Subscribe via your favourite podcast platform: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Anchor | Breaker | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic
In this week’s episode:
- Culture Isn’t Fluffy – It’s a Business Strategy: If your team is burnt out, unwell, or leaving, your business model is unsustainable. Culture isn’t about “nice to have” values posters – it’s about protecting patient care, client experience, and long-term financial performance. A healthy team is your most important currency.
- Leadership Is Not Hierarchy – It’s Energy and Intent: Great leaders in veterinary practice aren’t the ones with all the answers. They create the conditions for others to thrive. That means moving beyond operational management into true leadership – shaping culture daily through behaviour, communication, and example.
- If It’s Crazy Every Day, the System Is Broken: Looney-tune days happen in veterinary medicine. But if chaos is the norm, not the exception, it’s not resilience that’s required – it’s redesign. Break the schedule, break the system if needed – but don’t break your people.
- Listening Is the Leadership Superpower We Were Never Taught: Most leaders listen to reply. The real shift happens when you listen to understand. Deep listening builds trust, reduces conflict, improves communication, and ultimately safeguards team wellbeing and patient care.
In this episode, Jack Peploe sits down with Debbie Robinson, from Vetnetics. Veterinary leadership isn’t about control, it’s about intentionally shaping a culture that protects people, strengthens performance, and sustains the practice long term.
Additional Guest Spotlights
- Next Episode Sneak Peak: Next episode, Jack is joined by Jason Spendelow, clinical psychologist and wellbeing specialist with a deep focus on the veterinary profession. Jump into how much pressure sharpens performance, and when does it start breaking your team? We unpack the tipping point for veterinary practices, and what truly sustainable leadership looks like long term.
- Recommended Resource: This week’s recommendation comes from Allison Thomas, who highlights Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal as a powerful reminder for veterinary professionals to prioritise quality of life over simply prolonging it, using thoughtful end-of-life questions to guide more humane and meaningful conversations with pet owners.
Show Notes
- Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
- Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
Transcription
Jack Peploe:
Coming up on modern veterinary practice podcast,
Debbie Robinson:
Some days are going to be crazy Looney tune days. It’s just that in veterinary. But if it’s like that, more often than not, it’s broken. And what we can’t afford to do is break people because people will become ill and they will potentially leave. And this is where leaders sometimes we think there is such a demand that we stack it so high that the team can’t possibly get through it all without burning out, without overwhelm.
Jack Peploe:
Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Debbie Robinson, founder of Vetnetics to the podcast, we’ll be talking about what real leadership looks like in a modern veterinary practice, why culture is a strategic business rather than a nice to have, and how leaders can intentionally shape healthier, more fulfilling workplaces for their teams.
Debbie Robinson:
Hi, I’m Debbie and Debbie Robinson and I’m the founder of tics. I came to the veterinary sector in a bit of a squiggly way because I was surprisingly spent most of my career in information technology. And when my fellow directors and I sold the business, I was a bit of a loose end and I didn’t really know what to do with myself. So I decided to train as a coach because I used to bring coaches into help. My sales guys improved, so bringing in independence and I was always fascinated by it because they always had such a huge impact on their performance. So I thought I can have a go at that I did and studied for a couple of years, then qualified and set up a business called Salesnet, in which I helped people in leadership and communication in the sales within information technology. Then this is a squiggly bit, got involved with veterinary and I won’t bore you with how I got involved, but it was something to do with me being a local government approved consultant on business growth. And so I joined the veterinary profession and it’s been transformative for me. I absolutely love working in the veterinary profession. I teach leadership and communication in the veterinary profession. That’s what I do.
Jack Peploe:
Awesome. Debbie, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Now, am I right in thinking you’ve coached sort of over 75 practices through your metrics? 80. Wow, that’s awesome. And again, the focus has been helping those vaccines build not just sustainable businesses, but ones that people love being part of, which is amazing. Now, what I find fascinating is that your approach blends practical leadership training with a really deep understanding of culture, energy, and mindset. And today, if possible, I’d love to explore how that sort of plays out. So how leaders can start to see culture not as a fixed trait, but it’s something they’re shaping every day through their choices, habits and energy. So I suppose my first question is, you’ve worked with dozens of practices across the country. What do you think separates good leadership from great leadership in vet medicine right now,
Debbie Robinson:
Good leadership is it’s about people realising that they are not the ones in charge. They’re not the ones who have all the answers. It’s not a hierarchical thing. Good leadership is the understanding that the role is to bring the best out of other people. It is different from management. And I think this is one of the problems we have in the veterinary profession is that a lot of people are promoted to leadership roles because they are good operationally, they’ve been great at getting stuff done, organising the team, et cetera. But it’s different when we’re looking at leadership, which is more of the hearts and minds rather than the instruction and direction of individuals. And I think that’s the part that we’re missing in the veterinary profession is true leadership.
Jack Peploe:
Now many practice leaders feel like they’re stuck in survival mode. How do you begin to shift someone from managing chaos to leading with intention?
Debbie Robinson:
It’s awareness. First of all, it has to be awareness. And that desire that gosh, there’s got to be something. It can’t be this hard. It’s got to be something better than this. And there is no magic cure to culture. This is a long process. But a positive culture is if you want to take it away from the fluffy woowoo type of stuff, it needs to be more of a strategic approach. If your people are unhappy, if your people are getting ill through stress and overwhelm, if people are leaving, that is an unsustainable business. So if we take it from it being a soft and fluffy thing, it nice to have, it needs to be considered more of a business strategy strength and therefore it needs to be a deliberate focus. The focus is never ending. You never finish with culture. It will grow and ebb and adapt and adjust as people come and go.
And as you grow, particularly, particularly as you grow, it’s easy to have a very nice friendly culture. When there’s five of you, it gets a lot more difficult when there’s 35 of you or 45 of you or 65 of you, it gets harder. I think it’s moving away from a nice to have is what we need and for business owners and business people that are in the management of those practices. So if it’s corporate, it’s going to be more management. If it’s an independent practice, it’s going to be more of the owner. It tends to want to have that business to be financially and financially sustainable as well as being a nice environment or healthy, a healthy environment to work in a healthy workplace environment. So this isn’t about everybody skipping around like … with daisies in their hands and everything wonderful. Like you see on television, you know that, oh God, that me nuts, that perfume advert, Daisy, daisy, daisy.
It’s not about that. It’s about having a healthy workplace environment with a positive culture. And the way that you do that, first of all, focus, what can we do today to start making a difference? Okay, we’ll stop to focus on that. And funny, it’s a bit like when you do clinical stuff, focus on doing more subsequent consults. Guess what? You do more subsequent consults, focus on dentistry. Guess what? You do more on dentistry, focus more on reducing gossiping. Guess what? You are reduced gossiping. So it’s the same and little by little you can shape mould, adapt your culture to a more positive workplace environment.
Jack Peploe:
No, absolutely. Now, because sort of just extending on that, we often talk about sort of workplace culture like it’s sort of a poster on the wall, but your approach as something alive as what you were just saying now, other than the focus, what are some of the daily behaviours that actually build or break culture?
Debbie Robinson:
Oh gosh. Those that break culture are very easy. It is, and it seems a bit trivial on people think gossiping. Gossiping is not, people get confused about what gossiping is. There’s nothing wrong with standing around the proverbial water cooler and talking about what you watched on Netflix last night or what you did at the weekend. That’s absolutely fine. What gossiping is when it becomes vindictive and nasty and is that horrible hangs like talking about somebody gossiping leads to clicks. Clicks lead to exclusion. When we feel that we are maybe being gossiped about, somebody goes quiet when you walk in the room, they were talking about me or you are not included in discussions where there’s another four people that are actually involved in those meetings or something, trust gets broken, I don’t trust you. Therefore, when we don’t trust we, the communication levels breakdown. When communications breaks down patient care, client care and team care is at risk. So this isn’t the fluffy stuff, it is very serious business stuff. If we wanted just to start, we can actually start to talk about these things with our team. It’s about how we communicate. It’s about how we live to our values.
If we don’t know what our values are or the values aren’t relevant to the guys that are on the floor working, they’re just a waste of print. They’re just a waste of space on a website. It needs to be something that the team have built themselves. So they’re sharing it and then they live by that every day. For me, culture is the things that we do and don’t do every day. So if our culture is that we gossip and we exclude and et cetera, then that’s what your culture is. If you don’t want it to be that, then you make that as part of your value base about valuing each other. That may be we are kind, what does kind mean? We do not talk about each other, we talk to each other, we solve problems together. Those sort of things can start to make a huge difference to culture. But there’s no great big firework display with culture. It is a gradual iterative process.
Jack Peploe:
Nice. And I couldn’t agree more with regards to the values. It is really truly understanding what those values mean. It’s not just about having them. That’s really,
Debbie Robinson:
I’ve got a practice, I’m sorry, there is a practice, it is a vets for pet practice and one of their values is, and excuse me if I sort of semi swear, one of their values is don’t be a dick. And the team know what that means. What does that mean? Well, it means don’t talk about me behind my back. Don’t do this, don’t do that. So they defined what it is, but to be able to have on the wall then don’t be a dick, I think is a powerful thing. And when I work on values with the team, I said, don’t use words like integrity and professionalism and all that. Use words that you guys use probably as people. That’s why I love that value because it’s just that’s the way people talk. I think that’s right. Be truthful about it. When things are going wrong, people will say don’t be, be
Jack Peploe:
More fruitful. Yeah,
Debbie Robinson:
So moving away from, yeah, values incredibly powerful things. If they are defined properly, do not put a bunch of words on the wall because that is absolute nonsense. You may as well.
Jack Peploe:
Absolutely. So moving away from culture, you are very passionate about helping people feel fulfilled at work, but in such a high pressure industry, what does fulfilment really look like and how do we protect it?
Debbie Robinson:
Well, I think it’s all about giving people autonomy. We don’t want to be, none of us want to be micromanaged. None of us want to have to wait for the next stage so we can move on. And so people want autonomy. So that is some control over decisions that they make. Now, some obviously procedural clinical procedures obviously have to be to a particular standard. However, I would say there’s always that opportunity to lift the bar and change things. If we can see that, why do we do that? And I always bring to the fore, you’d still be stuffing a cat in a Wellington boot to castrate it if we hadn’t made improvements on clinical care over the years. Because people will come up with how are we doing that? We can do this now. So there’s always a way for your team, the people who are in the …, that’s Japanese for the real place, IE, the people on the floor, they know what works and what doesn’t work and what drives them nuts and what is cumbersome.
They know what works and what doesn’t. So giving the team a voice is incredibly powerful. And the way to do that is through a continuous improvement system. A system, please don’t try a suggestion box. All you’ll do is end up with a load of bitching notes in a box that you are left to solve. Whereas the team should be solving the problem. That’s what you employ them for. The other thing that makes people feel part of it is recognition is appreciation, genuine appreciation. And people want appreciation in different ways. We have preferences the same of our learning and communication preferences, but it’s important that we show appreciation in the right way. And with context, no more good job and a pat on the back that doesn’t. Or you standing up as a leader and saying at the end of the week, great job for everybody. Everything was you got through the week and this, that and the other. And three people weren’t even on rotor that were in there. There the sessions that really went the extra mile and you feel slightly shortchanged on the appreciation, showing contextualised appreciation is incredibly important.
Jack Peploe:
You’ve spoken about finding balance in slower mindful creative practices. Do you think leaders underestimate the importance of their own energy and how it impacts their teams?
Debbie Robinson:
Oh yes, but I think we’ve got to accept that people that own a leadership role are human beings. So one of the things that is now has come to be acceptable, although a lot of people still struggle with it, is vulnerability. It’s showing your vulnerability as a leader, whether or not you are a leader of the whole practice, either the owner or whether or not you are a team leader of the nurses, the reception or client care or of the vet or administrative staff. It’s being able to show vulnerability. But there is fine balance. As a leader. We don’t want to be dumping our problems on our team, but also we don’t want to put on this mask of being this thing that we’re not, we are human, so it’s okay to go, I don’t know the answer. This is going to be tough. I’m with you guys.
Let’s see when there is change in particular. And the team look to their leader being showing your vulnerability that you haven’t got all the answers is one thing. And that showing vulnerability then gives us the opportunity to be being human. That it can be that we have to make sure that we practice good practice, take breaks, encourage your team to take breaks, not muscle on through every day because the schedule is too much. If it’s breaking people, we break the schedule. We do not break the people. So there’s a lot of, we have to push, push, push on through on that should be the exception, not the norm. Some days are going to be crazy looney tune days. It’s just that in veterinary. But if it’s like that, more often than not, it’s broken. And what we can’t afford to do is break people because people will become ill and they will potentially leave.
This is where leaders, sometimes we think there is such a demand and we have a very short amount of time to do consultations and then do the clinical work thereafter, that we stack it so high that the team can’t possibly get through it all when it’s too much every day without burning out, without overwhelm. And therefore the system has to change. Whether or not that’s improving processes, the way that processes are managed, whether or not it’s improving technology, those sort of things. The leader has to recognise that their most valuable asset is the human beings. But the most important currency of any business is that you have a happy, healthy team. That is the most important currency. Branson, Richard Branson would say, look after your team, the team will look after the people. And that’s so true. If your team are totally burnt out, totally frazzled, how can they give good client care?
So how can they respond back to people if they’re so booked out with consults, so booked out with surgical procedures and then they’ve got to do lab results and there’s not enough time in the day and then they don’t do them and then the client gets upset and all those sorts of things. It’s the system that’s broken, don’t break the people. So that’s where leaders need to set an example and change the system. If the goals are to, if you can’t achieve the goals that you are setting, change the goals, they probably were unachievable in the first place. Does that make sense?
Jack Peploe:
Sense? No, it makes complete sense. I thought I went off one then. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and I’ve got one question that I really want to ask, which is, if you could wave a magic wand and give every veterinary manager one superpower, what would it be and why?
Debbie Robinson:
Ah, gosh. One superpower the ability to listen with the intent to understand. It’s something none of us are taught. We’re taught how to talk, we’re taught how to read, we’re taught how to think. Nobody teaches us how to listen so that we understand generally we’re listening to create the answer back. But if we can listen and understand where people are coming from, it gives us much more empathetic leadership style.
Jack Peploe:
Absolutely. No what way to end the podcast. I can’t believe it’s hit that time already. But thank you very much. Yeah, it flies. I told you it was going to fly, but it really has been such a rich conversation. You really have taken us beyond the buzzwords that really helped reframe leadership as an act of energy, intention, and care. For those people who want to learn more about your work with tics or connect further, where’s the best place for them to find you?
Debbie Robinson:
Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, so Debbie Robinson Vetnetics, or you can pop on over to my website, which is Vetnetic.co.uk. So it’s dead easy on Instagram, on TikTok. I’m all over the place, so if anybody wants to find me, I’m dead easy to find
Jack Peploe:
And they’ll all be in the show notes. But Debbie, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It’s been such a fun episode.
Jack Peploe:
Every episode we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Allison Thomas.
Allison Thomas:
For me, it is anything by Atul Gawande, who is an American surgeon, and he’s joined political campaigns in his capacity as being a surgeon, but he’s also written books on checklists. The value of checklists looks at the airline industry to see how they have created checklists and then mirrored that for the medical profession across the world. But I think the most meaningful book for me by him is one called Being Mortal, which is all about end of life care. And obviously he is focused on people and their end of life, but he has some really important things to say in it. And he talks about how the medical profession have been guilty of protecting and prolonging life at all costs. And that has come at the expense of quality of life. And we don’t tend to do that as vets, but there is a risk that we could be persuaded down that route.
And he really argues for a much more humane approach to death. So one that values meaningful living over just survival. And one of the most interesting things he says is, and this is a direct quote from the book, the odds are that the week a person is most likely to have surgery is the last week of life and the day they are most likely to have surgery is the last day of their life. And that’s quite a statistic because it just shows how incorrectly surgical procedures are being applied. So he focuses very much on medicalizing the end of life and just focusing on what’s achievable. He has a number of questions in his book that he asks people at the end of life, like, what’s your understanding of your condition and what are your hopes and what are your fears and what are your boundaries? And I’ve tried these questions with owners, and when you get them to actually voice that in their own words, it has a really powerful effect on them in bringing them to an understanding of what they really want for their pet.
Jack Peploe:
Coming up next week, we welcome Jason Spendelow, clinical psychologist, academic and workplace wellbeing specialist with a deep focus on the veterinary profession. Jason brings a refreshingly grounded perspective on burnout, performance pressure, and what wellbeing actually means beyond the buzzwords. We explore why burnout isn’t an individual failure, but a systems issue, how psychologically health practices are designed and the small changes that can make a big difference to team health and performance. Jason also shares insights from his work with veterinary students and practices, challenging how we think about resilience, leadership, and sustainable workloads.
Jason Spendelow:
So the research says that a bit of performance pressure is often a good thing. It can help people focus, but you get to a point where the pressure, the workload, et cetera, becomes so high that it starts to become counterproductive. So where everyone sits is going to differ from person to person, but everyone has a point at which the pressure, the expectation to perform becomes a negative rather than being a positive. And so in terms of leadership’s role in this, they really have to think about what’s a sustainable workload for people, not just over the next week or two, but over months and years and beyond.
Jack Peploe:
That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.
