Time for a New Recipe?
Time for a New Recipe?
Quality ingredients don’t guarantee success
Does Shannon need new workers, or a new approach to practice management?
Mike set a dish before his wife with a flourish. Shannon eyed it uncertainly. “It looks like chocolate mousse,†she said, “but I thought you said you were working on healthy new dishes at the restaurant.â€
“Absolutely!†Mike agreed. “When people find out that I’m married to a physical therapist, they expect my menu to include all those gluten-free, dairy-free, heart-healthy paleo vegan things, and I’m trying to accommodate them.â€
“So the super-cheerful voice is designed to make me like this better?†Shannon asked, dipping a spoon into the concoction. “I don’t think that works. I tried it at the practice this morning and you should have seen how flat it fell.â€
Mike sat down at the table with Shannon and took her hand. “I thought you had a great plan for getting everyone together to work on the problems with practice management that you’ve been dealing with.â€
“I thought so, too,†said Shannon, with a spoonful of Mike’s mousse paused halfway to her mouth. “Instead of banding together to brainstorm solutions the way I thought we would, everybody turned on one another. You’ve never heard such a blamefest!â€
“That’s a new word for me,†Mike teased, “but I know what you mean. Everyone passes the blame along to everyone else.â€
“Exactly! We already have high turnover in the front office as it is, not to mention absenteeism, and now it seems like nobody wants to accept responsibility for anything. How can we make changes when they’re all convinced that they’re already perfect?â€
“Speaking of perfect, how about actually tasting this scrumptious new dessert?â€
Shannon peered at the spoon. “It looks creamy and delicious, but there has to be a catch. What did the kids think?â€
“The kids wouldn’t eat it,†Mike admitted. “They watched me make it, and I guess I faced the same kind of bad attitude you faced at the practice. Except that I can’t fire the kids and hire new ones.â€
“If firing people and hiring new ones would help, I’d do it,†Shannon laughed, “but I don’t think I have bad workers.â€
She tasted the dessert. “Hmm… this also isn’t bad. Chocolatey, but there’s something else in there I can’t quite identify. Some kind of vegetable, maybe?â€
“Avocado! Instead of cream and egg yolks with all that saturated fat, I went with avocado.â€
“Avocado is delicious on its own, but if there were some way to keep the texture and make the flavor a little less vegetable…â€
Mike frowned thoughtfully. “Shannon, maybe that’s what’s going on with your practice, too. It’s not that the ingredients are wrong — you’ve got good people — but the recipe needs tweaking.â€
Shannon nodded. “That makes sense. But where can I find a good recipe for practice management success?â€
Does Shannon need new workers,
or a new approach to practice management?
Want to know how to improve your own practice workflow? Register for our webinar ’4 Steps to Stop Your Staff from Fighting.’