Practice Tip 9 –Implementing Change

IMPLEMENTING CHANGES IN YOUR PRACTICE…

How many times have you been to a conference and come back ready to makes changes, then two weeks later to find nothing in place? If you were like me, lots! This getting excited and then experiencing your best laid plan failing is the No.1 reason for “burn out”. Burn-out isn’t caused by working hard and getting lots done - in practice we love working hard with our patients. Burn-out is caused by repeated failed attempts to implement change that collectively add up and drop our morale.

So let’s look at this issue of implementation.
First off, Thomas Edison, the famous inventor and entrepreneur, once stated “I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing....”. So the world is not devoid of new ideas - it appears to be short on implementation.

Secondly, Albert Einstein, another great thinker, once said that “insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”.

So get the idea that repeating this cycle of
1) going to a conference and getting some great ideas,
2) coming back to try and toss these ideas into the fray of your practice and
3) experiencing failure, hasn’t worked in the past and probably won’t work in the future.

The solutions? Change your operating basis - the way in which you implement change in your practice. To do this we use a management tool called planning. And here’s where the old adage of “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” comes in. No where is this more true than in a busy practice, controlled by the ebb and flow of patients coming in the door.
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So try this next time you want to implement a change:

1) Make a plan - any plan is better than no plan so make a plan and stick to it! (Note: most people are easily distracted and not “sticky” enough to their goals)
2) Define what the goal is.
3) Define what the individual steps are and most importantly…
4) Assign these steps to your various staff to get them done…
5) Monitor the progress of each step, dating and signing off each step with initials.

Sounds simple? It is! Try it out and watch what happens.

Questions? Give me a call.