What to do with the team member who mistakenly believes that doomsday prophecies should be their contribution to the change effort.
I’ll never forget that ominous day in fifth grade social studies class. Although it was almost thirty years ago, I still carry around the hauntingly fresh memory of staring up at the clock, just above our teacher’s head.
For weeks leading up to this day, one of my classmates, Jason, had learned of the ancient prophet Nostradamus. He had a book from the library on the prophecies of the end of days—and because it was before the days of the Internet—we had few options but to believe his predictions. We were a generation of children conditioned to survive a Cold War nuclear attack by putting our hands over our head in the elementary school hallway. (Fear mongering worked especially well before the Internet.)
My friend had news for us. Because a Libyan dictator in the Middle East was in a state of turbulence, World War Three was set to start, and we were all going to be annihilated by a nuclear bomb. He had even given us the precise time—10:20 a.m. The word had spread. Not a single eye in the class was on the teacher as the clock struck 10:15. The teacher paid no attention as each full tick of the second hand evoked a fresh vision of a mushroom cloud in our collective imagination. He delivered his American government talk as planned. All we could do is think of our families and lament the relative brevity of our existence.
At 10:19, I glanced across the aisle at Jason. Expecting our prophet to be just as distraught, he instead had a look of self-satisfaction. He could find more meaning in these final moments as he had fulfilled his role in foretelling the end of days.
I put my head down on my book, closed my eyes and waited for what seemed like an eternity. And then I opened my eyes to see the clock reading 10:22 a.m. I looked at Jason. He just shrugged as the rest of my class smiled at one another, happy to be alive. I don’t remember anything about the lecture, but I do remember the last thing our teacher said that day.
“I hope you all learned something from this.”
I think this distant memory sticks out in my mind because I have had to relive it often as a dentist who owns my own practice.
It turns out, to grow a practice you have to continually explore and introduce changes in your office. You have to hire new people, buy more equipment, market in new ways, and constantly innovate the way you deliver care. Naturally, team members resist these changes. Familiarity and consistency can be such a comfort in our work. It helps our team feel safe, comfortable, and empowered in their “day to day.” It is easy for them to understand their role, and it is even easier to feel like they have a secure job when nothing changes.
This helps explain what happens when you go to a class and find a way to add more efficiency and effectiveness to your scheduling. You show up on a Monday, excited after the class from Friday. As you shake the binder in the air, and announce what you want to change, the heads start to drop.
You announce, “We will get to work on it at our next team meeting!” And by the time the team meeting roles around, the “Jason” of your office has done his thing.
Your organization’s self-appointed prophet freaks everyone out as he foretells the end of days. Your “Jason” will be sure to point out everything that could possibly go wrong to anyone that will listen. Just like the ancient prophets, your team member will use gross generalities to scare everyone to the point of submission.
“The man will be old and white and wearing scrubs of blue. He will come murmuring of efficiency and effectiveness and how things could be better. There will be a rise in resistance in the east from patients and in the west our employees will flail. Many will be fired and even more will leave disgruntled. A great cloud of dust will emerge over the horizon and engulf our practice whole.”
Before you even get it off the ground, your team has been informed of why this new scheduling system will not work in your practice. Just when you need them to show up and work together as a team, they will all have their figurative heads on their desks, waiting for the carnage to settle. Unfortunately, lots of good organizational change efforts that could offer significant reward once in place are killed before they even get a chance. Not only do they not succeed, they fail so miserably that the “Jason” of your group has even more power to derail any status quo threatening improvement in the future as well.
So if you have a Nostradamus in your practice, what do you do?
The dental environment, industry and profession are all changing at breakneck speed, and you need a team that can keep up without freaking out. Your practice’s survival rests on the shoulders of your team. If you want your “Jason” to be a part of your practice’s future, you might give him a chance to lead your next initiative. Because he is versed in the risk of failure, he is a perfect candidate to design a small pilot version of the full program so that it will not risk the total well being of your practice. Often, this individual merely wants more responsibility in your practice and this is a great opportunity for them. This may be the chance for you to harness the positive leadership ability of your team member. If that doesn’t work for them, set them free to pursue their true calling. There seems to still be plenty of unrest in the Middle East.
Share this article with a dental team member you know. I’d also love to hear a story about your experiences with introducing a new change in your practice.
Take care and keep on growing.
#Healthyteam
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