These thoughts have probably crossed your mind.
Spring is busy — but summer will be quieter. Summer is chaotic — but things always settle down in the fall. Fall turned out to be hectic — but the new year will be different. January is full of good intentions — but by February the pace is faster than ever.
Another year goes by and the plan remains the same — get through this busy period, get the new hire settled, get on top of the backlog. Once those are taken care of there will finally be time to look at how the practice is actually running, fix what keeps coming back, and get ahead of the problems instead of just responding to them.
The next busy stretch arrives. And the one after that. And nothing changes.
Why waiting for things to settle down doesn’t work
The calm season never arrives because the same problems keep getting created whether the practice is busy or not.
A quieter week doesn’t fix scheduling conflicts that keep coming back. A slower month doesn’t change persistent inventory problems. Summer doesn’t stop the team looking to the owner for answers they could have handled themselves.
The problems that make the practice hard to run don’t hit the pause button between seasons. They keep going. And every week they go unaddressed, the patterns get a little more entrenched.
What actually happens while you wait for the calm season
While you wait for the busyness to slow down so you can fix how the practice runs, the way the practice runs gets harder to fix.
In the busy stretches, you put workarounds in place because there’s no time to address the real issue. A process gets implemented and holds for a while, then quietly falls to the wayside when the pace picks up again. You handle decisions personally because explaining them to someone else would take longer than just dealing with them.
Each of these is small on its own. Together they add up to a practice that runs on the owner’s involvement rather than on a clear picture of how things should work.
The team figures out you are the most reliable way to get anything resolved. Decisions that belong to someone else find their way up. Questions that should have clear answers come back to the person at the top — you.
The calm season never comes because how the practice runs contributes to the very busyness that makes it always feel like the wrong time. The gap between the practice you have and the practice you always intended to have continues to widen, not narrow.
Don’t wait for the calm season to change how your practice runs
Once you understand that the calm season isn’t coming, you’re left with three options.
- You can give up on the notion the practice will ever run differently.
- You can continue to hope the right time will come, even though you now know the right time isn’t coming.
- You can address the problems with how the practice runs — because you refuse to wait forever for the conditions to be perfect.
Option three is the only one that closes the gap between where the practice is and where you want it to be. The leadership role in making this deliberate decision is what shifts where the practice is going and creates the change needed to get it there. The calm season never arrives because the same problems keep getting created whether the practice is busy or not.
If you’re ready to have an honest look at what’s holding off the calm season in your practice, a 30-minute discovery conversation is a good place to start. No preparation required. Just an honest conversation about where your practice is and where you want it to be.
