{"id":14546,"date":"2020-05-23T02:45:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T07:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aligntoday.com\/?page_id=14546"},"modified":"2023-05-11T13:17:51","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T18:17:51","slug":"magnolia-physical-therapy-bouncing-back-with-the-tools-for-strategic-execution","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aligntoday.com\/success-stories\/magnolia-physical-therapy-bouncing-back-with-the-tools-for-strategic-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnolia Physical Therapy: Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis with Planning and Execution in Align"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magnolia Physical Therapy: Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis with Planning and Execution in Align<\/h1><\/div>

The coronavirus shutdown put much of Magnolia Physical Therapy<\/a>\u2018s business at risk. As they adapted to treat patients safely, the tools that had helped the business thrive and expand now worked to keep them afloat and prepare to bounce back stronger than ever. Align helped Magnolia create focus and drive execution during a tumultuous time.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"beth<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Align\u2019s given us the capacity to communicate and innovate better in a time of crisis, and I think that\u2019s making a big difference serving the patients who need us most.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Beth Winkler, CEO<\/h6><\/div>
\"magnolia<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Beth Winkler and her business partner, Lisa Taglauer, are no strangers to managing through a crisis.<\/p>\n

They co-founded Magnolia Physical Therapy<\/a> in August 2005 in their hometown of New Orleans, and creating this business together was a dream come true.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, August 2005 would be a tragic month in New Orleans. Just two weeks after they opened their tiny one-room clinic, Hurricane Katrina hit the region, flooding the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just like our city,\u201d Beth says, \u201cwe fought back, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next 15 years, Beth and Lisa grew their initially small practice into a model of excellence \u2014 an independent, female-owned physical therapy practice with as many as five state-of-the-art clinics serving patients all across the metropolitan area.<\/p>\n

Beth calls Magnolia\u2019s work \u201ca hands-on approach to rehabilitative health care.\u201d Patients are drawn to the one-on-one, in-person therapy provided by the practice\u2019s team of experienced physical therapists.<\/p>\n

Recently, however, their approach has run up against another crisis.<\/p>\n

In response to the spread of COVID-19, governments have required that residents shelter-in place, and citizens across the country are practicing social distancing. These mandates were especially notable in New Orleans, which emerged as one of the United States\u2019 first coronavirus hotspots.<\/p>\n

How can a business operating in such a \u201chands-on\u201d industry survive a pandemic?<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

A Common Cycle<\/b><\/h2>\n

Years before anyone had ever heard the word \u201cCoronavirus,\u201d Magnolia Physical Therapy was going through the same growing pains as many small businesses.<\/p>\n

As recently as five years ago, Beth remembers the company\u2019s idea of a big strategic meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Executive Team rented a beach house in Biloxi, Mississippi,\u201d she laughs. Beth says they\u2019d sit in a hot tub with beers and come up with \u201castronomical goals\u201d for the next year. \u201cIt might have been more organized than that, but certainly not by much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many business owners will recognize the cycle Beth describes:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou set these massive goals \u2014 \u2018hey, we should do that!\u2019 \u2014 and you get off to a great start in January when you\u2019re motivated. But then you forget about it. It isn\u2019t until you\u2019re having the same meeting next year that you admit how far short you fell on the \u2018priorities\u2019 you set.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a while, though, Magnolia steadily grew despite the company\u2019s strategic planning and execution challenges.<\/p>\n

But Beth remembers the moment that ended. They were doing the same things they had always done to grow, but now they were losing revenue instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur processes and systems weren\u2019t working anymore,\u201d she says, admitting it wasn\u2019t just one thing they needed to fix.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of things,\u201d she says. \u201cWe needed help.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Building Organization<\/b><\/h2>\n

That help first arrived in the form of a book Beth and Lisa learned about, called Scaling Up<\/a>. It\u2019s a compilation of author Verne Harnish\u2019s\u2019 \u201cRockefeller Habits\u201d \u2014 the guiding leadership and management principles thought to make John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil one of the great success stories in American business history.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s methodology focuses on strategic planning, prioritization and execution \u2014 all elements Beth wanted to improve at Magnolia.<\/p>\n

They hired a Petra coach<\/a> to help guide them, and their coach strongly suggested they use Align<\/a> strategic planning software as a tool to hold the business accountable while they implemented the Habits and pursued their priorities.<\/p>\n

Beth says Align made a huge difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we had a process in place for our entire management team to get together and create longer term priorities,\u201d she explains. \u201cAnd, maybe most importantly, we had a tool in Align to help us track daily toward accomplishing those priorities so there was no way we could forget about them. They were the center of what we did as a business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using Align and the Rockefeller Habits, Beth says the company\u2019s leadership team was able to prioritize and solve persistent challenges that had dogged them for years. For example, they were able to settle on roles for executive team members that were, both, interesting to each member and didn\u2019t overlap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was I wearing the CFO hat until then?\u201d Beth wonders. \u201cI loathe numbers and spreadsheets and Lisa likes them! It seems obvious, but Align gave us a platform and the organizational will to work through our challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

A Pandemic Strikes<\/b><\/h2>\n

This freed up Beth to focus on the team she was assembling at Magnolia. She was excited to embrace her role in making her physical therapists\u2019 experience a more positive one.<\/p>\n

One way in which Beth hoped to do this was to improve their onboarding process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a new employee would start with us, we\u2019d hand them a big, fat manual,\u201d she laughs, mocking, \u201cHere you go! Here\u2019s your overwhelming manual.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Align, she made shifting elements of the onboarding process to an online system a priority. She made goals for herself to choose a platform, to produce three demos, and to create five lessons.<\/p>\n

Things were going so well, in fact, Beth considered moving all of onboarding online.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right about when COVID-19 spread through New Orleans, effectively shutting the city down for months and counting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, our only priority was deciding whether to keep Magnolia open or not,\u201d Beth explains.<\/p>\n

Magnolia and other physical therapy clinics were declared an \u201cessential business\u201d by the government, because physical therapy has an essential role in the post-surgery recovery of patients. After a surgery, physical therapy can help minimize scar tissue development and maximize flexibility and range of motion.<\/p>\n

Beth recognized the integral part her practice plays in keeping patients from returning to overwhelmed emergency rooms, and her physical therapists took on that job bravely. They\u2019ve welcomed patients into their clinics.<\/p>\n

But many of Magnolia\u2019s patients weren\u2019t recovering from surgeries. Many see a physical therapist for important \u2014 but less urgent \u2014 matters. And a majority of patients are older, making them more susceptible to serious COVID-19 symptoms.<\/p>\n

As a result, Beth says their practice lost 70% of its clientele. They had to lay off some of their employees and even close down one of their five clinics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll need to find a way to do more with less,\u201d Beth says, explaining how the company will look different at the end of the pandemic. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to find ways to be more efficient than we\u2019ve ever been, and that\u2019s exciting. But we\u2019ve had to lose employees, and that\u2019s a very sad part of all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Getting Organized<\/b><\/h2>\n

After making the decision to stay open, Beth says the next step was to reevaluate their work and priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to decide what we wanted Magnolia Physical Therapy to look like moving forward,\u201d she says, \u201cand Align was essential to that work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Align showed the team was falling behind on their priorities, and at first, her leadership team would simply blame the pandemic. After years of adopting and instilling the Rockefeller Habits, it suddenly felt like Magnolia was running in place.<\/p>\n

But Beth and Lisa had dealt with crises before, and they weren\u2019t going to let this one derail them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finally told them nobody\u2019s allowed to use that excuse anymore,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

With the help of their Petra coach, the co-owners led their team through each priority. They marked some with a \u201cpause,\u201d doubled-down on others they thought they could still achieve, and even created new priorities they had been waiting to address for years.<\/p>\n

Magnolia has expanded their virtual physical therapy, for example. Beth says the in-person, hands-on work is a major part of what they do \u2014 and something patients really value \u2014 but she also believes a lot of the vital steps of their practice can take place virtually, as well, whether in one-on-one online sessions, or by more general videos they release.<\/p>\n<\/div>