On a Strategic Escape follow up call, there seemed to be a general sense of "panicked excitement." After a few initial log in issues, it was nice to catch up with each other's progress since our two day meeting before the holidays.
In November Sad Steve had the weight of the world on his shoulders. His staff was rebelling against him and personal misfortune was keeping him sluggish. But since the meeting, he has been busy rebuilding his team and is ready to start this year off with renewed sense of energy. Sad Steve now is Super Steve and is ready to begin his BluePrint.
Suzie D has also transformed her office since the meeting. She was struggling with keeping her schedule full and, as a group, we discovered that her recall system was simply not working. She had it on auto-pilot for so long, it had lost effectiveness. A little tweak and she was back at it. She had her staff retreat the day before the call and used her results from the BluePrint to lead the discussion. Now she's got a strong plan and a motivated team ready to support her - no matter what.
Root Beer is also fresh from his staff retreat. He went all in with two complete days of intense work on making the practice a better place. They talked about areas they could improve and made sure everyone's concerns were heard. They gave the office a deep cleaning, because you can accumulate a lot with 2 generations of doctors. They even found time for a little mini-golf.
K-Witty could simply not sit still for the conversation. (It's hard to hide when you are on a video call.) While others were talking, she was either re-wiring her stereo system or vacuuming, although she denied all of this. K-Witty coined our theme of "panicked excitement." She has a good thing going on but is losing a key staff person and we all helped her with her plan to get ready. But the fact is, she is going to be fine.
Kay-Kay didn't make it, but we were all anxious to hear about the results from his ambitious plans from the meeting. This guy is not going quietly into the night. We'll hear about it next time. And we were also missing our adopted child, The Newlywed. His unique perspective was valuable during our meeting and missed on the call.
And finally, Leadership OD consultant, Mickey Kling is in a constant state of improvement. He even came to the video conference surrounded by flip-chart sheets. Not sure if they were real or just there to impress us. Doesn't matter - it worked.
These hour-long conversations at the end of a long day are not a substitute for getting together and really digging into the changes we need to be making. But we are finding these follow up calls to be a valuable component of the Leadership OD membership program. It helps us maintain the energy to keep going until we get together again.
Have a great week,
Mike