Episode 17 – Empowering Veterinary Professionals Leadership Lessons
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In this week’s episode
- Communication and Team Cohesion: Andy discusses the challenges of maintaining effective communication across multiple veterinary practice sites. He emphasises the importance of regular check-ins via video calls, which foster a sense of unity and ensure team members feel connected and valued.
- Remote Working and Talent Retention: The conversation highlights how remote working arrangements can benefit both employees and employers. Andy shares his experience with remote team members who maintain strong connections to the practice, showcasing the importance of adapting roles to retain valuable talent.
- Leadership Challenges and Personal Growth: Andy and Jack delve into the multifaceted nature of leadership, addressing the challenges that come with the role. Andy encourages leaders to embrace a growth mindset, highlighting that making mistakes is part of the learning process and that leaders should prioritise serving their teams.
- The Role of Hobbies in Leadership Development: The discussion emphasises the importance of fresh perspectives and personal growth in leadership, suggesting that diverse experiences can contribute to better decision-making and team engagement.
Jack Peploe:
Coming up on
Andy Green:
Modern veterinary practice, the stuff that allows us to do all the fantastic clinical work and actually bond and gain great rapport with our clients, with our patients, with our teammates, is absolutely fundamental A to being able to do a better job as a clinical vet or vet nurse, but also from a team perspective. More importantly, it makes your whole life easier. It makes life more enjoyable. It allows you to get more out of every interaction that you have, and that’s it. Outside of work as well as inside of work. And for me, it genuinely been transformative for my whole life has been transformed by what I’ve come to understand and the depth of knowledge.
Jack Peploe:
Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Andy Green to the podcast who will talk to us about the critical role of leadership and effective communication in building successful veterinary teams.
Andy Green:
Hi, my name’s Andy Green. I am currently people director at Penn Vets. We’re a multi-site independent small animal practice in Kent. We are unique in that we are employee owned. We’re actually the largest employee ownership trust owned practice in the world, and I’m one of the co-founders of that EOT. So that’s me,
Jack Peploe:
Largest in the world. That’s mega. I didn’t even realise that. I clearly have not been doing enough research, Andy,
Andy Green:
To be fair, we didn’t realise it either. When we set it up, it was actually pointed out to us by somebody else went. Really? That’s very cool. So yes, it was a very cool thing to find out.
Jack Peploe:
Well, look, it’s super exciting to have you on the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. How are things going for you today?
Andy Green:
Great, thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here. Super exciting, not least because we’re two weeks into the new phase of our practice with our new flagship hospital that our main site opened two weeks ago, which has been transformative, so exciting for the team, the clients, the patients, just it’s a quantum leap forwards in the quality of the premises we have and the enhanced service we can offer. So it’s very exciting. I showed my wife around it today and she was mega impressed.
Jack Peploe:
I really hope I get to come down and have a look. It does sound super exciting. I’ve seen some of the photos on social media and it does look awesome. Really awesome. Okay, so today we’re going to be focusing on the critical role that leadership and effective communication play in building successful vet meeting teams. Now with your extensive experience in these areas at Pennard, you’re perfectly positioned to offer our listeners some profound insights. Could you start by telling us a bit about your journey in becoming the people director at Pens and what drove you to specialise in personal development and team dynamics within veterinary practices?
Andy Green:
So a nice small, easy question to kick off with there that should fill up most of the podcast. It is a great question because they don’t, although in my mind, they make natural bedfellows for an awful lot of people in the veterinary world. They don’t. And part of my mission is to try and change that perspective and have people understand that what some people call soft skills, which is not a term I like, para clinical skills if you like, that the communication skills, the stuff that allows us to do all the fantastic clinical work and actually bond and gain great rapport with our clients, with our patients, with our teammates, is absolutely fundamental A to being able to do a better job as a clinical vet or vet nurse, but also from a team perspective, more importantly, it makes your whole life easier. It makes life more enjoyable. It allows you to get more out of every interaction that you have and that’s it outside of work as well as inside of work. And for me, it genuinely been transformative for my whole life has been transformed by what I’ve come to understand and the depth of knowledge and facility I’ve gained in that area over the past 20 years.
Jack Peploe:
What do you believe some of the key qualities that every veterinary leader should develop and why?
Andy Green:
Number one, for me listening said that golden rule of seek first to understand before trying to be understood. So again, the golden rule I was given, or the rule of thumb was we got two ears and one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we talk. Now I sometimes struggle to remember that personally myself, but I think for a lot of us, the challenge is it’s not the listening per se, it’s the quality of the listening. So the difference between appearing to listen, but actually we’re just forming what we want to say and we’re waiting for the other person’s lips to stop moving before we start that kind of very superficial transactional conversation versus really active, reflective, deep listening where we are actually going below the surface of the words, we are looking at body language, we are listening to tonality, we’re listening to all of the elements that make up someone’s communication because words are only about 7% of it, over half of it’s nonverbal, it’s body language.
So it’s really important for us to observe, to be really acutely focused, to have what’s called sensory acuity, acute sensitivity to everything that the other person is saying and what they’re not saying. And that goes for clients obviously, but particularly as a leader, it’s the members of our team as well as in terms of our direct reports, those that we are overseeing, that we are taking care of, but also then our leadership team, our management team, the ability to really understand and get to the heart of what needs to be done, what needs to be addressed. And that comes down to being able to develop rapport really, really quickly. And that’s something that I’ve found as being a real valuable skill for me over the years to develop is that ability to connect with people quickly and at more than just a superficial level, asking great questions as well. As a leader, it’s tempting to give an opinion because with a leader, but again, was reminded that not just leaders eat last. If you’ve ever, obviously you know who Simon Sinek is, fantastic speakers, some really brilliant insights into the mindset and psychology of leadership and servant leadership. But also leaders should speak last and actually allow everybody else to give their perspective before we jump in. Because once we said what we think everything else after, that kind of is semi irrelevant because we’ve already said what we think.
So I think from a leadership position, being humble enough to listen to other people’s opinions, take that on board, really listen, really care and allow people to feel safe, that they can express sometimes a contrary opinion provided it’s done in the right way. Healthy debate is also something that a lot of leaders find very uncomfortable, but actually it’s good for us to be challenged as leaders, again appropriately to make sure we don’t start drinking our own Kool-Aid. It’s healthy. We shouldn’t be stuck on some lofty pedestal that nobody can approach because that’s unrelatable and it’s unsustainable. And it’s unrealistic. And I’ve come across a lot of people in leadership positions with massive imposter syndrome.
Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely.
Andy Green:
And they’re trying to note everything about everything and be the best at everything and always know the answer and never seem to have a problem. And it’s completely unrealistic. And inside they’re screaming and allow other people to help you be a better leader.
Jack Peploe:
Well, you’re meant to surround people that are better than you ultimately, aren’t you? That’s the
Andy Green:
Why. Absolutely. Yeah. If you are the best person in a room, find a new room. Yeah, ’em at whatever it happens to be, whatever it happens to be.
Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely. And so following on from that and delving into a little bit more deeper around this, obviously communication is cited as one of the most important skills, especially in veterinary practice, not just with the team itself, but also with clients. Can you share with me some strategies or techniques you teach for improving that communication?
Andy Green:
Absolutely and I think there’s a couple of interesting distinctions when I talk about communication with clients, which often revolves around the consult room, then it’s set a very specific intention before you go into the consult room for that consult, first of all, and I always have two and they stood me in very good stead. I worked them out after a few years and really helpful is that I wanted every client to be happier and better educated when they left my consulting room than when they walked in. And happier didn’t necessarily mean laughing, joking and all the rest of it. So they might have reached an end of life decision for their pet. It might’ve been a euthanasia by happy, I really mean at peace with whatever decision they’ve made that they know they made the right decision for the right reason at the right time, and that we are partnered in that decision.
Now does that mean that every consult went perfectly Hell, no. Happy, unrealistic. What it did though, or what it does is it takes your focus from yourself to your client and patient. And one of the biggest challenges in the consult room for vets I find very often is you’re two in your own head thinking so hard about what’s coming next and what should I be doing and oh, am I coming across okay, particularly from new and recent graduates again that I’m not really sure, I’m not super confident and there’s so much internal dialogue going on, they’re not actually really paying attention to the other person, to the client and therefore you miss things.
It’s also stressful because the tendency is, most stress comes from the past or the future. Very little is in the actual present moment. It’s thinking back to things that may not have gone so well before or projecting to something that’s about to come and being worried about it and actually experiencing that even though it hasn’t already happened and those are distracting. If we put our full attention on the person that we’re communicating with on that client, we’ll come to that on another team member. And curiosity is so valuable, cultivate an attitude of curiosity. I know what do I need to learn about this person in order to be better able to serve them?
And for me, having that curiosity, it also keeps you out of judgement . And when we’re building rapport, particularly in a consult room with some clients, it’s really easy to lapse into being judgmental. God knows I’ve done it myself often enough down the years they’re feeding a certain food, their pet is a certain weight. They’ve made some sweeping generalisation that you just think, oh my goodness, where I can’t believe they’ve just said that. Whatever it happens to be, the breeder says, and then after that everything else is read missed for a lot of vats. You know what it’s like, the challenge with that is as soon as we slip into judgement , we break rapport, you lose all ability to influence somebody else if you’re judging them. And even if you’re not judging them verbally, you sure as hell judging them by your posture, by your body language, and by your intonation.
We can tell as humans, it might not be kind of conscious and we’re going thinking that person is judging me, but we can tell that that connection’s just not quite there the way we want it to be. And so staying out of judgement , being curious, what don’t I know? Because there will be something that really surprises you. Everybody’s got a reason for what they do. You do. I do. Everybody does. And to some people it might be really illogical to us, completely logical, but if we don’t know that we haven’t got a fully formed picture. So in a consult room, that level of clarity and actually putting the focus on the other person, it’s much less stressful because then it’s about I really am engaged, I really am listening. The other big thing for me is, and this is going to be ironic given how much I’m talking at the moment, is using silence. Don’t be afraid to leave silence because if you leave silence, somebody’s going to fill it. And I mean it could well be you, but why not leave it for the other person to fill?
Because that tends to be when the golden nugget drops in that they haven’t shared up until that point. But a bit of, okay, go on. Encouraging them to leave the space, not a full frosty awkward silence, but encouraging silence, warm body language, leaning in and then boom, the golden nugget drops and you go, that was what I needed to hear. That’s the critical piece of information. Thank you so much. And certainly with clients, but this works with team as well because again, if you are the leader, sometimes that could be intimidating, particularly for your junior members of the team or people who’ve recently joined. It may be slightly defensive, slightly, oh, it’s the boss. However, even if you don’t think of yourself that way, they may do. So actually that warm approachability of just, again, just having a chat with people without an agenda management by walking around. It’s a really useful tool. Holding a cup of tea, having a cup of tea, just a general chat with no agenda, make it natural and normal to have that conversation. So if there’s anything else needs to be approached, it’s easier to do.
Jack Peploe:
So on that, you’ve mentioned about the management walk around theory, which is great. Obviously Covid came in and we’ve got a bit of remote working. And in your case, especially the new hospital, you are a multi-site practice and obviously that comes with its unique challenges. How do you maintain that unified team culture? How do you address the challenges that you would typically face or that you may well face?
Andy Green:
And it’s a challenge. You’re absolutely right, Jack being multi-site for starters, albeit geographically, our sites are fairly close together. You can drive from one end to the other in 45 minutes traffic permitting, so it’s other days less. So that’s great, but it’s still not practical to get everyone together always for meetings for instance, or to be dropping in every day. It’s just not going to happen the best will in the world. So maintaining as much open communication as possible. Email is great. Email is super useful. Messaging is text messaging. WhatsApp’s great and is useful, but as you know all too well, the challenge with that is things could be misinterpreted when they’re written down. There’s no nuance to that. So there’s nothing wrong with the phone. The phone is still a very good tool just to pick it up and have a chat. We do use teams or Zoom a lot for meetings.
So we have weekly trading call meetings where our practice principals, the veteran nurse teams who run each of our three groups of practices will come together with our senior leadership teams, our directors, financial controller, troller, HR ops manager, everybody comes together, marketing, et cetera, et cetera, come together to just check in for half an hour every week. And people who are at our main site in person are there in person, everybody else is on teams. And that check-in happens every single week. And that’s really important. That’s a sense checker. And some of it is, okay, how have we done numbers wise? A lot of it though is how are our people, how’s the team, what’s morale? Has there been a challenge with sickness or holiday or we’ve got a space that needs filling or whatever it happens to be. And there’s been a shuffle around and that increased collaboration between the sites and that emphasis of fact, we’ve got lots of teams and we are all one big team, so there’s no us and them, there’s just us.
And so that regularity of contact at the very least on teams or Zoom, so you can see the person as well as talk to the person. It’s a really valuable asset. We do try and get out around the sites. One or other of us will try and get out to the sites on a regular basis so that people will see our faces as well. And we can have those chats and just check-ins and they remember who the heck we are apart from anything else is really, really important. So consistency rather than doing it intensely, but then not for ages. The consistency piece is really important. Keeping those lines of communication open.
Jack Peploe:
And do you have out of interest any permanent railway workers?
Andy Green:
We do, yes, absolutely. We’ve one can be specific here up north and one in Wales for instance, and that works really well with the roles that they have and the interaction that happens. They still feel part of the team, they’re still engaged. It’s still the Pennard way and that’s really, really important. Yeah.
Jack Peploe:
Did they transition from being staff that were working within ARDS to then go into a remote based role or were they employed directly as
Andy Green:
Both scenarios? We’ve got both scenarios. And again, a lot of it was around, obviously life sometimes takes people away from an area and they still love the role that they have, place they work, and hopefully the place they work loves them too. They’re a valuable member of the team and we’ve certainly had that in the past. And so creating a role that they can still be part of the team that works well with remote working has been one of those things that we’ve looked at and has been really, really beneficial. So it’s allowed us to retain great talent and people who really know the practice inside and out. It’s been fantastic and that’s been great. And they still will periodically and it depends on their role and the circumstances, but periodically will come in and be present in person, which is lovely. Otherwise they are remote, but they’re in daily contact. So although the geographically remote, they feel part of the team, which is absolutely great. That’s really, really important.
Jack Peploe:
No, a hundred percent. It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s great when it all clicks together and you are able to actually spread that the values and the beliefs of the business and that they very much feel part of it. It is a significant challenge. I want to move across to your interests, one of which I think is very cool, and I bet you can guess which one that is, but how does your helicopter flying and playing guitar, how do these activities influence your leadership style or even your approach to team building?
Andy Green:
That’s a great question. Yeah, no surprises there. The wingsuit God has picked on the helicopter flight. Absolutely. So I think, and again, as leaders, the challenge is that feeling that you’re never off and leadership leadership’s not nine to five job anyway. Nobody gives you a badge that says, leader, you can’t schedule. I’m going to be a leader from eight till 10 on a Thursday morning. That’s not how it works, as we all know. So sometimes it can be a challenge switching off, and for me it’s been imperative to find things that give me a completely different focus, completely different outlet. I’m using different bit of my brain, I’m doing things that are completely different from my day-to-Day, learning new skills. And again, when it comes to things like reducing risk of Alzheimer’s and cognitive dysfunctions in later in life and things like this, there’s plenty of evidence that learning new things is a great way of encouraging neuroplasticity.
And with my training in NLP and neuro strategies, that’s a huge focus for me. And it has been as part of the reason that my now and 20 years in the personal development world has been so transformative for me because I’ve stretched myself so much in so many areas and I’m doing things like this now that I would’ve loved to do, but I couldn’t ever see myself being brave enough to do it. Maybe 20 years ago. It was just so far in the distance. And I look at my life now and think, oh my God, read the stuff that I’ve done or I do. And it is not about being big-headed, but if my 15-year-old self-had seen my cv, now it’d had gone. That’s, you’ve done some cool stuff, really cool stuff. And that’s where things like the helicopter flying has been in the back of my head for a long time and I love flying. I got my solo glider pilot wings when I was at school in the cadet force. I was in the RF cadets, which was awesome because it surprised a lot of people who didn’t think I was capable of that when I was at school,
Including me. But I love flying. I’ve flown various types of aircraft over the years and had the controls of a few of ’em at times, which has been cool. But helicopter’s, something about that uniqueness of a helicopter, that vertical takeoff, the hovering, just everything about it’s different and they are just flipping. They are cool,
Just cool. There’s no other way. It’s not much more technical than that at a very primal level. I love fast cars and helicoptering. It just all fits into that. And so when I did my taste lesson, I had forgotten how exciting it was to try something that you’ve genuinely never done before because it is completely different from via plate, completely different. And I was buzzing for days afterwards and I was like, I haven’t felt that for too long, for back to my days of doing martial arts and really getting involved in that. And it was like, I need more of this in my life. So it is that challenge. I’ve been practicing simulated engine failures where you go up to 2000 feet and then you basically dump all the power and you start dropping like a stone and it, it’s a mental challenge as well as everything else. My instructor is amazing. He’s absolutely incredibly good. If I was him, I would be much less calm with me in the cockpit. But the progression and just the excitement and the satisfaction in that and that just we better than I do. When you’re flying, there’s just nothing that compares to that
Jack Peploe:
Know I completely agree. Yeah, there’s so many synergies. It’s insane. No, it’s very exciting. It’s nice that disconnect and the level of focus that you need and the fact that you are challenging yourself, there’s that element of risk, but it’s very calculated and that’s what I love about it. It’s not like you’re being a crazy lunatic, even though I’m sure lots of people think I’m, it is very calculated and it’s great because it really engages everything and you see things from a different perspective. I think that’s the bit that is the most exciting about it. And like you say, you’re challenging yourself consistently, but now I’m very jealous. I’d love to do my PL, especially in the helicopter at some point. Hopefully one day that will happen. But I’ll pick my battles and stick with my Rey wings at the moment.
Andy Green:
No, and it is seriously oppressive, serious, honestly. I mean, I’ve seen the footage of you buzzing on the top of the Iga. I was sitting there in awe with, I’ve got goosebumps again now just thinking about it. She’s just talking about it because it’s just extraordinary. You feel fully alive. You do. Yeah. And you cannot think about else at that time. No, you can’t think about work. You can’t think about paying the bills. You can’t think about all the 57 jobs you’ve got to do when you get home. You are fully present. And it goes back to what I said earlier. When you are fully present in the moment, that’s when you feel most alive. That’s when you, all your senses are fully switched on.
Jack Peploe:
You go through that slow-mo moment, they compare it to, I mean, if you’ve ever been involved in a car crash, you go into that heightened sensory overload moment. And when your brain replays that Mac as a memory, it’s so much information that it feels like it went slow. And that’s very much what I felt when I did the I. And that’s what you find when you really truly challenge yourself. I believe that’s kind of what you find.
Andy Green:
Absolutely.
Jack Peploe:
Absolutely. So final question for you, and I’ve got so many questions for you add, so I’m going to have to drag you on another time, but what advice would you give to someone stepping into a leadership role in a veterinary practice for the first time?
Andy Green:
Be humble enough to ask for help. Be honest enough with yourself to take the compliments and appreciate that if you’ve stepping into a leadership role, if you’ve been given it for a reason, and if you don’t feel a hundred percent ready for it, that’s fine. This is about stretching your comfort zone. If we stay in our comfort zone, it doesn’t get bigger. It shrinks. We have to keep stretching that comfort zone in whatever way that comes. And in a leadership position, you’re not going to get everything right all the time. You’re going to make mistakes as is with anything else. If you make them from the right place with the right intention, your decisions are values aligned, your decisions are made to make sure that people are not being hurt, that you are always got the right intention to the best thing by your people when you do make a mistake, if you do that, people will forgive you and people want to help you succeed as a leader in a great culture, the leader is not seen as a threat, but as an inspiration.
That’s a growth mindset. That’s what we want to aspire to. That failure is the pathway to ultimate success. It’s just feedback that the success of others is an inspiration, not a threat. And so don’t see others as a threat to you and don’t have others. See you as a threat. You are there as a leader, you’re there to serve and you go in front when there’s flat coming and you go to the back when the plaudits are coming in. And it can seem very unfair sometimes, but that’s part of the gig is it’s about so much more than just you. It’s not about me, it’s about we and that team thinking. And as I say, being humble.
Jack Peploe:
Oh, well Andy, that’s amazing. And honestly, the expertise in nurturing and leading teams is genuinely invaluable and I think people are going to find this really, really useful. So thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with us today. Before we cut off, how do people get in touch with you?
Andy Green:
That’s a really good question. I’m about to go on sabbatical, so best place is LinkedIn. Hit me up on LinkedIn, Andy Green, I’m on there. So Andy Green panel vets and you’ll find me and I will be delighted to connect and ask answer questions possibly. This next bit’s not directly for the podcast, but I’ve just set up my own company, Andy Green Consulting. I’m taking my expertise out there as well for solving problems at C-Suite and non-exec slash leadership levels. So yes, looking outside the veterinary sector particularly, but also inside. So yeah.
Jack Peploe:
And so is there a live website and things?
Andy Green:
Not yet. So I’ve just literally just set up the company. So the website is not yet functional, but it will be hopefully before too long.
Jack Peploe:
Each episode we add a touch of humour by inviting our guests to share their most unforgettable animal related bloopers. This time we have Olly King who takes us back to a humorous yet slightly cringe-worthy encounter involving a rap during his early veterinary days.
Olly King:
I’m sure asking my colleagues over the years, I’m sure there’ll be far, far more. I mean as an EMS student, I remember Lloyd D at Lipper Equine Hospital and I was on a night shift scrubbing into a colic and I think it was towards the end of my externship there as a student, and I think it was the colon just slowly peristalsis there, just hypnotised me. And I wasn’t sick, but he said, Ollie, you’ve gone white. Please step away from the horse. And someone else scrubbed in to help him. So I was a bit mortified by that, but I think that was quite tiredness induced in my first new graduate job. There was a particular a rats that came in and it was a rapid little thing and it was a bit still on the consult table. I can’t for the life of me remember why the rat was presenting to me probably a chronic cough or something as they do, or one of these abscesses.
And I just lent over the table to examine the rat, not knowing or feeling that his tail was hanging over the table and I crushed it a little bit. He bloody bit me Christ and drew blood and how I just flinched happened to fling the rat off the consult table against the wall, slid down the side. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the client, the bill payer, it was definitely a lady owner because she was there with her 6-year-old or so daughter who almost burst into tears at seeing poor ratty slide down the wall. And thankfully the rat was fine, needless to say, I can’t remember at what point in my first job that was, but I don’t recall seeing the client again. And I’m sure there was a note put on the record, make sure Ollie does not see any rat or just this rat in particular again. But yeah, I’m sure there’ve been plenty more since, but that was a new graduate howler. So if there are any new graduates out there, then yeah, do your best at beating that one.
Jack Peploe:
Coming up next week on the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast, we welcome Rebecca Maher, the founder and managing director of Inside Minds. Rebecca will share her expertise in behavioural science and how it transforms the way veterinary practice engage with their clients. We’ll delve into her unique strategies for bridging the communication gap between facts driven veterinary professionals and emotionally driven pet owners, enhancing client interactions and decision-making processes tune in to discover how her deeper understanding of human behaviour can significantly improve both client satisfaction and practice success.
Rebecca Maher:
We put very simply, behavioural science is just the study of what drives our behaviours, so how our thoughts and our feelings, our perceptions affect what we do. And the thing that I really like about it, and I think the thing that is helping it to resonate with veterinary businesses is that it is very evidence-based. So often when people think about the way that people feel or how we communicate, they start to feel like they’re sort of going off into this really fluffy area. And as scientists, that can feel a bit challenging, but actually behavioural science keeps it really grounded in evidence. So you’re looking at, if I change this thing about the way in which I communicate, what impact does it have on the behaviour? And it helps us understand the neuroscience that sits beneath that, the reasons why that makes a difference to people when we communicate differently.
Jack Peploe:
That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.