Articles, Audio, and Videos for Your Inspiration and Learning
Leadership Insights Shared By Dan Woods
Last year, Georgia Association of Healthcare Executives implemented a program series called “Lunch with the CEO” where each month a small group of GAHE members can join a hospital CEO for 90 minutes and ask various questions about their leadership experience. On...
As a leader care about your people
"The leaders who help their people work at their natural best, are the leaders who care most about their people." A lot of leaders think that their task is all about reaching organizational goals, reaching financial goals, and making the customers happy. And in order...
Give yourself a break – You don’t always have to know
"Life changes for the better when we realize that we don’t have to know everything and we don’t have to pretend we do." As a leader, as a physician, as an executive, as a coach or consultant - we think that that we have to know everything. After all, that is the...
Press Release – C-IQ Certified Coach
Iris Grimm, Professional and Certified Executive Coach Awarded Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Certification A program that primes the brain for trust, partnership, and mutual success Marietta, GA (January 17, 2017) Iris Grimm, President of Master Performance Inc.,...
Make Your Presentations Memorable
Last month I attended a medical group meeting to shadow coach the leader. One of the biggest complaints that I hear from physicians as well as physician leaders is the vast amount of meetings where little to nothing gets accomplished and a lot of time gets wasted. And...
Useful Tip for Stressful Times
Today’s affirmation on Louise Hay’s calendar reads “I have more than enough time to do everything I want. Time expands for me.” It seems as if time is one of the most scarce resources we have in life and work. I see leaders running from one meeting to the next never...
How to bring out the best of your team
"As a leader listen, observe. interact, be transparent. You don’t have to have all the answers. Leave open space for others to create." A lot of leaders think that they have to have all the answers. After all, they were promoted into leadership either because they...
The Disconnect that Leads to Communication Breakdown
Did the conversation resolve the issue at hand and make your relationship stronger? This was the question I asked Bill who I met at a social event last weekend. At this party, I was introduced to a physician who also happens to be the department chief in a hospital in...
The Biochemical Cocktail that Raises Patient Satisfaction Scores
A condescending remark from the doctor, a headshake from a nurse, a curt answer to a serious question - the sting from any of these can have a huge impact on patient satisfaction. If you have been on the receiving end, i.e. if you have been sitting in a doctor’s...
Creating Connections With Patients, Staff, and Colleagues
Using Neuroscience-Based Tools Suppose that you have argued with a colleague or friend, and you now avoid talking to this person. Your relationship is damaged, and you wonder how to repair and restore it — how to start over, make up, rebuild trust, and work through...
Conversational Intelligence – the Tool to Restore Trust, Alignment and Collaboration with Physicians
Healthcare is an ever-changing and emotionally-intense industry. What we know for sure is that only the strongest organizations will survive. What separates the strong organizations from the struggling is two-fold: the organization's ability to align and co-create...
Need a Short Time Out? Take It!
ast week I spoke with a gynecologist in private practice who told me that he couldn’t remember the last time he took a vacation. His wife and children frequently travel to the beach and overseas, but he just cannot take time off from his practice....
Tighten up those Boundaries or else…
It is almost summer which is the time for weekly lawn mowing. When you instruct your landscape company to take care of your lawn, where do they stop with mowing? At the boundary line. I assume you don’t instruct them to mow your neighbor’s back lawn as well. After...
The Implications of Burnout in Physician Leaders
The Harvard Health Publications / Medical School just published an article on June 8, 2016 where they talked about the connection between opioid crisis and physician burnout in this country. You can read the entire article "The opioid crisis and physician burnout: A...
10 Assumptions About Physicians that Make Life Harder for Hospital Administrators
… And what to do about it! Physicians are the face of a healthcare organization. Their skills, behavior, and attitudes impact not only patient care, staff performance, and profitability but also the job satisfaction of their team and the hospital administrators....
Healthcare Success Depends on More Than Clinical Skills
To excel in the highly demanding, ever-changing healthcare market doesn’t simply require technical skills (clinical skills for providers; business skills for administrators, etc.); it equally requires self-management and interpersonal skills. A study by the Dale...
Three Ways To Ease A Disaster And Save The Day
A friend of mine recently posted the following story on her Facebook page: “Finally on a plane, and should be on the way to New York soon. A flight attendant just explained what happened: first plane was delayed, so they had to wait for another plane. At that point,...
Non-Clinical Continuing Education for Physician Leaders
If clinical skills are the critical machinery for health care providers, personal development is the fuel that runs the machinery more effectively. After all, health care providers are human beings as well as professionals when serving their patients. While it is true...
Time Management and Life Priorities for Physicians
If we can’t add a 25th hour to the day, how can we manage our time to accommodate the things we want to do besides work? First, it starts with managing our energy. So many times it is not that we don’t have the time to do the things we want to do but we don’t have the...
Three Tips to End 2015 with Joy, Peace, and Connection
Do you want more peace, joy, and connection this holiday season? Check out three tips here.
When Healers Need Healing – A Case about Physician Burnout
Last month, Katja Ridderbusch, an accomplished journalist and foreign correspondent for the German newspaper “Die Welt”, a noted author and international media consultant, interviewed me about the topic of physician burnout. Over the last 10 years, I have been...
Learning from Healthcare Executives about High Performance Teams
Earlier today I attended the Georgia Association of Healthcare Executives annual meeting luncheon. The topic of the luncheon was “Developing High-Performance Teams” where a panel of 3 female executives of 3 different hospital systems in the city shared their...
Reasons for Creating a Physician Leader Coaching Program
Q: What made you decide to create this physician leader coaching program? https://youtu.be/-I52RNAstXA A: In the last 10 years of my work with physicians, most engagements started with a conversation with an administrator and also with the medical director of the...
Issues a Physician Leader Coaching Program Addresses
Q: We currently employ a physician who has been in a department leadership role for quite some time. But there is a lot of turnover and conflict in this department. Would your program help? https://youtu.be/Kw5PcMpwtHo Q: We currently employ a physician who has been...
Ideal Candidate for a Physician Leadership Coaching Program
Q: Our physician leaders attended already a physician leadership program; isn’t that enough? https://youtu.be/SMOddg7rt7s Q: Our physician leaders attended already a physician leadership program; isn’t that enough? A: It can be enough or maybe it won’t. Here is how...
First Step in Building Work-Life Balance
A few weeks back I was interviewed on the topic of work-life balance for physicians. Here is the 4th question I was asked and my response. Can you comment on how the first step in building work-life balance is defining work-life balance for oneself and one's life...
Definition of Work-Life Balance
A few weeks back I was interviewed on the topic of work-life balance for physicians. Here is the 3rd question I was asked and my response. How do you define work-life balance? I must admit, I personally don’t like the term work-life balance since it not only...
Physician Happiness and Satisfaction Study
Physician Happiness Study and what you can do with it Last week the 2015 Great American Physician Survey, sponsored by Kareo, revealed a new statistic on physician happiness. In this study, they interviewed 1001 physicians where the majority was male (58.7%) and...
How You Can Stop Annoyance or Frustrations Quickly
Are you feeling frustrated or annoyed more frequently? Feeling frustration or annoyance frequently can be a major energy drainer in your life. It sucks everything out of you and many times it is hard to recover from this setback. Here is a neuroscientific trick that...
Two Concrete Principles That Ensure Your Success and Work-Life Balance
In general, physicians who explore my programs want more fulfillment, less stress, better performance – either as a doctor, as a leader, or as a parent / spouse. One of my mantras for all my programs is to keep everything rather simple. I learned the more complicated...