Why This? Why Now?
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Most common complaint of managers in veterinary medicine
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People join practices and leave doctors/owners/boss
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We live in an era of consolidation and collaboration if we are to be successful providers
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Must address the "schism" between owners and doctors and front line employees
The Alpha Doctor
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Highly Intelligent
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Confident
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Not happy unless they are calling the shots
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Use "Toxic Tactics" to get their way
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Note to women (rarely will you exhibit all of the characteristics of the alpha doctor), but you can have many
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It's about being socialized to be good collaborators and compromising
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Reach the "top" because they are natural leaders
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Comfortable with responsibility and being the "final word"
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Get stressed when they DON'T have tough decisions to make
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They get such a charge out of being in control that they willingly take on more responsibilities than any normal human
being would
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Genius and Madness are hard to separate
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Their greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses
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Independent and Action Oriented
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Take for granted extraordinarily high performance
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Expect the same in others
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"Impressive, but I wouldn't want to work for them!"
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Think extraordinarily fast, hard to keep up with
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Prevents them from listening to others (especially those who do not alpha speak)
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Impatience causes them to miss subtle but important details (lack empathy)
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They have opinions about EVERYTHING
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Rarely if ever admit to being wrong or incomplete
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Early in life they KNOW they are smarter than most people and learn very early to circumvent "rules"
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"The rules don't apply to me."
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As adults they believe that their insights are so unique that they put complete faith in their instincts
Alpha Males
• Because their intuitions are often right, they feel justified in focusing on the flaws in other people's ideas or arguments.
The results:
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Co-workers are intimidated which makes learning difficult
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The more pressure the "alpha" feels the more he tends to shift his leadership style from constructive and challenging
to intimidating or abusive
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Organizations become dysfunctional because people avoid dealing with the alpha male, work around him, or simply pay him
lip service
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Unemotional and analytical in their cognitive style
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Eager to learn about business "things" but have little or no natural curiosity about people or feelings
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They rely on exhaustive data to make business decisions, but often make snap decisions about other people which they hold
onto tenaciously
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They believe that paying attention to feelings (others or their own) detracts from getting the work done, making them
surprisingly oblivious to the effect they have on others
