I recently ran an all-day retreat for veterinary managers and clinical directors from a large corporate. These were vets, vet nurses, HR managers, people and organisation (P&O) directors and others, all together for this day where we left status at the door and came together with no hierarchy. Our sole purpose was a determination to find an alternative to forging ahead in the ways we’ve always done.
They were here out of choice: it was a course offered to everyone in a leadership role within the UK part of the corporate. Instead of tackling poor mental health, depression, stress and burnout among our staff (which are very important topics), this course was about seeking ways to enhance good mental well-being, to notice the small and large victories and to find joy in our work. This way, the messages can be passed onto the people they manage, so that they can learn to focus on what is known as the middle way.
These managers and leaders were themselves seeking joy, feeling burnt out or despondent, and some were just curious about the middle way. Although they had worked their way up the leadership ladder, usually from shop floor clinical work or from business management school, they had devoted their entire careers to managing people and had worked long hours to get to where they were today.
Recognising and managing our needs
When we first met and got to know who was in the room we would be sharing for the next 10 hours, one common theme struck me: they all shared that they felt their actions were not enough to keep up with the pressing needs of their corporates as well as the people they managed. These needs were often conflicting and these managers, at every level you could imagine in a company that size, felt “torn in two”, stuck in “a conflict”, helpless or hopeless.
Before this retreat, they did the obvious thing which most vets and nurses do when we see that we aren’t managing to “fix” the problem list: we feel driven to work even harder, to do more. Their overwork, combined with their strong moral compass of service, kept them locked in an exhausting spiral of physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological exhaustion.
They all shared that they felt their actions were not enough to keep up with the pressing needs of their corporates as well as the people they managed
That was why they were here.
Those who had been doing clinical work originally had been recipients of poor management previously. For some of them, they had wanted to make a difference and that was why they chose to leave the shop floor of the hospital or clinic.
They knew that their decisions would make all the difference between someone going home desolate and bereft because the corporation didn’t care if they lived or died, or that person going home feeling that they had done a good job and were appreciated by the team and their line manager and clinical director.
For some of them, staying late, working through their lunchbreak, emailing clients after hours and not being paid overtime for it because the corporate will say that they have “poor time management”, burnout has become normalised and may even be a badge of honour.
Each member of the group in this seminar was aware of mindfulness as a concept. Some of them had read books on how to be happier. They all knew that meditation is good for mental well-being.
As we talked about ourselves a little bit to get acquainted, we found out that some had been in a clinic where a colleague had ended their own life, many had seen staff become depressed because of the way they were unappreciated by their employers, and every single person in that room felt worry about the lack of happiness left in the workplace of the veterinary clinic.
Finding the middle way
The middle way is about moderation: a compromise between compassion fatigue, overwork and burnout on one side, and standing back and doing as little as possible (anathema to most vets and nurses) on the other.
The Buddha found what he called “the middle way” through his own experience. He was born into a very wealthy and prosperous family, but found that he was not happy nor satisfied. He then took himself off into the wilderness and fasted so much that he was starving and meditated so much that he had barely slept for weeks when he was found.
The middle way was where we would find joy and fulfilment and a feeling of home
He took small sips of rice milk offered to him by others and slowly regained enough mental and physical strength to realise that neither extreme was sensible. Rather, the middle way was where we would find joy and fulfilment and a feeling of home.
The Buddha’s story is ancient. Nevertheless, the logic of the middle way was not lost on any of these leaders before me, but where to find moderation eluded most of them. Further, how to teach the people we manage that we want them to give us their best efforts while all the time looking after themselves is not taught in business school nor at university.
The middle way requires constant self-awareness if we are to find a balanced way to work and live. Looking after yourself does not need to be at the expense of others. It’s not selfish to want to be balanced and happy. It’s not greedy to want a life outside of work. We don’t have to justify leaving on time. So, why do we feel ashamed when we leave at the end of our shift and our workmates are drowning in work? Because we care about our colleagues for sure. Is it our job to ensure that there are correct staffing levels so that people are empowered to leave on time? Maybe. But if not, then it is not our responsibility.
These managers felt that they wanted to ensure adequate staffing levels at all times, but that they had to answer to people above them in the hierarchy (some of them in this room) and that often their “hands were tied” due to bureaucracy and a misunderstanding of what “adequately staffed” looked like.
The middle way in practice
So, here was a quandary: should they join in with the people working themselves towards burnout, or should they walk away at the end of their working day wracked with guilt?
Interestingly, the feelings of guilt were diluted the further away from the shop floor each delegate’s position was. And that was why the “lower level” managers were despondent along with their staff, because their hands were tied when it came to prevention of burnout among their team.
In practice, we are unlikely to find joy in our work and in our life overall if we regularly stay long beyond our shift ends, or if we leave on time when our colleagues are not coping with the workload. Here is where we have to devise our own “middle way”.
It takes great levels of self-awareness and self-regulation to find this way in real-time especially if the levels of stress around us are high. So, the third element of emotional intelligence (after self-awareness and self-regulation) is motivation. This is where that middle way question will be: what do I hope to achieve out of this situation?
Do I want to leave on time knowing that my habitual guilt will kick in? (I’m not advocating guilt for leaving on time, by the way.) Do I stay working in the understaffed practice, thus demonstrating to my managers that understaffing with guilt-ridden staff who stay late is “adequate staffing levels”, or option three: do I want to find some middle way?
The middle way is existing between the two extremes of remorsefulness and emotional remoteness.
Our own middle way
I need to trust myself that I will find a way, not to do everything, but to find moderation in what I do
So, taking into account my strong desire to help animals and their owners, my own health and well-being, and the real needs of my colleagues, I need to trust myself that I will find a way, not to do everything, but to find moderation in what I do.
What might this look like in a real day at work?
Well, if my shift is ending and my team are drowning in ill animals, I may decide to stay an extra hour. I set a timer on my phone, I offer to stay for one hour, I leave after 60 minutes and I charge my practice for overtime of one hour.
If time off in lieu is not what you want when you work late, then you have to find the courage to express this in writing.
If I decide to leave on time (and ideally, all practices should be managed in a responsible way where the manager ensures adequate staffing levels rather than moving this request up the chain of command where it becomes diluted and not actioned), then I have a choice to either focus 100 percent on the guilt I am feeling, or just allow that emotion to float in my peripheral vision while I focus on something more positive in my life (for example, free time after my shift to walk, to be with my family, to go to the gym, to just breathe).
Buddhism teaches the eightfold path – right view, right thought, right speech, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration and right action – as a path that supports navigating between extremes.
If we practise just right view, that means that we allow our minds to be open, curious and receptive to new ways of thinking, acting and being. This is critical in recognising whether our lives are in or out of balance and knowing that we don’t need to do more, work harder or be better, because by virtue of our very humanness, we are worthy of balance. We can indeed leave on time with dignity. It’s not selfish to want to avoid burnout. It is wise to accept that we are in a demanding career, and with all its many flaws, it can also be a truly wonderful job that we do, even when we’re physically drained after a long day at work.
The middle way involves discipline. Extremes of burnout and exhaustion are addressed by recognising and honouring our needs for healthy boundaries which we create.
Final thoughts
If we don’t find the correct middle way for ourselves, the veterinary industry will not need to evolve to ensure adequate staffing levels again
With practice, with hindsight and inspection of each day we’ve worked, we have to trust ourselves to find the middle way for us. Nobody else is going to do this for you. You have to get so good at it that it becomes second nature.
The days of leaving on time being “weird” are long gone.
If we don’t find the correct middle way for ourselves, the veterinary industry will not need to evolve to ensure adequate staffing levels again.
