Transitions in practice
Transition
A transition is a change from one thing to the next, either in action or state of being – as in a job transition or as in the much more dramatic example of a caterpillar making a transition into a butterfly.
Vocabulary.com
Life is full of transitions. Our careers are no different. For health practitioners, mentoring often focuses on the initial transition from student to professional practice.
However there are many other transitions that we experience in practice, such as scaling up or down our business, changing scope, returning to work after a career break or re-evaluating the way we work due to burnout or life events. At some point we make the ultimate transition, ending our career prematurely or retirement.
How we make these transitions can greatly impact our finances, reputation or how we feel about ourselves.
Unexpected transitions in business
During lockdown many clinicians had a major change imposed on them. I supported some practitioners who had to move to online consultations at that time. Their reactions ranged from resistance and resentment, to embracing the change and finding advantages with the new format.
Four years on, both practitioners and our clients have largely welcomed online and hybrid consulting. This is one of the most revolutionary shifts in healthcare to occur in many decades and has radically altered how we work.
If the way you worked was impacted by lockdown, how did you cope with the change and what did you learn from it?
Some transitions are personal rather than universal
While new graduates entering the profession face common challenges, we leave or pause our business for many different reasons. Some of my most powerful mentoring interactions have come from working with practitioners contemplating leaving clinical practice. While retirement is an obvious example, for most this wasn’t the end of their working life – rather they needed a break to reconsider their career or wanted to pursue other options.
Burnout or feeling overwhelmed by practice sometimes drives talented clinicians to abandon their business. But how and why we exit can determine whether it’s done with pride or burning bridges of a once cherished career.
Understanding what’s not working offers an opportunity to pivot or reimagine a business. But when chosing to close a practice, acknowledging our strengths rather than failures keeps the door open for the future. There are a few mentees who have done just that, coming back stronger years later. In many ways, how they left determined their success second or third time around.
When considering retirement, for most of us the options have vastly changed during the course of our career. Thirty or more years ago, practitioners often sold their business when they wanted to retire. Succession plans are no longer as straight forward! Taking time to plan your professional swan song might involve legacy projects and passive income. But our duty of care to clients and, most importantly, preserving our sense of self after retirement should be in your plans.
What I learned from major business transitions
I’ve experienced a number of transitions in my career, having scaled up, down and made a major pivot. Entering practice part-time, going full-time 18 months later, then taking over a commercial lease and running a multidisciplinary clinic shortly after are among the highlights.
After 20 plus years in practice I knew I needed to change my way of working, to be able to sustain the business for the next couple of decades. Working with a business coach, I ultimately executed the biggest transition – moving my practice entirely online in 2014, before Zoom had entered popular language.
While I did the groundwork and made the move on schedule, life threw a curve ball. However having all my plans in place made the transition as smooth as it could be under the circumstances.
Six tips for a successful business transition
Whether embracing the thrill of scaling up and growing your business or considering a pivot, it’s always a good idea to do some basic market research and understand how to recession-proof your business if you’re planning a transition. These six tips can also help to make the changes a success.
Know your ‘why’: Understand the reasons driving the change and make sure they’re reflected in your goal.
Have a simple goal: Keep it simple. For example, you want to minimise work hours after parental leave. This might involve being clear on boundaries, restricting patient contact, adopting prepaid online booking, using an external dispensary and having all this in place before going on leave.
Plan: Knowing your why and being clear about your goal makes planning easier. Anticipate the hurdles. In the parental leave scenario, what can you do before you take time off to make the return to work easier? It can be simple things like having a draft mailout written to announce your return to work, with an online booking link and your updated availability. Plan other ways to cut down admin time, eg creating cut and paste responses to common patient enquiries.
Pivot with purpose: A pivot is a complete change in how we work. Too often it’s a knee jerk or spontaneous response without fully researching the opportunity, decreasing the odds of success. If you want a radical change, such as ending one-on-one work in favour of group consultations or online programs, plan a lead time of many months and drop the ‘breadcrumbs’ before the big announcement if you want clients to follow you.
Contingencies: Do you have the time, finances, energy and resources to execute your transition? A major change in practice like scaling up tends to occur when we’re already at capacity. Moving from a sole practice to taking on associates or employees can be time consuming, expensive and a steep learning curve. Choose a time to implement the transition when there’s likely to be minimal additional life demands on your time and energy. Always expect changes to take longer than you anticipate!
Get help: Most of the transitions practitioners undertake have been done before but our individual circumstances are unique. Working with an experienced mentor who has negotiated change in business can save time and energy and avoid expensive mistakes.
It’s rare to have a successful and satisfying career without inevitable change. While life doesn’t always go as expected, planning a transition well can make the experience smoother.
Mentoring with Gill Stannard
I work with established health practitioners and business owners, big and small, to create a balanced and sustainable career.
I’ve been helping practitioners build successful businesses, in alignment with their values, vision and lifestyle, for more then two decades.
In addition to 1:1 business mentoring and professional supervision of cancer and complex cases I run workshops and share free resources on my mentoring
In 2022 I celebrated 30 years in practice. It’s an honour to continue to serve my clients and my profession.
Similar Posts:
Social Share
One Comment
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Pingback: Gill Stannard » How to transition your practice to external dispensing