Dr Phillip Palmer, March 2016 -  

Imagine for a moment, you are a lion tamer in the circus.

You’ve spent years building up your expert skills to handle the most treacherous and terrifying beast under the big top. Each night during the show, people are in awe of your ability to deal with those big jaws and walk away safely.

One day, the Circus master decides on a whim to switch your role and let you run the show.

Suddenly instead of dealing with teeth, you are dealing with different groups of performers, ticket sales, show times and a thousand other small details to make the event run smoothly.

Believe it or not, the pressure of running the whole show may actually be worse than sticking your hands inside a lions jaws!

For most modern dentists, they feel pretty much the same about running their practice. They’d rather be the one dealing with tooth-related challenges rather than team-related issues. They’d rather avoid talking about finances, scheduling, performance reviews, marketing and the hundreds of other elements that come together to create a successful practice.

But ignoring these elements can eventually come back to bite you.

In my 34 years of experience working as a dentist, and 20 years working with hundreds of dentists around the globe through coaching and workshops, I have come to see the same pattern over and over again.

Leadership

I believe the skill most dentists lack is leadership. I know I was as guilty of this as anyone I’ve ever met. During the early years of my practice, I completely ignored interpersonal skills while I focussed on the clinical. Yet over the years the truth became clear: the ability to guide your team towards a shared focus is essential if you want to have a stress free, successful dental practice.

Of course, leadership - like everything else in modern times - is evolving.

As Carol Tice writes for Forbes: “you can't model yourself on leadership archetypes from the past and expect to meet the challenges of today's workplace. Barking orders at your subordinates like a domineering 1950s boss won't get your staff on your side. And the buddy-buddy, hang-loose management style of the 1990s won't get results.”

Modern Leadership is a skill that can be learned and put into practice. I am proof of it. But the first step is to recognize the need for leadership and take responsibility to become the leader of your own practice.

Strategy

After you identify and accept the need for leadership skills, the next element you need is a clear strategy. You can’t steer a ship without knowing the destination, and your dental practice is exactly the same.

Most dentists I’ve mentored don’t have much of a strategy for their practice. Instead they hope that with earnest hard work that the years passing will guide them towards ‘success’. It’s a nice dream, but in fact they are letting the winds of change guide them, rather than setting their sails in a specific direction.

One of the keys to a good strategy is to begin with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey used to teach.

Think forward 20 years or so and envisage what type of practice you want.

- How many treatment rooms would it have?
- How many clinicians, and what type (hygienists, employed dentists, etc)?
- What percentage of your income would you like keep?
- How many days a week and weeks a year do you want to be working?
- What size team do you have working with you?
- Are you a specialist or do you prefer to stay in general practice?

When I ask most young dentists questions like this they stare blankly at me. I then suggest they take a long weekend to truly map out their ideal scenario. In this way they have a target and know at least what they want.

A strong strategy will do more to help you and your team succeed than you might realize. 

Tracking and Reporting

Perhaps the area where there is the most avoidance is in number tracking and reporting. I have always been a numbers guy, so to me the practice of watching the numbers has been fun.

Yet for most dentists, they receive little to no training or guidance in how to run a successful practice. You will notice that the questions I asked about strategy have a lot to do with specific numbers. That is because numbers tell the reality.

I am often astounded to review the numbers of a dentist who is running at a loss, and is completely oblivious.

Regular tracking and reporting is a discipline you must adopt if you are serious about creating a steady, stress-free, successful practice.

Even when the numbers aren’t telling a promising story, it is far better to know the reality so you can focus on improving it.

Practice management skills are never the most exciting to learn. As clinicians we’d much rather learn new clinical techniques and play with new fancy technology.

Yet the discipline of putting them in the place will ensure that you are in control of your practice.

Prime Practice have been helping dentists and their teams to run successful practices for the last 20 years. Founder and Chairman of Prime Practice, Dr Phillip Palmer has a deep understanding of all the different management, financial and professional issues that face dentists and is regarded as Australasia’s leading expert on the business of dentistry.

Join the Prime Practice team at their next Practice Owner’s Workshop to learn all the fundamentals of owning a dental practice business.