Today's Practice: Changing the Business of Medicine SW Edition Q1 2015 | Page 12

P RA CT I CE MA NA GE ME NT

11 Guidelines (continued)
I would like to share eleven guidelines with you on how
to hire a great team, as well as how to keep them energized and motivated.

1. Be clear on your criteria.
What is important to you in an employee? Look at skill
set as well as other criteria, such as people skills and
trainability. For example, are they open-minded and
keen to learn? A person who doesn’t have a lot of experience, but whom is motivated to be there will be a lot
more valuable than a person who has a lot of experience, but lacks enthusiasm for the job. Therefore, the
former being very trainable and the latter a red flag.

2. Help them get motivated to their bigger WHY.
It’s important that everyone on the team be aware and
passionate about the bigger vision of the practice. Share
it with them during their interview and make sure you
ask why they want to work for you as well. Is it a means
to an end or are they actually excited about the position? Pay attention to those gut feelings, especially
when someone may “look” great on paper but seems to
be “off ” in-person. Your gut instincts are never wrong.
You can probably look back at a time(s) when you
didn’t follow your gut and it ended up backfiring.

3. Know that people are going to make mistakes
and that this is okay, especially when they first start
working with you. There is a bit of a learning curve and
expecting perfection is unreasonable at the beginning
and along the way. A great rule of thumb is that you
allow for mistakes, but they must figure out what went
wrong right away so that it doesn’t happen again. If it
continues more then three times, then it’s time to let
them go.

4. This is number three’s cousin.
You did not hire your employees to become your
friends. Of course being kind and respectful are of the
utmost importance, but so is being the boss you need to
be. You are the CEO (yes you are a CEO), of your prac-

10
11

Chris Atley
tice and it’s important to communicate this so that the
boundary lines are clear. I see this all too often with business owners – they are trying to fulfill some type of
dysfunctional need deep down and don’t end up being
the leader they need to be because they’re afraid to hurt
someone’s feelings. You are running a business first and
foremost and can have friends outside of work.

5. Communicate all of the expectations upfront
in terms of what the role includes along with timelines,
etc. This will help to ensure everyone is on the same page
from the beginning and will prevent friction in the
future.

6. Pay them what the position is worth. Don’t
try to short change or find the best deal when it comes
to paying your employees. Now \