How often should a practice owner meet face to face with their practice manager(s) – and what should they talk about?
Periodicity
What I’m referring to here isn’t the day to day banter of keeping the business going.
Rather a sacrosanct, uninterruptible, quality conversation in which both (all) parties empathetically listen to each other – and follow the essential requirements of any meeting:
- Consider
- Decide
- Act
If your meetings consider but don’t lead to a decision and an action – they are a waste of time.
Your meeting should take place once a week as a minimum.
Content
I’m going to share with you the simplest way possible to express this – the POB formula:
- Performance
- how is the business performing against all the metrics that have been agreed for the period in question? Denominated in numbers and dates – X things by Y deadline. Marketing, and Conversions, Sales and Expenses. Productivity against target. Numbers, numbers, numbers;
- Operations
- how are the business systems flowing? Are all the operational boxes being ticked? Are we compliant, efficient and effective? (Compliant is doing things responsibly. Efficient is doing things right. Effective is doing the right things right.)
- Behaviours
- how are the people behaving themselves? People includes team members, patients and even suppliers. Behaviours are those which are in line with your core values and with the example that you set. Behavioural non-compliance is unacceptable – period.
All problems exist in the absence of this conversation and these beliefs.
with my thanks to Tim Meskhi for the inspiration over a lovely lunch
