Continuing the mission to help physicians boost their bottom line in 2011 while enjoying a better quality of life…Let’s look at some frequently asked questions.

I want to work smarter, not just harder in my practice. Do you have any tips?

You bet! To work smarter, you need to start with a well thought-out strategy. A great strategy starts with clarification. Rather than just starting with your practice, I recommend that people start by creating clarification for their life. Unless you only “live to work” by choice, this is the logical place to begin. In other words, what’s the lifestyle that you want to lead?

The river of life sweeps us along, and we often don’t stop and ask ourselves these tough questions. However, it’s critical to do so. Do you want to live in a mansion or a modest home? Do you want to own a second, or maybe even a third home?  Do you want to only work a few days a week or are you willing to regularly work six to seven days a week? How long do you want to work before you retire?

These are all lifestyle questions. Asking questions like these will also clearly define your income needs. I’ve noticed that successful people are clear on their income goals, and purposely work to achieve them. By clarifying your lifestyle needs, you’re getting focused. You know your direction and can quickly tell if you’re getting off course. Your medical practice should then be in sync with your lifestyle design. If not, conflict and burnout can easily occur.

The next phase is to clarify your practice. You need to take an honest look at your work situation. Is it where you want to be? Are you doing work that enjoy? Are you seeing the type of patients that you want to see? Are you practicing with people that you want to be practicing? Are you earning the type of income that you’d hoped? Again, clarifying questions help to crystallize reality. Then, you can begin to plan where you want to be. You can develop the direction and vision for your practice. 

As your strategy develops, you can focus on aligning the structure, staffing, and systems in your practice to make sure they’re all in alignment. Your structure is your operational infrastructure. Your staffing is your team. This is where you make sure you have the “right people on the bus.” Your systems represent the way you do things. They’re the repeatable processes in your practice that need to be optimized for success. 

For those who share your passion to work smarter, the key is to truly “think” on your practice. The challenge that prevents most people from doing this is a perceived lack of time. However, unless you make time to purposefully think through your practice and align your strategy, structure, staffing and support, then you’re stuck on the treadmill.  You may run harder, but you’re not going anywhere.

I’m considering adding a partner to my practice.  Do you have any suggestions on points to consider?

As a fundamental principle, the sum of a partnership should be greater than the individual parts. In basic math terms, if 1+1 won’t be significantly greater than 2, then you really need to question whether the partnership will create value. There are obviously pros and cons associated with partnering. Pros include leveraging strengths, sharing risk, and enjoying camaraderie, while cons include clashing personalities, unequal contributions, and the potential to irreparably injure friendships.

Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller aptly said, “A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.” Some clear principles apply in exploring how to create successful partnerships. Foundationally, you want to make sure you’re “yoking” yourself with someone of integrity and honesty. George Washington stated, “Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” 

Partners should have a shared vision and mission for the long-term plan for the practice. This often requires some soul searching to address what each partner really hopes to get out of the practice. Each partner should be honest in assessing strengths and weaknesses to make sure they are complementary. Further, roles and responsibilities should be allocated to leverage those strengths in the operation accordingly. Difficult times should be anticipated on the front end. The key to a successful partnership relies on knowing how the partners will handle adversity and communicate during times of conflict. 

Accountability is also important to make sure that partners don’t act as silos, but instead work to encourage one another and have accountability to achieve stated goals. Last but not least: plan for divorce in advance. Much like a pre-nuptial agreement, wise business partners define on the front end how they will wind up their business if it doesn’t work out as planned.

Martin Willoughby is a serial entrepreneur and business lawyer. He authors the blog, www.fastgrowthlawyer.com, Direct questions about medical entrepreneurialism to martin@wlglegal.com.

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