Every Clinic Has an Onboarding Gap... And It’s Personal! | GYC Podcast 341

Struggling to turn new hires into fully engaged team members?

In this episode of the Grow Your Clinic podcast, Ben and Jack O’Brien unpack why onboarding in clinics is less about processes and more about personal connection. They explore how intentional first impressions, the right questions, and a coaching-led approach can shape team culture, trust, and long-term retention. You’ll learn practical ways to uncover a new team member’s values and goals, move beyond basic training, and create an onboarding experience that actually sticks.

If you want to build a stronger, more connected clinic culture and set new team members up for long-term success - not just day-one competence - this episode shows you how.

Need to systemise your clinic? Start your free trial of Allie! https://www.allieclinics.com/ 

In This Episode You'll Learn: 

🤝 Why personal connection is the missing link in clinic onboarding
🏥 How to create a welcoming onboarding experience in healthcare teams
💬 The right questions to build trust with new team members
🎯 How values, goals, and desire statements shape long-term retention
🧠 Why coaching beats training for building strong team culture
📊 How to measure success beyond checklists and compliance

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Transcript

0:02

All right, it's episode 342. Get my stuff here ready to rock and roll. All right. Here he is. Good afternoon, good evening and good night. uh As Ron would say. Ron was it Ron or was it Jim Carrey and what do call that? Fake world that he was in Truman show Truman show about, Ankermann, but you never know. We'll let the people decide. Yes, yes, we will. um Good to see you. Just you and me. Hannah's, think, skiing on the slopes in Japan. Is that right? She is in Japan, I don't know if they're on the sli- yet, but that is the objective, yes. very nice. I've heard they've got an amazing Lego land and Disney world? Disneyland. Very nice. I'll be there in a couple of weeks, a couple of months, ish, whatever. A couple of weeks, months, six weeks. Anyway, let it snow, baby, let it rain, dear. Reindeer. I like it. It was on our cards to do it. We never quite pulled the trigger, so we'll get around to it. um I look forward to hearing your review. I'm sure you've researched it extensively. yeah. Not a shadow of the doubt. We know everything. uh Coolio. Well, let's get into it. It is episode three hundred and forty two. Just Jacobrin and I today. Hannah's off in Japan enjoying Disney World Disneyland uh with the kids having some R &R. Good luck to her and the family. I hope it's a wonderful trip. So just us two and you're away very soon as well heading to Thailand. Yeah, in less than 24 hours, we'll be on the road. Very nice. That'd be good. Are you doing touristy things or are just gonna like sit at a hotel and just have the pool and get the kids to go there for eight hours of the day? Well, no, none of the above. This is a real cultural immersion trip. So we're going to visit our compassion sponsored kids, which about five hours out of the city. We're going to visit a church and an elephant project, a couple of other community projects. So it's a real, uh like development and cultural immersion for the kids. There'll of course be some nice times. We've got a lovely Airbnb villa and then back for a few days in Singapore. But yes, it is a life transformation trip for the young ones. Very nice. Is this the first time you will have been there since like COVID times? Yeah. there on a development missions type trip 12 years ago. And the first time we're taking the kids to a developing country, not Australia, but New Zealand. Yeah, so I'm sure a lot has changed in Southeast Asia in the last 12 years or so. This is, I know you sponsor a number of different families, but is it, is this the lady that you've often referenced to me? I'm blanking on her name. a child through compassion. um We chose this child when we had our third child, which is Josiah. I was going to run through the alphabetic order. So same birthday as Jojo. Yeah, so the kids share the same birthday. He, the Thai young child is the same age as Zali. And Christine and I have visited sponsor kids in Uganda and Kenya before, but Africa's a bridge or a plane too far, as it were. So we figured we'll sponsor one in Thailand. We love Compassion and the work Compassion been sponsoring through them for years. yeah, keen to get over and share some, maybe some Tom Yum soup and some cups of Thai coffee and yeah, meet the locals. Are you doing any work while you're there as in like project work, building things? Is it about just hanging out? Like what, what's actually on the agenda? mostly just hanging out and building relationships. for us, sometimes the simplistic view of development is for us to go and do the work. But usually when we do that, we do a local out of a job who could really do with the income. And honestly, you don't want me doing manual labor. If you involve tools, I'm not your guy. And so... um But we know that what is most valuable to locals, particularly in those really challenging poverty situations is relationships and conversations and connections and sharing meals and allowing them to be hospitable towards us. That gives them a great deal of dignity and uh the ability to encourage one another. So it is very relational. We're going to see the work and be able to have more context of what we're perhaps supporting or funding. But we don't... profess to go and have all the answers and all the funding that we're coming actually to learn. And as much as we want to give, we'll receive far more than we're able to give. What an awesome perspective for the kids. I know they're very involved in all the activities you guys do at home, but to then go boots on the ground, will it be their first trip? It'll be their first trip to anything other than Australia or New Zealand. yeah, we've been kind of going through a bit of a cultural education process so they don't just get hit with the sights and smells and sounds. And, you know, we're going deep into the jungle villages. So it's going to be quite confronting for them. But we're confident that with the right support, it'll be really formative for them as well. Yeah. You're going with any other families from your church community or is it just the O'Briens? the O'Brien's and we're taking Christina's parents with us who have done international development work and are involved with various churches for decades. So they've got some connections over there um and we'll meet up with the local compassion staff on the ground as well. nice. Well, that dovetails quite nicely into today's conversation when you talk about the personal connection side of things, because we see a lot of clinic owners do their hardest to get quality talent into their team. And you've gone through this recruitment process, you found the successful candidate, you're really excited for them to join your team. There's a lot of anticipation around their first day. We've spoken a little bit about how you make them feel welcome and a sense of belonging before day one. And then what happens in their onboarding experience? And I would say that most clinics do two out of three things really well when it comes to onboarding and they miss the critical third piece that helps people get up to speed quicker and stay for longer in their clinic. And that is specifically around personal connection. So I think the first two parts that you and I talk a lot about are the professional onboarding side of things, all the things you need to know about how we treat and serve patients here at the clinic, all the technical skills, some of the billing things, how we do management plans, case notes, et cetera, et cetera. Then there's the professional side, sorry, the practice side, which is around, here's the culture, here are the standards at the clinic. Here are some of the things that we do with our network. You understand the brand. It's a real induction into the clinic. Then there's the personal side. Who are you the human? How do we support you? How do we bring your skills, talents, preferences into the team and you add to the culture? Not just a culture fit, but you enhance it, you add to it. And so I thought it'd be really cool just to laser in on this one area today. the personal side of the onboarding. What is it? How do we do it? What are some of the activities, the questions, the structures that you found useful that you've seen other clinics do so that they can add this to their onboarding? Because it goes all right, but this is a critical piece that's often overlooked. So when it comes to the personal side of onboarding, a new team member, typically a practitioner, because they're kind of the crux of your business as a clinic owner. What are some of the things that you see that are just super impactful? Oh, some of the things that are impactful. I'm gonna back up just a second. I will answer that. Don't let me off the hook. But this matters because so many times we skip over the personal side of things and we go, right, how do I just make sure they're clinically up to speed so that they can get to their billing and revenue generation ASAP? Number one. And number two, many of us as health professionals are... high C on a disc scale. We're very conscientious. We love spreadsheets and data and logic. And this little thing called like emotions and interpersonal relationships isn't high on our scale. And that's me, right? And if I can speak for you, that's you too. Well, how do you reconcile this though with like we're in the caring profession, we care about people. Well, we do. I actually think that's quite a fascinating little juxtaposition that we are in the caring profession, but yet we are very scientific and very analytical and data driven. So we have to do that dance. And so it's incumbent on us all as business owners to make sure that we put this personal hat on. Our business is people. We are in the people game. We care for people. Our team are people. And even if you're like me and you're not a people person, your preferences need to be put aside so that you can prioritize the culture fit for your clinic. It's imperative for the success of your business. So I think we've got to make sure that's why it matters. Don't switch off and think, it's all fluffy and intangible. Yes, it's intangible, but that doesn't mean we don't do it. Or it doesn't mean we can't measure it or find proxies for it. Because I'll give you the red hot tip. If you think it's intangible and you choose to neglect it, you'll be... you won't have people to manage, you'll have a people crisis to manage. And that gets real costly. We know that Joel and the Clinico team created a calculator many years ago, highlighting that people losses and things of that nature can cost your business circa 30 to 60 grand for each turn of a team member. And so I think so, yeah. that. It's called the cost of losing a practitioner. If you just whip that into Google, you'll be quite scared to see some of the numbers when you put your own numbers in there of like, oh, maybe I should spend a little bit of time, a little bit of money on the retention piece. Yeah. And so, so that's probably some context that I wanted to layer in now to your question of what is some of the most impactful things? Uh, I'll give, I'll give you the credit here. You know, I often think about what are the moments, the milestones or the multipliers that stand out to me. And so I guess when you ask that question, I think about the, the, the milestones of someone accepting a job, you know, an offer has been made and they accept it. That's a moment when someone walks through the front doors. That's a moment when you part ways at the end of day one or the end of week one. That's a moment. And how do we create uh these as milestones, make them symbolic and multiply them. so, uh just little things. again, I'm not sure who to credit. I'll say Shane Davis on this one, but when someone accepts your job offer at that moment, really quickly, if you can send them a voice message or a video, even just a text message to personally welcome them to the team. express your excitement and gratitude. That's such a powerful first impression. You kind of begin as you wish to go on. ah I know I've seen spreads of clinics that set up the desk of a new team member. And when that new team member walks in on day one, their business cards are there, they've got all their tech logged in. Like that's a big one, right? When on your first day, you don't wanna spend. you know, all of your time changing your passwords from Physio123 to your own password. And so having all your personal stuff all logged in, your desk set up, really touching gifts. I love Tristan White at PhysioCo. He speaks about, is there a gift for the family? Maybe the spouse, partner, kids, even roommates of a new team member. So there's some of the more impactful things that come to mind, particularly early in a new team member's journey. Nice, so you're looking at some of the key interactions that you'll have and then perhaps layering on how can we make this a personalized moment? What could we do to gesture to them that we understand them, we get them? In that vein, I'd love to know what are some of the questions you find useful or conversations you find useful to connect more personally? A couple that come to mind, and we've asked this in a recruitment sense. But I think if you haven't done it, then you can do it in the onboarding or you can double up and do it again. And that is around anti-values. We talked about this a few times on the pod where if you're doing a values exercise in a clinic, we're trying to determine our core values. A lot of people will come up with, you know, honesty, integrity, accountability, some some version of that. And while intentionally we get where they're going. it can become a bit of a wordsmithing exercise and you don't really get to the real substance behind the word. So actually we found what if we flipped this and instead rather than asking you what do you value? What don't you value? What kind of irritates you, annoys you, gets on your nerves? And normally you can think of somebody, it's typically a family member, but it might be a friend. This has this characteristic, this trait that just irritates you. Mm-hmm. And that's a good place to start the conversation. And normally people smile and they go, yeah. Now you don't have to name and shame, but tell me about that characteristic. And they'll be like, I really hate it when people are super slow. Like I remember one of our team members saying this in the interview process. I really hate when there's like bureaucracy and slowness takes forever to get things done or approved. Oh, it just kills me. Okay. So. The other side of that is I love speed and in fact I love autonomy. Do I have to wait on someone else to say yes to this thing? Another one and I've shared this a number of times is mine around stubbornness. it just grates on me like staying fixed in a position without an open mind to shift. What the opposite of that, the anti-value is around open-mindedness, the ability to have a growth mindset, et cetera. And so I find that a really useful conversation starter to get to know the person you're working with so that, oh, gee, we keep hitting a bit of a brick wall with progress on this project or how you're going in your caseload. And perhaps that can give me bit of an insight into why that's happening, the cause to it or the friction between the team members. So find the anti-values one, a really good one. I've got one more before I throw to you. And that is when you're at your best. What are the things that you are doing or even fact not doing in your day to day life? For instance, a lot of team members will say, when I'm at my best, I'm going to the gym three times a week, or I'm preparing my meals ahead of time, or I'm getting to bed early. These are common answers that we hear when we ask this sort of question. And so I find it really useful to connect personally because we're trying to help that team member be the best version of themselves. And then the work piece, you know, maybe has the best opportunity to work. So I want to ask these questions and anchor back to them in the mentoring of that team member. So when you're at your best, what are you doing? And perhaps what are you not doing in your day-to-day life? I know if you have anything on those two or any other questions or conversations that you like to use again, to connect personally in this onboarding. Yeah, I mean, I like your distinction that we can capture so much of this through the recruitment process. And it's, it's, you know, it's two birds, one stone as the analogy goes, but it does gives a really good insight before they start of who is this person? What makes them tick? Yeah. Beyond just kind of resume values, maybe what are some of those eulogy values as they've been defined or, right? Well, resume values are the, I'll say they're the eulogy Well, yeah, just let me contrast for second. Resume values are the things that you put on your resume, accountability, integrity, trust, honesty, you you define those all wonderful traits to have. Eulogy values are the ones that you want people to talk about at your eulogy. When you pass, what do you want to be known for? What do you want to be talked about? What ways do you want to be talked about? uh So hold up, tee up the exercise. Now we had two framings of this, right? This is not original piece by us. It sort of goes around into webs as a useful exercise. it was Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits perhaps back in the day, but that may be completely incorrectly attributed. Yeah. And there was another version, which was the rocking chair test, because I realized for some people understandably doing the eulogy test could be a little emotional. So the exercise is essentially someone is at your funeral talking about you and they write, you know, this wonderful eulogy. And ideally, you're trying to write it yourself ahead of time about how you would want people to talk about you. And then it's kind of a great anchor piece to go, well, what do I need to change about the way I show up today to be more in alignment with that? Another version of it is the rocking chair test. You're sitting on your porch in a rocking chair in your late nineties, sipping a cup of coffee or tea, and you're thinking fondly about your life and the things that you're most proud of that you loved doing that just put a smile on your face. What are those things you start to write them down and creates this beautiful anchor piece to go, that's the life that I'm trying to create and design. And then therefore, what can I do today to move toward that? So they're the two that you're referencing, right? Right, right. And so extracting these pieces of intelligence, really of insight and intel through the recruitment process, maybe it is like what ticks you off? What about your past role frustrated you? What was it about your employer or your boss, your leader at your previous role that you wish wasn't in your future leader's role, you know, in your future leader? Those types of questions. And then it comes down to some of the more practical things. Again, it's, I know one of the things that we like to ask inside Clinic Mastery is, can you describe a great birthday experience? Right? And so people are like, such and such did this for me or got, it's often very rarely is it material. It's very commonly experiential. You know, we're asking about your coffee order. One of our, one of the behaviors of our core values at Clinic Mastery is that we know your coffee order. And yes, there's a little bit of symbolism in that. but there's also a lot of practicality in that. Can we capture your coffee order in the interview process or in the application process or even in your onboarding documentation questionnaires? Because here's one of the things as clinic owners, we need to capture this information and data so that we can then use it and deploy it. Because you might have just read. you know, a wonderful book. Maybe you've read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Gadara. Wonderful book. We've watched him on YouTube. I think he's on Chef's Table and a few others on the interwebs. And you're like, I'm gonna show Unreasonable Hospitality. Well, sometimes you need to know those details about a person to be able to express that care or create those moments or experiences. were watching, we're actually watching a Christmas special. So this is a tangent, but a fun story. Christmas special, the couple of nights before Christmas on YouTube and it was Megan, Markle, she married one of the princes. Yeah, she's from suits. That's, And she had a connection with Will Gadara and invited him over for dinner. And she made him something that his mother used to make him. And she created this moment of, I think it was like reindeer chow, they call it in the States. And so if you're in the States, you'd know all about reindeer chow. It's this special food that you would feed the reindeers. But Will was so blown away that Megan had gone to the lengths of finding out what's that, you know, what's that sentimental food that mum used to cook. It's that level of unreasonable hospitality. When we show that to a team member, what are we trying to achieve here? We're trying to achieve rapport and trust and shared experiences. If we can build trust, show that we care, it's not just say or involve people, we're showing people that we care, we're building rapport. It establishes a quick trust, which means we can move forward on Patel and Cioni's scale of vulnerability-based trust helps us to be able to lean into conflict and ultimately get to commitment. It's a really great distinction. love that framework from Pat Lencioni, the trust at the basis of everything. Yeah. And working your way up. And that starts through connection and vulnerability, which is a nice little dovetail into another exercise that we've used in the past is to ask team members. We'd love to hear a story from you about a hero in your life, someone you've looked up to a hardship that you've had and a highlight. in your life reel. So however old you are, look at the whole highlight reel or hardship reel and find one that you'd want to share with us. And that just gives a really lovely insight into, yeah, what are some of the meaningful milestones that they've had in their life? The other version is to draw your life chart. Is that what it's called? Lifeline, lifeline, where you can essentially imagine on a piece of butcher's paper, these sort of squiggly lines going up and down and sort of snaking, ideally up and to the right, but it depends on how the person draws it. It might look more like a heartbeat that just goes horizontally across. And it allows people to then pick and choose. You know, there was this real highlight when I was five years old and this thing happened. And then at seven, something happened. And then at 12, You know, I had another highlight, you know, graduated, went to high school, et cetera, et cetera. And they work their way through. Typically, this is an activity that you would do at a culture day or a team day where a number of people get to share, a number of people get to hear, and then you get a pretty rapid alignment. These things take quite a bit of vulnerability and trust to do so. And we can come back to the vulnerability cuts, but also in a one-to-one personal onboarding sense. I found it a wonderful way to connect with the other person that's, say, across the screen from you or across the desk from you about the things that have really mattered in their life as a connection point to your point. What are we trying to do here is create connection, create understanding, understand perhaps some of their worldviews so that when those tensions do inevitably rise about how you didn't follow up the patient or you didn't connect with the referrer. or you ran late and that caused me to run late, whatever it is, that those conversations can be had from a better place. Maybe we can reach resolution quicker. So these are all about finding out more about the person that you are working with, their work experiences, their life experiences, by using a number of different questions. And we'll come to the desire statement in a moment, unless you want to go there now, J-O-B. But is there anything else that as we just chew the fat here and talk through some of the effective things we've found to personally onboard a new team member so that they feel a sense of belonging and that they hit their strides ideally sooner rather than later? What are they? Well, yeah, so there's a little one degree nuance here that I'd love to touch on and it's probably been really reinforced by Mick Risk, Michael from our team and uh his work that he does with his accelerator, with recent graduates, et cetera. And so what I'm getting at here is how do we engage a new team member in personal development, not just professional development, but what is the... What is the library? What is the catalog of personal and mindset development materials that distinctly shape a team member at your clinic? And so there should be a laundry list of YouTube clips, maybe paid courses, certainly books that shape the mindset and the personal development of each and every team member at your clinic. And so, yes, there's a side of this personal stream of onboarding that's about connection report. trust relationship. There's also a stream that is essentially personal high performance. And how do we, how do we create common language around our team? How do they get better? Who are they watching? Who listening to? What voices shape us? Our mindset mentality around things like open mindedness, abundance and growth around things like money, purpose, family. What does freedom truly look like? Work ethic. and compassion for our clients. What are these more, uh yeah, personal things as juxtaposed against the professional? You've probably been, uh you've been on this train for more than a decade now personally, right? Like what would be some of the voices, materials, resources, links that you would suggest including? Well, we got this question so often that I figured we should probably have a resource for this. And you've just reminded me that we do have a resource for this, which is called the Mentors Academy. It's available on our website. Go to clinicmastery.com forward slash free resources. It's in the menu there as distinct from mentor mastery. But it came out of that. So many clinic owners saying, hey, I want to teach this team member about thinking about money and its relationship to value rather than having all these barriers when we want to adjust fees or we're going from bulk billing to charging a gap. And if they hear it from someone else, perhaps they'll be more on board with it. I think that's what we're trying to do is provide alternative and complementary perspectives, maybe sometimes contrarian ones as well. But to add some additional voices. that have said it way better than each of us have said it over time. So my default is to go to a YouTube or a TED Talk website and be able to find some really great videos that distill it in five or 10 minutes. So I realize a book is a fantastic tool, but also people will say, well, I don't have time to read a book or they don't make time to read a book. And OK, we can support them through. How do you make time to edit it up? But let's be real. When's the last time you finished a book front to back? kind of thing, like it gets disrupted, even if you're using audible on the commute. So how can we distill these in five or 10 minutes? They're easily accessible, perhaps between patients or a client canceled, or they've got some available PD time in their diary to be able to listen to some of these folks. So one, go to our website and get the free resource there. We've just got a whole bunch of books and YouTube's and Ted talks that you can go that we recommend in these different verticals like service delivery. confidence, communication, value. uh So they'll help massively. I think what's key and one of the things that we learned through mistakes in losing a team member at their exit interview truly informed how we did our onboarding and ongoing mentoring in a really practical way. Here's what we did. Prior to every mentoring session, we advocate clinic owners use some version of a focus sheet. We like to use a Google form. You could use survey monkey. It could just be a slack thread, whatever it is. The point of this is a self-reflection by the team member prior to coming to that session. Otherwise, they're always throwing the monkey on your back, you know, the problem to solve, and you've got to figure it out. We want people to reflect and come with solutions. Previously, we've talked about the one three one model. What's your one problem? challenge, what's your three solutions, and then what's your one recommendation of those three and then we can workshop it together. I can figure out how I can help you. But in this form, we ask a number of self-reflection questions and we interchange them depending on the season and the focus. For instance, one of them might be, which one of our core values have you lived out most recently and what's a little story or anecdote about how you did it? uh Let's say our core value is show how much we care, a version of that. And Jenny called a taxi for an elderly client at the end of their appointment so that they could get a commute home because their previous ride had bailed on them or wasn't available. Great. And that's a way for us to keep our core values front and center in everything that we do. Here's how it related on a personal level. we actually were trying to uh realize that a lot of what we were doing was kind of covering a lot of the positive things in the role and not covering maybe the warts side of things, the things that were sort of bubbling underneath the surface. So one of the questions that we changed to was, what are you loving and what are you loathing about your role at the moment? And what are the solutions that you have for fixing the thing that you're loathing? It's like, This thing's taking me too much time to do or it's clunky or it distracts me or it really should be someone else's role. Okay. In the one three one context, how are we going to solve this together? So from the exit interview of a team and believing and understanding, where do you think we could improve things? Reveal the number of areas that we should get proactive insights on. And it changed the questions in the focus sheets prior to mentoring. but it could also factor into your onboarding checklist of things that you need to understand about the person you're working with. Mm. Yeah, it's fascinating. And I love that because this is all iteration game, right? We're all we're running a continuous life on experiment here of what do we ask and how do we ask it? And that's a great point because perhaps folks listening in or watching us here on YouTube might think that there's one way to do this and there's only one way or we've absolutely got it figured out. Sure, we've done this over a decade and seen a lot of things that work and don't work. But also to your point, Jack, it's about testing things and seeing if it works in your context and being open to iterating it as you move forward, not being kind of stuck that, well, that didn't work, so I'm not doing it ever again. And so that's why it's so good you talk to the underlying objectives here at a great trust and then therefore connections so all the rest can happen. Yeah, you know, I'm thinking about one of the things that we've tried, I've got here in front of it. We had a database, essentially a spreadsheet where we'd document and table all of the data that we gathered on our team. And that was useful at times, but it was a little bit hidden or not everyone had access. One of the things that we evolved at our most recent team retreat was people updating their Slack profile. So we created a bunch of additional custom fields. updating their Slack profile with things like, what's your partner's name, any kid's names, who's your favorite footy team, favorite books, all the coffee order, what's your go-to playlist on Spotify. we captured all this data now at a team retreat so that if and when the time comes where we need to create an experience, connect personally, it's a little bit, it's easier to grab inside Slack rather than in a spreadsheet. definitely. And accessible to the broader team. think keeping it in the spreadsheet was maybe a little bit hidden more to the leadership team. So anyone can look at a Slack profile. clinic owners are using Ali to be able to store some of that personal development stuff that we've been speaking to us. There's a playlist there. We can continue to add stuff. I know for me, there's books I read each and every year. And so you might set it up in Ali that it reminds team members to watch that Ted talk or read that book again, once a year. I'm curious, you cleverly avoided my question. So I'm to come back to it. I don't think you avoid it. just forgot. What's one or two voices, people, books, YouTubes that you would commonly go to for personal development or you'd recommend people add to their personal development queue? It's very interesting, isn't it? I think so often we're all looking for different voices that resonate at different periods of time. But one that I found a great mix of pragmatic strategy and psychology as well has been Tony Robbins. I think a lot can be lost in perceiving him as rah-rah. But if you dive deep into the substance, you'll find that there is a lot of it. And you can use a lot of these tools and techniques to help you, whether it's through goal setting. and we'll come back to the desire statements in a moment or whether it's about reframing problems into opportunities. So I found that as a really useful practical voice for myself. It depends also on what you're looking at, what you're focusing on at any given point in that moment. Like if you're working on a specific goal and you need a certain voice to help you with it, for instance, you might be thinking. I really need to work on the culture here, maybe I'm having some challenges or I need to expand my team and I want to preserve what is. So I'm going to lean more into voices like a Brené Brown, a Simon Sinek, a Kim Scott, a Pat Lencioni, those types of voices that an Adam Grant that speak a lot about cultural dynamics into personal skills. And so I'm going to lean into that. If I'm thinking more about designing client experiences and products and services, I'm to go to a Will Guardiola. Guardiola? No, it's Pep Guardiola. Godara. Though Pep Guardiola, uh for those especially in Europe and the UK will probably know his name as one of the most successful football or soccer coaches in terms of standards and culture. There's some great documentaries out there around championship teams, but I love being able to identify clearly what's a singular focus for this month or this quarter. And then what voices do I need to immerse myself in again, or perhaps for the first time and seek some recommendations from other folks. uh Rather than maybe just be blown with the wind, though maybe there's seasons for that, I find it quite useful to lean into a focus and then voices that are experts in those fields. How do you go about it? Yeah, similarly, I... There's a lot to be said for topical, current, uh popular, in the positive sense, you know, books, speakers, etc. There's always someone to learn from and garner from in the current cultural moment, zeitgeist. And I'm personally one for what is tried and tested and has proven the test of time beyond popularity. you know, this term is a little crass, but forgive me that the intent behind it is pure. I love listening and reading to dead people because there's something about an idea that has transcended, again, populism and their life. If their ideas have stood the test of time, there's something to that. so, yeah, so for me, like Stephen Covey is a great example. Seven Habits of Highly Effective Peer is transcendent, perennial. You know, I love that. Current times, yeah, certainly Adam Grant is a key one, Pat Lenciona that you both spoke to there. And I think for me, I love reading things that resonate with me, but I also love opening myself up to other personal development voices or experiences that wouldn't be my default. And it's not so that I adopt their ideas carte blanche, but it challenges and opens my thinking. And so that's a really important point for clinic owners to consider because when you're presenting some of these books, videos, content to your team members, it's not so that they adopt it. dogmatically, but it's so that we can explore the conversation on the other side of the book. And so there are some things that you just, we're going to do things the Kim Scott way, but then there'll be other examples where it's like, well, you know, when Adam Grant said this, that's not particularly how I see it or the way I want to do it. But the way he framed it challenges my thinking or challenges me to be better in my thinking processes. To that point, perhaps the meta distinction that I've had over the last three to five years, I think definitely through the COVID period now as we enter 2026, is actually the value in writing, specifically exploring thoughts and what our thinking is around decisions, whether that's life or business decisions, and trying to ask a number of questions. to challenge it, to support it, to unpack it. So this is almost uh listening to my own voice, if that makes sense, rather than necessarily leaning on someone external to be that voice. So there's always a good perspective that you can get, especially when it's, I think, provoking your thinking. But if there's something that I've noticed about a lot of the development sphere is that They're great critical independent thinkers from first principles. And that typically looks like writing rather than just kind of mulling over it in your mind, whether that's literally physically writing it on paper or getting in front of a screen and just writing. And I know our great friend, Harvey Penny was also just prolific at writing and helping think through things. So I realize some folks are gonna love to do that. Others are... maybe don't think they have time for it, but I reckon that's a really useful thing. And I guess the version of it that we were referring to before was the focus sheet. Even though it's sort of short form where there's a question in a survey form prior to a mentoring session, it's getting our team members to get that agency back. So many of the complaints that we hear from clinic owners are, you know, it all relies on me. Like they keep giving me their problems. Or these people don't have any initiative or assertiveness or this generation's just slack. My challenge to you would be, be the coach, be the guide in their life that helps them really get that agency and come to you as a problem solver, not just a problem giver. And so much of this is in systems and structure that you install in your mentoring capacity. So I think the focus sheet's a really short form version of that. You know, if you've got a team member that is happy to go in long form. I particularly like that. I think that helps a lot as well. There's a couple of things on the personal development side. So we talk about one of the key assets that we developed was called the zero is called the zero to 100. It's the first 100 days of a new team members journey with us. And we separate it into three streams. The first is the professional side. The second is the practice side. And then the third is the personal side. And then there are checklist items that they need to go through in each one of these categories. We're laboring on the personal side here. And I thought I've got one on my screen that I thought I could just whip through a couple of the things that are on the template that we provide clinic owners inside the Academy and Elevate to adopt and then roll out through Alley to their team members. And I definitely want to come back to the desire statement one, because that's number one is a desire statement. Then we have a reading and learning plan, perhaps a book a month. Some clinics like to have like a book club and they have a channel in their Slack talking about what are your key insights from this book. It might even be just a chapter from a specific book. It doesn't even have to be the whole book. Then the personal development resource tab that's in the mastery articles that we sent the mentors Academy. We look at the profiling tools that are available. These are not gold standard, but we love them as a self-reflection tool, right? The Myers-Briggs, the Desk, the Big Five, the Wealth Dynamics Profile. Maybe you get a collection of these. A number of them are free or there's a version that is free. The Love Languages Test. To be able to reflect on when you're at your best or how do we work with you best at the clinic and have that on file. So that's another one. If I skip along to the next slide here, perhaps it's actually about connecting our team members with our network. For instance, maybe the young therapist doesn't have an accountant, they've just graduated. Maybe you've got an accountant, your accountant, or you know someone, maybe a financial planner, maybe they're looking to buy a house. And so you can connect them with your network. If you don't have any of those, reach out to us. We've got a network of trusted advisors. Perhaps they want to buy a car, buy a house, maybe they want to move. And they need some professional guidance and they can tap into your network. Sort of the Rolodex rollout is a good one. The other one that we've used before is the Headspace or Resilience Project apps on the phone or the journals as a really great way to help people go through that reflection. We've got things like managing your own inbox and to-do list. know this kind of blends across role and practice, but if you feel overwhelmed, it's likely because those things aren't managed particularly well. So how do we look at prioritization? How do we look at managing these important things that you have in your tool stack? And then we look at a really great one and perhaps the opening to this episode, JLB is what's a cause that really matters to you? You know, is there a charity, a church group? Is there something that you feel particularly passionate about that, you know, quote unquote? I know this is not your language, but people will say that they want to give back to. And finding that out is a really good thing to look at how we weave that in. So we'll come to desire statements in just a moment. But is there anything that you would add to that or nuance in that list? Yeah, this ties into into desire statements perfectly in the sense that some of those things I can imagine there's clinic owners listening along and going Hold up a second. You're telling me I should talk to my team members about their personal Finances and accountant and mortgage broker. I don't know if they're buying house. Frankly. I don't care if they're buying a house I just want them to see patients and generate revenue to cover their wages and so this is a really interesting kind of tension for clinic owners to lean into. And sometimes this is challenging if you haven't done this in the past to broach some of these personal things. But our perspective would be that it's really valuable and worth it over time, though it might feel a little bit uncomfortable to begin with. You it's not just this corporate nine to five where we have professional work relationships and we don't, we spend more time. with our work colleagues than we do often with our families. It's the biggest thing. Let's connect relationally. So, some of those things that you've alluded to there, really the genesis of those are found in someone's desire statement and personal life story and goals. So to tee up the desire statement, which we've referenced for many years here on the podcast, it's really centered around a few domains in your life. And you can do a Google of this and look at the Wheel of Life as an example, where we're looking at health and finances and career and relationships. And you can really have a whole host of other categories that you put into here, but it tends to work out to be somewhere between five and 10 different. ways you might want to categorize the person and their life. And what we want to look at is essentially what are some of the goals that you have, the intentions that you have in each of those areas at a future point in time? Typically the Goldilocks time for us is three years. It feels far enough away that material things can change, but also close enough that it's achievable or realistic. And so we look at how can we be super specific in each of those domains about what life looks like if we were describing it three years in the future. So it's written in a present tense to make it much more visceral and emotional. And it's written in a really descriptive way. Typically, you're to write a paragraph or two, maybe three or four in each of these areas with your team member. it takes several sittings or maybe even several weeks to get a completed one. And it deserves that time and thinking, I reckon. And that forms the basis of setting up a career pathway for that team member as part of your clinic, or at least understanding the context behind their progression when they want, you know, a higher salary. It's because they want to move to a different suburb or get married or send the kids to a different school. And we understand the reason or the meaning behind the money. So that's really what we're trying to do here. As you've rolled out desire statements before JB, what are some of the barriers that you've run into or seen clinic owners run into? Well, a key barrier is assuming that you can get this done in one session. Doesn't work like that. It is a month long multi meeting process, particularly if this is uncommon and you're trying to do it with, I'll say established team and relationships. But you know, when you're getting to know someone, takes time to peel back the layers of the onion. So it doesn't happen straight away. It doesn't happen overnight. Just on that, what do you think is reasonable? If you gave someone a guide, you said it's not one session, is it one week, is it one month? Just give us, you know, does it take 12 months? Yeah, it's probably more like three to six months would be the reasonable window of expectation. And so we're trying to ease ourselves into it, right? And so we might, it's going to be very, sometimes it can be complex to start a conversation with someone around what do you want your family to look like in three years time? They're going through all sorts of, you know, challenges around kids. So we might start with the professional development kind of bucket of like, what are your, yeah, where do you see your career? in three years time, any particular CPD courses or roles and responsibilities at work. Let's define and describe in present tense emotive terms what we want our career to look like. And then we can move through some of those domains. Sometimes health is an easy one. Again, not always for everyone, but describe. how you want your life to look like when it comes to your health. How do you wanna be exercising and eating and sleeping? And what are some of those other physical care rhythms that you have? How do you wanna feel in your health? Maybe what are some of the standards that you wanna achieve or what sort of confidence do you wanna have in yourself? And so you can start with those that are maybe a bit more palatable, perhaps a little less close to the center of someone. Yes. And then over time, we can talk about financial goals together, relationship goals, or impact type goals as well. So it takes time. Perhaps one of the core misses for clinic owners when doing the personal onboarding side of things is that they emphasize strongly training and not enough coaching. What I mean by that is I think it's, okay, I've got to just download and install all of the processes and systems here for this new team member so they know what to do. And yes, that's true. They got to know how to do their job. However, what's often overlooked is this ability to actually coach and guide someone through to clarity about what they want in their career. And I think we want to jump into solutions rather than ask questions. And we tend to take the superficial response as is rather than unpack it. For instance, someone comes and says they want a $10,000 pay rise. Tell me a little bit more and help me understand how you got to that number. And what does that mean for you? And what are some of the important investments that you're looking to make in your life? Is it a car? Is it school? Is it a holiday? Is it an engagement? Just talk me through some of the things because I'm sure there's reasons how you arrived at that. And that's one example, but I think we all have that skill as health professionals when the patient comes and says, here's my symptom. or here's how it's presenting, or here's what's happening in my life. And naturally, and perhaps even in a skilled sense or a training sense, we've been conditioned to say, you know, tell me more. When does that happen? How does that happen? What are some of the triggers? When do you notice it? How does it feel? So we have that critical questioning skillset. It's just not often applied in a team mentoring sense. So I think we want to... channel and lean more into that. Pete Flynn's talked more about this before. think it comes from the coaching habit, which is behind me on my right shoulder around taming the advice monster, or maybe that's a different book. But anyway, it's about not jumping straight to conclusions or solutions and instead asking for clarity. Yeah, you're right. It's from same author, different book. The book's called The Advice Trap, Taming Your Inner Advice Month. But I think, okay, so here's the, I think here's the subtle nuance for clinic owners is that when we are in our health professional sense, if you're a clinician yourself, we are good at asking questions and conducting a history so that we can be the expert who gives advice. Yes. It is a subtle but different skill set to be able to ask questions so that we can ask more questions. And we don't have to be the one that gives the advice. We don't have to be the expert. As a clinician, you're paid to be the expert. As a leader, you're paid to be the guide and let the team member on the other side be the captain of their own ship, so to speak. as you say that something feels pretty clear to me that after you've said that perhaps there's a fear that they do the questioning and they're actually not sure how to solve the problem that they feel aversion out of their depth or I'm not skilled to handle this, especially when we start asking things about finances or family or health. can go down the line of questioning. in a health sense as a clinician because I've been trained in that. I can figure it out or I can ask someone for help. And maybe it's like, oh, I don't know what to do with this information. And I think perhaps the first part is just getting to clarity. If you can articulate the desire, the problem, the challenge, whatever it is, you don't have to solve it then and there. That's kind of one of my default operating principles is if you're on a call. If you're in a mentoring session and something comes up, just uncover it even more so you really understand it. And it's totally okay to say, hey, is it all right if I come back to you with some clarity or some answers later today or tomorrow or next week or at our next session? Is that okay? And unless it truly is urgent, everyone says yes. So you can buy yourself time to go away and think about it. maybe there is someone in your network that you could connect them with, maybe you can come back and think about an answer. So I think just getting to clarity and just don't take the answer at face value. I want to understand it. If I can reflect it back to them, good, give me some time to go figure it out. Hmm, And oh We have to go from that place of being the guru who knows everything to the guide who actually quote knows nothing so that we can discover the answer for ourselves. That's a really uncomfortable mode shift for many health professionals come business owners. Perhaps as well because it feels almost infinite and there's multiple angles to come at it from. There's no direct solution or right answer. Perhaps clinically there is. You get to a diagnosis and you know the thing. Like this is the answer. This is what the evidence says to handle this type of condition in a personal mentoring sense. could be anything and everything. And so when we look at the, I've got an interesting question for you to wrap up. The question is, what do you think a measure of success is in the personal onboarding sense? Let me come to this. Often when we talk about the professional sense, we will just default to a version of utilization. know, by X date, the therapist is at Y utilization. And maybe they gradually work their way up to it. And maybe it's after one month, they're at 70 % utilized. or some version of that, we feel like they're up to speed, they're able to handle it, they're able to do back-to-back appointments, indirect clinical time reports, assessments, notes, et cetera. Okay, that's a sign, that's a good sign. Not the only sign, but that's a good sign onboarding has worked in that stream. So my question is, when it comes to the personal onboarding, what do you think's a reasonable sign to know that you've done it well? Okay, that's a really good question. I'd say two metrics, particularly when it comes to onboarding. Number one, do we have intelligence about the person? Do we have a repository of data that we can call upon? Have we established enough relationship that we tangibly know things about the other person? So that would be number one, intelligence. And number two would be integrated learnings. Can a new team member get to the end of their first hundred days and be able to describe what they've learned and what they've integrated into their personal and professional activities. That's a great way to identify not just have we ticked the YouTube videos, but have we integrated the principles into our practices. I love that. think that's a really great way to go about it. It feels more subjective than perhaps the professional side. I'll be interested to evolve this and continue to understand how might we sit back and go, yeah, all of that work we did, all of those questions and surveys, and as you said, don't just tick the box with the YouTube video as an example, has actually led to implementation action. ah And we can see that and observe that. Even just having that question, I think will help you sharpen up your onboarding to go, how do I make this really impactful? If this is my version of, you know, quote unquote, a successful onboarding in the personal domain, then what do I need to do to make that happen? Joe B, awesome insights. Thank you for unpacking this. Looking forward to going deeper when you're back from your holidays. Enjoy the time with the fam. Well, holiday, are you calling it a holiday? Not really. An adventure, okay, enjoy your adventures. And we will see you all on another episode very soon. Head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for all the show notes and feel welcome to click a button and give us a call. Book in a time to have a call if you're wondering how we might be able to help you not only on onboarding but creating an amazing place to work for your team. That's something that we love doing and have helped thousands of clinic owners do it over a decade. So we'll see you on another episode very soon. Bye bye.