By: Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD
Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

In the book Winning, by Jack Welch, the past CEO of GE, he says, “I would call lack of candor the biggest dirty little secret in business.” Whether it is talking to your patients, staff or specialist the lack of candor and false politeness has many negative ramifications.

How many times do you hear a dentist say, “I wanted so badly to tell the patient that if they don’t get their periodontal work done I am going to dismiss them as a patient.” Have you ever realized that if you did say what was on your mind, with candor, drew a line in the sand and put your foot down, that the patient would most likely go along with ideal treatment instead of supervised neglect?

How many times has a staff member shown up 10 minutes late and you wanted to say something, but held it in. The more you hold it in, the longer you hold it in, the greater the chance you are going to start showing negative dysfunctional behavior toward that staff member.

Let your frustrations out slowly, with candor, as they occur. There should be no shame in the employer asking the employee why they are late to work. Instead of everyone shutting down, everyone opens up and learns. Any dental office that brings more people and their minds into the conversation has an immediate advantage.

In-office consultants are notoriously famous for interviewing each staff member for 30 minutes to an hour to find out what is right and what is wrong with each staff member and each office system. Why did you need to pay someone $30,000 when you staff had all the answers? Because you don’t practice candor! The staff feels they can’t speak to the doctor with candor. Candor cuts costs.

Everyone should have monthly staff meetings as long as they are productive and address the issues at hand, but if you are afraid to address those issues with your staff, then you need to quit having those meaningless staff meetings and reports that confirm what everyone already knows. Think of how candor can change mind-numbing staff meetings with productive staff meetings once you have real conversations, whether they’re about staff, marketing, a new procedure or someone’s performance.

Invisalign is a very exciting new way to perform adult orthodontics in the general dentists’ office. How many times have I heard a general dentist say, “I would love to show a case to my referring orthodontist, but I am afraid he or she will get mad that I am doing an orthodontic case.” Where is the candor?

If you refer all your children to an orthodontist and most of your adults, but want to learn Invisalign you must use candor and tell your orthodontist. Your orthodontist should be excited for you that you want to learn something new in the world of dentistry that happens to be in his/her specialty.

If the orthodontist gets upset, then use candor and tell him/her flat out that if s/he can’t get behind you in Invisalign, then you will feel very let down. Tell them you expect their help and guidance. Orthodontics is not a zero sum game. My experience is that the more a GP dabbles in Invisalign the more ortho they start diagnosing everywhere in their practice.

Candor affects winning simply because it gets more people in the conversation, and thus you get idea rich. Many more ideas get surfaced, discussed, pulled apart and improved.

Let’s say you are very excited about buying a laser for soft-tissue management. I recommend you get a local periodontist on board first. Candor generates speed. When ideas are in everyone’s face, they can be debated rapidly, expanded and enhanced and acted upon.

This approach, debate, isn’t just an advantage; it’s a necessity in dentistry. Your local periodontist may change your mind as to which laser to get or talk you out of it altogether, but without candor your decision making is at a major disadvantage.