Archive for August, 2008

Business, Leader and Team Development

August 27, 2008 at 6:14 pm · Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged , , , ,

I was scanning the news through the ADA today looking for information relevant to helping you decide if you need to implement any changes in your practice.  As I read through many of the news blips and articles I learned that many “authorities”  believe your team or your staff is the most critical part of the business development aspect of your practice.  I would agree.

 

You know your craft, and you practice it well.  You stay on top of the most current trends for your type of dentistry and you are good at what you do.  There are a few things however that you possibly didn’t learn in dental school – one was how to manage a team of professionals, how to lead them, motivate them, inspire them and retain them.

 

I came across an archived article written by Rhonda Savage on Dental Teams. The article captures her thoughts on what it will take to keep the internal strife away, how training, communication, and appreciation are the three critical success factors.  Her article is based on interviews she conducted with colleagues, clients and friends.  It will be an eye opener for some of you and for others, there may be one or two of these areas that you can implement to grow your practice and keep your team members happy and proactive in helping you grow.

 

Leadership, communication and appreciation come from learning about your team and what makes them work.  Becoming an effective leader might mean you begin to change how you interact with your team, it might mean you begin to leverage their strengths and delegate more to them and the results could mean you open the doors to even greater success.  Part of being a good leader is having standards in place, processes that work effectively and efficiently, and most importantly – exercising great listening skills.  Programs for educating your staff and reward systems are effective ways to retain them as well.  If you don’t know what might work – ask them!

 

I have been “teaching” leadership for many years and I like what Roger P. Levin, DDS writes about the phases of leadership.  There are many authorities out there on what it takes to be a good leader and assessments that help you understand how you are leading.  The first step however is to acknowledge that this skill is needed in your practice and that it is how you blend your style with the needs, desires and goals of your team, and the needs of your patients, while integrating them with yours, that advances your vision.  Read “The Five Phases of Leadership Development” – it might help you decide where you are and what you want.  Remember I am here to support you!

 

Thank you for reading and have a great day!

Kathy

Change Process Made Easy

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Quarterly Performance Reviews – Why?

August 25, 2008 at 4:11 pm · Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention, leadership ·Tagged , , ,

Why Review Quarterly?

 

In a prior blog I said I would address the benefits of a quarterly employee review instead of the traditional annual review – so here goes!

 

Annual reviews are the most frequently used tools to establish performance standards for the coming year, to review what was done well, what wasn’t done well and to reward performance with an annual increase. 

 

In sales organization quarterly performance reviews are conducted to stay ahead of any negative trends and to apply correctional activities if performance is below standard or if the person is not meeting territory expectations.  Another reason for the quarterly review is to determine readiness for additional training and upward mobility, to reward performance and to solicit employee feedback on the how the company is performing in relation to supporting them in doing their job.  I found it extremely beneficial in building winning teams and keeping them in their game.

 

How can you apply this in your dental practice?  Top performance of your team insures happy and satisfied patients, encourages referrals, and keeps the practice on target with goals and objectives.  A quarterly review allows each team member to offer insight into difficulties they may be having with their jobs.  Sometimes the weekly or monthly staff meetings are not appropriate places to learn of significant challenges a team member may be experiencing with an aspect of their job.  They may be reluctant to discuss it and it could be affecting the profitability of the practice.  Many of the issues that sabotage success can be surfaced and headed off by doing a quarterly performance review.

 

Review Process – It is very wise to have the staff member write their own review using the same form you as the leader will use.  This helps the employee to know very specifically the targets that have been set for their particular job, the measurable outcomes, the qualities and values being assessed and the skill levels evaluated.  It makes it easier and quicker to identify the gaps both in performance and perspective.  It also opens the door for agreement on what is well done and to discuss with ease what needs to change.  It is often very interesting to see how someone sees themselves in contrast to your viewpoint of their performance.  It is a wonderful opportunity to re-direct and also introduce new responsibilities, educational opportunities, and for you as the leader to help them to continually understand how their position adds value to the practice. 

 

If you are not already conducting quarterly reviews, I encourage you to begin.  It is important that you have job descriptions with very clear guidelines on measurable outcomes, expectations, standards of performance, consequences for poor performance, length of time before action is taken on inadequate performance and also what your reward system looks like, how good performance is rewarded, what educational benefits you provide and any additional expectations and benefits offered.

 

If you need help pulling your job descriptions and performance review reports together, check out Mascha Scheutjens services through MMC, your practice builder consultant, or your coach!

 

Send me your questions – I am all ears!  Thank you!

Kathy

Ready to Implement Change to Grow Your Practice?

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One Way Conversations

August 19, 2008 at 6:01 pm · Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention, leadership ·Tagged , , ,

How many times throughout the day do you feel like you are the only one in the conversation?  What does it feel like to you to not be heard?  When was the last time a member of your team or a patient looked like they were fully engaged and not off someplace else in their head?  How many times do you repeat what you are asking or saying? How about the darting eyes?  Have you ever experienced someone speaking with you but their eyes are darting everywhere?  Are they looking for their quick get away or the nearest exit?  Are they waiting for the next patient to come through the door?  Could they possibly be bored or feel like they have heard it before?  How often does it happen?  How frequently are things not done to your satisfaction?

These are symptoms of learned and unconscious behaviors and depending on who you are speaking with, it is really important how you as a leader recapture their attention.  You want to avoid making someone wrong and yet you want to simultaneously accomplish a couple of things.  You had a mission when you began the conversation so you want to keep in mind that you still have a message to deliver and the second thing you want to do is discover how you can be heard.

One of the first ways to avoid one way conversations is to ask if this is an ideal time to have this chat.  The second thing you can do is to discover why you aren’t being heard by asking clarifying questions.  If you are referring to a prior conversation or a work request that did not get done, you can ask if they understood what needed to be done and by when.  You can ask what got in the way.  By moving the focus away from the fact that you feel like you were not heard and focusing on the result you were seeking you can often learn the true cause.  Sometimes our distraction is so habitual we don’t realize we are doing it and gently calling it to someones attention is the first intervention during the actual conversation.  Asking for verification of what you said for “repeat offenders” will begin to help the listener to develop good attention skills. 

There are so many courses on communication skills because it is the most important thing we do every day.  How well we communicate, how well we listen and how effectively we deliver our messages can make or break us as leaders. 

A great leader uses powerful communication skills and demonstrating great listening is the first step.  Set the stage and let them follow your lead.

Speaking of one way conversations – I’d love to engage you on this one and tackle a couple of your most frustrating communication issues.  Thank you!

Warm Wishes

Kathy

Change Happens – Are you prepared?

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Leader Challenges – Performance Issues

August 15, 2008 at 5:50 pm · Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged , , ,

Leader Challenges – How do I address very sensitive people when they aren’t performing well?

 

Today I thought I would begin our conversation with change from another perspective – how do you get people’s behavior to change to conform to the job demands and requirements.

 

One of the biggest challenges you might face as a leader in your practice is confronting performance.  Whether someone has been on your team for a few months or a few years there is bound to be a moment when you feel you need to address some issues that have been repeating and are beginning to affect the patients as well as the quality of the work being done behind the scenes.  What are some of the ways to handle this?

 

There are a couple of things that help facilitate conversations regarding performance.  The first thing that truly helps is to have a position description, requirements of the job, time lines for completion of tasks, responsibilities, expectations and consequences of not meeting the standards of performance outlined in the job description.  Using a tool like this gives you the opportunity to bring to the attention of the employee the areas they are not meeting the standards in with great ease. 

 

What you want to do is to begin your discussion by asking the employee first how they feel they are performing all the functions of their job.  You might ask them if there are any areas they feel challenged by and what might help them to do these things better.  By creating an open dialogue like this you invite the employee to share their experience and what might be missing for them.  They may freely admit where they are not doing well and tell you why.  At that point you have the opportunity to gain agreement that they aren’t doing what is expected and you can both discuss what the opportunities are to resolve the problems. If they are unaware of the areas they are not doing well, you can use the job description to call to their attention the expectation.  In this process you ask first if they understood what was expected and take the conversation from there.

 

Solutions – You can offer educational assistance if it is a skill set they need to develop.  If there is technology or tools that could help them become more proficient and increase efficiency you can offer these aids. You can decide if this is a “deal breaker”.  You can give them time frames in which they need to be able to perform that function and let them know the consequences if they do not. And if the employee feels they just can’t do that function of their job you have to decide if it is something that can be delegated to another person (given that you want to keep this employee) and find out if there is something you can give this employee to do that they are better suited to perform. 

 

By handling your performance issues in this way, you demonstrate flexibility as a leader and also show that you are willing to give them every opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and play from their strengths.

 

A practice that might be helpful to head off performance issues is to conduct quarterly reviews…I’ll share more on the benefits in that in another post – this one is long enough!

 

Have a great weekend!  Let me hear how things are working for you.

Kathy

Change

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When things don’t quite go the way you want…

August 12, 2008 at 4:47 pm · Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention ·Tagged ,

What do you do when things don’t go the way you planned? 

 

A Lesson from my past – I remember how excited I was when I had my full team in place and everything was working out so well – sales were up and people were on the right path, customers were happy and happily referring us to others and business was booming.  Then one day I received a phone call and the person on the other end of the line asked me if I was sitting down…in that conversation I learned that one of my top performers was leaving, being drafted by the competition and offered an opportunity they couldn’t refuse.  I fully supported their path, that is the kind of leader I wanted to be – one who always wanted others to follow the path that was perfect for them.  I remember being happy for them and simultaneously realizing what this was going to mean and the challenge as well as the opportunity that was now before me.  I took a deep breath!

 

What came next was a flurry of activity to adjust to the change – who would cover their territory until the new hire was in place?  Who would be the new mentor for the new hire?  Did I have anyone in my files I could call to interview for the position?  If not, did I have the right resources all lined up?  Was my process for this change all lined out so that all I had to do was follow the steps?  How well was I prepared to handle this and balance the needs of the customers and my other direct reports?  How would this affect the team?  What did I have in place to help them adjust and set the stage for incorporating a new team member?

 

What I have learned in my years of corporate experience and my years of coaching in large organizations as well as small businesses and small medical and dental practices is that the dynamics of change and how change affects people and organizations is very similar.  I also learned that by having an action plan in place made it easier for me and for the people on my team to adjust quickly so that the customer was unaware and unaffected by the changes taking place except in a very positive way.

 

What did we do?  Because we had a plan, we followed the process we had established for handling this kind of change.  As a team, we had developed plans for many of the types of changes we would face.  Each person knew their role, what to expect and what was expected of them.  I called a meeting; we reviewed what needed to get done, by whom, by when and how.  We made adjustments to the plan according to the situation and we moved forward – not always seamlessly; however with guidelines and guidance we managed to keep all of our existing business and grow at the same time.  I don’t recall who said it, but I do believe that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.  So my question to you is – are you prepared for the changes that are taking place in your practice?  If nothing is happening now, be aware – it will soon!  Change is inevitable.

 

I’d love to hear how you lead through change.  Thank you!

Kathy

 

Master Change

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Blending Your Teams…

August 5, 2008 at 7:39 pm · Filed under Team Blending ·Tagged , , ,

Change Lessons from Corporate Mergers and the Movies!

Blending your Teams…

 

I remember standing in the lunch room at our corporate headquarters back in 1986 during our acquisition orientation and having an informal conversation with Roy Vagelos, then CEO of Merck & Co., Inc. and listening to him say he hoped we would blend our two companies well together and think of our products and personal blending of people as one.  He went on to share that during the early years of the Merck Sharp and Dohme merger into the one company Merck, he experienced what he had continued to hear during his term at Merck.  Instead of people referring to the merged products as Merck products, in the halls he would hear people saying “oh that’s a Sharp and Dohme product” or “oh, that’s a Merck product”.  He wanted our acquisition of our largest competitor to be a blending from the start with no lines of division between people or products. I can’t say that it happened immediately; it did happen and it was a result of a shift of focus to the customer and in your case it would be the patient.  The leaders set the example, created processes for inter-development and cross-training and set goals and expectations with measurable outcomes.  The processes helped the transition work well and resulted in record breaking sales and incredible personal and professional development, ecstatic customers and innovations.

 

From the movies – Yours, Mine, and Ours is a silly comedy about the ultimate blended family. The first movie (1968) features Helen North played by Lucille Ball who marries a widower named Frank Beardsley played by Henry Fonda.  They have 18 children between them, and what takes place in the movie is the “not so typical” situations you can face with blending people together who have other pre-set ideas and thoughts about how things work in a family.  It is a whacky demonstration of how resistance might get in the way of making things work harmoniously and how personalities, ways of being and differing ideas can challenge the best in us.  What we witness is a series of events that are comical and frustrating and yet in the end, a “happily ever after” story is created as harmony results.  This might be a good film to recommend as you experience major changes in your practice, merge with another or are just beginning and want to know what fun you could experience!

 

Examples such as these demonstrate that there are stages (forming, storming, norming and performing) your team will go through as you introduce change, and the more that you can embrace that there will be some challenges, the easier it will be to focus on the results you desire.  By setting objectives and measurement guidelines you can track your progress and celebrate your successes. 

 

If you want a more in-depth look on the stages as well as a brief introduction on the stage called adjourning – check out – Wikipedia

 

In addition to supporting those who need assistance in working through the processes in the course1in 9 Change Blaster for Dentists, this blog is here for you to participate and share what is working as you implement change in your practice.  If you struggle with change, this is a place to learn how to embrace it and bring change process into your practice with ease and grace.

 

A “change master” has written this course and it incorporates everything you need to successfully and easily create the changes you desire to have the practice you vision.  It is fun, entertaining and irreverent – and most importantly makes it easy for you!

 

Thank you and let me know how this is landing for you!

Kathy

 

 

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