The Powerful Team Alignment Tool
I received a very gratifying message the other day from a regular reader of these posts. He told me how much he enjoyed using them during his morning huddles with his team.
“Our team has always been big on the morning huddle, and I was going over a quote of the day for our inspiration,” he writes. “The problem was, however, that nobody really got too inspired just from the quote.” So he started using these daily posts as a quick way to connect with his team on a specific subject. He goes on to say, “I especially find the ones that can be applied to the whole team or certain areas of the practice very useful.”
I’ve been getting similar feedback from other dentists who are using the articles I post here as a tool for getting the team aligned and I’m delighted to hear that. There are still times when I’ll want to share something that is intended for dentists; however, I try to write on topics that are of interest for the whole team as much as possible.
In a profession like dentistry, where people tend to work in relative isolation – in their own compartments – you need to look for ways to get together to keep the inspiration and teamwork alive. You can only have so many full-staff meetings, but you can always find a few moments to reconnect, get focused and rally around an idea-of-the-day. That’s one of the reasons I decided to begin posting daily.
And for those staff meetings where you do have time to go deeper into a topic, I’m very excited to be able to offer something new. I’m doing a series of e-books exploring major themes for achieving ideal alignment in a dental practice. If you haven’t seen it yet, the first one, called Trust and Value: A Field Guide to Today’s Dental Patients is available here. It’s a free, quick 15-minute read that is ideal for sharing with the team and putting on the agenda for discussion at your next meeting.
What do you think? Is the e-book format—shorter than a course, but more detailed than an article—something that appeals to you? Do you find yourself sharing the daily articles here with your team or others? Are there particular topics that you would like to see addressed more? I love hearing your feedback and I welcome your suggestions.
I loved the e-book, very informative and in-depth. Great format as well.
It’s great using these posts as a springboard for morning discussions. We organize our huddle around a laminated sheet with the following bullet points:
Yesterday’s Production
Yesterday’s Highlights
Opportunities for Improvement
Scheduled Production for Today
Where to place ER’s
Potential Production Boosters
Patients with Unscheduled Treatment
New Guest Background
…and then we wrap it up with our Spear thought of the day. We’ve done all different types of huddles and having this laminated sheet in front of everyone for our huddle really keeps things moving quickly and helps us to stay on track. Just thought I’d share what we do here as its been the best format for starting the morning with high energy and keeping everyone aligned.
Thank you Imtiaz, for this recent thread and all your posts. A while back I posted a comment about mining the blog for my “daily dose of Frank” to bring the team and now, with daily clinical and managment/leadership posts, there’s an even greater wealth of knowledge and inspiration right at our fingertips. It’s a great way to stimulate conversation in our huddle and meetings as we continue on our path of growth. Love the e-book too and looking forward to future creations. Thanks again to you and all the posters at Spear Education.
I’ve enjoyed reading these subjects very much. They’re very helpful for engaging the team in discussion and furthering their development. Thanks!