Sound management advice for medical practices doesn't have to come from healthcare experts. The following three leadership tricks are from various industries and can help you connect with employees in virtually any setting.
- Act like the dumbest person in the room. This counterintuitive suggestion comes from a post by management experts Jack and Suzy Welch on LinkedIn. Jack Welch is well known for transforming General Electric while its CEO and now serves as executive chairman of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. "Sure, as a boss, people will turn to you for all the answers, and you'll want to supply them. But instead, show people that your job is to have all the questions," they wrote. "Greet every decision and proposal with 'What if?' and 'Why not?' and 'How come?' … In time, this approach will breed an atmosphere of vigorous engagement and straight talk, drawing the best ideas out of the group, and yes, even exposing a buried crisis that may be about to blow."
- Make your requests stick. People are far more likely to comply with a request--often more promptly and thoughtfully--when it comes with a personalized Post-It note attached, according to a study from the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In the experiment used in the study, 78 percent of the people receiving a survey with a hand-written sticky note asking them to complete it did so, compared to 48 percent who received the survey packet with a note scrawled onto the cover letter and 36 percent who got instructions via cover letter alone. "This technique obviously can't be applied to every situation--you probably don't want to attach a handwritten sticky note to, say, 40,000 newsletters," wrote Alison Davis in Inc. But have you thought about how you can make communication more personal?"
- Count your blessings out loud. George Ferenczi, M.D. discussed the problem of sagging morale in today's physician office world, in a recent column for Medical Economics. He not only acknowledged the reasons behind his and his colleagues' frustrations, but also listed the reasons medicine remains a profession he loves. Sharing these positive reminders, such as the joy of always learning something new, sets a motivating example not just for one physician's office team but the industry at large.
To learn more:
- read the LinkedIn post
- see the study
- see the post from Inc.
- read the column