We decided to reach outside of the industry in this Hubspot article to find tips that work for change management. Considering the amount of change practices have had to go through in the past two years, we know that retaining effective employees and patients is a priority for most of you.
The top tip is to utilize employees' skills and willingness to manage and accept the change, as opposed to a top-down approach. If you're embarking on an important move, switching software, or merging with another practice, strategize the game plan with your team. Keep reading to see how you can implement this.
2 Change Management Models that Apply to Your Eyecare Practice
Method 1: Kurt Lewin's Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze Model
First you unfreeze by breaking down the existing methods and their effectiveness, then you discuss how these need to change, and then you implement the changes. Everything happens collaboratively.
Even if you're making one change, the discovery stage is a good time to ask your employees what changes or optimizations they want to suggest across all parts of the business. Make sure these opinions can be expressed openly without judgment, possibly anonymously, and then discussed with the entire team after you've filtered out the most effective ideas.
Method 2: Kotter's 8-Step Model
You can review all 8 steps from the 1995 book Leading Change here.
After you have started the discussion on why change is necessary, you start getting the leaders of your team on board. Then, you'll create the vision and strategy with the input of your team and make sure you're addressing obstacles they bring up. Then, once you set up an implementation plan, make sure there are small-wins along the way that can be markers of progress or just motivate your staff to keep going through the process.
The final steps involve analysis of how the change has positively (or negatively) affected the practice and a review of why it needed to happen. Although these steps sound idealistic, the most important part is involving staff from the start so that they don't feel pigeonholed into adding more work to their plate.
Our change management ebook has even more advice for you to follow. Read it below.
