Hi, everyone, and welcome to this lunchtime webinar, and thank you for joining us. My name's Gemma. I'm the finance director of the VMG and I'll be the chair for this session.
But most importantly, I'd like to welcome and thank Chris White, also from the VMG who'll be running this webinar on leading difficult conversations in a time of rising expectations. And this is part of the VMG's partnership with the webinar Vets in one of the series that we're doing. For those of you that have joined, there's a few little technical pieces at the bottom of your screen.
There's the chat function. If you have any comments or queries or technical problems, please put that into the chat box. And at the time, at the end of this webinar we have time for some Q&As, so please do put any questions that you'd like Chris to answer into that specific box.
So, Chris, I'll do a little bit of an intro for yourself. So Chris is a veterinary leadership and management specialist with more than 17 years' experience in senior operational, commercial and organisational development roles across the veterinary profession. He is a director of the VMG and also runs Mongol training and consulting, supporting veterinary organisations with leadership development, team performance, change, and strategy.
Chris holds an MBA and a postgraduate level qualification in HR, and his approach combines behavioural insights, practical communication frameworks, and real world veterinary experience to help leaders handle difficult conversations, build stronger teams, and improve performance, engagement and well-being. All in 50 minutes, Chris. So not much at all.
So I'll hand over to you, Chris, and thank you to everyone for joining us. Thanks everyone, yeah, so, as Gemma said, I'm Chris from VMG and here's a kind of brief summary on this slide of, of what we do, we're. We have a vision just to make the veterinary world a better place by making management and leadership a, a, a better thing because that makes the most difference to people at work.
And we bring it to life through our membership community, qualifications, annual congress, which is in April, and assorted CPD, modules as well. That's the VMG. This is me here, Taking veterinary leadership confessions at a recent conference and positively exuding our values of growth, integrity, and, and warmth, there.
So as Gemma says, I've been a director of VMG for, for 6 years. I currently kind of work part-time as their operations director as well, but also I work part-time for Mongrel Training Consulting where I go into practises and help deliver training and help develop leadership teams, and this is me here very literally taking the idea of wearing different hats. Been in the vet world for 18 years, as, as Gemma said, and it's really the people side of the business that's my interest and my passion.
But enough about me. Let's talk about today's journey. This is a short 45 minute whiz through an endless journey on learning how to communicate more effectively with each other.
I recently did a project with Excel vets, exploring leadership development needs across different practise leadership roles from reception and nurse managers through to vets, practise managers, owners and directors. And across all these different roles, the development need that came out on topmost was handling difficult conversations. So this is what we're going to look at today, why conversations feel like they're getting harder, why they feel difficult in the first place, how to handle them, and what to do next if you're a leader in practise.
And the scope of this session, just so that we're aware, it's, it's useful across both internal and external conversations. So with colleagues, employees, managers, clients, and so on, other stakeholders. It's focused on everyday challenging conversations.
So, where better preparation, communication structure can improve the outcome, but it's not designed for situations requiring a specialist or formal response. So formal HR processes, dealing with abusive or threatening behaviour, safeguarding concerns. Those sorts of things.
The principles travel well, but there are certainly situations where communication skills alone are not enough. So if you find yourself in one of those situations, recognise it, pause the conversation, and move it to the appropriate formal specialist or safety process. OK, so around 1/3 of the confessions that we've collected so far in our veterinary leadership confessions black book that's doing the rounds of conferences in the UK at the moment are around avoid having a difficult conversation.
And there's a couple of examples here. So during a consult, a client got angry, demanded to speak to whoever's in charge. I went to get the practise manager to deal with them, and that was a practise owner.
When someone comes to me with an idea, I sometimes tell them to work it up or do a trial, even if I know it won't work, as I don't like to say no to people. I often spend 30 or 40 minutes composing an email to avoid having a 5-minute conversation, and I gave a client the wrong price for an injection. I was out by about 50 pounds.
I realised my mistake when the owner approached the receptionist and I heard her annoyed voice, so I hid in a cupboard till she left. So those are all genuine confessions, around avoiding having a difficult conversation, and I'm sure, achingly familiar to many of us. So first we're going to ask what makes a conversation difficult, and they've always been difficult conversations.
So for example, can I give you some honest feedback, has been around in many forms. Say to whoever commissioned the Trojan horse that bringing a giant wooden horse inside the city might have merited a risk assessment. We should probably talk about costs.
Concorde, Channel Tunnel, Sydney Opera House, practise Management Systems, HS2, the Palace of Versailles, the Great Pyramid, the Taj Mahal, pretty much any big project at any point in history. I have some difficult news. So telling Napoleon that the Russian campaign wasn't going to plan, telling whoever was responsible for the tower in Pisa that the foundations might need another look, or to the owners of the Titanic that their unsinkable ship had sunk.
But there are some significant challenges in today's veterinary environments that increase the potential for conversations to become difficult. And these are some of them here. So we have our cost and affordability pressures.
Veterinary care is expensive, household finances are stretched, and conversations about value and price are much more emotionally charged. And the cost of living is of course also affecting colleagues with upward pressures on salaries and so on for us. Higher expectations of service, people just want more.
They, they question more, they challenge and compare more, and also younger generation employees want more from work and for it to fit around their lives. And sometimes some of these conversations may exceed what is clinically, operationally or financially possible. Changing expectations of leadership, so people increasingly expect to have a voice, to understand the reasoning and be treated as active participants rather than passive recipients of decisions.
So you can't just rely on your position in a hierarchy and because I said so to avoid difficult communication, people want more explanation, involvement and influence. And there's information everywhere. Google, social media, forums, AI and other sources mean clients may arrive with strong views that sometimes very incorrect or conflicting information.
Clients used to trust your knowledge as a professional and your expertise when they didn't have Google, but now, they feel they know more than they probably do. Greater transparency and visibility is another one, so complaints and poor experiences can quickly become public through reviews and social media. And emotional stakes.
This isn't an ordinary consumer, transaction we have in the veterinary world. Fear, guilt, grief and concern for an animal amplify reactions. And finally, of course, the pressure that exists on veterinary teams to the workload that we face, workforce pressures, limited resources, and repeated emotionally demanding interactions all, make things much more difficult.
So essentially, more pressure, higher expectations, stronger emotions equals more opportunities for conversations to become difficult, happy days. So a conversation rarely feels difficult for just one reason. There are probably dozens of factors involved which we can broadly put into 5 areas, each with a whole heap of things sitting underneath.
So there's ourselves, the other person in the relationship, the stakes, uncertainty and control, and the particular situation and system that we find ourselves in. Now we could spend a week together going through all of these, but I'm told I've only got 45 minutes to an hour. So although there are lots of things we could look at here, communication styles, cognitive biases and assumptions, value equations, our own confidence and experience, listening skills and dialogue techniques, and of course the organisational pressures and systems around us, we, we, we can't do that in this short period of time.
All these matter though, and they all shape how difficult a conversation can feel. So if we want to get really good at this, they're all worth exploring further. But for today, I just want to focus on one framework that cuts across several of these areas.
It's called the scarf model, which combined with a simple structure to navigate the conversation itself, gives us a really practical toolkit for most difficult conversations. So scarf gives us one relatively simple way of looking at both sides of the conversation. What might be creating a sense of threat for me in the conversation and what might be creating it for the other person.
The model suggests that what happens across these five areas, status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness can influence whether we stay open and engaged and able to think constructively or become more defensive and self-protective. The aim isn't here to make every difficult conversation comfortable. The message itself is often going to be uncomfortable enough, but it is about trying to avoid unnecessary additional threat and creating the best possible conditions for a constructive conversation by bearing these factors in mind.
So there's a table here that that explains, each particular scarf area, what matters, what people feel like when they, they have a defensive response, and what people feel like when they have an approach response. So if you take status, which is our sense of relative importance, value and standing, if that feels threatened, we feel diminished, undermined, dismissed and judged. Whereas if that is recognised, then we feel valued, respected, recognised and taken seriously.
So that's obviously going to impact how we engage in this conversation. Certainty is our ability to understand and predict what is happening. So if we're unsure, unclear, unable to anticipate what happens next, that's going to trigger, defensive reactions in us.
Whereas if we feel informed, clear about what is happening and able to anticipate the next steps, then we feel, we can engage in this conversation, more productively. Autonomy, our sense of choice, influence and control over the events affecting us. So when that feels under threat, we feel controlled, constrained, powerless, without any kind of meaningful choice, which can make us defensive, aggressive, and so on.
Whereas if we're able to have some choice, if we're able to influence what's going on, some control over what happens, that helps us engage more positively. Relatedness, which is our feelings of connection with people, of trust and feeling safe with other people. If we feel excluded or mistrusted or disconnected, if there's a sense of us versus them, then that will trigger some negative responses.
Whereas if we do feel like we're included, like we've been understood, That that we're trusted and, and we feel that we're in this together, then that will help us positively engage. And finally, fairness, which is our sense of justice, equity, and whether things feel right or fair. So if we feel like we're unfairly treated or we're disadvantaged or inconsistently treated, or there's a lack of transparency, that can trigger negative responses.
Whereas if we feel that things are fair for us, that we're being fairly treated or At least decisions and processes are consistent and understandable, even if actually the the the the policy doesn't work in our favour, then, as long as we understand it and the rationale behind it, then we're going to be more receptive. So those are the, the 5 main areas here. And I'm just going to give a few examples now of reactions from clients and colleagues that, that will hopefully feel familiar just to kind of bring it to life a little bit more.
So first of all, status. So, you know, I've owned dogs for 30 years, don't tell me I don't know how I might, I don't know my own dog. Why did you question me in front of everyone?
What happens if this doesn't work and what does this restructure mean for my role? These are, are statements around certainty. I feel like I'm being pushed into this.
Why ask for the views if the decision's already been made? So that sort sort of negative reaction in terms of autonomy. And nobody here seems to care, so a, a, a, a client may say that about your practise or nobody backed me up, a, a, a team member may say that, when they feel unsupported, and that it relates to relatedness.
And finally, why am I being, why am I being charged for something that wasn't my fault? And how come they're allowed to do that, but I'm not allowed to, and that's our sort of sense of fairness, that comes into play there. So.
I imagine you've heard phrases like this, and similar, similar sorts of phrases. And of course if you really wanted to trigger all five of these at once, if you're a sucker for punishment, you could probably manage it in just a few words. So here, pipe down Captain Obvious.
I don't really need your opinions on this. We're still working out the details, so I can't say anything about it just now, but the decision's been made. The rest of the team are on board, so I'd expect you.
To be 2, so there we go, you can trigger all 5 in one simple statement, or you can trigger 4 of them with just 2 words. Calm down So, what does scarf actually ask us to do differently? OK, now what we shouldn't do is use this as a checklist where somehow we've got to satisfy all five scarf areas in every conversation.
It's really about avoiding unnecessary threat and where we can, doing things that help the other person and us, stay receptive, engaged, and able to have a constructive conversation. So with status, respect does not mean agreeing with somebody, OK? You can challenge a client or colleague without making them feel stupid, incompetent, or insignificant.
Now, politeness and understatement kind of comes naturally to us Brits and similar cultures. So we're quite comfortable instead of saying this isn't acceptable to say, this hasn't quite met what we need. And that's quite a nice way of, of not threatening somebody using understatement and politeness.
Curiosity over criticism also is a good way to reduce defensiveness. So rather than saying, what the hell were you thinking, say, well, what do you think was going on there? That's certainly much more scarf safe than what were you thinking.
Or instead of saying you're always doing that, say I've noticed you do that quite a lot. I'd quite like to understand more about that. Again, just gentle ways of, of, of speaking to people that, that, that don't trigger these, these, these, these scarf areas, or, would you be open to or could we consider, rather than telling people what to do, it just feels more collaborative and valuing.
With certainty, you don't need to know the answer. Often the useful thing is providing certainty about the process when you cannot provide certainty about the outcome. So I don't know yet, but here's what happens next and when you'll hear from me.
With autonomy, don't manufacture choices. Sometimes there genuinely isn't a choice. In those situations, look for where control can still exist, you know, timing, method, involvement, next steps, and how the decision is implemented.
With relatedness, some small changes in your language to frame things more collaboratively can have the biggest effect in these conversations. So using we instead of you and I. So what we're going to do about this is, let's look at what we can do.
You're subtly moving this from me versus you towards us versus the problem. Things like let's work through this together feels more relational than you need to fix this. And coming back to a common purpose or a mutual goal, we, we both want the best outcome for, you know, the client, the team, the patient.
So let's look at how we get there. And with fairness, remember that fair doesn't always mean equal. What matters is that people can understand the reasoning, that the process is defensible, and apparent differences can be explained.
So you may not be able to make the message any easier, but you can certainly avoid making the conversation unnecessarily harder. So first, what should we try not to do? So a lot of this is about avoiding unnecessary threat to a conversation that may already be difficult enough.
So here are the things we should avoid. So in terms of status, dismissive or patronising language, interrupting or talking over people, unnecessarily correcting or questioning competence, making them feel unimportant or incompetent, ignoring experience, loyalty or expertise, making them lose face or embarrassing them. And these are some of the, the, the statements that we should avoid saying there.
Terms of certainty, avoid being vague about what is happening, giving mixed or inconsistent messages, springing things on people where avoidable, or leaving people waiting without updates, unclear next steps, or, or changing expectations without explanation. And again, some of the things that we should try to avoid saying are, written down there in the speech bubbles, like we need to talk and then walking away. That is going to make me rather un nervous, rather nervous.
Autonomy, telling people when you could involve them, telling people when you could have involved them, sorry, removing choice unnecessarily, micromanaging. Offering false choices, seeking input after the decision has been made and controlling every detail, those are unnecessary threats to autonomy. And again, a few examples of some of the, the statements here, you just need to do it the way we do it around here and those sorts of things.
And then relatedness, creating an us versus them dynamic, becoming cold or overly procedural, blaming or finger pointing, taking sides too quickly, excluding or isolating people and failing to show understanding or empathy and what we should avoid doing and phrases such as you've let the team down, oh gosh, that's really heartbreaking when you, when you hear that or you're the only one complaining. Those sorts of phrases, don't help with relatedness at all. And finally, fairness, so, applying rules inconsistent, inconsistently, unexplained differences in treatment, showing apparent favouritism, refusing to hear a person's side of the story, hiding behind policy without explaining the rationale and changing rules without explanation, they impact fairness.
So, Those are some of the phrases there, that's just what it costs. So, OK, what should we, what should we do instead, . And now bearing in mind that, that good commun communication is, is not about, memorising some of these phrases that are put in for examples.
So this is what we should do instead, listening without interrupting, taking concerns seriously, acknowledging experience, expertise. Loyalty, these sorts of things, preserving people's dignity and self-respect, giving recognition where appropriate, challenging respectfully and privately. And again, some ways in which we can, we can speak to people in a way that makes them feel more assured about their status, telling them when they've made a fair point, asking if they'd be open to particular things, getting them to tell you what they think and so on.
Certainty, explaining what is happening, clarifying what happens next, setting realistic expectations, being clear where there is uncertainty, providing timescales where possible, and keeping people appropriately updated. So again, a few of the phrases there, you know, what we know so far is this, if anything changes, I'll let you know those sorts of things. Autonomy, making sure we're offering genuine choices, we're involving where involvement is possible.
We ask people's preferences, we clarify what is negotiable. We allow appropriate time for people to decide where they need it, and we support ownership of the next steps, then taking that ownership of the next steps. So again, a few, examples there of things that we could say, that would trigger a positive response in terms of autonomy.
Relatedness, showing empathy and understanding, finding common ground, emphasising shared goals, using collaborative language, demonstrating support for someone, and building trust through consistency. So these sorts of things, let's work through this together. What we both want is this, and fairness.
Hear all relevant perspectives, explain reasons behind decisions, apply principles consistently, be transparent about differences, acknowledge perceived unfairness and correct unfairness where possible. And again, just a few, phrases there and where something should have been handled differently than, than say, I'm sorry, that should have been handled differently. So that's the kind of background on, on scarf and, and how it can relate to, having these difficult conversations.
It helps us understand what might be happening psychologically for both parties. But we also need a simple structure to help us navigate the conversation in a practical way. So there are a variety of established models that are useful for particular types of conversation that you can, you can look at or get some, some workshops on.
So, one is, is one called CEA, for example, which is good for an employee developmental or performance conversation, one called SBI, which is, for simple, quick feedback, and one called desk, DESC, which is where you need to set a boundary. You need to be quite assertive and set a boundary. What I've done here is, is taken one called pair, which, which I essentially made up and, gave a funky memorable acronym to.
Well, I didn't quite make it up. I, I looked at some of the common principles that are used across, models around difficult conversations, coaching, conflict resolution, feedback, and so on. So I just kind of cobbled it together and pair sounded like it might work.
So scarf helps us read the terrain, whereas pair gives us a, a route through it. So there are different parts of this, so we, we, we go through it, prepare and open, so before the conversation, try and get clear on the issue, the outcome you need, what is fixed or flexible, what might trigger either of you thinking about the scarf, elements, then open calmly and clearly, explain why you're having a conversation and set the tone for what follows, so that's the prepare, open part. Explore, try to understand before you explain, persuade or solve, so listen, ask questions, check assumptions, acknowledge emotion and work out what's the real concern, need or disagreement here.
The next stage, once you've explored, everything is addressed. So deal with the issue directly and respectfully, share your perspective, facts and reasoning, clear up misunderstandings, discuss options, challenge where needed, and be clear about what can and can't happen without making the conversation harder than it needs to be. And then finally, Move towards reaching a way forward, bring the conversation towards a clear next step, summarise what has been understood or decided, clarify actions and responsibilities, check understanding and agree how and when anything outstanding will be followed up.
Now, you don't always have to move neatly through all four stages. I mean, an unexpected conversation that gets sprung on you, for example, might start and explore, and then you might need to take a pause and do some prepare and then continue later on. And also as you reach, reach, well, as you reach, reach, for example, you reach a way forward, you may actually need to go back a bit to explore, to clarify things some more.
Conversations are often much more iterative than linear, but the framework here helps to make sure that you move towards a way forward as efficiently and effectively as possible, whilst accepting sometimes you need to circle back to perhaps explore or address. So that's the, the framework, and the preparation for the conversation should really centre around 8 questions. So first of all, what actually needs to be discussed?
So, so strip away assumptions, any kind of irritation you're feeling about the situation and, and the history. What, what's the core issue? What do we actually need to discuss here so I don't get sidetracked by on, on something else.
What is the outcome I'm hoping for? . Understanding, behaviour change, agreement, decision, explanation, resolution, what, what I, what is the outcome, the specific outcome or outcome options that that would work for me.
What is fixed and what is flexible, what can be genuinely discussed, changed or chosen. What do I know about the situation and what don't I know? What are the facts?
What assumptions am I making? What's missing information here? What are, what are the other, perspectives that I need to bear in mind?
And what do I know about this person, and what might be happening for them? What their likely concerns are, their expectations. Perhaps you might know their behavioural or communication style, potential scarf triggers.
This is where scarf comes in, and then what do I know about myself, you know, my own triggers, emotions, biases, confidence in doing this kind of conversation. My own communication style, my tendency to avoid, defend or overcontrol, all these sorts of things. And then finally, the practical preparation around, you know, when, where and how, privacy, timing, who should be there, giving enough time.
Relevant information and whether the conversation's better face to face, by email, message, telephone, whatever that is. One thing I would say when you're doing this and when you're thinking about, yourself and the person and you're trying to apply. These scarf triggers or perhaps you're trying to apply insights or disc or all these kind of, things, beware of turning your preparation into assumptions.
They're useful, but don't assume because somebody is a, a, is a, you know, red in terms of insights and disc, that they're going to instantly be aggressive with you, you know, just be a little bit prepared for that might be what happens if you, if you trigger them. And of course, as I've, I've iterated before, prepare the conversation, don't script it. Some of the phrases I used earlier.
I mean, when you think about it, there are all sorts of phrases, stock phrases that people hear and that those are going to, to trigger them. If you think about complaint helplines and, and these sorts of things where they just say something that's very banal, that you know is on the script, you know, just make sure you are a human being here, and use a phrasing that's similar but sits comfortably with how you would talk. And then when you're having the conversation, use pair to structure the conversation as I've explained, use scarf and any other tools that you might have to help manage the interaction, you know, what might be creating unnecessary threat for them or for me.
And, and also bear in mind these five communication principles from Brinkman and Kirchner's book on dealing with difficult people. The central claim of which is that there's no such thing as a difficult person, just people we need to learn to get along with. Well, I'll let you decide for yourselves on that one anyway, but, what they emphasise is one, stabilise yourself.
OK, before you get into any difficult conversation, stabilise yourself, notice your own reaction, slow down, avoid responding defensively. Then look beneath the behaviour of the other person, ask, you know, what is the need or concern or intention that might be driving what I'm seeing if they're reacting badly to you. Build connection and common ground, so reduce unnecessary differences between you.
Find shared goals and, and, and work towards us against the problem rather than me against you. Listen to understand, so listen actively, ask questions, clarify things, summarise back, check you've understood, all in a natural way though, do this naturally, don't, don't do it as a checklist. Try to listen properly and speak to be understood then once you've listened to understand, speak to be understood yourself, use an appropriate tone, explain your perspective and reasoning clearly, and say what needs saying constructively, remaining flexible where you can.
So whilst you're having the conversation, you use those things. Afterwards, the conversation may be over, but your job isn't necessarily finished. You'll still need to follow through.
You've said you're going to do stuff, I imagine, do what you said you would do, confirm the next steps, the actions, responsibilities and timescales and, and make sure you do them and document things appropriately, especially where decisions, complaints or commitments, matter. And reflect on what happened, what worked, what didn't, where the conversation shifted. Notice the triggers, you know, what seemed to activate them and what activated you.
What would you do the same next time and what would you do differently? And for people in leadership positions, was this just a difficult conversation that I had to deal with, or has this exposed a wider problem in our systems, our communication, or our culture? And then recover and reset, debrief, take a moment and avoid carrying the emotion into the rest of your day and your next interaction.
So what I would really want to emphasise about reflection is this is not extra time that you need to do on top of everything else, it's better use of time. After a difficult conversation, most of us are going to replay it anyway. We'll think about what we said, what they said, what we should have said, whether we handled it badly and what they might do next.
So rather than spending 20 minutes or several days worrying or beating ourselves up, spend a short period of time reflecting deliberately and turn those ruminations into learning. Now give that reflection a defined amount of time. So, if it's a small conversation, you know, 2 minutes sometimes just to reflect on that following this, this framework is fine.
5 minutes for something that's a bit more significant, 10, maybe 1520 minutes if there's something really genuine there to learn. But this, this framework is really useful, to use, ask these questions. What was I hoping would happen?
What actually happened? What went well and why, what didn't go well and why, what will I do differently next time? Ask those questions, capture the lesson, decide what you'll do differently, and then give yourself permission to move on.
You're human, they're human, it's unlikely to ever go perfectly. So beyond the conversation, for people in leadership roles and just anybody really, you know, we don't just handle difficult conversations well ourselves, we need to create conditions for the, the whole team to handle them well. And some of the ways in which we do that, .
Might be outlined here. So creating shared principles and approaches, so agree how the team should approach these sorts of conversations, conversations about price, complaints, things about boundaries, delays, treatment options, and difficult behaviour. So, so teach people this, what we've gone through today, scarf and pair, the, the value of reflection, if you're getting conversations about, price, you know, making sure they understand that stuff.
So that's, that's one element, creating those shared principles and approaches and knowledge, build consistency, not scripts, as I've emphasised before, common standards and messages, but still in people's natural voices, clarify. You know, what authority people have and what the escalation routes, who can decide what, when to involve someone else and when to stop the conversation, because it's really difficult if you're trying to resolve a problem with a client and you hit something where you don't know if you've got the authority to do it or not. So try and make that as clear as possible.
For the team, you know, yes, have SOPs on it, but actually bring those to life, have conversations about it after, after difficult conversations, make sure that you're, Your debriefing as well, develop confidence through the, through the practise, so, yeah, as I say, part of this is, debriefing, and supporting people, but also, you know, if you want, if you enjoy doing roleplay, like I do, but most people don't, you can, do a bit of roleplay, if you don't, please do not force roleplay on people, but case reviews, learning from real examples, those sorts of things are good in having a discussion. Where there's been a particularly difficult situation is really useful. And when an individual has, been through quite a difficult conversation themselves, debrief and support, give them space, after emotionally demanding interactions without making them feel like they've failed and provide that, that support for people and make sure they're OK.
Learn from patterns. So as I said before, particularly from a leadership point of view, recurring difficult conversations or some depth about a particular conversation that you've, you, you've had that seems to keep coming up may reveal there's a, a kind of system or a policy or communication or, or some kind of service problem that you'll need to tackle. And remember, within all of this that supporting well-being doesn't mean lowering standards or avoiding, difficult conversations.
It's about making sure that we have those conversations, well, or as well as we can, and then that we support each other before, during, and after them. And consistency doesn't mean everyone's saying exactly the same words. It means people working from the same principles.
And the goal here isn't to eliminate difficult conversations. It's to help people navigate them with more clarity, confidence, and care. And practise obviously makes perfect or close to perfect as you can ever get.
So key takeaways now, finally, the, the summary slide, then difficult conversations are not new, but today's pressures, and working in a, in a veterinary environment in particular can make them very difficult to navigate. The difficulty is rarely just about the other person, so understand what may be happening for them and for yourself as well. Use scarf to reduce unnecessary threat and create the conditions for constructive engagement.
Use pair to give the conversation structure, prepare and open, explore, address, reach, a way forward. Prepare deliberately, stay curious during and reflect afterwards. Don't just replay difficult conversations, review them and learn from them and apply that learning.
Consistency doesn't mean scripts, build shared principles, clear boundaries, and confident teams. And finally, you know, you won't make every difficult conversation easy, but you can make it more constructive. Essentially, we can't take the difficulty out of every conversation, but we can take a lot of the unnecessary difficulty out of how we have them.
So thank you, so over to everybody now for any thoughts and questions that you might have. Thanks, Chris, super speedy fly through there and a lot of information, I think, for everyone to digest, but I think we all have a framework in the veterinary sector, so it's quite nice to have another few more acronyms to add to our our wealth of everything there. And for those of you that have joined us.
That, you know, there's some of those things you may have already known, and it's good to refresh, but hopefully we've picked up some hints and tips, around all of that. So thank you, Chris. We have got a question in the box actually from Claire.
Claire has asked, how do you navigate the fine line between acknowledging something could have been done better and not immediately accepting blame? Thinking specifically about clients and the habit of them expecting money off when they complain. Yeah, the, the, the classic money off, scenario, but, but actually it's not really about that there, is it, cos it is more about how do you, how do you essentially say sorry without saying sorry, is, is, is the question.
And, and what I wouldn't do, there, there is a phrase, isn't there, that you hear, I'm sorry you feel that way. We all get triggered by that, triggered by a trigger, yeah, somebody. Came up, it's like with all those phrases I gave earlier, if you, if they can become too trite, but if you say that, obviously the first person that ever said it and a few other people, it sounded genuinely good, but now it's a script in a call centre, a script.
So no, try to avoid that, but I think it's just about using the right language with all of this. It's about using the right language. So, if something has gone wrong, then I think it's fair to say, look, this hasn't, yeah, it really sounds like this didn't go as well as it should have done.
I'm really sorry about that. We're going to look into it, and then move it forward from there. So you're, you're acknowledging something didn't go right, but you're not then automatically moving into, yeah, sorry, we messed up, here's a tenner back.
I think that we've also probably set ourselves up that way. I think it's my sort of 2 pence worth in that, we've kind of always gone, oh, that didn't go well, let's give them some money back. And that expectation.
No, no, go on. Oh right, no, I was just gonna say, yeah, it, it is really interesting, it's in our, it's in our psyche, in the vet world, it's still, I, I remember looking at something which showed the amount in which different professions discounted. It was a Canadian study, I think, and, you know, people like accountants and, you know, dentists and stuff, there's virtually no discounting going on whatsoever, but in the veterinary world, it's enormous.
I mean, it really is. We, there's something about us because we want to just make animals better and we just wanted it, we would do it for free, if somebody would pay for our housing, etc. And we would, we would charge nothing for it if somebody could keep our practise open and pay for all the, the bits that are in it.
We just want to, to fix things and therefore we feel really bad when something's gone wrong. It's because we're lovely people, essentially. Deep caring souls that don't, you know, it's that we could go to a whole piece around value around this, but I think in Claire's question that even your wording Claire of the acknowledging something could have been done better, that as a starting wording is pretty good, yeah, actually we acknowledge this has not gone as we expected, and to be able to go, and we're gonna find a solution, I think that solution's based.
Way of looking at things, it's easy, I say it's easy to accept blame, but to revert to blame, taking oh I'm sorry, I'll give you some money back, would actually go no this hasn't gone well, let's look into it and find a solution, to move forward and it's sort of, I think taking the first step and not automatically going to, Giving money back is the hardest step, with any of these things, isn't it the first time you do it. Is the toughest and it becomes easier with practise. Yeah.
There's a few hands popping up, which I imagine means questions. If there are any questions, please do pop those into the Q&A box, and I'll, I'll pick those up as well. I'm sort of throwing my two pence worth in here with my many hats as well, Chris.
I hope that's all right. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely one of those people. I'll tell you that.
I'm definitely one of those people that will have, Oh, overthink my head completely, you know, rehearse things to the nth degree and like and then like you said, it's not about having. A script as such, but I do kind of like having a few stock phrases. So those things you share, Chris, I think, are great, a great starting point, obviously in your own voice, because we all speak very differently, but a few things there in the back pocket, and I definitely find that prep before conversations, Very helpful to do for my own brain to feel more confident and, and going into that thinking, what do I want the outcome of this to be, and having that in mind, obviously that's for planned conversations.
I would say as well for, just that whole language is powerful. And I've tried to start reframing difficult conversations as curious conversations, even taking the word difficult out. Almost If we say difficult, we're almost setting ourselves up expecting.
Yeah. Difficulty, right? Yeah, yeah, I think that's a, that's a really, interesting way of looking at it and, and it, how you, how you label it in your mind, is, is really important, but probably I would avoid saying to somebody, let's have, let's have a curious conversation.
I said let's have a difficult conversation, you said, yeah, let's sit down and have a chat. Oh yeah, the classic thing. Can I grab you for a quick word that doesn't inspire the most thrilling feeling, I feel inside.
So I think, you know, I said that all of us are quite different. I think it's fair to say you and I are quite different, Chris, and kind of how we approach things and ways around it. And you touched on a little bit around, disc profiling, and they sort of, I, I'm a real fan of profiling tools.
I think they, I they're quite useful. But in terms of your experience of them, How do you feel that sort of profile tools help or don't help in understanding people and kind of what, what are your sort of takeaways from using those or not? Yeah, I, I'm, I'm also a big fan of them for helping us understand, ourselves and each other and, you know, what we're like on a good day, on a bad day and, and, and all that kind of, I think they're really good.
So there'll be a good number of people here that have done disc or insights or any of these, you know, Myers-Briggs, all these things that are essentially based on the principles of, of Jung, and, and essentially. Are, you know, about how task versus relationship orientated are you on one dimension and then how introverted or extroverted are you on another dimension. So everybody love's a, a, a 2 by 2 box, when it comes to psychology and so on.
So in terms of their usefulness, they, as with anything, it depends how you use a tool, and I, I think there's dangers with them. In that, you can be a little bit too set in your ways, because the reality is we're, we're all a mix, you know, we are all the mix, of these different things, so we, we talk about cool blues, fiery reds, sunshine, yellows, and earth greens. Now we may have a preferred, .
A preferred, you know, blend, but we are still all the mix. So I remember speaking to somebody, who was an equine vet who had a client, because they'd been taught by somebody about using these, these, these, these insights or disc profiling for clients. They had a client who was obviously sort of earth green sunshine yellow, and they totally tailored their conversation towards that.
And then ended up with a complaint that could have been written by a red or a blue, because, essentially we are the whole human being and we may only have a little bit of blue, but it's sometimes going to come out because at the end of that conversation, the person thought, well, that was, that was nice, but hold on a minute, I, I, why am I spending all this money? Well, that really makes me cross. They, they, they've, they've, they've been taking the mickey out of me.
They, they didn't tell me that, you know, and, and, and it escalates from there. So I think, understand we're all a mix, . If you know your profile, then you will know what will trigger you maybe and make, make you have some of the sort of negative aspects that are associated with your profile, so you can be prepared for that, what might trigger that, if you know the profile of the other person.
They will know it as well, so you can have a bit of an open conversation with them about your different, things, especially when it comes up. So, so it might suddenly be that Earth green is battling fiery red, but you both know that's what you are, so you can, you can say, hey, yeah, that's, we're, we're behaving like, like, like we're opposites, on the dimension, so. I think you made a good point there.
It's the danger of pigeonholing people, isn't it, with these things that kind of going, oh, well, that's because of X, and the whole thing around assumptions, which I won't use the phrasing, but, you know, you can make, if you split down the word assume into its constitutional parts, you make something out of you and me, which I will not say on this delightful webinar. But it's exactly to that point. It's the, and I think what you've highlighted quite a bit, Chris, is that around the invaluable things of self-awareness.
I think it's probably one of the most key tools with these. Like you said, I think the profiling piece comes in, I think I, I find profiling is very much a, a self-awareness tool, and to your point, you know, a tool is only good, you know, it does good if you wield it right, and I think there's that bit of understanding your own preferences, and that is your point there, those of your team. Which can really help with communication, which hopefully might reduce the number of difficult slash curious conversations you may have to have, because you look at all of the stuff from, you know, even the veterinary mediation service, if you look at their sort of reasonings for, .
Client complaints, all of it, pretty much the majority boils down to communication, which, you know, if we can do things to improve upon, then we're in a, a, a good sort of space. Yeah, and where, where, where I emphasised earlier on in when, when we're having these conversations, it's the, the, the sort of reflection bit is about yourself first, you said that it's self-awareness and self development first, so no good saying I'm a fiery red, get over it, I just get cross and shout at people, so, you know, that's me folks. No, you've got to try not to do that, of course, that, that, that's part of what you do because you can.
See the effect it has on, on other people, but the first thing you do when you look at these scarf triggers is, is, you know, you think about yourself. The first thing you do in these difficult conversations to make sure you are stable before you, you move, move into it, and then you can use it to help with other people, but primarily I see it, as you, focusing on yourself. And there's still, despite whatever profile you might have, there are still quite a lot of fundamental human factors that we all, we all have.
It's all there. The joys of people, right, it's gonna be one of the most rewarding and yet sort of frustrating, if we're honest. I think that's kind of the feel we get a lot of those.
I did have a, whether it's a bit of dark humour, chuckle to myself with some of your examples that have come up, in, in, in your talk that I feel like the veterinary confessionals book is a, is a delight. I think a lot of us can. Relate to it, for better or for worse, we all make boo boos, but I think it's how we learn from it, like I said, that reflection piece of actually how could I have done.
This better. I've yet to add my confessionals to said book, but I'm sure there will be an opportunity for me to do so. And I think, you know, in our, in our shared spaces at VMG, I think there's again, those common themes come through, and it's nice to sort of go, OK, well, I'm, I'm not the only one that's messed up here.
Sometimes there's others that have done it as well. Yeah. Hey, there's not much more questions coming through at this point.
I think we've overwhelmed. There are lots of thank yous, which is great. Eric has asked about slides.
The recording will be available after today, so you can rewatch, because as I say, Chris, did a delightful rapid fire, lots of info in there. And to rewatch the recording, you will have to be a VMG or webinar vet member to watch us on demand, so that will be sorted out by the webinar vet team. Yeah, and I'll just finish off just a sort of further bit on, on the point that was made earlier about money really, and, I think what's, what's really important is that, one, people understand.
How much things cost, so the BSAVA do an explainer of, of veterinary costs. So, so a lot of the time we're a bit embarrassed about money and, you know, but actually when you look at it, very few practises make a significant profit. There's quite a few that run at a loss, and you know, there's a lot of money, we're running mini hospitals, so I think using the BSAVA explainers that people understand, how, how.
You know, expensive, because if everybody understands in the team, conversations don't become difficult and escalate. So if you have a, you're a vet in a consult room, you don't really understand the financial side of things and a client complains about money, that's going to escalate because you don't really understand it, but if you're able to explain to them why things cost what they are, what they do, then that really, that really helps and nip things in the bud. And also, of course, you know, a whole other ball game would be the, the, the idea of the value equation.
So it's not all about money, and that's a, that's a session in itself that that value is customer experience plus clinic clinical quality. Divided by, acquisition cost and price, acquisition cost being the hassle, for example, of, of wrestling your cat into a basket and driving to the vets, plus the price. Those are the sort of negative sides of the equation.
On the positive sides, it is the clinical quality and the customer experience, and if people perceive value. Which price is just one part of, if you can dial up the customer experience and clinical quality, make things easier for people in terms of, you know, sending it, going out and seeing a cat rather than having it, shoved into a basket to come to you, whatever ways and means you can get to make it easier for clients to, to, to, experience your service, then price becomes less of an issue, but the, the reality of price is, that, a certain amount of money needs to be charged for a variety of reasons. And, in order to be able to survive as a practise and invest and get better and better.
Yeah, it's not, it's not easy. We're not saying it's easy at all. And I think John's popped a comment in here, said, retired from, mixed practise after many years.
When anyone complained to himself or other staff member, he'd speak with the client first, sort of ASAP, thank them for complaining. Often takes some of the steam out of their attitude. You'd explained that we aim to always do a good job.
We think we do a good job, and how much we appreciate having a failing pointed out. This is how we continually improve our practise and our service to our clients, which I think kind of sums that up, really, isn't it? It's kind of the brilliant.
Yeah, that's really well summed up, John. Thank you for that. Yeah, getting that back, that sort of, you know, feedback is how we improve, right?
And much as the feedback word might go around it, but I've sort of had that thing that if we don't get the feedback, we don't have these difficult conversations with Potentially doing ourselves a disservice and the other individual as well, to not have an opportunity to improve, you know, it's that whole, we need to know the information if we wanna improve upon it. Yeah, and I think most of us, you know, we do a really good job. Most, the vast majority of veterinary practises do a really good job and are trying to do a really good job.
So, a complaint with, you know, obviously takes up, but you know, it's like 100% of your time, it's a massive, enormous thing, but actually it's the number of complaints you get is usually very tiny, and so having a bit of perspective around it, but also knowing that actually that knowing. That you do a good job, knowing the value of, you know, there's, there's a, a phrase, isn't there, about, you know, vets, that, you know, it may be a 15 minute consultation, but I've been doing this for years, and that's what you're, what you're paying for, understanding the value that, that there is, in being a veterinary professional, in being a, a, a nurse, in being a receptionist, understanding what you are. Bringing to the table and how that is part of that value equation is really, really important so that when you do get, a complaint, you're genuinely taken aback about the fact that something hasn't gone well, and that comes across to the client rather than, oh, this is just another complaint, it's like, add that to the pile of all of our joy.
This is, yeah, this isn't us at all, and that really comes and clients then know. That that that you will do the best you can because it's about that expectation things and being clear and having those guide frames that everyone's aware of. So Zoe's popped in here, probably leads on quite nicely that I says I've found tone to be a very important part of these conversations.
Have you any suggestions on how to navigate and teach this in the last 6 minutes, Chris? In the last 6 minutes. Tone is really important.
I, I, I have this, idea of things that I call like triggers, so, yeah, where, where essentially there are certain things, and they were, they were phrased, in, in the, in the presentation as well, some of the, some of the things that came up about what we shouldn't, say, . And so calm down, you mean calm down calm down, yeah, was one of them, but tone, dismissive tone, if you go back to those, those scarf, those scarf triggers and just think about how much it's not so much the words, it's the tone, it's a combination of, of both things. Now in order to get your tone right, then you either have to, you know, be pretty genuine in what you're feeling, and that it's a, it's a not a.
a really sort of terrible feeling, or you need to be able to control that. So if you are really angry, then there's no point in allowing that tone to come out, you have to find a way of making, you know, controlling yourself, that stabilising yourself bit, that thinking like what's triggering me here. Applying those simple things that that I put forward earlier in the slide, to, to make sure that then you can control yourself and then your tone will improve.
Think about some of the things that you can say that sound natural to you. But generally I think you just try to get yourself into a position where you're not, feeling that tone, where you genuinely are empathetic towards the other person. You genuinely are trying to understand them.
Your point about curiosity rather than. A difficult conversation, so try and take the emotion, the personal side out, and, and almost be quite objective and, and, looking down upon it to try and understand it more, might help with the tone. And we're professionals, we, we, you know, so, suspending our emotions, you know, if you're a vet and a, and a nurse in particular, but for all professionals that work in the veterinary world, we've all got, we all have to suspend our emotions at times, just ask anybody that works on the reception desk about how much they have to do that.
So, yeah, really, we have to suspend. I think it's that next stage I said about self awareness to self management is kind of recognising I am absolutely I am. Blood boiling furious right now, that is probably not the time to go speak to the vet.
Sorry, Chris, it's not you, it's not you. I didn't realise it'd gone that bad. I'm really sorry.
But the self awareness to self management movement, that kind of going, I recognise that I am absolutely and what is this? Time to have the conversation about the people, you know, messing up the prescription again. And you'll, it will come across automatically if you're in that space.
So, you know, whether you're into the sort of mindfulness or not, whether you don't like the word mindfulness, but taking that breath of 5 minutes outside to calm yourself in that sense and go, actually, this is not the time. For this conversation, I think being able to, particularly if those conversations aren't needed to be knee jerk, I think with any difficult conversation, they should be timely, as in, you know, if something has occurred, we shouldn't just leave it till the next appraisal, and all of those things, it should be timely, but in a in a place where you're in a space for it. So I don't know, Zoe, if you're this is more about how you're for yourself or for others within your team potentially, but around that self awareness and feedback and hopefully you've got team members who are open.
To that, piece around it because they may not know that their tone is sharp. I've certainly worked with people, but that's, you know, some people are quite, I think the the difficulty is defining between blunt and and sharp and blunt and kind of the intentions behind it, but actually being able to speak to them and sort of, are they aware of that their natural way is their way around things and to be able to sort of discuss that and give that feedback. Yeah, and actually, part of unders if you're having a conversation with a colleague where you kind of understand each other, I, I'm not a blunt person, Gemma, you probably are more than me, but I'm, I'm very, I'm, you know, we are quite opposite, but I'm quite happy with you being blunt with me because I know that you, underneath it, you don't mean any, any nastiness at all, it's your, it's your style and you try to manage it a bit better and you usually apologise afterwards and so on.
But because we understand each other, that really helps. It's, it's more difficult if you're dealing with somebody where you don't have that understanding and where you can't go, hold on a minute, Gemma, that was a bit, you know. Yeah, John's popped another comment and the, the thing around meta dialogue is crucial.
I know what I said to you, and what I meant by what I said, but what did you personally hear me say and understand me to mean? I think sums it up quite well, isn't it, the intent behind and how you think you've come across and the human brain is a fallible, a fallible beast, around it all there and they've been around, er, lots of vets and others make unwarranted assumption about what a person may know, common knowledge, common sense, neither of them is that common necessarily. I think that's quite a good point to, end on, actually.
Yeah, no, absolutely, and thank you all for joining us. Very much appreciate that. And, let's say that this will be available for the BMG members and webinar webinar vet members online, as is part of the series that we are doing.
So keep those in your diary as well, please. Chris has popped things up there around the VM. That's what we sort of stand for, helping you guys in your leadership positions with this sort of thing, because it is tough to do it alone and the community of the VMG is what we're here for.
So thank you all for joining us, and I hope the rest of the days treat you all well. And thank you again, Chris, for your insights. Thanks, everyone.
Thanks for the comments and questions. Take care, everybody.
