SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Veterinary Culture Lab, where science meets real-world application. I'm Andy Davison.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And I'm Josh Weissman. Together we'll show you an evidence-based blueprint for renovating culture in your veterinary team, one episode at a time.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Is meaningful work enough to keep people engaged? Well, today Josh and I are diving into a massive study on motivation that suggests thriving at work depends on much more than purpose alone.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Andy, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I'm good. How are you, Josh?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I'm okay. I just got back from a really nice brunch with a good friend of ours, Craig Spinks from Vedios.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yay!

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I'm fortunate enough to live in the same state as him.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

And so we're live in the same state as a lot of really fantastic veterinary peeps.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

I do, I do, but ironically, most of them I see at conferences that are not in the state of Colorado. But Craig, I actually like routinely spend some time with. And I'll share with you one of the things that we were talking about, which is like one of those, like, you know, tell me, tell me you're getting old without telling me you're getting old. Actually, I have two of those stories. Yesterday I was watching a um documentary on the US soccer team. This thing that they've been filling them over the last four years as like a build-up to the World Cup, and they're just now releasing it. So it's like an episode every week up until the World Cup starts. It's really cool. And they were showing like all of these US soccer players, most of whom are, you know, in that like 20 to 26 year old range. And it kept like cutting screen from player to player to player to player at their home as they were packing for a trip to a big tournament that they were going to be playing in. Andy, I think you will get this. Every single one of the players had their suitcase open on the floor, and then they were standing in front of their closet or dresser pulling out stuff, and then just like bending over, not like squatting or getting down, just bending over at the at the waist and folding the clothes and putting it in and then bending back up and getting another thing and bending over. And I'm looking at your face. And what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Heck no. Put that on top of the dryer so that you don't have to bend over because ain't nobody got time to take Tylenol because you hurt your back pack in your suitcase.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Pack in your suitcase. Exactly. I said to I said to Granda, I was like, look at this. Tell me you have a 25-year-old back without telling me you have a 25-year-old back. Like, oh my God, have I gotten that old? Which, of course, then made me start thinking about getting old and you know, planning for the next chapters in our life and this and that and retirement. And I realized as I was thinking about it, Andy, that I actually know a lot of like really great jokes about retired people. But there's a problem. None of them work.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yes. Yes, that is a good one. Thank you. That is a good one.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I am bowing for the listeners who cannot see me bow.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I think not too far because I don't I have a 50-year-old back and not a 25-year-old back. Uh, Andy, I think that you and I can agree that a lot of people in VetMed seem to believe that the burnout, the well-being issues, a lot of these kinds of challenges that we're facing are primarily related to two things. We hear people talk about these things and they usually describe it as a problem of like workload, like excessive workload. I work too many hours, I work too much, there's not enough people to help me, so on and so forth, and not enough pay. Like I'm not paid enough to deal with this bullshit, right? What if it's actually not just about those two things? But it's also about whether the workplace itself is designed in a way that actually supports human beings. Now, I again, I think you and I will agree, veterinary medicine is meaningful work. Most people don't stumble into this field accidentally. They come because they care. They care about animals, they care about people, they care about science, they care about service, healing, teamwork, making a difference in the world, contributing, all these kinds of things. But we know meaningful work, it doesn't automatically lead to a meaningful workplace. Just because the work itself is meaningful doesn't mean that the experience that we have doing it will feel meaningful. Sometimes, quote, meaningful work isn't enough. Andy, when you hear me say that phrase, I even said like you you had like a half smirk and you kind of nodded when I said it. When you hear me say that phrase, sometimes meaningful work isn't enough, what does that bring up for you as you think about veterinary workplaces and the people that work in them?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Honestly, the thing that came up for me here was an image. And the image is a scale where you've got meaningful work on one side and all of those other things on the other side. The meaningful work is it is heavy. It's a heavy rock because it matters and it is a huge part of what we do. And in order to balance that scale, we've got a lot of little pebbles on the other side that need our attention, right? Because meaningful work is real and meaningful work is what we do in veterinary medicine. But we also are humans living in this society, dealing with the same stuff that all the other humans in our society are dealing with. And so, yes, those little pebbles, they matter. The relationships that we have with the people that we work with, the number at the bottom of the paycheck, the environment, right? The vibe, the feeling, whether or not we feel like we're an important or a significant or a valued member of the team, all that stuff matters when it comes to balancing out that meaningful work. And I don't know, like that phrase, sometimes meaningful work isn't enough. Yeah, absolutely, because there's so many other things out there that are pushing on you and pulling on you and jumping on the other side of the scale or flinging themselves off of the other side of the scale. That one boulder, that one important thing of the work that we have being so meaningful is often not enough to balance out all the things that we need in order to thrive and flourish.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, I think I feel like what I'm hearing from you is, you know, some version of, yeah, the work that we do in VetMed is incredibly meaningful, but when I can't um afford to put food on my table or pay my mortgage, when the people around me at work don't really include me and I feel like an outsider, um, when I'm constantly told what to do, and those things change every single day. And so I don't know really really know what to expect, uh, and I don't have the tools and resources to deliver on those expectations. It really doesn't matter how meaningful the work is, that's not enough to overcome all those stressors and challenges. And I think you're onto something there. You know, a person can be deeply purpose-driven and still burn out if the workplace in which they are delivering on that purpose constantly undermines their needs, needs like autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In fact, one of the painful messages from the paper we're gonna discuss today is that purpose alone actually cannot protect people from systems that repeatedly frustrate their basic psychological needs. Now, I want to be clear here. I'm not gonna claim that every day in a veterinary job should be joyful and delightful. We can't constantly be buried in puppy breath or, you know, be watching our horses finally make that jump with confidence, you know. That's not what every experience is gonna be for every single moment in vetmed. Some part of this work, some parts of this work are just difficult. They're messy, they're tedious, they're emotionally heavy, or they're just plain frustrating. I mean, that's the reality of doing veterinary work. So the question for today's episode, it's not gonna be can we make every moment fun? Can we bring purpose to every single thing we do every moment of the day? That is not the question. Instead, the question we're gonna frame today's episode around will be can we make inherently hard work, difficult, strainful work more sustainable and fulfilling by designing workplaces that support core human needs. So the paper I have to share today, I'm gonna geek out on because it's a paper on self-determination theory, which is something that you know is really important to me, and I know it's important to you. Uh, it popped up in my LinkedIn feed actually a couple weeks ago randomly. There's um several people that I follow that are often sharing research, and and uh I that's gonna I should have actually written down his name so that I could give him credit. Um, maybe I'll go back and figure it out and we can link to it in the show notes later. Um, but he had posted this paper and a little bit of commentary on it, and that that drew me in, so I went and read it. And the more that I read it, the more that I felt really validated because it actually very much lines up closely with the core arguments that I make in my book, Lead to Thrive: The Science of Crafting a Positive Veterinary Culture. I think personally that if we want thriving, fulfilled veterinary teams that don't burn out, then leaders have to become nurturers of human needs. That's a statement that I have made many times over the last several years. So, not just managers of tasks, not just enforcers of policy, but gardeners, if you will. Gardeners of agency, capability, and connect. Or as Richard Ryan and Edward DC, the original scholars on self-determination theory, put it autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These are three core human needs that are required for autonomous motivation and all of the benefits that come with that. So the paper today, it's titled Self-Determination Theory and Workplace Outcomes, a meta-analysis, one of the shorter titles of the papers that we've brought to this podcast so far. Uh, and the authors are Martin Hager and Kaelin Starr. It was published by Wiley as an open access uh uh paper this year in 2026. The paper is a large meta-analysis of self-determination theory in workplace settings. As a meta-analysis, it wasn't a single small study from just one workplace or one industry. It actually combined findings from nearly 200 studies, representing well over 90,000 individual employees across many types of work. In plain terms, the authors looked across many studies and tried to ask this question: When employees feel that their workplace supports their basic psychological needs, are they or are they not more likely to experience healthier motivation and better outcomes? Now, the authors, they were not just looking for whether people felt good, they looked at relationships among leader and workplace support, psychological needs based specifically on self-determination theory, motivation type, and outcomes like engagement, performance, satisfaction, well-being, burnout, and turnover. So, yes, some of that was were they feeling good at work? Did they report high levels of well-being or satisfaction? But it wasn't just that. They also looked at engagement, performance, burnout, and turnover. Now I think it's it would be helpful for us to review those three psychological needs. So we're gonna do that really quickly. First one is autonomy. You could think of that as like somebody feeling that they have some voice, some choice, and some ownership in and over how they work. Competence is the second one, and we could think of this as like people at work feeling capable, effective, and able to grow. And then relatedness is the last one. And that's the need where people feel like they are connected, they are respected, and they belong to a group of people who matter to them. Work by people like Ryan and DC, and then many others over the past few decades suggests that when these three needs are met, we make it possible for people to be autonomously motivated. This is like the practice manager looking for the self-starter, right? Like the person who just they just do things without being asked. That's autonomous motivation. That means that they do the work, not because they're told, but because it matters to them. It aligns with their values or it feels really meaningful to them. It does not mean that every task is fun. It just means that they feel self-driven in doing those tasks. And that's really important because autonomous motivation tends to come with all sorts of good things. On the other hand, when those needs are not met, the only way to get people to do things is by controlled motivation. Andy, would you like to work under the condition of controlled motivation where I am controlling your motivation at work?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Heck no. The rebel in me is like already getting nervous.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

You're not the boss of me.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah. That's the problem with controlled motivation. It means that people do work because they feel pressured to do it, or they feel guilty, or they feel watched. Maybe they feel like there's a reward worth chasing, or there's going to be punishment if they don't do it, or they're just simply afraid of whatever consequences might come from not doing the task. It is almost impossible for work to be fun under those conditions. So for this study, the researchers, what they did was they searched major research databases, they looked for studies that had anything to do with self-determination theory and workplace outcomes. And then they screened those studies using very clear inclusion criteria, ended up with 192 qualifying studies. They then used various statistical methods to look at how need support, need satisfaction, motivation type, and workplace outcomes were related across all those studies. In more simpler terms, they pulled a huge amount of existing research to see whether the same patterns kept showing up across many different workplaces. And what they found was that need support was very strongly linked to need satisfaction, that need satisfaction was very strongly linked to more autonomous motivation, and that autonomous motivation was very strongly linked to more engagement, job satisfaction, performance, and well-being, as well as less burnout and less turnover intention. In other words, when people have their self-determination, theory, core needs met, everything gets better. Need support, you could think of this like healthy soil. When leaders create the right conditions, people's psychological needs can take root. And when those needs are nourished, motivation grows from the inside out. And when the healthier motivation grows, teams are more likely to bloom through engagement, satisfaction, performance, and well-being instead of wilting into burnout or leaving. Now, there is an important caveat here. Even though this was a large-scale meta-analysis, which makes it a pretty powerful form of research, most of the included studies were based on correlational data. So it's cross-sectional information. That's important because we can't necessarily say correlation is causation here, right? It's not saying that if you say one autonomy supportive sentence to your team or a colleague, poof, burnout's going to disappear. But it does give us a strong makeup of what tends to grow together in healthier workplaces. Okay, let's get into the fun stuff here. Let's dig into some of the big takeaways from this study. The first one for me is this idea that meaningful work isn't enough. And I want to expand on that a little bit. Meaning alone does not protect people from burnout. In fact, it can actually work against them if the environment in which they work does not also meet their core needs. For example, if the workplace repeatedly strips away voice, hampers growth, discourages connection, even the strongest sense of purpose will erode over time. You know, you might think of like a technician who loves patient care but is never allowed to fully use their skills. That person's probably going to feel their need for competence unmet. Or a doctor who wants to practice great medicine, but feels really squeezed between the pressure to produce and their client's dwindling appetite for the increasing cost of care. That doctor might feel their need for agency unmet. Or a CSR who cares deeply about helping people but spends all day absorbing client anger without any backup or support from their team or from their manager, that person might end up feeling their need for relatedness unmet. So we can agree purpose is powerful, but it isn't full body armor. If the system keeps frustrating people's basic needs, even meaningful work becomes depleting. So, Andy, thinking about this takeaway, have you personally ever seen a veterinary team or a veterinary organization rely maybe a little bit too much on people's love for the work to overcome the system's lack of support? And if so, can you share that story and how it played out?

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yes, I've seen this happen multiple times. And the one that comes to mind for me is um surrounding a veterinarian that I know. Great guy, loves being a veterinarian, enjoys the work. Veterinary medicine is extremely meaningful to this individual. And the organization that he works for, they know it because he is one of the more dedicated and he loves what he does. And he's willing to stay a little bit late in the day to make sure that the patient is organized and situated and that the care team that he's passing it off to fully understands what's going on. He's willing to maybe pick up an extra shift here and there. He's willing to kind of have some of those conversations. Go the extra mile, right? Go above and beyond because he loves what he does and he loves being a veterinarian. And the organization that he works for, they see this and they kind of lean on that a little too heavily sometimes. You know, oh, it's fine, he'll do it. It's no big deal. He loves all this, so it's no problem. And I see that happening a lot. And I see that weighing on this particular veterinarian. And there's a little bit more fatigue, there's a little bit more mental strain, there's a little bit more kind of, I don't know, weight that this person is carrying because their needs, their psychological needs for autonomous motivation are not really being met in this particular situation because they're really counting on and banking on how much he loves being a veterinarian. And it's just so important. It's such purposeful work for him, and it's so meaningful that we can get away with not supporting this person in other ways.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

It's almost as if the uh the workplace is taking advantage of his natural state of autonomous motivation because of the purpose of his work, and it's sapping his motivation over time. And it's hard, it's hard to watch because you can kind of see where the endpoint is here, and it's not a healthy one. Yeah, that sucks. I'm sorry you have to see that. That's that's no fun.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

No fun.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

I think this happens more often than maybe we're aware of. And there's actually some research on this, what they call like the dark side of a calling. There's some research on that uh um in like zookeepers, and I bet it it applies in veterinary medicine as well. So, another big takeaway from this paper, uh, it I think of it in this way pressure can produce motion, but that doesn't mean it produces health. By pressure here, what I mean, Andy, is that I'm referring to controlled motivation. Remember, that's where people are doing the work because they fear pressure to do it, or they feel guilty or watched, or they're scared of punishment or consequences, right? In the short term, this kind of controlled motivation, it actually doesn't really appear to always come with clear harm. Like sometimes we do this, we, you know, we stand over people, we micromanage them, we boss them around, we direct them. And it doesn't really look like in the data that there's clear and distinct harm in the short term. So, in other words, this pressure, it might not immediately harm engagement or satisfaction or performance. And that I think is part of why it's so damn seductive to people, because it can actually work, at least for a little while. You know, fear can get people moving, it can block them from asking for important time off, which I imagine this veterinarian that you're talking about probably is guilty of.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

I'm definitely nodding.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah. Guilt can get people to pick up the extra shift or make them stay late and miss an important family event. Production pressure can get appointments pushed through so the hospital hits its revenue goals at the expense of the team's well-being. Because I said so can create compliance. But what this paper suggests is that controlled motivation, it's really concerning when we look at the long term because it results in maladaptive outcomes like burnout and turnover. You never win in the long run in an environment of controlled motivation. Put another way, a team can be productive and still be slowly burning out right before our eyes. Control motivation, it might keep the machine running at least for a while, but it is a terrible long-term culture strategy. That's a big takeaway from this paper. Andy, assuming that most veterinary leaders, and I I think you'll agree with this, most veterinary leaders are actually really good people with good intentions, trying to do the best they can with the tools they have. Why do you think so many of us end up defaulting to pressure, control, or urgency when what our teams actually need is support, clarity, and trust?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I honestly think it boils down to a common denominator here of the fact that we're all human. We are all human. And there is that psychological phenomenon known as impression management, right? If you've heard Josh and I Talk about anything psychological safety related, you've heard us bring up this topic because I think it really matters. And you know, Josh, that impression management has a lot to do with how we view ourselves and how we view ourselves in a group. And as humans, we are very hardwired to want to belong to that group. We want to be an important member of the group. We care what other people think about us. And that's a human thing. That's not just a veterinary thing. That's a human thing. And I really think that that comes into play here, right? We care what other people think about us. We don't want to be that guy. We don't want to be that technician. We don't want to be that department. And so sometimes we will kind of give in to that pushing, that pressure that gets put on us because we don't want to be booted from the group, right? Because this is such a hardwired thing. It goes way back to survival. If we get booted out of the group, we are left alone to fend for ourselves in the jungle and God knows what's out there. So we don't want that. And so in order to avoid that, we give in to that pressure. We agree to do these things because we care what other people think about us. And I think that really comes into play here.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Do you think you think teams sort of accept that pressure because they're worried about how they'll appear to their boss or to their teammates if they push back? And it's better to fit in uh than to fight back.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Sometimes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah. Why do you think the bosses resort to this sort of pressure approach in the first place? If we're assuming that, like, you know, the the practice manager or the medical director in a hospital is actually a good human being. They're not trying to burn people out. In fact, quite the opposite. They want the best for their people, and yet they consistently rely on things like pressure or control or directives instead of taking the time to cultivate these psychological needs. Why do you think why do you think that happens so often?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Maybe it's because these leaders, they they think they think they know. They think they know what their team needs or wants. They think they know what the right answer is. They think they know what the fix is. They think they know what we got to do in order to save time. They think they know. And they probably feel pressured to know. And so they they jump past any of that sort of autonomous motivation or any of those questions that might come up in order to learn more about what that is. Because, oh, well, I know what they need or I know what they want because they think they know when they may not know.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So you feel like leaders are probably feeling an immense amount of pressure and urgency themselves. And it's easy when you're feeling that way to then just transfer it onto somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah. Yeah. You've got your blinders on, right? Like I know what I want, or I know what I need. So that must be what the team needs or what would work best in this situation. Or, you know, it's just that racehorse metaphor with the blinders. You got your blinders on, you're going, and that's all you see is what's in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah. Yeah. No, I get I get that. I get that. I I do agree with that too. I think that there's a lot of people in these leadership positions in veterinary practices feel like they're walking a tight wire and way up above a canyon. And there's a lot of pressure and urgency that comes with that. And it's really hard to put yourself into a space where you can start thinking about the needs of others when you feel like your own needs are unmet.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

But hang on though, because I know you well enough. And I can tell by the sound of your voice and the look on your face that there might be something else here that you think might be kind of coming into play and sort of affecting this.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Oh, yeah. I I mean, I I think that a lot of people just simply don't know how. You know, I think that when when you talk to people in leadership positions, this is why I believe that most people in veterinary leadership positions are actually good people with good intentions. Because when you talk to them about these things, like creating these quote, positive workplaces where people have their needs met and feel like they can do their best work and you know, extract the full essence, the full spirit of the purpose of the work and everything that they do and reap the benefits of that, you get a lot of nods and agreement. Like that is actually what they want. They just don't know how to do it because nobody teaches us this stuff, right? Like, and so if you don't know how to do it, you default to what you do know, what's easily accessible, especially under pressure. Especially under pressure and strain, we go to what's quick to access and familiar. And I think for many of us, quick to access and familiar is I have power, I use power to tell other people what to do. So yeah, I mean, I think it's it's probably a mix of a lot of these different things.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Andy, the third takeaway that I want to share today is this idea that the leader closest to those doing the daily work might actually be the most protective or harmful. So while this paper did not show that direct supervisors are the only lever for reducing burnout and turnover, there's a lot of different levers. Uh, you know, um, detached leaders, so you know, two or three layers up in a large organization, the organizational culture, team dynamics, all those things do affect burnout and turnover. But this paper does suggest that support from the direct leader might actually be especially important. So in veterinary organizations, this means that culture is not only shaped by owners and CEOs, it's shaped by the person making the schedule or the person leading the huddle, the person assigning rooms, responding to mistakes, training, coaching. That person, that person decides whether the team member in front of them gets curiosity or criticism, gets empathy or explanation, gets care or correction. And those things make a difference. This also means that anyone on the team, literally anyone, can help support the core needs for others on the team. You don't actually need a title to help someone feel seen and heard, capable or growing or included or respected. You just got to be thinking about those things and then act on them in your day-to-day interactions. So, Annie, are you ready to apply these lessons of this very, very large-scale study to our organizations?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Ooh, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

All right.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I love that I love that action steps.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yes, yes. Let's talk about those action steps and how we can renovate our workplace cultures to embed some of the lessons from this paper. I've got just two ideas to share today, but I really want to kind of dig a little bit deeper into them. The first one, I think, is to teach teams the practice of what we call need supportive leadership. Now, notice I called it need supportive leadership, but I said teach it to teams. Everybody has access to this stuff. That's what that third takeaway was about. So I think teaching people how to do this is really important. I recognize what I'm about to say is a bit of a shameless plug, but it is because of research like this that I wrote my book. There just aren't really a lot of resources out there showing people how to apply self-determination theory in veterinary workplaces. That's part of what we talked about. That's why I said I think that a lot of leaders want to do this well. They just don't know how because nobody teaches us. Well, that's why I wrote my book. So yeah, go get yourself a copy, a lead to thrive. Better yet, get all the leaders in your organization a copy. Everyone with a title, everyone with influence, every one of your like future leaders pipeline. Heck, make a book club of it. You know, call us up and we can help facilitate that book club. Or hire Flourish to help teach people how to do these things, right? Even better, you can let us teach through our Flourish Academy. So we have a 20-hour race program called the Certificate in Positive Veterinary Leadership. It's based on my book, plus a lot of other concepts that we think are really, really important to positive organizational environments in veterinary spaces. And that program includes a mix of asynchronous and live education, training, gets people practicing this kind of leadership in the real world. Of course, we'll include links to all this stuff in the show notes. But the point is supporting these three core needs matters. And the people with status and power seem to have the most influence. And that doesn't necessarily mean that they are just the people with a title. Your work BFF is somebody with status in your world. That person can influence how you do or do not have your needs met at work. So if you want teams that are engaged, fulfilled, high performing, don't burn out or quit, this paper is pretty clear. You have to have people in the environment, in the workplace, especially people with power that intentionally and consistently support those needs in their people. The second thing that I want to talk about when it comes to culture renovation is building a habit of auditing core needs in the decisions that you make. You know, for most of us, this is going to be a new way of thinking about motivation, performance, and workplace well-being. I get that. And along with the new ways of thinking comes new language that's unfamiliar to us, maybe awkward. Things like autonomous motivation, adaptive outcomes, autonomy, competence, relatedness. These are all words we don't like usually use in day to day. But we have to start thinking in this way for this to become part of our culture. It's got to be a routine. One way to do that, I think, is to challenge yourself or your leadership team to ask some self-determination theory, what I'm thinking of as audit questions during decision-making conversations. I'm gonna give two examples of what I mean by this. Okay, let's imagine you've got staffing issues, right? So you're feeling short staffed, you're struggling to hire. How can we use this opportunity to audit? How are we meeting the self-determination uh needs of the staff that we already have? So the first would be an autonomy question. Ask yourself, like genuinely ask and explore does this team actually have any voice in how we solve this issue? Or are we just delivering protocols and solutions to them? And then what would it look like for them to have a voice in solving the issue? A competence question could be like, does this team have all the knowledge, all the training, all the skills that they need to maximize their capability and talents? And if not, how do we ensure they get that? And then a relatedness question could be hey, are people feeling heard, understood, and supported here? Are they being viewed as human beings during this stressful, difficult time? Another example, big policy changes, which a lot of our practices and organizations are going through right now. So I don't know, you're getting ready to change something in the hospital that's really going to impact how people work, how they experience their work each and every day. Great. Ask those self-determination theory audit questions. First one, autonomy. Hey, did we actually thoroughly explain why we need to change things, what our goals are, and then invite the team's input and perspective on those things? Competence question. Hey, once we roll this thing out, does everyone actually have everything they need to succeed under this new policy or new change? Do they even know what success looks like? And then a relatedness question. Did we actually acknowledge the emotional load of delivering yet another change to this team? Did we acknowledge it with them in the room? Andy, I've only shared a couple ideas here of ways that we can take these core human needs, autonomy, competence relatedness, and ensure that we embed them into veterinary workplaces so that we amplify engagement, job satisfaction, performance, and minimize burnout and turnover. What ideas do you have?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

I have a thought, an idea that kind of builds on what you've already shared, right? Because I couldn't agree more that implementing this stuff into your world starts with intentionally doing it. And the questions that you've kind of posed and that you're encouraging everyone to think of and ask themselves are huge. So, for example, the big policy change questions, right? Like, does everyone have what they need in order to succeed with this new policy? Asking yourself that question before going out and implementing the change, the policy, whatever that is. I would love to kind of push that a little bit further, right? And encourage people, maybe after the policy has been implemented, maybe after, you know, it's been shared with the team. Follow up on that. Ask the team did you have everything that you needed in order to implement this policy change? Did you understand why we were doing it? Because it's great for us as leaders to go, yes, I definitely have all these things. I laid it all out in a way that's going to encourage autonomous motivation. And then you actually go out and do it. And sometimes that lands and sometimes it doesn't. And what an opportunity, right? To learn whether or not it was effective by asking the people that it impacted. You know? And I mean, heck, get really vulnerable. It was really important to me to be transparent here because I want you to want to do the things. And I tried really hard to make sure that you had everything that you needed in order to implement this policy change. Was I successful there? What went well? Where did I totally miss the mark? I really think that that could be an awesome way to make that intention even more impactful.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Uh yeah, I think you I think you nailed a bull's eye in that one. I think that is spot on and absolutely fantastic. And one of the things that I love about that is, first of all, you're continuing this sort of like self-determination theory audit throughout the process. It's not just on the front end, it's not just by yourself. You're actually continuing that process over and over and over again through the change, beyond the change, so on and so forth. Also, what I love about that is that you're creating these feedback loops that while this doesn't really relate specifically to today's paper, I bet still encourages a greater sense of psychological safety in the organization by doing that, by being that vulnerable leader who says, Hey, this is what I tried to do to set you up for success. This is why I did it. Now I want to check in on that. What did I do well? And what can I do better next time? Or what do you need right now? Is a great way to encourage and invite voice, which amplifies psychological safety. This is a really wonderful idea. I love that you shared that. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

True.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Okay, so if there's one big lesson that I hope people take away from this paper, Andy, it's this meaningful work is not enough. We've repeated that a few times today. Veterinary medicine is full of people who care deeply. That's like implied. That is table stakes. These are people who want to help, people who want to do good medicine, they want to support their teammates, they want to serve clients, and they might, they want to make life better for animals. But that sense of purpose alone can't protect them by itself from things like burnout. If the workplace keeps frustrating their basic human needs, and that's the loving punch in the face for us as leaders. If we want thriving teams, we can't just ask people to be more resilient, to be more committed, to be more flexible, to be more passionate. We have to renovate the conditions around them. We have to build workplaces where people have voice and ownership, where they feel capable and supported and where they know that they belong. Because pressure, it might get some motion, it might get the shift covered, it might get that appointment pushed through, it might get somebody to stay a half hour late or an hour late. It might get them to follow the policy or hit the revenue goal, but that pressure is not going to work long term. It is a terrible long-term culture strategy. If we want people to stay, to grow, to engage, to perform, and to flourish, we need something better than pressure. We need need supportive leadership. And the encouraging part is this every one of us can participate in the that renovation. Formal leaders have the responsibility to design better systems, absolutely, but anyone on the team can help someone feel more trusted, more capable, or less alone. That's how culture starts to change. Not through one giant magical overhaul, but through repeated choices that make the workplace more human. Veterinary medicine doesn't need less purpose, it needs cultures that can actually sustain the purpose that people already bring. Of course, some people just like naturally exude purpose no matter what conditions they're in. I think maybe you have an example of one of those people for us today.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Um very, very purposeful this this this week's Florida Man. Um sorry, I'm laughing because how can you not, how can you not laugh? Okay. This week's Florida Man headline is scuba clad Florida Man, Rob's Disney Springs restaurant, swims away. Swims away. So living in Florida, right? We have all the Disneys, and Disney does not get away with, you know, avoiding Florida Man. So this particular Florida man got all suited up in the scuba gear, swam up to some like waterfront Disney Springs restaurant, which I, as you know, am a universal girl. I'm not a Disney girl, so I know nothing about Disney Springs. But apparently it was like a waterfront restaurant. Got out, went in, tied up the manager, robbed the restaurant, got back in the water, and swam away. And here's the funny part from from what I can tell at the bottom of the article, which is older, right? I I will admit this did happen last year. They they didn't find him. They didn't find him.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

They never saw him.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Because he hid. He hid with his scuba gear.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Do you know what he stole?

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Uh, money. He stole $10,000 to $20,000.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

That is quite the scuba heist. That is impressive.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Well done, Florida man. I feel like there's gonna be like uh, you know, the Italian job part three or something. We're gonna be doing scuba heist. That's I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Oceans 29, Florida scuba version. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Florida scuba version, exactly. That's a good one. Thank you for being that one, Andy. And thank you, everybody, for joining us uh for this session in the lab. We'll, of course, we'll share all the resources that we promised in the show notes, as always. And hey, if you're feeling like you want to maybe support those core human needs for Andy and I, I've got an ask or three of you. First of all, go ahead and like the Veterinary Culture Lab, hit that subscribe button, rate us, and if you feel up to it, share this episode with your veterinary community. Or any episode, really. Thanks, friends. It's really been great having you here today. See you on the next episode of the Veterinary Culture Lab.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Bye, everybody. Oh, one last thing. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to check out episode 14: Commitment Beats Compliance, the leadership shift vetmed needs, for another thoughtful discussion on creating meaningful motivation, well-being, and performance in the workplace. Thanks for hanging out with us in the Veterinary Culture Lab, powered by the science of workplace well-being, and brought to you by Flourish Veterinary Consulting. If today's episode sparked an idea, made you smile, or got you thinking, hey, I should totally try that. Let us know. What do you think? Be sure to subscribe, share, and remember a thriving veterinary culture is possible, and you don't have to build it.