Practice Solutions Blog

The Buck Stops with Leadership

Every office culture is unique based on its leadership. What leaders do and even what they don’t do affects the culture. Culture is always a direct result of leadership’s actions or inaction.   If leaders don’t cultivate a culture by design they will reap a culture by default. Leaders, the good news is if you have an awesome culture take a bow. The bad news is if you have a negative culture take a bow.

I often hear; “I just want to do the dentistry and let someone else run the practice.” News alert for practice owners! Even if you hand over the responsibility of running the practice so you can just focus on just doing dentistry you are still responsible for the culture. It’s what is accepted and allowed by the practice owner that determines the culture.

The practice owner is responsible for the organization and all decisions made within the organization. Whether they are the one making the decisions or not the buck stops with the practice owner. Which is why it is so important to develop cohesive leadership with your practice administrator and any other team members helping you to run your practice. Without cohesive leadership performance expectations will be ambiguous and the team will conform to whatever are the lowest standards or expectations. I refer to a cohesive leadership team as the We Team.  The We Team may consist of the owner doctor or doctors, practice administrator, manager, team lead and any other leadership roles in the practice.

The first step in developing a cohesive We Team is to clarify the vision and purpose of the practice. The practice owner needs to define the vision for their practice. In essence their WHY behind their practice. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to get others to follow their lead if they don’t even know who they are and what they stand for. I ask owners to come up with four core words that reflect the core values they want to have in their practice. I have found that four core words are much more powerful and effective than a rambling vision statement.

What four words in order of priority best describe your core values? Would other people be able to recognize those values in you? For example, my four core words in order of priority are: Lifter, Authentic, Happy, and Committed. If you don’t know what yours are stop reading and take some time to reflect. They are important to define and prioritize because they will help guide you and your leadership team in decision making. Defining and living by core values will also help to avoid the distractions of the daily mundane, shiny new things and the noise from other people’s shoulds. Core values give us a strategy and blue print on how to lead and live each day. We become more powerful when we examine every action or attitude before proceeding. Does the action or attitude support or sabotage the core values? We are all response-able. I use the suffix able because we are able to think and choose how we respond. Ask yourself how would the person I want to be respond or react based on the four core values instead of responding based on emotions. I fly almost every week to work with clients. Flying is well…let’s just say it can be very interesting. Asking myself, “How would a lifter respond?” has kept me many times from responding in anger or frustration when life is interesting.

Schedule weekly We Team Meetings to nurture and maintain cohesiveness. Pre-schedule a consistent day and time of the week for the year. They can range in time anywhere from a half hour up to two hours depending on the size of the We Team. We Team Meetings are very important and are not to be sacrificed to accommodate patients or other reasons. If for some reason it is absolutely necessary to reschedule find another time the same week even if it means cutting into patient schedule time. Yes practice owners it is imperative that you attend and participate. Otherwise, the practice culture will not be a culture you designed it will be a culture you accepted or allowed.

A weekly time frame allows the We Team to have real-time discussions, keep everyone in the loop and resolve issues before emotions soar. The practice administrator becomes the designated point of entry for the We Team. All questions, suggestions and concerns (unless immediate concern) are to be brought to the practice administrator. The benefit of having the team go to the practice administrator instead of the doctor will prevent many of the daily disruptions and on the fly decisions. The Practice Administrator will bring the information to the weekly We Team Meeting.   The We Team will discuss, give feedback and come to a decision or solution with final ruling determined by the practice owner. In some cases it may be beneficial to have a team meeting to discuss and get feedback from the entire team before making a final decision.

The practice administrator will schedule a Response Meeting (within 24 hours of the We Team Meeting when possible) with the team member or members. At the Response Meeting the Practice Administrator will share the We Team’s decision or solution with the team member.

Holding a weekly We Team Meeting will maintain a cohesive leadership team that is empowered to cultivate a culture by design versus a culture by default. Everything will begin and end with leadership. Leadership will be prepared for when the buck stops!

Tune is next month to learn the We Team’s discussion and decision process!