Alun Rees

Alun Rees

Author at Dentistry Online

Alun Rees is a dental business coach
Visit Website

Posted in Posts

The price paid for persuasion

Delegation shouldn’t mean abdication when it comes to discussing treatment costs with patients, Alun Rees says. Some dentists hide their light away; they often fear rejection and are reluctant to tell their patients what can be done, what choices are available and, especially, how much it will cost. They are reluctant to embrace the concept…

Posted in Posts

Where’s your ladder leaning?

When do you admit you’re climbing the wrong professional ladder, Alun Rees questions. ‘Fundamentally, I preferred the person that I was when I was not being a doctor. ‘Some people are very good at managing those tensions. ‘And I think that with hindsight, I wasn’t’. These are the words of Dr Prasanna Puwanarajah taken from an…

Posted in Posts

The difference between success and failure

Many people want success, but aren’t willing to go through the discomfort needed to achieve it, Alun Rees says. My life purpose, as a coach, is to help my clients achieve success. Our first, and most important, conversation starts with the intention of discovering exactly what success means to them. Once the destination is established,…

Posted in Posts

Do you need a Tiger on your team?

We shouldn’t be looking for a ‘superstar’ to improve our team performance, Alun Rees argues. Tiger Wood’s victory in the Masters has been hailed as the greatest comeback in sport. Tournament golf is played over four days. After two days there is a ‘cut’ where the top 70 players proceed to the final day and qualify…

Posted in Posts

Clinical freedom in a time of austerity

Clinical freedom is becoming an aspiration rather than reality, Alun Rees admits. I regularly have to straddle a line between what principals need and what associates want, whilst attempting to keep both sides happy. Often this involves money and the phrase ‘clinical freedom’. Amongst the things they never teach you at dental school is that…

Posted in Posts

Whose time is it anyway? Part two

Practice cannot increase the number of hours they are open, or increase shifts, if it will result in dentists not being able to concentrate, Alun Rees says. I read that some new NHS contracts expect practices to offer appointments from 8am to 8pm, 365 days a year. That’s it then, access problem solved. It’s off…

Posted in Posts

Whose time is it anyway? Part one

Patients need to understand a clinicians time is also precious, Alun Rees argues. An exchange of emails last week brought home to me that there are some things that never go away. Perennial, potential, problems which, for a successful professional life, must be faced. The issue was one of appointments offered outside normal working hours,…

Posted in Posts

When it’s time to move on

Perhaps it’s time to walk a mile in associates’ shoes, Alun Rees suggests. My father left school at 16 and, over the next half a century, had only two employers and was never out of work. Like most of his contemporaries he sought stability and a ‘job for life’. By the time I started my…

Posted in Posts

Get involved!

Maybe it’s time to get involved and attend in meetings and talks to avoid feeling isolated, Alun Rees suggests. Recently I was idly browsing my Facebook groups and came across this posting: ‘Anyone in Glasgow fancy a meet up on Friday evening for coffee/beer? ‘Informal meeting.’ There followed several messages of ‘I’m up for it’…

Posted in Posts

The fish rots from the head

Leadership is the root cause of any organisation’s failure, Alun Rees says. The final quarter of 2018 saw me speaking throughout the UK on ‘leadership and management’. In preparation, I examined the characteristics of both, the differences between them and where they overlap. This exercise meant that I had to take stock of some of…

Posted in Posts

Soft skills are the hardest

There are so many benefits gained for dental practices from good soft skills, Alun Rees says. ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’ – Theodore Roosevelt. Research shows that soft skills are a far greater predictor of success in life than standard achievement tests, yet we continue to emphasise…

Posted in Posts

The ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’

Alun Rees explains why it’s not always the ‘cocksure’ and confident employees you want to trust. Recently I have been writing and speaking much about the risk of isolation in dentistry and how our ‘silo professional lifestyle’, whilst attractive in some ways, can lead to problems. At this reflective time of year, consider the work of Dunning…

Posted in Posts

Silos – part two

Alun Rees explains why it’s important to get out of the practice and network with other professionals. In the first of these pieces I described the damage caused by silos within practices. In business, a silo describes how groups can become isolated. This time I examine the way isolation leads to different problems to individuals…

Posted in Posts

Silos – part one

It’s important to set regular time aside to share and deal with problems and new ideas, Alun Rees says. This is the first of two pieces on ‘silos’ and the problems that they cause in dentistry. Firstly, I will look at the micro scale; in individual practices. A silo is a structure that isolates its…

Posted in Posts

Shifting baselines

Gradual downhill changes can be dangerous for your practice. Alun Rees explains how it happens. The phrase ‘shifting baselines’ was first used to describe change in the natural world. Gradual change is slow, so significant variations are not perceived. A person in their 60s examines the changes that have occurred since their childhood and sees significantly more change…


Register for webinar
Share
Add to calendar