Leadership

The responsibility of creating dental offices able to quickly adapt to the fast pace of change lies solely with those in leadership roles. More often than not this is the doctor; however, in highly developed, team-centered offices, it will also be the team members. Their success depends on their ability to empower their people and to have them take responsibility, or ownership, of the practice’s objectives.

According to John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends 2000, leadership in the coming years will move toward decentralization with more decisions being made at the lowest possible level. Consequently, the classical command and control type of management style will be thrown out.

Traditional dentists tend to focus more on "hard" issues such as: 1) Quality, 2) Service, 3) Profitability, 4) Cost control, and 5) Productivity. These issues most often take the form of declining profits, productivity declines or plateaus, unacceptable patient service and personnel problems. In reality these issues are only symptoms of the real underlying issues. Dentists tend to focus on hard issues because they are easy to see, recognize, measure and, in some ways they seem easy to address.

In most cases, the underlying cause of hard issues are the soft, or the human issues. These are less tangible and include attitudes, opinions, mind sets, self image, self esteem values, beliefs and feelings about how the world is organized and people’s place in it.

There are many aspects of leadership that affect team cohesion, adaptability and of course, success. Click here for the complete story on how to achieve success through effective leadership.

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Exceeding Patients’ Expectations (Part I)

When people seek the services of a dentist, they don’t consult the professional journals, write to their congressman, and normally don’t scan the Yellow Pages, they talk to other people. They ask their friends for advice and suggestions. The first thing they want to know is not how competent the doctor is but rather what sort of person is s/he? Very seldom are we judged on our professional and technical ability. People just assume we know how to treat their dental problems. What they want to know, what they really care about, is how we treat people.

Whether we like it or not, we are going to be classified by our patients. Figuratively speaking, they are keeping "book" on us and the book is opened every day. There is never a day that goes by that we are not being awarded gold stars for merit or being penalized with black marks for lack of it. To put it another way, the image we project is vitally important to the growth of the practice. Click here to read Part II of Exceeding Patient Expectations.

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Hygiene Communications

The hygienist’s role in the office is potentially one of the most significant because, in most offices, the hygienist has the majority of uninterrupted time with the patient. How she uses this time and what she says has a great impact on the level of dentistry the office performs.

The hygienist should see herself as more than a "prophy queen." Cleaning teeth is important, but patient education and motivation is what really marks the great hygienist.

Today’s dentistry is much more elective than in the past and requires greater time be spent with the patient understanding their wants and needs. The doctor and hygiene team must determine what specifically the doctor wants the hygienist to accomplish in a one-on-one hour visit. They need to see the big picture of what they’re really doing in the office besides delivering procedures to patients. It’s important to know that there is more to your work than just a job description.

Additionally, it is the hygienist’s responsibility to help motivate the patient to return in a prescribed amount of time for their check-up. The hygienist’s verbal skills with patients will enhance or detract from the patient’s next check-up appointment.

Understanding patients’ and team members’ social styles becomes important in that the quality of the experience the patient has will be effected by the type of communication they receive.

Gaining patient acceptance of recommended dentistry can be heightened if we propose it in a way that is more appropriate for each patient’s social style. The hygienist must become aware of this; but the entire team should be included in this piece as well.

The doctor and hygiene team need to be on the same wavelength in their communications with patients, identifying what and when certain procedures are called for. A key issue in this process is conversation between the doctor and the hygienist when the doctor feels a different recommendation is in order than what the hygienist has communicated to the patient.