Providing feedback to a team member is often done with the best of intentions to offer “constructive criticism.” The Dental CEO hopes a team member will appreciate the information and make appropriate changes.
Now, be honest: How often does it go that smoothly in your dental office?
It’s uncomfortable and tough. It can quickly become a negative experience. Sometimes, the team member receiving the feedback becomes defensive. Upset. Emotional.
Here are some tips to prevent negative reactions to construction criticism:
- Don’t wait for an annual performance review. Give feedback weekly to team members—good and bad. It can be something small, like “The way you handled the young patient today to ease her fears is what makes parents continue to trust us.”
- Mind your manners. Approach the team member by asking “May I give you some feedback?”
Ask the team member to give themselves feedback. People are tougher on themselves than you are. They will work harder to improve areas they target. Give your opinion after they have had an opportunity to express themselves. - Critique the behavior, not the person. Example: “I am unhappy with your behavior in the presence of our last patient. I sensed she was irritated when you raised your voice to her.” The ego remains intact and the team member will be able to “hear” your observations.
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Some dentists may be saying, “Coach Ron, that’s not true, I have standards in my office.” Well, how up-to-date are they? Do they take into account the levels of knowledge changes that have happened in your office? What about how technology has changed the way we operate? If they are more than 5 years old, toss them out and start new.
How can you use standards?
Use standards in your dental practice to:
- Establish rules
- Create a basis for comparison
- To promote improvement
- Provide opportunities to learn and improve performance levels
How do you set them?
Explore all areas of your dental practice and develop a set of performance expectations for each. Areas include: Patient Care, Marketing, Finance, Clinical and Administrative. Think about common standards, too, like start times for Morning Huddles, office hours, sterilization procedures, and new patient intake.
Standards should be posted and presented to team members so that everyone enjoys a common expectation of behavior. Ask individual team members to explain various standards and policies’ succinctly to the entire team during a staff meeting.
What happens when you set standards?
Overall stress is reduced and practice income is increased. Could you use more of that in your dental office?
“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.” ~ Wendy Wasserstein
Dr. Ron’s REAL-LIFE Service Blog
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It seems everywhere you go, every advertisement you read, every commercial on the radio we are bombarded by claims of “quality”; “outrageous”; “extraordinary” service. We intuitively know this is not so and that frequently what we receive is “extraordinarily” disappointing service. It is an advertisement “ruse” intended to hose us with false information. When we do find or experience great service we cynically wonder if it was a “fluke” or even a mistake.
As a consequence, I am going to begin regular blog posts discussing REAL-LIFE service experiences I have in my quest to discover really great service that is persistently consistent. I want to brag on those service examples. Along the journey, I am also going to report examples of what doesn’t work and invite you to blog back to me your ideas to make service even better.
Aren’t you tired of false claims of great service? Say “YES!” Don’t you want to be taken care of courteously and uniquely and not have to go broke experiencing it? Say “YES!”
Join me in my upcoming blog commentary … Dr. Ron.
What’s Right and What’s Wrong?
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Your Core Values determine what is “right” and “wrong” for you.
When you articulate your Core Values, it enables you to make objective assessments and provide appropriate responses to every situation that arises in your dental practice. What about the employee who treats patients with a bad attitude? What about the month when you were overworked, not spending enough time with your family and locking yourself in your home office going over paperwork every Sunday?
Your commitment to your Core Values provides a context for values-based decision making. The operative words here are: “your commitment to your core values.”
Here are my simple tips on how to Walk the Talk with your Core Values:
- In your monthly team meeting, identify 3 instances where your Core Values has been supported.
- Evaluate your Core Values on a yearly basis – get your family, dental coach and staff involved.
- Post your Core Values in a clear, prominent place in your dental office. It will hold you accountable!
“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” ~ Roy Disney
Are You Using the SMART Goal System?
· CommentsJust a quick note today … Are you using the SMART goal model to set goals in your office? Take a moment this week and use the SMART model to evaluate to-do items that come out of your next staff meeting. Tweak the goals until they meet all five criteria.
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” ~ Lawrence J. Peter
Do You Think You Are an Ethical Leader?
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Values and ethics are your framework for decision-making in your dental practice management. Ethics is a blend of professional and personal behaviors and qualities. We measure ethical behaviors by how we do our work. We measure ethical qualities by who we are.
While we have a responsibility to uphold standards of the dental profession that we learned about in dental school, we have a larger responsibility to “walk the talk.” This responsibility is to model for others the qualities we want in our practice.
Start by sharing your Core Values. This is your compass, your guiding principles. It defines who and what you are and what you value in your business life. This is your compass. It unites you, the CEO, and your team members into a purpose.
Action step: Ask yourself these questions:
- Do your Core Values match up with your ethical values?
- Do your team members know the Core Values?
The Way to Set Goals In Your Dental Practice
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I’ve said before that for many of us, it is the START that STOPS us from moving forward. It’s true of a lot of things in our lives – starting an exercise routine, beginning to invest our finances. When we look at a big project we can become intimidated. This “bigness” or “I don’t know where to begin” leads us to procrastinate.
As THE DENTAL COACH©, my clients often come to me wanting to raise performance standards in their practice. I coach them to set goals that address improvements in knowledge, skills, or behavior. The best goals are SMART ones.
A SMART goal is defined as:
- Specific: The definition of exactly what needs to happen or how behavior should change is clear.
- Measurable: A way to measure success is in place.
- Action-oriented: The best goals challenge people and require that they do something new.
- Realistic and Relevant: Make sure that the goal is achievable. Make sure the goal is relevant to practice growth and contributes to the overall success of your office.
- Time-bound: There must be an element of time – frequency (do this weekly), or deadline (do by the end of 2012)
Example: “Complete a minimum of ten past-due patient follow-up calls by phone each day for the next quarter.“ This is a SMART goal.
Coach’s Action step! Pull out your business plan and review your own goals. For each one ask: “Is this SMART?” If not, “punch it up” and make the goal more real and dynamic for you.
A new employee needs special attention to feel like “part of the family”, not like an outcast. When you bring on a new team member do the following:
- Help them fit in and assign a mentor. Make sure your new employee has a mentor assigned every day for the first three months. This increases their comfort level in the new environment.
- Have someone different in the office take the new employee out to lunch each day for a week: Their choice, your treat. It will foster a great relationship with co-workers. This also gives the new employee a chance to ask questions of their co-workers that they might not yet be comfortable asking the Dental CEO.
- Take advantage of fresh eyes. New hires notice things that veterans have become numb to. At the end of 30 days, meet with new employees to ask: “What do you like so far?” and “What do you think we could be doing better?”
- At your next team meeting, invite everyone to think about what they didn’t like about their own orientation and ask them to provide a suggestion to improve the experience for the next new hire.
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A new employee needs special attention and TLC to become firmly committed to your dental practice. How do you nurture a new employee relationship? Typically, a new hire gets a five step program all crammed into one 8-hour day:
- Paperwork
- Quick Office Tour… Here’s the Coffee Maker
- Meet-The-Team
- Read This
- Get To Work
A better approach: Do it in smaller chunks, over a longer period of time.
- Break up all the “stuff” and cover a portion each day for a week versus the first hours. Increase the complexity of information as the new employee’s base of understanding grows. It’s a proven that they will absorb and learn better.
- Mark your calendar to check-in with new employees several times in their first month. Create opportunities for the new employee to comfortably ask those “dumb questions”.
- Invest time to explain the history and logic behind what you do. The learning curve on a new job is typically 6-12 months. During that time, a new employee is still “putting down roots” and can be affected more deeply by change or neglect than established team members.
- Make it personal – Talk about your Core Values, Vision and Mission statements. Let them know why you do what you do.
By following my steps, your new hires will contribute more and you will retain them for a longer time.
As THE DENTAL COACH©, clients come to me all of the time asking me how to figure out how much to pay their dental staff. In a previous post, I explained that top talent requires a competitive compensation package.
Here are my tips:
- Be creative in offering benefits. Make up your own if they serve your employees. Consider the following: medical coverage, qualified retirement plans, paid vacations, continuing education and childcare subsidy. How else can you get creative? Gym membership reimbursement or a paid day off on their birthday.
- If you’re stuck on benefits, survey your team to discover what non pay-related perks are most attractive to them.
- Create long-term partnerships with employees through pay-for-performance systems. Focus your pay efforts on measurable outcomes and performance improvement.
- Determine the competitive wage range for each position in your office. Call other dentists, ask business owners in other similar professions to describe their compensation package. There is a lot of wage and benefit information on sites like glassdoor.com
- Analyze your current compensation package with your coach for competitiveness, attractiveness and affordability.
“You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.” ~ Albert Einstein
When a plant is moved to a new location, it is not enough to just stick it in the dirt and say “grow!” We must water it carefully, fertilize it, watch closely for signs of transplant shock, and pay special attention for its first growing season, until it establishes new roots.
