I freely admit that I have ZERO patience when it comes to listening to folks who don’t know what they’re talking about. I understand that “You don’t know what you don’t know,” yet – what I’ve found is that the people who “don’t know” are usually the ones who speak up the loudest.
In any field, there are various levels of education and expertise, yet – the levels are not linear. They are actually non-linear – more like a mind map. Let’s take health care as an example. As doctors become more experienced and more knowledgeable, they are assigned a level of expertise by their peers, and of course, their patients.
Unfortunately, they believe that their experience translates into business/practice know-how, which of course, IT DOES NOT. Having experience running a practice does not mean that you have experience running a practice WELL. In fact, in more cases than not, health care professionals are absolutely terrible at running a business. They associate duration (how LONG they’ve been doing it) with optimization (how WELL they’ve been doing it).
To make themselves feel better about their clinical expertise and lack of business know-how, they reposition their perspective of their profession as:
More clinical expertise = less business knowledge
More business knowledge = less clinical expertise
Is that really trues?
Is it always true that a person with exceptional
business know-how is a lousy clinician?
NO!
Unfortunately, the way people think is so distorted that it is mentally indigestible by anyone who is truly successful. When I hear a strict dad say, “I might not have hugged my kids a lot, but when it came to teaching my kids manners, no one was better,” or “I decided to give up my career so that I could focus on being a mom, because anyone who also has a professional goal couldn’t possibly be as good a mom as someone who stays home,” I want to puke.
Are you seriously suggesting that a father who is strict and even spanks his children, is a better father?
Are you seriously suggesting that duration inside a home somehow makes you a better mother?
That’s TOTAL BULLSHIT!
My wife and I don’t spank our kids. And when I hear an idiot give me that, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” I want to punch that person in the face. Since I don’t really direct my life based on a religion, when I hear someone say that, or I want a person even lightly spank their child, they get my DIRECT attention. It’s totally unacceptable, and is simply a byproduct of a lousy parent not having prepared for parenthood. You do not NEED to touch a child to change behavior. That’s only what idiots do when they don’t know what the hell they are doing. It’s a loser mentality, no matter what you’re “book” has to say about it (LOL).
BACK TO THE POINT…
There are many professions and industries that have foolish operation models. Sadly, the folks at the top of the ladder are typically excellent in terms of their “clinical” know-how, but not the brightest when it comes to REAL WORLD business – even if they are academic business superstars (i.e. They have 3 MBAs).
For example, if you look at a large video rental chain that just filed for bankruptcy, wouldn’t it be fair to ask WHY they didn’t see the end of their model just looming on the horizon. Anyone with Netflix or iTunes could read the tea leaves, yet these well-paid “business superstars” kept pouring good money after bad in an attempt to revive a corpse that had been rotting for 6 months.
We see huge mistakes like this all the time, and yet – the folks at the top seem to continually miss the mark when it comes to smart decisions. They are excellent with numbers and the application of academically-oriented business models, but they are weak when it comes to a “street level” perspective of their business.
Another example of this type of disastrous style of thinking is the chiropractic profession. Some members of the chiropractic profession want to incorporate the ability to prescribe pharmaceuticals to their patients (pain killers, anti-inflammatory drugs, etc.). Opposition to their efforts is met with “You just don’t want to expand!” The opposition is levied by none other than chiropractors, BUT not chiropractors who truly understand business and marketing. Whether chiropractors writing prescriptions is in the best interest of patients is certainly an issue worth considering, it is very clear that whether or not it’s also in the best interest of the profession in terms of survivability, is an entirely different discussion, and one that is unlikely to see the light of day.
Most businesses, industries, and professions look for cures by adding or subtracting services, not by looking inward and refreshing what they have. Domino’s Pizza is one of a few examples of a company that was brave enough to come out and admit that what they needed was not more kinds of Italian dishes, but rather, BETTER PIZZA. Their current campaign even acknowledges that their pizza tasted like cardboard with a “blah” sauce. That took a lot of guts, but that bold move has moved them far into greater profitability.
Most professions and businesses that are slowly bleeding out, are not of another MBA to save the day. What they need is consumer-based thinking, not something out of textbook – and certainly not something from the mouths of the best clinician, the most experienced chiropractor, the person with the most MBAs, or for that matter, the best pizza maker.
IF you think about this, you
automatically become smarter.
Sadly, most of you who are reading this WON’T think about it: You’ll dismiss it. And that’s what makes you weaker and less successful. I’m not slamming anyone – just pointing out a fact.
Have A GREAT Day!
…Dr. Marc