10 tips to energize your team for success
By Susan Hoy

Your daily "adventure" begins when the first patient walks through your office door. And what a fun adventure it can be if everyone is tuned in and enthusiastic about the day.

Energizing the practice is not only fun, it is also essential to success. Energy is life-giving and life-supporting. No energy, no life. It's as simple as that.

Here are some tips for staying energized:

1. Start the day off with a morning huddle. That huddle includes everyone — all CAs as well as the doctor. It should last no more than 10 minutes, but those 10 minutes are essential for the day's kickoff.

During your morning huddle, discuss the schedule, and identify particularly busy times when everyone on the staff must be focusing on patients rather than paperwork.

2. Solve scheduling problems before they happen. It is always better to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to scheduling. Identify patients who need a little encouragement or potential dropouts.

3. Follow up. Identify patients who need to be thanked for a recent referral or a patient who is doing well and should be ready to refer.

4. Set your goal for the day. Goals may concern new patient visits, scheduling follow-up visits, or recalling patients.

5. Communicate successes throughout the day. We all need to hear about success. CAs should report their successes to each other and the chiropractor, and the chiropractor should report his or her successes to the team.

6. Focus on the positive. Don't let one negative incident spoil the rest of the day.

7. Compliment a patient. One positive comment may be the only bright spot in the patient's day. You can decide as a team to compliment your most difficult patient and witness the results.

8. Keep notes. Everyone should keep a small notebook at his or her workstation. Write down positive comments from patients about the results they are getting with chiropractic care. Write down problems you encounter, too.

9. Tell a joke each day. Take turns bringing one in. Laughter creates a happy workplace. Keep your sense of humor and laugh a lot. Laughing eliminates stress.

10. End your day with an evening huddle. Retrieve your notebook and go over the positive comments you wrote down during the day. They will help you end the day on a positive note. (Unless they are urgent, save the problems for your weekly staff meeting, so that they can be thoroughly addressed.)

Remember, working comprises a large percentage of our life. Why not make work fun and rewarding instead of your daily drudgery. Every day can be an adventure if you just change your interpretation and begin seeing what you do as a value to humanity.

Susan Hoy is an award-winning team trainer and consultant. She presents training seminars for teams throughout the country and is the author of two team training manuals. The newest is entitled, Systemize, Organize, Simplify. Susan can be reached at 215-674-0130, suzzhoy@aol.com, or through her Web site at www.beefitup.net.