By Mike Rothschild, OD
A purposeful, well organized staff retreat can revitalize your staff–and make you a productive and profitable team.
Since I began my practice, I have held regular office retreats. I now hold two retreats annually, without fail. Even in the early days, with a staff of one, we found time to get away and talk about what we were trying to accomplish in the practice. And later, with three doctors and very full schedules, we continued to make these retreats happen.
When I tell a doctor about the huge benefits of retreats, I am often told, “It doesn’t make sense for me to have a retreat, because we are so small, we can talk any time.” Or I hear: “That sounds great, but we just don’t have the time since we are so busy.” I get it, and neither is a good reason to not hold a retreat.
There are few things that I think are good for everybody, but getting away to visualize, organize, prioritize and energize is always good. A retreat is good for any organization, big or small, and many high-level executives realize these benefits and are moving toward incorporating these lessons.
The staff of West Georgia Eye Care at a staff retreat in January at the Foxhall Sporting Club in Atlanta, Ga., organized by practice owner Mike Rothschild, OD.
Set a retreat theme
There are no hard and fast rules about topics that need to be covered at an office retreat. You need a theme, however. It can be as broad as a dream session to create an elaborate vision of who we really want to be, or it can be as specific as learning about the new electronic health records program.
Focus on objectives
Visualize: You’ve probably heard it said: “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” Well, we can’t see our practice for the patients. Or the lab orders, or the insurance claims, or staff members or bills. Every practice I have visited has a problem seeing the big picture because of all the tiny tasks that need our immediate attention. It is important to let the tasks wait sometimes, so that you can really see what is going on.
Organize: After you take a step back to explore every aspect of the practice and begin to get a picture of the true state of the practice, you can work on a plan to get moving in the right direction again. Many times “fixing” one problem creates another one. By getting contributions from the entire team, the plan starts to click with everyone.
Prioritize: If you try to do everything at the same time, you will do a bad job at all of it. Trust me; I have done it over and over. It is essential that you weigh the benefits of each goal that you set and decide which ones are going to help you the most right now. Pick the top two or three and work vigorously on those. Many of the rest will just happen and the others will be OK left undone.
The staff of West Georgia Eye Care at the staff retreat in January having fun at the shooting range. “Blending outdoor activities like shooting sporting clays, is a great way to break up the daily routine at a staff retreat,” says practice owner Mike Rothschild, OD.
Energize: Retreats without some fun built in are just meetings. Nobody loves a meeting more than me, but I can only take so much. It is critical that the day be broken up by some physical activity that can collaborate with the theme of the retreat. Rope courses are great for teambuilding and bowling is good for laughing together (chill out for a minute, doc).
One point about retreats is that the doctor/retreat leader should not do most of the talking. He/she should ask a lot of questions and work hard to get truthful answers. It takes time and practice, so you might as well get started now.
Resources
Leadership OD can help you with your staff retreats on several levels:
FREE DOWNLOAD to get you started – Here is a guideline that we developed about retreats.
Executive Retreat – The Foundation Event of Leadership OD
In addition to the personal success I have enjoyed with my staff over the years, I have also gained from “retreats” with colleagues. Leaders in the field gather regularly to share ideas and concepts to help each other. The next event:
Leadership OD will present the “Executive Retreat” on July 24-26 at the Paradise Point Resort in San Diego, Calif. This is an encore presentation of the Executive Retreat held in January in Georgia.
At the Executive Retreat, presentations are focused on the executive-level management of the practice, with plenty of interaction to address everyone’s individual needs. My personal experience with optometric staff influences the agenda to assure the content will make a difference when taken back home.
Registration includes participation in the BluePrint, an online, interactive program that lets the entire staff make significant contributions to the practice’s success.
Readers of ROB can register at a discounted rate:
http://www.leadershipod.com/Events/2013SanDiego/ROB/Register
Registration in this event includes the BluePrint
The BluePrint: The idea of a retreat with today’s technology
Understanding the challenges of schedules and know how, we set out to create the most intuitive online consulting program ever. This event accomplishes all four objectives by walking doctors/owners through a vision building process, collects and organizes input from the entire staff, and puts it all in an actionable plan for us all to work on. All presented with a variety of interactive tasks and fun videos.
The Strategic Escape: Full-fledged one-on-one retreat work
This event is limited to Leadership OD members who have attended an Executive Retreat and completed the BluePrint program. It is limited to eight doctors and held in a secluded and quiet environment. Not really roughing it, but all hustle and bustle is removed. Everybody’s objective is to find the one thing they need to work on, and help each other get started.
Additional Resources
For the Executive Retreat –LeadershipOD.com/Event
For the BluePrint –LeadershipOD.com/BluePrint
And for the Strategic Escape –LeadershipOD.com
Related ROB Articles
Staff Retreat: Team Building and Goal Setting
Ramp Up Staff Education by Inviting Reps to Staff Meetings
Put Me In, Coach: How Professional Coaching Can Make You a Winning Team
Mike Rothschild, OD, is founder and president of West Georgia Eye Care in Carrollton, Ga., and founder of LeadershipOD.com. To contact him: mrothschild@LeadershipOD.com.
