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How can group work positively affect clients’ behavior and decisions? What makes a really good listener? What are the essentials that every leader needs to receive and implement feedback?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok discusses how to unlock the secret power of groups in your private practice with Dr. Colin M. Fisher.
Podcast Sponsor: Headway
I want to thank Headway for sponsoring this episode. If you run a group practice, you know that accepting insurance can be overwhelming. Between credentialing, billing, and payroll, the admin side can easily take over your week. Headway was built to help you handle this — and they’re the only platform designed specifically for in-network group practices.
Whether you’re growing your team or running an established practice, Headway makes the business side easier with faster credentialing, higher per-session rates, and biweekly payments your team can count on.
They work with therapy, psychiatric, and hybrid groups — and there are no subscription fees. Just the support you need to run your practice with ease.
Run your best group practice with Headway — trusted by thousands of group practice leaders to simplify insurance admin and reach more people through in-network care.
Curious how Headway can work for you?
Meet Dr. Colin M. Fisher
Colin M. Fisher is a leading expert in group dynamics, holding a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard and having served as an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Boston University’s School of Management. His work explores how groups form, function, and thrive — and his book The Collective Edge offers research-backed insights into making teams more than the sum of their parts.
Visit Colin’s website and follow him on Instagram, LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- A group can impact behaviors and decisions
- Challenging evolutionary behaviors in modern times
- Being a bad versus a good listener
- Dr. Colin Fisher’s advice to private practitioners
A group can impact behaviors and decisions
Human beings are social, and that means that groups, wherever they may be in our lives, have an impact on us.
When we’re in different group situations, we are conformity-seeking creatures … There’s this paradox in human behavior, where we deeply want to feel like we belong, we fit in, we’re accepted, and at the same time, we want to stand out from the crowd and be seen and acknowledged by the groups of which we are a member. (Dr. Colin Fisher)
In human evolution, being kicked out of the group was tantamount to an early death, and these parts of our brains are still active today in modern times.
Without even consciously noticing, we are always semi-aware of our position within the group, and we want to maintain it.
That’s why when we’re in a meeting and someone says something we disagree with, maybe we don’t express that disagreement. We say, “I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to be the one who stands out” … That tendency is what I have spent most of my job fighting! (Dr. Colin Fisher)
Challenging evolutionary behaviors in modern times
What Dr. Colin Fisher has been pushing back against with his research and work in groups is to curb that ancestral, evolutionary trait that discourages us from going against the group, even when it is necessary to do so.
What we’re in the business of doing is overcoming our brain’s natural aversion to anything that might meet with social disapproval, and building what Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson calls ‘Psychological Safety’, this shared sense that it’s okay to take these interpersonal risks. (Dr. Colin Fisher)
In industries such as therapy and coaching, Dr. Fishes supports the use of ‘psychological safety’ to get people to understand that they can and should share their authentic and true thoughts and feelings with the group without fear of being ostracized.
This technique can be particularly useful in business settings where people tend to agree when they actually disagree, to avoid social disapproval, and thereby lose the chance of genuine feedback, to brainstorm ideas, and to offer new perspectives.
This is the loss of the group’s power: in disagreement comes ideation and creativity.
What groups are really powerful for [is] where they make better decisions, where they can come up with things that are more creative than individual, is where they do disagree, and where they can have these differences and they can actually build on the differences between us to come up with someone that no one of us would have known or thought of on their own. (Dr. Colin Fisher)
Being a bad versus a good listener
Being a good listener is a crucial skill that can be developed. However, no matter how good a listener a boss is, if they have to listen to tens to hundreds of employees, things will fall through the cracks.
A lack of time and structure gets in the way of really hearing what people have to say.
Haste ends up being a big barrier [to good listening], where we’ve got these time limits and we’re asking people to share things that are often quite personal to them, but because of these time limits, a lot of leaders are rushing through, and that may end up making people feel worse than if you hadn’t had the meeting at all. (Dr. Colin Fisher)
Additionally, leaders need support when it comes to truly listening to their employees and clients. Often, they will be faced with negative feedback, and without support or self-awareness, they may get defensive.
Defensiveness is another big barrier that we see, and it’s often coupled with the fact that we have time limits on these meetings. (Dr. Colin Fisher)
So, leaders are under the dual pressure of having to listen without structure. It should not be their sole responsibility – they need a team around them to work through feedback and implement changes.
If they want to become better listeners as leaders, they need support and structure.
Dr. Colin Fisher’s advice to private practitioners
Groups are not as mysterious as they may seem. The groups are a manifestation of these structural conditions that are put into place ahead of time.
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Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Check out our Practice Academy!
- Visit Colin’s website and follow him on Instagram, LinkedIn.
- Sign Up to the Group Practice Boss Conference!
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Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners who are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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