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In this week’s episode:

• Emotional intelligence is critical in veterinary settings – Despite working with animals, veterinary professionals interact heavily with people. Understanding and managing emotions – both our own and others’ – is vital for reducing conflict and promoting team harmony.
• Psychological safety determines team culture – A lack of psychological safety manifests in incivility, such as dismissiveness or lack of respect. Fostering a space where team members feel safe to speak and contribute is essential for wellbeing and collaboration.
• Cultural diversity shapes communication styles and conflict – Different cultural backgrounds influence how individuals perceive and resolve workplace challenges. Recognising and respecting these differences can lead to more effective, emotionally intelligent interactions.
• Leaders must actively seek feedback to grow – Leadership behaviour sets the tone for team dynamics. Emotional intelligence assessments and 360-degree feedback are powerful tools to build self-awareness and promote supportive leadership.

This episode explores how emotional intelligence, psychological safety, and culturally aware leadership can profoundly improve communication, reduce conflict, and transform veterinary workplace dynamics.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Recommended Resource: Eric Goldman recommends the podcast F*** Your Comfort Zone by acting coach Margie Haber, which, though outside the veterinary field, offers powerful insights on presence, empathy, and stepping outside your comfort zone – lessons he finds deeply relevant when communicating with others.
• Next episode sneak peak: Next episode we’re joined Guilherme Coelho, founder of Maven Pet. We dive straight into how clinical-grade remote monitoring is transforming pet health, empowering both vets and pet owners through data-driven care inspired by his own dog’s journey.

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
• Liv Oginska is a veterinarian, keynote speaker, emotional intelligence expert and a certified workplace conflict mediator who’ ‘speaks Human’. For the last 5 years, Liv devoted her veterinary career to supporting both individuals and teams (especially leaders) in becoming more human-savvy.
• The human-savvy work focuses on helping veterinary and medical professionals create psychologically safe organisations, as well as sustainable and thriving careers. Liv graduated as a veterinarian from the University of Poland in 2010, worked as a veterinarian in multiple countries in Europe, Australia and North America, and she gained experience and credentials in positive psychology, emotional intelligence and conflict mediation in Cambridge, UK
• Currently, she teaches emotional intelligence at Murdoch University Vet School in Perth, Australia, and she pursues PhD in the topic of emotional competencies among veterinary teams and leaders.
• Liv recommends Work Life podcast by Adam Grant.
• Find out more about Liv’s work with Human Savvy Leadership Training and find all the audio courses here.

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on modern veterinary practice,

Olivia Oginska:

We interact with people every single day. Even though we work with animals, we interact with our colleagues, with our clients, we have our leaders, we have our teammates, and we are all human. And whether we like it or not, there are a lot of emotions involved. So when you think about it, if we don’t know what to do about our own emotions and if we don’t know what to do with other person emotions, it’s not going to go well. So I realised that you know what? There’s such a big space in which we can grow. And that motivated me to learn more about emotional intelligence and also to develop tools that then can translate those theoretical frameworks and all those methods presented by psychology to translate them into something really easy to use in our clinical world. So that’s the story behind my passion and my whole life now focused on emotion intelligence.

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 Liv Ska to the podcast who will talk to us about the power of emotional intelligence in transforming veterinary workplaces. Liv brings a wealth of knowledge as a veterinary surgeon, psychologist, and workplace conflict mediator. We’ll be diving into how psychological safety, cultural awareness, and emotionally intelligent leadership can radically reshape team dynamics and wellbeing in practice. Whether you’re a student practice owner or team member, this episode offers thought provoking insight into what it really means to speak human in the veterinary world,

Olivia Oginska:

The interview. Well, thank you so much for having me here today with you. It’s such a pleasure to be a guest on your podcast. And my name is Olivia. I’m a veterinary surgeon. I’m a psychologist, specialise in emotional intelligence, and I’m the founder / CEO of human savvy.

Jack Peploe:

Liv, it’s really great to have you on the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. Obviously, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Now you have built an incredibly diverse career that spans veterinary medicine, emotional intelligence, and conflict mediation, and I’m really excited to explore how these worlds intertwine, especially in the high pressure environments of veterinary practices. Now, I know you are passionate about empowering individuals and helping teams create psychologically safe workspaces, and I’m keen to dive into how that plays out in veterinary settings. But before we do get into that emotional intelligence, now this is a key part of your work. What initially sparked you in the interest in this area, and particularly in the context of veterinary medicine,

Olivia Oginska:

If I’m completely honest with you, is the fact that I noticed that we could learn more of it in the veterinary industry. And it’s not to say that is anybody’s fault. It’s not to say that, yeah, that we neglected anything. It’s just that we interact with people every single day. Even though we work with animals, we interact with our colleagues, with our clients, we have our leaders, we have our teammates, and we are all human. And whether we like it or not, there are a lot of emotions involved. So when you think about it, if we don’t know what to do about our own emotions and if we don’t know what to do with other person’s emotions, it’s not going to go well. So I realised that you know what? There’s such a big space in which we can grow, and that motivated me to learn more about emotional intelligence and also to develop tools that can translate those theoretical frameworks and all those methods presented by psychology to translate them into something really easy to use in our clinical world. So that’s the story behind my passion and my whole life. Now focus on emotion intelligence.

Jack Peploe:

No, that’s very cool. So I mean, very teams often face stressful situations. How does emotional intelligence help professionals navigate those high pressure moments while maintaining a healthy workplace culture

Olivia Oginska:

In so many different ways. So when we face the stressful situation, let’s say you and I, we are working together is a particularly busy day, and we are running between the patients and there are more patients in emergencies coming, we will feel stress, right? We will feel a lot of pressure on our shoulders. And because of that, when someone is really stressed, I call it the low battery mode, that is that mode that we all go into. So we focus literally on our survival, which means doing our job and not hurting ourselves physically or mentally, not making a major mistake. And because we have very limited attention and limited energy in that situation, we need to focus that appropriately. So we stop paying attention to how we communicate. We can then snap at one another, we can be unpleasant, we can be impatient, we can just lose our temper. And it’s very normal, it’s very human. So if we are learned to pay more attention to what is happening to us emotionally, we can catch it before it turns into something unpleasant, before it hurts another person before we throw a comment that can destroy their mood or their wellbeing, their mental health that day. So this is where emotion intelligence can really prevent more stress and harm that can be done interpersonally, but also can be used as a tool as we are in that stressful situation.

Jack Peploe:

So I suppose this goes in nicely about creating a psychologically safe organisation. Now, can you break down what psychological safety looks like in a veterinary practice and why it’s so critical?

Olivia Oginska:

I’m going to flip that on its head and I’m going to tell you how it looks when we don’t have psychological safety because this is the easiest way to notice how it looks. So I’m going to use your example again. Imagine that we work together and it is a bit of a stressful day and we have morning rounds together and we talk about cases and you offer an idea and instead of actually diving deeper into that idea with you, my reaction is to roll my eyes and do that. Maybe I don’t even listen to you, maybe I ignore you, maybe I talk over you. And that is all the examples of incivility. So when we experience incivility, this is definitely when the psychologically psychological safety goes down, because when someone is shut off towards us, we don’t feel welcomed. We feel rejected in a certain way.

We feel disrespected and evolutionary speaking, we as species, we really need to feel that we belong. If we don’t belong, we are in danger. When we lived in little tribes by the fire, if someone was rejected and away from the fire, it meant that they were in danger. So our Asian brains haven’t changed. We still feel the same. So if someone reject us, so incivility, when our ideas are shut down where we want to discuss a case and then someone jumps into criticism when we feel ostracised sometimes or bullied, that is definitely a sign of very low psychological safety. So I hope that that makes sense.

Jack Peploe:

No, that does make sense. And I mean if we were to look at, because obviously I know your work spans across multiple countries and cultures. How does cultural context influence emotional intelligence and conflict resolution in the workplace? Do you find certain challenges are sort of universal across veterinary practices?

Olivia Oginska:

I would say that the culture vastly impacts our levels of psychological safety, but in a little bit different, maybe unexpected way. So our workplaces are very diverse and we have a lot of nationalities working there. And I see the world a little bit differently than you, Jack. This is a foreign country where I live. I needed to adjust to the culture. I speak in a language that I wasn’t born into, I think differently, and I see the world differently. So culture definitely makes us different, even though we still have a lot of things in common. So when we have a challenge that we need to tackle together, we’ll have different ideas about how to do it, we will communicate that differently. Maybe I will be loud, I’ll be intense, which I am in theory life, I might be a little bit too much for someone.

Whereas your communication style would be different. It would depend on your background. I call it our programming. So everything that we have at the back of our mind, our beliefs about the world that we throughout our lives. So in those situations, ES culture very much changes a lot of things. And there are also things that we very much have in common. No matter where you are in the world, we all experience conflict on a daily basis. It’s a normal part of life. I heard once that if you have no conflict in the workplace, it’s not peace, it’s apathy,

Jack Peploe:

Right, Okay.

Olivia Oginska:

So what we really want, we want to have different opinions that this makes us creative and makes our life interesting and beautiful, but we need to be able to talk about it in a emotionally intelligent way so that it doesn’t turn into a fight. It doesn’t turn into something really harmful. So yeah, there’s many different flavours, the conflicts, there’s many different flavours of communications and cultures definitely contribute, but also make it more interesting at the end of the day.

Jack Peploe:

So you talked about obviously the workplace there and how it’s important to have a bit of differentiation and discussion. And I suppose the leadership role is quite important with that. What are some of the specific strategies that can foster self-awareness and emotional competency within veterinary teams? How can leaders ensure they’re creating an environment conducive to personal growth?

Olivia Oginska:

Absolutely. There’s loads of research that supports that notion of leader being incredibly impactful on job satisfaction, on the high performance in a team. We don’t have many studies specifically in the veterinary industry, but we as human beings, we are still the same. So we could translate the research from other industries into veterinary, and we know that leader is incredibly impactful. What leader does the rest of the team sees as a norm? And that’s the key in that because if their leader is uncivil or makes decisions without giving enough clarity, when the leader makes the team confused, when the leader makes the team feel unsupported, that becomes a part of the culture. Now, few things that can be done for the leader, especially to make sure that they are leading the team in a supportive way, is to definitely get as much knowledge about how they’re perceived as possible, which is obviously feedback.

And that is very hard for the leaders. Again, we do have research that shows that the higher we climb on that ladder in the organisation, the less feedback we actually get, which is counterintuitive, right? Because the higher you are, the more impact you have on other people. So you should hear from them what they need from you. But it’s not a common practice to have very regular feedback sessions for all the leaders in the practices. One of the things that I do with my leaders in my leadership training, I do emotion intelligence 360 for all of them. So we find out the truth, how they show up to their people, and there are a lot of blind spots and a lot of tears when they get results. Sometimes happy tears, but mostly, yeah, sad tears because they’re surprised no one ever told them. So self-awareness to gain that three feedback definitely kind around you, that 360 above at your level and below you in that hierarchy. That’s the biggest advice I can give to the leaders.

Jack Peploe:

No, I think that’s really, really good advice. It is difficult. You are quite right as that kind of glassier approach is that you’re sort of a top on top of the G glassier and everything’s going on underwater, and you have absolutely no idea what is actually happening below you, even though you wish you would and you try to make yourself as available and accessible as you possibly can. But I think the 360 feedback idea is a fantastic one. Now, I know that you teach emotional intelligence at Murdoch University. How do you find students in early career bets respond to learning these skills? Do you see that there’s often a shift in mindset when they understand the importance of these emotional competencies?

Olivia Oginska:

Students are a piece of work. Students keep me humble, Jack. It’s really fantastic to work with students because they show me a very different perspective. First of all, they are now a different generation, most of them. There are some older students, older graduates who did different degree beforehand. That’s one thing. But another thing is that when they are studying, they’re very focused on those clinical subjects and they don’t necessarily see the importance of those nonclinical topics because they haven’t experienced the need for them just yet. They obviously have some practice, they spend some time in the practices, they are exposed to different environments. Some of them know straight away that if someone is misbehaving, miscommunicating, causing the drama in the workplace, they know that it’s not a good impact on the culture and how everyone feels. However, they are not in the position of power just yet.

So they don’t know what sort of impact they will have on their coworkers on other vets or nurses. In other words, they don’t know the importance. They can’t grasp how essential that is to really apply your clinical skills. So my job is to convince them to bring as many clinical examples to them in which emotion, intelligence, feedback skills, conflict mutation skills are actually useful. And I need to be very creative, very, very creative to do it. But I do love it and creativity is definitely one of my beloved things and one of my strengths. So that makes me a happy person and a very humble person as well, because students will tell me if something does not work.

Jack Peploe:

No, that’s very cool. Now, as you pursue your PhD in emotional competencies among veterinary teens and leaders, I’m intrigued. What discoveries have surprised or challenged your views on the topic?

Olivia Oginska:

One of the biggest surprises that I’m working currently on is that I did a lot of literature search to learn about the things that actually make us feel supported. Because when you take a look at the studies that show the reasons for people leaving the profession or changing their jobs, so the high attrition in the veterinary industry, nearly every single study you’ll find someone mentioning the lack of support from the leadership, the lack of support from the team. And as someone who is immersed in the topic of support, because that is obviously emotion feel supported. I wanted to learn more about the practical things that serve us feeling supported. And there’s not much out there, not even in the medical world. So the next part of my PhD will focus on finding exactly that, what makes leaders seem as truly supportive leaders. And we need to get very granular.

I would love to offer as much support, as much information, kind of like a recipe as possible to those leaders to show up in a supportive way. And because I’m very much focused on those situations, there are more negative kind of like conflict related, I will be investigating that in that specific area of the unpleasant interaction between the employees. So I really would love to know what does it mean to be a supportive leader when things get messy? That was very supporting, very surprising to me. And because of that, I kind of changed the direction of my PhD, which always happens. It’s fantastic.

Jack Peploe:

Very cool. Now, one final question. I’ve just seen the time, but I really want to ask you this. If someone wants to start building their emotional intelligence or fostering psychological safety in their practice, what’s the first step they should take?

Olivia Oginska:

First step? Let me think. Let’s start at the very, very, very beginning. I think they need to understand what is the reason for that. Because growing your emotional intelligence, it’s not a piece of cake. It is a lifelong engagement. It is something that we really need to devote our time and attention to. We need to be motivated. In other words. So if the reason is not sustainable, if it’s not going to give you enough motivation to keep going, even though things get hard, they’re not going to be successful. One of the most beautiful reasons for the person to develop their emotion intelligence is to feel at peace with what they do and where they are. And emotion intelligence helps us discover our values, what we are great at, what we actually need to work on, and how to show up emotionally in a way that we actually want to as someone who is maybe a pleasant person, a kind, a good person. So it takes a lot of work. And if you want to have a peaceful, thriving life, definitely emotion intelligence is the place to start.

Jack Peploe:

That’s Liv. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been really a truly fascinating hearing your insights into the human side of veterinary care, and especially on how emotional intelligence can truly transform both individual careers and team dynamics. So I’m really hoping that people are going to take away a lot from this session. And again, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. Now, before I do close this off, if people do want to get in touch with you, how can they go about doing so?

Olivia Oginska:

The easiest way I think is through LinkedIn. So I am there, it’s easy to find me or through email. So it’s info@behumansavvy.com. I will respond, I’ll ask you a lot of questions and I will try to help you get what you truly need yourself or your team needs. But I promise you it might not be as easy as you think, but I’m going to be there with you.

Jack Peploe:

Liv, thank you so much. That was so good.

Olivia Oginska:

Thank you so much for having me.

Jack Peploe:

Every week we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Eric Goldman.

Eric Goldman:

So in terms of podcasts, the one that I really love is a woman named Margie Haber and nothing to do with veterinary space. She’s actually an acting coach and she’s been in the business for over 30 years, and she’s a podcast called, I’ll Say F*** Your Comfort Zone, what I can say legitimately in a podcast. But if you think about actors, one of the things that she started was this whole programme around cold reading. How do you immediately get a script and you have to change who you are and adopt this character. And so it really gets into your comfort zone and starting to think about who you are, how you relate to people trying to be in the moment, understand, really focused on what you’re trying to do. And that’s how she’s trained actors. And I just really love that A, I personally know Margie, but I like how she thinks. I like how it taught me to think about when I’m interacting with someone. It’s about them. It’s not about me. It’s about how am I helping them. And so kind of rethinking my whole approach about, well, my comfort zone, even doing this podcast, do I enjoy doing podcasts? It really isn’t. It’s about disseminating a bunch of information to a bunch of veterinarians in this space and what’s important to them. And so I love her podcast. I think people enjoy it.

Jack Peploe:

Coming up next week, we welcome Guilherme Coelho founder and CEO of Maven Pet with a background in biomedical engineering. And over a decade in the pet industry, Gillam is on a mission to transform how we monitor pet health through 24/7 clinical grade remote monitoring. In this episode, we’ll explore how his personal experience with his dog Tommy, sparked the creation of Maven. How data is giving both vets and pet owners peace of mind and what the future of veterinary care could look like when powered by smart connected technology.

Guilherme Coelho:

Keeping an iron respiratory rate is really important for patients with cardiac problems, heart murmur, let’s say. We actually have users that are capable of by their own adjust the heart medication based on information they see on Maven Pad. And so I think that’s the next level for the industry, which is not only also helped vets and clinicians to have information, actual information and accurate information to guide their treatment and their diagnosis, but also empower pet owners to have some sort of ownership towards their pet’s wellbeing, right? So that’s the end goal of Maven and what we’ve building so far.

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.