Develop a practice team eager to bring value to each patient

Imagine if you could change the attitude/perspective of the people on your team, so everyone showed up to work eager to bring value to each patient. According to research in the area of “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” we absolutely can.

CHANGING NEURAL NETWORKS

Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. Where scientists once thought neuroplasticity was possible during early childhood only, recent research shows that many aspects of the brain can be altered even into adulthood.

In his 2013 article in Greater Good Magazine, “How to Grow the Good in Your Brain,” Rick Hanson, PhD, explains that intense, prolonged, or repeated mental/neural activity leaves an enduring imprint in one’s neural structure. This is summarized by the adage, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

Every experience and our response to it results in the mind building the brain — what scientists refer to as “experience-dependent neuroplasticity.”

HARDWIRING YOUR BRAIN

What does this have to do with changing the outlook/attitude of those on the team? In his book “Hardwiring Happiness,” Dr. Hanson writes:

If you keep resting your mind upon self-criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress, then your brain will be shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations toward anger, sadness, and guilt.

On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions... pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities, then over time your brain will take a different shape, one with strength and resilience hard-wired into it, as well as a realistically optimistic outlook, positive mood, and a sense of worth.

HELPING THE REWIRING PROCESS

So, how do you foster positive thoughts and thereby help with this rewiring process? One of my favorite ways is to create opportunities to concentrate on the positive. For example:

1. Read your positive patient reviews to the team.
2. Celebrate these positive reviews.
3. Remind the team of how it feels to know they made a positive difference in a patient's life.
4. Let each team member take turns telling the story of a time when they brought value to a patient.
5. Explain how much everything they did in that experience made a difference.

MAKING IT AN EXPERIENCE

The key is to make this exercise an experience. Focus on it. Pick apart each event, and make it meaningful. Find ways to remember it. For example, we place posters of some of our most powerful reviews where not only our patients will see them, but the team as well. You cannot rewire without taking the time to make it memorable.

THE BENEFITS

The science of neuroplasticity teaches us that we can help change the attitude/outlook of our team for the better or for the worse. Take the time as often as you can to help your team focus on the positive. It will have lasting effects on them, on you, on your patients, and on your business. OM

Email: april.jasper@pentavisionmedia.com

Twitter: @DrAprilJasper

Facebook: @OptometricManagement