Top 5 Reasons Things Aren’t Getting Done in Your Weight Loss Practice

It is frustrating when you delegate something only to realize later that there has been little or no progress.  Correcting the problem begins with identifying why it is happening in the first place. 

Whether you have delegated a project or outcome to one of your team members or it is your responsibility, it is very frustrating when little or no progress is made towards completion.  While nearly everyone has ‘been there’, in order to make progress, it is important to identify the core reason(s).  When you know the reason(s) for lack of follow through, you will have the power to change this frustrating situation.  After running many weight loss practices and working with practitioners across the United States, here are the top 5 reasons why things may not be getting done.

Bottlenecks 

The first reason why things might not be getting done, is because of bottlenecks. Now, there can be system bottlenecks, but most of the time it's a people problem. Unfortunately, it is usually a person problem – either the leader or one of your team members.  Here are some examples:

• Perhaps everything has to go through one person in your practice and so, if they're behind, everything gets behind.
• Perhaps you have a leader or team member who likes to micromanage and doesn't have a good capability for delegating. Thus, everything gets lose in the details and overwhelm.  
• Perhaps there is confusion regarding the specific desired outcome or goal.
• Perhaps someone is holding onto everything themselves rather than sharing it with someone else on your team because they may be afraid that it looks as if they can't handle their workload
• Perhaps the issue relates to lack of job security causing them to hold onto important knowledge required to move a project forward or successfully implement change.
• Perhaps it is a responsibility or task that really makes a team member feel good or sense that keeping a goal or responsibility themselves may lead to advancement or higher seniority. 

Nonetheless, all of these issues lead to a bottleneck that prevents progress towards completion of a task, project or goal.

Too Many Initiatives at the Same Time 

The second reason for lack of progress is that you have too many initiatives going on at the same time.  Thus, you are always starting something new, which can hinder follow-through, so none of the other initiatives actually able to come to fruition.  Entrepreneurs with many ideas and goals, are often guilty of this constant activity resulting in little progress. If this is you, you are not alone.   However, unfortunately, with such behavior, you can drive your team crazy and cause them to lose sight of top priorities that are really moving your business forward.  

In such cases, you will discover the importance of taking the time to fully implement and see if you get the results you desire rather than constantly adding new initiatives into the mix.  A word of caution – this can really get out of if you're hiring a lot of outside people to help with different projects due to overlapping responsibilities with blurred lines of responsibility. 

Poor Systemization 

The third reason for lack of progress is poor systemization. While you don’t want your team performing as robots (slim to no chance of that), having systems in place in your practice creates predictability and efficiency for a job well done – every time.  Systemization lifts feelings of confusion, improves your onboarding process and alleviates continuous questions of how to handle things in your weight loss practice.  

Streamlined operations eliminates people always coming to you with, "How do I handle this?" "What happens here?" "How do we do this?" often preventing you from getting anything done. In addition, your team will appreciate the systems (that they help create) more than you will ever know.  For any members of Bariatric Business Accelerator, you know that you build systems around six main areas:  your team, your patient care coordination, your marketing, your finances, your revenue streams, and your metrics.  This also helps your team know what success looks like in your practice as well as their role.

High Team Turnover 

The fourth common reason for lack of progress is high team turnover.  If you have high team turnover it can be difficult to get much of anything accomplished.  You may know the feeling.  You can’t find quality help or you just get somebody trained and then they're gone. 

Coincidentally, some of the causes of  team turnover are one or more of the previous three causes of poor progress.  Team members often become frustrated when they don't have clear expectations, when there are no systems or they are created fresh every time something comes up, or there are bottlenecks preventing them from getting the answers they need to function optimally and independently in their position.  High performing team members want to be challenged, be a part of the solution, fully understand what success looks like in their position, feel supported and know that you value their opinion and care about their future.

Lack of Communicated Goals & Key Performance Indicators 

The fifth reason for lack of progress is a lack of communicated goals and key performance indicators. Your team needs to know the history behind your practice, your vision for the future and your specific annual or quarterly goals. If they know what your goals are, they will be better prepared to contribute to goal attainment.  You can also help them by establishing 1-3 key performance indicators related to their job to track and report regularly.  In this way, they can see that what they're doing is making an impact on the bigger vision for your practice.

Bonus Reason:  Outsourcing with Lack of Accountability 

While this was eluded to earlier, outsourcing responsibilities such as marketing or billing/collections without any clear reporting or outcome accountability.  If you outsource responsibilities, be sure to determine a reporting mechanism so you can measure your return on investment. 

Bottlenecks in your practice are frustrating but can be avoided.  Once you identify the problem, initiate involvement from your team and a plan for corrective action.  This will lead to higher stability, predictability and often a higher degree of communication and job satisfaction. 

If you have questions. you can reach Karol directly at [email protected] and/or if you want a free opportunity audit with Karol to identify ways to tackle whatever issue is top of mind in your practice, sign up here https://www.smarturl.it/bookkarol