There’s a lot of exciting things going on at Flourish Veterinary Consulting these days.
One of those exciting things involves us partnering with the Veterinary Hospital Manager’s Association to facilitate their Regional Workshops all across the US this year! From Boston to Sacramento we’ll be helping veterinary leaders improve business outcomes in their hospitals by cultivating workplace well-being for themselves and their teams.
Stop #1 was this past week in the vibrant and energizing city of New Orleans.
I’ve been to New Orleans once before but missed the chance to make it downtown. With the workshop being hosted at a hotel not far from the French Quarter I was stoked for the opportunity to explore a bit – and eat!
After settling in to the hotel and meeting up with my friend and VHMA representative, Peggy, we walked out into the warm evening air and trotted down the street toward Mother’s. My wife recommended I grab a po’ boy there and boy oh boy, it did not disappoint! I’m just glad I chose the “small” over the standard size sandwich. I’m all about indulging…but I needed to save some space for beignets!
After dinner we made our way about ¾ of a mile away to Café Du Monde. Given my extreme attraction to all things sugar I’ve had my fair share of beignets before. I’ve been told, however, one hasn’t truly had a beignet until one has eaten at Café Du Monde. By the way, beignets is ALL they serve.
All I’ve been told is true. They were simply magnificent! There was a brief moment, covered in powdered sugar, joyfully chewing the pastry goodness, when I thought, “I should move here so I can have these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”
The next day we kicked off the workshop at 8 AM with almost 20 talented managers and doctors hungry for resources to build a successful human-focused hospital culture.
We started our day with some introductions and a surprise gratitude practice to prime our brains for positivity and learning. Then, we dove in to the science of psychological well-being and explored a wide variety of studies uncovering what makes people “happy” in life and work. Along the way we dove into the extensive research on the upside of well-being, discovering all the benefits people enjoy when they improve their psychological well-being.
Of course, as an advanced business course, we tied this all in to the robust evidence supporting the business case for workplace well-being. Bottom line – the “bottom line” always benefits when well-being is at the center of how a veterinary hospital is run.
Then the rubber hit the road, so to speak, and together we explored the myriad evidence-based tools for boosting PERMA personally, in our leadership, and for our hospital teams within the culture of our practices.
At the end of the day we divided into small teams and, using the significant menu of tools and practices we had learned throughout the day, applied our new knowledge to a case study of a practice in desperate need of well-being intervention.
All in all it was a wonderful time in New Orleans and I left inspired by the amazing managers and doctors I met. Seeing so many people so keenly interested in cultivating the well-being in themselves, their teams, and our industry, filled my heart.
Can’t wait for the next workshop in Sacramento!
- Written by Josh Vaisman