How to Use 7 Minute Team Meetings: Connect and Align Your Private Practice Team

Using Daily Huddles to Connect Your Team

As a clinic owner you’re probably wondering if team meetings are a useful way to connect your team so that they can work better together!

If you’re like most clinic owners, then it’s likely that you have a group of individuals that work together, but, who don’t regularly cross paths because of their work hours, variations in locations of practice or because their busy consulting schedule doesn’t allow it.

It can seem impossible to connect your team, let alone host regular team meetings that are actually useful!

I’m sure you’d agree that a connected team is going to be far more effective at caring for patients, more likely to collaborate with their team mates, more engaged in conversation, more aligned with the direction of the practice and more fulfilled in their role.

The problem is that traditional team meetings are usually boring, have no structure or purpose and result in no tangible outcomes! They can be a waste of time!

You might be thinking how do you effectively lead your team meetings to create alignment, consistency and engagement so that everyone is ready to do their best work!

After working with 100’s of private practice clinic owners, and as part of the Clinic Mastery Business Academy, we work exclusively with you to implement the structure you need to deliver in all of your team meetings so that you connect your team and create a great place to work and ultimately Grow Your Clinic .

In this article, I’m going to share how you can use the structure of Daily Huddles as your regular Team Meetings to quickly connect and align your team in just 7 minutes, every single day!

What is a Daily Huddle?

Team meetings need to be quick and purposeful, that’s what a Daily huddle is. 

Im sure you’d agree, time is precious as a clinic owner! So, your aim is to rapidly connect on a personal level with your team in a way that primes all of you for the day ahead.

You shouldn’t allow the standard of your service and client experience to rise and fall with the “mood of the people” on any given day!

Daily huddles are a great way to focus on being more purposeful with your service and client experience.

4 Reasons Why You Should Use Daily Huddles

When you watch any professional sports team, you’ll notice that they always huddle before they start the game.

Huddles are a powerful way to connect and engage your team before you start your session. It’s the professional way to go about what you do!

You’ll find that huddles help;

1. Create Focus

   • Create an outcome or result that you want for the end of the day

   • Reinforce key values and how the team will act throughout the day ahead

   • Create accountability for team members to follow through on tasks

2. Connect the team

   • Reinforce the support for one another’s role

   • Monitor and influence the team dynamics to ensure people are communicating effectively

   • Identify challenges that need to be addressed

3. Celebrate wins

   • Celebrate team members who did something great and recognise them

   • Share a story of a client who achieved a great result, outcome or win in their life and reflect on the difference you are making

4. Align team

   • Communicate key message about patients coming in today e.g. Gary Vee really wants you to help him with his hustle today

   • You can update people on other items that need their attention and follow up e.g. Seth Godin is looking for his purple cow (phone calls, emails)

Rules For Successful Daily Huddles

For all team meetings to work properly, you need to create a safe space with some rules and structure so that team members feel comfortable to contribute .

“If you don’t set the rules for the team, they will make their own” Daniel Gibbs

You might find these 6 rules really useful for successfully implementing daily huddles.

1. Choose one person to lead the huddle

2. This is a stand up meeting only – do not sit down

3. Must start on time – NO EXCEPTIONS

4. No problems solving to be done – “take it off line”

5. Keep to task and follow the agenda

6. Use the 10 minutes after the meeting to prepare for the next session

How To Lead Your Team In A Daily Huddle

In an ideal world you’d start your day with the team huddle so that you prime the team for the day ahead!

However, sometimes it’s not always convenient to do it before you see the first patient of the day.

So, if you are able to run the huddle anytime time during the morning or at lunch, whenever all team players are available, then go for it.

Start by blocking out about 20 minutes of time – 7 minutes for the team meetings, and an extra 10 minutes or so to prepare for the next session or day ahead immediately after the huddle.

What To Do in Your 7 Minute Team Meetings

Your Daily Huddle can follow this structure to begins with and then you can customise as you see fit.

1. Words of Wisdom (1 min)

   1. Meeting leader presents something connected to your values and sets the tone for the rest of the day

      1. Suggestions: inspirational YouTube or Facebook video, poem, song, joke, personal story, reflections etc

2. Today’s the Day…  (3 mins)

   1. Important notices: Todays the Day… ‘that…’ – insert notices about what’s just happened or is about to happen for clients or team members

   2. Important commitments: Todays the Day… ‘that…’ – Each person must commit to complete 1 priority task in line with your strategic plan

      1. Need to be very clear e.g. ‘start something’, ‘finish something’, ‘draft something’ (Tristan White)

3. Help (2 min)

   1. Team members must present what they are stuck with or need help with

      1. Make all problem solving happen after the meeting.

      2. You just need another team member to put their hand up and offer to help

4. Story Time –  (1 min)

   1. Share a story about a patient or team member that was reflective of your vision, mission, values.

How Often Should You Huddle

Doing Daily Huddles will give you and the team the best results!

These huddles are only 7 minute team meetings, so there’s no excuse for not having enough time.

If you truly want to connect your team and create a great place to work, then you need to find a way or make a way for these huddles to happen.

Culture is Everything author Tristan White says, “a regular huddle… has been one of the most valuable rituals we have created“.

If you are unable to do Daily Huddles, then you should aim to do them 3x per week to create some momentum, especially early on.

What If Your Team Are In Different Locations

You need to embrace technology if you are going to connect with your team in different locations.

Here are some ways and means of connecting through technology.

1. Landline or Mobile phone on conference call setting

2. Zoom video or audio call online

3. Skype video or audio call online

4. Google Hangouts video or audio online

I’d suggest that you do you’re best to get a video connection because there is more engagement.

Conclusion

Im sure you’d agree, time is precious!

Traditional team meetings are boring, have no structure or purpose and result in no tangible outcomes!

Daily Huddles are 7 Minute Team Meetings that rapidly create engagement, alignment and focus for session ahead.

You shouldn’t allow the standard of your service and client experience to rise and fall on the “mood of the people” on any given day!

Huddles are the answer to your boring team meetings, the catalyst for connecting your team and the primer to delivering great client experiences.

As part of the Clinic Mastery Business Academy, we work exclusively with you to implement the structure you need to deliver in all of your team meetings so that you connect your team and create a great place to work and ultimately Grow Your Clinic.

If you believe that you’d benefit from more practical training on private practice growth, please join us for our free online masterclass. Until next time, remember to:

Live with Passion, because Everyday is an Opportunity for you to Make Your difference!