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I am a GP, do I really have to be a 'manager' too!?

About 10 years ago, I was discussing practice team management with a GP colleague who said to me “Oh, the office ladies all love me – I know all their names and make sure I put the favourite flowers of a different one each week on the desk… in rotation. And I take them out for dinner on their birthdays”.

We live in different times now, and that particular GP is no longer practicing. I doubt anyone would consider that list of horror as a good management plan for any sort of practice. However, we might be prepared to accept that the good intent expressed by this almost cartoonish character is perhaps on a spectrum of thinking about management in General Practice that many would recognise if they were being honest: Personality or ‘charisma’ management, mixed with a little divide-and-conquer favouritism. These are actually remarkably easy patterns to fall into, especially in small businesses. Perhaps, if we are being frank with ourselves, even more so in Private Practice where the leadership is so highly trained, educated and held in high societal regard.

It is inevitable that as a GP Partner and or Private Practice owner, you will be in a position of leadership. It's also quite likely that you won’t have the luxury of an HR department or dedicated HR specialist on hand to run these things for you – and nor should you need one. So whether you are employing someone to ‘run the business side of things’ or leading the team directly yourself, you will be key in modelling the management approach and culture of the practice.

So the answer to the question poised above; “Do I have to be a manager as well as a GP?” – is “Yes, to some extent you do”

For some of you this is very much part of the joy and satisfaction of Private Practice – the exercise of a different yet associated skill set. But for those of you who find the thought less attractive, possibly even intimidating or even a distraction, I urge you to consider two points: - Firstly your training and experience to date as a GP already provides you with a set of skills in understanding and communicating with people in far more explicit and practical way and at a far higher level than almost any manager in any other industry ever receives and secondly, that ‘good hr and team management practice’ is understood to an extent now that there are a variety of truly excellent tools that will carry any business effectively through the cycle of a year, allowing you to confidently use those interpersonal skills while also ticking all the appropriate boxes.

And there are boxes to tick of course. But if you choose the right tools, such as Credentially and TeamNet those boxes become helpful waypoints in the ongoing, structured management relationships in your practice.

Accepting that as a GP in Private Practice you are a leader is a hugely important, often underestimated, first step. Step two might be recognising that your leadership can and should be supported by the appropriate tools and structure.

Personality *in* management is a fine thing when placed in a structure that recognises and supports the whole team. Personality management is …well, it’s where we started this thought today.

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