Identifying and Managing Toxic Veterinary Staff with Alyssa Mages and Dr. Phil Richmond

Mary Schwartz:

Hi, and welcome to Simple, Interrupted, a podcast about radical veterinary change. I'm really excited to have both of our guests on today as we dive into the topic of toxic employees. You'll hear from Alyssa Mages who has 18 years of experience in the veterinary field and a lifetime of thinking outside of the box. As well as Chief Medical and Wellbeing Officer and the 2021 FVMA Veterinarian of the year, Dr. Phil Richmond. He's a published writer and speaker who's passionate about what he does. Let's hear more from our guests. Welcome Alyssa and Dr. Richmond to the podcast. I'm really excited to have both of you on today to chat a little bit more about toxic employees and whether they're the symptom or the cause of our toxic cultures. Why don't you both introduce yourselves and let us know a little bit about what you've been up to in our industry lately?

Alyssa Mages:

Sure. Hi Mary. It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me on. And I get to hang out with Phil again, which makes me super happy. I am a CVT, I've been in vetmed since 2004, credentialed in 2012, so I did a little backwards, got my bachelor's and then my associates and I'm really glad I did it that way. I've dabbled in pretty much every aspect of the industry that we can, academia research, large animal smell animal, exotics, all the fun stuff. But my heart started in marine biology, so I'm desperately trying to get back to an ocean at some point. But in the meantime I've been hanging out in the educational and learning and development space with empowering veterinary teams. We launched three years ago on Sunday, so it's exciting. We're coming up on anniversary.

Mary Schwartz:

Well, happy anniversary. That's really exciting.

Alyssa Mages:

Thank you. Thanks so much. It's an exciting time to be in vetmed. I know that there's a lot of stuff that we're going to be talking about today and things that need our attention and our love and our energy, but I'm full of hope and I'm really excited to see where we're going.

Mary Schwartz:

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

I'm Phil Richmond. I'm a veterinarian and one of my claims to fame is that I'm friends with Alyssa.

Alyssa Mages:

Oh my God. No. That's my claim to fame, is I know this guy.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

I've been vetmed for a while, but I graduated in 06. Really how I got into this space was that I spiraled downward severely in 2008 and almost wasn't here. And so I exhibited a lot of the behaviors as well that we're going to talk about today. And so I know what it's like to be the person on the other side and also have some lived experience on where some of that behavior comes from that's helpful. I too, I'm just grateful to be a part of veterinary medicine. I'm the Chief Medical and Wellbeing Officer for the group Veterinary United. I'm very grateful to be the chair of the Veterinary Wellbeing Committee for the Florida Veterinary Medical Association. I get to do a heck of a lot of stuff in wellbeing, in vetmed and meet with a lot of great people and moving the profession forward. I'm just grateful to be here. Thanks for having us, Mary.

Mary Schwartz:

Of course. Of course. It's great to have both of you on and see the difference that you're making in our industry every day. I think that definitely having some professionals that end up taking a step back from clinic, but still pushing our industry forward is the way that we are going to continue to improve as a whole. Excited to hear both of your thoughts today. Let's dive right in. What do you guys think is the difference between a toxic employee or someone who maybe, I don't want to say lost cause because of course that's not the kind of direction you want to go, but someone who maybe isn't going to be willing to turn around their attitude over someone who is still present and able to receive feedback and turn around their attitude?

Alyssa Mages:

Really at the root of it is you have to figure out what's going on with this individual. Are they in pain? In what way? All of us that have been doing this for longer than a month, our knees and our backs are not in the greatest shape. So are they in chronic pain? Are they dealing with something that we can't see and that we don't know what their lived experience is outside of the practice? I think it's to be an to empathic and start there from a place of empathy and saying, all right, let's see where this is going. And then to have those conversations where it's not, you're doing this wrong and this is not acceptable. It's what's going on, and how can we figure this out together? And that's not easy. It's not a comfortable conversation to have. It's not something to start in the middle of the treatment room floor at blank hits the fan o'clock, right?

But it's definitely something that needs to be addressed one-on-one. And then let's look at where you're at. You started with us at X amount of time, this is where your skills have come or not, what is your passion? Do you have it anymore? Why is it gone? And really see if you can figure out where they're coming from, where they're at, and what they're invested in in moving forward. And then if there isn't that sign of they want to talk or they want to move forward, then that's a different conversation. But I think you need to start at getting to the center of where they are and what you can do together with them.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Absolutely. And what I would say is when we see people, I think we use that term toxic, but what's the actual language? What's the behavior that we see that people exhibit doing that? Are there demoralizing comments? Is this person somewhat of a saboteur? Are we having team meetings? And then after the team meeting, instead of entering into healthy discussion about whatever topic is being brought up, they're lobbying secretly and saying, well that's a stupid idea, we're never going to do that or what have you. And this is different than confrontation, because healthy confrontation is okay. What I would say is as leaders we also have to be able to accept that and have healthy discussion.

But going back to the behavior, is it corrupting the culture? Is this person bringing down people around us? And again, to Alyssa's point is knowing that if we can ask the question instead of saying, what's wrong with you? What's happening with you? That oftentimes can change the way that we perceive the feedback discussions and we may or may not be able to move forward from that spot.

Mary Schwartz

And both of you have been in clinic in situations where either you haven't shown up as your best self every day to work, or you've seen people around you not doing that. On your worst day, what would have actually helped you be open to having this discussion with a manager? Because like you said, Alyssa, this is a really vulnerable discussion to have. And it can also be really hard to say something to the effect of, hey, it's not work related, it's personal, I'm really struggling. Because that's again a really intimate conversation to have. How do you think a manager could maybe open up the conversation or open the door in a way that the person doesn't feel attacked or feel like they're in trouble or anything like that?

Alyssa Mages:

I think, Mary, going back to Phil's comment too about the overall team culture, what is your foundations on communication? How often are you talking with your team? Do they get that like, oh God, I'm going to the principal's office when you asked to meet with them? Because that was my gut response with a lot of my managers of like, what did I do? Nothing. I just want to talk to you. I'm like, but I have that sense of foreboding and I'm already on the defense.

Mary Schwartz:

Or worse the, can I talk to you later conversation?

Alyssa Mages:

And you're like, oh God, and it wrecks your whole day.

Mary Schwartz:

Oh yeah, your whole day is done.

Alyssa Mages:

You're like, I'm done. That's got to be established first and foremost is it can't be the dreaded annual review. You need to meet with your people, even if it's for five to 10 minutes, just checking in, how's it going? Where are you at with today? How are things? Know them. Know if they have kids or not. Know if they have elderly family members or other family members that they're taking care of. Do they have chronic health concerns? Do they love music? Are they a foodie? Are they obsessed with horror movies all the time not just at Halloween? What makes them tick? And then when you get to that kind of, and that's the tricky part to your point, is these are intimate conversations and you have to have that line as a manager. I was never an official manager, I was, again, a middle leadership position, but you're not their friend. You can't be. To have that.

That's not fair. You can have a sense of camaraderie, but it's not like you have to have that balance of professionalism, even though you bring your personal and professional, they're all same letters. So you have to walk that line of I'm here for you, but we need to have those boundaries in place for both our sakes, because you don't want to feel like you're invading their personal space. You got to establish that and then really just make it as a casual like, hey, I've been going through some stuff. How are you doing? This past week here in the Northeast it's been pouring down rain, right? It's been six days of gray and wet. I'm miserable. How are you doing?

And start it with a neutral place and establish that. And then you can get into the things. I've been noticing this around, what's your sense of this? Ask for their input and then take it. That's the other part of it too, is you can ask the questions, but you need to be willing and able to hear the answers and actively listen to them. Don't plan your response for, you can prepare for that conversation, but you don't want to go into it. As soon as they respond you're moving on to the next question. Phil works with us wonderfully with active and reflective listening, and it's something that we all need to practice. I would say you have to first establish that precedence of having these conversations and then ease into them instead of slamming into the issue at hand.

Mary Schwartz:

Rome and relationships aren't built in one day.

Alyssa Mages:

Correct.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

100%. To follow up on that, Mary is, it's so much is that when X happens, what environment do we have to address that situation? And if we haven't done that months or years in advance, again, it speaks to the culture and it's also who are we bringing on to be part of the team? What does our onboarding process look like? Are we not consciously accepting of these little comments that are said or oh man, that client, they probably, they're out there driving a Jag and I don't understand why they can't pay for their dog. Or just comments that are said. Are we as a team already accepting those during the onboarding process? Or are we saying when little things happen, not even a huge red flag, but little things come up, are we doing some course correction with people to set the culture?

Because if so, if we're doing that, then people that are in that space at that time probably aren't going to want to stay at that practice. They may weed themselves out. It is one where when we talk about those behaviors, what brings up a stressful event or what puts us in those moods is, have we set an environment where if I'm in that mood, do I feel like I'm safe to say to the team, I'm off today. My mom called me, whenever my mom gets sick, my mom's 83, whenever she's not feeling well or she goes in the hospital, it's just something I've learned that it's an instant stressor for me that it changes the way I am in the clinic that day. And can we be self aware, we feel comfortable sharing that with our team?

But again, that has to be set from day one as we come on into the practice. It's why I wouldn't even say it's as much the individual, but it's a holistic thing, is that if we have a, quote unquote, toxic employee, if there's one finger pointed this way, we've got three pointed back the other way. So we've got to ask ourselves what environment have we laid down that has allowed this to fester?

Mary Schwartz:

I think to your point, Phil, just to expand a little bit is, you're going to have some employees who are comfortable sharing my mom's in the hospital, I'm really stressed out right now. And you're also going to have some employees who are just going to say, I've got something going on at home and I need to take the day off.

Alyssa Mages:

That's fine.

Mary Schwartz:

And it needs to be okay either way. It needs to always be-

Alyssa Mages:

100%.

Mary Schwartz:

You have to trust your team to make that judgment call for themselves as well.

Alyssa Mages:

That's it. Trust. That's what it comes down to. And can you trust your team and can your team trust you?

Mary Schwartz:

Absolutely. I want to go a little bit off script. I'm going to ask you guys if you guys feel comfortable with this before I do it.

Alyssa Mages:

Do it.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Do it.

Mary Schwartz:

How would you guys feel about talking a little bit about psychological safety in the workplace?

Alyssa Mages:

It was on the tip of my tongue. Right? And I was like, oh.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

As soon as we were saying trust.

Mary Schwartz:

It was right the top of my head as soon as y'all started talking.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

That's my jam.

Mary Schwartz:

Let's dive into how to create a workspace that fosters psychological safety for your employees.

Alyssa Mages:

Take it away, Phil.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Okay. So when we talk about psychological safety, the basis of psychological safety is trust and psychological safety. So trust in that I believe that my teammates want to do the best job possible. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I also believe that if I make a mistake or if I'm in a situation that that team is then going to give me the benefit of the doubt. To your point, Mary, if I say I need a day today. Got it. I know that person, I'm on board that that person is making the best decision for themselves and the team and I'm not circling to, they're lazy or they don't want to be part of the team or they're not invested in us. That's not psychological safety. But it's very much that I feel comfortable taking risks, be it bringing up new ideas that I feel I could be a vulnerable with this team. If a mistake happens I feel comfortable bringing it up.

Also if I make a mistake that I'm not hit with the flame thrower in the middle of the treatment by the doctor, that somebody's going to say, hey one, we're human. Two, I believe you are a competent professional. And we start looking into the systems as to why that happened. Not that you are a fit. We have something in this system that we can do better and that we look at it from a growth mindset. To build that is, we can spend a significant amount, we can spend the whole rest of the day talking about it, which would be great.

Alyssa Mages:

It's true.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

But the thing is, is that it's also very fragile. We need to have a basis of civility in the workplace. We need to be able to communicate with each other in a healthy way. We need to be able to be honest with empathy. I can say something to you if there needs to be a course correction, but before I say it, I think about being in your shoes and how that's going to land. I'm not saying, hey, I need to talk to you after work and walking off. Because we all know, even if I'm making the charitable assumption that it's good, it's still challenging. It still takes a lot of emotional work to bring down my temperature gauge. But those are two big ones. Being honest with empathy and civility in the workplace and then having a growth mindset is huge. Being able to listen to other people appreciatively, not actually hearing what they're saying, where they're coming from, those are some of the cores of psychological safety.

Alyssa Mages:

There's not much else I can add to that other than it allows you to be your authentic self. And then when you show up authentically, real work happens. And it's also to that point, we've all been there. We've slammed through a 15 appointment day. Everyone was on time. We got everything entered, everything went well. And then my last tech appointment of the day, I nick the quick on a toenail. I don't remember anything else but that bad thing that I did. And to your point, Phil, is to have that center of trust and safety where it's like you fail but they build you back up. It's like, remember all the good that you did, it's a toenail, it's fine, that's what we have quick step for. It's fine. And it really is fine, because we're our own worst critics anyway. So if we are surrounded by all of our own worst critics, that doesn't make for a fun place to be.

To allow that authenticity to shine through and to be kinder to ourselves and one another. But again, we've all said it too, if there's not that structure in place, and that really is a part of it too, is you need to establish structure. And I know rules are meant to be broken. Not in medicine though guys, there's a reason we have SOPs. Right? So to have that structured approach to, back to your earlier point, Phil, of onboarding and orientation all the way through a person's career path. This is what this is in place for. And to say, hey, it's all right. You're not at that stage yet. You're still learning, you're still developing, and you just started implementing these skills. And to have that ability to remind one another that we are growing, we're not in a fixed, stagnant place. Our mindset is open to the fact that we can grow and develop and we got to do it together.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

And two huge things that I would say is when we think about the importance of psychological safety, if Alyssa says something to me in treatment and I misinterpret it and we have a toxic culture, think about the amount of time, just on average that we've been in one of those workplaces, think about how much time and effort in our mind is spent. Did she do this? Man, did she do this? Was she thinking this? And then what does that do? That puts us into our threat mode, into our stress response. That stress response gets kicked in the same as us running from a tiger. It decreases our cognitive ability by about 40%. It doesn't allow us to access the thinking and rational part of our brain. And there's no way that we can be efficient, capable. We can't be as efficient and effective as we normally can be if we're in a positive uplifted state.

This isn't, woo woo, this is incredibly vital, when I hear talking about emotional intelligence and psychological safety and that's soft skills, these are mission critical skills. I mean these absolutely affect how patient care is delivered, how the clients perceive it. Because I can say, I can go over discharge instructions for a newly diabetic patient, if I'm in a toxic environment, that may land a heck of a lot different than if I'm in a really positive environment that I can be there and show empathy towards that client. It allows me to tap into that emotional intelligence where if I'm in threat mode all day I can't access it. I just can't tap into those things and basically I'm just saying words that come off potentially uncaring, that lands differently with that client that's potentially going to affect the way that patient is cared for. These are real world things that are vital in the practice.

Alyssa Mages:

They're not soft, they're human skills. This is how we human. I call them human skills because that's how we learn to be humans. Because yes, we're medical professionals, but I'm a person first. I know we got into this industry to work with animals, but they come with people.

Mary Schwartz:

Every animal has a person at the end of the leash.

Alyssa Mages:

Every animal has a person, and we work with each other. And if we don't understand the mechanics and the psychology, if you want to get down to it, right? This is science. Psychology is a science. And it's not like toxic positivity. That's another one of Phil's in my trigger words like, good vibes only, don't you dare. That's not what this is. Again, it's making sure that this is a safe learning environment where growth and development and honesty and authenticity are encouraged. It's not woo woo, it's what what. This is how we do it. Because at the end of the day it doesn't work otherwise. Sorry.

Mary Schwartz:

No, no, you're fine. I was going to say, that's the thing that changes many clinics reputations from being a toxic workplace to actually being a place that's a unicorn clinic, versus I come here, I'm either toxically positive or everyone is angry all the time. And that's really kind of the two ends of the spectrum that we see by and large right now, but doesn't have to be that way. We're already in an industry that takes so much from us psychologically in terms of what it takes to care for pets and pet parents, we shouldn't continue stealing it from one another as well.

Alyssa Mages:

That is beautifully said, and that's so true.

Mary Schwartz:

Well, I've definitely been there. I've been the one screamed at in treatment by the doctor for a minor mistake. I've been the one trying to hold an employee's hand through another employee snapping at them and then them spending the entire day sweating about it. Did they mean to do that to me? And it taints their interactions throughout the day. It's hard to calculate a drug dosage when all you're thinking is Sam over there yelled at me earlier, and now he's over there on the other side of the room staring at me, and do they hate me? Do they not want to work with me? But you still have to do your job and our jobs are complex and intricate.

Alyssa Mages:

There's very few professions where you have to constantly be physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to go. It's so easy to tap us out. We all went through high school once. I don't really particularly feel like doing that again. Thank you very much.

Mary Schwartz:

I'm pretty convinced that none of us ever really grew up past high school, we just keep trying to be better.

Alyssa Mages:

There are studies on that, the emotional development of humans. It sometimes gets stuck at 12 to 15.

Mary Schwartz:

It's a little bit younger than I was hoping for, but I could see that.

Alyssa Mages:

I know.

Mary Schwartz:

I could definitely see it. What do you guys see as some signs that maybe your practice is trending in the wrong direction? What are some symptoms that are creating these employees who maybe have these behaviors that are again, a symptom of the overall picture?

Dr. Phil Richmond:

If I can step in, just because this was one thing that we subjectively saw in our practice. The practice that I was in, we were incredibly intentional about setting up an environment of psychological safety. And this paid off in dividends. We said in 2019 this was in the before times, before COVID, we would come to work to get away from the world. Our staff said that, we loved working together. We are human though, and what we noticed is that our level of gossip, our level of talking about clients or talking about one another would tick up a couple notches, where it was very minimal if present at all. And that was the sign, hey, something's going on here. And we would look, and where we saw it was during COVID and it was external. We could talk to one another in a safe place but we were just getting stressed out.

And again, we weren't able to access the rational, empathetic part of our brains because the external stress and the caseload. I would say is those things, and I mean we all know what it is, but it's sabotaging. It's interfering with teamwork and collaboration. It's the corruption. It's not always necessarily overt, but it's just saying things under our breath. Or again, it's the typical something set in a meeting and oh yeah, that's great. And then after, well I'm not doing that crap. That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Those types of things. Alyssa.

Alyssa Mages:

I think that you spoke to it beautifully. It's really when you start to hear the rumblings. And then what I've also noticed is when the loud people are quiet, I am not a shy person. So if I am shut down, and people would know that immediately. If I didn't walk in and say, good morning, how are you doing? If I just walked in and just went to work, everyone's like, oh crap, what happened? But to really be aware of that and start looking at who went quiet, who's getting loud, what's happening, and you can feel it, right? Phil, you can feel it when you walk in and you're like, I could cut this with a 10 blade today. What's going on? And it really depends on, to your point, Phil, COVID really amped up a notch.

And as awful as that was, I'm not trying to paint that in a shiny light, but it helped us honestly see all of the things that really were there all along. This was just that proverbial straw that was like, so we really need to deal with all of this other stuff because if we have this big stressor, it's really, it can break you. Looking at your teammates and having that conscious term, a teammate doesn't have to be athletically

involved for all of us that aren't. But really you're more than coworkers in veterinary medicine. Sorry, it's a contact arena. I do shy away from the family saying it's a work family. Sometimes you work with your relatives, that's entirely different. But because that term isn't the same for everybody, family isn't always warm and fuzzy for everyone.

It's something that you don't want to force that, right? It's like, look at your team and call them that, treat them that way. It goes back to treat others the way you want to be treated. Actually, no, the way they want to be treated. It's different. And just be conscious. It's having that consciousness. But the signs of the rumbling, the change and demeanor, the obvious tension. And then when people just start leaving, it's happening. It's not a quiet resignation, it's they're out. And turnover's always been a thing in vetmed. And why is that? Why are we leaving? Well, it's a physically demanding, it's mentally challenging because it's medicine.

Yes, I understand it's cute patients, but they're living creatures that require anesthesia and radiology and laboratory procedures equivalent if not more so to human. And that emotional component, because when they're cute we don't want them to hurt. And it's heavy. We have to be really aware of that and to watch for those tells.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Mary, there was something observationally. I saw this in our practice and I knew that this had happened with me as far as, why was I talked? Why did I take feedback as a threat always? Why couldn't I sit and say, this person is merely trying to give me information to make me better? But I would take it as a threat and build resentment and these types of things. And first, before I get into this, let me say, one, I am not a mental health professional, nor am I an HR professional. However, I got very curious about, there was a study that was done about ACEs, about adverse childhood experiences and when our brains are forming, the things that we go through and how it changes us. We had one of our technicians get some feedback, and this was in a very psychologically safe environment. I noticed how she responded to the feedback and she responded very much the way that I used to.

And so because we had this level of vulnerability and we could talk in our practice, I told her about ACEs and these adverse childhood experiences that happen to us and how it affects us, which people that have four more of these ACEs, if you go and look this up, have two and a half times more absenteeism at work. It's like four times more likely to have trouble at work. This is something that we don't talk about when we talk about, quote unquote, toxic employees. And so this is also having that instead of saying, what's wrong with you? What happened to you? Or what's happening with you? And when we ended up having this discussion, I asked her if she would take this ACEs test and there's 10 of these questions, or 10 of these experiences, have you ever been physically abused? Have you ever been verbally abused? Did you have a parent that had a substance use disorder? Did you ever see violence in your home? Those types of things.

We ended up asking our entire medical team, if you have four or more of these, that's when you're seven to 10 times more likely to have an alcohol or substance use disorder. You're seven to 10 times more likely to have depression or anxiety, ADHD, all of these things. And we found that in our team, our average score was six out of 10, and I have six out of 10. The reason why is it changed the way that we gave feedback to one another. We became much more empathetic about where we're at. And I was just on a podcast with a trauma specialist and we were talking about it in veterinary medicine. And there's been one study that was done by Dr. Strand and some other mental health professionals in vetmed.

But I really think this is the, I'm so curious to know if we could ask all of these, quote unquote, toxic employees, if they could take this ACEs test, which again, no HR professional would ever say that you could do that. And that's where the fear comes in, is that we potentially can have some of these discussions, not directly, but can we put this awareness out when we onboard, can we say these things about mental health? Do we have a mental health policy? Can we make some of this information available to leaders? And there's, in human medicine they talk about trauma-informed care, what I'm fascinated with in veterinary medicine is trauma-informed leadership and understanding how past trauma affects us and how we perform at work.

Because I saw it in myself and then I saw it in our team members, and I just see it anecdotally when I talk to, I'm in recovery and when I talk to other medical professionals in recovery and such. So just put a pin in that, that I think that's an area that in the next five years is going to be a big area for us, talking about, quote unquote, toxic employees as well as culture, but on an individual level. I remembered I wanted to say that. So thank you.

Mary Schwartz:

I'm really, really glad you shared that. I think that that's definitely been my experience in practice, is that many folks have some sort of history of trauma or difficulty in childhood or in abusive relationships at the time of their employment, things like that. There's also a really good book called The Body Keeps the Score, exactly. Amazing, amazing book about how we hold trauma in our bodies and already physically demanding job, and then you add the psychological traumas of our past or traumas of our present on top of that. And it just is a lot worse. Absolutely. And a key piece of being empathetic

Alyssa Mages:

Right. Because what do we do when we experience trauma? We need comfort. Right? What are our patients really good at giving? Right? It's a profession that attracts that because we need it. And to take it back to that trauma side, a trauma-informed approach, that's how we are trained a lot of us, my past 10 years of my career has been in emergency medicine and I did training on that. It's a trauma-informed approach to developing triaging tears and how we approach those conversations with our team and our clients. We've got to do that with ourselves.

Mary Schwartz:

Yeah. Absolutely. Starts with a little bit of self examination as well before you can actually help others. You have to look inward and figure out where your own wounds lie as well.

Alyssa Mages:

And that's not easy and it's not comfortable. It's one of those things where my business partner's like, it's called embrace the suck. I was like, ooh.

Mary Schwartz:

Isn't that a Brene Brown thing?

Alyssa Mages:

She's done it. But it's also from military base.

Mary Schwartz:

Okay.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

It's on my work workout bag.

Alyssa Mages:

But if you think of it that way too, it's like, all right, this sucks. That doesn't mean you have to wallow in it, but acknowledge it's there. You can't deny if you have a broken leg and it's hanging off and you can see the bone, can't deny that because it's visually there, just because we can't see this doesn't mean it's not there. You have to admit it. And again, it's not easy. We're not saying that it is, but that's where it becomes from a leadership perspective is to your point there Mary, to look in the mirror we need to be that mirror that people can look into without fear of recrimination or anything.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

We need to know, and that when we talk about leadership too, is that we put people that are technically proficient and awesome in one position and then in veterinary medicine we put them into a leadership position and don't give them any of those skills. And that is empathetic, trauma-informed leadership is really, the command and control is out the window. I can tell you from personal experience, command and control doesn't mean I can give you all the evidence, it doesn't work. But that was my experience. I went down that hole and I caused a lot of hurt in this practice that I love now that I was talking about 10 years, 12 years ago.

But we're not given those skills. And that's critical for us to be able to, and we need to know, we have some self-awareness, we need to know, well what triggers in me? What's kicking up in me when I'm talking to this employee? Why am I getting so fired up and am I trying to reach these goals? That's in the back of my head and trying to, again, let me say this too, you got six out of 10 ACEs score, it's good to know that because that may be affecting how you are trying to perform, your performance is all that you have to validate who you are as a human being. I had to go through all of that in recovery and such to really learn what was motivating me and what was behind it. And like Alyssa says, it's hard work going through that but the reward is fantastic.

Alyssa Mages:

But beyond the empathy that you have, Phil then, you have understanding. And that's another word I think that we throw around a lot. It's like, I understand, but we don't, Right? If I haven't lived that journey, I literally cannot understand it. But what I can do is be here for it.

Mary Schwartz:

Absolutely. I think there's this really incredible, it's very short video where Brene Brown is talking about empathy and the animation is really cute, but the idea is that when someone's down in that hole, it doesn't help for you to stand at the top of the hole and say, yep, I get it, that looks bad. That sucks. [inaudible 00:39:10] down there.

Alyssa Mages:

I know that. That video is amazing.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Yep, I know it.

Mary Schwartz:

So highly recommend checking out that video. It's again, extremely short but really impactful for how to be empathetic towards anyone in your life. But the moral of story is just sit with them and eat a sandwich.

Alyssa Mages:

Right.

Mary Schwartz:

Just sit in the hole with them.

Alyssa Mages:

Just be there.

Mary Schwartz:

Exactly. Exactly. Well, I want to wrap up on getting y'all's opinion about when is it time to say, okay, I've been empathetic, I've created a safe environment, I've done all of these things, maybe that employee isn't weeding themselves out. When is the breaking point and how is that affecting your other team members when that person is hanging around?

Alyssa Mages:

100%.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

And so the data tells us a, quote unquote, toxic employee has more of a negative deleterious effect on the team than two to three star employees. That's impactful. Because then if you have one toxic employee that our star employees are, again, we're in threat mode, we can't be as efficient. And then we're seeing this behavior and it's like, well, why am I working as hard as I am if all this is going on or I feel threatened or I feel bullied or I'm harassed and that type of thing. I look at it, what's interesting is from a recovery, alcohol and substance use recovery or that type of thing, is that as long as someone is trying, I'm going to help. But there is a point where we may have to, we say, okay, and this is where the HR point comes in, as we've got a corrective action plan and we say, okay, here are the things that we need to ask, but we also need to try to empower them to do those.

It's almost like going into a room with a dog that's a nine plus out of nine body condition score and you're like, your dog needs to lose weight and then walk out. Yeah, how? And this is where I can tell from personal experience, I can't get out of that with the same brain that I walked in with. I've only got the same tools that got me here in the first place, so I need help changing. And that's where there's a level of, sorry, I've talked about this a lot and it's like I probably go farther to the coaching, but there gets a point where the team and leadership have to just say, okay, we've given the opportunity to coach up and now the kind thing is to separate. And that may be different for each practice. Sorry, it's not a straightforward three strikes and you're out.

Mary Schwartz:

None of these human skills are black and white.

Alyssa Mages:

But it can't be, right? If you haven't met the skill benchmarks that you need to, that's a different conversation, right? You can't have, well you didn't tick this box and you didn't do this. We've encouraged you to do this, we've had this conversation, we've provided these resources, we've exhausted everything that we can do, and there's been no effort on your part, so you clearly don't want to be here or we are not able to give you what you need. It's not cut and dry, it's not black and white and it's not one through six. You have to come to that realization where you are tapped out in all of the major realms that we work in.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

If there's a flat up just denial, denial, denial, and the employee just can't see how their behavior is impacting the team, then it's fairly straightforward. But Alyssa and I were saying in the beginning too is that if we can't just put it all on the employee, we've created an environment that's allowed this to go on that long. So what I would challenge leadership to do is to say, if you have this toxic employee is, what have I done as a leader to facilitate me sitting down with this employee to have this discussion and say, maybe you don't have to say it in front of that employee, but say, I'm playing a part in this, as a leader I've set up an environment that's that's allowed this to happen. It's not putting it all on one person because we've got to look at that and say, how can we all get better? And that's a psychologically safe environment is how do we grow.

Alyssa Mages:

What you said earlier, avoid the blame game, right? You point and it's looking back at you, but then it's not always on you or them. It's not an us versus them. It's how did we contribute? How can we alleviate? And same question for the employee. They need to own their role. And that's the tricky part because there's a lot of the times they won't. Right? Phil, you said it, like deny, deny, deny, it can't be me. And where does that come from? This is all intertwined, right? Everything that we've talked about up to this point is connected. But again, you reached that point of resources are exhausted and time and energy is not infinite. We know that those are our biggest limiting resources right now. Emotions are high.

So Phil, you said it beautifully, you got to own your own role in this, right? But be honest too, you have to honestly do that and say, look, this is where it is in writing and this is where having that, as much as it's not black and white, having that standardized approach to it, this is how we approach things. This is

our mental health protocol. This is how we develop a human being beyond their clinical skills. If it's there and you follow it and you have that integrative training approach to all of this, it's like, look, we've intervened here, we've provided this, it's documented, you've signed it, we're at our last stage here.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

And I would say too is that exactly, is that in doing that, if we've set that civility protocol, if you will, or bullying protocol or what have you, then it's there. And then we have done that work on the front end to say, if this comes up, we can say, look, as a team, when you know were brought on, we said that these things were not acceptable behaviors to continue working here. And again, be curious, not judgemental, but we also psychologically safe does not mean being nice all the time. That is not what a psychologically safe environment is. And that gets to be toxic positivity where then we out of fear or what have you we don't feel like we can be honest with empathy. But that is being honest with empathy, is saying, I'm sorry we've had these opportunities and it's time for us to part ways.

Alyssa Mages:

Because niceness and kindness are not synonymous.

Mary Schwartz:

No. Absolutely not. I want to focus in a little bit on what both of you are mentioning about having a civility policy or something to that effect. There are many things that have to be done from a legal standpoint, from an HR standpoint to follow along with this process of coaching and having these honest conversations. So what resources do you guys recommend for someone who's maybe looking to create those kind of policies, looking for how to document this kind of behavior and anything around structuring and enforcing these kinds of policies within their clinic?

Alyssa Mages:

It's really, I think Phil, you have a bigger list probably than I do. But what I tend to do is, my wheelhouse is training and growth and development. So when it comes to leadership and HR, I reach out to someone like Josh Weisman that has that experience. Someone that is a CVPM and looking into those resources. Clinician's Brief has this, Today's Veterinary Practice has these things. Making sure that this isn't happening in a vacuum. So you don't have to do this all on your own. It's simply, and think of our industry, it's no longer six degrees of separation. It's one maybe half everybody knows somebody else. So if you reach out to a friend, say, this is what I'm struggling with, can you help me? And that's what I would do.

I would call Phil and be like, I don't know where to go. Can you tell me? And if he doesn't, he's going to know someone who does. It all comes back because, again, you've got to get out of that mindset of a competition. It's a collaborative approach. I would reach out to anyone that you know of that has that lived experience and then find those data evidence-based directives to back that up.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

And some specific along with what Alyssa was saying, there are a couple really specific sources. I'm really grateful I'm on the National Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention committee. And so talk about imposter syndrome. I'm in this meeting and I'm like, God, these are the national experts and workplace mental health and such. They just put out a white paper that was for HR professionals and employment lawyers, that answers a lot of the myths that I'll see come up as questions. Like, well if I talk about this, does this mean I've stepped into ADA territory, the Americans with Disabilities Act? What happens is things we end up almost from a fear-based perspective are CYA versus doing positive coaching.

And I really love this paper because, one, it's written by the experts in mental health and HR employment and the employment lawyers in the US. But if you go to the Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention committee, if you Google that, you'll get the white paper. I'll put a link if it's okay, Mary, I'll give you a link.

Mary Schwartz:

We can put it in the show description for everyone to check out.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Show notes. And then Christine specifically on civility, Christine Porath, she is one of the head researchers on civility in the workplace and has a lot of great data. She also has a civility self assessment that you can do, that gets you thinking about specific things that aren't overt like screaming at somebody in the workplace or something that we can clearly see that obviously that is uncivil and bullying behavior. But things like, do I withhold information for a little bit? Am I a little spicy in my communications with other people? Those are things that we see that have a negative and deleterious effect on workplace culture and performance. So Christine Porath. Dr. Christine Porath.

Mary Schwartz:

Great.

Alyssa Mages:

And as another one, of course, as you start talking I start thinking like, there's other, sorry. Thank you so much because I didn't know about those resources and that's why I love these conversations. You learn something new every day. But if you're looking for mentorship support, you have MentorVet , and if you looking for education in the DEIB space, this is where possibilities comes in. This is where BLEND comes

in, which is an accreditation program for educational purposes. The DVMC, PrideVMC, the MCVMA, all of these organizations that have resource pages to address difficult conversations surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Because we always make it about melanin or lack thereof, but diversity and inclusion and equity and belonging, it focuses on, there's so much more to it than that, right? Like the knowledge bias and ageism and socioeconomic status. Everything that we need to take into consideration. So beyond taking that civility which I need to research her and get some information on, take that into these other realms and how we can really incorporate that within the work that we do.

Mary Schwartz:

Absolutely. I appreciate both of you so much today. It was a great conversation. I learned a lot and I know our listeners will learn a lot as well. How can our listeners follow you to track what you guys are up to and learn a little bit more about what we talked about today?

Alyssa Mages:

I will field all of the fan mailer for Dr. Philip Richmond. I am the president of the club. I think we're both on LinkedIn, so if you want to find us there. I'm on, Empowering Veterinary Teams is on Instagram as empvetteam. I'm not on Twitter, we're not on Twitter as much, but we're we're there. If you Google Empowering Veterinary Teams, we'll come up and you can find us.

Mary Schwartz:

Great.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

I stay mostly in the LinkedIn space. I do have Dr. Caitlin DeWilde, who's awesome. She does a lot of stuff for social media for me, which she's fantastic. And then again, I'm driving up to Michigan Friday to start my new position with Veterinary United. So you'll see us around. We'll be at all the major conferences. And then I'm very grateful that Alyssa and I get to speak at a lot of the conferences and share a message.

Alyssa Mages:

If you're going to be in New Jersey next week, I will see you there at ACVC.

Mary Schwartz:

Well, that is super exciting and I'm sure our listeners will keep an eye out for both of you as they move through the fall and spring conferences next year. Thanks again for being on the podcast today.

Dr. Phil Richmond:

Thank you, Mary.

Alyssa Mages:

Thank you.

Mary Schwartz:

I'd like to thank Alyssa and Dr. Richmond for being our guests on today's episode as well as you our listeners. We appreciate your support and hope you'll subscribe to our podcast, Simple, Interrupted on your favorite podcast app, and share it with your fellow veterinary colleagues. This has been a co production of Evergreen Podcasts and PetDesk. Learn more about PetDesk and how we're helping clinics guide their clients to better care at petdesk.com. A special thanks to the PetDesk team and to all of the veterinary professionals out there. Thank you for all that you do for our pets. As well as our Evergreen production team, producers Leah Haslage and Nijah Golliday and Audio engineer Gray Sienna Longfellow. I'm your host, Mary Schwartz. Thanks for listening.

View Less