Reader question: My first core value is excellence. I have done tons of CE, trained with masters, read the journals. I use the best labs (and the most expensive). I have the latest equipment, digital, delivery systems, computing, impression materials, shade matching utilities, etc. I work really hard to improve my dentistry continuously. We talk about it in staff meetings, but I don’t think my staff gets it at all. What can I do to make them see?
In dentistry, there is a lot of talk about excellence. Unfortunately, the way excellence is held in dentistry is a myth, a fantasy. Why? Because excellence is arbitrary. If excellence is arbitrary, then excellence cannot be a particular kind of dentistry. Therefore, excellence must be an interpretation, which means excellence is pure invention. Excellence is a label we assign to what we do.
Because excellence is arbitrary, it can be interpreted in many ways. Because you make up the meaning of excellence, the question is, What’s your interpretation of excellence? And more importantly, Does your definition of excellence empower you and your staff?
If you are like most dentists, you have been trained to hold excellence as something tangible. When you hold excellence in some physical context, then you are seduced into thinking that excellence is, of course, the most beautiful and expensive dentistry.
But is it?
The Pursuit of Excellence as a Core Value
If you consider excellence as tangible, then it is elevated to an ideal. You can never win in the domain of ideals. When you’re pitted against an ideal, you’ll never be good enough. When you compare yourself to an ideal, you’re not able enough. When you contrast yourself against an ideal, there is always something lacking. When you judge yourself against an ideal, you’re defeated every time.
Seeing excellence only in terms of a clinical result and perceiving excellence as an ideal means you may never achieve it, and you’ll never be good enough. When you hold excellence as an ideal, you can’t really treat patients. Why? Because if they don’t go for the ideal, if they don’t say yes to accepting the ideal, then you’ve failed.
We believe there is another way to hold excellence. What if excellence was not an outcome of what you did, but how you did it? What if excellence was a moment-to-moment endeavor, not an end? What if excellence was “who you are,” not a final product? What if you were to think of excellence as never bending from your core value of doing the very best with what you are doing?
Build your practice around the core value of excellence, always striving to do better, and you will see growing improvement and success.
Striving to be better in all areas — large and small — is what will separate those practices that excel from those that fail.
Practice excellence all the time, not just as a final product.
— Marc
