In this episode, I sit down with impact expert Janna Jorgensen, founder of ION Leadership Consulting to discuss a framework for human impact, leading teams, and engaging the purpose of your business.

Key Takeaways:

1. Purpose drives impact. Understanding your why is critical to having the impact you want to have. Purpose is what you want. Impact is what you actually do. The bigger the difference between the two, the bigger the frustration and dissatisfaction.
2. You can measure your impact. Define the KPI’s that show how well you’re delivering on your purpose and how your patients experience your business.
3. The context of the situation - where your people are, where your patients are, what’s going on in their lives. These pieces of context affect your ability to have the impact you want - especially when it comes to developing, growing, and providing input to your people.
4. The Human Impact Framework can support the process of defining your purpose, your impact, and the people that matter in the process. Levering this tool allows you to be more effective in delivering a great culture, patient experience, and overall impact.

Additional Resources:

• Episode 62 - Dissecting Difficult Conversations with Erin O'Malley
• Human Impact Framework 
• TEDx - Impact is a Context Sport

What Janna is reading:

• How to Be Heard by Julian Treasure
• Who Do We Choose to Be by Margaret Wheatley
• The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger
• The AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee
• Positive Money by Cindy Morgan Jaffe

In this episode, keynote speaker and culture expert Greg Hawks shares his philosophy of Ownership Culture and how practices and businesses identify where their people are and engage them deeper. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Culture starts with the values the business has and are often the really good things of how the practice runs. Start by defining and spotlighting them regularly.
2. Culture in a small business is easier than a large business. Small changes make big impacts in short time.
3. Ownership Culture focuses on employee engagement. Owners are engaged. Renters are disengaged. Vandals are actively disengaged and are divisive, toxic, and actively sabotaging the business's success. Owners show up daily with "head and heart", doing their job with drive and passion. Renters do their job well, offering their skills but are not engaged further. 
4. The reasons vandals stay within a business:
   1. They are significant revenue generators and they know it
   2. They've been there a long time and it's awkward now to do something about it
   3. Nepotism - they're family members
   4. They are also the owner
5. Renters often become renters because they don't have the ability or opportunity to offer their full thoughts, ideas, and view of the world into how the business improves and grows. Creating space for this helps move renters towards owners.

More Resources:

• Episode 50: Culture for Cold Starts with Davis Capaccioli, OD
• For more on Ownership Culture - Email Dr. Manning

What Greg is Reading:

• The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran

In this episode, I sit down with eye care industry veteran Grant Larsen to discuss effective change. Successful businesses are easily able to adapt, change, and add new services/ products based on the needs of their customers. As a business owner and leader, it's imperative we recognize steps to success and lead them within the business.

Key Takeaways:

1. Change is difficult. Don’t think you have to do lead, drive change within your practice all by yourself.
2. The first step to any successful endeavor is understand your “why”. Why are you doing this? Why are you passionate about seeing it succeed?
3. Maintaining change isn’t easy either. Learn from the challenges, the “failures”, and why something may not have gone to plan. Adjust accordingly and stay accountable.
4. Have a scorecard for success. Manage against it. Recognition and reward is key to keeping your staff connected to your scorecard.
5. Leverage the connected knowledge of experts around you to accelerate success. Learn from mistakes made and successes had.
6. Getting started is key.

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 48: The KPI's You Aren't Tracking with Bryan Hoban

Episode 24: Focus On Financials Part 2 with Bryan Hoban

Episode 23: Focus On Financials Part 1 with Bryan Hoban

In this episode, I sit down with culture catalyst Erin O'Malley to discuss the reasons we don't like difficult conversations and having to provide constructive feedback to friends, colleagues, and employees. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Many don't like having difficult conversations due to the effects it could have on the relationship. We play "What If?" games for the negative, yet we should really look at the positive "What If?" outcomes that could come from having the conversation.
2. Consider shifting away from the feedback sandwich - it can cause whiplash and leave your employee focusing either on the negative or the positive (and they miss the constructive). As Dr. Brené Brown puts it, "Clear is kind."
3. Erin's framework for difficult conversations:
   1. Intention - Sets our intention and guides the conversation
   2. Framing - Seeing the specific situation and behavior of the individual
   3. Impact - What's the impact the person's behavior is having on the business case
   4. Inputs - Ask questions and bring the other person in
   5. Invite - Invite them into the conversation and the solution
4. Feedback is a two way street. The inputs and pulling them in to the conversation, asking them how they feel or think about the challenge is really important. Be present.
5. As you frame the difficult conversation, avoid talking about subjective issues. Address the objective actions and behaviors head on.

What Erin is reading:

• Say What You Mean by Oren Sofer

In this final episode from the PECAA Annual Meeting in Nashville, VSP Vision's Shauna Harrington leads an interactive, audience participation course on attracting and keeping great employees in your practice.

Key Takeaways:

1. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch. People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad leaders.
2. Having a handbook sets performance expectations that help facilitate productive people management
3. Focus on your own unique value proposition. This impacts your ability to source great talent.
4. How do you source great talent?
   1. Word of Mouth
   2. Indeed
   3. Other service industries
   4. Asking for referrals from employees
   5. Schools and training programs
5. Engagement in the job and Enablement to do the job are both super important to retain staff

Wish you were in Nashville for the PECAA Annual Meeting? Be sure to block your calendar for the 2024 meeting in Las Vegas April 29 - May 1, 2024!

In this episode from the PECAA Annual Meeting, Marketing4ECPs President Kevin Wilhelm shares strategies for building a practice brand your patients will love and pay more for. . 

1. A commodity is something purchased solely on price and convenience.
2. Brand loyal customers pay 20% more on average for the same product.
3. Be unique - own a single idea and be better at it than anyone else. 
4. Be memorable
5. Focus, Focus Focus

Wish you were in Nashville? Mark your calendar for next year's meeting in Las Vegas April 29th to May 1st, 2024!

Back for another episode of the Practice Advantage podcast, speaker, author, and inspirer Chris Tuff shares more on deeper, authentic connection, and the power it brings to a practice. 

1. 11% of employees are in the right job to match their personality profile. Investing more time how we're wired is important to impacting a practice's culture and talent. 
2. 3/5 out of employees would leave an employer without that ability to connect to leadership
3. Feedback is key to employee and culture success - praise-based and constructive/ developmental. 
4. Inspirational leadership is the most important leadership trait needed by millennials. 
5. Connection happens in the art of fly-by
6. Let culture thrive

Wish you were at the PECAA Annual Meeting? Be sure to mark your calendar for April 29-May 1, 2024 in Las Vegas, NV!

On this episode, I sit down with Teri Thurston, PECAA's Billing & Coding Advisor to discuss the biggest issues practices face with their billing and coding processes and how to fix them. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Start at the beginning - with insurance verification. Verifying the patient's insurance ahead of time informs the practice on how to best care for the patient and leverage those benefits before the patient steps foot in the practice. 
2. Evaluate the entire Revenue Cycle Management process. Determine the areas that need work and define those individual steps and processes in specific detail. Make sure they work for your individual business. These established processes also help when you have to replace or fill in for your billing specialist.
3. Under-coding and over-coding are significant problems. Take the time to learn what you can bill, how to determine the exam levels you provide, and the appropriate documentation. Don't miss out on billing for services you provided as they are also risky in an audit. Knowing the rules helps you sleep at night when it comes to an audit. 
4. Medical and vision insurance can cause challenges when the patient presents for a vision exam, yet has a medical problem. Leverage both within the rules and keep medical and vision separate when appropriate. Educate your patients up front and throughout their entire experience with the whole team.
5. Don't forget the processes after the patient is seen. Submit claims on time. Chase down denials and rejections as soon as possible. Track and manage your billing and coding KPI's. 

What Teri is reading:

• Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

Do you want to build a great referral network with providers in your area to drive greater specialty care adoption and expand your patient base? 

Key Takeaways:

1. Evaluate the current realities of your referral networks
2. Determine the referrals you want and establish your referral policies and procedures
3. Reach out yourself to the providers in your area as much as you can
4. Don't be afraid to refer and seek referrals from other optometrists
5. Leave detailed information for the providers you're working to build referrals from
6. Send detailed communication to providers you both receive referrals from and from whom you are seeking referrals
7. Host doctor education nights to showcase what how you can serve their practices and their patient

Have you registered for the PECAA Annual Meeting?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sahil Dosaj, owner of Miller Optometry in Yucaipa, CA, to share his experience in buying another practice to scale his business. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The opportunity to scale can come along at any time. Be prepared and ready in your current practice location(s) to be able to say yes when the opportunity presents. 
2. Buying a practice means acquiring an established brand that has the opportunity to grow. It's important to recognize the value of the brand (good or bad) and leverage it or change it appropriately. 
3. Success in acquisition means having standardized processes strong enough that you implement them in the second business. Take into account what that location does well, but replicate the processes you have established. Be flexible enough to evolve and grow but replicate at the same time. 
4. Replication also involves the culture. Acquiring a business can mean acquiring great people and other times, it means people who won't get on board with the direction you're headed. Don't be afraid to let people go who aren't aligned with your mission, vision, and values.

What Sahil is reading:

• The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack
• Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty

Are you joining us for the PECAA Annual Meeting 4/20 to 4/22 in Nashville, TN?? If you don't want to miss out, learn more at https://www.pecaa.com/nationalmemberevents.