Herman Cain withdrew his name from consideration for a Fed seat because he couldn’t afford (or didn’t want) to work for the relatively low pay
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Tag: management
Originally published in 2015, this is one of my most popular posts in terms of contacts from clients and friends of the firm. Plus, it makes me smile when I read it. You’ll smile, too, which makes the lessons even more valuable. – Mark
Speed kills. That may be true on the highway, but it’s patently untrue in terms of your group’s business. In business you need to be able to make decisions quickly and then act on them.
Ride along with Mark as he discusses a mindset tuneup to improve medical group performance.
Herman Cain withdrew his name from consideration for a Fed seat because he couldn’t afford (or didn’t want) to work for the relatively low pay.
Every business (yes, your medical group is a business) needs a streamlined way to make day to day management decisions. And, it cannot allow one or two or a few dissenters to hold the group back in the event of major action such as a sale or merger.
Comment or contact me if you’d like to discuss this post.
Mark F. Weiss
Ride along with Mark as he discusses the split of physician employment into two segments, one in which employed physicians will never become owners and the other in which a quick track to partnership is offered. Will the second segment disappear?
Comment or contact me if you’d like to discuss this post.
Mark F. Weiss
Ride along with Mark as he discusses a key concept from his book, The Medical Group Governance Matrix: The freedom that medical group leaders must have to decide, and to decide fast.
Comment or contact me if you’d like to discuss this post.
Mark F. Weiss
Earlier this year, a Santa Clara County, California jury awarded the insurer Aetna a $37,452,199.00 judgment in a lawsuit against Bay Area Surgical Management, LLC, a surgery center management company, a number of its managed ASCs, and three of Bay Area’s executives.
A few weeks ago on the blog, I wrote about The Medical Group Governance Matrix™.
I have a good friend who says, in the context of a physical skill, that prehistoric humans initially developed the strong, instinctual dominant-hand grip to be able to grab onto tree limbs and quickly climb in order to escape predators like saber-toothed cats. (I didn’t tell him that saber-toothed cats could climb trees, but (i) he reads this blog, so now I have, and (ii) that’s really besides the point.)
The ensuing millennia have honed this instinct, so much so, that we instinctively grab tightly with our dominant hand even when the specific application calls for a much lighter touch.
So, too, goes the vice-like grip that causes many medical group members to hang on to their personal power. They are so unable to let go of their instinctual need to personally control almost all aspects of their financial affairs, that they dash the ability of their medical group to function as a true business. The result is a club. (A club of a different sort would have helped with saber-toothed cats. A physicians’ club does not equal a physicians’ business.)
In order for a medical group to succeed, governance power must shift within the matrix from the lower evolved quadrants toward the upper right:
To do so, each member must let go of the individual control instinctually believed to be required to save him or her from the metaphorical saber-toothed cat.
The reality is that one’s future isn’t protected by completely individual control. In fact, in the business context, it’s almost always hampered in the organizational setting of a medical group of more than a small handful of members.
When the modern saber-toothed tiger, the reality of business, is charging at you, it’s absolutely no time for a vote. It’s absolutely no time for “consensus-getting.” It’s absolutely no time for an “any-member-may-veto.”
Deep down inside, we all have fears, some irrational for sure, but many completely rational. But prehistoric man survived by forming groups. That’s what saved them from the tigers, saber-toothed and otherwise.
The shift required begins inside the mind. It then moves on to your medical group’s governance documents. And finally, because those governance provisions are useless if they’re not followed, it moves from concept to practice.
So, get a grip on reality and loosen your personal grip on your medical group. Show how evolved you’ve become.
Comment or contact me if you’d like to discuss this post.
Mark F. Weiss
