Practice leadership is one of the most challenging things about being a doctor. Managing a staff, budgets, patient schedules, hiring, and practicing medicine are just a few of the tasks that make up the job description. One of the most important things any doctor can do is to clearly define the vision and mission of his or her practice. Helping them do that is something Dr. Mike Rothschild has made a mission of his own. We caught up with Dr. Rothschild ahead of his lecture at the 2018 VisionAmerica Summer Conference to discuss practice ownership, the importance of mission and vision statements, and to get a brief preview of his upcoming talk in Prattville, Alabama. We hope you enjoy it! Your practice is located in Carrollton, Georgia. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
Well, my wife and I met in college and we moved back to her hometown of Carrollton, Georgia and started the practice in 1999, so about 20 years ago. With Carrollton being such a small town, we really felt like we really needed to stand out by building a service-based practice. The Ritz Carlton was offering classes focusing on service and I began taking them. The focus of the class was learning and implementing the strategies they use to train their staff in our businesses. One of the big takeaways from that course was that everyone on a team has to be on the same page and in lockstep in order to provide a quality service. I learned the material and how they taught their team and came back and implemented those changes in our practice. Eventually, I started teaching other practices how to implement those same changes. That's when you started Leadership OD? Yes, we started around 2005. It evolved with me going out and doing presentations and grew out of a desire to talk to others about how they operated their practices. What was one thing that stood out from the Ritz Carlton training? The Ritz Carlton stressed the need to dial in on a mission and a vision. What do you want to be the very best at? Do you want to be high end? Service-oriented? For instance, Ritz Carlton doesn't try to compete on price. If you stay there, you have likely had a nice experience, but it wasn't cheap. When I decided what I wanted to excel in and that I was going to be unapologetic about it, I stopped trying to compete with discount retailers on price. I decided I would beat them on service and quality. When I realized that you have to pick what you are doing and communicate that mission to everyone on your team and that you are going to be relentless in that pursuit, that was when the light bulb went off that this is what optometry really needs. How do you compete in the current market with all of the changes happening? It's certainly challenging. Discount retailers typically don't try to excel in service, but Warby Parker does. They are good on style and service. When they come in and make a big splash, eyecare providers panic. This is why you need to be relentless in communicating your mission. When a competitor has success, your mindset gets weak. If your goal is to build the highest level of service and customer care possible, you will survive the competition from those with lower prices. What would you say is the biggest challenges ODs face when it comes to practice leadership? Leadership is a skill that you can and have to develop. You have to learn your style and evaluate different learning styles. It is just like learning medicine or optometry. You can always give yourself an opportunity to be better by learning leadership and management skills. The biggest challenge practice leaders face is learning how to define the mission of their practice. Everything else flows out from that. Unfortunately, this is most often what is left out. You will be speaking to both the doctors and staff at the conference. Your lecture is titled "5 Zones of Practice Operation". What takeaways can both doctors and their staff expect to walk away with? Any business can be broken down into five components. When you can break them down you can give attention to each of these zones and the management of all aspects of the business balanced. When you hear about and understand the five zones, you will understand how every aspect of the practice works together. You will see how critical each component of the practice is and how they connect to one another. Often times, someone who works in insurance doesn't understand how their job impacts someone who works in optical. The 5 Zones will help everyone understand how it all fits together. Dr. Rothschild will be speaking to all attendees at the upcoming 2018 VisionAmerica Summer Conference. We hope to see you all there!
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