Q: I have a very good dental practice. I’ve read Collin’s book “Good to Great,” and I believe I am doing all the right things. But I am still not able to get my practice beyond “very good.” I can’t figure out what’s missing.
—Devlin
A: Devlin,
I have been working with dental practices for 25 years; from Florida to Washington State, from New Hampshire to California, and from Texas to Illinois. I feel like Johnny Cash: “I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere.” Over this time and distance, I have come to recognize a critical, yet very subtle difference between good dental practices and great dental practices.
This difference is hard to discern. Both good practices and great practices have leaders who set clear goals, communicate openly, respect people and treat them fairly. Both have management that holds people accountable and creates trusting relationships. Both good practices and great practices have staff who come to work on time, participate fully in huddles and staff meetings, do their jobs well, feel satisfied, and operate well as a team. Both good dental practices and great dental practices spend time and money on continuing education and training for their doctors and their staffs. Both are unconditionally committed to great patient service and top-of-the-rank dental care. So what makes these great practices great?
How Do You Measure Appreciation?
There is a fundamental ingredient that is consistently present in great practices that is either missing or under-utilized in good practices. This single element acts like a catalyst, accelerating and enhancing success. This particular catalyst speeds up business and patient processes, enhances relationships and makes all practice activities more effective in producing better results. Simply stated, this catalyst makes the practice function better and faster and more smoothly without throwing the business off balance.
I can detect this catalyst in all great practices. It clearly stands out in great practices. I can point it out every time it is active. What is this catalyst? I call this catalyst “purpose-driven acknowledgment.”
My definition of acknowledgment is “expressing genuine, heartfelt appreciation to a staff member in a meaningful and memorable way.” An acknowledgment is a declarative statement recognizing a staff member in such a way that they feel known, honored and appreciated.
We developed a Staff Satisfaction survey many years ago and one domain we measure is Appreciation. When we chart staff satisfaction results against practice financial profiles, our data clearly reveals the more staff perceives they are appreciated, the more the practice experiences higher revenues, stronger staff retention rates, significantly higher new patient volumes, greater team spirit, and greater overall satisfaction. The evidence is clear. The higher the level of staff appreciation, the better performing the practice.
How Do you Develop Purpose-Driven Acknowledgment?
Staff acknowledgments are best delivered publicly. They have far more impact when delivered in front of their peers. By making the acknowledgment public, the person being acknowledged has a much deeper sense of pride and recognition. As important, maybe even more important, it shows the other staff members what is possible. It creates a desire in the other staff members to be recognized for the same thing so they can be acknowledged publicly as well. And that is part of the catalyst’s magic. What you acknowledge in one staff member, you inherently are requesting of others. So acknowledgment, besides imbuing pride and recognition in one person, actually promotes them to take similar actions.
But there’s more here. Dentists in great dental practices just don’t acknowledge anything and everything. They acknowledge those areas of the practice that are strategic to its success. Listen closely and you’ll hear leaders in great practice acknowledge their staff for supporting and fulfilling the mission.
“Joan, you really went above and beyond making sure Mr. Johnson was comfortable when he came in for his first appointment. That really made a difference in his exam and she accepted our treatment recommendations. Thank you. Great job! You absolutely supported our mission of taking exquisite care of patients.”
You’ll hear dentists of great practices recognize outstanding performance in achieving the practice goals.
“Diane, besides doing a fantastic job as a hygienist, your encouragement of Mrs. Smith to complete her treatment plan and get the implants and crowns done, really made a difference. Thank you. She scheduled his appointments. Way to go!”
You’ll also hear dentists of great practices acknowledge people when they are accountable, when they are self-governing and self-managing. You’ll hear acknowledgment when a staff individual takes the initiative and makes things happen that increase the practice’s performance and success. You’ll here being acknowledged when they handle problems without being a problem.
Acknowledgment as Encouragement
In essence, acknowledgment is the very highest level of request. Whatever you need more of, acknowledge it. But like any catalyst, acknowledgment can only produce when certain conditions are in place. If these conditions are missing, the catalyst is impotent.
These conditions are uncovered in our Dentist Performance Assessment, where the staff evaluates the dentist’s performance in a number of vital areas, two of which are leadership and integrity. If these two areas are perceived as underperforming or failing, purpose-driven acknowledgment has no influence.
For this catalyst to work then, the dentist as a leader must be authentic, passionate and unashamedly committed to the vision. The dentist must be zealous and demanding about the mission. The dentist must operate far above the line in his or her own integrity. The dentist must genuinely care about each staff member, not just as an object to achieve a job. The dentist must show real interest in them as people.
With the right conditions in place, purpose-driven acknowledgment will help a good dental practice become a great dental practice. When purpose-driven acknowledgments are occurring in your practice day-by-day, week-to-week, there is a constant reinforcement of practice values, productive work behavior and a revived sense of mission.
From my perspective, recognition is a universal human need. We all want to matter. And we want to matter with people with whom we work. Purpose-driven acknowledgment takes your values and vision off the paper in your manuals and puts them in the hearts and minds of your staff, which is exactly where they should be.
“The innate craving for recognition and appreciation is not a selfish, superficial craving for the spotlight,” says Deal and Keal in their book, Corporate Celebration. “It is an authentic, deep-seated desire to be deemed worthy when offering something of worth. A true acknowledgment reaches an employee at an emotional level like no other communication can. It is both extremely professional yet deeply personal.”
— Marc
