Deliver festive St. Patrick’s Day candles as a thoughtful monthly marketing gift. Choose candles in shades of green or with uplifting scents like Eucalyptus Mint. Add a tag that says, “We’re lucky to have you as a referral partner!”
Themed candles and other St. Paddy’s Day items can be easily found on Amazon for a convenient memorable gift.
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Henry has a problem. His bucket has a hole in it and won’t hold water. He explains this to Liza: “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza!” Liza is puzzled by Henry’s statement, and she sternly tells him: “Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it!”
But it’s not so simple, which leads to a back-and-forth conversation in which Henry keeps raising challenges and Liza replies with obvious solutions.
So, they are back where they started and caught in an endless loop of roadblocks. Cue the laughter around the campfire.
Practice holes
Every business leader sometimes faces the same kind of looping chain reaction. Once you start digging into the nitty-gritty of a practice issue or goal, a raft of entwined factors is unearthed. Some things can be anticipated, and some are only revealed as you go forward. Some can surprise you like a landmine you step on accidentally.
There’s no end to all the things that can become a “but” to deal with: teamwork, communications, training, finances, technology, time, systems, marketing, referrers, insurance and so on. It’s no wonder that when it feels like there are too many “buts” involved, a lot of doctors get frustrated and decide to put off trying to make progress. It all gets tossed on the “someday” pile.
Prioritized progression, not preplanned perfection
I don’t know any business concern or goal of relative importance that can be solved by doing just one thing to just one thing. Everything in your practice is so interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation or in a protected silo that is free from other influences and interferences.
What this means is that any attempt at improvement or problem solving for almost anything in your practice is going to create some disturbances. If you let those disturbances invade your inner dialogue, they are going to distract you and sidetrack you.
Once you are sidetracked like that, it’s tempting to fall into the trap that you must preplan everything to perfection, accounting for all variables and related factors before you do anything. That’s a recipe for a Henry/Liza standstill. You’ll talk yourself in circles trying to figure everything out in advance.
The better approach is to realize that none of those disturbances created in conscientious pursuit of any goal is unsolvable. That doesn’t mean you ignore those factors from the beginning, but you evaluate them with a sense of priority … rather than getting drawn down endless rabbit holes.
Prioritized progression, even if it is incremental and step-by-step, is the hallmark of successful leadership. That effort ensures there is continuous positive energy in the practice toward problem-solving, improvement, growth and goals. That’s what creates sustainable success where each year is better than the year before, rather than the same year of ups and downs repeated over and over again.
Expert guidance
Often the biggest challenge is working out the initial priorities. Where do you start and what do you focus on? That’s where coaching is a huge advantage. Coaches have detailed experience with many practices, they know what works and how everything works together.
Coaches take the anxiety and self-doubt out of leadership. They streamline the process, eliminate trial-and-error attempts, and can focus on your team while you focus on patient care.
ENDO MASTERY PRACTICE COACH
Ideally, once a doctor begins a treatment, they can maintain their clinical focus until the treatment is completed. The assistant supports the doctor by anticipating their needs during the procedure. Interruptions and distractions are avoided if everything the doctor needs is at hand in a predictable way, minimizing the need for the doctor to look up from the microscope while waiting for the assistant or searching for an instrument.
An organized approach to tray setups helps assistants ensure that everything is in place before the doctor starts treatment. Here are some guidelines to improve treatment room efficiency and tray setups:
Remember, the objective is that neither the doctor nor the dental assistant needs to get up and leave the treatment room once a procedure begins. Tray setups (and a properly stocked operatory) keep appointments moving smoothly and efficiently.
OWNER & CO-FOUNDER DDS, MS, ABE Diplomate
Probably the best compliment that I hear from Endo Mastery clients is when they say, “I’m so lucky that I found you!” Usually, they go on to tell me how much happier they are, how their practice and lifestyle has soared, and how much more they are enjoying the profession of endodontics as a practice owner.
Doctors come to Endo Mastery coaching for a variety of reasons, but they broadly fall into 3 categories:
My heart always goes out to doctors in the third category because that is where there is the greatest risk that the doctor is not enjoying the profession or their practice. They can feel like they are up against a wall, that nothing is easy, and that every day is an endless struggle or disappointment. If doctors always leave the practice feeling drained of energy like that, it can be a toxic influence on everything else in life.
Every doctor deserves to have a practice that makes them feel happy and successful every day. Rather than gritting your teeth in the morning, you should walk into your practice feeling excitement and anticipation for the wonderful day that you and your team are going to have providing care to patients. Each day should be productive, fun and rewarding.
At the end of the day, you should feel complete and fulfilled, and ready to leave full of positive energy for your family. Economically, your practice should provide you with the lifestyle and resources that empower you to enjoy your life to the highest level.
Falling in love again
That’s a beautiful framework to shape your vision for your practice, and to diagnose what is holding you back from being totally in love with it. The practice is, after all, your professional environment and your business to support your family and life. As a practice owner, it should reflect your values, goals, preferences and criteria for success. Everything should feel in harmony and alignment.
The first step to restoring love for your practice is sit down for a couple of hours and thoughtfully write out a wish list. A lot of doctors don’t do this because their attention is often dominated by whatever issue or concern is in front of them right now.
A wish list is simply an articulation of all the things in your practice, family and life that you need or want to improve. That includes problems, issues, annoyances, limitations, goals, opportunities, dreams, etc. You should approach it as a free-flowing exercise without any self-censoring. Imagine waving a wand and it all comes true. Visualize how that would make you feel in the practice, and outside the practice in your family and life.
The next step is to think about priorities. Once you look at your wish list as a whole, you’ll realize that not everything on the list is created equally. Go through your list line by line and put a check mark beside any item for each of the following criteria:
Any items on your list that check two or three criteria are your top priorities. Improvements in those areas are going to turn the corner for you faster than anything else. Whether that is 4 things or 10 things, it’s a blueprint for where you need to focus. It’s also a great insight to share with your practice coach to create a plan of action.
In my experience with coaching clients, doctors who are unhappy, stressed, struggling or feeling roadblocked can completely change the trajectory of their practice and life in as little as a year. Often the feeling of inner peace and success that they are looking for starts to come back just from having a plan to finally deal with longstanding frustrations and gaps.
