to God, personal development meeting.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: That's what it has to be. And so what, I think what's happened is, As we've built, as we've built our practices, especially as they get bigger, everything kind of gets more systematized, which makes sense, but a lot of the why gets stripped out and replaced with how.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: We can end up with these ways of evaluating people that are built on numbers and very specific how we extract the knowledge.
And it's, it is good to have clear expectations and to be objective, that is true. But we strip the whole why out of the way we evaluate people. And we leave them feeling gross because people don't want to be widgets in the machine. That's especially in this industry like we're in an industry where meaning and purpose really matter the people who come here like they want to do something they want to have an impact and we and when you strip that out of their development meeting, they're, essentially, they're evaluation and you look at them based on something that's not what energizes them or not what they came for, you get frustration. And so the simple, I think, headspace answer to this is I want to create a way of evaluating people that is relational, meaning I want them to be seen as a person.
We do have to talk about the metrics and the fact that you didn't show up for my birthday, you know? Or you showed up for my birthday drunk. Whatever the friend problem is. We do have to talk about that because that is a thing that we have to talk about that is real. And also, I want you to be seen as a person.
And, I want this to be relational in that this shouldn't be a one way dump of I, your friend, am gonna tell you how you're doing and take no feedback the other direction and make sure that this is unidirectional. Like, none of that stuff builds the type of relationship conversation we're talking about.
If you don't want it to be carrot and stick, it can't be unidirectional down at the person, and it also can't be on only the measurements that you think are important. And we don't ask the other person what they think is important.
Stephanie Goss: Yes, absolutely. And I think the, to you, I think you, you made a brilliant point, which is the bigger we get, it doesn't matter who owns you, the bigger you get, the more people you have to manage, the more that you need systems, right? And so I, that I totally see that and there's value in that. And it is very easy to tip over the line of needing a system and strip away to your point, the why, and I think my own experience with that, particularly in… in corporate medicine, when it comes to evaluations and review and development would be that in order to systematize it, you ask the employee to tell me what you think. Tell me what you think, right? You ask them to do a self evaluation and that should be.
That should be a thing. They should have an opportunity to say, this is what I love about my relationship with you as an employer. Right? And it's really easy in a big system to take that and be like, okay, well, I have to apply scores to this and I have to have equilibrium so that I can know where this employee falls in the spectrum of the other hundred technicians that I have or the other 20 technicians that I have. Right? And so there's this thing that happens where instead of it standing on its own and it being the two way dialogue where the employee gets to come and say, Hey, this is what I love. And maybe this is where I have some opportunity to grow.
So what I have seen it become for a lot of people is the employee, and this was my experience. I wrote my self evaluation, and then my boss was asked to take my self evaluation and argue the grades that I gave myself with me by replacing it with where they think, Oh, well, you gave yourself a five here.
But here's examples of where we think you didn't live up to a five, so you're actually a two, right? And that is the system where it's taking away that relationship, it's taking away that conversation, and it's making it purely transactional. And that's why for so many people, when it comes to development, there's such a negative feeling, and it's such a negative connotation and why if you ask managers and employees alike, they all freaking hate the evaluation process because it is, it has been built to be this transactional thing, not a relationship based thing.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I completely agree with that. I, think any, I think the whole system, Where you evaluate someone once a year.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. Hate it.
Dr. Andy Roark: It is, fundamentally flawed. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss: Everyone hates it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it is just fundamentally flawed. Now I also understand, it is what it is. You know, when, if that's how the system is built, then that's the system we have to work in. And we can work around it, but, it is, really hard. You know, we when we work with corporate groups, we, and I will talk about this in the action steps a little bit, but, we actually work with leaders about how to present the things that matter to them in a way that can be seen as being valued or valuable to in their evaluation.
So for example, one of the things you know, one of the things for people who come in and they're getting ready to have their evaluation is. Unless it truly is a one way street and you're just sitting there and you're getting talked at, you should have the opportunity to say, Hey, this is what I did this year, or this is what I'm proud of, or these are the things, this is where I have seen growth and development in myself.
And I think one of the missed opportunities is that a lot of people don't know how to handle that question. Or they feel bad bragging about themselves. They say, well, I don't want to, I don't want to feel, I don't want to brag about myself. And they end up in this game that they're not prepared to play. And, it's, again, it is what it is. It's as a system. So, if you go into this meeting and you're going to be evaluated based on your numbers and you have not thought through what you think you accomplished in this year or why you think that you performed at a high level, then you go in unprepared and the managers on the other side of the desk and they have documentation and they have numbers and they have metrics and they have all of the information.
So, they have all of the information. And they kind of have all the power, and a lot of people go in and they don't, they just haven't thought about advocating for themselves or how they want to present their perception of how they've performed. And I think that's a missed opportunity, but again, it goes back to that relational feeling that we want to try to create.
If the person doesn't believe that they're going to get a chance to say, well, this is how I saw the year, or these are the things I'm most proud of, or this is where I really feel like I grew and developed.
It doesn't feel conversational. It doesn't feel fair. It feels like you're getting called in front of a judge and you're not allowed to talk.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, agree. And I, love that the, our writer was like excited about, they're like, I hate this. There's gotta be a better way to do it. And I you know, I am so glad that they asked the question because it is I, agree on a personal level as a manager. I hated it. I hated this part of the job because so often, the only way that companies knew how to deal with it was to turn it into a system. And it was just you were the cog in the wheel. And that's not fun for anyone. And so I love the challenge of talking about how do we reimagine it? How do we create, how do we create a space where it is truly about the person and the, to your point, the relationship that we have as employee and employer.
Dr. Andy Roark: Let's take a break and then we'll jump back in and we'll start to walk through like what this might actually look like as we put it together.
Stephanie Goss: Sounds great!
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Dr. Andy Roark: All right. So, we have to start when we want to put something like this together, or we want to start to lean away from carrot and stick evaluations. It's got to start with your mission and your values. Don't you agree? If we want an all for one, one for all mentality, if we want people to feel like they're a part of something, if we want them to be motivated by their desire to support the team and the people around them, they have to believe that stands for something besides their hourly pay rate.
And I think, I, think that there's, I think that some companies kind of pull off talking about this at a high level of this is what our, you know, our, corporate group believes. I think most of them don't. Some of them try and some of them don't even try. I don't think that you, I think you can also work at a regional level.
I think you can work at a smaller level. And, I think what you have to do, here's the key. You have to go through the process of finding the purpose, the meaning, the values that actually resonate with the people that you're leading.
And if you, if your stated purpose, mission, value don't resonate with them, or they don't believe that those really are the values, then you don't have anything except a carrot and a stick to motivate them with.
And so the first, and honestly the biggest driver of this, has nothing to do with the actual evaluation. It has everything to do with the messaging and the culture that we build around what are we doing here? What do we believe in? What is the good that we are doing in this world? And if they don't buy into it, you don't have anything left but the carrot and the stick.
And so I think the place for most practices to start is in that regard. What are the values? Who do we see ourselves as? What matters to us? And I think that there's great power in doing that at the practice level. I could see doing that at a regional level. You can do it at the national level, but you really have to have all of your leadership all the way down the chain buy into it.
And then, You have to actually walk the talk, because talk is cheap. You have to figure out how to demonstrate to your people these values are real and we mean them. And only by doing that do you have a chance of having something greater than a carrot and stick.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. And I agree 100 percent with that. And I would say that for most people, like I think about my journey in veterinary medicine and my peers' journeys. When I worked both in private practice and in corporate practice, it was the rare exception where I as a team member was involved in developing the vision and the values of our practice.
It was usually the vision and the values that were set down by somebody else and said, if you're going to work in this practice, you're going to uphold this mission and vision and values. And it might be something that I totally agree with and could totally get behind, no argument. Even then there's no buy-in for me as an employee . And so, to your point, I agree 100%, it has got to start with the employee being a part of the process.
Stop looking at them solely as an employee who's going to do what you want them to do, and start looking at them as a part of the whole and a part of the team. And their opinion and their thoughts, if they truly are the right person for your practice, should be just as important to you as the things that you value and the direction that you want to go in.
And so I think that's where it has to start. And most people, especially my friends in corporate practice, are like, but we have, you know, when I worked at NVA, it was like, well, but NVA has vision and values. Totally fine. Totally fine. And if we're going to be an NVA practice, we should be able to buy into that vision and values and where we are going.
Otherwise, we just sold out. Right? Like, so, but we should be able to agree with that. And. And. I have no, as a, as an employee of an NVA practice in Poulsbo, Washington, I have no connection to the thousand plus other NVA practices across the globe, right? Beyond their, I haven't had the chance to meet most of them for most of us when we work in corporate practice.
Maybe you meet some people in your region, but what mattered to me was like, how can we as a team of 20, working in Poulsbo, create our own vision and values as a group that matters to us, that would help us support the vision and values of NVA as a bigger company, right? And so most of us are like, well, we just have to fall in line and we just have to follow whatever our boss, it's the same in private practice, like we just have to follow whatever our boss decided is the vision and values for the practice.
I think that's bullshit. And I think that's where we have to start is making the employees stop looking at them solely as employees. Make them a part of the team. There has to be connection or they're not going to stay.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. or, they're, just not going to be motivated.
Stephanie Goss: and engaged. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: than what's in their best self interest. They're just, not. And so, but I will say this, too. I don't want anybody to lose heart. A magical leader, whether it's a, I mean, I've seen associate vets do this, it can be a lead technician, really magical leaders can make people feel like they're a part of something that matters inside of something else.
If you've ever, you know, been in a corporate practice and somebody says something like. Well, that's how we do it here at Blank Animal Hospital, and it refers specifically to their little group. You can build a culture in a practice like that, and it can be a very positive culture. You know, we can have the, it can just be the we love to laugh culture, like that's who we are, that's how we do things here. You can make that culture and make it something real, even if you're inside of a larger organization, that definitely happens. But if you want to have a corporate culture that motivates people, you're going to have to really put your money where your mouth is and show people that these values we say are values, they really are the values.
And so anyway, I just, I think that's absolutely mission critical.
Stephanie Goss: Yep. I agree. Okay. So if we have collective values and vision and the team is part of that process, so we know where we're going and it creates the road where they can know we're going to put our money where our mouth is and we're going to, we're going to, as a team, look at it from how do we walk our talk?
Then where do we go?
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, the next emphasis has got to be on personal vision and values. It's about knowing your people. If you bring your people in, the more you treat them like a widget the less relational this is going to be. The more you treat them like a widget, the more you're going to reduce them down to carrot and stick, right?
And, the less motivated by anything other than carrot and stick they're going to be. And so, and this sounds simple but honestly, baking into the development process a desire to understand and know the individual person. What does this person care about? What are their vision? What are their values?
What is their mission? When do they feel like they're making a difference? What are they most proud of in the last year?
Stephanie Goss: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: Those should be part of this evaluation again, if you don't want to be carrot and stick, what are they doing? What do they care about? And again, here's the other thing is if let's just say that we don't have strong buy-in on a team culture. If you understand who a person is and what they care about and what their values are and what their aspirations are and what makes them proud, you can still talk to them about what is important and highlight the non monetary gains that they have made in the last year and the development they have made as it benefits their personal mission and agenda.
Stephanie Goss: What I was going to add to that is I think when you think about it, if you are trying to know who your people are and you're trying to know their mission and their values, who they are, what they love about their job, what they're proud of, and in particular how they have grown, both in the things that are challenging to them and the things that are their strengths already, you absolutely cannot do this once a year.
This has to be an ongoing process and I think that's where so many of us are set up to fail is that we're involved in a system. And it was this way for me in private practice and in corporate practice where it's a once a year, you're checking a box and it can't, you're never going to have great success if that's the only way you approach it.
Because I'm sorry, I've never met a human being with the exception of maybe my kid who can tell me what he did when he was two years old. Like I've never met a human who can sit there and accurately. Repeat back to you what the last year has looked like for them, where we are going to think about what are the most recent things that have happened for good or for bad, and throw that shit at the wall if we're only doing it once a year.
And so we have to figure out a way as leaders to, it does not have to be a huge formal process that happens every single month, but it has to be ongoing, and it has to be regular, and it has to involve figuring out who those people are. What they care about and what strides they're making in their own development and growth.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I agree with that. I think if you have to, again, if we're back to, this is the system we have and we do this meeting once a year, I still think that whole getting to know them and knowing who they are, that needs to happen all year long.
Stephanie Goss: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s not something we sit down and we try to accomplish that here.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: Again, getting buy-in on the culture and the mission and the values of the practice, knowing your people, really knowing them and knowing what they care about, those are all things that can happen outside of, this meeting. I still think that if you want this to be relationship, relational at all, if it wants to feel, you know, collegial or related to us as a team, there, We have to listen to the people like that.
There has to be a part of it. That's not unidirectional. It's all I just, I don't think you can bring someone and sit them down, talk at them and then send them away and be like, wow, that felt great. I felt like we really connected there. It's never gonna happen. And so, so, so number three for me, I said, you know, know the collective vision and values know, your people and then you got to listen to them.
And so that means a couple of different things from them is, I don't know how we ask them to take feedback from us if we're not willing to take feedback from them.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: And there's a million mechanisms on how to do that, and it's beyond the scope of this podcast, but they have to feel like they are being heard, that they're being asked for their feedback, that we want to develop as an employer. As much as we want them to develop as an employee, because again, if we're, like, no, we're, going to do what we're going to do, because that's what's best for the bottom line, but we want you to develop that, that, that doesn't, that's not relational at all. Like that doesn't, that again, we're back to widget to widget land.
And so we have to be willing to take feedback. The other thing that I really think that we should emphasize to people, and this is kind of what I touched on earlier is, We should empower our people on how to present themselves and what they are proud of. And so, one of the things that you and I have done with corporate groups is we'll bring leaders or doctors in and things like that and we'll know evaluations are coming up.
And we'll have them sit for a moment and think about what they are most proud of. Like, what do you think you accomplished? What are you most proud of? How did you develop? What acts of service did you perform? What acts of mentorship are you proud of? And just think about those ahead of time. Now, think about the things you're proud of.
How would you present them in a way that upper management will see value in and understand and say, Oh, I see this because Dr. Goss is focusing on mentorship that is actually a focus on technician and assistant retention, which checks in this nice little box right here. And now. The thing that you're excited about, that you feel good about, you get credit for it.
And I, I really do think that is a vital part of this because I think, I don't think that a lot of people know how to get credit for good work that they're doing. And I think, you know, talking to our Chief HR Officer, I think that, increasing transparency there is beneficial so that people do feel seen and they do feel value and they do get credit for the work that they are actually doing and so having some transparency around how are you measured and then a little bit of practice and training.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. People do not know how to take the fact that they spend hours a week mentoring the techs and assistance. They don't know how to present that in a way that is seen as beneficial. And I would say, they are increasing practice capacity by training up our paraprofessionals.
They are increasing technician and assistant retention or attempting to increase it by investing in these people. They are developing I don't know. They are facilitating cross training of other staff members to reduce the chances that we're going to miss key personnel and have to be closed or down for a time.
Like there's a number of organizational objectives that they are helping to accomplish, but if they don't frame it that way, often they don't get credit for it. And so I think that HR and people doing these evaluations should be asking about these things. I think it should be helping. Our support staff, our doctors, the people they're evaluating to present themselves fairly and accurately and to get credit for the hard work that they're doing.
I think that's important. And so I put that under, under, you gotta listen to them. You gotta help them. You gotta hear what they're saying they did. You gotta help them present themselves well. You have to listen and take their feedback if they, if you want them to hear yours.
Stephanie Goss: And I think if you are working inside a system, and again, it has nothing to do with who owns your practice, but if you're working in a system where you have a form and your, process for self evaluation for your team is to hand them the form and ask them to fill it out, the number one step that most of us miss is teaching them how to fill it out. And that's your point. It's like what you have, we have to give them the skills to, like, we think, Oh, we're creating a system. And so this is going to help them shine by giving them a form. And I'm spelling it out. I'm telling me what you're proud of this year. That doesn't help them.
Tell you what they're proud of in a way that is going to tie it to what you care about as a leader, whether you're a middle management level leader, or you're a top of the chain level leader. And so part of it is we have to teach them to brag about themselves. And that is something that I, it is very rare to be taught that skill.
Like most people don't do it. And so that is a huge game changer for all of us as leaders is if we stop looking at it as let's create a system to make it easier for everybody and start looking at it as how can we make it relational? We can make it relational, real fast by teaching them the skills to give us the answers that we're looking for.
Not letting them miss the mark and then be like, well, you didn't give me any of the answers I need. So here's my answers back for you. That's when it becomes carrot and stick and you're just whacking them with a stick.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh, or having them walk out and say, man, I busted my hump all year long. And, I could not check these specific boxes that I don't really understand. And, as a result, all that I was evaluated on is a number of pets that I saw and the transaction you know, the average transaction amount, the revenue that I generated.
And you go, those are terrible metrics that make me feel like a widget and not a person, and I hate those metrics.
Stephanie Goss: A hundred percent.
Dr. Andy Roark: We've got to teach them on how to engage in a way that they're measured or they feel seen or measured. That's not widget widget style. You know, I'll say this. So my wife is a college professor and they do evaluations at her university.
Stephanie Goss: Uh huh.
Dr. Andy Roark: Kind of interesting. They get evaluated every year on three things. It's their teaching, it's their scholarship, and it's community service. And so those are the three things. And they know it's the three things and they have weights and whatever.
But you basically, you're evaluated on those three things. And I think that if you wanted to add service into how you evaluate your employees, you can. And you can say, this is 20 percent of your evaluation or 33 percent or whatever. But I put that forward to say, don't tell me the only way we can evaluate people is on hard numbers.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use hard numbers, but you can absolutely have 50 percent of the evaluation be hard numbers and 50 percent be service to the community, mentorship and support of the team. You can break it out however you want, and then at least people don't feel like it's numbers, financials. Carrot and stick.
Stephanie Goss: Well, and here's the reality, like, yes, you, are, you have to do your job as a leader, right? Like it, again, if I, when I was in independent practice, my job was to do the once a year evaluation. So that to this writer's point, we had the cover our butt documentation that said we're sitting down, having the conversations, doing the thing, checking the boxes. Nobody is telling me that has to be the entire meeting.
I can spend 15 minutes going through the form with somebody and be like, okay, we've checked that box. And now we're going to talk about this other thing. No, but who's telling you that you can't have the rest of that conversation be about personal growth, personal, you could make up your own form. You could use somebody else's form, like there are tons of ways that you can work within a system.
And create an opportunity to let people feel like people and let people tell you what they're proud of. Because the quickest way to get teams to flourish is to let them tell you what they're proud of and let them do more of the things that they love doing.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yep. I agree with that. So, I would put that in there as well. You know, you have to appreciate your people, and you need to celebrate them, and you need to celebrate what matters to them. And so I think that's a big part of it for me. You gotta be honest with them. Right? I mean, clear is kind. And I think that's part of having these conversations.
It can't all be hand waving, especially if they're going to get an evaluation score, or they're going to get a bonus, or they're not going to get a bonus. I do think part of this is, you can do all these things, and you need to be honest. But you do need to be honest about what is being looked at, and what's being measured, and where they are, and that's hard. But I do think that's part of it. I still think that you can care about people, you can listen to them, you can take their feedback, you can help them present themselves honestly and in the best light possible, you can make them feel seen, and you can be honest with them about where they are and what their possibilities and opportunities are, and, how they're being evaluated and why they're being evaluated that way.
I think you have to be honest with them. And, as our friend, Phil Richmond says, honesty without empathy is cruelty. You don't have to be cruel when you are honest. You can see them as a person and still be honest with them and know that this is a person who's putting themselves out there and they're being evaluated in a way that's probably not, it's probably not pleasant.
Stephanie Goss: Well and I think the reason that it's probably not pleasant and why it often feels cruel, I mean, I'll, being honest with you all, like, I cried after a lot of evaluations, both in private and corporate practice, because the way that it was approached was a surprise. I walked into that room not knowing what I was going to hear.
And I really truly, like my personal belief is as a leader, if I walk into a room to have that conversation with someone and they're surprised by anything that I say, I haven't done my job because my job is to communicate with them. My job is to be honest and that room is not the first time that I should be having that honesty with them.
If we're having an, an, myself included. Like there have been times where I've gotten an evaluation and someone has said to me, this is an area where you're struggling. And I can absolutely accept that because it's not the first time I'm hearing it. We've been talking about it and I know it's a struggle and I know I'm still struggling.
And I can tell you where I've improved because we're talking about it well before we sit down to have evaluations. But so many of us are stuck in this system where it is a box that we have to check once a year, that we sit down and we are trying to be honest with people because we do want them to get better scores.
We're not doing it out of malintent. Like we want them to grow. We want them to be better next year. But the first time they're freaking hearing what we have to say is in that process. And, to me, that's an indication that I didn't do my job as a leader.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I agree. I mean, I totally agree with that. I think the last thing for me is we have to empower them. If, no one wants to be a powerless widget maker. Like, no one wants to feel like they're being, held accountable, but they don't have any autonomy or any power to change their situation or to Yeah, or they don't have any power to change the situation just that's my big thing. If you're gonna hold someone accountable, which is kind of what we're talking about as far as looking at metrics and doing an evaluation If i'm being held accountable, but I don't feel like I have any power to affect my situation or position, that's hugely de motivating.
And it's really important when we started to talk to people about what is important and what we're looking at, that they feel like they have the ability to affect those outcomes knowledge on how to affect those outcomes, guidance, opportunity, autonomy, things like that. So that's sort of my last thing is make sure that they feel empowered.
When I was a kid, I was growing up and I would always work with my dad and my dad was a, my dad was a surgeon by training and so he he would hold his hand out and say nurse and somebody would put a scalpel in his hand and that's how it was to work with my dad is I never actually got to do the thing. I, I stood and handed tools to dad, you know what I mean? Whether we were working in the yard
Stephanie Goss: It didn't matter. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I would mix concrete that he would then make rock walls with, you know? And like. And I just thought about that later and he was always frustrated that we didn't want to help him more and I'm like this is not fun for me.
Stephanie Goss: Right. Right.
Dr. Andy Roark: You're doing all this stuff and I'm standing there and if he got frustrated with the project, I was just standing there
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Dr. Andy Roark: and I got to hear about it, but I don't have the power to do anything, you know, and I think a lot of people can feel that way working in practice if they don't feel and perceive that they are empowered to make changes in their practice to, to be able to affect the outcome of what they're being evaluated on. So that's the last one for me.
Stephanie Goss: I love it. I love it. Oh man. This was I, this was so much fun. This is, as you probably all can tell, this is like a soapbox for me. I've done workshops on this. This is a fun one. I really enjoy this question. And I, so I think the ultimate answer for me to the original question is it is what you make it.
And like you have unlimited power to change it. And, that choice, like that was game changing for me to realize I might be in a system. I might be given an evaluation process. That doesn't mean that I can't, that I can't take it, use it, and also change within the system.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I agree. Well, cool. Well, thanks for talking through with me.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Have a great week, everybody.
Dr. Andy Roark: All right. See everybody.
Stephanie Goss: And that's a wrap on another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Thanks for joining us and spending your week with us. If you enjoyed this week's episode, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It's the best way to let us know that you love listening. We'll see you next time.
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