Physician Development, Leadership, Career Success, Emotional Intelligence, Dysfunctional Teams - Our Five Most Viewed Blogs of 2019
2019 was an exciting year at J3P. We get to choose projects that are meaningful to us, and to our clients. We get to work with dedicated, dynamic, and visionary, clinicians and leaders.
We partner with our clients to help individuals to be successful, to find career satisfaction, to reconnect with the joy in their work, and to help their organizations to fulfill their mission. Clients keep telling us that our work is transformative, for them, and for their teams.
Then, we get to talk about that work with the rest of the world, on social media!
We established new records this past year for blog views. Here are the blogs that generated the most discussion in 2019 (click on the title to read the post!):
“Just Do Your Job!”
Sometimes when we start talking to leaders, and physicians, about effective leadership styles, or the importance of team dynamics, we get the response, “Everything would be fine if people would just do their jobs!”
Sometimes they even refer to New England Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick, who uses “Do your job” as a core principle with his players.
Our blog pointed out, though, that the “do your job” concept follows months of coaching, teaching, and team-building work to get people to a point where they trust their teammates. By game time, players really can just focus on doing their job.
You're Leaving 80% of Your Physicians to Sink or Swim.
Think for a minute about the resources organizations commit to nursing development and retention. Now compare that to what they do to ensure physician career success, satisfaction and retention? There IS no comparison. We commit resources to developing senior physician leaders, and then, we use the rest of our time and money to “save” physicians who are struggling or deemed “disruptive”.
This makes no sense. Why not built out effective talent management programs for physicians at the beginning and middle of their careers? Part of the problem is that we’ve not thought about physicians as a workforce to be effectively managed – for their own benefit, and for the organizations.
This makes no sense. Why not built out effective talent managementprograms for physicians at the beginning and middle of their careers? Part of the problem is that we’ve not thoughtabout physicians as a workforce to be effectively managed – for their ownbenefit, and for the organizations.
Part of the problem is that the traditional Human Resources/Organizational Development people and functions have never understood the unique challenges facing physicians.
Career-Threatening Frustration – One Physician’s Story
Dr. Steve Reich was kind enough to share his story with the audience at the annual meeting of the American Medical Student Association. A successful spine surgeon, Dr. Reich gave serious thought to leaving a career he loved because of growing frustration with what it takes to practice in an often-dysfunctional system.
Steve Reich, M.D.
He saw colleagues leave the profession. One took his own life. Fortunately, Dr. Reich sought help – starting with improving his own self-awareness so he could be a more effective communicator, leader, and patient advocate.
His own growth moved him to fund an initiative to give younger physicians the tools to ensure their own career success.
Healthcare’s Dysfunctional Teams
Every other industry seems to appreciate the value of teams. Effective teams increase employee engagement and retention and, more importantly, performance and outcomes. It’s true in healthcare, too.
Unfortunately, healthcare’s history, tradition, structure, and culture make it particularly challenging to build high-functioning teams. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it. We just need to go about it differently. Do we have a choice? Without this work, what choice do you have when it comes to moving these metrics – or improving the communication that is vital to patient safety?
Many organizations seem to have resigned themselves to just working with highly dysfunctional teams! This blog explores the unique issues of leveraging vulnerability within a culture of expertise, and of creating collaboration in a culture that values professional autonomy.
Building an Effective Physician Leadership Program
There’s a consensus that we need to do a better job developing and supporting physician leaders. Most organization are struggling, however, with the “how.” Physicians are a unique audience. Some of the more traditional training and development approaches don’t work.
Many organizations are undertaking the challenge of building their own program – tailored to their needs. Stacy Chance, M.D. and Chief Medical Officer of the Oregon Medical Group, told us about his group’s experience attacking this problem. He talked about how they designed their program, what they’ve learned and how pleased he’s been at how “humble and brave” his people have been in their approach to developing their leadership skill set.
Stacy Chance, M.D.
CMO, Oregon Medical Group
Another blog that I have to mention:
Being a Female Physician is Hard!
Jena Jake, our VP of Coaching Programs and Relationship Management does extensive coaching with physicians and has been researching and working with the unique challenges facing women in medicine. It’s also worth a read!
If you want to learn more about our unique approach to any of these issues, please visit us at www.j3p.health or contact someone from our team, directly. We look forward to contributing to important and timely discussions about these important topics in 2020!
