When have you met your standards?

In healthcare organizations and businesses, we often find ourselves caught up in the pursuit of growth.

Growth for growth’s sake - that relentless quest for more, the gnawing compulsion to open new services and conquer every single challenge.

Yes, I continuously find myself asking: ”When is enough, enough?”

The world is absolutely in love with the notion of constant, insane growth.

This translates into bloated organizations, swelling revenues, and an attitude of “more, better, faster!”.

It’s a treadmill that, in my opinion, is always set a little too fast and a bit too steep.

Isn‘t it about time we hit the stop button and hopped off?

I am certainly not blind to the allure of growth. I have spent the better part of two decades growing myself and the consulting practice that I lead. Growth can bring a sense of progress and a feeling of incredible accomplishment.

Is it enriching? Certainly. Is it gratifying? It depends. But there is more to running a healthcare organization than the constant pursuit of ”more”.

I’m a firm believer in building our communities first - designing an existence that truly reflects who we are as the people who run an organization and what we value. And from there, growing service to fit that intentionally designed organization.

Not the other way around.

Organizations shouldn’t revolve around scaling services. Organizations should revolve around enriching the community it chooses to serve.

The real question we should ask ourselves is not “How big can our organization get?” but instead “What kind of community do we want to support?”. The magic happens when we shift our focus from size to significance.

We might discover that we are serving the community a lot less than we thought.

Because we’re more conditioned to believe that “more” is synonymous with “better”. But often it’s just synonymous with more.

Maybe it’s time we define “serving the community”?

Maybe ‘enough’ is serving the community with services that bring your providers great joy, serving people who truly appreciate your service, and having time to spend with them and their loved ones.

So today, I encourage you to challenge your own notions of serving your community.

Because your organization’s existence isn’t a service line plan waiting to be scaled.

Take it from me - there’s a profound contentment that comes with serving an intentionally designed community.

And the beauty is, your organization can fit perfectly within that design - without the constant, draining quest for relentless growth.

Isn’t that an appealing notion?

I hope you’ll consider it.

After all, when is enough, enough?

Today’s action steps:

Reflect on your and your organizations values and aspirations: Spend an hour alone without any distractions. Write down your personal values, apsirations, and what makes you feel happy and content. Look up and review the same things for your community. The idea here is to determine what truly matters to you in serving the community.

Identify your organization’s goals: Reflect on your organization’s goals. What is its purpose? What is its impact? Who are the people it serves? If the orgnization went away, what would be the impact and to whom?

Evaluate your current situation: Next, take a look at your current situation. Are you spending too much time growing services as the expense of serving the community? Are you continuously striving for more growth even when it’s causing the community stress and taking time away from the things that your community values most?

Define your standards: finally, define what enough is for you. It could be a certain amount of cash on the balance sheet, a set number of patients, or a specific impact you’re trying to make on health outcomes. This will give you a clear idea of when to stop pushing for growth and start enjoying the positive results of your hard work on the communities you serve.