20: Support in ASTRO

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Welcome everyone to another episode of DSO Secrets. I'm your fearless host, Emmett Scott. And today we're talking about Astro. We've got these five business pillars that we use within our executive team. And in last episode I talked about the A of alignment and what it takes to truly get alignment. Probably the effort, the time, the energy is always way more than you would expect when you set out and put that vision out there to really get all the different capabilities and personality types aligned. But the second step is support Astro. How do you get the right support in place? Now let me give you context on how I came up with the need for support. I would frustrated oftentimes as an entrepreneur and maybe you can relate to this. When I put this beautiful idea and this vision that I've been thinking about out on a whiteboard, everyone nods their head, is excited, and then they go to implement and the idea fails. Or maybe more specifically down at a practice level, you're trying to get that front desk or that X ray tech or that office manager to be consistently, to consistently deliver a certain patient experience or to create the right protection support around you to help you be successful. Why do those fail? Now let me tell you the number one reason that most entrepreneurs will say that it fails. I just can't find really good help. I just can't find talented people. It's hard in this market to recruit someone who really has critical thinking skills. You know, I remember at a point where I was so frustrated as an entrepreneur because I had all these brilliant ideas that I wanted to bring to the market. Some of them I thought were even simple, like really simple concepts. And I couldn't build the team around me to execute. I tried being nice, I tried being mean, I tried all these different techniques of what would it take to get to this next level. And frankly, I didn't have a very big team because no one could stay with me very long. And actual to actually execute on my ideas. And I was sitting with my kids at McDonald's, and I'm watching as these teenagers are flipping this raw meat, cooking these hamburgers. And it really hit me that the magic of McDonald's was the capability that to take all of these teens, get them to cook raw meat, and not kill billions of people. And I thought, what is it that they do to ensure that happens? They're not looking for the most talented people in the world. There are core capabilities they're looking for, but it's not, you know, we're looking for the best hamburger cooker in the world. And so it changed my reference point of, am I thinking about this problem and my team in the wrong way? And really, the biggest thing that hit me was the level of entitlement that I was operating under, the lack of gratitude and not really dealing with the reality of what it takes to provide support to humans, to allow them to execute effectively. You know, I like a quote from Dan Sullivan that says there's no unrealistic expectations, just unrealistic time frames. And one of the big things that I had to overcome was if I wanted something big to happen or even something small to happen, but on a consistent basis, I was going to need to put in the time necessary to provide the right support to my team. You know, what McDonald's and all these other large organizations have figured out is if you can provide the right support for the task necessary, then you can scale. And so instead of kind of justifying my lack of capabilities, my entitlement by saying, well, there's just not a good workforce out there. You can't find good talent anymore. You know, they're entitled, these millennials, whatever you want to tag it with. Instead, I start looking inwardly and saying, what is the support system that exists within my organization? And does it allow a normal human? Because humans is all we have to work with to be successful, does it have the systems, processes, and culture in place where people can be successful? I had to humbly realize that sitting at a whiteboard mapping out an idea just wasn't enough. Coming back from a conference all excited and taking the idea of somebody else and sharing that with my team and then sitting back and waiting for execution just wasn't enough. Having a brilliant idea in the shower and then bringing that into a morning huddle and telling everybody, hey, now, we're going this way, or let's start doing this, that just wasn't enough. I was at a conference recently where the speaker and coach went through and had somebody in the audience describe A scene in the Sound of Music, the movie the Sound of Music. And he asked this audience participants specific questions, gave him multiple choices even to make his ability to describe the scene even easier. Now, there was one really big disadvantage that this audience member had, and that is they had never seen the movie the Sound of Music. So even with the multiple choice, the options or the choices that that audience member made when given, you know, multiple options to choose from were all wrong. And even if they had gotten, let's say, one right by the time they were done describing the scene, it was so off from what the reality was of, of the movie. And so this coach speaker then kind of brought the scene up on the screen. And then jokingly, but I think very representatively kind of chided this audience member, like, hey, why couldn't you get this right? You know, I even gave you options, I explained the title of the movie, I gave you some background, and you still couldn't get this scene right. And I just loved the analogy because in my personal experience, that is the mistake I have made so often is I felt like I had given enough context, enough vision, enough of the why behind something that anyone with half a brain could see where I was going. But the reality is, if they haven't seen the movie, if it's not in full script for them to read, it is difficult, if not impossible for them to be successful. Now, occasionally you get lucky, and you do have an employee that just feels like you can give minimal feedback to. They just align really well. And, man, you just want to find more people like that. That's kind of this ideal that happens. You know, I grew up part of my life in Vegas, and when you walk into the casinos, they always have on the walls people who have won any amount of money. And I look at that and I think that seeds the wrong perspective, which is, oh, they made money so I can make money gambling. To me, those perfect employees oftentimes are those lucky lottery winnings. That kind of justifies us saying, yeah, I just need to find more people like this. Now, I can tell you, having scaled a business much larger than just one location or even a couple locations, that as you scale even those most aligned employees, as you get bigger visions, as you get more specific results that you need to hit, that there will be breakdown if you're not using these Astro principles. So the solution to this is fairly simple. The first part is just a mindset that when failure is happening, instead of jumping to that place of saying, man, this employee doesn't have the willpower doesn't have the desire, the work ethic, the talent to make this work. Instead, ask yourself, where is the platform failing this employee, this staff member, this team member? If you start there, you'll already start down the right path towards a solution that is going to be scalable and consistent. Just by approaching the problem with the idea that the employee wants to succeed, even if they look like they're doing it incompetently, they really do want to succeed. What is the support I need to put in place in order for them to be successful? Is an incredible mindset that will create the scalable business model you've been looking for. Now, what if you just know? What if you just know this is not the right employee? I would still challenge you to start with the idea that you need to build the support system around this individual. I always think to myself and my other executive team members have used this as well. If I can build the support system to support this employee that I'm fairly confident is not the right fit anymore, but if I can get the support system so strong that even they can partially be successful, then think about the next person that comes in and what they get to stand on. Now, you might say to yourself, well, I don't want to put in that kind of effort. I just want to find the right person. And you can definitely go down that path. But when you start to believe that your real job is to create an infrastructure and all of the forms, checklists, systems and processes to make every employee as successful as possible, to give them that opportunity, it'll change your business. Now, some of you saying that is so much effort, that is so much work. You don't know, Emmett, how many ideas I have on my whiteboard that I'm trying to execute on. If I take the time to organize all of the systems and processes it would take for that idea to be successful, it's just going to take too long. I got to shortcut this and find the right person who can just execute on it. Let me meet you halfway on that idea. I think the person you need to find first is someone who believes that employees, team members, and staff need a support system in place, that they can be the offset to your great ideas and execution. Somebody that you trust that can say to you, emmett, that's a great idea. Let me put together how it's actually going to happen, what the timeframe it's gonna take to execute on this, what the change management that it's gonna require to make that happen. You know, oftentimes we look at A great idea. And we say, the employees are going to love this. This is so much better for the patients. It's going to make their life easier. Everything's going to be better. So why wouldn't they just get behind it and change within a day? And what's been fascinating for me to learn is that change is change for any employee and staff member. So it doesn't matter if you're changing for the bad or changing for the good. It is change. And you hire many of your team members to provide that consistency, to show up each day and to be able to provide that patient experience on a consistent manner. And yet we sit back and then we change a lot of things, trying to capture our vision. How do you bridge that gap? And so where I would meet you halfway is I'd say find the individual that you trust who can be your counterbalance to say, here's the support systems we need to put in place. Now, is this going to push your time frames for being able to change your direction every, you know, two days or whatever, or implement a new idea within a week? Yeah, it is. It's going to say that things take a little bit longer, but I'd go back to that Dan Sullivan quote, no unrealistic expectations, just unrealistic timeframes. We've got to make sure we're taking the time to give the support system to our team. This will revolutionize your culture when you come in and you see a team member who's failing and you bring them in. When your office manager takes this approach and other team members within your team take this approach, and they are coming from a mindset of, how do we support you better to achieve this result, you will get incredible alignment. The culture will change that people will believe that you want them to be successful and they will help you solve these problems. Now, you might not have been doing this on purpose, but if you have a culture where you're saying, listen, I try to hire smart people, if you can't get it, then you're out of here. You're going to naturally develop a culture where people want to hide the problems that are happening if they want to keep their job, or you're going to have really high turnover where people are quitting as soon as they figure out that they're failing. It's an expensive way to run a business. So again, in Astro, first get alignment and then go for support. And that support will drive even more alignment. You know, there are no mind readers available in the marketplace. I've tried. I've Tried. I've tried, I've tried. You can't find somebody that you can just do drive by delegation on and they'll execute perfectly on your vision. You've got to figure out the process and the system that you want to have in place in order to implement your new ideas. I mean, if we just quickly think through a checklist before you roll out an idea, number one, who is this going to impact both positively and also who's going to have to make the investment for the change management for this to happen? Are there technology considerations? Are we doing something differently? Implementing new technology, changing where the icon is on somebody's computer, even the smallest thing can be a huge impact for the team member. Is there a scripting change? Is there a process change that needs to happen? How would this individual, if they had just shown up today, know how to do that process? Do we have a place for them to go to learn to have training wheels? Or are you just hoping that that morning huddle where you mentioned the idea that that's going to implement it or. Well, we've had a lot of meetings around this. We've discussed it multiple times. I don't know why they're not getting it. Are you frustrated? Because it just doesn't seem to be going through their thick skull. Right. So thinking through what are the checklists, what's the cheat sheet that maybe they need? What is more of the vision so that they can watch the movie with you and see how it plays out. Now, this is going to challenge you because you're going to realize that your idea isn't fully baked. You're going to realize that there were parts of it where, I don't know, I just see this, you know, amazing experience happening for patients. If we would do X, Y and Z. And typically your staff and team are going to have a lot of questions. Well, what if this happens? Well, what if this happens? What do I do in case of this? And you're going to realize some of those things you haven't thought through. That's where a great team member in the middle can help to start tease out those ideas. And if you're really committed to making this idea great, to making your employees great, then you can go and execute in a scalable way. I hope this secret helps to relieve some of the stress and anxiety and frustration you've had with your team. Get the alignment and think through support. What is the next level of support that we need to be providing to our team to help them to execute? Well, you are going to have to prioritize your ideas, but man, the ideas you prioritize, they're going to be awesome. They're going to be scalable. I'd love your questions and any feedback you have. So come join us on our DSO Secrets Facebook group. And until next time, keep smiling.

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