5 Steps to Coaching Up Your Medical Staff

When you were in medical school you learned a lot about medicine and how to be the best doctor for your patients. What you might not have learned about is dealing with the people part of your practice and how to be the best boss for your staff. As you know, your medical staff plays a critical role in the health of your practice and for your patients' experience. Happy staff often means happy patients. And you can make a difference in how your staff feels when they are at work.Neuroscience provides us with insights into how to communicate with others in a “brain friendly” manner so that they feel more engaged and optimize their thinking. The goal of brain friendly communication is to mitigate threat and maximize reward so that people can leverage their prefrontal cortex (where the best ideas come from!)It is important to keep in mind that most people do not like being told what to do – they would much rather be encouraged to think through how to best manage a situation. Ideas are like children…we like our own the best!  There are times when being a “coach” would benefit your staff. There are 3 sets of circumstances when coaching is more appropriate than telling or advising:
• To help someone generate solutions or ideas
• To promote learning and success
• To facilitate change and improvementBeing the most effective coach requires a certain mindset. You need to believe that people are capable to arriving at their own ideas and solutions, that given the right circumstances, they can and will maximize their ability to think. Once you develop this mindset, then here are five key elements that will make you an effective coach for your employees (and it works great with family too): CLICK THROUGH THE ARROWS ON THE IMAGES TO MOVE THROUGH THE SLIDESHOW.