We had the wonderful opportunity today to have a senior high student come and shadow us at our office. There is no greater thrill than being able to invest time in sharing about managing a business and encouraging a young person who will be headed off to college to seek the job that the will enjoy for their working lifetime. She came prepared with plenty of questions for me on managing the office, what I liked best and what were my challenges. Last summer she had the privilege of working in a large hospital system for an internship and she wanted to know if in our office we experienced co-worker conflict and if so what did we do about it. She said at her summer job this was a bit of a problem and they had to have a couple of meetings to address issues between staff members. She then told me that this really opened her eyes because she didn’t realize that adults would behave this way at work. It brought back memories for myself when I first started working at a financial institute and found that there was gossip and backbiting between the staff members. I was a bit shocked because just getting out of high school and experiencing this a lot, I too thought that “adults” would not behave this way.
I was able to tell her that at times we have had employees that did try to “stir the pot” between co-workers, but that our policy is that we have open communication with each other and if there are issues that we work through them face-to-face. I tried to explain that even though people have reach adulthood, it does not mean that they know how to get along and communicate well with one another, plus there can be personality rubs, but if a manager is on top of things they will work hard to create a work environment that discourages this type of behavior. She was glad to hear that. We also talked about handling mistakes and that in our office we all can admit when we have made a mistake and that we try hard not to, but it is just a fact of life, mistakes will happen. It is having accountability for them that makes the difference and the willingness to make things right and to try hard not to repeat the mistake. She really liked the fact that we value honesty, ethics and integrity and felt that it made a much better work place when you can trust people.
I had her shadow the other staff members and learn about their job duties and how it takes a team working together to make a practice successful. I really enjoyed listening to the answers the other staff members gave her when she asked the same questions as she asked me. There was an underlying foundation in all of their answers and I could hear from them how we all “sealed” together by our office culture and desire to make our medical practice one that we love to come to each day and one that our patients love to come to when they need us.
This evening I heard from one of her parents, who thanked me for allowing her to come and shadow us today. They said that she really liked our office and was excited about how we all really enjoyed what we do each day together and for our patients. What a privilege it was to be able to invest in this young person. I think we got more out of having her there than she did being their because it inspired us to continue to work hard to keep the work environment we have healthy and strong. Not that we didn’t realize that we have created a good work environment, but it was a good reminder for us once we had the opportunity to share it with someone.
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