Definitions and Jargon

To allow a practice to start on a level playing field, allow us to offer a few basic definitions. Most staff members I have met seem to love definitions, so this should be a happy time. Some of these include "optional" references. The following are in alphabetical order for your convenience.

Accountability

In a team-based environment, this is what we want to assign, accountabilities for outcomes, rather than just tasks and processes. We recommend reading John Miller's Question Behind the Question (QBQ).

Balanced Life

To survive in a caring healthcare profession, everyone must make deposits into the personal emotional bank account on a regular basis, since the practice healthcare delivery so often drains those emotions during a "tough case" day. This requires time and activities outside the veterinary practice and outside the veterinary profession. Just ask your significant other for a "truthful" evaluation. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Professionalism, Bio-ethics & Image.

Bio-ethics

The application of personal values for ill-defined decision situations, looking for the right decision for the right reason. The VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Professionalism, Bio-ethics & Image needs to be read and discussed by the coordinators, doctors, and owners.

Bond-Centered Practice

Client-centered patient advocacy as a pet parent awareness training goal. The VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Building the Bond-centered Practice: Compliance meets the Human-Animal Bond needs to be read and discussed by the coordinators, doctors, and owners.

Change

We like the formula, C = D x P x M < costs, where Change (C) is a factor of Dissatisfaction/Desire (D), Participative Processes (P), and Mental Model (M), at less than the associated costs (social, fiscal, physical, etc.). The multiplication symbol tells you all three factors must be present, and in equal proportion, for the best results. A FUN reference read would be Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, MD.

Conflict

The reference text Crucial Conversations, Patterson et. al., was followed by Crucial Confrontations, Patterson et. al., providing two great books every manager, parent, and spouse should review. Also see the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Conflict Resolution, Negotiations & Other Problem Solving Issues for veterinary-specific applications.

Continuity of Care

The medical record documentation. This includes an active master problem list and medication refill authority. It allows another doctor or nurse to pick-up the record and talk to the client, or continue diagnostic surveillance or treatment, without embarrassing the practice, any provider, the client, or the staff of the practice. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monographs Medical Records for Quality & Profit, and Standards of Patient Care.

Core Values

These are inviolate operational expectations for every member of the team, doctors, staff, and owners. These allow any member of the practice team leadership to make the tough decisions, without going to seek "guidance/answers" from the ownership. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monographs Professionalism, Bio-ethics & Image, and Standards of Patient Care.

Creativity

School has a tendency to remove options, provide "single solutions", and make people "color between the lines", while life and practice requires greater flexibility. Bill Costello's text Awaken Your Birdbrain has a mind-widening effect on most people.

Effective Communication

The getting and giving of mentally processed "data" into meaningful "information". The leadership skill for forming the group is in the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Leadership Principles & Skills. Most often needed when conflict resolution is present, or negotiations are needed. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Conflict Resolution, Negotiations & Other Problem Solving Issues.

Employee Management and Challenges

"Employee" versus "staff member with a calling". Veterinary medicine usually has the latter. The paraprofessionals on a veterinary practice team are there for the animals, and the paycheck, while in the top six factors of employment is never in the top three. Belonging, contribution, and personal self-esteem are usually in the top three in some form for all healthcare staff. See the Blackwell Press text Veterinary Management in Transition: Preparing for the 21^st Century, which has an appendix discussing the problem employee. Ensure it is read and discussed.

Future

A term for something that we do not "know", but we hope to achieve. Written goals, with pre-determined measures of success, make the quest far easier. Review the concepts and predictions in the Blackwell Press text by Catanzaro and Hall, Veterinary Medicine & Practice - 25 years in the Future - and the Economic Steps to Get There.

Getting Started

When moving from follower to leader, the hardest thing to do is break away from asking the doctor, "What is next?", and replace it with, "Let's set some milestones and outcome expectations, so we know we have common goals." David McNally's text Even Eagles Need A Push offers some insight to those first few difficult steps.

Goals and Objectives

These are usually the quarterly and annual planning targets, short-term in nature, and achieved by specific plans. In our VCI^® consulting systems, it fits into the quarterly performance planning process, not performance appraisals. Appraisals are moment-by-moment opportunities for training and improvement. See Building The Successful Veterinary Practice: Leadership Tools (Volume 1), Programs & Procedures (Volume 2), and Innovation & Creativity (Volume 3), plus the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Staff Performance Planning & Goal Setting.

Key Result Areas (KRAs)

They may vary by practice, but we have used seven KRAs for years and never have need to modify them: "Client Satisfaction", "Quality", "Innovation", "Productivity", "Economic Health", "Organizational Climate", and "Personal Growth". See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Staff Performance Planning & Goal Setting.

Knowledge - Skills - Attitude (KSA)

Knowledge comes from education and recurring continuing education experiences, while skill comes from doing the process or procedure, such as recurring in-service training. Attitude is what makes the pursuit of new knowledge and skills a matter of pride and allows the team to support each other in the process. We hire for attitude and train to provide the knowledge, then practice to gain the skills. See Building The Successful Veterinary Practice: Innovation & Creativity, plus the VCI® Signature Series Monograph Staff Performance Planning & Goal Setting.

Leadership

If you turn around and have followers, you are some type of leader, but if you look behind you and find no one, you are probably just a manager. If it was easy, the bookshelves would only have one text, but the fact is, there are hundreds of books on the subject, all making it sound easy, which it is not. For a basic mind-set, review, Managing From The Heart by Bracey, et. al.

Management

A nice term, encompassing the workplace world. Managers get things done through people, while leaders develop people through work, which is a mind-set more than a technique. For application techniques, we recommend you add Bittel and Newstrom's What Every Supervisor Should Know to your practice library.

Marketing

This is actually internal promotion in most veterinary practice catchment areas. Attracting new clients is expensive, and seldom do you attract the "right type" client. The VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Marketing: Selling "Peace of Mind" provides the information on persuasive marketing, as well as survey tools for determining where the practice team's perspective may lie. A good general reference is Michael LeBoeuf's How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life.

Messages

Communication is essential, yet rehearsal of "effective narratives" seldom occurs in most veterinary practices. Short, concise, meaningful statements of value are needed, and Milo Frank's text How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less provides great concepts and tools for achieving this goal.

Mind-Mapping and Brainstorming

The text Building The Successful Veterinary Practice: Innovation & Creativity describes mind-mapping and hiring teams, as well as newsletters and creativity exercises. It is a useful coordinator resource. Ensure it is read and discussed.

Mission Focus

Sometimes called a "practice philosophy", the application in a consistent manner in all programs, procedures, and polices that impact clients, patients, staff, or practice operations. See Building The Successful Veterinary Practice: Leadership Tools (Volume 1) and Programs & Procedures (Volume 2), plus the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Administrator's Guide to Practice Efficacy.

New Demands

The need to break away from old paradigms requires new thought patterns to meet new demands. Margaret Wheatley's book Leadership and the New Science offers some very intriguing concepts and perspectives for contemplation.

New Metrics

If new programs are measured with old tools, we are causing reversion, without realizing it: A² = G² -- if you Always do what you have Always done, you're going to Get what you've always Got. To do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, is a neat definition of insanity. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monographs Strategic Assessment & Strategic Response, and Models & Methods That Drive Breakthrough Performance, plus the text Veterinary Management in Transition: Preparing for the 21^st Century.

No Blame Game

Nothing kills the initiative of a healthcare team faster than the assignment for blame, yet it has become a habit in our culture. Accidents do not happen anymore. A good leader uses the future plural tense, "What can we do next time to make it better?", while a great leader makes each failure into a success, by creating a learning experience: "What have we learned about that approach, what else do we need to consider in our plan, and how are we going to adjust our delivery to improve the program?" See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Leadership Principles & Skills.

Performance Planning

The quarterly self-directed process of setting personal goals, objectives, or target actions for the coming ninety days, establishing the measurements of success, and sharing it with a mentor who will assist you on your developmental quest. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Staff Performance Planning & Goal Setting.

Potentials

For new graduates or managers looking for a practice, the VCI® Signature Series Monograph The Unknown Road Ahead: A New Veterinarian's Survival Primer provides assessment tools to compare practices and potential work environments. On the other hand, the ultimate text would probably be Dr. Seuss' Oh, the Places You'll Go.

Problem Solving

The VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Conflict Resolution, Negotiations & Other Problem Solving Methodologies provides concepts, techniques, and tools that most practices can utilize. James Higgins' text Innovate or Evaporate provides some additional concepts on incorporating innovation into the thought process.

Quality

Like pornography, hard to define, but we know it when we see it. Deming was first, but found no acceptance in the USA, so he took his concepts to Japan and made them world leaders. J.M. Juran was the second, and found USA big business wanting what they turned away with Deming. Juran on Leadership for Quality is a must read for all administrators.

Standards of Care

Consistent delivery of wellness needs ( ), medical expectations, and healthcare delivery programs between the providers of a practice. Similar cases are delivered with similar care for similar costs, regardless of "deep wallet palpation", "time of day", backlog of clients/patients, or other excuses so commonly offered. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monographs Standards of Patient Care and Building The Bond-centered Practice, which introduces the "Pet Parent Awareness" programs.

Strategic Assessment and Response

A term that means being ready to grab a community, or outside opportunity, before it passes you or your practice by. "Strategic Planning" requires the outside world to read and understand your plan, while "Strategic Assessment" is a dynamic and changing process, using new metrics for each new occurrence or plan. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Strategic Assessment & Strategic Response.

Team Planning

Most practices think closing a few hours a week for training is counterproductive to income, but it has been proven that every fifteen minutes of planning saves over an hour at implementation. When brainstorming before planning, diversity emerges, and linear thinking is counterproductive. For interactive planning, we recommend the concepts provided by Tony Buzan's text The Mind Map Book.

Terms of Employment

Never a long list, but key elements of behavior and expectations, such as show team fit (harmony), show competency, show productivity, and show client-centered patient advocacy. A practice can require behavior, but must hire for attitude! See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Zoned Systems& Schedules.

Terms of Leadership

Never a long list, but key elements of behavior and expectations, such as give respect, give responsibility, give recognition, and ensure consistent core values. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Leadership Principles & Skills.

Vision

Sometimes called a "mission statement", this is the picture of the five to ten-year plan, which keeps the direction of the practice moving forward, and brings it back on line when a tangent occurs. It must excite the hearts and minds of all practice players, spouses and significant others included. See the VCI^® Signature Series Monograph Leadership Action Planner.