A Good Leader is a Good Diagnostician
People are often surprised to learn that prior to my time as a hotelier I was a practicing physician. Hoping to make my parents proud and make good use of the education their hard work and sacrifices had afforded me, I attended medical school in Glasgow before accepting a medical internship in the United States. For over a decade I worked in family medicine, but within me I had always felt a pull toward entrepreneurship, a desire to learn how to buy and sell. When I spotted an advertisement in the newspaper about a small motel that was priced to sell, I jumped at the chance to turn an opportunity into reality.
Many aspects of the transition certainly had a steep learning curve. My cousin had to stop me and explain that expense records needed to be saved for tax purposes when he realized I had been throwing away receipts, and if a housekeeper called out for the day it would be me in the rooms changing sheets and scrubbing toilets. However, at its core I would say it was relatively easy to move from hospitals to hotels, because at the end of the day it was still taking care of human beings but in a much less stressful environment.
Today, I have been an investor and hotel operator much longer than I was a physician, but I have continued to carry with me the spirit of a diagnostician and it is this, I believe, that has helped me be a successful leader and business owner. To be a good doctor, one has to be a good diagnostician — you can’t begin to heal someone if you get the diagnosis wrong or can’t figure it out at all. It is a vital aspect of medical work, but leaders today often miss the importance it serves in the business world.
A business works in many ways like the human body: each organ performs a different function but are all ultimately working toward the same goal of keeping us alive and healthy, just as departments in a company each contribute to the overall health of the organization. Everything must function in a coordinated and harmonious manner to produce the most efficient results. Just as we humans will occasionally get sick and doctors are tasked with finding out what the problem is, leaders must become adept at quickly identifying the source of an issue in a company before it spreads and causes bigger problems.
Another skill I developed during my time as a physician was the ability to communicate. When you see so many patients every day, for me it was important to not only be a good listener but a very good communicator. Many of my colleagues viewed the relationship as much more transactional, but I took a real interest in my patients and their families, I wanted to talk and listen to them. This is the key to being a good diagnostician — a willingness to listen to those who understand the problem best.
The difficulty I see many leaders run into today is not that they can’t identify the problem, but that they misdiagnose it. They see the problem as being outside of their control and ignore the signs that it is in fact a result of poor communication.
Misdiagnosing an unclear purpose as apathy
When I invest in a hotel that is underperforming, guest satisfaction is often quite low. The current management will bemoan to me how their staff are lazy and unmotivated, and tell me they just don’t care about the job enough to do things the right way. However, a lack of care is not the root of a problem, it is simply a symptom of the greater issue.
In the past it was thought that monetary compensation was the most important factor in job satisfaction, but it is becoming increasingly well known that this is not the case. Long-term retention comes with employees who understand a company’s greater purpose, a reason bigger than themselves for why they show up and perform their absolute best each day.
Does your business have a clearly defined purpose or mission, one that goes beyond profits and provides a reason for employees to feel that their work matters? Is that purpose being clearly communicated in everything from performance reviews to posters on the wall?
Performing well at your job provides a strong sense of gratification that most people desire in life. Before you diagnose the problem as being your lazy employees, try and get to the root of why they seem unmotivated.
Misdiagnosing poor employee engagement as a generation’s lack of work ethic
It is second nature for us as humans to criticize the next generation. We believe that as a result there is a fundamental lack of “good people” in the workforce pool, and any low engagement or high turnover are a result of the younger generation’s desire for ‘culture.’
The boom of new tech companies and their open workspaces, plentiful snack bars, and recreational games have left a bad taste in many business owners’ mouths with the concept of culture. However, I do not believe that a good company is about how many perks you provide. Instead, it is about listening to the wants and needs of your employees outside of work, understanding that they are more than just employees, they are people too.
Think about how well you know the makeup of the employees at your business. There is far from a shortage of “good people” to hire. Times in the job market are competitive, and in order to both find and retain talented individuals for your company you must have an environment in which they feel that they are moving forward in both their professional and personal goals. Understanding that is a far better diagnosis than simply assuming there is a generational lack of motivation.
Misdiagnosing restricted communication with selfish employees
I will never forget an anecdote a friend once gave me. He had just been hired as CEO of a company that had been experiencing a couple rough years with lots of management turnover and was giving a town hall meeting to introduce himself. He told the employees that he wanted to help build the company back into something that they were proud to work for, but on the way, it would require cost-cutting measures including staff cutbacks. Rather than ire, he was surprised to find that this remark was met with a round of applause, and later several employees came up to him and told him they were just happy that for the first time in many years someone was being honest.
It can be frustrating when employees don’t seem to be on board with a decision you have made that you truly believe is best for the business, and it’s easy to assume it’s because they are only thinking about themselves. However, when leaders aren’t transparent enough with matters such as why and how they come to the decisions they do it leaves blanks in the story that employees can fill in, creating inaccurate perceptions.
Ask your employees all the way down the chain of command if they feel that their opinion matters when it comes to the decision-making process for the company. You would be surprised to find out how many don’t feel that their voices are being heard, or don’t understand the full circumstances of any given situation.
