‘Be kind’ – a most difficult request?

In the post-pandemic world of veterinary medicine – which is similar, yet undoubtedly transformed when compared to what we remember from before the year 2020 – a new topic has emerged and found its place in the spotlight of attention: the workplace culture and its impact on the team’s psychological safety. 

Those two terms, although well investigated in the business sector and other industries, appear very exotic in the veterinary setting. As much as they certainly sound intriguing, the most important information is they have been recognised as crucial for employee well-being, engagement and patient safety.

As a vet, as well as a positive psychology and emotional intelligence (EQ) expert, I observe on a daily basis the burning need to deeply understand and reconstruct the climate of our veterinary workplaces.

The pandemic has shown that we – veterinary professionals – started looking at our clinical life differently. Our expectations have changed. We do not appreciate being abused by the clients or treated unfairly by our bosses.

We know our work is very important, yet not always well paid for. We cherish our sense of autonomy, and we need to use our strengths and be understood by others to become truly empowered. We want to belong and if we sense not enough recognition, appreciation and safety are present where we are… we are going to leave.

New hope

The new outlook on the veterinary profession – including vets, nurses and veterinary technicians – combined with the recent global economical and political changes, resulted in terrifying high employee turnover and staff shortages. And just like in a vicious circle, the limited number of team members put extra pressure on those who stayed – giving them yet another reason to reconsider their future.

The new focus on the workplace culture seems to bring us a new dose of hope. If a recipe exists for a supportive and psychologically safe work environment, surely this should pull us out of the current crisis? “Maybe we could be happy again?”, “Wait, have we ever been really happy?”, “What would improving my workplace’s culture actually give me, as an individual?” – these and many more questions come to mind.

The answer is not clear, as we haven’t gathered enough proof in the veterinary setting, but studies performed in other sectors – including human medicine – clearly show healthy organisational culture positively correlates with employee commitment, job satisfaction, retention and well-being (Habib et al, 2014; Wright and Davis, 2003; Wright and Bonett, 2002).

As the research progresses and scholars gather new data, for now, we need to trust the assumption that veterinary hospitals are not much different from human hospitals and give it a go.

How should we start? Whichever study pops up first on your advanced PubMed search for “workplace culture”, it usually shows the organisational climate is highly influenced by leaders’ behaviour. Even common sense tells us that surely leaders contribute to the “vibe” of the workplace. Are they the ones to put the whole responsibility on, though?

‘Public park analogy’

Having worked with multiple teams from various countries and cultures in the world, I can see very clearly the impact of veterinary leaders on the psychological safety and well-being of their teams. However, I can also promise you that every single employee who has ever entered (physically or, nowadays, virtually) the premises has much more power over the workplace culture than they would ever assume.

To illustrate this dynamic, I tend to use the “public park analogy”. We all know those beautiful, well-groomed public parks where flowers bloom, grass welcomes you to sit down and have a picnic, kids run around happily, neighbours exchange small talk, students occupy the benches and read or work away on their laptops in the shade of the maple trees, and we can all freely enjoy the omnipresent cleanness and tranquillity. Such parks are safe and welcoming, and the time spent there satisfying, effective and healthy.

We love such places. We want to keep coming back; we never want to leave. That is the ideal, probably impossible, vision of the public parks, which is exactly the same for the workplace culture. Who keeps those parks so safe and tidy?

We all know there’s a dedicated group of people who provide security and maintenance, who – just like our management and HR departments – have been appointed to make that place work well. We just assume that it’s their responsibility. However, if some of us – the active participants in the park’s life – start misbehaving, the cleanness and tranquillity suddenly disappear.

If we stomp on flowers, leave trash behind, play aggressive music, have public arguments and tantrums, destroy benches, ignore the information signs or guards’ instructions, treat other co-habitants disrespectfully, or light a match and drop it on the grass to wait and see what happens… Soon, nothing pleasant and healthy will be left. And yes, of course, the guards and whoever is responsible for the functioning of the park – just like our leader – set an obvious example (just imagine what would it cause if you saw a maintenance team nonchalantly dropping their cigarettes on the grass or belittling each other).

But leaders – regardless of the type of a workplace, public place, country or government – cannot do it all. They can guide and support, set up healthy rules, hang them on the wall, and personally make sure they are comfortable and clear to everyone, but they cannot control other human beings. We need to take the radical responsibility for the role that we play in this show called “a day in a veterinary practice”.

Taking responsibility

The word “responsibility” is key here, because having a responsibility means being able to respond. Responsibility means power and agency. Every single employee is responsible for their behaviour and how it shapes their workplace culture. We can all do our bit, and make it healthier and safer.

Now, I realise it sounds like something serious – and hopefully empowering – but also totally overwhelming, because of the complexity of the interpersonal dynamics within the veterinary workplace.

The easiest thing to notice is the extreme violation of the social rules, which manifests in incivility. More and more research and training exists around managing incivility in veterinary practice, which is extremely important and needed. However, resolving uncivil behaviours is the equivalent of firefighting. What we need, first and foremost, is prevention. We need tools and techniques that will stop the “culture-killers” at the very root, and won’t allow certain behaviours to grow into dangerous trends.

A way must exist to prevent other behaviours that, similarly to incivility, also harm the organisational climate; the disrupted communication, micromanagement and broken intra-team; the trust; the harmful assumptions; ignoring, lack of generous listening and superficial judgements; the unresolved conflicts, low self-confidence, rejecting others’ opinions; the rigidity of decision-making and lack of action follow-up; the absence of explanation and clarity; the insufficient compassion towards our peers; the focus on the negatives, while remaining blind to the possibilities; indecisiveness of the leaders and silence of the employees; and many more ineffective and harmful human interactions.

Does a way to prevent these exist? Can we become better in connecting with our employees/teammates?

I wish it was instant and easy – that one word existed that would work some magic and take back the decades of repeating the same mistakes.

“Be kind”, et voila. Problem solved. We are told by the increasing number of articles, social media posts and even non-clinical training programmes to be grateful, compassionate and open, and yes, we should be. But it is extremely difficult to be all of those things if we are dealing with the same frustrating client or colleague who constantly repeats that one, annoying behaviour that we simply cannot stand, and rather than being kind and compassionate towards them, we want to just smack them on the head, which we obviously don’t do, and instead, we resolve to secretly roll our eyes and smile professionally, while simultaneously screaming inside and gradually burning out.

You and I, we are deeply human. Physically and mentally. Our brains have been designed to use as little energy as possible, while still protecting our survival.

As kids, we are rarely trained to understand the chaos that rages inside our heads, nor are we taught how to become curious about, and skilled in reading, others’ thoughts and feelings, and how to utilise both bits of information to shape interpersonal connections.

Becoming ‘human-savvy’

As a result, we develop assumptions and “emotional shortcuts” that make us ignorant of our own emotional health and blind to others’ inner worlds. If we practise certain behaviours for decades, and our brains create neuropathways that allow us to repeat those patterns almost instantly and without a second thought, we cannot suddenly become “kind and grateful” just because we were told to do so. It doesn’t work that way. We need to learn, or rather re-learn, how to be our best selves. How to become “human-savvy”.

The great news is that both positive and negative behaviours we exhibit in our personal and professional lives can be regulated with the use of emotional intelligence. This is defined as “an ability to recognise, understand and manage our own emotions, and recognise, understand and influence the emotions of others” (Goleman, 2005).

Having high EQ means being aware that emotions can drive our behaviour and impact people, learning how to manage those emotions – both our own and others – and building healthy interpersonal relationships. In other words, high EQ means being “human-savvy”.

Emotional intelligence has been shown positively correlated with increased job performance, better health and well-being (Keefer et al, 2018).

Leaders with high EQ show higher integrity and win the team’s trust. They also gain the ability to self-regulate, self-motivate and improve interpersonal relationships (Nguyen et al, 2020).

Here comes even better news – the multi-level meta-analysis from 2017 showed EQ can be enhanced through training (Hodzic et al, 2017).

Emotional intelligence can be expanded at any point of life, regardless of one’s age, education and industry, which means it has powerful potential among veterinary professionals as well. The best part of it is that we all already have a great foundation of it – no one is “emotionally dumb”, but because EQ consists of multiple elements, including self-awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management, some of them have been undiscovered and underutilised, which can be changed with training.

EQ in practice

Why is EQ so impactful and its potential so powerful in a veterinary setting? Imagine that you – an emotionally agile person – work in a clinic where the team and leaders are also truly “human-savvy”.

It starts with the first “good morning” when your colleague can recognise that, maybe, you’ve had a rough week, and they are confident and equipped enough to ask you some questions about it, and they can make you feel important and well taken care of.

Then, you see someone facing a challenging situation with a client, but your colleague is not taking the client’s abuse personally, they become curious and compassionate instead.

Next, you join a team meeting where communication flows smoothly, everyone listens in a way that validates others and you are all able to make good decisions together. Your boss is fantastic in “reading the room” and makes everyone engaged, encourages them to speak up and everyone happily does so.

In the afternoon, you support your close friend who is having a particularly stressful moment during their shift and they are just about to explode, but they manage to control that urge, and they debrief healthily and reflect instead – no gossip or pointless venting happened.

Your leaders seem skilled and comfortable to positively influence people, listen generously, appreciate you all, but also hold you accountable in a way that is clear and fair, rather than threatening.

At the end of the day, you come back home and you can communicate with the moody beloved ones and completely relax. Most importantly, you don’t carry around that odd, everlasting guilt of an unknown origin. You can, at any point, recognise and dismantle what is going on in your head and heart, and this prevents your anxiety and burnout, and protects our mental health.

Emotional intelligence unlocks what is the best in us. Human-savvy teams acknowledge both each other’s strengths and flaws, don’t blame automatically and they recognise the spread of emotions from one person to another – emotional contagion. They feel empowered through their freedom to be themselves and belong, without trying to “fit in”. Human-savvy veterinary professionals are, simply, in control.

Emotional intelligence makes us curious and observant, rather than dependent and controlled by our unresolved emotions and underlying convictions. Just like a public park needs rules and information signs, our workplace culture needs healthy policies and clear values that will guide us on how to create peace and safety.

As a team, we need a true role model who will show us how to turn values into actions. As team members, we ought to do our very best to follow that example. But no one should ever assume it will be easy and automatic for us.

If we want to be good humans and surrounded by other good humans, it must become as seamless as possible. We need extra help to get us there.

Thankfully, the help is here and the foundation has been set – our emotional intelligence is waiting to be unlocked and expanded. We already have the “starter kit” within us – now, it’s time to give our teams and leaders a chance to train, grow and become truly human-savvy.