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How to GROW Your Dental Group Through the Minefield of Change and Chaos

How to GROW Your Dental Group Through the Minefield of Change and Chaos

10/28/2016 11:00:00 AM   |   Comments: 0   |   Views: 66

“Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time…confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

- Jim Collins, Good to Great-Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t 1

Jim Collins admits that his experience interviewing Admiral Jim Stockdale “…stayed with me.” Stockdale was the highest-ranking United States military officer imprisoned in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war training camp during the Vietnam War.

He was tortured numerous times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973. Stockdale recounts his nightmare a book (In Love and War) he co-authored with his wife that chronicled their experiences.

Dark and depressing is how Collins describes his own reading of Stockdale’s imprisonment detail. And he admits the difficulty taking it all in even though he knew the end of the story.

How does one, like Stockdale, deal with all he experienced when he did not know the end of the story? Stockdale clarifies, “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” 2

It happens!

You’re not a prisoner-of-war. Far from it!

But…

If you’ve navigated the minefield of change associated with being a Dentrepreneur® you have some albeit micro perspective on what it means to encounter the occasional gut-wrenching challenges associated with the chaos of change.

Dentrepreneurship and building your dental group are not for the faint of heart. Don’t be imprisoned by over-confidence. TWEET THIS

Who’s ready for change, really?

Before you answer get one thing clear…

Change and chaos happen.

It’s the reality of this new world of dentistry you’ve embraced and are seeking to use to your and your team’s advantage.

It’s the essence of the GROWth culture we are prepared to help you build.

And we have one over-arching “Stockdale-like” thing to say about it…

Ready?

Deal with it!

That’s not said with any degree of dismissiveness. Nor is it a casual way of offsetting the practical strategies of embracing it to your advantage.

It’s time for change and chaos to be viewed not as the enemy. Rather it’s an increasingly useful experience that can define your dental group’s success and effectiveness going forward.

Let’s talk strategy…

Four Actions That GROW a Culture Where the Occasionally Harsh “Truth” is Heard, Embraced, and Acted On

1-Question more than you overthink solutions

You and your team must grow comfortable with asking the “hard” questions. It’s easy to overthink your answers and carve safe paths to solutions.

This is standard operating procedure. But learning to formulate and ask powerful, strategic questions can revolutionize your dental group culture.

Why?

Questions create understanding. And understanding creates and builds trust.

Fearlessly develop and ask the right questions. What are they?

It depends on your culture, your current “chaos,” and the changes you want to embrace. Start with the problem right in front of you and work your way (with your team/team member) outward to a solution.

2-Engage instead of enrage

No one wants to be coerced into change. What your team wants is to engage in the process.

The more clandestine or behind-closed-doors your change processes are the more you risk “enraging” your team. We’re not talking red-faced anger it’s more an issue of back-biting and low-level disdain for change that’s common in low-trust cultures.

And it will only worsen if you do not create an open-door, engaging approach to processing through individual or collective team member angst about the chaos that’s whirling about.

3-Solve without blame

Honest assessment and frontal talk can lead to epic solutions in your dentrepreneurial enterprise. TWEET THIS

Be unafraid to open up and lead the way with change flavored dialogue.

Share your fears and concerns. Place no blame. And give grace for team members to do likewise.

This no-judgement zone approach will increase trust. Plus it will increase your team’s willingness to enter future chaos believing that you’ll survive without the carnage typical of change.

4-Give information “wings”

Information is power. But in a different way for your dentrepreneurial organization.

It’s more about the action that’s associated with the information you have. The collection of data, information, etc isn’t nearly as vital as doing something constructive with it. This is especially true in a time of change.

Give team members the freedom to fly with the information that serves them and their department. If there’s doubt or lack of trust return to your season of strategic questioning until you’re satisfied.

Then, once again, give them permission to fly with the information at hand.

Trust is too great an asset during seasons of change and chaos to allow anything to derail it. TWEET THIS

Want more GROW strategies? Ready to embrace or move through a season of change but feel unprepared? Contact us and join our team of like-minded dental “change-agents.”  

Sources: 1, Jim Collins, Good to Great-Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t 1 p. 86 2, p. 85
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