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

I consider myself the gifted boss! Why? Because I do not accept “C” players. We all get lucky with our “A” players. You never know when you hire someone if they will be an “A” player. It’s luck! Even Michael Jordan didn’t get picked first in the NBA draft. Whoever drafted Michael Jordan first round got lucky.

The Gifted Boss is the boss who gets rid of all the “C” players; and fast. You see, the “A” players keep your “B” players playing at a “B+” to “A-” level at all times. Your “C” players do the opposite; they drag down the entire team.

Think of this scenario. It is 4:45 p.m. and the dentist and the “C” assistant head for the door. The “A” assistant makes sure that all the operatories are set up for the next morning. She goes in room three and there should be a PFM for tooth #3 setting on a tray, but there isn’t.

She goes back and checks through all the lab scripts but to no avail. She simply can’t find PFM #3! So, being an “A” player, even though it is now after 5:00 p.m., she sits down and calls the lab. The lab is closed and she gets and answering machine. She knows this is bad. The 8:00 a.m. patient is going to show up with no crown to seat.

She starts to panic but remembers that she has the lab man’s cell phone number in her rolodex. She immediately calls the lab man’s cell phone and gets him on the phone. The lab man becomes aware of the dilemma and immediately apologizes for the problem and starts to rectify the situation. The lab man says he can swing by the lab an hour early, pick up the crown, swing it by the dental office and leave it by the back door.

The “A” dental assistant starts to realize the sacrifice the lab man is offering to make. She also realizes that it is now 5:15 p.m. and that she also has a family. Where is the other “C” assistant? After all it is not even “A’s” patient or treatment room she is dealing with. The “C” assistant flew out the door 15 minutes before close and didn’t even check if her first appointment crown seat was ready to go! The dentist also flew out the door 15 minutes early and never asked if everything was ready for the next day.

Immediately, “A” feels demoralized and even cheated for her own efforts. She starts to feel sorry for the lab man for all the extra effort he is offering up when her own team won’t even go the extra mile and give the extra effort. So what does she do? She immediately downplays her own efforts and begs the lab man to do the same. “Don’t worry about it” she tells the lab man, “We can always reschedule the patient.”

All this time the “A” assistant is just wondering what the doctor will think when he or she shows up at 8:00 a.m. and their first patient shows up but the crown does not. The next day, the inevitable happens. What does the doctor say? “Whatever.” What does your “A” dental assistant say? “I can’t believe it, and he doesn’t even care!”

Now your “A” dental assistant is destined not to care. No longer will she ever dive for the ball. She knows that even if she did dive for the ball and throw it back in bounds no one would catch it and make a basket. From now on she is going to come into the office at the last minute, take the longest lunch possible, and leave early. No more squeezing in a toothache or a broken tooth; just reschedule.

Almost any dentist can fire the “F” players and even the “D” players. But it is the truly gifted dentists that can keep away the “C” players.

Do you remember many moons ago when the Phoenix Suns were in the final NBA playoffs with the Chicago Bulls and lost? The Suns fired Charles Barkley and the same exact team (sans Barkley) came back the next season and lost their first 11 games. You NEED your “A” players and you need them bad. You can’t demoralize them by keeping “C” players on the team who don’t dive for the ball.

Teammates all fuel each other. Teammates feed on each others’ energy. Each player either feeds the team energy and makes you money or drains energy from the team and costs you money. If you want to make more money you HAVE to have players on your team who can add positive energy to the team. The only reason you employ “C” players is because you are not a truly gifted boss!

And what is a quality dental practice after all? Every time I ask dentists what kind of a practice they have, they always say, “a quality family practice.” What is a family practice? What patient does not qualify as a family member? And they always say “Quality!” No one ever comes up to me and says, “I am the drippy dentist in town. Everyone knows me because all of my work has a large sucking sound underneath the margins.”

So if everyone is into quality and everyone practices on family, then what is a truly quality dentist (at least quality in the patient eyes)? Quality is about consistency. Why do franchises account for more than 14 percent of the USA GDP? Because consumers like consistency. Every time they order a Big Mac at McDonalds they get two all beef patties, special sauce, cheese, lettuce, pickle and onion on a sesame seed bun.

How does a consistent product compare to your dental office quality? Staff turnover. I have witnessed and recorded for years how the dental offices pulling in more than $1,000,000 per year has had the average staff person with them for more than six years, while the dentist netting only $80,000 per year has had the average staff person only two years. IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR STAFF TURNOVER YOU WILL NEVER BE A DENTIST MILLIONAIRE.

Imagine if you were the patient, you go to the grocery store twice a week. Imagine if they were always moving everything around. How frustrating would that be? You only go to the dentist twice a year, imagine if every time you went in, there was different staff. Imagine calling your dental office and saying, “I would like to schedule my teeth to be cleaned with Wendy” only to be told, “Wendy doesn’t work here anymore can I schedule you with the new person.”

So get rid of your “C” players and slow down your staff turnover and you will truly be a Gifted Boss.