If you want to stop dreaming about where you’d like to take your business and start making it happen, you absolutely, definitely have to share your vision with your team.
If I visited your practice today and asked your team members what the vision for your business is, would they be able to tell me with certainty and confidence? For most dentists, their team simply don’t know the answer to the question. I am sure you will appreciate they can’t work towards it if they don’t know it, so the one thing you must do is get your team together.
I am a firm believer in ‘Team Days’ - a session which brings together the whole team so you can explain exactly where you see your dental business going and discuss what you need to take it there. If you have points around your vision which relate to sensitive personal goals, leave them out. But make sure you cover the main points in order to ‘paint the picture’ which represents your vision effectively.
Describe your vision to them - with passion and enthusiasm. Give them chance to challenge it, have an input and agree the vision as a team. I have witnessed this done well by a principal splitting a team into small groups of two or three people, then encouraging each group to decide whether they like everything he said. It is important you allow your team to challenge your vision so they feel part of the process.
As a result of discussions and potential challenges made, be prepared to hone and refine elements of your vision if the consensus is against them. The more passionate and realistic you are in delivering your vision, the less likely you are to be seriously challenged.
At the start of Mission Impossible Tom Cruise is passed a recording from his team leader, it sets out his upcoming challenge, should he choose to accept it. This single line reveals a keen appreciation of human nature. The team leader knows they must engage with him. They know they need Tom to commit wholeheartedly to helping them achieve their mission.
People are always more committed to a path they have chosen themselves rather than one assigned to them or one inflicted on them. Excite your team members by your vision of the future. Show them why it is worthwhile – for your patients and for them. If you do then you will have your wholehearted travellers to accompany you on your journey.
A team day is a big event in every business’s life. It needs to be done well to engage with the people that matter so much in terms of achieving the vision. If you’re not confident in presenting your vision brilliantly well then get someone to help you. Someone who has done it before, seen the challenges and can anticipate and plan for the difficulties.
Getting team buy-in is vital to the success of your dental business, the achievement of your vision and subsequently your ability to meet your personal goals. Achieve it and everyone is ‘committed to the cause’. Fail to do it and you run the risk of people pulling in different directions and not playing as a team.
It’s useful to consider your team in sporting terms. You and your associate dentists are the attackers. Your practice manager, head nurse and head receptionist make up the midfield and your other team members are defenders.
If your defenders don’t do their jobs, the midfielders have to drop back to help out. This means they can’t provide a service for the attackers. When your attackers don’t perform correctly (your associates don’t hit their gross targets per month) other gaps appear.
Your attackers need the assistance of the midfielders and defenders if they are to score goals. You want your defenders to defend but also to support the midfield. This allows your midfielders to go forward and help your attackers.
So you can sense how this structure can fall down if everybody doesn’t play as a team.
Following your team day, you may find that certain team members have difficulty with the changes necessary to achieve the goals you have shared with them (even after training). They struggle to function as you need them to in your team. They may subsequently choose to leave. It is important you allow them to do this if you are to achieve your vision and live your life as you want to live it.