As a dental practice office manager, you have both a bird’s-eye-view of the practice and a sense of its everyday challenges. You see the gaps in efficiency and productivity, and you’re aware of available solutions for office investment. You constantly think about how to make the practice better, but how do you convince your boss, the dentist, to agree with you? The following tips can help you influence up at your dental practice.
1. Start with a Strong Foundation of Trust
Before you try to change anything at your practice, you need to build common understanding between yourself and your boss. Jennifer Steadman, DAADOM, an American Association of Dental Office Management (AADOM) member, recommended creating an agreed-upon job description that you develop with your boss as well as weekly check-ins to stay on the same page. If your job description includes improving practice efficiency, you have a solid lead-in to sharing ideas. Then use the weekly check in to present those ideas and ask for buy-in.
Once you have an agreement that your job description includes leadership and improving the practice, set agreed-upon goals. Monica Payne, MAADOM, suggested choosing a set number of goals (three is most manageable) to implement at the practice and following through on those will build trust between yourself and the dentist.
2. Build a Growth-Mindset Culture
Setting goals and checking in on progress with all team members offers a clear path for nurturing a growth-mindset culture. Jennifer Ferguson, FAADOM, explained that influencing culture starts with reflecting on the current culture and considering what you want it to be. Next, you must acknowledge and own your ability to shape the culture. Noted Ferguson, “As managers, we’re able to influence and create the changes we wish to see in our culture and have the responsibility to protect them.”
Like Steadman, Ferguson emphasized the importance of sitting down with the dentist and creating clear expectations for each other and the staff, as well as how to measure performance. In that meeting, Ferguson wrote, you also should establish the “why of the office.” This “why” might then be shaped to foster a growth-mindset culture. For example, the “why” might be: “We provide our patients with superior service to ensure excellence in their oral health care experience.” If this is the team’s mission, everyone must look for opportunities to meet it. For example, the practice could consider investing in the most up-to-date dental technology or practice management software.
3. Involve Your Boss’s Perspective When Presenting Your Ideas
Once you have agreed-upon goals and regular check-ins, you can present ideas for achieving your shared mission. Before presenting your ideas to your boss, management consultant David Robinson recommended asking yourself, “What are my boss’s goals? What are the goals of the organization?”
Maybe you’ve noticed that you can save an hour everyday if you switch to cloud-based practice management software. Rather than presenting how this change will help you, show specifically how it will help your boss, and how it will help you achieve your shared mission of providing superior service to patients. For example, you could tell your boss, “With this new software, we’ll save 10 hours per week on administrative tasks; time that we can spend on following up with patients.”
To ensure common understand and trust between you and your boss, work together to find solutions. If you’re not sure how you’ll spend saved time, consider saying, “With this new software, we could save 10 hours of administrative labor a week. What do you think would be a better use of that time if our goal is to create a superior patient experience?”
Before presenting any idea, anticipate what your employer’s questions and hesitations might be. Robinson noted that a “no” usually comes from risk aversion. You may be building a growth mindset, but consider the risks your boss will see and proactively contemplate how benefits might outweigh those risks.
4. Continue to Lead and Push for Improvements
If you have a change-resistant boss, you might experience more push-back on your ideas. Don’t give up! Robinson suggested that if all else fails, ask your boss probing questions, such as, “What’s the source of your hesitation around this idea? What are our competitors doing in this area? If we were to change the way we’re approaching this issue, what would that look like?”
For example, maybe you believe that adding an AI software integration, such as Pearl, will help your practice gain more treatment acceptance from patients and raise revenue. You’ve told your boss that Pearl leads to 23% more patients accepting root canal treatment. You’ve pointed out that the revenue you could make in the next year would outweigh the cost of the integration. Your boss, however, is still resistant to adopting such a new technology. You might then ask, “If we don’t adopt this change, how will we improve treatment acceptance rates that will best care for our patients? If we don’t implement this change, how much will that cost our business and our patients’ oral health over the next year?”
Own Your Leadership Role
Owning your leadership role by always seeking to improve the practice, will help you reach your goals, your boss’s goals, and lead to more satisfaction for the team and patients. If you do implement a change and see improvements in the practice, take time to celebrate and point out the wins. You’ll continue to build trust with your boss, and it may be easier to get buy-in the next time you have an idea.
References
Ferguson J. Tips for changing your company’s culture. American Association of Dental Practice Management. October 15, 2023. dentalmanagers.com/blog/changing-company-culture
Payne M. 5 stages of becoming a great leader in dental management. Dentistry IQ. November 12, 2020. dentistryiq.com/front-office/career-enhancement/article/14187266/5-stages-of-becoming-a-great-leader-in-dental-management
Robinson D. 5 ways to influence up in the workplace. Harvard Business Review. March 28, 2022. hbr.org/2022/03/5-ways-to-influence-up-in-the-workplace
Steadman J. Enhancing the relationship between office manager and dentist. American Association of Dental Practice Management. December 15, 2023. dentalmanagers.com/blog/relationship-between-office-manager-dentist
Originally published in Advantage by Patterson Dental in Spring 2024.
