BUSINESS OF PRACTICE: MANAGING ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE


process, not a set-it-and-forget-it task. The effort to make an organization safer must be championed by the leadership team. Owners and managers who are able to be vulnerable enough to display these behav- iors are imperative to creating a workplace culture that actually adopts the ideas of psychological safety. The term psychological safety may sound soft. It is


far from that. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant describes it this way, “What you're aiming for on a team, is a commitment to high standards and the psychological safety to be candid with each other as you try to achieve them.”6 It does not mean that peo- pleneedtobe niceall of thetime. It is not about put- ting all of your trust in one key person. It is not about decreasing the standards to which you hold your employees. In fact, once team safety has been estab- lished, the opposite is true of most of these myths. Instead of walking lightly around someone’s feelings, when there is an atmosphere of established psycholog- ical safety, candid discussions can be heldmore easily. Once the team has developed a safety net that does not rely on a single person or specific instance, per- formance goals can increase for everyone. When expectations are not met, the environment of mutual respect and vulnerability allows for frank discussions about how to improve performance.Mistakes and fail- ures are also reported sooner, allowing for earlier cor- rection or intervention. According to Dr. Amy Edmondson, a pioneer in this field, “psychological safety sets the stage for amore honest,more challeng- ing, more collaborative, and thus also more effective work environment.”7


3. Discussion


The practice of veterinary medicine is certainly the type of environment where learning and collabora- tion are required for success. Veterinary clinics also definitively fall under the category of VUCA; this is what Dr. Edmonson calls a company that confronts volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. She has proven that psychological safety is directly tied to the bottom line of anyVUCA organization due to the fact that “employee observations, questions, ideas and concerns can provide vital information about what is going on - in the market and in the organization.”7 It is not a difficult jump to make the assumption


that employees who are more engaged are of more benefit to an organization. This idea has been well- studied in human healthcare in relation to costs and medical errors. “Disengaged employees lead to safety risks and staff turnover. Turnover means higher recruiting and training costs, as well as a high per- centage of less experiencedworkers on staff.”7 Staff turnover costs contribute to a significant


have a much higher range of turnover rates, ranging from30-50%.9 The 2021 AVMA Economic State of the Profession Report states that 38% of veterinarians have considered and 25% are seriously considering leaving practice. Forty-seven percent of those veteri- narians cite work culture as a top reason for leaving the profession.10 A 2020 study out of the UK showed that 43.7% of veterinarians surveyed reported that theywere likelyor verylikelyto leave their employ- ment within two years. Top reasons for their desire to leave included work-life balance, management, and salary.11 The data is clear in affirming that teams with high


psychological safety also have higher performance measures.1–4 “At a general level, employees who are highly engaged in their work roles not only focus their physical effort on the pursuit of role-related goals, but are also cognitively vigilant and emotionally con- nected to the endeavor.”12 An in-depth example of this work is a multi-year study of teams at Google, which was code-named Project Aristotle.Of all the attributes that helped explain teamperformance (clear goals, de- pendable colleagues, personallymeaningful work, and a belief that your work has impact), a teamwas never measured to be “high performing” without the pres- ence of psychological safety.2 These outcomes can be explained by the fact that interpersonal safety within a team allows for increased learning, collaboration, and innovation.When psychological safety is not pres- ent, “people at work are not only failing to speak up with potentially threatening or embarrassing content, they are also withholding ideas for improvement.”7 Additionally, in healthcare-specific settings, employ- ees who feel as though they work in a psychologically safe environment are able to support and bond with patientsmore easily, are able to provide better clinical outcomes, and are more easily able to learn from failure.13


How to Do It


Building a framework of psychological safety is the responsibility of leaders at all levels in an organiza- tion. In the context of veterinary medicine, in partic- ular, an important place to start involves the idea of Leadership Inclusiveness. Edmondson describes three behavioral attributes of inclusive leaders: they are those who are approachable and accessible, they proactively invite insight from staff and employees, and finally, they admit their fallibility. Designing structures that allow for input and invite


decrease in overall profitability for veterinary prac- tices. According to Gallup, the annual turnover rate for all jobs in the US in 2017 was 26.3% and the cost toreplacean employeecan rangefrom 50-200% of their annual salary.8 Veterinary practices actually


114 2022 / Vol. 68 / AAEP PROCEEDINGS


participation is an important aspect of being an acces- sible leader in a psychologically safe organization. No longer being seen as a boss who has all of the answers, but instead, one who is looking for contributors with crucial knowledge and insight is a necessary reframe. Another important step toward approach- ability is to clearly outline the values of the company. If employees share these values, it is easy for them to align their purpose and contribution to the organiza- tion’s values. With that, the values must have clear,


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