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Welcome to iCare Leadership Live.
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This is another Microcast, and in this episode, I'll be talking about building a great workplace and what the three pillars of that are, and what is the one thing that ties it all together.
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I hear from a lot of healthcare practices that culture is an issue and having uh toxic employees is an issue.
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And how can we get people to buy in to what we're trying to do here?
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And it's really not a it's not an easy problem to solve, but it's a simple problem.
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And what I mean by that is it's simple in that there's not the things to do are are very simple, but there's a lot of there's a lot of things to get right, and it's not something that can change overnight.
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So simple but not necessarily easy.
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And there are, in my opinion, three things that make a great workplace, and then one thing that ties it all together.
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And the three things that make a great workplace, which by extension make a successful workplace, uh number one is is having a great culture foundation, meaning you create safety, you uh show vulnerability as a leader.
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Employees are encouraged to be vulnerable, admit they made mistakes, and they feel safe to share ideas.
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And then lastly, in addition to safety, vulnerability is purpose.
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What you know, what is your purpose there?
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Do you talk about that a lot?
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Do you get people bought in before you even hire them about what you're doing, why it's important, the service that you provide in your community, and the way you go about it?
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Do you create a purpose that people can buy into?
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You know, regardless of what actual services you provide, there is a greater good.
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There's a greater service that you're providing your community.
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Okay, so that's culture.
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Then, so that's the first of the three key things to have a great workplace.
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The second key thing is is great jobs.
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And what makes a great job?
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Well, Daniel Pink talked about this in his book Drive.
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A great job is one that motivates you intrinsically, and one where you get to have autonomy.
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You're not being micromanaged.
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One where you get to really know your job and you get to be become an expert in your job.
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That's mastery, and then lastly, again, that word purpose.
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You've got purpose in not just as an organization, but this is talking about that your job has a purpose.
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Maybe your job is really important because you code the charts, and that is what drives the billing.
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Maybe you help us get paid for claims that are rejected.
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Maybe you're the one that explains to patients what the surgery is gonna be like, and you make sure that we get their insurance squared away.
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And so every job has a purpose, uh, and that's a key part of that.
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So great jobs is the second pillar of a great workplace, and then lastly, you've got to have great people.
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And my favorite, my favorite model for that comes from Patrick Lencioni, which is the ideal team player, and he talks about finding great people who are hungry, humble, and smart.
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I've talked about this so many times that I probably won't, I don't, I'm not gonna go into detail on that, but check out the book, The Ideal Team Player.
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It's about finding great employees and and identifying who they are and why they're so helpful in a team-based environment.
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So we've got a great culture, we've got great jobs, and we have great people.
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And I said earlier there's one thing that ties them all together, and that's great managers.
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You've got to have great managers from the frontline manager, you know, the frontline lead or supervisor, all the way up to the managing partner, who maybe doesn't get involved with day-to-day management.
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And why do they all have to be great?
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Well, the managing partner needs to have a very clear vision, they need to not meddle in things that are not in their purview of their job as a managing partner.
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Your job as a managing partner is to set vision and hold the executive team accountable.
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That's it.
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Stay in your lane.
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Uh, the job of the executive leadership team is again to help create the vision and translate the vision to the employees, to engage with the employees on change, to create accountability mechanisms, to focus the entire management team on what's important and remove focus from what's not important.
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And the job of the frontline management team is to develop great relationships with the staff, to make it very clear what success looks like, to train them well, to have frequent conversations with them about the work itself, what's going well, what could be going better, how can we make it better?
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That's the frontline manager's job.
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And also to hear what's working and what's not working and pass that to the executive team.
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There needs to be communication up and down through the leadership, but leadership is the thing that ties it all together because leadership hires the great people, leadership creates the great jobs, and leadership helps to build a great culture.
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And so if you have a weakness within your leadership team, then your entire great workplace concept is going to start to fall apart.
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That's why dealing with a toxic manager or a toxic partner is really important to do.
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You've got to rein in the toxicity or remove it if you want to have a great and a successful workplace.
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Uh, I plan to talk more about this at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting in New Orleans.
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If you're listening to this before that meeting, which is gonna be in October 2026, um, I'm gonna be talking about this in a presentation I'm doing with Brandy Musgrave.
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Uh, we're gonna be talking about uh marketing and great employee and patient experiences.
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That's where I'm gonna talk about this idea.
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Uh probably talk about it in my Culture Kaisen presentation as well at the Academy of Ophthalmology.
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Would love to meet you there.
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If you're if you listen to the show, please stop by, find me, say hi.
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I'm usually wearing a hat.
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Um, but if you're not gonna be at that show, let me know what you think of this of this episode.
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Let me know if you think about iCare Leadership Live.
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If you have ideas for the show, we'd love to hear it.
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And share this show with someone who you think might be interested.
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That's the episode for this week.
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It's a microcast.
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I look forward to chatting with you all very soon here on iCare Leadership Live.