What Opportunities
Are We Missing?

Now that the summer is over and the kids are heading back to school, you are probably feeling the urge to get back to the structure of the fall and to kick it into high gear to make the second half of this year. Backlogged with a stack of charts and to do’s on your desk you might be asking, “Where do I start?”

 

Maybe your team meetings haven’t been all that exciting in the past. Maybe they have turned from once productive to more recent gripe sessions about what is not working and how the economy looks grim for everyone.

 

As a business owner and a team member, this is a critical time for you to step up your leadership responsibilities. You have to do something that gets your team engaged authentically in the process of creating a better future. Are you at a loss as to how to do that?

 

 

One of my personal coaches, Julie Taylor, gave me this empowering information a few months ago. She said that one of the most important and useful questions you can ever ask in a team meeting is “What Opportunities Are We Missing? 

 

This question, if asked correctly of your team, can create a treatment plan of action items that you couldn’t possibly ever finish no matter how determined you are.

 

So if you are at a loss as to how to jumpstart your urge to get things moving in a positive direction again - try using this magic question:

 

 

Warning: There are 2 very important (pre-existing) conditions that are necessary for this question to work in your practice. Here they are:

 

1.  Your team has to feel safe enough to authentically answer this question. If they don’t have a safe environment they won’t be engaged and they won’t answer the question honestly.
 

2.  They have to feel like you (and the entire team) are truly listening to their answers. 

 

If both of these conditions aren’t met -- don’t go any further. You can chalk this team meeting up as another futile effort.

 

Given the right opportunity, if you took your team to a nice place for 1 or 2 full days and had the following t-shirts printed up for each team member, you might come up with some of the most important strategic information of your career.

 

During those valuable days, get some big white sheets of paper and write the following headers on each: Our Team, Our New Patient Experience, Our Marketing, Our Doctor, Our Location, Our Specialists, Our Community, Our Phone System, Our Financial Arrangements.....you get the point.

 

Then ask the magic question - What Opportunities Are We Missing with ___________?

 

I promise that if I were to come to your team retreat and facilitate this meeting with your team, we could get them to authentically answer these questions. We would come up with an amazing practice stimulus plan with at least 30 items on it that would almost certainly create a hugely successful year (if acted upon).

 

If used correctly, this questions can provide the greatest creative and collective fruit for the future.

 

The best practices (especially the mature ones) are the ones that are engaging the right (creative) hemisphere of their brains. Try it. You’ll find it amazingly refreshing and revitalizing.

 

Yours for a strong finish in 2009!

 

Kirk Behrendt

Speaker & Coach

ACT Dental Practice Coaching

800.851.8186