We all get to a point when we are managing a team, and we see that it's not working. The shit officially hits the fan, and it doesn't smell good. It stinks up the office, your experience, your team's experience, and the practice members can even feel it, smell it, hear it, see it, etc. 😱

So, what do you do?
Where do you start?
Start where your feet are at. It's really important that you put your feet on the ground, take a deep breath, and figure out where you want to go from here. 

You've got to ask yourself the hard questions:
What do you really want for your practice?
Are the people who you're having a hard time managing, directing, or facilitating really the people who are suited to bring your practice to the next level? 🤔
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If they are, then it's worth leaning into the following steps with them. If they're not, then sever the ties now and be fair and kind about the severing and give them the option to leave. If they are worth moving forward, then follow these steps to change patterns and turn things around:
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1. Clarify your Vision for your Practice: Before making any changes to your practice, it's important to get super clear about the kind of changes you want to make. If you're an established practice, go through the stages of this exercise and figure out what you want for your practice. Then, break it down into stages and determine what needs to happen for each stage for you to accomplish that vision for your practice.
2. Have a Heart-to-Heart Conversation with your Team: Once you have a clear vision, it's time to talk to your team about the changes you want to make. Tell them about the change you want to create within your practice and what is going to be required of them in order to facilitate this change. Ask them if they are in and get their permission to move forward on this journey with them. You may be surprised at how enthusiastic they are about your newfound passion for creating change in the practice.
3. Conduct a Time Study: To truly understand how your team spends their time, have each team member write down everything they do for three full days of work or three full shifts. Once they've done this exercise, have them go back to it and circle and highlight the things that they really feel are a waste of time, as well as the things that they enjoy doing that they feel are imperative for their role in the practice.
4. Discuss Team Roles: Have a meeting with your team to review their time study and get really clear about what their role is and what they really should not be spending their time doing. Be flexible about change with them and invite them to create flexibility in the way that they're doing things with their practices.
5. Create Checklists: Based on their time study, come up with a checklist of daily, weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly tasks for them to do. Include the things that they circled and highlighted that they love to do. Determine what needs to be on their Monday list, their Tuesday list, their Wednesday list, and so on.
6. Implement an Accountability System: Make sure you implement a system for checking in on their checklist so that they know that you are watching and supporting them. Accountability is everything when it comes to establishing goals. What we're doing here is establishing goals for your team to move your practice forward and the ways that you know that it can move forward. So, there has to be a system of accountability.
7. Establish clear Boundaries: To ensure that your team members understand the expectations and are held accountable, it's important to have very clear boundaries with ways to celebrate them, appreciate them, and consequences for that checklist not being completed or being completed each time you check in on it.

By the time you implement these steps, you will have very clear daily, weekly, and monthly checklists for your team. You will be in full agreement that your team is on board. You will let go of the people who are not on board but have their hands in the cookie jar. 🙌

You will also have a clear vision with your team on where the practice is going. During this process, it will become abundantly clear who is on board, who is not on board, and what steps need to happen in order to move your practice forward in the ways that you know it deserves.

Check out our Facebook Group for even more tips to creating the practice of your dreams!

Managing, supporting, and facilitating growth and forward movement for your team can be a joy-filled journey. You just need to plan, stay consistent, and keep the vision of the practice front and center. 🥰

Watch the video below as I take you on a journey of creating a PIVOT for your team 👇🏼.

I definitely have a few practice members who think that my life is peachy. 
They make assumptions that I have the perfect family, that it's easy to stay healthy, or that being a wellness practitioner doesn't take hard work. At least, this is what I feel like they're assuming when they look at me and laugh when I tell them that I understand their pain. 

Some of them really do laugh. Most of them understand that I am also another Bozo on the bus trying to figure out this thing called life.🤡

There are some days when it takes everything I've got to show up at the office and give great care. I don't feel good, I'm tired, I didn't sleep well, my kid hates me, my jeans don't fit, I didn't have enough coffee. 

Whatever the reason is, those are the days when I have to find the extra fuel in my tank and put my stuff aside, independent of how I'm feeling in that moment, and Serve for the sake of service. It can be the hardest thing to do. 😨

As I engage in my daily activities, whether it's starting my day, starting a shift, or meeting with a patient that challenges me, I often find that the interaction takes on a life of its own.

Regardless of how I may feel about it beforehand - whether I dread it, look forward to it, or feel neutral - the interaction has its own course and rhythm, beginning, middle, and end.

To make this dance smoother, I make sure to prioritize my physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. This includes eating well, making time for exercise, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, avoiding toxic people and excessive sugar, surrounding myself with supportive individuals, and taking the time to listen to constructive criticism while letting go of the rest. I also make sure to move my body for at least 10 minutes every hour I spend sitting at a computer. 💪

When I follow these habits consistently, even on days when I don't feel my best, serving my patients becomes easier. It's important to find a balance between taking a self-care day when needed and simply not being in the right state of mind to provide quality care. Negative emotions can be contagious, just as positive emotions can be. 

It's essential that I bring my best self to each interaction with my patients, setting aside my own issues and making space for their needs and experiences.

I try with all my might, every day that I have to go to the office, to take my stuff, my story, and my challenges and put them on hold for the time that I have committed to serving my people. I reserve space for their stuff and their challenges and their stories. 

Every once in a while, I confuse the lines- it happens. 🥺
People will come into the office and ask me how I'm doing, and I will feel the tears well up. Even though I had no intention to show them, they will show themselves, and the hugs start. The exchange starts and it's not an exchange that I intended for, but it does happen from time to time. I find that the more I prepare on the days that I have the space to by taking care of body, mind, and spirit, the less those moments come while I'm at my office to serve because that's what I'm doing there. 

I'm there to serve.
I'm not there to be listened to or taken care of. 
I'm there to listen and take care of. 💗

It's a healthy balance between letting your people get to know who you are and how beautiful your heart is, and giving them a blank slate to walk into to express and process whatever they need in that moment. 
Find the balance. It will take you and your practice members so far for so many years to come. 
​Find more tips to help you find your balance in our Facebook Group

Watch the video below to hear about the StaffLESS System from our amazing student of the month! 👇🏼

Hands down the toughest part of running a practice over the years has been finding the right people to support me.

I have put ads in papers and on different websites, hired friends, hired family members, hired friends of family members, and family members of friends. You name it, I've tried it, period.

What happens is I have a tendency to fall in love with people, and becoming a manager to people I'm in love with is not such an easy task.  💗 You would think it would be easy, but it's not. I feel bad for asking. I feel bad for telling. And then I end up not doing either of the above and things don't get done, and then my practice suffers. 

So I learned the hard way, over and over, to do things in different ways, or just keep facing the same pain week after week, month after month, year after year. 😓

When push came to shove, I finally had to create a solution so that I no longer had to continue this self-inflicted pain pattern.

I learned how to do things without staff. I learned how to deal with the scheduling, the money, the phone, and all of the above. Without staff from here, my very comfortable corner of Clinton, New Jersey, my practice is a well-oiled machine. 💪🏻

I see between 60 and 80 people a week, and they all have what they need. As far as admin is concerned, we keep things simple.
We do what is really necessary to be done. ✅
When it no longer becomes necessary, we take that system out. 

I do have a virtual assistant who checks in from time to time. I have multiple team members helping me with all things Staffless Practice. 

What I learned is, in bringing on new team members for the Staffless Practice project, it was necessary to get really good at not only hiring, but also training and keeping team members moving forward. I've learned a thing or two. Actually, I've learned a lot more, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with you. 

Please see THIS LINK to join us in our Facebook Training on how to get the support you need from people who really care about what they do. I'm looking forward to this training (see replay HERE), because the things that I have learned over the past couple of years, as far as managing and supporting team members, are priceless. And again, I had to learn them the hard way.

​Nothing floats my boat more than seeing our community members learn from my lessons, instead of needing to make the same mistakes on their own.​ 

Watch the video below to learn more about how to to build a your strongest team ever 👇🏼.