When things get bad, it’s normal for you to start blaming yourself or really grasping for answers. I especially see this with dentists and their teams. Facebook is rife with complaints about not being able to find competent long-term team members. Hygienists are at the top of that list according to the number of posts I read. Even seasoned offices complain about the quality of training they see in their associates. There were even young students and doctors complaining about their own generational tendencies to want more money, less work, and better offers even knowing that most of them lagged behind in skills and experience. They tend to look towards their first jobs to mentor them past the inadequate training they received while in dental school. Dental school curriculums need a major overhaul driven by leaders in dentistry that actually perform above average in the real-world workplace. This is far overdue and seems to be a blind spot in these for-profit dental schools and institutional dental groups.
One of the common compensations for challenges in finding and keeping a great team seems to be money and benefits. The ultimate goal would be thinking that there has to be some target or benefit that would change the current trend in their difficulty of creating that next level team. The questions on Facebook seem to hoover over the idea of “motivating” their team instead of reshaping the business of dentistry in the average dental office.
In and by itself, “motivating” your team seems pretty innocuous on the surface. Just below that is the complete lack of understanding that money alone might attract and keep a team member that is “committed” to the culture and vision of your practice. Vince Lombardi’s answer to a question from a sports reporter is very revealing. When asked how he motivates his players, he abruptly ended the interview following a Super Bowl win with this quip: “My job is not motivating my players. My job is keeping 11 motivated players on the field at all times.”
Stop thinking like a dentist and delve a tad bit deeper. Consider the fact that the football players were paid handsomely. They were playing for one of the best teams in the US. Their coach was one of the highest winning coaches in the history of football. The fans were maniacs when it came to supporting their team. Yet, a football sportswriter thought that winning was the result of the coach (dental owner from our perspective) having some secret sauce that “motivated” his players. From this perspective, like coach Lombardi, you can see how stupid the original question was.
I understand that trained, long-term, competent team members are hard to find. This has always been the case. In the mid-seventies, there were no trained applicants. We hired based on people skills and self-motivation and trained them ourselves. We have done this since 1975. We were deeply engaged in where we looked, how we looked, and when we did hire someone, we spent intentional time onboarding them. As you know, every doctor and team member were selected by the corporate vote of my entire existing team. They chose those who would enjoy the experience of working with us. They understood the dynamics and attitude of the person that it would take to commit to our culture and the job we were hiring for. Once they made their choice, the team also committed to making sure that each and every chosen team member became a leader and had success at fitting in and adding to the “staff owned practice” mentality of our dental culture. (Go to www.supergeneralpractice.com for your free copy of the Super General Dental Practice if you unfamiliar with how this works.) Even applicants with impressive resumes, were not necessarily an ideal fit in our offices because we were not a normal workplace and certainly not an average dental office. We were and are always faced with retraining an applicant that walked through the door with great people skills and self-motivation, before they could be recognized as an excellent hire. It was up to our existing team to indoctrinate them into our culture, train them to the highest level of our systems, and in the process convert them into a deep commitment to our vision. This generally took only a few weeks due to the level of people we actually interviewed. Compliance to rules and regulations is never enough. Compliance creates groups of people working together. Commitment creates teams. Our team members did not consider their employment to be just a job. Their time at our offices were elevated to a career. They learned to serve our patients and inspire each and every customer to see us as remarkable in an average dental office jungle. Our team understood that dentistry is a small consumer business where our potential clients get to decide where they spend their money on services and products. You can’t just market yourself into success. You have to “wow” your potential clients to the point that they show up, pay for treatment, and refer everyone they know. This can only be accomplished by a well-rewarded team, committed to serving their patients. Do this and you never have to worry about competition. You have created the “validity” of excellence, caring, and compassion in your community. Why would anyone go anywhere else for their dental needs?
Back to the word “motivation” and the myths surrounding its implementation. As a matter of fact, we did pay our employees more than they could get anywhere else, but our overhead for anything spent on our employees (this even included CPA and attorney) always stayed at 25%-28% with a total office overhead of 51%-53%. In a sense, our pay was not motivating, it was an incentive to an already motivated employee. Anyone that has read The Super General Dental Practice will also remember that we paid a monthly “profit sharing” check that was above and beyond their base pay. This process guaranteed that our team kept an ownership mentality and self-policed their ranks. Our team would not tolerate a mediocre employee. My team saw our Profit & Loss Summary every month. They were taught and understood the business of dentistry and it showed in their contributions to systems and adapting to every changing dental economy through the decades. I am sure that the reputation of paying well was something employees look for, but our interview processes never really involved the discussion of money. We tended to major on question and answers that revolved around the “why” of what we do. It was the culture of Purpose Driven, Doctor Led, and Staff Owned that created a practice that consistently grew 15%-20% a year, every year, for decades.
Sadly, the pay or pay packages that dental offices have historically offered could easily be described as not being competitive in the marketplace. This isn’t motivation, this is survival. We have to offer something as good if not better than just about any other place that your team might considering working. It is a mistake to think that other offices are pulling applicants away from your job offers. It is not other dental offices, and rightly so. It is just other “jobs” that have better hours, pay, benefits, and working environments than a dental office. McDonalds pays $19/hour with a $500 signing bonus. Why would someone subject themselves to poor pay, crazy hours, lack of leadership, and poor working culture? Good pay, health insurance, profit sharing, great working environment are merely the entry fee for a dental office to enter the job market for talented team members. It should not be a burden or price you feel you cannot afford to pay.
Dental offices tend to hire too many team members with no benchmark as to what each member should bring to the production benchmark table. Great practices, with really good overheads, long term team members, along with the ability to offer competitive pay packages will have collections of about $20,000-$25,000 per month per employee: 6 employees would be brining in $120,000-$150,000 per month. Fall short of this and you are either under producing or over staffed. The only solution is to figure out the business of dentistry, refine and adapt your systems to an ever-changing dental economy, or downsize your number of team members.
Difficulty in finding great team members is the product of your inability to create profitability in the marketplace. You can’t afford to pay a competitive salary, not because the cost is unreasonable but because there isn’t the production per team member that creates an ideal overhead where you can share the profits with your team.
Take a hard look at the basics of profitability, culture, leadership, demographics, and current generational proclivities. Determine how to right size your pay packages as you assemble a team committed to a better culture that includes sustainable business practices. Motivating a group of people is like herding cats. It can’t be done. Strive for a higher calling and recreate your future. This is how you Summit.
Michael Abernathy DDS
972.523.4660 cell
[email protected]