Do you consistently share practice performance statistics and goals with your dental team? If the practice is doing poorly, you may hesitate to share numbers for fear the team will abandon ship; however the team will still sense your stress, and if they do not know your goals how can they help make the practice more profitable?
Conversely, when the dental practice is booming, you may fear the team will corner you for a big raise if everyone knows you are exceeding goals. However, success is a motivator, and sharing strong performance numbers encourages the team to help make the practice even stronger. The bottom line is the advantages almost always outweigh the disadvantages of sharing performance data with your team.
Update the team throughout the month on how the practice is progressing toward important goals, such as production, collections, and new patients. Use staff meetings to broaden the analysis and look at what can be done to make the practice even stronger. For example, discuss how many appointments went unfilled for the doctor and hygiene team, and then outline how to reduce those openings. Discuss patients who left the practice and the reason for their departure, and review patients who are past due for recall and what can be done to get them scheduled.
If you are exceeding goals, spend time talking about what is working well and what you need to do to sustain the success. Challenge your team to come with innovative ideas to make the patient experience even better.
Sharing performance information and discussing how to make the practice even stronger generates greater buy-in from the team. And when the team is engaged, you will achieve much greater success in your practice.