By Luc Wade, Marketing Director at Hive Business.

When a dental practice owner looks at the average daily yields (ADYs) of their clinicians they will inevitably see that some people over-perform (and this usually includes themselves) while others are dead weights, dragging overall productivity down.

Strangely, owners rarely seek this information out themselves. It’s almost like they need to be given permission to look at it, and so the matter is put on hold for years until an organisation like Hive is called in to find out why they have hit a glass ceiling.

Once we run a diagnostic day, any clinicians who are losing the practice money are easily identifiable.  This might have been what the owner suspected for some time, yet they will have studiously avoided the subject, quietly building up resentment and, all the while, depriving the clinician in question of the opportunity to acknowledge their shortcomings and improve.

If you feel like you’ve hit a glass ceiling with your practice growth and yet you are not having this type of conversation with your team, you are probably the obstacle to further growth. You simply have to tell your team what yields are expected in the context of your overheads.

Learn to share more of your business information with the team and you will find they will gladly take some of the pressure for growth off your shoulders. This will produce a further benefit: you will feel less stressed and therefore do more reflecting and less reacting.

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has argued that this human — although admittedly difficult — ability to choose how we respond to our circumstances is one of the most powerful resources we have.

He came to this realisation in the 1960s through reading the works of Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who in the process of surviving Nazi death camps discovered he was able to control his attitude to a terrible situation that he could not. Frankl wrote: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Subsequently, another one of Frankl’s key teachings was about work: almost any amount of meaningful work is good for us, but work without meaning and integrity causes physical and psychological distress.

If we have the freedom to choose our attitude towards the business constraints we find ourselves in, an open attitude of team building and information sharing is likely to be among the most meaningful.

And among the most lucrative — Christie & Co’s latest dental market review shows the average associate-led practice has an EBITDA multiple of 6.6 versus 4.8 for owner-operated practices, and that multiples for fully private practices have increased in the last 12 months at a greater rate than other types.

If you have an upcoming conversation about associate percentages or would like to discuss how our diagnostic day can help improve your financial performance, please get in touch on 01872 300232 or email us at hello@hivebusiness.co.uk.