Why does your practice team hate you? Questions to ask yourself
You are grateful for the people that work in your practice. You wish they felt the same way about you.
“Making your team happy is for them but also for you. It’s not a touchy-feely result,” said President and CEO of Next Level Practice, Gary Kadi.
“When your team is given enough facts to be high achievers, they will create a culture that creates significant results for you,” Kadi said.
Culture with clear guardrails
One of the top challenges every practice leader needs to do is be mindful of creating a culture at every moment by having unshakeable integrity in spoken and unspoken agreements from leaders.
You and your team have no peace if you don’t create a culture that provides clear, fact-based information. How do you know you have this covered? There’s a default mechanism that unfolds when you aren’t even there that hits your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.
“A great sign is when the team mobilizes around a new person without you there. There’s a level of excellence extant in the practice. Your high achievers pull the new people in to play at their level,” Kadi adds
People don’t work to get paid anymore
The old model of leadership is I pay you so you must be happy and do what I say without input. Millennials won’t put up with a manager who dictates the terms of their work lives. If you deliver loud terms and are always pulling people uphill that’s not sustainable. That culture will never give anyone a good feeling about the practice. They will, indeed, dislike you if you don’t have a management style based on facts.
Mission, vision, values
Your team probably went into the dental field for humanistic reasons. If you can find a mission behind the work that is tied to that and tied to fact-based, revenue goals, you have a culture.
“They didn’t wake up this morning to make you rich. They must have a common purpose to differentiate you from competitors and make them feel good as a team—people want to work for a mission instead of a paycheck,” Kadi said.
Doctor Larry
Doctor Larry was managing by emotion rather than results. The team was reacting to emotions which didn’t change the behaviors and damaged trust. What Larry did was fivefold:
- He created daily primary outcomes reverse-engineered from the practice goals for revenue and for the time he wanted to spend at work.
- Doctor Larry designed a lifestyle by paying himself, the practice owner, first. He decided how much the end goal requires in time and in making the money he needs to make. Each day will have a target outcome.
- The team is trained on these goals, goals that align to their own and to the Doctor’s values Your team knows exactly what is expected. They know what the soft tissue/hard tissue revenue should be for total body health. They want to help patients achieve this so they won’t hate you for demanding it of them.
- He assigned dollar amounts for each role in the office per day. He created a bonus system each person collects on when they meet their goals. The team wants to see actual, hard dollar rewards. They finally possess clarity and recognize the currency of excellence.
- Doctor Larry also has a system to address every upset and inefficiency that has happened or potentially could happen.
“These upsets are caused by a missing or broken agreement from the practice leader,” Said Kadi.
A good example? Doctor Larry said he would be there to train a new person or to handle a difficult patient. He wasn’t. Going forward, Doctor Larry set up a way to discuss these issues as soon as they happen. That’s how to fix broken trust and a team that hates you.
“If you mess up, you admit it. Your team respects that,” Kadi said.
There’s so much more to learn about team culture. Call the office today and ask for Gary. He can troubleshoot a new practice leadership program to retain employees and give you the life you deserve. Reach out today. 212-388-1712
“Next Level is more than a consulting experience. It gives you the tools as a business owner to manage like a CEO and gives you the freedom to be the best dentist, spouse, and parent you can be.”-Michelle DeFelice Hucke, Jax Beaches Family Dentistry
