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August 1, 2023

Four Cornerstones to Strengthen Teamwork!

I love this quote by Phil Jackson; “The strength of the team is each individual.  The strength of each member is the team!” 

Here are four cornerstones to strengthen teamwork!

TRUST

CORE VALUES

COMMUNICATION

CLEAR ROLES

Trust

Trust is a cornerstone of happy, healthy, and high performing teamwork! The dictionary defines trust as instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something.  The trust I am suggesting is not one of blind faith but instead one of confidence!  Confident trust is based on consistency!   Consistency of good reasons to trust based on significant past evidence and experiences.

Some examples of a low trust:

•          Difficulty getting the team on board and willing to follow their lead

•          Not keeping the team in the loop with details that pertain to the patients, team and practice

•          Adding rules or steps for everyone to compensate for the inadequacies of a few

•          Extra staff to cover for lack of accountability with a specific team member

•          Redundant systems and processes

Together as a team create your list of Trust Agreements. 

•          Be transparent by keeping everyone in the loop

•          Be consistent with daily tasks

•          Address questions or concerns with only the source

•          Help when you see help is needed

•          Ask for help when help is needed

•          Do what you say you will do when you say you will

•          Don’t gossip and stop gossip

•          Tell the truth using compassionate words and tone

•          Don’t be late or absent for trivial reasons

Core Values

Healthy team cultures rely on clear and consistent core values.  They will help guide the team’s attitude, behavior, and communication.  It’s very difficult to get others to follow our lead if we don’t even know who we are and what we stand for.   Owner doctors, what 4 adjectives in order of priority describe your core values?  Email JudyKay@PracticeSolutionsInc.net for a sample list. 

They are important for the entire team to know and understand as they will help guide making decisions.  Defining the core values will help avoid the distractions of the daily mundane and other people’s shoulds.  They will also establish a strategy for how to show up every day.  Core values become a blueprint on teamwork expectations.  Every action, attitude or conversation is to be examined before proceeding.  Does this action, attitude or conversation support the core values?  

Clear Communication

Healthy team cultures are built on open and honest communication.  Doctor to doctor, doctor to team, team to team and team to doctor.  Clear communication, conveyed through defined channels, is critical for teamwork.  Larger and multi-location practices will benefit greatly by creating and following a clear and consistent communication flow chart.  The flow chart will define who goes to who, when and how. Positive and honest feedback will build trust and create clarity. 

Encourage team members to ask questions, address concerns, as well as discuss processes and procedures.  There are so many moving parts in a dental practice.  Chaos and discord will arise without ongoing clear and compassionate communication.  Together as a team create your list of Communication Agreements. 

Clear Roles

Everyone on the team needs to understand their role and responsibilities that contribute to the team’s success.  It is important for every team member to become proficient at their role as well as cross trained to help support their co-workers.  Cross-training also helps create an awareness of their co-workers’ responsibilities and lessens judgment. 

Every team will experience ups and downs with staffing.  Putting untrained or inexperienced people in roles will lead to frustration, stress, accidents, and mistakes.  Sustaining successful teamwork requires a commitment to ongoing training.   Establish clear training expectations for new hires that include specific weekly and monthly goals.  There will be times that training will take a priority over productivity.  Investing in training time on the front end will reap quicker quality results on the back end. 

Cultivate the four cornerstones, trust, core values, clear communication, clear roles, in your practice and you will harvest happy, healthy, and high performing teamwork!

April 1, 2018

How to Build a Culture of Trust

How to Build a Culture of Trust

Imagine a culture where:

*             Leadership was by example

*             Everyone worked together for the greater good

*             Co-worker’s didn’t question each other’s intent

*             Open respectful communication was the standard

*             Gossip ceased to exist

*             Accountability was self-maintained

*             Honesty was the only policy

It may sound like a fantasy, but TRUST me… its real!” These are the results of a culture built on trust.

The dictionary defines trust as instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something. The culture of trust I am suggesting is not one of blind faith but instead one of confidence! Confident trust is based on consistency!   Consistency of good reasons to trust based on significant past evidence and experiences.

Think of the people in your life that you confidently trust. Take a moment to reflect why you feel confident in trusting them. Confident trust does not just happen overnight. It takes time to nurture and grow. However, breaking one’s trust can happen in a heartbeat. The great news is that trust can be rebuilt. It takes a sincere daily commitment to be transparent, consistent and realistic. An actionable and measurable process is to assess your every action, attitude and conversation by checking off the following list.

*             Am I being transparent

*             Am I being consistent

*             Am I being realistic

Breaking trust is seldom intentional. Many people break trust because they are people pleaser yes people. Their intent is good. Their results are not. They have OCD…Over Committers Disorder! They commit and commit and commit because they are nice people. They want others to like them so they don’t say no. OCD’s believe that by saying no they are letting a person down. Perhaps you know someone like this…could it be you? Yet the reality is by over committing we are letting everyone down including ourselves. I suggest utilizing a caring response to say no to over committing. For example: “Our relationship is so important to me. I would never want to let you or any of my previous commitments down. So I am going to say no because I can’t commit 100% to yes.” It is not necessary to explain why to the other person. Some people will continue to push hard even after they have been told no. A simple no thank you I am going to pass and end the conversation.

A team meeting is a great format to discuss trust in the practice. Discuss the benefits of having a culture of trust pertaining to patients and team. It is important for the entire team to understand how a low trust level affects the patient experience, practice culture and the bottom line. As a team assess the current level of trust in the practice. Define what builds and what breaks trust in the practice. Use a large easel pad and write down all the answers being shared by the team. I like the self-stick pads with individual pages that can stick to the wall.

Some examples of a low trust culture are:

*             Not keeping in the loop with details that pertain to them and the practice

*             Adding rules or steps for everyone to compensate for the inadequacies of a few

*             Extra staff to cover for lack of a accountability with a specific team member

*             Redundant systems and processes

A predominant sign of low trust with the leadership team is difficulty getting the team on board and willing to follow their lead. Imagine how much more productive a practice would be if the team confidently trusted leadership and each other?

Gossip is another sign of low trust that results from lack of transparency. If the leadership team does not keep the team in the loop they will talk to each other. Gossip that is made up from assumptions will run rampant.

Your team will no longer feel trusted and become frustrated when you make rules that affect the entire team to compensate for the inadequacies of few specific team members. You may even end up losing your good team members.

The next step at the meeting is to ask the team to share what they feel they need from each other (including leadership) to build trust. Some examples might be:

*             Be transparent by keeping in the loop

*             Be consistent with daily tasks

*             If you have a concern talk to the person

*             Help when you see help is needed

*             Ask for help when help is needed

*             Ask don’t assume

*             Take ownership – do what you say you will do when you say you will

*             Focus on the greater good instead of WIIFM (What’s in it for me)

*            Don’t gossip

*             Tell the truth and be compassionate

*             Don’t be late or absent for trivial reasons

Together as a team create your list of Trust Standards. Next print it, frame it and put on display for future reference. It will be important to review whenever you hire someone new or…because old habits die hard; whenever someone’s behavior deems it necessary!

TA-DAH…you have just established Trust Standards to build the level of trust in your practice! The awesome part is that when people create it they own it!

The bottom line is that trust is not just a social virtue it greatly affects patient experience, practice culture and the bottom line!

Contact Judy Kay today if you would like to learn more about how she can help you cultivate a culture of trust!

October 1, 2013

The Cost of Trust

One of the biggest signs of low trust is when the leadership team has difficulty getting the team on board and excited to follow their lead.

Imagine a culture of trust where:

•             Leadership was by example

•             Everyone could rely on each other to work together for the greater good

•             Co-worker’s didn’t question each other’s intent

•             Open communication was the standard

•             Gossip ceased to exist

•             Accountability was self-maintained

•             Honesty was the only policy

Trust is the foundation of a happy, healthy, and high producing culture.   There is a cost to low trust! 

How much more productive would your practice be if your team truly trusted each other?

The dictionary defines trust as instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something.  The culture of trust I am suggesting is not one of blind faith but instead one of confidence!  Confident trust is based on good reasons, definite evidence or past experience.

 Think about the people in your life that you trust the most.  Why do you trust them?  Confident trust does not just happen overnight.  It takes time to nurture and grow.  However, breaking one’s trust can happen in a heartbeat.  The great news is that building trust is a skill set that can be learned.  Once we can learn how to build trust we can prevent trust breakdowns!

I would start by having a team meeting to talk about the level of trust in your practice.  Discuss the benefits of having a culture of trust.  It is also important for the entire team to understand how much a low level of trust affects the practice and the bottom line.  Such as having to add steps to compensate, extra staff to cover for lack of accountability, and redundant systems and processes.

 Let me give you an example of low trust with patients.  You may have some patients that no show or cancel last minute.  Therefore, you decide to implement the following protocol:  All patients must sign a form that states they will owe $ if they don’t show or cancel last minute unless it is an illness (with a doctor note) or death in the family.   The cost is that now all patients are subjected to a protocol that shows you no longer trust them and makes them feel unwelcome…which could ultimately destroy the relationship resulting in them leaving the practice.  It is an insult to your patients who are responsible and accountable and the ones who are not will just ignore it!  The same holds true with your team.  When you add extra steps for everyone to compensate for the inadequacies of the team members you can’t trust…you may end up losing your good team members.

The next step is to ask the team to share what they feel they need from each other to build trust.  Use a large easel pad and write down all the answers being shared by the team.  Cross out any duplicates.  

Some examples might be:

•             If you have an issue with me talk to me first

•             Help me when you see I need help

•             Finish what you say you are going to do

•             Focus on the greater good instead of WIIFY

•             Tell me the truth but be compassionate

•             Don’t be late or absent for trivial reasons

 Put your list together and label it Trust Culture Guidelines.  Next print it, frame it and put on display for future reference.  It will be important to review whenever you hire someone new or…because old habit die hard; whenever someone’s behavior deems it necessary!

Ta-dah…your team has just established their guidelines on how to build the level of trust in the practice!  The awesome part is that when people create it they own it!

The bottom line is that trust is not just a social virtue it greatly affects your bottom line!