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Are you a passionate veterinarian seeking to elevate your practice and make a lasting impact in the field?
Welcome to "The Vet'Ed Podcast". Join Steven Hermann, Kale Flaspohler and Lindo Zwane - industry experts and thought leaders, as they delve into tailored strategies and nurturing relationships to empower privately owned veterinary practices.
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Are you ready? Welcome to the VETER podcast. I'm Stephen Herman, and this is a mindset edition. And we've been talking about leadership recently because this is about becoming a better business owner. We're here for veterinarians to help them become a better business owner or become a business owner.
Speaker 1:So leaders must react. And I I stole this out of Harvard Business Review. I wanna say not not everything I'm gonna talk about here, but the topic I did. I reacted to what I needed to talk about today. All kidding aside, though, you know, might sound like, what are you talking about react?
Speaker 1:You know, people talk about being proactive. Well, you know, I thought the same thing, but, man, let's think about this differently. Because, actually what makes you a great leader is how you react. Did I say leader or reader? What makes you a great leader is how you react.
Speaker 1:This Harvard Business Review said that 35% of leaders in the survey, it's like ten thirty five or something like that, good sample size. So they spend 35% of their time reacting. You heard me right. 35% of their time is reacting. Now I would argue it might take more time than that.
Speaker 1:Maybe you spend 35% of your time reacting, but think about it. If you stop what you're doing, go handle, help, whatever that is, and get back to what you're doing, there's probably another 10 to 15% of your time just getting set back up and going again. But I think that's something you need to realize about leadership because, you know, what goes on is your team needs help. Team has a question. Clients.
Speaker 1:There's things that are gonna happen, and at the end of day, as a leader, a buck stops at your desk. So you're gonna be the one that people come to when they don't know what to do or they might feel uncomfortable. And that's what is good about leadership, is reacting to that in the right way. So I think that you need to think about this. Leadership doesn't mean control, it means responsibility.
Speaker 1:Leadership doesn't mean control, it means responsibility. Okay? So you know my favorite thing to talk about is growth mindset. This is the mindset pod podcast. And so how about the growth mindset of reacting well?
Speaker 1:Being reactive is is not a flaw. I I want you to realize that it is not a flaw. It's a skill. I think what you understand, it takes time and it takes experience to get to that. Because when you're reacting to what's going on, if you have the knowledge and experience, it can go a lot smoother.
Speaker 1:And also, if you have the knowledge and experience, say, if I don't know, what am I going to do? So you don't also get, like, the deer in the headlights look. Right? You need to be able to pivot and have the knowledge and perseverance to push through. Key thing is too with that, it helps from getting defensive.
Speaker 1:Right? When people come and talk to you or or see what's going on, sometimes we get defensive. Right? Like, you challenging me? Are you questioning what I'm doing?
Speaker 1:Don't take it that way. People wanna know. They really do. If they're coming to you, that means they care about you and they believe in you. So stay cool.
Speaker 1:Stay open. And ask yourself, what can I learn from this? Talked about experience earlier. Each one of these moments is experience to help you be better and better as a leader. So that's the growth mindset about this all.
Speaker 1:And so it's being reactive, not with fear, but with curiosity and courage. I think an important part of reacting is reacting with empathy and perseverance. Think about that. Empathy and perseverance. Empathy because you need to be emotional cognizant about what's going on there.
Speaker 1:You know, your emotional intelligence needs to kick in. What's going on around the room? How do I need to address this? Is it a fight or flight? Is it a, hey.
Speaker 1:No. Settle it down. What's going on? So be be up with that. What's the emotion in the room?
Speaker 1:Perseverance. When you have to react, you better be ready to get through the whole thing. Right? So having perseverance to be able to endure and push through to get it done is important. Plus perseverance to get back to what you were doing, the vision of the company, the day to day things you had going on to help the company get through the year and get into the next year.
Speaker 1:Now I thought this was really, really good of of everything we talk about. Why this is important says, you can't just throw policies at those problems. Think about that. You can't just throw policies at the problems. You have to feel them, understand them, and you have to react with compassion before correction.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many times it is when something happens, someone's like, we need to put a policy on that. Do you really? Do you have to put a policy on everything? No. You don't.
Speaker 1:You don't. What you have to do is be able to react with compassion before correction. Okay? And of course, don't forget about that perseverance. So because reacting may not end with a quick fix, real reaction means staying with it, pushing through the unknown, being okay, not having the answers, and coming back to your original path stronger, more experienced, and more confident.
Speaker 1:Now, they're talking about being reactive. Where's proactive fit into all this? Right? Now, does it fit in? Well, think it definitely it definitely does.
Speaker 1:Because if we know that 35% of our time is gonna be spent reacting to something going on, well, you probably need to be proactive about your schedule. How are gonna carve out 35% of your time for those? Now we know that you can't just carve out, oh, between noon and one, you're at lunch. Let's say you better time one and two in the afternoon that you're gonna carve that out for those kinds of situations or what's going on. You can't.
Speaker 1:What you can do though is have that space built in. So when those things do happen, you can move what you were doing around to make sure you can take care of what's going on. Alright? So, yeah, definitely, part of being reactive is being proactive. Sounds a little bit, you know, twisted there, but it is the truth.
Speaker 1:Gotta build that time in the calendar for the chaos. Alright? That's what we're talking about there. So as we wrap up today, are you ready for that thirty five percent? Because it's coming.
Speaker 1:It's probably happened today. It's gonna happen tomorrow, and that's okay. So, again, react is not a thing about think reaction I want to say this reaction is where people so it's not snap. It's reacting in the right way. We've talked about it.
Speaker 1:Reacting with compassion. Reacting with purpose. Reacting with empathy, resilience, and with a growth mindset. So hope you're ready for that 35%. Make sure it's carved out in the day because I believe one of the biggest challenges we have in today is not being planned out properly.
Speaker 1:Add this 35% in your calendar. Hey. It's been a sure pleasure talking to you today. I look forward to next time on the Better podcast. Thank you very much.