Monday, May 10th, 2010
My daughter is sixteen. She’s a musician whose most memorable experience her freshman year of high school was winning the state championship in concert orchestra (last year). This past weekend was her orchestra’s chance to defend their title and they placed…..third. The seniors down on the gymnasium floor looked devastated when their school’s name was called. I think they had prepared themselves for second place, hoping for first….but they didn’t even consider third as a possibility.
This evening I asked my daughter how everyone took things today, it being the first day back to school after the competition. She told me they watched their performance and she thought they did really well. It might not have been the “cleanest” program, but she was very proud of the performance. She said Mr. G, her conductor had several comments. They included (and I’m paraphrasing her paraphrasing here):
- The orchestra that won, deserved to win….they were by far the best that day.
- Had he chosen less difficult music, they probably could have won…but he believes choosing more difficult music was more meaningful. It challenged everyone to rise to another level, and “moved” many people who heard the performance.
- Winning isn’t everything. It’s more important to enjoy the music you are performing and know that you did your very best.
What does all this have to do with veterinary medicine? Everything! We can go through the motions, looking good and sounding good but in reality just “getting by”. Or, we can take Mr. G’s advice and challenge ourselves to be better than we think we are capable of by choosing “more difficult music”.
Set the bar as high as you can! Challenge your team to become better at delivering veterinary medicine in a caring, compassionate manner. Will they make little mistakes? Of course! But everyone learns from their mistakes and becomes better for them. Do you want to go through the motions, practicing “good” medicine and delivering dependably good client service? Or do you want to practice exceptional medicine (which might be more difficult for you as a practitioner) and deliver extraordinary client service (personalized so every experience is different, but better than what is expected by your client)?
I choose the latter, even though I might not get it “just right”, I’ll be more satisfied knowing I challenged myself and my team to rise above the status quo and not rest on laurels of previous achievements. Challenge yourself as a veterinarian, as a leader to your team, or even in the pursuit of your personal interests….you will “move” people and experience the satisfaction of knowing you did your very best.
