414 - Staff Are Leaving and Ownership Already Knows Why

0:00Maria Pirita: Ten years ago, I thought people came to conferences for information. I was wrong. You can Google almost any answer in 30 seconds while hiding in a supply closet. What you can't Google is skill. Skill is having hard conversation when you're exhausted, short-staffed, and the person across from you is upset. And that only comes from practicing with people who will tell you the truth when you miss. That's what Uncharted is. On Friday, January 15th in Orlando, the day before VMX opens, we're celebrating 10 years with a one-day conference built around leaders practicing hard things together. You'll get Dr.

0:37Maria Pirita: Peter Weinstein, the Uncharted team, and about a dozen mic drop talks from people in the community, people you know like Dr. Phil Richmond and Dr. Caitlin DeWild. I'm not going to tell you it'll be easy because it won't. But if you want to do the work alongside people who get it, come and join us. details are at unchartedvet.com register today don't miss your chance welcome back to another

1:02Ron Sosa: episode of the uncharted veterinary podcast i am your host maria burrita and i am super excited for today's episode because this is a mailbag that it sounds like it came in from a team member not quite a practice manager and this team member is frustrated let me tell you they've got a practice manager whom they believe is playing favorites, who is becoming somewhat toxic. And the hardest part is practice owner seems to know all about it, but refuses to do anything. So I think a lot of people are going to relate to this episode. I think a lot of practice managers are going to see themselves here.

1:34Ron Sosa: I think a lot of team members can relate to having a manager like this. And I think a lot of us at the end of the day, it is really hard to live your veterinary career and not encounter some of what this mailbag was sharing. So if this sounds familiar, go ahead and saddle up and let's get into this episode. And now, the Uncharted Podcast.

1:58Maria Pirita: I want to take a moment to talk here about something that hits close to home for all of us that are working in the vet clinic. We all know that veterinary medicine isn't just a career path. If it were just a job, we'd probably all have much cleaner clothes and a way lower blood pressure. No, it's a calling. It's that thing inside you that keeps you showing up for your patients and your team, even on the days when the coffee machine is broken and the schedule is double booked. Well, our friends at Zoetis get that. They've just launched a new initiative called Care Is Your Calling. It's specifically designed to recognize and support veterinary teams, not just for the work that you do, but for the reason that you do it.

2:36Maria Pirita: And here's the thing. Hundreds of people at Zoetis are actually veterinarians themselves. They've been in the trenches, they understand the realities of daily practice, and they've spent the last 70 years working arm-in-arm with pros like us to push the profession forward. Everything Zoetis does is about strengthening that partnership, whether it's through clinical tools, reliable solutions you can actually trust in the exam room, or just listening to our feedback to build better resources for the future. They want to support your calling so that you can keep doing what you love. So do me a favor, go check out careisyourcalling.com.

3:11Maria Pirita: Take a look at the resources they're building for you and your team. That's careisyourcalling.com. All right, let's get back to the show.

3:21Ron Sosa: All right, I am back on the Untraded Podcast with Ron Sosat. Ron, I brought you specifically for this mailbag because it is about managers, first of all. And I feel like you are doing so much great work when it comes to the word toxic. Like you are somebody who has challenged me to not use that word because you're so right. I already, when people used the word toxic, I already was like, there's no way there's this many toxic people, right? Like that just doesn't exist. And so already I was kind of feeling that way. But even now, now like there are, I do use that word specifically for certain types of managers or things that I see or people, but it makes me like less, it makes me think about it more when I want to use it.

4:04Ron Sosa: You know what I mean? Like, well, are they truly toxic? Oh no. And this mailbag kind of leans into that. So are you ready?

4:12Maria Pirita: Let's do it.

4:13Ron Sosa: Okay. So this mailbag, and it was really short, so I'm going to read it. But they said, our manager doesn't actually manage the team. She plays favorites, talks down to employees and consistently receives poor evaluations, yet nothing ever changes. Her leadership has created a toxic work environment, morale is low, and people are starting to leave because of it. The most frustrating part is that ownership seems aware of the problem but refuses to do anything leaving the staff feeling unheard and unsupported i immediately was like oof also not usually it's the practice owner practice manager practice leader sending us a mailbag in this case this made my heart a little happy i think this is a team member that's listening to our management podcast that's awesome but yeah so right off the bat what do you think about this mailbag just right off the bat Okay.

5:04Maria Pirita: There's two things, right? I want to go on like both sides of the coin here. Number one, this person had, and understandably so, has their frustrations. And I think it makes sense. And I want to validate the fact that what they are experiencing is the impact of whatever is going on in their practice, right? So whatever it is, good or bad, in the other side of that coin, they are feeling the impact right and that's what matters on the flip side of that I can't help but read this mailbag and say how did you know they got a negative review I was wondering the same how do you know they haven't had conversations so like if a manager or leader or practice owner is doing their job well I've always said this if I'm if I'm doing my job well no one in the practice should know anyone's receiving coaching conversations, accountability conversations or whatever.

6:00Maria Pirita: What we should be seeing though is a change in the behavior. And improvement. We're not going to go like, oh, I had a conversation with Joanne and now she's.

6:08Ron Sosa: Just so you know, I talked to Ron about the way he was talking to you. Like, I can't do that. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.

6:14Maria Pirita: And so there's, there's assumptions here, right? That we are making due to the impact that they're receiving, right? There you can only see the impact coming their way. And so I think it's important to understand this mailbag from that perception and that lens.

6:30Ron Sosa: Yeah, I'm totally with you. That was one of the first things that I said. And I think as a manager, that's probably why is most we've definitely been in a situation like I remember having a one on one with a team member where she was so frustrated. She's like, you know, you know, that this person has been a problem for a while yet no conversations happen. And I had to tell her, I was like, I understand how that's what it might seem like, but I want you to know that if conversations are happening, I can't share them with you. And so what I need from you is to just let me know if you see changes happening.

7:03Ron Sosa: Like, I want you to know that I believe you. I trust in you. I know that this is frustrating and I am handling what I can handle. However, whatever conversations happen, like, you're not going to know that they're happening because that means that I'm doing my job well, just like if it was you who I needed to correct, I would be protecting your privacy as well. And that's kind of when she was like, okay. But even then, so that was hard.

7:27Maria Pirita: One of the things I really like about what you said is, right, we're turning their own confirmation bias to the positive, right? Instead of like, I'm going to see whenever this person is doing wrong to I need you to tell me when things change. So now they're scanning for the change rather than confirming all of the things haven't changed. Right. I love that. That just a tweak and reframing to use their confirmation bias for good.

7:54Ron Sosa: For good. And it's so true because honestly, anytime that we do start to have this like feeling like somebody is doing things wrong, that's what I think naturally our brains want to do. we want to start looking for all of the things that they're doing wrong so we can build this list of reasons why the practice manager or the practice owner should let this person go when in reality like we all make mistakes we all have situations that we go through and in and in general like this is there is there are things going on and we need to address that there's things going on we can't go into so much detail but I think that this takes actual work for people.

8:31Ron Sosa: So I guess what I want to ask you is, how do you avoid assuming that ownership doesn't care when you don't know what's happening behind closed doors?

8:39Maria Pirita: This is hard, right? When you're a team member, you're in this position where all you can see is the impact of what's happening, and the impact coming at you is negative, right? And you have no power in the situation, right? You have no ability to make change. You have no authority to do anything about it. I think there's things that you can ask. And I think we'll probably get into that later in this episode is my assumption. I think there are things that you can ask for that are not specific to, did you have a conversation with them? How did it go? How was their review? Did they get better this time?

9:15Maria Pirita: Like, that's not what that's not the measure of success here. And so I think that there are some things that we can ask our leaders in that practice of what to expect such things like, when should we start to see truly results? At what point should we expect to see results change? It's hard to know exactly what is happening here, but that would be one thing. It's not tied to when are you having a conversation with this person? It's when should we expect to see results? Because at some point, the accountability, if it's happening, there is some sort of deadline. Yeah.

9:53Ron Sosa: And I love that so much because you're trying to be transparent from the team member perspective. You're trying to find the good and then, like you said, kind of look for the change. And so I love that that's the question that we can kind of look for and point towards. And then also in general, I think for me, avoiding assuming ownership doesn't care means that like for myself, I have to find the ways in which ownership has shown that they do care. So whether it's the fact that ownership is having one on ones with me. So like as I was wondering in this mailbag, you know, did they say that, you know, the most frustrating part is that ownership seems to be aware of the problem.

10:30Ron Sosa: does that because they are making ownership aware of the problem and then so they think oh because I'm bringing this to the practice owner and they're not doing anything from it does that mean that they are aware of the problem and so for some of it is just kind of like looking inwardly and it's like is it because I have said something and I'm not seeing change or is it because I haven't said something or am I just assuming that they're saying what I'm saying so some of that has to be how much of this has been reported how much is of it is being is actually being shared and then for me part of it is just like trying to sit into this in this space of just like there is always something else going on that we sometimes are not super aware about yeah and i'm not trying to make excuses for this practice manager because if she's truly doing all of these things like this is this is a problem but there are at the end of the day one of the things that i love about the way that you talk about the word toxic is the fact that most practice managers we do know in veterinary medicine do not receive appropriate management and leadership training they're highly skilled technicians who have done their job great as technicians and then they get thrown into this practice management world which is a completely different set of skills it is their their soft skills on communication on patients on training things that we don't necessarily train on just because we are on the team and so not to say that this isn't that this isn't still a problem but part of it is kind of like how much of this it sounds like you've brought some of this to the practice owner, how much of it feedback have we brought directly to the practice manager in the sense of these are the things that I actually do need from you or it hurts my feelings when you do these things.

12:03Ron Sosa: When you only ever take Ron on grocery runs, it makes me feel like you favor Ron instead of me. When you set the schedule and you only give Ron and Katie the weekends off and I have to work all weekends, it makes me feel like you favor those people because now we're attaching those action items to the specific examples I think to what is making me feel like somebody is paying favorites right because they could just the practice manager could totally not be aware that they are playing favorites because of whatever is happening you know they don't see it as favorites yet so some of this is just like how important I guess do you think it is to replace the labels with specific examples right and this is this is partially what I'm talking about here is I do think we need to replace some of these labels we talked about she plays favorites and talks down to employees.

12:51Ron Sosa: What does that mean? What do you think that means, Ron?

12:54Maria Pirita: Well, and so my definition is going to be very different. Oftentimes, what I see as being talked down to is sometimes having a corrective action conversation, right? And if she being talked down to other employees, to me, I go back to how do you know this? Is this something you have witnessed? Or is this something that you are hearing through a grapevine? Because people like to interpret their perspective. I think there's a huge piece here, Maria, that I think we need to release and give permission for this mailbag questioner responsibility for trying to change the manager.

13:28Ron Sosa: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

13:29Maria Pirita: Right. I think that's a huge piece of this. They're they are wanting to change. They won't want this person to change. They want this person to change. And what oftentimes I see as the manager when people are doing this with other people, like I've had technicians do this with each other or the front versus the back is you come to me with like, this person's doing this, this person's doing this, this person doing this. And if you're only coming with the negative, then it's harder to make and really interpret as something that you are being balanced with, right? Or are you just really going in and after this person?

14:02Maria Pirita: I take less of that if the only thing you come to me is the bad. As a manager, just like our employee files, we need to obviously document where coaching conversations happen or write-ups or performance management, we also need to know where they're doing well, right? Yes. And at some point, if you can't tell your boss things that are going well with this person, then I don't think they can hear you without balanced feedback.

14:29Ron Sosa: Yeah. And that's something that I actually wondered as well, because the person says, obviously, the most frustrating part is that the ownership seems to be aware of the problem. But can you imagine if you're the practice owner and you have this technician and these are the examples that they're not giving you any specific examples but this is what they're telling you is hey I have a problem with the practice manager she plays favorites she talks down to the employees and all we're sharing is negative information to me and without specific information I could see that being like well I can't really do I need to know the specific examples in order to do something about it first of all in order to coach her and so if she is playing favorites what does that mean Like, what is she specifically doing so that I can coach her in a way?

15:09Ron Sosa: Otherwise, you do fear becoming, instead of like actually being able to promote the change, you end up sounding more like a negative Nancy. And that's what I'm trying to kind of, I think, get us out of, right? Is we need to acknowledge feedback is.

15:23Maria Pirita: You're feeding into that negative culture that you don't want to have.

15:27Ron Sosa: Exactly. Exactly. It's so spot on. And so, Ron, if you're the employee, and we talked about this, we know that responsibility here is not just going to ownership. I think that we've got one-on-one conversations. We can talk about psychological safety here. Maybe there's a lack thereof, and that's why they've gone to the practice owner overall. But I guess what I'm getting at is if ownership already knows that morale is low, what information actually drives change?

15:56Maria Pirita: I think that's actually the question I want to ask the mailbag submitter is, what evidence do you need to collect to believe that this situation is genuinely changing?

16:09Ron Sosa: Yeah.

16:10Maria Pirita: Right? And I think that's what you need to have the conversation with, either with the manager, either with the practice owner, is like, what evidence am I going to see if things are actually changing? Again, changing that confirmation bias to look for those pieces and assume that change is happening. I think the other question is, if you're not seeing that change, how much longer are you going to be willing to remain in that kind of environment?

16:36Ron Sosa: Yeah, also very true. And I think when we get to action steps, we can definitely talk about that for sure. This information that I think is really important too is there's all of this will bleed into other areas, right? We know that that practices that have low morale or bad cultures, it tends to affect their productivity, right? And this is all information that the practice owner is going to want to have. And so I think that we should be able to take a look at the numbers or metrics to be able to figure out, okay, what does success really look like, right? What are the dates? What are the patterns?

17:05Ron Sosa: What's the business impact? What are the facts over the frustration? And also, how is this really impacting things? Because if we're going to the practice owner and we're just sharing, hey, the practice manager is bad because of A, B, C, D, but we don't really share the impact of it all, then it really just doesn't really make a case for why we need the change in the first place. And so instead of, oh, this practice manager is making my life miserable, how is it really impacting patient care? How is it impacting the rest of the team? What are you seeing?

17:31Maria Pirita: Well, here's the insidious part of that, I think, right? So if we go to the flip side of the coin and assume this manager is toxic right or creating this toxic environment are we creating this environment and then the return on investment looks really good in the metrics and which the owner looks at it going well everything is looking great in my business so

17:51Ron Sosa: whatever they're doing was working for me yeah and not seeing the impact of the culture that's being created well and i think that that's a valid point too right because one thing is like the profits and the revenue and looking at those numbers but i think there's other numbers that we can look at, like the number of call-outs, for example. And that's something that you know as an employee is you can look at and be like, at three days a week, we have somebody call in. That is a sign that our culture is not doing so great. And we maybe don't have the ability to do engagement surveys, but we can certainly start to look at the general mood of the practice, right?

18:27Ron Sosa: We can put a number on that. We can start to put a number on how many appointments we are actually being able to see versus just looking at revenue numbers. So there are, I think that a bad culture will have certain metrics that are still going to be off. And even if the revenue is still growing comparatively to what it was before maybe, and that's what the practice owner is seeing, they said in their mailbag, the most frustrating part is ownership seems to be unaware of the problem, but refuse to do anything, leaving the staff feeling unheard and unsupported. And so where are they getting this, leaving the staff feeling unheard and supported?

18:59Ron Sosa: Because if there are more people that are feeling unheard and unsupported, now's their time to shine also, right?

19:05Maria Pirita: Yeah. I'm trying so hard to like assume good intent. I know, right? Of the mailbag. And I do believe that they have good intentions, which is why they brought it here. And there's pieces of this that I can't help but go, are we actually giving into this negative environment and contributing by gossiping and coming together and trauma bonding? I'm like, yep, see, she did it again, right? And contributing to this negative environment rather than bringing it around and saying to your point earlier, here's the impact, right? We don't want to be here. I need more mental health days. I am really having trouble wanting to come into work like I used to.

19:41Maria Pirita: Like, I think that those are probably what you're getting at with those sort of metrics. And those, it doesn't sound like is being expressed in a way that's productive.

19:50Ron Sosa: And you always want to be weary of speaking for others also, right? Like any, like as a manager or a practice owner, anytime that I hear, oh, everybody's upset about this, everyone's upset, those tend to be red flags. And so I think you're right. I think instead of feeding this and going back and talk trauma bonding, or like you said, or talking about the practice manager, I want you to tell them like, you should put that in a report and set it in. Like, honestly, don't tell me about this. I'm not the person that can do the change, right? Like if you're feeling unheard and unsupported, you need to go to somebody.

20:21Ron Sosa: And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Because I've been in those situations where somebody's like really upset about something and they're talking about somebody else. And my first thing that I want to say is like, have you talked to them about it? Like, that's literally the first thing. Cause if you haven't, then that's where we need to go. Like we need to bring this to the attention of that person somehow. And so I think that that is a much more healthier way to solve this conflict. Then you're right. Us just sitting around having drinks later after work and being like, wow, that was a terrible shift with the manager, wasn't it?

20:49Ron Sosa: And then now we're all, we're kind of feeding into that culture that we don't want to have. And so I think that's super, super, super key. Do you want to take a break right here and talk about action steps or do you have anything else from a headspace perspective?

20:59Maria Pirita: I think that's pretty much from a headspace perspective for me.

21:02Ron Sosa: I think it's very valid what they're feeling and experiencing.

21:06Maria Pirita: Yes.

21:06Ron Sosa: We know that cultures like this do exist. We know that a lot of practice managers, unfortunately, are not given the resources that they need to move upward. Some of this, we do have to wonder, how do we know this information? And some of this, we have to also wonder, just because there are things happening in the background doesn't mean that We're not just because we don't see them happening doesn't mean that they're not happening in the background. So all of these just help me to get into a better headspace when I'm trying to think about, OK, how am I really going to solve all of these things?

21:32Maria Pirita: Yeah. And I want to make it clear, like just because the practice manager is not supported and has not had leadership training, has not had the proper mentorship to be, let's say, a good leader in this mailbag person's eyes. That is a reason, not an excuse for the impact. Absolutely.

21:51Ron Sosa: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And of course, and that's why I said like this is not an excuse for her. Yeah. But rather it gives us.

21:57Maria Pirita: That's what triggered it.

21:58Ron Sosa: It gives us that ability to know what to move forward, right? So if in this scenario the practice owner is looking at this and is like, well, I want to keep both my support staff that submitted this and I want to keep my practice manager, that's the area that we need to go into. So if that's truly the case, she doesn't have any leadership training, that might be part of our action steps is we need to try and get this person some leadership training and how do we do that? So yeah, let's take a break right here and we'll talk about some action steps.

22:23Maria Pirita: Let's do it.

22:25Ron Sosa: You believe that Uncharted is turning 10? That's right. Uncharted Vet and Her Conference is celebrating 10 years and you're going to want to be there. It is happening on January 15, 2027 and registration is open right now. Unchartedvet.com. Hope to see you there. All right. All right. So we've established this already. We've got our practice manager who is doing some toxic-ish things. We don't have the full story, obviously. We assume that this person is bringing it up to the practice owner already and that they are somewhat aware. Yet we still have a staff that is feeling unheard and unsupported.

23:00Ron Sosa: So where do you go from this? You just listened to the headspace piece. You're in a much better headspace. What do you do first, Ron?

23:06Maria Pirita: Yeah, I think if I'm this employee, this person, I think the first thing I want to do is get away from the impact of what I am feeling and seeing and get more into the details like we sort of talked about earlier. I want to document very specific behaviors, right? I want to know what dates did it occur, what exactly happened. I want to write this up like a medical record, like what was said, not how we felt, right? We want to stay away from emotional language. I want to know who is present in the situation so that if an investigation gets opened, you have the people that they need to refer to.

23:43Maria Pirita: Not that you're talking for them, but here's somebody who was present for the situation when it happened. And I'd want to know how many times has this particular incident reoccurred and previously documented. That's what I would be bringing up. Like, hey, here's a concern I have. I'm struggling to want to come in to work on time or I'm struggling to want to come into work. I'm feeling demotivated. this is what happened once again. Here's when it happened. Here's who was a witness. And keep it at a very, like it sounds cold, but you got to keep it at a very objective level and not add the emotion and feeling into it as much as we want to, because that is who we are.

24:19Maria Pirita: We're messy human beings.

24:20Ron Sosa: Yeah. I think keeping the emotion out of it is really a rock star move, right? Because you're, you're looking at the facts, you're sitting down, you're looking at the actual data. And I think you're going to get further that way. It's about being, you want to be right, you want to be effective, right? You will be more effective if you can just look at the data and then also look at what can actually change because that is what can change i can't change you know a certain feeling that we might be having but i can't i can change what led to that feeling right and so i think that that's that's super crucial before i might even get there for this practice for this team member i think i would want to really sit down and think about why i feel it's so important for me to change the culture what is making you stay at this practice because it doesn't sound like they're the practice manager doesn't sound like they're the practice owner.

25:04Ron Sosa: But clearly, there's a reason why you want to stay here. And oftentimes, people, we hear this phrase all the time, people don't leave jobs, they leave managers, right? And so I'm wondering, what's keeping you here? Like, genuinely, what is it?

25:18Maria Pirita: Is this enough for you to leave already?

25:20Ron Sosa: Yeah, exactly. Because part of me, and I think that this is really, really important, because I remember a situation in which I had what I would, I don't think I would call a toxic manager, but she did similar things to what this mailbag is describing. And I did see this person as more of an excellent technician who just did not receive proper leadership and management training for certain things, right? And I remember there were days when I hated going into the practice and I would come home and I was like in tears and I didn't want to do it anymore. And I remember thinking, I only have to stick this out until I finish my degree.

25:54Ron Sosa: And so for me, that was what was holding me in is I had the position that I needed. I was going to school for this degree and I was like once I graduate I'm gonna have the experience and the degree and now I can go somewhere else where I can you know make more money and and do these things it didn't end up getting to that because this practice manager I will say ended up getting demoted because of some of the things that she was doing and so overall it didn't it didn't it didn't last that long but that was what was holding me through was I want this but there was plenty of time when I was like I don't know I don't know if it's worth it I might go somewhere else, you know?

26:28Ron Sosa: And so I think that this is, this is something that I would do before I even look into how I want to fix this in the practice is, is this your circus and are these your monkeys, right? Like, like, it's just, is this your area that you really want to focus on or is it time to leave? And so I think that that, that's something that if I'm really that frustrated, I'm going to start thinking about it. I might start thinking about maybe I shouldn't even deal with this situation, you know? So I think before I even look at, all right, what conversation am I going to have? It's just like, what is my why for staying here?

27:00Ron Sosa: And is it good enough? And is it worth the effort? Because it is going to be effort, I think, to try and fix some of this.

27:06Maria Pirita: Yeah, I think that's probably really important when we get a little bit further down. Like in my mind, I can already see some of progression happening. And that is like the precursor to some of the boundaries that I think we'll talk about in a little bit.

27:18Ron Sosa: Yeah, because I think knowing your why is going to exactly pinpoint to those boundaries in the first place and we do also have to sit down and think about like how much time like you mentioned this also is how much time am I willing like if I do reach out to the practice owner and I and I try to change some of this how much time do I give this before I look back and say I tried my best it's been six months now I didn't get anywhere maybe now it's time to go right like I think that those are questions that I need to ask answer for myself is all right why am I here and how much of this, am I telling myself right now that I'm willing to put up with before I start exploring other options or other clinics?

27:56Ron Sosa: I love what you said about boundaries. Why don't we talk a little bit about that? What do you think is going to be important there? Or what do you think is the next step?

28:01Maria Pirita: Well, okay. Before we get to the boundaries, I think that we've got to, for me, the second action is to organize around the concerns of the business, right? So hopefully we understand what the business is trying to achieve. Maybe we understand a little bit about what our practice owner actually appreciates and tie our concerns, right? We've documented all of these concerns and tie that to whatever their lever is, is what I call it. So is that absenteeism? Is that disengagement? Because we keep talking about how we're not motivated in staff meetings. Is it, you know, patient care, client care? Is it training or like whatever that is, let's tie those concerns to our core values, to what the practice owner cares about so that they can hear us when we bring the concern.

28:49Maria Pirita: So I think that's the thing. And then to your point, Maria, with the boundaries, it's like, okay, I brought this to you. Here's the concern I have. I already thought to myself, how long can I tolerate this? So then I can say, if we can't see any resolution in some of this in the next four months, I might have to polish my resume. And that is nothing against you.

29:09Ron Sosa: And I think you bring up something super wonderful here, and it's the levers themselves. Because we know that the practice owner has likely heard some of this from the team member. That's why they know that the practice owner is seemingly aware. At least I'm assuming that part. It's very possible that we brought this to the practice owner and not in a way that matched their communication style. And so it didn't really resonate with them, right? Because there's a difference in sharing information and actually it resonating. And so if we are more of a D style communicator, we're going to want to be direct and we're going to talk about how this affects, you know, the production, the efficiency of the practice, all of those things that we care about.

29:46Ron Sosa: If we're more of an I, we're going to talk about how this affects the relationships with the team and how that affects relationships with the clients. If we're more of an S, we're going to talk about how this disrupts the harmony of the entire clinic, how there is, you know, there is now issues. If we talk about the practice owner being a C-style, we might talk about the liability that we could get in trouble with if our protocols are broken because of us miscommunicating and things like that. We might talk about the organization or the data that's there, the disengagement and where disengagement leads or where turnover leads.

30:20Ron Sosa: All of those are going to be pinpoints. And I think that that's going to help us see what the real impact is here, because it's one thing to say, oh, hey, the team feels unsupported and unheard versus if they are a C and being like, well, data shows that it costs us 1.5 times the employee's salary every time we have turnover. And so as a result, we're losing X amount of money every time somebody leaves. And I'm afraid that we have people leaving. Like those are significantly different ways of having that conversation. So I think part of this is going to be what is their style? How can we share this information in a way that it resonates and it shows the true impact?

30:55Ron Sosa: And how do we have this conversation in a way that, like you said, does give them that, hey, I want to be able to see change in this amount of time? Or when do you expect we'll be able to see some change in this, right?

31:05Maria Pirita: Yeah. How is progress being evaluated? I love that. You know, what communications will occur in the next two to three months? Or, you know, what communications should we expect on the next staff meeting or on a one-to-one? Like, what does that look like? Like those are the things to ask, not like we said earlier, what their next review is going to look like because that's none of our business.

31:27Ron Sosa: Yeah, absolutely. So oftentimes we did talk about this a little bit. You know, the practice managers don't receive some of this feedback. And I think that that's sometimes what leads us to this situation. If I'm a team member and you're the practice manager, how do I get you to get feedback from the team? And so if that's part of the case that maybe this manager doesn't realize that she's playing favorites, Maybe this manager doesn't realize that what she's doing and she's not received this feedback. What is a good way to convince this practice manager to put in systems so that everybody can give her this feedback so that she is not just so like it.

32:02Ron Sosa: If you were the practice manager in this situation, how would you like to be told, hey, Ron, you need to be doing engagement surveys because people are not happy. But not in that way, obviously. I mean, I feel like for you, you maybe you'd be like, oh, all right, let's do it.

32:14Maria Pirita: Okay. Yeah. But I mean, let's say she's not a decommunicator.

32:20Ron Sosa: Let's say she's not a decommunicator and our relationship is not the same as yours and mine.

32:24Maria Pirita: Yeah. I think this is hard to receive critical, hard feedback from somebody you're leading, right? I think if you have not established that kind of culture, right? Like you and I have established that kind of culture. And if you said, Ron, you're screwing up, I'd be like, where am I screwing up? Tell me, Maria. I'm hungry for the knowledge. I think if you've not created that, I don't know if you can organically create, I don't think it's up to this employee to organically create it, which is probably why they're skip leveling, which is going around the manager right to the owner, which is the safer point to do because it doesn't feel psychologically safe to have yet another conversation that goes nowhere.

33:04Maria Pirita: It sounds like I'm extrapolating and inferring from a lot of what the mailbag said, but if we're going to try, and again, going back to that headspace, if we're going to try, I would probably ask some things like if it was a job that you wanted to do and you feel like it was favorites or the schedule, it's like, Hey, can you walk me through why I didn't get a Tuesday shift and, and so-and-so did. Can you help me understand like the curiosity questions, which are going to show your own personal leadership to your manager will help with you significantly here.

33:39Ron Sosa: And that's kind of some of the things that I was wondering is like, how much of this have you brought the feedback to the practice manager? Because if we have never said anything about the fact that this practice manager is scheduling this way or maybe taking somebody or hanging out with certain people outside of work, we've never been able to ask that question in a curious way, then we're never going to really know that it does bother them, right? Like this practice manager could be hanging out with maybe two techs after work because they've been there so long. And it was not, to her, it was not abnormal.

34:09Ron Sosa: Not realizing that somebody is now feeling like she has favorites. But the question could be, hey, out of curiosity, I noticed you guys go out every Tuesday for drinks and you guys have never extended that invitation to me. Is there a reason, are you guys keeping it just you two? Or like, and then now all of a sudden it's like, class is broken. Oh, wow, I never really thought about that. You know what I mean? So some of the - Oh, you would want to go?

34:32Maria Pirita: Like, I didn't think that was your thing. I didn't think you liked me.

34:34Ron Sosa: Yeah, like I didn't. And for the longest time, I didn't add people on Facebook that were my employees because I was like, I don't want to give you that pressure. I did not realize that one employee took that as, well, I noticed that you were friends with some people, but you never added me. And I'm like, oh, oh my goodness. I am so sorry. It's because I always leave it up to the employee. There are a lot of employees. Yeah, there's a lot of employees who don't want their managers all up in their business. So I've never I've never added you because I didn't want to give you that pressure. And she's like, Oh, I thought you hated me.

35:11Ron Sosa: And I was like, No, no, no, no, no. That's exactly what I mean is that sometimes we do things that we don't realize give us that. And so unless you ask during a one on one or during one of these things, you're not going to know. And so I think how we ask is going to be really important.

35:24Maria Pirita: Yeah, I think that brings up a really important point, right? Like, so if we're giving an opportunity to one employee more than the other, maybe that was part of their like development plan. Like this person wanted to learn how to do anesthesia. And so they got more surgical time because they were trying to work on a development path. Like we don't know unless we get curious, right? Yeah.

35:47Ron Sosa: Same with time off. Somebody could, you know, have a mental health or a physical health thing that we don't know about and which is the reason why they do tend to get a certain day off because they have doctor's appointments that day right like that's information that we're not going to really even be able to share but knowing that there is something else going on oh hey i can't share the information as to why but just know that there's a very specific reason why i have to give ron fridays off and like if there was any other way that i could do it i totally would how about we talk about that though what if we give you mondays off and then that way you get a three-day weekend and you know whatever solution we can come through so that you're not feeling like i'm doing favorites but at the end of the day you don't know if you don't find out and so i think

36:26Maria Pirita: that's super important maybe you got fridays off because you've been there 10 10 years in the practice and i can't elevate your pay anymore therefore you get pick of the litter as far as days off right there's lots of things that can look like favoritism that are tools in our toolbox as a manager to help seniority, to navigate paid discrepancies in lots of different ways that can appear with the perspective of feedback.

36:55Ron Sosa: You get a rock star that is just constantly getting really good feedback. All of a sudden, everybody thinks that they're the favorite. And it's just like, no, they just, they're really good. They've done really good work for this whole month. Like, but you're right. Let's, let's give some feedback to everybody else also. Like sometimes it's as little as that. And so we need, and again, it's about breaking the glass, letting them see that maybe they don't know that they've given this one person tons of positive glowing feedback and have left these other people in the dark. And so that can hurt feelings.

37:23Ron Sosa: It's like, they don't know unless somebody brings that up. And so I think that that's a really good point here.

37:30Maria Pirita: And when the opportunity comes, because oftentimes in a staff meeting, the opportunity is there, take the opportunity and speak up. I've seen that way too many times where when you are given the opportunity, you shy away. You've got to be able to speak up or else we won't know how severe this actually is.

37:49Ron Sosa: Yeah. And I think sometimes we think about things too much. If I do think that maybe this practice would benefit from something like engagement surveys and the practice manager is not doing the engagement surveys, I might bring it up and be like, oh, hey, Ron. You're my practice manager, Ron. Hey, Ron, practice manager. I noticed this other clinic, they told me that they're doing engagement surveys for the whole staff. And as a result, they found out of a bunch of things that the staff loves and things that they were able to improve on. I wonder if maybe our clinic should be doing that, right?

38:14Ron Sosa: Like, it's not like I'm telling you, hey, you should be doing engagement surveys. It's this cool thing that I heard about that this other clinic is doing that maybe we should consider doing. And from there, seeing where the practice manager takes it. Because if she's like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a lot of work, I could be like, oh, I actually found a template you know like I found a template I'll send it to you but really you could just digital and it's all done like I don't know what she's gonna say or she's like oh yeah a lot of times people aren't really honest in those and I was like well I wonder how many how honest people are you know face to face too like sometimes people can be afraid and having that conversation of hey like trying to see what the temperature is now if I get to this conversation and I'm trying to suggest this to the practice manager or even some of the other things like if we're not having one-on-ones, things like that, and nothing is changing.

38:58Ron Sosa: Now that's kind of giving me my answer that I need, I think, whether I'm going to be leaving or not. Because if I'm working at a practice and I've brought up these things that I would like to see change, and they're either ideas that are being shut down immediately, or there is no change coming, I'm going to start thinking about, okay, well, they're not even willing to try to change. Maybe it is time for me to part ways. And so that kind of leads me to one of the last questions that I have for you, which is really at what point do you stop trying to fix the culture and decide that it's time to leave or what kind of boundaries do you put in place before you even get there?

39:32Maria Pirita: Oh, that's good. Yeah, I think that the boundaries for me are very much like, hey, you're promising this communication at each staff meeting. And some of us are very afraid to do this and rightfully so because past employers or maybe current employer, it doesn't have that psychologically safe environment. But I would certainly say, you know, Hey, if things are not improving, like I I've got three more months that I can give you of my mental health. Right. I've got three more months. If I can't see any signs that what you say are going to happen, then I I'm going to have to polish my resume or, you know, I don't know.

40:09Maria Pirita: Yeah. I think it's important to be like, well, I might have to get a second job and this be my part-time. Right.

40:16Ron Sosa: Yeah.

40:17Maria Pirita: Or whatnot. It's like, I can't be here full time knowing that this is going to go on. So I think that those are the boundaries. It's not that this is the problem I see all the time. Boundaries are something that we do, right? As the individual person, we often confuse boundaries with rules and we impose rules on other people. It's like, well, you did this. Well, it's like, no, no, my boundary is when that happens, I'm going to look for another job. Or when this doesn't happen, I'm going to look for another job. So I think that's that's the important part for me. And I think it's leaving is not mean that you failed to fix the culture.

40:53Maria Pirita: Right. I think that there, you know, there's that saying, I always equate it in my head, like another man's trash is another man's treasure or something like that. It's like, it just might not be great for you. And another person is going to think this is the best clinic in the entire world. Right.

41:06Ron Sosa: Yes, absolutely. That's okay.

41:08Maria Pirita: I always jokingly said to my team, it's like, Hey, we dated and it didn't work out. It's okay.

41:14Ron Sosa: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love that you mentioned that because I do I do think that you never know what is out there unless you do actually look for it and find it and and try to find it and so I think you're right there at the end of the day if this culture I think for me it's like if this is a coachable new issue that I might be willing to stay if it's a recurring problem that I'm we're looking at issues and we're looking at me leaving I think that the boundaries piece is very important here because we are giving yourself a boundary in the sense of like okay if this isn't it I might start polishing resume we're talking to the practice manager and we're giving them this feedback it's good for them to have this also make sure that you're ready to actually leave before you do that because i think that sometimes people make this as like a threat and they're like oh well they're not going to want me to leave so i'm just going to say if you don't do this i will leave it's not an ultimatum this

42:04Maria Pirita: is just letting you know like here's my line and when it gets to this point i am i am leaving it's It's not like if you know, it's like when it gets to this point, here's my line. Like, it's okay to define the line. It's not okay to give someone an ultimatum.

42:19Ron Sosa: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you called out the other part too, because I think sometimes we can spend so many years at a practice and it's a sunk cost fallacy, right? Like you are, it doesn't matter that you spent 10 years at a practice. You're not getting those 10 years back. Like, and you're going to trade your future for your past because now you get 10 more years there of dating it simply because you spent so much time there. And so do remember that's a sunk cost fallacy. You're not going to get that time back. I know that you want to be loyal.

42:49Maria Pirita: I equate it to dating all the time. It's like, okay, we dated this practice. Here's what didn't work. Now I know the things I know a little bit more about my new partner that I want to find. I know things I don't want out of a partner that I want to find, right? And how can I use the information from what I learned over the last 10 years at this product practice to ask the proper interview questions back at them when I'm interviewing somewhere else.

43:14Ron Sosa: And I love that, like literally learning. I was just talking to a practice manager, somebody who I was coaching earlier this year. And she was like, yeah, I wasted a lot of time there because of the leadership and the management. And I didn't get to learn anything. And I'm like, I wouldn't say that. And she's like, why? And I was like, because you learned what not to do, right? And she's like, well yeah I guess so I was just like those are valuable lessons there are plenty of times I learned more about what not to do so I'm like those are those are all lessons and so this practice is a lesson for you mailbag submitter in what you're willing to accept and what you're not willing to accept and there's this quote from one of my favorite books which is the perks of being a wallflower which is like we we accept the love we think we deserve make sure you know you deserve a certain type of love.

44:01Ron Sosa: Like you deserve to love working, going into work and loving it. You deserve a practice manager is going to make you feel included. That's not going to make you feel like they're playing favorites. You deserve a practice manager that's on your side. And so if you're not getting that right now, and it's really on your mind, it's time to go find the love that you deserve, you know, somewhere else. And so, yeah, this is one of those things. I do think dating is a good analogy for all of this, actually.

44:27Maria Pirita: I've always contributed to dating. It's like, you know, We're just looking for the right fit.

44:32Ron Sosa: Yeah. Any other final action steps here before we wrap up?

44:35Maria Pirita: You know, the big thing is that I would love to take away from this is don't intentionally or unintentionally, don't contribute to the negative environment that you don't want to be there anyway, right? Whether that's gossiping, whether that's unintentionally gossiping, because we can unintentionally gossip all the time. So don't contribute. Know what your limits are. And then communicate, communicate, communicate. Right. I don't think you can. my personal belief is I don't think you can over communicate, but we have to have balanced communication. We can't say, oh, this person is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

45:06Maria Pirita: Here's what they're doing really well with too. And I want to appreciate them for that. And this is, this is the thing that's still going on.

45:14Ron Sosa: I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ron, for joining me for this one. I just think you'd be perfect for this. Thank you. And that's it. That's what we got y 'all. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know it was tricky. We didn't get all of the details and it was we're trying to assume really good intent from both the practice manager and the team member that submitted this overall y 'all these situations are hard i think knowing our why is super important knowing what our boundaries are and how long we're willing to tolerate behavior is always super crucial and also knowing that we might be contributing to some of this and if so there is something that we can do about it which is trying to have honest honest conversations with the practice owner or practice manager, and then trying to look for what's next here.

45:56Ron Sosa: So if this episode is something that you enjoyed, please let us know by commenting or leaving a review. Y 'all know we'd love to hear from you. We'll catch you next time.

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