Beyond Clinical Care by Dr. Murali Lakireddy

As dentists, we spend dozens of hours each year on continuing education, refining our clinical skills and staying up to speed on the latest techniques and technology.

We spend that time as part of our commitment to improving our technical competence and being the best doctors we can for our patients.

But research shows that there’s another factor that plays an even bigger role in our success, something called emotional intelligence (EQ).

Talent Smart, an assessment firm that specializes in the field of EQ, explains that it consists of four core skills:

• Self-awareness: Your ability to accurately perceive and stay aware of your own emotions.
• Self-management: Your ability to use that awareness to positively affect your behavior.
• Social awareness: Your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people.
• Relationship management: Your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.

EQ in the making
My journey to becoming a dentist began in a small farming village in India. Growing up, the importance of proper oral care wasn’t on our radar, and there were no dentists in our village. In fact, it wasn’t until I was 14 that I met a dentist for the first time—a kind-hearted, good-natured man we drove 50 miles to see so my grandfather could have a tooth extracted. The care and compassion the dentist showed left a big impact on me and inspired my career choice.

Years later, I graduated from dental school in India and moved to the United States to complete my dental education at New York University. This eventually led to my residency at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and my first position as an associate dentist in Rochester, New York, in 2002.

Putting EQ to use
Because I was raised in a different culture and English wasn’t my native language, active listening became a key component to my early success as a dentist. Active listening is less about hearing just the words, and more about truly listening with an open mind and 100 percent attention to whomever I was speaking with, to ensure I responded as best, and as clearly, as possible.

Sometimes dentists can come across as aloof or insensitive, particularly on busy days. Consequently, it can be easy to ignore the subtle signals that a patient is sending and to be out of tune with their emotions. This results in a patient who feels disconnected and skeptical—a barrier to care that’s all too common in dentistry today.

Fortunately for me, the practice owner I was working for in 2002 was someone who took the time to nurture my ability—not only as a dentist in the clinical setting—but as someone who patients could get to know.

He taught me the importance of social awareness, the kind of awareness to better understand my patients and their emotions, helping me to improve my work with patients who were unhappy with their situations, whether those reasons were financial, physical or emotional.

I remember a patient who was faced with receiving partial removable dentures. As we were doing the impressions, her nonverbal cues made it clear that she was not happy with the treatment plan. Rather than continuing to work on someone who was actively disengaged, I spent an extra few minutes learning more information about her and her priorities, realizing a fixed bridge would better suit her needs. After that, she was smiling before the procedure was done!

As my confidence—and EQ—grew, I wound up moving into a leadership role in the office as a managing clinical director. This transition brought in a whole new array of challenges with a new audience, my office staff.

With my mentor’s guidance, I learned to observe interactions and body language, to be engaged and, most importantly, to be authentic. It was only then that I finally realized that to self-manage, I had to put myself in the shoes of those I was leading. It was a moment of clarity that I will never forget—one that resonates with my childhood and the demeanor the first dentist I’d ever met back in India when I was a boy.

It can be easy to ignore the subtle signals that patients are sending and to not be in tune with their emotions. But the result of that is patients who feel disconnected and skeptical.

Taking EQ to the next level
From there, an opportunity presented itself to own a new Aspen Dental office in the Cleveland area. What started as two offices in Brooklyn and Parma, Ohio, has now become a group of 16 that I own and manage. In this capacity, most of my time is spent coaching and helping teams—an element of my career that is thoroughly built on my experience and growth in EQ.

As someone who was never trained in business, I know EQ played a big role in the success of my professional journey and within my partnerships.

Being flexible and self-aware is key in management, hiring and patient relationships—all factors that influence a dentist’s success both as a clinical practitioner and as a practice owner. My personal transition from associate to multipractice owner required me to adopt new roles and new forms of EQ regularly with every new position—a process that hasn’t stopped.

In fact, I now try to use these skills to help my colleagues and associates become better dentists and make better career decisions.

?I once knew a doctor who had his own traditional private practice but was facing economic hardship and wasn’t happy with how things were going. After a few conversations, I was able to convince him to join one of my practices. He started as an associate dentist, got promoted, and later became my partner in two separate offices—an EQ success story and someone I can now call a friend.

I’m a big believer in self-realization and EQ, and to me setting goals is much bigger than financial success—it’s about making good hires, growing a loyal patient base, developing a community presence and sharing success with those around me. These are the clear goals that I set for myself, and making them known to my teams ensures that everyone is on the same page.

Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to EQ. Improving this skill takes patience and repetition in both work and life, yet the reward is incalculable.

Dr. Murali Lakireddy is an owner of 16 Aspen Dental practices in northeastern Ohio. He is a graduate of New York University’s College of Dentistry.