Hire Slow: Why Intentional Beats Instinctive When You're Building Your Team

Hello and welcome back to the Empowered to Lead podcast. This is a podcast for therapists and people who own a clinic or a group practice, and a place to be real, to be met, to know that you are not alone in this adventure of being a leader and a business owner, it feels a little weird to be back here. Spent the summer interviewing other people and hearing their stories. So, if you have spent some time with me over the last 10 sessions episodes, you will have heard a variety of stories from group practice owners, and I loved hearing their stories. One of the things that came through to me is the desire to be authentic, to be a caring leader, to show up well, and it just has been so inspiring. And the best thing has been to hear other people reach out to me and say, "Oh my goodness, this person's story really resonated with me, or "I saw myself in them, or "Thank you for that encouragement. I'm not alone. So I hope that you really enjoyed that little series. And now we're back to the regular schedule, and so that schedule is me speaking about a certain topic, and then the next one will be sharing a resource, a practical tool, either verbally or through a PDF kind of resource, and then another interview with a group practice owner. So, if you are somebody that would be interested in joining me, feel free to reach out to me, Lisa at GroupPracticeNetwork.ca, and I would love to see if you might be a good fit for the podcast. So, what are we talking about today? Today we are talking about hiring slow. It's one of the things that I say so often: is hire slow, fire fast, and a lot of people ask me what do you mean by that. So we'll talk about fire fast in another episode. But in a couple of the interviews that I did with Empowered to Lead, we talked about what hiring sounds like, what it looks like for different group practice owners, and some people just like yeah, it felt really good, and that was my gut. And then other people have a very intentional

slow process, and so I thought we would just spend some time today talking about what does it mean to hire slow as a clinic owner, whether you do counseling or physio or RMT, you are in the people service, customer service area, and client connection really matters. Your team culture really matters, and so these topics that we're gonna are the steps that we're gonna talk about today really apply to all of us as clinic owners. So one, what does it not mean when we say hire slow? It doesn't mean you're hesitating. It doesn't mean that you're insecure, and it doesn't mean that you're overthinking. So if you're finding that that is part of the hire slow process for you, they probably don't have really good applicants, or you don't have a really good process in place. So it does mean when you say you're going to hire slow, it means you're being intentional. You're intentional about the process, about what you're looking for. That you're slowing things down in order to do them well. It means that you know what space needs to be filled and what kind of personality you need. Who your ideal therapist is for you as a leader, and also for your clients, it also means that you're screening. You're not just going by your gut. You've got steps in place, and not just for the purpose of having steps in place because that sounds good, but really like this is the kind of culture that we need for our team. This is, you know, the kind of personality that we're missing. These are the kind of clients that we serve and that are looking for services. They are looking for this type of therapist. And then, for me as a leader, who do I work well with? Who do I lead well? Who is somebody that I need on my team, and so you're screening for those things. I thought I would share a couple of stories of times when I have done that well, and maybe other times when I haven't quite done that well. One time that I did not do that well, I had renters, so not necessarily.

Certainly, an associate, but somebody who was going to be using my office and interacting with me. And in the interview, there's a little bit where I was kind of like, "Yeah, this sounds really good, but maybe I should slow down. And I did not listen to my gut. I gave them a key. I gave them a contract. I did all the things without listening to my gut, and then it was a nightmare for me. It did not go well. Two months later, we were out of the contract, and she asked me if she could continue. I did not agree to continue, but I didn't trust my process. Another time that I did it well, I slowed down. We had our whole process in place. I kind of was a little bit like, "Oh, do I trust my process? And so, didn't let some of my filters be the filters. But when I trusted them, when I stopped myself and said, "Okay, just trust the process. I'll talk about filters later. She, our associate, she jumped through all the hoops. She met all of the things that we needed, and in doing it slow, I was able to double check my gut to give myself time before jumping in and saying, "Yeah, let's do it, and it has been such a great fit. Another time that I did it well, and it meant we didn't hire, was we made sure that we had a screening call at that point in our process. And in that call, we heard in there that they lived a bit far away, and we knew that where we where our office was was difficult to get to, especially if you're bussing, and they were going to be bussing or riding their bike, and they were, you know, no, no, no, it'll be fine. But we knew enough about who we need, what we need on the team, what that looks like, some of the things that we learn from others, and we are able to say, "No, I'm sorry, this is not a good fit. We're not going to proceed with this with you. We wish you all the best. So, what do you want to consider before you start your hire slow process? Why do you want to do this slowly? You want to get the best fit for your team, like we talked

about before. So, if you set up processes, you have checkpoints along the way. So, I think the first thing that you want to do is know who your ideal therapist is, and so this matters more not just because it's about filling up a spot. Knowing who your ideal therapist sets all of you up for success. Your admin team knows how to serve this person well. You lead them well. They're a great fit in your group practice. So you want to think about what kind of personality are you needing? And that may change depending on when you're looking for someone to bring. And there are some pretty standard things that you want to look for in personality and how it mixes with you as a leader and with your admin. Who is your ideal client? Who are you wanting to serve in your group practice, and does your ideal therapist? What are the components about them and their personality, their training, their approach? How does that fit that ideal client? And then you also want to be thinking about the modality that you want. So if they use a modality, let's say you're an EMDR therapist, but this therapist uses IFS, and you kind of understand it, but not really. And it's really hard for you to explain it to people. That may not be the best fit. You may be looking for that to fill a space, but really know who your ideal therapist is before you enter into that. You want to also consider: Do you want a rock star or do you want a shooting star? So, what do I mean by that? So, I would describe a rock star as being someone who's going to come in. They have a job somewhere else. They are steady. They're going to do really good work, but they're probably not going to participate in marketing or you know really digging in how do they get clients through the door.

They're quite happy to let you fill up their caseload at the pace that you want them to, and yeah, steady people, consistent shooting stars are the people who are going to come in. They're going to do all the things that you say. They're going to do all the marketing that you tell them to. And quite often, those are the ones that are going to be like a year, year and a half later, going, "Okay, I've learned all the things. I filled out my caseload. I'm going to go and." Do my own private practice. Know what you have capacity for. Who drives you crazy and who energizes you? What kind of mix do you need? Those types of personalities, and then also, how do you plan for that? So, if your rock stars are going to stay for a long time versus the shooting stars are going to maybe not stay quite as long. Keeping that in mind and knowing that is part of this process actually sets you both up for success. Even if you haven't articulated that to that shooting star, you have clearer expectations, more realistic expectations of them, and this affects also your investment in the business and acquiring and keeping clients looking at that component of that. What kind of energy do you want to be putting into getting clients through the door, and what kind of energy are you wanting somebody else to do that. What kind of energy are you wanting in client retention and the work that they put into that? Thinking all of that part through. You want to also think: When do I want them to start? What does that onboarding process look like? So, if I'm hiring slow and I have a bunch of different steps in place. So I was just talking to somebody today. What's the timeline? So I would say I'm going from posting a job to having them start a minimum of six weeks. And so that's not a quick process. That's not okay. Tomorrow you're going to fill up my. You're going to take care of my wait list for me. When we were meeting in the summer, Heather Bach talked about that she screens 20 to 40 clients

or applicants. Sorry, wrong term. She has reference questionnaires, she has written case studies, and she has a presence score. And so that takes her quite a while. She actually, I think she was saying that she also says that we're going to wait three to four weeks before you actually start seeing clients. So that is a slow process. Haley Moore, she does a 15-minute vibe check plus a role play intake round. That takes time to schedule that to get that into place. What is my process? What constitutes taking this slow? I have a listing on my website. I have an Indeed posting, and it points to the website, and so they are told to go there for the next step. There, in that place, I ask for specific wording in their email subject line or in the cover letter. So I want to join the Panorama Wellness team, or these are certain things that I want you to address in the cover letter. I also now ask them to send me a video of introduction, tell me why you want to be part of Panorama and answer a couple of other questions, and then you might consider other things for assessment. So some of the things that we have done has been they meet with one of our what one or multiple of our team members to check on how they might be a good fit for our group. We've also done a clinical case study, and so want to follow up on that. We've done a mock session, either watching them in the room as they're having a session with one of our team, or they send a video recording for that, and then reference checks. And then also part of hiring slow is the onboarding process. So, what are the steps that they need to take before they see clients? And I see this as part of hiring slow because if you see some red flags in this process, you actually can still quote unquote call it and say, "I'm not sure that this is the best fit.

As we see how you interact with our admin or with our paperwork or some of the requirements that we have. So they need to complete their paperwork, submit their registration, their insurance. They need to provide a bio for us. They need to provide a video as well for the website, are you willing to be part of social media presence? Are you willing to write blogs? You need to go through. We use Waybook. Some people use a document. You need to go through our procedures and what we want our paperwork to look like. I want them to meet my admin and some time talking to them, get to know them so that they know who they want to work with and who they don't work with, and so that my admin has a sense of their personality as well. And then we have an onboarding meeting to talk about the mission, vision, and values. How do you do, Jane? How do we set. Up for success with our group practice. There's a lot of things in there, and I want to come back to the idea that hiring slow isn't about procrastination. It's not about overthinking. Don't take it slow just to say, you know, I took it slow, and you know, I wanted to have the time to think it through. If you go too slow, you're actually going to turn away some of those quality people who are talking to other group practices or who are considering their options. They may also see that as who are you as a leader if you're going to be slow to respond or slow in booking the next step, what does that say about what it's like to work with you? So be slow with intentionality. Know what your client clients, what your clinic, and what you need in order to set this associate up for success and for a longer term relationship, and talk to other people. Get some ideas on what's worked or what hasn't worked. You know, pick people's brains to say how. What's your hiring process looked like? What sits well? I can give you. Here's a template for how you can bring on a new associate, but it actually needs to work with you. That's

why we're talking about your ideal therapist and your systems and your gut check. So take some of these things, feel them out, and see how that would work with your system. And also, I would encourage you. That's also stepping into confidence in the hiring process. If you are slow because you're not sure if you're doing the right thing or asking the right questions, that's going to show up as insecurity. That's different from saying you matter, my clients matter, this process matters because I value these things about you, about how we're caring for clients, about our team, about my admin as they're working with you, and that gives a bit of confidence in your decision making and how you show up in the interview. It also gives you the permission to say you're actually not a good fit, and I know that because I am taking the time and I am listening, I am discerning, and I am intentional in here. So I hope some of that helped. I'd love to hear what your hiring process looks like. How are you moving slow, hiring slow, in finding new people for your team. So next week I'll be sharing a new tool that I've created just for you as a listener. It is a hire slow checklist, and we will be talking that through and providing that as a resource in that week's show notes. In the meantime, send me an email. Let me know what your hire slow process looks like, and I would love to learn from you as well. Have a great day.