As a dentist-entrepreneur goes about building a managed-group practice, they face a potentially disastrous blind spot: relationships. When these dentists were operating at one or two locations, the relationships were based largely on a family model: think a typical nuclear family.
Because they come from family systems, the doctor and staff could easily adapt themselves to family system-like relationships. They knew how to function in this kind of system, and people gravitate toward the familiar.
But as the dentist-entrepreneur expands to four or five practice locations and as non-dental senior executives come on board in the C-Suite, family-system relationships no longer work. A transition from family-system relationships to corporate-system relationships is required. And dentist-entrepreneurs are fish out of water when it comes to corporate-system relationships.
Relationships Rule
In business — and in life — it is all about relationships. Without healthy relationships at the corporate level, performance suffers, dissatisfaction goes up, and turnover increases. Without strong corporate-level relationships, values, culture, and mission are hindered. Without solid relationships within a corporate environment, effective communication evaporates and the vision for the future is not achievable.
Nearly all dentist-entrepreneurs moving to managed-group practices fail to make building empowering relationships a key focus. Relationship-building is a foreign practice to them: it’s never been a priority nor a necessity. They are totally preoccupied with organizational charts, analytics, data mining, KPIs, production, marketing, and other responsibilities. They are unconscious to the need to proactively build relationships that will promote corporate success.
Relationships are simply put on the back burner — that is, until there is a catastrophic problem. The C-Suite is particularly vulnerable to this threat. When relationships are not working, the impact is felt throughout the enterprise. Dentist-entrepreneurs, having never worked on building empowering relationships before, are largely unconscious to the fact that relationships are critical and fundamental. They have no internal processes, methods, or procedures for building strong relationships. Relationship-building does not exist as part of the education, training, and development of staff or executives.
“Chief Relationship Officer”
Most companies have COOs, CFOs, CIOs, VPs of HR, recruiting and marketing. But there is no CRO: Chief Relationship Officer. If relationships were the key to success, then time and money would be spent on relationship development and management.
There is not one course in the group-practice space about generating and sustaining powerful relationships, especially with key stakeholders in the company. It is assumed that defined accountabilities, detailed job descriptions, clear performance parameters, agreed-upon measures of success, and defined reporting structures will somehow cover relationships within the company.
Whatever you focus on expands, and whatever you overlook contracts. If you are not focusing on and working on relationships, they will drift — and they nearly always drift in a negative direction.
Good Relationships Mean Good Business
Healthier relationships translate into more effective communication. Tighter relationships lead to more effective requests, and more effective action, which in turn increases the likelihood of a desirable outcome. Closer relationships means fewer resources and time are required to tackle problems. Better relationships mean a greater ability to achieve a high-performance culture.
So what’s the bottom line? Technology, systems, processes, and numbers do not run a business: relationships do. Constantly working to improve relationships within your organization is a key — and often overlooked — component to building a highly successful group practice.
— Marc
