How to Deal With a Difficult Co-worker | Episode 3 | Reviving Vet Med

Working in the veterinary profession isn't easy. And sometimes that is because we are butting heads with someone we work with. While it's not expected that we get along with everyone all the time, sometimes toxic behaviours need to be addressed, for our own wellbeing. 

During this episode, I share some of my experiences dealing with difficult co-workers, including an easy to follow process for addressing the behaviour.

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How to Deal With a Difficult Co-worker

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Transcript

Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Med. In today's episode, we are going to be discussing how to deal with difficult coworkers. Now, I'm not going to lie. This is a juicy episode. We get down to the nitty gritty when it comes to conflict in the veterinary workplace.

Why it's inevitable. So, let's go ahead and accept it because it's a part of working in a veterinary clinic where there's different personalities and different ways of doing things. We also talk about disruptive behaviours among coworkers and how we can address those. And in that section, I introduce one of my favourite tools which is the D. I. S. H. Script. So that's gonna be something you wanna listen closely to. So please note that this episode was recorded previously using live video.

Therefore, some of the audio may be not of super high quality. And there may also be some interactions with live viewers. But with that said, I really feel that this information is important to share. So, let's go ahead and get into the episode. This is the Reviving Vet Med podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Marie Holowaychuk. My mission is to improve the mental health and well-being of veterinary professionals around the world. So, I want to talk about conflict today. Conflict, of course, is any time. We have a difference in opinion, work knowledge, work approaches, values, and personalities in the workspace.

So, news flash, if you didn't already know this, conflict is inevitable, especially in veterinary settings because we're dealing with complex cases, so many different patients, different personalities, different people, different backgrounds. We are not always going to agree. And I know a lot of people hear the word conflict and they immediately, you know, have a visceral reaction to it and wanna run-in the other direction. But I urge you to just look at conflict as a difference of opinion. Conflict doesn't necessarily have to be bad.

In fact, I wrote a blog, last year basically explaining how conflict can actually be a good thing because we can learn from each other when we don't necessarily thing because we can learn from each other when we don't necessarily agree with each other. So, keep calm and don't take it personally. That's my motto. Just because somebody doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they don't like you. It has nothing to do with you.

It simply is a difference of opinion. And I think so often, myself included, early in my career, you know, if somebody didn't agree with me when I gave them advice on a patient in the ICU, I felt like it was an attack on me and that they didn't think I was knowledgeable enough or smart enough or competent enough as an emergency and critical parent resident, but that had nothing to do with it. The fact was it wasn't that they were disagreeing with me as a person. They were disagreeing with the idea that I had or the suggestion that I made. So, again, we're not always gonna agree.

And that's okay. I actually learn a lot when I work with people who don't necessarily agree with me. And so, that's where the good comes from conflict. So, what can you do when you don't agree with somebody? I urge you to get curious.

This has become like my I don't know. I feel like this should be my word of the year for 2021, but it's not. But this has become, you know, like a motto for me. Like, don't get judgy. Don't get defensive.

Get curious. Gosh. It's so interesting that they believe that, or they think that or whatever it is. I'm not trying to convince them of what I think. I am just trying to understand where does that thought process come from.

And I'm telling you, this doesn't just relate to disagreeing over a case. This can relate to somebody believes, you know, in a conspiracy theory, what you believe to be a conspiracy theory. Get curious about that. Wow. It's so interesting that you think that COVID nineteen, you know, resulted from cell phone five gs towers.

Tell me more about that. Like, what has led you to believe that? Get curious. Okay. When we also have disagreements, or conflict of opinion, difference of opinion, with other individuals, we want to have a discussion where we are going to aim for sharing thoughts that are precise.

They're factual. So, what do you know to be true? Whether it's, you know, I read a journal article or I had a case last year or, you know, I saw a colleague of mine manage a case. You know, whatever it is, be as factual and precise as you can. And this is really meant to share understanding and heighten awareness.

It's not based on emotion. Well, I just really think we should do it this way, or I just really feel like this is the way to go. That not only is emotional, but it also sounds really defensive. So, you simply just wanna state the facts. What do I know?

What's been my experience? And we go from there. When you're having these discussions with somebody who doesn't necessarily agree with you, again, don't shut down, don't retreat, don't close off, stay open. And I know that it's hard because we're all wearing face coverings, face shields, and everything else in the workplace. But if you can still, you know, okay, nod your head, have an interested expression on your face like eyebrows lifted, eyes open, not, you know, glaring at somebody, furrowed brows.

You can do a lot with the upper part of your face to convey information, so just be mindful of that. Keep your arms open and uncrossed and even leaning forward. And, you know, I was giving a presentation last night talking about communication, and I was saying that even a lot of our, correspondence that we do over the phone, it's still possible to indicate that you are listening and agreeing. Yes. Oh, okay.

You know, versus just deadpan silence. When you are engaging in these discussions, you also want to stick to open ended questions. Well, what would you recommend? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Not a question, but a statement that's open ended.

What has your experience been? What is your take on things? Tell me more about that. I just get super enthusiastic, and I just say to the person, wow. Like, that's gosh.

I'm really interested to hear more. Tell me more. You'll notice that I have not included any why questions. Why is an open ended the beginning of an open-ended question. But as human beings, we become very defensive when asked why.

I'm not honestly sure where the psychology is behind that, but if you can, instead of saying why do you think that what are your thoughts on that, or what has led you to manage patients this way or whatever it might be. We also want to practice reflective listening. So, I'm just looking at my, I'm trying to see if I can pull up comments on here, but I'm not sure that I can. So reflective listening is basically reflecting back to the person what you heard them say. So, you're going to offer, a summary of what you heard or a particular thought that you took from what they said back to them to make sure that you understood them properly.

And so, it's not you're not, like, being a parent and mimicking them, but you're basically saying, so what you're saying is you've taken most of these patients to surgery, and they've done well for you that way. You know, so we're just summary summarizing what we heard. Or so what I'm hearing is, you know, whatever it is. And that and that's all it is. And the reason why this is important is because it shows that you were listening, and it gives the other person the opportunity to correct you if you misunderstood or misinterpreted what they said.

Also, I promise you there is going to be a benefit no matter what happens if you go into these conversations really seeking to understand rather than prove your point. Remember, it's not about convincing them. It's not about agreeing or coming to a consensus. If you don't end up agreeing at the end of it, that's not a bad thing. Both of you are going to feel better or all of you if there's more than two people involved in the conversation having felt seen and heard and listened to.

Okay. So, that's what I have so far for conflict. Now most of that conflict, that I've just shared with you is conflict related to difference of ideas, difference of opinion. Those for me in practice tend to be the most non-threatening forms of conflict. People can still get very defensive, don't get me wrong.

But again, if you follow those recommendations, don't take it personally, stay open, get curious, ask open ended questions, reflective listening. I promise you; you will have good results from that. The next thing I wanna talk to you about, though, is what happens when you have a more personal conflict with somebody. So, this would be due to, interpersonal incompatibility. So, you're just not jiving with somebody and it's becoming a problem.

Or somebody is having, exhibiting behaviors that are very disruptive, you know, and that they're functioning the causing a little bit of dysfunction within the team. So, in these situations, we can feel tension, we can feel annoyed, and there can be animosity that develops. And all of these things can result in problems accomplishing tasks within the team. Because what ends up happening is that people start avoiding certain people, they're not communicating openly, communication lapses, and ultimately this can lead to toxicity in the workplace. K.

So, a lot of people come to me, for communication advice and, you know, they tell me a story about a person that is just driving them bananas at work and they're like, I don't know what to do about this person. You know, she drives me nuts. I always tell them, you know, it may actually just be a difference of personality, in which case, you know, I'm sorry to say, but I don't think that that's worth getting into a conversation about. Not everybody is gonna like everybody. Not everybody likes me.

You know, whether it's the way somebody talks or, you know, certain language that they use or their, you know, personality traits, not everybody is gonna be liked by everybody and that is okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. Again, don't take it personally and don't seek out to try to make problems where there are not. Consider this. If this person's behavior is impacting patient care, client satisfaction, or team functioning negatively, then, yes, the behavior needs to be addressed.

But if none of those things are impacted, you just don't really like this individual, then you know what? Suck it up, buttercup, and we're just gonna leave it be because, in my opinion, it is not worth getting into it and just accept. You know, take a deep breath. This person might drag you bananas, but it's just not worth having a conversation about. So, what is worth having a conversation about?

Well, disruptive behaviors, toxic behaviors, things like condescending language, condescending tone, impatience with questions, refusing to answer questions, emails, or phone calls, verbal abuse, you know, threatening, you know, body language, and certainly physical abuse. Some of these should be absolute nonnegotiables. The person is removed from the workplace, but at the very least, there needs to be a conversation. And so how might you have a conversation? Well, if you're anything like me, then you probably like to have something laid out, a script that you can follow, something to help you organize your thoughts so that you're not, you know, blubbering and backpedaling when you go to have this conversation.

Number one, before you even get to having the conversation, you wanna get yourself back online. So, if you, you know, flipped your lid, so to speak, and your prefrontal cortex went offline, you got into fight, flight, or freeze mode, take a deep breath, take a walk outside, put some food and water into your body. You know, just take a minute to get grounded and gather yourself. This might even take half an hour to an hour to really get yourself to a space where you can, comfortably and calmly have a conversation. But you do not want to jump into conversations like this if you are feeling stressed, if you are feeling, like you wanna run-in the other direction.

Now none of us or most of us don't like addressing conflict, so your heart's probably gonna be pounding and you may feel like you wanna run-in the other direction. But the point is that you've had some time to step away and gather your thoughts before you try and launch into this. And when you do begin to have a conversation about conflict in the context of a disruptive, behavior, here's the template that you can use. So, it's called the DISH script, and I'm gonna break it down in more detail. So, the d stands for describe.

You are going to describe exactly what happened. Try to describe what you actually saw or what you actually heard. So, this is where it becomes a bit tricky if you're in a management role and somebody came to you and was like, you know, Janet came to me and was super rude and rolling her eyes and, you know, I need you to talk to her about it. If you didn't hear or see what Janet did, then it becomes hearsay and that's not ideal. So ideally, you would have that employee speak to Janet directly because she can speak to exactly what she experienced.

If you overheard or witnessed the conversation, you could speak to it. But nevertheless, be careful about, you know, third party involvement. So, you wanna be as factual as possible. Again, key to facts. Try and keep emotions out of it at this point in time.

We're simply just describing it. Share only what you know to be true, not what you heard second-hand. Again, going back to the example that I gave. So, then the I in DISH stands for identify. You're gonna identify your concerns about what happened.

What was the behavior and why was it concerning to you? You wanna use I statements here. This is where you can talk about how you felt in relationship to the behavior or what happened. But you do wanna avoid saying things like, you made me feel angry, or you made me upset, you hurt my feelings. Nobody has the power to do that.

Our feelings arise from our thoughts, and our thoughts are created by ourselves in response to situations. So let me say that again. Nobody can make you feel anything. You feel the way you do in response to your thoughts, which you create. So, yes, a situation might have led to a thought that caused you to feel a certain way, you know, this person doesn't like me, this person is mean, you know, whatever.

But those are still your thoughts. So instead, you would say, I was really upset, or I was embarrassed, or I didn't know what to say, and I was, you know, humiliated, or whatever it might be. Be honest. This is where you can speak to how you feel, and nobody can dispute that because it's how you feel, and only you know how you feel. And this is probably the least comfortable part of addressing a disruptive behavior because it takes a bit of vulnerability.

But the point is that you are demonstrating that this behavior had a negative impact on you, for whatever reason. So, then the s in the DISH script DISH script is to suggest. To suggest other alternatives. What do you need to happen instead? What is important to you?

What are you hoping for, wishing for, or expecting the next time a similar situation should arise? And be reasonable. I always say to people, you know, I would never ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't do. Same thing goes for this. Be sure that you're being reasonable in what you ask.

And then the h is to highlight the benefits of solving the problem together and reaching a shared agreement. So, this is where you, you know, might say, I think if we can, you know, manage the situation differently next time, it'll allow us to work much better together. We'll have a collegial relationship. Patient care will be better. Whatever the reasoning is, there should be some benefit, usually in terms of the impact on the team functioning or the client and patient care.

And then, of course, asking for permission. How do you feel about that? How does that sound? What are your thoughts? Again, open ended questions, not just, is that okay with you?

Because they're gonna just prompt, you know, yes or no and walk away. Okay. So, I'm gonna share a story. This is not an easy story for me to share, because it was a situation in which I was very, embarrassed and upset, by a conversation, that ensued with a colleague of mine. So, this was a couple of years ago now.

I was doing a locum at a hospital, that I will, leave anonymous for obvious reasons. And I it was my first shift back, in the hospital as a locum, and I was taking over cases from the criticalist who was on duty. And I had an intern with me, so an intern was helping me. And thankfully, that intern had been there throughout the week. So, the intern had been looking after these cases as well.

So, it just made a little bit more seamless in terms of our communications with the owner. The intern hung on to the cases where she had already spoken with the owner, and I, you know, advised her as to my thoughts, you know, as the specialist overseeing, all of these cases. And so, we had a cat in the hospital that had been blocked multiple times. It had had multiple unblocking procedures. Some of them had been very, difficult procedures, difficult to unblock, multiple catheters passed.

And ultimately, the cat ended up having a perineal urethrostomy surgery, to prevent this from happening again or at least to reduce the occurrence. And along the way, the cat also developed a urinary tract infection, probably because of the multiple unblocking procedures and being in the hospital with the catheter and so on. And long story short, this, cat was doing awesome, and it was getting ready to go home. But the cat had been prescribed two different antibiotics for the lower urinary tract infection and culture results, of the urine were still pending. And, again, this is where we all have difference in the case management and difference of opinion.

And it is not in my habit, typically, to do two antibiotics for a stable patient with a urinary tract infection. And so, I had a conversation with the intern. We had preliminary urine culture results and, preliminary sensitivity results to know which antibiotic to use. And the long and the short of it was that we knew that one of the bacteria there was two bacteria that cultured, and one of them was going to be susceptible to, both antibiotics that the cat was on. And the other bacteria was identified, but the sensitivity results weren't there.

But knowing what I know about this bacteria, I said, you know what? I think we're going to be fine to cut this antibiotic out and just stay with this one antibiotic. It's what we call de-escalation, when it comes to antibiotic therapy. And I felt quite comfortable with this, especially given how stable the cat was. And I'll be honest, this antibiotic that I wanted to cut out is actually not the safest antibiotic for use in cats.

It has been associated with blindness. And so, I thought, meh, if we don't really need this antibiotic, I'd like to get it off, you know, the patient's treatment orders as quickly as we can. So, we had a I had a long conversation with the interim. We talked about the pros and cons of, you know, discontinuing or not discontinuing the second antibiotic. And ultimately, she decided, yep, she agreed that we would do that, and we went about our day.

Well, the next day, she came to me and, you know, she was quite upset. And, she said, oh, I just you know, I've gotta talk to you about something. And so, we had a conversation, and she was, you know, quite emotional. And she said, you know, you're gonna you're gonna notice when you look at the treatment orders, for our blocked cat that I actually didn't discontinue that antibiotic yesterday. And I said, oh, okay.

Well, what you know, that's okay. What happened? I thought maybe she forgot or, you know, whatever. And she said, well, I didn't wanna tell you yesterday, and I didn't really know what to do. But the surgeon, who had managed the case before you came back, before you started your shift, called me to check on the cases yesterday.

And when I told her our plan, she got very angry. And she said, you will continue that antibiotic as I had prescribed it, and I don't want Dr. Holowaychuk anywhere near my cases. Yeah. So, I can't hear the gasps from those of you who are watching, but, yeah, that hurt. And it was embarrassing because she said this to one of my interns, and this intern didn't know me very well.

This intern, you know, wants to do an ECC residency. Here I am, the criticalist, you know, overseeing these. And there's now a surgeon, another specialist, my colleague, who's now said that they don't want me anywhere near their cases. And, over an antibiotic, you know, discussion of which I was not privy to at all because I wasn't included in the conversation. So, the intern was obviously quite upset.

She said, I'm I don't know what to do. I just you know, I wanted to I was good with the plan that we had yesterday, but then I, you know, I have to work with this surgeon for the rest of my internship. And it just feels so uncomfortable to me. But, you know, I just wanted you to know. And, you know, she felt really bad, and I said, look.

You have nothing to feel bad about. I said, you know, clearly, there's a difference of opinion here. And, unfortunately, instead of discussing it directly with me, this individual chose to bring you into the middle of it, and that's not okay. And I said, I will address it with your permission, but I will not, you know, share anything that you have told me. I will only speak to what I know to be true and what I have experienced.

So long story longer, I tried multiple times to call this individual surgeon to have a conversation about what had happened, and she didn't take my calls. And so, ultimately, at the end of my, shift, my last shift in the hospital, I ended up just sending an email. It's not ideal. I wouldn't urge you to address your conflict scenarios this way, but it was my only choice. I didn't know when I was gonna be back in this hospital and when we might have a conversation, and I didn't want, I didn't want this to go unaddressed.

So, I wrote to the individual. I left a message on your voice mail yesterday again and did not wanna disturb you on a Sunday evening. I'm sorry we did not get the chance to connect via phone as my preference would have been to have a conversation with you regarding this. When I rounded with the intern yesterday, I learned that Fluffy's Baytrol was restarted despite my decision to discontinue it. It was my impression from the intern that Fluffy was under my care after transfer to me from the criticalist, the previous criticalist.

Well, I appreciate that you disagreed with my decision. I was disappointed and frustrated that you didn't approach me to discuss your concerns in person. So, I've described the situation, and I have indicated how I felt as a result. Now I'm going to suggest what I would like for next time. Should we happen to work together in the future, I'd ask that next time you disagree with something on a case we are co-managing that you speak to me directly rather than involving an intern or technician.

I prefer to have these conversations face to face in order to share our points of view rather than causing interns and technicians to feel trapped in the middle. Then I'm gonna highlight the benefits. I find that when conversations can happen specialist to specialist, it makes for a more congenial environment, and nobody is left feeling awkward. So, then I'm gonna ask for permission. So, I hope this request is reasonable and that you feel comfortable to approach me in the future to discuss cases.

I know that we come from different backgrounds, and I anticipate not always agreeing on every case. But I do expect that we will have these conversations face to face so that we can come to a decision together. So that was what I did. And, again, not ideal, not real time, not face to face, not even by phone. But at least I conveyed the issues that I had experienced myself from a behavior standpoint.

Now you'll notice I didn't say anything about, you know, you said to the intern you didn't want me anywhere near your cases because I didn't hear that firsthand. And I also absolutely did not want the intern to be put in a position of discomfort, with having revealed what she had heard. So, I spoke to what I experienced. I identified how I felt, and I made suggestions for how we might better address this, and I highlighted the benefits. That is the DISH script.

Now I can't see your comments, but I can see a lot of you are watching. And I'm sure if you're anything like the others with whom I shared this scenario, you wanna know what happened. Well, I did receive a response. The response was not, surprisingly a little bit defensive, and, basically, was just a very pointed response that said, I felt like I was still managing the case. I didn't see any reason for you to be involved, and that was it.

And so, you know, this was a person who was not in the hospital, not doing any of the communication, hadn't examined the cat. Really not possible to manage a case when you're not in front of it. I guess, you know, she felt like she was doing it via the intern. But, nevertheless, my response was, I completely understand there was clearly a miscommunication. Next time there is uncertainty, or isn't clear about who's managing a case, let's have a conversation about it.

And that was it. And I haven't worked with this individual again, in case you're wondering. Okay. So additional pointers. You do wanna time the discussion soon after the conflict.

You'll know notice in this, situation, that's one of the reasons why I chose to send an email because I didn't want to, wait until the next time that I might see this person and then be like, you know, that time last year when we had that case, as soon as possible, you wanna have the conversation when you're in a headspace to do so. You wanna do it privately, so you're not gonna call somebody out in the middle of the ICU or, you know, the hallway where there's a lot of traffic. And you do wanna frame the problems, as objectively as possible. So, try not to be subjective and, you know, bring all of your emotions into it. You can say how you felt but be very succinct.

And really, it's just, you know, this was my experience, and this is where I'd like us to go from here, basically. Really focusing on what is right for the situation, not who is right. So, it's not that you'll notice too. I wasn't arguing about the choice of antibiotic. We could have that's a whole other conversation that we could have I would have gladly had in person.

What I was pressing was that this, you know, behavior of not having an open conversation with me who's the other specialist on duty, that's what's not appropriate. That's the inappropriate behavior. So again, not who is right, what is right. And, limiting discussions to a single incident rather than a pattern or series of events, you might not be surprised to know that this was not the first time that this individual had had very disruptive and inappropriate behavior. But I wasn't about to say, you know, every time I locum blah blah blah, because then you are sure to get the other person defensive.

So again, try to limit it to one single discretion. Now another, tool that you can use that can be really helpful for these conflict situations is to extend a conciliatory gesture. So, this would be taking accountability for your role. So, I take accountability in this case that maybe it wasn't clear, who's was managing this case. The criticalist had indicated to me that I would be taking over this case, but maybe there was, you know, not discussion between the surgeon and the previous criticalist.

I don't know. And perhaps I needed to ascertain that. Taking accountability or doing another form of a conciliatory gesture exposes vulnerability. Like, I take responsibility for that. It has to be genuine, and it can change the course of a discussion.

So other examples would be giving a genuine apology. So, I don't mean an apology that is, well, I'm sorry you feel that way. Not a genuine apology. It would be, I'm sorry I did that. I'm sorry that I responded inappropriately, and I will do my best not to let it happen again.

Right? So, we are acknowledging what we did. Taking responsibility, conceding, you know, you're right. Let's just we'll go with that, or self-disclosing. So sometimes, you know, if we might have had a conversation face to face, me and the surgeon, I might have said, you know, I know it's hard.

Like, I've been in situations like you where I go off clinic and then somebody else is managing my case. I might not agree with all of the decisions that I make, but I've learned to let that go because the case is not my responsibility anymore. So just sharing, like, disclosing when I might have had a similar struggle. So that's it for this episode of Reviving Vet Med. I hope that you took away some tips for dealing with difficult coworkers, whether it's a difference of opinion or whether it's a situation like the one I shared where somebody behaves inappropriately, and you want to address it with them.

I urge you to think about one thing that you're gonna do right away today after listening to this episode. Maybe you'll share the episode with a friend or a coworker. Maybe you'll plan out a conversation that you wanna have with a colleague of yours. If you're not sure what you wanna do, then I really hope that you'll at least take the time to subscribe to this podcast. Maybe leave a rating and review or share this podcast with somebody else who you think will also benefit from it.

With that, I'd like to thank my podcasting superhero Darby Rolfe for producing this episode. And I'd also like to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to listen. I hope you'll tune in next time. Until then, take care of yourself. Thank you.