August 2009

Successful leadership:

Part I -- 'Someone's always leading'

by Dr. CJ Mertz

In today's marketplace, people have seemingly endless choices regarding their health care. Ironically, they don't want or need more choices. Instead, they're seeking a caring expert to provide them with his or her best recommendation. Successful leadership begins with "fellowship."

Patients want to know how much you care before they care how much you know. Too often, chiropractors are quick to fill the mind of a patient, rather than the person's heart. In order to have people follow your lead, you must first be seen as trustworthy. The speed at which you build trust is in direct proportion to your future level of success. WLP master practitioners build trust within minutes, which creates lasting relationships for life.

The first rule of leadership is, "someone is always leading." The doctor and the patient can't both lead -- someone inevitably follows. Unfortunately, this reversal of roles happens early and often in many chiropractic practices. When patients decide to: miss an appointment and not make it up, reschedule their appointments, not show for your workshop, avoid having their family checked, and blow off their home exercises, then they've taken the leadership role and you've become the follower.

A patient couldn't imagine telling a medical doctor how he or she wants to participate in a surgical procedure, so why would it be any different with a chiropractic nerve system expert? Actually, that's the point. People won't know you are a nerve system expert unless you tell them. A dentist, orthodontist, and endodontist all work on your teeth, and yet there are huge distinctions between their specialties. Chiropractors who do relief, corrective care, and wellness are all called chiropractors. You must establish yourself as an expert to gain greater leadership.

How do you accomplish all of this? Create a new paradigm for your patients. All patients enter your practice with body illness. That's not the challenge. The vast majority of patients see their body illness as a "body problem," and that's the biggest challenge you face. You must lead your patients to see that ALL body illnesses are power problems. The difference to your patient leadership will be legendary.

Patients will: 1) see you as an expert; 2) trust you more quickly; 3) value power adjustments long after their pain goes away; and 4) totally comply with your recommendations, and thereby experience the greatest results possible from your care.

Your new paradigm allows you to continue leading through future pacing. People are always compelled to better decisions and actions when properly linked to their own future. We are also inspired to deeper levels of commitment by those things we clearly see will benefit us into the future. There are numerous ways to future pace your patients, and you should learn to use as many as possible.

"Steve, I want to thank you in advance for making all of your visits, because it will help accelerate your healing process." When you bring people into the future, you are by definition, leading. "Sandy, if we don't correct this problem now, it will become uncorrectable later." Notice you can future pace by moving people away from a painful consequence, or toward a positive result. More than half of your communication with patients should be linking them to the future.

Acting "as if" is another key to successful leadership. "Sam, after I check your family members I can give each of them a wellness index, and tell you what I recommend." Today, more than ever, people want to be led by caring individuals who can help them achieve a better way of living. No one really wants to manage his or her own case or reinvent how chiropractic was designed to work. However, if you don't lead, your patients will. When you understand this universal principle, you can begin influencing them to better results than you ever thought possible.

Lifetime wellness care truly is the by product of successful leadership. The majority of chiropractors today have practices with less than 25 percent of their patient base under regular care for three years or longer. The future success of your practice is dependent on you leading your patients to wellness care. It's simple, but it's not easy. If it were easy, everyone would already be doing it. Call me today, and I'll send you, as my gift, DVD training that can really help you strengthen your patient leadership.

(Dr. CJ Mertz is the founder and head coach of the prestigious Waiting List Practice chiropractic training organization. See current WLP opportunities on the back page of this issue. For seminar tickets and information on WLP coaching services, please call The Waiting List Practice at 877-TEAM-WLP).