Play Leadership Baseball for a Winning Team Dental Season
As mentioned in the last blog, this month we’re playing baseball, specifically, leadership baseball. You, the dentist, are the owner of this team, which we will call, “Team D” (for dental). You purchased Team D with a boatload of money, time, and sweat by graduating dental school and purchasing or buying into a dental practice. Those decisions are what launched you into this game of leadership baseball.
Whether you purchased or bought into your practice, at some point you had to decide who would be your team players. As in baseball, replacing, trading, and adding team players are long-term activities of Team D. It is critical these employment decisions are based upon a proven, systematic, and effective Concepts Hiring System discussed in an earlier blog.
In this blog, let’s assume you followed our Concepts Hiring System and now have a group of individual employees on Team D’s playing field. Does this make them a team? Does it make your employees team players? The answer is “no” to both of these questions.
How, then, does this transformation happen? When you buy uniforms? That is a start, at least they look like a team, but what makes them work as a team is something only you, their leader, can provide and what I call the three Team Focusing Forces.
You must instill in them a common goal to achieve. A goal which requires them to work together to accomplish.
Next, you must provide them with the game rules for Team D.
Finally, you must have a playbook containing strategically designed, proven operating systems to accomplish your mission.
In other words, you, as their leader, must provide and promote an inspiring, intrinsic business purpose statement; that is #1. A list of team behavioral commitments as well as a comprehensive employee handbook; those are number 2. And finally, a team playbook which contains patient-oriented and best-practices operating systems. I call mine the Concepts Team Playbook. The introduction, promotion, and dedicated use and revision of these three Team Focusing Forces may be the most important responsibilities of a leader.
Without these Focusing Forces, effective teamwork would be impossible. Instead, what your so-called team becomes is a group of individuals that just happen to be playing on the same field. Every player is working to accomplish their own personal goals, following their own set of rules, and doing it in a manner that is easiest and quickest for them. They are not doing what is best for your patient or practice, but rather what’s best for them.
Let’s say you’ve met your leadership responsibilities and fostered in all your players the three Team Focusing Forces discussed above. Now, you are ready to play ball - Leadership Ball. Obviously, to win this game, baseballs must be pitched, bases run, and home plate passed.
Let’s Play Leadership Ball!
You are up to bat. Who’s pitching? None other than your patients, and they can be tricky! You never know what type of pitch they will throw. It could be a curveball, floater, slider, bunt, fowl, or fast ball. Your Team D players must be prepared for all types of pitches. Ah, ha! To be prepared, they MUST be trained. What team ever wins without training? None. Training, discussing, brainstorming, troubleshooting, practicing, coaching, and encouragement is what will make your team - or any team - a winning team. In Leadership Baseball, the playing field looks like this:
First Base: Training and Re-training
Second Base: Team Communication
Third Base: Team Motivation
Home Plate: RUN SCORED!!
Home runs for Team D result in patients constantly referring others to your practice, 5-star reviews for Team D, higher collections levels, lower no-show rates, less stress, and more skilled and engaged team players.
Clearly, Team D must run these bases over and over again to win the game. One run won’t win your game. Your players must be constantly exposed to team training, communication, and motivation. If any of these are omitted or bypassed, the run won’t happen.
Wait a minute! There is something unusual about this Team D. Something other teams don’t have. Do you see it? On Team D, the owner is not only the leader, but the head coach, and the highest scoring player on the team. That is right, the owner of a dental practice is the leader, the dentist (highest scorer), and the boss (head coach) of the team. On most other business teams, this is not the case; each role is performed by a different person.
How is it possible for one person to do three jobs at the same time? It rarely is in this day and time. Dentistry has changed drastically in the last 15 years. During these years, it left the cottage industry sector far behind and is now in the commercial industry sector. Your dental practice is now playing in the big league with corporate dentistry, fierce competition, and powerful insurance companies. You add in technology advances, compliance changes, compromised fees, a pandemic, a new workforce and you have some tough teams to beat.
Getting outside help is no longer a choice, it is a necessity. Those leaders who refuse to accept this fact usually find themselves and their employees frustrated, burned-out, stressed, and constantly putting out fires. They are faced with daily no-shows, fewer new patients, higher employee turnover, apathetic employees, lower or flat production, and much more.
To avoid these negative outcomes for your practice, you, the leader of Team D, must hire or outsource Assistant Coaches. What roles do these Assistant Coaches need to fill while you and your team hit home run after home run? Typically, you need an assistant coach for practice management, taxes-bookkeeping, computers-technology, retirement-investments, team practice development, patient communication, technology, and legal. These Assistant Coaches can be virtual, software, on-site, or all three. They are what gives you the time and the expertise to win in the big league of corporate dentistry, fierce competition, and powerful insurance companies.
Team D’s playing field is now ready. You have all the right elements: a common goal, rules, a playbook, four bases, a pitcher’s mound, players, uniforms, and Assistant Coaches. Let the game begin! What will be the first pitch: a screwball, a cutter, a curveball? Will your team get an out or a run?
The game continues in our next blog. Better not miss it, because, hey, you are the highest scorer on the team!
