As a child, I loved to watch my Mother bake. She loved to bake cakes, pies and fudge. Mother never used a box cake mix; everything was made from scratch. She mixed the ingredients in the right proportions to get the results she wanted – a delicious cake or pie. Baking a cake or pie from scratch is an art in itself. Just as creating beautiful fitting crowns or dentures is an art!
One of my favorite cakes is a cherry chiffon cake, which Mother always made for my birthday. It was a special treat –not just because it tasted so good- but also because it required a lot of work and extra expense from the family budget! She would prop the recipe in front of her and gather all the necessary ingredients along with the sifter, the measuring spoons and cups, and the mixer. She assembled the recipe step-by-step, adding the exact ingredients.
As she measured each ingredient, she explained to me the importance of following the recipe exactly. She was so proud of the finished product and loved it when everyone complimented her on how beautiful the cake looked and how great it tasted!
As I got older, I began to experiment baking my own cakes. Sometimes I would get in a hurry and use the wrong measuring cup or forget to add a certain ingredient – such as baking powder. Of course, my cake flopped without the baking powder. So from then on, I learned to follow the recipe carefully!
If you think about it, there are many similarities of a cake recipe and running a dental office.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could buy a dental office in a box like today’s cake mixes, open it, add the correct ingredients, mix it together, and Voila! – An Instant Successful Dental Office: A staff that’s works well together and patients who want to see you!
Just as every cake recipe has certain ingredients essential for the cake to bake properly, there are essential ingredients that can help you and your dental team develop a dental office that can work well together to become successful.
Here are five essential ingredients that will help you find your recipe for success:
Ingredient No. 1:
Have passion for your work! Mother really enjoyed baking and took pride in her work. As a dentist and as a dental team member, you must enjoy your work and take pride in your dental office! It shows in your words, your actions and your attitudes! Your choice of words and actions will determine your success! Your team and patients are very perceptive and know if you truly enjoy working with them or if you are just “putting in your hours." Whether you verbalize it or not, your dental team and your patients know when you truly care about them!
If you fail to take pride in your dental office, why should your team? As an owner, you establish your dental office environment. Do your actions create a “defensive” environment or a “problem-solving” environment? In a problem-solving environment, staff members work together as a team where everyone comes to the office, does her/her job and works well with everyone. If you develop your practice where staff members become a team, feel they are part of it, they will treat it better, protect it, work at it and love it. You, as an owner of your dental office, are like the baking powder in the cake. Just as the baking powder causes the cake to rise, you can motivate your staff to rise to reach their potential!
Ingredient No. 2:
Find the right combination of people for your dental office! When you interview for a new staff member, do you take time to find the person who is willing and anxious to learn. You must find the right people for the right job. If you do not, you fail the rest of your dental team! Do you take time to check out their references? Do you just interview them quickly, looking for someone who can fill an empty spot? Do you test them and interview them two or three times? Finding the right employee to “fit in” with the rest of your team is an essential ingredient. Surround yourself with staff that can work well together as a team. Look for employees with good people skills and talent and let them get the job done!
Ingredient No. 3:
Train you new employees properly! Newly hired team members must be trained properly from the very beginning! It is your responsibility to hire the right employee, and then make sure they are trained properly and provide them with an opportunity to succeed. Or are they left to fend for themselves, making mistake after mistake until they finally give up and quit? You want to encourage a new team member who is eager and anxious to succeed!
Your team members are the greatest investment you have in your dental office! Just as using the best ingredients in a cake will insure a beautiful and delicious piece of art; you must do everything possible to give your newest team members the best training possible. This instills pride and tells them that you really care about them as an individual! Compliment them when they excel and help them reach their personal goals. When team members’ expectations are met, they are happy and satisfied and will be devoted to you and you dental office. After all, they are your greatest cheerleaders!
Ingredient No. 4:
Work together as a team! Whether you have 5, 10 or 15 staff members, if you fail to work together as a team, your dental office will fail to reach its potential. When everyone works together, doing their share of work and helping others, great achievements can be made. It isn’t the number of employees in your dental office that makes it successful; it is the number of staff members working together as a team that makes it happen.
An effective team is like the “domino effect”. In the game, all the pieces have to be spaced precisely apart in order for the all the dominos to fall in succession. However, if one of the dominos is spread too far apart from the next one, the domino effect ends. If one domino is out of line, the whole process collapses. An effective dental team works like this “domino effect”. When one person fails to work as a team member, he/she stops the domino effect. I n other words, one person can stop the whole team from working as a unit. When staff members work together as a team, they are not in competition with each other, but are each other’s greatest supporters.
He makes sure that he talks to each of them every day, compliments them, corrects them in a non-threatening manner, asks them about their family, makes sure they keep up on training, and keeps equipment in working order. His great people skills make him successful! What about the patients he works with? He has a loyal clientele because he has built rapport with them. They like him and respect him.
Ingredient No. 5:
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! I can never express enough the importance of communication within the dental office! The dentist and the office manager need to communicate with each other and with all the dental team members! Daily huddles and weekly or monthly meetings are a must! Everyone needs to feel a part of the whole dental office. Your staff needs to belong. They need to know what is going on in the office. These meetings do wonders in preventing rumors and gossip. It is a time to establish new goals, give feedback from you as well as your patients, and recognize your team members for outstanding work and achievements.
Think about it! There are many parallels to a cake recipe and a dental office! Whether it is a chocolate cake, a cherry cake or a white cake, there are certain ingredients that are essential! Incorporate these ingredients I have given you above for a successful dental office! Stir them with compassion, warm them from your heart with genuine care and concern for each team member, and watch your dental office grow!
Amazingly, these ingredients are simple, yet profound, and they are available and affordable to every dentist and every staff member who is willing to dedicate himself/herself to the long-term success of the dental office. When blended together, you have a productive dental practice!
Recipe for Success
