During the time that I have been with Dental Arts Studio, I have tried really hard when recruiting new members for our team. A team should be made up of different personalities who each have their own talents and potential. If you have too many leaders, you have war! If you have too many followers, you have chaos! You can follow guidelines while conducting an interview and you can make a selection based on this, but remember that it is only a guide, and not a way to guarantee that you will make the correct selection. Only once the new member joins the team will you become aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
Not long ago, we decided to employ a third receptionist for Clapham Junction, as the reception area gets really busy with a full running practice. At any given time there can be up to fourteen patients in our waiting room. On one particular day when I was in the practice, one of the receptionists really stood out for me. She was totally in control of what was going on, despite all the phones ringing and the patients waiting for attention at the desk. She always had a smile on her face, her voice was always pleasant, and nothing seemed to distress her. She had really caught my eye. I spoke to the Operations Coordinator who had interviewed her and she filled me in on this young lady’s CV and employment history. I asked the practice manager some key questions in regard to her performance and she assured me that she was brilliant at her job. This had two effects on me. One was that it made me think she would not stay long, as she would want a more senior role in the future – ambition cannot be placed in a box. The second concern I had is that if I promoted her to practice manager in one of our other branches, she might find that she did not enjoy the responsibility, and I would lose her anyway!
As it happened, we were in the process of recruiting a practice manager to take care of one of our other branches. I approached Dr Malhan and Dr Solanki to discuss offering the receptionist the position. They were obviously just as concerned as me, as in the past we have moved fantastic staff into senior roles and have then watched them become very stressed and unhappy; just because someone is brilliant in one role, it does not mean that they will be adapt well to added responsibility. Practice management is a daily challenge, and it takes exceptionally strong leadership skills to take a practice forward. Corporate practices are even more of a challenge, as there is usually no principal dentist on site.
I am very ‘in touch’ with my staff, and do have the ability to notice changes in their behaviour sooner rather than later – this allows me the opportunity, in the situation outlined above, to re-arrange roles and get a staff member back to where they were before. I do this by talking to them regularly and letting them know that there is nothing wrong with not enjoying more responsibility. You can either handle it or you can’t – it is that simple. I have found that staff members will very rarely let you know they are unhappy; they would rather just hand in their notice and leave, as they do not want to appear to have failed. Before this happens, I step in and invite the member of staff to talk to me about their progress. Most importantly of all, I listen and try to meet their needs. Some staff are just worth holding onto.
One of the most important aspects of promoting a member of staff into a more senior role is to make sure that they receive enough training. You must make sure that you follow up with them on a daily basis to see how they are getting along. You should offer advice and support, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. No question is too big or too small. Remember that what is old hat to you is new and frightening to them. There is no one else they can turn to on site, as the nurses have very little to do with the management of the practice. I have found that it normally takes three months before the candidate is able to manage without relying on your micro-management of their role. I feel that if they fail, then I have failed them. I don’t do much training myself any more – this is done by our Operations Coordinator. However, as I manage all the practice reports, I spot the errors, which makes my role more stressful as I tend to be cautious with feedback for fear of unnerving a new candidate. I gently send responses in relation to the presentation of the report and any errors that I have picked up. In the past, I spent hours correcting all the reports. Then I learned that if I continued to do this it would have a negative effect on me, and I was also not helping anyone to develop. Besides this, members of staff enjoy the feedback, especially when they finally get it right. I have watch some practice managers really grow. I have laughed with them and I have cried with them. At the end of the day we are all cogs in a wheel and we can’t function without each other.
This is a lesson that I have only recently learned. You cannot promote someone to a more senior role and expect them to flourish on their own. You have to tend to them like young seedlings. Believing in someone too much without having given them the right training is not fair to the person to whom you have offered the opportunity. Obviously you can only help someone grow if that is what they want as well. My mantra to my staff is: ‘all for one and one for all’.
As Winston Churchill once said: ‘Play the game for more than you can afford to lose – only then will you learn the game’.