Does your practice have ADHD?

This month Jamie Morley discusses how to recognise if your practice has ADHD and, if so, how to improve your decision-making, strategy and focus.

This may sound like a strange question, yet it is something that is a real challenge for business and is no different for dental practices.

ADHD is defined as follows: ‘Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition that affects people’s behaviour’. People with ADHD can seem restless, may have trouble concentrating and may act on impulse.

From a practice point of view, are you engaging in lots of activity, being highly reactive, not really able to focus on what is important and acting on the newest idea when the principal dentist comes back from the most recent course. Familiar?

This is probably true for most, yet this leads to not being able to focus and fully follow through on implementing new strategies. Ultimately, it feels like these new things never work. Often this is more down to the fact that the new strategy or idea hasn’t been given the appropriate focus and effort to ensure it actually works rather than the idea or strategy itself.

Considering time frames

When thinking about really focusing, it is important to consider different time frames, starting with the current moment and being fully present in the activity, without distractions from email, phones and a multitude of other things that can distract us.

Over a week, consider your regular day to day work. What one or two things do I need to make happen this week on top of this to move the business forward in line with the more strategic focus I have for the business? How did I get on in executing on those items last week?

You can then look at this for the month, quarter and year, ensuring it all ties into the broader plan for your practice.

By ensuring this all aligns behind your plan you can focus on being present in executing this plan, rather than worrying about the end result. By doing this you are more likely to achieve the end result.

The following are some key points for ensuring focus and productivity:

Be decisive

You have to make a clear decision about doing something or not doing something.

Be decisive, meaning you are going to do this option and, as a result, not do a different option. You have to explicitly say that the other option is no longer.

Be okay with it being finished and perhaps it didn’t work. That’s okay. Just be clear that this is now done. Don’t keep something going in order to keep people happy. Be very clear.

Say ‘no’

You have to be able to say no to other ideas, including bright and shiny ones.

It doesn’t mean that you won’t ever do it. You can always find a place to keep good ideas that you can come back to later, but for the time being you are not doing it.

Have a broad focus

Have a small number (two to three) of broader key strategies/themes. If the idea falls within these strategies or themes, then great. If not, then say no.

With a broader focus this enables you to filter out some of the ideas.

Stop and reflect

Take time to stop, reflect and make a plan for different time frames so that you can act with full energy on that plan.

Responsibility

Give full ownership and responsibility for the plan or parts of the plan to somebody to whom you also give them the time to be able to do it.

If necessary, take something off their plate. If it is really significant, then change their job description to reflect this so that they see how important it is.

Communication

Communicate these key strategies very clearly to the team and then live them, which means saying yes to things that are aligned behind them and saying no to things which are not.

Stick with it

New ideas and strategies won’t immediately work.

Like with anything new it takes time. There will always be a learning curve. Stick with it.

Learn quickly.

This is related to the above. Be ready for it not to work perfectly. Instead, learn fast when it doesn’t work out as planned.

Spend time understanding what people are doing

Does this fit with your strategies? Is this important and in line with the strategy? If not, what can they do instead that is?

Recognition

Recognise the historic work and stop it. There will be things that have always been done that way but no longer fit your strategy.

Recognise them and stop them.

It is easy to be busy. This is not what will drive your practice forward.

Decide your strategies so you can give full focus and energy to making those strategies work.

Jamie Morley is the author of Lead Your Dental Practice available at bit.ly/leadyourdentalpracticeamazon.