Dr. John Meis: Welcome everybody to this week’s episode of The Strategic Thinker. I’m Dr. John Meis and I’m here with Heather Driscoll. Heather, how are you doing?
Heather Driscoll: I’m doing great, Dr. John, how about yourself?
Dr. John Meis: Absolutely fantastic. And, the world is full of good news right now, as COVID is decreasing very rapidly, practices are picking up and things are going well. So, let’s talk about the thing that is a big challenge for practices, and that is employee retention and employee engagement.
Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. And, I’m just going to actually share my screen here, Dr. John, to just sort of guide us through our discussion. And, you’re exactly right, most of our Spark members are going through periods of growth, interestingly enough, coming off maybe one of the more stressful years in dentistry with COVID. It hasn’t really seemed to slow anybody down, so lots of strong patient flow, incredible reports on patient retention, team member development, all of those types of things, so lots of really great stuff happening. So, as everybody knows, at Spark we tend to focus on things that only end up driving value in dental enterprises. So, we always tend to guide our discussions around The Dental Enterprise Value Matrix, and today will be no different. But, before we dive in, Dr. John do you want to just touch real quick on our 4 quadrants?
Dr. John Meis: Sure. The main driver obviously for enterprise value is going to be EBITDA, but there are other factors that have an effect as well. Those factors tend to fall into one of these 4 quadrants: the cultural side, the financial side, the process side, and the personnel side. And so, our Strategic Thinker every week, we’ll pick one quadrant and we’ll discuss one topic within that one quadrant. So, this week we are doing the Personnel quadrant, and so we’re going to be talking about employee engagement.
Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. So, I always hear people say, “Well, if it wasn’t for the coordination of all the team members, dentistry would be really easy.” And so, I guess the people part of it I think is probably the most enjoyable, but can certainly be one of the more challenging pieces as well. So, we get asked pretty regularly to just talk through ideas on ways to keep team members engaged, I think especially during periods of growth, during periods where things can maybe be a bit more chaotic and challenging, and also maybe a bit more uncertain. Growth is exciting, but for those people who are maybe not as close to the decision-making process, it can be a little bit overwhelming as well. So, we’re going to talk today about 3 strategies that we’ve seen work quite well in keeping team members engaged, specifically during times of growth and acceleration. Alright, so let’s start with the first one, Dr. John, the most obvious, but one that gets overlooked pretty regularly.
Dr. John Meis: Isn’t that the truth, you know? Just simply asking your team, getting to know them better, getting to know what kind of support they want, what kind of support they need, and what kind of information that you can give them to help them in their daily duties.
Heather Driscoll: Yep, absolutely. And so, this can be something as simple as an online survey. So, a tool like Survey Monkey or something like that, really easy, it can be done anonymously, it can be done from anywhere, their phone, their home, a few minutes at the office, whatever it might be. And, it doesn’t have to be this big, robust 15-20 question survey, and probably honestly better if it’s short and sweet and to the point. But really asking people what are they most proud of about your organization? And, what are they most excited about when looking forward? And, what are some of the things that, as a company, you could do to make their day-to-day lives and decision making at the practice level and the patient-experience level just a little bit better?
Dr. John Meis: Some organizations use the Gallup organization’s 12 questions, The Gallup 12. And, they will repeat the same questions every time they do an engagement survey so they can see if they’re making progress. So, that’s good in a kind of general, repetitive sense because you can follow trends. Sometimes that doesn’t draw out the exact information that you’re looking for, however, because it tends to be that you’re scoring things between 1 and 10. Whereas the kind of survey that you were talking about, you’re asking kind of open-ended questions so that you can really get to the heart of what’s going on with people on your team.
Heather Driscoll: Yeah, definitely. And, I’ve always found value because, while it can be a bit intimidating, anytime you ask for feedback, well that’s what you’re going to get, right? And so, you have to be prepared for that. But certainly, there are all kinds of nuggets that we’ve gained insight into over the years, and probably more often than not, it’s been refreshing and reassuring that our culture is strong and that our commitment to patients is above our expectations, and for the most part, a time to really celebrate.
Dr. John Meis: Yeah, and when you get the answers back, there’s always going to be some that you think “ahh”. Because, sometimes people are going to give you things that are very selfish or self-serving, not necessarily what’s best for patients and the rest of the team, and the organization. So, you have to be prepared for that mentally that you’re going to get some of those. But, I’ve always been surprised that there really aren’t that many that you get that are like that. Most of the people are really interested in making the organization better, so most of the stuff that you’re going to get is either going to be an affirmation of what you’re already doing, or some meaty and meaningful things that we could do to make the organization better.
Heather Driscoll: Yep, absolutely. And, when you do get those really valuable insights, it’s so important to do something with that information. Because, I think one of the things that I hear from a team member’s perspective is, “Well, yeah they ask me for my opinion, but then I don’t necessarily see anything come from that.” And so, anytime you’re able to make change or improvement, or even just continue to do what you’ve already been doing because it’s what your team indicated is important to them, it’s a good time to connect those dots. Just making sure your team recognizes, “Hey we heard what you said, we understand what’s important, we understand why this change can be a good thing, and we’re doing it.” So, just making sure you do something with the information that’s provided so that people will continue to give insight and feedback when asked for it.
Dr. John Meis: I think it’s really important that you report on the results of the survey, having every bit of candor that you just put it back out there. Without that, I think there can be somewhat of a lack of trust, or maybe people question or they’re concerned about what was in the engagement surveys. So, I think feeding it back out as quickly as you can is a valuable thing, even if there’s some things on there that aren’t flattering, it’s still decent to put them back out. And then, create a plan on how we’re going to make them better and share that with the team, so that they understand how their opinions, and their feelings, and their responses to the survey actually did lead to actions that are going to change and improve the organization.
Heather Driscoll: Yep, definitely. Just like patient reviews, right? Certainly we want all 5 stars, but every once in a while a good 3-star or 4-star really kind of helps you tweak your systems and processes, and reminds us all we’re human. And, tells the rest of the world that we’re human too, which is a really good thing from a credibility standpoint. So, transparency is key.
Dr. John Meis: Yep.
Heather Driscoll: Alright, so strategy #2: A great way to improve engagement is really just by committing to increasing your communication effectiveness and consistency, and that comes in lots of different shapes and sizes. So, Dr. John, what have you seen as far as people who have done a great job of just communicating?
Dr. John Meis: Yeah, I think having the ideal meeting cadence is one way of doing that, so that you’re getting together with team in different segments, at different times, but doing it at a regular and kind of automated, dependable, predictable basis, would be one of the key things. And, these don’t have to be in person, right? Now that COVID has come through and everyone has learned how to use the digital video conferencing technology, it’s very easy to put together a Zoom and just have a quick meeting with all your team. So, that you do it regularly, and some teams I know, multi-locations, the founder will do a video once a month maybe just kind of checking in with people. Sometimes, they’re in the offices once a month, it really just depends on the size and spread of your organization.
Heather Driscoll: Yeah, I love the fact that you started with just a commitment to a meeting cadence, because I think one of the things that team members become a little bit frustrated with is just not knowing, right? Not knowing when they’re going to have a chance to interact, whether that be for their own personal development, or communication and connection with their leaders, or their colleagues in other locations. And so, a lot of times team members look forward to those monthly All Team Meetings, or those quarterly days of development, and if they sometimes happen and sometimes don’t, I think it can cause a little bit of an increased level of uncertainty and doubt. And, whenever those kinds of thoughts creep into any of our minds, our confidence just isn’t quite as high, and our teamwork isn’t quite as effective. So, certainly meetings are a great time to re-solidify those really important elements of teamwork.
Dr. John Meis: Yeah, that’s for sure.
Heather Driscoll: Alright, so strategy #3: focusing on progress, not perfection. So, I think we’re all guilty of getting tripped up on this on any given day. It’s easy to quickly point out some of the things that maybe aren’t working quite as well, or the fact that you’ve missed a goal, or you’re short-staffed, or whatever the dental statistic might be. It’s really easy to focus on the things that aren’t exactly where we want them to be, as opposed to looking back and recognizing how far we’ve come.
Dr. John Meis: It’s so easy to get in that gap, where you’re comparing yourself with perfection rather than comparing yourself with your past self and all the progress that you’ve made. And you know, this is really for leaders one of the key things that we need to do to make sure that we’re maintaining our confidence. Because, when we lose our confidence as leaders, the organization starts to feel the effects of it, far more than you think it’s going to. Because when the leadership doesn’t have confidence, now all of a sudden people are doubting, they’re questioning, they start to get stressed and worried, and that’s just not the environment that we want for everybody. So, we have to protect our confidence, and part of doing that really is making sure that we’re regularly talking about, “This is how far we’ve come.” A lot of our group practices in Spark were, despite all the difficulties in 2020, many of them had a record year. And so, that’s just an example of focusing on, “Well yeah we lost a month, or 6 weeks, or 2 months,” depending on where you were located, some more than that even. “Yeah, we lost that, but we were able to make it up by great teamwork, high patient demand, and just really getting it done.” So, you want to make sure that you’re focusing on the right thing, that things that support your confidence, not tear it down.
Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. And sometimes what I find is that, for the leadership team specifically, just recommitting to focusing on your overall vision, why in the world you started this journey in the first place. And so, as leaders, our progress looks a little bit different than that of someone who’s actually seeing patients all day, every day in the dental chair. And so, you have these different layers of responsibility and roles and accountability throughout a group practice. And so, just making sure that at every level you’re really refocused and committed to celebrating the things that are going well. Because often there’s so much more of that than just the few things that maybe aren’t exactly where you expected them to be. So, it’s definitely an all-team sport. Everybody really needs to be able to find the progress and find the good, not ignoring the opportunities that are still present, but certainly we all do much better when we’re able to applaud ourselves for the progress we’ve made, as opposed to squeaking out that last 5% of what would have potentially made us perfect.
Dr. John Meis: Yep, for sure.
Heather Driscoll: Awesome. So those are our top 3 strategies. I always feel like with The Strategic Thinker, as with anything in our organizations, best to do something than nothing at all. Nobody ever won any awards by having a list that was longer than they could accomplish, right? And so, doing something with your team is probably more important than again, getting it perfect. So, those are our tips for this week.
Dr. John Meis; Yep, very good.
Heather Driscoll: A pleasure, Dr. John. Looking forward to seeing everybody during our next Strategic Thinker. And, in the meantime, if they want to learn more about Spark, SparkDentalNetwork.com, there’s some great resources there as well. So, thanks Dr. John!
Dr. John Meis: Thanks Heather! Thanks everybody, and we’ll see you on the next episode of The Strategic Thinker.
