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 | Resolutions Don't Work Sandy Roth
Prosynergy Dental Communications  |
Resolutions – to stop avoiding it.
I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions, but this year I am taking on the big one: I agree to much more than I can handle. I have known this about myself for a very long time; yet, I have never formally decided to do something about it. I now want this to be different. When I don’t fulfill obligations in the most timely and best way, I feel terrible. I let myself and others down. This is a pattern of many years for me, and I’m not certain what changes I will make. But I will put my best effort into seriously considering the implications of each new obligation before I take it on.
Because I have been considering this look at myself, I have had resolutions on my mind in speaking with clients. If you are like me, you have much to choose from in selecting your resolutions, but we can only choose from those things we are aware of. Some of the more challenging issues may not even be in our conscious awareness. We often don’t see what we most need to see about ourselves. I often comment to myself about how an unrecognized personal trait, attitude or behavior pattern lies at the heart of a problem he or she would love to conquer. Yet frequently I can hear very clear indications of the impact of those aspects on the problem the dentist is describing to me.
For example, a new client is describing a series of very frustrating and costly hiring failures. Over the past year, nine people have left. He tells me that he hates managing people and wants to just do the dentistry. In addition, he is wanting people who will show up, do the work and not make more problems for him. When someone leaves, he feels pressed to hire quickly to fill the vacancy, but there is never enough time to train properly and the warm body often turns out to be wrong for the position. So he either fires the person or she leaves in anger, and he is thrown back into the process again. He believes the problem is that there are no good people; that good skills and judgment are too hard to come by; that staff are generally unreliable; that the work ethic has changed so dramatically that he will not be able to find someone who wants to really work, and so on.
He is partly right, of course. In almost any community, we can easily find people who are unreliable, who don’t want to work, who lack the skills and maturity to do the job and who lack the work ethic to take pride in a job well done. But there is also a substantial number of people who fall toward the other end of the spectrum. His cynical view of the workforce is only part of the story. The rest runs smack into the culture in the practice, and that culture centers around him.
When he first called, he asked me to hire some good people so he wouldn’t have to. He wanted someone else to hire for him so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. My first challenge was to convey my belief that his impatience with the process is likely the most significant factor standing between him and a more solid, higher performing staff. He couldn’t opt out of the process. Rather, he needed to do the opposite. He had to get more involved. More involved in reviewing his big-picture practice model. More involved in becoming clear about what he really expected from his staff in each position before he began the hiring process. More involved in the interviewing process so he could learn more about each candidate before he offered employment.
More involved in outlining the conditions of employment and expectations for the selected candidate before finalizing the hire. And more involved in outlining the training, transition, and performance evaluation process before the successful candidate came on board. He doesn’t like this answer, but he is pushing himself to stay engaged and do the work. Bravo!
In many ways, we each create what we most fear. He fears the turmoil that comes from unreliable staff; yet he creates the likelihood that his hastily hired staff will be unskilled, will be improperly trained, will be unprepared and thus will be unreliable. His challenge is to break this pattern. Perhaps he might have discovered this on his own. I know that my support has helped him to consider this sooner and more directly than he might have otherwise.. He is taking this on, and I believe his efforts will be rewarded.
I invite you to consider your resolution for the New Year. I suggest that you look for how you might have contributed to what you most fear. Because your contribution may not be immediately obvious, I’ve chosen to outline two other insights clients have come to discover about themselves. I hope they help.
Perhaps you fear conflict. Many people do. People who hate conflict tend to avoid dealing with difficult issues when they first arise, hoping that they will go away on their own. They almost never do, however, and only get worse through inattention as time goes on. Thus, those who hate conflict most are the beneficiaries of the most unvocalized conflict. Are you one of those people? Could you be creating a higher incidence of conflict than you would if you dealt with issues earlier?
Or perhaps you fear financial instability. Often, when dentists experience financial stress they become more forceful with others. When staff members feel criticized for not keeping the schedule full, they can become less effective with patients. Getting patients to say “yes” (and the dentist off their backs) becomes the goal, and manipulative tactics replace true facilitation. When patients feel pressured in this way by either the staff or the dentist, they are more likely to resist recommendations and back away, thus reducing productivity and practice profit. This circular pattern is both hard to see and hard to break. Financial fears are powerful forces. Might you be experiencing some of these fears? Might you be creating the elements which perpetuate them?
So what do I fear? I have some insights about myself, and I hope I have helped you develop some as well.
Sandy Roth is a skilled communicator who, with her husband Doug, founded ProSynergy in 1987. Sandy has worked extensively with the Seattle Study Club for over 11 years presenting programs at the National Symposia, as well as dozens of local clubs. She is a Corporate Gold Member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and a contributing editor to the AACD's Journal of Cosmetic Dentistry. For more information about Sandy Roth and ProSynergy Dental Communications, visit www.prosynergy.com or call 1-877-491-8326.
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