The legendary fund manager Peter Drucker talks about the concept of efficiency versus effectiveness. You can apply this to your practice in many key ways. Efficiency s being able to do a nice crown prep and finish it on time, but effectiveness is creating a meaningful relationship with your patient once you place the crown and building the kind of practice that they want to come back to you and further friends and family to.
As the virus is rampaging right now, wearing masks and social distancing are just big bandages to slow down the spread. But they are the best ones we have right now. However, what we really need is a fundamental change to drop the problems with this virus and future viruses. These include better nutrition, prevention, exercise and personal hygiene.
In the same way, you can’t make up for inadequacies in learning at home or in improving your personal life by relying solely on social programs that are handled by public schools and government. These programs are meant to aid, help and foster a good environment, but the changes start with the families and individuals.
Right now reports say that homework completion has dropped to around 50% since students have less need and less personal interaction to get their homework done. What will the long lasting ramifications on education be?
Unfortunately your job market to pick from for outstanding dental team member applicants are dropping at a rapid pace. That’s why I believe you should pay outstanding applicants a great salary and hold on to them any way you can. It’s also why some practices have found success during the quarantine period as they are doing more with fewer team members.
Service is quickly dying in America, and the disparity between retail and service businesses that provide outstanding (what we would call Gold Star Service) courtesy and service and those that have taken the “self check out“ mentality are largely dividing. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you’ll need to decide which directly you want to go in your practice. If you try to stay in the middle you’re likely to get washed away. It’s obviously much more expensive to run a high service business, but the payouts can be very great. If you try to provide great service at a “discounted“ rate you are in for a rocky ride with little or no profit.
These days every guru and self-proclaimed consultant talk about “systems“ as the big secret to success. But they miss one big aspect – systems are really not the true key. They are important but they don’t come close to matching your PURPOSE. Why are you in practice? What makes you unique? How do you show appreciation for your team and patients? What gets you out of bed in the morning. The answers to these questions will reign over systems any day! Your systems must be servants to your purpose, not the other way around.
If your team feels the purpose and your patients feel your purpose and you wake up every morning with a clear sense of purpose, the systems will work great and they will constantly be improved because you have the right people assembled to get real results. This is true effectiveness.