Blog

Check back each week for a new blog post!

If You Stop Learning, You Stop Leading

I began working with a new practice recently. The owner of the practice impressed me during our first discussion. He spent much of our first conversation sharing some of the things he learned as a leader in veterinary medicine. I…

Help, I’ve Fallen and I Can’t…Nevermind

Leadership, Learning from Failure

One of the attributes I noticed in nearly every great leader that I’ve worked with is that they know how to get back up after they fall. I don’t think they fall any less than the rest of us, or…

Does Your Team Take Risks, or Play it Safe?

Leadership, Learning from Failure

Adult humans aren’t very good at taking risks. I say adult humans because kids are fantastic at it. When my son played baseball as a kid, I watched players who hit triples refuse to stop at third base. A triple…

Do Something, Even if It’s Wrong

Leadership, Learning from Failure

Every now and then I like to take a quote and look at what it really means in our lives, our businesses, and our quest to be more effective leaders. Quotes can be valuable tools for us to think about…

Your Daily Leadership Scorecard

Aspire, Leadership

The more I learn about habit change, the more I become a fan of the daily scorecard process I use for myself and many of my coaching clients. I have found that people are much more effective at making changes…

driving car with hands on steering wheel

What If We Rated Leaders Like Uber Drivers?

Leadership

I took an Uber ride recently, something I’m sure many of us have done. As I was rating the driver after the trip, I started thinking about how leaders might be different if their team rated them after every interaction.…

Are You a Better Leader Than a Second Grader?

Leadership

When my son was in second grade, I attended a parent-teacher conference at his school. The teacher shared with me a new system they were using to evaluate the growth and performance of the kids. As I glanced over the…

3 Ways to Measure Leadership

Leadership

I started my independent consulting business, 4th Gear Consulting back in 2009 because I thought we needed more leaders. As I’ve worked with veterinary practices and teams, I continue to learn what is driving our collective lack of leaders. As…

The 8 Vectors of Organizational Change

Change

When I was in college, I initially wanted to be an engineer. I remember learning all about vectors in physics class. A vector is an arrow that represents direction and force. As I work with practices to help them manage…

If You Want People to Change, Buy Them a Cup of Coffee

Change

I visited a Starbucks recently, which I don’t do often. But I was on my way to a practice and thought I would get coffee for my ride. As I pulled up to pay for my coffee at the drive-through…

Veterinarian using computer at desk in clinic

It’s Time to Change the Way We Change

Change

There is a common theme that we see in veterinary practices today. Change. Change is hard and always happening. Often we change too much and too fast. We don’t leave time for one change to stick before we mix it…

If You Want to Change Your Practice, Start With These 3 Steps

Change

Most of my work focuses on helping practices go from where they are to where they want to be. I always work hard to make sure that the changes I assist practices with are sustainable. This means that the leaders…

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