As a practice leader there are plenty of things screaming for your attention. Fluctuating markets cause a flood of worried calls and emails to come in from clients. A staff member puts in their notice, and you have two weeks to find a replacement. A pandemic hits, forcing you to shift to remote work and navigate virtual meetings. With all of this going on its easy to lose sight of the important work that needs to be done to purposefully move your practice forward. But if you don’t find a way to focus on the right initiatives in your practice, you can easily find your practice floating aimlessly, with no direction and a growing number of leaks to plug.
Finding the Time to Focus
The first thing leaders struggle with is creating time and space in their calendar to work on the business. Too often, urgent needs come first – both the important and the unimportant—and a practice leader’s calendar can quickly be consumed by daily tasks, meetings, and other things best delegated, delayed, or eliminated. The truth is, if you don’t make it a priority and put it on your calendar, you will never find the time to do the forward thinking work necessary to achieve the progress you really want in your practice. Make it a point to carve out regular, focused blocks of time for planning and working on practice initiatives and put rules in place so your staff knows that time is sacred and should be protected at all costs.
Knowing What To Focus On
The next challenge leaders face is knowing what to focus on. There are so many things you could be doing, but what are the one to three things you should focus on now to see the greatest impact? When you’re in the mire, it can be hard to see what the issues and opportunities are in your practice. Often, it makes sense to leverage an objective third-party to come in and give you an assessment of your practice. Not only are they not bogged down by the day-to-day activities, they also aren’t hindered by team dynamics and relationships that can cause people to filter or withhold feedback for fear of reprisal. An outside firm is obligated to deliver an honest assessment and is not afraid to say the things you need to hear.
Staying Focused
Even if you know what you should be doing, it’s easy to get sucked back into the role of fire fighter or practitioner and once again lose sight of the important things. To stay focused, have a way to track and measure progress on the important goals. As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets done.” Have methods in place to hold you and your team accountable to progress, even if that means leveraging a third party. Identifying milestones and celebrating small wins along the way will help you and your team stay energized and focused, especially for large scale initiatives that can take months or years to implement.
There will always be seemingly important things vying for your attention. To grow on purpose, and have the practice you want, you have to stay focused on the important things. Objectively assess and monitor your practice on a regular basis and leverage a third party to help you identify initiatives that will truly move the needle. Then hold yourself and your team accountable to progress and to creating time and space to get the important things done.
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