Delegation Disasters & Hiring Heartbreaks

Sep 16

When it comes to running a therapist business, nothing derails growth faster than the wrong hire. In this episode, we get real about the delegation problems, the bad hires, and the lessons that cost us time, money, and plenty of sleep. From missed calls to admin chaos to leaders who looked great on paper but wrecked the culture, we’re unpacking the true cost of bad hires and how to recover when your group private practice takes a hit.

We’ve lived these mistakes, and we want you to skip the heartbreak by learning from our scars.

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

The red flags we ignored when bringing on new team members - and how those bad hires nearly broke our practices.
Why therapists confuse delegation with abdication, and how those delegation problems set us up for failure.
The hidden cost of bad hires that goes beyond payroll and eats away at culture, client care, and reputation.
How running a therapist business forces you to balance empathy with accountability, and why that tension is so hard to navigate.
Practical systems that help protect a group private practice from repeating these hiring heartbreaks.

If you’ve ever felt that pit in your stomach about a staff member, this episode will make you nod in painful agreement - and give you tools to act with more confidence. Tune in and let’s make the hard parts of leading a therapist business a little easier together.

Listen to the full episode now and learn how to stop repeating the same hiring mistakes in your group private practice.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO EPISODE HERE!

[00:00:11] Colleen Long: Welcome back to Off The Chair where we say the quiet parts out loud about running a practice. So today's episode is about the people we trusted, the hires, we regret it, and the systems that would've saved us from heartbreak. If you've ever paid someone more than yourself or lost sleep over an employee, you're in the right place today.

[00:00:33] Jennifer Politis: We've all done it. You ignore that pit in your stomach, hoping the person you hired will magically turn it around. Spoiler. They usually don't.

[00:00:42] Jennifer Politis: A bad hire doesn't just cost you money. It can cost you your sanity, your culture, and even your clients. Today we're unpacking the hires that nearly broke us.

[00:00:52] Colleen Long: This one's for every clinician turned boss who thought hiring would be the answer only to realize it created a whole new set of problems. We're breaking down delegation, disasters, leadership fails, and the lessons that will keep your practice and your peace of mind intact.

[00:01:08] Colleen Long: Okay, today we're talking about hiring disasters, so you'll get a little shot in Freud today if you're listening and you're like, man, it's not just me that's doing this. I'm, everybody else is making these mistakes out there too. And I used to hear that saying, , what is it? Hire slow, fire fast. Have you guys heard of that?

[00:01:32] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, I've heard that.

[00:01:34] Colleen Long: it has never been more true than ever for me. Now, um, what about you guys? Are you, what are you going into this episode with today? Are you kind of wanting to give the viewers just a sense of like, normalcy of Its okay. Is it. You've got some stories, you've got some tea to spill, or what comes up for you when you hear this topic that we're getting ready to jump into?

[00:02:02] Jennifer Politis: I think I want people to understand that this is just the reality of what it is and you kind of go through a learning process yourself of learning, you know, through trial and error of what works. And I think, you know, sharing some bad hire stories, I have a few, especially with admin. So I'd like to, to share that and at least let people know that even if they're experiencing it, it can definitely get better.

[00:02:27] Colleen Long: Yeah. So, who wants to start?

[00:02:31] Erika Bugaj: Well, I've definitely had the admins that I have hired to support the practice and, you know, find out that something else is going on behind the scenes.

[00:02:42] Colleen Long: on behind the scenes, do you mean like they're working another job?

[00:02:46] Erika Bugaj: Oh yeah. I mean, I think during the time of, of the pandemic, uh, one of the first admins I hired definitely had another job, , that they may have been doing simultaneous, um, because I could never reach them. They were fully remote, but I could never get in touch, um, or get a timely response. So ultimately, you know, we had a heart to heart and, you know, they chose to.

[00:03:11] Erika Bugaj: To leave. But, , I've also had the experience of hiring a VA who I later found out was in Europe. Um, so it didn't really work out that well because they were answering all of our phone calls and emails and from a very vastly different time zone. So, uh, that was a bit challenging to navigate and figure out, and I think it was definitely something they were.

[00:03:40] Erika Bugaj: Concealing that information from me as to their actual location. So, um, that was a little challenging.

[00:03:48] Colleen Long: Except they would answer at like 2:00 AM

[00:03:50] Erika Bugaj: Yeah, there were a lot of, uh, overnight emails and uh, that's how I caught on, you know, burning the midnight oil.

[00:04:02] Colleen Long: I think more and more people can get away with working two jobs. And Mike, uh, my husband who's in sales, has a lot of people that do that, and it's, um, they call it double dipping because in this remote landscape, unless the employer is tracking their time, how would you know? How would you know if someone's not working for you full-time?

[00:04:25] Erika Bugaj: It is pretty difficult.

[00:04:27] Colleen Long: Where do you guys fall? Where do you guys fall on that idea of time tracking? Are you, are you with it? Are you against it?

[00:04:34] Jennifer Politis: I think some time tracking has to happen. I mean, we're learning, we now have two VAs, so this is all new to us. Um, I was kind of against having remote workers. it took some time for me to get on board. It's been working well, but we definitely have, you know, we, we know when they're on, we have a time tracking feature and we have like an end of the day report.

[00:04:58] Jennifer Politis: And I know I have staff check in with them during the day just so we know and hold them accountable. I think one of the hardest lessons as a group owner, um, that I've noticed is that the damage of having the wrong hire and how long it can take you to admit it is pretty bad. I don't know. For me, that's something that I definitely experienced and I've had an easier time. I don't know about you guys.

[00:05:23] Jennifer Politis: Hiring therapists has been easier for me. I feel like they know their craft, they love their clients. They're usually, we can usually match them with the right fit of our practice, but, oh man, that's where I've been burned the most is with admins.

[00:05:38] Colleen Long: Okay, so less so with therapists, which makes sense because are sort of like our artist, right? They, they have their craft, as you mentioned, and. Their, their approach, their lens by which they conceptualize the case, their treatment method, and assuming they, you know, were trained well, there's gonna be a group of clients that really enjoy and form a relationship with that therapist and find it therapeutic.

[00:06:08] Colleen Long: And that's really. All you have to worry about. And it's very easy to see if they're doing a good job or not. Right? You look at their churn rate, you see, are they, are they churning out clients and clients turning over, or are they coming back every week? But for the people that aren't clinical, I do think that's where you can hide a little bit.

[00:06:27] Colleen Long: So when you, when you talk about your admin, what are some things that. Either you experienced or, or noticed that were just fails, maybe that now having that experience, you would do something differently.

[00:06:44] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, I remember catching one admin who would just let the phone ring endlessly, no urgency, no ownership. Calls, went to voicemail. Clients weren't followed up with, and meanwhile I was thinking they're doing everything right at the time. But I knew referrals were down, but I didn't understand. But unless at that time I was sitting physically next to them to listen.

[00:07:06] Jennifer Politis: I wouldn't know. And I actually got, one of the reasons we got the CRM therapy flow was because of this bad hire. Because I realized, oh wait, I need to know and be able to jump in and see every email, every text message, every phone call, um, because we really just had a bad experience with this one person.

[00:07:25] Jennifer Politis: and this one person too had a lot of other issues. There was a lot of attendance issues where she was constantly calling out. She's rolling in late. And you know, something I think therapists do, or at least I did, is I over empathized with her. I knew she was going through a hard time. I knew she was going through a divorce.

[00:07:45] Jennifer Politis: I knew she had a sick child. I knew she had, she had a flat tire. Like, you know, for the longest time I think I was like definitely being compassionate towards her and I really shouldn't have been because I feel like at the end of the day I was almost enabling her. And I think that's like a trap that therapists get into is we're wired to empathize and we're trained to see the best in people.

[00:08:11] Jennifer Politis: And I think that really doesn't hold true as a business owner. I think it can blind us.

[00:08:16] Colleen Long: And people can take advantage of it.

[00:08:18] Erika Bugaj: I agree that that tension between the empathy and concern versus, you know, hold accountability or, you know, holding folks accountable for the, the job tasks and duties that they've signed up to do can be really challenging. I, I hear you on that.

[00:08:35] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, we had somebody that was really horrible for two years and like they weren't the right fit. And like I, looking back, I can't even believe I let this happen for two years. You know, I kept thinking it was us. Oh, we didn't train her well. Oh, we need, I need to be more flexible. I expect too much of people, and looking back, it was just the wrong person in the wrong role, and I just can't believe I let that go on so long.

[00:09:01] Colleen Long: do you think that you let it go on that long because you were so busy doing other things? You're like, all right, you gotta figure this out. Or do you think that you didn't wanna have that hard conversation, which is, I don't think that this is a fit.

[00:09:14] Jennifer Politis: I think the hard conversation, and I knew how hard it was to find someone, so I was like, geez, I have to, like, I don't even have anybody. If I get rid of her, like I felt kind of handcuffed, like I, I need her. It's almost like you need the bad person until you can find somebody who can fill the role.

[00:09:30] Erika Bugaj: I know for me, I probably kept a lot of, you know, roles in the practice to myself for far too long. So by the time I was ready to hand off the admin, like say the intake coordinator position, I wanted like nothing to do with it because I was just over it. So that probably meant that I just wasn't paying enough attention.

[00:09:55] Erika Bugaj: And I think finding that tension between giving, you know, good onboarding, good training and independence, but also frequent check-ins seems to be really important. And right now I have an admin and intake coordinator whom I meet with once a week for. You know, 45 minutes to an hour, which seems like a long time, but it really has made the difference in our flow.

[00:10:21] Erika Bugaj: And when she has questions, she can ask me and we can, you know, message between those meetings to make sure we're keeping in touch. So I found a nice balance at this point, but I think that can be really difficult to achieve.

[00:10:35] Jennifer Politis: Yeah. And I think that's a trap that most therapists fall into because we're so burned out that whenever we eventually have the

[00:10:41] Erika Bugaj: Yep. Exactly.

[00:10:43] Jennifer Politis: Take it. I don't even wanna look at it anymore. Yeah,

[00:10:46] Colleen Long: Right.

[00:10:47] Erika Bugaj: you know, to not wear every single hat at some point, so then you're willing to take it off too quickly and you know, let them run with it a little too far.

[00:10:57] Jennifer Politis: right.

[00:10:58] Colleen Long: Yeah. I've been reading. Elon Musk's biography, and I read a lot of biographies that I feel like I learn a lot from different people and he has a very different style of hiring of leadership. And I'm not necessarily saying that this is right, but it's a radically different way of thinking. And one that I think you always sort of need a course correction when anything starts to skew too far to the right, too far to the left, and.

[00:11:30] Colleen Long: In the course of the pandemic, of course we got a lot of, everybody needs to feel safe, psychological safety in the workplace. We had, a lot of just making sure everybody feels good and it got away from the focus of the output, right? Like, great, she feels great. Is she answering your phones right? And especially I know living in California, it's really hard to be a small business owner In California, the laws are just written so in favor of the employee that you have to be careful even how you're forming job posts, right?

[00:12:13] Colleen Long: Because you can get in trouble that way and you're trying to hire people, right? You're trying to get people employment. But There are so many laws that I feel like are written against the employer, and unless you're a big employer, right, where you've got big lawyers designed to protect you, not only are you fighting this battle of now you're a clinician, but you're also supposed to be a leader and a culture builder, and a hire and a firer.

[00:12:39] Colleen Long: But you've got to have an employment lawyer next to you all day long going, don't do that. Don't say that. Ooh, I wouldn't do that. Because you can get in trouble and people become many litigators in this society understanding how to use the laws against the employer. I'll give you an example. I had two intake coordinators during COVID, and we were at the time, um, paying them a hundred hours a pay period.

[00:13:12] Colleen Long: So our pay period is two weeks, typically 40 hours a week. 80 hours each. Were getting a hundred hours. So that means they were getting time and a half overtime. And I started to notice that our practice was also getting raped over the coals at the same time. So social media patients were taking to Yelp.

[00:13:31] Colleen Long: Every, every outlet you could imagine saying, no one answers the phone here, no one gets back to you. This isn't a real place. And to me, it didn't add up because we've got two people. Billing us a hundred hours every two weeks. That doesn't make sense. So I got into RingCentral and I looked at the call analytics, which is really nice if anyone has never looked at that, which I was surprised that I had it for years and never looked at it.

[00:13:58] Colleen Long: It tells you your answer rate for your phone and how many people are calling, how many inquiries you're getting a day, and we had a 87% no answer rate. That means 87 out of a hundred calls were going unanswered, and we were paying thousands of dollars a week for these two people to work. So when I got a practice manager, who was the person that was in charge of let's, let's figure out what's going on, the first thing she did is said, let's all have a Zoom meeting.

[00:14:35] Colleen Long: And the person had their camera off. Now that's just a bad sign. First off, if you're meeting with an employee who's remote and their camera is off, in this day and age, there should be no excuse for a camera not working, and you'll get every excuse in the book. There is a wind storm. We've had so many windstorms at Clarity Psychological, so many windstorms.

[00:15:00] Colleen Long: I mean, wind has been a very big problem for us and. I have found myself actually looking at wind maps, wind maps to see is there an actual power outage and there's not. so the practice manager met with this person and there were kids all in the background. It was noisy. This person was annoyed that they had to be on camera, and they said.

[00:15:25] Colleen Long: What about the agreement that you signed when you came to work for us? You know, you have to be HIPAA compliant. You have to work in a room that's free from distraction. You can't have anybody else in the room that needs to be quiet and they said, well, I have three kids. I don't know what you want me to do, and they quit the next day.

[00:15:42] Colleen Long: So having this simple accountability conversation can be difficult in this day and age. It can, you know, you can be seen as the person in the wrong, even when you're like. I'm just making sure that we're compliant here. So that has become a real point of frustration for me, I think in the age that we're living in, where it's just so difficult to find people that are truly accountable and are looking to make a difference in an organization versus.

[00:16:16] Colleen Long: I want a position where I can hide, I can kick the can a little bit and get paid, but then like also stay at home with my kids and, and then, you know, I'll just like every once in a while, log in.

[00:16:29] Erika Bugaj: I think it's really important to utilize the hiring documents as tools. the job description, the offer letter that you give to your employees. Uh. I've had the experience many times where I will go back to and reference the offer letter and the employee gives me kind of a, a blank look like that.

[00:16:52] Erika Bugaj: And, you know, um, I have to say, well, like. Way back when we went through the interview process and you submitted this to me, you know, you agreed to what's in this letter, and so these are the standards that I'm holding you to, and still the confusion can endure, and I've been using that as a, a, you know, jumping off point too. bring that up more frequently with employees to help them understand that, hey, just like we have a contract for services with the clients, this is our contract for services, you know, and, uh, I need to hold you accountable for what you signed up for, what you signed on for. And if you know you don't agree with it, then we need to.

[00:17:38] Erika Bugaj: Go back to the drawing board and maybe discuss what your expectations are and how they're not matching up with the framework that I've offered to you as an employee. and those can be pretty challenging conversations. but I think they can bring, you know, good accountability and, understanding between, you know, a supervisor and a employee.

[00:18:02] Colleen Long: Yeah, I think when. You are in a position to have that conversation in that way. That's such a huge difference than where I probably started off, which was just biting my tongue. I didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I didn't wanna make anyone feel bad. I think that's the therapist in us, you know?

[00:18:26] Colleen Long: We were like, oh, she's trying, like this is her first job outta college. Like tell her she's doing a good job, you know? And.

[00:18:33] Erika Bugaj: Or first job outta grad

[00:18:34] Colleen Long: So there's that pull. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, I remember when I was that age, like I just wanted someone to be like, you're doing a good job calling. And so there's the human part of us that, and the therapist part of us that wants people to feel good and and comfortable and part of a culture.

[00:18:54] Colleen Long: But then there's also the leadership part of us. That is looking at the p and l and going, Hmm, our reputation's going down, our inquiries are going down, and who's at the front gates?

[00:19:07] Erika Bugaj: Yeah, or you sign on for, I mean, another thing that affects the p and l you, you sign folks on to see a certain number of clients and fulfill, um. I have a certain whole carry caseload, a full-time caseload, and you know, they're struggling to meet those numbers and I think there's a lot more reasons for that than just I'm not getting enough referrals, which is something you can sometimes hear from therapist staff. I think that can be a challenge as well because it affects the overall revenue for the practice. And, you know, sometimes my experience has been that folks wanna work at their own pace, in a way that suits their lifestyle, but still reap the benefits, the full-time benefits, uh, from the practice. And those, again, are also difficult conversations to have.

[00:19:59] Colleen Long: Yeah, those are indeed really hard conversations to have with your therapist, and sometimes the benefit of being a therapist is that we can appreciate difference in perspectives, difference in values.

[00:20:16] Erika Bugaj: like

[00:20:17] Colleen Long: Most clinicians that are gonna come to work for someone else aren't thinking, how am I going to make the most money?

[00:20:26] Colleen Long: Right? Because if they wanna make the most money, the truth is you have to work for yourself. Most therapists that are gonna come to work for you, their value is somewhere else, whether it be more time, so they want more time back to themselves. They don't wanna be on the phone with insurance companies and dealing with hiring billers for their practice.

[00:20:45] Colleen Long: They just wanna see their clients and be able to sign off at the end of the day. And so they value that time. They value peace. They value, um, being able to just do their craft and nothing else and not having to learn all these other trades that we're having to learn. And sometimes they value the culture.

[00:21:03] Colleen Long: They value having a nice group of people that they like working with every day that they like seeing. So how do you guys gauge what each employee's sort of values are? And being able to motivate them into the direction that you need them to go.

[00:21:22] Jennifer Politis: We actually have a pretty open discussion about values, um, during a hiring process. We just kind of put it out there now, like these are our values, these are important to us. We have certain questions we ask to see if they align. I mean, of course, you know, people can always say certain things in theory and maybe not practice it.

[00:21:41] Jennifer Politis: we've also been a little bit more creative in the hiring process where we will ask people now to have a submit a video with their resume. Um, just because I wanna make sure that they can follow their directions. How are they presenting themselves? How are they speaking? not that that's necessarily with values, but it is to a point, you know, I've had people who have been in their pajamas, in their bed, um, submit a video and I'm like, Like, you're now putting your best professional foot forward.

[00:22:13] Colleen Long: I have a

[00:22:14] Jennifer Politis: is not, this is not gonna happen. Yeah. So I think, you know, I think as business owners we have to get creative to find ways to figure out if these people are gonna align with a great idea. I've had to get on the case of, you know, staff at times for conducting sessions with clients in bed, but you know, showing up in your own pajamas to an interview. Hmm.

[00:22:41] Jennifer Politis: Yeah. When you've had time to prepare, you've actually had time to prepare and submit a video. It's like you, you have nothing but time to present yourself well,

[00:22:53] Colleen Long: Yeah.

[00:22:54] Jennifer Politis: yeah.

[00:22:55] Colleen Long: Yeah.

[00:22:55] Erika Bugaj: We haven't gone so far to have the pajama party practice yet. You know, therapy in your, in our pajamas.

[00:23:03] Jennifer Politis: Yeah. Therapy from the bathtub, you know?

[00:23:08] Colleen Long: Well, and it's. It's a weird line, right? Because I know with my therapy clients, I mean some I had seen for 10 years, right? They were like family at that point. It was very easy. The Zoom transition was very easy. I was like, what are you doing? Oh, is that. Bickel your cat, you know, like I knew every intimate part of their whole life.

[00:23:30] Colleen Long: So those, I felt a little bit more comfortable. I wasn't like, I'm gonna put on a full thing of makeup today, or like, I need to be in like my office. I could, you know, be on a walk and be talking to that person and they, I knew they would still get the value. but there is an interesting. juxtaposition there with our field and like a lot of people are working out of their, you know, their bedroom and they're like, this is where all the magic happens now tell me about you and your husband's sex life.

[00:24:00] Colleen Long: You know, it's like a weird, you know, they're like, is that where my therapist has sex? You know, so it's just this weird, right. That's a weird time that we're living in. Normally you wouldn't. You would go into your therapist's office and you just see them in a chair and assume that that's where they live.

[00:24:19] Colleen Long: And then you see like, oh my God, they like have a whole life. And so I think it introduces a whole new layer that we weren't even prepared for in grad school.

[00:24:28] Colleen Long: that's neither here nor

[00:24:29] Erika Bugaj: Yeah, and I mean, I don't. Care in most cases, if what my clients show up wearing, you know, if they wanna wear their pajamas, I might wear my, you know, alpaca, poncho leftover from when I was a, you know, pandemic therapist. But, I think it's okay to ask for a level of professionalism, like in an interview process like Jen was talking about.

[00:24:55] Colleen Long: Right,

[00:24:56] Jennifer Politis: N Now, what do you both do in terms of like tools and systems? Is there anything that you guys do in order to hire the right people?

[00:25:07] Colleen Long: So I'll tell you what I did last week, and then I'll back that up with how I learned that lesson. So I had a practice manager, and now I always say this is a trial. It's a 90 day trial. So in California and Massachusetts, where my businesses are, it's all at will employment. So technically you can, you can terminate anyone at any time, but I want them to understand that this is a working interview for the next 90 days.

[00:25:40] Colleen Long: I'm seeing how you work and I'm figuring out if it's gonna be a fit. It's not. You've just now got this guaranteed job and, and it's yours to lose. So. The practice manager that I hired, I hired and fired within three weeks, and the old me would not have been able to do that. I would've let her keep working for probably six months to eight months and then been like, oh, this isn't a fit.

[00:26:11] Colleen Long: So one piece that I learned the hard way is the difference between. Delegation and abdication. When I was really overwhelmed a couple years ago, I was wanting to abdicate. I would've told you I was wanting to delegate, but I was wanting to abdicate. I was wanting to take all this stuff on my plate and then just give it to someone I else and be like, here you go.

[00:26:40] Colleen Long: And as a result, I made the wrong hire. This person was not capable of. Handling the task because I didn't even really define the tasks or know what a good way of handling it was to measure. And so the interviews looked something like, do you know how to design and develop KPIs? And they would go, yeah.

[00:27:04] Colleen Long: Okay. Next question. And that was the end. Then what those KPIs looked like when I checked in with that person, who was the COO by the way, we're not talking about like an admin that's answering phones for you. This is the person that I've put in charge of entire operations of the, of the practice. When I checked in and said, okay, you just, you, we lost our biller.

[00:27:30] Colleen Long: We lost our practice manager all within the course of a month since she started working there. That should have been the first red flag, right? Everybody's leaving. This person is not gelling with the team. So she hired two new people and I said, how's it going? And she said, Colleen, I'm so impressed with the synergy.

[00:27:50] Colleen Long: I am just so impressed. And after that call, I sort of patted myself in the back and I was like, you, you did it. She's got it. She knows what she's doing. She's seasoned. You've hired someone that's smarter than you are in this area, and she's gonna take it to a level that you wouldn't have been able to.

[00:28:09] Colleen Long: The biller quit that next week after a week of working at our company and the practice manager went on a mental health leave again. Now we're at four people that we've lost as a result

[00:28:26] Jennifer Politis: people to lose. Yeah.

[00:28:28] Colleen Long: So, uh, my gut started to turn a little bit At that point I was like, uh, something's not right here. But the odd thing was, is as I was talking to this person who was really well healed, they would almost talk down to me like, Colleen.

[00:28:46] Colleen Long: I, I've been through a lot of these situations a lot worse than where we're at right now. There's no need to worry. And so I would then second guess myself and kind of go back to my life and be like. Maybe I'm just neurotic. Maybe I'm just kind of a spazz, like maybe I need to just work on my own stuff because this person seems to have it figured out.

[00:29:07] Colleen Long: Meanwhile, I had a business mentor was looking at my numbers and going, calling, this isn't good. Like, you don't have enough cash flow to make payroll in the next three months. What is her plan for this? And. So it was this two, these two conflicting worlds, right? And I didn't know who to listen to, who to believe.

[00:29:30] Colleen Long: And so now, uh, and obviously, you know, that wasn't a fit. It didn't work out. It caused a lot of chaos, disruption, organizational, it was like a deck of cards, everybody left. It was a hard, hard year to recover from that hire this new person that I brought in. Like you and I've learned to start at a more practical level.

[00:29:59] Colleen Long: Like I'm, I'm not like you are the COO and the board member and I've given you 47% control of my company. No. I'm like, we're gonna start a practice manager and let's see what you can do and I'll keep on growing that role. The more valuable you are to the organization, this person. Wasn't able to log onto their zoom first off, like when we're having just a normal meeting, like, how's it going?

[00:30:26] Colleen Long: She's like, oh, I'm having camera issues today. That's always the first sign. People, if there's someone that's having technical issues, I mean, listen, it happens every once in a while, but it doesn't happen that much. There should be really no excuse for getting on your camera and it working and the sound working, all that kind stuff.

[00:30:43] Colleen Long: So I thought, Ooh, that's not good. And then. When I started to notice that I felt like things weren't being done, but I, it was just a hunch it wasn't really, I didn't have any metrics, so what I did is I created a daily. Which is a trick I learned from one of my old billers where she said, when I handle my billing team, I have dailies that I give them in weeklies.

[00:31:09] Colleen Long: So every day they have to do these things and every week they have to do these things. And I loved how she had already crafted for each person that worked for her exactly what they need it to do, an SOP essentially, to be successful in that role. And that to me is the difference between. Delegation and abdication.

[00:31:31] Colleen Long: You first have to know what is gonna go into that role to make it successful, and then you have the metrics for the person to say, I need you to do this. So that turned into dailies for this practice manager, where I would say I just, every day, at the end of the day, I just want you to mark how many calls did we get?

[00:31:48] Colleen Long: What was the lead conversion percentage? You know, how many convert it to clients and how many thought they were calling their chiropractor's office, and how much in collections did our billing team do? How much inpatient collections did they do? You know, basic things after a week, it wasn't filled out. That's the second piece is oversight of those KPIs. Sometimes we get to that stage where we can put things in place of things that we want people to do, and as leaders who are juggling multiple things, you go on to something else. You're working on your logo the next week and you're meeting with the person you forgot that you gave them KPIs.

[00:32:28] Colleen Long: Those KPA KPIs aren't necessarily valuable if you're not having oversight into that or someone else is not having oversight into that, they're getting done. And sometimes people, you have to remind them multiple times to look at said dailies or KPIs or whatever. So Those would be my two biggest takeaways from the hiring disasters that I've had was understanding how to delegate what it takes to be successful in that role. Right. And then oversight of that delegation, if not you, who is gonna oversee that that person is doing those things that you've asked them to do?

[00:33:05] Jennifer Politis: That's such a good point, Colleen. 'cause so many people will delegate and then not look at it and it's not even looking at it, it's also measuring it, analyzing it. It's not just a quick check-in.

[00:33:18] Colleen Long: Yeah.

[00:33:19] Erika Bugaj: and I'd say for the hiring process. You know, I think what I've learned to do is build in more and more steps. you know, obviously you start off, submit a resume. I really like the idea of the video that you shared, Jen, references, recommendation letters if possible. And then I ask, um, applicants to fill out a survey.

[00:33:42] Erika Bugaj: Um. That sort of is tailored for the practice. If that looks good, then I move to a phone screen, which is about 15 minutes, and then after that, if it's looking like it will be a good match, I will invite. Them in for an interview. I've thought about adding additional steps and stages to the interview process.

[00:34:04] Erika Bugaj: Um, but that's kind of where I'm at with it right now. So, um, but I like having numerous different opportunities to meet and see applicants in, you know, different context before I ask them to join the team.

[00:34:20] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, sometimes we'll ask them to stop by group supervision. Um, you know, while during the interview process, um, just to see if they'll even show up and what the dynamic is about meeting other staff.

[00:34:33] Erika Bugaj: I've thought about that. I've heard of practices also asking folks to do a case presentation. come in and share obviously anonymized information, about a client. Or a client case they've worked on. I think that could be interesting in terms of getting a feel for staff culture and how people might fit in with the group.

[00:34:54] Jennifer Politis: Now, what do you guys think about firing fast and the emotional cost

[00:34:59] Colleen Long: Do you mean the emotional cost to the person that you're firing or the emotional cost to you or to your

[00:35:05] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, I guess I mean to, to us and the practice.

[00:35:09] Colleen Long: Mm. I've always interpreted that hiring slow, firing fast, as you gotta just do it and move on. You can't think about it. And that's so hard for a psychologist to do, right? Because everything that we do is analyzed and thought about, especially our. Thumbprint on humanity, right? That's, I'm constantly like, are you leaving the world a better place?

[00:35:37] Colleen Long: Like, are people gonna show up to your funeral or are they gonna be like, she was mean, she was an ebenezer scrooge. You know? So I'm always thinking about that impact. And I feel at this point, and this could be just because I'm older and tired, that you don't have the.

[00:35:57] Colleen Long: Bandwidth to hold the negativity or the fallout that comes from having to fire someone. You just have to be able to do it and move on and treat each day like a new day.

[00:36:11] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, that's a good point. You know, a business mentor once told me something that really stuck with me. He said, if you're not sure to let someone go ask yourself this. If they walked out. If they walked in tomorrow and gave their notice, would you feel relief? If the answer is yes, then you already know it's time.

[00:36:31] Jennifer Politis: But I think for me, there were times where like I just, I was, I was like on the fence. I'm like, I don't know. Should I fire them? Should I give them more time? What should I do? But, um, I think that's a good question our listeners could ask themselves if they're not sure.

[00:36:44] Erika Bugaj: I think it's really challenging and you know, I think I've erred on the side of continuing to hold up accountability and standards for what my expectations are. And in most cases I've noticed that with adequate accountability, pressure, and reminders, some folks will just self-select out. And I think for me that's, you know.

[00:37:13] Erika Bugaj: The best path. It's worked as the best path.

[00:37:17] Colleen Long: Layla, her has a great podcast and I think it's just called Build with Layla, and she talks about hiring. Um, tips, I guess. And one of the concepts that she introduces is hiring for diversity of thought, which is something that was a blind spot for me until I heard that, which is we hire people that tend to think like us.

[00:37:46] Colleen Long: So if we're asking them, tell me about a difficult problem you had and how did you solve it? If they handle it in the way that we would've handled it, we go, Hmm. I like them. They're good, I'm gonna hire them. And instead, somebody might have a different way to approach the problem that maybe has the same or even better output. It's just not the way that we would've managed it. And so hiring for diversity of thought and diversity of role is important as well as your practice grows. role grows the person. That was a great practice admin at two clinicians is very different than the person that's a great practice admin at 200 clinicians.

[00:38:34] Jennifer Politis: That's so true and I feel like you know. And you, you know, don't forget that like roles change as you grow and the person, like you said, who you know when you were a team of five is not the same person that can lead a team of 20.

[00:38:50] Colleen Long: Yeah. I think that's so important, just to keep that in mind as you change that every person. Assuming that they're wanting to work is going to bring a different value to the table, and you have to be able to measure is that going to work with our culture, with our vision. I really like the Kolby indexes for that reason, or the predictive index to understand people's work styles because I think for years I hired.

[00:39:25] Colleen Long: Other quick starts that are like me, I'm a nine on the kolby. Quick start. You tell me to do something. It's done by the end of the day, but having two quick starts, I mean, it's like that joke with Nate Barett. Like if you have two visionaries in a marriage, two dreamers in a marriage, you're gonna end up homeless the next day.

[00:39:45] Colleen Long: Like that's where we'll end up in a practice. If I hire someone that thinks like me, we're just, we're everybody's gonna leave. I need someone that's actually a high, uh, what's the, what's the second one? It's a four follow through, so I need someone that can see that vision and go, okay, I know what you're trying to do, but please don't roll this out to the team yet until I have a chance to meet with them.

[00:40:13] Colleen Long: And we're gonna need a two week trial so everybody can try this out. Please don't announce that we've moved EHRs tomorrow morning, which is what I used to do. So some of it is also measuring, knowing who you are, so taking those indexes and knowing who you are and how you work, and then knowing what compliments that.

[00:40:32] Jennifer Politis: Yeah, and I think as a practice owner, your job is to notice when a role has outgrown the person or when the person has outgrown the role. Then we have the courage to make the change, and sometimes we're the only person that in the practice that might see that. And sometimes that might mean promoting someone or restructuring or saying goodbye, but if you ignore it, really your business pays the price.

[00:40:57] Erika Bugaj: Agreed.

[00:41:00] Colleen Long: Yeah, and it's such a psychological. for an introvert and a clinician to be in charge of people, and not every clinician is an introvert. I certainly am. And so when I'm around other people, it reduces my battery quick. That could have been an old sort of hangup from being a therapist for so many years.

[00:41:32] Colleen Long: I would always feel really drained at the end of the day because I think you're giving your all, you're totally attuned to what's going on with that person. Subtle nuances, do their eyes dart down to the ground. They seem off today. What's going on. You've got their whole life in your head as you're listening to them, and it takes a lot of energy.

[00:41:53] Colleen Long: And I think that happens, at least for me and probably for others when you're now working with your employees, is it will, it'll drain that battery really quickly. And so you want to find people that. Either don't do that or fill you up, so to speak. They know how you work and they go, listen, I'm gonna take this meeting.

[00:42:18] Colleen Long: I don't think you need to be in it. I'm just gonna have, you know, Jim and I take notes, and you just look at the notes. I think you just need to, you know, please do your reports today or whatever. Like I have a million reports that people are like, please just get those done. Um, so having people that also know you and fill up your.

[00:42:38] Colleen Long: Battery versus drain. It is another key thing, and that's kind of along the lines of what Jen was saying is after the interview, do you feel like, yeah, I would love to work with that person. I would be excited when I had a meeting with them to like just be like, what's going on? How are you doing? Versus if you feel like, ugh, like Thank God I'm done with that.

[00:42:56] Colleen Long: That may not be a good pick.

[00:42:57] Erika Bugaj: That's so true. And I also think, you know, something that I've come to realize over the years is a lot of the folks that we're hiring are not cut from the same cloth as us. they're not destined to be group practice owners. That's just not something they're interested in, motivated to do. I think I. Myself, learned through a teaching program, just kind of being dropped into a classroom after college as a classroom teacher that taught me that I could, I'm resilient and adaptable and I can rise to any occasion. You know, it really did develop some leadership skills for me. Um. But I, I realized like not everyone is up for that.

[00:43:46] Erika Bugaj: Not everyone's, you know, into learning on the job or just being dropped into a position and being told, like, go for it. Some folks need more coaching, more support, more handholding. And because I'm different than that, it seems. Different, unusual, kind of weird to me, but you know, the world's made up of all different kinds of folks.

[00:44:09] Erika Bugaj: So, um, I try to take that into account in my hiring process now, but it was a real realization

[00:44:16] Colleen Long: That's a really good point.

[00:44:18] Erika Bugaj: for me.

[00:44:19] Colleen Long: That's a really good point because again, you're hitting on that diversity of thought. If we assume everybody just wants to be left alone, like I want you to just hire me for the role and then say like, there's the goal. Go, no problem. Love it. But if you micromanage me and you check in with me every day, so we have to talk about how I'm getting to the goal, I, this is not a fit for me.

[00:44:45] Colleen Long: I'm not a group project person. I, I, I can do the thing you need me to do, but I don't wanna talk about doing the thing you need me to do. But there are people that, that's how they work. And that probably comes from some tribal ancestry, right? There are people that work great like manically overnight, and then they hibernate for two months, and now we call them bipolar, but they were very effective.

[00:45:09] Erika Bugaj: Yeah.

[00:45:10] Colleen Long: In short s spurts of time. And there's also tribes of people that were really good talking together and figuring out how to kill that tiger. And then there were groups of people who were like, just go over there. I'm gonna kill it. Just do something else. I'm gonna kill a tiger. Right? So every person is sort of wired in a different way, and neither is good nor bad, but understanding how someone.

[00:45:35] Colleen Long: Does their best, and that might be the interview question that you use, which is, if you were hired tomorrow, what would your onboarding look like to give you the best chance of success here? Are you meeting with someone every day and they're laying out clear expectations and giving you continual feedback about your work?

[00:45:58] Colleen Long: Or are you given sort of a visual map? A goal, and then we check in with you in 30 days and you've, you've done it.

[00:46:05] Erika Bugaj: I love that idea. That's great. I'm gonna. Get a notepad out and write it down right now,

[00:46:13] Jennifer Politis: So should we maybe do the challenge in the close?

[00:46:17] Colleen Long: Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Listener challenge. Take one role in your practice and ask yourself, do I have systems and oversight in place for this person, or am I just hoping this person will save me?

[00:46:32] Jennifer Politis: And if you're feeling that pit in your stomach about someone on your team, don't ignore it. That's your gut telling you it's time to act.

[00:46:40] Colleen Long: Thanks for hanging out with us on Off the Chair. If today's stories made you laugh, cringe or nod in painful agreement, we'd love to hear yours. DM us on Instagram or drop a comment with your worst hire story. We might share it in a future episode and next week we're digging into the flip side, what it really takes to build a team you actually love leading.

[00:47:02] Colleen Long: Until then, hire slow, fire, fast, and protect your sanity. First.

Off the Chair Podcast

Delegation Disasters & Hiring Heartbreaks

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Colleen Long, Psy.D.

Jennifer Politis, PhD, LPC

Erika Bugaj, MA, MSW, LICSW

Episode Transcript:

Freedom Isn’t Found in the Exit (And Scaling Doesn’t Have to Kill You)