What Separates Veterinary Practices VIII
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.
