Formation of Leadership XX

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.”