434: Stuck in the red zone? How veterinary teams can reset after conflict

I want to talk about neuroscience because sometimes even the smartest ones in the room don't know how to say it right or whatnot.

So an intention is really there.

You know, they're well-intentioned people.

They say the exact wrong thing during conflict and even when they know better.

Yes, that's a great point, actually.

So it's important to understand that once you are triggered, whether or not you recognize that your brain has now become a little primal, if you will.

So it has shifted into a reactive survival state.

And truly think about it.

fight or flight, right? So this is your current state of mind.

And that's why when you're not triggered, you can be completely reasonable and analytical, and quite honestly, maybe even not very emotional during a conversation.

Now, what can also happen is people when triggered, are going to start assigning negative motives without evidence, right? Where we kind of go into this negative frame of mind and that emotional intensity really override logic, intention, and even communication skills.

Like you said, it really is like seeing red.

You forget what you learned as an adult, how to effectively communicate with others.

And so really what they're responding to is that narrative in their mind versus sometimes the reality that's in front of them.

Yeah, it's very jarring when you have a leader that you think that they want to try to, again, their intention is there, but it's just not, you know, maybe they're tone deaf during the conflict or they just don't know how to read the room and something like that is going on.

It's always concerning.

What about the toll that this affects? So, you know, when you have some sort of a conflict and the morale is low, burnout's happening, maybe the performance is not as good, the technician's not playing to their strengths or the same for the veterinarian CSR.

So what's the cost of unmanaged conflict and what are the hidden consequences leaders underestimate the most in

that? Yes, this is huge, Adam.

So if we do not appropriately manage conflict within the hospital setting or for that matter, any business setting, what you're going to start to see is it will deteriorate the morale of the team.

That's going to look like chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, wasted time and loss in productivity, morale decreases and teams start to become disengaged.

There's typically increased turnover because now it's a quote unquote toxic environment.

And really what's happening is a culture of negativity and poor communication starts to compound over time.

Now, I want to highlight, you know, I don't want to be the doom and gloom episode of your podcast here.

So there is hope.