The holidays have come and gone and we are at the dawn of 2012. The start of the New Year sets the stage for new beginnings. It marks the best opportunity of the entire year to create a vision, set goals, and make a commitment to building the practice you’ve long dreamt of, a practice with a cohesive, fully functioning, and highly effective team. Yes, it is possible. And, no, I haven’t been sipping the left over eggnog.

“But, Sally, my staff and I work pretty well together, and I don’t want to spend time on intangibles.” Intangibles? Consider the following questions:

*How many times during 2011 did you wish a member of your team would handle a patient, a procedure,

or a situation differently? How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many times during the year were you managing conflict between team members?

How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many times did you feel like one or more members of your team were heading in the

opposite direction of the rest of the group? How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How often were you frustrated by team members’ inability to solve problems or take necessary action?

How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How often were staff meetings either dead with silence or dominated by one or two people?

How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many good ideas surfaced but were never implemented?

How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many times did you hear the words, “It’s not my job.” Or “I thought that was Jane’s responsibility”? How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How often were you faced with a two-weeks notice? How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many patients did you lose in the last 12 months? How much do you think it cost your practice?

*How many times did you feel like the practice should be doing better financially, that work

should be less stressful and more rewarding? How much do you think it is costing you personally?

An ineffective team is expensive. It costs time, money, patients, staff, and stress – five pretty tangible things, wouldn’t you say?

Effective teams produce concrete and measurable results. But it doesn’t just happen. People working under the same roof for 8-10 hours a day does not make a team. Oftentimes, practices have employees that together could become an outstanding, highly effective team. Individually, most of the members are dedicated, hard working, and knowledgeable, but they simply don’t know how to function effectively as a group. Consequently, they become mired in conflict, turf wars, and pettiness.

They don’t know how to establish team goals and to identify the strategies to achieve those goals. But show them the possibilities of working as a team and give them the tools to function as a one, and you begin to build the high performance dental team.

Effective teams have a few fundamental needs that have to be addressed. Individuals need direction and a fundamental understanding of how their day-to-day work fits into the practice’s overall goals and objectives. Team members need to know they can trust each other. They need a process for managing conflict, which is inevitable and occurs on every functioning team. They need to understand what their individual strengths and weaknesses are as well as those of their teammates. Team members need to feel included in the process. They need to feel valued for their contributions, and they need to feel empowered to make decisions and take action when it is in the best interest of the practice.

Team members need to know how to communicate with each other. A true team environment encourages individuals to risk speaking up, to ask for help, and it gives them a safety net to make mistakes. It also creates a strong environment for solid constructive feedback. Effective team members turn team priorities into individual priorities. They understand that their role affects not just themselves but Jane, Mary, Tom, the doctor, and everyone else.

Kick off 2012 with a commitment to solidify your team, and when the holidays roll around again in 12 months you’ll be celebrating your best year yet.

I love the Oprah magazine. Most of the advertisers are ads that you don’t see in other magazines. I figure if you’re going to have to look at ads, they might as well be for something different. Today I was skimming over the Dr. Phil column and an employee wrote in about his boss. This was a non-dental business, I assume, but the employee’s work space was close to the boss’s. The spouse also worked in the business and the boss was frequently berating the wife, speaking loud and he was down right verbally abusive.

This reminded me of years back consulting with a husband wife practice. The husband was the dentist, the wife ran the practice and their house was attached to the office. The wife would react in the same manner as described above and was oblivious or didn’t care who heard her screaming at her husband. Of course this scenario doesn’t have to be married. It could be simply employee to employee. Obviously in a larger company, you would go to human resources but since I am relating this to a “small dental practice”, there usually is no human resources. I always feel it is best to go directly to the source and Dr. Phil felt so too. He offered in his “script for the month” one addressing “Expressing Concern”. I have altered it just slightly to deal with a dental practice and felt that it might help a few situations out there.

I need to discuss something that’s making me very uncomfortable. I respect the boundaries of our professional relationship, but because we work in close quarters, I can’t help hearing and seeing your interactions with “NAME”. I’m concerned that you’re being disrespectful and demeaning to her/him. I know you’re probably thinking that how you speak to “NAME” is none of my business. But because this occurs at work, in front of the staff, it’s become an issue. Your behavior makes the work environment tense for the staff and me. I wonder if there is anything I can do – personally or professionally – to help. I realize the risk I’m assuming by bringing this up, but I’m coming to you now because I want what’s best for the business and because I can’t sit idly by and watch someone being mistreated.

Sally

* Has this situation come up in your dental practice before? Would this scripting have helped you?

Write in your comments below and share your experience…I enjoy hearing from you!

As another year drifts to a close, many of us are lamenting how quickly it has passed. The days of perpetual busyness leave little time to savor the successes or to step back to assess the possibilities. Often the moments we have are spent on the run dashing from one patient to the next, one project to the next, one crisis to the next. With a familiar sigh at the end of the day, the week, the month, and now the year, the common refrain is heard, “Where did the time go?”

However, standing at the dawn of a New Year means that 12 months and 365 days await, and there is no time like the present to commit to making the most of every waking moment in 2012. I don’t suggest packing more work hours on to your day or more patients into your schedule. What I want you to consider is carving out 15 minutes a day and two hours a month to increase your production – without working harder or longer. I want you to improve your patient retention – without giving away your dentistry. I want you to energize and enhance your team without handing over control of the practice. And, above all else, I want you to reduce your stress – without the use of chemical relaxants.

Daily and monthly business meetings are among the most cost effective practice improvement techniques you could implement in 2012…provided that you make the commitment to actually hold a meeting rather than hold court. Dentists and teams will often claim that their meetings don’t work. The reason, according to the team, the doctor is doing all the talking – directing actually – and the team is not encouraged to offer input. Conversely, the doctor will claim meetings never work because they turn into group gripe sessions or, on the flip side, no one participates.

Typically these meetings have either no agenda or an agenda that is handed out during the meeting, or staff are not expected to report on their specific areas of responsibility, or the doctor feels he/she has to report to the staff, or the staff feel this is the one time they have the doctor captive and will not release him/her until they’ve had their say. Indeed, those meetings are grossly inefficient and counter productive. There is a better way.

Beginning in 2012, commit to take 15 minutes to make the most of every day in the coming year.

Here’s how:

1. The scheduling coordinator distributes copies of the daily schedule and the next two day’s schedules to every member of the team.

2. Make personal notes regarding each patient, including births, deaths, marriages, patients they have referred, etc.

3. Note the amount of scheduled production for the day. Identify patients with unused insurance benefits.

4. Identify those patients that have outstanding balances/financial conditions that could affect treatment scheduled for that day.

5. The doctor and clinical staff identify where in the schedule emergency patients should be placed.

6. The clinical assistant evaluates the doctor’s schedule to determine where potential traffic flow problems might occur and if additional assistance will be needed for specific procedures.

7. The hygienist reviews individual patient charts for periodontal therapy that should be discussed as well as any unscheduled treatment plans that can be reinforced with the patients.

A team that plans…usually WINS!
Sally

Hi Sally,

Hope you are doing well…here’s a good one.

I just recently hired a hygienist who just received her degree, and is working in the real work environment for the first time. She is caring, sweet, on-time to work, presentable, respectful, and thorough……..possibly too thorough. Granted it has been only two weeks in the “real world” environment but she has been working through lunch, staying about an hour after hours, and keeping patients waiting longer than they have been used to waiting. One patient had to leave because he couldn’t wait any longer.

How can I best let her know what she should and should not be doing to stay on time without compromising the standard of care she is used to and was obviously taught in school. Do you think I should schedule her appointments for longer periods of time or should I try to force her to adapt to our 50 minute time slot. I also think she is a good team player and I’m a bit nervous that the staff is a little resentful that she is running late and adding a degree of stress in the office. My staff is mature and after a few discussions with them I believe they will be patient with her. How should I handle this?

Dr. Tim

**
Dear Dr Tim,

Because you recently hired her, it’s time for a performance review. Especially by the fact that you have had patient complaints, i.e., a patient leaving. I would tell her that her running behind is an issue and is she aware of this? Why does she think it is happening? Is there anything she feels she needs from you in order to be more efficient? If none of the answers to those questions, in your opinion, solves the problem, then I would watch her work on a patient. Stand behind the patient so the patient is not interacting with you. I would never adapt the standard of care you have delivered in the past to accommodate her.

A Performance Review is necessary and give her another one the end of every week for the next 4-6 weeks. Confront the issue so she knows this is unacceptable. Have open discussion to find out the cause. Offer training and solutions. Re-evaluate the performance and if still happening give time parameter deadlines for compliance.

Hope this helps.

Sally
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I hear that some dentists and their teams could use a few new ideas to shake up the annual holiday celebration, so I thought I’d share some things I’ve done in the past.

Employees are told the party starts at 11:30 a.m. and does not conclude until that evening around 9 p.m. At the appointed time, gather them all up, file out the door to be greeted by a chauffeur in a stretch limo. First stop on the agenda is lunch at a great restaurant then it off to the local mall.

It is here that the games begin. I prepare ahead of time and give each of them a gift bag and specific instructions. In the bag is $117.63 in “crumpled” small bills and change. Crumpled is very important and yes, it takes some hand energy to get them all in a wad and then don’t forget to throw in shredded paper and mix the money with the paper. Give them 80 seconds to figure out how much money they have in the bag and it’s hilarious to them throw what they think is shredded paper and then diving into the trash can at the mall to get the money they threw away!

They have instructions to purchase seven items as described on their instruction page. For example, one item has to go around in a circle and make noise; another item has to be something a ballerina would want. And just in case anyone has any illusions that this task is easy, they find out that they have to purchase the items at different stores, no candy, gift cards and it has to be for them and not for another person. It doesn’t stop there, the person who spends closest to or equaling the amount in the bag gets $50 extra bonus. If they go over the amount, they’re disqualified.

If you’re looking to really build team camaraderie and loyalty keep reading.

So, with tired feet, they come back to the limo to relax, sip champagne and cool off … until they learn there is a round two. The next activity on the adventure involves more shopping. Everyone is given another bag with wadded up cash and change in the amount of $48.06. Similar concept as the first, except they have drawn names and they have to purchase four gifts for a team member in four different categories, such as something in red, yellow, and green, stretchy, pentagonal, etc. and they have just 40 minutes to get the job done.

The typical holiday party in most offices is lunch or dinner out. Put some creativity and effort into making it an adventure. It isn’t about the gifts it’s about having fun together, enjoying each other’s company, and doing something completely and totally different.

Wrap up your day of adventure with a go-cart race challenge and a fabulous dinner at an excellent restaurant where everyone shows off their purchases and enjoys great food and great times with a great team and a great boss! LOL! That’s the most important part.

So the next time you’re looking for a way to thank your team for a job well done do something out of the ordinary. They’ll never forget it and they will always appreciate that you really tried to make them feel special.

Happy New Year to each of you from McKenzie Management.