• Do you have a cell phone policy in your practice for staff and/or patients? What does it say?
• If yes, is this policy strictly enforced? How?
• Do you find that the policy is abused?
• Are there consequences for not following the policy?
• How does the doctor deal with a patient who is on their cell phone when he enters the treatment room?
• How do you deal with patients who present to the front desk on their cell phones?
• What is the reaction to patients who are on their cell phones in the reception room (by other patients?) Do they seem annoyed?

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Sometimes, it seems a never ending battle to keep our schedule on time and sometimes it all stems from the doctor's inability to get out of the treatment room. Please help others by sharing ways to keep the patient flow on time!

• What are some of the reasons you have experienced that allow the doctor to fall behind schedule? 
• What or who is to blame?  Faulty protocol? NO protocol? Talkative people?
• What is your "trick" "tool" "method"  to getting the doctor out of the room with the patient when he/she has been there "too long?"

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I know there are many offices where doctors have invited their spouses to have a role in their practice. Some work; some don't. Why is that?

• Is this a situation that positively or negatively affects you?
• Can you share ways in which this type of dynamic can work and why sometimes it fails from the doctor, staff and spouse perspectives 
• What can be done to help everyone get along?

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Have a little cheese with your whine?

Consider implementing a 3-solution policy if people keep coming to you with their complaints. My good friend Jason always said, if you have something to legitimately complain about, I will listen, but only if it also includes 3 solutions -3 ways that you feel can potentially make it better; otherwise all you are doing is whining.

Q: Complaining is easy. How easy is it to help solve the problem? Can you see this type of strategy worthwhile in your office?

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What ABOUT it?

Job Satisfaction is credited with enhancing performance, lowering absenteeism and turnover, producing committed loyal employees with eagerness to "go the extra mile" in order to achieve operational excellence. Is job satisfaction within reach at your workplace?

If employers appreciate their staff, now is the time to tell them. What's their incentive for doing so? Author Cecil Selig said, "When the grass starts looking greener on the other side of the fence, it's probably because they take better care of it there."

Q: What do you think? What gives you the greatest sense of "job satisfaction? What keeps you coming back day after day? Do you look at your job as "JUST" a job...or do you get much more personal reward out of it?

Doctors...what do you do to create a "satisfactory" workplace?

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Are you guilty of micromanaging?

Want a sure-fire way to demotivate your staff? Micromanage them! However, if you'd rather give them the opportunity to function at optimum efficiency, consider allowing them some flexibility to manage their own work. Here's a few questions to ask yourself. Answer yes to more than two or three and your employees may award you with a lifetime membership into Micromanagers Anonymous!

• When you delegate a duty to your staff, do you need to give your "stamp of approval" before it is considered good enough?
   
• Do you review and critique your employees' to-do lists?
   
• Do you insist that employees do things YOUR way?
   
• Do you spend most of your valuable time watching what your employees are doing instead of "managing" or "coaching" them?
   
• Do you criticize more than you compliment?
   
• Do you get frustrated when your employees cannot do the work as well as you can?
   
• Do you find yourself re-doing work they've already done?
   
• Do you feel the need to 'check out' an employee's work after they've accomplished it?
   
• Do you focus more on the "details" of a project or the "big picture" outcome?
   
• Do you visit each employee at his or her work area more than once a day?
   
• Do you give unsolicited advice to employees on personal matters that don't involve their work?
  
  Questions for Discussion:

1. What's been your experience with micromanagement?
2. How have you personally dealt with being micromanaged?
3. Based on your responses to this quiz, could you be a borderline or full blown micromanager?
4. Do you feel micromanaging can be a positive thing or is it all bad?

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