Have you ever rolled out a change, watched your team nail it for a week, and then found everything back to normal a few weeks later?
Handoffs got better, then drifted. Reactivation calls filled the schedule, then quietly stopped. It’s frustrating, and it leaves you feeling like you have to personally push every single improvement.
Most of the time, the idea wasn’t the problem. The team didn’t understand the why, too much changed at once, or nobody followed up long enough for the new way to become normal.
Here’s how to make change stick:
- Pick one to three changes, max.
Don’t come home from a CE course with 15 new ideas. Start with what frustrates your team most, nail those first, and then move on. - Explain the why, then let them build the how.
Show how the change helps patients and helps the team. Then put it on a whiteboard and let them come up with solutions. People support what they help create. - Follow up and keep measuring.
Once something is working, track it weekly or monthly so it stays locked in. If you never come back to it, your team learns that your new ideas are temporary.
Your team isn’t always resisting change. Often they’re just missing clarity, buy-in, or follow-up. Pick one change, make it simple, explain why it matters, and check back on it.
P.S. If your team keeps sliding back to the old way the minute you stop checking, it’s time to stop being the only one holding changes in place. Join our free live webinar, The Doctor Bottleneck: How to Build a Practice That Grows Without You Driving Everything, on Wednesday, November 18th at 7PM Central, and learn how to get your leaders owning the follow-up. Register now HERE.
