The Importance of Monthly Team Meetings for Osteopathic Clinics
- Alan Zaia M.Ost
- March 21, 2020
- Practice Management
How osteopaths can use team meetings to build clinic culture
Integrating team meetings for osteopathic clinics may be the best thing you’ll ever do. Some of the most highly functioning and successful Osteopathy clinics have team meetings as an essential part of their business.
For many Osteopathy clinics, the very idea of meetings is a burden, especially if your calendar already seems overcrowded. Luckily, meetings within Osteopathic clinics are very different from the stereotypical business meetings, but the benefits are the same.
Let’s discuss the benefits of monthly meetings, different types, and how to organise a successful one.
I’ve spoken to over 300 healthcare professionals, most of whom run their own clinics, with or without associates, and the most ‘successful’ ones all have (bi-)monthly meetings scheduled three to six months in advance.
Even if you don’t have any staff, the importance of realigning your goals monthly is a fantastic way to keep ambitions on track. However, if you have staff and associates, they’re likely to gain the most out of monthly recaps.
Get your associates busier and improve them as practitioners month in, month out. They will grow their patient list and show loyalty to you because you lit the way. If you’re an associate and not getting the mentorship you want, team meetings are a great way to start.
As always, if you’re seeking any help or further free resources, please feel free to contact us – hello@osteohustle.com
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Benefits of scheduled meetings
- Realigns shared and individual goals and targets.
- Boosts confidence and drive.
- Resolves issues or conflicts.
- Utilises everyone’s strengths.
- Improves teamwork and team dynamics.
- Builds trust and professional relationships.
- Encourages creativity.
- Promotes practitioner self-development.
Basically, if you’re not having meetings, you should take them into consideration, especially if, according to Forbes, you’re going through a significant change.
Types of osteopathy clinic meetings
Face to face meetings
Meeting face-to-face has a significant benefit over all others because body language can be read. As I’m sure you can appreciate, when talking to your patients, you can pick up a lot from how they’re sitting, facial expressions, etc.
The one misconception is that these meetings have to be at least an hour-long, which simply isn’t true. You can schedule them in for one-hour, but if everything is sorted before, then you can cut it short. Furthermore, meetings can be organised for 15-minutes to have that quick catch-up and re-focus.
Your body language enables others to trust you, and you can clarify your point by reinforcing it with your body language.
You can use face-to-face meetings for:
- Meeting with your whole team:
- Brainstorm clinic marketing ideas.
- Establish team goals for the month.
- Work together to overcome a problem.
- Organise CPD events.
- Meeting 1:1 with associates to:
- Advice them about their professional development.
- Help them with anything they’re struggling with.
- Listen to any complaints or frustrations they have.
Phone meetings
These meetings are like quick-fire meetings where your team can communicate with each other or just the principle directly to resolve things that calling a meeting for would be a little over the top.
You can have individual chats with each of your team members, as well as a group chat to include everyone.
How osteopaths can run a successful meeting
Do yourself a favour and schedule them in advance so that you’re kind of forced to commit to the process.
Also, make sure that you set an agenda for each meeting and that everyone is aware of what it’s about so they can prepare. This is a total time-saver.
As I mentioned before, try to keep your meetings short. As a result, people remain focused.
Give people their fair share of talking time to assure people feel like they have had something to contribute. If you have a fairly large team, you can even shake things up by having a different member lead each monthly meeting.
Finally, ensure that every meeting ends with organising next month’s one.
Written by Alan Zaia M.Ost
Founder & CEO of Osteohustle. You’ll find Alan coaching osteopaths, travelling in a van or writing our weekly newsletter, The Hustle.
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By subscribing to The Hustle, you agree to our terms and conditions. We’ll never send spam.