The transformational magic of objectives (Proceedings)

Who should come to this session?

     • Managers

     • Owners

     • Senior vets/nurses/technicians with direct reports

     • All staff who want to learn about leading teams.

This session will be particularly good for those who struggle with managing people. By the end of the session, delegates will be understand how the creation of clear and linked objectives for all team members will boost performance and take the ambiguity and certainty out of managing the veterinary team.

Part 1 – What are cascading objectives and how will they help your practice.

Many veterinary practices are run on a rather adhoc basis. Without clear leadership and clear guidance in the form of job descriptions and job objectives is is hard for a team to function as a unit and equally difficult for individuals and managers to know what is expected on them.

This situation is what Dr. Nicol describes as 'Jazz Management'. It is an unhealthy situation for a practice to be in, but is all too common.

Dr Nicol will explain to delegates what cascading objectives are and how they help the team achieve meet the practice vision.

Part 2 – Writing effective objectives

As with many written corporate documents, management objectives are often wooly, non-specific and bloated with meaningless management- jargon. In other words they are completely useless!

Delegates will be shown a variety of poorly written objectives and then some well written ones so they can learn how to write objectives that will have an impact on their businesses.

Part 3 – Objectives: measurement, feedback and reward

An objective by definition has to be measurable. With today's practice management IT systems is it possible to measure just about everything, so what things matter? How do you measure them and how do you get the best reaction from your team?

Dr Nicol will discuss how to measure objectives that matter. Why feedback is so important and a different way to reward.

Part 4 – Objectives in action

2 case studies will be presented where clearly written objectives made a remarkable difference. One from outside where objectives allowed the business to double profits each year for five years running. The other is from the veterinary industry and shows how a clearly written objective helped one clinic's stock levels drop from 40% of sales down to 21% and stay there!

Final destination

You'll be inspired to write good cascading objectives that will take the guess-work out of practice performance management.