Episode 10 - The Special Guest: Dr Belinda Hopper

Our special guest today is Dr. Belinda Hopper. 

She shares her leadership journey as the founding director of Animalius Veterinary Hospital in Western Australia, revealing how leadership requires balancing thriving and surviving while creating a workplace where staff can breathe, be seen, and feel valued. 

The Human-Savvy Team is deeply grateful for Belinda's openness, vulnerability, and energising spirit. She's a true role model of supportive and emotionally intelligent (human-savvy!) leadership.

Enjoy this conversation!

Click here to learn more about Belinda and Animalius >>>

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Please send us an email at info@behumansavvy.com with the title "A great leader", and we promise to reach out to this person and, if they would like that, interview them!

Also, we deeply value your feedback. Please email us your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to info@behumansavvy.com or follow and message Dr Liv on LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-liv-oginska-53b345200

Transcript

Introduction to Dr. Belinda Hoppa

Liv Oginska 0:05

Hello, my dear listeners, today is a very special day. I would like to introduce you to the very first guest of the Human Savvy podcast, dr Belinda Hoppa. She's a founding director of the referral veterinary hospital here in Perth i A i W, a, and she's also a register specialist in veterinary radiology. She's a mom, she's a new friend and she's a deeply inspirational person, definitely to me. The moment I met her and it wasn't a long time ago I knew that she is a very special leader in her industry. We seem to speak the same language, we share a lot of values but, most importantly, when you are in a room with Belinda, she gives you her undivided attention. She listens to you truly and deeply, which is rare in our world, but you can immediately see why she's such a successful leader.

Liv Oginska 1:04

In today's episode we will dive deep into her hopes and dreams, her challenges and even mistakes that she made. We will talk about her humanity, because she's deeply human, like we all are, and I think it's important to hear from other leaders out there in the world their stories and see that there is a human beneath that professional mask that they need to wear every day. It's important to remember that there is someone with thoughts and feelings, someone just like us. Enjoy this conversation with Belinda. Let's get inspired and let's become more human, sally, and let's become more human. Sally oh, I'm so glad you're here today with me, and okay, so what do you think? Are you currently thriving or surviving as a leader? What do you think?

Dr Belinda Hopper 2:03

Well, I think that is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour answer. I would say so, and I am amazed at how quickly it changes. You know, it changes on a dime. It's a bit like parenting, I think, isn't it? In fact, pretty much all of my leadership experiences, like parenting changes all the time. Well, just when you think you've got it sorted, it turns on you. So I think that if I think about hour-to-hour moments, I often feel like I'm only just surviving, but then if I look at the big picture, then it feels more like I mean, it's definitely on the on the positive side. So, yeah, when you look at the, the whole outcome of what we're doing, then I would certainly say that I'm thriving.

Liv Oginska 2:35

Does it give you a lot of day-to-day moment of?

Dr Belinda Hopper 2:37

surviving.

Liv Oginska 2:38

Yeah, and does it give you satisfaction?

Thriving vs. Surviving in Leadership

Dr Belinda Hopper 2:42

this role? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Intense frustration, doubts hourly, you know, moments of trauma, but so much satisfaction and so much pride in what we managed to achieve at the end of all of that hard work. Yeah, absolutely.

Liv Oginska 3:02

That's so beautiful. It's one of the things that I noticed about you first when we met a while ago and I asked you about your team, about what you created, and I could see that it was that smile on your face and like that proud mother.

Dr Belinda Hopper 3:17

Yeah, exactly it is. It's my third baby.

Liv Oginska 3:20

Yeah, and with that team, the pride that you derive from being the leader. Do you think that you needed the support from other people to create the third baby? Like you said? Did you have a? Oh, do you mean outside of work, Outside?

Dr Belinda Hopper 3:39

of work at work, one hundred percent. Tell me more about it. Well, I mean, I suppose what I'd say is, first of all, is that, as far as leading in Animalius goes, I am well and truly one of a of a trifecta of leaders, so there's three of us, and there is no way known to man, woman or vet that I would ever have even attempted it on my own. So I very much would not do it without the other, my two co-directors, my other business leaders at Animalius. They are absolutely, we are the tripod that holds it up um the pyramid, and yep, so would would never have even contemplated it on my own. So, yes, absolutely, at work, totally require them. And at home, yeah, absolutely, like if my husband wasn't running the house and the family, then I would not have been able to undertake this massive birthing as you say. Yes, a bit like that, isn't it? Gestation and a birth and then a parenting, yeah, of a new baby. So, yeah, lots and lots of support.

Liv Oginska 4:39

It certainly sounds like it involves a lot of effort, both giving a birth to a child and giving birth to a child.

Dr Belinda Hopper 4:47

I'm glad that you have a village.

Liv Oginska 4:49

Yeah, that is such an amazing thing of those people around you. Yeah, very lucky. And your co-founders. Do you think they are a little bit different than you are, or maybe are you very similar? Is there something you have in common? Or maybe you're very different people? How does it work between?

Dr Belinda Hopper 5:06

the three of you. We have a very similar vision and we are about as dissimilar as you could imagine, which I think is why it works. And so, yes, like I have certain strengths, we all have our strengths that we should play to. And you know, I spent my all of my career up until, you know, five or six years ago, actively avoiding business ownership. I did not.

Creating a Leadership Tripod

Dr Belinda Hopper 5:30

I was very happy to be a leader in the clinical sphere. I was very happy to be a leader in education. You know, as we were discussing before, you know I like to lecture, I'm happy to teach, I'm very happy to take a leadership role in those areas, and I was never interested in business like not even a little bit, and in fact I actively avoided it. I prided myself on being, like, the best employee ever. I was a great employee, but I wanted to go home at night and not worry about all of that other stuff. Business didn't interest me and I certainly did not have any natural skills in that area. So I was very happy not to manage any of that. But then, of course, you know, life changes, you get a bit older. I started to see things that I wanted to do differently and be in a different workplace and I had friends who had passions and interests, who were trying, you know, interested in trying to build something new and different and seeing that things could be done differently and having the energy and the vision to be able to do something different. And then once you get, you know, once you get two of us in a room, then then you've got a business, then you've got a proposition.

Dr Belinda Hopper 6:32

So, like I said, I wasn't um, I wasn't looking for it, until it became apparent that in order for me to continue to thrive and to continue to grow like I'm, I um, I have to be on a, I have to be on a growth curve. You know that learning curve is really important to me. Growth is my, you know, core value, my most important core value on top of everything else. So, you know, once I had been a great employee and a clinical radiologist.

Dr Belinda Hopper 6:58

You know, in that role, for you know, 10, 20 years, you know you get to the top of that curve and you start to think, well, what's my challenge? And I need to be stretched and I want to be growing. And it was a great place to stretch yourself into, because I was coming in at the bottom, like I wasn't even sort of coming halfway up like zero knowledge and understanding and experience, so, but it's been as a result, you know, a fantastic opportunity for exponential growth and learning. But I would only and I would never have tackled it if I didn't have um other. You know my two co-founders, um, as the, the yin to my yang and the. The complementary skill set is just so important.

Liv Oginska 7:36

Yeah and personality wise so different that's so interesting because I suppose you have to work together so closely, you make all the decisions together. Somehow you divide them, so you need to get on well with one another and you think that they are different people. But I suppose those values, the core, is the same and everyone has their superpowers that they apply to make it actually happen. What are the superpowers of your co-founders?

Dr Belinda Hopper 8:05

what are? Oh goodness, okay, well, that's, that's easy, uh, so, um, uh so zoe uh, who was my original? We were the two founding directors. Zoe is has a fabulous strategic mind. She is the fastest thinker and actor I could possibly know. I used to be known as the fast one.

Dr Belinda Hopper 8:24

She is just streets ahead, super quick, very intuitive and quite full on, so always moving and active. She's got a great brain for business, she's got a great brain for strategy and she is passionate about building teams. So she's the one that's going off and she finds new ideas. She's got all these contacts in all sorts of interesting areas and so she brings all these amazing ideas from outside of the industry. You know husbands in governance and ethics, and so you know bringing in non-technical skills training and all this amazing team building training. So she's got a finger in every pie. She's always interested and enthusiastic and is a very good people manager as well. So I learn a lot just from watching how she manages feedback and managing staff, which is fabulous.

Dr Belinda Hopper 9:16

And then Fleur is our spectacular senior internal medicine specialist. So she has this beautiful clinical governance brain, so she's really, really good at managing the hospital side of things. So she does the oh, what does she do? Everything she'll help to manage with clinical decision making. She's really good at bringing along the team for multidisciplinary work. She does all of the. You know hygiene and standards. You know all the standards and protocols. She's really good with all of that stuff and she's also a great you know. Her team, you know, looks up to her most like a maternal sort of mother-like. So she's like a really strong maternal figure in the hospital.

Liv Oginska 10:01

Yeah, she's fabulous as well wow, a powerhouse, three of you together.

Dr Belinda Hopper 10:07

What they are amazing about you if I ask them. Fleur and Zoe, if I don't know depends on the day I'm willing to bet, imagine that they're sitting in a room with us ah, yeah, it's a good question.

Dr Belinda Hopper 10:23

I don't know. Um, I think that no, that's not true, because I've had this conversation with Zoe recently, so she would. I would say that I'm self-aware, that I am probably. I like to get into, I like to get into detail, zoe's big picture, like just a big picture. I'm like, do we need to think about this little detail over here? So I like to think about some details. You know, like, explain this to me, make me understand how this is working, and they would say that, yeah, so I think they would say that I bring a little bit of balance to their drive, not so much breaks, but more just thoughtfulness.

Emotional Challenges of Leadership

Dr Belinda Hopper 10:57

Perhaps, have we considered how this will affect X or Y? So, and then also just bringing in the, not the human factor, but a little bit more of perhaps softening the cushioning the blow instead of, you know, plowing forward. You know push, push, push. You know understanding. Look so um, you know we've done our disc profiles and you know, um, I can't remember what s stands for. I always think of it, as you know, soft and submissive, but anyway, I'm an s and they are both d, as we would like, dominant and um. There's dominant and sorry, I think, dominant influencers. So they're really powerful women, they're really amazing and, you know, nothing get done without them. But I bring in a little bit of that S, that sort of think about, you know, the team and the cohesion and that's going to be disruptive. Or you know how can we be a little bit creative perhaps, or think about things a little bit differently.

Liv Oginska 11:49

Yeah, Do you feel things for people? Do you feel with people? Sometimes can you detect their emotions when they're going through them, especially when they're strong yes, I think that's one of my challenges.

Dr Belinda Hopper 12:02

I think is it, and I struggle to sometimes, um, separate out them and prioritize them, you know. So I can see how strongly you feel and I know how this person feels and I sometimes struggle to work. Well, and I, who? Who do we prioritize here? How do we, how do reconcile that? Yeah, it's one of the things I find really challenging. Dealing with people, dealing, managing staff I mean dealing externally is easy. You know. That's no dramas.

Dr Belinda Hopper 12:24

But dealing with our staff and making sure you know working out how to give them good feedback as well as challenging feedback, you know, getting them to come along, being able to bring people along on the journey I thought would be easier, but it's really, really hard and it's constant. You can't just go yeah, hey, let's go, and everybody's yeah, let's follow. You know it's what's it like. It's a bit like you know they say, being married is a decision every day that you make, and it's a little bit the same with your team. You know, like they, you have to rally them every day and they have to decide every day am I on this team or not? Is this where I want to be going? Is this, um, you know, is this what we're aiming for? I think you have to.

Liv Oginska 13:02

You can't take it for granted, oh sure anything that is so complex, as human nature is, it requires that daily decision, I suppose, because what we're describing here is use that um example of the relationship. That is marriage, where you make the decision every day, but in the leadership it is a relationship with your teammates. With every single one you have a relationship. I don't know if all of them in the world of professionals, if they realize how much relationship they have with their leader, but we all have those relationships and all relationships that are interpersonal are packed with emotions. So you described that those people sometimes might be very passionate about something or they might be in trouble. They might experience very strong emotions. Then you try to facilitate them as a leader, to support them in those emotions, and I suspect tell me if I'm wrong that you would be going through a lot of emotions yourself as well. Am I correct to think that?

Liv Oginska 14:03

yeah, absolutely of course what every everyone what are those three, let's say, emotions that you experience the most as a leader? Obviously, there's such a plethora of those, but if something came to your mind like three of the most dominant ones, what would it be?

Dr Belinda Hopper 14:26

Dominant. Look, I mean I feel a lot of frustration, but that's often with myself as much as with others. You know, trying to understand, I suppose, because I always want to understand and, you know, try to understand, I suppose, because I always want to understand and, you know, try to understand people's motivations and how to get the most out of people. So if I'm struggling with that, I will feel frustrated and there's no doubt that I doubt a lot. You know I have my own doubts, but gosh, what else. I mean I worry for them.

Dr Belinda Hopper 14:58

You know, when you see there's people that are struggling, you know, one thing I've learned is that there is you know what, have you got 60 odd 65 staff and at any one time there'll be two or three or four members of our team going through enormous personal crises and being the keeper of that knowledge. Obviously it's, it's personal. You know it's not like something necessarily broadcast to the whole crew. Not every, not every member of the team's going to know what's going on for every member of the person, but we know what's going on pretty much for every member of our team. And so just knowing all the time that that there are so many of your team that are struggling or hurting or, you know, sick, or dealing with illness in the family or crises of varying degrees, like it's just extraordinary.

Dr Belinda Hopper 15:46

I used to sort of think, oh, you know one at a time or you might see one every now and then, but you know it is actually constant. So, yeah, so you obviously take that on board, you worry for them, you're trying to look out for them and make sure that you know they can be protected and supported as much as they can. So that feeling of I suppose it is maternal, that feeling of wanting to nurture your team, you feel that all the time, all the time, yeah.

Liv Oginska 16:12

So we've got frustration, we've got that worry for the team. Anything for you, anything positive. It doesn't have to be. We love honesty in humans.

Dr Belinda Hopper 16:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, look, as a leader, I suppose I feel enormous pride as well every time I see them. Really, that's definitely an emotion that I would feel of for them. Um, beautiful love, just love that. You, you know I love what they do and I love what they. I love that. You know, in the early days, you know you had a hand in everything and you were sort of like crafting it and nurturing it, and now you sort of created this thing that has its life of its own, and so when you see things blossom that you had no hand in but came about because of the environment that you created and the team that you sort of encouraged into a certain direction to see that come to fruition, it's really satisfying.

Building a Sanctuary for the Profession

Liv Oginska 17:09

Yeah, I love that, yeah so lots of love for them there's lots of love and what you said about seeing other people and they grow. They grow on the foundation that you build, that ground. You planted the seeds, you enable them, you create that environment in which they go in a certain direction. So that's that indirect, invisible impact that leaders still have. It's not only the decision that we make in that moment we tell someone to do or not to do something, but it's everything else around and it can be scary when I imagine that, being a leader to 60 plus people and they are all affected by your decisions every day that I get overwhelmed immediately.

Dr Belinda Hopper 17:52

I try not to think about it like that, liv.

Liv Oginska 17:55

Oh, no damn it. I put a really bad spin on it, but it's also the beauty of it, well you know you've got to give them empathy, don't you?

Liv Oginska 18:04

Yeah, and their success and their growth and their joys and their, oh, everything that the life brings um. I had that beautiful privilege of meeting your team and I can see that those people, they get on so well with one another, they create that community. So the love that you feel for them it's a hundred percent multiplied and it's not just to put it in some rainbowy, beautiful. You know fluffy words, but it is actually true. And I think the life is about spreading that love between one another, because what's the point of spreading hatred and spreading negativity and just all that poop between people? I don't think it makes sense. Do you feel that love from the team towards you? That's a different question, different angle.

Dr Belinda Hopper 18:52

Oh, that's a good question, not always, to be honest. I mean, I think that if you, I suppose, if you, I mean, we're Australian, we're all very, you know, laid back and we don't I don't think anybody's particularly demonstrative, so which is absolutely fine. I think that when we talk to our team, we know how much they love working there and I know that they're grateful for that. And some people are very effusive and others are very withdrawn and a lot more quiet about it, but I suppose that's okay. I mean, you don't do it to be patted on the back every day.

Dr Belinda Hopper 19:30

I know that they're grateful and I know that they're happy yeah and every now and then you get a little, a little thanks for somebody, and that's great. You know, this is the best place ever. We've got some gorgeous people that have just started with us, that have come from a place where they were really unhappy, and so it's just gorgeous to see their smiles. I'm like, thank you so much. We love it here. We're like, oh, my goodness, so pleased.

Dr Belinda Hopper 19:51

Yeah, so it's lovely to see people that, um, I always think they look a little bit hens, you know, that have sort of been put into the free range and they're like, oh, can I scratch, can I flap my wings? Like, yeah, go for it. Fantastic, bring it on. You know, flap a bit harder, let's hear your ideas. So it's nice to see them blossom, sort of come back to life. If they've come from an experience, or some of them have come to us from the industry thinking you know, I'm going to give up on this industry, I can't cope anymore. You know, we've got actually a lot of our staff have come to us like that.

Dr Belinda Hopper 20:19

You know that's the last ditch effort of deciding whether or not they'll even stay in the industry, and so to see them stay and thrive and say, okay, finally I've found a place where I feel like I can breathe and I'm seen and I'm heard. Then that's, that's gold for me. That's gold for me. That's all I need.

Liv Oginska 20:35

That's awesome. You're a bit of like a sanctuary for the injured.

Dr Belinda Hopper 20:41

Well, they're highly functional. But, yeah, sometimes, yeah, it does feel a little bit like that. But I mean, you know, it's become a little bit like that out there in the industry, hasn't it? There's some I'm not saying there aren't amazing places doing an amazing job, but I feel, you know well, certainly that's our experience, because we've got these people knocking on our door. You know, we do see a lot of people coming saying, you know, they haven't managed to find a place where they really felt like they could breathe, and that's a shame. It's tough.

Dr Belinda Hopper 21:07

So one of our missions is to transform the profession, you know, to try to find a way forward so that we can create sustainable workplaces where people aren't leaving the industry, where people do feel like they can have agency and emotional security as well as financial security and a career path. So you know, one of those things is very much our passion is how can we help train staff? That's why we've run a non-technical skills training course, so we teach. You know, it's all very well to say be a better team player, but how? Like how? Yeah, who knows how to be a team player? Right? Like where do you learn that? So, um, and if you need to work on it. Like what do you do? You know you can't go. There's no team boot camp. Like what do you? It's a, it's a really intense, like you know, when it's not working, yes, how do you make it? And that's really why.

Dr Belinda Hopper 21:56

That's why we started the business. Right, because we'd come from a place where we had this great workplace culture. It was all gorgeous, it was fantastic, like everybody's happy, it was really wonderful. And then it went sour and and you start to think, okay, so why, what made it good? And then what made it turn? And then what do you do to embed that good so that it stays good? Like, how do you know what elements you need to work on? And you can't compromise in order to make it stay good? Right, because we've all been in a place where it's been fabulous. But often it's because people are really loyal to one person. You know all the amazing workplaces I talk to people oh, we just had such a great time at x or y practice, and you know it's because of this one amazing leader which is lovely, and they're really loyal to that one practitioner who does this fantastic job of creating this beautiful team. What happens when they go?

Embedding Culture and Skills Training

Dr Belinda Hopper 22:47

Yeah, you know, or when those two amazing people are fantastic and then one person wants to retire and one person doesn't, or you know, like what happens when it changes, um, or you know they have to sell the practice, so then somebody else comes in. So then what? How do you does it all fall apart and everybody leaves because it's so miserable and they have to start again, or so this is what we're trying to work on. It's like, well, what? What do you embed in the business? How do you work out what elements you need to do to create that beautiful culture that can go, that I want it to lie. I don't want to be there forever. I'm going to be, I'm stepping that way and I want it to continue right without me, without those key people, like it should, it should sustain itself without us because of what we've set up, what we've taught and what the people coming into the business know and what they learn while they're there. So there's this whole training program now that we run for that we offer for the staff and on our learning and education site on non-technical skills, like the things like being able to have situational awareness and being able to read a room and how to to deal with assertiveness, how to be assertive so you can speak your mind in a, in a conversation and not be overlooked or aggressive. You know how to give and take feedback all these things that actually are tangible skills. You can learn to be a better team player and then we've got a better team.

Dr Belinda Hopper 24:03

And then if you then embed that into a business where you also have all of your decisions based on the values that the business has decided they're going to stick to, so then everybody has a clear mental model. We know exactly how we we can address behaviours that we don't like by saying it is because it doesn't align with our five behaviours. If it doesn't align with that, then that is why this is a problem. It can be really clear this is how you need to behave. These are the skills you need to learn. We can do an assessment and say you're doing great here. You're doing great here, you need to work on this area. There's a module, module. Go off and have a little look at that and then come back so, um, yeah, so being able to embed those skills into the business and then, hopefully, then you know we're giving, we're doing research and we're giving lectures zoe, and our clinical manager jen davis, who's an anesthetist. She's fabulous. She's championing all the non-technical skills training as well, because anesthetists are amazing at that.

Liv Oginska 24:57

So she's giving.

Dr Belinda Hopper 24:58

They gave an abstract. She gave an abstract on our work in safety culture at the inaugural Human Factors course at Monash Uni when I was in Tasmania last month, so just a few weeks ago. You know a big medical conference.

Dr Belinda Hopper 25:13

So, anna Marlis was there presenting and um and zoe's been presenting hopefully they'll present at science week as well on our research and our work. So we're trying to spread the word and and get the ball rolling on. You know there's a lot of people that are interested in it and doing it around the world we just have to get it right the way down to the grassroots so that all of the profession can benefit absolutely, and there's so many things that you do.

Liv Oginska 25:35

It blows my mind because I suppose, doing the clinical work, the leadership work, but then also research in there, I feel like, yes, we do need those publications, we need to have it announced to the world that there is a better way to do things, but also we need a bit of a guidance and I love that you guys are trailblazers and you show us how to do it, and it really truly amazes me and I think you can see definitely that there are scientists behind it, because all of you are scientists?

Dr Belinda Hopper 26:10

yes, we are, there's a plan there's a hypothesis, yeah, yeah, yeah, we gotta test it. Yes, yep we fail fast and learn.

Dr Belinda Hopper 26:19

Yeah, we like to yep exactly well, and this is the thing. It's an interesting area, though, because it's getting into social science, which is really not our thing. So, understanding and trying to read the literature, oh my goodness, it nearly kills me. The psychology literature just about kills me. Um, I don't understand a word they say half the time, but it's's, I mean it's fascinating, it's this whole other science, but I mean it's so amazing that you can measure it right. I mean, who knew you can measure the number of times a nurse is interrupted? I mean it's hard work, but it's a lot as well. The answer is a lot. That's why it makes it so difficult right to do your job. But yeah, so yeah, it's exciting stuff. And look and I can't take any credit for doing most of that work Zoe and Jen have done most of that legwork, or nearly all of the legwork doing all of that. But yeah, fleur and I are fantastic champions of it.

Liv Oginska 27:06

Excellent, and having people who want to do it, who have the energy, who have even their job allows them to focus on that. Yes, you have to have a structure that will allow this person to devote their time to doing those things, am I?

Dr Belinda Hopper 27:22

correct to think they're like this. It takes an enormous amount of time, yeah, absolutely Well, and that's one of the big arguments against it. You know, when we talk about this to practitioners and say, you know, this is what it takes, and you know, the single vet practitioners just throw up their hands and say, well, when am I going to do that? Like, how do I have time to do that? Like it's all very well for you, but we can't do that, and I get it, it's really tough. But it is also absolutely true that culture takes time and it takes money, because, of course, time is money, right? So you know, if every director has a day off clinics a week to work on this stuff of money, right, that's not a three days of no income and three days of salary with no income. So you know, but this is the investment, I suppose. So that's our investment here. Look, we're lucky that we can. But I also think that, well, it's a bit like saying we don't have time to address climate change, do we? It's like, well, except that we kind of have to, except that we kind of have to, yeah, that's it.

Dr Belinda Hopper 28:25

Um, really, and the what I find fascinating is that, you know, in the veterinary industry because we have no, we have no exposure to business and any of the business literature and any of the business zeitgeist, and so it wasn't until we crossed over into that and I, you know so, and I went to this business conference. It was when we first had this idea and we went here Pat Lencionii speak, who's the man whose ideas around building teams and culture is how we basically started our whole journey. He's amazing. I can't recommend him highly enough. But we went to this conference, which is at the Convention Centre in Brooklyn, melbourne, massive space, like thousands of business coaches in a room, listening to these incredible business leaders talking about building teams and talking about culture and talking about learning curves and how to keep your great players going and how to stretch your employees and how to maintain engagement and all of the stuff that the veterinary industry is struggling with.

Dr Belinda Hopper 29:19

But it's just like normal. Just like normal. And they and they sell it by saying well, you know, you invest in this because you invest in your people, because then you make the money back, because it's all business right, they're all off things or management consultants or whatever they are, and it's kind of a dirty word in the veterinary industry. But it's, it's the same and you know we, we, I always struggle. I always feel a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit dirty reading these books and things, because you want to invest, you want to apply these principles. But I don't want to do it so that I can beat my competition, because I don't have any competition.

Dr Belinda Hopper 29:52

I only have colleagues. I want my colleagues to do really well. I want all of my other businesses around me to do super well so that we can all go home at night and know that every pet in Perth gets a fantastic, you know care and we can sleep as well. Right, because I don't want to be able. I don't want to be the only place that can do a good job. That would be a disaster for pets. So we don't want to succeed as a business because we want to be better than everybody else. We just want to make sure that everybody can get this great idea.

Learning from Leadership Mistakes

Dr Belinda Hopper 30:18

But we still need to be able to invest in these same principles. It's the same principles because it means your team are happier, they work better, they can do more work. You can afford, then, hopefully, to I don't know charge more or see more patients or whatever it is that you need to do, or just get through the same amount of work in a smaller amount of time so that everybody can either a go home earlier or on time, or get paid more, or whatever it is that they have decided or you and your team have decided is your metric for what is happy, you know. Do you want to be flexible? Do you want to take home more money, whatever it is like? Do you do, you, do, you, do you? But the way to be able to achieve that as well as have people that just want to be there and don't have a churn of staff all the time or just attrition, attrition, attrition is to invest time in this, so you kind of have to front load your business and front load your ideas of.

Dr Belinda Hopper 31:09

I need to understand that this requires me to invest time and money in it and if that means, then, that you know your salaries are a bit lower for a while. Well, that's okay, and then people eventually I'm happy to say eventually work out that that's the idea.

Liv Oginska 31:22

Right, you want to be, you want to be, you want the whole package not necessarily just one part of the package and such a process and a lot of elements need to be present, and I suppose it's a bit like a mind field that you can make a lot of mistakes on your. Yeah, let's talk about mistakes because in human savvy, we talk openly about the things that sometimes don't work well, and your vision and everything that you do. It is so amazing and I'm sure everyone who's listening to this they are thinking like oh my god, I love her. I want this woman to just just kind of take me. I would work with her and gosh and I would love to work with her. We need to talk about that. But were there any mistakes? Is there something that you would like to maybe share? That was a big lesson for you and what was the lesson in that mistake?

Dr Belinda Hopper 32:16

Okay, oh look, there's so many mistakes and what I'm happy to say is that, as far as the hospital goes, we have an adverse event register. So we record all of our mistakes and investigate them all very closely using a human factors lens, which is great. So I mean, obviously, in the clinic, it's one thing, but as a leader, you know, leading the business yeah, look, there've been lots of. Well, one of our key behaviours is fail fast and learn one of our values and behaviours, which means that we're not afraid to try something new, like give it a go and try it, but don't just set and forget. You give it a go, then you, as you said, like we're scientists, and you test it. Did it go? We assess it, we reflect, we reflect, we reflect all the time. We check it. You know, a week, two weeks, six weeks, however long it takes, is it working? If it's not, then fail fast, like, okay, stop done, we're done, okay, we'll move on, or learn from that and iterate, iterate, iterate. So you know, can I improve, can we modify, or was that just a? You know, seemed like a great idea at the time. It turned out to be bad. So we do a lot of things like that. And so we always tell our staff like, if you don't like change, you're not going to like it here, if you can't cope with us trying to change things up.

Dr Belinda Hopper 33:23

A bit like we tried some rosters, which were a catastrophe, we tried to put. We opened in COVID so we had a whole. We couldn't get new staff in from outside, so we had to take a lot of general practice nurses and try to put them into specialist roles. You know, go a charge nurse, you're doing great. You know you used to do surgery a lot in your general practice. Can you just be a specialist charge nurse? And we're like you're fine, you're fine, you're doing great. And you know, the poor girl just about, you know broke.

Dr Belinda Hopper 33:47

And so I think pushing people into areas that they weren't ready was a big mistake. We felt that I think we we completely underestimated the amount of time and energy that should go into onboarding, onboarding and I'm reading again in other business areas where they talk about a six-month onboarding process. I'm like, oh my God, you know we'd be happy if they did two buddy shifts. And then I was like okay, off you go. So in that early days, big mistake, big mistake. And now we have a much more ordered process. It's much more structured. It's got a much more ordered process. It's much more structured. It's got a lot more feedback, it's got more time. But again, you know that costs a lot of money as well, doesn't it? So I mean it can be really challenging for business. But yeah, so underestimating the amount of time that it takes somebody to come to terms with a new role was a really big one.

Dr Belinda Hopper 34:41

And then one of my personals I had this great well was. It seemed like such a great idea. So I thought we'd have nurse education shifts. So one of our another one of our values is personal growth and professional development. So we're really positive on education and we're also really passionate about trying to improve education for nurses, career paths for nurses. It's such a difficult career, I think, for vet nurses. Often they get stuck in a role and then there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, and so we spend a lot of time trying to find ways in which we can stretch our nurses within our organisation. We're really lucky because we've got all these different specialties. They can get into lots of anaesthesia, you know. Are you interested in dentistry? Fine, let's go this far so we can stretch into other areas if they're interested. But I thought it would be great if we could roster them onto an education shift Every six months, say, any nurse on probation would get a whole shift just dedicated to her or him being able to go off and learn something or study.

Dr Belinda Hopper 35:30

And you're like, if you want to go and do a day at WW Wildlife, fantastic. Or if you want to spend the day learning about, I don't know, fluid pumps or anesthesia or whatever it is you want to do, and so great idea, right, that sounds gold, Fantastic. So, yeah, it seems like it's a couldn't fail, couldn't, but it did. Couldn't fail, yeah, it did, though it did. You know, and this is the thing, right, you just don't know until you try. So we gave it a try, we went okay, we'll that hard in the end, because we'd have people go away on holidays, so they had, you know, nurses with nothing to do.

Dr Belinda Hopper 36:06

But you know, I what I underestimated was that, you know, all the nurses would be like me. You know, I'm a lifelong learner. I've been studying and learning and studying and learning 12 hours a day for 30 years. Right, like pretty much. And so what I sort of didn't realize, of course, is that nurses like to learn differently. They don't it't come. It's not that it doesn't come naturally, but that kind of sort of sitting down to a lecture or structuring your own time to learn.

Dr Belinda Hopper 36:27

We ask them to write a reflection on it. You know, what did you learn or what sort of things were useful out of this particular day? And so we had a nurse coach that would have to sit down with them and go through all the stuff and work out where they might like to do stuff and what they might like to do, and then find all the resources and show them where they all are. You know we had a whole bunch of stuff on our sharepoint site and stuff. But you know, finding that stuff was hard for them.

Dr Belinda Hopper 36:49

They they struck a lot of them, not all of them, of course. You know some of them thought it was fantastic, but a large proportion of them really struggled with it and then they couldn't cope with a long day. We're like eight hours. I'm really tired, I'm bored, I don't want to do this. It's basically just not the way they like to learn.

Dr Belinda Hopper 37:03

And then it just became really challenging because if you didn't have time to sit down and coach them, then they didn't want to do it and they didn't get so much out of it. So then we're just losing a nurse for a shift. So we've actually three or four of them through the um, some anesthetic, um monitoring training courses that the college runs. So you know, if we've got somebody who says I'd like to do this, or we say, hey, you know, you're doing great, do you want to expand into this direction? Then we just basically fund them on an individual basis for things that they want to do. If somebody expresses interest in something, then we help them to do that, rather than sort of enforcing this eight hours or six months to sit down and do stuff. So that's working better now. But yeah, there's one of my fails, which seemed like a great idea at the time.

Liv Oginska 38:00

It amazes me that so often our intention really doesn't equal our impact and we might have the best intention, correct? I know, I know it's got to be amazing and the world.

Dr Belinda Hopper 38:11

It's just the world has I just. It never fails to amaze me how many different ways there are for human beings to think and feel and thrive. You know, and what you think is going to be good for somebody is not frequently nothing like what they want.

Dr Belinda Hopper 38:29

So, learning to listen, a lot more, ask be curious asking more, being a bit more curious, learning to ask not necessarily thinking, you know avoiding that maternal instinct of you. Know I can tell you what you need, I can tell you what's best for you. You know, clearly that's a very Gen X thing as well. We're terribly Gen X Like I know what's best in my day. So we had to let all that go and just go. You know, tell me, tell me more about what it is that you need and see if we can help you with that.

Self-Awareness and Leadership Growth

Liv Oginska 39:02

It goes back to what you said about seeing the world as a very complex, unique and every person being different, and maybe different than we are the way we are. I'm just thinking because this is such a good advice to any leader out there that if you want to be a fantastic leader, you will never make everyone happy, but what you can do and it is very much within your power is to assume that you will. You won't know until you ask yeah, that's great very true.

Liv Oginska 39:38

Is there any other advice that comes to your mind for a leader who would like to be emotionally intelligent, who would like to nurture that autonomy, the growth of the people around them, or just simply making them feel safe, psychologically safe? What would you advise them to do?

Dr Belinda Hopper 39:57

um become as self-aware as you can.

Liv Oginska 40:02

I love it. Oh, we love it in humans. Oh, my goodness, you speak my language. Tell, tell us more. What does it mean to you? Well, I mean.

Dr Belinda Hopper 40:10

I think that for them to feel safe, they need to feel seen and they need to feel that they need to understand you. They need to see you and feel seen right. So I mean it's okay to have you. They need to see you and feel seen right. So I mean it's okay to have you know emotional volatility, but if they know why and they know how and they know what's going to happen afterwards, then and they can trust that you have the self-awareness to be able to say it's not my great day today, I'm not fabulous.

Dr Belinda Hopper 40:38

I mean, this is obviously. This is you know we're leaders that work with our team, right? We're not. You know, we're also clinically in the team. We're in the team as well as leaders. So it can be difficult sometimes to separate out those hats and I think we always forget. We think of ourselves as you know. Just another radiologist on the team, like I used to be. You forget that they see you differently when you're also the boss, like I used to be you forget that they see you differently when you're also the boss.

Dr Belinda Hopper 41:01

They do so remembering that anything that you have to say or do will have a different impact just because of the extra hat that you wear, even if it's got nothing to do with what's actually happening at the time. So being self-aware which means that you can control your own emotions, understand your own reactions, understand the things that are going to trigger you so that you can mitigate them as much as possible, so that they can feel like you are not a loose cannon, I think is hugely important for them, as a work in progress, I might add.

Dr Belinda Hopper 41:34

It's a great goal. It's a work in progress, as my team will tell you, I'm sure.

Liv Oginska 41:39

I was going to ask you have you ever lost it?

Dr Belinda Hopper 41:43

Belinda have you ever lost it? No, no, I haven't. I don't not in the team, not with the team At home about it. Yes, absolutely yes, yes. Do I go home and have a crack? Yes, no, I haven't. But I have handled situations badly, though there's no doubt I have not gone in with a degree of curiosity that would have helped. Again, you know, when you just think I just need to get from A to B as quickly as possible, I just don't need this to happen again. Let's just move on.

Dr Belinda Hopper 42:14

You know and you know not understanding the degree of you know when that has more emotional impact than the original problem and you think, oh God, yeah, big mistake. But you know, you live and learn.

Liv Oginska 42:28

As long as you learn, it's fine yeah.

Liv Oginska 42:30

I can see that self-awareness in you and I absolutely adore that and I would totally agree with you that it really starts with knowing how you are perceived by the world and trying to get as much control as you can over how you show up to everyone around you, because that is literally what we can do. We can't control others, we can only control ourselves also, to a degree. Um, I really adore your vulnerability in here. I really want to appreciate that, because it's not easy to say you know, I suck at this.

Liv Oginska 43:02

Sometimes I need to control myself, sometimes I need to yell into the pillow, I need to go back home, our poor families, our poor partners, by the way, they have saints, those people, but knowing that, okay, that is part of my humanity and is in my hands to learn as much as I can about controlling and about showing up the way I would like to be seen and perceived. I'm sure your team appreciates every piece of your humanity, those beautiful parts and those less beautiful parts that we all have, and I hope that they can appreciate you vocally and that you will hear a lot of it, because I wanted to challenge you. You said at one point that this is not why we do it. We don't do it to get the pat on the back on the back, but I would argue that it's kind of what we all need, so maybe we don't actively think about it look, it's no doubt it's lovely yeah it is, it is, it is lovely and you're right.

Dr Belinda Hopper 44:06

You're absolutely right, yeah, you do need recognition yeah, and it can be difficult because of course, I mean, it's a bit like it's so like kids, you know, you sort of throw, you take the kids to the zoo and you take them to the park and you take them to the museum and you know five o'clock. I say I'm bored. I well, I did do an awful lot for you today, but I understand how you don't like dinner. I'll say, oh, I don't like dinner. I'm like, oh, seriously, and sometimes you know again, you know, when you're a worker and you've I didn't understand this until I became a boss, right, you know, as an employee, you know I can look back now and I think, oh, there's so many times when I could have shown recognition to my employers and it didn't occur to me too, like it just didn't. So I get that it doesn't occur to them. I totally get that because I have been that person. So I don't expect it when it comes. It's lovely, it is lovely. But I think, and I think that understanding business, understanding employment and being an employer is incredibly helpful to being a good employee and I think that's something really, really important that all people should investigate.

Dr Belinda Hopper 45:16

You know, I wasn't interested, I didn't, and now I do, and I wish I had known more about it as an employee, because I just I think it means you understand, you understand the system better, you understand the processes and I think you can be a better employee when you understand what's going on from an employment perspective. So, but I also totally get that. You know I was a great employee and I also very rarely showed specific, specific, you know recognition to my bosses, occasionally, of course, but yeah, it wasn't a regular thing. It wasn't like I went to work thinking, oh, thank goodness, you know, thanks, thank you so much for giving me a job. It was like I'm doing a great job as an employee, don't you? You want the recognition, don't you? And I, you know, good, good job, you're doing a great, great job.

Recognition and Final Reflections

Liv Oginska 46:03

We're so glad you work for us. Yeah, so a balance is good. 100 okay. I think it's a fantastic place to to finish for us, because I can see how much you do for your team and I really wish to you to be truly appreciated and I wish to your team to always have the best version of you and of Zoe and Fleur, to for all of us to do our very best to support one another and to not assume and to be very curious and truly, truly investigate something that might seem difficult and painful to us before we make our decisions, for all of us to see that deep humanity in one another and I know that you see that in your team and I'm hoping that they see that in you. And thank you so much for being here today and sharing that with me and with everyone listening and for being so human savvy. Thank you so much, belinda.

Dr Belinda Hopper 46:54

It's a pleasure, Liv. Thanks so much.