In this episode, I'm gonna share my favourite stealth way I help my clients with growing practices keep communication on a human level, no matter how fast they are growing.
Hi, I'm Toby Goodman from Tobygoodman.com.
If you run or lead a healthcare practice, you've probably had this happen. You explain something to a member of your team, they get it, but a few days later, you find yourself explaining it again.
You accept that it's part of the job, but it adds up. It's frustrating when things take longer than they should, and worse when standards drift. Most practices deal with this using standard operating procedures, checklists, or messages. They do help, but they don't carry your tone, and they don't speak to individual types of clinicians or team members.
This is where my clients really get the value of private or internal podcasting. One that can only be accessed through a private link, and not something the public has access to.
Private podcasts allow you to talk about certain processes you have, news about medications that are maybe yet to be approved, and all things that shouldn't really be, or you don't want to be, in the public domain. The way you say something to a junior doctor is likely not the same way you'd speak to an experienced pharmacist.
Check out the part in episode four, when I spoke about listening positions. That's where a podcast becomes useful inside your team. You can record how you would explain something once, how you expect something to be handled, what good looks like in practice, where you would slow down or take extra care.
Your team hears it from you, the full explanation in your voice, and that maintains the standards you've set when you're not there.
Instead of repeating yourself, you can quickly point someone to it. Have a listen to that and come back to me if anything isn't clear. That becomes part of how your practice runs. It also helps when someone new joins.
They can hear how things are done, the way you approach situations, and what you expect. It can also really help speed up the early phase of training where everything feels like it needs your input, and that can really take the pressure off. So that's how I usually build those with clients. We look at where time is being spent inside the team, where things get repeated, and where clarity would help.
And we record those properly so they can be used, and that creates assets for and within your organization. But there is another way private podcasting becomes useful. As your practice grows, and your time gets pulled in all sorts of different directions, you're making decisions, moving things forward, handling what only you can handle, and delegating the rest.
Well, obviously, that's the way to grow a business. But when that happens, it becomes really hard to stay connected to everyone, perhaps in the way that you used to.
And at that point, valued team members can start to feel a little bit removed. They're doing their role, but they're less sure what's happening across the practice, the different facilities, the organisation, and the bigger picture is less clear.
A private internal podcast can help with that, too. You can share what's going on, including anything from changes in laws to what's happening across different sites.
It keeps things inclusive and it keeps your people connected to you, and it maintains the culture you've built, even when you don't have time to speak to everyone individually. It's an amazing way to deliver a weekly standup effectively, even if you have facilities across different time zones.
When your people feel more involved, it retains that culture and the human side as your practice grows.
And finally, there will be some things in your private internal podcast that are good to have in the public domain so you can create edited versions and distribute to a public podcast across your website and your social channels.
Now, in the next episode, we'll look at more ways podcasting applies to patient communication and how to improve that without adding more time to your day.
