Thinking Like a CEO

CEO's of any company set the direction of the organization, make major decisions for the company based on educated counsel from others and provide encouragement and motivation for those he/she leads.  Unfortunately, the natural progression of practice growth leads to the doctor role growing (thanks to a full schedule), the manager role becoming bigger (due to more staff/business "fires") and the CEO part of our job fades into the background.  The day to day business gets to the point we neglect planning, we stop listening to the concerns of the team and our decisions are urgent and made without much consideration. Our inner CEO role shrinks so much that it is no longer effective.

When the CEO of an organization is not effective, there is a lack of direction, a lack of inspiration.  We go from proactively building the practice of our dreams to reacting to the daily concerns of the business.  I call it "putting out fires." (In later issues, I will discuss Fire Prevention vs. Fire Detection vs. Fire Extinguishing.)

Bringing the CEO Back

Justin Timberlake said he was bringing sexy back.  I don't know if we can do that, but I do know that we can bring the CEO back.

To effectively receive the benefits a CEO can bring to your organization, you have to carve out time just for that.  Many start by blocking one half of one day without patients.  I have recommended this to many practices. Most hesitate,arguing that they are too "busy."  But none, who have made this commitment say they have felt it was a bad decision.  Being the CEO when you have time, does not work.  Being the CEO between patients does not work either.  It is worth it.

Make good use of this new time.  Schedule CEO tasks that need to be accomplished during this time.  The CEO is the visionary, the proactive thinker.  This is the time to work toward the future of the practice.  Some typical CEO tasks will include:

• Re-Visit the Vision, consider updating

• Evaluate Practice Goals / Compare to Responsibility Charts

• Develop / Marketing Strategy (Yellow Pages vs Facebook)

• Write a Budget - Look at Financial Benchmarks

• Improve Staff Development Plan

It is easy to see how time spent on these tasks can be beneficial for the long term health of the practice, but also how tough it is to concentrate in small bursts.  So step one in Becoming the CEO is to schedule time to perform CEO tasks and make good use of the time.

Fostering a Teamwork Culture

For any team to be successful, everyone has to be working toward the same vision. The entire team needs to clearly understand the vision and be motivated to get there. Do Your Part - On successful teams, every member of the team does their job the best that they can - every time. They work hard consistently because they have a desire for the team to succeed and they understand their role and feel appreciated.

Pep Talks - Teamwork requires constant motivation. Great coaches give "pep talks" more than once a year, but before every game, at time outs, half-time and when the game is over (win or lose). Motivational talks are given at practices and team meetings too.

Stay Positive - Teamwork also requires feedback on performance. Most leaders, including myself, tend to concentrate on giving negative feedback, correcting mistakes. That is necessary, but I find it to be most effective when I concentrate on giving positive feedback, congratulations and gratitude for outstanding work. Try to give three positive comments on performance for every correcting comment. It is important not to get caught up in how often "reviews" are given. But have a habit of saying "thank you" and "great job."

Trust - True teamwork is achieved when everyone on the team trusts that everyone is doing their job. Trust comes from faith in each other that can grow, with time, into a strong comradery that is felt among the team.

Building Your Leadership Skills

Is there such a thing as a born leader? Leadership involves a set of skills that can be improved, tweaked and enhanced.  These skills need to be practiced in order to be the best that they can be.

We all have talents that lend themselves naturally to leadership.  You may be a people person, a dreamer or a natural motivator.  We also have tendencies that hamper our ability to effectively lead others.  I personally have to resist my urge to jumping into a project before thinking it through.  Others may have a difficult time understanding other points of view and may not naturally listen to other opinions.  Another tendency may be to change courses too often, always working to seek a better way.

Leadership is a collection of all methods we use to motivate and coordinate others to want to work to make our vision a reality.  To be our best, these methods require practice.  All professions find a way to practice, to enhance their skills.  As doctors, they call the work we do in the exam room "practicing."  Actors and professional speakers rehearse their acts.  Pilots and police officers go through simulations to enhance skills so they are ready if the life or death moment ever shows.  Athletes of all kinds use drills to enhance particular skills in their sport.

Try these one day "Leadership Drills" to improve your skills with your team:

• Improve Everyone's Day - Make a point of making every person you come in contact with have a better day.  Look for ways to compliment everyone.  Make a point to make them smile or feel better about themselves.  Start with your team, your family and every one of your patients.  It is easy to support a leader who makes us feel better.

• Ask Questions and Listen to the Answers - Sometimes it is difficult to ask for help or for advice.  So to become a better listener, make a point of asking members of your team questions.  Look at them while they reply and then ask yourself, "Did I truly hear the answer?"

• Find Someone to Do It Better - For each task that you do during the day, stop long enough to think if there is someone on your team who could do it better.  Create a list during the day and use it as you are considering delegating these tasks to your team.

• Share a Note with Leaders You Admire - We have all been part of organizations that were led by people who have shaped us.  Sharing a note with these individuals is a nice payback, but it also forces you to reflect on what aspects of their leadership made a difference to you.

Simply by deciding to focus on one of these drills for an entire day, you will notice that it becomes second nature.  The task will seem easier, not because it has changed but because our ability to do it has increased.

"Synergize" the Talents of Many

Synergy happens when a team of good people support a common mission.  Each person has a role in the group's success.  I am often asked how to handle a person in the office who does not seem to blend well with the rest of the team.

Each person on any team has their own style of working, learning and being motivated.  But everybody wants to do a good job.  If energy is spent on getting the most out of each team member by matching them to a perfect set of responsibilities, the accomplishments of the group can be multiplied.

Sometimes team members get a reputation for not pulling their weight because they are not responsible for tasks that suit their talents.  A friendly insurance processor who is constantly distracted by "friends" who want to say hello will always run behind with paperwork and stay frustrated.  And a receptionist who thrives on keeping up with paperwork will inevitably start taking shortcuts with client greetings when the workload increases.  Is there a way to shift responsibilities so the clients are treated better, the paperwork is processed on time and everybody is happier?  YES

Leaders first determine the vision of the organization, communicate that vision to the team then put them in the best position to excel:

1. List each position in the office and describe the perfect person for that job.

2. Look at the person doing that job and evaluate if it seems like a match.  Many times, it is necessary to move someone into another seat.

3. Once that is done, continue to tweak responsibilities until everyone is doing mostly what they enjoy doing.

A word of caution:  It is critically important that the entire team understands the overall mission of what you are trying to accomplish.  Shifting responsibility from one person to another makes people wonder,  "Was I doing a bad job?"  The task is still worth tackling, just be clear about your objectives.

Get Some Momentum

Momentum is a measurement of the force resulting from a moving object.  The more momentum an object has, the harder it is to stop.  Momentum is a term used a lot in sports.  When your team gets the momentum, you want to keep it. Businesses and other organizations can have momentum too.  It is how we gauge the progress we are making toward realizing our vision and reaching our goals.  To build significant momentum, we simply need to 1) get moving and 2) maintain a constant direction.

Get Moving

Momentum is only possible if you are moving toward a goal.  And that is only possible if you know what you are pursuing.  To set the direction, you need a defined vision of what you are trying to build and that needs to be shared with the team.  Define the barriers and the opportunities and develop the plan.  Then, steps need to be taken to change the direction toward the vision you have created. Only leaders can create momentum, the team will follow and managers maintain.

Maintain a Constant Direction

It is often easy to give up on a good plan, to lose momentum before it even gets started.  Some things that cause us to drift away from our initial direction are:

• distractions that seem more important because they are urgent

• other goals that are newer, more fun or easier

• unforeseen barriers

• whining from team members not sold on the idea

• others in the organization who lead more effectively than we do

Knowing that these and other momentum-blockers are out there, we can prepare and react appropriately when necessary.

We must keep our eye on the prize, the reason we created the momentum in the first place.To maintain direction, we need to evaluate ourselves consistently and from now on.  A lot at first and then less frequently.

Not All Momentum is Good

Back to our sports analogy - When a team has momentum, it is good for one team and bad for the other.  In business, the "other team" can be a lot of things.  It can be decreasing morale of a team, increasing financial trouble or a relationship with decreasing communication.  When things seem to have bad momentum, it is important to see it, call a timeout and find a way to stop it from getting worse.  More on that next month.....

Staying Pro-Active

Proactivity* is taking steps to create a situation rather than just accepting things as they are.  Being proactive is sometimes considered the opposite of being reactive, which is a response to an event. In business, I like to think of proactive activities as acting like the CEO and reactive as acting like the manager.  Both are important, but when we are working to make things better, we are being proactive.

True proactivity* is about balance.  We need to be proactive for our self, our family and our work to make a true difference.

All leaders strive to remain proactive, yet sometimes slip into a reactive mindset in some area.  The secret is to stay proactive as much as possible.  Here are some tips for staying proactive:

Be unavailable - Being proactive really requires having uninterrupted time.  It takes some time for your mind to get into that mode and a phone can pull you right out of it.  Turn it off, just for a little while and you decide when you are unavailable.

Schedule time to plan / think -   This is important for yourself and for your team.  A daily or weekly meeting time, a scheduled office retreat, and an administrative day are all great examples of scheduling in proactivity*.  Doing it in your spare time will not work.

Create and maintain a system of proactivity* - This may involve a number of tools and team members to create a situation where it is normal that it will happen.  The system always needs to be tweaked and adjusted to remain effective.

Set goals, list steps for the goals and keep them visible - In the next article, Doug Hanson discusses in detail how to create STRONG goals.  Once you do, find a way to keep them in front of you so you can work toward them a little everyday.

Delegate - Effective delegating takes practice and is a topic we will cover extensively soon.  But for now, it is a skill that needs to be developed by practicing. Start by delegating small tasks and be sure to discuss follow up.

Get help - There are a lot of great books, programs and services that can help you find a system of being proactive that works for you.

Click here to see my article in Review of Optometric Business about the benefit of coaching.

It is easy to stay proactive.  It just takes practice.

*  (It turns out that "proactivity" is not a real word, but I think it should be, so I used it.)

Getting the "Right" People

Getting the "Right" People My favorite quote about getting the right people comes from the movie Miracle about the 1980 USA Gold medal Olympic hockey team. In that movie, Coach Herb Brooks says of his player selection, "I am not looking for the best players.  I am looking for the right ones."

Coach Brooks had thought about the team, the talents needed BEFORE he started looking.  The more common method is to look at all of the candidates and pick the most impressive (the best).

When looking at your team, and the individuals that make up that team, it is vitally important to put them in a role that they can excel.  If there is not a match, it is a matter of time before performance begins to be less than optimal.

Finding the Right Person

When selecting new members of your organization, I argue that the resume' matters very little.  What matters is if the person has values that match the values of the organization.  In order to determine that, the organization's values need to be defined.  Then questions need to be developed for the interview process that pull that out of people.

Getting People in the Right Spot

To put them in the right position, first requires a good definition of the job responsibilites and expected results from the position.  This is more than just a "Job Description."

Two examples of responsibilities may include:

• Greet everyone who enters the front door with a genuine smile, direct eye contact, and by name (whenever possible).

• Analyze every transaction to confirm the proper amount was billed and collected from every responsible party.

Each responsibility requires a different mind-set.  Yet many of us are expected to perform both with perfection.  Imagine if a person's responsibities were aligned with their own individual talents and passions.  The result is a happy employee who continuously does great work.

Most organizations have a majority of one personality type, usually similar to the leader. I first realized this was true about my practice when we took a simple, and free, personality test at OneMinuteMillionaire.com, called the HOTS survey.  Since then, we've begun using more sophisticated tests and strategically matching people to responsibilities.  We also actively work to better understand and appreciate each other.

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Later in Miracle, a frustrated team goalie, Jim Craig said to his coach, "I don't understand you with your ridiculous sayings and those stupid psychology tests!" The point is that this stuff works if you stick with it even when your whole team is frustrated and thinks its "stupid."

Hang in there.

LISTEN

Leadership is about building trust in your team.  Listening makes our team feel worthy, appreciated and respected.  It also fosters the skill in others by acting as a model for effective communication.  Good listening also saves time and money by decreasing misunderstandings.

The skills needed to be a good listener can be developed, or re-developed, by anyone.  It just takes initiative, drive and practice.  I have found that the best way to start being a good listener is to act like a good listener.  Just pretend.

Next time you find yourself in the presence of someone talking, pay attention to these things:

• Face the speaker and maintain eye contact (but don't stare)

• Don't look at your cell phone

• Focus on the speaker and give appropriate responses

• Squash your own, unrelated thoughts that creep in

• Keep an open mind, try to absorb their point before disagreeing

• Avoid telling the speaker how you would do it

• Let them finish and ask for clarification

If you create a listening culture in your organization, you will have employees know that their input about their job matters and is relevant.  You also will assure your customer's concerns are addressed, leading to continuous improvement.

Improving the listening ability of your organization takes a bit more time, effort and energy.

1. Become a good personal leader - Follow these steps from our previous articles: Become a Leader, Define Your Vision, Share Your Vision

2. Develop a good plan of communication - In last month's issue we covered how to establish a good communications plan within your office.

3. At meetings, have various staff members report / facilitate - The best way to teach your team that you value their input is to put them in a position to speak up.  Sharing meeting duties or giving reports helps with this.  Make a habit of asking for clarification during the meetings.

4. Daily Huddles - We call ours a "Basic Meeting," because our agenda includes a small discussion of one of our 20  Basics.  A few minutes of organized discussion daily is invaluable. It is important to have a topic to cover daily.  For an idea, see this issue from the August edition of our newsletter.

5. E-mails, Memos - Have a consistent method of inter-office communication. I have seen memo's and mailboxes, bulletin boards, e-mails and web-pages.  All work well, if consistently used.

6. Develop a Leadership Team - A big, big endeavor that is worth the effort.  Defining your leaders, building their skills and establishing a culture of teamwork contributes to the creation of a listening organization more than anything .

7. Retreat - My favorite.  I like twice yearly office retreats to share ideas, set goals and just get your act together.  LeadershipOD has a 2 day retreat guideline that you can use to get started or visit our Services page to find out how LeadershipOD can provide a full service retreat for you and your team.

Motivating the Team

As practicing leaders, many of us try to jump straight into team motivation, not recognizing the importance of laying the proper groundwork.  So first, a quick summary of previous Leadership Tips: Becoming a Leader, Defining Your Vision and Communicating the Vision. All organizations are led by someone.  It is not always the person "in charge" who is leading.  The leader is anyone who influences the direction of the individuals that make up the team.  Some actually lead the organization in an unproductive direction.

Many books and articles have been written about motivating a team.  Classes are taught about this subject and you can even earn a degree in aligning a team with a common goal.  The next several columns in this newsletter will focus on a variety of methods to use to accomplish group motivation.

Topics will include:

Listening to Individual Team Members

This is a skill that is more difficult than most think.  It is also more powerful than most can imagine.  Listening with empathy is listening with the intention to see things from that person's point of view.  It is typically not possible to change someone's motivation until you know where they are coming from.

Identifying Leaders (and Non-Leaders)

Who are the leaders in your organization?  How do you know?  It is often difficult to tell who has natural leadership skills, who has skills that can be developed and who needs to stay away from leadership positions.  There are some great tools to help sort through it all.

Momentum (Building It and Maintaining It)

Recognizing positive momentum in your organization is an opportunity that is easily missed.  Momentum in the wrong direction can cause tremendous harm if you don't catch it early.

Building Leadership Skills

Being a leader takes practice.  I have been guilty of thinking I am a good leader and therefore don't need to improve.  I have also been guilty of thinking that my team has had adequate leadership education because they've had more than most.  How do you continue to improve these important skills?

Delegating, Follow-up and Tracking Progress

The ability to effectively delegate is harder than it sounds.  That is why so many of us continue to do it ourselves.  We will cover laying the groundwork for proper delegation, scheduling a follow-up method (not micro-management), and proven methods to keep up with it all.

Capitalizing on the Talents, Skills and Goals of Many (Synergize)

Vanilla Ice said, "Stop, Collaborate and Listen." It is this wisdom that encourages us to find ways to collect input, knowledge and motivation from all team members.  When this is done well, unbelievable goals can be accomplished.

Developing your Proactive Mentality

Before Leadership Insights had a name, our first article was titled "First - Become a Leader." That's easy to do for a short time but it is hard to do over a long period of time.  How can you maintain that proactive mentality and how can you get it back when it gets "soft?"

Your task is to evaluate your own knowledge and recent performance in each of the above areas.  As the lessons come, you will see how they begin to build on one another.  If you have an expertise or elevated interest in any of these areas - Please Share.

Sharing Your Vision

Last month, we discussed Defining Your Vision and prior to that, we talked about Becoming a Leader.  It is really important to follow those steps before moving on to the next level in your Leadership Development. Staff communications and building staff morale are the most common issues that I am asked to help with. In a team setting - a vision, a mission and a set of goals are wasted unless the entire team is intimately familiar with them all.

To have a unified and motivated team there must be a deliberate system of communication.  The system needs to include opportunities for everyone to listen AND to share.

Follow these steps to develop a strong communication system within your organization:

1) Commit - In order to have excellent staff communications, you first have to commit to success.  There will be challenges and roadblocks to your goals, but once you have committed, you will continue to adapt until you have a strong system.

2) Decide what to Communicate - Meetings without agendas soon turn into "complaint sessions".  Decide the purpose of the communications overall then break it into little bites that can be spread out over time.  (See the next article for an idea to get started.)

3) Develop a Communication Plan - Every organization is different and needs a different blueprint of communications.  Some practices are run by family members, others have multiple locations and some are staffed by primarily part time people.  Look at several options of methods to communicate and pick the best.  Some tools you can use are meetings (before, during or after office hours), e-mails, message boards, conference calls, video conferencing, etc.  Beware - There is not a perfect plan and that is ok. (Click here to see the plan for my practice.)

4) Implement the Plan - You have taken the time to carefully develop a communication plan.  Now start.  I recommend a little at a time.

5) Adjust the Plan - Your first try will not be perfect and even if it is, it will not stay perfect.  It is important that you schedule a time to make adjustments to your plan.

This may sound complicated and that's because it IS complicated.  It is a critical component of becoming an effective leader and is worth the effort.  The rewards are a motivated, dedicated and aligned staff and will come with time.  Stick with it.

Defining Your Vision

Imagining what you want as if it already exists opens the door to letting it happen. - SHAKTI GAWAIN In the last issue, I presented several questions to help you determine the things that matter most to you. If you took the time to write your answers to these questions, you have a new awareness of what you are meant to accomplish.

Now with this new outlook, you can paint the picture of the life you will build. You have the input you need to imagine the best for yourself, your professional team and your family. Once that develops, you can start making it a reality.

I define a "Vision" as a clear, well-defined description of what you want your life to become. It is a target. To be effective, it must be well thought out with deep consideration of your personal values and principles. You should have at least two "Visions." One for your personal life and one for your professional life.

To develop your own Visions, try following these steps:

1. Answer the 5 questions from our last Newsletter in this column.

2. Study the answers to align yourself with the values that matter most in your life.

3. Imagine your home, your family when everything is perfect.

4. Imagine the practice of your dreams, and your role in it.

5. Write it as if it has already occurred.

This exercise is very important as you continue your development as leader. It sets your target, your direction. I like to think of it as a lighthouse. A lighthouse stays where it is built, lighting the way continuously. When we lose our way, whether due to a storm or lack of attention, the lighthouse's position is consistent. It gives us steadfast guidance that we can trust.

First, Become a Leader

No matter our position in a practice, we have the opportunity to lead.  We have chances to influence team members, patients or vendors to help us accomplish our vision for the practice.  To lead effectively, it's best to look at what matters most and find a way to dedicate time to the tasks that actually matter. Take a moment to answer these questions:

1. What interests you most?

2. What to you feel passionate about?

3. What do you want to accomplish?

4. What do you believe in?

5. What is your potential?

After you've taken the time to honestly answer these questions with good consideration, you can begin to see where to start developing yourself.