Last week I talked you through the individual participation that each Team Member has as responsibility to engage your Patients to achieve more comprehensive cases.
Bad news…almost guaranteed you are only using one out of a dozen or so high fee case accelerator leverage points in your Patient Experience and it’s probably the strategy of least magnitude.
Good news…there are many things you can do to start getting bigger cases RIGHT AWAY!
Now, last week I promised you we would get the rest of the Team stepping-up and supporting your Practice Champion and truly and completely make sure your Practice is ran by all players on the team.
There are 3 core factors in doing this, none of them should be new to you, mainly because I have covered them each at other times right here but have never strung them altogether.
Here they are…
Personal Growth Plan
Each team member should have a personal growth plan in your Practice. This should include their own stretch goal, education goal, self-admitted ‘area of focus’ to improve on, and their best asset or strength they can use to support the team.
You can work individually to help them create this or your Team Champion can do it, depending on the size of your Practice, less than 5-7 You should, more than 7-10 the Practice Champion is just fine, more than 10-12 or certainly 20+ I would have Team Leaders create one for each of their members and then the Practice Champion with the Team Leaders and you with the Practice Champion.
If your team members aren’t excited, motivated, feeling challenges, striving to improve and grow then a) you don’t want them and b) they are going to be dead weight and anchors to your vision.
The next element of making Dentistry a Team Sport is…
Peer Mentor Sessions
This is one of my favorite things to do because it allows the Team Members to show each other respect and to really learn to be a cohesive unit.
Basically each person who has a weakness matches up with a person who’s strengths is their weakness and they STUDY BUDDY this concept once a week or once a month and they work on it.
You should have specific blocks in your meeting schedule for this very thing. It gets your Team Members fully engaged and they feel proud of what they do and who they are and they take ownership to help make others better.
Everyone has at least a couple strengths or talents or things they love to do, harness that and let them shine. They can train or lead the team once a month pick someone different and something everyone can learn to do better.
You will see this transform the way your people interact and really engage with one another through this special process.
Finally and this is very big and seemingly obvious…
Accountability through Reporting Results
Every Person should have their own element of performance based statistical accountability to report on. They should prepare information for the morning huddle, they should check their results before the end of the day, they should report directly to the Team Champion (usually) their weekly performance.
If you have a culture where someone else is doing the “accountability” and checking in or micro-managing each Team Member you are wasting time, talent, energy, and resources.
Unless you have a large organization and even still it’s possible you do not need a person doing nothing but looking over people’s shoulders. These people should be self-accountable.
Yes it has to be enforced. But. The key here is YOUR expectation is that that THEY take responsibility not that YOU or your Practice Champion takes responsibility for them.
This prevents anyone from flying under the radar and it shows you who the real winners are going to be.
If you play in a sports game you want to know YOUR stats and if the Team won…if you don’t want to know these things, you aren’t an athlete or a peak performer and that is all we have room for.
So build a systematic method and structured plan where each person knows what the expected results are, how to track them, and the preferred method of reporting and MANAGING their own position.
These three core concepts should be prevalent in your daily, weekly, monthly Team interaction and Practice culture. They are significant changes to You and/or your Practice Champion carrying the weight of everything.
***Special Announcement*** coming next week – get to work on these and next Monday’s Huddle brings a entirely new topic and a unique activity for your team!
