With so many goals that we want to accomplish in our practices sometimes we miss out on what we have accomplished. When this happens staff can become disenchanted and disengaged.
Many times managers will struggle with the “glass-half-empty” syndrome. They focus on what still needs to be done and fail to celebrate the small accomplishments of the practice. One manager I spoke to had been working hard with his staff over the past couple of years and felt that no matter what management strategies he tried he still could not produce the "Super Team" he wanted.
I asked him what successes they accomplished last year as a team. He began to tell me that they did finish a much-needed protocol manual, which took much longer to do than he expected. They also achieved making a Facebook page for their company and to date had 156 followers, yet he thought they could have accomplished more.
Upon further probing he mentioned that the practice had reached their monthly financial goals 3 months out of the year. He thought this was good, but not great even though they had never reached them before.
When he finished, I told him that he and his team had accomplished a lot to be proud of this past year and if he continued to focus on what they did not do he would pass his negative feeling along to his team and then good luck in trying to motivate them to be successful this year.
His hard work with his team had paid off. He was just missing it because he was looking at what they didn’t accomplish instead of what they did.
If you want to motivate yourself and your staff to continue to make changes and improvements to the practice you need to celebrate the small wins along the way. There is no quick way to transform your practice it takes continual focus and work.
This manager was leading his team down the right road, it was just a little bumpier and longer than he expected. I encouraged him to keep moving forward even if he and his team are moving at baby step speed. Little accomplishments are better than none.
"Success is not a destination, but the road you are on." ~ Unknown
