Ask any practice owner one of their great stressors, and they’ll invariably say staff.
When practice owners find themselves doing dentistry by day and running the business at night, it’s a clear indication of a problem within the team or the leadership. For example:
- There aren’t enough team members so the dentist takes on work they should have delegated.
- They don’t have the right team in place to delegate tasks effectively.
- There are no clear lines of responsibility, and team members don’t know their duties or who they report to.
The end result is that you spend time on low-value activities. Success in business is a team sport. There is not a business of any kind that’s achieved success on any scale without a team – and that’s because no one can do it all themselves.
In order to build your own high-performing team, it’s important to ensure you aren’t making these common mistakes.
1. Recruiting in desperation
Practices that recruit in desperation do not have a systematic approach to building a team. They have not built a ‘pipeline’ for people coming through. Such practices are forced to take the best candidate available at the time, even though that person may not be the best fit.
2. Not paying for good staff
The old saying “pay peanuts and get monkeys” has some truth to it. While it’s not the sole motivator for attracting and retaining a great team, money is still highly important. If staff are not adequately remunerated, they will look for other opportunities.
3. Not having a training pipeline
It’s essential you have understudies for each role. In small teams, this relates to crosstraining team members to be able to fulfil other tasks. In larger teams, it means having a succession plan in place in the event of someone leaving. With an effective pipeline in place, a practice is able to minimise the disruption when team members leave or go on holidays, and it also helps maintain a high level of productivity and, in turn, profitability.
4. Not having a clear idea of the organisational chart required for the desired practice
As your practice grows, knowing the ‘big picture’ is vital. Along the way there will be various transition organisational charts, meaning your team will grow incrementally. To grow successfully, the organisational chart, even if it’s an interim one, must be mapped out ahead of time so recruitment can occur systematically.
5. The leader not leading the team
There are many great teams that are self-reliant and self-regulating. However, in the absence of leadership, chaos can descend over the team, limiting their ability to perform well and disrupting their potential.
Building a high-performance team takes time, effort, patience and dedication. When a practice has a great team, it is well positioned to not only maximise the performance of the business, but also to scale up its operations while providing the owner with an improved financial return and greater time flexibility.
P.S Want to scale your dental practice and take your profits to 6 and 7 figures?
Me and my team can work with you directly to get you there! Simply book in your FREE 1:1
strategy session, and we can get started on a game plan for you and your practice.
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