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The initial paragraph states: "Executives spend more time on
managing people and making people decisions than on anything else, and they should.
No other decisions are so long-lasting in their consequences or so difficult to
unmake. And yet, by and large, executives make poor promotion and staffing
decisions. By all accounts, their batting average is no better than .333: at most
one-third of such decisions turn out right; one third are minimally effective; and
one-third are outright failures."
When Mr. Drucker used the word "executives", he probably wasn't
thinking of dentists. He was probably thinking of managers who work in corporate
America. Since most of us who own dental practices perceive we have no one else
in our office to assign the title to, we are by default the resident office executives,
assigned by default the jobs of hiring, firing, and managing employees. And whereas
most executives in corporate America have formal training in these duties, most
of us have not. Because of this, our batting averages are almost certainly less
than what Mr. Drucker states.
During my 25 years of practice, I have been through a number
of phases in my quest to work with the right employees. In the first few years,
I was the same age or younger than most of my staff and assumed that if I acted
like one of them, they would want to perform because I was a cool boss. During the
long middle phase of my career, my strategy was to inspire my employees to work
hard by showing them I could work even harder then they. After stress from this
strategy took its toll, I then resorted to using increased compensation as the universal
antidote for all staff problems. None of these strategies worked very well.
If only the powers-that-were in dental school could have taught
me Peter Drucker's basic principles for managing employees. To paraphrase:
 Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decisions about
people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.
If I put a person into a job and he or she does not perform, I have made a mistake.
I have no business blaming that person. It is the duty of the manager to make sure
the organization's people perform.
People do not readily accept as their boss someone they do not respect.
Think carefully through the job assignments and make sure the appointee understands.
The one "don't": Don't give new people major assignments, for doing so only compounds
the risks.
At first read, these principles may seem overly simplistic. I
too see them as simple, but in my experience, the underlying idea in these principles
is often missed in dental practices. Note that all of these principles place the
onus and responsibility for performance on the manager, not the employee. If the
executive is doing everything correctly in managing the employee, and performance
is still not occurring, there is only one conclusion: the manager has chosen the
wrong person for the job. The chosen employee either lacks the mind set or skill
set to perform.
private dental practice, the leader and manager are usually,
but not always, the same person. The leadership role in a practice could be titled
"President" and the manager role "Chief Operating Officer." As I've stated in other
articles, the dentist/owner in a solo practice must be the President. It is not
true, however, that dentists who lack the desire or the skill set to be the COO
in their practice need to be trapped in that role. I maintain that they simply need
the motivation, leadership skills, and organizational help to assign that job to
someone else.
Each dentist and practice are of course unique. If you have questions
about executive positions in your practice, please don't hesitate to contact me.
(For more information about Momentum or Dr. Perry, visit the Momentum web site at
www.momentumdental.com
or e-mail Dr. Perry at
drperry@sonic.net)
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