Jack O'Brien: Oh, here she is.

Bec Clare: Good evening, Jack.

Jack O'Brien: Good evening. It's 1pm, Bec.

Bec Clare: Feels like evening.

Jack O'Brien: Glad you're able to join us. Daniel Gibbs is MIA. Right! You know where Daniel is? He's probably at Officeworks.

Bec Clare: What does Dan tend to buy at Officeworks these days?

Jack O'Brien: No one knows. He just goes to Officeworks. You know what we need? We need our team behind the scenes, Grace, to do up an image or a graphic of Daniel the Swan at Officeworks.

Bec Clare: At Officeworks, buying connector pens.

Jack O'Brien: Connector pens and lanyards. I like it. And some Mentos. Mentos. We need Mentos.

Ben Lynch VO: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode.

Jack O'Brien: Where do you see admin meetings going off the rails and going wrong?

Bec Clare: What should we stop doing, start doing, keep doing? That's essentially the team meeting agenda.

Jack O'Brien: It's not your job to be the rock star, it's your job to be the factory that creates other rock stars.

Bec Clare: How do you create a space where someone feels safe to give you a two?

Jack O'Brien: When people are vulnerable, it's our responsibility as leaders to validate.

Bec Clare: My goal, walking out of a meeting, is to have less on my to-do list than when I walked in. Empowering our team.

Jack O'Brien: You know, we've all at various times felt that owner guilt of I need to be the first one in the building, the last one to leave, and if I'm not there, oh gee, my team must think I might be sitting by the beach sipping pina coladas, you know, driving my Bugatti. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're ready to turn your admin meetings from draining to energising and start driving real results within your clinic. Stick around to learn how to create a safe space for your team to give feedback on meetings. Plus, Bec shares her go-to tips for setting a clear agenda that leaves you with less on your to-do list, not more.

Ben Lynch VO: Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode.

Jack O'Brien: Welcome back to this episode of the Grow Your Clinic podcast. Rebecca Clare, good to have you with us again today. In fact, you are the one, the only Rebecca Clare, who I can confirm is not pregnant. I assumed that you were pregnant on our episode last week. For those who were listening along, Beck shared a demo of what could be a maternity leave communications policy. I assumed it wasn't a demo. I assumed it was real. But lesson number one, never assume pregnancy of anyone.

Bec Clare: You assumed correctly that it was a pre-pregnancy list for Audrey, who is almost two. I can say that Toddlerville, which is where we currently reside, means that she's one and only.

Jack O'Brien: Not a topic of conversation just yet. Just yet, I like it. Well, I've got a couple of quick questions for you, Beck, and then I'm going to welcome some of our new A11y members or users, some new members to the Cleant Mastery community. So quickly, off the top of your head, no justification of these answers. Would you prefer, would you rather a fully booked calendar for the next six months or a full waiting list?

Bec Clare: Neither and both.

Jack O'Brien: No, wrong answer.

Bec Clare: Am I going to become the Clinic Mastery podcast fence-sitter? Can I take Ben's mantle or is that for other Ben's?

Jack O'Brien: Pete is the reigning champion of fence-sitting but no, you will not take it from him. I won't let you take it from him. So, would you prefer a full waiting list or a full diary?

Bec Clare: Full diary.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. Would you rather one Google review, five-star Google review every day or one new referral partner every week?

Bec Clare: One five-star Google review every day.

Jack O'Brien: Oh, good. And would you prefer a clinic coffee machine that never breaks or Wi-Fi that never drops out?

Bec Clare: Oh, this is, this one hits at the moment. Wi-Fi. It'd be Wi-Fi. As a non-coffee drinker, I'm, I think also the outlier here from a clinic maelstrom perspective.

Jack O'Brien: Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out. How did you end up on the team not as a coffee drinker?

Bec Clare: Because I hide with a hot chocolate. So it's still a hot beverage of some kind. No one really knows that it's a hot chocolate.

Jack O'Brien: I might have to have a chat to HR about how we have a non-coffee drinker. Okay. You'll take the Wi-Fi. Good to know. Well, listeners, we're going to dive into all things admin team meetings today. But before we do, a quick welcome to our new Ally users. If you want to help systemising your clinic, having a one-stop place for all of your resources, policies, procedures done for you. Our AI and our Clinic Mastery way has built out a full library of resources as well as our dashboarding mentoring software that is all a part of AlliePro. You can check that out at AllieClinics.com. or send me an email at jackatclinicmastery.com. But I want to welcome a couple of new users or clinics to A11y. We've got Sam, who's a NUCCL user. We've recently set up integrations with NUCCL, Splose, and Halaxy. So Sam, a NUCCL user. We've got Kate, clinic owner from the Gold Coast, Dan from the UK, and Jackson, a podiatry clinic owner. So a warm welcome to those folks. And if you listening in want to join the A11y train, please feel welcome to do so. I've also got some welcomes for new clinics to our Business Academy and Elevate. These are our coaching programs that help clinics to amplify their impact and build clinics for good. And so warm welcome to Sally, who has joined the Business Academy. Stan has joined Elevate and Nick is a physio who has joined us as well. So massive warm welcome to those folks. If you wanna see if you're a fit for our programs, if we can help you, whether you're a startup solo clinic or you're a bit more substantial and have been around for a little while longer, we can explore how we can help you to fill your books, grow your team, boost your cashflow and ultimately grow your clinic. please feel welcome to get in touch. Again, with me, jackatclinicmastery.com, and we'll have a no-obligation conversation, explore the options, and see what is a good fit for you.

Bec Clare: How exciting, Jack. So many new members to the community. I love it.

Jack O'Brien: It's all happening, Bec. It is all happening. So let's tee this up. The typical narrative of a clinic owner around this topic of admin meetings is something along the lines of, this is what they say, they always end up being a waste of time where we talk about the same problems every week, nothing gets solved, and I as a clinic owner walk out more frustrated than when I walk in. So, my question for you, Bec, is what separates a meeting that drains energy from one that actually energises us and drives results? What separates those two?

Bec Clare: Meetings, firstly, that could have been emails or communication or Slack or whatever platform you're on. They could have been another mechanism or a method. And the other are meetings that are just chatter and there's no decision-making, no movement. A good meeting has movement in it. There are key decisions that are made and we're using that time together to make that decision.

Jack O'Brien: So when you say a meeting that should have just been an email, what's the difference? What is something that should just be an email versus what should maybe wait and be prioritised in a meeting?

Bec Clare: Something that needs us all to be in the room to collaborate on that, whether we need to whiteboard it together or if it's about bringing our thoughts and our processes and our systems, that can all be documented in other methods of communication, but it's where we actually want to problem solve or get a solution to something, that should be a meeting.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I see that as well. When meetings just become like information distribution, no one needs to be there live to hear information. That can be done in… How do you distribute information typically in your clinic?

Bec Clare: Yeah, it comes in a hit a really great point there. Jack is it comes in a few different ways because what I know from our team is that they all absorb information differently and I would like rather than the information get. producing to be in a meeting format, I would like that to be in a way that my team have the time and space to absorb it. It might well be that it's in written communication as well as an email format. Now, by recording videos, AI can take care of the transcript and summarise it all for you anyway. It's really about targeting how our team absorbs information and giving it to them in a way that they have time, space, and the ability to absorb that.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I really like that and I know I've coached a few clinic owners recently through this idea of recording yourself, doing a video, distributing the information, whatever that might be. Maybe it's a weekly update or a dashboard review and using AI, whether that's Fathom or Zoom or whatever that looks like, to transcribe the entire video and to summarise the video. And so, you know, I would see clinic owners pasting that video into Slack with the summary in the main post and then the transcription in the thread. And then finally, asking the admin team to acknowledge receipt. of that video. And that's one of the benefits, I think, that we see from Slack versus email, where Slack, we can, yeah, ask them to give it the eyes or give it the tick emoji reaction and also to ask any questions or to keep it as an open conversation loop. Yeah, I really like it.

Bec Clare: Jack, to that point, prior to a meeting, If I'm needing to pre-frame something or I need to ensure that people come ready to those meetings, and that's also the critical component of running an effective meeting, is that people come ready to contribute. We have team members on our team, and I'm one of them, who's a period of time thinker. So doesn't particularly like being put on the spot with questions. Note that, Jack. Anyway. It's really important that they have time and space to think and be able to contribute meaningfully in that meeting. So I will often send a very quick two minute video to the team and say, hey, we're going to be talking about this today. Please come prepared or please bring these resources along with you so that we can make the most of our time together.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, I like that. Let's keep on pulling on that thread down the line of agendas. And so really what you're describing there is helping your team be ahead of the game and understanding what's on the docket, what's on the agenda for the coming meeting. Do you have… Do you have like standing agendas or fluid? And I'm not just talking about you, but maybe clinics you coach or what you see the best do. Do you have a standard standing typical agenda? Do you add things to an agenda? Where does that agenda live? Can you talk us through agendas?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. For larger team meetings, we personally have set agendas. It helps us keep on track. What we've also been able to do with that is that each week we can rotate the team member who is leading that session. We want to help foster the leadership within our team and our community. And it also allows each team member to lead and contribute in a way. And we start to see those that want leadership as maybe a pathway as well.

Jack O'Brien: Sorry to interrupt, Beth. That also gives you personally, like Rebecca, the owner, a chance to step out of the chairperson seat and to… Because it's really hard to… It's actually really hard to contribute to a meeting when you are the chair.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Absolutely. We've also gotten to a point now that I don't attend the vast majority of those meetings because it has a set agenda. We run through wins and then on the basis of what should we stop doing, start doing, keep doing. That's essentially the team meeting agenda.

Jack O'Brien: Interesting.

Bec Clare: And then we round out with actions, who is going to take action on what tasks or actions and by when.

SPEAKER_03: I like it.

Bec Clare: It's really clear. They are 30 minutes, short, sharp and shiny, and we get stuff done. We make decisions in those sessions.

Jack O'Brien: I like it. And what sort of frequency are you talking weekly, fortnightly, monthly?

Bec Clare: So this, it's site-specific for our team. So we operate over three sites and then once a month currently.

Jack O'Brien: And do you see clinic owners running shorter meetings more frequently or longer meetings more frequently? Like what do you see as common trend?

Bec Clare: I see the common trend in clinics, but also in businesses generally, meetings that are longer. However, I would challenge, I think because they think quantity is what we need. We need to sit together for a large period of time. It can be logistically challenging maybe to get everyone together. I challenge most to shorten those. Things will take as long as we give it. If we give a meeting an hour, it's going to take an hour. People will also maybe trickle in a little bit behind schedule. Whereas if we start sharp on the 30 minutes and that is what we're doing, we really, we sharpen our sword.

Jack O'Brien: You mentioned that you don't attend the meetings. We hear it so often, clinic owners almost on the daily will say to us, I want more time to work on my business, not in. So you've obviously created that level of freedom for yourself. Can you maybe talk us through that experience of how, like, do you remember the first time that you didn't go or how did you empower the team to bring that to light?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. I do remember the first time I didn't go to one of those meetings and the meeting happened essentially right outside my office door.

Jack O'Brien: So you were like listening through the door?

Bec Clare: Sort of. I actually had to put on a pair of headphones because I was like, oh, I'm going to go and contribute because naturally I want to help provide solutions. It was about actually letting go. and as a leader letting go and that in fact empowered the team. We have a reporting mechanism. It's back in Slack. They follow the agenda template. And so I can see in real time what is happening in those meetings if I wanted to.

Jack O'Brien: Do you now?

Bec Clare: No, I don't anymore.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. How does it, how do you feel about that?

Bec Clare: I feel free.

Jack O'Brien: Have you always felt free?

Bec Clare: Pardon me?

Jack O'Brien: Have you always felt free?

Bec Clare: No. No, absolutely not, Jack. There have been many a time when, you know, the business has felt really challenging, really like a small child that needs you all of the time and you have to have constant eyes on it. It's felt like I've been attached. This freedom, I'm really relishing in this at the moment. It's given me opportunities to do other things. It's allowed me to be here in this podcast to carve out that time and more importantly, more time with my family. So I do, I really enjoy the freedom and it comes from having empowered team members and by allowing them to do this and Following through on the fact that I either don't attend or the actions do get completed, they've felt that rhythm, that they know that this is the real thing.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, so I'm thinking about the clinic owner who is listening. And they want the freedom, they want more space to work on their business, but perhaps they're worried what their team might think if the owner isn't there. I think we've all at various times felt that owner guilt of, I need to be the first one in the building, the last one to leave, I need to be in everything because I want my team to see me contribute. And if I'm not there, oh gee, my team must think I might be sitting by the beach sipping pina coladas you know driving my bugatti yeah did you have to deal with that type of guilt that you weren't around and what would my team think and then what did your team actually think about you not being there absolutely i really found that team guilt

Bec Clare: part of the most challenging part of being a leader was that, you know, also this is my baby and I should be the one who cares about it the most. And I should be the first in, I should be the last out. I need to be there to answer everything for my team all the time. What I found was I actually didn't need that. The time and space helped my team to find the solutions for themselves and empowered them to be better leaders and better communicators and better therapists and better admin team members. more independent, more autonomous, more accountable. It came actually from having really good conversations and a couple of team members actually approached me and they said, Beck, are you okay? And I said, what do you mean? Of course I'm okay. They said, you're always the first one here. You're always the last one out. You don't expect us to do that. We're looking at you and we're sort of seeing this pattern of behaviour and wondering whether you need that from us as well.

SPEAKER_03: Hmm.

Bec Clare: And so that actually came from a point of concern for me. And that actually made me realise, and I said to them, but what do you need from me? And they said, we want quality versus quantity. We want you to be present and high, not necessarily high energy, but, you know, positive and not feeling drained or tired or all of those things that often come with some challenging seasons in our business. They wanted me to be the best version of myself because that's what I was mentoring them to be. So they spun the mirror, which was very clever, very clever.

Jack O'Brien: I'm thinking if we just like maybe go a little layer deeper on the emotional psychological element, you don't have a clinical background, you've different tertiary education, but your background is not clinical. So I'd imagine so much of your identity may be caught up in leading the admin team. Can you maybe speak to the non-clinical owners, whether they're themselves non-clinical, their partner is clinical, And maybe the identity or the psychology, the emotion behind empowering your admin team. And so you as a non-clinical owner don't have to feel the burden of proving yourself. Can you maybe speak to that?

Bec Clare: Yeah. Proving my worth was a really big transition. that I had to do myself and working with the likes of Clinic Mastery mentors, reading the recommended resources and books and just absorbing myself in that. What I needed to become was identifying myself as a leader versus identifying myself as the person who looks after the admin team. And so by identifying myself as a leader, it meant that it also opened up other opportunities for me, whether it be here in coaching or the podcast or at events, because what I could then do was how can I amplify my impact as a leader beyond my admin team? It also allowed me to then lead parts of the clinical team, obviously with not necessarily the clinical aspect of practice, but leading people. So it was about what I referred to myself as internally and the measures that I put on myself was how do I move from this leader that is leading the admin team and the tasks that need to be done versus to leading the humans and how can I create a bigger impact beyond myself. That's what also allowed me to break free from needing to feel like I had to be in the clinic all the time.

Jack O'Brien: Right. So you're not in the admin area, reception desk all the time?

Bec Clare: No, absolutely not. Never. And it actually was a deliberate thing. I would often jump back on the front desk from time to time. If someone called in sick or we were short on cover, I would jump back in. And that worked for us for a season as we were going through a growth period until we could ensure that we had the revenue to sustain bringing someone else in to cover that balance. But we actually made an active choice that almost now, no matter how short we are, we will find an alternative solution than me going on the front desk. It's gotten to the point now that I would need to go into our Allie and I would need to look at the modules about how to operate some of our admin systems because they've changed so much since I last did them.

Jack O'Brien: Good. Good problem to have, right?

Bec Clare: Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: When you don't know what to do, then you can't just helicopter in and rescue them.

Bec Clare: Correct. So I always like to ask my team, so how do we actually do this process now that AI does part of this?

Jack O'Brien: Interesting. Okay, that's really cool. Thank you for speaking to some of that high level stuff. Let's get down into the weeds, the meat and potatoes of admin meetings. You mentioned earlier, you know, bigger meetings versus smaller. Who attends your admin team meetings?

Bec Clare: Ideally, we try and get all of our admin team to those, and potentially one of our clinic leads. Because some of the challenges that maybe our admin team face might be around the scripting for a particular service, or, hey, I'm having this challenge with this practitioner, they're always running behind schedule, that practitioner can give context to how that might unfold or potential strategies that are there. So we do try and have a leader within the clinic at those meetings.

Jack O'Brien: I think that's a really good one percenter for clinic owners to take away, maybe to include one of your practitioners or clinical team in your admin meetings. That's a beautiful cross-pollination. I like it.

Bec Clare: We also decided to do that because we wanted to bridge the gap, and I see this happen in clinics so often, is that there are two sets of teams. You have your practitioner team and you have your admin team, and they're often quite separate. little challenges interpersonally that happen within those teams. We've just found that that blends it really nicely. This is a challenge here the practitioners are aware of. Equally, our prac meetings, there's often an admin team member that will sit in just to inform the process that goes in behind something. It's just that cross-pollination.

Jack O'Brien: I love that. I'd be implementing that straight away for clinic owners listening. You mentioned start, stop, keep doing is a broad standing agenda item. How do those topics come about and what sort of regulation or moderation happens in those conversations?

Bec Clare: Initially, it was from myself regulating and moderating what was coming up and providing some themes as to what we wanted to discuss in those. Over time, the team have learned the pattern of those, and our values are really strong. So we're just running them through the values filter. We also pre-frame in our meetings that the stop doing is less about, say, be frank, less about having a whinge about something we don't like. And it's about, okay, something is perhaps challenging or not working in the clinic at the moment. That team member is also expected to bring some solutions to that conversation.

Jack O'Brien: Awesome.

Bec Clare: Yeah, exactly. This is what I don't like about it at the moment or this is how it's impacting my day. I can see it working better like this. I may not have all of the answers, but here are some suggestions so that we've thought through it. It becomes less of a whinge fest because otherwise meetings where you're talking about what should we stop doing as a clinic. can turn into that.

Jack O'Brien: It can be a slippery slope. And the same is true for what should we start doing. It can be quite frustrating for a team member who says, we should do this, we should do that, we should start this, and then you don't, inevitably you can't action every idea. So, I really love that you spoke to culture values and bring your ideas. We can't promise that we'll implement every single one, but your idea matters because that contribution could lead to the next great idea. Do you go about like moderating expectations in any different way or does that sum it up?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. We moderate expectations a couple of different ways. We have an ideas board and a suggestions board for our team where those ideas can always land. We want to hear those ideas It just may not be the season for them right now. This 12-month period, we've also concentrated as a team on rather than doing more, we want to be more sophisticated at what we do. So, the suggestions and the pre-frame to our team has been how can we be more sophisticated at everything we're doing before we layer in the complexity of more things. More things doesn't make us better. It's the depth of how well we do stuff that makes us better.

Jack O'Brien: I love that. Yeah, we don't want to be doing more necessarily. We don't want to be more wide inch deep type team members. Yeah. And yeah, you said something else there that's now slipped my mind, but it was really wise and profound.

Bec Clare: Ideas board perhaps, Jack?

Jack O'Brien: It's completely vanished. I was thinking about the next question and the past question. Nevertheless, my next question is, so often admin teams are, transient is not the right word, but we've got some part-timers, some full-timers, some early starters, some late starters. At least in my experience, I don't recall a time where every admin team member is in the building at the same time for 30 minutes. How do you navigate varieties of rosters?

Bec Clare: Mm, that is a logistical challenge. And what we still we still find challenging. Most clinics do. Most clinics I speak to are still finding that challenging. We go with the best case scenario. We try and pick a day that works for most. We then make sure the meeting is recorded and we ask for team members to contribute back into the threads or submit ideas prior. So it might be if you can't attend and you've got a burning question about something that's really challenging or something you want to suggest, submit a little video in the thread, give us warmth and give us context. We love a video submission for that because it's, like they're there in person. We can feel the tone a little bit better versus a written version of that. And I think that just really helps the team member feel involved. We do have an expectation that team members catch up on those meetings just so that they're in the loop.

Jack O'Brien: When you say catch up, you mean like watch the recording and read the slides?

Bec Clare: Yeah, watch the recordings. Yeah, go back and watch the recordings and then contribute their ideas in thread or catch up with a team member about how they can contribute to the actions as well so they don't just feel like they're left out. And our team days, which are quarterly, they are an expectation. So I carefully navigate through any leave requests or unavailability and try and schedule those where I can have pretty well everyone there. And we spend a whole day off site and half of the day is dedicated as an admin team meeting, admin team training. That's our real level up and where we focus and we go deep. Practitioners also carve off into their own PD space for that. That's really where we get some good, solid contribution and some training done together. It's less frequent than perhaps is the most ideal and that we would like. However, getting everybody in the room has been our preference.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I like it. And when you mentioned recording, how, what are the logistics of that? If you're just a laptop sitting over in the corner, you call it Larry, the laptop who does the recording, or is it, have you got other people like hybrid, some in the room, some on Zoom? How does it work?

Bec Clare: It's a bit of hybrid. So it's really just a laptop in the corner and some team members are on the laptop, some, we're multi-site. So the reality is that some of us are here in person and some of us are either offsite at home, in the car, on the way to uni.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, so we've got some in the room, some on Zoom. I remember my comment from previous. It was, you know, you alluded to it, the right idea at the wrong time is the wrong idea. And helping our team realise that like every idea is a good idea, it's not about the quality of the idea, it's the quality of the timing that dictates the quality of the idea. I really like that. Absolutely. My next question for you, in your observation across all of the clinics that you coach and mentor through our business academy, through our practice leaders program, which is when we say practice leaders, we're talking about practice managers, admin team leads, client care teams. So across that practice leaders program, where do you see admin meetings going off the rails and going wrong?

Bec Clare: Where there isn't a set agenda or a pro forma, where it's more of a chit-chat and a catch-up, that's where I see it becoming very frustrating. The other where it goes off the rails is where whoever is leading that, whether it be the practice manager or the clinic owner, walks away with more on their to-do list than when they walked in.

Jack O'Brien: Okay. So say more about that. Clinic owners having all the to-dos.

Bec Clare: My goal at walking out of a meeting is to have less on my to-do list than when I walked in. How do you… Empowering our team. If you're walking out with more, it means you are the problem solver. You're the solutions person and you're trying to control everything. And there are team members who can contribute in a way. And look, to be perfectly honest, if a team member can do it to 95% of your standard, that's excellent. And it's going to free up your time.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I actually heard it said recently, I think it was Pat Lencioni, listening to an amazing YouTube video with him and John Maxwell and Dave Ramsey. Anyway, he said, it's not just can they do it as 90, 95% as good as you, but can they do it like 70% as good as you with a teachable spirit?

Bec Clare: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: If they can do it, you know, half as good as you but they're teachable, let them do it. Let them make, you know, insignificant mistakes. Let them go for it.

Bec Clare: Exactly and I also figure for our team it may also mean that that system or that process or whatever it might be that action is implemented within days versus months and it's sitting on your to do list and it just doesn't get done. That's also where your team then. think that you're, you might be all talk, nothing gets actioned and it's because we've become the bottleneck and we've created that.

Jack O'Brien: Interesting. So again, do you, have you personally had to deal with that guilt of like, there's not much on my, well, at least not much from a meeting on my to-do list and they've got it all. How do you process that?

Bec Clare: Yeah, I definitely did find that really challenging. And then I actually looked at my to-do list and some team members actually just started to action stuff for me. And they said, oh, Beck, off the back of this meeting, I've actually already completed that. And I had it on my agenda for say next week or the week after. And I looked at it and went, that's actually better than what I could have done. So I'm going to give that to you now in future.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, so if that's where meetings go off the rails or go awry, when you think about some of the best meetings that you've been a part of or you've heard as a coach, what makes them work? What makes the best meetings work well?

Bec Clare: Team members coming ready and prepared because we know that team members, some will talk often and a lot and want to be able to contribute on the spot and others who are perhaps more reserved or quiet or a period of time thinkers are not going to contribute. So allowing everyone to be able to contribute in a meaningful way. And then it comes to rounding out the meeting about decisions, actions, and when. When do we expect this? So that's the accountability piece. If we're going to put up our hand to do something, when do you think, Jack, it's reasonable that you would have that completed by? I always ask the team member when they think is reasonable, and then we can adjust timeframes based on what my expectations are or I might say to them, so you think you're going to have that ready in two days? That seems, you know, adventurous, given what we've got happening in the clinic in the next two days, what if we gave you a little bit more scope? Or best case scenario, you do get it done. Let's have a fail safe of perhaps Monday. Or if a team member says, oh, I can have that ready for you in three weeks, just say, do you think we might be able to fast track that? Could you work with someone else who might be able to help you bring that timeframe forward? So I can always moderate those timeframes, but asking them what they think is fair and reasonable.

Jack O'Brien: And I like that because when a team member decides or contributes on the deadline, they're far more likely to own it and be accountable to it rather than just top down. Oh, the boss said I have to do it by Monday. It's like that's not motivating for anyone, right?

Bec Clare: They want accountability, but they also want to take charge and that sort of purpose part of it.

Jack O'Brien: So when we talk about setting deadlines or expectations, how do you know the work has actually been done? Like what does that closure of accountability loop look like? Do you check in on the next meeting or is it a Slack update? Like what is confirmation that actions have been done look like?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Our Slack is prolific. So that's where we'd normally hang out. So we'd report on, so if it's due at the next meeting, Halfway between those meetings, we would just check in and say, hey, where are we up to with this? What's going well with the project? What's the key challenge? Do you need any support? And really, when it comes to coming back a step and setting up what that project looks like and the timeframe, I lean to Brené Brown and paint done. Let's be really clear on what the actual outcome looks like. Because in my mind, I might go, this project start to finish looks like this for a team member. it might look very, very different. So let's be really clear on what actions are needing to be completed. I like that.

Jack O'Brien: Something that I've observed clinic owners also wrestle with is the notion of helping team members to show their work or show you're working because maybe it's just Aussie culture for those listening in the US or the UK, Canada, New Zealand, you maybe don't have this culture, but there's a distinctly Australian culture around not wanting to seem like you're bragging or showboating And therefore, we just quietly get our work done and don't really tell anyone about it. So something that I've worked hard on with teams that I lead is to get them to like, I trust that you're doing the job but show me that you're doing the job really well. Let me have a chance to celebrate, acknowledge, brag on you. So what I'm getting at here is, you know, we set expectations, to-dos, deadlines. It's a really healthy culture where a team shows that their work is done. And that might look like an update in Slack that says, hey team, I was supposed to do X, I've done that now, here's the link to it on Allie. I was tasked with solving this problem, consider it done, problem solved. That idea of showing your work and making it obvious that things are done. Because as a clinic owner, Beck, we don't want to We don't want to have to sit there and wonder and go like, oh, we delegated that to Jenny. I know she's pretty reliable, but I just I'm not sure if she nailed it or not. It removes that confusion, right?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Celebrating the work that's been done has been part of. core part of how we generated our values. So that you can see happening through Slack. Our team are also really good. And what I also see other team members, teams doing within the Practice Leaders program is as they're working through a task, they're posting an update and saying to the team, any advice about where we're heading with this? Does this look and feel like it's going in the direction we want this action to go in. And the distinction is advice versus feedback as well. And I learned that a while ago, perhaps from yourself. Jack, when we were coaching, or Daniel Gibbs was around, asking for advice means that we're open and receptive to that, and we see it as an opportunity to level up, versus feedback, there's almost this negative connotation with feedback. Hey, can I provide you with some feedback?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's like criticism.

Bec Clare: Criticism, right? So we openly ask for advice as to how we could improve the system ready for rollout at x date.

Jack O'Brien: I love that. It's, again, a really good one percenter for clinic owners. And whether it's relating to admin team meetings or anything else, yeah, advice or opinions versus feedback. I actually think it's inspired by Adam Grant at some level. You probably heard it from me because I quote it quite a lot. Feedback is past-oriented. It's talking about something that's already done. It's finished. It's in the books versus advice or opinions is very future-oriented. It's something that we can control, we can action and implement. And it also, you know, in the context that you're talking about, Bec, someone, you know, doing a task and asking for the advice or opinion of the rest of the team, it's like we're not islands, you know, operating independently. We're collaborating and working as a collective so that it's not completely dependent on one individual, right?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. And trying to pair team members up together who, you know, Jack, you and I have that real steel energy, very details, very numbers focused, love that dirt. You know, you've got Ben, who's your big thinky star energy. And so he's more the creative and loves the conceptual stuff. He's trying to actually pair team members together. That's also going to challenge them in the way that they think. But you're also going to get a really beautiful, well-rounded picture when you do that.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. So talk to me then about good meetings or you see the best doing, like how do you assess or measure the effectiveness of a meeting? Like how do you know when you walked out and you go, that was pretty bloody good. I did a good job. How would you define that?

Bec Clare: being a numbers person, I'd love to put a rating or something on it. But, you know, you can often feel the energy of the team. Do people walk away with, you know, energised chatter as they're walking away from the meeting? Or does the Slack channel continue to go after the meeting? Do people feel like they're engaged with that content? So I see meetings not only as a purpose for making decisions, but a purpose of aligning ourselves and re-energising ourselves. And even the way that I see teams And clinics do this, the timing of their team days, we often see a peak in energy, perhaps after a team day, you start to see it just wane a little bit, maybe winter has a contributing factor. And then you see it peak back up again in the lead up to a team day. And so it's about getting that sort of flow working really nicely.

Jack O'Brien: There's a couple of things you said there I was jotted down, it's worth touching on. Alignment is key and you know, as much as we want productive meetings, we want productive in the efficient sense but we also want productive in a cultural sense. And sometimes, not all the time, but I've noticed that Disengagement from a meeting can be the canary in the coal mine of a team member that's maybe on the way out or at least on the rocks. When they're checking their phone, when we have a no phones policy, when they're staring out at the sky, when you ask for their contribution and they say, I've got nothing to add. consistently, that disengagement is a real canary in the coal mine, a real yellow flag to press in on. So meetings, not only are they efficient, we want them to have a cultural alignment effect as well.

Bec Clare: The canary for me, Jack, is when we do wins around the grounds and someone, we do wins every meeting. So you know you should come with a win of some kind. And we're going around the grounds and I was like, oh, no win. Nothing really good.

Jack O'Brien: What do you do in that case? Do you press and wait for them or do you just move on?

Bec Clare: I say, okay, let's have a think. Surely there's been something great that's happened to you. Have you had a really good coffee lately? Let's come back to you. We always circle back to that person, but we do keep moving and we do keep the energy going in the circle or the virtual room, but we do come back.

Jack O'Brien: That's good. That's a really good one.

Bec Clare: And we call it out in the moment as well.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it kind of feels weird if you don't type thing.

Bec Clare: Okay.

Jack O'Brien: So yeah, what I wrote down about good meetings is that cultural alignment that often it's not about information dissemination, but it is a reminder meeting. Craig Rochelle often says our job as CEOs is CROs, the chief reminding officer. We need to almost recalibrate back to this is our values. This is our focus for this 90 days. This is the project, keep it front of mind. And so there is a reminder element And then finally, you know, you mentioned the numbers about a good meeting. It's actually a good practice and we did this inside a lot of clinic mastery meetings for a finite period, maybe three month or six month period at the end of a meeting to ask for a rating out of 10 and a sentence of context. And it's super subjective, right? It's not like there's a rubric but it starts to it starts to elicit a little bit of feedback that's helpful for us as owners or moderators. And it's also helpful for our team to start to think about what does make a meeting a 9 out of 10? What does make a meeting a 4 out of 10? And something that I observed in our teams was the same meeting that I thought Let's say it's mediocre, lackluster, maybe a 6 out of 10. There would still be some folks who would score that at 8 or a 9 because they loved it. And there'd still be folks that would score it a 2 or a 3 and it was a major flop. When I thought it was just vanilla, some folks still thought it was awesome or negative. So, you know, getting that rating, that feedback, it serves a couple of, yeah, a couple of different purposes. Have you ever tried that or have you seen it work at all?

Bec Clare: I've seen it work, and in a clinic mastery setting I've seen it work. I want to ask you a question about that. In fact, Jack, we haven't used it in our clinic. I'll put my hand up and say we haven't, and probably the reservation is my ego. But I might do it if we've got an upcoming team day in about two weeks. So, well, hey, I might ask for a rating and see how good my team day skills are.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there? Yeah, I mean, it is a moment of vulnerability, but I mean, what's the alternative? That our team members just keep it to themselves and they don't… Well, exactly.

Bec Clare: We don't have an opportunity to improve and create something that is meaningful to them and actually hits the mark. Jack, in terms of… Actually asking for that feedback firstly how would you go about it and second is in what platform or method would you ask team members to contribute is it a direct message to yourself or is it a group chat and if it is a group chat. How do you perhaps combat team members just writing the same thing and scoring it, seeing someone contribute, you know, a six and someone contribute a nine and then go, oh, yeah, I thought that too.

Jack O'Brien: Got to change it. Yeah. Okay, good. So, the way we would do it typically would be through Slack threads and we would ask our team to type in your score or your comment or whatever, do not hit send. So yes, this is a moment where people pull out their phones or their laptop and it's like, we're gonna create a thread, type in your response, but do not hit send. And then you look around the room, wait till everyone finishes typing. And then you say, okay, on three, we're all gonna hit send. One, two, three, click. and all the responses come through. Now there's a reason for that, a couple of reasons. Number one, it doesn't bias other people's perspectives. So you're exactly right, we don't want influence to mask someone's true thoughts. So that would be reason number one. But reason number two, now this is not, I wouldn't say controversial, but perhaps polarising, is I believe, and we at CM, believe in open, transparent feedback, not anonymous feedback. Now, there are select cases, perhaps, where anonymous feedback, but that is the exception. The rule should not be anonymity. Because if we want people to make contributions and feedback, we want them to be able to put their name to it. Be confident that you've created a safe enough place for people to publicly share their commentary. And so doing it in the Slack thread, yeah, means people get to own it and it opens up other commentary. So there's that component. And yeah, Here's how I would solicit it. I'd say, give us your score out of 10, again, quite subjective, but 10 being awesome, one being horrible, and how can we improve that score? So it's not just, oh, I gave it a three out of 10, because you forgot my name. It's like, oh, that's not helpful. It's like, if you're going to give it a three out of 10, how would you make it a four? If you're going to score this meeting an eight out of 10, what would make it a nine? And so we're always looking at like, what's the opportunity to improve, not just to throw mud. Does that make sense? We're asking, and you know, I think it's Adam Grant again, but he says that humans have this innate desire to improve. incapacity to not give their opinion when asked. You know, if I was to ask you your opinion on how the crows went this year in the footy, or if you wanna give me your opinion on Google versus Microsoft, it's like, you have to give your opinion. You can't not give it. So therefore, as clinic owners, how can we leverage that psychology for the collective good and solicit people's opinions on making progress? Does that make sense?

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Jack, you touched on before creating a safe space for someone to publicly rate a meeting a 2 out of 10, where they might go, hang on a minute, I'm telling my boss that their meeting was a 2. Is that going to jeopardise my future employment prospects or whatever it might be? How do you go about, and this is a long-winded answer, I guess, is how do you create a space where someone feels safe to give you a 2?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. And it's a really important question particularly in the context of admin team meetings because of that, you know, older sibling, younger sibling, you know, scenario that you spoke to earlier. And so, it's in that vein of, you know, Simon Sinek, leaders eat last kind of concept of there's some places where we need to go first and show vulnerability, lead with vulnerability. So, what that could look like, Bec, is as a clinic owner, sometimes you might say, I'm going to score myself. You score yourself as well. You're part of the Slack thread, right? Because none of us nail 10 out of 10 meetings every time. So what that safety looks like is yourself contributing to that thread and saying, I give myself a 5 out of 10. And I could make it a six by getting my agenda out earlier to those period of time thinkers. So showing where your own flaws are and getting better. And then each time someone does show some vulnerability, maybe they do give you a low score or they contribute feedback that might be a little bit touchy. It's acknowledging that and not blowing up or embarrassing them, but really validating that contribution. When people are vulnerable, it's our responsibility as leaders to validate and show the rest of the room who's watching along that when you're vulnerable, it's not going to get thrown back in your face. When you're vulnerable, it's not going to be used against you. that in fact it's acknowledged, it's appreciated. You wanna show gratitude for people being honest and making sure that we avoid groupthink and we need harmony. Pat Lencioni speaks about this notion of artificial harmony and how toxic artificial harmony is. It's like, If we're creating a space where people aren't honest, they're just saying the harmonious thing. They're just saying what they think should be said. It's fake, it's artificial, and it's a recipe for cultural slop, right? We need honesty and vulnerability and candour, not artificial harmony. And so when, people show that honesty and vulnerability, acknowledge that, take it on board, and prove to the rest of the team that it's a safe place to do so.

Bec Clare: Absolutely. Jackie touched on a couple of things there. And I think it comes back to also pre-framing that you're on a pathway as a leader. You want to continue to improve the way that you facilitate meetings or the way that you facilitate team days or your ability to do a certain thing. So it's like, I would really love your feedback as about how I could level up or how this experience could be better for you. And feedback is a gift because that's going to allow me and us to level up. and then thanking them for their ability to give feedback and following up on what that looks like.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, spot on. I think there's a shift that we see in the best leaders that they don't feel the pressure to have to be the guru or the top dog in the paddock. It's my job to draw the best out of others, not to be, I heard someone refer to it recently, if you think about a music label or a production label, It's not your job to be the rock star. It's your job to be the factory that creates other rock stars. You don't have to be the hero. You don't have to be the top dog. You don't have to feel the guru pressure. It's your job to create champions out of others. And in fact, it's better if you know less. I mean this with the intention is the utmost respect Ben Lynch is brilliant at this is that he draws out the shining lights in others and doesn't have to know everything but be able to draw the best out of others. So Beck, as we land this, I'm thinking about two different types of clinic owners. One, the clinic owner that has some admin meetings happening, but they're lackluster. And I'm thinking about the clinic owner who doesn't have admin meetings and is thinking about instituting this as an idea. I'd love you to give a parcel of advice for both of those, the one with lackluster meetings and the one about to start meetings. What would you say to them?

Bec Clare: I would say create an agenda that works for you and be consistent at implementing that. Our team will fall into a really nice rhythm where we can provide them with that consistency and spark joy. If your meetings are lackluster, find something fun that brings joy. Start it with a huddle. It might be that on rotation, someone's going to share a joke. Bring some fun and some life to these meetings so that people want to turn up and they want to lean into those. And the same advice would go for someone starting out, is find a rhythm and find an agenda that works. And the biggest thing for both, make decisions at those meetings. So land the plane at each and every meeting, go, so we have decided if you've got five minutes to go and we're still talking around, okay, five minutes ago, we need to make a decision on this. Let's just vote. Let's just put it in Slack. Actually make a decision and bring things to a close.

Jack O'Brien: I love that. So, you know, for listeners, if your meetings are enjoyable and people want to be at them, you know, you've just added a little agenda item that people love to be at, number one, and number two, that there's always closure. There's always decisions, actions, and accountabilities. Team members will start to learn that these are productive, valuable investments of their time. I really like it, Beck. Thank you for your contributions. And listeners, if you head to clinicmastery.com slash podcast, again, that's clinicmastery.com slash podcast, you'll be able to find this episode on admin team meetings. There'll be a link there to get in touch, to have a conversation with us. If you need some help levelling up your admin team meetings, of course, all the links, show notes, everything that we've touched on here today, but head over to clinicmastery.com slash podcast for this episode and show notes. Oh, Beck, I think we should maybe delete Ben and Daniel from the Zoom. So, I'm liking this energy. Yeah, I think we're onto something. We'll see. In fact, listeners, if you're still here, head over to Spotify. In the comments, we read all the comments and let us know your controversial opinions. Should we have Ben or Daniel back or not? Maybe even Hannah. I wonder what's happened to Hannah. MIA. We'll see. Maybe we'll have Hannah back. I don't know about Ben. Anyway, we'll have Hannah back. Maybe it's you mean Hannah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see that in the comments over on Spotify. Hey, Bec, thank you so much for joining us today.

Bec Clare: Pleasure.

Jack O'Brien: Listeners, thank you for joining us. Trust this has been super helpful. Again, get in the Spotify comments, leave us a review and rating, and ultimately head to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast to see if we can help you. We would love to grow your clinic, amplify your impact, and build clinics for good. That's it for us, Bec. See you on the next episode. See you later.