Even the greatest dentist in the world still needs the support of a good team to operate the practice. A well-functioning team can make your schedule flow smoothly and your workday enjoyable. What's more, the stronger your team, the more successful your practice can become.

In an effort to acquire a good team, dentists are spending more time and money interviewing, hiring, and educating team members than ever before. However, with the current shortage of both trained and untrained personnel, there's an increase in stress for dentists and a reduction in practice production. A high-stress environment can lead to conflicts among staff, poor customer service, and disappointing profitability. What's the solution to overcoming these obstacles and successfully building your dental dream team?

Challenges in Team Building

When dentists all over the country ask me where to find excellent team members, my answer is: You don't find them—you build them.

Consider what a strong team can do for your practice. Your goal is to have a high-performance team that allows you to delegate more responsibilities to your team members. Remember, no dentist can run the practice alone. Perhaps the biggest oxymoron in dentistry is the term "solo practice." No dental practice is a 1-person operation. Even solo practices have 3 to 6 other talented people supporting that dentist. As Hall of Fame Pitcher Jim Palmer once said, "You can't win if nobody catches the ball in the outfield. You're only as good as the team you have behind you."

Principles for Creating Your Dream Team

Evaluate and Document All Systems Step-by-Step
When you have documented, step-by-step systems in place, the team can be trained quickly, excel in their jobs, and increase practice production. Documenting systems provides consistent and necessary information to the entire dental team. If your practice systems have been haphazardly created, knowledge gaps occur that lead to inefficiency and confusion. Practice stress levels and staff turnover are both reduced when systems are documented. Documenting and implementing updated systems takes approximately 12 months.

Script All Conversations
All team members benefit from scripting, which is a critical training tool that ensures consistency during patient interactions. Every routine conversation in the practice should follow a written training scrip—one of the best training tools you can provide to your team. You can acclimate your team to a new system by training them in a step-by-step manner with accompanying scripts. This approach is especially advantageous to new team members without an extensive dental background.

Write Job Descriptions for Every Team Member
Often, staff members do not completely understand their jobs or level of accountability. For example, if the practice expects to collect 98% of production, then that objective should be written in the financial coordinator's job description, and the coordinator should be given support, training, and appropriate scripts.

Recognize That Team Building Will Be Continuous
Trying to fit team building into whatever time you can salvage daily between appointments leads to stress and frustration as dentists follow up on staff members who don't really understand their jobs. Set time aside for specific training, coaching, out-of-office activities, and performance discussions.

Institute regular performance reviews
Good managers hear; excellent managers listen. Scheduled semiannual performance reviews provide an excellent opportunity for the dentist to perfect this skill. A good format is an hour lunchtime meeting, out of the office, with a set agenda that focuses on the team member's strengths, contributions, areas of improvement, and feedback. The dentist should focus on 3 things:

1. What has gone right for the team member in the practice over the last 6 months?
2. What can the team member improve on during the next 6 months?
3. In the team member's opinion, how can the practice perform better?

These performance reviews should encourage the team member to do 80% of the talking in an open, nondefensive manner. Think of the reviews as positive, growth-oriented, and informational.

Ask for Feedback
The dental team is a group of individuals that needs to be coached, supported, and encouraged by a leader. One of the best ways to give employees a sense of satisfaction and help them grow is by asking for their feedback.

Ask questions. Rather than giving direction to team members, ask questions. Asking questions taps into team members' expertise and allows them to take ownership in the practice. Although it is far easier to tell a front desk coordinator, "schedule Mr Bradley on Tuesday at 3:00," it is more of a growth opportunity to say, "Please check the schedule and see when we can accommodate Mr Bradley. We need to follow up with him as soon as possible."

Ask for opinions. Team members have an excellent understanding of the practice, and they have a great deal to offer. After all, your team is in the trenches every day and constantly up against the issues and problems of working with patients. Take the time to ask for your team members' opinions. Asking team members their opinion about a nonclinical issue such as, "How can we improve things around the office?" goes a long way toward making them feel as though they have something valuable to offer.

Hire the Best People Possible
To retain and attract quality staff members, practices should compensate people well. When dentists have implemented expert systems that maximize production and increase profitability, practices can afford to pay slightly more to have an excellent staff. Stress also is greatly reduced with documented systems in place. In turn, it is far easier to maintain a highly qualified, long-term staff than it is to replace them. To further encourage retention, practices may want to implement a bonus system that is tied to overall practice production.

Commit to Becoming an Excellent Leader
Successful team building starts with the dentist. As a practice owner, the dentist sets the example and tone of the practice. But leadership is not a genetic trait; it's a skill gradually learned through courses, books, and mentors. The investment in developing sound leadership skills is invaluable—it will have a profound effect on you and your staff for the life of your practice.

Conclusion

A strong team can help the dentist achieve long-term practice success. Building a high-performance team is one of the most difficult challenges faced by dentists. These principles can help transform individual staff members into a cohesive team. If you lead the way, your team will be sure to follow. Think of team building as helping ordinary people do extraordinary things.

If you are interested in exploring additional ideas for building a more effective team in your practice, Compendium readers are entitled to a no-cost consultation on the subject with a Levin Group Practice Development Specialist. Call (888) 973-0000 or e-mail your name, phone number, and address to with "Team Building" in the subject line.

Dr Roger P Levin is founder and chief executive officer of Levin Group, Inc, a leading dental practice management consulting firm that provides a comprehensive suite of lifetime services to its clients and partners. Since 1985, Levin Group has embraced one single mission—to improve the lives of dentists.

For more than 20 years, Levin Group has helped thousands of general dentists and specialists increase their satisfaction with practicing dentistry. Levin Group may be reached at (888) 973-0000 and