Our company charter is designed to be out in the open and visible to the public. We want to highlight the why, what and how of what we're building at AnimalKind. Our goal is to be transparent and clear about our direction with everyone because it allows us to build a tighter community of clients, vets, nurses, support staff and partners.
We're building a veterinary group where kindness is the baseline, not the exception. Where steady, deliberate improvement drives better outcomes for animals and the people who care for them and technology serves the work, not the other way around.
The current approach to veterinary consolidation has broken things we value most. We don’t believe it has to be that way. We believe you can grow a group without grinding people down, instilling the right values, aligning our incentives and building amazing experiences and solutions.
Kindness. Everything we do, from dealing with clients, to handling supplier conversations or managing coworker relationships, is done with kindness. It’s a non-negotiable. We don’t sacrifice kindness for any tasks, projects or ideals. It is our grounding mechanism and what we should come to expect from everyone that interacts with us.
We are effortlessly reliable. The most valuable trait in our team is reliability. It allows us to fully trust the people we share most of our day with and, thus, create predictability and comfort. Reliability extends to how we interact, operate, communicate and present ourselves. We are reliable and genuine in our reliability.
Pursue solutions more than problems. It takes no special skill nor intuition to identify problems. We are naturally wired to feel and predict problems in any shape or form. It takes a significant amount of effort to look for solutions and an even bigger amount of effort to shift our mindset to (almost) always do so. This is our challenge, but one we must uphold.
We focus on small but consistent improvements. Our journey is a marathon not a sprint. That means, incremental improvements and changes can lead to big results within months and compound further over the years. 1% better every day is our mantra. This eliminates the requirements for large, sweeping changes that destabilise everything around us while still creating upward trajectory and momentum that we need to evolve. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
We operate on a micro level but think at a macro level. Said differently, we always have our eyes on the big picture (mission, vision, values in this document) but focus on executing what’s in front of us at that moment to the best of our abilities.
1+1=3. We are an ecosystem, one in which everyone plays an equally important role in making the other parts of the system function and operate at the highest level. Often times, people learn this the hard way through experience and pain but rather than put ourselves in that position, we focus on working together to make the sum greater than the whole.
Kind. This is so important and vital to our existence that it needs to be said at every occasion. We are kind. We are always kind.
Ambitious. Ambition will always be rewarded here. There are some caveats in how this will be accepted (see above) but, for the most part, we will always provide the tools and create the structures and frameworks to ensure your ambition is fulfilled.
Optimistic about the future. The world is too small and life is too short for us to be anything but optimistic. We’re here to build better lives for animals and their owners. To do so, we need to be optimistic about the possibilities of care, guidance, innovation and change.
Patient. Patience is a virtue but there’s often a fine line between patience and laziness or lack of impetus. As an example, being patient is waking up at an ungodly hour to set up your fishing rod and bait versus visiting the fishmonger when you wake up. One requires effort, planning, diligence and respect of the task while the other gets to the same outcome without transforming themselves into a new and better person.
Do the hard things. Life is hard, that is a guarantee. The point of doing the hard things is so that they become easier in the next round. We can skip steps and land great jobs and titles but it will always be visible who has put in the work. We always take on challenges head on.
Resilient beyond measure. See above. Life is hard. Work is hard. People are hard. We will all strive to make sure you have all the tools to tackle problems, challenges and issues as effectively as possible. We’ll all pool in to help you along the way. However, that resilience to keep going will have to come from you.
Embrace failure and dedicate yourself to a practice of recovery, iteration and improvement. Make failures high value and use them to our advantage. If we aren’t failing, we most likely aren’t ambitious enough and that is a worse outcome than a failure could ever be. Bring the team along in the learnings and bounce back then document it so others can learn from your experiences.
Intention is great but actions are king. Don’t talk storms around people, focus on output and creation. Some of the brightest ideas never come to light because we fail at the execution step. Control the execution step and make great ideas come to life.
Recognise the strengths of your individuals and highlight them. There are strengths in every individual, that is why they work with us. Our job is to bring out those strengths and ensure they are leveraged to the highest degree.
Love the data. Have a feel for the energy of your team but always back up your intuition with data and tangible metrics. There will be many instances where your intuition will point you in one direction and the data will say something else. The best decisions are made at this intersection of agreement. Always back up your thinking and thoughts with data.
Focus on clarity. Great leaders set directions and expectations. The title implies you are someone people are looking at for guidance and the only way to effectively communicate that direction is by being clear and honest. Communication is a two-way street, saying what you expect is not enough, we also need to make sure it is heard and understood by the receiver.
Create the optimal environment for success and growth. We must foster an environment where all members of our team and staff can thrive, grow, and develop. The environment includes the physical, digital and mental spaces in which we operate.
Be accountable and responsible through thick and thin. The burden and beauty of a leadership position is that the accountability and responsibility rests with you. We handle everything around us, specifically the areas in which we are relied upon. Embrace it.
Push boundaries and limits. Our modus operandi is to sit above the limit of what is comfortable and allowed. That is how we evolve, innovate and drive change in our teams, industry and business at large.
Set the tone. Culture starts at the top. Embody the behaviours and mindset you want your team to emulate. Get in the weeds with them when things are tight and slow. Show them your discipline, passion, commitment, and courage. We are born with a special knack to mimic behaviours. Make sure it’s your behaviour the team recreates in their own way.
Be a magnet for talent and ambition. As leaders, we will be defined by the teams we build. These teams should be structured with the absolute best in class talent across all roles and responsibilities. Find people who are better than you or fill in gaps in your or your teams’ knowledge, experience, or mindset.
Balance. To round it off, everything up and down the value chain and company mission requires balance. The right amount of push and pull, patience and initiative or innovation and grounding. There is no right answer here, the journey for balance is never ending.
