Reduce stress and drive dental practice growth with effective meetings
By Roger P. Levin, DDS
Through successful meetings, practices can enjoy one of the easiest ways to have an efficient and less stressful practice. When practices fail to hold consistent meetings, chaotic and less productive days are often the result.
In a difficult economy, meetings are more important than ever because they keep everyone in the practice focused on maintaining peak performance. Here are some tips to create an effective meeting in the practice:
• Have a well-defined purpose — Everyone should know why a meeting is taking place. The doctor should lay out a clear vision for all meetings. When staff members understand the purpose, they become actively engaged in the process.
• Develop a written agenda — A written agenda should be distributed in advance so that staff members can review it and be well prepared to participate. In creating an agenda, the doctor and the office manager should gather potential topics, review them, and then prioritize them. Solicit suggestions for meeting topics from all team members. Simply saying, “What do you think we should talk about?” gets team members involved and feeling like they have a stake in the meeting.
• Start and end on time — Punctuality matters. When doctors take time away from meetings to fit in unexpected emergencies, make phone calls, catch up on a few things, etc., it sends a message to team members that the doctor doesn’t consider meetings to be important. Practices that routinely start meetings 10 to 15 minutes late are telling the team that the meeting is not a key driver for the practice. Set a time for the meeting and stick to it. This sends a message that the doctor values the meeting and everyone’s time.
• Maintain a respectful atmosphere — Run a meeting where all team members have an equal opportunity to participate when they choose to do so. In too many meetings team members constantly interrupt each other, the dentist does all the talking, or a few people dominate the discussions about every topic. Ultimately, these types of behavior undermine the meeting. In addition, the practice loses good ideas from people who eventually opt out of the conversation because they are talked over, interrupted, or ignored.
Every practice needs consistent occasions when doctors and teams can work together and exchange ideas. Meetings are a chance to look together for opportunities to improve customer service and case acceptance. Keeping everyone on the team informed helps the practice achieve challenging goals.
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ALSO BY DR. ROGER LEVIN:
Transform your practice and increase production
Four strategies for increasing production rapidly in your dental practice
Leading the practice team to success
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To learn how to run a more profitable, efficient, and satisfying practice, visit the Levin Group Resource Center at www.levingroup.com/gp— a free online resource with tips, videos, and other valuable information. You can also connect with Levin Group on Facebook and Twitter (Levin_Group) to learn strategies and share ideas.
