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Posted: 29th January 2016

Alistair Campbell explains the secret to winning
Alistair Campbell
Mr Campbell's talk highlighted the delicate balance between healthy obsession and illness.
What do politics and veterinary practice have in common?

Political strategist Alistair Campbell gave an engaging speech to vets and practice managers this morning, drawing unlikely parallels between veterinary practice and the successes and failures of the Labour Party.

As well as being a journalist and author, Mr Campbell is best known for his time as director of communications and strategy for Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003.

He is also the son of a veterinary surgeon and an active campaigner on mental health issues, following his own psychotic breakdown in 1986.

As the gave the opening speech at this year's VMPA/SPVS Congress, he shared his views on what it takes to be a winner and how members of the profession can learn from great leaders.

"Winning is a mindset that is about setting big, bold objectives and then trying to meet them. And it could be anything… Doing it, and doing it to your own satisfaction, that's a win."

Strategy is key and the 'Holy Trinity' is objective, strategy and team, he added. Failure to get along as a team can have huge consequences and he partly attributes the Labour Party's failure to get elected for a fourth term to lack of teamship.

"I don't believe that we lost because the Conservatives came along with a better plan for the country, better values, better policies.

"We lost because we fell apart on teamship. Because ultimately those divisions that existed, which weren't really about big beliefs or a different approach to massive issues, they were about people not being able to get on and eventually the force of those differences becoming too great."

Moving on to the issue of mental health - which is a central issue at this year's congress - Mr Campbell spoke about the 'extreme mind', listing key figures throughout history such as Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale and Charles Darwin, who all had "what would be defined today as mental illness".

Mr Campbell's talk highlighted the delicate balance between healthy obsession and illness: "The extreme mind is bad if it becomes illness but it's good if it becomes drive, focus, obsession. There's nothing wrong with obsession in my view if there's a channel for it…

"Innovation is the mindset that says no matter how good you are, you could be better, nobody's perfect."

The 'A' type personality of vets and difficulties with accepting failure in practice have often been linked with the particularly high rate of mental health problems in the profession.

Concluding his talk, Mr Campbell shared a quote from Irish missionary Colm O'Connell, which provides food for thought when we consider this delicate balance in the veterinary profession: "The winner is the loser that evaluates defeat properly."



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