The Accountability Cadence

The frequency of your communication with your team will equal the level of growth you can achieve as a team.

Why? As clinic owner or leader, your single most important role, along with perhaps performing medical treatments (if you still do them), is the role of the CRO (the chief reminding officer).

Good clinic owners are always doing one of these 3 things whenever they are communicating with their team(s):

1. Do my people know what they're supposed to do? [Training]
2. Do they know why? [Motivating]
3. Are they actually doing it? [Reminding]

Most clinic owners assume that the best way to grow their team is #1.

Good clinic owners take care of #1 and #2 at regular intervals.

But almost every clinic owner forgets about #3.

Telling your team what to do and why to do it is easy. Making things stick—real, lasting change and the reinforcement it requires — that's hard.

Even people that know what to do - need reminding to get it right. A lot of reminding.

And guess what? That's your only job as the CRO - the chief reminding officer. (I repeated this sentence because the whole point of this section is about reminding:)

In the beginning, you will manage it all. However, over time your clinic manager or highest leadership position in your clinic as you grow will run it, and you'll listen.

What is an "accountability cadence"?

It sounds like a fancy business word, but in simple terms, it's a communication cycle of preset report / short meetings that:

1. Provides you with helpful feedback
2. Boosts the clinic

The accountability cadence serves a similar purpose as a patient check-up at your clinic or when you check your "pulse" to see the state of your health.

Having a healthy "accountability cadence" is like having a daily "pulse check" - it's the check of the heartbeat of your clinic as a business.

It also keeps everyone focused on the main thing.

 

We know that:

• Lack of predictable, clear communication in clinic teams leads to fear and doubt.
• Creating a cadence of accountability will take you a maximum of 2 hours per month and save you tens of thousands of euros lost in: 
• Mistakes
• Undiscovered team growth
• Stalled growth of your clinic

So if you decide to be lazy and implement just one "best practice" from the entire clinic boost method... let it be the "accountability cadence".

The Accountability Cadence Of Clinics Of Excellence:

• Daily Check-Ins (1 minute)
• Weekly Check-ins (5-15mins)
• Monthly Reviews (30mins)
• Quarterly Reviews (2-3hrs)

And yes, you need an "accountability cadence" for every role in the clinic, i.e. admin, nurses, doctors, led by you if you're a small team or the head of their departments if you're a larger clinic.

If your clinic is a large team, typically over 30 people, you will then have your own "accountability cadence" with the heads of your departments each day.

I'll cover each one of these in-depth in separate posts and provide you with a printable one-page summary and plan for each.

What follows here is our simple, repeatable formula for achieving your most important priorities consistently.

Obvious? Yes. Easy? No. Here's how you join the top 5% of clinics that actually do them and experience massive growth, along with an excellent team culture that attracts & keeps the most talented doctors, nurses & support staff with you.

No matter what the timeframe (daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly), you'll always cover:

The 4 Questions Of Accountability (4QA):

In addition to reporting the "pulse," i.e. statistics, (patient numbers, money etc.), you're going to ask:

1. What went well?
2. What didn't?
3. What did you learn?
4. What will you do differently next time?

Every day, week, month and quarter from each team member.

Examples of "pulse" statistics":

Non-medical staff: reporting on revenue earned, phone calls made, messages received, etc.

Medical: numbers of patients treated, types of treatments done, stock items used.

Example report:

1. Mrs. Smith was delighted with the treatment done and had a photograph taken with the team.
2. Rebecca was late for work so we missed some patient phone calls in the morning.
3. Patients are more than happy to have their photographs taken with us, and these photos are suitable for our marketing.
4. If a team member is going to be late, we have arranged that they notify us immediately, and we are training our nurses to stand in for them if necessary.

Larger teams can report to the head of their team, such as the head receptionist, head nurse, and the head doctor, and then have these people say a summary to you as the clinic owner.

At the end of the 4 questions, you'll add a separate section depending on the timeframe:

For example:

Daily: did you do the task of the day?

Weekly: What's the focus of the week?

Monthly: What's the project of the month?

Quarterly: What's the goal of the quarter?

This is the discipline of accountability. Each team member engages in a simple daily, weekly, monthly & quarterly process that highlights successes, analyzes failures, and course-corrects as necessary, creating the ultimate clinic management system.

It also reinforces all the best practices you implement & improve throughout the clinic boost method.

Do it:

• announce to your team your cadence of accountability using the template provided
• schedule a time in your calendar for the 3 reviews (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
• the daily check-in usually happens at the end of or the beginning of the day

Template (adapt as needed):

"I would like you to report to me every day (state time of day) these numbers from now on so that I have a better view of what's happening with you in the clinic.

You can do this through (state preferred form of communication, i.e. verbal chat, phone, message, note)

I'd also like to know:

What went well today?

What didn't?

What did you learn, if anything?

What will you do differently next time?

I'll also plan a quick 5 minute chat with all team members every week to cover the same questions and look at your week overall.

I trust that this will help me have better oversight of what's happening in the clinic and create a closer relationship with our team.

Sincerely,

<<your name>>