Invest In the Things That Aren’t Yet Broken

It might seem to be counter intuitive and of course it would all be much easier if there were guarantees and certainties, but the necessary investment required to grow your dental practice isn’t just about burning cash and bounce back loans.

Let’s face it, businesses don’t fail because of a lack of vision. Like any business, they fail because they don’t implement the ideas and produce consistent results. That is why investing in your dental practice is not just about finances.

Invest in time with your team now, even if things aren’t broken, to get the basic structures in place that will be necessary when everybody gets busy again. That’s why it’s important to give your team the ‘freedom to play’ and to think about your overarching principles sometimes and so they can apply their own common sense and kindness, where otherwise the lack of, will inevitably produce chaos.

This morning a scheduled conversation with one of our Reboot clients and a welcome reminder of how as leaders, and by setting overarching principles you can shape the behaviours of your team. A very real example of the benefits of ‘chaos training’ with the things that weren’t yet broken and the importance of thinking about and choosing in advance, how to respond to likely future scenarios. Our client, seemingly more than happy to reel off a list of potentially chaotic situations that when tested, were handled calmly.

A patient…

• Turned up late
• Insisted on being accompanied during their visit
• Demanded ‘airflow’
• Challenged the necessity of PPE
• Didn’t understand the treatment plan given at the desk

….the list goes on, the real stuff that we deal with in a post lockdown dental practice. No surprises and these scenarios were all likely to happen at some point, common themes with unique circumstances that require common sense and kindness, and that had been thought about as a team and in advance.

Sometimes as leaders we respond to what’s happening right now. Lock down reminded us of the importance of taking the time to think, and sometimes even about the things that aren’t yet broken.