When your veterinary team trusts each other, you’ll experience growth in energy, engagement, enjoyment and productivity and a reduction in burnout
We hope our first post in our three-part series about building trust inspired you to envision what’s possible for your practice when trust is prioritised in your veterinary team. If you missed it, you can read it here: What’s the secret sauce to achieve 76% MORE veterinary team member engagement? Part 1
Benefits of Trust in Your Veterinary Team
When teammates trust one another, you’ll see huge growth in team member energy, engagement, and enjoyment, which results in higher productivity and, ultimately, higher remuneration. And importantly, you will also see a significant drop in burnout.
Building trust also has other positive flow-on effects for your practice, as team members are more likely to stay with you and are also more likely to recommend your practice to others, enhancing your reputation as an employer in a competitive marketplace.
7 Elements of Trusting Relationships
Highly acclaimed social researcher Brene Brown has established the seven elements of a trusting relationship, which are the foundational building blocks for discussing and building trust with your veterinary team. These are:
1. Boundaries:
You set clear expectations with others so they can trust you easily.
2. Reliability:
You do what you say you’ll do and follow through on your promises.
3. Accountability:
You say it straight to the individual concerned and avoid gossiping or talking behind the backs of others.
4. Vault:
You maintain the confidence of others and refrain from passing on personal information disclosed to you.
5. Integrity:
You choose courage over comfort and are willing to tread the right path, which may not always be the easy path.
6. Non-judgment:
You are curious about the perspectives of others and remain open to different opinions.
7. Generosity:
You are optimistic and assume that others have good intentions in their efforts.
Braving – Rebuild Trust
When trust breaks down in the workplace, it’s often because one of the above elements has been breached.
However, when you’re willing to directly address an unpleasant or difficult situation, you demonstrate ‘Braving’. In doing so, you exercise one or more of the above elements in your communication to help to rebuild trust.
Concepts in Action
Let’s consider this concept in action:
You feel very close to a colleague on a personal level. You enjoy working with them and look forward to when you’re on the same shift. However, you feel you can’t trust them to do certain aspects of their job.
Using braving in this situation, you exercise Accountability to the business and Integrity to the individual by choosing to have a face-to-face conversation. During this conversation, you remain in a mindset of Non-Judgment and Generosity.
Role-playing these conversations is the first step to creating a culture of trust, so set aside time with your veterinary team to practice and discuss.
In the final post of this series, we’ll share tips on how to apologise when trust has broken down.
For more information and support on building trust in your veterinary tea, keep in contact with the Lincoln Institute of Veterinary Business via their Facebook Page and Instagram.
Access all posts in the 3 Part Series: Building trust within your veterinary team
Part 1: What’s the secret sauce to achieve 76% MORE veterinary team member engagement?