Team Culture

If you have young children at home like me or are a Disney-loving child at heart, then the beginning of your 2022 has been dominated by the movie Encanto. I was just discussing with a friend how impactful Encanto is the first time you are actually able to pay attention to it without the distractions of loud little humans. So, in solidarity with everyone else who also has the soundtrack stuck in their head (willingly or unwillingly), here are my vet med versions of the characters from Encanto:

Bruno

Why not start off with the character we are not supposed to talk about but cannot stop singing about?!  Many of us in vet med at some point feel underappreciated and misunderstood like Bruno. He can see the future, but the townspeople and his own family are upset whenever Bruno’s prophesies deliver bad news.  Working in the veterinary field, we know all too well that delivering bad news does not always make us the most popular. “He told me my fish would die; the next day: Dead!”  Well, either Bruno cursed your fish, or he is a very astute fish vet who delivered an accurate prognosis. 

Julieta

The veterinary versions of Mirabel’s mom are my favorite co-workers. Feeling bad, here are some homemade cookies to make you better! Okay, their food never cured a broken arm, but you cannot convince me that the magical holiday sugar cookies that my hospital’s Julieta brings in every winter do not have healing powers.

Pepa

There is always that one person in the hospital whose mood affects the atmosphere of the whole place. The vet med Pepa can either make your day sunshine and rainbows or turn it into a massive hurricane. Whatever you do, do not mention Bruno in front of her if you want to avoid the storm clouds!

Dolores

Want to know the latest hospital secrets? Then go find Dolores because she hears everything.  From knowing how your most beloved patient is responding to a new treatment to hearing about the latest relationship drama the outwardly perfect employee is experiencing… Dolores knows it all, and she is willing to share it with whomever will listen.

Camilo

Need a hand answering phones… Boom! The vet med version of Camilo transforms into the perfect CSR.  Want someone to help you obtain some radiographs… Ta-Dah! Camilo shapeshifts into the assistant you need, complete with a stylish lead apron.  These cross-trained helpers are such an asset to any veterinary hospital, but just don’t ask them to estimate how tall Bruno is.

Antonio

We all wish we could talk to animals, but the veterinary Antonio just seems to connect on a different level.  They will tame the savage beast when no one else can seem to get through.  Okay, maybe nowadays they also utilize some low-stress handling techniques and pre-appointment anti-anxiety meds to achieve their magic, but that’s still pretty magical.

Isabela

Isabela does more than grow beautiful flowers, she is seemingly perfect in every way … and it’s affecting her mental well-being.  We need to help any vet med Isabela realize that “it didn’t need to be perfect – it just needed to be!”  Good enough can be good enough in veterinary medicine.  When we see our Isabela colleagues struggling for perfection, maybe we need to encourage them to grow a cactus, and then give them a hug.

Louisa

We love Louisa for her ability to hip check boulders, shoulder the donkeys, and bust a mean dance move!  However, the weight she is carrying is crushing her.  She’s the dependable, rock-solid workhorse… until she breaks under those heavy expectations. Louisa’s lyric when she sings: “I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service” hits me in the feels every time I hear it. Louisa can find joy in utilizing her strength to serve her community, but she may need to be reminded that she is allowed to take time for herself to relax in her hammock with a nice drink when she needs it. Oh, and it’s okay if she cries sometimes too. Don’t worry, Louisa, you are so much more than your gift! 

Abuela

She is the matriarch trying to hold it all together.  The Abuela in the vet clinic thinks she is protecting her team and her community, but her fears are putting unbearable pressure on the people she cares about.  She means well, but she is blind to the harm she is causing.  Sometimes it takes a spunky, bespectacled granddaughter to show her what she has forgotten.

Mirabel

And that brings us finally to Mirabel.  She may not have the obvious talents of the people surrounding her, but she is a special part of the veterinary team.  Her presence keeps the practice running, and without her the walls crumble.  She may not feel like she belongs as she is “waiting for a miracle”, but she can help her entire veterinary family better utilize their gifts.  And, if she somehow ends up in the middle of a pile of rubble, she can inspire the community around her to come to her aid and discover that “it’s a dream when we work as a team.”  She is the real gift even if she does not see it in herself. So, you may have to help her open her eyes and then give her the doorknob she needs to finally enter the door she has been waiting for.

Encanto may be a favorite for kids who cannot stop singing about Bruno (no, no, no…) but it can also unlock some hard truths for veterinary professionals and help us understand our gifts and our burdens in a new way.  Whether we feel like we need to “earn the miracle that somehow found us” or we feel the “pressure like a tick, tick, tick ‘til it’s ready to blow” (not that kind of tick!), we can open our eyes to see ourselves as veterinary versions of the family Madrigal who just need to re-focus on what is truly important in our careers and lives. 

Last week I had a conversation on the Uncharted podcast with my friend and colleague Stephanie Goss about how a practice manager might dig out of a pit of negativity. This manager had been running a veterinary practice for years where the practice owner “just didn’t want to deal with it” when staff conflict or bad behavior arose. As a result, damaging habits like gossiping and in-fighting had firmly taken root. 

Now, the practice has been sold to a corporate group and this manager has been tasked (and empowered) to fix these deeply ingrained problems. She asked us for advice on how to approach turning this mess around, and we tried to break it down for her. You can listen here (or wherever you get podcasts) if you’re interested. It’s episode 164. 

I love answering questions like these, and I get 45 or 50 minutes on the podcast to unpack what’s really going on and dig into actionable solutions. Still, It’s not lost on me that there are fundamental skills and practices that every leader should know that HUGELY impact these situations and that we never have time to lay out.

The single most valuable tool that I often find people-focused leaders missing from their toolbox is the ability to accurately assess their team members. No one teaches us how to look at those who work with us or for us and recognize what their potential is, their strengths, or how to coach them to be the most effective and successful version of themselves. There was no course in vet school on the importance of putting particular skill sets into specific practice roles. There was no lecture on how placing someone into the right job is exponentially more impactful than trying to coach them in a role they are ill-suited for.

It’s easy to look at problems with our teams and see them as “team problems,” but teams are just groups of individuals. If we don’t do a good job of knowing and understanding the individuals who work for us (both as people and as workers) then our ability to solve problems at the team level is always going to be limited.

My encouragement is to take a look at your team. Do you know these people? Have you thought about what each one is good at, where they excel individually, and what roles in the practice might showcase their unique strengths and talents? Do you know who your high performers are and WHY they are successful? Do you know who is struggling and can you diagnose what, exactly, is holding them back? These kinds of insights are often right in front of us. We just need to clear our heads and uncover them so we can put the knowledge to use.

It’s worth investing the time to consider the people we lead as individuals; to recognize that everyone has their own motivators, values, strengths, weaknesses and concerns. Managing a team without managing the individuals inside that team is like trying to cook a complex recipe without paying attention to the quality and preparation of ingredients. Sure, you can put everything together as the cookbook says, but that doesn’t mean you will have the Michelin 5 Star dining experience you want (or even that you won’t get food poisoning!).

Most of this skill really comes down to practice. It’s about thinking intentionally and deeply about your people and then zooming out to think about how those people engage with your practice. If you would like some help doing this, or would like to see how I think and talk about team member strengths and weaknesses, I am running the third Uncharted Strategic Planning Workshop on February 23rd at 8pm ET, 5pm PT.  The workshop is called Loading the Bus (All About the People) and will cover everything I mentioned above. 

The most important thing to remember when doing these exercises is that the people on your team are just people. They are probably good people who want to help pets, and I suspect they are seeking some amount of purpose from their work. They are also almost certainly fighting battles in their personal lives that you and I know nothing about. If we accept these things as true, we will be better able to see them as human beings, to treat them with compassion, to build stronger relationships with them, and to find reward in leading. 

Take care of yourself!

Best wishes,

   Andy

Have you ever felt that someone got you, like truly, deeply, at your core got you? You see, I have a superpower. Not the kind that headlines a major motion picture, or gets me on the B-list of the Avengers, or even their trusty sidekick. My superpower would qualify me for the Suicide Squad, and not one who actually makes it to the end of the movie, the ones who are the distraction and the comic relief.

My superpower, yes, I believe it is one, is popsicle stick humor. I could have paid my way through veterinary school writing those popsicle sticks, and that is at today’s vet school costs. Not only can I instantaneously come up with a lame pun or joke, like cruciate tear lame, but I can give 5 back to back puns on topic. Clinics I have worked at have call any lame joke or pun, a “Sweitzer Joke.” I have had pun-offs for fun. My friend once drew a cartoon of my brain with tons of filing cabinets, the size of the library of congress, filled with jokes and Olympic-level sprinters running around retrieving them. I felt sorry for those poor individuals as they were being worked as hard as grad students or interns (a topic for another time).

Some people appreciate my puns as they make the day go faster and lighten the emotional load of veterinary medicine. Some people tolerate my puns as part of accepting me. My current boss may roll her eyes sometimes and will giggle or chuckle at others, did something that speaks to my core, my superpower. She hung the following sign on the door to our doctor’s office. The feeling of being understood, and appreciated, is so fulfilling. The feeling of being truly understood and appreciated, by your boss, PRICELESS (Though I think she bought the sign with VISA).

So often our brain focuses on our weaknesses, on our mistakes, and on what went wrong. We naturally all have a strong negativity bias so we can survive the sabretooth tiger around the next corner. The monsters of life may take many forms but the worst monster is our own mind. While trying to improve our flaws and avoid our mistakes may help us not to fail, but punishment rarely pushes us to the pinnacles of mental success. Reinforcement motivates us to continue our current efforts and pushes us to greater heights. Being not only accepted but celebrated for who you are is an incredible feeling and amazingly fulfilling.

So, what is your core strength, your superpower? Was there a time that you felt truly understood and appreciated? A time when you did something for someone else to make sure they knew how much you appreciate them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jason Sweitzer has worked in veterinary medicine for two decades from assistant, to RVT, to DVM. He graduated from UC Davis with his DVM in 2009 with focuses on small and exotic animals, behavior, and business management. He has worked in general and specialty emergency practices as well as having been an Intern and Extern Director for one of the largest veterinary clinics in the country. He loves teaching and incorporating animal behavior and mental wellness into all that he does and sits on the Western University Dean’s Clinical Site Advisory Counsel. He was a founding board member of Not One More Vet, Inc, and founded Not One More Vet Student. a non-profit devoted to mental health and suicide prevention in veterinary medicine including more than 20,000 veterinary professionals. He has lectured nationally on several topics. He believes laughter is the best medicine and proudly shares his “Dad” jokes.

It finally happened. The veterinarian shortage and veterinary technician shortage that they’ve always talked about for the last 20 years. If you look in today’s clinical practice it is almost impossible to find staff. The classified ads are full and the world during COVID has seemed to expedite this market. Yes, it is truly a buyer’s market if you’re looking for a job.

A few months ago, our family had a slight scare as there was a potential COVID exposure at our daughter’s daycare. As a family, we decided it would be best to keep her home during the month while vaccinations were just beginning to be dispensed. As far as making this work, it was a bit of a scheduling challenge. Fortunately, both my wife and I have bosses who were quite understanding and very gracious in allowing us to make this happen. We were both able to alter our schedules so that one of us was home all day during the course of the week. This essentially meant much longer shifts when we were at work, some as long as 10 to 12 hour days but it was worth it. The time that we each had with our young daughter was a gift. We were able to keep her safe and at the same time get to enjoy some everyday family time with her. This was time I had missed out on during her first year while I was working… and I loved it.

It got me to thinking how in today’s veterinary market can employers become a more attractive option for potential employees? For full disclosure, I am not a business owner. These ideas are just some things I’m spit-balling as potential options that some employers and employees may find to be mutually attractive and beneficial.

1. Time off and scheduling

From my own experience, a slight rearrangement of scheduling and a cut back on some days working was a wonderful relief. I was still able to maintain what would be considered a full-time working status. Veterinarians and technicians are often known for being workaholics. We have that personality and drive. Our focus is to help our patients and help our fellow team members. At times this can become a bit of a detriment as both people I’ve known (and myself) have worked 50-60 hour weeks, skipped vacations, and missed out on important things – at a detriment to our general well health and being. Instead, try having a look at a three or four-day workweek schedule. Though the days may be longer, the days off are so worth it.

2. Dollar dollar bills y’all

For ages, jobs have often been defined by how much you make. Don’t get me wrong; money is good but it can only motivate people so far. Eventually, they reach the threshold where their well-being is no longer worth it. In today’s society, many people worry about what the future will hold. As it is for many technicians in a clinic, their average career span seems to only be around five years before they move on to a different job in a different field altogether. This is largely a result of clinic life no longer being financially feasible for them to do a job they love while having their spirits and bodies broken by the day-to-day grind.

For veterinarians, gone are the days where you might work for somebody for 5 to 10 years before you get to become a practice owner yourself. Selling a practice was often a means of funding your retirement. To be brutally honest, people these days are horrible with money and the whole idea of saving up is lost on many. Why don’t we look at ways of providing different financial incentives? I’m talking about pensions, 401(k)s, and RRSPs that employees can contribute to but also the employers match to a certain percentage. Every little bit helps and makes the long-term job satisfaction a bit better in my opinion.

One other financially incentive idea is profit-sharing. There are different ways this is figured out and distributed but if everyone gets a little extra slice of the pie, the staff may feel a lot better knowing that their hard work will be rewarded. Ultimately, they may be a lot more inclined to put in some extra effort without any begrudging.

3. Moving on up! To the east side?

Nope, just within the business. Some staff members are content with their role in the clinic but others want more. We should embrace both groups as they are important pieces of the team. Technicians may want to specialize. Vet assistants may want to take on more responsibilities or even consider going back to school for a technician or doctor program. Client care representatives may want to move into a management role. Nobody can work forever so it benefits us to train someone to help out when someone retires or is out sick – especially if for a prolonged time. If there are ways to move up and expand a skill set, employers should identify those staff members and provide them with the tools to become a more integral part of the clinic. This can improve job satisfaction as well as better financial well-being for both the employee and the clinic.

4. Clean house

Many clinics have that one employee… you know the one who has been there X number of years and is the best technician, receptionist, or manager you’ve ever had. Except that employee drives the rest of the staff crazy and creates a toxic work environment. It may be hard to swallow, but it’s time they move on. I know we’re talking about adding employees but it’ll be much easier to hire if you have a happier atmosphere and the worker who dragged down morale is gone.

The last 20 months have been exhausting yet rewarding. Think about how many pets and families we’ve been able to help! Now we need rest and hope that relief is on the way. While we may ask clients for their patience, it will likely come down to appropriate staffing in the clinic to alleviate the stress. Owners (whether private or corporate) have the power to transform the profession moving forward and make the job more variably rewarding than cuddling kittens and puppies though that is an awesome perk of the job!