I just hate hearing this excuse… “I’m too busy.”
My 90 year old grandparents are busy. They joke about it all the time. Because they know, really, they have nothing to do yet they spend a whole lot of time doing. And I love them for it.
But you, seriously, we’re all “busy”.
But that really isn’t the question or maybe I should say that really isn’t the answer.
Nothing in your day should be based around being busy. It should be focused on and tied directly to getting results.
If any one of your team members responds with the fact that they are busy then I can promise you 100% you just found a giant hole in your bucket where money is falling through it and you are losing opportunity.
Every practice thinks they are busy. Some are; some just pretend.
The tasks, as they say, fill the time allowed. Always.
One of the most important parts of being a team and leading a team is to never mistake activity for accomplishment; to hold people and yourself accountable for specific results, actions that lead to something, not just filling up a day with motion.
Oh, and I know it’s hard, this concept isn’t easy. You will have the phone ringing constantly, patients trying to distract you with things that aren’t really important, being pulled away from what really matters…if you’re up front. Or if you’re in the back, there are all kinds of ‘busyness’ that goes with seeing and caring for patients but it sure doesn’t have anything to do with the outcomes of those visits.
Here’s what you are going to do:
Have a heart to heart with your team, ask every individual where they get bogged down, where they lose control and where their time becomes ‘just busy’ instead of ‘productive’ as we say in dentistry (though that’s an entirely different story that we’ll tackle next week). Productivity isn’t what it’s cut out to be or what it once was.
If you want to have a successful team, everyone must know what their highest and best use of their time is; their top 3 priorities for every day and every patient visit; they absolutely have to have tangible outcome driven goals; and have results they are laser focused on and committed to achieving every single day with every single patient.
Then, once that is established, whatever ‘being busy’ BS is in their way, we’ve got to plan and execute a strategy to have better time, energy, people, systems, and attitude management around it.
Last thing, if you want to stop being busy and start getting results, begin by feeling terrible when you use this as an excuse because there is no glory or gratitude in being busy without anything to show for it, in fact, quite the opposite.
When we stop focusing on that and making it the point of feeling good about a day, you’ll stop letting it and anything or anyone else sabotage your effectiveness for the day.
Now, my friend, we can start having fun. Real exciting fun days that’ll be worth every ounce of your energy and every second of your time! More next week…
