27 Jul 5 Steps to Building an Unbreakable Practice Culture
Ever heard the saying culture is king?!
It’s 100% true.
What separates the top healthcare practices, isn’t the tactics and strategies they use, but their unbreakable culture!
They have clear values, strong beliefs and get bigger and better every quarter.
So how do they do it?
Well if you have a game-winning culture – you succeed.
It’s that simple!
Use these 5 steps to build a bulletproof culture in your practice.
1. Be crystal clear on your values.
Think of your values as the code of conduct that you live by every single day.
What you stand for, what you stand against, how you do and don’t behave, what you strive for, how you strive for it.
To make your practice bulletproof, everyone on your team needs to live by shared values.
You need to be united because of them.
For most Practices, values are just a set of words that go up on a wall somewhere, most likely beside a “mission statement” that your new staff read when they join and are reminded of once a year in their mandatory performance review.
That’s not good enough.
Your team need to know your values like the back of their hands and embody them in their work.
Use meetings and training sessions to remind your team about your values regularly.
Much like how some professional sporting teams have incredibly powerful cultures, they are united completely in their goals, beliefs and the standards, your practice needs to do the same if you are to build a powerful practice that is bigger than all of the individuals within it.
2. Culture really is king
An aligned culture is a group of people that all connect and embody your beliefs and values and are completely committed to your practice and all that you serve.
When you create a powerful culture, together you can create so much more than a bunch of individuals.
To create a powerful culture, constantly refer to your company values.
Celebrate when they are upheld, refer to them when people go off track and always have them front of mind.
Put priority on a bulletproof culture and let it build a workplace that celebrates a team-first mentality.
3. Meeting Rhythm
Professional sporting teams train and meet often.
So do high performing businesses.
Everyone needs to be on the same page.
Meetings are your chance to, drill down on team accountability and encourage collaborative work from every one of your staff.
Develop a clear meeting schedule with a clear agenda for every type of meeting that you run.
And yes, you need to run daily and weekly meetings.
The very act of meeting will galvanise your culture through enhanced and collaborative communication.
Harness meetings to build a powerful workplace culture.
Create a team that is hungry to achieve their best, help their patients and grow the practice.
4. Keep Score
You want professional level results right?!
Well, ask yourself this. Would you watch sport if they didn’t keep score?
Not many people would (Certainly not me!)
Could you imagine what the coach would say at the end of the game.
“Well done guys, you all played well from what I can see. I’m not sure if we won or lost but you’re all winners in my book?”
Seriously – he’d lose his job immediately.
It’s your job to be the head coach of your practitioners.
Become assertive and give feedback they need and that will lead to better patient care, more re-bookings and a superstar employee.
Carrying out performance assessments gives you a great opportunity to instil your workplace values on your employees on a regular basis.
You’ve got to keep score, and give them objective feedback often, plus show your team how to up their game.
5. Exit non-fits
This one is extremely important.
We call it the neon light effect.
When you build a strong culture around your beliefs and install the metrics and management structure to measure results, people who are non-fits will stand out like neon lights!
When this happens, act fast and move them on!
Not everyone will fit in with your culture and that’s fine, but it’s up to you to preserve your culture at all costs.
Allowing people to undermine you, your values and your culture – it’s toxic for your business and it spreads fast.
Act fast and free up their future when this happens.
You have an obligation to do so.
Build an unbreakable culture and you’ll be sure to elevate your team to peak performance.
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