Tips For Creating A Winning Team

I learned long ago that the quality and quantity of my work-life balance and overall happiness depended on the current state of my team. When my team was firing on all cylinders, production was great, revenue was high, and patients and my team were happy. On the flip side, when my team was in disarray, patient complaints increased, the bottom line dropped, and I found my stress was almost too much to bear. I was putting in long hours to make up for staffing and provider shortages but never saw the fruits of my labor. No matter how much time I spent at the office, profits never increased, and my team never became happier. It was obvious I wanted to live in the first scenario, but I struggled to figure out how to achieve and maintain that position. It took several years of toggling back and forth between the two positions before I discovered some tips to create a winning team. These tips do not solve all your teams; problems since people’s lives and motivations change, but they will help prevent individuals from making disastrous decisions and help to increase your success.

1. Create, Preach, and Align with a Vision

• The most important thing you can do as a leader is to become crystal clear on the vision of your practice. Do you wish to focus on improving esthetics and self-confidence, treating the mouth-body connection, or focus on increasing access to care for undeserved populations? Whatever it is you wish to pursue, it must be clear where your focus lies because that focus will attract the right kind of people to help you achieve your vision. You would be making a mistake if you hired a treatment coordinator who specializes in selling full mouth implant cases in an office that deals with providing dentistry to a low-income population. Defining your core values is equally as important as defining your vision. The team must know, believe, and act in a way that aligns with your values for your business. Do you value customer service, teamwork, ethics, systemic health, or technology? Whatever your values are, you will have increased success if you hire other people with those same values. For example, my practice values the use of technology to help treat the mouth-body connection. Therefore, I look for health care providers passionate about those two things. Having a well-defined vision and core values helps you to align with like-minded people who can help you move closer to achieving your vision.

  2. Hire Smart

  Hiring has always been the most challenging part of my career. I have tried many methods in the past and have not achieved predictable results. Sometimes I look for that A player to come in, take charge, and take my practice to the next level. After wrestling with that A player over authority, patients, and expectations, my next hire would tend to be a B player- someone who could slide into the team, not ruffle any feathers, and make patients happy. After a little time, I would find myself frustrated with their soft performance and swing back towards hiring the A player. This is when I decided to take a step back, analyze my practice, its current state and problems, and create a list of what is actually needed at this exact moment. I learned this from the book, “Who” by Geoff Smart. It is important to document what the needed outcomes are, at this moment, for the position in which you are hiring. After you are clear on what outcomes are needed, then document the competencies that are needed to accomplish those outcomes. For example, when my practice was newer and growing, I needed a manager who excelled in marketing, attracting patients and creating momentum with the team to drive production. I needed someone excited to get dentistry going every day. After my practice had peaked from rapid growth, I now needed a manager more attuned to refining the business and customer service areas of the practice. I wanted someone who could improve my customer service culture and someone who could refine my overhead to maximize profits. Sometimes, a team member can meet both needs, but other times you must find someone new to fit the new role. Whatever the current needs are, make sure you are clear about what you need and hire the person who fits that specific need of the office. It is better to hire a specialist who can fix an issue than hire an all-around athlete to join the team.

  3. On-board successfully

  It is well-known knowledge that the first 100 days of a new employee’s on-boarding experience will determine their success in the position. We must do this intentionally, but we are all too often caught in a hamster wheel of chaos. After all, we had to hire this new person because we were short-staffed, so we usually just throw them in as quickly as possible to alleviate some stress on the rest of the team! I have made this mistake too many times and it never works out. Just as we interviewed the candidate to ensure they were a fit for us, we must also realize that we are being interviewed as well to see if we are a fit for the candidate. If we do not provide a welcoming environment, show a unified vision, and provide them with the tools to succeed, they will feel like they have made the wrong decision and quickly leave. I have experienced this many times on-boarding dentists. Depending on my stress level and business, sometimes I would hire a doc, give them a one to two-day intro on my expectations, how I operate, and introduction to the team. Then, I'd cut them loose only to become frustrated that they were not practicing in alignment with my clinical culture. I made this mistake the most with more experienced doctors who I assumed would be able to adapt to my style of practice with little guidance. When I was on-boarding new graduates, I spent a minimum of 2 weeks completing a documented training program that covered every area of practice. I then would complete a 30, 60, and 90-day mentoring program to ensure they were getting up to speed. I saw much better results from on-boarding in this manner so now I ensure I do it with every doctor joining my practice, no matter the tenure.

  4. Remove Negative Energy

  There is nothing worse than having an employee who is excellent at their job but who also brings negative energy to the practice. I have made the mistake many times of holding on to extremely talented employees who were toxic for the morale of the team and the patient experience because of my fear of losing their skills. Where I work, there is a massive shortage of dental assistants and dental hygienists, so I have been guilty of holding on to people in these positions who are super talented but dangerous for team chemistry. What I have found is that while their skills are useful, they bring down the entire productivity of the team, create unnecessary stress, and cause me to walk on eggshells for fear of losing them. When I have decided to move on from such an employee, I have found time and again that the other teammates rise to the occasion, increase their skills, and improve the patient experience. Profits will always increase when negativity is eliminated. If you have someone on your team who does not align with your vision, core values or brings negativity, you should think about making some changes. One bad apple could ruin the bunch!

  5. Give space for organic excellence

  This is an area in which I have had to devote much effort to improve myself. What I have learned is that I want to achieve extraordinary results, and to do that, I must surround myself with A-players. I learned quickly that A players do not like to be micro-managed, and nor should they be as they have proven track records of success. In the past, I sought control over every aspect of my practice and wanted the respect of all my employees. What I found was that that method left little ability for self-management when I was out of the office. If I was not there to tell everyone what to do, then nothing was accomplished. I also turned away a lot of A-players who did not like to be micro-managed. I have evolved my methods (work in progress!) to allow for more organic growth in my practice. I trust there is a reason why I hired this team member and it was because I was impressed with their success. I focus on providing the vision, ensure alignment with my clinical and practice culture, but then allow them to work within that realm. I will offer advice and suggestions, but I do not step in to course correct unless I see that team member veering away from our mission. This is a very challenging way to lead, but I have found it creates a happier team and improved results.

Creating the perfect team is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. It can be extremely challenging but also very rewarding. I have found success by preparing for the role ahead by sourcing candidates, ensuring they are set up for success in the first 100 days, and allowing them to find their way within the role. I hope these tips will improve your team-building skills and help you lead a less stressful life!