2012 physician new year resolutions

A book entitled “When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance” by the Harvard Business School Press mentions that most professional service firms (yes, a medical practice is a professional service firm) often focus on the short term and spend little time and thought on providing direction on where the practice is going and why. This is so typical of medical practices. You need goals and objectives to guide you throughout this next year – without them, you are just a rudderless ship.

So here is the first of the new year resolutions you should be concentrating on; use them to set your own practice goals and objectives for 2012.

RESOLUTION: I RESOVE to inspire and motivate my employees.

Believe it or not, this is an easy one to accomplish. Employees can be inspired and motivated just by doing a few simple things – when they do a good job, tell them they did so. Tell them thank you for a job well done and thank them for their efforts and for being a part of your team. Make the effort to take each employee individually to lunch. Get their feedback on what is good about the practice and what can be improved. Surveys have shown these little things do more for office morale than salary raises do. Remember a very important point: The better performing offices are the ones that do the best at human resources.