Every now and then, a simple conversation sparks an entire thought spiral. Recently, while chatting with a colleague about the chaos that sometimes comes with running a medical practice, he hit me with a concept I couldn’t un-hear: the pompom handle.
If you’ve ever been near a cheer squad, you know the anatomy of a pompom. There’s the handle – small, sturdy, responsible. Then there are the hundreds of little strands exploding from it. Those strands? That’s your team, your processes, your tasks, your workflows, your patients’ needs… basically the beautiful mess that is a functioning medical practice.
And the handle? Well, that’s the person who somehow became the centerpoint for all information, all decisions, and all day-to-day operations.
In other words: the unofficial “holder of everything.”
Here’s the problem. In actual pompoms, the handle is designed to hold all those strands. In a business, especially a medical or dental practice, that same setup is a recipe for burnout, inefficiency, and the occasional urge to lock yourself in the bathroom.
When one person becomes the only one who:
It works for a while. Until it doesn’t.
If the handle is out sick, on vacation, leaves the practice, or simply becomes overwhelmed, the strands have nothing to hold onto. Tasks stall. Patients wait. Staff scramble. Tension grows. And suddenly you’re seeing just how fragile a “handle-based” system really is.
This is the part many leaders and administrators struggle with. Not because they want to own everything, but because over time, the role creeps up on them. One day someone asks where a file is. The next day someone needs help with an insurance plan. Before you know it, every question ends with someone calling your name from down the hallway.
But just because you can be the pompom handle doesn’t mean you should be.
Medical practices run best when:
This isn’t about stepping back, it’s about building a practice that doesn’t crumble when you step away.
By documenting workflows, delegating effectively, and creating clarity around “who does what,” you reduce bottlenecks, increase efficiency, and strengthen the entire team. It also means you can take a vacation without leaving behind a trail of sticky notes and checking emails for fires.
One conversation, one pompom analogy, and a reminder that no single person should be the structural glue of an entire practice.
If you’ve found yourself becoming the handle, out of habit, necessity, or sheer superhuman capability, now is a great moment to shift. Your team will grow. Your operations will stabilize. And you’ll finally get to put that pompom down.
(Unless you need it for spirit week. Then by all means.)
