Archive for Who should manage this project?
November 11, 2008 at 6:39 pm
· Filed under People, Uncategorized ·Tagged Add new tag, change, communication, farewell, leadership, thank you
My grandfather always used to say “farewell” – he told me to never say “goodbye” because to him that was permanent. Farewell meant you might be back again. So today I say farewell to all my readers. Blogging is about interaction, feedback, helping others and creating conversation. So far, this has been one sided – greatly informative and a wonderful way for me to have been supportive on subjects that have related to concerns I have learned about in the Dental Industry.
I am shifting my focus to other areas of my business where I can really get conversations going and make contributions that my audience hungers after! I say thank you to my readers and to those wonderful people who support the dental industry and gave me permission to talk about your services and how you help grow practices and help sell ones ready for their next steps in life, how you keep their HR program intact and current and how much each of you care! Thank you for reading and for letting me share my thoughts about leadership, change and communication.
I wish you wonderful practice growth in this time of change!
Thank you.
Kathy
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October 22, 2008 at 9:02 pm
· Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged dental, dental students, leadership, students, Vision
This blog is dedicated to dental students everywhere – I had the unique privilege of speaking to students last evening at the Loma Linda School of Dentistry in Loma Linda, California. I was very pleased with the professionalism and the dedication of the students to the study of their craft. I was totally impressed with their knowledge, their participation in the seminar and their understanding of the importance of creating the vision for their ideal practice now. We had fun with leader techniques and how to apply them to different situations that they may encounter. I liked their responses – including the one to put the staff member on notice who mishandled a patient. Great ideas, wonderful visions and with plenty of time to create, change and become who they need to be in order to have the practice of their dreams.
I also learned that they want to learn more about running the business – so many roles to play – leader, teacher, trainer, dentist, student, associate and of course on their own – business owner! I have helped so many business owners create their visions and put them on a vision board with their photo front and center so they can see themselves right where they want to be; they can change it as their ideas change and bring it into being by focusing on exactly what they want. I encourage students to begin to gather photos of their ideal locations, people they want to be surrounded with, even the types of patients, from their backgrounds to locations and make a collage of their ideal practice. Include numbers and emotions, the hours you want to work, your revenue targets and even your exit strategy! Just have fun with it and let yourself be boundless.
There are exciting years ahead with opportunities to break the molds and have practices that cater to patients working different shifts and making it work for both patients, staff and themselves so they can play when they want and be the fun and creative person in and out of the office. You design it and they will come!
It doesn’t matter if you are a first year student or a fourth – beginning with a vision can pull you through school and help you become strategic in choosing where to apply to be an associate. Making it dynamic allows you to change it as you change and as your ideas about the kind of practice you want to have changes. Nothing is static – everything flows and forms according to the thoughts you have and the pictures you create about your practice and how you see yourself in it.
I also learned from the buzz in the hallways that this dynamic atmosphere was fun and electric with learning and sharing. I am grateful to have been there and feel enriched for my experience! Go dental students!
Best of Success,
Kathy
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October 15, 2008 at 2:04 am
· Filed under People, Selling A Practice, Symptoms for Change Intervention, leadership ·Tagged exit strategy, goals, possibilities, Vision, what's next, You are a success
My Office!
You opened your doors several years ago, you have the latest equipment, a great staff, your patients refer their families and their friends - and everything has gone according to plan. You have achieved the numbers you wanted to reach, you have dental students and associates working and you work only the days and hours you want – your ideal is complete – what’s next for you?
In my conversations with dental brokers and dental practice builders I have learned that the art of running the business isn’t always the strength of the owner of the practice. Exit strategies and financial long term goals with investment strategies are often non-existent. If you are one of the ones who has achieved success and has all this in place – congratulations! You deserve high praise.
If you find yourself a great success and don’t know your next steps and don’t have these things in place, it is not too late to sit down and create a strategy for the next few years and have an investment advisor help you prepare for your next steps. It could be retirement. It could be that you want to own a few more practices, but not work in them. It could be that you want to do something you have never done before. Maybe you want to make some major contributions to the industry from the political side. Perhaps you want a major change in your life and you don’t know where to begin to discover what that might be or how to go about exploring the possibilities. How do you begin? How do you prepare before you enter a state of stasis and the success you once enjoyed begins to fall because you didn’t plan for this? One resource is a coach, another is an investment counselor and another is your intuition.
And for the dentists who are just beginning – make sure you include these things in your business plan and know and understand that it is a dynamic plan – one that you use continually to measure your goals, targets and results. You do this so you can change it as you flex and change and to keep up with the challenges and changes in the economy and your specialty. Post your Vision and you Goals and get buy in from your team. See how achieving your vision helps them achieve their goals and watch what happens to your success plan – and how quickly you begin to accomplish every goal!
Now back to you who have it all – what’s next? What if you knew?
If you want to know more, let me know!
Best of Success,
Kathy
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October 8, 2008 at 6:43 pm
· Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention, Vision, leadership ·Tagged coaching, don't procrastinate, leadership, making it happen during uncertainty, strategy
Leading Your Team!
Making It Happen During Uncertainty -
How you think about and talk about things is how things will happen in your business, your practice. Where is your current focus? What actions are you taking to keep yourself as a leader in a mindset that speaks success? Change happens – and how you communicate what is happening affects the outcome. Have you joined the ranks of millions talking about the “devastating affects” of the recent economic news? Or have you as leader of your organization, your business, your practice begun to create a plan that will keep you level and growing during this time of uncertainty? What are the key issues facing you that without constant vigilance and support could result in loss of revenues? Having someone on your team to guide you through the most critical aspects of your strategy to grow your business NOW will keep you ahead of your competition.
DON’T PROCRASTINATE- If you would like an accountability partner to help you create and execute a strategy for success that includes keeping your team inspired and motivated to do their best, don’t procrastinate, call your coach, consultant, practice manager, or financial advisor and see what solutions they can offer for you to stay ahead at this time.
How coaching helps -
Coaching has proven to be one of the most effective methods for RAPIDLY advancing an organization, medical or dental practice through individual and collective effort. A coach can help you clearly see the gaps and help you identify the solutions needed to bridge or close them. If you are baffled by how to handle change, are confused about how to communicate critical changes or need leadership help for yourself or people on your team, coaching is one way to stay ahead and make progress. You get to choose what is right for now – coaching, consulting, management services?
Make it happen -
Who do you have to be during this time? What do you have to do to make things continue to flow and grow? Have you thought about the resources you have, how to use them, re-task them, or stimulate and influence outcomes from a different perspective? Would you like to? It’s your business, your vision and it’s up to you to keep your team motivated, your patients returning and referring and yourself mentally “dressed” for success.
Now is the time to focus. Prepare, communicate well, and execute on the success tactics that have worked and will keep on working.
As I’ve been saying, Change Happens, and this is what the change program helps with; it contains everything you need to prepare, implement and execute!
Best of Success,
Kathy
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September 30, 2008 at 1:23 am
· Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged leader styles, listening, staff meetings, visionary leadership
I’ve been preparing for a talk on “Visionary Leadership” for 4th year dental students and as I began doing some research to add to my body of wisdom and call upon others who have offered insights on how they continue to lead and lead well, I was struck by the different styles of leaders and some of the employee responses to certain leader styles.
I was amazed to learn how many people follow a leader who is unwilling to change and who adopts the attitude that “this is the way we have always done it and it seems to be working” so why introduce something new and upset everyone? (And with the proper change process upset doesn’t have to happen!) The greatest ideas come from the people who work with you who are in the trenches, who meet the clients, the vendors, and the customers’ everyday. They are the ones who see what is brewing and who hear through social media and their friends new trends and things to be alert about. I understand some of that “things are working well” philosophy however change is a given and if you don’t grow and prepare for what might happen, if you aren’t ready to shift to a different model you could suffer at the hands of a competitor who is on the cutting edge and aware of what is drawing new patients and keeping staff.
People like to be where the action is and where things are happening and they like to be part of a growing organization. It doesn’t mean that you have to keep changing the services that you offer; it does mean that you can be attentive to the suggestions that come to you and see if they have validity and if it might be time to change and look at what you are doing. Taking people’s suggestions and using them at staff meetings is one way to keep people on your team and demonstrate a different leader style. It shows you care, you listen and you are ready to have some strategies for when the tide changes. It also shows that you can flex your leader style – every style is a good style, just not in every circumstance. As you learn the leader dance you get to decide what works according to the situation and the outcome you desire. Have fun! Play with it and get lots of feedback.
As I reflect on some of the attributes of great leaders, listening is still one of the greatest examples cited by happy employees. They love being heard – an environment that encourages sharing ideas, possibilities and ways to improve processes, patient handling, even the colors in your office, or the background music can make a difference both to your practice and to your rank as a leader. Think about it!
Here’s a little piece of trivia on “doing things the same way” that I found fascinating! (Do you have any of these ruts in your practice?)
Enjoy,
Kathy
Need to Say It Right the First Time?
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September 18, 2008 at 5:40 pm
· Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention, leadership ·Tagged change, how you think, leader, mindset, success
I had the wonderful opportunity to coach over 100 business owners for OneCoach, a John Assaraf company and one of the first things we focused on was how thinking affects a business. Thinking revolves around your beliefs, your habits of thought and communication, and how you respond to situations.
All success begins by how you beleive and the intentions that you set for your practice. If you believe and think that you will be successful, you will! Years of conditioning, influences from society, education, friends and family affect how we think and how we project what we want to have happen. The good news is that if we don’t like the results we are currently experiencing we can begin to change them at any time by changing our thought patterns, setting different intentions, and creating new stories. What helps is having a process for that kind of change and sticking with it until the change we seek becomes the new habit.
As the leader of your practice, how do you think? What kinds of thoughts run through your mind throughout your day? Do you have “stinking thinking” – a phrase a friend of mine in Florida used to use that always stimulated me to look at my thoughts. Many people go through their entire lives without knowing that how they think creates the reality that they live.
There is a great little book available that I have passed on to many clients and to my nieces and nephews as graduation gifts because I think it has great wisdom – you can get your own copy – “As A Man Thinketh” by James Allen.
The first step to changing how you think is to become aware of your thoughts and notice what triggers those particualr thoughts. Awareness is the tool to use today. If you want to know more, let me know! This might be the first step in understanding that a process for introducing other kinds of changes in your practice to get the results you desire is exactly what you need. The point is to begin somewhere!
Look at your level of success and if you are doing great – congratulations! If you believe you could be achieving more and you can’t quite put your finger on what it is, begin to become aware of your thoughts and conversation and send in a comment or question to take a deeper dive!
Remember – how you think and what you think can make all the difference in your day and in getting the results you seek!
Have a great day!
Kathy
Need a change process for your practice?
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September 9, 2008 at 2:21 am
· Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged Add new tag, change process, dental team, proven process, resistance, response to change, teeth
I have been talking to people about their experiences with change efforts and thought I would focus today on working through the changes that didn’t work and setting yourself up for success for the next change you want to implement –
“The last time we tried to change something it was a disaster. How do I convince my team this will be different?”
So it sounds like you experienced what I call “crumbling teeth on the death bed of change©”!
First examine what you did and what your expectation was for the change and identify what didn’t work. Then look at one or two things that did work. Chances are not everything was a total disaster. The reason you want to look at this first is to give you as the leader an opportunity to compare what you did to how this new program is different. You may want to capture a few bullets on the benefits to the team and the benefits for the practice for this new change.
If you want to work with a proven process to make sure you are successful, I encourage you to review the FAQ’s on the 1in9 website to see if this will be the ticket to your success. You can contrast what didn’t work with the tools you will have available to you in this program and be able to share why and how this will be different. By using the 1in9Dentists program, processes and forms, you will have every reason to succeed and get everyone on your dental team. As you go through the program you may discover additional reasons why the changes and the way you intended to implement them did not work.
Just remember that most people resist change and part of getting “buy in” on the changes you want to implement requires that you do your homework before introducing a process for change. This homework includes understanding the personalities on your team and how each one of them could potentially react/respond to the changes (covered in depth in the program). By consciously preparing yourself to handle any obstacles that may occur and setting intentions for how you want everything to work, you can and will succeed. You can make the process fun and the program will guide you through how to do that and how to get everyone pulling in the same direction.
Other things to consider that help to overcome people’s resistance to change is uncovering the fears they have around change. By focusing them on the benefits to them individually and to the patients and the practice you can help them join you and support your through the process. Major changes sometimes cause brief setbacks as everyone flows through the process of learning new things. We go through four stages – unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and finally unconscious competence. Helping your team to understand that they might experience some discomfort frequently will mitigate resistance.
One last thing to consider is your own response to change as a leader as well as personally – how do you normally approach major or minor changes in your life? What kind of approach do you like people to take with you? How do you like to hear about changes that are going to affect you? As you answer these questions it might help you to see if your responses are in any way reflected by the people on your dental team. Sometimes the reasons our change efforts don’t work is that we have to first look at ourselves and how we respond and change our own habits before we can ask or expect others to act differently.
The good news is that there are many tools and some very competent people to turn to when you want expert help to guide you! Check out some of the resources listed on this blog and if you can’t find something or someone, ask and I will be happy to find a source for you!
Thank you for reading!
Kathy
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August 27, 2008 at 6:14 pm
· Filed under People, leadership ·Tagged business development, dental teams, leader development, leadership, listening
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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August 25, 2008 at 4:11 pm
· Filed under People, Symptoms for Change Intervention, leadership ·Tagged expectations, outcomes, quarterly performance reviews, standards
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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My grandfather always used to say “farewell” – he told me to never say “goodbye” because to him that was permanent. Farewell meant you might be back again. So today I say farewell to all my readers. Blogging is about interaction, feedback, helping others and creating conversation. So far, this has been one sided – greatly informative and a wonderful way for me to have been supportive on subjects that have related to concerns I have learned about in the Dental Industry. 
