Getting Buy-In From Your Dental Team

In my previous article, I talked about one strategy for implementing change in your practice: changing the actions of the dental team to eventually have their beliefs conform to those actions.

The strategy we’ll explore in this article takes the opposite approach. At this point, I’m sure most you think I’m contradicting myself, but it’s important to remember there is no one single “right way” to motivate behavior. As a leader, you’ll need to choose the one that works for you and your dental team.

Set the framework for your dental team

The strategy is simply to find ways to involve your dental team in the decision-making of the practice. By doing this, they feel they have a say in what’s happening and will generally work harder to achieve something they’ve been a part of. The key to making this work is to carefully set the framework for their involvement.

For example, let’s say you’ve made the decision to hire a new hygienist and you want your dental team to get behind this new person 100%. It would be in your best interest to involve them in the hiring decision.

But when should you do this? That’s the real question. It wouldn’t be in the decision to hire or not hire; this is something that you as a business owner need to decide based on the economics of your individual practice. It also wouldn’t be in your best interest to try to bring them in when you’re screening résumés, because there are too many unknowns at that point in the process.

Your ideal time is when you’ve narrowed it down to the last couple of candidates. That way, you have time to assess the skills and qualities you desire, and you present those qualified candidates to the office for their assessment.

Finally, if you want this to work, you do have to take their opinions into account when you make a decision. If you ask only to make them feel like they have a say, but then don’t listen to any of their recommendations, this will backfire badly. The key is to bring them in at a point in the decision-making process where their input really becomes valuable.

In the hiring example, this is after you’ve assessed the economics of the practice and the skills of the candidate. Then you need your staff’s help to assess how they’ll fit in with the rest of the dental team, because if your team doesn’t like the candidate, they won’t succeed in the long run.