The ultimate guide to developing managers
Most mental health organizations offer limited training for developing managers. Furthermore, when we compare job descriptions from one organization to the next, we see a wide variety of tasks, as […]
How to create an organization with excited committed employees
Everyone wants to work in an organization with excited and committed employees. Yet how do we create a workplace culture that generates that sort of energy during social distancing? Fortunately, […]
How to make sense of soured workplace relationships: Attachment injuries
One does not usually think about attachment styles and attachment injuries when talking about employers and employees. And yet, most employer/employee relationships end because of a series of attachment injuries […]
How to overcome employee betrayal: 5 steps to love resiliently
One does not need to be in practice long to discover a need to overcome employee betrayal and recover from injuries. Unfortunately, every practice owner accumulates stories of hurt and […]
How to improve workplace culture: Love our people
How do you improve workplace culture? After a tough year with lots of remote interactions, most practice owners are focused on strengthening their workplace culture. This year’s emphasis in most […]
Reducing In-the-trench Psychotherapy To Focus On Practice Management
As a therapist/owner, it is difficult to know when to reduce one’s in-the-trench psychotherapy to focus on practice management. After all, you were the first producer of your primary service, […]
7 Management Principles That Excellent, But Untrained, Managers Know
Most business owners learn essential management principles on the job. Often, after making many mistakes, each with a degree of pain. That is how I did it over my 35 […]
How To Run A Practice: 40 Years Of Emerging Roles
I did not have a master plan for learning to run a practice. Certainly, nothing in my training gave me a clue about how the mental health system worked. And […]
How to gain momentum by capitalizing on business tipping points
As a business grows, it passes specific business tipping points. If we can capitalize on these thresholds, we can gain momentum and push on to the next level. Let’s begin […]
Essential qualities for excellent managers
Excellent managers are not born. Instead, developing first-rate management skills, attitudes, and abilities requires an intentional self-improvement project. Here is a start. 1. Prompt responsiveness The first attribute every manager should […]
Why effective leadership is lonely and exhausting
When I started my practice, I did not comprehend much about how isolating, lonely, and exhausting leading a group would be. I probably should have noticed during my early leadership […]
How to redesign your leadership structure as you grow
Once your organization reaches certain milestones, redesigning leadership structure is a must. In this post, I talk about those milestones and how to go about making the needed changes in […]
When we need to fire an employee
There are times when we have exhausted all other options, but to fire an employee. Of course, getting to this point should rarely be sudden or impulsive. First off, we […]
Why massive unemployment will not kill psychotherapy
The Coronavirus has spun us into unprecedented times. Every business is scrambling to stay alive. And in the psychotherapy world, that means practices have rapidly converted most clients to telemedicine […]
When an employee leaves: Saying goodbye well
When an employee leaves, saying goodbye well is often not the primary reaction that we experience. First, we must work through the sense of loss or even betrayal before the […]
Psychotherapy practice finances in a crisis
The Coronavirus (Covid-19) changed the practice of psychotherapy, at least in the short run. In response to the virus, practices have added teletherapy to their service options and, as I […]
Leading during crises: Passing the Coronavirus test
Leading during crises is difficult. And for most of us, our natural reactions can get us in trouble fast. We want to reassure, get the answers figured out quickly, and […]
How mental health businesses weathered the health care storms
Mental health practices have weathered many storms through the last decade. Here is an analysis of how we have done.
Successful Practice Management that leaves you sane
Managing a practice is difficult to do well. And doing the right sort of successful practice management is challenging. There are so many things to juggle, each with a level […]
Starting a new business? The start-up blues
Every one underestimates the challenges of starting a new business. Starting a new business is hard. It is hard even after you read everything you can find and done tons […]
Using staff complaints to make your organization great
Staff complain and managers listen. But understanding staff complaints and then properly interpreting them is one of the key things that good manager do. Over the years, I have noticed […]
Avoiding these partnership issues saves you down the line
When people form a partnership, there are always issues to work through. We have all heard the saying, “taking a business partner is like taking a marriage partner” and it […]
Addition by subtraction: Types of difficult, disastrous employees
Over the 38 years of owning a practice, we hired over 100 employees. They came in all sorts. Some fit well. Others did not. And some were disastrous employees. Dealing […]
How to think about the basics of managing leaders
I remember the moment when I realized that I needed to learn how to manage leaders. We had grown to a second location in a different community fifty minutes away […]
Matching one’s leadership style to the environment
One’s leadership style many seem relatively unchangeable. It should not be. David Maister wrote a short but insightful chapter on “Partnership Governance.” He sets up the discussion about one’s leadership […]
