STAFF - Key PEOPLE Principle #2 – The Motivated Person

In Key PEOPLE Principle #1, we discovered that:

Successful practices with great teams hire and retain “good heads” & “good hearts”, not necessarily just “good hands”.  And that great team leaders recognize that hiring the right TYPE of person is more important than getting the best SKILLED person.  

But we all know that having a smart & compassionate person is not enough.  We also need a MOTIVATED person.  But how do we motivate someone?

Well, leaders with great teams have made a fundamental shift in their thinking about what it takes to motivate someone.

What they understand is that we don’t motivate anyone. We can lead, we can inspire, but we can’t motivate. Motivation has to come from within.  It’s a personal trait - one that someone brings to the practice that helps make our practice MORE productive and our staff MORE cohesive.

So, the Key PEOPLE Principle #2 is:

Successful practices with great teams don’t hire people and then figure out how to motivate them;

they choose self-motivated people who share their core values and train them how to become a productive member of their team.

Nothing can be more exasperating than trying to motivate an unmotivated employee.  We need staff who, by their very nature, are self-motivated and strive for excellence in everything that they do.  With this type of person on board, we can devote all of our energy to leading the team to constantly improve, rather than spending our time trying to convert them to our way of thinking.

How do we tell whether an applicant is self-motivated?

Let’s face it. It’s difficult to Identify the applicant who lacks motivation.

So, we search for this quality three times during the hiring process:

1. The initial interviews
2. The office visit, and
3. The probationary period

Initial Interviews

During the initial interviews, we can probe the level of self-motivation with questions about volunteer work, hobbies and how they spend their free time.  Also, several other questions may help. 

For example:

1. What was the favorite part of your last job? What did you dread doing?

These questions often reveal how much they don’t mind hard work and their willingness to accept tough challenges.

2. What is the personal quality that gets you the most complements at work?

Self-perception can sometimes be self-delusion, differing from the perception of others.  Asking this question from the co-worker’s perspective may get closer to how they are perceived others.

3. What personal quality do you wish you could improve, or do you struggle with?

I will usually preface this question with one of my qualities that I find difficult. Sharing my struggles first allows them to be a bit more honest.  If you ask "what is your greatest weakness?” instead, they often say things like “I’m a perfectionist” which can be interpreted too many ways.

4. Describe something you did in one of your past jobs that you’re most proud of?

Hopefully, they won’t hesitate on this question.  Self-motivated people will have many instances to report.

Office Visit

It’s easy for someone to “fake it” during a 30-minute interview by saying all the right things.  It’s harder for them not to be themselves when they spend a half or full day in the practice. 

I tell applicants visiting our practice to “act as if this is your first day at work with us".  I want to participate not observe, displaying how willing they are to help and how interested they are to learn what we do.

At lunch with the staff, they often relax and show their true selves, revealing sides of themselves that they hid from the doctor and office manager.  Several times, the staff has returned from lunch having changed their minds about a promising applicant.

Probationary Period

During this time, the new assistant is considered a temporary hire and either party can walk away without giving advance notice.

If we’ve been careful during the hiring process, the first 90 days will go smoothly.  In some cases, however, we may discover that the new hire is not as motivated as we thought.

If we have doubts, it’s best to dismiss the new employee during the probationary period. Most people are on their best behavior during this time, so they rarely get better. As difficult as this might be, we should retain a new hire only when we are 100% certain that it will work out well.  This short-term pain will avoid the chronic frustration of micro-managing an unmotivated person over the long-term.

Leaders who build great practices understand that the primary ingredient to having an exceptional practice is the ability to get and keep the right people. So, for a practice striving for excellence, hire for excellence and only hire and retain someone who has what it takes.

Next: Key “People” Principle #3 – the Wrong Person