May 2003

What's your vision?

by Dr. C.J. Mertz

Many months ago, I wrote an article for The Chiropractic Journal that detailed the most successful goal setting strategy I've ever seen before. Hundreds of calls and e‑mails resulted, thanking me for that advice, but I sensed from their additional questions that something else was still missing. Invariably, goal setting can only go as far as the vision you see for your future.

One major stumbling block for many chiropractors I meet and work with is their primary operating strategy: process, quality, vision

This strategy suggests that the chiropractor does have "flashes" of vision but it is normally an afterthought, and is dominated by an over-riding focus on process (procedure). If you know me or my work in Team WLP at all, then you know I am a huge fan of consistent process. The process however, can not be the driving force of your operating strategy or you will continue to have frustration and feel unfulfilled in practice.

If you evaluate "quality" after procedure, you will be left with a substandard result because your procedures aren't perfect (yet). Quality refers to things like, how many whole families are currently under care, how many wellness patients are scheduled once every two weeks for at least one year out, what percentage of the practice has paid in full, etc. If procedures are inconsistent or ineffective, quality will be greatly affected and then your vision is limited by those results. That's completely backwards!

The operating strategy that produces mega success in chiropractic is vision, quality, process.

When you lead with vision, it is maximized and has no obstructions. You can imagine the quality you want to manifest without seeing through a myriad of problems that need to be fixed in your practice.

I asked one of my top clients recently to describe "retention‑vision" inside his practice. He said, "I see parents bringing their newborn children in for a check‑up because they were trained to do so. I see that infant becoming a child, a teenager, then an adult, getting married and bringing their newborn in for their first check‑up." There wasn't any language here about procedure, rather the qualities he imagined that describe his vision of retention in his practice. Process then is "directed and evolved" to steadily and surely move the practice toward the reality of your vision.

Leading with procedure only produces a problem- solving mentality. You are obsessed with finding and fixing problems. Of course, the more you focus on problems, the more of them you have to fix. This is not how successful practices are built or sustained. When you lead with vision, eight out of ten problems solve themselves!

More importantly, it is impossible to achieve championship teamwork, with a team of people who truly do not share the same vision. Once again, you may have a sense of what your vision may be and feel flashes out of it from time to time, but your team never will. It will simply be do procedures for procedures sake, and that is not inspiring.

Problem solving is a reflex. You must change that reflex to "visioneering." When you see something going wrong in the practice, rather than try to fix a problem right away, ask yourself, what does the perfect picture look like in this area of my practice? As you see it and articulate it with your team, the problem is already dissolving!

The Chiropractic USA franchises have not come about as a result of fixing problems in the chiropractic profession, but rather by envisioning what is possible in chiropractic and seeing the perfect picture of a fully functioning profession of extremely successful practices through the USA, who all love and support one another on the way to the top.

The ICA, WCA, FSCO and ACA were created out of vision for the possible advancement of this great profession. They, too, must not forget to lead with vision or they will succumb to problem-solving thinking and be sucked into a trap of emotional turmoil. Your practice must hold a vision of chiropractic that could recreate this profession if you were the last chiropractor standing. If you can lead with visioneering and match it with a world‑class procedural process, there are no limits to how many people you can serve.

(Dr. C.J. Mertz is founder and head coach of the prestigious Waiting List Practice chiropractic training organization. If you would like more information on WLP services and products, call Mark at 877/TEAM‑WLP.)