Strengthen Your Business: Leverage Company Culture As Your Competitive Edge | POP 721

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On this therapist podcast, Ashley Mielke talks about Strengthen Your Business: Leverage Company Culture As Your Competitive Edge

Can you leverage the company culture as a competitive edge? How do you create a psychologically safe environment for your staff? Why must you invest in one-on-one relationships?

In this podcast takeover episode, Ashley Mielke speaks about strengthening your business by leveraging company culture as your competitive edge.

Podcast Sponsor: Heard

An image of the Practice of the Practice podcast sponsor, Heard, is captured. Heard offers affordable bookkeeping services, personalized financial reporting, and tax assistance.

As a therapist, you’re probably too preoccupied with your caseload to want to think about bookkeeping or tax filing. Heard can help you out with that. Heard is a bookkeeping and tax platform built specifically for therapists in private practice that helps you track and improve your practice’s financial health. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned clinician or are in the first year of your practice, Heard will help you to identify areas for growth and streamline best financial practices for your business.

When you sign up with Heard, you’ll work directly with financial specialists to track your income and expenses, file taxes online, and grow your business. You’ll also receive financial insights such as profit and loss statements and personalized monthly reports. You can say goodbye to poring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions or quarterly payments; focus on your clients, and Heard will take care of the rest.

Plans begin at $149 per month and can easily be tailored to fit your business’ financial needs. Sign up now at joinheard.com/partners/joe.

Meet Ashley Mielke

A photo of Ashley Mielke is captured. She is a Registered Psychologist, Founder and CEO of a large group private practice in Alberta, Canada called The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre Inc. She is featured on the Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

Ashley Mielke is a Registered Psychologist, Founder and CEO of a large group private practice in Alberta, Canada called The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre Inc. She is passionate about supporting heart-centered practice owners in starting, growing, and scaling their businesses.

Ashley was called to start her company after the tragic death of her father by suicide in 2010. It was the purpose she found through her healing that inspired the ‘WHY’ that drives her 7-figure company today. It brings Ashley great joy to support other heart-centered leaders in building successful practices that are aligned with both their business goals and their deepest calling.

Visit The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre and connect with them on FacebookInstagram, and LinkedIn.

Connect with Ashley Mielke on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Check out and fill in The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre’s Questionnaire

In This Podcast

  • How culture strengthens the foundations of your business
  • Invest in one-on-one relationships
  • Cultivate a psychologically safe environment
  • Celebrate your staff
  • Connect your people to a cause greater than themselves
  • See your staff as people first

How culture strengthens the foundations of your business

The foundation of your business is made up of people, and if you want to strengthen your business’s foundation, look at:

1 – Client healing and recovery

2 – Taking care of your therapists

3 – The company’s growth and profitability

Business is about people, and without the people, there would be no business, and that’s why [culture] is so important. (Ashley Mielke)

The company consists of and runs on the relationships between people, and the relationships between people are another way of explaining culture because the culture of your business is the foundation of your business.

Invest in one-on-one relationships

It is vital to prioritize getting to know your staff. What motivates them, what inspires them, and what is important to them?

Build relationships from a secure attachment style, where they are founded on trust, authenticity, and belonging.

[Make] it known as much as possible that your people matter to you, and that you care about them. This will not only fuel their human need to belong, but will also inspire them to show up and pour themselves fully and wholeheartedly into their work. (Ashley Mielke)

By instilling this feeling in your employees, you automatically boost the success of your business because when your staff are happy and well taken care of then retention improves, loyalty improves, and it creates commitment to the team and the bigger vision.

Cultivate a psychologically safe environment

To create a psychologically safe environment means to cultivate a space where it is safe to:

  • make a mistake
  • take risks
  • ask for help
  • challenge the status quo
  • to be a human being

You can take steps to create a psychologically safe environment by going first.

What do I mean by that? As the leader, [you] set the emotional tone for [your] company and for the environment in terms of what is acceptable and how you show up. (Ashley Mielke)

This is your responsibility as the leader and the instigator of creating the business that you want.

Celebrate your staff

Delight in your people, and express gratitude for both large and small wins and acts of service.

  • Leave them a note on their desk
  • Send them a friendly text message or voice note about how much they mean to you and your company
  • Leave them a small gift or card on their desk

Be specific about what you want to acknowledge that they have recently done and done well.

Connect your people to a cause greater than themselves

Be clear on your company’s values, mission, and vision, as well as the standards that you have for anybody that joins your team.

Whoever we hire, we ensure that they’re not only a clinical fit for the team, but [that] they are a culture fit as well, and that they are a reflection of who we are at the core of [our practice]. (Ashley Mielke)

Establish your values, mission, and vision to attract the right clinicians to your practice, which in turn helps the business as a whole to connect to and work together towards the same cause.

See your staff as people first

No matter what job title they have, remember that they are people first.

This is where it is important to develop emotional intelligence in the company because you need to be responsive to the emotional needs of your staff.

What are they going through in their personal lives outside of work? Can you practice compassion and generosity towards your people?

Books mentioned in this episode:

Useful Links mentioned in this episode:

Check out these additional resources:

Meet Joe Sanok

A photo of Joe Sanok is displayed. Joe, private practice consultant, offers helpful advice for group practice owners to grow their private practice. His therapist podcast, Practice of the Practice, offers this advice.

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

[ASHLEY MIELKE] Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast, episode 721. I am your host today. Ashley Mielke. I’m a business consultant with the Practice of the Practice, and I’m also the founder and CEO of a large group practice based out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My practice is called The Grief and Trauma Healing Center. Today I’m going to be talking about a topic of conversation that I’m very passionate about, and that is company culture. People often ask me how I got involved in this area of work, why culture is so important to me. It’s sort of an interesting story. So taking you back a couple of years, I’ve been in practice for almost a decade and in business for almost a decade. I started The Grief and Trauma Healing Center following the tragic suicide of my dad. Through that experience, I learned how important relationships are, how important it is to cultivate an environment that is safe for people to talk about hard things and to ask for help. Honestly, that is where my passion for culture was born. So even when I was a one-woman show nine and a half years ago, or I sorry, about eight and a half years ago, this was still something that I knew was going to be really important to me as I started to grow my company. So I’m going to be sharing some tips and tools today on ways to build strong company culture. I can go on and on and for days and days talking about this. So I just wanted to share some tangible ideas that you can take away today, regardless of the size of your company, whether you are a company of three or a company of 30, it all applies. So let’s dig in. I thought it would be a really great place to start at defining what culture means. I have read so many books on culture and there’s all these different definitions, but there’s one sort of thread that connects all of the definitions out there. It’s how I define culture in my company. It’s the felt experience of the people. That’s what it is, the felt experience of the people. It’s the energy of the space in your workplace. It’s how a person feels on their drive to work every morning. It’s how a person feels when they’re at work and after work. It’s how a person feels while they’re interacting with other team members. It’s how a person feels while they’re actually doing their job and, on their days, off, when they’re thinking about work and talking about work with friends and family. It’s not only how our people feel when they come to work. It’s how our clients feel when they work with us and they interact with us. It’s the felt experience that the client has when they walk through our office doors, when they’re greeted by our administrative team, when they’re greeted by their therapist. It’s the entire experience of a person when they interact with your brand and with your company. This is so important to me and it’s something that I take very seriously, that when I think of all aspects of my business, I truly want every piece of a person’s experience with my company to be a true reflection of who we are, the values that are most important to us and our vision and mission. As The Grief and Trauma Healing Center our mission is to steward and guide people on the pathway to healing one broken heart at a time. So whether we are serving one new client or a thousand new clients, it’s so important to me that the experience is felt by every single individual. That is also true for the growth in our company as a team. So in two years, we grew from a team of eight to a team of 20. I think we’re a team of 23 now, and that has always been so key for me is how can I create an experience and an environment where no matter how small or how big we are, everybody feels important? Everybody knows that they matter and ensuring that we invest in every single individual, including teammates and clients. That’s a little bit about sort of my background and how I define company culture. There’s a lot more to culture than we possibly even thought of. Let’s be honest, this isn’t really an area of business that is often talked about because it’s difficult to quantify. Culture can’t be easily broken down into an Excel Spreadsheet. So it’s often not a priority for leaders and companies because there isn’t an easy way to quantify return on investment. We’re going to talk about ROI a little bit later after I share some of these sort of tangible tips and tools for you. I think that this is the most important resource that we have in our companies and the most important resource to leverage for the success of our companies. If there are 30 different private practices operating in your community, we can leverage culture as our competitive edge or as your USP, or your Unique Selling Proposition. I think it’s one of those experiences that really draws people in, in terms of their desire to work for your company and for clients to want to be a part of this experience that you provide. I see it as there’s sort of a triple bottom line that I want to strengthen and focus on as a company, a group practice owner. Number one, client healing and recovery. We’re in the business of serving people. Number two, taking care of our therapists, creating a beautiful culture for them to thrive. Number three, our company’s growth and profitability. As I just mentioned, I think culture is one of the most important aspects of a company, if not the most important. Why, because business is so much more than business. Business is about people and without the people there would be no business. That’s why it’s so important. We all chose this industry to be of service to others and without our clients and without our therapists who are offering the service, we wouldn’t have a business. So if you are in a stage of growth in your company where you’re still quite small or maybe you’re just thinking of starting a group practice, or maybe you’re several years into group practice, there’s no better time than now, than to reflect on your company culture and to find new and inspiring ways to invest in your people. So let’s dig into these five tangible and effective ways to build strong company culture. Number one on my list is invest in one-on-one relationships. That might seem really obvious, but it’s actually not. This is something that many of us maybe don’t recognize or don’t prioritize because we are so busy focusing on the business side of things that we end up neglecting the relationships. It is so important to prioritize, getting to know your staff, getting to know what motivates them, what inspires them, what’s important to them. I like to think of it as from an attachment perspective, building secure relationships that are built on trust and authenticity and belonging, and really making it known as much as possible that your people matter to you and that you care about them. This will not only fuel their human need to belong, but will also inspire them to show up and pour themselves fully and wholeheartedly into their work. That translates into retention and loyalty and commitment to the team and to the bigger vision. We know as therapists, that we are hardwired for connection from the moment of conception until the day we die, we never outgrow our need for deep and meaningful relationships. That extends to our workplaces where we spend most of our time. There’s this really amazing book I read. I believe it’s called Social written by Dr. Matthew Lieberman who’s a psychologist and neuroscientist at UCLA. He has studied social neuroscience for over 20 years, and he has discovered in his research that our need for connection is more fundamental and more basic than our needs for food, shelter and water. I think that that’s just absolutely fascinating about our nature as people and something that we must take into account when we’re building our companies, that these are people. Simply because they walk through the office doors doesn’t mean they cease to exist as a human. They are human beings first. So what are some ways that you can invest in relationships? They can be simple ways as just checking in, having a brief phone call, sending a text, checking in, seeing how they’re doing, take them out for coffee or dinner, invite them to a networking event, ask them to do something that you enjoy doing. Like something I love to do is go for runs. I love running in the river valley outside, especially in the warmer months. So I will ask my teammates to join me for a run on a Saturday morning. I also play hockey. I’m an amateur hockey player and I absolutely love it. So inviting them to come out and play or watch as a way to connect outside of the office. Or maybe you’re having a birthday party for your kids and you want to invite them and their child to attend. That’s also another way to connect with them in a different way outside of the office, get to know the names of their spouse and their children and what they enjoy doing. Maybe they have a special hobby that they’re involved in that you can ask about. Just taking that moment to connect is so important. There’s a concept that I learned when I went through my training as a marriage and family therapist that I applied to my leadership and that’s called sliding door moments. It means stopping and taking the opportunity to connect rather than missing it. So for example, how would this look like on a day to day? When you’re really busy and you’ve got things going on and you’ve got clients and your schedule’s full one way I think about this is okay when I’m leaving the office at the end of the day and I notice that, okay, for example, Jody, she’s one of our therapists, her door is open and she’s on a break and maybe she’s doing her clinical notes, I will knock on the door and step in and say, “Hey,” and offer her a hug and check in and say, “How are you doing? How is your daughter doing? How is her school going?” And just checking in and remembering those significant moments and things happening in her life. Honestly, I probably spend about 15 minutes connecting and I will usually take 15 to 45 minutes after, at the end of the day, if I can to connect with the team anyway, because it fills my cup. It’s inspiring, it’s invigorating and it’s such a beautiful way to wrap up the day. That is an example of a sliding door moment. So do not underestimate the value of investing in relationships. Number two, cultivate a psychologically safe environment. So what does this mean? There’s lots of books in reading. You may already be familiar with what it means to create a psychologically safe environment. But the way that I think about this is creating an environment that is safe to screw up, to make mistakes, to take risks, to ask for help, to challenge the status quo and ultimately to be a human being. I love that my leadership team feels safe enough to offer me feedback, to offer suggestions and to be really open and honest about things that aren’t working and things that need to be improved. If my goal and vision is to create a safe place for people to heal after they’ve experienced loss and to do that with the utmost professionalism and ethics and compassion, it’s so important as a leader of the company to be open, to change and growth and evolution. So I am just so grateful that together we’ve cultivated an environment that is safe enough to speak up. I feel like they are so comfortable challenging me and the business that we are always looking at ways to improve and I think that’s absolutely incredible and so important for the success of The Grief and Trauma Healing Center long-term. One way that I’ve helped to cultivate a psychologically safe environment is by going first. So what do I mean by that? As the leader, I set the emotional tone for my company, for the environment in terms of what is acceptable and how we show up as leaders that is our responsibility. So my willingness to be vulnerable and to be human, to share my mistakes, to take ownership and accountability of my shortcomings, recognizing my blind spots and sharing personal parts of my life with them has been really important. Also asking for feedback, asking about what we can do and what I can do better, differently and more as a leader and as a company. I think leading with vulnerability and humanness is so important in creating that safety and trust on the team. If we are not willing to do that ourselves and put ourselves out there it’s going to be really difficult for our teammates to feel safe enough to do that. So I encourage you to think about ways that you can share more parts of yourself, whether that’s leadership. Maybe it’s talking about your leadership goals, talking about the areas of your leadership or your business practices that you really want to nurture and grow and having their support and feedback on that. That goes such a long way. It truly gives others permission to do the same. My third point that I want to make is celebrate and light up for your people, delight in your people, express gratitude for small and large contributions and accomplishments. Acknowledging a teammate can take as little time as one minute, if you’re willing to stop and do that. So here are some quick, easy ways that you can do that. You can leave them a note on their desk that they’re going to find when they come onto their shift. You can send them a text message, send them a voice note, letting them know how much they mean to you. You can write them a card and leave that on their desk. It’s amazing how thoughtful it feels to receive a card or a note that you didn’t expect. I think when you do leave them a note or card, or send them a voice note to be as specific as possible about what you want to acknowledge. So maybe it’s something they’ve done really successfully in their work as a therapist, maybe it’s a recent certification or training, maybe there’s an anniversary they’re celebrating to just get really specific on why you are acknowledging them. You may also buy them a little gift or acknowledge them publicly. Maybe you have like, we’ve got a team WhatsApp thread. So maybe you pop something in the WhatsApp thread or you send a companywide email. The way that we do that is we figure out what their love language is. As a part of our onboarding, we ask what their love language is and how they like to be celebrated and acknowledged. If we know that it’s words of affirmation, we’re most likely going to write them a really nice card and really just highlight that part of how they like to be acknowledged. If they prefer gifts, then we’ll go and buy something that they really love. We ask questions about what’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite restaurant? What’s your favorite coffee to drink so that when we do go out of our way to acknowledge them and pick something up, we get something that we know that they love. I encourage you to find out if you don’t know already the love languages of your teammates [HEARD] As a therapist, you’re probably too preoccupied with your caseload to want to think about bookkeeping or tax filing. Heard can help you out with that. Heard is a bookkeeping and tax platform built specifically for therapists in private practice that helps you track and improve your practice’s financial health. Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned clinician or in the first year of your practice, Heard will help you to identify areas for growth and streamline best financial practices for your business. When you sign up with Heard, you’ll work directly with financial specialists to track your income and expenses, file taxes online and grow your business. You’ll also receive financial insights, such as profit and loss statements and personalized monthly reports. You can say goodbye to pouring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions or quarterly payments, focus on your clients Heard will take care of the rest. Plans begin at $149 per month and can easily be tailored to fit your business’ financial needs. Sign up now at www.joinheard.com. Again, that’s joinheard.com. [ASHLEY MIELKE] Number four, connect your people to a cause greater than themselves. Get clear on your company values, vision and mission, as well as the standards that you have for anyone who joins your team. A few years ago, I went through an exercise with my business strategist, who is just absolutely phenomenal. She helped me to get really clear on defining what is our vision, what is our mission and what are our values? Even though I knew what those things were, and it’s something we had been communicating, I hadn’t written them down. They weren’t displayed on our website. So this was a really important step for me as a business owner and leader for the company to get really clear on these aspects so that whoever we hire, we ensure that they’re not only a clinical fit for the team, but they are a culture fit as well, that they are a reflection of who we are at the core of The Grief and Trauma Healing Center. When we hire people who are as passionate about our vision, mission and values as we are, we are truly connecting them to a cause greater than themselves. Coming to work is so much more than just showing up, clocking in, seeing a handful of clients in a day and clocking out. They’re really coming in to make an impact on the world. They’re there because there’s a purpose that’s driving them, or as Simon Sinek says a why that drives them. The why that drives me and connects me to the growth of this company, particularly through the dark seasons, the really hard times is the why, behind why I started The Grief and Trauma Healing Center in the first place, which was my dad’s death by suicide and realizing how ill-equipped I was to deal with my dad’s death. I knew when I had gone through a healing program called The Grief Recovery Method, that that was so transformative I knew I was called to serve grieving people. That is the why that drives our company today. So how can we actually do that? How do we connect people to a greater cause? Firstly, if you are not already clear on your vision, mission and values, that is an exercise that you want to work through, getting really clear on those aspects so that when you do hire, you can be really clear on who you are looking for. In our application process. Before we even interview someone, I send out a preliminary questionnaire. This preliminary questionnaire, and I’m happy to share it. If anyone’s listening to this podcast that wants it, you can reach out to me and I’m happy to share it. It’s a list of questions that really digs into why they connect to The Grief and Trauma Healing Center. What is it about our values and our mission and vision that connects to them? Do they have a personal loss and a connection to grief that is inspiring them to want to serve other grieving people? And what are their hopes and dreams long-term? Do they see themselves growing with the company? So we send that right away so that we can get a feel for someone and their connection to who we are before we even interview them. Then when we go into the interview process. We have a whole host of questions that we dig into as well to make sure that they’re truly a fit for the values. This is possible while still being open to diversity and inclusion and uniqueness of people. We have people from all sorts of backgrounds and genders and ethnicities and cultures and experiences, but at the core of who we are. We have a desire to serve people who’ve experienced loss, and that is the thread that connects everyone. Okay. Now, moving on to number five, I’ve already alluded to this, but I’m going to say it again because it is so important. See your people as people first, no matter what job title they have, whether they are the CEO or they are a part-time administrative employee. They are people first. This is where developing EQ is so important. Understanding, recognizing, acknowledging emotions in ourselves and in others, and being truly attuned to the human experience of your people is so important. We need to be responsive to the emotional needs of our people. So when I look at someone on my team, I see them as a fully developed human being. I see them as someone who has strengths and vulnerabilities and fears and doubts and worries, and hopes and dreams and expectations. I truly work hard to see them in the fullness of who they are first. That is the part that I nurture when I’m building relationships. That’s the part we nurture generally in our culture is who you are as a person. We care about what you’re going through in your life. We care about your personal life. We care about how your clinical practice is going. We care about what areas you want to grow in. We want to know everything so that we can best support you and that you can show up and give your all. I just shared some examples about how to actually do that. It’s really, again, seeing the fullness of people, getting to know them, getting to know those more personal parts of themselves, and when they are struggling, actually showing up and supporting them, actually being there for them, giving them the grace and generosity that they deserve. When they’re going through a hard time, or they’ve made a lot of mistakes, or maybe they’re having an issue clinically, or they’re having an issue with a client, I ask myself, what is the most generous assumption I can make? What is the most generous assumption I can make about what they’re going through right now? When we can see them with generosity, we can meet them with love and compassion and patience as they navigate the challenge they’re going through. The only way to get to this place of compassion and generosity and kindness is to first offer ourselves as the leaders with that same grace and generosity and compassion. I think to be the best leaders for our companies, we must be willing to do our own work. We can only meet others as deeply as we’ve met ourselves. We can only meet others as deeply as we’ve met ourselves. I must be willing to dig into my stuff, my vulnerabilities, my imperfections, my struggles, my blind spots, if I want to be able to sit in a place to extend that grace to others. So I have worked with a therapist for a number of years. I have a business strategist that I meet with regularly, and I have a spiritual director. I am a woman of faith and a big part of my leadership. The vision for my company is my connection to my higher power and my faith, so engaging in daily practice, where I’m connecting with my faith and meeting with my spiritual director is a huge part of that so that I can stay deeply connected to the work, deeply connected to the purpose and deeply connected to my people. Okay. So we are going to be wrapping up here right away. I just want to reiterate again, whether your group practice is a practice of three or practice of 30, cultivating a workplace environment that feels safe for your people to show up fully and wholeheartedly should be a priority for you. As Simon Sinek said, and I love this quote, “When you take care of your people, they will take care of your business.” I wholeheartedly agree with this because I’ve seen it in my own company. Not only are you investing in your culture and your people, because it’s good in and of itself, there are also benefits for your company. There’s a huge ROI in investing in your culture and your people. To name a few; increased productivity, engagement, inspiration, happiness, health, trust, safety, belonging, commitment, and putting out the best work. This is so good for your company and for the growth retention and success for your company in the years to come. I’d like you to take a moment, or I invite you to take a moment to reflect on your biggest takeaway from today’s episode, what really stood out to you? What part of this podcast really touched you as a leader? Maybe there’s a particular area of your leadership or your company culture that you want to nurture and you want to grow, which is absolutely amazing because we are always growing and we’re always evolving and there’s always work to be done. My other call to action to you is to write this down, put it on a little sticky note, stick it on your laptop, put it on your mirror in the morning, put it in your vehicle. I want you to write down this question, whose life can I impact today? Start your day by asking that question, whose life can I impact today? Remember small and consistent actions lead to stunning results. All of the small and consistent steps you take today in building the culture of your company is only going to lead to stunning results in the future. I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast. If you’d like to connect with me or you desire to work with me, maybe I can support you in building strong culture in your company, please reach out to me at the Practice of the Practice. My email is [email protected]. You can also find me on Instagram at the Ashley Mielke, and I will hope to hear from you soon. So thank you so much for joining me today and I’ll see you again soon. [JOE SANOK] We couldn’t do this show without our sponsors. As a therapist, you’re probably too preoccupied with your caseload to want to think about bookkeeping or tax filing. Heard can help you with that. When you sign up with Heard, you’ll work directly with financial specialists to track your income and expenses, file taxes online and grow your business. You can say goodbye to pouring over spreadsheets and guessing your tax deductions or quarterly payments. You can focus on your clients and Heard will take care of the rest. Plans begin at $149 per month and can easily be tailored to fit your business’ financial needs. Sign up now at joinheard.com. Again, that’s joinheard.com. Thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye. Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the producers, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.