Do you know what your greatest asset is in your practice? No, it’s not your patients – they are an abundant resource, unlimited in quantity and controllable in quality; accessible and available as long as you are doing what is necessary to attract them.
Your best asset is and will always be your Team.
I see dentists value their equipment more than they value the people who run the equipment. The best people are not replaceable, equipment always is.
I tell my clients, the single greatest breakthroughs you will ever have will always be human breakthroughs. Your people will give you more dramatic results and growth opportunities than anything else you can ever buy, invest, try, change, etc. Aside from yourself – your team is the secret to accelerated growth in your practice.
Over the next several weeks I’m going to take you through the most advanced approach, perspective, compilation of strategies to become a better, more effective leader and to set yourself up to have the most dynamic team you could have ever imagined possible.
If you chose to take this seriously, you will be in for the ride of your life, the fastest growth of your career and the most fun you’ve ever had in dentistry. All because your team is driving your practice growth forward, contributing to the profitability and assisting with the impact you are making on the patients you serve.
When it comes to the people of your practice there are three major mistakes that I see pretty much every single dentist / practice owner make to one degree or another; and it is why so many people leave and so few team members ever really hit their stride to become great.
1. Team members feel a lack of appreciation, gratitude and validity.
I know, I know, you think this is crazy. Either you are of the mindset that you are paying these people and why should you have to pander to them or you are thinking that you already show them great appreciation and you can’t image how they could feel like you neglect or ignore or slight them in any way.
You’d be wrong, no matter what you think. You are forgetting the single most important rule of human nature, that we all want to feel appreciated and validated no matter what.
Each of your team members are most likely not feeling appreciated in other areas and parts of their life. They often turn to inside of the practice and their job to receive this. When they do, they thrive and naturally go above and beyond. Feeling needed and respected will bring out the best in them.
2. Team members do not receive clearly defined roles and responsibilities. They do not own anything that they can be proud of or held accountable for.
People love accountability. They pretend they don’t and they love to complain about things they have to do that they think they shouldn’t. But at the end of the day, we all want to feel responsible and a part of something.
3. Finally, the biggest challenge with keeping A+ All-Star Team members is that they have no where to grow, they get burnt out and bored with the same old thing and status quo operations.
I can always tell someone who has been in a practice for ten or twenty or more years as the practice is stagnant because this person (which can be the doctor) is uninterested, boring in nature and not striving to take things to the next level.
There is no quality, loyal, talented, ambitious and serious person in Dentistry that doesn’t wish and desire to do better tomorrow than they did today.
If you do not deliberately facilitate that and help them, then you are squandering opportunity and not setting each person up for success.
There is a very specific method of cultivating A-Player Team Members (just like there is A-Patients), and that is exactly what we are going to be talking about.
This is where we’ll continue over the coming weeks…
In the meantime I’d like for you submit to me all the areas of improvement that you would consider a priority for you and your team.
