The importance of the Team Meeting cannot be overemphasized in running a successful business. It is essential to insure that your patients are receiving the highest quality of care and your creating a sustainable business through maximizing your greatest asset, your team.
At a minimum you should have monthly team meetings. A typical agenda should always include the following:
- Report of the state of the business: last month sales as it compared to your budget and previous year.
- Goal setting for the upcoming month.
- General Housekeeping items i.e. remember to close the staff room door, how to use the new time clock, etc.
- Training component: arrange for a vendor training/re-training or do a clinical training on a new procedure.
- Communication: upcoming advertising, website updates, next month’s promotions, changes to the incentive program, etc.
For a stabilized business we recommend monthly meetings but if your business is in transition: turnaround, relocation, etc. then your team meetings should be bi-monthly.
Each meeting should be opened by the leader of the group i.e. physician owner, medical director or CEO (remember you are the cultural leader) and then portions of the meeting can be handled by management i.e. practice manager, sales manager, controller.
Work hard to make them interesting and always provide information that is important for everyone to do their job successfully, that way you will have better attendance. Remember, even though you make the meetings mandatory, someone could always call in sick.
