Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

What does it matter?

Your doctor wouldn’t ask you what field you work in before taking you on as a patient.

“Sorry, I prefer to treat only plumbers with hernias.  You work in finance.”

I’m still amazed that we continue to advertise jobs that emphasize what team you’ll be working with, i.e. job descriptions that read “primary job responsibility is working with women’s soccer and tennis.”  When did treating low back pain of a volleyball athlete become so different than treating that of the soccer or tennis athlete?  Shouldn’t our job descriptions read something more like, “primary job responsibility is to practice patient centered care and evidence based medicine”?

If all your work environment has to offer is working with one or two sports in particular, then maybe you haven’t created an environment worthy of the best professionals.  You know, the ones that like to solve interesting problems, continue to develop their skills and pursue best practice. Maybe you just want someone to come in, put their head down and work with that sport.

The trouble is, you’ll get exactly that.

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

What’s keeping you from doing your job –I mean your real job?

Remember? The job you signed up for – practicing sports medicine.  I know I signed up to provide care for collegiate student-athletes aspiring to make it big. I signed up to help and I know the vast majority of you did too.   Unfortunately, as time passed I found myself practicing sports medicine less and less and spending more and more time filling water bottles, filing insurance claims and cleaning up at the end of the day.
I also remember the day it all changed back to the way I envisioned.  

It was the day I decided to stop doing the “3-C’s” and started practicing sports medicine again.  Tom Cronin, a mentor of mine and the Director of Sports Medicine at MIT in Boston, told me about the “3-C’s” over breakfast as I was complaining to him about all the work I was doing.  He kindly pointed out to me that the majority of my work day was not being spent doing the work that I signed up for, but instead work consisting of the “3-C’s” – Catering, Clerical and Custodial.  If you could manage to take away all the tasks involving any one of the “3-C’s” how much time would you have left in the day to actually practice your craft? No more cleaning whirlpools, filling water bottles or chasing down insurance companies for authorization of services (I had a co-worker who once proudly told me they sat on the phone for over 40 minutes obtaining pre-authorization for an MRI – how many patients could you have seen and cared for during that same time?)

So when you walk into work tomorrow, find just one task that is keeping you from actually doing your job and stop doing it.

There, feels good right?

Now get back to doing your job! The real job you signed up for.

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

Ok, you work hard.

You’re in every morning on time, you only take a lunch break during the time you’re suppose to and you never leave early.

Now show me what you’ve shipped.

No, not the emails that you responded to promptly, not the insurance paperwork that you filed away or the suggestions you’ve made for this year’s staff retreat. Show me what you’ve shipped.

There’s a major difference between showing up and doing your job day after day and showing up and “shipping”.  I first heard the term “shipping” during a Seth Godin conference that was held in Boston in the summer of 2010. I used to call it “getting SH*^T done”, but Seth’s term works as well. 

When you ship, there is a measurable, tangible and sustainable change or difference that has taken place. It’s not answering the phone; it’s figuring out how to hire a student worker and establishing a student work force to answer the phone for you and your staff.  It’s not licking envelopes and mailing summer programs out to athletes and patients; it’s creating a website that describes exercises and shows video clips that your athletes and patients can access while on vacation 24/7 so they can continue to do their exercises while they’re away from college. It’s not telling your athletes/patients that a lean source of protein at each meal is important; it’s creating a comprehensive nutrition plan that involves teaching them to shop, cook and budget properly so they can make educated decisions on their own when they’re away from the training table. Shipping is about change. Shipping is about pointing to your resume and proudly saying, “I did this!”

I never hired anyone because they fulfilled their job description. I only hire people that ship, and ship on time.

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

The old way to manage people is to instill fear in them.  Let them know that you hold all the cards.  That you sign their paycheck and ultimately can have their desk cleaned out.

"Fall in line or else!"

Wouldn't it be easier to instead instill motivation and vigor instead of fear? Let them know that you are there to help them solve problems, promote their work, help them make connections to other people and provide new skills for them to succeed?

I guess the end result is the same though.

In both scenarios their desks end up cleaned out.  The first scenario after you fire them, the second because you created an environment for growth and promotion and ultimately they leave to take a better job.

The only difference is a lot more work gets done in the second scenario. And of course, usually ends in a hug and a thank you.

I've heard from a number of people in the past that in ancient China, the model doctor was the one who was able to teach a healthy lifestyle in order to prevent diseases, disability, injury and illness. Doctors got paid when they were successful (in keeping their patrons healthy) - not when the patients fell ill (which was considered a sign of failure!)

I don't know if this is actually true or not, but the concept is right up my alley.

Imagine if you were only paid when your patients/athletes were healthy?

How would this change your yearly training plans? Rehabilitation protocols? Strength programs? Pre-participation screenings and exercise prescriptions?

Would you be forced to take on a night shift at McDonalds to pay the bills?

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men's Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

I get it.  You’re too busy.  

Right now, in your athletic department, in your sports medicine department or in your strength and conditioning department there is a million and one things to get done, and they were all due yesterday.  Whether it's preparing summer conditioning programs, Christmas break rehabilitation plans or putting the finishing touches on your policy and procedure manual, there’s no time to take on another task, let alone put time aside to develop your skills or trade.

So if you’re too busy, it’s safe to say you won’t be attending a conference this weekend or snuggling up with an anatomy text book tonight in order to better your skills.  And if you’re too busy to improve your particular trade or skill then perhaps you’ll also be too busy to notice the young kid two cubicles down accept your dream job at the college across town or maybe you’re too busy to look up and notice your customers, (ya, customers – I know in most athletic departments they’re called athletes or even student-athletes) have stopped buying what you’ve been selling.

So if you’re too busy and can’t find five minutes to breathe, can I suggest finding two minutes and to read and learn from one of the nation’s top thought leaders?  Seth Godin isn’t a world renowned surgeon, he’s never taped an ankle and he probably can’t even bench his body weight.   But what Seth Godin can do, he does better than anyone else – he’ll stop you dead in your tracks.  Seth Godin will make you think… think about everything you do today and everything you’ll do tomorrow.  He will not make your athletes run faster or return your athlete from ACL surgery quicker – but he will challenge you to find five more minutes in your day to simply get better.

And if Seth Godin were in athletics? Well, Seth Godin would squat a thousand pounds.

Two of my favorite blog posts from Seth Godin:

The least I could do
One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that. That's actually what they spent most of my time at business school teaching me.

No sense putting more on that pizza, sending more staff to that event, answering the phone in fewer rings... what's the point? No sense being kind, looking people in the eye, being open or welcoming or grateful. Doing the least acceptable amount is the way to maximize short term profit.

Of course, there's a different strategy, a crazy alternative that seems to work: do the most you can do instead of the least.

Radically overdeliver.

Turns out that this is a cheap and effective marketing technique.

We can do it
Too often, it seems, this attitude is missing from teams, organizations or the community.

It's missing because people are quick to opt out of the 'we' part. "What do you mean, we?" they ask. It's so easy to not be part of we, so easy to make it someone else's problem, so easy to not to take responsibility as a member of whatever tribe you're part of.

Sometimes it's missing because people disagree about what 'it' is. If you don't know what you're after, it's unlikely you're going to find it.

And it's missing because people confuse cynicism with realism, and are afraid to say "can". They'd rather say 'might' or even 'probably won't'.

Just about everything worth doing is worth doing because it's important and because the odds are against you. If they weren't, then anyone could do it, so don't bother.

Product launches, innovations and initiatives by any organization work better when the key people agree on the goal, believe that they can achieve it and that the plan will work.

Do we have a cynicism shortage? Unlikely.

Successful people rarely confuse a can-do attitude with a smart plan. But they realize that one without the other is unlikely to get you very far.

Count me in. Let's go.


Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

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