June 2, 2026 • 38 mins
In this episode of The Veterinary Culture Lab, Andi and Josh explore a question that hits a nerve for many veterinary professionals: why does feedback so often feel threatening instead of helpful?
Grounded in brand-new veterinary research on psychological safety, communication quality, and turnover intention, this episode unpacks how the way feedback is delivered can shape trust, team culture, and whether people choose to stay in a practice long term. Rather than treating feedback as simply correcting mistakes, this conversation reframes feedback as a relational and cultural tool that directly impacts psychological safety.
You’ll hear:
- Why the phrase “Can I give you some feedback?” instantly puts many people on the defensive
- What psychological safety actually means in veterinary teams
- Why supervisor feedback has such a strong influence on retention
- The surprising role coworker feedback plays in shaping workplace culture
- How leaders create the emotional tone of a practice through everyday communication
- The difference between corrective feedback and growth-oriented conversations
- Practical ways veterinary leaders can improve feedback culture and psychological safety
Whether you are a veterinary technician, assistant, veterinarian, manager, or practice owner, this episode offers a science-backed and deeply practical look at how communication shapes culture from the inside out.
Because thriving veterinary teams are not built through fear of feedback. They are built through conversations that create trust.
Resource Links
Episode Article
Title: A cross-sectional study exploring associations between psychological safety, employee turnover intention and feedback skills in veterinary organisations
Authors:Olivia Oginska, Michelle McArthur, Amy Zadow, Nic Gibson and Martin Cake
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.70498
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Your Hosts
Andi Davison LVT, CAPP, APPC
Josh Vaisman MAPPCP, CCFP
At Flourish Veterinary Consulting we renovate veterinary cultures. We diagnose what’s working, blueprint what’s next, and train every team member - blending positive psychology with real-world experience - so thriving becomes the norm, not the myth.
Timestamps
00:00 Why Feedback Feels Threatening
05:18 New Vet Med Study Tease
06:03 When Feedback Lands Well
07:44 Collaboration Builds Trust
10:59 Retention Beyond Pay
13:15 Study Methods and Sample
15:58 Manager Feedback Drives Retention
16:48 Coworker Feedback and Safety
21:08 Leaders Set Emotional Tone
25:27 Feedback as Relationship Tool
28:14 Culture Renovation Playbook
37:13 Closing and Sign Off
Headed to AVMA in Anaheim this July? We would LOVE to meet you in person! Come and check out Andi and Josh's sessions.
Andi will speak on Friday July 10th and Josh on Monday July 13th.
Stop by a session and introduce yourself—we always love meeting members of the Veterinary Culture Lab community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Welcome to the Veterinary Culture Lab, where
science meets real-worldapplication.
I'm Andy Davison.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Josh Weisman.
Together we'll show you anevidence-based blueprint for
renovating culture in yourveterinary team.
One episode at a time.
SPEAKER_01 (00:23):
For a lot of us, hearing Can I Give You Some
Feedback instantly puts us onthe defensive.
Turns out the way feedback isdelivered is actually shaping
psychological safety, trust, andretention.
So let's dig into some brand newveterinary research and uncover
why feedback and communicationquality matter more than we
think.
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
Hey Andy, good to be back with you recording another
episode of the VeterinaryCulture Lab podcast.
Super excited.
How are things with you?
SPEAKER_01 (00:51):
Right.
This is something I always lookforward to.
Like these are always such funconversations that we have a
plan, right?
But it's like a loose plan.
And then the way that it alwaysunfolds is super fun.
So I am thrilled to be here.
I feel like it's been a minute.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
It it has been a minute.
Um, you were travelinginternationally recently.
Um, I was also travelinginternationally recently,
although slightly less excitinginternational travel than yours.
Uh and yeah, it's I it's beenit's been a hot minute since
we've sat down together.
unknown (01:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:26):
I agree.
I feel like I miss our chats.
SPEAKER_01 (01:29):
I know, I know.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
No, go ahead, please.
Tell me what's what's on yourmind.
What's going on?
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
I was just gonna say, you're right.
We've both been doing somereally exciting international
travel.
And even though we don't havetime to get into the details of
all the amazing things that wedid while we were traveling, I
would love to hear what's kindof something that you're
bringing home from yourtraveling experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
Um, to triple check on schedules.
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
There you go.
That is a valid thing.
That is an important thing.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
Especially when traveling internationally, it is
a good idea to know exactly whenthings are happening so that you
can plan accordingly.
I learned that lesson on thislast trip.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
I feel like all the dads around the world are like,
well, yeah, that's what I'vebeen trying to tell you this
whole time.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
I think you're right.
What about you?
What is what is one small thingyou're taking away from your
recent international travel?
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
You never know when you're going to be absolutely
surprised in the most beautifulways.
SPEAKER_00 (02:32):
So I think what I'm hearing here is you you never
know when you're going to besitting by a swimming pool and a
baby elephant will be drinkingfrom it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Exactly.
Under a night sky that has theMilky Way brighter and more
stunning than you've ever seenit in your life.
SPEAKER_00 (02:49):
Yes.
Yep.
Uh so listeners, if that doesn'tgive you a hint as to why Andy's
international travel wassignificantly cooler than mine,
now you have it.
Uh Andy, I I wanted to sharesomething with you that I got to
experience while you were awayin Africa, by the way, for those
of you who haven't figured thatout yet.
Um, yeah, I was uh, you know, uhGreta and I constantly kind of
(03:12):
joke about moving.
Um you know, like at this point,you're probably like, yeah,
right, Josh, you've been talkingabout this for four years now.
Um but we do.
We, you know, we we we jokeabout it and we we look at
things.
And so occasionally, like, youknow, I'm online looking at like
I wonder what it would cost tobuy a small place in northern
Kauai.
What it would cost to get alittle bit of property up in the
(03:35):
mountains.
You know, one of our uh clientsowns a ranch up in the
mountains, and so that kind ofgot us thinking.
And so I was looking around andum I came across this like horse
property uh that was like reallyquite affordable in the
mountains, so like a good chunkof land, and I mean, not great,
we don't have horses, but I Ithought of you when I saw it.
(03:55):
I was like, huh, you know, maybewe could do that, and then I
don't know, maybe Andy and Mikecould come hang out for a while,
you know, they could bringBoston or Marshall out here or
something like that.
Yeah.
Um what I discovered though isthat this horse ranch was
actually being sold by theformer CEO of whatever company
(04:16):
it is that makes Doritos.
Like he was the guy that likewas intimately involved in
Doritos.
And I was looking at this thingand I was just thinking, cool
ranch.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
There you go.
Well set up.
Well set up.
SPEAKER_00 (04:29):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, you weren't quite sure.
You weren't quite sure.
SPEAKER_01 (04:33):
I it I didn't get it until the ranch part.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
I thought it was gonna go horse related.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, but I was like, Doritos, there's something
like that.
Doritos.
SPEAKER_00 (04:41):
There's this is my lame attempt to take um today's
uh dad joke.
I'm showing the dad joke from mycalendar to Andy.
You obviously can't see that,listeners, but yeah, this this
was today's dad joke.
What did one Dorito farmer sayto the other Dorito farmer?
Cool ranch.
SPEAKER_01 (04:59):
Yeah, see, see, listeners, this is the
creativity and the sass that Ineed to deal with on a daily
basis.
Not only is this man an amazingdad joke teller, he can take any
dad joke and make it believable.
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Thank you.
That's very kind.
I'll keep that in mind duringyour next performance
evaluation.
Um, let's let's go ahead and getto the task at hand here, shall
we, Andy?
I I'm really excited for today'sepisode in particular.
Uh, I mean, I'm always excited,right?
Because I like to nerd out inthis stuff, but this one is cool
because two reasons.
Number one, this study thatwe're gonna discuss is hot off
(05:33):
the presses.
Like this is brand new.
It was just recently releasedhere in 2026.
And it was a piece of researchconducted in veterinary
medicine.
You know, sometimes we takestudies and we kind of apply it
to vetmed, but this one actuallywas a veterinary uh piece of
research.
And it's extra special becauseit covers new ground in an area
(05:54):
that kind of lives in a reallyspecial place in our hearts here
at Flourish.
And the findings are actuallyreally super practical for
veterinary teams and formanagers.
Now, Andy, I I have a question Iwant to ask you to kind of kick
things off here.
But first, I want to ask yousort of a pre-question, which is
when you hear things like, Andy,I'd really love to sit down and
(06:15):
give you a little bit offeedback.
What happens in your mind and inyour body?
SPEAKER_01 (06:19):
Oh God, my hackles go up.
I'm certain that I screwed up.
I'm certain that I'm in trouble.
It's not good.
SPEAKER_00 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah.
And that's like typically how werespond to that word, feedback,
right?
Like in the workplace.
We think of it as like, oh God.
So here's what I want to ask youto kind of kick things off.
Before we really dive into thestudy, Andy, I want you to think
of a time that a manager or aboss or someone in some position
of power, maybe even back intech school or undergrad,
(06:48):
whatever it might be, somebodygave you constructive feedback
that landed well.
Like they did a good job of it.
And I want to ask you, what madeit land well instead of sting?
What did they do that made thedelivery receivable?
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
This is such a good question.
And it was actually a lot of funto think about.
Um, and it actually does comefrom tech school.
That's funny that you went backthere because that that that's
the example that I'm gonna shareis an example from tech school.
And the reason that thisparticular situation stands out
is because it was one of thetimes where I was given feedback
(07:29):
and I didn't get all pricklyabout it.
My rebellious side didn't comelike flying out because it's in
there, it's definitely in there.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (07:39):
It's shocker.
Shocker.
SPEAKER_00 (07:40):
You've never, never seen any inclination of a
rebellious side.
But go on.
SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
But this particular situation, it kind of I think
there's a little bit of abackstory, right?
Because the person that gave methis feedback was somebody that
I had developed a greatrelationship with already.
And it was definitely aprofessor of mine.
Okay.
So it was somebody in authority.
And as a student, to kind ofcreate a connection with this
(08:07):
person was really pretty cool.
And the more I thought about it,it happened because that
professor, that teacher made theeffort well ahead of time,
right?
To create a connection andestablish a really awesome
professional relationship withme and with the other students
in my class.
My tech school class wassmallish, which was awesome
(08:29):
because we all knew each other.
We all were intimately involvedin our journey through tech
school.
And so I had known thisprofessor for a couple of years.
She knew me for a couple ofyears, and there was already
that effort made to create thatconnection.
So when she said, Hey, there'ssomething I want to talk to you
about, I didn't automaticallygo, Oh God, I'm in trouble,
(08:51):
right?
Because we had talked aboutstuff before, and it wasn't
always bad stuff.
So there was already that sortof expectation there.
And when we did sit down to talkabout, you know, the thing that
I didn't do awesomely, it wasdefinitely about the thing that
I didn't do awesomely.
(09:11):
It was not about me failing as astudent, me not understanding
the expectation, me makingassumptions that weren't true,
me, you know what I mean?
It was about the thing that Ididn't execute awesomely or
well, really.
And we talked about what thatwas.
And it was a conversation.
(09:32):
It wasn't, hey, this is what youdid wrong, and this is what you
need to do differently, and nowgo forth and be different.
It was, hey, this happened andthis is why it's a problem.
What are we gonna do?
Because we both see the value inmaking that change.
So it was like a it was like ajoint effort, right?
It wasn't a principal's officesit down and tell me all the
(09:54):
things I did wrong and why I'msuch a terrible person.
It was, hey, let's work togetherto figure out what happened here
and what we can do movingforward.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
What impact did that experience have on you?
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Huge, huge.
Okay, first of all, I was astudent, right?
So I was a wee child and Ihadn't had a lot of experiences
like this, right?
I mean, I had had experienceswith undergrad professors who
you didn't know and were very,you gotta do this if you want to
get an A, and parents whoabsolutely told you what to do,
(10:26):
when to do it, and you never hada say, right?
And so to have this experience,I think that's why it stands out
to me so much, is because it wasone of the first that really
collaborated with me, right?
And like saw me as an equal inthis situation and invited me in
to be a part of the solutionbecause I was so used to being
(10:48):
told what to do and you know,what you got to do is this, and
now go do it.
And that was different for me.
And I think that really is oneof the reasons why this stood
out so much.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
Yeah, that's super cool.
I'm so grateful that you hadthat experience.
And I love that because what youjust described is basically the
real world version of what thispaper is suggesting, is the big
idea that feedback quality,especially from people in
positions of authority, those instatus, feedback quality might
actually be one of the ways thatwe don't just cultivate
(11:19):
psychological safety, but thatpsychological safety makes
employee retention sticky.
And we all know about theturnover problems that many
veterinary practices face.
The thing is that I sometimesworry that a lot of the
retention conversations thatwe're having in veterinary
medicine become compensationconversations.
We we start to really viewretention as a compensation
(11:41):
problem.
Now, listen, compensation, itabsolutely matters and it makes
a difference.
But when it comes to retentionin particular, compensation is
not necessarily the best lever.
At best, compensation might getsomeone to tolerate a bad
workplace for longer.
We like to refer to this as likethe golden handcuffs, right?
(12:03):
Well, I hate it here, I'mmiserable, I'm disengaged, but I
can't afford to leave becausenowhere else will pay me this
much, right?
Money alone, though, cannotcreate a workplace environment
that people actually really wantto be a part of.
So I really come to think ofcompensation as hygiene.
It's table stakes.
It what's it's what gets you inthe door.
(12:24):
We could call better pay ajustice issue, right?
Like this is it's not reallyabout retention per se, it's
about justice, it's aboutequity, it's about what's fair.
That's how I think we shouldframe the compensation problems
that we face.
Uh this study, though, points tocommunication as a real lever
for retention and team thriving.
(12:46):
Uh essentially, what we'resaying here is that when
communication excels, when it'sreally good, especially when it
comes to the feedback loopbetween team members and
managers, people might staybecause they feel safe,
supported, clear onexpectations, and they have an
opportunity to grow and develop.
So this episode is not paydoesn't matter.
(13:08):
That's not what we're saying,okay?
It's you can't pay your way to athriving culture.
So let's dive into the studyitself.
The study has a very long name,as academic papers tend to do
sometimes, a cross-sectionalstudy exploring associations
between psychological safety,employee turnover intention, and
(13:28):
feedback skills in veterinaryorganizations.
The lead researcher is somebodywho we both know and we are
very, very fond of, Dr.
Liv Oginska.
Uh, Liv is in Australia now,doing a PhD in this area.
And so this was actually part ofher PhD research.
She had several othercolleagues, um, one of which is
somebody who I'm quite fond of.
He's done a lot of work relatingpositive psychology to the
(13:52):
veterinary space, and that'sMartin Cake.
Dr.
Martin Cake.
Uh the study asked whetherthat's a good name, isn't it?
Yeah.
Dr.
Cake.
Sorry.
And he lives and in Australia,so it literally is cake by the
ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
It is.
Oh, see.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Yeah.
He's cool.
He's cool already.
He's cool.
I know.
Someday I hope to meet him.
Um, this this particular studyasked whether psychological
safety was actually associatedwith better feedback and lower
turnover intention in veterinaryteams, and whether feedback
quality helped to explain thatlink.
So, how did they do this?
Well, they they did across-sectional study that
(14:28):
included a survey distributed toworking veterinary team members
and practices in both Australiaand then across the UK.
The survey included variousvalidated measures of things
like psychological safety, um,supervisor and coworker feedback
quality, which is uh in theliterature that there is at that
is actually a thing and you canmeasure it, and turnover
(14:50):
intention.
There were a little over 360people that fully completed the
survey, of which about 65% werepracticing veterinarians, and
then about 31% were veterinarynurses.
Now, those of you in NorthAmerica don't freak out at that
term nurses.
Remember, these are people inthe UK and Australia where they
do actually use that term,right?
(15:10):
So here we would call themtechnicians.
Most of the participants camefrom small animal practice, and
there was an almost even splitacross leadership and
non-leadership roles, which isgood because then we could
compare those two things.
Key findings here.
Well, the analysis revealed thatsome really powerful things.
First, psychological safety waspositively related to both
(15:33):
supervisor and coworker feedbackquality.
I'm going to repeat that.
Psychological safety waspositively related to both
supervisor and coworker feedbackquality.
So when we saw high qualityfeedback from supervisors and
coworkers, we also tended to seehigher levels of psychological
safety.
Secondly, psychological safetywas negatively associated with
(15:57):
turnover intention.
What this is saying is that whenpsychological safety was rated
as low, turnover intention washigher.
Or when psychological safety wasrated as high, turnover
intention was lower.
Now, here's where it gets superinteresting.
Supervisor feedback wassignificantly related to
turnover intention and partiallymediated the psychological
(16:20):
safety to turnover intentionrelationship.
So what this is suggesting isthat psychological safety seems
to lower people's desire toleave.
When we work in workplaces thatfeel psychologically safe, work
in veterinary practice that feelpsychologically safe, most of us
are saying we're less likely towant to leave.
And that's partly because saferworkplaces tended to have better
(16:42):
manager feedback.
So better manager feedback wasassociated with lower turnover
intention.
Co-worker feedback definitelyseemed to matter for
psychological safety.
But here's what's reallyinteresting it didn't
significantly mediate turnoverintention.
So this is suggesting thathigh-quality coworker feedback
might contribute to a quote,safer workplace.
(17:05):
When we work with coworkers whoare better at delivering
feedback to us, we tend to feelmore psychologically safe.
And therefore, we're more likelyto own up to and openly discuss
our shortcomings, theirshortcomings, things that we can
improve, so on and so forth.
But that may not in and ofitself directly lead to lower
turnover.
(17:25):
It was the manager feedback thatseemed to really matter there.
You could think of it like thisit's like psychological safety
is the condition of the road.
It's, you know, the road thatwe're driving on on our little
road trip to, I don't know, uh,you know, up into the Rocky
Mountains or Banff Canada is onething that's been to that cool
ranch.
To the cool ranch.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:45):
We're driving to the cool ranch.
SPEAKER_00 (17:46):
We're driving to the cool ranch, right?
So think of psychological safetyas the condition of the road
that we're driving on.
Supervisor manager feedback,that's one of the main stretches
of road that team members driveon, right?
So when you work in anorganization and you're not the
boss, the primary road thatyou're driving on each and every
day is the road of your boss'sfeedback.
(18:08):
When our boss's feedback isgood, when it's high quality, it
just makes that road feel somuch smoother, right?
We're cruising, one arm on theon the steering wheel, one arm
out, not really worrying aboutpotholes.
So when the road is smoother,fewer people are thinking of
exiting that highway for anotherone, right?
(18:30):
Fewer of us are thinking ofgetting off that road and
finding a different road.
Andy, you just heard me blabberon about this study.
I'm really curious what stoodout to you more here?
The fact that coworker feedbackseems to matter for
psychological safety just asmuch as supervisor feedback, or
the fact that supervisorfeedback matters for both
(18:53):
psychological safety andretention.
SPEAKER_01 (18:56):
Honestly, the thing that stood out to me was the
coworker feedback.
And I think that's because Ialready had an idea of how
important supervisor feedbackwas.
And I'm listening to you talkabout the value of coworker
feedback.
And yeah, right.
If we are in an environmentwhere we feel psychologically
(19:19):
safe with our coworkers, right?
With the people that are in thetrenches doing the same stuff
that we're doing, supporting usdirectly.
And we have good psychologicallysafe feedback opportunities
between them, that makes so muchsense that it would help create
what, like a stronger foundationto that road.
(19:42):
Maybe like the rebar underneathsaid road to cool ranch is
stronger because you know thatyou've got a safe space with
your team so that you can buildup that psychological safety
across the board.
Now, the interesting thingthat's kind of rolling around in
my brain as I'm saying this isthe fact that it all relates,
(20:04):
right?
So our ability to shareproductive, psychologically safe
feedback with our coworkersprobably starts with how we
experience feedback from ourmanagers and what that
experience is like and how ourmanager models said opportunity
and feedback.
So I think that they're allrelated.
(20:24):
I think that they all matter.
I really, I think, I mean, I'mgonna throw my opinion out
there.
I think that it would be harderto find an opportunity or an
environment where coworkerfeedback is super
psychologically safe andeverything's great and people
feel good, and that rebar isstrong and that foundation is
good, and the feedback betweensupervisor and team member is
(20:46):
crap.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
I I completely agree.
And I think that that speaks toa lot of the literature and
psychological safety.
It is frequently referred to asa team-based localized
phenomenon.
And of course, the supervisor ispart of that team uh and seems
to be the primary driver of itin a lot of the research, but
it's not the only driver of it.
The team seems to matter.
And so, yeah, I think you'reonto something.
(21:08):
So, this of course begs thequestion: how does this matter
in real veterinary life?
I mean, this is a veterinarystudy, so how does this show up
in our life?
What can we do with this?
Uh I think we can do a lot.
The first thing that I want totalk about is that leaders seem
to formalize the emotional toneof a workplace.
Now, that doesn't mean that theyare the only ones who do it.
(21:28):
It just means that leaders, tothe point that we were just
discussing, have an outsizedinfluence over the emotional
tone.
Andy, because of our recentgraduate program that you and I
went through, we we are nowfamiliar with some of these
theories.
Uh, there's a theory in appliedcommunication that you are aware
of called the constitutive viewof communication.
That took me a long time to saythat first word, by the way.
(21:51):
Constitutive.
Uh as you know, Andy, itbasically says that
communication is the primarymethod for experiencing and
making meaning of socialrealities, right?
In the workplace, those incharge have outsized power.
So what they say and what theydon't say, how messages are
delivered, all those kinds ofthings go a long way to
establishing the tone and feelof the workplace climate.
(22:15):
Now, Andy, you've worked in oneor two veterinary settings in
your day.
In your experience, when youthink about real veterinary
workplaces, what are some of thesmall, like everyday
communicative behaviors fromleaders in particular?
So from supervisors, managers,those in charge.
What are some of the smalleveryday communicative behaviors
(22:37):
from those people that, in youropinion, most quickly shape the
emotional tone of a team?
SPEAKER_01 (22:42):
A good handful came to mind for me here.
And I think that it all startswith the attitude that we show
up with, you know, because thatthat fuels, right?
That fuels your tone, that fuelsyour nonverbals, that fuels the
energy of the vibe you give offwhen you walk into the room.
Are you stepping in with a bitof an open mind?
(23:05):
Are you stepping in with a bitof, you know, cranky baggage
from something that happenedearlier?
You can usually tell, right?
Your vibe is off.
And I think that there's a lotto be said for that.
Nonverbals are huge, right?
Do you make eye contact?
Do you acknowledge?
Do you nod?
Do you smile?
And then that moves into thegreeting, right?
Do you say the person's name?
(23:25):
Do you say good morning or hey,you know, how's it going, Josh?
I haven't seen you in a minute.
What's what's new with you?
That intentional effort toconnect with the person.
But I also think that there's alot of, because I'm thinking of
like not so awesome, right?
And emotional tones that havecome from leaders and what's
kind of led to that.
(23:45):
And I think some of that cancome from getting on the
bandwagon of whatever the feelis in the room, right?
I know for me, sometimes I wouldgo into meetings and there was a
lot of complaining.
And there was a lot of, well,this isn't happening and why is
that not happening?
And I can't get this done andcomplaining, complaining,
complaining.
And if I jumped on thatbandwagon, yeah, this is
(24:07):
terrible.
Yeah, this sucks.
Then there's there's the tone,right?
There's the emotional tone forthe meeting.
Where if I was able to go inwith, okay, yeah, this sucks.
And what can we do to make itsuck less and make that shift?
It can be helpful.
So acknowledging the suck,right?
But trying to move past it in away that's productive and not
(24:30):
just getting on the bandwagonand being like, yeah, give me
that pitchfork.
Here we go.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Yeah, that all makes sense.
Um, I think it's, yeah, all thethings that you're talking about
here, the mindset and mentalitythat we're bringing into the
conversation is going to show upin our nonverbals and our tone,
and that's going to impact theemotional tone of the people
around us uh when we're in aleadership position.
How we greet, do we even greet?
(24:55):
You know, Andy, you and I arecurrently teaching our
certificate in cultivatingpositive team communication
program.
And in in a recent lecture withthe students, we talked about
drive-by greetings and how oftenlike drive-by greetings happen
at work.
Hey, Andy, walking right by, noteven making eye contact, right?
Or how drive-by greetings start,you know, happen at the
(25:16):
beginning of a meeting.
Uh, hey, team, good to see youall.
Okay, let's dive in, right?
Like that's that's not really agreeting.
That's a like, we are here to dothings, and that changes the
emotional tone, all that.
Um, another takeaway for me hereis that feedback is really more
than correcting behavior.
Feedback is actually arelational tool.
Like, that's really one of the,I think, the huge takeaways from
(25:38):
this study.
A technically accurate messageof you've done something wrong
and it needs to improve, right?
Can still do relational damage.
Feedback delivered withoutempathy, without respect,
clarity, lacking support, thosekinds of things, like what you
were talking about earlier froma manager or a coworker is
likely to reduce thepsychological safety within that
(25:59):
team environment or at leastwithin that relationship.
And when that psychologicalsafety goes down, when it's
reduced, the possibility forstumbles and mistakes go up.
If we are not cultivatingpsychological safety with the
way that we communicate, withthat feedback loop and how we
deliver it, we're actuallycreating patient safety issues,
especially in busy veterinarypractices, because we're making
(26:22):
it unsafe to ask for help, torepair things, to uh admit and
discuss mistakes, use them aslearning opportunities.
So if we want teams that stickaround and deliver exceptional
patient care, we really need toinvest in manager communication
skills.
Imagine a lead technician whomakes a dosing mistake that gets
(26:43):
caught before harm occurs.
Okay, cool, good.
We we we caught it.
It was a near miss, right?
So the manager says to thistechnician, you need to be more
careful.
This can't happen again.
Technically accurate statement,right?
It is true.
She does need to be morecareful.
This cannot happen again, right?
The next time it could actuallycause harm if we don't catch it,
(27:04):
right?
But it leaves shame.
It leaves distance, it leavessilence behind.
It doesn't create, to your pointearlier, a conversation.
Now let's insert a completelydifferent manager.
Or this manager working better,like communicating better.
Okay.
Same thing.
Dosing mistake, got caughtearly.
(27:26):
Wow.
I'm really glad that we caughtthat.
Now let's slow down a bit heretogether.
Walk me through what washappening before this error
occurred.
And then let's use that to likefigure out together what we can
do to make sure this kind ofthing doesn't ever happen again.
Same issue, but very differentcultural consequence.
(27:46):
Another thing here that I wantedto point out from the study is
that leaders can shape thecommunication climate.
You said this earlier, Andy, byrole modeling what good
communication looks like.
How leaders communicate is goingto influence how the team
communicates, right?
While this paper focusedspecifically on feedback
quality, the truth is our teamsare watching how we communicate
(28:08):
when things are good and whenthings need correction or
redirection.
(28:36):
Okay, so so those of youlistening to this, you've looked
over the paper.
Maybe you're convinced now,right?
You've heard these things.
Now you're wondering, okay,cool, Josh, how do I put this
stuff into action?
Well, here are some ideas tohelp you renovate the
communication culture in yourpractice.
The first one plays off of whatI just said.
We need to train feedback as anessential leadership skill.
(28:58):
I might even call it anessential leadership competency.
The authors of this studyconcluded that organizations
should assess managers' feedbackskills and invest in training
opportunities to strengthenthose interpersonal
competencies.
And I wholeheartedly agree.
And Andy, I think you do too.
SPEAKER_01 (29:15):
Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:16):
I'll even take it a step further and I'll say this.
I think that high qualitycommunication from veterinary
leaders should be considered asimportant a technical skill as
things like inventorymanagement, accounting, HR
proficiencies, anything elsethat we put in the job
description for our managementteam.
Oh, and this isn't just formanagers.
(29:36):
Progressive veterinary practicesand organizations are going to
assess and train thesecommunication skills for all
roles, recognizing thatpsychological safety is a
patient safety issue, and highquality communication across
roles will improve it.
Secondly, measure psychologicalsafety as preventative medicine
(29:57):
for your practice culture.
Based on this study, we couldactually consider psychological
safety as the lagging indicatorof feedback quality.
We could call feedback qualitythe leading indicator here, but
it might also be a leadingindicator of turnover.
So routinely measuringpsychological safety in our
teams and throughout ourorganization, could actually be
(30:18):
a way to improve patient safetyand assess the effectiveness of
our communication trainingprogram and alert us to the
growing or hopefully decreasingrisk of team members taking the
off-ramp to another job.
The psychological safety indexscan, which was uh developed in
partnership between Dr.
Amy Edmondson, I like to thinkof her as the Empress of
(30:40):
Psychological Safety, and uh anorganization in the UK, a
consulting firm called CeresChange.
That PSI scan is a robustplatform for measuring
psychological safety in teams orat the organizational and
enterprise level.
And benchmarking scores against,I think now it's probably well
over like 30,000 teams aroundthe world.
(31:01):
Turns out that Flourish isactually trained and licensed to
use that platform in veterinaryteams practices and across
entire organizations.
So if that's something that's ofinterest to our listeners, we
can absolutely help with that.
But they could also just measureit themselves.
There are validated briefpsychological safety surveys
readily available online.
And we can even share them withour listeners.
(31:21):
In fact, if you want to justemail us at Flourish, you can
send the email to info atflourish.vet.
Uh, we are happy to share one ofthose validated psychological
safety surveys with you and helpyou get started.
The next thing I wanted toaddress is making feedback
quality a key element inmanagers' performance reviews.
And I mean, like really likeactually measuring this and then
(31:45):
making it a part of howmanagers' performance is
assessed.
If we're going to consider thisa leadership competency, then we
should assess it and I don'tknow, deliver quality feedback
to managers based on thatassessment.
I mean, right, right?
It's the whole feedback loop.
This could be done, I think, bya mix of upward feedback from
team members.
So we can actually like surveytheir team members.
(32:07):
You could do it confidentially,you could do it anonymously, but
ask them, you know, to rate thequality of feedback that they
are getting from that manager.
We could also do this by way ofobserved behavior.
We could make it a point toobserve our managers delivering
feedback and uh assess thatsubjectively.
And then we can also use outcomemeasures, you know, so we could
(32:28):
have a survey item for everydirect report and team member
that that manager influences orimpacts, and simply ask them to
rate things like my managermakes me feel respected during
difficult conversations, right?
Like those are ways that we cando that.
Okay, Andy, I've shared with youthree renovation ideas here:
training for quality feedbackskills, measuring psychological
(32:49):
safety, and then making feedbackpart of managers' performance
reviews.
If a practice owner or acorporate executive came to you
tomorrow and said, Andy, whichone of those should I do first?
Which one would you recommendand why?
SPEAKER_01 (33:03):
The medical mind in my brain wants to do
diagnostics, right?
I want a baseline.
I want to know where we arebefore we even get started.
And so I think I would probablyum recommend measuring psych
safety within your team first.
Kind of see where you're at, seewhat's going well, see where
(33:25):
things are reallypsychologically safe, see where
maybe you need to spend a littlebit of extra time and effort.
And then you'd be able toimplement those other ideas in
ways that might be a little bitmore impactful, as opposed to
just assuming that you'retotally, totally not
psychologically safe, or thatthere's an absolute lack of
psychological safety, or that,oh no, no, everybody feels safe.
(33:47):
I definitely make people feel uhcomfortable and relaxed in a
difficult conversation.
You're gonna know, right?
You're gonna know the reality ofwhat's happening in your team.
And I think that is a reallyhelpful place to start for a lot
of organizations out there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
I love that.
I love that because you know, weoften talk about the importance
of the feedback loop.
And when we're saying that termfeedback loop, we're saying
feedback is not just about howwe deliver it, but it's also how
we receive it.
And what you're kind ofsuggesting is like if if a
manager or hospital owner orcorporate executive starts with
establishing this diagnostic,with getting this baseline, that
(34:25):
is a way for them to startpracticing how they receive
feedback because that's whatthat survey is.
It's feedback in large partabout their leadership practices
and the impact that thosepractices are having.
So it gives them this reallygolden opportunity to practice
improving the feedback loopwithin their organization.
I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (34:45):
Well, and it shares too with the team that you as a
leader are taking thisseriously, right?
That whole modeling thebehavior.
This is a great way to do that.
This is important to me.
It's important enough that I'mwilling to create this
assessment.
I'm willing to have theseconversations.
I'm willing to hear thefeedback.
And I think that's an importantplace to start.
SPEAKER_00 (35:06):
I totally agree.
I think that's well stated.
Now, of course, we're talking alot about communication stuff
here.
So I'd be remiss if I didn'tmention that Flourish has been
working on these exact kinds ofthings for quite some time.
Uh, listeners, Andy and I bothcompleted a graduate program in
applied positive communicationsand conflict management.
And we've used that educationand some other uh areas of study
(35:28):
that we've done to create thefirst ever certificate in
cultivating positive teamcommunication.
I briefly mentioned it earlier.
We really believe that thrivingteams don't happen by accident.
They're built through everydaycommunications and
conversations.
And this study just reallyconfirms that for us.
So we'll we'll share a link inthe in the show notes uh to that
certificate program so you cansee what it's all about.
(35:51):
Uh and uh maybe you can getregistered for the next public
cohort of it, or maybe yourorganization wants us to deliver
it for your leaders, for yourteams uh across the
organization.
We can do that privately aswell.
Now, there's one person, we'retalking about thriving here,
thriving teams, and there's oneperson that I know unequivocally
is already thriving.
Probably in his or her ownspecial way.
(36:13):
Andy, I think maybe you have anidea of who I'm referring to
here.
Vibing and thriving with FloridaMan.
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
Florida Man is always always thriving.
I don't know that it is in thetraditional sense, but it's
definitely in his own magic.
And this episode's Florida Manis no different.
Um, our headline comes fromsomewhere called Castleberry,
which I actually don't knowwhere that is, but it's
somewhere in Florida.
(36:42):
That's irrelevant because theheadline is amazing.
Florida man leaving strip clubruns himself over with his own
truck.
SPEAKER_00 (36:53):
How is that even possible?
SPEAKER_01 (36:55):
Apparently, he ran over his own leg.
There is a picture, which I willinclude in the show notes, of
the man with the car door openand he's laying on the ground
with the truck running him over.
What?
I've been in thriving.
SPEAKER_00 (37:12):
I been in thriving.
Way to go, Florida man.
Um winning again.
SPEAKER_01 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Never, never disappoints.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
Never disappoints.
Castleberry.
What a great name for town orcity or whatever.
Castleberry.
SPEAKER_01 (37:25):
Castleberry.
It sounds very noble.
Full of full of Lord FloridaMan.
SPEAKER_00 (37:31):
Yeah, yeah, seriously.
Lord Florida Man.
Oh, I would love to see LordFlorida Man's castle.
All right, that brings anotherepisode of the Veterinary
Culture Lab to a close.
Thank you all for joining usagain.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Please rate us.
It definitely helps.
And, you know, share this with acolleague or two if you think
that they might be interested inthis.
Uh, other than that, we'll lookforward to seeing you next time.
(37:52):
Thanks, listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (37:53):
Bye, everybody.
Thanks for hanging out with usin the Veterinary Culture Lab,
covered by the science ofworkplace well-being, and
brought to you by FlourishVeterinary Consulting.
If today's episode sparked anidea, made you smile, or got you
thinking, hey, I should totallytry that.
(38:15):
Let us know.
What do you think?
Be sure to subscribe, share, andremember a thriving veterinary
culture is possible.
And you don't have to build italone.
Welcome to the Veterinary Culture Lab, where
science meets real-worldapplication.
I'm Andy Davison.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
And I'm Josh Weisman.
Together we'll show you anevidence-based blueprint for
renovating culture in yourveterinary team.
One episode at a time.
SPEAKER_01 (00:23):
For a lot of us, hearing Can I Give You Some
Feedback instantly puts us onthe defensive.
Turns out the way feedback isdelivered is actually shaping
psychological safety, trust, andretention.
So let's dig into some brand newveterinary research and uncover
why feedback and communicationquality matter more than we
think.
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
Hey Andy, good to be back with you recording another
episode of the VeterinaryCulture Lab podcast.
Super excited.
How are things with you?
SPEAKER_01 (00:51):
Right.
This is something I always lookforward to.
Like these are always such funconversations that we have a
plan, right?
But it's like a loose plan.
And then the way that it alwaysunfolds is super fun.
So I am thrilled to be here.
I feel like it's been a minute.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
It it has been a minute.
Um, you were travelinginternationally recently.
Um, I was also travelinginternationally recently,
although slightly less excitinginternational travel than yours.
Uh and yeah, it's I it's beenit's been a hot minute since
we've sat down together.
unknown (01:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:26):
I agree.
I feel like I miss our chats.
SPEAKER_01 (01:29):
I know, I know.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
No, go ahead, please.
Tell me what's what's on yourmind.
What's going on?
SPEAKER_01 (01:35):
I was just gonna say, you're right.
We've both been doing somereally exciting international
travel.
And even though we don't havetime to get into the details of
all the amazing things that wedid while we were traveling, I
would love to hear what's kindof something that you're
bringing home from yourtraveling experiences.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
Um, to triple check on schedules.
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
There you go.
That is a valid thing.
That is an important thing.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
Especially when traveling internationally, it is
a good idea to know exactly whenthings are happening so that you
can plan accordingly.
I learned that lesson on thislast trip.
SPEAKER_01 (02:12):
I feel like all the dads around the world are like,
well, yeah, that's what I'vebeen trying to tell you this
whole time.
SPEAKER_00 (02:20):
I think you're right.
What about you?
What is what is one small thingyou're taking away from your
recent international travel?
SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
You never know when you're going to be absolutely
surprised in the most beautifulways.
SPEAKER_00 (02:32):
So I think what I'm hearing here is you you never
know when you're going to besitting by a swimming pool and a
baby elephant will be drinkingfrom it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Exactly.
Under a night sky that has theMilky Way brighter and more
stunning than you've ever seenit in your life.
SPEAKER_00 (02:49):
Yes.
Yep.
Uh so listeners, if that doesn'tgive you a hint as to why Andy's
international travel wassignificantly cooler than mine,
now you have it.
Uh Andy, I I wanted to sharesomething with you that I got to
experience while you were awayin Africa, by the way, for those
of you who haven't figured thatout yet.
Um, yeah, I was uh, you know, uhGreta and I constantly kind of
(03:12):
joke about moving.
Um you know, like at this point,you're probably like, yeah,
right, Josh, you've been talkingabout this for four years now.
Um but we do.
We, you know, we we we jokeabout it and we we look at
things.
And so occasionally, like, youknow, I'm online looking at like
I wonder what it would cost tobuy a small place in northern
Kauai.
What it would cost to get alittle bit of property up in the
(03:35):
mountains.
You know, one of our uh clientsowns a ranch up in the
mountains, and so that kind ofgot us thinking.
And so I was looking around andum I came across this like horse
property uh that was like reallyquite affordable in the
mountains, so like a good chunkof land, and I mean, not great,
we don't have horses, but I Ithought of you when I saw it.
(03:55):
I was like, huh, you know, maybewe could do that, and then I
don't know, maybe Andy and Mikecould come hang out for a while,
you know, they could bringBoston or Marshall out here or
something like that.
Yeah.
Um what I discovered though isthat this horse ranch was
actually being sold by theformer CEO of whatever company
(04:16):
it is that makes Doritos.
Like he was the guy that likewas intimately involved in
Doritos.
And I was looking at this thingand I was just thinking, cool
ranch.
SPEAKER_01 (04:26):
There you go.
Well set up.
Well set up.
SPEAKER_00 (04:29):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, you weren't quite sure.
You weren't quite sure.
SPEAKER_01 (04:33):
I it I didn't get it until the ranch part.
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
I thought it was gonna go horse related.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
Yeah, but I was like, Doritos, there's something
like that.
Doritos.
SPEAKER_00 (04:41):
There's this is my lame attempt to take um today's
uh dad joke.
I'm showing the dad joke from mycalendar to Andy.
You obviously can't see that,listeners, but yeah, this this
was today's dad joke.
What did one Dorito farmer sayto the other Dorito farmer?
Cool ranch.
SPEAKER_01 (04:59):
Yeah, see, see, listeners, this is the
creativity and the sass that Ineed to deal with on a daily
basis.
Not only is this man an amazingdad joke teller, he can take any
dad joke and make it believable.
I know.
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Thank you.
That's very kind.
I'll keep that in mind duringyour next performance
evaluation.
Um, let's let's go ahead and getto the task at hand here, shall
we, Andy?
I I'm really excited for today'sepisode in particular.
Uh, I mean, I'm always excited,right?
Because I like to nerd out inthis stuff, but this one is cool
because two reasons.
Number one, this study thatwe're gonna discuss is hot off
(05:33):
the presses.
Like this is brand new.
It was just recently releasedhere in 2026.
And it was a piece of researchconducted in veterinary
medicine.
You know, sometimes we takestudies and we kind of apply it
to vetmed, but this one actuallywas a veterinary uh piece of
research.
And it's extra special becauseit covers new ground in an area
(05:54):
that kind of lives in a reallyspecial place in our hearts here
at Flourish.
And the findings are actuallyreally super practical for
veterinary teams and formanagers.
Now, Andy, I I have a question Iwant to ask you to kind of kick
things off here.
But first, I want to ask yousort of a pre-question, which is
when you hear things like, Andy,I'd really love to sit down and
(06:15):
give you a little bit offeedback.
What happens in your mind and inyour body?
SPEAKER_01 (06:19):
Oh God, my hackles go up.
I'm certain that I screwed up.
I'm certain that I'm in trouble.
It's not good.
SPEAKER_00 (06:27):
Yeah, yeah.
And that's like typically how werespond to that word, feedback,
right?
Like in the workplace.
We think of it as like, oh God.
So here's what I want to ask youto kind of kick things off.
Before we really dive into thestudy, Andy, I want you to think
of a time that a manager or aboss or someone in some position
of power, maybe even back intech school or undergrad,
(06:48):
whatever it might be, somebodygave you constructive feedback
that landed well.
Like they did a good job of it.
And I want to ask you, what madeit land well instead of sting?
What did they do that made thedelivery receivable?
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
This is such a good question.
And it was actually a lot of funto think about.
Um, and it actually does comefrom tech school.
That's funny that you went backthere because that that that's
the example that I'm gonna shareis an example from tech school.
And the reason that thisparticular situation stands out
is because it was one of thetimes where I was given feedback
(07:29):
and I didn't get all pricklyabout it.
My rebellious side didn't comelike flying out because it's in
there, it's definitely in there.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (07:39):
It's shocker.
Shocker.
SPEAKER_00 (07:40):
You've never, never seen any inclination of a
rebellious side.
But go on.
SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
But this particular situation, it kind of I think
there's a little bit of abackstory, right?
Because the person that gave methis feedback was somebody that
I had developed a greatrelationship with already.
And it was definitely aprofessor of mine.
Okay.
So it was somebody in authority.
And as a student, to kind ofcreate a connection with this
(08:07):
person was really pretty cool.
And the more I thought about it,it happened because that
professor, that teacher made theeffort well ahead of time,
right?
To create a connection andestablish a really awesome
professional relationship withme and with the other students
in my class.
My tech school class wassmallish, which was awesome
(08:29):
because we all knew each other.
We all were intimately involvedin our journey through tech
school.
And so I had known thisprofessor for a couple of years.
She knew me for a couple ofyears, and there was already
that effort made to create thatconnection.
So when she said, Hey, there'ssomething I want to talk to you
about, I didn't automaticallygo, Oh God, I'm in trouble,
(08:51):
right?
Because we had talked aboutstuff before, and it wasn't
always bad stuff.
So there was already that sortof expectation there.
And when we did sit down to talkabout, you know, the thing that
I didn't do awesomely, it wasdefinitely about the thing that
I didn't do awesomely.
(09:11):
It was not about me failing as astudent, me not understanding
the expectation, me makingassumptions that weren't true,
me, you know what I mean?
It was about the thing that Ididn't execute awesomely or
well, really.
And we talked about what thatwas.
And it was a conversation.
(09:32):
It wasn't, hey, this is what youdid wrong, and this is what you
need to do differently, and nowgo forth and be different.
It was, hey, this happened andthis is why it's a problem.
What are we gonna do?
Because we both see the value inmaking that change.
So it was like a it was like ajoint effort, right?
It wasn't a principal's officesit down and tell me all the
(09:54):
things I did wrong and why I'msuch a terrible person.
It was, hey, let's work togetherto figure out what happened here
and what we can do movingforward.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
What impact did that experience have on you?
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Huge, huge.
Okay, first of all, I was astudent, right?
So I was a wee child and Ihadn't had a lot of experiences
like this, right?
I mean, I had had experienceswith undergrad professors who
you didn't know and were very,you gotta do this if you want to
get an A, and parents whoabsolutely told you what to do,
(10:26):
when to do it, and you never hada say, right?
And so to have this experience,I think that's why it stands out
to me so much, is because it wasone of the first that really
collaborated with me, right?
And like saw me as an equal inthis situation and invited me in
to be a part of the solutionbecause I was so used to being
(10:48):
told what to do and you know,what you got to do is this, and
now go do it.
And that was different for me.
And I think that really is oneof the reasons why this stood
out so much.
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
Yeah, that's super cool.
I'm so grateful that you hadthat experience.
And I love that because what youjust described is basically the
real world version of what thispaper is suggesting, is the big
idea that feedback quality,especially from people in
positions of authority, those instatus, feedback quality might
actually be one of the ways thatwe don't just cultivate
(11:19):
psychological safety, but thatpsychological safety makes
employee retention sticky.
And we all know about theturnover problems that many
veterinary practices face.
The thing is that I sometimesworry that a lot of the
retention conversations thatwe're having in veterinary
medicine become compensationconversations.
We we start to really viewretention as a compensation
(11:41):
problem.
Now, listen, compensation, itabsolutely matters and it makes
a difference.
But when it comes to retentionin particular, compensation is
not necessarily the best lever.
At best, compensation might getsomeone to tolerate a bad
workplace for longer.
We like to refer to this as likethe golden handcuffs, right?
(12:03):
Well, I hate it here, I'mmiserable, I'm disengaged, but I
can't afford to leave becausenowhere else will pay me this
much, right?
Money alone, though, cannotcreate a workplace environment
that people actually really wantto be a part of.
So I really come to think ofcompensation as hygiene.
It's table stakes.
It what's it's what gets you inthe door.
(12:24):
We could call better pay ajustice issue, right?
Like this is it's not reallyabout retention per se, it's
about justice, it's aboutequity, it's about what's fair.
That's how I think we shouldframe the compensation problems
that we face.
Uh this study, though, points tocommunication as a real lever
for retention and team thriving.
(12:46):
Uh essentially, what we'resaying here is that when
communication excels, when it'sreally good, especially when it
comes to the feedback loopbetween team members and
managers, people might staybecause they feel safe,
supported, clear onexpectations, and they have an
opportunity to grow and develop.
So this episode is not paydoesn't matter.
(13:08):
That's not what we're saying,okay?
It's you can't pay your way to athriving culture.
So let's dive into the studyitself.
The study has a very long name,as academic papers tend to do
sometimes, a cross-sectionalstudy exploring associations
between psychological safety,employee turnover intention, and
(13:28):
feedback skills in veterinaryorganizations.
The lead researcher is somebodywho we both know and we are
very, very fond of, Dr.
Liv Oginska.
Uh, Liv is in Australia now,doing a PhD in this area.
And so this was actually part ofher PhD research.
She had several othercolleagues, um, one of which is
somebody who I'm quite fond of.
He's done a lot of work relatingpositive psychology to the
(13:52):
veterinary space, and that'sMartin Cake.
Dr.
Martin Cake.
Uh the study asked whetherthat's a good name, isn't it?
Yeah.
Dr.
Cake.
Sorry.
And he lives and in Australia,so it literally is cake by the
ocean.
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
It is.
Oh, see.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Yeah.
He's cool.
He's cool already.
He's cool.
I know.
Someday I hope to meet him.
Um, this this particular studyasked whether psychological
safety was actually associatedwith better feedback and lower
turnover intention in veterinaryteams, and whether feedback
quality helped to explain thatlink.
So, how did they do this?
Well, they they did across-sectional study that
(14:28):
included a survey distributed toworking veterinary team members
and practices in both Australiaand then across the UK.
The survey included variousvalidated measures of things
like psychological safety, um,supervisor and coworker feedback
quality, which is uh in theliterature that there is at that
is actually a thing and you canmeasure it, and turnover
(14:50):
intention.
There were a little over 360people that fully completed the
survey, of which about 65% werepracticing veterinarians, and
then about 31% were veterinarynurses.
Now, those of you in NorthAmerica don't freak out at that
term nurses.
Remember, these are people inthe UK and Australia where they
do actually use that term,right?
(15:10):
So here we would call themtechnicians.
Most of the participants camefrom small animal practice, and
there was an almost even splitacross leadership and
non-leadership roles, which isgood because then we could
compare those two things.
Key findings here.
Well, the analysis revealed thatsome really powerful things.
First, psychological safety waspositively related to both
(15:33):
supervisor and coworker feedbackquality.
I'm going to repeat that.
Psychological safety waspositively related to both
supervisor and coworker feedbackquality.
So when we saw high qualityfeedback from supervisors and
coworkers, we also tended to seehigher levels of psychological
safety.
Secondly, psychological safetywas negatively associated with
(15:57):
turnover intention.
What this is saying is that whenpsychological safety was rated
as low, turnover intention washigher.
Or when psychological safety wasrated as high, turnover
intention was lower.
Now, here's where it gets superinteresting.
Supervisor feedback wassignificantly related to
turnover intention and partiallymediated the psychological
(16:20):
safety to turnover intentionrelationship.
So what this is suggesting isthat psychological safety seems
to lower people's desire toleave.
When we work in workplaces thatfeel psychologically safe, work
in veterinary practice that feelpsychologically safe, most of us
are saying we're less likely towant to leave.
And that's partly because saferworkplaces tended to have better
(16:42):
manager feedback.
So better manager feedback wasassociated with lower turnover
intention.
Co-worker feedback definitelyseemed to matter for
psychological safety.
But here's what's reallyinteresting it didn't
significantly mediate turnoverintention.
So this is suggesting thathigh-quality coworker feedback
might contribute to a quote,safer workplace.
(17:05):
When we work with coworkers whoare better at delivering
feedback to us, we tend to feelmore psychologically safe.
And therefore, we're more likelyto own up to and openly discuss
our shortcomings, theirshortcomings, things that we can
improve, so on and so forth.
But that may not in and ofitself directly lead to lower
turnover.
(17:25):
It was the manager feedback thatseemed to really matter there.
You could think of it like thisit's like psychological safety
is the condition of the road.
It's, you know, the road thatwe're driving on on our little
road trip to, I don't know, uh,you know, up into the Rocky
Mountains or Banff Canada is onething that's been to that cool
ranch.
To the cool ranch.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:45):
We're driving to the cool ranch.
SPEAKER_00 (17:46):
We're driving to the cool ranch, right?
So think of psychological safetyas the condition of the road
that we're driving on.
Supervisor manager feedback,that's one of the main stretches
of road that team members driveon, right?
So when you work in anorganization and you're not the
boss, the primary road thatyou're driving on each and every
day is the road of your boss'sfeedback.
(18:08):
When our boss's feedback isgood, when it's high quality, it
just makes that road feel somuch smoother, right?
We're cruising, one arm on theon the steering wheel, one arm
out, not really worrying aboutpotholes.
So when the road is smoother,fewer people are thinking of
exiting that highway for anotherone, right?
(18:30):
Fewer of us are thinking ofgetting off that road and
finding a different road.
Andy, you just heard me blabberon about this study.
I'm really curious what stoodout to you more here?
The fact that coworker feedbackseems to matter for
psychological safety just asmuch as supervisor feedback, or
the fact that supervisorfeedback matters for both
(18:53):
psychological safety andretention.
SPEAKER_01 (18:56):
Honestly, the thing that stood out to me was the
coworker feedback.
And I think that's because Ialready had an idea of how
important supervisor feedbackwas.
And I'm listening to you talkabout the value of coworker
feedback.
And yeah, right.
If we are in an environmentwhere we feel psychologically
(19:19):
safe with our coworkers, right?
With the people that are in thetrenches doing the same stuff
that we're doing, supporting usdirectly.
And we have good psychologicallysafe feedback opportunities
between them, that makes so muchsense that it would help create
what, like a stronger foundationto that road.
(19:42):
Maybe like the rebar underneathsaid road to cool ranch is
stronger because you know thatyou've got a safe space with
your team so that you can buildup that psychological safety
across the board.
Now, the interesting thingthat's kind of rolling around in
my brain as I'm saying this isthe fact that it all relates,
(20:04):
right?
So our ability to shareproductive, psychologically safe
feedback with our coworkersprobably starts with how we
experience feedback from ourmanagers and what that
experience is like and how ourmanager models said opportunity
and feedback.
So I think that they're allrelated.
(20:24):
I think that they all matter.
I really, I think, I mean, I'mgonna throw my opinion out
there.
I think that it would be harderto find an opportunity or an
environment where coworkerfeedback is super
psychologically safe andeverything's great and people
feel good, and that rebar isstrong and that foundation is
good, and the feedback betweensupervisor and team member is
(20:46):
crap.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
I I completely agree.
And I think that that speaks toa lot of the literature and
psychological safety.
It is frequently referred to asa team-based localized
phenomenon.
And of course, the supervisor ispart of that team uh and seems
to be the primary driver of itin a lot of the research, but
it's not the only driver of it.
The team seems to matter.
And so, yeah, I think you'reonto something.
(21:08):
So, this of course begs thequestion: how does this matter
in real veterinary life?
I mean, this is a veterinarystudy, so how does this show up
in our life?
What can we do with this?
Uh I think we can do a lot.
The first thing that I want totalk about is that leaders seem
to formalize the emotional toneof a workplace.
Now, that doesn't mean that theyare the only ones who do it.
(21:28):
It just means that leaders, tothe point that we were just
discussing, have an outsizedinfluence over the emotional
tone.
Andy, because of our recentgraduate program that you and I
went through, we we are nowfamiliar with some of these
theories.
Uh, there's a theory in appliedcommunication that you are aware
of called the constitutive viewof communication.
That took me a long time to saythat first word, by the way.
(21:51):
Constitutive.
Uh as you know, Andy, itbasically says that
communication is the primarymethod for experiencing and
making meaning of socialrealities, right?
In the workplace, those incharge have outsized power.
So what they say and what theydon't say, how messages are
delivered, all those kinds ofthings go a long way to
establishing the tone and feelof the workplace climate.
(22:15):
Now, Andy, you've worked in oneor two veterinary settings in
your day.
In your experience, when youthink about real veterinary
workplaces, what are some of thesmall, like everyday
communicative behaviors fromleaders in particular?
So from supervisors, managers,those in charge.
What are some of the smalleveryday communicative behaviors
(22:37):
from those people that, in youropinion, most quickly shape the
emotional tone of a team?
SPEAKER_01 (22:42):
A good handful came to mind for me here.
And I think that it all startswith the attitude that we show
up with, you know, because thatthat fuels, right?
That fuels your tone, that fuelsyour nonverbals, that fuels the
energy of the vibe you give offwhen you walk into the room.
Are you stepping in with a bitof an open mind?
(23:05):
Are you stepping in with a bitof, you know, cranky baggage
from something that happenedearlier?
You can usually tell, right?
Your vibe is off.
And I think that there's a lotto be said for that.
Nonverbals are huge, right?
Do you make eye contact?
Do you acknowledge?
Do you nod?
Do you smile?
And then that moves into thegreeting, right?
Do you say the person's name?
(23:25):
Do you say good morning or hey,you know, how's it going, Josh?
I haven't seen you in a minute.
What's what's new with you?
That intentional effort toconnect with the person.
But I also think that there's alot of, because I'm thinking of
like not so awesome, right?
And emotional tones that havecome from leaders and what's
kind of led to that.
(23:45):
And I think some of that cancome from getting on the
bandwagon of whatever the feelis in the room, right?
I know for me, sometimes I wouldgo into meetings and there was a
lot of complaining.
And there was a lot of, well,this isn't happening and why is
that not happening?
And I can't get this done andcomplaining, complaining,
complaining.
And if I jumped on thatbandwagon, yeah, this is
(24:07):
terrible.
Yeah, this sucks.
Then there's there's the tone,right?
There's the emotional tone forthe meeting.
Where if I was able to go inwith, okay, yeah, this sucks.
And what can we do to make itsuck less and make that shift?
It can be helpful.
So acknowledging the suck,right?
But trying to move past it in away that's productive and not
(24:30):
just getting on the bandwagonand being like, yeah, give me
that pitchfork.
Here we go.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Yeah, that all makes sense.
Um, I think it's, yeah, all thethings that you're talking about
here, the mindset and mentalitythat we're bringing into the
conversation is going to show upin our nonverbals and our tone,
and that's going to impact theemotional tone of the people
around us uh when we're in aleadership position.
How we greet, do we even greet?
(24:55):
You know, Andy, you and I arecurrently teaching our
certificate in cultivatingpositive team communication
program.
And in in a recent lecture withthe students, we talked about
drive-by greetings and how oftenlike drive-by greetings happen
at work.
Hey, Andy, walking right by, noteven making eye contact, right?
Or how drive-by greetings start,you know, happen at the
(25:16):
beginning of a meeting.
Uh, hey, team, good to see youall.
Okay, let's dive in, right?
Like that's that's not really agreeting.
That's a like, we are here to dothings, and that changes the
emotional tone, all that.
Um, another takeaway for me hereis that feedback is really more
than correcting behavior.
Feedback is actually arelational tool.
Like, that's really one of the,I think, the huge takeaways from
(25:38):
this study.
A technically accurate messageof you've done something wrong
and it needs to improve, right?
Can still do relational damage.
Feedback delivered withoutempathy, without respect,
clarity, lacking support, thosekinds of things, like what you
were talking about earlier froma manager or a coworker is
likely to reduce thepsychological safety within that
(25:59):
team environment or at leastwithin that relationship.
And when that psychologicalsafety goes down, when it's
reduced, the possibility forstumbles and mistakes go up.
If we are not cultivatingpsychological safety with the
way that we communicate, withthat feedback loop and how we
deliver it, we're actuallycreating patient safety issues,
especially in busy veterinarypractices, because we're making
(26:22):
it unsafe to ask for help, torepair things, to uh admit and
discuss mistakes, use them aslearning opportunities.
So if we want teams that stickaround and deliver exceptional
patient care, we really need toinvest in manager communication
skills.
Imagine a lead technician whomakes a dosing mistake that gets
(26:43):
caught before harm occurs.
Okay, cool, good.
We we we caught it.
It was a near miss, right?
So the manager says to thistechnician, you need to be more
careful.
This can't happen again.
Technically accurate statement,right?
It is true.
She does need to be morecareful.
This cannot happen again, right?
The next time it could actuallycause harm if we don't catch it,
(27:04):
right?
But it leaves shame.
It leaves distance, it leavessilence behind.
It doesn't create, to your pointearlier, a conversation.
Now let's insert a completelydifferent manager.
Or this manager working better,like communicating better.
Okay.
Same thing.
Dosing mistake, got caughtearly.
(27:26):
Wow.
I'm really glad that we caughtthat.
Now let's slow down a bit heretogether.
Walk me through what washappening before this error
occurred.
And then let's use that to likefigure out together what we can
do to make sure this kind ofthing doesn't ever happen again.
Same issue, but very differentcultural consequence.
(27:46):
Another thing here that I wantedto point out from the study is
that leaders can shape thecommunication climate.
You said this earlier, Andy, byrole modeling what good
communication looks like.
How leaders communicate is goingto influence how the team
communicates, right?
While this paper focusedspecifically on feedback
quality, the truth is our teamsare watching how we communicate
(28:08):
when things are good and whenthings need correction or
redirection.
(28:36):
Okay, so so those of youlistening to this, you've looked
over the paper.
Maybe you're convinced now,right?
You've heard these things.
Now you're wondering, okay,cool, Josh, how do I put this
stuff into action?
Well, here are some ideas tohelp you renovate the
communication culture in yourpractice.
The first one plays off of whatI just said.
We need to train feedback as anessential leadership skill.
(28:58):
I might even call it anessential leadership competency.
The authors of this studyconcluded that organizations
should assess managers' feedbackskills and invest in training
opportunities to strengthenthose interpersonal
competencies.
And I wholeheartedly agree.
And Andy, I think you do too.
SPEAKER_01 (29:15):
Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:16):
I'll even take it a step further and I'll say this.
I think that high qualitycommunication from veterinary
leaders should be considered asimportant a technical skill as
things like inventorymanagement, accounting, HR
proficiencies, anything elsethat we put in the job
description for our managementteam.
Oh, and this isn't just formanagers.
(29:36):
Progressive veterinary practicesand organizations are going to
assess and train thesecommunication skills for all
roles, recognizing thatpsychological safety is a
patient safety issue, and highquality communication across
roles will improve it.
Secondly, measure psychologicalsafety as preventative medicine
(29:57):
for your practice culture.
Based on this study, we couldactually consider psychological
safety as the lagging indicatorof feedback quality.
We could call feedback qualitythe leading indicator here, but
it might also be a leadingindicator of turnover.
So routinely measuringpsychological safety in our
teams and throughout ourorganization, could actually be
(30:18):
a way to improve patient safetyand assess the effectiveness of
our communication trainingprogram and alert us to the
growing or hopefully decreasingrisk of team members taking the
off-ramp to another job.
The psychological safety indexscan, which was uh developed in
partnership between Dr.
Amy Edmondson, I like to thinkof her as the Empress of
(30:40):
Psychological Safety, and uh anorganization in the UK, a
consulting firm called CeresChange.
That PSI scan is a robustplatform for measuring
psychological safety in teams orat the organizational and
enterprise level.
And benchmarking scores against,I think now it's probably well
over like 30,000 teams aroundthe world.
(31:01):
Turns out that Flourish isactually trained and licensed to
use that platform in veterinaryteams practices and across
entire organizations.
So if that's something that's ofinterest to our listeners, we
can absolutely help with that.
But they could also just measureit themselves.
There are validated briefpsychological safety surveys
readily available online.
And we can even share them withour listeners.
(31:21):
In fact, if you want to justemail us at Flourish, you can
send the email to info atflourish.vet.
Uh, we are happy to share one ofthose validated psychological
safety surveys with you and helpyou get started.
The next thing I wanted toaddress is making feedback
quality a key element inmanagers' performance reviews.
And I mean, like really likeactually measuring this and then
(31:45):
making it a part of howmanagers' performance is
assessed.
If we're going to consider thisa leadership competency, then we
should assess it and I don'tknow, deliver quality feedback
to managers based on thatassessment.
I mean, right, right?
It's the whole feedback loop.
This could be done, I think, bya mix of upward feedback from
team members.
So we can actually like surveytheir team members.
(32:07):
You could do it confidentially,you could do it anonymously, but
ask them, you know, to rate thequality of feedback that they
are getting from that manager.
We could also do this by way ofobserved behavior.
We could make it a point toobserve our managers delivering
feedback and uh assess thatsubjectively.
And then we can also use outcomemeasures, you know, so we could
(32:28):
have a survey item for everydirect report and team member
that that manager influences orimpacts, and simply ask them to
rate things like my managermakes me feel respected during
difficult conversations, right?
Like those are ways that we cando that.
Okay, Andy, I've shared with youthree renovation ideas here:
training for quality feedbackskills, measuring psychological
(32:49):
safety, and then making feedbackpart of managers' performance
reviews.
If a practice owner or acorporate executive came to you
tomorrow and said, Andy, whichone of those should I do first?
Which one would you recommendand why?
SPEAKER_01 (33:03):
The medical mind in my brain wants to do
diagnostics, right?
I want a baseline.
I want to know where we arebefore we even get started.
And so I think I would probablyum recommend measuring psych
safety within your team first.
Kind of see where you're at, seewhat's going well, see where
(33:25):
things are reallypsychologically safe, see where
maybe you need to spend a littlebit of extra time and effort.
And then you'd be able toimplement those other ideas in
ways that might be a little bitmore impactful, as opposed to
just assuming that you'retotally, totally not
psychologically safe, or thatthere's an absolute lack of
psychological safety, or that,oh no, no, everybody feels safe.
(33:47):
I definitely make people feel uhcomfortable and relaxed in a
difficult conversation.
You're gonna know, right?
You're gonna know the reality ofwhat's happening in your team.
And I think that is a reallyhelpful place to start for a lot
of organizations out there.
SPEAKER_00 (34:02):
I love that.
I love that because you know, weoften talk about the importance
of the feedback loop.
And when we're saying that termfeedback loop, we're saying
feedback is not just about howwe deliver it, but it's also how
we receive it.
And what you're kind ofsuggesting is like if if a
manager or hospital owner orcorporate executive starts with
establishing this diagnostic,with getting this baseline, that
(34:25):
is a way for them to startpracticing how they receive
feedback because that's whatthat survey is.
It's feedback in large partabout their leadership practices
and the impact that thosepractices are having.
So it gives them this reallygolden opportunity to practice
improving the feedback loopwithin their organization.
I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (34:45):
Well, and it shares too with the team that you as a
leader are taking thisseriously, right?
That whole modeling thebehavior.
This is a great way to do that.
This is important to me.
It's important enough that I'mwilling to create this
assessment.
I'm willing to have theseconversations.
I'm willing to hear thefeedback.
And I think that's an importantplace to start.
SPEAKER_00 (35:06):
I totally agree.
I think that's well stated.
Now, of course, we're talking alot about communication stuff
here.
So I'd be remiss if I didn'tmention that Flourish has been
working on these exact kinds ofthings for quite some time.
Uh, listeners, Andy and I bothcompleted a graduate program in
applied positive communicationsand conflict management.
And we've used that educationand some other uh areas of study
(35:28):
that we've done to create thefirst ever certificate in
cultivating positive teamcommunication.
I briefly mentioned it earlier.
We really believe that thrivingteams don't happen by accident.
They're built through everydaycommunications and
conversations.
And this study just reallyconfirms that for us.
So we'll we'll share a link inthe in the show notes uh to that
certificate program so you cansee what it's all about.
(35:51):
Uh and uh maybe you can getregistered for the next public
cohort of it, or maybe yourorganization wants us to deliver
it for your leaders, for yourteams uh across the
organization.
We can do that privately aswell.
Now, there's one person, we'retalking about thriving here,
thriving teams, and there's oneperson that I know unequivocally
is already thriving.
Probably in his or her ownspecial way.
(36:13):
Andy, I think maybe you have anidea of who I'm referring to
here.
Vibing and thriving with FloridaMan.
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (36:22):
Florida Man is always always thriving.
I don't know that it is in thetraditional sense, but it's
definitely in his own magic.
And this episode's Florida Manis no different.
Um, our headline comes fromsomewhere called Castleberry,
which I actually don't knowwhere that is, but it's
somewhere in Florida.
(36:42):
That's irrelevant because theheadline is amazing.
Florida man leaving strip clubruns himself over with his own
truck.
SPEAKER_00 (36:53):
How is that even possible?
SPEAKER_01 (36:55):
Apparently, he ran over his own leg.
There is a picture, which I willinclude in the show notes, of
the man with the car door openand he's laying on the ground
with the truck running him over.
What?
I've been in thriving.
SPEAKER_00 (37:12):
I been in thriving.
Way to go, Florida man.
Um winning again.
SPEAKER_01 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Never, never disappoints.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
Never disappoints.
Castleberry.
What a great name for town orcity or whatever.
Castleberry.
SPEAKER_01 (37:25):
Castleberry.
It sounds very noble.
Full of full of Lord FloridaMan.
SPEAKER_00 (37:31):
Yeah, yeah, seriously.
Lord Florida Man.
Oh, I would love to see LordFlorida Man's castle.
All right, that brings anotherepisode of the Veterinary
Culture Lab to a close.
Thank you all for joining usagain.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Please rate us.
It definitely helps.
And, you know, share this with acolleague or two if you think
that they might be interested inthis.
Uh, other than that, we'll lookforward to seeing you next time.
(37:52):
Thanks, listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (37:53):
Bye, everybody.
Thanks for hanging out with usin the Veterinary Culture Lab,
covered by the science ofworkplace well-being, and
brought to you by FlourishVeterinary Consulting.
If today's episode sparked anidea, made you smile, or got you
thinking, hey, I should totallytry that.
(38:15):
Let us know.
What do you think?
Be sure to subscribe, share, andremember a thriving veterinary
culture is possible.
And you don't have to build italone.
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