Does this sound like your practice? You recently invested a significant amount of money joining a new teleconsulting service. It made big promises: quick access to specialists, shorter client waiting times for referrals, and keeping more revenue in-house. But two months later, you’re not seeing the benefits. Your associates aren’t using the system as often as they said they would, and the additional income you expected to pay off the investment has not materialized. You are frustrated, confused, and kicking yourself for wasting so much money on this “great idea” that feels like a flop.
Take a deep breath. You haven’t failed.
Your shiny new system is simply suffering from the Productivity J-Curve. When you adopt new technology, productivity almost always drops before rising. Things get harder before they get better.
Why? Because you have to surf the learning curve: redesign or adapt workflows, train yourself and your team, and live through some temporary disruption. The payoff comes later — but only if you stick with it and manage the change.
Hiking The J-Curve: Welcome to the Valley
Adopting innovation isn’t a straight ride to the top; it’s like hiking a mountain.
At the trailhead, everything looks promising. You have new tools, new boots, and high energy. However, before you can reach the summit (improved productivity, higher profitability and better patient care), the trail dips into a valley.
That valley is the J-Curve: a short-term dip in productivity that precedes the long-term payoff. To get to the top, you and your team must ride the J down before you can climb up.
The four factors that create the J-Curve
What makes up the J-curve? Four factors are at play.1
Hiking on Gravel: The learning curve
You and your staff members need time to figure out how to use your new technology effectively. During this phase, mistakes happen. Processes are slower and frustration mounts. The new system seems the opposite of efficiency. In your veterinary practice, that might look like staff fumbling for words when explaining the telemedicine consult service to clients. It’s like hiking on loose gravel: For every step forward, you feel yourself slipping one step back.
A heavy backpack: The “hidden” setup costs of intangible investments
New technology rarely works perfectly the moment you turn it on. It requires intangible but essential complementary investments in training, workflow redesign, communication, and culture change. It’s the hours spent developing new SOPs, cleaning up old patient records, or running multiple training sessions. Once those intangibles are in place, disruption turns into efficiency, and you see the payoff. Until then, it feels like carrying a heavy backpack filled with extra shoes and blankets — additional weight that slows you down before it saves you in a sudden storm.
Blocked trails: Disruption of old systems
Change often means dismantling what worked before. When you introduce a new innovation, your practice’s old workflows are blocked, but the new ones aren’t fully in place yet. Associates who aren’t yet comfortable with the specialist telemedicine consult system will naturally revert to the “old way” of recommending physical referrals. It’s messy and confusing, like finding the old trail closed while the new trail is still under construction.
Hiking Solo: The importance of network effects
Many technologies only deliver value once enough people adopt them. If your new telemedicine system only links you to a few specialists, you might not see the expected payoff until clients, staff, and more referral partners are comfortable with it. Hiking alone on a rarely used trail is much harder than following a well-trodden one. You need to reach critical mass — staff buy-in and client acceptance — to smooth out the journey.
The Ascent: Climbing out of the dip
Each of these causes of the nearly-inevitable dip — learning curves, intangible investments, disruption of old systems, and network effects — makes the valley a little bit deeper. Together they explain why innovation feels harder before it gets better.
The good news is that the valley isn’t endless. With the right strategies, you can minimize the valley’s depth and speed your climb to the summit.
Take your time
Apply some patience. As your team practices, they will become confident and efficient in the new way of working. Give staff psychological safety to make early mistakes as they learn to smoothly describe the benefits of your new telemedicine consultations. The unsteady path will eventually become solid ground.
Redesign the hike
Productivity gains don’t come from layering new technology on old processes; they come from rethinking the work itself. Don’t just add an innovation to an already busy day. Take the time to redefine roles and responsibilities, rewrite Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and realign client and patient flow to embrace it. It’s like redistributing items in your backpack: You haven’t reduced the physical load, but suddenly it feels lighter.
Be the trail guide: Lead and manage change
Innovation cannot manage itself. Leadership is the guide on the trail. You must set the pace, support morale, and ensure that no one gives up in the valley. Change succeeds when leaders actively manage it. Motivate your team by reminding them why you are introducing the teleconsulting system: faster answers and better care for patients and clients.
Share stories from the trail: Peer learning and diffusion
Encourage your team members to shout about their wins. Did the AI scribe save 20 minutes of typing? Was Jingle’s “mysterious” GI upset resolved after a quick consult with a gastroenterologist — something that her owners would not have been able to afford without the teleconsulting service? Share these triumphs! Ask your VMG Peer Group for their experiences. Show the path and build confidence. As the list of successes grows, the trail becomes well-worn and easier for the rest of the team to follow.
The view from the summit
The message of the J-Curve is simple: innovation takes time, training, and workflow redesign. Don’t mistake the early pain of the dip for failure. If you manage the curve, you will reach your desired state: higher productivity and tangible benefits for your patients, clients, staff, and practice.
When practices make a major change, the benefits are neither instant nor automatic. It requires time, training, workflow redesign, and leadership. Expect the dip, plan for the dip, and lead your team through the dip to reach your desired state: higher productivity, happier staff, and better medicine.
Keep hiking. The view from the top is worth it.
This content is based on a talk given by VMG President Matt Salois, PhD, at a recent VMG members-only event. If you’re ready to talk about VMG membership, we’d love to talk with you! Get started here.
References
- Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D., & Syverson, C. (2021). The productivity J-curve: How intangibles complement general purpose technologies. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 13(1), 333-372.
