Managing the Dental Team: Guidelines for Practice Success. American Dental Association

Dental Team module of the American Dental Association’s Guidelines for Practice Success™ (GPS™) details much of what you need to know in order to assemble, and keep, a strong dental team operating in your practice.

      Managing the Dental Team is about more than hiring the “right” person. This module will help guide you through different aspects of managing the team, including the hiring process, training, coaching, motivating, compensating, and more. The guide will provide information and resources that can help you:

      • Manage the processes of recruiting, screening and hiring staff

      • Design an orientation program that successfully onboards new employees

      • Conduct meaningful performance evaluations

      • Maximize the value and appreciation of the staff compensation package

      • Develop a staff policy manual

      • Decide which benefits to offer your team

      The content contained in the Managing the Dental Team module of the American Dental Association’s Guidelines for Practice Success^TM (GPS^TM) provides information on four major topics that offer suggestions for building — and retaining — an efficient and effective team. It also includes original resources, such as checklists and tip sheets, which were created specifically for this project and designed to help ADA members develop and lead teams that consistently deliver quality patient care.

Leadership

       The Dentist Is the Leader of the Team

      Certain members of the dental team might manage specific day-to-day responsibilities, but ultimately you’re in charge. The staff looks to you for guidance, decisions, motivation and recognition, and answers. Yet the ability to lead doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Few, if any, dental school curricula focus on what it takes to manage the clinical, business and interpersonal aspects of running a successful practice.

      In many cases, and in many industries, leaders learn to lead through experience and at their own pace. For most people, it takes practice, patience and years of education and training, in addition to reflecting on one’s leadership successes and failures. Even those who feel comfortable in their leadership roles continually hone their abilities.

       In many cases, and in many industries, leaders learn to lead through experience and at their own pace.

      Leadership can be behind the scenes or out in front. Regardless of the approach, the leader sets the tone for the way the practice operates. Much of your leadership will be by example. If you want your employees to be on time, you need to be on time, or even a little early. If you don’t want staff to use their personal cell phones, you should leave yours in your desk in the morning. If you want staff to demonstrate sincere concern for every patient, and for each other, it’s up to you to model that behavior.

      As a leader, it’s important that you have — and communicate and abide by — office policies and rules that set the standards for how to take care of patients and that define standards and protocols to be followed. It’s equally important to be fair and consistent.

      You also have to surround yourself with a strong team. Good team building requires you to identify each staff person’s strengths and weaknesses. You must also find ways for different people to unite behind the shared goal of delivering the level of patient care that you want to provide. While it’s important that you find ways for people to work together every day, it’s essential when you need to fill a vacant position or expand staff.

      Motivating, coaching and rewarding staff should be a top priority for every leader. Over time, you’ll become more skilled at giving balanced and constructive feedback. Two ways to achieve this are to provide more positive than negative feedback and to be timely, specific and authentic in your communications.

       Motivating, coaching and rewarding staff should be a top priority for every leader.

      It’s up to you, as the leader of the practice, to recognize when someone on staff does a good job or has achieved a significant milestone. Likewise, it’s up to you to address negative situations before a festering issue makes the atmosphere unpleasant and counterproductive since patients may sense any underlying tensions.

      Strong leaders see mistakes as opportunities for growth rather than as negative situations. They recognize that mistakes frequently stem from simple miscommunication or a flawed thought process. Use these teachable moments to educate staff members so similar mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Preventing Drama

      Dental practices, like any business, experience some level of drama among staff. The way you handle that drama will have a significant impact on the culture, or tone, of the practice. Leaders who engage their staff and encourage open communications are often able to reduce staff conflict by noticing the warning signs of underlying tension and then addressing it openly and immediately. On the other hand, leaders who distance themselves from their teams may find their practices more vulnerable to drama and dysfunction. Office culture can be highly influenced by negative behavior and attitudes that continue to be tolerated, so correcting these, or removing employees who refuse to comply, is very important to a functional team-based workplace.

       Leaders who engage their staff and encourage open communications are often able to reduce staff conflict.

      So what are the most common causes of drama in a dental practice? One major cause of drama is change. And that can be any kind of change, including a shift in staffing, hours, responsibilities, procedures and protocols, or even a change that’s occurring in someone’s personal life.

      Another is unfulfilled or unmet expectations. Employees who aren’t challenged by their work or who feel unappreciated can cause tension in the practice without even knowing it. An effective way of resolving — and preventing — this potential source of conflict is to communicate with your team frequently, honestly and with full transparency in both written and verbal communications.

      The most effective way to keep your dental practice moving forward is to continually assess how things are going and to implement systems that improve what’s already in place. Strong leadership can overcome resistance to change. Failing to manage the change process can doom new initiatives right from the start.

      Other dramas can be caused by differences in how your staff communicates with each other and with patients. Again, your staff will take their cues from you. They will notice whether you take time to patiently explain procedures and answer questions. While you don’t have to be a skillful presenter, the ability to talk to everyone in an open, honest and comfortable manner will set the example for everyone to follow. The goal of any communication — no matter if it’s with staff, patients, colleagues or others — is to have everyone feeling good about things at the end of the conversation.

       While you don’t have to be a skillful presenter, the ability to talk to everyone in an open, honest and comfortable manner will set the example for everyone to follow.

      One final area of potential drama is performance management, especially when it comes to giving and receiving feedback. Letting someone know when they’re falling below expectations is never an easy conversation to have. Yet as the leader of the team, it’s up to you to manage those difficult