Leading Change with Confidence

Carie Weber:

Welcome to the Jameson Files. I’m your host, Carrie Weber, and today I’m flying solo. I’m going to give you some thoughts and some interesting considerations as you try, in your very best way possible, to lead change in your practice or in your organization. This is something that we at Jameson have helped practices do for over 30 years, and I’m finding myself teaching and working through this with doctors and leaders more and more this year. I believe a lot of great decisions and refocusing of vision and changes are being made and introduced into practices to help those practices and those doctors and business owners thrive and be healthier and happier in their professional lives, which is what is most important to us to help doctors and practice leaders do. 

So, let’s talk today in this episode about change, about why people resist change, and about what we as leaders need to consider as we are leading change in our practices and in our businesses.

I believe we’ll find that when we get hit with resistance, when those obstacles come our way, chances are we are at a point where we need to make decisions to pursue and persist, re-clarify, and continue to lead forward even when it’s hard. So, how to lead change even when it gets difficult. Let’s go. 

Why do People Resist Change?

So first, as we talk about this, we want to think about why do people resist change in the first place? Why is change so difficult in practices? Perhaps it hasn’t been that difficult for you, but perhaps you have struggled with incorporating something new into your practice or helping your team adapt to change. And there are a lot of reasons why people resist change, or why practices and teams resist change, or perhaps even the leaders resist change. Your overall busyness and overwhelm can be a determining factor. When we’re already very overwhelmed with the workload, the idea of incorporating one more new thing into our day-to-day can be a little stressful at best. And so you can find that people resist.

It also may be that they’re not against the idea, but their speed of change is very slow because they’re busy doing other things, they’re distracted, or they’re generally overwhelmed and can’t handle the idea of taking on one more thing.

Lack of respect for the leader can be one of the reasons. Fear of personal loss or fear of failure. The tradition of how it’s always been can really help put a roadblock in front of you in terms of that change. The requirement of additional commitment and narrow-mindedness is going to thwart the acceptance of new ideas. The rewards don’t match the effort required. These are all just a version of some of the reasons why you may be met with resistance. The fear of the unknown. It won’t happen when people are engaged in negative thinking. All of these are reasons why change is resisted. 

And then of course, there are the two primary reasons why people resist change. And that’s, we’ve always done it this way, or we’ve never done it that way. I’m sure all of you can appreciate that that is a primary deterrent for change for many people. 

How do we Help our Team Overcome these Mental Roadblocks?

So how do we help our teams overcome those mental roadblocks and become more open-minded and willing to not only explore the idea of doing something in a new way or integrating something new into our workflow, but actually implementing that change to where it becomes a habit? I’d like to have everyone visualize a rubber band and visualize yourself as that rubber band. And when we need to use that rubber band, we’re often stretching it to wrap around whatever we’re using it for.

You’re feeling stretched when you’re asked to change. You’re going outside of your comfort zone, and all it takes is one day falling apart or getting really busy, or one team member calling in sick, and we all have to roll up our sleeves and help fill that void and we snap back. Just like if you released a rubber band, you’re going snap back to how you always did things because that’s most comfortable to you. That’s the habit. It doesn’t even matter if it’s inefficient, if it’s ineffective, if it actually in the long run adds more stress to your day. It’s how we’re used to doing things, and therefore we snap back to that place of comfort. So that is a challenge that we have to overcome, is being comfortable with the stretch, being comfortable with stretching outside of our comfort zone, because it is in the stretch that growth and positive change occur, right?

So one of the things that we want to think about when we are facing change, or doing our best to lead change, is that many, many, many people that we’re going to work with and try to lead in that positive direction have become very comfortable. They have become complacent. They”re comfortable with where they are. They are happy and comfortable in status quo. And so what we’re battling against is complacency. 

Yes, there is apathy. As we know from studies, 60% of the workforce considers themselves “quiet quitting,” which is basically doing the minimum acceptable to get by, but really not contributing any more than that. So we’re faced with that sense of apathy, the “quiet quitting” complacency. 

What Keeps us From Battling Complacency?

So how do we battle complacency? Well, first, let’s understand where complacency is coming from. Often we can play a part as leaders in the level of complacency or even apathy that we are faced with with our teams. There may be little to no training or development provided for our teams, and that can cause that. The culture may be toxic or negative, and, wow, all you need is one toxic person and that is going to hinder any efforts that you put forth to help change your business or your practice in a positive way. 

There’s no team alignment or an aligned pursuit of vision and goals for the practice. This is what I often ask doctors, practice owners, practice leaders. What is your vision for the practice? What are your expectations for each team member within that vision of the pursuit of your ideal practice? And do they know what those expectations are and are they on board for it? That alignment is so key and imperative for us to have a team that’s motivated and engaged enough to want to implement something new successfully.

We may be in denial, because of stress or overwhelm. We may be in denial at just how mediocre our performance has become, or how status quo our performance has become because we’re so overwhelmed in our minds. This is great, this is fine, everything’s fine. Right? We may be avoiding issues that are causing this complacency to take root in the practice, and the pursuit of the ideal vision comes to a halt. What is it that we’re avoiding? What performance issues are we avoiding? What critical conversations are we putting off or looking the other way because we want to avoid conflict? What decisions are we avoiding because they seem so hard or difficult or we can’t imagine what the reality could be in the aftermath of that decision? Lack of performance feedback, no accountability. This goes hand in hand with the avoidance of issues.

If we aren’t holding our team members and each other accountable for high performance, it’s going to be very difficult to expect them to take those steps forward in incorporating change for the better in the practice. Whether that’s incorporating the new technology you’ve invested in, or it may be changing the way that you’re scheduling, going out of network with a large insurance plan, whatever those changes may be. If we already are avoiding critical conversations, it’s going to be really difficult to lead that change successfully. 

Low performance standards. If our standards of expectation of how our team and how we perform is already low, there’s no reason for them to take those extra steps of effort because we have created a culture, an environment that nurtures low performance. I know that’s a hard one to really hear, but if you’re allowing low performance, and that has been the common acceptable approach to performance, why would I do more? Why would I take those steps forward to do more or do things differently or get uncomfortable when really, historically, it’s been fine that I’ve done things this way? 

You see this a lot when leaders and doctors are really excited after coming back from a conference, or they went and took a course, they bought the equipment, whatever the case may be, and the team is literally sitting there just telling each other, if we just wait two more weeks, doctor’s excitement will wear off and we’ll get back to normal. That is the kiss of death for positive change. So we as leaders have to persist and we have to get really clear on our vision, the why behind the what, the why behind the change, and we have to lead that forward by example and holding people accountable to incorporating the change as effectively, as successfully, and as quickly as possible.

So those are the reasons why complacency starts to take root in our businesses and our practices. So the question is for you, of those areas, are there particular ones that hit home for you? What do we need to do to address the culture of performance so that change can be successfully implemented whenever it is needed as your practice or your business evolves. 

How Do You Gain Confidence?

A great book about building influence and being more positively influential and having the aura of confidence and competence is a book called Presence by Amy Cuddy. And in that book, she talks about how they ask people in a survey, they ask those participants of these particular people in business that were considered successful or influential, what were the characteristics about those people that made them influential to them? And the characteristics that they shared was that they had confidence in the conversation or the topic or the environment that they were in, and they exuded passionate enthusiasm– confidence, comfort level, and passionate enthusiasm. 

And the thing that I love about those characteristics is none of those characteristics require a PhD, none of them. It is internal confidence. It’s working on your skills to be competent. So whether you lack that confidence because you don’t know how to use the tool, the technology yet, well, we need to practice until you become competent and confident. Do you understand the purpose and the value of that tool? Do you see the benefits for the patient, for you, for the practice, for the doctor? Do we believe in it so that we have the confidence, the comfort level, and the passionate enthusiasm to incorporate this into our day-to-day. Is the resistance of taking photography with every patient, using the intraoral cameras or the scanners, because we don’t have confidence and comfort level in the tool. Are we as passionately enthusiastic about it as our doctors are?

There’s a lot of questions that you may want to ask yourself, whatever the change is. It may be bringing in somebody new. It may be eliminating a position in the practice. It may be changing the entire brand of the practice or focus for the practice. It may be bringing in a new doctor. It may be transition of ownership. There are so many elements of change that we have to become comfortable with. 

And I love these characteristics that Ms. Cuddy talks about in her book, and it’s a good question to ask ourselves in every area of our professional careers. Are we confident? Are we comfortable? Do we have a comfort level in understanding what we’re doing and what we’re talking about? And are we passionately enthusiastic about the work that we do? 

How do we Make Change Stick?

How do we make change happen and stick? I’m talking to you leaders, whether you’re a departmental leader, whether you are an office manager, whether you are an operations manager of multi-locations, whether you’re a regional manager, whether you are a doctor, whether you’re the owner, whether you’re an associate– a lot of scenarios of you needing to either support change that’s happening or lead the change that you’ve decided on.

So how do we make it stick? It’s one thing to say it and say, Hey, here’s what we’re going to do. Hey, we’ve got this thing now, but it’s another to see it actually come to life in your practice or in your business. 

Number one is that we need to communicate the why behind the what. Why are we doing this? Why are we changing the way that we’re scheduling? Why are we changing the technology that we’re using? Communicating the why behind the what? So that your patients, your team, your community, whoever your audience is that needs to understand is clear and sees the benefits of this change. 

Also, remember, everyone is motivated by “What’s in it for me?” How is this going to serve me as a team member? Is it going to save me more time? Is it going to make me more comfortable? Is it going to help more of my patients get healthy? What are the things that it does to benefit us all? Understanding the why behind the what. 

The next step in making change stick and happen is to motivate– build your case for change. What caused you to make this decision? What is our vision? Where are we going? How does this fit in the steps we’re taking to see that vision come to life? Build your case. Again, what are the benefits for me, the team member that has to incorporate this change into what I’m doing every single day? What are the results that we can get when you have wins occur when someone actually uses the technology, when someone actually hits goals in the schedule, and the schedule looks the way we want it to. Are we recognizing that work well done and showing the benefits that we experienced by successfully incorporating that change into the workflow?

Lead. Reflect what you expect if you want a change to occur in the practice. Let’s say you want to start incorporating daily huddles. You maybe did them years ago, but everyone fell off. You just fell off of that habit and stopped doing it for various reasons, and now we want to start them back. If you’re the leader working to reintroduce huddles, guess who has to be on time at the huddle every day and ready to go? You do. So if we want our team to start stepping up and showing up in a new way, an improved way, in a different way, we have to go first and we have to reflect what it is we’re expecting in their performance. So make sure that you’re leading in that integral way for positive and effective change. 

And finally, we have to systemize it. We want to repeat whatever it is that we are wanting to create into a habit again and again and again. You know, a learning curve happens because of repetition. So in order for us to get competent, confident, and passionately enthusiastic about whatever we’re going to do differently, we have to practice that, practice that, practice that, repeat it again and again so that it starts to become a comfortable habit in our workflow. 

We need to evaluate how it’s going. What obstacles are we running into? What do we need to do differently? So making sure we’re taking time in team meetings to evaluate whatever it is that we’re changing, improving, implementing, integrating so that we all have time to talk through that, troubleshoot, practice, adjust, adapt, so that we get more and more comfortable and we get a workflow or we introduce it in a way that’s successful.

And then we want to measure if it’s having an impact, measure our results, measure our effectiveness, measure our impact, so that we have these ways to determine that we are going in the right direction. Is it working? What do we need to change? What do we need to standardize and systemize? 

So we have to communicate the why behind the what, motivate by building the case for change, lead by example, and reflect what we expect. And then finally, we need to systemize the change by repetition, evaluation, measurement, and standardization. Are there one or more of those elements that you aren’t successfully doing when you try to introduce change that can help you get a better result? 

Be Consistent in your Expectations

Steps for success are that we must be consistent. A ‘one and done’ conversation about changing something is not going to successfully integrate that change. We have to repeat, repeat, repeat the message of what we expect now, where we’re going, and what the change is, and then we have to be consistent in the execution of that change.

We need to review reports and goals after each team meeting. Make sure you’re setting goals and action items and evaluating those in the progress of those at every meeting. And then adding to those goals and action items as you accomplish the original ones on your list. Revisit those at every meeting. We want to incorporate the vision. We want to incorporate that kind of conversation. Give opportunities for questions and feedback from the team. We need to make time to practice. If the change requires us doing or saying something different or new, we need to practice that so that we elevate our comfort level. 

Recognize Work Well Done

Celebrate your progress. Make sure that you’re celebrating the wins. When you see someone doing the new thing or doing something well within that change, make sure we’re recognizing work well done and the effort that they’re taking because that which is rewarded is repeated. And I’m not just talking about a financial reward, I’m talking about the recognition of our hard work. 

And remember to celebrate the little steps of progress along the way. Progress is progress no matter how small it feels. We need to make sure we’re not only focused on the big picture, the daring destination, the final result. We’re also aware and present in recognizing the improvements and the steps that we and our team are taking to get to that end result. Progress is progress no matter how small. So remember, your consistency is key. 

Kathy Jameson would say that repetition is the key to learning. So we need to make sure we’re repeating the message and guiding our team forward. And we don’t let the busyness and overwhelm of the days allow us to forget where we really, truly want to go, what that change will do and how that change will serve us in the best possible way.

Kathy also says that there’s no such thing as status quo. You’re either going up or you’re going down. And so we’re going to be in a continuous evolution of change over the years of our careers, and I want you all to be in that upward trend and be committed to continuous improvement. And that’s what this conversation about change is about. How do we understand where we are if we’re stuck and have resistance to change? How can we lead in a more intentional way to move us forward in change? And what are steps that we can take to successfully introduce change into our practice? 

Create a Culture that Embraces Change

Creating a culture that’s coachable, that’s adaptable, and that recognizes continuous improvement is a part of the world that you’ve created in your practice is going to be key. So as you start to plan for the second half of the year, we’re well into the quarter two now as this is being recorded of 2024, there may be changes that you’ve been wanting to see occur in your practice this year that haven’t quite taken root. Reset, refocus, step back, have a conversation with the team, create action items, get the training in, talk about the why behind the what, and let’s move the needle forward.

Change can be such a positive element to keeping your practice, not only sustaining it, but helping it to continue to grow and thrive over the years. And it’s a leadership skill to be able to lead change effectively and healthily with your team. It is a skill that you will benefit from for years and years to come. So good luck in the methods and efforts to change. I hope that you are celebrating great successes by the end of this year because you’ve taken the time and the steps necessary to lead change forward in a positive way. Thanks for joining me. Be well, and I’ll see you next time. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Jameson Files. Visit us online. You can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. See you next time.