SPEAKER_02 0:04

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

SPEAKER_00 0:12

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

SPEAKER_02 0:23

What if the goal of well-being isn't to eliminate adversity? Today we're digging into some research, suggesting that some adversity may actually help build resilience. And asking what leaders and veterinary workplaces can do to help challenge become growth instead of burnout.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

You were just telling me before we started recording about how blazing hot it is in Florida. Um, it is also unusually hot in Colorado. We are about to enter our hundred-degree days.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Oh, oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay. But, but, but what's the old cliche? Now that I'm almost 50, I get to use these cliches, right? It's a dry heat.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

That's okay. When it rains in Florida, we use a similar one, but also a cliche. We needed the rain. We need this rain.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Wait, are you serious? In Florida, people say we needed the rain.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Honestly, there are times, yes, that where it'll get really dry. And the horse girl part, we want rain so that we get grass, and then the horses have grass.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay. I am I'm gonna be honest with you right now, as somebody who has lived 30 plus years in just a step or two below the high desert, I am feeling very judgy hearing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

That's fair. It's the same kind of judgy you're gonna feel when I complain about how hot it is right now in Florida. It's fair. It's fair.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

No, that I I'm not judgy of that because I is I mean, even if it gets to like 105 here, it's not the same as what were you telling me that like it's the the feels like temperature is 109?

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yep. That's the that's the forecast for today.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

That's not okay. Did I ever tell you I maybe I told you the story? I did a speaking thing in Phoenix in the Phoenix area a few years ago, and um it was one of those where like I flew from Denver to Phoenix, which is a quick flight, and uh I was able to fly like the morning of the event, and it was gonna be like a lunch event, so timed it so that I could, you know, land and get my Uber and then get there and have like an hour or so to start. Well, the flight ended up being a little bit early, and so you know, the Uber takes me to the place, and it's like it was like 113 degrees or something by the time like we got there. I mean, it was just like crazy stupid hot in the I don't know, end of July or whatever it was. And I get to the place, like I'm dressed in full speaking attire. Now I was smart, I didn't wear like a sports jacket, I just had like a button-up shirt, but you know, nice pants and the whole bit in in 113 degrees with a big old backpack on. And I get there and no one's there yet. And the place is not open, so I just like stand outside. Oh, yeah, sweat and yeah, and yeah, try like desperately to like be in as shady a place as possible and not move so much so that the sweat was minimal. Yeah, it was it was bad. It was bad. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

It the struggle is real.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

The struggle is real. I was just gonna share. We just had our uh, you know, it is here in July, we just had our mid-year shutdown last week, which um I hope was relaxing and rejuvenative for you. It certainly was a good week for me. Uh one I learned something though that I thought was kind of interesting. Um, we were watching a news report and they were talking about like how smoking is obviously bad for you. And you know, it was it was a little bit of the history of like, you know, prior to all of the research and stuff coming out. Like, we all know it ubiquitously right now that smoking is really bad for you, it's really dangerous, but they didn't always know that. Like smoking used to be like immensely popular, you would see it on every TV show. People would smoke in airplanes. Do you remember that? Like the smoking sections and airplanes I actually am old enough to remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so obviously we know now smoking is bad and smoking will kill you. Well, there was like this similar report on bacon, which of course caught my attention. Yeah, right? As you know, I am a little bit obsessed with bacon. It is the candy of meats, and um, I love candy. Uh and yeah, they were talking about like some you know research that's coming out. Obviously, this is not surprising. We know bacon is super fatty, and so you know, it's not like great for you, but they were saying that like, you know, consuming bacon at a certain rate, I don't remember how much it was, a certain amount of day or something like that, is just as dangerous as smoking. Like bacon can kill you in the same way that smoking can. And I found that interesting because what I've thought is that smoking bacon actually cures it.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

I kept waiting. I'm like, where how is this going to land? Yes, yes. Oh, that is so good, so good. Oh, all right. Well, I'm not sure how we're gonna beat that, but I can try with the paper that I brought for us to chat about today.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Well, I have all the confidence in the world in you.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Well, what I'd like to do, Josh, is start this conversation with a question that I don't know, kind of sits right at the heart of the work that we do. Now, you've worked with hundreds of veterinary leaders over the years. And I'm curious, Josh, when leaders tell you that they want a healthier workplace, what do you think they're actually asking for? Do you think they're trying to eliminate all adversity or maybe helping people navigate that adversity better or something else?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

My like off-the-cuff response to this question, Andy, is that I think when most veterinary leaders, when they say to us that they're trying to create a healthier workplace, what they're actually trying to do is create a stress-free workplace. They want like a place where everybody's happy, everybody shows up to work, nobody ever quits, and everybody gets their stuff done. Um, they're trying to stop the bleeding, I think often is what they're what they're thinking. But I to really answer your question a little bit more directly, I think that they're trying to get rid of all the bad stuff. They're trying to eliminate all the stressors, all the challenges, all the adversities. They think that a healthy workplace means that nothing ever goes wrong or badly.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I used to think that too. But I've spent time, right, studying resilience. And now I can't help but wonder if we haven't been asking the wrong question, or maybe even aiming short of the goal. Because yeah, I agree. I think most of the time when we're talking about well-being, we naturally go to the goal of less adversity, fewer difficult clients, fewer conflicts with coworkers, fewer days where you sit in your car after work for that extra five minutes just trying to process everything that happened today. And honestly, that makes sense because adversity is hard. None of us wake up in the morning counting down the minutes until the dumpster catches on fire, which is why I got excited to bring this paper to the lab today. Because it challenges an assumption that I think a lot of us have in a way that I honestly wasn't expecting. Because what if the goal isn't actually to eliminate every difficult experience? What if the goal is something different? So, in thinking about that, Josh, let me ask you another question. If you could wave a magic wand and erase every difficult moment that you've ever experienced in your veterinary career, every challenging client, every challenging situation, every mistake, every leadership struggle, every conflict, would you?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

That's a great question. I think if you had asked me that question, like in the middle of any one of those things, I would have said absolutely yes. Like, yes, can you please wave the magic wand and make this terrible situation go away right now? Uh but actually thinking back on it, I honestly, no. I mean, I could probably pick out like one or two that I would love to have just never had experienced. And for the most part, I mean, all of those bad experiences were just part of the same story. Like they were just lines in a chapter and a book that is still being written. It's the story of my life, and it led me here. Uh, you and I are having this conversation in part because of all the good things that I've gone through in my career, but also in part because of all the challenging and shitty things that I've gone through in my career. So, um, no, I would not want to eliminate the path that led me to getting to work with Andy Davison.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

At flourished veterinary consulting.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

At flourished veterinary consulting.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Well, I I agree, right? That is kind of a weird question. And my immediate answer was very similar to yours. Immediately, yes. Yes. Of course I would say yes. I don't want people to suffer. I don't want anybody lying awake at two o'clock in the morning replaying some awful conversation. And I certainly don't enjoy doing that. But when I look back, right, and start thinking about my own career, one of the biggest challenges that I experienced was actually stepping into leadership before I understood exactly what leadership was. Wow, I know I'm very unique in this in veterinary medicine. And as a leader, no one ever has that.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

No one ever goes at it.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

And as a leader, Josh, you know, I cared deeply. I worked really hard. I wanted to do what was right by my clients, my teams, my communities, but there were really hard conversations that I totally avoided. There were situations that I replayed in my head over and over and over on the drive home. And there were so many moments where I thought, gosh, you know, I know I'm supposed to know how to do this. And I really just don't. And I certainly wouldn't describe any of those moments as enjoyable. Nobody's making a vision board that says, gosh, I hope to have an identity crisis in my manager's office this year. But here's the interesting part, right? Like you looking back, I don't think I would erase them because they taught me things that success never could. They taught me curiosity, they taught me humility, how to ask better questions, that conflict isn't failure, that repair matters. And most importantly, they taught me that I could survive the hard things. Now, before anyone listening starts yelling at their speakers, we are not saying that relentless adversity is good. We are not saying that trauma is good. And we are certainly not saying that veterinary medicine needs any more hard days. Jeez, we've already got enough of those already. But what we're asking is something a little bit more nuanced here. Is there a difference between adversity that builds us up and adversity that breaks us? Because vetmed is never going to be adversity free. There's always going to be cranky clients, sick animals, impossible decisions, unexpected outcomes. It's part of the profession that we chose and part of the profession that we love. So maybe the better question isn't how do we eliminate adversity? Maybe it's how do we help people experience that inevitable adversity in ways that build resilience instead of fuel burnout. And Josh, that's exactly what this paper explored. And that's why I'm so excited to talk about it. You ready to dive in?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Oh, I'm so ready. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Okay, today's paper does not disappoint because it has a long drawn-out title, which is required of peer-reviewed research papers. I think. I think there's like a box at the very top of the checklist that you have to check off.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Because this paper is reviewer comments. I'm like, I'm sorry, but like having gone through the peer review process, I'm like seeing reviewer comments. Uh, this study is great, your paper is great. One problem, your title's too short.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Your title's too short and gets to the point too quickly.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Could you draw it out a little bit? I swear. This one, definitely check that box, like heavy check mark, because the paper is called an upside to adversity. Moderate cumulative lifetime adversity is associated with resilient responses in the face of controlled stressors.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, yeah, good. Breathe.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Now, this paper, it was published in psychological science back in 2013, and it's written by Mark Seary and his colleagues. And I'm gonna admit now, when I first saw this title, I thought, all right, well, this sounds like it's either gonna be really interesting or completely ridiculous. Because if we're being honest, an upside to adversity sounds like something you would find embroidered on a throw pillow next to live, laugh, love. But that's actually not what the researchers are arguing. Instead, they asked a really pretty thoughtful question. For decades, psychology has largely assumed that the relationship between adversity and well-being is pretty straightforward. The more adversity you experience, the worse the outcome, right? That adversity is bad. And if adversity is bad, well, then no adversity should be better. But these researchers they wondered if reality might be a little bit more complicated, that instead of a straight line, the relationship looked a little bit different. So to understand this paper, I'm gonna ask you to imagine three people. One person has experienced almost no significant adversity in their life, another person has experienced some adversity, enough to be challenged, enough to recover, enough to learn. And then there's a third person who has experienced overwhelming adversity, the kind that just keeps on coming without enough time to support or recover. Now, the researchers wanted to know who actually responds best when a brand new stressor shows up. Because that's what resilience really is. It's not how great you feel on a random Tuesday, but how do you respond when things get hard? And I kind of like that distinction because ultimately resilience is not the absence of stress, but it's how we respond because of and during stress. Now, the thing that I really appreciated about this study is that researchers did not just send out a survey asking people, hey, do you think that you're resilient? Instead, they actually stressed people out, and not once, but twice in two completely different ways. So apparently, some psychologist somewhere was like, Hey, you know what sounds like fun. Let's make people uncomfortable for science.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

For science.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

For science, right? With the like fist raising to science and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah, yeah. Now, the first study, participants completed a questionnaire about significant adverse events that they had experienced throughout their life. So think things like losing a loved one, divorce, illness, or natural disasters. Basically, they created a measure of each person's cumulative lifetime adversity. Then came the stress test. Participants had to stick their hand into painfully cold water. And researchers measured not only how painful it was, but how participants interpreted the experience emotionally. Did they catastrophize? Did they think, oh, I cannot handle this? This is totally unbearable. Or did they stay relatively calm? Then researchers wanted to know whether the same thing happened with a completely different kind of stress, not physical pain, but mental pressure. Participants believed that they were taking an important intelligence test while researchers measured whether their bodies responded as if they were facing a challenge or a threat. In other words, did their physiology say, I've got this? Or, oh uh, this is way too overwhelming. Now, Josh, before I tell you what they actually found, what would your gut predict if you had to guess who do you think would respond best to stress? The people with no adversity, moderate adversity, or lots of adversity.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Prior to reading this paper, um, I would have guessed the people with low to no adversity probably would have handled things the best.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

It's a really interesting prediction because I think a lot of people are with you, right? If things are pretty easy, pretty comfortable, well then yeah, I could handle it. But the team of researchers, they found something very, very interesting across both studies, that the exact same pattern emerged. That people with moderate levels of lifetime adversity consistently showed more resilient responses. Compared to the people who had experienced almost no adversity, they catastrophized less. They reported less to stress. They viewed the exact same stressor as more manageable. And compared with the people who experienced very high adversity, they also performed better. It wasn't no adversity that produced the strongest responses, and it wasn't the extreme adversity either. It actually was the middle ground. Enough challenge to learn, not so much challenge that it's overwhelming to us. And Josh, I think that that finding is really important because we've spent lots and lots of time in veterinary medicine talking about resilience. But what I don't know that we've spent enough time talking about is where our resilience actually comes from. Now, one thing that I keep reminding myself while reading this paper is that the researchers, yeah, they were studying individuals, which is clearly critical and valuable. They weren't studying teams or leadership and they weren't even studying industries or culture. But I couldn't stop thinking about culture as I was reading this, because individuals within our clinic are co-creating the culture. And resilience often ends up being a foundational component. So if moderate adversity helps build resilience in individual humans, then the obvious next question to me becomes what responsibility does the system have to make adversity manageable, productive, and beneficial instead of overwhelming? Because I don't think this paper lets leaders off the hook. In fact, I think it places even more responsibility on leaders. So, Josh, when you hear that and you think about leaders and the system responsibility here, what comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Oh gosh, so many things. How much time do we have? Right. Yeah. You know, I I'm I'm gonna focus in on the leader role in particular. I think there's a little bit of um self-awareness or introspection that probably is important here for leaders, you know, to sort of recognize what is my stress response, how do I tend to respond to or react to adversity myself, because leaders, as we know, have an outsized influence over that co-created culture or that environmental experience. And so if your response tends to be uh uh catastrophizing, like you mentioned earlier, or thinking there's no way I can handle this, or extreme snippiness, or uh turning into yourself, quietude, whatever it might be, if you have an unproductive response to adversity yourself, you're modeling that for your team and you're more likely to see that from the team. So I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is more intentional and outward things with the team, um, I think is really important here as well. And so uh, you know, Andy, one of the things that you talk about a lot, you have a talk on uh the power of praise, and you talk about the difference between people praise and process praise. And I think this is one of those places where process praise can be really valuable, uh, both during and especially after adverse events or challenging stressors in the team. It's a great opportunity for the leader to, you know, sort of debrief with the team. Hey guys, today was really hard. So, first of all, normalizing and validating that we do experience hard things here and we will continue to experience hard things here. Hey guys, today was really hard. It was stressful for me. I imagine it was incredibly stressful for you. You know, Andy, what I'm most impressed with is that during that stress, you really tried to reach out for support from other people around you by asking for help and asking questions and clarifying things. I'm so impressed that that was your response to this challenging thing. Uh, team, what did we learn about today that we can apply to the next difficult thing we're going to face? And that's like a mini debrief that we can do that leaders, if we're more intentional about, can start to build that environment of resiliency within the organization. So those are kind of the two things that popped to mind for me. Like I said, I could probably go on, but I won't.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

There are two huge things and they're two really important things. And the responsibility that leaders have to kind of set that precedent, or I don't know how to put it, but teach people that the way we do things around here falls on the shoulders of leaders. Because as a team member, you look to your leaders on how are we going to handle this? How, how is this gonna go? What is this gonna look like? And when leaders are self aware, right? Like you said, how they tend to handle stress, chaos, adversity. And how they support their team in handling it, that sort of sets the stage for how we do things around here, which is very much a way to look at culture in general. So yeah, I I love that you pointed that out. High fives, bravos. High fives. High fives. Now, the other thing that really kind of is interesting to me and it got me thinking is there's something that I see leaders do a lot. And by leaders, I say me because I was super, super guilty of doing this. And I know I'm not the only one. Because leaders, they care. They genuinely want to help. And when somebody on their team is struggling, often their read my first instinct was to say, oh, it's cool. I've got it. I'll take care of it. And sometimes that's absolutely the right thing to do. But sometimes I wonder if we aren't accidentally protecting people from the very experience that would help them discover, hey, well, wait a minute. I actually can do this. So, Josh, when you think about leaders, how can leaders better understand the difference between supporting somebody and rescuing somebody?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah. I was also a rescuing leader, by the way. And it's fine, like I just I remember times, especially the second practice, because it was we were open seven days a week, we were extended hours, it was a much larger team than my first practice. And I felt an immense sense of responsibility to fix everything for everyone. And that's just a pile of fixing that no person, I don't care how uh how big your toolbox is or how experienced a handyman you are, you cannot fix all the things for all the homes and all the people. Um, it's overwhelming. Um, so yeah, I get it with rescuing. I I I like how you framed that. Um, the difference between supporting someone and rescuing someone because I think that's important. I'm visualizing this like on a spectrum. And for me, let's just imagine like there's a line, you know, in on on one end of the line is rescuing. I think supporting someone is kind of on the middle point of the line, and then the other end of the line is you need to learn how to fix your own problems. It's some sometimes it's uh shows up like this is kind of behind the the sentiment that leaves people feeling unsatisfied or worse, like really upset when they hear leaders say things like, I don't want to hear your problems, I want to hear solutions. Now, I I understand that that I understand what's behind that from a leader perspective. Like we want to cultivate teams that are uh you know as self-sufficient as possible, that are proactive and problem solvers, that are uh, you know, able to support each other, things like that. That's a good sentiment. Sometimes, though, it leads to this statement of I don't want to hear problems, I just want to hear solutions, and that lands in people feeling like you are leaving me out to dry, right? So, so again, back to the spectrum, rescuing on the far right, on the far left is being left out to dry. I'm on my own, totally on my own. In the middle is supporting. So, another way to think of supporting is it's a partnership. It's sort of the space between give me your problem and I'll fix it, and it's your problem, you fix it. So I think to better understand the difference between supporting and rescuing, we have to realize that there is a gray area. It's a space, it's not a point, but it's a space between those two things. And we have to we have to think about in this particular situation, given what I know about this particular individual and given what I have to give as a leader at this point in time, how can I best walk with this person instead of walk away with their problem or send them away with it on their own?

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Well, and that might look different every day, and that might look different in every situation. And I think that's one of the big sort of points that you're touching on here.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yes. No, it absolutely does. There's there's a situational aspect to that. So, yeah, that's why I say like you have to you have to take a brief moment and pause and think about given this particular situation and what I know about this particular team member that's sharing this situation or that I see in this situation, and where I'm currently at right now in this moment, what is the best that I can do to walk with this person? I don't want to say that like it's always about just support and walking with the person. You know, it's not always about, okay, Andy, tell me a little bit more about the situation. What have you tried so far already? What's what's worked or almost worked? What's getting in the way? Like, that's a coaching response that's like more like walking with the person, right? I'm not saying you always have to do that. Every so often you're gonna run across a situation when you're gonna be like, I need to rescue this person, then go rescue them. And every so often you're gonna come across a situation where you're gonna be like, Listen, Andy, you and I have talked about this ad infinitum. I know that you've got the skills to handle this thing. I want to see you go handle it on your own first, right? You're gonna tell them that. Sometimes you're gonna go to either end of the spectrum. I think the problem is that we we either go to one end or the other, and then hopefully eventually we realize, oh shit, I'm being a rescuing leader all the time. I need to stop that. And then we play ping pong and we go to the complete other end of the spectrum and we turn into a, hey, I don't want to hear your problems, I want to hear solutions type person. I mean, that's like that is a shocking shift for your team to hear, and it's not helpful. We can't live on the extreme ends of the spectrum. We have to find ways to step more towards the space in between those things as often as we can. Maybe the 80-20 rule is a good way to think about this. 80% of the time, you should be somewhere in that quote supporting range. Well, whatever that means. Sometimes it's going to be a little bit more towards the rescuing side, sometimes a little bit more towards the you got this, you handle this side, but somewhere in that supporting space, about 80% of the time. If you notice that you are only going there 30% of the time, you've got some work to do. You've got some growth opportunity as a leader.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Well, and all of those different opportunities are going to give you a chance to support your team member in the way that they need to be supported, which again, how much time do we have? Is going to allow you to create that connection with them, see them as an individual, notice what's happening in that moment, notice what needs to be done in that situation, help and rescue when it's needed, but also promote their own self-efficacy when it's appropriate. And it's not like a robotic answer, it's a dynamic approach to leadership, which can then result in boosting resilience. I love it. Yep. Well, and that idea, right, of self-efficacy, like that's that really stands out to me because confidence isn't built because somebody tells you that you're capable or because somebody says, oh, well, you've got, you know, all the skills you need to do this. It's built because you discover that you are capable. And to me, this paper feels like just another piece of evidence that supports that idea that resilience doesn't magically appear one day. It gets built one experience at a time. But, and I think this is the really important part. There is a huge difference between challenges and overload. They're not the same thing. This paper talks about moderate adversity, manageable challenges that encourage us to stretch ourselves and give us an opportunity to recover. I don't think it says that endless dumpster fires make us stronger. In fact, the people who had experienced the highest levels of adversity, you'll remember they had the poorer outcomes than those in the middle. And again, that feels really relevant for veterinary medicine because sometimes we confuse suffering with growth. And they're not the same thing. Now I started to think about it like this. Imagine two graduates. Both have a really difficult emergency case, same medicine, same challenge, but one finishes the case and their mentor sits down with them afterwards and they ask, How are you doing as a result of that tough case? What did you learn? And what would you do differently next time? They normalize those emotions. They celebrate what went well and they coach maybe what didn't go well. Now imagine that other graduate, same difficult case, but afterwards, everyone is too busy. Nobody checks in, nobody debriefs, and they leave that doctor to fill those blanks in themselves. Those are two completely different experiences. Same adversity, two very different systems. So in thinking about that, Josh, what do you think is the difference between adversity that can become a mastery experience or becomes another reason for somebody to leave VetMed?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah. I I mean, I think it's how it's processed and assimilated. You you said it yourself. Your example of the two new grads experiencing the same thing and what kind of happens afterwards is how how it's processed and assimilated. Um, if it's not, first of all, if it's if it's processed in a way that is harmful or damaging, it's probably going to be assimilated in a cumulative way, right? But if it's processed in a healthy or productive way, it's going to be processed kind of out of the system. And what's assimilated is learning, it's skill development and things that we can apply to future adversities. That's why I think future adversities get uh easier when we are able to process things well. Where where I think we fall short often is that we think that that processing is a solo introspective affair and it's not, it's a social thing, right? So it happens in a social environment, which means that um, again, to your point, that mentor, but not just the mentor, like how did the team respond to the doctor's decisions through things? How did the team respond to the doctor after that? How much more likely is the team to ask that doctor questions or not ask them questions? Does the team after an event like that be like, oh no, Dr. Davison? No, not this emergency, right? Or are they like, hey, you know, Dr. Davison's probably ready for a harder emergency now, right? Like so those things also make a difference. And I think we kind of lose sight of that, which is why we have to think of this in that systems lens.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Well, and that leads into our culture renovation section perfectly because this is such a valuable way to put this stuff into action in your world. Because turning adversity into a resilient experience is simply refusing to let people process it alone. And that brings in that sort of social processing component that you just spoke to, that after a difficult case or a difficult client, take five minutes and ask those three questions. What went well? What challenged you? And what's one thing you're going to carry forward with you for next time? Because you know there's going to be a next time. And when we ask these questions, notice we're not trying to fix the problem or fix the solution or even fix the people within it. We're using that concept of a debrief to help them process it and make meaning from the experience. And like you said, that I did a little chair dance over here when you said it. Yes, leaders can do this, but you know what else? So can everybody on the team. Team members, colleagues, even friends and family can get curious and ask questions like that about challenges and about adversities. The idea is not to eliminate adversity or even encourage people to process it or deal with it on their own. It's to find a way to make meaning of it together. And I think that's such a huge takeaway to this research and this conversation. Now, another approach that often bodes well for those of us in charge is to create some appropriately challenging opportunities for those people around us. So let the new technician place that difficult IV catheter. Let the associate DVM discuss discharges with that cranky client. Let them do the hard thing. But don't disappear, right? Like don't go to the far end of that spectrum. Stay nearby, teach, encourage, and celebrate progress because confidence isn't built before people try the hard things. It's built because they did. So now, Josh, let's say that somebody listening to this episode decided that they're gonna stretch one of their team members a little bit more. Let's say that they, I don't know, encourage their new technician to place an Ivy catheter. Because Josh, this this technician, they've come to me multiple times and we've talked about it, and they really want to learn to place IV catheters. So I did. I created an opportunity for them. I got a case and I was there with them, and it just went completely downhill. There was emotion, there was conflict, I didn't handle myself well, they didn't handle themselves well. And looking back, it that was an adversity for me. And it was kind of awful. And I really uh gives it makes me gun shy to try this again. How would you coach me if I came to you like that?

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's two, there's at least two elements here. There's the um the leader's experience of this and not wanting to do something like this again. They've had a bad experience and they want to avoid in the future. And so there's the coaching to that. So that's sort of the one-on-one coaching. And then there's sort of like the coaching the coach aspect of it, which is how they can then approach this technician uh after this bad experience, uh to open the door for uh, you know, a further stretch in the future. Those are two separate things uh in my mind. So starting with the first one, the um, you know, the direct coaching, uh, I would want to do the same kind of thing that you were suggesting earlier with the you know, the debrief questions, right? I would want to ask them about um, you know, tell me a bit more about what happened, walk me through the situation, what was so awful about it, how would you have liked it to have gone? What do you think got in the way of uh, you know, or created the gap between how you wanted it to go and how it did go? Uh, if you were to do this again, what would you do differently? Like, you know, all those kinds of things, right? Like I would want to work with them on that. Hopefully, by the end of that, they're gonna be open to like and ready to maybe try it again. And then I would, you know, want to ask them so uh how how do you plan to approach this with the technician? Uh, what parts of the situation, you know, going sideways do you think you contributed to? How can you express that to the technician in a way that can help repair the relationship and uh uh you know build a little bit more confidence to try again, like those kinds of things? Uh so I would want to coach to both of those things sort of separately, but um in a linear fashion so that they they can feel like afterwards they can go back to the technician, repair you know, the damage that was done when they didn't handle things so well, uh, express to the technician their hopes and dreams for you know what it, why I want to help stretch you for this and why I think we should try this again, so on and so forth, and and then create a new situation uh to help the technician stretch in a more productive way.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Well, and I think what you're saying here is that supporting the resilience of an individual, maybe the leader, obviously the technician on their team, is important and it's valuable and it's going to contribute to the culture that is created at this hospital because of it. That getting curious about what that looks like and getting curious about how to kind of approach that adversity of gosh, this didn't go very well and I never want to do it again. To how can we think about it in a way that might allow us to grow because of it, that might promote that self-efficacy so that we can create that culture that you're looking for?

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah, precisely.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yeah. Well, as our listeners know, I kind of am a resilience geek. I love resilience. And the one really I'm I'm I'm gonna say it like you're not supposed to pick your favorite child, but the one thing I love the most about resilience is that it is a skill. It's not necessarily something that we are born with and have and is at our peak at all times. It is something that we can build and that we can develop. And because I get so excited about that, and because it's something that I talk about all the time, that's actually one of the reasons why resilience has become one of those core learning pathways that we teach at Flourish and that we teach through the Flourish Academy. So if you're looking to strengthen your resilience skills, help your team navigate some of those inevitable challenges or equip leaders to create cultures where people can grow through adversity instead of burning out. So if you'd like to learn about that, I will definitely include a link in the show notes. Now, Josh, I think that this paper, it really gives us hope and perspective on resilience. It reminds us that resilience isn't something that we're simply born with, right? It's something that we can develop and that we can grow. And I'm gonna get excited about it all over again because it gives us experiences that leave us thinking, I've done hard things before and I can do hard things again. And that is especially important in veterinary medicine because veterinary medicine deals with adversity. There's always gonna be difficult cases, there's always gonna be difficult conversations and difficult days. And what leaders and workplaces can do is shape those moments. They can create systems of support, of coaching, of recovery that can help challenge become growth instead of burnout. And maybe that's what culture renovation really is. It's not eliminating that adversity, but it's making sure that people don't face that adversity alone. Because while we can't always change the challenge, we absolutely can change how people experience it. And sometimes that's the difference between burnout and growth. Now, when it comes to adversity, there is always someone that seems to find themselves right smack dab in the middle of it. And this particular Florida man, he did the hard thing. And we are all better off because of it. Are you ready for this? This is a good one.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Florida man might be the most resilient creature on the planet.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

He just keeps coming back for just keeps coming back, bounce back better, equals Florida man. Florida man wearing Batman pajamas catches burglar, leading to arrest. Now, this particular Florida man had just crawled into bed in his Batman pajamas when he heard a noise in the garage. Somebody was breaking into his truck. So, in his Batman pajamas, Florida man went out and detained the burglar until the police could come and arrest him. I will put a link to this in the show notes because there is a picture of Florida Batman and the police like standing proudly with their criminal outside of the truck. I mean, it is so funny. It's like proud Florida man in his Batman pajamas. It made me laugh so hard.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

That is glorious.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

I mean, if you ever needed a reason to get Batman pajamas, here's your reason.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah, there's your reason.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Okay. Thank you so much, everybody, for spending time with us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with a friend because it really helps get the show in front of more people. And as always, check out the show notes for today's paper and resources. And thanks for being a part of the Veterinary Culture Lab community. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Take care, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

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 alone.