I recently exhibited at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando and spent a good portion of our time interviewing DVM practice owners as to what their Ideal Scene was. What’s an Ideal Scene? Your Ideal Scene is that picture you have of your practice of what would ideal, what would be the perfect practice. This would include all the great things you want such as top notch equipment, 2 months vacation and a nice car but minus all the frustrating and annoying things that you would like to change.
So what did I find out? A whopping 68% of practice owners interviewed responded that the No. 1 thing they wanted was happy staff! For their staff to get along and work together as an organized team. Despite having the best equipment money could buy, they wanted something so intangible yet so important to daily practice life.
So here’s a couple of pointers on whipping together a happy staff:
1. Purpose means everything... Very few staff work solely for money (good thing right?) but work for a strong sense of purpose. Get the purpose of your practice defined in writing and posted on the wall as a reference point for all team members to see.
2. Define your rules of the game... A team needs clear directions and rules to follow otherwise simple daily tasks becomes laborious decision points. Define your standard way of operation with a good Standard Policy & Procedures (SOP ) manual.
3. Stack your deck... Hire upbeat positive attitude people that are willing and care for what is going on. This attitude is hard to train. Hire them like this and they’ll easily train up their technical skills without taxing your resources (and nerves!).
4. Train people “off the job” into great team players... Establish a training center off the busy production lines that actually trains using your SOP manual as the reference points. No more “on the job” verbal training. It just doesn’t work well!
5. Correct with compassion... No one ever corrected anyone with force. Have compassion
and firmness and correct over a foundation of validation. People are valuable. Value them!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
When you reward upstatistics you get upstatistics...
A MODERN PARABLE . . .
A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.
A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India. Sadly, The End. Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads.
IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY.
A MODERN PARABLE . .
A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.
A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India. Sadly, The End. Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads.
IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY.
A MODERN PARABLE . .
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A question of management styles...
A question came in our Power Team Builder workshop with regards to what management style was best for the practice? The horizontal, we're all friends working together in harmony, on a level playing field, or the more vertical, commands from the top down from seniors to juniors style? It's a good question isn't it? I think it comes down to what is ultimately the most effective in terms of impectable cusomer and patient service and what creates to best staff morale! We sorted this out by running some timed trials that involved getting a simple task done. The "I'm ok, your ok, we're all friends" style resulted in lots of smiles but poor customer service. It simply took too long with all the politeness and lack of decision as to who was going to do what! The vertical, get it done via friendly orders from seniors to juniors consitentely beat the clock and delivered high speed customer service. The morale from this team was higher from their stellar performance, not from their "taking care of friends" approach. Tip? Try giving some friendly direct orders to your staff. Do ask for their permission - just give them a nice snappy order and see what happens!
Some recent success stories from our Executive Training Academy...
“I really feel this course has really helped me to be able to understand others better, to be able to keep the positive in any situation, and to be able to detect problems in the workplace. I am really happy I attended this course through my stay here. I
experienced some educational dreams. I am really impressed with this course.”
DH, Practice Manager
Course: How to Get Along With Others
“I really liked this course because it taught me how to analyze statistics and what to do to improve them. A lot of the time I may know that a certain area of the business is not doing well but I really did not know what to do about it until I took this course.”
Dr. ST, Practice Owner
Course: Formulas for Business Success
“This course, How to Write Effective Company Policy, was useful to identify the
difference between policy and orders and what can be some pitfalls of not setting
policy which causes confusion among all staff and creates randomness in what we do. If policies are written and hopefully understood they act as a guide to what is
acceptable in the company.”
Dr. CB, Practice Owner
Course: How to Write Effective Company Policy
“This course has taught me how to effectively manage my work and communications with fellow staff so that a maximum of valuable production occurs with a minimum of wasted time and effort.”
JT, Practice Manager
Course: How to Increase Efficiency in Your Company
“A working organizational board for our hospital is a big step to a more efficient
operation where my people can really understand the dynamics of servicing a client and their pet. I am very excited to move ahead from this point.”
Dr. MA, Practice Owner
Course: Basic Organization
experienced some educational dreams. I am really impressed with this course.”
DH, Practice Manager
Course: How to Get Along With Others
“I really liked this course because it taught me how to analyze statistics and what to do to improve them. A lot of the time I may know that a certain area of the business is not doing well but I really did not know what to do about it until I took this course.”
Dr. ST, Practice Owner
Course: Formulas for Business Success
“This course, How to Write Effective Company Policy, was useful to identify the
difference between policy and orders and what can be some pitfalls of not setting
policy which causes confusion among all staff and creates randomness in what we do. If policies are written and hopefully understood they act as a guide to what is
acceptable in the company.”
Dr. CB, Practice Owner
Course: How to Write Effective Company Policy
“This course has taught me how to effectively manage my work and communications with fellow staff so that a maximum of valuable production occurs with a minimum of wasted time and effort.”
JT, Practice Manager
Course: How to Increase Efficiency in Your Company
“A working organizational board for our hospital is a big step to a more efficient
operation where my people can really understand the dynamics of servicing a client and their pet. I am very excited to move ahead from this point.”
Dr. MA, Practice Owner
Course: Basic Organization
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Day 1 in blogisphere...
Good morning! I've been wanting to start a blog like this for quite a while to express the daily, weekly, monthly goings ons that happen around our offices at Veterinary Practice Solutions. I'd like to share our clients wins within the veterinary community and let people that we are making a difference in private practice life. Maybe some of you will find this interesting and maybe not. I'd like to hear from you either way! So... more on this later. START!
JP
JP
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