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Donald,
You're like most dentists. You think that technical achievement
will give you business success. It won't. It never will. It's a myth, a fantasy,
a fairy tale.
Not that technical achievement and business achievement are mutually exclusive.
Not at all. Clearly, being a great clinician has tremendous value added in having
a successful business, but it's not "the" thing that makes it happen.
You need to understand,
"Being a superb clinician is insufficient on its own to generate practice success."
What's missing? What do you need to have, that you do not have, to be successful?
What do you need to accomplish to achieve the same degree of business mastery as
you have in your clinical dentistry?
What you are lacking is desire. Like most dentists, you have little desire to master
the business side of practice. For you, leading, owning and managing the business
of practice is a "have to" not a "want to." Whereas mastering clinical dentistry
is a powerful "want to."
Clearly you "want" to be a great clinician. Just look at your CE history. Look at
where you spend your time and money. On a percentage basis, how much time and money
do you spend on becoming a great clinician? OK. Now, how much time and money do
you spend on becoming a great business leader, manager and owner? Commitment shows
up in two places - your calendar and your checkbook.
Donald, the undeniable fact is without a successful dental business you will never
have a successful dental practice - never. You will never have a successful practice
without an intention, commitment and drive to master business. On the other hand,
you do have a tremendous intention to be a top-flight clinician. Here's how it goes.
Below is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:
1) Survival: Hunger, safety, comfort
2) Security: Protection, safety, stability
3) Belonging: Love, family, peers, friends
4) Esteem: Achievement, competent, gain approval, independence, status
5) Learning: Knowing, understanding, mentally connect
6) Aesthetic: Symmetry, order, beauty, balance, integrity
7) Self-Actualization: Realizing your own potential, self-fulfillment, peak
experience
8) Transcendence: Helping others realize their potential
You simply want to bypass Levels 1 and 2 and go directly to 3,
"Belonging." At Level 3, you join a group, Pankey, Kois, or Spears for example.
You immediately gain a sense of belonging. Within a short period of time you feel
loved and appreciated by the group and by the group's leaders. You make friends
with colleagues. You become a peer in a community. You feel you belong.
Soon you break into Level 4. Through your training and development, you now have
a much greater sense of self-esteem. You feel much more secure and confident as
you become more and more expert in your understanding and delivery of your dentistry.
You feel more worthy about yourself as a professional. You attain a level of achievement
recognized by others. You feel more competent. You feel you have broken away form
the middle of the pack. And as important, you have the approval of a highly regarded
group of dentists, a highly respected leader, and of dentists outside of the group.
You have achieved an entirely upgraded status. You have gone from Dentistry 1.0
to Dentistry XP.
Now you are totally into it. You have much greater sense of understanding and depth
of knowledge about dentistry. You easily and directly connect to the top players
in this community - you currently know what the top tier in the group knows. "You
can talk the talk and walk the walk." You have achieved Level 5 in Maslow's Hierarchy,
true "learning." You have achieved insight and real understanding. "It all makes
sense now." There is no confusion. There is symmetry, order, a clear design, beauty
unto itself of the systems and components of this body of knowledge. It has integrity
- it is whole and complete. Yes, you have a totally new "aesthetic" sense, you have
moved to Level 6.
You now push even harder. You break through to see yourself fulfilling your true
potential - a master clinician and diagnostician. You are having peak experiences
in your treatment of some patients. You are totally fulfilled. You have attained
Level 7, self- actualization. You have made your dream of yourself real. You are
a great clinician.
What's next? What's next is you become a missionary for this knowledge, this body
of work, for this discipline. You are driven to contribute it to others and have
them see, feel and know what you know. You have breached the final level, transcendence,
helping others reach their own potential.
But the story doesn't end here. In fact, many times it turns into a tragedy. If
you're like many dentists, you try to implement what you've learned into your practice
only to be disappointed. Patients and staff aren't buying. In fact your gross revenues
are receding. Your staff is either more distraught or more disengaged, and fewer
patients are saying "Yes." Worse, fewer new patients are showing up. It's going
in totally the wrong direction.
Donald, here's what you need to confront in order to have your practice be a full
expression of your vision. You need to handle Levels 1 and 2 in Maslow Hierarchy
of Needs, survival and security. Survival defined by absence of hunger, safety of
self and family, and comfort. Security defined as a sense of protection, safety
and stability. These two levels can only be achieved by having the business side
of your practice work.
Without these two levels of safety and security being satisfied, you can't successfully
ascend to the next levels. It's like building a house without a foundation - it
won't stand.
In order to be successful you will need to generate the same passion, desire and
drive for business excellence that you do for clinical excellence. But what will
move you to do that? What will give you the drive, the desire, that passionate pursuit
of excellence in business, rather than just merely putting up with it?
What I say will give you the desire if you clearly realize what is possible if you
master the domain of business. What I say, and what I teach having seen this countless
times, is mastering the business of practice will take you far beyond survival and
security, but all the way up to transcendence.
Ask yourself,
What would be possible if I became a master in business?
Conquering the business of practice would directly produce a transformation in who
you are in the world. Mastering the business of practice would result in you having
significantly more power, more courage, more directness, and greater intention than
you ever had before.
Donald, you would need to become "the Donald." Are you up for that? What would life
be like if you mastered the business of practice? I say that if you developed yourself
as a powerful and effective business person, you would overcome many of the areas
that hold you back, not only in business but in life. Your ability to make a contribution,
your capacity to make an impact, your self-confidence and self-esteem, how you relate
to people, and how you are seen in the world would be dramatically altered if you
mastered the business of practice.
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