Why Are Executive-Led Chiropractic Practices So Successful?
PERSPECTIVE
Eric Huntington
Between the time you leave chiropractic school until you enter your practice, you’re operating outside your chosen profession. During that time, you’re examining and analyzing what it takes to run a business.
In essence, you’re the chief executive officer of a company that doesn’t exist yet. Once you arrive, you make the shift back to being a chiropractor, which just might be the biggest mistake you could make.
The most successful and thriving chiropractic practices are those run by executives, strong and knowledgeable leaders who know what it takes to manage and direct a business.
An executive is defined as “a person with senior managerial responsibility in a business organization.” An executive is “is a person or group of persons having administrative or supervisory authority in an organization.”
Synonyms include chief, head, director, senior official, senior manager, or chief executive officers.
Parsing the word even further, we get a clearer understanding of the executive’s role. Medieval Latin’s exsequi means to “carry out, follow after, accomplish.”
Digging even deeper, the word—dissected into ex and sequi—means “completely” “to follow.” In other words, the executive follows tasks and projects to the end. The executive ensures the job gets done.
The Chiropractic Executive
So, how does this apply to chiropractic?
Statistics show that most chiropractic school students aspire to own their practices while most medical school students look forward to practicing medicine exclusively. That significant difference requires future chiropractors to steep themselves in business administration and principles of marketing and sales.
Chiropractors struggle because they tend to neglect the business side of their chiropractic business for the sake of the chiropractic side, creating an imbalance that inevitably fails to maintain momentum over the long haul.
If you’re determined to accomplish your chiropractic goals, you shouldn’t apply this principle exclusively to yourself. You can work hard, you can push yourself. But the executive’s task is to ensure everyone on the team aspires to attain those higher objectives.
You assign tasks or projects to staff. “Ninety percent complete” doesn’t work. “Mostly done” isn’t good enough. You’re looking for 100 percent. That way you don’t have to fret over incomplete projects. You free yourself from the mindset that you have to make up the difference in their shortcomings, that you must finish their work. It’s a bad habit that leads to lags in productivity. Executives must learn to instill that gung-ho attitude of staff ownership: “This is my job and I’ll get it done right.”
Taking the Lead
What does it mean to be an executive? Executives are leaders. They are the ones in charge of their chiropractic practices, they are the ones blazing the trail. They are the ones responsible for their practices’ success or failure. They’re not merely chiropractors who happen to own a practice. They are the business
leaders using chiropractic to bring health and wholeness to their community.
How can you actually lead your practice? Here are several components to help you in your leadership role
Effective leaders must communicate their treatment vision of function over symptoms powerfully and effectively. Others gravitate to leaders they view as competent and professional.
Chiropractors who are exceptional at their profession enjoy the respect of their peers, their patients and their employees. Chiropractors who excel at the task of business management—at serving as the executive—extend their reach into their community, creating a deeper connection with patients and the public.
Nonetheless, chiropractors’ good intentions won’t carry their practice for the long haul. Consider the lone practitioner. This chiropractor is probably limited to seeing 50 to 75 patients per week, but with added staff and associate doctors the number may climb deep into the hundreds.
Practices are built on the shoulders of smart leaders who understand and demonstrate the executive principles through effective communication, professional competence and the ability to take in the complete picture.
The leader’s greatest attribute is courage, the courage to take a stand and to push the agenda to completion.
The Power of Perception
Business management principles, marketing strategies, and agendas may be essential for building strong practices. But in the final scene, the executive and the staff’s perception of the executive are the keys to creating a winning practice.
While developing a sense of ethical purpose is absolutely essential for building a thriving practice, the real power originates in the minds of your staff. How do they respond to you as a leader? Do they believe in you as a leader? Are they motivated to perform at their best when you’re present and when you’re not overseeing them?
Do your employees suddenly sit up straight at your chiropractic office when you enter the room? Your staff must believe in you. They must understand and appreciate your drive and your persistence.
One example: You establish a rule about staff cheerfully greeting every patient as the patient initially enters your office. Your aim is to create a more friendly, welcoming environment.
Staff members are slow in adhering to your new requirement, but through persistence on your part they develop the
habit of greeting patients in this manner. After a while, it becomes standard fare and employees leam to appreciate your persistence and gain new levels of respect.
They begin to accept on a deeper level your role as practice executive, not merely as office manager or just another chiropractor who happens to sign their paychecks. Soon they begin to appreciate and respect your decision, creating a greater sense of loyalty.
Future directives are taken more seriously and carried out with more drive and passion. Your staff understands you have a vision of where you want to take the practice and more willing to assume additional responsibilities. You are the chief executive, and you’re going to get the job done. And you will lead them to victory!
Take a look at your practice and decide if you need to develop your executive skills.
Eric Huntington, DC is the President of the Chiropractic Business Academy (CBA), a chiropractic training and consulting group which assists chiropractors to build stable, profitable practices by teaching time-tested, proven business systems. To learn more about the CBA visit www.chirobizacademy.com You can contact the Chiropractic Business Academy at 888-989-0855.
