Comfort in Business is the Enemy of Growth
As America puts the finishing touches on what has been a successful Olympic campaign, and with a nod to the stunning backdrop of Paris—perhaps the most iconic since the Parthenon—I’m left to consider the construct of alignment. As a chiropractor, the word “alignment” has a particular significance, but in the context of business or relationships, alignment can be much more challenging to achieve. To pull off an event like the Olympics, let alone a successful one, everyone must first “buy in” to the mission and then agree to row in the same direction (pun intended). An event with so many moving parts, across multiple venues and locations, requires the completion of extensive infrastructure, and the safety and security of participants and spectators. It’s akin to staging 14 Super Bowls in a row. This can only be accomplished with a clear objective, solid communication, and commitment to the outcome.
This Monday, all the offices in the Fed-Hurt network will gear up to serve not only their core patient base but also additional federal employees referred for treatment. Each office has its own “playbook” for care, and every employee must “buy in” to the core values and principles that guide each office’s business practices. Gino Wickman, author of Traction, offers a concept to help determine whether a position is being operated effectively: “Right person, wrong seat; wrong person, right seat.” Essentially, Wickman is talking about alignment. Every role in a clinical setting—from the front desk to each clinician—is critical to the success of the brand. For years in my practice, I hired the wrong people for the right seats. They might have been qualified, but our core values, both personal and professional, were not aligned. This misalignment led to poor work performance and, consequently, poor business outcomes.
I encourage each business owner and employee to do two things after reading this message. First, clinic owners should get crystal clear on their business’s core values. Share these with your team, and open the floor for discussion, so everyone understands the driving force behind your brand. If you don’t have a written or clearly stated set of core values, now is a great time to rally the team and create one! My team knows that our driving force is to provide treatment and claims management for ALL federal employees. Second, both the employee and employer should evaluate whether the employee is in the right seat or if they could better benefit the company in another role. This reevaluation, if you will, might be quite painful for many reasons.
Resist the urge to be comfortable during this exercise. Growth always occurs when pressure is applied. Comfort in business is the enemy of growth. Every business should evaluate three key areas every six months:
- 1. Process: How do you handle everything in your practice, from answering the phone to providing reports to insurance companies?
- 3. Technology: What is your current “operating system” in every aspect of office production, and can it be improved?
- 3. Messaging: What is your brand saying—or not saying? And more importantly, what is your team communicating or doing in relation to your brand?
The common thread in alignment is communication. Nothing can be achieved without a clear understanding of the objectives established by the business.
I encourage everyone to take a moment to get clear on your “Why.” Why are you in practice? Why are you working in the medical field?
By the time you read this, most of the country will be back in school. There are 81 days until Halloween, 109 days until Thanksgiving, and 142 until New Year’s. Before we know it, it will be 2025. We all must work on the business as well as in the business. I’ll repurpose a lyric from a previous blog:
*”Cause I have wandered through this world, and as each moment has unfurled, I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams. People go just where they will. Never noticed them until I got this feeling that it is later than it seems.”
– Jackson Browne, (Doctor My Eyes)
