FEATURE what I want done, it’s just faster to do it myself. 2. If I delegate something, what if I’m left out of the loop? 3. They won’t do it the right way. In overcoming these concerns, the generative questions would be: What challenges need solving? • • What is my preferred future? What things are important to • dedicate my resources to? How do I consider the values, • judgments and insights of the people in the practice? • How can I do the visioning for the practice if I am caught up in all the minutiae of the day-to-day running of it? • Am I willing to let go of some things in order to achieve what I want? What procedures can be dele-• gated to others? How do I want my people to re-• port to me? There are lots of ways we can dele-gate – to frontline staff, clinical staff, bookkeeping, cleaning staff, perhaps a marketing team or patient advocate. Initially in practice, I did not dele-gate because I simply could not afford to. It was the one-doc-do-everything scenario. So, like many of you, I played many roles – the CEO, CFO, opera-tions, assistant, HR, project manage-ment and doctor. In retrospect, this was an invaluable experience as I gained a deep appreciation of what performance I wanted for each posi-tion. From that experience, a proce-dural manual of job descriptions with checklists was created for training, accountability and feedback to those I entrusted and delegated to. My sug-gestion is to begin writing down all the elements of what needs to be done in the office. Revisit and revisit as you go along. First challenge: “By the time I ex-plain what I want done, it’s just faster to do it myself.” This may be true in the short term, but not so in the long run. When we hire, we want our team to transform while under our leadership. We create that by helping staff gain confidence, take ownership, problem solve and grow through a nurturing environ-ment. Factor in time for training to properly explain what we want and www.canadianchiropractor.ca PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Harness the leader in you Adopting transformational leadership in your practice T LIZ ANDERSON-PEACOCK How does this relate to practice? In order to perform the higher order visioning and leadership in practice, one learns it’s an asset to delegate. Through delegating, we leverage our talents, benefit from the use of other individuals’ talents and thus can focus on what we prefer to spend our time on. However, this may pose some difficulties, and it certainly did for me. In allowing a procedure to be done by someone else, I found three challenges to overcome. You might also identify with them. 1. Who has the time to train and follow up? By the time I explain ransformation is a buz-zword these days. When applied to leadership, it changes how we think and approach our team. It can very well serve to change how we approach our patients as well. By its very nature, transformation means “to change.” It is not just any change. This change is pivotal, affect-ing the way we think and feel as we emerge in a new place of heightened awareness. We create a meaningful experience from a positive shift in our life. DR. LIZ ANDERSON-PEACOCK , a cum laude CMCC graduate from 1986, is a keynote speaker, author and transformational leadership executive coach. Her practice is currently limited to pediatrics and pregnancy. Visit her weekly blog at www.drliz.ca/blog. 34 Canadian Chiropractor September 2014 Photo: Fotolia
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