Thanking My Team
December 24, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
For those of you who keep up with my blogs, you will remember that 2 weeks ago I did a series of blogs on Malcolm Gladwell’s phenomenal new book, Outliers, in which he talks about how successful individuals come from a product of their environment. With that spirit, I would like to thank each and every one of my staff members who have made LFP a true success with doubling percentage growths every year.
Constanze- Thank you for helming my ship and getting rave reviews from patients about your wonderful stewardship of my practice. Your organizational skills, phone skills, and educated knowledge of LFP make you an indispensable part to what LFP is all about. Your honesty and integrity define my opinion of you. Your work ethic is unmatched. You don’t leave until the job is done and done right. You are truly a rare and precious gem. Thank you for all that you do.
Marcy- Miss Flipper, the co-pilot, you are an intelligent and passionate individual whom I hear every patient walking through the door who has spoken with you that you have blessed them in both your delivery and content. I appreciate your Internet and technology savvy and all that you have done for my business on that end. You are a remarkable individual who has made everything that I do easier and more streamlined.
Dianne- Despite some health issues this past year, you have triumphed in both spirit and form and you look like a new person coming back from Italy. That has made me smile inside deeply since you are part of our family. Your stepping in during this critical holiday time has been so appreciated that I cannot speak what I feel in words. Your raw intelligence exceeds mine and your leading my surgical team and surgical center is unparalleled. I don’t think I need to tell you that.
Beth- You are just a radiant jewel that shines like a beacon to my patients. As I say all the time, you singularly get more compliments from my patients than any other staff member. You garner that praise because it is well deserved. Your perioperative work to help my patients during a time that can be scary alleviates them of that fear and gives them a warm family touch that I am confident they would never receive in any surgery center or hospital. You define the patient experience and serve as an exemplar to all around you for your care, compassion, and selflessness.
Emina- You are one of a kind not in the U.S. but in the world. Your knowledge in hair restoration from the front end, back end, surgical side, leadership, staff training, staff inspiration gives you the deserved nickname, Yoda. You are such a precious asset to me that I cannot even begin to thank you enough for how you literally bleed for our patients. We deliver a singular experience and result and I am so appreciative of your vital component to that success.
Darla- You are so very very smart. I appreciate that intelligence and being as a worthy co-pilot during surgery. You lead my MAs very well, and your graft dissection skills are tremendous. I don’t know how to thank you for your stepping up whenever duty calls where you needn’t do that but you do. You just are a tremendous team player and focused on what we give our patients. I can’t simply thank you enough.
Vassilka- I love seeing you every day. Your kind heart and generosity of spirit are unmatched. I know you do so very many things for me that I can’t even begin to thank you for. Your delicate hands during hair restoration, your great number sense and graft calculation, and your impassioned dedication to be always the best even during your pregnancy not only means so much to me but to our deserving patients as well. I have a smile that goes deep to my soul each and every time I see you. You bring a light to my world and to LFP every day you are there. We all missed you so much during your maternity leave. You are simply a beautiful person.
Stephanie- Although you have been with us only for a few months, you have proven your salt in a relatively short time. Your dedication to excellence and your innate intelligence have won me over. I hope that you can envision a long career with us because I am so very deeply proud to have you on my team at LFP. Keep up the tremendous work and continue to dazzle me with your massive brain power! I am also keen on seeing your talented hands at work on some of the things we have you training to do.
Donna- You bring beauty and intelligence to the team. Even though you are only here a day a week, I think my entire team looks forward to your coming. You are truly very very bright and I admire that (I don’t just mean your movie trivia skills). Hopefully, as LFP grows, you can come on board more. I really love seeing your smile and your helping me so effortlessly navigate the preoperative waters in a thoughtful, unrushed, and warm-hearted way.
Linda- You have won my respect. Your leadership skills now going from MA to Spa Director are amazing. You lead by example, passion, and work ethic. You have done so much to take a disparate team and make it follow in sync behind you. I am so appreciative at your creative energy because you never cease to amaze me at all you do. Thank you for becoming my newest and extremely strong leader. I am so very proud of you and when I look at you every time you give me a wonderful sense of almost parental pride that I gave the keys to the right person.
Philip- You are truly a gem to my mom and me. I know that I do not even have to look at the accounts because you are truly one of the most honest individuals that I have met. You are an individual of high moral worth and you are also one that gives everything you got. Thank you so much for making LFP run like clock work. Your presence is always felt and your love for our family is profound as ours is for you.
Richard- Richard, you are so rare a person that I don’t think God ever would make another like you. You give, give, give, give, give, give, give and never take. You give so much that I feel this deep guilt of calling you. The reason that WBW was built so well was because of you but well beyond that the reason that it still runs owes EVERYTHING to you, and I mean everything. You are the great Atlas holding up the world of WBW. If you were not here, there would not be a building. You give my mom and me peace of mind and a warm heart. I simply love you and Catherine like family because you are. Thank you for being such an amazing individual. I don’t want to fill two pages here otherwise my other staff might get a bit jealous in how I feel about you.
Mom (Carol)- Last but not least, thank you for building this building, acquiring this land, and having blind faith in my skills and risking everything we have on my practice and me. Thank you for giving me life, and thank you for being a mom to all my staff who look to you for moral guidance, love, compassion, and leadership. You are such a rare mother that I could not even imagine anyone that would come close to you. Your business acumen, math sense, and salesmanship make WBW and LFP not only successful but fully thriving. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks to all my dear patients, clients, and patrons who frequent WBW, and I give back a touch of warmth and good spirit during this wonderful holiday season. All of you brighten my life and inspire me to be a better person and a better surgeon for you! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate Christmas and whatever religious persuasion you follow, I wish you the merriest holidays this season!
The Vision Thing Part 2 of 3: Getting to Why?
November 18, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Many of our businesses are predicated on the what and the how. What are we producing? What is it that the consumer wants? How do we improve things? How do we make the consumer happier? Let’s take a look at the real core issue: Why. I was listening to Simon Sinek last year at an EO event who talked about getting to why (more about that tomorrow as well). The why is why we are doing what we are doing.
I had a spa event a few weeks ago where a lady said what really bothered her were a few fine lines on her upper lip. No one in the room could see what she was talking about, and she asked me, “Dr. Lam, would you mind if I just came to you to fill these lines and nothing else?” I said, “No, that is fine. However if you continue to do that over the next 3 years, you are wasting my talent and I am wasting your money.” That being said, MOST women come to me solely to fill those fine lines because that is what they are programmed to think ages them. Obviously, if I have done what it takes to get you where I think you should be then we can fill those lines. That is fine with me to see you and to educate you but I do not roll out of bed to fill a line. I get out of bed for an entirely other reason…
What is my why? It is in a nutshell “to take care of people and to transform lives”. Audacious? perhaps but it is something that is driven into my staff’s brains. The why is not just the reason that I get out of bed, it is the reason that all my staff get out of bed too. Yes, they come for a paycheck no doubt. However, they come because of the difference they know we are making every day.
If any of them look at what I do as trivial, then they will not stay with me oftentimes not because I am going to fire them but because they are going to fire themselves. They can’t survive in a culture that is dedicated to relentlessly addressing our core why. Stephanie, who works as my MA, left her last job because they had no why. Their why was to gouge and steal from the customer. She has seen what our why is every day. She sees that I turn away as many customers’ desires as I accept. I fundamentally cannot and will not waste your money. I really love what I do until I bleed. However, my staff does too. We are here every day impassioned by YOU.
Remember that as much as you choose me as a surgeon, I choose you as a patient. This is a marriage of sorts. If you are principally negative and micro-managing. If you are here to do something that fundamentally is a waste of your money, you should not be my patient and I should not be your physician. Am I taking risks with this website? Absolutely, I am NOT all things to all people. I have defined my vision and my patients who are attracted to it come and stay. Those who are not, do not. They leave or don’t stay and I am more than happy about that. Same with my staff. Those who cannot share my vision at a fundamental level don’t last. Are they wrong? Am I wrong? No. No one is wrong. The fit is just not right.
Do you know what your why is? Why do you get of bed every day? Why do you go to work every day? Is it just for a paycheck? Is it to punch in the time clock and leave so that you can party with friends? Fundamentally beyond the what and the how lies the why. That is the core of any vision.