Michael Rizk: The Power of Vulnerability for Stronger Team Culture and Effective Feedback | GYC Podcast E276

Unlock the transformative power of vulnerability within your clinic's team culture with Michael Rizk's expert insights on our latest podcast episode. Our in-depth conversation will equip you with the tools to foster an environment of trust, where team members can be their authentic selves. Discover how this authenticity leads to stronger connections, a supportive atmosphere, and ultimately, a high-performing culture. 

Dive into the delicate art of feedback and accountability with us, as we reveal strategies to deliver constructive criticism that builds rather than breaks. Learn from Michael's anecdotes and our discussion on language in the workplace, which underscores the profound impact that shared vocabulary has on the perception of success and progress. We shed light on the importance of feedback loops and follow-ups, ensuring that every team member thrives on clear, empathetic communication.

We examine how defining core success and progress terms can create a culture steeped in clarity and shared understanding. Michael offers a fresh perspective on tracking and reporting progress, resonating with each team member's viewpoint to elevate your clinic's success and team dynamics. Tune in to gain invaluable resources for growing your clinic sustainably and continue your journey towards clinic mastery.

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Transcript

Ben Lynch: 0:00

What do you mean? What do I mean?

Michael Rizk: 0:04

To address the fear. Part right Is like I'm scared to be vulnerable, because that's a moment of trust that I'll never forget. The more we get to know about each other, the better. This is a way to do the best work of your life and have the best relationships of your life, and just like gratitude. But.

Speaker 3: 0:20

This is the Grow your Clinic podcast from Clinic Mastery.

Michael Rizk: 0:24

And then what Simon says, which is the hardest thing to do is just be quiet. I would ask yourself, as the owner, what part of this pyramid have I not done for this challenge or for this team member? It's a framework to get the things better in your business.

Ben Lynch: 0:37

And he says this is where 90% of teams what do you think most people get wrong with culture?

Michael Rizk: 0:44

I think, as health professionals, that first step of the pyramid is like trust and vulnerability and we all do that well because, like we're helpers and we're kind people, but most health professionals are of that nature. It's the difficult conversations, accountability conversations and the compassionate candor. And then, without that Pat Lencioni talks about, if you don't do that, you'll never get to commitment, which means you'll never get to commitment, which means you'll never get to accountability, which means you never get results. And that's every business owner every day. It's like my team member's not doing the thing, or they're not doing their notes or they're not.

Ben Lynch: 1:15

It's a my team member's not conversation, and so you're going deeper with that framework framework from pat lencioni at the. At the base of it it's like trust, vulnerability. Let's go there. What does that look like? How do you frame that? Because a lot of clinical is like I don't want to share some of these things, or they've shared it in the past and team members have held it against them or found a way to, um, you know, manipulate situations or circumstances and being vulnerable like that's not comfortable so how do you sort of frame this up, especially to a clinic owner that you're working with, and perhaps it's the first time that you're starting to address it?

Michael Rizk: 2:00

I think to address the fear part right right is like I'm scared to be vulnerable because there's two thoughts that will use it against me, like you said, or that's like an inappropriate, almost like a workplace boundary. Some of us have learned, maybe, I think, a very parents thing like that's something my parents would say the older generation would be like not, don't share that stuff at work, don't share that stuff at work. Even in the clinics I work with the slightly older team members or admin. They find those days quite strange. They're like we and they openly say we would never share this stuff at our work. But it's almost like I don't know if it's because leaders and business owners or younger team members feel more than comfortable sharing this stuff at work. Um, what do you say to that? Like I'm interested in what you think. My thought is like the more we get to know about each other, the better.

Ben Lynch: 2:50

I agree, that's kind of the line I go with. Internally at CM we have the genius session, actually inspired by Roger Hamilton, who has the genius profiling. Essentially it's a profiling tool which is self-reflection tool to know when you're at your best, like where do you contribute most, when do you get into workflow and how does that work in an integrated team with other geniuses. And kind of the subtext or subheading to that is understanding the people you work with and we say, whether that's clients in our case, clinic owners or one another as teammates, the more we can understand each other, it's only going to create a great foundation for us to do good work, and so I think finding out about the context for each person's journey and story helps give you an understanding as to their lens on the world, their perspective on work, their perspective on teams.

Ben Lynch: 3:53

One of the questions that I've often asked teams when doing a culture day, as we call it, is what is a team you've been part of in the past that you would say is a high performing team, and what characterized that team you know beyond?

Ben Lynch: 4:11

Maybe, like often, people would choose a sports team. They'd be like you know my netball team or my footy team. We won a lot. As you dig deeper, they're often like you know we had each other's back, you know we were able to. You know we had each other's back, you know we were able to be. You know a version of vulnerable with one another. We knew one another and so through that exercise, in reflecting on previous teams, it's been a useful gateway to say, well, how can we use some of those lessons from previous experiences here today with this team and I think, just the breakthroughs or transformations you've seen in, especially those team members that are a bit resistant, like you were referring to, or a bit skeptical, it's often those ones that, when they open up, it creates this really great connection with people in the room like, ah okay, it creates this really great connection with people in the room.

Ben Lynch: 5:07

Like, ah okay, now I understand why you think or show up in a certain way uh, there's, there's a level of, like practical psychology that we're applying here, um, as we always do. How do you go about it?

Michael Rizk: 5:20

yeah, I think you just I think you have to share as many examples like that as you can. It's also like not looking at someone as a position description, if I get really specific about it. If someone's struggling at work just a real practical example it's very easy to go they're struggling at work, they're not doing the thing, they're not doing the dashboard dashboard, they're not doing their position description. Like we look at someone through that lens when you have a culture day or you do the vulnerability cards or you do a sharing it. Just it feels strange to say because we should always think like this as humans, but it humanizes everyone. I agree with what you said, like it helps us understand that person's lens values, challenges, barriers and also what they're great at and what they're not good at. And then I think the next step is we're more willing to help each other, because if someone's having a bad day or you understand where that person's come from or what's going on for them, it's easier to say I want to help, rather than a person who might not be doing the things in their position description and you don't understand. And then it just feels like resentment or I don't understand why you're showing up this way and I don't understand why you're not doing that thing and I don't want to help. And so, yeah, how do you get those trickier team members to open up?

Michael Rizk: 6:39

I think Jack shared with me the shared vulnerability versus sorry forced vulnerability versus chosen vulnerability. That was a good concept for me that I hadn't heard of. So instead of kind of demanding to your team, we're all going to do this exercise, you can have slightly different versions. So with the vulnerability cards, they've got three questions to choose from rather than just one. They can kind of choose the level of depth they share with and just like gratitude, like vulnerability, and sharing is like a muscle you just kind of get better and more comfortable. You realize it's safe, you realize your team members only want to support you. You're more comfortable the next time and I think even with the vulnerability cards, you can do a like, you can pass or you can re-pick the next three yes so I like that concept of chosen vulnerability rather than forced.

Michael Rizk: 7:28

In my very first culture days I would almost be like this is what we're doing, and if someone's a bit nervous to share, that's gonna shut them down a bit more even the choice of the language.

Ben Lynch: 7:39

Vulnerability I think I'm always a little reserved to use it straight off the bat, because you go into a room you're like we're going to be vulnerable. People are already starting to like, tense up their butt, cheeks and you're like what's going on here? I didn't sign up for this and I think that framing of, like, understanding the people we work with, is a line that I and a frame that I particularly like to go down, because, yeah, once you start broaching vulnerability, we're all going to be vulnerable here today, folks.

Michael Rizk: 8:16

Yeah.

Ben Lynch: 8:23

Yeah, you can really, and the outcome is vulnerability that people are willing to share in a way that perhaps they wouldn't otherwise in the lunchroom or in the hallway conversation. One of the ones that we used was actually preparing, I think, the first ever version of a culture day that we ran at CM. It was with the Upwell Health Collective in Melbourne. Shano and I were preparing that and we were looking at values. You know what are your values and through the conversation we're like a lot of people might use sort of headline values of honesty, integrity. You know those sorts of things and it can be a tricky exercise. You know you spend a lot of time going deep.

Ben Lynch: 9:10

We said what if we took the opposite? And we actually said what are your anti-values, what are the things that annoy you and frustrate you? And the best sort of one was to tee it up as think of a family member, because I bet you got one of those who it like really irritates, you gets under your skin and what is it about them that gets to you? And it might be a friend or a colleague, but you can use that. Maybe don't name them, but you can use that. And I used one which was stubbornness, oh man, that irritates me to no end, like when someone's like fixed and like they're just like I'm holding my position because like I just want to hold it and it's it's like irrational, oh boy. And then from there it was like what's the opposite of stubbornness, at least in my mind? It's being open-minded, it's a growth mindset, it's being willing to try something new and different, and that really resonates with me. Like my highest value is growth. And Shane Davis, do you know what Shane Davis's anti-value is?

Michael Rizk: 10:24

I don't remember Okay.

Ben Lynch: 10:26

This is like a tight ass. He's like I absolutely hate that person you remember. Now it's like that person that doesn't pay, you know, or offered to pay for the coffees or the drinks, or whatever the case may be. It doesn't need to be massive, and what's the opposite of being a tight ass is being generous, and everyone on the team will know how generous Shane Davis is, whether it's his time, his attention you know financially, he'll shout you beers, he'll shout you a lot of things.

Ben Lynch: 11:00

So in that exercise I actually found it really good is like what's something that really irritates you from someone and perhaps if you looked at the opposite of that, that would be something you really value. And creating a story around you know, when that perhaps came to a head is a really useful one. Else, practically, do you get to kind of the outcome of vulnerability through people sharing? What are some of the practical exercises that you've used?

Michael Rizk: 11:30

we just had our retreat, actually, and we did the vulnerability cards where you pass out three to each person, and there's there's questions, questions like when did you last feel angry? What's something in life you've regretted? When was your happiest moment?

Ben Lynch: 11:47

So, really good questions. What did?

Michael Rizk: 11:48

you get? Oh, I think I got. When did I last cry? Now, that was. I remember that one with the CM team. That was a tough one. When did you last cry? And what did I get with? I can't remember my one with the iMove team, but I remember the. When did you last cry? Uh, and what did I get with? I can't remember my one with the imove team, but I remember the. When did you last cry?

Michael Rizk: 12:07

one, yeah, we did that with the whole cm team right yeah yeah, that was good so really really good, really good questions, and what I like about that is you. You still have the option to share a level of depth with it, like you can go really deep or you can stay superficial, great um.

Michael Rizk: 12:28

The other one we did was lifeline, which I really like. We have quite a. We have we have five or six team members that have been with us for five to seven years, and then we have five or six team members that have been with us for two years or less. So there's this real, um, new and old feeling to the team. So we did lifeline again, where you, you draw out on a big butcher's paper a line that represents your life. You might have a few ups and you draw a little picture like that's when I get married, that's when I had my first kid, that's when I opened my clinic, and then you draw the big downs and like two or three key moments. The idea is share two or three key moments that stand out to you, both positive and negative, and then you talk through that in front of the team um, that that's, that's really good you know we we had.

Michael Rizk: 13:13

We had team member who you know, who served in the military and had two friends basically be blown up beside him. And then you're just like wow, like it also gives you perspective of like how this person shows up and like, ironically, he's the person in the team who finds everything easy. He's like guys, this is not hard, this is like you know what's hard going to war, right, like. So these stories that they're just great realignments for everyone, they get great perspectives for everyone.

Michael Rizk: 13:46

It's really good sharing such different things from each human, just like I love the Lifeline exercise and it's funny because, every time you do it we've done it four or five times with some of those team members Something different comes out each time as well. That's a good one, and probably a lighter version of that is the hero highlight, hardship. So who's your hero? What's a highlight, what's a hardship from your last two years, three years, all your whole life?

Ben Lynch: 14:13

It's really great. As you said, people can choose how deep they want to go and what they want to share, and so often you know the first one especially, and two or three people that go, really set the tone for how deep or vulnerable uh the rest of the room uh go, depending on how big your team is yeah and so that's often where we encourage the clinic owner, in this case, to be the first to go in a in a exercise like that to set the tone, because often they'll be like, oh, how do I get make sure this is successful?

Ben Lynch: 14:48

well, set the standard. That's at least a place to begin. So. You talked about uh yeah, pat lencioni's bookets. Is it the five dysfunctions of a team that that um triangle is in? There's a really great summary online. You can see a bunch of people have shared the triangle and the levels there. It's a good visual image for you, sort of simplifying and understanding in any circumstance with your team, like, okay, perhaps, which level is this at and what do I need to do to secure the foundation, so to speak, and build it up from there? Wonderful author. So we talked about vulnerability there, which is really the key to creating trust From there. How do we progress?

Michael Rizk: 15:37

I think we're saying most health professionals, I think, do that well. Most health professionals have a high level of empathy, a high level of trust. They generally fall in the helper category of like a personality profile or a Myers-Briggs. So, uh, trust. I think most teams are good at the second level's conflict and again, reframing that word, it might be radical candor and reframing again, it might be compassionate candor. And he says this is where 90% of teams fall over the inability or not knowing how to structure compassionate candor, feedback, those type of conversations. And that's what I see in clinics and we were saying as well that that's the if you're a clinic owner who you're constantly saying on your calls or in your own mind, this team member won't do X or my clinic's not doing Y. That's the conflict piece. There's been an inability somewhere to hold people accountable through that difficult conversation, the community from Adam Grant around sort of reframing that.

Ben Lynch: 16:46

I'm going to share some challenging feedback with you and I thought it was a really great soundbite. There was also another one from Simon Sinek. Just a little one-liners that help you unlock the ability for that conversation, perhaps to get past the first stumbling block, which is that, one, you feel confident to be able to deliver it and, two, that they're receptive. You know you've created sort of grounds for them to be receptive. The quote from Adam Grant is I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I'm confident you can reach them. Yeah, that's great.

Ben Lynch: 17:29

I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I'm confident you can reach them. We'll share the link to that little quote and also video from adam grant. Before the conflict side of things yeah, it's Obviously depends on the circumstances. You know whether it's like, hey, you're really not carrying your weight as a team member let's say that you continually drop the ball on following up referrers who've sent in patients to be seen or whether it's that you're showing up late to the start of your shift. You know, through to um, you know there's some things that you're saying or not saying. Say, in our slack channel that, uh, you're rubbing people the wrong way. There's so many different contexts that this might happen, where a discussion that may feel like it's conflict happens. Um, how do you go about? Do you have any sort of principles, then, for coming back to every time you you want to need to have a hard conversation that that feels like it's don't have a degree of conflict?

Michael Rizk: 18:48

we always go to the kim scott video, which is radical candor, and then she changed it to compassionate candor and she went into why the language is a bit softer. But she I also I also just like calling on experts and then it's not coming from me. The clinic owner I'm like this is the best person in the world has written the book on communication and culture. That's the example we want to follow, like let's just shortcut all of this stuff. Let's just go straight to the person who does this so well. So I try, and I don't know, is that outsourcing the credibility? It's like this is not coming from me. This is the best person in the world. Let's just do what they do right. And she always says in that book that this is a way to do the best work of your life and have the best relationships of your life. So that's the framing that we're setting up. The other thing she says is uh, these people just really want to help you.

Michael Rizk: 19:39

So when you're getting feedback as a receiver so we plant this in our mind as a receiver, you can go like that's really annoying, they don't understand me, they, you know, they don't see how busy I am. Or you can be like they're trying to help. Yeah, um, that probably leans into brené brown's shitty first draft. Is like when we're triggered or I'm emotional with feedback, we tend to have a shitty first draft, which is they don't really care about me, they don't see how busy I am, they don't know that I'm not sleeping and I've just had a kid. Why are they micromanaging me or no, they're really, really trying to help and we just need to find a way together, right, yeah. So those frameworks are good, but I try and combine the best of all three the last one's, simon Sinek's, fbi, the feeling, behavior impact, and the feeling is I can see that you really care about our clinic and I can see that you really care about our team members, so you're almost pre-framing the thing that they might think you're not, because often, when we take feedback, we think Ben's trying to say I don't care about my team.

Michael Rizk: 20:44

Well, ben's trying to say I don't care about my work, right, cause, that can be the shitty first draft. So we can say I can see that you really care about your work and your team members and give examples like how you show up in cpd is just amazing. We just noticed, though this is the behavior side is that you're you're pretty consistently five or ten minutes late and so that's a very specific behavior. And then the impact. The impact is we're just a bit worried that the other team members might one think that's okay or start to think that you don't actually care about CPD. So it's feeling behavior impact. And then what Simon says which is the hardest thing to do is just be quiet. It's a few statements. The impact is we're just worried that team members might think it's okay to be late. Well, you don't care about cpd, and they're not saying anything and just let them respond really, really great advice.

Ben Lynch: 21:41

The pause is one of the hardest things to do, um, because I think you don't want to offend them, you know, trigger them, fire them up and you're filling the blanks, literally. To come at it from a few different perspectives to sort of calm and make sure you've got it across the point that you raised. There was a really good one. We've referenced it before. The Stephen Covey principle may even be the first one in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is seek first to understand and then be understood. So to your point around, like you know, new baby haven't slept. These things are going on at home.

Ben Lynch: 22:27

Being able to actually just open up, I found it useful, going into a conversation in my own mind, if I am bringing something up with another person, team member, whoever, client and I perceive it might be felt like a bit of conflict. I always go into that thinking I could be wrong here, I could be missing some piece of critical context that means my perspective is completely off, which I found useful to just dial it down in a sense of, rather than going like this is wrong, what are you doing? I could be totally missing something. It could be personal, it could be work related and that I'm just out of a loop on or I missed or whatever the case may be. So I always share it in the sense of this is what I've noticed when you get to that, um, be understood, is there anything that I'm missing or any important context here that I haven't understood or considered? And that also gives them an opportunity to say no, your perspective's on point should have done this. Blah blah. Blah blah is if team members, in particular, if, like you're a business owner, if you're a clinic owner, and you're not also inviting feedback for yourself, I think that's a huge opportunity, because if traffic's all one way, I don't think that's a good thing for culture and team members are going to be reluctant to some degree to give criticism, to quote their boss, and so I think that that takes a little bit of time and potentially some of this vulnerability stuff is really useful for them to have a filter or a reference point to deliver that feedback.

Ben Lynch: 24:30

For instance, if they were criticizing or had something about me and then knew my highest value was like growth, open-mindedness, and in a meeting or in a conversation sounds slack I was displaying some level of stubbornness or shutting something down or not giving it kind of the air it needs to breathe or get off the ground, then that could be a reference point that they would use. For me I'd be like I get it Absolutely. You know it's challenging and I think that's something that Shane Davis talks a lot about. He's like this is probably challenging for you to hear. It's also really challenging for me to say is that okay, but we're just trying to help one another, you know, be better.

Ben Lynch: 25:19

Um, so there's kind of a key thing just in this conversation that I'm coming back to is a lot about the groundwork that needs to be done over longer periods of time for these conversations to be easier, sort of on a daily or weekly basis, and the importance of pre-framing in leading into a conversation like that and being open. That you know there's plenty more context, especially human, on the personal side, that might be really important to what's going on, say, on the professional side. So vulnerability, creating trust, working towards conflict, the compassionate candor, where to from here?

Michael Rizk: 26:09

I think they're the two biggest base foundations of the pyramid. And I think also what you just said is a feedback loop to build more trust. So when you seek that feedback and they give you something, you as the owner then have the opportunity to deliver that, which then feeds right back into the bottom. You've just built more trust.

Michael Rizk: 26:24

So there's moments like that. I think the greatest compliment I ever got from my team was like we had a retreat and then two retreats later. It was such a big moment in my mind, like it was, in a sense, the proudest I'd felt, because the team said, mick, you stood here two years ago and we gave you this feedback and you've really worked on it, and to me that was a bit of a positive feedback loop to what you're saying. I probably wasn't open in the first few years of the business and then got the feedback, really worked hard on it and then for your team to give you that, that's a moment of trust that I'll never forget. It's like that's our opportunity as owners to get that feedback, work on it openly, and that can happen for team members too. So that was really cool.

Michael Rizk: 27:11

The top three levels of the pyramid, I think, are the almost a bunch together, which is commitment, accountability and results. To wrap up the conflict or feedback piece, the last step, I think, is to have two or three meetings booked up, because often we have that conversation and it's usually doing it in this way that we're describing as more explorative, and you need a bit of space and time between both parties need to go away and think about the context they've been given. The mistake, then, is just leaving it. So I always say, if you've got something coming up that feels like difficult conversation, we have two or three meetings, so like, even if it's weekly or fortnightly, let's follow up and just get clear and seek more context, go away, think about it, come up with some actions later, so don't feel like you have to walk away from one conversation with everything and the action points in place allow two or three. Now that's the third level, which I think is the commitment piece.

Michael Rizk: 28:08

If those two parties are committing to two or three meetings to get clearer and come up with a bit of a plan, that's commitment and also the second last piece of the pyramid's accountability. How are we going to do this? What are we both going to do? Is it in the diary? Do we need to restructure something? So accountability is the second last piece of the pyramid. Do you have any kind of thoughts on that?

Ben Lynch: 28:33

yeah, I. I think that the accountability piece is something that is so often overlooked and missed or done like so-so People like do it okay for one, two, three repetitions, but not longer, or a couple of weeks, and then they kind of forget about it. And so I think making whatever that accountability loop easy, convenient, simple, is so useful. That can look like a number of different things. For instance, it's a reminder in your calendar, it's a message, that templated message that sent in Slack on a recurring frequency insert, whatever. But I think try and make that as easy and as simple as possible so you don't have to remember. The accountability loop. I think can be made better as well when it's very clear as to the progress you're looking to make.

Ben Lynch: 29:37

I see a lot of people craft a number of plans or actions that they're going to do without knowing how they'll know if they've done a good job or they've made progress or made a difference. They've made progress or made a difference. They're focusing just on the action without knowing, okay, well, this is likely to be the version of quote success or progress or the end result. And so it's kind of like when you go to do that accountability, say, hey, mick, have you done that thing like oh no, I haven't got gotten to it yet, because it kind of can. Just there's a level of difference or it just falls into the bulk of other tasks to do when it's actually paired with okay, this affects somebody else's work or it's, and that or someone else's life could be a client. We're following them up.

Ben Lynch: 30:30

By this date. You know a version of smart sort date. You know a version of SMART sort of goals. You know specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-bound I believe that's the acronym. I know they change words different times, so that is helpful for the accountability loop rather than just saying we're going to do this like, really like, crystallize it. There's a good opportunity there for that accountability loop, I think I think about the agenda.

Michael Rizk: 30:56

Uh, and probably the last piece of the pyramid is the dysfunctional team would do inattention to results. A functional team, pat would say, has attention to results. So the last two pieces, uh, regular meeting rhythm. So if you're meeting with your team fortnightly, that's a perfect time to bring up to have a five-minute chunk of the meeting that's focused on this thing, whatever it is. And then attention to results is the top of the pyramid. So we need to measure it and have a scoreboard. That's the piece that our team brought to us is like we're not. We've been better with conflict. We've been better with commitment. We understand where we're going. But we realized when we zoomed out we weren't measuring our social media, we weren't measuring the impact we're having on GPs, even measuring the NPS scores, we weren't reporting that back to the team. So in some cases we had data but we weren't reporting it. That, I think, provides the conduit or the motivation to keep going with the thing for longer, because you can see the results moving.

Michael Rizk: 32:00

Um, the last part I thought about for clinic owners thinking like there's only ever five or six really impactful things you can do as a clinic owner right? If there's five or six really impactful things you can do as a clinic owner, right? If there's five or six levers, sometimes you only need to be pulling one or two at any given time. The learning for us in this pyramid is just go slower, go so much slower, but have the agenda, have the accountability and stick to one thing for three months.

Speaker 3: 32:27

Because if you stick to one, thing for three months.

Michael Rizk: 32:30

In two years you've pulled six to eight levers right, you've got eight quarters in two years. Often we'll find someone will jump on a call and say, hey, I want to do my social media, what should I do? And you give four or five, six tips and then two months later they've moved on to a new thing. They haven't been accountable, they didn't have the agenda and they weren't measuring the results. So if you just did social media for three months, you will win regardless, because you'll either see the thing improve or you'll see it not, which is also a win, because now it's like well, I've done that really well for three months. It hasn't brought any results. That's not the thing we need to focus on. You have clarity either way. Same with, say, referral partners, instead of saying like, what's the best strategy? How would I focus on this for three months? What can I measure and what would be the measure of success? But I think for the clinics, who are pretty good with their healthy candor, radical candor, compassionate candor, I would ask are we measuring results?

Ben Lynch: 33:28

Yeah, great point. How do you frame up results with teams when perhaps some people can think, oh, that's super pushy, or people are turned off when we talk about results? And how do you frame up thinking about results with teams, especially those skeptical type of vendors?

Michael Rizk: 33:55

Yeah, that's interesting, I feel. It feels obvious to me. Maybe it's that outsourcing of credibility, like, well, if Pat says this, if Pat's saying we need to have a scoreboard and the scoreboard is our reflection. But we did speak a lot about process, not outcome. That's been a healthy narrative in our team. So, yes, this is the outcome. Here's how we would know we're achieving success. Here's the result we're looking for. But let's actually focus on the middle three months. What would be our process to ensure we get to this? And there's a great video on, like, the joy of the process rather than the outcome. Many great videos you could show from Simon Siddick, jp, those type of things. Yes, that's how we've handled it. I think you have some great lines with scoreboard.

Ben Lynch: 34:49

Scoreboard's a reflection of oh, you'll have to fill in the blank because yeah, I made up your line.

Ben Lynch: 34:58

I think that results, and so often with a lot of these things, I think it's actually just the careful selection of the words we use, because if I say results, or I say outcomes, or I say progress, or I say reputation, each of those things you could somewhat substitute for the other, and it depends on the person you're speaking to, the context, et cetera, et cetera. I think if you sat down with any team member and you asked them a version of how would we know that we're making progress by doing this thing? But naturally they would come to the conclusion that there would be some version of measurement and that would be important. I think. When speaking to a health professional, specifically a practitioner, and you said why do you do what you do Some version of I love helping people and you said, how would you know you were doing a good job at that, they'd probably say, well, it's a version of having a good reputation. What would reputation look like? And specifically, it'd be well, probably good NPS scores.

Ben Lynch: 36:19

People are saying that they're enjoying the service, the benefits. They would probably give me word of mouth, referrals from other clients and from other professionals, and then we just keep unpacking that and what else and what else and what else. So I think, if you're able to zoom out and instead of leading with all right, these are going to be the measures, and you actually kind of coach them on the way to what matters to them and how they define progress or success, and I would say, hey, by the way, what word resonates more with you when I say those Success, outcomes, results, progress, what word is it for you? Note that be like great. So when we do our little quote, scoreboard, scorecard, whatever it is, tracker, you could ask them there what would you like to call it?

Ben Lynch: 37:12

and let's find a word that that is useful because one they've. I'm not saying giving them the option to choose that we're not doing that. Yeah, yeah, you get to choose the kind of a way we do it that resonates with you, giving you that opportunity to be able to suggest what we call it, how we frame it, how we do it. And so, whether it's literally a spreadsheet with a scorecard numbers or whether it's a Slack post, you know, whatever platform you're using we love Slack just copy a templated message. That's really brief.

Ben Lynch: 37:49

I did a previous podcast, short podcast on this about Slack systems for accountability loops. You just copy and paste, substitute a couple of little variables and you post that in, say, to whatever channel needs to see it. But I think, if you're exploring from a first principles perspective, what does that mean? When you say this, what does that mean? Results, what does that mean? And just kind of create a version of a document, I think it's a reasonable thing to do is to have a one pager that talks about our approach, our philosophy towards results at this clinic and that's a good reminder, like the context.

Ben Lynch: 38:40

and then you've got on that doc like here's a bunch of videos from other people that you said who are talking about results, and putting it in a framing that is way more articulate than us flapping our gums and just gives kind of like a manifesto approach of here's how we think about results, because so much it's like you'll turn someone on, turn them off really quickly just by the framing of the thing and you choose a certain different words and sequence of words and all of that and like I get it cool. We've got to keep trying different ways, I think I like that.

Michael Rizk: 39:22

It's a great reminder even for me, because these words are so natural to me and I have my own interpretation of what all these words mean and I think about the disc profiles that we did and I think like I'm in the D quadrant, which is very direct, very type A words. So when I say these words they're just so obvious to me, but I also have an attached softness to them and all the learnings of all the books I've read like there's so much attached to these words but as a D, I might just say these words. Then there's a whole other 75% of people who will look at these words like conflict and results and, as you said, in an instant, be turned off off, like you've literally lost them, just because of the word use, not because of all of your context. It's a great reminder, a really great reminder. I I feel like not asking that question could come to your detriment. Like what? What words would you use for this, to measure this?

Ben Lynch: 40:22

it's a useful um thing that over the last 12 to 18 months through my own um mentor have been exploring. Is he literally said when you say growth, what do you mean?

Michael Rizk: 40:36

yeah like ah yeah, what do you mean? What do I mean?

Ben Lynch: 40:42

Growth. It's bigger than what it was.

Ben Lynch: 40:46

Yeah yeah, and it was just exploring what is growth, and perhaps what is growth right now and how could it be different perhaps in the future? And why this version? Perhaps that or way of measuring it? Why is that one important for you right now? So it takes a little bit of thinking, but what's come off the back of it is a version of our own dictionary, a version of this dictionary, a version of this.

Ben Lynch: 41:22

When we say these words here in the context of this team, this is what we mean, and here's some examples of those things, because we're going to be using this a lot over time and I want you to have the most amount of clarity and understanding as to what we mean when we say this. We go through that process. When we create our core values yeah, like these are the four to six core values. What do they mean? And we do a great job. So there's no ambiguity about this is what we mean.

Ben Lynch: 41:58

So I think there's, yeah, a really practical document that I've certainly created a bunch over the last sort of 18 months or so internally for us of going when we say these things is what we mean. It's not perfect. It's definitely evolving, but it's been helpful in having conversations with people where we'll just flippantly in a way maybe not flippantly, but we were definitely using words that we thought we each understood what the other was saying. And growth's a really good one, because if we speak to a clinic owner, they're going to say, oh, I want to grow, I want to grow my team or my business, whatever it's like. Well, what does growth mean and how do you know if you've grown?

Michael Rizk: 42:47

Yeah, it makes the conversations longer and probably even highlights the need for having two or three meetings lined up, because often I think that's what I meant when I said exploratory it's like. To have a conversation in this way. To really understand each other requires so much more time than a half an hour meeting about why someone's not doing their gp letters yeah and so it's a whole different approach and to your point.

Ben Lynch: 43:13

I think when you're able to do those things and spend a little bit more time thinking about it, as you said, it creates sustainable change. I think that's really important is to be able to spend the time doing some of the deep work. Um, here, hopefully, you're trying to build something robust, sustainable for yourself, for your family and, you know, in time, to pass it on to somebody else. So we've cut a lot, covered a lot of ground here. Michael Risco, in the culture realm there is so much, it is so nuanced, there are so many great speakers, authors, presenters, on all things culture. If you were to leave with a bit of a keynote for listeners, viewers here on this episode, what would that be? Around culture? Or even just growing their clinic sustainably?

Michael Rizk: 44:05

probably come back to jocko willink actually, which is I read his book a while ago. I didn't like it the first. It felt just very like maybe wrong place, wrong time. But the extreme ownership line when I look at the pat lencioni pyramid, I would kind of encourage people to do this is like look at this pyramid and then sit pyramid. I would kind of encourage people to do this is like look at this pyramid and then sit with the challenge in your business.

Michael Rizk: 44:27

The challenge in the business might be we're not getting enough new clients, or the challenge in the business might be a team member. I would ask yourself, as the owner with the extreme ownership filter, what part of this pyramid have I not done for this challenge or for this team member? Is it trust? Is it having the healthy conversations with some of the framing? Is it a commitment to it? Like, have I actually spent long enough? And do I have the meetings and the agenda? Or am I not measuring results? Have I actually stuck to it? But I don't know what the scoreboard is, what the progress is. So so my summary is like take this pyramid, pat Lencioni's pyramid, and sit with a challenge in your business or a team member and then ask yourself, as the owner, in line with extreme ownership, what part of this am I missing?

Michael Rizk: 45:14

And if you focus on that part. I've just found that all of those challenges get better. It's a framework to get the things better in your business.

Ben Lynch: 45:22

Such a beautiful framework and really useful, because we often hear people say they're overwhelmed in their business and I think when you're overwhelmed, there's just like too many things to take in. So if you can find a way to compartmentalize, to simplify, a framework like this is so useful. Awesome insights. Thank you so much for sharing. Get all of the show notes over at clinicmasterycom. If you get a moment and you've made it this far in the episode, we would so love if you could give us a review on the podcast player of choice that you use and subscribe to us over on YouTube. We're continuing to put out more content to help you grow your clinic sustainably. Michael Risk, thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you on the next episode into the future.

Ben Lynch: 46:15

Bye, bye.

Speaker 3: 46:19

Thanks for tuning in to the Grow your Clinic podcast. To find out more about past episodes or how we can help you, head to wwwclinicmasterycom. Forward slash podcast and please remember to rate and review us on your podcast player of choice. See you on the next episode.