As individuals, we all want answers. We ask thousands of questions, large and small, every day – turning to each other, to Google, to social media, to AI. As we navigate a complex world, we seek the reassurance of a straightforward answer.
It’s the same when we face challenges, as we turn to the experts and say: that’s all very well, but just give me the answer.
Imagine how infuriating it must be for my team members that I’ll usually answer their question with a question (apologies, all). When guiding businesses, similarly, I don’t do this simply to be annoying, but because I know there’s always more sitting beneath the surface. I need to know the context and landscape underpinning that question, in order to get to the best answer. As a consultant, my leadership approach is keyed into helping clients to work things out for themselves, while remaining by their side in a supportive role. I have a huge amount of empathy for practice owners, but I’ll also empower them to identify and challenge things that aren’t working.
I know this isn’t the simple answer that many people are looking for, and candidly, it doesn’t suit everyone. But I also know that many of those I speak with feel overwhelmed by the echo chamber they find themselves within: a chamber filled with other dentists endlessly telling them to stay on course, hold their nerve, and keep doing what they’re doing. It puts me in mind of the famous Einstein quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And yes, perhaps I’m talking about you.
If you ever work with a personal trainer, they’ll say that in order to reach your goal – whether that’s achieving a healthy weight, getting fit, or training for an event – it’s important to dissociate from your bad habits. However, the problem with this is that even if you’re dieting, you still have to eat. There’s no way to remove yourself from that essential task, and so the potential to “fail” pervades.
It’s the same problem with dentists practising dentistry. Of course, it’s absolutely essential that a dentist dedicates time to dentistry, but in an ideal world you’d have all those hours free to work on building and leading your business. For dentists, there’s no way to escape the day job, but focusing solely on this is the biggest contributor to the problem they’re facing. Here, busy is the enemy of great. Or, to put it more precisely, being busy in the wrong areas is the enemy – and it’s leading to a slow suffocation.
Because in this highly demanding industry, it’s perfectly possible to be busy and unprofitable. This is particularly the case if you’re doing things that just aren’t effective. And, with so many economic variables shifting and rising, it doesn’t take much for any profit you once made to be wiped out. As time and tide changes, it’s logical to deduce that we must also change. Repeating the same methods, and the same mistakes, just won’t help you in a new world. We all need to focus on progress, not movement.
So, how can you achieve this progress? Unfortunately, as I’ve already said, there’s no simple and straightforward answer. And so, most dentists find they’re wading in a pool of well-meaning advice, gleaned from other similarly damp-footed dentists. In truth, every practice’s economic environment is different, meaning that their pathway to success will also be unique. However, the key lies in connecting your financial performance with your dentistry.
Even where dentists understand this, and agree, it’s so easy to be sidetracked by other demands. For instance, you may be questioning the profitability of your NHS contract, but feel you can’t look at this until you’ve dealt with your year-end or claw back. It’s logical that you’d want to clear these time-sucking things out of the way first, but the trouble is that if it takes you three months to get beyond them, you’ll be no better off at that point. Strategic progress has to take place despite any other problems that exist at the same time.
By finding the right strategic steps – whatever these are for you – we can help you to help yourself. The strength of working with an agency like Hive is that our observational field of vision is so much larger than other advisers, with over 400 dentists across our group. One thing we’ve learned time and again is that most people who are struggling will know this on some level. So, if the way you’re feeling doesn’t align with where you think you should be, it’s probably time to take the first step and ask for some help.
