What are your top three priorities?

The first step in figuring out your practice's top three priorities? You know what they are. (thinglass/stock.adobe.com)In a session on workplace culture that delved deep into Patrick Lencioni's bestselling business book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, practice manager and consultant Brian Conrad, CVPM, laid out a lot for the audience at Fetch dvm360 in San Diego to absorb.

Learning centered around Lencioni's five negatives (absence of trust among the team, fear of conflict, lack of commitment to what are supposed to be shared values, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results), but Conrad ended it with this thoughtful tip for people on their last day of a veterinary conference preparing to return to what may be a less-than-ideal workplace:

“If I came to your hospital today,” Conrad asked students, “could your team tell me your top three goals or priorities?”

If not, that could be because you haven't discussed them enough, the team doesn't feel they own them yet, you don't talk about them enough, or there is more disagreement and less commitment to those goals and priorities than you think.

If you don't know yourself what your driving goals are for you, your team and your practice, take some time to think about them and discuss them with the team. (Want to collaborate with your team on developing and thinking about these goal and your culture? Read this article.)

That's a starting point for this new year.