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| Dear Friend,
Tie your strategy into what the other side is already thinking.
Robert Collier, one of the fathers of direct mail advertising, famously advised copywriters to enter the conversation already going on within the customer’s mind.
What? You say you’re not in sales?
That’s obviously a problem because the reality, even more so today than ever, is that you are.
Collier’s advice is directly applicable to the relationship between medical groups and their partners and employees, and, particularly, in respect of the relationship between the group and each of its “customers:” referral sources, hospitals and other facilities, and patients.
The fact is that your customers don’t give a whit about you and your group, but they care immensely about their own self interests. Find those interests, those problems, those challenges, those profits, and provide value to your customer to advance those interests, and you’ve dramatically increased the chances of a mutually profitable relationship.
Not only is this essential to remaining relevant, positioning both your group’s message — the outward projection of your inner strategy — and the experience that your group provides, in the customer’s world is the key to having that message and experience resonate with the intended audience.
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| | | Business Life in the Time of Coronavirus Mini-Series
The coronavirus crisis caused a short term economic crisis for many medical groups. Our mini-series shows you the way out. Plus, many of the concepts discussed are applicable during both good times and bad.
[If you haven't already seen them, follow this link to watch our entire series.] |
| | Watch Tuesday's video here, or just keep reading below for a revised, more polished version:
What are your group’s guiding principles? Does it need them?
What's the compass that steers your group’s decisions?
Is it that you’re simply a collection of individuals and that whatever some of the individuals want to do is fine? Does the “group” simply exist to coordinate scheduling, perhaps run an office, or do some billing and collection?
Or is there a purpose behind your practice? A purpose through which you could run your business decisions? A purpose supported by underlying principles?
I maintain that unless your group has a purpose, every decision is just going to be made on the fly. It’s just going to be an off-the-cuff, “what’s best right now” … but might not be best later.
How do you gauge whether opportunities are good? How do you gauge which ones to reject?
On what do you base your decisions? Just the economics as presented today, which might not be the economics tomorrow?
Every group has a set of guiding principles whether they know it or not. Some are just so jumbled that they make no sense.
Start examining what your guiding principles are. Then start building them out into a set of rules that help you develop a purpose built decision-making process.
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| | How to Deploy the Secret Sauce of Opportunistic Strategy
Webinar On Demand
They say that COVID-19 has changed the world, creating the "new normal." Many of your colleagues and many hospital administrators are running scared.
Others, leaders like you, know that crisis means opportunity.
Let me provide you with the strategic tools and insights that you need in order to seize opportunities, whether they’re in the context of your current business relationships, the expansion of your business activities, or the creation of new ventures.
You will learn:
•Defense as a defective default: It’s necessary, but not sufficient.
•Exploiting weakness: Drop the guilt and identify opportunity.
•Flat line negotiation is fatal: Understand its myths and limitations.
•Negotiation reality: Learn to identify and deploy on multiple planes to affect the outcome.
•Maneuver: Harness the power of maneuver, both in overall strategy and in specific negotiation strategy.
Others see a crisis and freeze in fear. Learn how to see the opportunities and obtain the tools to increase your odds of obtaining them.
The price to attend is $479. The cost of not attending is astronomical. |
| | | Wednesday - The Mismatch of Story and Culture Within Medical Groups - Medical Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
I had a friend, let's call him "Bob," who'd readily make promises and just as readily break them.
All medical groups have a culture, whether or not it's been purposefully created. It exists.
All medical groups have a story, too. A story its leaders or members or both tell about the group.
So, while culture exists, story itself is a representation or image of culture.
Some say that story is how culture is transmitted. But what I'd like you to focus on is the impact of the match or mismatch between story and culture within a medical group and how it affects the group both internally and externally.
The Community Group prides itself on delivering high quality care and on meeting the needs of its patients and referring physicians. That's the story they tell themselves.
If that story matches with the actual culture, that is, the group actually delivers high quality care that meets its customers' needs, then value is being created for the customers and it's likely that the group is highly performing internally.
On the other hand, if the story remains the same but the group's physicians are rude and if reports promised to referring physicians are generally late, then there's trouble in store for the group -- they are just fooling themselves and no one else.
The same mismatch can happen internally as well. For example, when a group's leaders believe (belief being the story) that they have created a culture of mentoring younger group members but the reality is that there is no guidance and that management by yelling around is the rule. That misalignment of story and culture creates a cancer within the group.
My friend Bob thought that he was a man of his word. But that was just a story. |
| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
A physician makes a mistake, commits negligence, and what’s the result? It can be horrific. Malpractice suit. Medical staff discipline. Medical board discipline leading even to loss of license. Reputation destroyed.
Now ask yourself what happens if a hospital executive, say the CEO of a publicly held hospital chain, commits the equivalent type of error, say loses a billion or two in a fiscal quarter, as did Community Health Systems in the fourth quarter of 2017. Investors called for the CEO, Wayne Smith, to resign. Last time I looked, he was still in the executive suite.
Or, look at the former CEO of Tenet Healthcare, Trevor Fetter. His strategy put the company into a nose dive. He was pushed out. After losing hundreds of millions, what penalty did he suffer? Penalty? He walked away with a $22.9 million severance package. Win if you win. Win if you lose.
These folks receive healthy compensation packages and big bonuses when things go well but never risk having to pay it back when something they caused blows up. In fact, in some cases, they still get what amount to additional bonuses in the guise of a severance package.
As you know, it’s hard to make a decision when you might have to pay a large price for it. It’s much easier to make decisions when there’s only an upside, that is, when there’s an upside if it succeeds and an upside if it fails.
One might argue that Mr. Fetter paid a price. He no longer had his job. But he still walked away with close to $23 million dollars and certainly didn’t have to pay back any of what he was previously paid. I don’t mean to pick on Fetter. I don’t own any Tenet shares and for all I know he’s a nice guy whose strategy just didn’t pan out for the shareholders. Instead, the point is the imbalance. Only others suffer the real downside.
The same notions of imbalance of impact, of an upside without a meaningful downside, infect the decisions of hospital executives at many scales. Like the decision of a community hospital CEO to force out a group of cardiac surgeons, say in favor of a new recruit much more likely to “play ball.” The group forced out takes their practice, and the hospital profits it generates, to a facility 7 miles away. The new recruit, now ensconced in the hospital-subsidized “cardiac clinic,” can’t get enough volume to keep busy. The CEO? He's off looking for hospitalists. |
| | | Calibrate Your Compass
Read our exclusive RedPaper to guide you through this evolving situation.
The coronavirus crisis caused a short-term economic crisis for many medical groups. Our RedPaper shows you the way out. Plus, many of the concepts discussed are applicable during both good times and bad.
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| | Help Us Help You With Helpful Content
What tailored content would you most like to see during this
time? How can we focus on solutions to your most pressing strategic concerns?
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| | | | We all hear, and most of us say, that the pace of change in healthcare is quickening. That means that the pace of required decision-making is increasing, too. Unless, that is, you want to take the “default” route. That’s the one is which you let someone else make the decisions that impact you; you’re just along for the ride. Of course, playing a bit part in scripting your own future isn’t the smart route to stardom. But despite your own best intentions, perhaps it’s your medical group’s governance structure that’s holding you back.
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| In fact, it’s very likely that the problem is systemic. The Medical Group Governance Matrix introduces a simple four-quadrant diagnostic tool to help you find out. It then shows you how to use that tool to build your better, more profitable future. Get your free copy Free.
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| | | | Whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you and your business:
1. Download a copy of The Success Prescription. My book, The Success Prescription provides you with a framework for thinking about your success. Download a copy of The Success Prescription here.
2. Be a guest on “Wisdom. Applied. Podcast.” Although most of my podcasts involve me addressing an important point for your success, I’m always looking for guests who’d like to be interviewed about their personal and professional achievements and the lessons learned. Email me if you’re interested in participating.
3. Book me to speak to your group or organization. I’ve spoken at dozens of medical group, healthcare organization, university-sponsored, and private events on many topics such as The Impending Death of Hospitals, the strategic use of OIG Advisory Opinions, medical group governance, and succeeding at negotiations. For more information about a custom presentation for you, drop us a line.
4. If You’re Not Yet a Client, Engage Me to Represent You. If you’re interested in increasing your profit and managing your risk of loss, email me to connect directly. |
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