A few years ago, I decided it was time to make my escape from small animal practice. I’m sure I will not be alone in having reached the stage where I could barely remember what daylight looked like (for me, it was about six years after qualifying).
I remember, as an enthusiastic sixth form student, being told it was no use wanting to be a vet solely because you loved animals; they usually always come with a human attached. So, imagine my surprise years later when I realised I was one of those strange individuals who enjoyed working with, and helping, people on a daily basis – and wanted to do more of it.
Being a clinical coach and helping nursing students achieve their goals was my favourite part of my job, so I set about studying towards a diploma in coaching. What I hadn’t expected to happen was that coaching others, and being coached, would end up making me a happier vet.
Similarities
When you tell people you are a small animal vet, it’s generally pretty straightforward – everyone knows what that is, right? Admittedly, you may occasionally find yourself trapped in an awkward and lengthy interrogation about a lump that has appeared on someone’s pet fish (I’ve been there). However, you don’t usually have to explain to people what it is you do.
Coaching is a little less familiar, but shares many skills with consulting. Coaches and vets both work with people to help them to work towards achieving an agreed end goal. In doing so, they examine the situation and the options for moving forward. The main difference is a coach is a facilitator, whereas a vet is an advisor.
Additionally, for vets, the needs and welfare of the animal sit centrally in the process – introducing an element of negotiation, collaboration and, dare I say, compromise. This makes for a challenging dynamic at times.
The main similarity between coaching and consulting is both involve a series of conversations. The success of both processes depends heavily on skilled communication.
Communication is key
People can be incredibly fascinating or frustrating, depending on your point of view (and the time of day, your caffeine intake, the weather, and so on):
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”1
Dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness (DISC) personality profiling is a tool sometimes used by coaches to raise awareness of the personality preferences, strengths and weakness of the people they are working with, and how these affect their interactions with others.
It can be a really useful first step to understanding yourself and others, and adapting your communication appropriately. For me, it has been reassuring to know my love of protocols, proof and being right doesn’t make me weird… it’s just my C-type personality.
Listening, questioning, building rapport and managing conversations are all core coaching competencies, but were underemphasised in my veterinary learning. Although an element of individuality and intuition involved in communication will always exist, I have realised – through coaching – these skills, like any other clinical skills, can be improved with deliberate practice.
Before I started coaching, I thought I was a good listener – until I realised how much better I could be. Real listening is about feeling comfortable with leaving “awkward” silences, not just pausing to gather your thoughts or catch your breath. It’s about noticing and quietening that voice in your head that wants to jump in, panics about what to say next, passes judgements and makes assumptions while the other person is talking. Trust me, once you hear it you can’t un-hear it – and it can be quite annoying. It’s about using your other senses to pick up subtle non-verbal clues in the conversation, such as a hand reaching for the door handle.
As we all know, veterinary clients can be more sensitive than most. When appropriate, mirroring some of a client’s key words or phrases when talking to him or her can be really useful for building rapport and showing you have been listening. Summarising what you have heard can be really useful for encouraging yourself to listen carefully and check you’re understanding.
I am as guilty as the next person of asking closed questions or, worse still, not asking at all when pushed for time. Sometimes, I assume I know the answer, while other times it seems easier not to open that can of worms.
Coaching has reminded me being nosy (I mean curious) can be fun. It is amazing how much more information you can gather by making relatively small adjustments.
Setting effective goals and how it fits into veterinary practice
A goal is, essentially, a desirable outcome. You may prefer to think of it as a target, aim or vision.
When I started to think about it as a coach, I realised opportunities for goal setting were all around me in veterinary practice – for example:
- formulating a diet plan for an overweight pet
- creating a nursing care plan to manage inpatient treatment
- planning CPD to improve my clinical skills
- finishing work on time
Admittedly, some of these are simpler to achieve than others. However, coaching has taught me setting goals, and planning around our priorities, provides a sense of purpose and direction.
Setting a deadline and regularly reviewing progress ensures we stay on track. The goals we work towards should be personal, important to us and beneficial to the other important areas and people in our lives. Remembering these benefits and why we are taking a course of action helps to keep us motivated. I have realised all of these things are also true of pet owners.
1. “Start with the end in mind”1. Agree the goal with the client at the beginning and how he or she will know when it has been achieved. Be as specific as possible, but don’t assume this will just be reaching X kilograms – it may be seeing a waistline or being able to lift the pet into the car easily.
2. Keep it positive. Emphasise the benefits to the pet and family of creating a healthier approach to feeding and exercise. Notice I did not use the words “strict” weight “loss”, “diet”, “cut out” or “ration”. Instead, talk about the gains. Remember to acknowledge the client’s successes and offer praise whenever you can.
3. Ensure the goal is realistic. Changing a fussy cat from gourmet pouches straight on to renal food, or expecting a Labrador retriever to lose 2kg in a week, is probably not going to work out too well.
4. Agree a timescale. What can be done at any time will be done at no time, so set a date and review progress.
Take formulating a nutritional plan as an example. We all know telling owners their pet is overweight and that they need to cut out treats during a booster vaccination rarely works. So, how can we use the principles of effective goal setting to help us get off to a good start? Panel 1 sets out a few ideas.
Failure: something to learn from
The word “fail” strikes fear into the hearts of many of us. On reflection, I have realised I have spent a lot of time and energy avoiding failure – and still do.
An immense pressure exists in industries like ours, where lives are in our hands, to not make mistakes. Yet, mistakes are human and inevitable.
Perhaps my biggest take-home message is mistakes don’t equal failure and it is how we learn from our mistakes that matters (Figure 1).
When I look back on my time as a vet, I have learned more from the things that have gone wrong for me, rather than the things that have gone right. As my colleagues will tell you, I can find a cautionary tale or bizarre outcome for every eventuality.
In coaching, taking action is a key part of learning, growing and achieving what you want, but taking steps outside your comfort zone can also be terrifying. For me, a turning point was viewing my actions as experiments:
“Test is better than do because it assumes less risk, less permanence and a mindset of constant improvement.”2
It is also important to remember and acknowledge our successes, and how far we have come, as sometimes these are easy to forget. I find keeping my thank you notes from clients is a nice way to remind myself of the difference I have made to people and why I still do the job I do.
Summary
I hope, in sharing some of my experiences of taking a peek outside of the veterinary “box”, I can spark some curiosity, shift some perspectives and impart just a little inspiration. Perhaps the box isn’t so bad after all when you create some windows…