Vision, Mission, and Values: The Cornerstones of Veterinary and Animal Health Organisations
In every organisation, having clear vision, mission, and values is fundamental to long-term success. In veterinary and animal health organisations, where patient care, ethics, and trust are paramount, these guiding principles take on even greater importance. Whether you’re a single site veterinary clinic, a large group, or part of the wider animal health supply chain, aligning your team around a common purpose can drive growth, enhance your organisational culture, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.
This article explores the importance of vision, mission, and values in the veterinary industry, with examples of how leading animal health companies use these concepts to achieve success along with actionable tips to truly embed these principles in your organisation for alignment and long-term success.
1. Vision: The Ultimate Goal
A vision statement defines an organisation’s long-term aspiration, serving as the guiding compass for achieving its ultimate goals. In the veterinary industry, a well-crafted vision does more than inspire—it drives innovation, differentiates you from competitors, and aligns teams to deliver superior animal care outcomes in an increasingly competitive market. Done well, your vision really is your competitive advantage. A vision can be anything from leadership in animal care to innovations in veterinary medicine. The key is that it has to be relevant, achievable, and authentic.
Why Vision is Important:
- Inspires and motivates teams: A clear vision gives your team something bigger to work towards, a common goal, especially important in the demanding and high-stress environment of the veterinary profession.
- Drives strategic decision-making: With a vision in place, leadership can align decisions and resource allocation with long-term goals and the organisation’s overall purpose. In this vein it will also provide accountability for those responsible for the decision making.
- Attracts talent and clients: People want to work for, and clients want to engage with, organisations that have a purpose beyond profit. A vision for animal welfare and excellence in care is always going to paramount for client trust in this environment.
Example:
Mars Petcare’s Vision is “A Better World for Pets.” This clear, simple statement is set to guide their entire approach, from product innovation to advocacy for animal welfare, making it a benchmark in the global pet care industry. This statement encapsulates Mars’ broad and ambitious goal of improving the lives of pets around the globe. It is simple, memorable, and easy to communicate across their global operations. “A Better World for Pets” speaks directly to their mission of enhancing the health, happiness, and well-being of pets, no matter where they are. This makes it accessible not only to employees but also to customers, partners, and stakeholders in the veterinary and pet care industries.
2. Mission: The Path to the Vision
While the vision defines the ‘what’, the mission statement explains the ‘how’. How an organisation will achieve its vision. This is why the vision set has to be achievable in the long term. In veterinary businesses, the mission drives day-to-day actions, ensures consistency in care, and aligns every decision with the organisation’s larger goals. A strong mission is critical for guiding operations and ensuring that your team delivers quality care and customer service every time. To be successful, it cannot be generic or ethereal. It needs to be clear, unequivocal, and rooted in reality.
Why Mission is Important:
- Provides focus and direction: A clear mission ensures that everyone in the organisation, from leadership to staff, understands what needs to be done day-to-day to move toward the vision.
- Guides decision-making: The mission provides a framework for decision-making, ensuring that every choice aligns with the organisation’s core purpose. This again promoting accountability.
- Builds trust with clients: A mission grounded in animal care and client service reinforces trust, helping clients feel confident that your team is dedicated to the welfare of their pets.
Example:
An example of a strong mission in the veterinary sector is VetCor’s mission statement: “To support and enable the practices we partner with to deliver the highest quality care to their patients while preserving the unique culture and individuality of each hospital.” This statement is clear and specific about VetCor’s purpose and ensures that the company’s objectives are easily understood by both employees and clients, and it gives the organisation a focused direction. By positioning themselves as a supportive partner, VetCor emphasises collaboration with the clinics they work with, facilitating success rather than exerting control. The mission highlights their commitment to preserving the “unique culture and individuality” of each practice—an important message in an era where many clinics fear losing their identity in corporate consolidation. A focus on quality care aligns the company’s operations with the fundamental goals of the veterinary profession, essential for building trust with veterinary teams and clients alike.
3. Values: The Ethical Foundation
Values define the ethical framework and behaviours that guide how veterinary practices and animal health organisations operate. In an industry where compassion, trust, and responsibility are crucial, strong values set the tone for client relationships and high-quality animal care. Again, values cannot be generic, but truly represent what your organisation holds at its core. What makes your team unique? What drives your daily actions? And abiding by what values will guide your mission and help you achieve your vision?
Why Values are Important:
- Builds trust with clients: Clear values create transparency, reassuring clients that their pets are cared for by an organisation driven by ethical principles.
- Shapes organisational culture: Values lay the foundation for a positive workplace culture, promoting teamwork, integrity, and accountability. When employees share and live by the same values, they work more cohesively and with a stronger sense of purpose.
- Ensures consistency in care: Values help standardise care and service by ensuring all team members understand the organisation’s standards, driving the same level of quality and compassion to be delivered across the board.
Example:
An example of well-defined values can be seen in Elanco Animal Health’s values; “Integrity, Excellence, and Respect.” These values provide a strong ethical framework for Elanco, a company focused on developing products that improve animal health and welfare. By prioritising ‘integrity’, Elanco emphasises ethical practices in all areas of business, which is essential for building trust with veterinarians, farmers, and pet owners. The use of ‘excellence’ demonstrates a commitment to high standards in both product development and service delivery. Finally, ‘respect’ highlights the importance they place on building positive relationships, whether with clients, partners, or employees. These values provide a solid foundation for Elanco’s operations and will help shape a consistent, trustworthy brand in the animal health industry.
The Importance of Vision, Mission, and Values in Veterinary Organisations
In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of veterinary practices and animal health businesses, maintaining focus on long-term goals is essential for sustainable growth and success. Having clearly defined vision, mission, and values provides a strategic framework that not only drives decision-making but also unites teams under a shared purpose. These guiding principles set the tone for your organisational culture, build client trust, and shape the way the industry delivers care.
Defining your vision, mission and values is only half the story. Alignment and embedment are crucial for creating a unified and motivated team. These guiding principles must not only be understood but fully integrated into the fabric of daily operations and decision-making processes. Every single person in the organisation needs to know what they are contributing to and what that looks like on a daily basis.
How to Align Your Team Around Vision, Mission, and Values
1. Start with Leadership
Embedding these guiding principles starts at the top. If your leaders embody them in their actions, decision-making, and interactions, it sets the tone for your entire team. Leadership should consistently demonstrate these principles when developing strategy, making key decisions, and managing daily operations.
Actionable tip: Incorporate these principles into leadership training and decision-making processes. Your leaders should regularly reference them during meetings, when setting goals, and when aligning team objectives with the broader strategy.
2. Hire for Cultural and Strategic Fit
The hiring process is a crucial opportunity to embed organisational principles. Look for candidates who align not only with your clinical needs but also with the purpose and values that define your practice. Candidates who resonate with the long-term mission will be more invested in your organisation’s success.
Actionable tip: During interviews, ask candidates how they’ve demonstrated values such as compassion, teamwork, or transparency, and how they’ve contributed to organisational goals in previous roles.
3. Incorporate Them into Training
From onboarding to ongoing professional development, your training should reinforce how these principles are applied in everyday work. New hires should understand not just what they are, but how they influence specific behaviours and decisions within your organisation.
Actionable tip: Use real-world scenarios during training sessions to show how these guiding principles drive patient care, client service, and team collaboration.
4. Celebrate Them in Action
Recognising and rewarding behaviours that reflect your organisation’s mission and values is an effective way to reinforce their importance. Publicly acknowledging employees who embody these principles encourages others to follow suit, building a culture of alignment.
Actionable tip: Set up a recognition program where employees nominate each other for demonstrating key behaviours that support the organisation’s goals.
5. Embed Them in Everyday Decisions
For these principles to be truly effective, they need to be reflected in your daily workflows. Whether it’s patient care, client interactions, or operational decisions, they should steer how your team operates and align with long-term goals.
Actionable tip: Encourage your employees to reflect on how their actions support the broader organisational mission in meetings or during performance reviews. Link their contributions to strategic outcomes to make your mission tangible.
6. Measure Progress and Adapt
Regular assessment is essential to ensure your guiding principles remain relevant and impactful. Use feedback loops, surveys, and performance reviews to measure how well the team is aligned and whether any adjustments are necessary.
Actionable tip: Periodically survey your employees or hold one-on-one sessions to gather feedback on how aligned they feel with your core principles. This ensures continuous improvement and relevance as the organisation evolves.
By genuinely uniting your organisation around these principles, from top to bottom, veterinary practices and businesses can create a cohesive, motivated team, build lasting trust with clients, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. In a competitive market, organisations with clear, purpose-driven strategies are truly better positioned to adapt, innovate, and grow while maintaining their core identity.
The Value of External Perspective and Expertise
Defining, aligning, and embedding your vision, mission, and values is often a complex process. While leadership may have a clear idea of the desired direction, it can be challenging to ensure these principles resonate across all levels of your organisation. This is where external expertise and perspective can provide you with significant value.
An objective, external viewpoint offers you clarity and can help you shape your organisation’s vision, mission, and values in a way that reflects the true needs and culture of your business. By involving your team members at all levels in the process, external consultants can gather insights and feedback that ensure these principles are not only relevant but also meaningful to everyone involved. This approach creates a sense of ownership among your team, making it more likely that these principles will be embraced and lived throughout your organisation.
Moreover, external expertise can be invaluable in the critical step of aligning your senior leadership team. When leadership is unified around a clear and consistent message, the entire organisation benefits from a stronger, more cohesive direction. Consultants can help guide this alignment, ensuring that your leadership team is on the same page and able to communicate your vision, mission, and values effectively.
Finally, the embedment of these principles is key to their long-term success. External consultants bring experience in guiding organisations through the practical steps needed to integrate vision, mission, and values into daily operations, helping your teams not just understand them but live by them. This ongoing support helps to ensure that the principles are truly embedded in your culture, driving both alignment and accountability across your entire organisation.
If you’d like to learn more about how our consultants can help your organisation define its future, please reach out to connect@intrinsiaconsulting.com for a confidential chat.
