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April 7, 2010
Behaviors Drive Results...
I've stated often that the behaviors you and your team exhibit, drive the results you get in the practice. This is law of nature. How you behave determines your outcomes.
Many of our behaviors - over time - become habits. We humans operate on auto-pilot for most of the day which means that a majority of our behaviors are unconscious behaviors. We don't often realize we are behaving a certain way until someone points it out. Our first reaction is shock, followed shortly thereafter by denial, and then finally acceptance after thinking about what they said more rationally.
When I work with dental practices, I observe a lot of unconscious behaviors. I witness front office team members who unconsciously "urge" patients to NOT join their practice or who want to slow the practice down to where they can get some "real work" done by not having to deal with pesky patients. They don't even realize they are doing it. It's very difficult to spot because it is so subtle.
It usually looks something like this: it normally begins when the front office person has had a "bad" experience with a patient. The dentists often gets behind and, without fail, patients approach the front office person complaining that they have been made to wait too long. If this is a common occurrence in the practice, it only take a few "beatings" by patients to talk with the dentist.
She goes back to the dentist, tells him that patients are really unhappy with having to wait. The dentist, displaying his own unconscious behaviors, tells the front office teammate, "I can't do it any faster or I will compromise my integrity to do quality work." The front office person now feels caught between two evils. She perceives it is her place to simply take a beating from both sides.
Some team members deal well with this situation, most do not. Somewhere deep down in her unconscious level, she makes a commitment to not let this happen again. So, she does the only thing she can do to prevent this, she shuts the practice down. Or, she slows it to a point it's not likely to happen again. She has re-designed the practice, everything from how she schedules to what she lets go on in the reception area. And she has done it in a way to keep herself in control.
This is something you really need to think about. Most often, the teammate has hinted about this problem but may not have been able to drive the point home. Perhaps because the dentist refuses to "hear" bad news, perhaps because the teammate hates to be a bearer of same. Either way, it goes unsolved.
Could this be happening in your practice? Are unconscious behaviors leading to unintended results? Have you noticed "unexplained" shortfalls in your practice that defy logic? Perhaps it's time to look at how behaviors are leading to those results!
Continued Success to you and your Team!
Sincerely,
Art Deden
Vista Practice Management
www.vista-practice.com
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