Hey, it’s your LUCKY month. I love St. Patrick’s Day and that means I love the whole month of March. Sure, it can still be a cold, snow-ridden month for some, but it offers the first sign of new growth. Usually, after the busyness of the Holidays and February allowing you to get back into the swing of things, March finally provides some exciting opportunities to accelerate your progress towards your achievements for the year.
So, in keeping with the theme, I’ve decided to give you 7 (for obvious reasons) Luck Factors that I see as most commonly leading to success. These generate “luck” for practices to get more treatment, help more patients and otherwise make their goals happen faster.
Now, a quick disclaimer: you earn – as you well know – your own luck. Yes, sometimes things just go well, as if the perfect patient comes in at the perfect time. However, if you weren’t built for success and if you haven’t removed the sabotaging behaviors from yourself, your communications, your beliefs, even your approach with patients, then even the luckiest of days can go wrong because you push away opportunity instead of embracing it.
Sure, once in a while, you might stumble upon a four-leaf clover. Still, the reality is you are much more apt to find one if you are LOOKING for it in the right places. This holds true for every other aspect of “luck” in your life… Do the right things and the luck will follow.
The first luck factor I will give you is a review and something I have shared many times before…
An Effective Huddle
Hold on! Don’t be too quick to write that off as ‘been there, doing that.’ Would you believe that actually I don’t always suggest a typical and standard huddle?
Sometimes not even in the morning at the start of the day. Sometimes not even every single team member.
Before you go jumping to conclusions or thinking you can work yourself out of having to be there. It’s rare when the huddle isn’t first of the morning and including everyone.
There are practices with many hygienists, different hours, separate start times, multiple doctors, teams that do shift work, too large of teams to fit in any one room and the list of variables continues.
What you want to make sure you do is NOT MAKE EXCUSES for why you can’t have an effective, consistent, routine DAILY HUDDLE.
I use the sport analogy that no team plays the game without a game plan and that is your Huddle. Your game plan for the day. You play “a game” every single day.
The key points are really the principles of the Huddle and what its purpose is…
- Clear Communication
- Divide and Conquer with Team Member Coverage
- Seeking out EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE and POTENTIAL Opportunity to Help Patients (making sure you are completely driving the creation side of the practice)
- Time, Patient Flow and Clinical Efficiency
- Strategy of engagement with Patients (who, what, when, why type of things)
All of this is critical. The more specific and productive your huddle is, the more effective your performance will be and the more successful you will be EVERY DAY at capturing treatment before patients leave.
The rules are simple…
EVERYONE must be on the same page, and
EVERY PATIENT must be accounted for.
Whether you do it all at once, where you have department leads, or whatever the structure is, the day begins with an objective that is NOT just going through the schedule, seeing the patients and doing the dentistry that is already predetermined.
Now, in almost every case, it should be done every day with every team member. It’s only when it’s physically and logistically impossible that you should then have a back-up plan that still accomplishes the same goals.
This is the ULTIMATE LUCK FACTOR and it contains – done right – every one of our Daily Focuses from the first part of the year. Think about every focus I gave you to master and you will find it as an element of a successful “huddle” that serves as the game plan for you and your team to win today.
I always say, “One patient each day can make all the difference.” Trouble is, you just don’t know which patient it will be. So give every patient the benefit of the doubt and the chance to say yes to what you can do to change that patient’s life through your dentistry and clinical care.
What can you do to make your Huddles and overall practice communication more effective to generate luck every day?
