Veterinary first for Blackwater Vets owner Dr Ola Jankowska
On the 7th August 2024, Dr Ola Jankowska was the first Veterinary Team Leader to receive full certification as a Sociomapping Team Facilitator.
This is a ground breaking moment for the veterinary professions which have been searching for scientifically validated and effective tools and approaches to support team success. This is an important step towards addressing the industry crisis where shortages of veterinarians is impacting on mental health and the stability of an essential profession.
Doing more with less and sustaining high quality services with diminishing resources is a challenge now faced by most if not all veterinary practices whether large or small.
Ola has demonstrated that even in a solo practice bringing in the right tools to support the leader and their team is fundamentally important. Developing a strong team culture where Emotional Intelligence and Kindness are at the heart of the practice, benefits from being able to capture feedback and ensure that training and sustained effort to improve is providing a genuine payoff.
Sociomapping tools for tracking and improving team communication and cooperation were developed to support team success in extreme contexts such as long range space flight and military missions where failures in communication or cooperation in teams would have significant and tragic consequences. These tools are scientifically validated and based on research led by Dr Radvan Bahbouh of Charles University and QED Group in Prague, Chechia. The tools have been applied across a range of industry sectors where there is recognition of the importance and value of effective communication and cooperation as part of an integrative approach to team success.
The award of this certification was made by Pauline Willis of Lauriate Ltd, Pauline provides supervision, coaching and support for leaders and their teams.
“It is a delight to have supported Dr Jankowska through her learning journey to become a capable analyst and facilitator of Sociomapping tools as part of her day-to-day work as a Veterninary Practice Owner and Team Leader at Blackwater Vets.
This certification enables Ola to bring this state of the art team communication and cooperation toolkit into every team meeting where this is helpful, as well as guiding in-depth team ‘away day’ activities that deliver real value to the practice.”
On receiving this award Dr Ola Jankowska said; “It is a great honour to be the first Veterinarian to achieve this certification and use these tools in my veterinary practice.
At first the team was uncertain about whether the tools would work, and questioned the benefit when there was nothing significantly ‘wrong’ with the way we worked together.
Using Sociomapping tools as part of an integrative approach to team coaching and development has delivered benefits we could not have anticipated or predicted in advance. We have become even more of ‘who we are’ as a team.
Receiving feedback for the team leader as part of a ‘whole team process’ was certainly challenging, and team members will attest that it is not ‘easy’ to sustain. The benefits, however, speak for themselves. My focus has always been on open and honest communication and feedback, which being a non-native English speaker has presented some challenges historically. I was very impressed that this tool cut through these cultural boundaries and has enabled us to work on ‘what works for us’ in communicating and cooperating effectively.
Veterinary teams need this kind of tool to ensure that training in processes, practices and even in Emotional Intelligence or Kindness are being effective in creating an effective team culture.”
