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. What was the journey for your husband Warwick into the DOTS clinic? Because he's a carpenter right by trade and then he ends up behind a desk on a keyboard?

Hannah Dunn: What do we do if it doesn't work? And that's what was part of that advice that we got from this couple.

Jack O'Brien: You don't want to get to a place where you feel like it's not working, but it's really hard to broach that and bring that up.

Ben Lynch: What were some of the rules you ended up essentially landing on to create those boundaries?

Jack O'Brien: If you're maybe a clinic owner who's just brought in your partner or spouse, allow them to fast track relationships.

Hannah Dunn: What is your desire statement and what is your end goal?

Jack O'Brien: Very interesting. So maybe Ben, it's that Maddie doesn't want to work in clinic mastering because of me, not you.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. Could be.

Ben Lynch: Let's go with that. This episode will be right up your Allie if you're looking to bring your spouse in-house. We're diving into working with your family. And trust me, you'll want to hear Hannah's take on the $600,000 decision that led her husband to quit his job to join the clinic. Plus, stick around for when Jack outlines the common mistakes to avoid when working with your spouse. 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 organized 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. It is episode 347. I'm joined by Jack O'Brien, previous owner of Terrace Physio Plus, father to four kids that you bravely took on an adventure to some remote parts of Thailand recently. Have you recovered?

Jack O'Brien: No, have not recovered. Brave is an interesting description. Maybe insane would be another.

Ben Lynch: Okay. More out. Yep. Fair enough. That's good. Also joined by Hannah Dunn, Director of DOTS, an OT service in Melbourne. Mum to three kids. You've also been overseas recently to Japan for some snow. I'm interested, did anyone come back with an arm or a leg in a cast?

Hannah Dunn: Not quite a cast, but a torn MCL for me, but we're working on that.

Ben Lynch: So, I'll be great too. Lucky you're in a community full of physios who can help you out.

Jack O'Brien: I know some physios and EPs who can help Hannah. I also know a few podiatrists who dabble in these as well if you need. So we'll take that offline though.

Hannah Dunn: I am seeing one of our clinics physios.

Ben Lynch: Nice. Yeah, there's some perks there. My name is Ben, by the way, if we haven't met. I once had a career in podiatry, believe it or not. That was until I realized that I was interested in the person at the end of the foot and not the foot itself. We are now into our 10th year. This is very exciting. There just happens to be a social media trend of like, take a picture of 2016 and then 2026. We should probably get on this trend because it was in 2016 that we started Clinic Mastery. We're 10 years in. And one of the founding principles, one of the founding conversations that we had was, how could we help clinic owners create great client experiences? You know, the person at the end of the foot. And how can we help create great team experiences, great places to work? And we documented a lot of that in our book, which I'm sharing on screen here, the Grow Your Clinic book. You can head to our website to get a copy of that PDF site free or a dollar basically. I think it's pretty cheap. Or you can pay for the paperback and go check that out. I had one of the greater surprises this morning. a delightful surprise. I ran out of coffee, so I thought I'm going to go to my local place, the Time Lucky here in Adelaide, and I'm going to buy some beans to make myself a cup of coffee. And there on the shelf was about seven packets of josey roasted coffee. And the first thing I did is whipped out my phone, took a picture and sent it to you, Joby, because these folks are from your neck of the woods. I have a testy, natural Ethiopian, but I feel very privileged to be drinking the coffee from Nui.

Jack O'Brien: Well, Hannah, Newcastle

Hannah Dunn: I zoned out.

Jack O'Brien: Coffee Home of Australia. We've stolen the title from Melbourne. But yes, Josie, friend of the pod and a good golfer is Chris Edden, the founder of Chasing Down Single-Digit Handicap.

Ben Lynch: Congrats. Congrats. That's really good. We know a few folk still chasing that. Well, I guess you're included in that, JB.

Jack O'Brien: Most of us are chasing that, I think.

Ben Lynch: Look, I'm going to stay on the high for the moment because mine is trending outward in a very bad way. Before we dive in, a warm welcome to a few folks that have joined us. in Allie, installing that into their clinic. I got Philip, Lauren, Neil, Damian, and Stephen. Welcome to you. Thank you for rolling out Allie to help with your coaching, development, training, and mentoring of team members. JRB, what's come across your desk?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, we have the Clinic Mastery Summit coming up in the middle of March, 21, 22. This is a members-only event. However, we've opened up a literal handful of spots for non-members. So if you're on the fence, got splinters in your bum, you're thinking, I need to try out this Clinic Mastery thing. then the summit could be the chance for you. But I did want to shout out a couple of our members. We usually shout out new members, but I want to acknowledge some members who have grabbed some tickets for the summit recently. So we've got David, Tony, Carlin, Brett, Claire, Claire and Nathan that is, another Claire from far north Queensland, David in Brisbane, Michelle and the team across Victoria and New South Wales. So Tickets are almost sold out. You can head to jackatclinicmastery.com if you need to ask some questions about what the summit looks like. We'd love to host a handful of you.

Ben Lynch: Nice taste test. It's going to be good. Hannah, I know you love getting around the events.

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Ben Lynch: This is the first of the season and then we're off to Palm Cove in the middle of the year.

Hannah Dunn: You must be excited. I'm super excited. And it's a little bit earlier this year, Palm Cove, so weeks, which is exciting, but will be the first time I've gone without a team member maybe, but we'll see what June brings.

Ben Lynch: There's still a little bit of time there.

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Ben Lynch: So we're going to be unpacking, this is like part two of the conversation we had in the previous episode with Beck around working with your spouse. For some, it's like, why on earth would I do that? That includes my wife. She's like, I'm never working with you, Ben. Look, the offer's still on the table. I would happily work with her. There are folks that are entertaining doing this for the first time, maybe they've got a certain need or the business is growing. And there are folks who have been doing it for decades and they've found their rhythm to balance personal life, business life really well. We want to unpack this because I think increasingly we're seeing this becoming a thing in the community is working with your life partner and business partner. Perhaps to tee us up here, Hannah, what was the journey for your husband Warwick, affectionately known as Wok, into the DOTS clinic? Because he's a carpenter, right, by trade, and then he ends up behind a desk on a keyboard?

Hannah Dunn: Yes. So the category you missed there, Ben, is those that have worked together and no longer work together.

Ben Lynch: Well, yeah, that's a good point.

Hannah Dunn: So Warwick is a carpenter, but he almost a builder. He's done all the exams. So just waiting on that piece of paper, which is exciting. He did his carpentry apprenticeship at 29. So before that was actually had had hundreds of jobs, like a lot, like was a big shift around a lot in the workplace. The one that was the biggest one before that was um, logistics and warehousing for a freight company. And so lots of spreadsheets, lots of numbers, lots of ordering processes, procedures, um, and then an abundance of coffee shops and outdoor sports wearers and things before that. Um, for us, as you've mentioned, we've got three kids and I, The breaking point for us to say should Warwick work in the business was that I was just growing a business that had maybe 15 on the team at that point and I had three young kids. We had COVID and COVID in Melbourne was locked down. No one could work except if you were in the building industry, you were allowed to go to work and if you're in hospitals for a century.

Ben Lynch: Or if you're an AFL player.

Hannah Dunn: Yes, correct. So there were some work sites, like even if you were renovating a house, you could still go to work. Um, so that meant that Warwick was out of the house and didn't experience that lockdown in the same way that I did. And we had a two year old and a new-born. And so that was a point where I was like, I cannot keep doing what felt like everything on my own. And Warwick is a very active partner, like very good around the house with, helping with the kids, all of those things. So when I say doing it alone, he would laugh. But, um, I just felt that I couldn't keep managing three different kids' schedules, the business, and being the one, the pressure really felt like if Warwick calls in sick again, he's going to lose his job because he only has X amount days of leave, X amount days of sick leave. So therefore, if one of the kids is sick and needs to stay home from childcare or kinder or school, then that falls to me. And at that point it felt like I'm running this business every single day for so many hours a day that I just don't feel like I can keep being the one that has to cancel all the time.

Ben Lynch: So it was predominantly around the kids, if I'm understanding you, because you had practice managers.

Hannah Dunn: I did. I had Lisa and Louise and Louise is still with us. And Lisa, I'm trying to convince her currently to come back to us for a few hours. So she was with us for eight years. And so there, I did have good support in the business, but we also had, Lisa was at a point that she was saying around finance management that The team has grown so much that three days a week is not enough for me to do the pays, do all the paying of invoices and accounts and all of those sorts of things. And I know a lot of people have bookkeepers and those sorts of things that come into play, but for us, we had it internally and there were just the maintenance stuff Wok was doing as well. We felt like we needed someone in house who was going to, we felt there was an opportunity that if I wasn't coping at home, that Warwick could have a job within DOTS as well, which was to manage the maintenance and to support Lisa with finance, to look at reporting and to support me with the numbers behind the scenes, because he was interested in spreadsheets and really enjoyed that side of the job that he had before carpentry. And he also felt like he was going to get to a point where carpentry wouldn't sustain him long-term because when you get older, it's harder to do those physical jobs. So a good chance for us to sort of explore it. In saying that, we did meet with another one of the clinic mastery companies and we sat down with them and said to them, um, that like, what are your experiences? What do you think we need to look at? We did a lot of research about the things we should think about. And I think for us, the end goal was always that WOC would eventually exit, but during this critical period of young kids and a lot of stress around, like our oldest is 10 and we've never had the three of them in one location for a drop-off or pick-off. They've been away at different schools, kinders, childcares. And so we felt like our end game was not necessarily long-term necessarily, but it potentially could be, but that we would just see where things go.

Ben Lynch: That sounds really considerate and purposeful. What were some of the questions you had for, was it just one clinic that you reached out to and sort of got their experience on it, or was it more? And what were some of the key questions or things you were trying to figure out ahead of time? I think that sounds really cool. I think a number of folks maybe just end up Making it happen and figuring it out as they go, it sounded like you were trying to look for some clarity before it happened. So tell us a little bit more about some of the questions or conversations you had before making the transition.

Hannah Dunn: And these are the things that when I have members ask me about it or people talk about their partner coming into the job are the things that I say are critically important for you to think about. I think you have to have a conversation about what if it doesn't work? What do we do if it doesn't work? And that's what was part of that advice that we got from this couple. Um, and just being really transparent and open that. If it doesn't work, we need to be able to find a way to have a conversation. And then the next thing for us was around a position description. So I think we sort of went into it without a clear position description and pretty quickly Lisa, Louise, Warwick all felt like they were sort of stepping on each other's toes, not really sure what went where. And so we very quickly made sure that we came up with a position description that sort of divided out those roles. We also wanted to look at how could Warwick support the growth of DOTS and looked at what are those other jobs that doesn't have to be an OT doing it, but where can we fill in? And I guess some of those front of house things. I think what we underestimated and what is really important for people to think about is the training that you provide to your partner when they're joining the team. I think you need to think of them as a totally separate entity and that they are coming to you as a brand new person and how you would treat any new employee and what your expectations would be of that employee.

Jack O'Brien: It's funny, isn't it, how you can have just different, unrealistic, uncommunicative expectations just because you live with them or spend social time together. It's funny, that cognitive dissonance. One of the things I'm curious about is you mentioned we agreed from the start that this doesn't have to be a forever thing.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: Is there a particular time limit? Was it 12 months, 3 years? No. No. Just like we're living between you?

Hannah Dunn: WOC loves the building industry. So actually another point that I didn't touch on when you asked me, Ben, about why we decided to have Warwick come on board was that we got a quote, we, um, started with a clinic in Werribee, our third clinic, and we wanted to do a proper fit out where we had a gym space and that it was quite, you know, we were at the point where we felt like we could invest in having quite a nice clinic in Werribee. And so we had the shell of a doctor's surgery, you know, with red doors and all those sorts of things around and the reception was all the way at the back of the clinic and we didn't want people having to walk through a waiting room to get to a reception area. And so we got a quote from a clinic who specializes in clinic design to do that renovation. And the reno that we were looking at, which wasn't massive, it wasn't adding any external footprint, it was all internal works, was $650,000. And we were like, That's like quite a few years of wax wage and we won't have to pay him what we would be paying these contractors.

Ben Lynch: And this was like peak COVID time though, was it not? Yeah, it was pre-COVID. Trades were hard to get and if you got them, you're paying through the nose for it. So that's just a little bit of added context, but yes, I can see how you started to make some of those investment considerations.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. So we thought, you know what, even if you came on board to DOTS for three years and got this reno done for 150,000 or whatever we thought it was going to be, we've already covered your wage that you were bringing in externally as well. So that was also part of our deciding factor. And that probably caused a bit of a mixed message to the team as well around what was Wok's role, like, is he here or is he not? Because over the next over the next two years, we did a facelift at the other two clinics. So then it was like he was in finance and doing the finance stuff, but now all of a sudden he's on the tools for the next three months. And then is he back? Where is he? And so that sort of expectation around, we'll know when he's doing renovations for a clinic, we don't expect him on Slack. Or when he's doing that sort of stuff, what is the communication? It's text message. It's us having a conversation. We created a maintenance channel where anything that needed maintenance were able to be posted there. So some of it is learning along the way, but I think it's also being really clear about it. It's not the person, it's the processes and systems. And absolutely, Jack, when it's your partner, you can have those expectations that they just know. And Wok was doing, obviously, like all our partners, I'm sure, was a sounding board behind the scenes anyway. So I did have some assumed knowledge where I was like, Oh, you know about this? Cause we spoke about it. And he was like, yeah, but we spoke about it in a context when I wasn't part of the business and I didn't need to retain it and I didn't need to think more deeply about it. So even that sort of expectation was a big learning as well.

Ben Lynch: When you thought about that question, what if it doesn't work? What was your answer? Where did you come to in thinking through that?

Hannah Dunn: Yes, we thought we'll just get divorced. We thought there is a lot of carpentry work out there. We can always apply for a new job. He kept really good relationships with the companies in which he left. We knew there was always going to be options for him to get a job. And so we just said, we need to meet weekly. We need to have finance meetings. We need to have a meeting one-on-one. He got a Clinic Mastery membership as well. So he had his own independent coach in Clinic Mastery. I had a coach. Um, we failed to make those meetings happen at times. And when we failed to make those meetings happen, that is when things fell off the rails. And when Shane was really good at saying, Gwok, you need to set up that meeting. You need to get that happening. If Hannah says she's busy, accountable, make her accountable to that. So it was great having those external voices too.

Jack O'Brien: I really like the notion of defining what unsuccess looks like. We don't want to get to that place. If you're a clinic owner and your partner, spouse, whatever is involved, you don't want to get to a place where you feel like it's not working, but it's really hard to broach that and bring that up. Much better, ideally, when things are rosy or when things are starting out, we can say, hey, if and when X, Y, Z happens, That's when I would say this isn't working. And at that point, is it okay if we have a conversation? So you're almost asking permission today while things are good to have that conversation when things might potentially be trending south. We don't want to wait till, you know, it's DEF CON 5 and, you know, things are catastrophic. We want to have these regular check-ins so that we can catch things early, right?

Ben Lynch: Is that, Hannah, for you? Yeah, on that point, I love it, Jack, is did you explore like here's some possible scenarios where it could fall down? Because what you gave me was essentially a solution, like you can go back to work, like that would be, you know, if it doesn't work out, you can go back to work and get a job. Did you explore though, these are the potential things that might lead us to getting to that conversation?

Hannah Dunn: We had not really, but the things that we spoke about were like how the team receives it, how it goes being in a female dominated industry where, you know, we did have a couple of males on the team, but, um, those sort of conversations, but we didn't as such be like, this is, you know, where we might see it going wrong. We did talk about supervision and mentoring and about where people sit. Cause I think what one of the biggest mistakes that we see. clinic owners sometimes doing is you've been a director for eight years, you bring your partner in and then they're sitting at that director level as well straight away. And I think it's important, just like a shareholder, their shareholder and their relationship with you is separate. to their roles and responsibility within the business. So just because he was my husband didn't mean that he was someone you could ask about leave or that you could ask about pay increases or that he was sitting above any of the team leaders or whatever that meant. And so I think, you know, if I was to do it again, what I would do is be really clear about where on the organizational chart his position sat, where, what the position description is. We would have it written out. We would assure it aligned with everyone else's positions. And we'd be really clear about communicating that with the team.

Ben Lynch: Where do you think the difference was? Because it sounded like you did have some of that clarity early on around finance and maintenance. Are you saying perhaps that was just clear to you and the practice managers, but not to the extended team and created some problems?

Hannah Dunn: Yes. I think the biggest thing was not being clear about when he was in there, when he was doing the renovations versus when he was on the computer and about how many hours were there. And I think also, um, walks quite a, like he wants to support me. He's a big supporter. And so the minute that a kid was sick, he's like, oh, I'll take the kid being sick. Whereas, and then that created what, if that was an external job, they probably would have said, you've had way too much sick leave. We need to work on this. Whereas for us, we just sort of thought, oh, well, I'm still here. I'm doing this. But making sure that his time's as protected as my time is, like it's just as important as my time is. And so we had lots of conversations around, we need to ensure that your time feels as valuable as my time does, even though we're in different positions within the business.

Jack O'Brien: You know, that brings something to mind and I'm curious here, Hannah, some would say that what you're describing feels really rulesy and lots of guidelines and expectations. Aren't we in business so that we don't have to play by the rules? We can sort of make it up as we go. My perspective on that is that boundaries aren't limitations. Boundaries actually create freedom for us to play inside of clear expectations. We put all these guidelines, rules in place. That's not restrictive and prohibitive. That's actually liberating and creates room for relationships to flourish. Is that right?

Hannah Dunn: Yes. And I think Warwick and I are really good, just to toot our own horns, are really good at separating out the personal life stuff from the business life stuff. So we were able to sort of switch between those conversations when needed. But the thing that was a real game changer for us was putting in hard boundaries, again, hard firm rules around when business conversations could occur and when they couldn't. because I am very much a lay down in bed and it's like, oh, hey, remember we've got to do this tomorrow or hey, I forgot to tell you that this person said this and that. And he was like, okay, but it just is not the time to have a conversation and not the time to retain information. And when you're going to bed, it's not the time to say, hey, I noticed that you didn't get this done and there was a timeline on that. Or like, even though for me, I'm like, this is front of my mind and I just put everything out there. For him, he was like, he's very structured, needs to have his list there or he will forget it. Whereas I'm very much like, oh, if it gets off my brain and we just action it now, it's all done and I can forget it. And so we did have lots of conversations over the years around this isn't working for me or that's not working for him. And vice versa, like sometimes even when he would send off the clinic mastery snapshot of the month that our members send in, he'd be excited to share something with me about that. And I'd be like, I don't want to hear anything about work because that just triggers me into thinking about that. I know you've worked on Tuesday and that's information for you on a Tuesday, but Tuesday are my non-work days, so that's just something I don't want to hear about today.

Ben Lynch: So then, yeah, practically, what were some of those things? You got the principle of we want to be able to separate personal and business conversations. Was it we only do it during these meeting times, which are blocked into the diary? It's not after 5 p.m.? What were some of the rules you ended up essentially landing on to create those boundaries?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, not after 5 PM more so than only within meetings. It was like within a business day is fine. Um, and that I had to be more diligent in writing down my thoughts after five o'clock so that I was like, okay, here's the stuff we can talk about tomorrow. Um, yeah, I wouldn't call my team after five o'clock, so it's not fair to call him either, vice versa.

Jack O'Brien: It's interesting. I'll share a personal example here. We had a similar thing. You don't want to talk about work outside of work hours or you don't want to – you might want to talk about work but that unnecessarily puts a load on your partner. How's this for romance? What we would often do if I was say sitting on the couch thinking about a work thing but not wanting to burden Christina, I just pop a note into Slack And with zero expectation that she would check Slack unless it's in her work hours or dedicated work hours. And so, you know, little mechanisms like that allow us to function in the same room, on the same couch, at the same time, but be able to play to our different strengths. So maybe for listeners, that's an interesting little takeaway or action item is to use things like Slack. Now, maybe it's a notes app or an email, whatever the case is, that gets it off your brain and allows them to reply asynchronously at a time when they're at their best.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. Yeah. And that's, yeah, exactly that. We would use Slack exactly like that. Um, I think the other things, uh, other that one of the things we had was, um, just walk like Slack can be totally overwhelming at times and definitely wasn't a strength of walks, which is completely fine, but would miss some messages. But then team members feeling like, Oh, I don't want to tell you. that because that's your husband and I don't want to cause there to be a fight, a domestic. So really encouraging our team to say we are in this because we are confident in the relationship and confident that we can manage whatever comes up from a work perspective, we don't want you stewing on things. We want you to be able to raise it and vice versa. Like sometimes I need reminders to get things done that I'm like said three weeks ago that I would get done because I was off my to-do list and just giving him permission to say, hey, this was something I asked for in the same way that any team member could ask for that. And definitely some of this stuff has come with experience and time. And I definitely like, you know, Warwick stepped out of the business six months ago, but really has not stepped out of the business from unofficially. Like he's still doing those, you know, still helping me with spreadsheets, still doing our accounts payable at times, jumping in where there's spots, because at the moment He's not like he's been taking on smaller contracts. So when he's not in a job, he's just helping out behind the scenes. And in an ideal world, I think the balance for us would be four days for him in construction and one day for me having him help out with some of those things behind the scenes.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point there. I've seen a couple of folks in partnerships where. whoever, let's say, is the primary business person in the clinic, and it's typically someone with a therapist background, right? is actually maybe delaying hiring someone to replace their spouse, you know, part-time or full-time because they're kind of like, well, it's conveniently kind of being done. And I'm sure they're always willing to help out, hopefully, but it can also bleed out to create some degree of restriction or resentment, if that makes sense. Like, I'm not able to fully go to this next chapter because I've done all the development, training. I've been immersed in it. It's hard to cut ties fully. And I think we've said last time, J.O.B., in conversation with Beck, there's many ways to be right here. And hopefully we sort of create a bit of a canvas for different ways to think about it and go about it. I know for some creating that clean split is exactly what they need for their personal relationship to get back to a better place. And it's like the business owner just needs to make that hire or that recruit for that admin person or that bookkeeper to fully take it off the partner's hands. Cause there's that mental load that sticks around and it's just not quite fully clear. I think you mentioned that in a number of ways, Hannah. creating that clarity is good for everyone, not only your partnership, but for the team as well. Uh, you brought up an interesting point and maybe the question I was interested to understand here was around how bringing Wok into the clinic changed the team dynamics. And you touched on it a little bit there around maybe more specifically in your context of a female dominated industry, bringing him in. What did you mean by that specifically? And then maybe can you like extend on the communication piece because I know it's such a core value of yours, like everything can be solved with good communication. And so I'm picking up that it was a communication piece, perhaps, just to connect another dot. Jack and I spoke with Beck around this kind of, you know, in the shadows decision maker. You mentioned it as well. They kind of come in, all of a sudden they're seen as this director level and hey, they haven't been here or they're not boots on the ground. So just talk to us a little bit, unpack that of like building the trust with your team, bringing in Wok into the business.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. I think, um, well, we have our team times or culture days four times a year, and I think him being present for those, even though some of the topics aren't necessarily relevant, was definitely helpful. Like being part of the fun. Great, Javi, you mentioned that.

Ben Lynch: The other day as well, right? Yeah.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. Fair enough. Yep. Right. Um, and I think just allowing him to have those relationships and having people that he went to, like with the maintenance channel, it built up that communication directly one-on-one because if someone posted something, he wasn't going through me to them, he was going direct back to them. Then they were sort of so relieved when he'd fixed something that it was like a celebration, he's the hero. Um. And he's quite funny and personable and people tend to gravitate towards him. So I think that helped in like when he was in the clinic, it sort of lifted, you know, it's a bit fun having an extra person here. So the more he was in clinic, the more it was helpful. I think when it wasn't helpful, when there was big periods where he wasn't physically present in the clinic and then was a bit absent on Slack and then, you know, payments might not have been made that we were thinking someone else was doing or that I was doing. And I'm terrible at it. Like when I take over accounts, nothing gets paid. It's terrible. I need to get better. Play to our strengths. Yeah, play to our strengths, not mine. And so I think in regards to communication and team, it built over time. He had been coming to our Christmas parties for the whole time, really, because he had always been playing a part in the background. So we wanted to reward that. Um, but I think from a management perspective between Lisa, Louise, Warwick and myself, that's probably where we had the biggest challenges because there was some confusion over. I wasn't clear about whose role was what, where we break down what roles were and Louise was sort of like, am I being exited? Like, is he going to be sort of an operations manager? And I was like, no, like absolutely not. Like he's not taking over anyone's role here. It's about. How can he add value? And I think when we sort of did that organizational chart and Louise, Lisa and Warwick was sort of all on the same level, but it's separate roles being finance operations and maintenance along with, and then his secondary role being supporting Lisa, supporting Louise, supporting me, meant that we then had different management and then Louie, Lisa became his mentor rather, like I was very clear, I'm not Warwick's mentor or manager, but Lisa was, and just giving, because he was mainly doing the finance stuff, just then being able to meet with Lisa and talk about whether there were challenges, what was going well, strengths, weaknesses, same as we would with any team member, was just practice, I think. I think one of the biggest things that I've seen with a couple of clinics that I've worked with who either had their partner already involved before I started coaching or they've brought their partner in, there's actually three that come to mind, is that they've brought their partner in because they're sick of managing the team and so they just hand the team straight over to their partner and verbally saying that I think we can all hear the chaos that might create. But when someone is doing that, they're thinking, I'm going to bring them in to manage the stats and just feed the stats back as a number. But I think as clinicians, we know there's a story behind those numbers. Sometimes those nuances aren't understood. And so that's probably the biggest issue I've seen is people bringing their partners in to manage a team without the partner having kind of clocked up their What am I saying?

Jack O'Brien: Clocked up the hours on the clock or the… The relational equity, haven't got the credits in the bank, right? So interestingly, again, we sometimes subconsciously break the rules because they're a spouse or a partner. If we think about Pat Lencioni's work in Five Dysfunctions of a Team, whenever there's a change in team, someone's coming in or someone's stepping out, you've always got to reset the clock, you know, the relational clock and start with vulnerability-based trust so that we can have robust conflict and ultimately a commitment to accountability and results. If we just lob our spouse in without allowing them the time to build trust, to be vulnerable, to develop relationships, we're skipping some of those fundamental steps.

Ben Lynch: Great point, Hannah. I've seen this play out a lot after you've articulated that nicely. I often see a partner brought in for managing finances, stats and numbers. It's kind of like the clinic owner is typically a therapist, right? They don't want to deal with this stuff. They want to work on something else. And then that can lead into, well, if you're handling all the data and the numbers and the money inside of things, can you feed it back to the team so that they know how they're doing? I, as soon as you said that, also thought of several clinic owners in that same spot. So, yeah, what an interesting observation around. That narrative, that journey, and then Jobe, yeah, beautifully articulated of the dysfunctions of a team, being able to do it. And Hannah, you mentioned earlier about the underestimated, the training involved in some of that as well.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, some of the things that clinic owners could put in place. If you're maybe a clinic owner who's just brought in your partner or spouse into the business, allow them to fast track relationships. So, encourage them to carve out time to go for a walk, grab a coffee, join in maybe on the team meetings or check-ins that they're not a part of. If they're not a clinician, let them jump in with the CPD or the case studies. allow your spouse to quickly get up to speed relationally because that makes their job so much easier.

Ben Lynch: I thought it was really interesting the connection Hannah made around sort of the investment comparison. Perhaps our lens the other day was a little more cheeky and subtle of like, our partner's going to be the cheapest alternative or option here. In a way, you've done that, Hannah, in going, hey, it was whatever, $650,000 for this. renovation and fit out, well, comparatively, we could have WOC come in for a hundred, hundred and fifty grand and do this for us. But what I liked about it was the sort of the rigor or thinking at least in investment decisions. A great framework, we often talk about every decision is an investment decision. You're allocating time, money, knowledge, or people towards different problems or challenges in your business. So being able to not just say, well, we're going to do this and try and get this outcome. You're actually comparing some options, which I thought was really cool. How would you help some of the clinic owners out there that are maybe contemplating this and maybe weighing up their decisions, weighing up their investments, to think about this maybe more so from a financial perspective? What's your advice around that?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's a really good question. If I was a clinic owner weighing it up and thinking about the financial side, I'd be starting off with reality. What I mean by that is let's start from the premise that we would pay our spouse or partner what we would pay someone else to do the role. Now, there might be reasons why you could deviate from that. This is not tax advice. Let your accountant be as creative as they are comfortable being, but start from a place of reality. And I think that's important to consider because, again, we want to do things that build trust, not resentment. And so if someone's leaving perhaps a highly paid or a well-paid position to come into the clinic, We don't want them to be resentful of that work because I could have earned more money elsewhere. Also, it's worth thinking about the long-term impacts on the valuation of the business as well. It's not just about the transactional nature of salaries. It can be about building equity into this asset that we own together. I think that'd be the key places to start. I'd be curious, Hannah, if there's any other financial considerations that come to mind.

Hannah Dunn: I think the other, just while you were talking, the thing about exactly what you were saying is it gives you confidence about the exit too. It means that if you do need to finish that relationship, you know you have the funds there to replace it with an external person who you can pay that.

Jack O'Brien: You're saying if we underpay them to do the pays at the end of the year or when they leave and you have to pay someone else $25,000, you're not shocked.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. I don't, I think just financially as well, you want to make like from financial wage perspective that you just want to be clear on what their hours are too, that we're not unclear on that so that you're not, your team knows availability when they're there, what to expect rather than just all the time or whatever those boundaries are.

Ben Lynch: It also sounded like, Hannah, you were contemplating some other personal costs, maybe being able to put the kids, I don't know, in childcare or have a nanny as an example. So, you're looking at reasonably holistically and going, well, we can make this decision to bring Wok in, which also allows some family flexibility for him to take one of the kids who's sick from school home and be there, but perhaps work. So yeah, I really like how you're starting to critically think through this. There's a lot of unknowns, but I think if you're starting with some of these specifics, it gives you a good anchor point back to the conversations when you do hit that turbulence of, okay, here's some things we discussed at the start. areas we thought it might go off track, okay, we are starting to deviate here and we're having conversations in the evening or on the weekends and it's not so, you know, bounded, as you said. I found that as well, in working with my sister. I didn't work with my wife yet, still. Anyway, it's a sore point for me. Mainly my ego's hit. But I made a very deliberate choice. I remember as she moved on, reflecting on this that she was grateful for, I was like, I'm only ever going to speak about work in work hours on work days. over on weekends, come over for dinner, etc. I never actioned it. I never spoke about it. If she brought it up with me, we'd happily talk about it. And so I found setting that boundary, treating her just like any other team member was useful in separating the two.

Jack O'Brien: Does that mean, Ben, that there's other things that you can talk about other than work?

Ben Lynch: No, not at all. We sat in silence most of the time.

Jack O'Brien: You should have been with Maddie and the kids, yeah. It's true. I've had a similar experience to progress beyond spouses. Yes, you've employed siblings. I've employed sister-in-laws and adult parents and nieces and nephews. And some people get a little bit funny and like, oh, that could be a minefield. And yes, it can be or it can work really well. The difference is how deliberate and intentional you are about it. It can work really, really well.

Hannah Dunn: My cousin worked for us as well as one of our client connection team for a little while.

Jack O'Brien: It's family business, right? One of the big reasons we do this is to support our families. It is possible to do this in a healthy way. You don't have to automatically believe the rules or the mindsets that society will feed us.

Hannah Dunn: I think when you're thinking about, I think what we hear is people wanting to fill a gap and they just think the easiest option is to put their partner in because they just need help in every area of their life and that feels like the person that will do that. I think when we're thinking about it, if I was to advise people what to do, it would absolutely be sit down and think about the why. Why are we bringing this person in? But also about how is that going to look? And what are their, like, are they passionate about whatever it is they're doing? Because like we knew for what, that carpentry and building and that side of thing was way more passionate. He enjoys having a team around him that are his friends. That, that was a consideration that if you come into the business, are you really going to make friends when you're 35 with 22 year old girls? Probably not. You're probably not going to be hanging out with your, colleagues on the weekend, whereas when you're in the building entry, yeah, you might go out for a drink with them, you might. So that's also, like there's big things to consider from a social perspective. Is it going to support them socially? Is it going to narrow your social networks? What's their support systems are going to be? What the impact is on family? Uh, there's so many different areas to think about, but I think one of the things that the couple we spoke to said is that it fails more than it works. And I think that is probably accurate that, you know, that's probably what I've seen as well. And I think the biggest pitfalls is not having those barriers in place, but also not. Like sometimes I've had people who are like, Oh, but he's helping so much. I don't want to rock the boat by making him accountable to ensuring those meetings are happening or whatever that is. So I think being, yeah, the expectations need to be clear, the position description, the times, the hours, all of those things, treating it like a very separate person to your partner.

Jack O'Brien: So here's an interesting one, Hannah. We would usually suggest and coach clinics when you're thinking about bringing on a new team member, whether that's clinician or management or admin client experience team. that you would ask your existing team what they think about the applicant and whether the existing team has confidence that the applicant will fit into the culture of the team. Again, sometimes we skip that step, but I'm sure that this was an important consideration for you, like you mentioned, probably a younger demographic, different gender, etc. I had a similar consideration with Christina and our admin team at the time were much old enough to be her parents, some of them, and sort of not assuming that things are going to fit. It's like, let's give some agency back to the team and make sure that they're on board with this consideration so that if and when there are challenging times, this isn't just like the boss and their family imposing themselves, but they've had some agency in the process.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. I remembered that thing I was going to tell you. I had a, so I had a conversation with two of my team about buying into DOTS as a possibility a couple of years ago. And there was sort of some conversations around that and the decision we made at that time was that probably wasn't right for both of us at that time and that we could reward those team members in other ways. I then, two years later, while Wok was on the team, had a conversation with one of our OTs about it and said, I just want to sort of get your gauge around whether in the future you would have any interest. And their response was, I would not buy into a business that was a husband and wife duo. I just think that that relationship would be too tricky to navigate for a third party, which I think is definitely something to think about. I now, at the start of this year, we looked again at shareholding and so I think it's been something that I probably didn't consider in the beginning being something that might impact the value to the internal members of the team. But I mean, it was only one person, but I think it's a consideration in regards to where are you heading with your business? Because a lot of the time we're coaching our members to exit themselves so the value is greater, that the business isn't reliant on them. And if you have two people that the business is reliant on, that can be really tricky too. So lots of different considerations around what is your desire statement and what is your end goal as well.

Jack O'Brien: Very interesting. So maybe Ben, it's that Maddie doesn't want to work in Cleant Mastering because of me, not you.

SPEAKER_03: Hmm, could be.

Ben Lynch: Let's go with that. I like that point, JB, of like the screening the applicant. I can't imagine myself asking that, I don't know, that question specifically, is it a yes or a no, maybe a version of, how could we make it work? We're looking to make this decision or we've made this decision. We want to make sure it works. What are some things you feel we need to do to make it work well as a nuanced play on that?

Jack O'Brien: I've got an interesting- Well, I think before you go to the next bit, I think you're right. It's less so about what they answer and more so about how they answer.

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: So it's like, do you think this is going to work? Well, they're probably going to say yes, but do they go, Oh, yeah, it'll probably, I can see a way where it works. Or do they go like, I can't wait to have them around. It's going to be so much fun.

Ben Lynch: Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: They have two very different answers.

Ben Lynch: Well, it's interesting, like my default would be asking a how-to question rather than like a yes or a no question of like, how can we make it work or what are the things we need to do to flourish or whatever the case may be. We talked about the investment consideration and the fact that every decision is an investment decision. Every investment should have a return, right? That's ultimately what we're looking for. And this could be multifactorial. One you spoke to, Hannah, was family, you know, the return on family, life, ease, kids, et cetera. There's also that element on the financial side that is, what if your spouse is actually holding your clinic back? Now, perhaps there's a scenario where they too would actually be quite happy to be relieved of their duties and move on to some other role personally or professionally. But there's a real case where I've seen that they're not the best person in that role, and maybe they're a stopgap, they feel a short-term need, someone resigned, or you're growing quickly and they've stepped in. they might not be the best person for the role moving forward, to your point of the desire statement of where the clinic's going. So just get people to consider, are they right? To what degree are they positioned right? for your business and by extension, your family, because if your business flourishes, it's going to help family life or at least give you some good ingredients to work with. I don't know if you guys have got any thoughts on that. It's a blunt version and it brings up a number of challenging conversations potentially with the spouse, but it's worth considering.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: The best way to pre-empt challenging conversations is to have them before they get to mission critical. And so asking that permission of like, if this isn't working or if it seems there's someone who can do your job better, how would you like me to go about that conversation? Is it okay if we keep some objective measures in front of ourselves? And so you don't want to wait until things have gone too far.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. And on that, what you're both saying, Warwick still did desire statements the same as everyone else did. Like that was still all part of the plan. And I think what we see as a downfall is when the partner doesn't have to play by the same rules, which we've spoken to in part for um, other aspects, but in regards to this is a team expectation and we want to know what your desire statement is. And so people would say to me, is it weird to sit down and do a desire statement with Wok? Cause I would be the one sitting down and doing it with him. And the answer is no, like it's so good. Like we want to do it, like we have to find time in our personal life to do it if we're not doing it during work hours. So it actually was really beneficial, but there are people where their partners aren't open to that.

Ben Lynch: Correct. Correct. We touched on this a little bit, hey, Jack, with Beck of what if you're not on the same growth journey, the growth and development journey, like they kind of want to just, they're here to help. They're kind of clocking in, clocking out in a sense. And you raise a good point of like, well, would I accept that of anyone else on my team? The answer is no. So how do we start to have that conversation? I'm interested, J.B. For the clinic owner that is in the spot though, that goes, well, I didn't pre-frame this. I'm now in this awkward position here. How would you approach the conversation? I'm interested in your thoughts. I'll go first. I think it's tricky. We're hypothesizing here about a few different things, assuming a bunch. But I'd probably look to Goldilocks timeframe, six or 12 months into the future, unless it's super urgent, at framing up where the clinic's going and what the clinic needs to be successful and that we really need the right contribution across the board, and perhaps you're even clear on how the role might change for them. And perhaps that starts to open up that actually they're not keen for that for various reasons, or perhaps it can be framed as we're able to replace your role with a recruit and maybe reposition you in a different area of the business. I just want to find out where you want to go. To your point, Hannah, that role of desire statements or where do you want the role to evolve to in the business perhaps allows that conversation not to be, you're not doing well enough and we need to change, which is a little blunt, Jack. How else would you think of approaching this conversation for the clinic owner that's in it right now and things need to change?

Jack O'Brien: Well, hopefully, your partner is fairly emotionally aware and socially aware. So, these things are probably not news or a surprise to them. And so, let's treat each other like adults and have adult conversations. Or, here's probably the key tip. get a third party, get your coach to have that conversation with them. If you don't have a coach, get a coach. It allows an independent referee, an objective, someone with expertise and has been there, done that. And so a coach can have these conversations on your behalf. Well, maybe not on your behalf.

Ben Lynch: We often do find ourselves playing some version of a mediator, you know, counsellor to clinic owners and partnerships a lot of the time working through- It's a really important thing, right?

Jack O'Brien: Because we do, we want to preserve what's most important, which is your marriage or your relationship at the end of the day. And that's got to, I would suggest that's got to have a priority. And so, what can we do to make sure we preserve that in the first instance? And if that means getting help or having a third party conversation, then of course we would do that.

Hannah Dunn: And I think for me, what comes to mind is a couple that I did coach and said to the one partner that I was coaching, I said, bring the second partner, let's see if we can do some things here. And really the problem was that those meetings that they had set up weren't being prioritized and we're getting pushed to the side so they were never meeting. So really what I became was more an accountability coach, like when they came in, We were checking that that had happened, how it went. So I think when you're talking about like how do we have these conversations, I think we also look at systems and say what isn't working and why isn't it working? What can we put in place? At the moment it's not working because I don't know what's happening with any of the therapists. Okay, we need a spot to talk about that. Let's set that up and it's a non-negotiable time.

Ben Lynch: Put it in your Agendio paper-based diary.

Hannah Dunn: But on the Google Cal first.

Ben Lynch: That is good. Hey, great chewing the fat with the both of you about this. You've got incredible lived experience in this yourselves and also helped many dozens of clinic owners navigate this. It's something that we're super inspired to do and fulfilled by is helping families also run businesses. That's kind of the meaning behind it all for us. So for folks tuning in, listening in, please reach out for help. You can head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast to get the show notes here, look at past episodes, and also there's a couple of buttons around the website to book a time in for a chat or just email jack at clinicmastery.com for a conversation. Well, we'll catch you on another episode very soon. Thanks, Hannah. Thanks, Jack. Thanks. Bye-bye!