Ben Lynch: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode. Why this is a good little filter or stress test. If I said to anyone listening, what's the one main thing that you're working on right now? If that's hard to answer, then you've got a real opportunity to get super focused.

Hannah Dunn: I got diagnosed with ADHD. That is why the calendar system works so well for me to rewrite out my day. Like it is the ADHD, but it's about the lack of systems supporting the ADHD.

Ben Lynch: How can you decide on the project that is going to make your life and your business better in the next one to three months? That's all we're trying to do.

Hannah Dunn: Clinics that do well are the ones who are able to put on their blinkers and block out the noise.

Ben Lynch: You first need to have your goals and a version of a strategy defined first. Otherwise, you're just picking the shiny next object. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to have a successful start to the new year. We're diving into the projects you should prioritise. And trust me, you'll want to hear Hannah's take on how her leadership team takes control of clinic planning. Plus, stick around for when we talk about removing yourself from the day-to-day operations so you can make progress on these projects. 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 clinics, 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 a subject line, podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 337. My name is Ben Lynch. Good to be joined by you again, Hannah Dunn, Director of DOTS and OT Service in Melbourne. The team size at the moment, I've been kind of like doing this with Beck as well. Is it 32, 33? No, it's closer to 25 OTs and 5 support team. Very nice, good ratio as well. I think we should talk about that on another episode coming up around ratios of admin to therapist. It's certainly big in the OT speech, NDIS space, right, as we talk a lot of around cost efficiencies. But today we're going to be talking about planning and picking the projects because you mentioned this on a previous episode around what projects should you choose to work on. And I've got a really key question to ask you about the observations you've seen in the key performers, high performers that you've worked with this year. But before we do dive in, let me tear it up because this just sets the scene for folks that are listening in, reflecting on 2025 and then preparing for 2026. And I wanted to run it through the lens of a lot of clinic owners this time of year are reaching out to us and we hear a couple of different narratives. The first is that there are clinic owners that really want to reduce the clinical or operational reliance on them. Perhaps they're super busy right now, but they'd like to take a step back, provide an opportunity for other team members to step up, and they want to work on their business. We hear this phrase a lot, like, I want to spend more time working on my business. And today we're going to answer, well, what do you work on? Secondly, I guess there are clinic owners that maybe are feeling a little bit stuck. They've been doing kind of all the right things, installing policies and systems and training, but they're feeling still overwhelmed or perhaps there's big things that they haven't been able to get to. And then there's the clinic owners that are just flat out busy, you know, they're sort of chasing their tail and they just need help to get out of that space and working more proactively on their business. And there's no shortage of ideas or strategies for you to work on. A lot of things can work. It's what will work and what's the right next move to make. So I wanted to tap into firstly your observations, then I'll share mine of the clinic owners that you've worked with this year who have really moved the needle And specifically, what have you noticed about them when it comes to how they think about selecting the projects or scopes of work that they pursue as distinct from those that have maybe struggled this year?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think a few things come to mind. And you said the word proactive. I think that that is ultimately what we see, that people are proactive rather than reactive in what they are setting their goals for for 2026 or for the next quarter. And that is something that we see. And when I say being proactive, what that looks like is setting dedicated time aside to actually plan. And we've spoken before about the fact that I don't know where this quote comes from. We spoke about it maybe being from the… Attribute it to men. For our working week maybe, but you know when you put time into planning it actually saves you time in the long run even though it feels really hard sometimes to put that time aside. It is the clinics that do well and move the needle are the clinics that set that time and are really intentional with what they're going to work on. And I think the other big thing that we see is the clinics that do well are the ones who are able to put on their blinkers and block out the noise and block out the noise from other clinics or what others are doing. And I know that I am tempted to do that at times and just think, oh, they're doing that. Maybe we should do that. Or they're increasing their fees. Maybe that's what we need to do. Or trying to find quick fixes sometimes without doing the research or the evidence behind it.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, that's a really great point around the comparison game. There's that great, I think it's a Teddy Roosevelt quote around comparison is the thief of joy. And so often you can look and compare yourself to other people and feel like, ah, you know, we haven't got to that yet, or I've been planning to get to that. And I can kind of feel a little bit bummed out that we haven't made it there. But I think there's also merit in taking inspiration from other people to go, oh, look, if we could do that at the right time, it could make a meaningful difference to the client experience, the team experience, et cetera. So the two things that you said, they're proactive slash they take time to plan. Secondly, they stay focused on that thing and do it. I wanna tap into both of these because they are my observations as well. I think everyone would probably say, yeah, it sounds good to proactively plan, but why don't they get to it? What do you see as common narratives or barriers to people actually sitting down? Is it that it's hard to get the time in the first place, or they get to that time and then they don't know what to do with it?

Hannah Dunn: Yes, both of those things. And I think also we see a lot of clinic owners who want to be available to their team. And this is definitely something that I found tricky that you set that time aside, you know, maybe it's four hours, one afternoon, and all of a sudden a team member is asking for a meeting or a professional is asking for a meeting to do a case conference or something. you don't prioritise that. I would say, you know, yes, there are things that come up, but if you can put them to another time, absolutely do that. And if you can't, like, let's say it's the children's hospital calling and saying, this is the only time that this meeting happens, don't just cancel your planning time, reschedule it. So make sure that it goes back in the diary, which is definitely something I think you'd be doing, Ben, and have spoken about doing previously too.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point in terms of when we schedule patients into our diary, we make a commitment that we're going to be there. We're going to show up unless, you know, you're sick, something bad happens. But, you know, at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, you've got that family coming in. You don't just say, oh, sorry, I'm not going to do it. And you roll up to the clinic. But yet we do that to ourselves as business owners. We sort of put a time block in, I'm going to do the planning here or the finances there or the marketing there. The day rolls around and you go, I'm not going to show up for myself in that time. I'm going to go to my emails or my Slack and I'm going to answer those things or I get distracted by something else. Now, as you pointed out, you have to be reactive, you have to be responsive to your team when they need. But more often than not, both you and I would see this with clinic owners and have struggled with it at various times ourselves of when you make that commitment to do the planning, do it. I think one of the key things with the planning side of things in creating the space is who, what, when, where, why and how. Really simple, I come back to those things. Who needs to be with you or not And often that sort of ties into the where, because I see clinic owners try and do this in the clinic, maybe in their treatment room, on the tea room or close by, and they get those distractions. In a similar way, you might want to look at, well, I don't have slack. or email open. Perhaps you're going to a paper planning first before you go.

Hannah Dunn: I bet you didn't think you'd hear me say that, did you? We love the sticky note post-its that we put on the wall, like the big ones. Very tactile.

Ben Lynch: Yes, for all the speech and OT and the paediatric therapists. I love that process as well on the whiteboard or the stickies around the office. And so I often think of like who needs to be there or who doesn't need to be there. There may be a distraction. We've spoken about this in finances, like your bookkeeper or your accountant might need to be there. When does it happen? It's scheduled in the day and pick the best time of the day. Maybe in the morning, you need to be responsive and reactive to your team. So, do it in the afternoon or do it on the weekend or block out a time where you're actually You get an Airbnb and you go down the coast or somewhere else to actually do this deeply. So I love your point. Quarantine that time. And I think everyone has their preferences. I'd have to say when clinic owners actually block out a half or a full day and they go somewhere separate, it's just the best way to do it. I'll do a little bit each day. I think you've got to immerse yourself in this. There's a quote that is like, Think once, and then just do. You don't want to have to be continually remaking these decisions. What other elements have you found useful in the proactive planning stage to make sure that you get clear on what you're actually going to do in the next month, quarter, or year?

Hannah Dunn: And just talking about, just before I jump into that, like some examples of what we've done at DOTS, we've had different ways that it's looked. We had a retreat this year, so the OT team lead and the operations manager and one of our senior team leaders came a day early and we absolutely had essentially the Airbnb or the hotel apartment where we planned it out. But also it doesn't have to be that expensive. We've also done a library, so we've gone out for lunch together, left the clinic, gone out for lunch together and then gone to our local library where we had a room booked, which is a free thing to do often.

Ben Lynch: That's a brilliant idea.

Hannah Dunn: And that's probably one of our favourite. When we're in Melbourne, we just go out for lunch and then we've also had the time to have the chatter and then we can delve into work.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point. So for those clinic owners with a leadership team compared to those that are maybe still heavily on the tools, maybe got two or three team members, it does look different. You've got more resources to work with, literally human capital to help you implement these projects. Just talk to the clinic owners with a leadership team, whether it's established or emerging. What are some of the essential ingredients to making the most of that time? Like, is it in the preparation work? Have you clarified the goals? Like, just help us understand what you've found to ensure that time is valuable.

Hannah Dunn: We definitely do pre-planning around what we think we're going to be talking about. And there was a day in which we had a full day a couple of years ago where our operations and finance manager came for the morning and the OT team leaders came for the afternoon. So I think it's really about what are your projects and as you said, who needs to be in the room, what are the actions we're taking.

Ben Lynch: Absolutely. So in the preparation work, what are you doing? Are you posing some questions of people coming with their projects or these are what I think we should work on. And then it's a selection. Just talk us through what you've found.

Hannah Dunn: We have a brain dump section on our 120 day plan that we've spoken about our 12 month plan. So we already have some projects that we know that we want to work on or that we have seen fault in, like it might be getting NDI signed on file, for example. And so we'll have already listed essentially what some of those projects will be, but there'll be other projects that we haven't thought about that will come up through discussion with having those people in the room. But just having some systems where I think that is what we find the best at doing. It's when those shiny objects come in and you think, yes, that's a great thing for us to do. Not necessarily deviating from the current plan, but having a space where you can store those so that you have them to come back to. But also acknowledging that sometimes those ideas are better than what you're working on now. And you do pivot, and you do make a decision that that is going to be more valuable.

Ben Lynch: There's a guy called Jason Freed. They run a company called 37 Signals. They've got a book called Rework, a bunch of other books as well. And they're typically talking about the software space. But what I've actually found is a lot of project management tools that we use, whether it's Asana or Trello, the Kanban methodology, actually originate in software land and kind of filter through into business services. And so actually understanding some of those points of reference is really quite good. And a soundbite that they have is around, I want to do what I think, not what I think. And we see this a lot where people go, I'm going to plan out 12 months. These are all the things I'm going to do every month or every quarter. And then they feel obliged to do it in that order because that's what they decided on back at the start of the year. And maybe they don't make the progress and they think, oh, I haven't got around to that. But actually, What I love about your distinction there is, in a software world, they would talk about a backlog. This is the backlog of ideas that we could pursue, we think are valuable, but we're going to reconsider the value, the merit, the impact of those things at the right time, which might be the end of the month or the end of the quarter, to figure out what's the next best thing. I think you're touching on an important point. And that is, you first need to have your goals and a version of a strategy defined first. Otherwise, you're just picking the shiny next object. So just talk a little bit to that side of things, getting clear on where we're going over the next 12 months or three years and how that helps your decision making on the projects that you pursue in the next month or three

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, having a really clear three to five year plan on where you want your business to go and also understanding what you want your role to be in that. Maybe you do want to continue to see clients and have some leadership time. But if you're going to grow your team, maybe that means you need to have a strong leadership team if you're going to stay on the tools or. Maybe you want to step out of your business completely. And those two businesses are going to have very different goals. So us being able to plan those 12 months and what we see the best doing is being really clear on what their future steps are so that they can then be clear on what their immediate steps are. And one thing that we skipped over before was you mentioning about like feeling like you've got to get to emails and Slack and things like those smaller things that can eat up your time. I think what we see the best doing there is also scheduling time for those things. So it doesn't have this draw of feeling like, oh, I haven't got to that yet. But knowing that you have that time coming up or you've previously had that time to clear it before you get into that planning.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point around eat that frog. I think you mentioned a few times recently and one of the principles in there essentially starting your day with the proactive thing. So if habitually one of the first things you open up is your email or your Slack or your Microsoft Teams and then you're reacting to everything. just take a sort of read of the room and go, how much is this actually impacting your ability to work on the proactive things? Because all of a sudden you're down this rabbit hole of thinking of all the things you need to solve and the people you need to reply to. Again, I'd nuance it with, okay, depending on the season in your business, maybe you do need to be that reactive and responsive. But if it keeps going like that, are you ever going to be able to get to those things? So I think being able to make progress and that's we spoke about the daily huddle that we do is what is your priority? Yes. Not priorities, priority for today. And ideally, it links back to the one main thing that you're working on. In fact, find this is a good little filter or stress test. If I said to anyone listening, what's the one main thing that you're working on right now? If that's hard to answer, then you've got a real opportunity to get super focused. I want to ask you about focus. Yes. Take this where you want. A number of clinic owners will say to us, whether formally or self-diagnosed, that they have ADHD. They struggle with focus. And you and I would probably say, we see and hear a lot of clinic owners with the shiny ball syndrome. Maybe that's a version of them reflecting on their brain activity. I'm no psych. But certainly as business owners, there's a lot that's requiring or demanding our attention or focus. So how have you found striking a balance? Where the balance is the wrong term, maybe. How have you found being effective? What are some of the characteristics, things you've set up to help you succeed, others succeed, where focus can be challenging?

Hannah Dunn: And I'm happy to share a personal story here in that I got diagnosed with ADHD formally like three years ago. When I started working with kids, I thought, yeah, this sounds familiar as I got more and more into it. But I had one of my kids diagnosed and I never felt like I needed a formal diagnosis. But once one of my children was diagnosed, I thought this is important for me to also do because she was trialing medication. I wanted to trial medication. And I did trial medication and I found that it made me really focused on one thing at a time. And what it really allowed me to do was say, oh, this is why people say to me, how do you get done everything that you do? And I thought, if this is the way that people are working in everyday life, I understand why they can't run a business and why they can't do it. So I actually came off the medication because I found that it just made me really linear and I take it on days where I will need it potentially. But the thing that I found was that I think sometimes our ADHD brains are a huge strength, that we can jump from task to task, get a bit done, move forward, keep on track. But I think to do that, we need to have really good lists. We need to have really good ways of tracking what we're working on, because if it's not in front of us, it's forgotten. That is why the calendar system works so well for me to rewrite out my day, because it means I can look at what is happening there. And then I can put in those extra tasks in between formalised sessions. And so I think when we're working with people who feel like their chaos and their focus isn't working, it's also why I have a leadership team. And this was on my mind as well. It is why I don't do planning days on my own. I cannot do, you know, I need that body double. I need someone there who is pushing me along and why I love group work. And, you know, I really struggle with that individual work, which I think we hear a lot from our members and from other people who have different brains. And I think it's just about us really helping people find the strategies that work for them. But I would say that for all ADHD brains, planning, routine and structure, is absolutely what we need to help these clinicians to do to focus, while also allowing there to be the chaos that is looking at all the different objects, just having a system where it is brain dumping it onto a document so that you know that it's still there but it's coming out of your head. Because I think those clinicians that we work with who really say to us, oh, I've got ADHD, I can't do it, or I've got ADHD, I just do X, Y, and Z, is not necessarily, and you know, you can send in all the comments to say it is the ADHD, like it is the ADHD, but it's about the lack of systems supporting the ADHD. And so if we can get those systems in place and support you to find what works for you, then that's gonna help. And Travis, one of our coaches at Clinic Mastery, we have a, Clinic Mastery retreat before our members retreat and we were sitting around in a circle doing the vulnerability cards and Travis mentioned that he started doing the 5am club and he really struggled with it. He found that it was not the right rhythm for him and he was doing it because everyone like we talk a lot about the 5am club. And he decided that that wasn't working for him, so he now has a later rising time. And it was a real moment for me to go, ah, just because everyone else is finding 5am really successful, I'm going to try a different rhythm too. And I think it's so good for us to try different things, whether we've got neurodivergent brains or not, and really Again, put those blinkers on, get rid of the noise around you and really work out whether it works for you. And I spoke to Trevor the other day and said to him that had a real impact on me and really made me think about what am I doing because other people have said it's good versus what I'm feeling in myself.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point that you make, a couple actually. One, you leaning into that as a strength. I think no matter whether it's that or anything else, when folks want to use something more as an excuse rather than, well, how can I leverage this as a strength, which you've done, which is fantastic. It allows you then to look for solutions, like you said, which is, I said you made multiple great points there, which is number two, solutions. For you to go, okay, well, if this is how I operate actually when I'm at my best, when I find I'm effective and in flow or whatever your version is, it's because of these things, or maybe I could do with those things, leadership team. Maybe I'm not the best person actually to lead that day, but have someone else lead it because I'm much better in that moment or it keeps me focused. So I love that by doing that self-reflection, you're actually then looking at, well, practically, what do I do to get the best parts of that? And then how do I accommodate the parts where, you know, it doesn't help me be most effective? medication, you spoke to others, leadership team, the structure of the day, those are all good things. And I also love your point of, it's not about, oh, you know, so-and-so said to do this, and it doesn't work. Well, it might not work for you, but I love, you wanna keep testing and trying different things. There is no one way to run a clinic. If there was, you know, that would be it. You would just get it, install it, and your life would be sweet. And so I think that's where it comes back to what is the version of success that we so often say that you want, you know, the meaning that you want from your clinic, what are the outcomes that you want to achieve, sort of those meaningful milestones, and that doesn't look like growing to a team of 30 or 300, it's whatever matters to you. And then I think so much of this is simplified in my mind. And that is you don't need to do anything more to your business, right? But given you're in business, you probably want things to be better. So how can you decide on the project that is going to make your life and your business better in the next one to three months? That's all we're trying to do is like pick things that are gonna make it easier or more efficient and perhaps more commercially successful as well, which includes clients get a great experience and team get a great experience. So I think a lot of pressure is taken off. If you're in this for the long run, you don't need to do all these projects. Like we've got so many here and we'll reference some in a moment. But I think when you're clear on the outcome that you want in the next 12 months to three years, it helps simplify some of the decisions you make today. So a couple of really great points that you made around the focus side of things. How do you ensure your week is set up to make progress or even your month? to follow through on these plans. It's all well and good to have a plan, but actually we find the planning probably pretty easy, pretty practical. It's actually doing the plan. What's that quote? Like, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. It's like, so how do you and how do you see others set themselves up to make progress on that plan now they've got it?

Hannah Dunn: I think one of the other things is that we haven't spoken to yet but is important to just mention here is that sitting down and looking at what your ideal week is, I think we've spoken previously about ideal weeks, but I think what we do well is looking at our clinicians' calendars and seeing where they have space to fit another client in or if they say to us, I'm too busy, I haven't done it, pulling that up and saying, oh, well, And I've spoken to this before where I'll say, it looks like you're staring at the wall and watching the paint dry in this part of your calendar. And I'm sure that's not the case, but what happened there? We do the same with the members that we coach. When someone says, I'm too busy, it's too hard, I don't have time, we pull up that calendar and say, Is it that we don't have time or is it that we're not being as effective with our time use? And so I'm currently working on my own ideal week for next year and I've got a member, a couple of members working on it where I just say, just forget about what the requirements are of the job at the minute. Just write out what your ideal week is and then we can work on getting there. But also, let's work out what is your week going to look like, whether you do it on a fortnight, like you do two weeks, four weeks, I do a four week, where it's just rotating. And it's things like, this is where I'm going to work on projects, this is where I'm going to do maybe not planning as such if you've just got those four weeks but it'd be working on the business rather than in the business and then you can get down to the finer details but just having a look over those four weeks and really or two weeks or one week whatever your rhythm is and getting clear about what is your ideal week, where do you want to pick the kids up from school, where do you want to be able to go to the gym, where do you want to get in all those things that you need to do and then that is how we get a lot of success with achieving those projects and working on those projects. And now I've forgotten what your original question was, Ben.

Ben Lynch: But that was a great answer, nonetheless. I'm interested in projects, picking the right projects, I think we've spoken about. I think at the end of the day, why are we choosing these pieces of work, these scopes of work? It's to create some outcome. Okay, well, what is that outcome? It's to improve the client experience. Okay, well, how would you know you've improved the client experience? Well, we're going to measure it through net promoter score, you know, client surveys. We're going to look at it in some of the stats like rebooking or cancellation rate. or it's something related to CPD and team. Okay, we're doing that because we wanna improve the competency of the team or the utilisation of the team in this specific type of client. And in fact, I would actually start with the outcomes first and then work out, well, what would be the highest value, most impactful piece of work or system or change that we could make to achieve that outcome? So I think you get super clear on that. That's pretty practical. But where I see a lot of folks go wrong is in scoping out these pieces of work. They go, all right, we're going to work on this thing, this project. Maybe they hand it off to a leadership team, and this is quite common. And you go, we've been working on that thing for six months. Where is it at? Like, all of a sudden, it's blown out. It started this like, we're going to implement, I don't know, cancellation policy or something like that. All of a sudden, it's taken all of these other tentacles that have gone out and the scope of work has blown out. Therefore, the time has blown out. Therefore, we haven't yet perhaps seen any of the tangible progress. What are some of the things that you do that ensure the scope of work doesn't blow out?

Hannah Dunn: Absolutely. So I think we've spoken before around setting those really clear goals and we do use the Clinic Mastery template of a 120-day plan and then what we haven't necessarily gotten down to the detail of is that those 120-day plans break it up into each month and Clinic Mastery have used headings being Activate, so where you're really starting that project off, you're getting it going, Sustain, Amplify and Play. So Sustain is that we've got it in place, we're looking at what those measurables are, our Amplify is what do we need to tweak, what do we need to change, is there things that need to happen, and what is the play, like where then play you might define play better, but then it's out, it's in place, it's going.

Ben Lynch: It's in play. And as some people have taken quite literally, it's time for a break. Like we sort of reset, um, maybe it's holiday time, renewal time before we go again.

Hannah Dunn: We've renamed them because I name everything dots or anything and ours are develop, optimise, tweak and success. that level of detail is how you don't allow things to blow out. Because underneath each one of those months, it might be March, April, May, June, that you've got in there what is the outcome and what are you working on, and getting a really clear parameter with the person who is running that project. The other thing that we do, which you may have heard me talk about on the podcast, and it was something I got advice from Shane Davis on, and he does at Profeet as well, is we have a channel with our coordinators, and they do a two to three minute video just to update us on how they're going. And their clinical mentor is aware of what project they're working on so that they can support them there as well. And we've had really big projects like getting groups up and running, for example, where we've had, we're on to our third person doing that. It just wasn't the right fit for the first two. And the first two are excellent OTs and they're really good clinically, but just their brain wasn't working in the way of getting those groups up. Or they got a bit of the work done and that allowed this current person, Eliza, to get the groups up and running. And I just earlier, Ben, you spoke to like changing and thinking about staying on the same project. I just really want to highlight not feeling like a failure if the project doesn't launch that, you know, then there are multiple reasons that that doesn't happen. And it's again around the systems and not the person. And it may just not have been the right time or the right avenue. And maybe the project needs tweaking or the person isn't as passionate as we initially thought they might be.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point because we have this critical thinking lens when it comes to patients and diagnosis. We're looking at what are the contributing factors? What is the history here? What is the assessment? And we're trying to understand how did we get to this diagnosis? And then what are the different types of interventions that we could do therapy-wise? And not all of them are going to work exactly as we intended, but we've got more in our utility belt to use. But what I often see when it comes to the business operations side of things for clinic owners is they don't use that same level of thinking. To your point, it's not as simple as, oh, that person was no good at it. It's like, what were the factors that perhaps led to that not working? Well, we didn't give them a clear enough scope. We didn't give them a clear enough deadline. We didn't have a feedback loop for them to give us updates on their progress. We weren't clear about what success looked like. There's so many different factors. And yes, maybe one of those is, it was the wrong person. And that's okay to say, okay, what did we learn about that? What did we learn about that person's strengths? Actually, rather than just say they weren't good at the classes or the group rollout, they were really good in this one section, ideation. When it came to like ideas, creative ideas, they were brilliant. Where it fell down was the mechanics piece of coming up with all the logistics to make it happen. But they are brilliant in the ideation stage. So I actually want to use them in some other areas when it comes to the creative, how could we solve this problem, knowing that they're probably not the one to come up with the logistics and mechanics, but somebody else is. And vice versa, someone's brilliant at mechanics, but they can only think about it in this one way. I love that learning about team members is even setting that up and saying, here's what I've learned in observing you tackle this challenge, this system, this process, whatever it is, and also get them to self-reflect. There's something you touched on that one of the common threads that Jack will often say is, what is the definition of done?

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Ben Lynch: So it comes to this point here of scope. To ask that question, what is the definition of done? Because there's always iterations that we can make and that's how things blow out. One thing that I've learned a lot in the software space in building A11y has been this concept and idea of the minimum viable product or the minimum viable version. And that speaks to scoping things really crystally clear and going, you know, we might have a really high standard here and we want to work on this being, you know, quote, world-class or whatever you want to say. But we don't expect the first version to get there, certainly if it's after one month. But after one year, we expect it to be meaningfully better. But what's the one-month version that, quote, you could publish, ship, roll out, and set the relevant context to your team, potentially clients, and say, we're looking for your feedback on this so that we can improve it quickly? but it's done. We're not waiting six months for the perfect version of this or 12 months and going, all right, it's time to press play. You haven't got any real world experience of how it's working. So I realise some things are bigger and more important, second and third are consequences. You can't just press play, but I just stress test the thinking around when we scope it, what's the definition of done and how quickly can we actually get a version of this

Hannah Dunn: And that's such a good point, Ben, in that these 120 day plans sometimes are part of a project. So sometimes we're planning part of a project.

Ben Lynch: Yes.

Hannah Dunn: We're not planning the whole project. Sometimes it is a whole project. It depends on how long that project will take. Some projects will only take four months. Some projects like Allie, I'm sure there was a stage that was a development stage that was the first part and then You know, there might have been a four month period of testing certain elements. There's lots of different elements. And that in itself is a whole project. And so thinking about each one of these quarters as a project within other projects potentially helps as well.

Ben Lynch: To that point, so much of us—and I'm guilty of this a lot, and I continue to be humbled and reminded of it in various domains within my work—we sort of incubate these ideas or processes or systems or changes. And that's required. We think through, how do we roll this out? How does it integrate with a few different things? But there's so much learning when it's actually published, presented, rolled out, and changed. Things that perhaps you saw, but you didn't realise how much it would be weighted, the magnitude. Oh, wow, the team have really reacted to this one part. Okay, I was aware that that might be an issue, but I didn't realise the significance or the magnitude of that issue. Okay, well, so long as I can quickly iterate and edit or communicate, okay, I'll fix it, I'll make a change, the better. So there's this like incubation, we're in this perfect little world working on the document, the resource, the training, the whatever. that actually there's so much merit in getting it in play to get that feedback loop to iterate it quickly and make the meaningful changes. So yeah, I continue to be confronted with that. And I'm reminded of Marcio's quote here, which I'll come to in a moment. Let me come back to Marcio's quote, because you're going to say something.

Hannah Dunn: Now I'm thinking about Marcio. I was just going to say about the change management, like sometimes it's not even about the, like it is important with the change management, letting your team know, but your team does not see the planning that goes in. So sometimes that will feel like a very quick change. to the team and being able to explain to them what the process is. And sometimes it's about going back to the why. And we spoke before about our ADHDers. My team a hundred times over have told me that things happen way too fast for some of them to process. So I have slowed down and that's been one of my learnings and getting it a lot clearer. So I think the stress testing as well and just introducing it to those key people sometimes first.

Ben Lynch: So much of it is about, well, this dovetails perfectly your point because I say often tongue-in-cheek with a big smile on my face to folks that come along to the A11y onboarding or demo sessions that, you know, setting up A11y is a breeze. It's getting your team to adopt it. That's the hard thing. And this is true of any system, change, policy, procedure, whatever it is. It's actually getting your team to get on board, to understand it, to use the thing, to trust the thing, whatever it is. And Marcio, in his recruitment process, speaks to this. Again, I would say, it's so much easier when you've got a team that are on board with the change, just take it in their stride and run with it. And everyone sort of smiles, they're like, yeah, you know, there's a couple of team members that do that, but certainly it's the resistant ones, the ones that need a lot of proof or evidence, they're the laggards, they're the hard ones. So, Marcio states this in his interview. He said, we're a culture of, and I'm butchering this here, but it's along these lines, like we're a culture of pretty fast change. We wanna be on the frontier of healthcare, That means we're often trialing new tools, new tech, new methodologies, because we want to provide our clients with the best possible experience in healthcare. We also want to provide our team with the best possible experience in their workplace. So it often means we're testing new things and changing things. Are you okay with that? And who's going to say no? And if they do, well, they don't make it past that stage. Everyone says yes, but it's a beautiful anchor point to three, six, nine months or any point in time to say, hey, remember when we spoke at the very beginning that we're a culture of change because we want to provide the best? Like, yes, well, this is evidence of us doing that. And we don't always get it right, but that's our intent. So to that point of how do you help with some of the adoption, it starts in your recruitment process and pre-framing it there. And also when you roll things out, as you said, Hannah, and you're aware of some changes we've made internally that we didn't get quite right in the last few weeks and months. So it's all coming back to the communication piece of things. I think so long as you're quick to act and respond and say, we got it wrong, here's how we're gonna fix it. You win that trust or you build that trust back up to where it was prior.

Hannah Dunn: Yes, and even just having those conversations to say we hear that it feels that we've got it wrong and we want to understand that further and this is the why, sometimes that can be enough to sort of even that out as well. So sometimes it is about change and sometimes it's about providing more info.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. And then we get on to the second, third order, like considerations of, hey, we've rolled out this thing, but then we need the team's training. We need, you know, video modules or CPD scheduled about this to help them, one, understand it, two, be competent in it. or there's just second and third order consequences like recruitment means training, mentoring, HR, like there's all those other things that we also need to consider. So coming back to scoping things and your point about proactively planning, I see those two very interlinked. If you scope it well in your planning, it means things don't blow out, you iterate quicker, which intentionally, net net, I think you make progress quicker.

Hannah Dunn: And I think you would have seen this, Ben, and this is what we sometimes see some of the clinics that aren't getting this right at times do, which is oversharing with our team before we're ready to, and before we have clear plans in place that you just spoke to, being able to explain to them how that training is going to happen, what that's going to look like, what training you've done and how you know that that's what you're going to do, while also being vulnerable enough to say, it may not work as I'm planning, but you know there's been a lot of work that's gone into this and this is how we're doing a training session here we're doing onboarding here we expect it to be fully up and running by this date and that the other system will close off at that date or you know the fee schedule will change on this date and we'll be notifying families x y and z so that people can come along with the journey. But so often I work with clinic owners who say to their team, oh, we're going to change the reward system and we're looking at how the reward system is going to affect you. And, you know, it'll be like a thousand dollar reward. We're still working on it. And all of that sharing along the way can sometimes cause more problems than it's worth. Sometimes simple and short is better to say, yep, we're reviewing it. We'll let you know when there's more info.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point around releasing comms when you've got a little bit more substance behind the rollout, because naturally there are questions immediately off the bat. And then it's about, you know, even if you're just setting those expectations like you did, you will have more info to you in the next week or the next month. It just helps calm that down. There's so much nuance here in how to plan, and I love your point around there are many ways to be right. There are many different planning tools you can use, methodologies, philosophies that you can use. I think whenever I think about planning, I just simplify back to We have some meaningful goals, hopefully, that you've outlined as a clinic owner for where you want to be in a year's time. In order to hit that, there's probably a couple of key changes you need to make over the year. There's plenty more that you're actually going to do, but there's a couple of key ones that you need to do and you need to think through. So what are those and how do you structure your week so that you give them enough time to develop, implement, and refine. I think when you look back at the year, there's probably three to five key things you rolled out, right? That you go, yeah, that's made a big difference. There's a lot of little changes that happen. So really, I think ahead of the new year, how clear are you on your goals? And the three to five things that you're going to do that will move you closer towards and hopefully achieve those in 12 months. Are there any closing remarks that you have for folks as they go into this period, which is so often a moment of reflection for the year that was hopefully celebrating wins, stop taking where they fell short and going, how do I shape up the new year to be even better and brighter for myself and for the team and clients that I work with?

Hannah Dunn: I think really thinking about what foundations are missing, like really doing a check-off to make sure your policies, procedures, like if there's areas there, and then you can get to the funner things. But I also think it's important as a director to think about what lights you up, because sometimes we get so stuck in doing the things that the business needs instead of having a little bit of rust that keeps us going and not feeling burnt out, for lack of a better term.

Ben Lynch: That's the meaning behind it all, right? Is that you love coming to work and you create an environment. People love coming to work. So I love that distinction of what lights you up. We talk about, it doesn't have to be bigger, but it definitely has to be brighter. You know, a brighter version of the future for you moving forward. And if you need any help, please do reach out. Send Jack at clinicmastery.com an email and we can explore potentially how we might be able to play a role in supporting you in the new year. Hannah, thank you so much. We will see you on another episode just before the end of the new year, which will be really neat. We'll catch everyone on another episode very soon. Head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for all the show notes. Thanks, Hannah. Bye.