December 26, 2023 • 42 mins
Let's change the way you perceive leadership with our conversation with Lieutenant Colonel retired Oakland McCullough. You might ask, what can the military teach us about leadership in the veterinary industry? As Oak shares, there's more common ground than you'd think. Drawing on his extensive experience in the US Army, Oak provides valuable insights into leadership principles, scope of control, and the importance of building strong networks. You'll even get a sneak peek into his book, "Your Leadership Legacy: Becoming the Leader You Are Meant to Be".
Ever wondered how the military successfully maps out advancement pathways? Similar paths can be created within civilian organizations, and we'll show you how. We delve into the importance of clearly defining your organization's mission, vision, and culture, and the role servant leadership plays in this. Oak emphasizes the need for caring for people, empowering them, and giving them a purpose to contribute to the betterment of the organization.
You've heard it before, but trust and communication are crucial to leadership. This couldn't be truer, especially when discussing the distinction between a boss and a leader. We also take a closer look at the responsibility that comes with being entrusted with people's well-being and the importance of prioritizing people over rules. We dive into decision-making, exploring how a smaller scope of control can yield better results. By the end of our conversation, you'll understand the power of collaboration, the importance of diverse perspectives, and how to build a team that thrives on trust and clear communication. Join us for a conversation that promises to be as enlightening as it is engaging.
Guest Info -
LTC Oakland (Oak) McCullouch Retired
Website - https://www.ltcoakmcculloch.com/
Speaking - https://www.ltcoakmcculloch.com/speaking
Contact -
- Phone - 386-290-8088 (Mobile)
- LinkedIn -linkedin.com/in/oakland-mcculloch-34293256
- Email - ltcoakmcculloch@gmail.com
- Facebook - facebook.com/ltcoakmcc
Host Information
Bill Butler – Contact Information
Direct – 952-208-7220
https://butlervetinsurance.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbutler-cic/
Schedule a Strategy Session with Bill – Strategy Session
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get to know the people you have the privilege to
lead, because that's where itall starts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast
brought to you by Butler VetInsurance.
Hosted by Bill Butler, theVeterinary Blueprint Podcast is
for veterinarians and practicemanagers who are looking to
learn about working on theirpractice instead of in their
practice.
Each episode we will bring yousuccessful, proven blueprints
from others, both inside andoutside the veterinary industry.
(00:33):
Welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Welcome back to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast.
I'm your host, bill Butler,here to guide today's
conversation on business andentrepreneurship for your
veterinary practice.
Today, we're joined by a leaderwho has mastered the art of
leadership in the US Army andbeyond.
We're joined today byLieutenant Colonel retired
Oakland McCullough.
His leadership has been provenin operations from Desert Storm
(01:00):
to peacekeeping operations inthe Balkans.
He's also nurtured futureleaders in ROTC programs for the
United States Army.
Oak is also the author of yourleadership legacy becoming the
leader you are meant to be,where he distills decades of
leadership into actionablewisdom.
I hope you're all ready to gainsome insights from a leader
(01:21):
with lots of experience inleadership.
I'd like to welcome todayLieutenant Colonel, retired
Oakland McCullough.
Welcome, oak, let's dive rightin.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, how are you doing Bill?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'm great.
Now you and I met.
I'm excited to have you on thepodcast.
You were actually on anotherindustry podcast that I just
listened to.
The other day you and I wereintroduced by another insurance
agent in the industry that Iknow, rob Bowen.
He's in the Navy and you and Iwere both in the Army, so we
don't hold that against him, dowe?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
No, rob's a great guy .
He just said hey, you're doinga podcast, you have to have Oak
on the podcast.
I was like Oak, who's this Oak,which is an awesome name for
Lieutenant Colonel, by the way,I want to throw that out there's
a veteran of the United StatesArmy.
What did your troops thinkabout that?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, well, I always tell people look with a name
like Oak Oakland.
People never forget you.
That can be good or baddepending on what you just did,
but yeah, I think it certainlycatches people's attention right
away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
It did for me when Rob introduced us.
My friend insurance agent, robBowen, introduced us via
LinkedIn and we connected.
Then we had a phone call thatwas supposed to be 10 or 15
minutes and I think we talkedfor 40, which is what Army
veterans wind up doing a lot oftimes is who are you and where
did you go?
(02:53):
What did you experience?
I was on the enlisted side.
It was not an officer.
Why don't you just give a quicklittle background on your
background in the Army and thenwe'll dive into some leadership
stuff?
Because I think the one thingthat I found in my
(03:15):
entrepreneurial career is theleadership principles that I
learned in the militarytranslate directly to the
business world.
That's why I wanted to bringyou on is so you can share some
of your insights aboutleadership.
Tell us a little bit about whoOak is in your military career
(03:36):
and how you wound up on thispodcast today.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so I did 23 years in the Army.
I did my first five years as aninfantry officer.
Then I switched over to ArmourCav and I wrote around on M1
tanks.
I did a lot of time in theschool house teaching leadership
and tactics and higher leveltactics division and above and
(04:03):
retired my last duty assignmenton active duty.
I ran an Army ROTC program so Iwas producing the next
generation of leaders for theArmy and for the nation Retired
from the Army 2009.
Ran a food bank for a coupleyears that covered 52 counties
along the Gulf Coast,mississippi, alabama and the
(04:23):
Panhandle of Florida and I tookthat over about a month, month
and a half before the BP oilspill in the Gulf.
So, I was a little busy duringthat time and then they offered
me to come here to Daytona Beach, Florida, and it's tough to
live here, but somebody has to.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, you gotta do it right.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, and so I've been doing recruiting for Army
ROTC, so again had my hand inproducing the next generation of
leaders for the Army for thelast 13 years, just retired from
that job.
Now I'm out on the speakingcircuit talking about leadership
.
I wrote my book, starting towrite my second book on success,
(05:03):
and was lucky enough to link upwith you have Rod link us
together so that we could behere right now.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, and I think that's one component as well
about some of the networks thatyou build right and you wind up
getting attracted to good people, and I think that's not the
topic for today, but I thinkthat just is true in life, right
, and so one of the things thatI thought would be interesting
(05:32):
is just, you know, I can speakabout my experience in
leadership and I was on thenon-commissioned officer side,
so I was a sergeant in the Army,the backbone of the Army, as we
, as we affinitely say.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And so you know, for those of you not initiated in
the military, the officers.
So Oak would give the orders andhe'd say, Bill, we got to do
this, and me as thenon-commissioned officer, a
sergeant would execute theorders and make sure the team
followed out with thecommander's intent.
So Oak would say we're going togo attack that hill, here's how
(06:06):
we're going to, here's what wewant to do, and then the
sergeants would make sureeveryone's ready to take on that
mission, whatever it is.
And so I think one thing thatI'd like to jump into we've got
some prepared questions, but onething that we chatted about
before we hopped on was scope ofcontrol and command and control
.
And I see it in my businessworld, and I see it a little bit
(06:26):
in the veterinary side, whereI'm going to describe something
for you, Oak, and I want to getyour opinion on it.
So I'm a veterinarian, Ipurchase a practice, I've got a,
you know, a 15-person teamworking at that practice, and if
you were taking a look at thatfrom your viewpoint, how many
(06:46):
managers would you have for 15people?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
So first of all, I want to goback to something that you said
earlier.
Leadership trans, you know,your skills transfer to whatever
, and I'm a huge believer inthat.
That leadership is leadership,because leadership is about
people.
So if you can lead people, youcan lead any organization, it
doesn't matter.
So in the army and I believe inthe civilian world as well,
(07:13):
because I don't think it changesthe scope is generally three to
five people.
So you can directly lead threeto five people and I don't care
how big that organization gets.
I mean, if you're talking aboutin the army, where you're
talking about a core commanderwho's responsible for 50, 60,000
soldiers, he's generallytalking to three to five
(07:35):
division commanders.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, think about Joint Chiefs of Staff.
There's only five of them.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, so it really is that scope.
And so if I was in charge of 15people as a veterinarian or
anything out there, I wouldquickly come up with my four or
five really good people who Iwould then train to be what you
(07:59):
would call it.
What would you call a team?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
leader.
Yeah, team leader right.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That would then have scope of responsibility over
three to five people or howevermany people follow under that.
So I think, if you look at itthat way, then I think you can
then handle whatever is going on, and because you're not trying
to talk to 15 people, you'retalking to four or five people,
(08:26):
and I think the key to that isthis One you have to develop the
culture so that they understandwhat you want them to do inside
of the scope that you want themto do it.
Because I always tell people, aleader comes up with a vision
and a plan and develops aculture, and the vision is where
you want that organization togo, the plan is how you want to
get there and the culture is whoyou are along the way.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You got to make sure that they understand what your
culture, the culture that youwant them to live within.
Then you got to train them tothe standard so that you know
that they can do whatever it isyou're going to ask them to do.
You got to.
Then, when you're asking themto do something, you have to
give them the resources that arerequired time, people, money,
equipment, whatever it is andthen you have to give them the
(09:14):
authority to make it happen.
You can't give awayresponsibility.
That's yours.
Your name is always the name onthe blame line as the leader,
but you can give away and shouldas much authority as they need
to get that job done.
And then you get out of theirway and you let them do it.
And that's the hardest partsometimes for leaders to step
(09:35):
back and let the people thatyou've trained and given all
this to the ability to do it andI use the analogy are they
going to do it the exact sameway?
You would have done itAbsolutely not no.
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
They might do it better.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That's right.
The analogy I always use isthat seven plus two is nine, but
so is six plus three and fiveplus four and eight plus one.
Who cares how you got to nine,as long as you get to nine?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Today we need to get to nine.
However, whatever math you wantto use to get there, three
times three.
And so it's interesting and Ithink some people in the
insurance industry they look atthe culture that I've built at
my business and I see culture atdifferent veterinary practices
(10:25):
that I go to.
In fact there is just my wifeshared with me today a local
veterinary practice to ourmarket here.
I'm not going to name thepractice, but they're closing
one of the locations becausethey have a staffing shortage.
And I think if there's, likemany industries, there's
staffing shortages in theveterinary industry, severe
(10:48):
staffing shortages in theveterinary industry, and one of
them is turnover and retention.
And I know that I was arecruiter for three years in the
Army.
That was for the Army NationalGuard and we were recruiting and
retention NCO.
So one part of our job was toget soldiers in and the other
thing is retain up the militaryand I think business spends a
(11:10):
lot of time investing in gettingthe soldier or the employee on
board right, Like gettingsomebody on board.
And then if you, because yougot a couple of veterans here,
we're going to kind of relatethis to the Army.
You know, for me I went throughbasic training for ROTC, it's
four years in college.
If you go to an military academy, it's four years.
(11:31):
If you are going to OCS, that's16 weeks or something like that
90 days, 90 days and so theyinvest a lot of money just to
get you to the minimum standard,just to be able to do the job
right.
And then from there it's on thejob, training and learning how
to be a member of a team.
You know, I think back to basictraining and it's just about
(11:55):
learning how to work as a teamand how the Army works.
And then you actually get toyour unit and you learn how to
really do the job.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I agree, and I think one of the problems that we're
seeing today is that I think oneof the main issues for this
great resignation that we've gotgoing on, where people are
leaving companies, leavingorganizations, is that people
aren't taking care of them.
And I don't care who you are.
If you have a choice, you'renot going to work for somebody
(12:22):
who doesn't take care of you.
You're going to go findsomebody who will.
You know it was Richard Branson, was the one who said train
people well enough that they canleave, treat them well enough
that they don't want to leave.
And I think a lot of that comesdown to it.
And one of the things that Isee which is a huge issue, I
think, at least from where I'mlooking from is that companies
(12:44):
and organizations are notproviding a pathway for
advancement, so they don't havea professional development
program, you know, and aprofessional development program
is huge, not just for theleader, but for everybody in the
organization, because you'renow creating those next
generation, those four or fivethat you're going to the
military is pretty good at that.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
It is showing a path for advancement, right, you know
, I know the enlisted side andyou know, if you want to do this
, it's so much time and great,and you have to have so much
time as a private, and then youhave to have so much time as a
private first class and then aspecialist, and then if you want
to get promoted to sergeant,there's actually points and all
this stuff, and I know theschools that you have to go to.
You've got to go to.
You know, on the I know all theenlisted side and if you want
(13:29):
to get up to levels even higherthan you were, there's command
college on how to assume thatrole.
So there's a path to get thereand so I think I've created one
at my business.
So I actually have differentlevels.
It's time and grade, it's howmuch experience and their
(13:49):
schooling involved.
But I look at it as aninternship, not an internship
and apprenticeship.
So if you think about thetrades, right, if you become a
plumber you're an apprentice andthen you become a journeyman
and then you become a masterplumber or master electrician
and it's it's training andeducation along the way.
You have to go to school andthen you actually have to do the
(14:09):
job for a certain period oftime before you can work your
way up and test out to the nextlevel.
And I think that's so lost onsmall business of you're going
to come here and you're going towork in this role and there's
nowhere for you to go but thisrole.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Right?
Well, the problem is in.
Why you lose your best peopleis because if you don't provide
them a path to advance, thenthey're going to go find
somebody who does if that'ssomething that they want, and so
especially in an industry wherethere's a lot of opportunity.
That's right, and today there isI mean, there's lots of
companies out there looking foryour good, good talent, and
(14:45):
that's the problem.
If you don't provide thatpathway, the people you're going
to lose are your good people,because they're the ones who are
going to lose their best people, because they're the ones who
want to move up.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So who are you stuck with?
The people that get the jobdone but they're not.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
They don't have the drive the maybe don't get the
job done, but they're there andtheir body.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
This coasting, yeah Drawing a paycheck.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So how would you translate, you know, some of the
things that we just talkedabout to servant leadership?
I mean, servant leadership, foryou, is a big tenant of your,
and you're wearing a shirt thatsays your leadership legacy, and
so for those of you, for thoseof us who are, for those
listeners who are just listeningin, so what does servant
leadership need to oak?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
So I believe servant leadership is about taking care
of people.
And you know, and I get peoplewho say, well, I don't want to
be a servant leader because Idon't want people to walk all
over me.
And I said, that's not whatservant leadership is about.
Being a servant leaderguarantees you're going to make
people do some things they don'twant to do because it's in
their best interest and you'retaking care of them.
(15:47):
So I think the thing I alwaystry to impart on leaders like
the lieutenants that wecommissioned out, commissioned
out of ROTC I would walk up toevery one of them the day they
got commissioned.
I say look, celebrate today,because today is all about you.
You get to commission as asecond lieutenant United States
(16:08):
Army, but just remember now thatwe've pinned those bars on your
shoulder.
Tomorrow morning, when you wakeup, it will never be about you,
ever again.
It's about the soldiers, it'sabout your unit, about the
mission, it's about the army,it's about the country.
And then, if we have time, wemight talk about you maybe, but
you know, you've got tounderstand that it's not about
you and it's all about you.
(16:28):
It's not about the title youget or the privileges you get or
that you get better pay.
It's all about how you treatand empower the people in your
organization to make them better, which then will make your
organization better, and that'swhat you want in the end.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
But you have to have a clearly defined mission or
vision.
You know, in the army we talk.
In the military, we talk aboutmission, which is division.
Like you know, the mission isdefense of the nation.
That's pretty clear cut.
But then, underneath all that,what you know whether you're
training soldiers or you're partof an infantry unit, or
aviation or any of those thingsyou have okay, we're going to go
(17:04):
accomplish this job, and what Ifound in my own personal
experience in the civilian worldis that a lot of times there
isn't a clearly defined missionor vision.
It's I sell insurance, or wetreat our pets, or you know, we
sell shoes, and well, what doesthat have?
You know, where's the greatervision and purpose behind what
we're doing?
And so, if you can have aclearly defined mission and
(17:28):
vision for your organization,whatever that might be and for
our listeners, it's taking careof people's animals and they're
their animal family as part ofthat, and so it's how do you go
about doing that?
What's our culture, what's ourethics and what's our vision,
right, I think that encompassesthat as well, right?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It does.
And having thatclear-to-lead-defined vision and
where you wanna go is huge.
And here's why, and when I goaround and talk to companies, I
always ask what the vision isfrom the boss.
And then I go down to thelowest person in the company.
I ask them if they know whatthe vision is.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I know why you're doing that, and sometimes they
do.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Sometimes they do, but not very often.
And then if they do know whatthe vision is, then I say, okay,
what's your part in it?
Because if they don't knowtheir part in what the mission
is, then it doesn't meananything, it falls apart right.
It means nothing to them, it'sjust something in the sky.
So you gotta really communicatenot only what that vision is,
(18:35):
but each person's part.
Can that be?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And how they interact .
And again, I don't wanna spendall our time talking about the
military, but for what you justdescribed, I was in a school in
the military where at a certainpoint the instructors would walk
up to anybody in the unit andsay where are we on the map?
Where it's our mission?
(18:59):
What's the commanders?
You know the school I'm talkingabout.
What's the commander's intent?
Where are we and what are wedoing?
And if the person that got askedthat didn't have an answer, the
person in charge got a no-go orit means they failed that
training iteration Because theydidn't communicate that well
enough.
And it was a leadershiptraining school and it teaches
(19:20):
you about making sure thateveryone's on the same page, and
so one of those components ofthat's trust, right, I think you
and I both agree there's goodleaders in the military and
there's bad leaders in themilitary.
I've worked for good in everyprofession.
I've had more jobs in themilitary than outside and but
(19:42):
I've had both.
And trust really falls underthat leadership component and
running an organization.
And you have to trust the team,but they also have to trust you
and that you're gonna make theright decision In the roles that
you and I had in the past.
That meant somebody's life wason the line, potentially, and
(20:05):
that your team was relying onyou to make the right mission.
But now in the civilian world,I'm counted on to make the right
decisions for our organization,Cause people are counting on us
for their livelihood, thatwe're gonna stay open and that
they have they're putting theirtrust in me that they've made
the right choice at ourorganization.
So for Olk and what he talksabout with trust and servant
(20:28):
leadership, how does trust kindof work its way in there?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah.
So I think trust is the gluethat holds everything together.
And when I talk about trust Italk about 360 degree trust.
So the lead, the lead, have totrust the leader and the leader
has to trust the people that heor she is leading.
If that doesn't happen, thenthe leader led relationship
can't work.
(20:53):
If the trust is gone, that isbroken, then everybody on the
team has to trust each otherthat they're gonna do their part
.
And then in the civilian world,especially in the business
world now you have to take thattrust outside your organization
to the people that you'reserving, because if they don't
trust you, they're not gonnacome to you, they're gonna go to
(21:15):
the person down the street.
So I think the trust pieces isthe one that holds it all
together.
If it's broken in any one ofthose four places, then you got
problems in your organization.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, you chatted.
I was listening to anotherpodcast you were on and you
talked about a component where,at a certain point, the
employees are just gonna do whatyou say because you're in
charge, you're the boss, yourname's on the door, you write
the paycheck, whatever that is,so they're just gonna follow you
.
But then there's also anothercomponent of leading where
(21:48):
people are gonna follow you inspite of fear or in spite of
worrying that it might not workout, but they're just gonna
trust you because you are theleader and they're gonna do it
because they wanna do it, notbecause you're telling them to
do it right.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yep, your title at that point doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that you'rethe appointed leader.
You are the leader, and that'sthe difference between a leader
and a boss.
A boss, you do what they tellthem.
You do what he or she tells youbecause they're the boss and,
like you said, you write thepaycheck.
You can fire them.
Whatever A leader people trustand they will do whatever that
(22:25):
they're being asked, not onlybecause they trust the person,
but because they bought intoyour culture, into your vision,
into all those things that you,as a leader, are responsible for
doing, and they know you'regonna take care of them.
So they'll go that extra milefor you where they won't do that
for the boss.
They'll do what they're told,but they're not gonna go that
extra mile.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
There's two things that came to mind when you just
said that.
One is on the military.
We have a saying.
I was in the infantry when itwas all male.
So respect the man, not therank.
I respect the rank, not the man, or not the soldier, which is
basically a way of saying thatleader's a piece of junk.
But because they're higher rankthan me, I have to give them
the respect.
So you don't wanna be thatleader, but you do wanna have.
(23:12):
I think there's the element ofresponsibility.
You talked about responsibilityand it ties in with the trust
component and it's that when youget to the point where people
are willing to follow you almostblindly, like whatever Bill
says or whatever Oak says goes,I'm gonna do it because I trust
them so much as a leader.
When you get to that level ofresponsibility and trust, you
(23:35):
have to be very careful withthat, because people will do
what you ask them to do, even ifit's to their detriment.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's right so and again, I'm a huge believer in
taking care of people.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
There's been times in my career where I would ask
people that were working for mein the HR section we're gonna do
this?
And they'd say well, you can'tdo that because it's against the
rules.
And I said I don't care whatthe rules say, that's what we
need to do to take care of thisperson.
And I'll give you a letter thatsays I made you do it.
Whatever I mean, I don't have aproblem with that.
(24:08):
My name's on the blame lineanyway.
But I'm a firm believer youshould never use rules to
prevent yourself from takingcare of somebody.
Now I got it.
Rules are there for a reasonand you gotta really have a good
reason not to follow the rules.
But if there is a good reasonnot to, I'm a firm believer that
taking care of people is moreimportant than following a rule.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You know we work so hard to build a team that you
don't want to tear down thetrust and what you've built up
as a leader by taking awaysomething that you could have
done to help out the team memberor help out, you know, promote
somebody or bring somebody upwithin the organization, because
(24:55):
in the circles I'm in and Ifound this to be true your team,
they're watching what you doall the time and what you don't
do all the time and sometimeswhat you don't do is even more
important than what you did.
Oh, absolutely If it's,especially if it's looking out
for the team or looking out for.
(25:16):
You know, not doing somethingto look out for the soldiers is
about 8,000.
Things just flooded in my headof experiences I had in my time
in the military.
But I want to talk a little bitabout communication skills
because I think that's oftenmissed as well in a conversation
(25:40):
about leadership.
And you know, you've got thetrust component, you've got, you
know, being a good leader andthe tenants of good leadership.
You know, in the Army we havethe seven Army values and
leadership is one of them.
But how, you know, where haveyou seen communication work
really well as a leader, andmaybe an example where you have
seen a breakdown?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, so I mean communication is what leaders do
.
If you can't communicate withpeople, you can't be a leader,
plain and simple.
So I think you know I have hadpeople that, first of all, I
think listening is probably oneof the most important aspects of
communication and it's probablythe one we do the least well in
(26:20):
general for most people.
And I think you know I had aboss who understood that and
really that's when I reallystarted to understand.
It was watching him and I wouldcome in in the morning and he
was a Lieutenant Colonel, I wasa captain, so I worked for him
and I like one of the first daysthat I walked in first week,
(26:42):
within the first week, I walk inand we meet each other in the
hallway and he stops and sayshow you doing, oak, and I said
fine, and I kept walking and hesaid who Come here?
I want to know how you're doing.
He said tell me how you'redoing.
And I was telling him what wasgoing on because you know I just
moved, my family wasn't thereyet.
And how about your wife?
(27:06):
Tell me about your wife, tellme about your kids, and so you
know, every week or two or everycouple of weeks he would stop
me in the hall and ask me howthings were going.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
How much effort does that actually take on his part?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It took probably about 10 minutes, but you know.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
but very little effort I mean the actual effort
involved is very little toactually have care, concern and
communication and then listen towhat you're saying, right?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, and then and I knew he was listening because
once my family got there andthey were involved in stuff,
he'd say hey, didn't, didn'tyour kids play soccer this
weekend?
So I mean, he listened and Ithought I was special, I thought
he'd take a lot of interest inme.
And then one day I was walkingout of my office and he was
doing it for another captain.
It was down the hall.
(27:51):
So he did that was a huge partof his leadership, and so I
learned how that made me feel,and so I started to incorporate
that in what I did as well.
But then you got those leaderswho don't listen to anything.
You know, just, it's myorganization, I'm going to run
it the way I want to run it.
I don't care what your opinionis, I don't care, you just do
(28:14):
what I tell you to do.
And we've all worked for thatperson.
And nobody and nobody wants towork for that person, because
they're horrible, but they'reout there.
And then they wonder whynobody's going doing anything
extra for them or or helping outwhen they don't, when they
don't have to, but they want tobecause they don't.
(28:35):
They don't.
The trust isn't there.
All because of communication,and I think that communication
is a huge part and you got toget it right, um, in all forms
written form, verbal form,non-verbal.
I'm a huge believer inhandwritten notes.
Never, ever underestimate thepower of a handwritten note.
(28:55):
Um, and then listening, and Ithink that those are are skills
that everybody, whether you're aleader or just want to be
successful in life you got tolearn those skills.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to the VBMA,
which is the VeterinaryBusiness Management Association,
at the University of Minnesotayesterday, and when I got done,
the president of the the grouphanded me a you know little
giveaway item very nice littleYeti mug and I was wasn't
expecting that and a handwrittennote that they wrote during my
(29:29):
talk.
I think they wrote during thetalk.
Based on the note, but itfilled the entire card.
It was signed by the entireleadership team, but it had a
couple of things in there thatseemed to indicate that it was
written during my talk, and Iprobably read that three times,
took a picture of it, sent it tomy mom because my mom was so
excited that I was speaking atthe University of Minnesota.
(29:50):
Uh, and this is my firstopportunity to do this, and, and
, and, while that seems likesuch a small insignificant thing
, just to say, hey, thanks forcoming to speak to our group
today, and I was the presenter.
It made a huge impact on me andso it was like hey, what can I
do to help out your organization?
You know, and and so I thinkslowing down right.
(30:12):
I think that's one of thethings when you're when you're
in charge of an organization orleading a team of three people
or a team of 15, or you you know, or you're responsible for 15
people and you've got somelayers of management in there.
Um, just need to slow down justa little bit and think about
what you're doing you talkedabout on the other podcast and I
thought about this as well.
So in the one uh one school Iwent to you, they said you have
(30:37):
to make a decision good, bad orindifferent but once you make
the decision, you need to makeit work, whatever it is, even if
it's the and you talk.
So why don't you expand on youruh, your thought process on on
the kind of three decisions youcan make?
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, so every, every time in it and goes goes back
to a Teddy Roosevelt quote.
Was one of my favorite quotesof his and I have a lot of my
like of his, but this is one ofhis favorites, um, he said every
time you come to a point whereyou got to make a decision, you
have three options.
Option number one is that youmake the best decision, and
that's obviously the best option.
(31:12):
Option number two you make theworst decision, that the wrong
decision, and that's an okaydecision.
You know, we all do that onoccasion.
Option number three is youdon't make a decision, and
that's always the worst decision, because not making a decision
is a decision.
And one of the ways that I'vefound to make decisions that
(31:33):
works for me is every time Igotta make a decision when I
have time.
There's times when you don't Igot it, but when you have time
you pull your junior leaderstogether, those four or five
that you've brought up and kindof put in charge of things
underneath you.
You bring them together and say, hey, look, this is what we
(31:53):
gotta do, this is the problem wegotta solve, this is the
decision we have to make.
Throw me some ideas and you'llfind that you know, just let
them throw out ideas.
You'll find that somebody youthink is one of your top
performers every once in a whilewill throw you a horrible idea,
and somebody that you think isone of your weakest links will
throw you a great idea.
(32:13):
You never know.
You're under no obligation asthe leader to use any of those
ideas, but you can figure outwhich one are the good ones and
which one are the bad ones andyou can use or not, use whatever
you want.
And generally what I've foundI've done is I'll take a little
bit of your ideas, a little bitof my ideas, a little bit of her
ideas and I'll put it togetherand that's our solution.
(32:34):
Two things happen when you dothat.
Number one you start, youcontinue to build trust because
you've asked them their opinion.
Even if you didn't use theiropinion this time, you might
next time.
And number two it's no longerColonel McCullough's solution,
it's our solution, our solution,yeah.
Now they got skin in the game.
Now they got a reason to makeit successful.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Especially if it lines up with that vision and
the mission of the team, andwhat that is.
You know, our mission at ButlerVet Insurance is to reduce the
stress of insurance.
Like, hopefully, if you came toour organization today, that's
what everyone would say is wework to reduce the stress of
insurance.
That would be my hope.
Otherwise that would be a no goat this station.
(33:17):
But you know the component ofmaking sure that you're asking
for input because you know, andas you work your way up the
chain of command in the military, you're not smarter than other
people, you just have moreexperience.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's all you know.
That's really what leadershipis.
It's experience and knowing howto handle situations, but you
don't always have all theanswers and you can't see
everything as it is, causeyou're not.
One of the unfortunate thingsthat I found to digress about
the military for just a secondwas, once you get promoted above
a certain point, you're alittle bit removed from the
(33:55):
soldiers who are actually doingthe work, and I know that with
some of the veterinarians that Iwork with that you know they
wind up owning or running theirbit.
They have partners and they'rethe ones doing the back end
office stuff and they're notgetting to practice medicine
anymore.
They're doing theadministrative.
And you know, oftentimes in theinfantry and you may from the
(34:20):
armored infantry the best jobthat I had was as a team leader,
where you're in charge of threepeople and you're in the.
You're leading three people,you're in charge of your team
and you're doing the work.
You're in command of yourlittle group but you're actually
doing the work.
And once you kind of get abovethat level you're not now you're
you've got one level betweenyou and the people doing the
work and then once you're aplatoon sergeant, you get two
(34:42):
layers between you and thepeople doing the work, and then
it just it keeps going up.
Did you find that as well?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I did, and but you know, one of the things that I
stress with people is that youmust listen to the people who
you have the privilege to lead.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Because they do have answers.
And the example I give is I wasa brand new second lieutenant,
got to my first battalion andthere were three lieutenants who
showed up that day.
There was only one platoonleader spot, for whatever reason
.
I got the platoon leader spotand the other two went to the
staff.
They took me out to my companyor to my platoon, which was out
(35:16):
doing rehearsals for a live fire, dismounted exercise.
All morning they'd beenrehearsing it.
So I got there right at lunch myplatoon sergeant still
remembering like yesterday,sergeant First Class Benson six
foot six, 250 pound country boyfrom Mississippi put his arm
around my shoulder, says, sir,let's go have lunch.
(35:36):
So we grab an MRE, we go walkunderneath a tree and we sit
down.
And he said, sir, you know I'mhere, I'm 24 years old, brand
new second lieutenant.
He said, sir, you're the boss,you're the platoon leader.
We'll do things any way youwant to do it.
He said but remember this I'vebeen in the Army for 23 years,
so you've been in the Armyalmost as long as I've been
(35:58):
alive.
I've seen it done whichever way,every which way it can be done.
If you're messing up, I'm goingto tell you if you still want
to do it that way.
We'll do it that way becauseyou're the boss, but my job is
to help you understand whenyou're messing up, and I will
tell you.
I give Sergeant First ClassBenson a lot of credit for
turning me into the leader thatI became, and so I tell people
(36:19):
all the time look if you aren'tusing those people on your team
then you're only using yourknowledge, your skills, your
abilities, and you don't haveall the answers, so use the
people on your team.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, that was one thing that I've definitely tried
to integrate into my team and Ithink when I look at veterinary
practices, there are often 10to 25 employees and there's only
one or two managers that I seeinvolved.
There's a practice manager, theowner.
Sometimes they might have someteam leads, but it's a lot of
larger groups and I've heardthat the scope of control, that
(36:59):
three to five, to kind of goback all the way to the
beginning, that goes back allthe way to the Roman legions and
the military has always hadthat three to five.
Somebody's always in charge ofthree to five all the way up to
the top generals.
What is the one?
If there's one thing that youalways tell someone, or the best
gold nugget you have, or whatdo you end your book with,
(37:23):
what's the biggest tenant ofleadership that you think we
should close with today?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So I think, for me, it's get to know the people you
have the privilege to lead,because that's where it all
starts, that's where the truststarts, that's where the
communication starts.
If you don't know the peoplethat you're leading, then how do
you know which tasks to givethem?
Because you don't know whatthey're good at and what they're
not good at and I had a bossone time.
(37:49):
Well, I tell people there's acouple ways to build that
relationship.
Number one get out of theoffice, go down where people are
, because if you call somebodyinto your office and ask them a
question, you are gonna get anentirely different answer than
if you went down to where theyare and asked them that same
question.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We'd have to go do that and check at the foxhole
with them.
They wouldn't come to us when Iwas in a line.
That's right.
That's right.
Number two is.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I had a boss who retired a three star general and
he said oh, never, ever, everturn down a chance to go get
your own cup of coffee.
He said two things happen.
Number one you show everybodyon your team that you're human
just like they are.
You have to go get your own cupof coffee.
And number two if you're lucky,you got two or three different
ways to get to the coffee potand back to your office and you
stop along the way and talk topeople.
(38:31):
I tell every leader that I talkto I say your goal should be
every day, go out and find oneperson in your organization,
just one and find out one newthing about that person.
Something personal not aboutwork, something personal what's
their spouse name?
What's their kid's name, whatsports do their kids play?
(38:52):
What's their hobby, what dothey like, what they don't like
and you'll start to get to knowthat person and the trust will
start to build.
The downside to that is that Ialways tell leaders if you're
gonna ask questions and youwanna get to know them, you
gotta let them get to know you?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, they're gonna wanna get to know you as well.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And that's okay.
You gotta keep the lead leaderrelationship.
I got it.
That doesn't mean that youcan't get to know each other.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You're all trying to accomplish the same mission
together.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you
here.
Oak your book, your LeadershipLegacy Becoming the Leader you
Were Meant to Be.
I think that's available onyour website.
We'll have all of thatinformation in the show notes,
but where's the best place forour listeners to find you out?
On the internet.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, so I do have my website, but I'm also on all
the social media.
I'm on LinkedIn, I'm onInstagram, I'm on X, Twitter,
whatever you wanna call me.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
How many Oak McCollis ?
Are there two Cs MCCULLOCH outthere probably?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
There are three out there Me, my son and his son.
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Well, there you go.
So Oak McCollis, author of yourLeadership Legacy, becoming the
Leader you Were Meant to Be.
He's a speaker, an author and aleadership aficionado from way
back in the Army.
It's been an absolute pleasureto have you on the podcast today
, oak.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I've enjoyed it.
Bill, what a pleasure beinghere.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Perfect Well, as always, to our listeners.
Make sure to like the podcast,share it with your friends,
review it and leave a comment.
We appreciate it and check uson the next episode of the
Veterinary Blueprints podcast.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Thanks for tuning in toVeterinary Blueprints.
If you have any thoughts,questions or suggestions for an
(40:42):
episode, I would love to hearfrom you.
Email me at bill atbutlervetinsurancecom.
Don't forget to subscribe soyou never miss an episode.
And if you could do me a hugefavor you know it helps with the
algorithm.
If you can like, share orcomment on the post, leave a
review, I would love it.
Thanks for tuning in and untilnext time.
Get to know the people you have the privilege to
lead, because that's where itall starts.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast
brought to you by Butler VetInsurance.
Hosted by Bill Butler, theVeterinary Blueprint Podcast is
for veterinarians and practicemanagers who are looking to
learn about working on theirpractice instead of in their
practice.
Each episode we will bring yousuccessful, proven blueprints
from others, both inside andoutside the veterinary industry.
(00:33):
Welcome to today's episode.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Welcome back to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast.
I'm your host, bill Butler,here to guide today's
conversation on business andentrepreneurship for your
veterinary practice.
Today, we're joined by a leaderwho has mastered the art of
leadership in the US Army andbeyond.
We're joined today byLieutenant Colonel retired
Oakland McCullough.
His leadership has been provenin operations from Desert Storm
(01:00):
to peacekeeping operations inthe Balkans.
He's also nurtured futureleaders in ROTC programs for the
United States Army.
Oak is also the author of yourleadership legacy becoming the
leader you are meant to be,where he distills decades of
leadership into actionablewisdom.
I hope you're all ready to gainsome insights from a leader
(01:21):
with lots of experience inleadership.
I'd like to welcome todayLieutenant Colonel, retired
Oakland McCullough.
Welcome, oak, let's dive rightin.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, how are you doing Bill?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'm great.
Now you and I met.
I'm excited to have you on thepodcast.
You were actually on anotherindustry podcast that I just
listened to.
The other day you and I wereintroduced by another insurance
agent in the industry that Iknow, rob Bowen.
He's in the Navy and you and Iwere both in the Army, so we
don't hold that against him, dowe?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
No, rob's a great guy .
He just said hey, you're doinga podcast, you have to have Oak
on the podcast.
I was like Oak, who's this Oak,which is an awesome name for
Lieutenant Colonel, by the way,I want to throw that out there's
a veteran of the United StatesArmy.
What did your troops thinkabout that?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, well, I always tell people look with a name
like Oak Oakland.
People never forget you.
That can be good or baddepending on what you just did,
but yeah, I think it certainlycatches people's attention right
away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
It did for me when Rob introduced us.
My friend insurance agent, robBowen, introduced us via
LinkedIn and we connected.
Then we had a phone call thatwas supposed to be 10 or 15
minutes and I think we talkedfor 40, which is what Army
veterans wind up doing a lot oftimes is who are you and where
did you go?
(02:53):
What did you experience?
I was on the enlisted side.
It was not an officer.
Why don't you just give a quicklittle background on your
background in the Army and thenwe'll dive into some leadership
stuff?
Because I think the one thingthat I found in my
(03:15):
entrepreneurial career is theleadership principles that I
learned in the militarytranslate directly to the
business world.
That's why I wanted to bringyou on is so you can share some
of your insights aboutleadership.
Tell us a little bit about whoOak is in your military career
(03:36):
and how you wound up on thispodcast today.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so I did 23 years in the Army.
I did my first five years as aninfantry officer.
Then I switched over to ArmourCav and I wrote around on M1
tanks.
I did a lot of time in theschool house teaching leadership
and tactics and higher leveltactics division and above and
(04:03):
retired my last duty assignmenton active duty.
I ran an Army ROTC program so Iwas producing the next
generation of leaders for theArmy and for the nation Retired
from the Army 2009.
Ran a food bank for a coupleyears that covered 52 counties
along the Gulf Coast,mississippi, alabama and the
(04:23):
Panhandle of Florida and I tookthat over about a month, month
and a half before the BP oilspill in the Gulf.
So, I was a little busy duringthat time and then they offered
me to come here to Daytona Beach, Florida, and it's tough to
live here, but somebody has to.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, you gotta do it right.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, and so I've been doing recruiting for Army
ROTC, so again had my hand inproducing the next generation of
leaders for the Army for thelast 13 years, just retired from
that job.
Now I'm out on the speakingcircuit talking about leadership
.
I wrote my book, starting towrite my second book on success,
(05:03):
and was lucky enough to link upwith you have Rod link us
together so that we could behere right now.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, and I think that's one component as well
about some of the networks thatyou build right and you wind up
getting attracted to good people, and I think that's not the
topic for today, but I thinkthat just is true in life, right
, and so one of the things thatI thought would be interesting
(05:32):
is just, you know, I can speakabout my experience in
leadership and I was on thenon-commissioned officer side,
so I was a sergeant in the Army,the backbone of the Army, as we
, as we affinitely say.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And so you know, for those of you not initiated in
the military, the officers.
So Oak would give the orders andhe'd say, Bill, we got to do
this, and me as thenon-commissioned officer, a
sergeant would execute theorders and make sure the team
followed out with thecommander's intent.
So Oak would say we're going togo attack that hill, here's how
(06:06):
we're going to, here's what wewant to do, and then the
sergeants would make sureeveryone's ready to take on that
mission, whatever it is.
And so I think one thing thatI'd like to jump into we've got
some prepared questions, but onething that we chatted about
before we hopped on was scope ofcontrol and command and control
.
And I see it in my businessworld, and I see it a little bit
(06:26):
in the veterinary side, whereI'm going to describe something
for you, Oak, and I want to getyour opinion on it.
So I'm a veterinarian, Ipurchase a practice, I've got a,
you know, a 15-person teamworking at that practice, and if
you were taking a look at thatfrom your viewpoint, how many
(06:46):
managers would you have for 15people?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
So first of all, I want to goback to something that you said
earlier.
Leadership trans, you know,your skills transfer to whatever
, and I'm a huge believer inthat.
That leadership is leadership,because leadership is about
people.
So if you can lead people, youcan lead any organization, it
doesn't matter.
So in the army and I believe inthe civilian world as well,
(07:13):
because I don't think it changesthe scope is generally three to
five people.
So you can directly lead threeto five people and I don't care
how big that organization gets.
I mean, if you're talking aboutin the army, where you're
talking about a core commanderwho's responsible for 50, 60,000
soldiers, he's generallytalking to three to five
(07:35):
division commanders.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Well, think about Joint Chiefs of Staff.
There's only five of them.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, so it really is that scope.
And so if I was in charge of 15people as a veterinarian or
anything out there, I wouldquickly come up with my four or
five really good people who Iwould then train to be what you
(07:59):
would call it.
What would you call a team?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
leader.
Yeah, team leader right.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That would then have scope of responsibility over
three to five people or howevermany people follow under that.
So I think, if you look at itthat way, then I think you can
then handle whatever is going on, and because you're not trying
to talk to 15 people, you'retalking to four or five people,
(08:26):
and I think the key to that isthis One you have to develop the
culture so that they understandwhat you want them to do inside
of the scope that you want themto do it.
Because I always tell people, aleader comes up with a vision
and a plan and develops aculture, and the vision is where
you want that organization togo, the plan is how you want to
get there and the culture is whoyou are along the way.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You got to make sure that they understand what your
culture, the culture that youwant them to live within.
Then you got to train them tothe standard so that you know
that they can do whatever it isyou're going to ask them to do.
You got to.
Then, when you're asking themto do something, you have to
give them the resources that arerequired time, people, money,
equipment, whatever it is andthen you have to give them the
(09:14):
authority to make it happen.
You can't give awayresponsibility.
That's yours.
Your name is always the name onthe blame line as the leader,
but you can give away and shouldas much authority as they need
to get that job done.
And then you get out of theirway and you let them do it.
And that's the hardest partsometimes for leaders to step
(09:35):
back and let the people thatyou've trained and given all
this to the ability to do it andI use the analogy are they
going to do it the exact sameway?
You would have done itAbsolutely not no.
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
They might do it better.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That's right.
The analogy I always use isthat seven plus two is nine, but
so is six plus three and fiveplus four and eight plus one.
Who cares how you got to nine,as long as you get to nine?
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Today we need to get to nine.
However, whatever math you wantto use to get there, three
times three.
And so it's interesting and Ithink some people in the
insurance industry they look atthe culture that I've built at
my business and I see culture atdifferent veterinary practices
(10:25):
that I go to.
In fact there is just my wifeshared with me today a local
veterinary practice to ourmarket here.
I'm not going to name thepractice, but they're closing
one of the locations becausethey have a staffing shortage.
And I think if there's, likemany industries, there's
staffing shortages in theveterinary industry, severe
(10:48):
staffing shortages in theveterinary industry, and one of
them is turnover and retention.
And I know that I was arecruiter for three years in the
Army.
That was for the Army NationalGuard and we were recruiting and
retention NCO.
So one part of our job was toget soldiers in and the other
thing is retain up the militaryand I think business spends a
(11:10):
lot of time investing in gettingthe soldier or the employee on
board right, Like gettingsomebody on board.
And then if you, because yougot a couple of veterans here,
we're going to kind of relatethis to the Army.
You know, for me I went throughbasic training for ROTC, it's
four years in college.
If you go to an military academy, it's four years.
(11:31):
If you are going to OCS, that's16 weeks or something like that
90 days, 90 days and so theyinvest a lot of money just to
get you to the minimum standard,just to be able to do the job
right.
And then from there it's on thejob, training and learning how
to be a member of a team.
You know, I think back to basictraining and it's just about
(11:55):
learning how to work as a teamand how the Army works.
And then you actually get toyour unit and you learn how to
really do the job.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I agree, and I think one of the problems that we're
seeing today is that I think oneof the main issues for this
great resignation that we've gotgoing on, where people are
leaving companies, leavingorganizations, is that people
aren't taking care of them.
And I don't care who you are.
If you have a choice, you'renot going to work for somebody
(12:22):
who doesn't take care of you.
You're going to go findsomebody who will.
You know it was Richard Branson, was the one who said train
people well enough that they canleave, treat them well enough
that they don't want to leave.
And I think a lot of that comesdown to it.
And one of the things that Isee which is a huge issue, I
think, at least from where I'mlooking from is that companies
(12:44):
and organizations are notproviding a pathway for
advancement, so they don't havea professional development
program, you know, and aprofessional development program
is huge, not just for theleader, but for everybody in the
organization, because you'renow creating those next
generation, those four or fivethat you're going to the
military is pretty good at that.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
It is showing a path for advancement, right, you know
, I know the enlisted side andyou know, if you want to do this
, it's so much time and great,and you have to have so much
time as a private, and then youhave to have so much time as a
private first class and then aspecialist, and then if you want
to get promoted to sergeant,there's actually points and all
this stuff, and I know theschools that you have to go to.
You've got to go to.
You know, on the I know all theenlisted side and if you want
(13:29):
to get up to levels even higherthan you were, there's command
college on how to assume thatrole.
So there's a path to get thereand so I think I've created one
at my business.
So I actually have differentlevels.
It's time and grade, it's howmuch experience and their
(13:49):
schooling involved.
But I look at it as aninternship, not an internship
and apprenticeship.
So if you think about thetrades, right, if you become a
plumber you're an apprentice andthen you become a journeyman
and then you become a masterplumber or master electrician
and it's it's training andeducation along the way.
You have to go to school andthen you actually have to do the
(14:09):
job for a certain period oftime before you can work your
way up and test out to the nextlevel.
And I think that's so lost onsmall business of you're going
to come here and you're going towork in this role and there's
nowhere for you to go but thisrole.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Right?
Well, the problem is in.
Why you lose your best peopleis because if you don't provide
them a path to advance, thenthey're going to go find
somebody who does if that'ssomething that they want, and so
especially in an industry wherethere's a lot of opportunity.
That's right, and today there isI mean, there's lots of
companies out there looking foryour good, good talent, and
(14:45):
that's the problem.
If you don't provide thatpathway, the people you're going
to lose are your good people,because they're the ones who are
going to lose their best people, because they're the ones who
want to move up.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So who are you stuck with?
The people that get the jobdone but they're not.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
They don't have the drive the maybe don't get the
job done, but they're there andtheir body.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
This coasting, yeah Drawing a paycheck.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
So how would you translate, you know, some of the
things that we just talkedabout to servant leadership?
I mean, servant leadership, foryou, is a big tenant of your,
and you're wearing a shirt thatsays your leadership legacy, and
so for those of you, for thoseof us who are, for those
listeners who are just listeningin, so what does servant
leadership need to oak?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
So I believe servant leadership is about taking care
of people.
And you know, and I get peoplewho say, well, I don't want to
be a servant leader because Idon't want people to walk all
over me.
And I said, that's not whatservant leadership is about.
Being a servant leaderguarantees you're going to make
people do some things they don'twant to do because it's in
their best interest and you'retaking care of them.
(15:47):
So I think the thing I alwaystry to impart on leaders like
the lieutenants that wecommissioned out, commissioned
out of ROTC I would walk up toevery one of them the day they
got commissioned.
I say look, celebrate today,because today is all about you.
You get to commission as asecond lieutenant United States
(16:08):
Army, but just remember now thatwe've pinned those bars on your
shoulder.
Tomorrow morning, when you wakeup, it will never be about you,
ever again.
It's about the soldiers, it'sabout your unit, about the
mission, it's about the army,it's about the country.
And then, if we have time, wemight talk about you maybe, but
you know, you've got tounderstand that it's not about
you and it's all about you.
(16:28):
It's not about the title youget or the privileges you get or
that you get better pay.
It's all about how you treatand empower the people in your
organization to make them better, which then will make your
organization better, and that'swhat you want in the end.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
But you have to have a clearly defined mission or
vision.
You know, in the army we talk.
In the military, we talk aboutmission, which is division.
Like you know, the mission isdefense of the nation.
That's pretty clear cut.
But then, underneath all that,what you know whether you're
training soldiers or you're partof an infantry unit, or
aviation or any of those thingsyou have okay, we're going to go
(17:04):
accomplish this job, and what Ifound in my own personal
experience in the civilian worldis that a lot of times there
isn't a clearly defined missionor vision.
It's I sell insurance, or wetreat our pets, or you know, we
sell shoes, and well, what doesthat have?
You know, where's the greatervision and purpose behind what
we're doing?
And so, if you can have aclearly defined mission and
(17:28):
vision for your organization,whatever that might be and for
our listeners, it's taking careof people's animals and they're
their animal family as part ofthat, and so it's how do you go
about doing that?
What's our culture, what's ourethics and what's our vision,
right, I think that encompassesthat as well, right?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It does.
And having thatclear-to-lead-defined vision and
where you wanna go is huge.
And here's why, and when I goaround and talk to companies, I
always ask what the vision isfrom the boss.
And then I go down to thelowest person in the company.
I ask them if they know whatthe vision is.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I know why you're doing that, and sometimes they
do.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Sometimes they do, but not very often.
And then if they do know whatthe vision is, then I say, okay,
what's your part in it?
Because if they don't knowtheir part in what the mission
is, then it doesn't meananything, it falls apart right.
It means nothing to them, it'sjust something in the sky.
So you gotta really communicatenot only what that vision is,
(18:35):
but each person's part.
Can that be?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And how they interact .
And again, I don't wanna spendall our time talking about the
military, but for what you justdescribed, I was in a school in
the military where at a certainpoint the instructors would walk
up to anybody in the unit andsay where are we on the map?
Where it's our mission?
(18:59):
What's the commanders?
You know the school I'm talkingabout.
What's the commander's intent?
Where are we and what are wedoing?
And if the person that got askedthat didn't have an answer, the
person in charge got a no-go orit means they failed that
training iteration Because theydidn't communicate that well
enough.
And it was a leadershiptraining school and it teaches
(19:20):
you about making sure thateveryone's on the same page, and
so one of those components ofthat's trust, right, I think you
and I both agree there's goodleaders in the military and
there's bad leaders in themilitary.
I've worked for good in everyprofession.
I've had more jobs in themilitary than outside and but
(19:42):
I've had both.
And trust really falls underthat leadership component and
running an organization.
And you have to trust the team,but they also have to trust you
and that you're gonna make theright decision In the roles that
you and I had in the past.
That meant somebody's life wason the line, potentially, and
(20:05):
that your team was relying onyou to make the right mission.
But now in the civilian world,I'm counted on to make the right
decisions for our organization,Cause people are counting on us
for their livelihood, thatwe're gonna stay open and that
they have they're putting theirtrust in me that they've made
the right choice at ourorganization.
So for Olk and what he talksabout with trust and servant
(20:28):
leadership, how does trust kindof work its way in there?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah.
So I think trust is the gluethat holds everything together.
And when I talk about trust Italk about 360 degree trust.
So the lead, the lead, have totrust the leader and the leader
has to trust the people that heor she is leading.
If that doesn't happen, thenthe leader led relationship
can't work.
(20:53):
If the trust is gone, that isbroken, then everybody on the
team has to trust each otherthat they're gonna do their part
.
And then in the civilian world,especially in the business
world now you have to take thattrust outside your organization
to the people that you'reserving, because if they don't
trust you, they're not gonnacome to you, they're gonna go to
(21:15):
the person down the street.
So I think the trust pieces isthe one that holds it all
together.
If it's broken in any one ofthose four places, then you got
problems in your organization.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, you chatted.
I was listening to anotherpodcast you were on and you
talked about a component where,at a certain point, the
employees are just gonna do whatyou say because you're in
charge, you're the boss, yourname's on the door, you write
the paycheck, whatever that is,so they're just gonna follow you
.
But then there's also anothercomponent of leading where
(21:48):
people are gonna follow you inspite of fear or in spite of
worrying that it might not workout, but they're just gonna
trust you because you are theleader and they're gonna do it
because they wanna do it, notbecause you're telling them to
do it right.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yep, your title at that point doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that you'rethe appointed leader.
You are the leader, and that'sthe difference between a leader
and a boss.
A boss, you do what they tellthem.
You do what he or she tells youbecause they're the boss and,
like you said, you write thepaycheck.
You can fire them.
Whatever A leader people trustand they will do whatever that
(22:25):
they're being asked, not onlybecause they trust the person,
but because they bought intoyour culture, into your vision,
into all those things that you,as a leader, are responsible for
doing, and they know you'regonna take care of them.
So they'll go that extra milefor you where they won't do that
for the boss.
They'll do what they're told,but they're not gonna go that
extra mile.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
There's two things that came to mind when you just
said that.
One is on the military.
We have a saying.
I was in the infantry when itwas all male.
So respect the man, not therank.
I respect the rank, not the man, or not the soldier, which is
basically a way of saying thatleader's a piece of junk.
But because they're higher rankthan me, I have to give them
the respect.
So you don't wanna be thatleader, but you do wanna have.
(23:12):
I think there's the element ofresponsibility.
You talked about responsibilityand it ties in with the trust
component and it's that when youget to the point where people
are willing to follow you almostblindly, like whatever Bill
says or whatever Oak says goes,I'm gonna do it because I trust
them so much as a leader.
When you get to that level ofresponsibility and trust, you
(23:35):
have to be very careful withthat, because people will do
what you ask them to do, even ifit's to their detriment.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's right so and again, I'm a huge believer in
taking care of people.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
There's been times in my career where I would ask
people that were working for mein the HR section we're gonna do
this?
And they'd say well, you can'tdo that because it's against the
rules.
And I said I don't care whatthe rules say, that's what we
need to do to take care of thisperson.
And I'll give you a letter thatsays I made you do it.
Whatever I mean, I don't have aproblem with that.
(24:08):
My name's on the blame lineanyway.
But I'm a firm believer youshould never use rules to
prevent yourself from takingcare of somebody.
Now I got it.
Rules are there for a reasonand you gotta really have a good
reason not to follow the rules.
But if there is a good reasonnot to, I'm a firm believer that
taking care of people is moreimportant than following a rule.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You know we work so hard to build a team that you
don't want to tear down thetrust and what you've built up
as a leader by taking awaysomething that you could have
done to help out the team memberor help out, you know, promote
somebody or bring somebody upwithin the organization, because
(24:55):
in the circles I'm in and Ifound this to be true your team,
they're watching what you doall the time and what you don't
do all the time and sometimeswhat you don't do is even more
important than what you did.
Oh, absolutely If it's,especially if it's looking out
for the team or looking out for.
(25:16):
You know, not doing somethingto look out for the soldiers is
about 8,000.
Things just flooded in my headof experiences I had in my time
in the military.
But I want to talk a little bitabout communication skills
because I think that's oftenmissed as well in a conversation
(25:40):
about leadership.
And you know, you've got thetrust component, you've got, you
know, being a good leader andthe tenants of good leadership.
You know, in the Army we havethe seven Army values and
leadership is one of them.
But how, you know, where haveyou seen communication work
really well as a leader, andmaybe an example where you have
seen a breakdown?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, so I mean communication is what leaders do
.
If you can't communicate withpeople, you can't be a leader,
plain and simple.
So I think you know I have hadpeople that, first of all, I
think listening is probably oneof the most important aspects of
communication and it's probablythe one we do the least well in
(26:20):
general for most people.
And I think you know I had aboss who understood that and
really that's when I reallystarted to understand.
It was watching him and I wouldcome in in the morning and he
was a Lieutenant Colonel, I wasa captain, so I worked for him
and I like one of the first daysthat I walked in first week,
(26:42):
within the first week, I walk inand we meet each other in the
hallway and he stops and sayshow you doing, oak, and I said
fine, and I kept walking and hesaid who Come here?
I want to know how you're doing.
He said tell me how you'redoing.
And I was telling him what wasgoing on because you know I just
moved, my family wasn't thereyet.
And how about your wife?
(27:06):
Tell me about your wife, tellme about your kids, and so you
know, every week or two or everycouple of weeks he would stop
me in the hall and ask me howthings were going.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
How much effort does that actually take on his part?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It took probably about 10 minutes, but you know.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
but very little effort I mean the actual effort
involved is very little toactually have care, concern and
communication and then listen towhat you're saying, right?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah, and then and I knew he was listening because
once my family got there andthey were involved in stuff,
he'd say hey, didn't, didn'tyour kids play soccer this
weekend?
So I mean, he listened and Ithought I was special, I thought
he'd take a lot of interest inme.
And then one day I was walkingout of my office and he was
doing it for another captain.
It was down the hall.
(27:51):
So he did that was a huge partof his leadership, and so I
learned how that made me feel,and so I started to incorporate
that in what I did as well.
But then you got those leaderswho don't listen to anything.
You know, just, it's myorganization, I'm going to run
it the way I want to run it.
I don't care what your opinionis, I don't care, you just do
(28:14):
what I tell you to do.
And we've all worked for thatperson.
And nobody and nobody wants towork for that person, because
they're horrible, but they'reout there.
And then they wonder whynobody's going doing anything
extra for them or or helping outwhen they don't, when they
don't have to, but they want tobecause they don't.
(28:35):
They don't.
The trust isn't there.
All because of communication,and I think that communication
is a huge part and you got toget it right, um, in all forms
written form, verbal form,non-verbal.
I'm a huge believer inhandwritten notes.
Never, ever underestimate thepower of a handwritten note.
(28:55):
Um, and then listening, and Ithink that those are are skills
that everybody, whether you're aleader or just want to be
successful in life you got tolearn those skills.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to the VBMA,
which is the VeterinaryBusiness Management Association,
at the University of Minnesotayesterday, and when I got done,
the president of the the grouphanded me a you know little
giveaway item very nice littleYeti mug and I was wasn't
expecting that and a handwrittennote that they wrote during my
(29:29):
talk.
I think they wrote during thetalk.
Based on the note, but itfilled the entire card.
It was signed by the entireleadership team, but it had a
couple of things in there thatseemed to indicate that it was
written during my talk, and Iprobably read that three times,
took a picture of it, sent it tomy mom because my mom was so
excited that I was speaking atthe University of Minnesota.
(29:50):
Uh, and this is my firstopportunity to do this, and, and
, and, while that seems likesuch a small insignificant thing
, just to say, hey, thanks forcoming to speak to our group
today, and I was the presenter.
It made a huge impact on me andso it was like hey, what can I
do to help out your organization?
You know, and and so I thinkslowing down right.
(30:12):
I think that's one of thethings when you're when you're
in charge of an organization orleading a team of three people
or a team of 15, or you you know, or you're responsible for 15
people and you've got somelayers of management in there.
Um, just need to slow down justa little bit and think about
what you're doing you talkedabout on the other podcast and I
thought about this as well.
So in the one uh one school Iwent to you, they said you have
(30:37):
to make a decision good, bad orindifferent but once you make
the decision, you need to makeit work, whatever it is, even if
it's the and you talk.
So why don't you expand on youruh, your thought process on on
the kind of three decisions youcan make?
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, so every, every time in it and goes goes back
to a Teddy Roosevelt quote.
Was one of my favorite quotesof his and I have a lot of my
like of his, but this is one ofhis favorites, um, he said every
time you come to a point whereyou got to make a decision, you
have three options.
Option number one is that youmake the best decision, and
that's obviously the best option.
(31:12):
Option number two you make theworst decision, that the wrong
decision, and that's an okaydecision.
You know, we all do that onoccasion.
Option number three is youdon't make a decision, and
that's always the worst decision, because not making a decision
is a decision.
And one of the ways that I'vefound to make decisions that
(31:33):
works for me is every time Igotta make a decision when I
have time.
There's times when you don't Igot it, but when you have time
you pull your junior leaderstogether, those four or five
that you've brought up and kindof put in charge of things
underneath you.
You bring them together and say, hey, look, this is what we
(31:53):
gotta do, this is the problem wegotta solve, this is the
decision we have to make.
Throw me some ideas and you'llfind that you know, just let
them throw out ideas.
You'll find that somebody youthink is one of your top
performers every once in a whilewill throw you a horrible idea,
and somebody that you think isone of your weakest links will
throw you a great idea.
(32:13):
You never know.
You're under no obligation asthe leader to use any of those
ideas, but you can figure outwhich one are the good ones and
which one are the bad ones andyou can use or not, use whatever
you want.
And generally what I've foundI've done is I'll take a little
bit of your ideas, a little bitof my ideas, a little bit of her
ideas and I'll put it togetherand that's our solution.
(32:34):
Two things happen when you dothat.
Number one you start, youcontinue to build trust because
you've asked them their opinion.
Even if you didn't use theiropinion this time, you might
next time.
And number two it's no longerColonel McCullough's solution,
it's our solution, our solution,yeah.
Now they got skin in the game.
Now they got a reason to makeit successful.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Especially if it lines up with that vision and
the mission of the team, andwhat that is.
You know, our mission at ButlerVet Insurance is to reduce the
stress of insurance.
Like, hopefully, if you came toour organization today, that's
what everyone would say is wework to reduce the stress of
insurance.
That would be my hope.
Otherwise that would be a no goat this station.
(33:17):
But you know the component ofmaking sure that you're asking
for input because you know, andas you work your way up the
chain of command in the military, you're not smarter than other
people, you just have moreexperience.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's all you know.
That's really what leadershipis.
It's experience and knowing howto handle situations, but you
don't always have all theanswers and you can't see
everything as it is, causeyou're not.
One of the unfortunate thingsthat I found to digress about
the military for just a secondwas, once you get promoted above
a certain point, you're alittle bit removed from the
(33:55):
soldiers who are actually doingthe work, and I know that with
some of the veterinarians that Iwork with that you know they
wind up owning or running theirbit.
They have partners and they'rethe ones doing the back end
office stuff and they're notgetting to practice medicine
anymore.
They're doing theadministrative.
And you know, oftentimes in theinfantry and you may from the
(34:20):
armored infantry the best jobthat I had was as a team leader,
where you're in charge of threepeople and you're in the.
You're leading three people,you're in charge of your team
and you're doing the work.
You're in command of yourlittle group but you're actually
doing the work.
And once you kind of get abovethat level you're not now you're
you've got one level betweenyou and the people doing the
work and then once you're aplatoon sergeant, you get two
(34:42):
layers between you and thepeople doing the work, and then
it just it keeps going up.
Did you find that as well?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I did, and but you know, one of the things that I
stress with people is that youmust listen to the people who
you have the privilege to lead.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Because they do have answers.
And the example I give is I wasa brand new second lieutenant,
got to my first battalion andthere were three lieutenants who
showed up that day.
There was only one platoonleader spot, for whatever reason
.
I got the platoon leader spotand the other two went to the
staff.
They took me out to my companyor to my platoon, which was out
(35:16):
doing rehearsals for a live fire, dismounted exercise.
All morning they'd beenrehearsing it.
So I got there right at lunch myplatoon sergeant still
remembering like yesterday,sergeant First Class Benson six
foot six, 250 pound country boyfrom Mississippi put his arm
around my shoulder, says, sir,let's go have lunch.
(35:36):
So we grab an MRE, we go walkunderneath a tree and we sit
down.
And he said, sir, you know I'mhere, I'm 24 years old, brand
new second lieutenant.
He said, sir, you're the boss,you're the platoon leader.
We'll do things any way youwant to do it.
He said but remember this I'vebeen in the Army for 23 years,
so you've been in the Armyalmost as long as I've been
(35:58):
alive.
I've seen it done whichever way,every which way it can be done.
If you're messing up, I'm goingto tell you if you still want
to do it that way.
We'll do it that way becauseyou're the boss, but my job is
to help you understand whenyou're messing up, and I will
tell you.
I give Sergeant First ClassBenson a lot of credit for
turning me into the leader thatI became, and so I tell people
(36:19):
all the time look if you aren'tusing those people on your team
then you're only using yourknowledge, your skills, your
abilities, and you don't haveall the answers, so use the
people on your team.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, that was one thing that I've definitely tried
to integrate into my team and Ithink when I look at veterinary
practices, there are often 10to 25 employees and there's only
one or two managers that I seeinvolved.
There's a practice manager, theowner.
Sometimes they might have someteam leads, but it's a lot of
larger groups and I've heardthat the scope of control, that
(36:59):
three to five, to kind of goback all the way to the
beginning, that goes back allthe way to the Roman legions and
the military has always hadthat three to five.
Somebody's always in charge ofthree to five all the way up to
the top generals.
What is the one?
If there's one thing that youalways tell someone, or the best
gold nugget you have, or whatdo you end your book with,
(37:23):
what's the biggest tenant ofleadership that you think we
should close with today?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
So I think, for me, it's get to know the people you
have the privilege to lead,because that's where it all
starts, that's where the truststarts, that's where the
communication starts.
If you don't know the peoplethat you're leading, then how do
you know which tasks to givethem?
Because you don't know whatthey're good at and what they're
not good at and I had a bossone time.
(37:49):
Well, I tell people there's acouple ways to build that
relationship.
Number one get out of theoffice, go down where people are
, because if you call somebodyinto your office and ask them a
question, you are gonna get anentirely different answer than
if you went down to where theyare and asked them that same
question.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We'd have to go do that and check at the foxhole
with them.
They wouldn't come to us when Iwas in a line.
That's right.
That's right.
Number two is.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
I had a boss who retired a three star general and
he said oh, never, ever, everturn down a chance to go get
your own cup of coffee.
He said two things happen.
Number one you show everybodyon your team that you're human
just like they are.
You have to go get your own cupof coffee.
And number two if you're lucky,you got two or three different
ways to get to the coffee potand back to your office and you
stop along the way and talk topeople.
(38:31):
I tell every leader that I talkto I say your goal should be
every day, go out and find oneperson in your organization,
just one and find out one newthing about that person.
Something personal not aboutwork, something personal what's
their spouse name?
What's their kid's name, whatsports do their kids play?
(38:52):
What's their hobby, what dothey like, what they don't like
and you'll start to get to knowthat person and the trust will
start to build.
The downside to that is that Ialways tell leaders if you're
gonna ask questions and youwanna get to know them, you
gotta let them get to know you?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, they're gonna wanna get to know you as well.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
And that's okay.
You gotta keep the lead leaderrelationship.
I got it.
That doesn't mean that youcan't get to know each other.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You're all trying to accomplish the same mission
together.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you
here.
Oak your book, your LeadershipLegacy Becoming the Leader you
Were Meant to Be.
I think that's available onyour website.
We'll have all of thatinformation in the show notes,
but where's the best place forour listeners to find you out?
On the internet.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, so I do have my website, but I'm also on all
the social media.
I'm on LinkedIn, I'm onInstagram, I'm on X, Twitter,
whatever you wanna call me.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
How many Oak McCollis ?
Are there two Cs MCCULLOCH outthere probably?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
There are three out there Me, my son and his son.
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Well, there you go.
So Oak McCollis, author of yourLeadership Legacy, becoming the
Leader you Were Meant to Be.
He's a speaker, an author and aleadership aficionado from way
back in the Army.
It's been an absolute pleasureto have you on the podcast today
, oak.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I've enjoyed it.
Bill, what a pleasure beinghere.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Perfect Well, as always, to our listeners.
Make sure to like the podcast,share it with your friends,
review it and leave a comment.
We appreciate it and check uson the next episode of the
Veterinary Blueprints podcast.
Thanks for tuning in today.
Thanks for tuning in toVeterinary Blueprints.
If you have any thoughts,questions or suggestions for an
(40:42):
episode, I would love to hearfrom you.
Email me at bill atbutlervetinsurancecom.
Don't forget to subscribe soyou never miss an episode.
And if you could do me a hugefavor you know it helps with the
algorithm.
If you can like, share orcomment on the post, leave a
review, I would love it.
Thanks for tuning in and untilnext time.
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