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A new future for Meadowbrook Veterinary Practice
Andrew Adler • 22 August 2024
A little over a year ago, founding vet and director Alex Reynolds discussed his forthcoming
retirement with his fellow founding partner Daniel Phillips and their co-director Emma
Lawson. This was not the first time they’d discussed retirement; it was mentioned four years
before when Emma became part of the director team. But as the company anniversary of 25
years of trading drew near, Alex was ready to hang up his stethoscope and wellies.
Remaining as an independent practice was an essential goal for Alex as he passed over the
reins, but also for Daniel and Emma, who were keen to keep Meadowbrook operating in
much the same way while maintaining its growth trajectory. But also, crucially, no one was
keen to ‘sell out’ and become part of the corporate machine.
In Alex's own words… “Over the 25 years since we founded Meadowbrook Veterinary
Practice, we have enjoyed the freedom of making the business our own and allowed
ourselves and our employees to follow their interests and have a go at developing the
business in new and exciting areas, such as farm animal mastitis diagnostics, and now
other diversification projects. This has allowed us to grow. We now employ ten vets and
have become a business that is five times bigger than when we started.”
“Being an independent business has always been at the core of what we are, and when it
came to my retirement, I was determined that Meadowbrook Veterinary Practice should
continue to be so.”
Four years previously, the director team had started using the services of Paul Lencioni of
Apex Advisory Ltd. Paul had been working with the Director team to create the space and
time where they worked on their business rather than in their business. Meetings were
generally held every quarter, with Paul creating the agenda after speaking to the directors
about what was on their minds. Paul was an external ear for internal tensions and was
available between meetings to listen, guide and occasionally challenge thinking. His primary
role was to Chair the directors, create a business planning process, and then hold the
directors accountable to each other to deliver the growth plans and monitor financial
performance.
In 2019, when Paul first supported the business, it was felt that there were no potential future
shareholders. Paul challenged this thinking, and everyone was asked to identify potential
talent within the team. By 2022, the team had identified some interested potential
shareholders and some leadership talent. Paul supported Meadowbrook in exploring
options with them and then transitioning the business from a two-director-owned business to
a five-director-owned business. Having the experience of buying into a vet practice, bringing
in new shareholders to a vet practice as well as selling out of a vet practice, Paul was able to
support the director team to think about their culture, values and what sort of business they
wanted to be with new ownership. Paul also supported the new Directors to reflect on their
new roles as shareholders and directors and how their investment in Meadowbank would
deliver a return on investment and personal growth.
It was clear that they wanted to continue as an independent, locally-owned business.
However, they also needed to value the business appropriately to allow Alex to retire whilst
sticking to his values. Over a year, the team met with Paul alongside an external
independent accountant to create a valuation model and prepare the new shareholders for
the responsibility of ownership. The new owners needed to get funding and understand the
complex articles of association and shareholder agreements. Paul encouraged everyone to
view the business's future and their own positions within it and represented Meadowbrook in
these discussions. With no conflict of interest, he created an external ear for internal
problems, enabling more open and honest conversations.
The dual responsibilities of clinical excellence and business management appealed to one of
the incoming shareholders, Lucy, “Partnership and an active leadership role have always
been a goal of mine, not least to be able to increase the variation of my work. We have a
fantastic team at Meadowbrook, and I’m excited to expand the business driving down into
our core farm animal work, looking for ways we can further help our farmers in these
increasingly tough times. But I’m also looking forward to growing and developing the
advanced mastitis diagnostics and lameness services we offer.”
Ethan, another new shareholder, reflects, “A huge thanks to Alex, Daniel, & Emma; they
gave Olivia and me the freedom, time, and resources to develop our small animal surgery
work. We look forward to “passing it on” and leading a practice that allows our vets to thrive,
in whichever areas appeal to them.” It is clear from speaking with the new director team at
Meadowbrook that Alex is both loved and respected and will be sorely missed.
Meadowbank can now chart their new course. Allowing the new Directors to bed in and find
their feet, Paul comments- ‘ It has been a real pleasure to support a practice to stay in the
hands of the locally employed vets. Watching and supporting young vets as they take their
first steps in business ownership allows us all to reflect on how we spent five years learning
to be a vet and we then expect to be business owners with a few days of training. I will
continue to support Meadowbrook for as long as they want me to, allowing the directors to
achieve their ambitions and thrive in the current landscape. Alex has now left with a great
leaving party. I still get to hear of his travels, and he occasionally rings to make sure all the
new team have settled in.’’
Meadowbrook Veterinary Practice is a fictional practice dreamed up by Chat GTP. However
the process described happened. If you want to know more, please contact Andrew Curwen
at XLVets ltd.
A year ago, Charlie, one of the directors of a vet practice- let's call it Greendale Vets, contacted me in a bit of a state. She had just left a directors meeting with no clear direction, a knowledge that the individuals were not working as a team and the business was heading for difficult times. She wanted to leave the company and regretted becoming a partner/ shareholder. The practice had been set up in a hurry three years ago when a 20-vet, 6-shareholder mixed practice had three partners who wanted to sell to a corporation and take their cash out. The director team were at loggerheads and took advice from their accountants. The accountants advised that the corporates were no longer interested in farm or equine work and that they should split the practice up to sell it. The farm partner still believed in independent practice, so she was happy with the plan; however, she needed to have business succession by identifying two young, gifted clinicians and offering them an excellent deal to go into partnership. The first two years of the new practice for Charlie were an adrenaline rush. Everything was exciting and new. Learning about a business, being involved in decision-making, being paid significantly more and still getting to do the job she loved, working with farmers to improve the health of their animals. I met her two years in, and although she was having fun, she did confide that she found directors' meetings difficult, needed help understanding the numbers, and was unsure how well the other new director was performing. I offered her my number and support if ever needed. Nine months later, I got a text- “Lots of complications within directorship and overall not working well, not sure where to go from here and would appreciate your help. “ Various conversations with Charlie and the director team led to a facilitated directors meeting where we looked at a director's role and how we could support the top team to function. We collated some data using Lencioni’s model of the five dysfunctions of a team (Lencioni). We identified that a fear of conflict and an avoidance of accountability prevented the team from delivering performance. A tough directors' meeting followed. We had to identify ways of accepting that productive conflict enabled growth and ways in which feedback could be given and received. For accountability, we accepted that once we had established trust and feedback, we could create realistic goals and standards to hold each other to account. That first meeting needed real bravery on everyone's behalf. It was challenging to facilitate. The complex emotions of the participants to accept the emotions in the room. Once the emotion had been released, everyone realised that they all had a common purpose and wanted to develop ways of working to allow the team to perform and the practice to thrive. The team continues engaging services that will enable an external ear for internal problems. We meet once a quarter to review plans and create a strategic direction. The presence of an external Chair empowers the team to hold each other accountable in a safe environment. The practice has now expanded as we have looked at innovating around flexible working, new product development, and research and farmers recognising the consistency of Greendale vets' offerings. Charlie has been doing management training and has a mentor to support her. She is far more confident in practice and has enjoyed her clinical work again. There is a precise time in her diary to do management work, and she has started to trust the practice team to deliver delegated tasks. She still rings her mentor regularly, especially before difficult one-to-one conversations or team meetings, to allow a plan to become apparent. She has no intention of leaving the team she loves working with now and is relieved that the top team is now functioning and the business is starting to thrive.
Back in November, I had a long car journey with Dan Knight, where I spoke of my excitement for the future of farming in a new world where food quality was valued alongside carbon and biodiversity. Where agriculture was seen as the solution to climate change rather than the cause and farmers, the custodians of the land suddenly had three sellable products- food, carbon and biodiversity. Business may be more complicated. However, it would move past being driven by the straightforward economics of efficiency and volume. There would be more opportunities to specialise and create niche products and services or systems that took value from food, carbon and biodiversity.
Andy Adler, innovator, facilitator and company director at an agricultural firm, says there are lessons to learn from a transformative trip to Ireland. We informally call ourselves a ‘book club’, one without any set reads. We talk weekly about the world and how it can be made better. Last month we visited one of our members, an Irish farmer, to see sustainability in action. If there is one thing I would recommend to people, it is to try to ‘experience’ sustainability, see it, feel it, smell it! Back in 2021, I had shown curiosity around the farmer’s use of peat as a fuel in his house. I knew it was bad from an environmental point of view (essentially burning a type of non-renewable fossil fuel, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere where it contributes to the climate crisis). However, I also knew, as with many aspects of sustainability, everything is complex. We were told great stories about the local community and the tradition of cutting peat, drying, stacking and collecting it. However as a group who regularly discussed climate change, we challenged the farmer to identify another ritual that the community could undertake instead of digging and burning peat.