Dentaltown December 2017 - 124

continuing
education

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everyone has had a chance to input their idea of
a perfect day, you can share your ideas of what a
perfect day looks like to you.
Intercommunication. Next, almost in the
same way that Congress goes to committee to
hammer out a final bill between the House and
Senate, you need to facilitate intercommunication. Discuss what is and is not feasible at
that exact juncture. You may very well discover
that your team will become extremely more
motivated when they're allowed a voice in the
overall direction of the practice, and that could
make your job much easier. At the end of the
intercommunication session, you should have a
first draft of your practice vision complete.
Strategies. Next, you need to begin the process
of defining and developing strategies that will
lead to the systems that make your shared vision
come true. You should leave this meeting with
everyone on the same page and receptive to the
changes that you're about to install to make
everyone's lives better in the long run.
Implemention. After you and your leadership
team have gotten the basic two or three
beginning systems in the blueprint phase that
you'd like to see become status quo in the
practice, implement them. That's sometimes
considered a dirty word in dentistry, because
dentists know how hard it is to change. (That
applies not only to the team but also to the
dentists.) But movement toward our goals isn't
possible without that change, so implementation
is the key. I like to have a quick meeting with
my practice leadership team, whether it be a
single office manager or multiple team leaders,
and get everyone on the same page as to the
exact steps needed to make our vision in each
area happen. Then I usually let my team leaders
do the implementation. (Of course, I like to
be there whenever questions arise, so we can

DECEMBER 2017 // dentaltown.com

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keep revising our systems blueprint to continue
moving in the right direction.)
Organization. Once our systems are running
smoothly-whether that takes a couple of weeks
or a couple of months-we memorialize our
organization by writing down all the steps and
systems it took to create that new environment.
I like to keep a hard copy of all our systems in
a three-ring binder, but you can also do this
on a computer. No matter which you use, be
sure to have backups! As I learned in my fire,
some things can never be recovered if lost, and
you certainly don't want to lose a book of the
systems that are helping you realize your dream
practice. This book is an amazing resource for
review and for new hires. Once systems are
written down, you can always revisit and revise
them. This is more of a living document than a
permanent set of office commandments.
Nonstop pursuit. Continually repeat this
process. What I refer to as "nonstop pursuit" is
the last piece of the puzzle, because you should
never stop pursuing your goals or your dreams.
Plus, if your team helped create the vision of
your practice and you're all pursuing that goal
together, it increases the chance that they will
feel ownership of the new vision exponentially.

Identifying the agents of change
The VISION process outlined above makes sure
everyone knows the direction in which they need to
drive the practice, but they still will need a vehicle that
provides them motivation on a daily or weekly basis.
Creating an environment of success is part of that,
but you also need specific tools to help create the new
environment. The success vehicle in our practice is our
"breakthrough board," a centrally located board that
tracks all the ongoing projects that are going on in the
practice at any given time.
All those systems and blueprints that you created
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