Lean on Me

Lean on me

If you like music, you may have hummed words to the song  "Lean on Me" sometime in the past.  As a call out to lean on and support each other, its a reminder to help you gain perspective to connect and help friends in need of help.

Although several other roles I am asked to serve, such as husband, son, brother, and others (equally as important), I can't be more honored to serve as a father to three incredible kids (biased). Our roles with each other are in constant evolution, as we all mature and grow.

A favorite drive home podcaster Chris Hogan speaks in a recent broadcast; "There are four types of people we all have to intentionally have in our lives".       

• A Mentor to show you the lessons of the roads previously crossed
• A Friend to be brutally honest with
• A Coach to help you explore ways to get better, day in and day out, honestly and openly
• A Cheerleader; giving you optimism in your most difficult times

In our rapidly changing society, I have a hunch, at any giving time, most of us don’t have the perfect four, but must fill the role of any or all of the four on any given day, especially with your kids.

I will lean on you, and you can lean on me, to better understand important matters in your life, in mine, and in community. You can count on it. 

If your view of the future has some challenging times ahead, lean on someone to help round out your foursome.  

Somebody's rule of 90

 Business books are filled with rules, laws, and bullet points. 

There must be a rule of 90 somewhere.  A 90-day law.  A guide for the first 90 days, maybe the second 90 days.  If there is not, perhaps we call it "Coronachange 90".

The first reported case was 90 days ago.

Those first 90 days rocked our worlds.

Fear filled the air, essential concerns filled our emails, while our self-talk confused even ourselves. During the first days of action, what we didn't do never seemed right, while most of what we did do seemed wrong.  To no one's fault, and out of everyone's control, countrywide confidence waned, and the economy suffered.

Ninety learning days later, it seems most of us are ready to resume a new shared-risk norm.  Though not fully defined, it's not much different from the old norms. We got this; we have the controls in the new norm society.

Our entire team got together this week (virtually) to celebrate, not our climb completed from the bottom, we still have some way to go, but rather the work we have all done together over the past 90 days.  Amazingly, over the course of 55 minutes, many of our teammates spoke from the heart with words that spawned a spontaneous list of lessons, all starting with the letter R:

• Resolve; It's been tested
  
  
• Restore; We have to change to get us back
  
  
• Resiliency; We worked together to recover quickly, still more to go
  
  
• Resources; We learned of doing more with less
  
  
• Reinvent; We will change personally and professionally to align with the new norms
  
  
• Re-engineer; We have re-engineered our clinics and processes, some permanently
  
  
• Relationships; We have a deeper understanding of each other and our customers
  
  

We will lean and reflect often on the 7 "R"s over the next 90 days while thinking with an end in mind to restore our industry, our clinics, and our patients. How we change towards the new norms in the next 90 days may define our industry for 90 years to come, perhaps ourselves, for a career.  

Let's start with doubling down on what we do great already:

• Delivering industry best one on one healthcare
• Serving unparalleled service
• Engaged and Empathetic relationships with referral sources and customers
• Agility; willing to do whatever it takes for best outcomes

We changed nearly everything for the first 90 days.  We had very little control.  Now we do. What we've been through has shocked our systems, broken us down.  What we now have is a team with a renewed sense of courage and resolve. We had to work through some things together; as a result, team unity has strengthened.  We have a gift of 7 lessons beginning with "R" that has left us filled with optimism for our future.

 We are looking forward to the next 90!

Work Problem

People say we have work problems.  

 

• Customer confidence down, rightly so, there are safety concerns.  
• A virus that easily spreads, some say the virus is left in the air after a sneeze or loud talk for up to a half-hour.  
• Folks seeking a better functional lifestyle are limited, with Stay at home mandates restricting access.  

All this happening while most of the world manages staffing furloughs, productivity, and efficiencies in their own industries and businesses.  For our industry and our business, we will never lose focus to continue our work towards exceeding the standards of care, always shooting for industry best delivery for optimal outcomes.

What hasn't changed is our reason for optimism.  

 

Over 65 million baby boomers, many will need help managing diminished function.  Low back pain will still affect 8 out of 10 of society, while high school, collegiate, and weekend athletes across the country will still need help, guidance, surgery, and advice. 

 

During a recent zoom conversation with a prominent local Orthopedic Surgeon, he reported a backlog of his cases of 65 surgeries.  This week, they returned to the surgery rooms. Postoperative pent up demands will create unique forces in the Physical Therapy organizations, the most agile clinics will have the most success.

 

Just recently, our clinics expanded hours and brought back 3 teammates from furlough. Adding to our capabilities of the past are several new programs, more efficient use of technologies, and new job responsibilities that we are still working on daily to fine-tune.

 

While the airline industry, small retail companies, and restaurants deal with even larger and more consequential decisions and changes, gratitude fills us with unyielding optimism of our future.  We have all worked hard to be here, in a position to prove how agility can fuel our next phase of growth.

 

All this as a testimony of our team, that although we may have a work problem, we have no problem working at all.

Access

Three things happen when access to Physical Therapy services becomes restricted.

• A customer in need suffers in pain, staying safe at home
  
• A customer in need finds somewhere else to go
• A customer in need will be inconvenienced and still come to you, despite the restrictions
  

Going into the economic "yellow phase" next week will help us as Physical Therapists increase our ramp up our access to the customers that need us most, giving us better capabilities to get great outcomes.  Staff hours will expand, and our clinics will start to feel like the "New Normal". 

The good news is the patients who have been inconvenienced will no longer be, as staff schedules, hours, and accessibility all gradually increase.

The better news is the potential patients who chose to stay home safe will now cautiously seek services. It's up to us to provide the agility to expand our accessibility, which in turn improves our capabilities to deliver great outcomes.

At PTW, our New Normal is:

• Social/Physical in house distancing of 6 feet at the check-in desk and use of equipment.
• Treatment tables are a minimum of 4 feet from each other, with therapy staff choosing to use one side or the other, safe distancing from other providers.
• Sanitizing each treatment table between therapy sessions
  
• All staff working in-person operations wearing masks, and trained with updated safety requirements.
• Return of previous hours available in many clinics, with the expansion of Physical Therapists schedules.
• And more measures to come!
  

Staying agile will determine our abilities to adjust to expectations, something we fully expect to exceed.

Linchpin

Yesterday I heard a story from a Physical Therapist in North Carolina.  I did not ask for permission to share her story, so let us call her Lauren.

Lauren was working on an injured client, in the clinic, when a walk-in patient came to the desk, with a prescription, fresh from the doctor's office. Lauren had to stop working with her patient for a moment to attend to the walk-in.

Asking a few questions and realizing her schedule was committed, Laura had started to schedule the patient for an initial evaluation for the next day. At that same time, she wondered if the assessment could get done now through the phone.  

She called a fellow PT at home, who agreed to do the evaluation by Telehealth, now as the patient was in the clinic!  This permitted Lauren to complete her hands-on care and full session with the customer in the clinic while, at the same time, the telehealth evaluation was being performed.  

Why is this story unique? Lauren heard much of the client's story of pain, and decided to walk over behind the client, looked into the screen to join the conversation to offer any help today.  After some discussion, Laura and the PT agreed on a plan for Lauren to apply electrical stimulation and manuals. 

As a PT, PTA, you are a leader.  Self-leadership, leading a clinical floor, leading a staff, you simply lead.  A classic definition of leadership is using resources (physical and human resources) effectively to provide solutions.  Lauren simply led!  No one told her.  Aligned with the mission of the organization, she did not need to ask.  She just did, providing solutions in ways no one else has, without a how-to manual. 

In a book called Linchpin, Godin describes Laura to a tee.

He writes, "a linchpin to be an individual who can walk into chaos and create order, someone who can invent, connect, create, and make things happen, to be a person that the company would not function without. This person sees the problem clearly and does not panic. Instead, they develop innovative solutions and create their own path. A linchpin never follows a map; they create it."  Lauren found opportunity where the job descriptions left off. 

It is a time of incredible opportunity, with folks carving out their careers in a time when the rules have been reset because the playing field has been flattened.  New rules, new tools, require new solutions.  

Are you being your best Linchpin, creating a new map for yourself in the new sets of rules we live in?