You Can’t Do It Alone

The biggest challenge facing any business today is to build and maintain a loyal, talented, dedicated, and customer service oriented team. The dental business is no different. It is absolutely impossible to have a great practice without a great team.

Building the best staff you can is an on-going process. I feel it is the responsibility of the dentist to create a nurturing environment where the best staff WANT to work. Pay well – anything different is penny wise and pound foolish.  Offer an outstanding benefit package,  and give people responsibility and opportunity for growth and advancement. Create easy to understand barometers to measure individual performance as well as overall practice results. Don’t be afraid to incentivize and reward outstanding performance. The greatest management principle in the world says that if you reward great behavior, you will get more of that behavior.

The two things that staff want more than sex and money is to (1) know that  they are appreciated and are doing a good job, and (2) that they have some opportunity to influence business and management decisions at the place they spend most of their waking hours. So go out of your way to tell them every day if they are doing a good job, and create communication opportunities where they feel that they have a voice to express ideas.

Building the perfect staff will take time. Resist the temptation to hire any warm body. be selective and don’t compromise your standards. The results will be well worth the effort.