Becoming a Better Coach in Your Veterinary Practice

A Comprehensive Guide

By Randy Hall

Introduction

Coaching is more than just a skill—it’s a transformative practice that empowers your team, builds a thriving workplace culture, and elevates your veterinary practice to new heights. Effective coaching isn’t about telling people what to do; it’s about guiding them to discover their potential and achieve their goals.

This guide brings together five core principles of coaching, offering actionable insights and practical strategies to help you master this vital leadership skill. By implementing these concepts, you can create a high-performing team that provides exceptional medical care and outstanding client service. Let’s explore what it takes to become a truly great coach.

Table of Contents

The True Meaning of Coaching

Core Principles of Effective Coaching

1. Making It About Your Team

2. Creating Capability

3. Understanding and Setting Goals

4. Having More Faith Than They Do

5. Supporting Their Journey at Their Pace

Conclusion: The Journey of Coaching

The True Meaning of Coaching

The word “coach” originated in a small Hungarian village called Kocs, where horse-drawn wagons were first crafted. These early coaches were designed to transport people from one place to another—a fitting metaphor for what coaching is today.

Coaching is about helping others make a journey—not a physical one, but a journey in their abilities, confidence, and success. A great coach’s purpose is to help team members achieve their own goals, aligning their aspirations with the needs of the practice. When coaching becomes about achieving only the coach’s or the practice’s goals, it ceases to be coaching and becomes manipulation.

Building trust and understanding what motivates your team are the foundations of great coaching. Let’s explore how to implement these principles in your practice.

Core Principles of Effective Coaching

In Your Veterinary Practice

1. Making It About Your Team

The Power of Trust

Trust is the cornerstone of effective coaching. Without it, team members won’t engage deeply or commit to the coaching process. Trust allows you to build relationships that empower your team members to achieve not just practice goals but also their personal and professional aspirations.

Too often, coaching becomes something we do to people to achieve the results we want. This isn’t coaching—it’s telling or manipulating. Genuine coaching begins when we approach conversations with the desire to help team members achieve more of what they want. The overlap between individual goals and the practice’s goals is where everyone wins.

But make no mistake: if you’re only focused on reaching your own goals—or even the practice’s goals—without aligning with the individual’s goals, you’re not truly coaching.

Trust Is a Coach’s Best Friend (Not a Whistle)

To illustrate the power of trust, I often ask practice owners or managers to name the goals of their team members. Surprisingly, very few can answer this accurately. Instead, they guess or assume what those goals might be—or worse, they project their own goals onto their team.

The solution is simple: ask. Take the time to understand each team member’s unique aspirations. This investment builds trust, giving you a foundation from which to coach them effectively.

I’ve seen firsthand the lengths people will go to develop themselves under a coach they trust. Once your team knows you’re genuinely invested in helping them achieve more of what they want, they’ll willingly enter the coaching process. They’ll work harder, listen more intently, and embrace the opportunity to grow.

Building a Successful Practice Through Trust

Steve Jamison, who co-authored five books with legendary coach John Wooden, shared a powerful example of trust in action:

“One of Coach’s first players, from his first high school team in 1932, contacted him while we were working on a book. He hadn’t much longer to live and wanted to talk to Coach. After they had spoken, I asked the player quickly, ‘How’d it go?’ He replied, ‘Coach Wooden really cared about us boys on the team and made us practice extra because of it.’”

Wooden used trust as the foundation for his coaching, leading UCLA’s basketball team to win 10 national titles. His players knew he cared about their growth, which motivated them to push harder and achieve more.

The same principle applies to veterinary practices. When team members trust that you genuinely care about their success, they’ll go the extra mile for the practice and themselves.

Key Takeaway: Investing in the success of your team members is essential to building an incredible practice. Without it, you can’t take people where they want to go—and that’s what coaching truly means.

How to Build Trust as a Coach

1. Ask about Goals: Take time to understand what your team members truly want, both personally and professionally.
2. Listen Actively: Show genuine interest in their aspirations by engaging in meaningful conversations.
3. Align Goals: Identify where their goals overlap with practice needs and focus your coaching efforts in this shared space.

Be Consistent: Trust grows over time, through repeated actions that demonstrate your commitment to their success.

2. Creating Capability

The Shift from Telling to Coaching

Recently, I caught myself saying, “because I said so,” to one of my kids. It was one of those moments where you realize you’ve done something you swore you’d never do. I said it because it was quicker, easier, and allowed me to focus on completing the task. But I wasn’t helping my daughter—I was solving the problem for her.

Effective coaching is about building capability. It’s about creating in others the capacity to solve problems on their own and think differently about solutions. Instead of providing answers, great coaches help their team members examine their own thinking about challenges. When we make coaching about giving quick answers, we miss the opportunity to build long-term capability.

A Tale of Two Managers

Let me illustrate this with an example from the corporate world:

• Scott: A phenomenal sales representative who was promoted to manager because of his success. Scott’s approach to his team was simple: explain why he was successful and encourage them to replicate his best practices. During a sales meeting, Scott discussed building better client relationships. He shared personal tactics, like celebrating client birthdays with cakes and handwritten notes, and insisted his team adopt these methods. Some team members found success with Scott’s approach, but they became dependent on him to provide solutions.

• Elizabeth: Another sales manager, took a different approach. Instead of giving answers, Elizabeth encouraged her team members to think critically. For instance, when discussing client relationships, she asked her team to brainstorm ten ways to strengthen connections. Then she guided them with thought-provoking questions:

• Which of these ideas would bring the most value?

• Which can you execute effectively?

• Which would you enjoy doing consistently over time?

Over time, Elizabeth’s team became more independent and innovative. They came to her prepared, with their own solutions and strategies. Elizabeth’s coaching approach didn’t just build knowledge; it developed capability.

What It Means to Develop Capability

Coaching is about asking the right questions and fostering new ways of thinking. While there’s nothing wrong with offering suggestions, the goal should always be to help team members solve problems themselves.

This approach requires patience—especially when you’re sure you already know the best solution. It’s tempting to provide answers, but the most effective coaches resist this urge. Instead, they guide their team through the problem-solving process, even when it’s frustrating. The payoff comes later, when team members develop the confidence and ability to handle challenges independently.

When team members express gratitude for helping them grow—not just solve the immediate issue—you’ll know you’ve succeeded as a coach.

Practical Steps to Build Capability

• Ask Open-Ended Questions: Encourage critical thinking by prompting team members to explore their options. For example, “What strategies have you considered for solving this?”
• Guide, Don’t Tell: Offer suggestions and use them as starting points, not directives.
• Foster Accountability: Emphasize that solutions are their responsibility to execute. This reinforces their ownership of the process.
• Be Patient: Growth takes time. Resist the urge to step in when team members struggle—they’ll thank you later.
• Celebrate Progress: Acknowledge small wins to build confidence and encourage further growth.

The Value of Capability Building

The effort you put into developing your team’s capability pays dividends. When you empower them to think critically and solve problems independently, you create a team that can navigate challenges without relying on you for answers.

Building capability isn’t just an investment in your team—it’s an investment in the success of your practice. And trust me, it’s worth working a little harder for.

3. Understanding and Setting Goals

The Extraordinary Power of Goals

Goals are the foundation of effective coaching. Without them, it’s impossible to guide someone toward meaningful growth. Yet, in my experience, most leaders struggle to identify the goals of their team members.

I once worked with a group of practice owners and asked them to write down the goals of their top three performing associates. Not one of them could answer beyond vague guesses. This wasn’t surprising—I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly over the years.

On the rare occasion when a leader clearly understands their team members’ goals, the results are remarkable. These teams consistently perform at the top and sustain that success year after year. The lesson is clear: if you don’t know your team members’ goals, you can’t coach them effectively.

If You Don’t Know, Ask

To coach someone effectively, you need to know what they want. If they don’t know what they want, it’s your job to help them discover it. Coaching without a clear understanding of someone’s goals is like giving directions to Chicago when they’re trying to get to Seattle.

Do Goals Have to Be SMART?

The most common framework for goal setting is SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. While these elements are helpful, they miss the most critical factor: a goal must be compelling.

For example, I could set a SMART goal to climb Mount Everest by the end of the year. It could be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound—but it would fail because I have no genuine desire to climb Mount Everest.

Compelling goals tug at the heart. They inspire people to work harder, push further, and persist longer. If you don’t know what goals inspire the individuals you’re coaching, you risk guiding them toward something they don’t care about—or worse, toward your own goals rather than theirs.

Personal and Career Goals Are Connected

A common misconception is that personal and career goals exist in separate silos. In reality, all goals are personal. If a team member can’t connect their career success to something meaningful in their personal life, they’re unlikely to stay motivated.

As coaches, we often focus on goals directly related to the practice, avoiding discussions about what people want in their personal lives. This approach is limiting. While you can separate these goals on paper or in performance plans, they’re inseparable within the person.

Think about the last time you went the extra mile for something that didn’t matter to you personally. It’s unlikely you worked hard for something meaningless—and your team members won’t, either.

Helping Others Set Goals

Effective coaching begins with understanding the goals your team members already have—or helping them create a vision for their future. This process can be transformative for both the person being coached and the coach.

Here’s how to help your team members set and achieve meaningful goals:

1. Discover What Drives Them: Ask questions like:
   • What are you passionate about?
   • What motivates you to keep improving?
   • Who do you want to become in your career and life?
2. Create Alignment: Once you understand their goals, look for ways to align those aspirations with the practice’s objectives.
3. Develop a Roadmap: Collaborate with your team members to create a plan for achieving their goals, breaking it into actionable steps.
4. Revisit Goals Regularly: Goals evolve over time. Schedule regular check-ins to ensure their aspirations remain relevant and compelling.

The Transformational Impact of Goal Setting

When you help someone discover and pursue meaningful goals, you don’t just change their life—you change your own. Coaching becomes more than a task; it becomes a journey of mutual growth and transformation.

By guiding your team toward their best future, you’ll become the kind of coach who inspires loyalty, respect, and extraordinary results.

4. Having More Faith Than They Do

The Power of Expectations

In the 1960s, Dr. Robert Rosenthal conducted a landmark study to understand how expectations influence performance. At Oak School, children were randomly divided into two groups: one labeled as having high intellectual potential and the other serving as the control group. The results were striking—47% of the “gifted” group showed IQ gains of 20 points or more, compared to just 19% in the control group.

What’s remarkable is that the students were chosen at random; there was no actual difference in intellectual potential. The only variable was the teachers’ belief in the students’ abilities.

This phenomenon, often called the Pygmalion Effect, has been confirmed in hundreds of studies across schools and workplaces. The expectations of a coach, mentor, or teacher profoundly shape the performance of those they guide.

Set Higher Expectations

As a coach, your role is to help team members exceed their self-imposed limits. People are already capable of achieving what they believe they can do. Your job is to push them beyond those boundaries to uncover their true potential.

This requires setting expectations that are higher than what your team members set for themselves. If you can’t do this, they may need a different coach.

Here’s the challenge: most people are highly effective at convincing you they can’t do what you expect. If you’re not careful, you might buy into their lower expectations, losing the ability to help them grow.

Key Insight: If you don’t believe someone is capable of more than they are currently achieving, don’t coach them. Otherwise, you’ll only reinforce the limits they’ve set for themselves.

Have More Faith Than They Do

Think about how you act around someone you respect, admire, and believe in versus someone you don’t. That difference in behavior is often subtle, but it has a profound impact on the other person.

Your faith in someone’s potential isn’t something you can fake. Every interaction—how you listen, respond, and engage—is shaped by your belief in their abilities. This consistent, genuine belief is what helps team members begin to see themselves differently.

It takes incredible patience. Unlike teachers who interact with students daily, coaches often have limited opportunities to connect. It might take months before you see any evidence of a shift in how they perceive their capabilities. But when that shift happens, the progress can be extraordinary.

Keep in mind, your team members have spent their entire lives constructing their self-image. Changing that picture takes time and persistence. You must have more faith in their potential than they have in their doubts.

Avoid Common Pitfalls

One of the most significant reasons people fail as coaches is their willingness to accept others’ limitations at face value. When team members firmly believe they are doing their best—even if they aren’t close—you must resist the urge to lower your expectations.

If you allow their self-doubt to convince you, they will win the battle every time. This not only limits their growth but also makes it harder for them to move forward in the future.

Change the Mental Picture

People are where they are for a reason. In rare cases, external circumstances leave them with no choice. But more often, they are where they believe they should be or where they think they’re capable of being.

To help someone move forward, you must help them change this mental picture. You need to see their potential clearly—even before they do—and hold that vision consistently.

Practical Strategy: Shift their perspective by:

• Encouraging them to reflect on past successes.
• Helping them set ambitious but achievable goals.
• Celebrating small wins that challenge their self-imposed limits.

When they begin to see cracks in their old self-image, they’ll be ready to form a new, more empowering view of what they can achieve.

The Transformative Power of Belief

Having more faith in your team than they have in themselves isn’t easy—but it’s essential. By challenging their limiting beliefs and holding a higher vision for their success, you become the catalyst for their transformation.

When you inspire someone to exceed their self-imposed limits, you don’t just change their performance—you change their life. And in doing so, you grow as a coach and leader.

5. Supporting Their Journey at Their Pace

The Role of Comfort Zones

Several years ago, I coached a practice owner who seemed fully engaged during our conversations. She said all the right things, appeared to focus on the goals we set together, and seemed motivated to grow. But despite her apparent commitment, she made little to no progress.

The problem was simple: she wasn’t ready to let go of where she was to reach where she wanted to be. She found comfort in the familiar—her routines, her way of doing things, and the sense of satisfaction from checking off tasks that didn’t really move her toward her goals. It’s human nature to cling to what we know, even when it no longer serves us.

Stepping out of a comfort zone is difficult. The “new” often feels overwhelming, uncertain, or even intimidating. Yet, growth and change only happen when someone is willing to leave the well-worn path and embrace the challenges of the unknown.

Guiding Team Members Toward Change

As a coach, your job is to guide team members to the point where they must choose between staying comfortable or striving for something better. You can build the path, show them the possibilities, and help them remove obstacles, but ultimately, they must decide to take the first step.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the comfort of the old path will outweigh the appeal of the new one. The familiar, even if it leads nowhere, can feel safer than the unknown. In these moments, it’s essential to accept that change happens on their timeline—not yours.

Parting Ways When Necessary

It’s easy to get caught up in the potential you see for someone. As a coach, it’s exhilarating to imagine what they could achieve. But if a team member isn’t ready to take those first steps, you must respect their choice and redirect your efforts toward someone who is ready.

I eventually stopped working with the practice owner I mentioned earlier. When we reconnected six months later, she had finally made the changes we had discussed. She eliminated the influences that enabled her old habits, surrounded herself with people who challenged her to grow, and refined her goals. She had broken free from the mindset that kept her stuck and was thriving with a new perspective on what she could accomplish.

Sometimes, stepping away allows people the time and space they need to wrestle with their choices. If you’ve coached them well, they will often come around—on their terms.

Using Coaching Time Wisely

Your coaching time is a finite resource. To maximize its impact:

• Focus on team members who are ready to embrace change.
• Help them visualize what’s possible and map out the steps needed to achieve their goals.
• Guide them through the inevitable challenges and obstacles they’ll encounter on their new path.

Think of the members of your veterinary team:

• Coaching a poor performer who is ready to change can elevate overall team performance.
• Coaching a high performer who is content with their current abilities often yields minimal returns.

Your responsibility as a coach is to invest your time where it will have the greatest impact.

When Change Happens on Their Timeline

It can be frustrating to help someone imagine a new future only to see them resist taking action. But don’t worry—most people eventually decide to make the changes they need.

When they’re ready, they’ll act. And when they do, the progress is often remarkable. By giving them the time they need, you ensure that the changes they make are driven by their own motivation, not external pressure.

Conclusion: The Journey of Coaching Your Veterinary Team

Coaching is a long-term investment in your team, your practice, and yourself. By focusing on trust, capability, goals, expectations, and patience, you can build a team that consistently achieves excellence.

The journey of coaching isn’t just about transforming your team—it’s about growing as a leader and creating a practice that stands out as a beacon of excellence in veterinary care.