...leveraging the strategic power of soft skills®
Subscribe to one of Pat Wiklund's Electronic Newsletters		What about my team? | FAQ's about Coaching Leading my team | About Pat | Pat's Working Values What Clients Have Said about Pat's Coaching | Dental | Home Page   Every Business Team Needs a Leader Especially Dental Teams I know it's popular today to treat staff teams as "part of the family" or solicit input from every staff member and then develop a consensus on what the team should do. Soliciting input, and letting people know you care about them aren't bad ideas. But, abdicating your leadership is. As the dentist, you need to be the leader. Not just another team member, not the parent. The leader. It's your business. Your name is on the door, the insurance policies, and bank accounts. You're the leader. You need to take charge. What does taking charge mean as you work day to day with your team? The Responsibilities of being The Leader Dentists have two extremely important responsibilities in leading their teams: chose team members very carefully, hiring the best mix of skills, expectations, attitude and character; then, develop and challenge your wonderful group of people to become a team that will grow with you and with your business. Find the right people: The most important criteria for new team members: supplement the good people you already have. Hire slow and fire fast to ensure you have just the people you need. Hire for attitude and character: You're not running a social service agency. You're not their parent. It's not your job to build character or change attitudes. And, you can't anyway. A bad attitude or limited character will only infect the rest of your employees. Hire for basic work and thinking skills. Probe carefully so you'll know new staff members can hit the ground running. You may have to train in proprietary business processes, but each new hire needs basic computer skills, problem solving, and communication skills. You can add the advanced skills. . .make sure they have a good base. Hire for fit. Set your expectations at the first interview. Be clear in what this job will be, how they will be measured, priorities, and opportunities. Review your expectations at the time of hire and during the entry and probationary period. As my sister the elementary school teacher says, "Start tough, and then relax. It just doesn't work to start easy and toughen up." Use the first opportunity for corrective action when you see an employee not meeting expectations: clarify your expectations, check for skill proficiency and understanding the importance of a task to the larger picture of your vision. Re-teach, re-train, and check for proficiency. Don't wait hoping they'll "figure it out." When people don't know, they make up an answer that makes sense to them. If your team members don't know what you expect, they'll act on their best guess, which seldom is the same as yours. Build the team you have so everyone can: Treat people with respect and trust. Your team doesn't need to be best friends to work together effectively. In fact, teams are usually more effective when there aren't strong friendships. Work is work, not the primary social sphere for your people. Work is what we do, not who we are. Encourage all staff members to cultivate full and satisfying personal lives. Understand differences of style, commitments and professionalism across functional specialties. These are the major personal issues that impact team effectiveness. Begin with an assumption of good will. Then add speaking openly about differences while acknowledging the contribution of each staff person to increase the likelihood of a group of people becoming a high performance team. Develop excellent team skills: how to use meetings, not be used by them; collaborative problem solving and decision making; working together to meet goals; contributing to implementing the Dentist's vision. Participate in ongoing professional development. Build your staff team into a training organization: staff members learn from one another; each team member builds increasing competency; new members are quickly and comfortably folded into the team Set the Vision: I can hear you asking now, "What about vision, mission, setting big goals goals and objectives. Where is the team work in these activities?" For the most part, this is your work, not the staff team's work. These are all leader responsibilities and privileges. As the Dentist, it is your responsibility and privilege to set the vision for your practice, decide where you want to go, and how much you want to produce. It is also your responsibility to ensure that you team is on the same track you're on. Crystal vision. . .and leading the team. . .the bottom line responsibilities of a leader. And, quite frankly the very skills that few dentists, or other technical/medical professionals have developed. These are not skills to be learned by reading a book, nor by taking a seminar. Or you would have. These won't be developed by hearing a motivating speaker, nor attending a workshop. Or you would have. These are skills that take time to nurture, experiment with, redesign and re-try. They can only be learned with frank feedback from a coach or a coaching colleague. Don't even think of trying to coach your loved ones. It is extremely difficult to help a spouse, partner or loved one in this kind of coaching relationship. . .it just seems to muddy the water of the whole relationship. Developing these leadership skills requires a coach who's experienced in working with professionals like yourself. You don't want to work with someone who's learning on your time and dollar. You need more than a therapist who can help you change your mind. Or a consultant who can tell you what to do differently. You need someone who can guide you in addressing the complex process of changing your mind set, seeing yourself as more than you have been, and changing your behavior: doing the things you already know how to do but aren't doing. All at the same time. You need a coach who knows how to be, and is experienced in being, both a therapist and a consultant. Someone who is ready to travel with you on one of the most thrilling, and rewarding journeys of your professional life. And be there to help pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again when you step into one of the inevitable potholes on this road less traveled.
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