The New CEO: What it Means to Lead in Private Practice

It has been said that that the famed consulting firm McKinsey & Company calls on a new CEO as soon as they complete their first 90 days on the job.

The first 90 days as a new leader in an organization is usually spent assessing the current situation and building relationships. Mostly information gathering and acclimating. Not a lot of decision making and action occurs in this initial period.

But after this 3-month orientation, CEOs have usually established an opinion about what they want to do. It’s at this point, McKinsey calls on the newly appointed CEO so that they will be “top-of-mind” when the leader is ready to take action.

As a new dentist or physician in private practice, you are the CEO. You are now responsible for the future success of your practice. After the first 90 days, doctors who want to lead their team into the future set the vision, develop their team and build a winning culture.

Set the Vision

People will follow leaders who communicate a clear vision. A clear vision motivates and inspires.

Without a clear vision, it’s impossible to know how to make the right decision. Without a clear destination, how do you know when you’ve arrived?

It’s like as Alice learns during her adventures in Wonderland:

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

Lewis Carroll

How to establish the vision

Step 1: Write down your goals. What does the front office look like 5 years from now? How do you care more for your patients?

Step 2: Be results oriented. Your goals should be measurable. This means that you can set benchmarks and keep track of your progress.

Step 3: Communicate with the team. Constantly share your vision. Keep a visible scorecard where you track progress against your benchmarks. Everybody likes to feel like they’re winning.

Develop Your Team

As the old saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

You won’t reach your goals in private practice if you don’t focus on developing your team. They are your greatest asset. Your business’ performance and profitability will either sink to the comfort level of your team or rise to meet the standards you set.

Leaders in private practice develop their teams by coaching for potential, hiring with purpose, and dismissing with courage.

Coaching for Potential

The best leaders are great coaches. They’ve learned how to spot the potential in someone else and they know how to maximize another’s performance.

Coaching starts with a foundation of trust. One way to establish trust with your team is through positive feedback. From there you might conduct 1-on-1’s with key members of your team and start giving them the tools and confidence to execute your vision.

Hiring with Purpose

Hiring is a process and it takes time to do it purposefully. When faced with a two-week notice, or less in some cases, of a departing team member, it is tempting to try to fill the empty position quickly. This “now” reaction can lead to future frustrations – it’s a Big mistake.

Hiring with purpose means that you’re willing to work understaffed for a week or longer so that you can find the “Right Fit” for your Practice. Finding a person that is qualified and fits into the culture of your Practice is worth the short term pain to avoid the stress of a bad hire.

Start by getting clear on your job description. Similar to setting the vision, you won’t know when you have the right person if you don’t know for whom you are looking.

Dismissing with Courage

Nobody enjoys letting people go. But sometimes it’s a necessary step you need to make as the leader of your business when an employee just isn’t fitting well into your team.

Firing a member of your team might be the best choice if they are a recurring source of conflict or aren’t performing up to your expectations. Taking this step may also be the best choice for the staff member. Often the reason they are not performing well in the position is that they aren’t doing what they are wired to do and are unhappy.

Dismissing with courage means that you act when necessary and with purpose so that your team isn’t kept from winning and meeting your business goals and objectives.

Build A Winning Culture

Culture is the flywheel that drives your team’s motivations and actions when the leader isn’t there. It exists whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

Practice leaders can choose to be intentional about building a great culture, or they can let the culture be the result of apathy. One works for you; the other more often against.

Building a culture takes time, and it can’t be done alone. But there are steps we can take to influence it. Private practice dentists and physicians can influence their team’s culture by identifying the “why,” spreading the word, and acting it out.

Identify the Why

Simon Sinek gave a viral TED Talk called “Start with Why.” In it, he describes how people are deeply motivated and inspired by purpose. Purpose comes from answering “why.”

Do you have a mission statement? How about a list of values?

Maybe they exist in your head. Moving them from your mind to paper will enhance their effectiveness and keep them “top of mind” for your team. This is a great starting point to clearly stating why you do what you do in business, which will reslult in building a winning culture.

Spread the Word

Post your mission statement and values where everyone can see!

Find creative ways to remind you and your staff what makes your practice different. Recite your mission before every staff meeting. Put your values in the header or footer of your newsletters and brochures.

Healthcare leaders who build intentional cultures are not shy about sharing their “why” with their teams or with the patients they serve.

Act it Out

Most importantly, culture is a verb. It’s what we do. It’s not enough to write down a mission statement, plaster values all over the walls, and then go about our day as usual.

Culture is built by our actions. People pick up on how we conduct ourselves by the little habits that we demonstrate with consistency over time. So, as the owner of your practice, lead by example to create the culture you wish to see – and do it…on purpose.

---

As acting CEO of your practice, have you communicated a clear vision? What are you doing tomorrow to develop one member of your team? Did you demonstrate the culture you want to build today?