One of the podcasts I listened to this week was of Don Miller interviewing Miles Adcox about emotions in the workplace which really got me thinking about how much more we are actually in control of – we are of course in control of ourselves! 

I hope my brief summary of the podcast and my thoughts below will help you deal with the current situation a little better than before. 

Managing Yourself

Miles Adcox shared a concept that we might experience but not consciously recognise at the time – in seasons of elevated stress our brains experience our deepest fears and it makes it difficult for us to evaluate our progress. 

We can instead only see the negative aspects and struggle to see what we have achieved and what we can achieve.

He suggests a adopting a three step process: Reset, Recalibrate and Reconnect

Reset: Catch yourself in the moment and literally step back – catch yourself being REACTIVE rather than  RESPONSIVE and take a step back to be able to objectively assess your current reality and acknowledge the emotion you are feeling. The act of acknowledging emotions can really dampen the impact they are having on you.  

Recalibrate: How was it before, how is it now and how do you want it to be? Something Miles mentioned stood out for me – when our brains are operating in survival mode (from a place of fear) we often don’t have the ability to see the whole picture – we might just see the negative things so it’s important to map out the whole picture. Look for the positives – they will be there

Reconnect: Here Miles speaks about reconnecting with who you are, how you want to be, where you want to get to and putting a plan in place to get there. We help our clients to reconnect with who they are and who they want to be by asking them what words they would like to hear people saying about them and then thinking about what they need to do differently for those words to be spoken.

Supporting Your Team

Once you have recognised your own fears and have a process in place to overcome them you will be in a much better place to support your team and take a more objective approach about who you need around you rather than making fear-based decisions. 

Now more than ever when you might be working together less in the clinic and possibly still have some team members on furlough or working from home, communication and connection is key.

Different team members will need different levels of interaction and support so as a leader it’s important to work out how best to support the team as a whole and as individuals.

Looking After Your Patients

Taking care of yourself and your team can only have a positive knock-on effect on your patients. As Richard Branson says “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.” 

Apart form looking after your staff you need to make sure that they know the purpose of your practice and exactly how you want your patient journey to be including the practical processes and the level of quality at each step of the journey.

Your patients will have different thoughts about the current situation. Some will be happy to come into the practice and others may feel fearful. It is important to communicate about both the safe environment and the quality of care they will receive when coming into your practice. 

With regard to quality of care, it’s one thing delivering it, but how do you measure it and demonstrate it? We highly recommend collecting data and then being able to use it to demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of care you can provide.

Manage Yourself. Support Your Team. Look After Your Patients.

We hope that the above gives you food for thought and encouragement to pro-actively design the future practice you desire.