Hey Josh. How are you? I'm Okay, Andi, how are you doing today? I'm good. I'm really good. I am, um, enjoying my daily protein smoothie, which is a thing now. It didn't used to be a thing, but when you get to be of a certain age, protein's kind of a big deal.

And so I am enjoying my daily protein smoothie and Oh, that's good. Um, I also. Put a banana in my smoothie, but from what I understand, the bananas in your house are a little bit more important than the bananas in my house. What's, what's up with that? Yeah, Andi, as you know, we have two, uh, canine creatures that live with us.

By live with us. I mean that they, um. They kind of run the roost. Uh, Ru, who's our big boy, could care less about bananas. Uh, he's more of an ice cream guy, but Addie is obsessed with bananas. She knows what bananas look like. I swear she can hear the sound of a banana being unpeeled, like, yeah.

Um, so yeah, when I make smoothies and I put the banana in, I am required to pay a banana tax. The banana tax. I feel like there's a song, the banana tax. Cheese tax part two. The banana dust cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which by the way, he hasn't, he hasn't put out new content in quite some time. I'm, yeah.

He hasn't. We need, he hasn't. This is the, uh, the puppy songs guy who wrote the cheese tax. Yeah. Yeah. And um, I saw on socials not too long ago that he took a much needed break after his two, uh, little black Chihuahua dogs passed away. Yeah. And that's who most of the songs were originally written about.

But he is excited to come back and is now writing songs about. Other dogs and primarily shelter dogs, I think shelter dogs that are looking for homes or shelter dogs that have been adopted and are not in their forever homes. Mm-hmm. And he's had a couple out and they're really, they're really pretty cute.

Oh, nice. Okay. And I got really excited. I'm. Yeah, I'll have to go check this out. Yeah. Um, you mentioned the chihuahuas passing away and that, that just reminded me, you know, you and I have a, a good friend here in the, uh, in the profession, um, named Joseph. And Joseph, as you know, is, uh, Joseph is my go-to, like bourbon aficionado.

Oh yeah. Uh, Joseph is where I get advice on like what bourbons to get. Well, recently Joseph, um, apparently they had a loss in the family and, uh, this individual had like a very. Large bourbon collection. And so of course, like, you know, at the, , the reception after the funeral, they decided to kind of tap into the bourbon collection.

Yeah. They, they really felt like this person was there in spirit. Mm-hmm. I got you there for that. I got you. That's a really, yeah, I, you, you did. 'cause I'm like, what did, what did chihuahuas have to do with any of this?

Uh, and then you kept going on about bourbon and I'm like, wait a minute. But there you did a minute because I kept waiting for the chihuahua to somehow reappear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can, I can see now, like when I'm telling a dad joke, when you. Get it that I'm telling it to add joke and when you don't and it's really, uh, God, it feels really good.

Um, anyway, the task at hand today, Andi, um, is uh, to discuss this paper that I've selected for, uh, this, this episode, this paper really stood out to me because of a buzzword that we hear a lot in veterinary medicine, uh, which is this idea of collaboration. Uh, and I'm really curious, Andi, when you think of the word collaboration, like what do you think of, how would you define that?

Mm. It's such a, it's such a good word. And when I think of collaboration, what it means to me is that sort of vision, that visual of rolling up your sleeves and mm-hmm. Figuring things out together, not just dividing tasks up, but inviting input from others, building on other people's ideas, and coming up with something new and creative that actually benefits everybody at the table.

Yeah, so, so there's, there's elements of togetherness. It's a, collaboration is not something that happens as a solo endeavor. And, uh, and it requires the, the willingness to get a little bit, you know, nitty gritty, a little bit dirty, but also curious, open-mindedness, all those kinds of things. Andi, from your perspective as somebody who has, um, worked in veterinary medicine for the entire 29 years that you've lived, um.

Why is collaboration so important in VetMed? I. Because VetMed is basically a circus. Mm-hmm. We juggle all sorts of things. We juggle complex medical cases, we juggle all sorts of, you know, teams, all sorts of situations, all sorts of schedules, all sorts of emotions. And the truth is, when you're juggling all of those things in a circus type situation, no one person is gonna know everything.

And no one person is ever gonna get it. Right. Every single time. And so I think that when it comes to Vet Med, it's really critical to collaborate because it helps us think more clearly, act more ethically, and really look for solutions that benefit not just the patients, but everybody else surrounding that patient.

Mm, the owners and the teams and their communities. And that's kind of a unique thing in vet med, and that really reiterates the value of collaboration for me. I wanna tell you that I, um, absolutely love the metaphor of a circus being tied to veterinary medicine. That's, uh, definitely been my experience in a lot of the veterinary workplaces I've been a part of.

Yep. I can hear the, uh, the, the, the music in the background do, yeah. Yeah. Okay. One, one more question, Andi, before I dive into the paper here. Okay. Can you think back to, to the times when you were in clinical practice? So, uh, you know, maybe when you were managing the large animal hospital, the UF or, uh, you know, the, the practice that you and Mike ran or your time, you know, on campus and all, all of those kinds of things can, can you think back to a case that maybe.

Should not have gone that well. Like the kind of case that maybe should have been difficult, but for some reason due to collaboration, the it actually kind of flowed like magic things went really well. Can you think of a case like that? Oh, I can think of a few. Okay. That's good. That's good. Okay, so, so I want you to think of one or two of those in particular and share with me what did people who were working on that case say or not say that unlocked that collaborative environment?

So to paint the picture the case that I'm going to pull from, um. It was a big one and, uh, true, true to form, right? It didn't end well, which is why it should not have gone well, but it actually ended up going very smoothly for all of us involved. And, uh, it was a neurologic case with a horse. Which is never fun, and it never usually goes well.

It requires a lot of people because this horse came into the clinic, down in the trailer and we had to get the glide and we had to coordinate getting that horse off the trailer, um, which is a whole circus in itself. Right. And like I said. The case actually went pretty darn smoothly, and it had everything to do with how we communicated and how we included everybody in the group because on no planet was any one of us going to get this horse off the trailer by ourselves.

By ourselves, a a big old group of us. Can you think of one? I mean, I'm sure that there were, this case sounds like it was pretty immense and it probably occupied a lot of time. There was a lot of interaction happening, but can you think of one example of something that someone on the team said that that really helped enhance the teamwork and the collaboration that made a big difference when it came to your ability to collaborate together despite this difficult case?

Mm, yes. And, it was noticing. Others and encouraging them along and thanking them like, Hey, you know, I, I, I see that you've got the glide ready. That's great. Let's go ahead and, you know, slide it under and acknowledging everybody in the group. And recognizing what their role in this situation was. So everybody knew who was there.

We all knew what, , our jobs were, and we were recognized for those jobs. Okay, that's great. Now it's time to get, you know, the straps. Let's work on getting the straps up underneath the horse. Yep, yep. You've got it. Here we go. There was a lot of encouragement, there was a lot of noticing, a lot of recognition that was happening.

So in this case, there was actually a lot of communicating that was happening. That's awesome. Um, I hear elements in there and tell me if you, if you disagree, I hear elements in there of, uh, respectful communication and action oriented communication. Very much so. That's awesome. Well, that, that actually echoes a lot of what came out of this paper, so thank you for sharing that.

That was a, a perfectly unplanned segue, uh, into, into this. So, so the paper that I selected for this episode, um, is titled Positive Communication Practices for Enhancing Collaboration. It was published, um, uh, just, uh, last year in 2024. Um, the overall purpose of this was to try and identify. What are some verbal and or nonverbal behaviors that might fuel or derail collaboration within teams, , as something that we can agree is really important in veterinary medicine.

Uh, and so how do they do that? Well, they, they conducted a, a pretty extensive qualitative, um, thematic analysis. So they, they interviewed essentially, uh, just shy of 300 professionals across a variety of like. Team oriented environment. So workplaces, schools, uh, you know, project teams, things of that nature.

And they asked them a series of questions that were, , essentially, you know, forms of like, when you think of collaboration, that's gone really well for you. What are things that people said that helped it go so well? When you think of collaboration that did not go so well for you, what are things that people said that made it not go so well?

And from this, this extensive analysis, they identified 15 communication practices that seemed to be really important to driving or derailing collaboration in teams. They were able to cluster those into essentially four buckets or four categories, uh, which is showing compassion. Having character, committing to collaboration, communicatively and being courageous.

Now, of the 15 behaviors across those four buckets, three seem to be like some of the most powerful collaboration boosters and in, in, in essence, that you emerged most frequently in these conversations. Respect, empathy, and action. So I wanted to read from the paper just a couple, uh, uh, uh, things about these specific behaviors to give people kind of an idea of what they mean by these things, especially these, uh, you know, some of these behaviors that really emerged is very powerful.

So this is actually reading directly from the paper, uh, quote, the practices most frequently mentioned are showing respect, having empathy, and taking action. The second group of most frequently mentioned behaviors including advancing a shared vision, being generous, and one of your personal favorites, Andi Davison, displaying curiosity.

Mm. So, uh, let's see the, the top one, the one that, that seemed to be like one of the most powerful collaboration boosters, and that's showing respect. So again, from the paper quote, showing respect involves learning about others and their differences. Honoring and valuing those differences and treating everyone with respect.

Now, every one of these behaviors had, its sort of like a, you know, opposite. So what would be a derailer? And so in this case, being disrespectful would derail collaboration according to this study. So being disrespectful, quote means being dismissive and closed to differing viewpoints. And opinions. Uh, moving on to another one that was really powerful was empathy.

So quote, having empathy is demonstrated by actively listening, showing concern and striving to see issues from other perspectives. Whereas lacking empathy means that. We're not listening. We do not demonstrate concern for others. And we see issues only from our own perspectives. And I think that's a really important thing to, um, to hammer home here.

That these were all demonstrative behaviors. That's, that's the whole point of being like a communicative behavior, is that people actually demonstrated them through communication. So why should we care about this? Why should veterinarians care about this? Why should veterinary technicians care about this?

Practice managers? Well, because veterinary teams are incredibly interdependent. You know that neurologic horse, could you have set up the glide and gotten that horse off of the trailer all by yourself? Never. No, it's interdependent. The work that we do. Even, I think you would agree with me here, Andi, given your extensive experience in equine medicine, even a solo practitioner out on the, you know, out, uh, in, in the field alone, in the truck, they don't have attack.

It's just them. Even that person still requires the interdependent. Activity of another human being to deliver care because you go to a barn somewhere and that horse has a person attached to it, and, and you've gotta be able to work with them to provide the care that that horse needs. So, patient outcomes, therefore are directly impacted by a team's ability to work well together.

Teamwork is essential, and collaboration is the grease that allows for teamwork to happen. Well, a single moment of disrespect. Or a quick empathic check-in can swing patient outcomes and morale in positive or negative directions, driving, enhancing or diminishing collaboration. Andi, some people think that teamwork.

Is really all about personal work ethic. You know, I, I can think of multiple times when I've worked with practice leaders and they have blamed the lack of teamwork on an individual's sense of work ethic. Well, this person just doesn't have a good work ethic and that's why they don't work well with the team.

This study seems to suggest that actually communication plays a bigger role than any individual's personality traits or work ethic. What do you think? I love that the researchers have brought this out and laid this on the table. It's, I mean, I'm getting that vision of like, you know, they slam down the files and they sort of drop the mic and walk away because I.

Totally agree that it has way more to do with our environment, the teams we're working in, the relationships we have, how we are communicating, and how others are communicating with us. That drives our work ethic, right? As humans, or I'm, I'm gonna, as me, like me, I'm not gonna be super motivated and excited to go in and work with a team of people that I don't feel like I'm a part of what's going on, that I'm part of the solution and that I'm being seen for what I'm contributing.

That is important. That contributes to my work ethic. I'm gonna be way more likely to go in and give it my all and you know, go the extra mile and stay those extra 10 minutes. In an environment where I feel like I'm making a difference and I'm contributing, that's gonna drive my work ethic. And all of that starts with how I'm communicated with and how I communicate with others.

Yeah, I. I totally with you on this. I, I think that the communicative behaviors within a team are an essential driver of all of the kinds of things that we're after, how well the team works together, how they think about each other, the level of engagement and enthusiasm that they bring to work, commitment, longevity.

All these things start with how we communicate with each other. So, , to take a little bit of deeper dive into some of the things from the paper. The, the first thing that really emerged for me, uh, is that respect rules the room. So, you know, how, how we. Demonstrate respect for each other as an essential driver of collaboration and teamwork.

An example, um, you know, um, if we just simply approach people in our communication and in a way that shows that we see their unique worth, their unique strengths and the value that they have to offer, and we. Tell that to them. We actually say that to them. Recognize those things, you know, that can be a great demonstration of respect.

This was the most cited practice, by the way, in the, uh, study findings. And it turns out that it really doesn't take massive shifts. Tiny gestures can make a huge difference just learning the names of the people in different departments. That you might cross paths with every few weeks, but you cross paths with them, you know, showing that you learned their name and that you remember it.

That can, that can actually be a very, very powerful indicator of respect. Andi, could you share an example of a time when you were working as a licensed veterinary technician that you felt particularly respected, that somebody said something that made you feel really respected? Hmm.  Yes. And this example comes from, um, way back in the day when Mike and I ran our own practice in Kentucky.

Um, so we would do a lot of house calls and we would visit, you know, folks at home with their animals at home. And it was a smallish town in Kentucky. And so with. The patient care and the veterinary care came a little bit of educating as well. And I remember going to one appointment in particular, um, where, and Mike and I would go together, right?

He was the doctor. I was the quote nurse, but I was also his wife. Right? So it was a very interesting dynamic, especially for our clients who didn't quite understand what a veterinary technician was. They kind of thought, well, she's his wife, that's why she's here. And there was a lot of assuming that would happen there.

And I remember , one client in particular got really curious with me about what that was. What did that mean? Oh, you're a veterinary technician. What is that? And they took the time to ask me what that was. I remember she, let me explain what it was. I told her a little bit about what the schooling was and what it meant to be credentialed and how I was contributing to the team, and she was delighted.

And from that time on, this woman's name was Barbara and she was wonderful. And from that time on, she would always make an effort to make sure that I was gonna be there with Mike as well. When we came out to see her animals, she had a big old farm. She had horses, she had a bunch of border collies. She was great and she always wanted to make sure that I was coming because she wanted to make sure that she had, you know, that side of the team there as well, because it was critical.

And I always felt really, really respected as a person and as a credential technician when we went out to Barbara's farm. What an awesome story. What a cool experience too. Mm-hmm. You know, one thing in particular that I really love about what you shared was I asked you about respectful communication and you started with another powerful finding that I knew would be something high on your list there.

Curiosity, like this person's curiosity, her interest in getting to understand your background, your education, what your role really meant openly, like nonjudgmentally. I mean, she was genuinely curious. Led to the opportunity for her to communicate respect to you after learning those things. And that's, that's pretty powerful.

And that comes also, that was another finding from this study, that curiosity beats certainty that instead of assuming the word that you used, oh, she must just be here because she's his wife, she. Got curious. Uh, she asked, before allowing that assumption to take over, uh, she was able to discover new things about you that led to her feeling of respect.

And then she demonstrated that respect to you through communication. And that's something that we can do with our teams. We can apply both of those skills within our teams. Another one that emerged that was really powerful to me,, for an interesting reason, I think, uh, was this idea of the power of empathy and how empathy.

Empathy can really lubricate, uh, the capacity for collaboration. When I think of empathy in veterinary medicine, I think of veterinary professionals. I mean, almost all of us excel at empathy. Not just feeling empathetic, but actually demonstrating it to our clients and patients. We get really good at that.

In fact, most of our practices. Encourage that and there are skills, uh, labs and training sessions, and you can go to Western or VMX and sit in on lectures that talk about empathetic communication, uh, with clients. What this study is suggesting is take those same lessons and apply them internally with your teammates and you will get better teamwork and collaboration, which I think is absolutely fantastic.

So all of this then begs the question, if we're trying to renovate our culture. To be more collaborative, to to engage in better teamwork. What are things that we can do well? I think two things really pop to mind for me, and then I'd love to hear if you have any ideas that you would like to share. Uh, the first one is talking about it.

So, you know, like, download this paper, look at the, the, the 15 communication practices that seem to solicit higher levels of collaboration. Pick two or three of them and sit down with your team and just talk about Andi when we work together at Flourish. What's an example of a respectful communication that I can, you know, that I can give to you?

Or how would you like to hear X, Y, Z so that it will feel respectful to you? What does respectful communication look like for us in this team? Like literally engage in that conversation, make that a team meeting to actually define as a group what that particular practice will look like for you and how you can identify good examples of it.

So that A, you could practice it as a team, but then B, when you see those things, Andi, that was a really awesome display of respect, and I appreciate that you said that to me, right? Like you can celebrate that so you'll see more of those behaviors. That's the first thing I. The second thing that I thought about when it comes to culture renovation is it's a little bit of a shameless plug for you and I and the work that we do at Flourish, uh, flourish, just so happens to have a multi-month cohort-based evidence-based.

Highly actionable program called the Certificate in cultivating positive veterinary communication, which teaches all of these kinds of things to your entire team or entire organization. So whether it's with us or with somebody else, like make positive communication, collaboration, enhancing, communication, part of your regular training protocols.

Actually embed it, make it part of your onboarding. Have training and, uh, uh, workshops and things that, that allow people to discuss, practice, play with, learn the skills in the way that you want so that you can enhance the capacity of your team to communicate in ways that, that do actually enhance their sense of communication, collaboration, and teamwork.

What about you, Andi? What, what do you think might be some, some good ways that folks can make this stuff actionable and help renovate their culture for better collaboration? Well, in the spirit of collaboration, right? And in the spirit of curiosity, I am gonna encourage our listeners to ask their teams and ask one another what might work.

And what might be helpful, because you touched on it a little bit at the beginning, right? Like how, how do we wanna be communicated with how, how, how is it? How is that best in a high stress situation? If something isn't going well, what is the best way for me to communicate this to you? And that's awesome because you're using your curiosity ahead of time so that when emotions get high, you have something to fall back on.

Start those conversations early, right? So. We are a culture of collaboration and let's define what that means, and then once everybody's on the same page, then you can work on ways to notice it and celebrate it. I, I, I say this a lot and, and I know that this is an action step for a lot of, a lot of the things that we talk about, but I think it's critical.

We need to show each other. That it's cool and okay and celebrated to do these things here. And so when you notice that High five 'em, when you notice that, give them a woo-hoo on the shoutout board or whatever you've got put in place in your hospital. And if you're not sure, if you're listening and you're going, oh my gosh, we don't have any of that.

I have no idea what to do or how to do this. Ask. Ask the team, Hey, this is what we're looking to do. How can we do that in a way that will be effective? I guarantee you they'll have ideas. I totally agree and it just so happens that sitting down and asking the team is a really wonderful way to show that you respect their opinion, which, which will enhance collaboration.

Yeah. Excellent. Great stuff. I love it. Yeah, this paper was, was really fascinating. I'm, um, I'm really enthralled with the folks that are doing this work in the, you know, the positive communication sphere and I am certain that we will have future episodes that touch on other. Researchers and positive communication.

But unfortunately, we've run outta time for today's episode, so we have to get to my most favorite part of what we do here at the Veterinary Culture Lab. Andi, tell me about this week's Florida man. Ooh, this week's Florida man is a good one. It comes to us from a town called Land O Lakes, which is actually a town and it is down, uh, in the Orlando area.

I'm pretty sure Florida man. Tries to steal 26 cars from the jail parking lot immediately upon being released. You won't be surprised to hear that he was rearrested and immediately thrown back in jail for stealing, trying to steal 26 cars. Okay, so, so let me, let me just make sure I'm understanding this correctly, Florida man.

Had already been arrested. Yes. Somehow secured his release. And the very first decision that he made upon release from jail was, I'm gonna try and steal the 26 cars in this parking lot. I mean, he set his, he set his sights, man. I mean, he, he didn't just want one car. He went, that's man of action. 26 cars. Oh yeah.

No, no, no. That, that's a man of action. I mean, yeah. Conviction and. Decision making, like you have to admire that. Well done Florida, man. Yep, yep. Good old Florida man. Oh, I love these segments. They're so fascinating and entertaining. Awesome. Well thank you all for joining us today. We'll be sure to, uh, share a link to the article in the show notes, and of course, a link to Florida Man's article as well.

And we'll see you on the next episode of the Veterinary Culture Lab. See you next time.