“Leadership is getting people to look beyond their own job description for ways to improve and challenge the process.”
- Maureen Fries, Administrator, Los Olivos Women’s Medical Group
Wow! A woman who is ahead of her time and trends.
Disruptive times call for disruptive leadership. As a dentrepreneur, you are at the proverbial fork-in-the-road marking such a time.
Staying relevant is essential alongside your ability to be a responsive decision-maker. The two are not exclusive.
You must be able to spot trends (relevance). Then be able to challenge the process with decisive action (decision-making).
The changing dental landscape (and what it means to you as a dentrepreneur)
In the post previous to this one you were introduced to what I identified as the shift in dentistry. This is particularly relevant to baby-boomer dental providers.
The questions, in essence, are these: 1) Do you sell? 2) Do you go “corporate?” 3) Do you completely avoid the whole idea of selling?
There are two ways to view this gut-check of sorts. One, stick with the status quo approach to dentistry (provide dentistry via a solo dental practice as long as you’re able).
Or…
Two, (and if you have a dentrepreneurial mindset, you’re looking for what I’m about to say next…am I right?) you see opportunities within and, more so, beyond those questions.
I encourage you to review this previous post to refresh your thinking. There is “greater, more fulfilling opportunity” available to you as a dental professional (or soon to be men or women dentrepreneurs).
How to Embrace Change and Create Your Dentrepreneurial Future Around New Opportunity
1-Challenge routine
James Kouzes and Barry Posner share a story about the now late, Warren Bennis, in their classic leadership book, The Leadership Challenge.
“Warren Bennis, distinguished professor at the University of Southern California and leadership scholar, describes how routines prevented change when he was president of the University of Cincinnati:
‘My moment of truth came toward the end of my first ten months…
The clock was moving toward four in the morning, and I was still in my office, still mired in the incredible mass of paper stacked on my desk. I was bone weary and soul weary, and I found myself muttering, Either I can’t manage this place, or it’s unmanageable. I reached for my calendar and ran my eyes down each hour, half-hour, quarter-hour to see where my time had gone that day, the day before, the month before…My discovery was this: I had become the victim of a vast, amorphous, unwitting, unconscious conspiracy to prevent me from doing anything whatever to change the university’s status quo.’
He coined Bennis’s First Law of Academic Pseudodynamics to describe this phenomenon: ‘Routine work drives out nonroutine work and smothers to death all creative planning, all fundamental change in the university - or any institution.” (p.43)
Your dental “bureaucracy” is certainly different, in many ways, than academic “bureaucracy.” In fact, if you are dentrepreneurial, you seek to eliminate all bureaucratic tendencies the moment they rear their ugly head.
In your case, challenging your routine doesn’t necessarily include a reworking of basic patient care. It will include the approach you take to how much of it you do, who in addition to you is doing it, and how many more patients you can treat beyond a mere solo dental enterprise.
We’re here to catalyze your thinking, help you shift your mindset, and take on the challenge of doing dentistry in a better and more fulfilling way. Opportunity is on the other side of stifling routine.
2-Awaken your creative energy
When was the last time you had a “creative” thought? I’m not being judgmental.
Rather, I’m identifying with what has perhaps kept your best dentistry under-wraps. As a dentrepreneur you have full, freeing permission to awaken your creative, compelling plans for a new future as a dental provider.
In fact, it might help to stop seeing yourself as merely a dental provider. And begin seeing yourself as a leader of dental providers.
Ultimately, this is the status quo routine you will challenge as a dentrepreneur. Leadership for you will no longer be limited to a single practice, a set number of operatories, or even the boundaries of a single city or suburban region.
It’s time to think and plan beyond - toward something more fulfilling. I encourage you to invest some time between now and the end of the next quarter first thinking then planning a new future for your dental legacy.
Notice I said “legacy” not “practice” or “business.” You are awakening something more far reaching as a dentrepreneur.
And as I’ve said before, “You’re not alone.” Dentrepreneurship starts as a solo decision and then speaks to your creative design thinking.
Three things happen as a result:
- Your decision is immediately is followed by an introduction to a long-term collaboration with other dentists who no longer desire to manage operational issues.
- One or more (depending on your group size) still desires to care and engage with the patients who need their services.
- You’re willing to retain a knowledgeable dental strategist/entrepreneur to establish your corporate structure, take on H/R and all operational matters with your team culture.
Decide to discover a “CHARTED PATH” before you. More on that in upcoming posts, including the “Three Key Growth Leadership Drivers for Breakthrough Performance.”
Sources: The Leadership Challenge, James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner, pp. 35-43.