What is going to be the key ingredient that separates practices that have success and ones that do not as we head out of the recession and into new times?  I believe that veterinary medicine, as we know it, is about to make some very significant adjustments, just as human medicine did years ago.  Clients are going to demand certain services and demand more affordability than ever before.  Clients are used to seeing discounts everywhere they go and even if they look at their pet as a family member, they still want the best for less. Look at what happened to optometrist’s years ago.  They went from charging inflated prices for glasses and giving away exams to losing the sale of glasses and going back to exams.  As veterinarians, we need to wake up to the fact that anyone can give vaccinations in the public’s eye and anyone can sell a product.  What would your practice look like if you lost vaccine and product sales?

To combat these changes, we as veterinarians have to focus on customer service. Everyone talks about it, but listen closely to a group of veterinarians talking and they really have no idea what customer service truly means.  I was just at a meeting of large clinics and we were talking about this subject.  One gentleman said that he would “show” his clients if they wanted to purchase their pet’s medication through an online pharmacy, he would make their life miserable and charge them a prescription fee. Although there is nothing wrong with a prescription fee, take a look at his attitude: I will “show” them, when actually they will “show” him as they go elsewhere.  Another one said that if a client calls after 4:00, even if the clinic is open until 6:00, since it slows down at 4:00, they will not get vaccines at his clinic, and even if the animal is sick and wants to be seen, he will refuse and make them go elsewhere.  That is not only poor customer service but also extremely poor business because now not only does he not get vaccines, but he gets no business at all.

I never understood where veterinarians got the attitude that their clients owed them something.  I always thought that I owed the client everything for giving me the opportunity to service their pets and put that much trust in my staff and me. The veterinarians that truly take care of their clients and provide what their clients want will be the successful veterinarians of the future.  It is time for veterinarians to lose their ego and understand that this is business and we better treat people as they want or they will find someone that does.  When the two gentlemen were telling the group of how tough they were going to get, I just laughed to myself and thought: I am in the same area of town, so I guess as you “show” them, we will take care of them.

What if you have failed along the way in actions that you took or behavior that you allowed for yourself?  Chances are that you probably have unless you happen to be perfect, but I believe only Jesus ever got credit for being perfect.  All of us fail in our actions at some time or another. Sometimes it is minor and can quickly be repaired, but sometimes it may be a major event that is going to take time to repair.  All that you can do at this point is be honest and admit your failure, take full responsibility for it, say that you are sorry and truly mean it, and then start to repair matters and change yourself so that you do not commit the same bad behavior again.  Why are people right now so against politicians?  I believe that our Congress, which has the lowest approval rating ever of only 11%, is because they refuse to take responsibility for their actions and refuse to be honest.  When people see these statistics, they don’t trust them.  Most people are very forgiving; however, they expect you to admit your wrongdoing, sincerely apologize, and then take actions to not repeat your bad behavior.  We as leaders of our veterinary clinics need to do the same. If we have done something wrong, then take responsibility for it and admit that you were wrong. Just be honest. If you lie and try to blame others, you will lose all of the credibility that you have.

The good news is that when you do this, (and it can be very tough), but when you do, the results can be absolutely incredible.  Most failures, when approached honestly, will lead to great things to come.  Once we are able to admit our weaknesses and correct them, we become stronger and earn more respect as a leader.  Ask anyone who went through a terrible time in their life and got through it and see if it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to them.  We can be stubborn and sometimes we refuse to change until we have a major incident occur that makes us change, and then our lives accelerate because of it.  Next time we will talk about failures and success in the business realm.

Something that most of us do not think about is the question are you untouchable as a leader?  Are we consistent in our message and are we of the character that people respect and makes us above board with our employees?  All of us make mistakes; there isn’t anyone on this earth that hasn’t ever made a mistake. I believe there was only one perfect man, Jesus, and since Him, we have all had failures.  What we are talking about here is your message and your character.  Does your message change from one employee to another, do you have favorites that can get by with more than others, and does one employee always get their way and the others you never pay attention to their input?  Many of us have these tendencies but we all need to be consistent across the board.  If we aren’t then we become touchable because now employees can put each other against us as leaders and other staff.  Always treat everyone the same and certainly do not show favorites.  Many of us show favorites and don’t even know it. So ask your employees if you are fair to everyone; they will be honest.

How about your character? Is it above reproach? Do the things that you would want your leader or boss to do.  Maybe it isn’t the best thing to go out and party with employees.  It is hard to be “buddy-buddy” one minute and boss the next.  I have never socialized with my staff.  If we have a party or get together, I always go with my wife. We simply make an appearance and then leave.  I also do not drink with or in front of my staff.  Never meet with an employee, especially one of the opposite sex, without someone to witness the meeting. This way nothing can be interpreted wrong.  If you have done things you wish you hadn’t and lost some credibility, change what you are doing.  People are naturally very forgiving, but do not continue your behavior and expect things to change.  Just always do things that people can never come back at you with an action against you. Always do what cannot be misinterpreted. Thus, if you have the best intentions at heart, people won’t misinterpret you.

Many of us may think that we have a great attitude, but do we ever listen to what we are actually saying on a day-to-day level?  Listen to how you respond to problems and situations and see if you are truly positive or not.  Also listen to what you say to other employees and clients and see if you are positive.  Record yourself for one day and you would be shocked at all of the negative things that you actually say.  Unfortunately, we are all programmed to think negative and all of the subconscious stuff that has been buried over the years will naturally make us very negative.  We all have a lot of dark shadows in our past that are waiting to be released; however, until they actually are, they will manifest themselves by us projecting our anxieties and fears onto others, which we do by being negative or not having the best attitude.  Whenever I want an answer on how to act, I always try and look at Jesus.  Whether or not you are a Christian, we all know about Jesus.  His life here on earth was one of complete servant hood.  He had all of the power of God, but instead chose to be a servant for us.  He did not brag of whom He was or what He could do, he humbled himself even unto death on a cross.  How many of us truly are humble? Or do we let our ego run with us since we are educated and have DVM behind our name? Be positive and have a great attitude about everything and then see how your life unfolds.  Next time, we will talk about these dark shadows and what we can do in order to release them to improve our attitude.

I have been in many clinics where there are so many steps to simply get a patient checked in. Then once the patient finally goes into a room, it takes a lifetime for a simple step to happen.  They have to pull a record, have a doctor review the record, get the client to sign a release, print out a travel sheet, put the client in a room, find a technician to go in the room, and then reverse this entire process to leave. At the end, the only result is a frustrated and unhappy client.  Most people do not mind waiting; however, they do want to see progress. When there are this many steps, there does not seem to be much progress.

Going paperless, as I have talked about earlier, will solve most of these issues.  The person is checked in before arriving, then they sign a pad on entry, and then they are put into a room.  The technician then goes into the room, followed by the doctor, the procedure is performed, and then the client leaves.  All of the steps are shortened and the client is constantly being attended to.  A lot of clinics that I have seen have an attitude that the doctor is this “high and mighty” individual and that everyone should cater to them.  The doctor is an owner or employee and nothing else.  Being a good practitioner has nothing to do with a DVM degree; it is totally dependent on your ability to converse and relate to clients.  Do not make people wait longer then you would want to wait.

If clinics would understand that the client is the only reason that they are open and treat them as such, the flow of the clinic would take care of itself.  Every client that comes through the door should be treated as if they are the last one left and should be given all of our attention.  If clinics and veterinarians would focus on the client and not themselves, there would never be excess waiting time and there would never be unhappy clients.  I have just lately seen an attitude coming out of school that “I am the doctor, people can wait on me, and I will get to them as soon as I can”.  Instead, the attitude should be more like: “I am the doctor and the only reason that I have the privilege of being a doctor is because these people are coming into my clinic, and I will do everything possible to make them happy so that they do come back.”  My bet would be that all of the flow problems and bottlenecks would go away because everyone would be focused on clearing them out so as to make it easier on the clients.

I believe from experience that the number one common denominator that most veterinarians lack is their people skills.  This is their ability to relate to and communicate with clients.  I have overheard veterinarians talking to clients in rooms and can pretty much guarantee that the client has no idea what they were just told. So why would they approve a procedure that they do not really understand? I have learned from firsthand experience as well as watching other veterinarians, that going into a room and talking on a level that the client understands will pretty much always result in the client opting to perform the procedure. Although the old school veterinarians may have not been the smartest people in the world, many of them are extremely down to earth people who are dedicated to their profession and do not feel superior to anyone; this allows them to relate to people at their level. Today I think that schools put so much emphasis on grade point averages that many of the young veterinarians that come out of school are very intelligent. However, although, they are way smarter than I ever dreamed of being, they cannot always relate to people. They can diagnose just about anything and everything, but they cannot explain it or simply will not explain it in simple terms to a client; therefore, leaving the client frustrated and unhappy with the services.  I believe that many do this because they feel so superior to their clients that they have to talk in this way in order to build themselves up.    I hear them complain about how dumb clients are, yet they can be so self absorbed that when it is 6:00 and time for them to go home, they will leave whether someone is standing in the waiting room or not.

I have never put any significance on grade point averages when hiring someone.  My philosophy is that anyone that can get into and get through veterinary school is given the opportunity to be a good veterinarian.  I look for people that can talk simply and do not present themselves as someone special, but just are who they are.  They should carry themselves with confidence but not be condescending.  They will stay for people that are late because they understand that they are doing this job for the client and the pet, and not just for themselves.  Do not get me wrong; there are a lot of good veterinarians coming out of school today, but some lack so much professionalism which carries over and they cannot do the job that someone else can.  Indeed, some knowledge is important to be a veterinarian; however, listening to people, understanding their needs, and truly caring for them and their pet will be much more successful than the smartest person in the world that cannot relate to clients.

There is much written on meditation, and I for one am certainly not an expert.  If you read the Bible, it always talks about people meditating and using it as a way to get closer to God.  I believe meditation is nothing more than quieting your mind for a select period of time to clear out all of the junk or “stinkin’ thinkin’” that we all have in our conscious mind.  95% of our thoughts are subconscious, so does it not make sense that we ought to at least try and see what we are really thinking about most of the time?  By getting quiet, it allows thoughts to come up in our mind that are deep down in our subconscious; all that we have to do is recognize the thought and let it go.  If you have some major issue buried, it will surface over and over again and you will know that it is a problem.  You can do this by just being quiet or there are also CD’s available that you can listen to that will help tremendously.  You will want to come up with a mantra or a word you keep saying over and over to keep your mind from wandering.  Most people use a word such as “Amen”, “Thy Will Be Done”, “Shalom”, or any word that has meaning to you.  If you give it a try, you may be amazed at the things that come up that you do not even remember or barely remember at all.  Once you find these, accept them as a part of you and do not try and rebury them.  I always expose my management staff to meditation and enable each of them to learn what it is; however, whether they do it or not is up to them.

Another method of finding what is deep is through the “emotional code”, which is the use of muscle-testing to find out what is buried deep inside of you and which emotions that you need to release.  You can learn to do this yourself or you can have someone do it for you.  The writer of the book “Emotion Code” by Dr. Bradley Nelson is a great source to learn the technique. You can even set up a conference call with him where he will do it for you.  I have done it with him and it is unbelievable what he can come up with. He can tell you when that emotion was affecting you, and then you will be able to come up with what was going on in your life at that time that caused it.

These are just two of the many techniques available to recognize your dark shadows so that you can do something about them before they control you.  If you have ever known anyone that did something completely out of character that made no sense, it was probably related to this.  It does not mean the person was irresponsible; but it is more a reason of why?  On a less serious level, what if you had blocked emotions about being successful and were therefore holding yourself back every day?  It might not be earth shattering if someone finds out, but it may affect your income for your entire career.  All that I can say is to be open-minded and try these methods to see what changes in your life.

We are talking about the mistakes I have made as a leader.  Fortunately, each time that you learn from a mistake you become a better leader and a better person.  Take responsibility for your mistakes; look at them as a learning tool and not as a mistake or failure.

The next mistake that I have made is not sharing my vision with the staff enough, as I should have.  I am sure all of us have a mission statement and a vision; however, how many of us actually get the staff involved and how many staff members even know what that mission statement says?  Many times we do this because we are told to, but then we never talk about it again and wonder why it seems impossible to achieve our vision when know one even knows what it is.  We need to get the staff to take ownership in the vision; once they do, they will help you achieve it and more importantly, they will want to be a part of it.  This starts by getting them involved in the vision and mission statement so it becomes part of what they want to accomplish not just you.  When we do not get the staff involved, they do not care what our vision is so they will not work to try and accomplish it.

When we wrote our vision we sat down with the staff and collectively came up with our three core values or what we stand for.  We came up with superior customer service and satisfaction, empowered employees, and generating significant profits.  Since our staff helped develop these when new staff comes on board they remind them of how important these things are.  They will make sure that customers are happy, they will see to it that we allow employees to be empowered and they will work diligently toward generating profits for our business.  The great part of this process is that people that don’t want to adopt this vision will leave on their own because they feel left out and if they don’t buy in why would you want them working for you anyway.

Through this process we came up with our vision from our three core values.  When people are hired they are presented this through a branding training and agree to adopt it or given the opportunity to not work for us.  When they accept this, as I said everyone else makes sure they live by it.  We came up with the following vision; Our vision is to change veterinary medicine into a profession that offers opportunities and careers so attractive that the best and the brightest aspire to contribute to the profession in return for a career that is not only psychologically rewarding , but also financially.  We intend to accomplish this by offering our customers such superior customer service and satisfaction that they become raving fans that promote Pet Doctors of America to every pet owner they come in contact with.  We can provide this unmatched customer service by creating a culture of empowered employees who are free to take all actions that are necessary to exceed our customer’s expectations.  Our customers will reward these efforts with repeat business and referrals that will generate significant profits that will enable us to compensate and retain the best and brightest who will provide for services and care not yet available, through relentless pursuit of perfection out of sheer admiration for our customers and their “family members.”

As we lead and learn to lead, we need to always be leading with an attitude of love and humility . Treat others the way that you would want to be treated, and you will be amazed at how easy it is to get people to respect you and follow you. People will always follow a leader that is respectful to them and treats them as an equal.

Your first task as a leader is to define your core values and then always lead by them. I have chosen ten values that I try to lead by at all times. I have based these values on the core values of Jesus Christ, whom I consider to be the greatest leader of all time. Whether you are a Christian or not, the principles of Jesus are well worth living by. The first is to do the right things for the right reasons. You should always think before you act or before you make any sort of decision. You need to make sure that the decision you are making is for the right reasons and not solely for personal gain. You should be making decisions that will be for the betterment of the company and everyone involved. The second one is always taking action for the company’s agenda and not your own. Your own benefit should never be a part of the decisions that you make for your company. I always try and look at a decision and decide whether I am making that decision because God is truly guiding me that way or because I am trying to benefit my ego and my own selfish desires. Always remember that ego stands for “Edging God Out”. The third core value is that relationships will make or break you and your organization. You should always establish relationships in business that do business with the same values as you do. If you are guided by Christian principles and the business you are in contact with is not, there is no sense in having conflict with them when there are other businesses out there with the same values as you. Always try and find other people to work with that have the same values as you. This will make everything much smoother and easier to work with.

The fourth value is prioritizing your long term decisions over your short term, if you are given a choice. Many leaders take short cuts because it is easier than waiting and drawing a long term decision out. However, it is always better to make decisions for the long term of the company, instead of just trying to get ahead in the short term. The fifth value is to not sweat the small stuff. Every problem is equal; the only reason that they seem different is due to the attention that we give them. When looking at problems, my brother once said, “Well it ain’t cancer”. If you look at every problem in that way from a much larger perspective, how big are they really? You should simply deal with the problem, and do not make a small issue into a large one. The sixth is just as we should always seek God’s Kingdom first, we should also seek what is best for the company at all times. Many times we may have to make uncomfortable decisions, but if they are best for the company, then we have to put ourselves aside and do them anyways. The seventh value is judging yourself before you judge others. You should always take a look at yourself before you criticize another individual. How many times have you criticized someone else’s actions only to realize that you do the exact same thing? When we see faults in people , it is usually because we have the same faults in ourselves. Do not allow judgment of others to impede your progress. The eighth value is if you need something, ask for it, and if you have something, give it. You should not be afraid to ask the opinions of your employees. They are in the trenches everyday and probably have more insight on some things than you do. Whenever you have answers and solutions to problems, you should give your employees the answers. As a leader, you should have wisdom and choose to use it wisely.

The ninth value is stay true to your convictions and do not wander from the narrow path. We all have morals and convictions that have made us successful. Do not wander from these morals as you get bigger and become a leader to more people. Stay true to who you are. Too many leaders have changed their values and been totally destroyed because they chose to not stay true to their convictions.

The final value that I have chosen to live by is that true obedience to God is the only sure foundation for a good life of leadership. As leaders, if we choose our decisions on what God is always make good decisions. Let God direct your decisions and only then will you truly lead by love and humility and gain the respect of your followers through the good and the bad times. Next time, we will discuss the next attribute of leadership which is being teachable .

As an owner or a manager, have you ever wondered why certain people annoy you so much?  Why is it that one person seems to always cause all the issues or one person is making everyone else in the practice angry?  I am sure we have all experienced this in our practice and in our lives in general.  We just assume that some people were put on the earth to be trouble makers, and we basically just accept it for what it is. Furthermore, what do the management gurus tell us?  We need to get rid of them immediately before they destroy the team and create problems within the organization.  As we all know, getting rid of people can be extremely difficult with all of the legal issues; with unemployment at record highs, this process can become very costly.  Everyone will tell you it is always less expensive to keep an employee then to fire them, yet these so called "trouble makers" are the ones they say to fire without hesitation.

Have you ever looked at one of these so called “trouble makers” and wondered if you are quite possibly causing that behavior in them?  How about turning things around and taking full responsibility for everyone that comes into our lives?  The things we experience out in the world are, for the most part, projections of our inner world.   This is a hard concept for the ego to accept, but give it some thought.  You can look at someone and see a mean and unpleasant person but somewhere someone sees that person totally different and loves them despite their faults.  Why is it that you see the bad and someone else sees the good?  Maybe it is your perception, and you are seeing yourself through that person.  Here comes the tough part: can you admit that what drives you crazy about someone is actually that you see yourself or the traits of yourself as the same as that individual?  We all have dark hidden shadows that we have buried deep down for years.  Some people will let them out and act in very bizarre, strange ways and others will continue to hide them.  The good news is that all your power and ability to be successful lies in these shadows. If you can recognize them and see them as part of you, the result will be tremendous.  If you can look at someone and feel something not right, you should then look at yourself and figure out what it is in yourself that is not right. You must deal with your own dark shadows first in order to create power within yourself that you probably never knew you had.

You will be surprised at how this will completely change how we perceive an individual. It is a complete change in our attitude toward someone and how we react.  If we can look at ourselves, it will help us and it will also allow that person to express themselves as they see fit.  However, I am not saying that if an employee is running through the clinic and trying to destroy things you need to sit back and watch, but in most cases when we are bothered by an annoyance or behavior that we see as bad, we need to take a second look.  The greatest leader of all time in my opinion was Jesus and he said, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. If we truly lived by this, we would want others to not jump to conclusions about us; therefore, we should want to do the same for others. Try this approach, and see how different people start looking at you.