Author Archive
REALIZATION OF A DREAM
Posted by: | CommentsOn Tuesday, March 2, 2010, a dream was realized. Dr. Todd D. Southall opened the doors to his new dental practice in Oro Valley, AZ. After 5 years of practice in Gunnison, CO, Dr. Southall and his family relocated to Tucson, Arizona. They wanted to seek warmer surroundings and decided Arizona was the place. Dr. Southall decided to seek the help of the Schuster Center to help him develop the practice of his dreams, so he enrolled in the Management program and rolled up his sleeves and went to work. As his coach, I continued to share the structures and he continued to build them. The results are not the brick and mortar but will be the relationships that he and Linda, his front office coordinator ,will forge together in the years to come.
CONGRATULATIONS!!! – Chris Ellison, Practice Development Coach/Faculty and The Schuster Team
Dentists – Planning for a Breakthrough
Posted by: | Comments“A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.” H. Stanley Judd
As a Coach, one of the key issues I hear from our clients is that “they don’t have enough time to do the work in the management program.”
One thing that I know for certain is that there is one area in which all men are truly created equal and that is in the area of time. God gave us all 24 hours each day to live our lives. The problem arises with how we each use that time. Do we allow the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years to just happen through our lives? Or do we plan our lives in a way that we maximize what has been given to us?
“We need a sense of the value of time—that is, of the best way to divide one’s time into one’s various activities.” Arnold Bennett
Many of us fail to plan because we are too busy doing instead of thinking. We feel we have to be doing and as a result we react to whatever is happening around us. How then do we take control? Planning is an attempt to leverage our activities against the passage of time. Keeping in mind that there are some things we can’t control. However, to fail to manage whatever time you can will minimize your effectiveness. Whether you control 8 hours or 1 hour of your day is irrelevant. What matters is that we manage whatever time we can, in order to spend as much time as possible on the important things.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an art but a habit” Aristotle
The daily planner (the to-do-list) is the most common plan used today. Daily planning is worthwhile but weekly planning is better. This gives us a longer range perspective and more options.
The best way to create a weekly plan is to ask six basic planning questions as suggested by the Carlson Learning Company.
- 1. What results do I intend to achieve?
- 2. What must I do to get those results?
- 3. What are the priorities?
- 4. How much time will each activity require?
- 5. When will I do each activity?
- 6. How much flexibility must I allow for the unexpected things I can’t control?
You must allow time for unexpected things. Flexibility will be the key to successful planning. Remember that you are attempting to eliminate reactive behavior. You will want to be slow to change your plan when the unexpected happens. A thoughtful response versus the usual reactive one is desired.
“A first-rate organizer is never in a hurry. He is never late. He always keeps up his sleeve a margin for the unexpected.” Arnold Bennett
It is best to write out your plan for the upcoming week on Friday or whatever day is your last working day of the week. Ask others to do the same thing. You can review these plans at your weekly staff meeting in order to coordinate priorities and activities. Be sure to prioritize you activities and timelines. Set deadlines that are realistic and be sure not to ignore them. Preparing a weekly plan requires about 30 minutes but it will allow you to recover one hour per day for the week. An extra hour per day for important work (working on the practice) will produce remarkable results. Are you ready for your breakthrough? Plan it today.
“Plan your progress carefully; hour-by-hour, day-by-day, month-by-month. Organized activity and maintained enthusiasm are the wellsprings of your power.” Paul J. Meyer
Feel free to make your comments below by clicking on the word “comments.”
Chris Ellison, Practice Development Coach
Thanks from The Schuster Center
Posted by: | CommentsIt is at this time of year that we often take time to think on those things for which we are thankful. Our list usually includes family, friends, our home, our careers in dentistry, etc. And it is true that I am thankful for all of those.
However I would like to take this time to express how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to work and interact with you, our clients, our friends. It has been my privilege for the past twelve years to coach, teach and befriend hundreds of you.
When I accepted this position at The Schuster Center, I never dreamed the impact it would have on MY life. You see, every time I have an interaction with one of you, it affects me personally in some way.
I have often told those of you whom I have been fortunate enough to coach that I learn as much from each of you as you do from me. I have been blessed with friends that will be life-long friendships. As with the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, there are sometimes great cultural differences between us. But we have been able to see that we can learn from one another in spite of those differences.
I just want to say to each of you and to Dr. Schuster how very THANKFUL I am for the gift of working alongside each one of you to bring you to a place that you and I can celebrate. May I continue to see and acknowledge how blessed I am for the beautiful people that The Center allows me to guide.
“Thankfulness is not something God gives us. It is not a spiritual gift and it is not a spiritual fruit. We can receive God’s peace, joy and love, but thankfulness is something that we give to God and to others. It is a choice that we make. Let us thank Him today with songs of celebration, hearts of strong devotion and acts of admiration.” —Roy Lessin
—The Schuster Center is a business school for dentists where development of the dental practice aligns with the development of self. It is a lifelong network of like-minded professionals in community and spirit. Call us for more information: 1-800-288-9393. Or visit: www.SchusterCenter.com
Dental Practice Followership
Posted by: | CommentsDentist – Being a good leader requires good followers!
At first glance, Followership seems to be the antithesis of Leadership. In sharp contrast to leadership, there is a dearth of writing on the art of following. The superhighway is replaced by the dirt track. While some authors make reference to it in their writings on leadership, relatively few have focused on the follower as a key player in successful leadership.
Developing an adequate definition of a “follower” is made difficult because the concept is seen as trivial, obvious and lacking substance. The words “minion”, “subjection”, “underling”, may come to mind when conceptualizing followership. The following definition draws on the thoughts of R. Kelley (not to be confused with the singer), a major contributor to the literature on the role of the follower.
“A follower is one who pursues a course of action in common with a leader to achieve an organizational goal. Effective followers make an active decision to contribute towards the achievement of the goals and demonstrate enthusiasm, intelligence, self-reliance and the ability to work with others in pursuit of the goal. Effective followers recognize the authority of the leader and limitations this imposes on their own actions, consider all issues on their merits, make their own decisions, hold their own values, speak their minds and hold themselves accountable for the consequences for their actions.”
In other words, effective followers, given the necessary information and room to move, can be trusted to take independent action to achieve a specific objective, subject to their receiving ongoing assistance and support to resolve issues beyond their spheres of competence and influence and to their receiving recognition for the work they are doing. It is important to note that while the behavior of the followers may be seen to be simply doing as they are told, their actions are the result of independent thought and decision making and would have been seen the same in the absence of the direction from the leader.
Followers actively evaluate their leaders and in many cases find their performance below par. Often it is the limitations imposed by a leader that stops the follower from performing at their best. From the follower’s viewpoint, effective leaders embrace them as partners and are influenced by their words and actions. Effective followers choose to follow a good leader (regardless of whether their participation in the team is a matter of choice) and accept all the consequences of that decision. In exchange, followers want their leaders to share information, involve them in decision making and create working environments in which the efforts of the followers are recognized, respected and rewarded.
Principles of ideal followership include:
*Demonstrating respect
*Thinking win/win
*Working within the system
*Acting proactively to fulfill or exceed expectations
*Appreciating differences
*Striving for a common goal (one shared with leaders)
*Recognizing authority leaders possess
*Being enthusiastic about organizational goals without complete reliance on the leader
*Recognizing the hierarchy of leadership while becoming a self-motivated mini-leader
Followers must have the confidence to speak out. They understand the necessity of the discomfort they may feel while communicating concisely with the leader, and they realize their role in helping the leader to make better decisions. Having the fortitude to speak candidly with the leader also comprises a leadership trait. Followers, according to this point of view, must regard silence as unacceptable. Becoming an “effective” follower within the leader/follower conceptual universe takes just as much work as becoming an “effective” leader.
–For more information on effective dental practice management and team development, go to www.SchusterCenter.com or simply call 1-800-288-9393.
Is your dental practice making money?
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a fact that the most profitable dentists are financially successful because of the team. No one person in your dental practice is responsible for increasing profits and revenue. It is achieved by the office receptionist making sure the patient is confirmed to show up to their appointment. The dental assistant who takes in the patient must make sure that the patient is promptly sat in the dental chair at the designated appointment slot. The dentist must be available to start work on the patient on time and finish on time. The dental assistant who ushers out the patient after treatment must remind the patient to schedule the follow up appointment with the office manager. And lastly, your accounting department should be on top of all outgoing invoices to the patient and insurance companies. Of course the team and their functions may vary from practice to practice, but what is more important is the way the team operates to make sure every aspect of the “business” and “service” are taken care of and that the accounts receivable have nothing to hinder the cash flow.
Dentists have to be the leaders of the system so each team member knows their role in the profitability of the practice. Many dentists would prefer to be doing dentistry than managing staff. Dentists would gladly spend continuing education hours improving their clinical skills rather than managerial skills. Dentists didn’t go to dental school looking forward to challenges with the staff, such as when someone quits suddenly, the computers die, or how to get more patients. Nobody goes into practice for those reasons.
But what is interesting, is that by putting a good management system into place, dentists actually have more time to do the dentistry they want to do. Dentists need management skills that are as precise as their clinical skills. I advocate managing by statistics, a method that enables the owner to measure the effectiveness of each individual staff member. This, in turn, will result in the practice making more money.
Practice Listening in your Practice
Posted by: | Comments“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak.” –Stephen Covey
The fact that we have two ears and only one mouth should clue us in to how important listening is as a skill. But we often fall short in this area, especially in the dental practice.
Listening is an active process which has three basic steps:
1. Hearing. Just listening enough to catch what the speaker is saying.
2. Understanding. The next part of listening happens when you take what you have heard and understand it in your own way.
3. Judging. After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you heard?
As is indicated by the quote at the beginning of this article, even the best of listeners sometimes make this mistake: they hear a few sentences, assume that they know where the speaker is going, jump to a conclusion that may well be incorrect. Such erroneous assumptions can breed unhappy consequences; misunderstandings, lost insights, frustration—even anger. When this happens at the organizational level, results can be disastrous says the editor of Sssh! Listen Up! (The newsletter of HighGain Inc. a company dedicated to better listening in business). The fact that there are companies whose primary focus is to help create better listeners in the business arena speaks to how important this skill is.
We all believe we are good listeners. And most people won’t tell you that you are a poor listener. So we have to monitor ourselves. The ability to listen effectively is not something we are born with. Listening is actually as complicated a communication skill as reading, writing and speaking.
Active listening was selected as the most critical managerial skill by 282 members of the Academy of Certified Administrative managers. In another survey, 170 business people were asked to select 1) the most important communication skill they were presently engaged in at work and 2) the communication skill they wished they had studied more. Listening was the number one answer to both questions.
There is a big difference between listening and LISTENING. Most people practice the former, paying little attention to what is being said by others while busily planning their own reply. The latter, however, is an art and a skill—and the effective application of it can and will improve your work life and the dental practice.
For instance, if you carefully listen to what patients have to say—paying particular attention to what they want—they’ll end up trusting and buying from you because they feel that you understand and care about their needs.
Lee Iacocca, former chairman of Chrysler, claims that “Listening is the single skill that makes the difference between a mediocre and a great company.”
Another positive way in which listening works in business: when you listen to the people who work for you, their productivity and quality of work tends to improve. Why? Because in an open and accepting LISTENING environment, honest opinions and new ideas arise, are heard and discussed, and when appropriate, acted upon. This in turn, helps to decrease and even dissolve team conflicts.
You probably spend more time using your listening skills than any other kind of skill. Like other skills, listening takes practice. You cannot be passive in the process of listening. You must decide to make it an active process. Plan to listen more each day—consciously attempting to listen more will accustom you to the process of listening and provide you with valuable practice.
Remember: time is on your side! Thoughts move about four times as fast as speech. With practice, while you are listening you will also be able to think about what you are hearing, really understand it and give feedback to the dental team member or dental patient.
References: FactMonster.com
Sssh! Listen Up! (From HighGain Inc)
Planning your Time in the Practice
Posted by: | Comments“A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.” H. Stanley Judd
As a Coach, one of the key issues I hear from our clients is that “they don’t have enough time to do the work in the management program.”
One thing that I know for certain is that there is one area in which all men are truly created equal and that is in the area of time. God gave us all 24 hours each day to live our lives. The problem arises with how we each use that time. Do we allow the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years to just happen through our lives? Or do we plan our lives in a way that we maximize what has been given to us?
“We need a sense of the value of time—that is, of the best way to divide one’s time into one’s various activities.” Arnold Bennett
Many of us fail to plan because we are too busy doing instead of thinking. We feel we have to be doing and as a result we react to whatever is happening around us. How then do we take control? Planning is an attempt to leverage our activities against the passage of time. Keeping in mind that there are some things we can’t control. However, to fail to manage whatever time you can will minimize your effectiveness. Whether you control 8 hours or 1 hour of your day is irrelevant. What matters is that we manage whatever time we can, in order to spend as much time as possible on the important things.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an art but a habit” Aristotle
The daily planner (the to-do-list) is the most common plan used today. Daily planning is worthwhile but weekly planning is better. This gives us a longer range perspective and more options.
The best way to create a weekly plan is to ask six basic planning questions as suggested by the Carlson Learning Company.
1. What results do I intend to achieve?
2. What must I do to get those results?
3. What are the priorities?
4. How much time will each activity require?
5. When will I do each activity?
6. How much flexibility must I allow for the unexpected things I can’t control?
You must allow time for unexpected things. Flexibility will be the key to successful planning. Remember that you are attempting to eliminate reactive behavior. You will want to be slow to change your plan when the unexpected happens. A thoughtful response versus the usual reactive one is desired.
“A first-rate organizer is never in a hurry. He is never late. He always keeps up his sleeve a margin for the unexpected.” Arnold Bennett
It is best to write out your plan for the upcoming week on Friday or whatever day is your last working day of the week. Ask others to do the same thing. You can review these plans at your weekly staff meeting in order to coordinate priorities and activities. Be sure to prioritize you activities and timelines. Set deadlines that are realistic and be sure not to ignore them. Preparing a weekly plan requires about 30 minutes but it will allow you to recover one hour per day for the week. An extra hour per day for important work (working on the practice) will produce remarkable results. Are you ready for your breakthrough? Plan it today.
“Plan your progress carefully; hour-by-hour, day-by-day, month-by-month. Organized activity and maintained enthusiasm are the wellsprings of your power.” Paul J. Meyer
