How to Build a Culture That Creates Winning Teams

If your business isn't working the way you expected, it's not because you're bad at business. It's because no one ever taught you how it actually works. We were trained to master algorithms in medicine, but when it comes to revenue teams and growth, we were never taught anything. We weren't even told to figure it out. We just assumed somehow we'd know, like it would magically make sense. But it doesn't. The era of the seven Figure Physician CEO is here. And it's not about working harder. It's about learning entrepreneurship as a system. The same way you mastered ACLs and pals, you can master the algorithm of building a profitable scalable business. That's why I recorded the Seven Figure Physician CEO audiobook. Whether you're building a medical or non medical business, and whether your goal is your first million, first 2 million, first 5 million, first 10 million, this is where the journey starts. There is no Calvary coming to save us. We are the calvary. So. So go get your audiobook now. Www.entremd.com 7Figurebook. And let's rewrite the narrative for physicians starting today. Hi, docs. Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Umna. Well, hello. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of the Entre MD podcast. And today we are going to be talking about one of the things that really is the hardest but the most rewarding part of. Well, one of the hardest, but one of the most rewarding parts of entrepreneurship, which is your team. Right? Is your team. So we're going to be talking about how to build a culture that creates amazing teams, winning teams, a teams. Right. And you may be. This was me early on, as an entrepreneur, I did not believe that I could attract people who were, you know, like eight, like 18 type of people. I did not think I could attract them. I did not think I could keep them. I did not think I could lead them. And so maybe you are at that place, or maybe you're not at a place for producers, but you're at that place as far as leaders, like people who maybe have competencies that you don't have or have experiences that you don't have. You're like, I don't think I can lead these people. Right. And so I want to invite you to start embracing this concept. Like, of course you can. Right? There was a time you could not do what you now do as a doctor, but you acquire the skill and now you can. Right? It's the same thing with teams. A lot of us did not have the experience of leading big teams and all of that growing up. So this is a skill we need to develop. But that's exactly what it is. It's a skill. Right? And so I want to invite you to think, no, I can do this. Like, I can't do it right now, but I can learn to do it. I can grow into this. So this is something that is possible for me. You can even paint a visual of you with your A team. And you guys are at a team meeting and people are talking how they really are talking about how they really enjoy working with your company and they're producing really great results and they're driving initiatives in your company. And just live with that picture, like, wow, like it's your imagination, it's free. Okay. In the Entre MD business school we say there's no imagination police, right? Like, you can just choose to start dreaming of that and believing that and it'll put you in a position to get so much more out of this conversation. So don't eliminate, don't excuse yourself. Like, I'm not that kind of person. I can't do that. You may even be at a point where you're like, I don't need leaders in my company just yet. But you will if you continue to grow, if you continue to evolve, if you continue to do all of these things that we talk about on the podcast. Right? Okay. And the reason why this is really, really critical is your team is the secret to freedom. Right? Your team is the secret to freedom. If you don't have a team, then you have to do everything yourself. And then that means you don't really have a business. It means you own your job. And my dream for Physicians is that we build businesses. That we build businesses, we don't build our jobs. Which means you have this entity. You understand it's an asset. You're building it to be a well oiled machine. You're building it to be something that can work without you. It doesn't mean you have to walk away, but it does that you have options. And if you think about it, at some point in time, you are going to exit your company whether you like it or not, right? It like you're not going to be here forever. Like, for one, let's say nothing happens, but ultimately you live to your 90 or 100 and you die. Like, at some point you're going to have to leave your company right now. You would either have to hand it off to a family member. If there's somebody who wants to take care of that, you're going to have to sell it, you're going to have to shut it down. Well, when you build a well oiled machine, you control the shot. You like you're, you're holding the shots. You can decide, I want to continue to own it even though I'm not like, I'm not actively involved with it. So I don't need to exit it because I'm not really doing a whole lot right. Like I'm, I have the role of the founder, I have a CEO, I have all this other stuff. You can decide I want to sell it. But now you, when you decide to sell a company, that is not the time to make it sellable. At that point it's either sellable or not, right? So if you want to build a sellable company, this is a multi year project, right? And so you want to start now and you may never, you may decide, I don't want to sell it. But you have the option, right? So even if you're like, no, I don't, that's not something I'm thinking about. I want to invite you to build it as if you were thinking about it. And if you don't need it, fine. I always like to give credit to Dr. Dosoma when I said say this because I interviewed her on a podcast and she said that a company worth selling is a company worth keeping. When you build your company as a, as a business asset that can work without you, that's a well oiled machine that doesn't, that can function if you're not there, right? Because one is the most dangerous number in entrepreneurship when, when you, when you do that, you end up with a company that's better whether you keep it or whether you sell it. You know what I mean? So, so I want to invite you to embrace all of this. Like don't exclude yourself. Don't say don't exclude yourself. This conversation is for you, even if it's not something that is done traditionally. So for instance, if you are listening and you're in private practice, well, a lot of times people build their jobs, like for the most part. And so you may be thinking this is not conventional. That's okay. We're an entrepreneur. We don't do convent, right? Like we adopt a lot of things for the business world to make what we're doing as doctors so much better. Right? So don't exclude my bottom line is don't exclude yourself from this conversation. Okay? So how do I build a culture? How do I build a culture? How do I build a company where that creates winning teams? That creates a teams because a teams are created like that. It's not something that happens by default. It's created. So I want to give you so many things, but I want to give you five things, okay? And as we walk through these, I want you to kind of audit yourself. No negativity here. Just say, huh, okay, that's something I can work on. That's an opportunity. I'm nothing like, oh, my goodness, I suck. I haven't done that. We don't do that. Okay, Number one. Number one is. Is really to be. Is to be a visionary company, right? Be a visionary company where you are on the. You're playing offense, you're trying to be innovative, you're trying to move forward. You're not adopting the attitude of what will be, will be, or this is the way it's always been done. We are in cruise control. None of that. Like, you're visionary, you're leading, you're moving forward, you're becoming better. You're constantly tweaking. You are that kind of company. That kind of company is what creates the drive, the enthusiasm, the motivation, the inspiration for people to want to be better. And that is the kind of company that a players like, right? So that is where they get to do stuff, they get to create stuff, they get to take on challenges and things like that. So you want to be that kind of company. So you want to kind of think about it. Where have I. Where have I settled? Where I'm here. I don't want to do anything new. I don't want to innovate. I don't want to tackle on. Take on a new problem in the industry. I don't want to, you know, resist the status quo and stand out. I don't want to become a category of one. Like, I don't want to do any of that stuff. Where have you done that? Right? And you can start saying no, like, this is let me own the vision. Because we have it. We started off with it. Sometimes the challenges of being an entrepreneur beat it out of us. But what. What is that? Yeah, what is that? And so you want to be that visionary company. Now you might say, I don't think that way. That's okay. Pick one thing. Pick two things. It could be as simple as, we've stayed at this revenue level. Let's go to this level. We've only served this kind of client. Let's move on to this client. We've only had this number of clients. Let's double the number of clients we have. You can start from there. It doesn't have to be something so earth shattering. We've done this thing and it typically takes two hours. How can we do it in an hour? Like, just start from where you are, okay? Start from where you are. If you don't have. You don't need this big ginormous thing to start with. Just start with making what you have better, but be visionary. So that's number one. Number two. Number two is relentlessly casting vision, okay? Your team is not made up of mind readers, okay? They cannot read your mind. And you, the chances are that you spend all day, every day in some way, shape or form with your vision. So you're thinking about what could be better. You're thinking of how you like the business to look. You're thinking, you're making decisions on, okay, this is the fourth quarter of the year or whatever. This is what we're going to accomplish. You have a dry erase board in your, in your office and you're doing all of these things and you're thinking you're doing all of this. Your team has no idea, okay? They have no idea. And so you're going. And you're like, I don't know why they don't get it. They don't get it because they haven't told them. They have no idea. I talk about this a lot in the context of family, right? Like, people will say, well, I told my, I told my wife about this idea and she wasn't excited. I'm like, okay, but I know you, I know you've been thinking about this idea for the last year. I know you've spent the last year overcoming your doubt about it. I know you spent the last year you kind of playing around with it and doing smaller versions of this big vision. And finally you've come to the point where you bought it and then you spring it on your wife. And your wife is where you were a year ago. And so what she has regarding that idea is self doubt. And you're like, I don't get why she's not excited. You weren't excited when you found out about it a year ago, right? And so at that point, your job is then to cast the vision. Cast a vision and cast a vision and show how, okay, this thing we think is a limiting belief like this actually can't stop us. And look at the Experiments we've done with that and all of that until you have her buy in. You see what I'm saying? And so it's the same thing with your team. You've been thinking about this stuff and all of this stuff, they have no idea. So you come up with strategies to implement, and to them, it looks like more work because they don't get the vision behind it. And so our job as leaders is to cast a vision, is to share. Where we're going is to talk about it, is to talk about that next step, to talk about what is possible, to talk about how we can do it. To talk about, like, even though these seem like our disadvantages, but look at all these advantages we have over there. And talk about it and talk about it till they get it. Think about this as an entrepreneur, as the leader of a team, you are an evangelist, okay? You are spreading your ideologies, getting people to buy into your ideology, okay? So you're not going to share it once. You're going to share it often and often and often till it resonates in them as it resonates in you, okay? So if you're going to build a company, a culture that creates winning teams, you're going to be somebody who is evangelistic about your vision. You're going to share often at the meetings you're going to share. This is where we're going. This is where we're going. This is what it can look like. This is what the next quarter can look like. And you sell it and sell it it and sell it till they buy it. Okay? Once they buy it, it now means you're no longer just giving them tasks. You have unleashed everything they have to give. You have unleashed their innovation. You have unleashed the experiences they have. You have unleashed the expertise they have. You've unleashed the connections they have. You've unleashed all of that on the vision. Now, that is so different from just people who do tasks, because they bring all of them to it. Okay, all right, Number three. Number three is setting clear expectations. Clear, clear. And if you're a leader, you're probably groaning as you listen to this because you're like, oh, my goodness. Because sometimes what we do is we hire people. We hire them for roles that they've done before, and we expect them to come and do similar roles in our own companies. And we expect them to come knowing how to do it, and they should just. It's like plug and play, right? I just plug and play, okay? Team members are never plug and play. They are plug, teach, Coach, give clear expectations, all of that. And play. They're never plugged. And play. Okay, so what that means is you need to be clear. If at the end of a year of working with this person or the next year, for someone who's been with you, I'm like, oh my goodness, this person is just a blessing from God. This is God's present to me. What needs to happen for you to say that you want to start thinking, what is it that I want from this person? Because a lot of times I even talk to people who are frustrated by their team members and they don't know why. They're just like, they're not doing what I need them to do. Okay, what is it you need them to do? Well, I just want them to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there's no clarity there. So you want to start thinking, if they could only do five things or if they could only create five results, what are those results I want them to create? You want to be crystal clear. You may not be clear on everything, but what are the top five? This is, these are the results I need them to create. Then you need to be clear and you need to give them the gift of letting them know what your expectations are. Because a lot of team members want to be a players, but you cannot score a goal when you don't know where the goal post is. Right. And so we do our team members such a great disservice if they have no idea what we want them to do. So what do I want this person to do? What do I want them to do? Articulate it. So in entrepreneur business school, in scale, one of the things I do is I start showing them how to create job descriptions. Because I don't know, maybe you're different, but when I started off as an entrepreneur, I would just go Google job descriptions and stuff like that and just edit it a little bit so it looks like my company and put it out there. And then I'm. I'm annoyed when people are not doing what I want them to do. But my job description says nothing about what I actually want them to do. Right. But it's more work to sit and think, like, what do I actually want? And I'll stop here to say this, like, what if you are somebody who's going to build like a wildly successful category of one industry disrupting type of company? One of the most, one of your most important jobs is thinking. Like it really is one of your most important jobs is thinking, so what is it that I want from this person and you want to make it clear so they can come every day to work and say, I want to score goals. I want to score five goals today. And they know how to get it done. And so that way, when they have tasks, they're not saying, why is this here? They know why. Because this is what I'm trying to accomplish, and this helps me accomplish that. So set clear expectations, number four. Number four is to create an accountability system. So I am phlegmatic at my core, which means my natural bend is to avoid conflict at all costs. So I actually had to learn to address conflict. I had to learn to hold people accountable. But when you hold people accountable, it's a gift you're giving them. Because think about it. Think about it. Like, if somebody's flying a plane, right, they want clear expectations, meaning, I know I'm taking this plane to Chicago, right? But they also want a radar to tell them you're off track. Like, you're off track. You're five degrees off track. And if you keep going that way, you're going to be in Alaska. So it is a gift. No pilot wants to fly a plane without a radar to say, you are off track. And in the same way, our team members, they need accountability. They need us to say, this is the expectation we set. You're doing great here. Here, we're off. Okay, so how can I support you so you can get back on? Like, what are we missing here? And you may. You may have just broken out of hives thinking about doing this, but I'm telling you, we need to start stop looking at accountability as a bad thing. Like, they called me in for a meeting. Like, this is not a bad thing. This is a gift. And you want to help your team. See, this is a gift. Okay? I know you want to be an A player. I want to help you be an A player. Right? And so this thing. You're not doing this, right? Let's. Let's do this this way. Let's. Okay, what is the issue here? Let's see if we can build a way around it. Okay? And I say this because one is that it will help your people perform so much better. But more importantly is High Flyers are not going to stay in a company that sanctions incompetence, which means people have expectations. They're not meeting their expectations. You have the person who is a leader who is constantly coming to work late or not coming at a. Coming at all and all of kind of things. And people realize you can read. They say. They say they have expectations, but you can really do whatever you want. A players don't stay there because that is not a winning culture. So not only are you going to lose the person ultimately, because they're not really doing anything, you're also going to lose your best people. In fact, there was a doctor in the entrepreneur business school who talked about a team member who was really toxic, and she was having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that she was going to have to let her go and all of those things. Now she ultimately let her go, only to find out that one of the best people on her team was planning to leave because of that person. So she would have lost the incompetent person and should have lost her best team member. Right? So you want to build that system for accountability, and you. You want to hold people accountable. Right? You want to build that system because sanctioned incompetence will destroy your culture. It will destroy your culture. Okay. All right. And then the final one is, is really getting ahead of team problems. Anywhere you have people, you're going to have challenges, right? You see it in family relationships, you see it in marriages. You see it with kids, you see bosses, you see. With friends, you see. So don't think the workplace is going to be any different, okay? So there is going to be time when two people are going to clash or there is going to be time where somebody's going to go way out of control. There is going to be time. Somebody's going to be spreading a rumor about something. Like, there are all kinds of things that can come up, and that is not the time to retreat. You are a leader. That is the time to lead. That is the time to get ahead. That is the time to nip things in the bud. That is the time to do that. And so when conflict shows up, when challenges come up, when team problems come up, don't run away. Get ahead of it. Get in front of it and address it. Get in front of it and address it. I had a client who had a doctor who was leaving, and she was in private practice, and it was. It was very toxic. And. And then camp started coming up. The camp that was going to stay, the camp that was going to go, the camp that was like, what is going on here? Like, all of those kind of things. And she was like, what do I do? I was like, it's time to put your big girl pants on. You're going to need to get in front of that. Right? Like, they see all the tension and all that. You're going to get in front of them. You're going to say, hey, like, obviously, there's some challenges here with the leadership, with the physicians here, but I need you to understand that we're working on it. I need you to understand that in the next 30 to 60 days, we would have ironed all of this out, and it will be done. But we have patients who are depending on us to provide the best level of care. So I want you to understand, I am working on this. What I need us to stay focused, focused on the reason why we're here. We're here to provide excellent care. We're here to take care of our patients. We're here to give them a good experience. We're here to help them get healthy. And I am working on the team stuff. I have always led you. I will always show up and do the right thing. So I need you guys to just be patient as we work through that. Right? And she handled that like a boss, and her business ended up being the better for it. But I understand the fear. I understand wanting to retreat, but you don't want to retreat. That's not the winning culture. You don't want to retreat. Okay, you want to get ahead of it. You want to get ahead of it. You want to show up. You want to lead. Leaders are never behind. Leaders are in front leading. They're in front leading, except it's time for praise. Then they come and they put their team in front and say that because of the team, right? Okay, so what I want you to do, I want you to take a moment and. And really do an audit. Like, what can I improve? Like I said, no negativity here. We're not talking about, oh, I suck. I'm not doing this. We're talking about, wow, I have an opportunity to do this right, which is a very different energy. And kind of go, like, how do I up level my. Myself as a team and all of those kind of things. And I'm telling you, when you do this, you end up with a winning team. And when you have a winning team, you have bought yourself freedom. If I did not have a winning team in my first business, my private practice, I would not have the freedom to build Entre md. I would not have freedom to do this legacy work that I'm doing of bringing a shift to the entire physician community. I will not have the freedom to do that at all. The reason why I can do that is because I have an A team, and I want to invite you to do the same. It will change your life. In entrepreneurship, there is no freedom without A team. Okay, so go do this. I cannot wait to see the difference this makes in your company. It will mean better revenue. It will mean even more 18 players. It will mean better wins for your clients and your patients. It will mean bigger impact in the community. It will just mean everything. The team is everything. So go do this audit again. Of course, if you need support with this, especially if you're building a business that has crossed the seven figure mark, you're all in team weeds, right? And if you need support like this, we have built a fantastic community called EBS Skill where we work all day, every day on building these eight teams, building businesses that are well oiled machines. And I invite you to come have a conversation with my team about it on trimd forward slash call. And if that's something that you want to do, we would love to have you in the community. All right, so please share this episode with another doctor in your life because it will change. It will change their culture and change everything for them. And I'll see you on the next episode of the ontremd podcast. If you enjoy listening to the ontremity podcast, you have to check out the ontremd Business school. It's the number one business school for physicians who want to build six, seven and multiple seven figure businesses. You get the coaching, the accountability and the community you need to do the work so you can thrive. To find out if this is your best next step, book a call with my team. Ontramd.com call. That's ontremd.com call. I can't wait to celebrate all the wins we can create together. Sam.