Drum roll please…
Because were are now beginning our discussion all about attracting, keeping, nurturing the very best quality … TEAM MEMBERS.
Because if you want to attract, keep, nurture the best patients you have to have the best team members first. This is the most obvious “chicken and the egg” scenario there will ever be. One attracts the other.
In order to have amazing Team Members, you have to be able to hire and screen properly first.
Of course, you may be in a situation where you already have an amazing and complete team without the need to hire anyone. But my guess, in dentistry, is that it probably won’t be very long before you run into the hiring process again.
Either way, what I’m about to share with you applies to the people you have now and the people you want to get in the future (even if that is an undetermined amount of time).
There are six key elements to getting the best team members that will fit with your culture, existing team and practice philosophy in order to ensure their successful contribution for you and satisfying position for them.
#1. You must begin with clarity of what you are hiring for: what skills, tasks, responsibilities, talents do you want and need this person to have.
Going back to each of your current positions and doing this without thinking about who is currently doing it will show you whether or not you have people in the right positions or people who need to be further developed.
#2. You want to then describe, with as much detail as possible, the characteristics and personality of the person who will be in this position.
This is where most people go to the internet and run some psychobabble test (by the way did you know that was a real word…psychobabble…it is); instead of just using common sense first. It is easy to identify what a person is good at but it is not so easy to actually identify personality and character.
You have to know what the position requires before you go hiring random people to do it.
Here is the trick, someone may be great at #1 or #2, but that’s not good enough, you need both. And worst case you need #2 first, possibly #1 can be trained and developed.
#3. You now want to layout what a successful outcome is for this position (and every position in your practice). What defines success during a day, with a patient, week to week and month to month?
This way, when you are interviewing and screening Team Members or assessing and evaluating the ones you have, you can discuss reality. The reason most team members don’t exceed your expectations (or even meet them) is because they don’t know what they are, not that they don’t want to.
You believe them to be mind readers. They are not. Neither are you.
#4. Now you need to attract the best quality people by having a compelling, engaging, positive and very specific ad around what you are looking for and what you are not looking for.
This can be an ad online or in the newspaper or at a school or just word of mouth through the Team. Our favorite way to hire is to ask our Team Members who we love, A-Team Members, to attract and find another person just like them.
It is no different than A Patients bringing in more A Patients.
The problem is, most of our ads are just for technical positions not for exciting personality driven careers that get the right people interested and dissuade the wrong people.
#5. You have to give each new hire a test run first. A day in the office, magic questions or practice assignments. Prospective Team Members must go through some type of actual experience and you want to put them in the heat of the moment to figure out how they will respond. This will reveal if they mesh with the current team, and if they work well under pressure.
The bottom line is: you must find out their real personalities, not their interviewing personalities. You have to ask the hard questions about accountability, their goals, work ethic and habits.
You can tell a lot about this because guess what: people will be honest, most people have no choice, they are just never asked.
#6. Last but not least for this initial screen process and attracting great people…trust your gut.
You have good instincts. You just usually talk yourself out of them.
It is a good idea for each Team Member to interview every new hire and then to talk openly about it. Unless you have more than 15 people in your office, you are all going to have to live with them, just like a family. Plus,there is no way your entire team as consensus will be wrong.
This is the final step that most people ignore and deny. Don’t. Otherwise you will be living with the consequences and it is a lot harder to undo than to never do from the very beginning.
Remember everything I have written here can be applied to your existing team members.
Now for the great news… if you want to take your team development very seriously then you have to have a plan, a specific approach. You need a system for it.
I’m hosting a very advanced and private training all about developing amazing Teams, making the best better and making the not-so-good great.
It happens next Thursday, Sept. 1st. Reserve your spot at: TeamSportDentistry.com
