Team leadership challenges in physician-led medical practices

Tiffan, B.; (2014) The art of team leadership, American Journal of Health -- System Pharmacy, Vol. 7, Issue 10

Credibility -- Author Analysis

Bill Tiffan is a Principal with T2 Management Consultants which he and his wife co-founded in 2000. According to the company website, Tiffan "provides management consulting, team development, executive coaching and facilitation services to organizations that want to improve the effectiveness of individual leaders and executive teams" (T2, 2009). Tiffan previously spent 12 years with and international transition consulting firm where he was Regional Vice President of Sales. Bill also writes a bi-monthly column for the ACPE's professional journal; the focus of his column is executive career development. Tiffan also serves on the Board of Global Partners for Development. Tiffan recently wrote an article for the Medical industry espousing his beliefs concerning medical professionals as they pertain to team leadership, an area in which he has displayed a great degree of expertise.

Findings

According to Tiffan's article, leadership is often taken as a matter of course in the field of business, but it can also take place in a variety of other situations such as; in the medical field. Many doctors open their own practices and most immediately come to realize that doing so is akin to opening your own business, a business that needs leadership in order to survive, grow and run smoothly. Bill Tiffan, a Principal at T2 Consultants, recently wrote an article for the Medical industry espousing his beliefs concerning medical professionals as they pertain to team leadership. He says that one of the main problems in the small-business medical community is that "most physicians are trained as individual contributors and it's only on the job that they are actively confronted with the realities of working with teams" (p. 799). Tiffan states that the best method for overcoming that apparent lack of training is to take a number of steps to ensure that everyone in the business are on the same page.

Summary

Bill says the first thing necessary is to establish a common purpose that every employee can buy into. When espousing this common purpose it should be in clear terms that everyone can articulate. Ensuring that the team members all know exactly what it being sought after is a key component to the success of the venture. Secondly, Tiffan states that performance goals should be set in close context with the common purpose and that these goals need to be specific and they need to be consistently and constantly tracked. After the performance goals have been set, a commitment to those goals should be quantified.

Bill says it's not important that a 100% agreement be reached concerning the goals, but that every employee should commit to reaching the objectives. The fourth step is to make sure that the employees are right for the position but the most important step is the last one; accountability. Can the employees hold themselves and other employees to be accountable for their actions?