Crafting Exceptional Clinic Leaders: A Journey of Mentorship, Delegation, and Empowerment - Ken McKenzie

Hey, rockstars. Today's episode is with Ken McKenzie, the owner and founder of Premier Physical Therapy in Colorado. And we're talking about how to develop clinic directors, AKA how to develop leaders in your company. You know, the number one job of a leader is to build more leaders, right? As a business owner, it can be incredibly challenging to want to build a leader, and we've been let down by other employees over and over and over again. It's always our fault, by the way, because we don't know how to recruit and retain as well. But once we start getting better with experience, becomes time for us to put someone in place to run the show for us. We're going to talk about the challenges. We're going to talk about what to look for. We're going to talk about successful actions. We're also going to talk about things to not want to do. So we're going to talk about the experience of leadership development as the mentor, and. And we're gonna talk about how to actually build that leader. It's a fantastic episode. Enjoy. All right, Ken. Well, welcome to the show. Let's get right into it. What are the qualities that you look for when you're gonna promote a leader in your company?

When I am looking for a leader in my company, I'm definitely looking for integrity, honesty, caring, empathy, and they need to be well respected by the rest of the staff.

Yeah. Respect is such an important deal. Right? Like, respect is. What does that look like in your clinic when someone is, like, getting your attention as a potential leader and they draw the respect of their. Their teammates? What does that look like to you?

Yeah, well, one, you know, they. They. They definitely lead by example. So they are. When they're. When they're working, when they're. In my case, when they're treating patients, they are doing things the way that things should be done, and others are looking at them, and you can. You can see others looking at them doing the things the way they do it, and then they. They try to emulate that. So they're natural leaders. They naturally have people following them doing things that. The way they're doing it. I don't even have to tell them necessarily. It is just something that. That they're doing.

Yeah. I love that idea of a great example is what defines a leader in some ways. Right. The example is the person who is teaching others and sometimes using words because their actions define pattern that you want them to model. So obviously, this is kind of an ideal individual, which is a perfect conversation topic for today's episode. Because as you know, Ken, we're talking today about how to develop a clinic director or other leader in our business. So give us an update on what you're working on that would have us talk about this.

In my practice over the years, I have had several practices, and I've always been the owner, the clinic director, everything that goes along with the clinic. As we started to grow, I started to realize I just can't do it all. I can't be everything at the clinic. So I've started hiring clinic directors at our two clinics and in the process, have. Have worked on trying to develop them as. As leaders. Never have done that before. So it's. It's been a big challenge. And, and I've learned a lot about how to do that and about myself along the way.

I bet. You know, what have you. What have you learned about yourself? Let's get right into that. As you're developing your business and growing, what are just some of the key highlights, like some of the big things you've kind of discovered about yourself as an individual?

One thing is I have in my head the way I'd like to do things, and I've done it for years. So to me, it's kind of second nature to do these things. But I've never been very good at writing those things down in a structured way so that somebody else can do it as well. And so as I've been developing our clinic directors, they've been asking me questions. How do we do things? How do I. When we have a new staff member coming on, which is what's happening right now. We have a new therapist coming in, and my clinic director is, you know, asking me, okay, well, what do we. How do we orient this person? What do we do? What's the onboarding process? And I'm like, oh, well, you just do this, this, this, and that's not good enough. So there. There has to be, you know, I have to have a more structured way of. Of teaching people how to do this so they can. They can follow along in a. In a more organized way, which has been. Been a little bit of an eye opener for me as far as, like, you know, learning about what my weaknesses are on my side.

Dan, isn't it true, you know, as we know at Rockstars, as you're listening to this, remember, the number one job of a leader is to build more leaders. And so as Ken is going through this journey, it's really fun because we get to experience how our journey can look like through him. And it's really telling about what we're missing. And isn't it funny how policies and procedures, this very unattractive thing about leadership is one of the key defining capabilities that we develop if we're going to produce other leaders because we have all the business in our head. We don't even know what we have in our head because we just do it and we execute. And then when we try to duplicate those things to somebody else, they, they don't know. You know, it's like we're managing by expectation versus like delegating exact ways that we want things to be done. So talk about some of the challenges that you, you have faced or are facing like that. Like, so obviously putting the business out of your head on paper was one of them. What are some of the other challenges that you have found as you're trying to develop a leader, whether it's a personal experience or more systemic?

Like you said, we, I, I have the ways that I think things need to be done and, and have tried to, you know, implement those to my staff and, and sometimes it's hard to, to verbalize those. I guess you have your, your systems in place to do things, but putting getting those into words or into a format where somebody else can understand what you're trying to accomplish, what your vision is a challenge. And it's been something that I guess for me has opened my eyes to a lot of different things as far as definitely policies and procedures, making sure you have standardized ways of doing things. The more organized and more systems you have in place, the smoother things are going to run. And that has definitely been something I've learned and has been a challenge for me. I don't come from a business background. I am a physical therapist. All the business side of everything has been learned from trial and error. And that's another thing I've learned over the years is getting help from others is, is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. And today, when I, when I started my practice, the Internet was barely a thing. That's how old I am. So we did chart notes by hand, you know, back in the day. And so finding resources to learn about how to run a physical therapy practice was really hard back then. And now there's so many things out there to learn and people like you that can help teach people how to do stuff is a huge, valuable resource that can save you years and years of trouble of doing things the wrong way to learn how to do them. And, and so I'm hopefully teaching my clinic directors, you know, from the things I've learned like these, this is, I've learned from it, you know, that sometimes they'll have ideas, they'll come to me and I'm like, okay, that's a great idea, but let me tell you why that I've done this, and this is maybe why we don't want to go down that road. And maybe let's look at it from this angle. So it's been fun though, teaching, you know, trying to mentor somebody into, into those different roles.

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To a lot of different podcasts of business leaders that have different topics and have learned a lot from that. I've done a few different courses about different leadership styles or different metrics to look for and just try to, you know, try to soak it all in. And you know, some of the. Sometimes you come across things and I'm like, I don't think that is going to work at our practice or you know, maybe we're not going to do this to this extent. But trying to gather all the information you can and then pick and choose, you know, sort of what, what works for your particular clinic. I think one of the best ways to do it. Yeah, there are a lot of resources out there you can pay for and go through and I've done some of those as well and gotten a lot. And sometimes the interesting thing is it may be one little thing that I've got from an entire 12 week course, honestly and, but one little thing such as, you know, how we're doing, how we're our CPT codes, you know, maybe and what we're, the way we're billing a certain way, you know, and this one little change we make that I had never thought about and it could, you know, make a huge difference in, you know, our bottom line or whatever it is or something, you know, something about leadership or training that you might pick out of it. But those little things can be really valuable down the line. It can make a huge difference. So even if the whole course or whatever you're doing isn't necessarily going to be beneficial, you can, you can grab little things here and there that, that are really helpful.

Yeah, I think that's a lot to do with the growth mindset too, right Ken, where you've got like, you can go into almost anything and find some value. I think there's, I think inherently there's value whenever we just invest anything into self development because, you know, I've had over 30 coaches now. Not every one of them were as powerful as the others, but every one of them made a difference because it was more about the investment and time. Right. Like step forward and do that and get something out of it. Even recently I had an experience where I spent $25,000 to sponsor an event with a physical therapist coach. He had like a on site event. I won't mention names just because I don't want to talk about how much I had spent with him, but it was like I got in front of all these, I was doing that to get business, I wanted to grow one of the projects I'm working on. And I got there and I remember it was so funny because I sat in this room and he said something that he was teaching everyone else that I learned. It was called the Fortune is in the follow up. And he was talking about how with patients, we. We lose so much business because when they call in, they're asking questions, we don't take it like a sales call. And how when someone does reach out, how we should nurture that to get them into becoming patients and all this. And that has changed my business forever. That stupid, seemingly easy phrase. And it was like this $25,000 being return on investment eventually caught itself up after six months. I wouldn't have done it if I had not that's what it was going to be. But I am so grateful I did it because that one thing shifted how I operate, which has actually impacted my business dramatically. So you're. I love your mindset of growth oriented. Like, no matter what we invest, you're going to get something out of it. So now let's talk. Let's go back to the developing of your director. So you've, you know, we've talked about who you're looking for. You at the beginning of the show, you mentioned those qualities that you like in somebody. You know, you've talked about, you know, some of the challenges that you faced internally. And actually, I do have one question for you, dude. Do you have. Is it hard for you to let go? Is that hard for you? I don't know. It is. Tell me about what. So what's, what do. What do you do when it's hard to let go and you're putting someone else in charge?

Yeah, it was. So, yeah, I think as. And I hear that from other, from other friends of mine who are clinic directors as well. I mean, not clinic. Clinic owners. I'm sorry. You know, you start the clinic. It's me. Yeah. Like, I mean, we, we rented this space out. I'm in right now. This is. And it's. It was me and my wife. My wife was running the front desk and I was treating patients. We had no idea what we were doing, you know, and from a business standpoint. And. But we, you know, you, you slowly, I think you, you grow, you add staff and, and, but it, it, from the start, it was yours. So you're sort of protective over it.

I guess, and like, it's like a total it's your baby kind of thing. So you're taking all the risk. On. It's all on your shoulders.

Exactly. And you feel like you built this thing and you know. And you know what to do and this and that, even though you probably don't. But so let. So giving up, I think giving up some of that leadership and responsibility, it was tough. It took me years to do it. And finally we opened a second clinic, and so I'm like, okay, well, I can't be at both places at once, so I have to do something. And for a while, I was trying to run back and forth, and I didn't even. I had a guy at my therapist. Therapist over there, Eric, who's great. He's been with me from the start, and I didn't even give him the title of clinic director at first. Like, I didn't even. I didn't even do that, you know? And. And finally I'm like, all right, this is ridiculous. And so I. We talked about it, and I finally started giving him responsibility over there, and he ended up hiring some staff, and. And I'm like, oh, he's actually doing really good at this. And I realized, okay, the reason I put Eric over there is because I trusted him. He had the same ethics I had. I knew he was, you know, caring for the. For the patients and wanted the clinic to do well. And. And so I started realizing, okay, other people can do this. I'm not the only one who can. Who can do this. Then at this particular site that I'm at, I finally did the same thing and put. Put a really good therapist in, and. Same thing he did. He did a great job. But then I started to realize, okay, he. He didn't really have any experience with being a leader and what to do. And so I knew I had to come up with a better way to guide him and mentor him into that position. Yeah, it was like you say, it was hard to give up, but now that I've done it and gone through the process, it's been one of the best things I could have done.

I get it. I get it. It's funny, because I never really understood why it's so hard for us to let go. And after you get past it, like I have as well, you forget. But the thing is that the pressure. I think the main reason we struggle in letting go is that the pressure of making things go right is 1000% on our shoulders for so long, and we have an experience of hiring when we don't know how to hire. At least I did, where I'd hire people and they'd let me down. I'd hire people and they'd let me down. So then I'm going to hire someone and put them in charge of the thing that could hurt me. Because if they don't do it right, it hurts my family financially, if not hurts the business. So, like, that idea of like, I guess that makes sense. And it's, I hope listeners are like, oh, that's why it's so hard for me to let go. Because at the end of the day, if we can see why that's hard, then we can build protective barriers around it. We can also, like, recognize that we should be more afraid of what we lose if we don't let go. And it, you know, because at the end of the day, there's no other way to learn. We just got to do it. And in your case, you did it, there was some validation. You just didn't do it randomly. You picked a guy who had all those qualities, but then you do it and he starts succeeding and it like, opens up a new world for you. So what are you doing? And then that, as he's taking that over, first of all, how does it feel to know that you can trust someone? And then secondly, what are you doing with your spare time? And assuming not spare time, I should say, the time that you would have spent doing his job, it's been great.

So a couple things too. Like, so one of the things I realized when.

I did finally put somebody in that position, they actually had a lot of skills in areas that I did not have. I had them coming to me with. One of my clinic directors is helping me develop the onboarding process. And I am not very good with presentations and putting things in spreadsheets and doing all this stuff. And she's coming to me with all these great, beautiful things that are like, you know, like really organized, documented. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is great. This is, I needed this all along. And so number one, you can, you can find somebody that can actually complement you in ways, complement your weaknesses in ways that you didn't know. But then it, like you said, it allows me to. So we're in the process of expanding both of our clinics now, more, doubling the space in both of our clinics, pretty much this all this year. So, so it's allowed me to, to really work on that kind of stuff that's spent a lot of my time lately, which I, which has been, you know, discussing the contracts with the, with our landlords and the build outs and all these different things that I wouldn't really have had a lot of time to do if I hadn't delegated a lot of this stuff. So I think. I think one of the things that allows you to do is focus on the bigger, bigger vision of your clinic. And.

Since I've done those things, we've actually. Since I've hired the clinic directors, we've actually grown even more than I expected and more than we were before, because it's allowed me to start exploring all these other opportunities that I probably wouldn't have had time to do if I didn't have somebody doing these other things for me.

Yeah, it's kind of funny. We have this other job of being a CEO and a leader that we don't even think about when we're so busy coping in the front lines, like when we're treating or we're leading our own teams. Like, we don't even realize, like, that there's this whole other job that we have that we feel. And it's why life sucks so hard sometimes because we're so busy and overwhelmed. So when we can get leaders in place doing the right things the right way, it frees us up to be able to actually step into that role. So it's not like we just run out of things to do. We actually get to step into our role as leaders and grow our company. Which you've been able to do successfully. What does that feel like for you?

It feels great. It's been. It's been. It's. It's a little. I'm a little, you know, it's a little scary and exciting at the same time, which is. Which is how I like to live my life. I think I just, right, live on the edge of. The edge of fear and excitement at the same time of these things.

But.

But it's been great. And, and, you know, I've been renegotiating insurance contracts and just doing all these different things that I've. I've. I've needed to do for years and just haven't really had the time to do. So knowing that I can step away, I can. I can even be working from home sometimes and know that my clinic is taken care of by somebody that I trust is just great. It's been. It's been wonderful.

You know, it's one of the rock stars. Listen, what Ken's talking about is this really cool aspect of what it feels to have other leaders being developed. And here's something that Verne Harnish says, the author of a book called Scaling up, the bible of all business books in my Opinion. He says that it's important for us to make sure as leaders, we get the right people on the bus. You've heard that before. Maybe what you haven't heard is making sure the right person on the bus is in the right seat of the bus, doing the right things the right way. So there's four rights. Right person on the bus, right seat of the bus, doing the right things the right way. And so this comes, this comes into play with what Ken's talked about in terms of how he's screened people based on these values and qualities and time. These aren't people that just randomly showed up and he promoted. These are people who've proved themselves, who are amazing in every way. And then, you know, he went ahead and started making sure he put the policies and procedures out there so they could do the right thing the right way. So how long did it take you, Ken, to know that they were the right fit for the position? Like how. As they've. Because clearly they are. So how, when you took that risk of, like, putting them into directorship, how long was it before you're like, oh, no, this is great?

You know, I think it was, it was pretty, pretty early on. I wouldn't say, you know, I wouldn't say it was immediate or anything like that. It takes a little time to kind of see how, how they fit into that position. But, you know, there were definitely, I would say within the first, you know, three to six months, I pretty much knew that I made the right choice and, and that they were going to do well in this position just from the way they asked questions of me. So, like, you know, that was, that was a, that was a big thing that I noticed is, you know, when, when my employees coming to me asking particular questions, sometimes they were questions I hadn't even thought about as far as the job, the position. But it let me see that they, they were interested in, in what they were doing and, and that they wanted to do a good job. And then just seeing the way other to them, I think, was the biggest thing when I had a, we had a, an issue or whatever that we're discussing with, that I was discussing with my clinic director, and then we went to implement whatever it was into the staff, seeing the way that the staff responded in a positive way and was, Was very telling. So I knew, okay, they, they respect this person. What they're telling them they want to do the right thing, they want to do what's best for the clinic and see the action on their part was okay, I know I got the right person in here, and.

They'Re leading the staff in a way that the staff responds well, you know, right to. Or well to, I guess, and in a meaningful way. So, yeah, that was probably it.

I love it, you know, and it's. I don't think, and I really don't. For people listening. I don't want you to, like, get the idea that everything's perfect. Ken's, you know, identifying this marker of, like, I'm sure your people have things that you're working on with them, and there's. There's more to go. But I just, I think there is something about a baseline level of success when you know you have the right fit. And then, like, so, you know, as you're listening, rockstars, if you have directors in place, does your team respect and like them? You know, that's kind of a key foundational thing. Do they. Did that leader like and respect you? And can they. Can they get results? Can they. Can they make an impact? I think most people struggle with directors in helping their team members get their stats to where they should be. I think that's kind of the ultimate challenge in that regard. So this might be a great, A great discussion for another episode, Ken, because I think as you're developed, how long have your leaders been in place at.

This point, Eric, at. At our other clinic over here, he's been in place for around. He's been a clinic director over there for maybe three or four years. So he's been there. He's been there a while. I mean, he's been over there for. For like five years, at least five, six years. But I haven't. I didn't actually make him the official clinic director.

Oh, that's right. He was your first one that you were, like, scared to relinquish the control for. It was kind of like, hey, dude, you're kind of in charge, but I'm not going to totally let you know until you're. Until I feel ready.

Exactly. Exactly. And then our, our clinics director over here, Casey, she's only been in that position for maybe a little over six months now.

And.

And so, yeah, so she's still, she's. She's still learning a lot. I'm still learning a lot on how to. How to train her. And I say trade. That's kind of. I don't like that word.

But, you know, mentor. Her mentor, totally. Because it's a totally different level when they're directors. Training is part of it for sure, because you're pulling stuff out of your head and you're like, hey, this is the way I do this. But at the end of the day, you're developing her, and she sounds amazing.

Yeah, I don't, I don't like training because it makes me think I'm just like, teaching her how to do this the way I, you know, the way I want it done. But, but I feel like it's more of a collaborative process. You know, she's, I'm, I'm guiding her along the path of being a clinic director and, and hopefully sharing knowledge with her that, you know, of how to do this, this job and in a way that helps her out. So, so yeah, that's how I like to think of it. And, and, you know, one of the things I was thinking about, because you're asking, how do you know you got the right person in there? And, and it kind of goes back just to the hiring process in general for me. You know, when I'm hiring staff therapist, especially a therapist, you know, I, I, when they come into my clinic for an interview or when I'm, however I'm interviewing, I'm assuming they know how to be a physical therapist. You know, they went to school, they've learned everything. They know how to, how to treat a patient. So really what I'm looking for is more, is more about their personality and what kind of person they are. And, and I'm trying to hire people that, number one, I'm going to be around them all day for days on end, you know, and so I want to hire somebody that I, that I enjoy being around. And so that's one thing. And then I just want to see that they have the, the right ethics, that they're, that they're empathetic, caring people who really are here to help the patients and, and want to, want to do that. They're here to do that. And, and that they're going to be, you know, good people, I guess, is kind of the best way I can. Can put it into, into words. And I think if, if I get people that have those qualities and that I want to be around, and I want to find interesting people that also, that are, you know, that, that are interesting to be around. So, so if I find people with all those qualities, I feel like they're going to be a good fit in our clinic. And if, and if you don't get that person, it can be a real disaster if they, because then you get somebody who doesn't fit into that, your whole, you know, culture of your clinic. And so, so as Long as I have those people in place and I feel like then I can then take them and put them in leadership positions. But then again, everybody doesn't want to be in a leadership position. So you have to definitely find the person that wants to kind of find that track as well.

I love that. And that's an interesting thing that we're landing on, is this idea that here's how we look for a Rockstar team member. And those same qualities could see the director, but vision comes in. At the end of the day, we've got to have a vision alignment around what they want. And what we want, in my experience is most pts don't even know what they want. They're probably afraid of taking on leadership positions because oftentimes director roles are typically just like roles that we as owners will dump on, on accident because we don't know what else to do. So when we have someone who wants to be a leader, understanding our role as mentor is so vital. And at the end of the day, you know, it reminds me of what we were talking about before we jumped on the call about what Warren Buffett says, the three things we always hire on are intelligence, integrity, and energy. And we can. You know, integrity is one of those things that's harder to measure in an interview, for sure, but intelligence and. And energy, dude, it comes out. It's. It's there or it's not. And, yeah, I love that you shared all that, Ken. So listen, man, this has been a fantastic episode. We're going to. We're going to wrap things up. So thank you so much for being on the show. I definitely want you back. I think it'd be so fun to talk about this journey with your two amazing directors. And who knows, maybe it'd be fun to have an episode with one of your directors and just be like, yeah, so what's it been like being mentored and, you know, just kind of talk about that journey, the challenges together. That might be fun as well.

That would be great. I would love it. I've enjoyed it. It's been. It's been fun.

Dude, thank you so much for being on the show. Such a pleasure to have you on.

Yeah, thanks. Will appreciate it.

Thank you for listening. Rock. And if you're one of the many medical professionals and leaders who have had it dealing with the drama of hiring and training people that you think are overpriced, then let's think about how virtual assistants can offload you to do what you love, which is changing people's lives in the show. Notes there's a link to jump on our calendar so that we can show you why LinkedIn shows that virtual assistants is the second fastest growing trend in healthcare next to artificial intelligence at no obligation. We'll see if this is a fit for you. I hope to talk to you soon.