I have become fascinated by productivity and how the super-achievers manage to get through the things that they do with so little apparent effort. People like Buffett, Branson, Gates, Steve Jobs and Steven Covey. They seem to be supermen, superheroes in their abilities to get through stuff.
Most of my life I have been one of these overachieving, overdoing type of people. The difference between me and you and those above, is that we are doing it and doing it, working 70 – 100 hours a week and not achieving what these guys are doing in 20 – 30 hours a week.
So, the four things that they CONCENTRATE on to achieve what they do are their;
- vital functions,
- vital priorities,
- vital metrics and
- vital transformations.
If you were in a car accident, and went to the hospital or the emergency ward (heaven forbid), what do you want the doctors in that emergency ward to concentrate on? Your extremity issues or the vital issues?
In Veterinary practice, we have vital functions, vital priorities, vital metrics, and vital transformations (just like those super-achievers do). And yet most practice owners and practice managers – the people that run the business – concentrate on the extremity issues and not the vital issues.
And that’s because they’ve never thought about these concepts in this way!
And that is the big difference between the Bransons, the Buffets, the Jobs’ of the world and us. Buffet, Brandon, Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Covey, all those people, Gates and Trump all concentrate on the vital issues of their business not the extremity issues.
Concentrating on the vital issues is much, much, much more important and it’s also harder to do.
Your Vital Functions
Do you know what your vital functions are? You should only have 2 or 3.
What are your 3 key VITAL functions in your Veterinary Business?
These are the vital things that you do to run and grow your veterinary practice that no-one else in your practice can do.
Now, I am going to challenge you:
1. To think about, determine and then to write down EXACTLY what your 3 key functions in the practice are; and then
2. Use a stop watch to measure EXACTLY how much time you spend EXCLUSIVELY carrying out your Vital Functions every day – for one week.
ONLY when you are doing your vital functions, do you click that stopwatch to start tracking time spent and when you finish doing your vital functions, click it to stop.
You are going to be shocked at how little time you actually spend on your key vital functions. If you spend even 30 minutes (daily) on those key vital functions, I will be surprised.
Let’s talk about the concept of vital priorities
Let’s be clear. Vital functions are the big overarching things we have just talked about – the things that ONLY you can do to advance the practice – your ‘rain-maker’ roles as it were.
Vital priorities are your three priorities that drive you to achieving those vital functions. You can also call these vital priorities ‘vital goals’ – a little but different but to some degree the same.
Let’s look at Warren Buffet’s method of goal / priority setting and see whether you have the chutzpah to do as BUFFET does.
By the way, Jim Collins (Good to Great), Sir Richard Branson, Dr Mehmet Oz and the late Stephen Covey, ALL used ‘The Buffet Method’.
So do this for EITHER your goals or your priorities, not both at the same time.
Step 1: Write down every single goal (or priority) that you have.
Write them down, go crazy on a large sheet of paper….. Everyone can do that.
Step 2: Number the top three.
Pick out three and put 1, 2, 3 next to them or just even ‘star’ them if you can’t determine the three in sequential order…. You can do that too.
Step 3: This is where Buffet excels….
Write down THE three (on a new piece of paper) and take all the other ones and throw them out. Throw them away!
So here you’ll think “Diederik, Hey, Hang on. I can’t do that. I can’t do that. I want to have the rest of them sitting on the side here, so that I can show them a little bit of love occasionally. Or if I’m bored with these top 3, then I can do something else. I can work on one of those other one, do something a little ‘easier’.
No You Can’t….
That’s why Buffet is Buffet. That’s why Richard Branson is Branson. They all use that method.
Top 3. Throw out the rest.
Are you up for it, do you have the chutzpah? Let’s be frank, most people do not…..
We’re going to leave it here for today; the challenge for you is the stopwatch test and getting your 3 priorities, your 3 goals and throwing out all the rest.
Next time we’ll take your vital functions and your vital priorities, work out the vital metrics that’ll allow you to track and measure any improvements that you make towards achieving them and then give you the formula that will allow you to transform them into your reality.
If you have any questions about your Vital Functions or Vital Priorities for Diederik, just ask him in the Comments section below
