Ask your team for their input on solving your business challenges and problems. They’ll always come through with solutions!
When I am caught in the whirlwind of life, I am guilty of succumbing to reactive thinking with my lizard brain: The answer is “out there!” I become victim-minded and default to these “if only” character flaws:
- If only I could find another clinician to be able to hit the numbers set for the year…
- If only I had a better CRM Customer Relationship Management program…
- If only these patients would come to their appointments…
- If only I was like “that or this person;” they have it all together…
In my Dec 9th blog post I wrote about parkinson’s law:
Parkinson’s Law is the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted. Put simply, the amount of work required adjusts (usually increasing) to the time available for its completion. If you have one week to organize the garage it will take one week. If you have two days to organize the garage it will only take you two days.
If you apply this law to a problem you are facing in front of you right now, you will come up with a solution. I have an incredible team, great technology, a great facility. We can solve this problem right here, right now!!!!! WE WILL! YOU WILL!
Bring this challenge (I like to call it an opportunity) to your team; “Guys, we need your help.”
Here is an example of a problem I brought to our team this week:
We were evaluating our patient volume and income and we are about 12% below our goal. We have an incredible marketer, Faye Harrison, who has been doing a tremendous job. We have more referrals than ever coming across our fax machine. But we are not seeing a noticeable change in our patients per week. For the last four weeks, our numbers have been flat. We have concluded that our current team of clinicians are at capacity. I see patients 12 hours a week so I can focus on the business, leadership, vision-casting, content-creation, systems and meeting with key leaders of our team. I am commited to this schedule. We have been trying to hire two new clinicians and have not yet found the right potential candidates.
So, we put our heads together and came up with solutions. We have two doctorate students on rotation with us for 12 weeks. Part of their training dictates that they develop their own caseloads. This will make up the shortfall in patient visits temporarily. One of our clinicians expressed interest in being trained in our pelvic floor specialty, which is in dire need of more help. The office suggested that we text patients instead of calling them when their doctor sends a referral – and we are now getting better responses. Our team said they would like to work more if we extend to later weekday hours and Saturday hours.
Tell yourself, “We have the tools, the knowledge and the people to solve this problem! Now let’s put our heads together and do it!!”
We don’t have problems; we have opportunities waiting to be discovered!
Grateful to be on this journey with you,
Dr. Matthew Harkness
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