We have spent this month building toward something. We started on Labor Day talking about what you bring to your work. Then we talked about being both helpful and helpable. Last week we addressed the difference between being stuck and deciding you are helpless.
Today, I want to bring all of that together with one characteristic that makes an extraordinary impact in a person’s success: Resourcefulness.
Resourceful people do not necessarily know more than everyone else. They are not always the most experienced person in the room. They do not have every answer, unlimited time, perfect circumstances, or an easy path.
They simply develop the habit of believing there is a way forward and then looking for it.
That is a tremendously valuable quality in a team member.
When something goes wrong, the resourceful person does not stop at identifying the problem. They begin looking for possibilities. Who knows how to do this? What have we tried before? What have we not tried? What information are we missing? Who could I ask? What could I learn? What can I change? What is within my control right now?
Those questions create movement.
Compare that to the person who immediately begins building the case for why something cannot be done… We do not have enough time. The patient will never agree. The schedule is too busy. Nobody told me. We tried that before. That will not work here. We need another person. This is just the way it is.
Maybe some of those things are even true. That still does not make them useful.
One of the greatest differences between people who consistently improve and people who consistently stay stuck is what they do after they encounter the obstacle. Do they use the obstacle as evidence that they should stop or do they treat the obstacle as information that helps them determine what to do next?
That is resourcefulness.
It also requires humility because one of your greatest resources will always be other people. There is almost nothing you are trying to figure out that somebody else has not experienced, learned, solved, improved, or at least thought about in a way that could help you. Why would you deliberately deny yourself access to that?
There is no prize for making everything harder than it needs to be. As a matter of fact, I think maturity is realizing that leveraging other people’s experience is one of the smartest things you can possibly do.
That is why great leaders ask questions. That is why great team members ask for coaching. That is why successful doctors surround themselves with people who will challenge their thinking. That is why strong teams communicate instead of struggling silently in separate corners.
They use their resources.
However, there is another side of this that matters for leaders. You also have to be careful not to become the solution everybody uses instead of developing their own resourcefulness. If every problem immediately comes to you and you immediately provide the answer, eventually you train people to bring you problems instead of bringing you thinking.
A much better question when somebody brings you a problem is, “What do you think we should do?”
Now you are developing them. You can still help. You can still coach. You can still provide an answer when necessary. However, you are teaching the person to engage their own thinking before borrowing yours. That changes culture.
Imagine a practice filled with people who do not simply identify what is wrong but instinctively look for what can be done next. Imagine people helping each other without being asked, receiving help without defensiveness, asking good questions, sharing ideas, and taking responsibility for finding a way forward.
You would have fewer excuses, less drama, faster problem solving, better communication, and stronger people. That is a team becoming more capable together.
So, as we close out September, I want you to do something very practical.
Take one recurring frustration inside your practice. Pick something that keeps happening. Something people complain about. Something that wastes time, creates stress, frustrates patients, causes confusion, or simply is not as good as you know it could be.
Then ban the sentence, “That’s just the way it is.”
Instead, answer three questions: What part of this can we influence? What resources do we already have that we are not fully using? Who could help us think about this differently?
Then choose one action and do something about it. You do not have to solve everything at once. You simply have to stop accepting helplessness as an explanation for something that can be improved.
If every person on our team gets just a little better at those things, we will not merely have a more productive practice. We will have stronger people. And stronger people, working together, can move forward no matter the challenge.
