Once you are clear over the vision, values and key strategies for your practice or business, this is really just the beginning. In order to make this a reality and provide real clarity for the whole practice you must communicate them consistently to the team and allocate resource appropriately.

Communication

There are many different ways in which you can communicate your key strategies and vision.

Formal settings. Official 1:1s with individual team members and in group meetings. Clearly communicate these and relate them to what you are actually doing so that people see the actions that are fitting in behind the strategies and vision. It is not just talk, it is real and these strategies are and will be followed. You will need to do this both with the overall team and in individual 1:1 conversations. It is easy to think that doing it with the group is much more efficient, but when communicating it to a group you cannot engage and discuss things as during a 1:1 due to the group dynamics at play. You cannot get into a detailed discussion about what that individual really feels about the path you are following. You have to do both. Doing it with a group brings a buzz and sense of excitement to the group with people feeling they are a part of something bigger. The 1:1 really brings it down to the individual and what it means to them.

Use different forms of communication. Don’t limit yourself simply to face to face communication. What other possible forms of communication can you use? Video messages, voice messages, texts, emails and all other possible forms of communication to reinforce these strategies. Communicate, communicate and communicate some more, especially when you see the strategies and values being followed.

Observe and notice. When you notice or observe something that has been done extremely well and is in line with the strategies or your values, make sure you highlight it and recognise it. Call out specifically what you noticed and the impact of this. An example might be:

‘I saw that you managed to scan every patient today which is totally in line with our strategy and vision of wanting to become a fully digital practice. Thank you.’

Highlight this to the broader group in a huddle or team meeting. Celebrate the success.

Likewise, there will be times when you see things being done that are not in line with the strategies or the values. It is equally important that you address these directly with individuals where you notice and observe this. Talking about exactly what you have seen or observed and how this goes against your values or is not following your strategies. The team will again see that this is real. You need to be considerate of doing this in the right way, which is a topic for another article, but these conversations must be had.

Lead by example. To me this is a way of communicating the strategies to the team. Show people with your own actions and behaviours. It applies to you and to everybody. Live the values and focus your time and effort on the agreed strategies. If you don’t everybody else will think that it doesn’t really matter.

Informal communication. There will also be more informal and fleeting opportunities to reiterate these strategies, the vision and values in passing. These are valuable and act as useful reminders. Passing comments about small things that you noticed but that really line up with the direction you are heading.

Do not under estimate how much you have to communicate. It is almost impossible to over-communicate. It takes real time and effort for people to understand and commit to the strategies and where you are going. The ultimate benefit of this is that people will know where you are heading and where to put their time and effort, without having to be continually directed as such.

Allocation of resources

To go alongside the communication you also need to align your resources behind these strategies. The resource you have is money, some of which you spend on people. In fact a good chunk of your resource is spent on people. In terms of people this means their time, focus and attention. You have to ensure their time, focus and attention is being spent on these strategies.

People. For each of the strategies it must be clear what success looks like. There will need to be clear measures of success marked out over different time periods. What must also be clear is who is responsible for that. In general I am of the view that dual ownership means no ownership. I have seen numerous occasions where dual ownership doesn’t work as both will look at each other. This is maybe a bit old school but I still think it is important that a single person has responsibility for that area.

This is one area where I do think things should flow top to bottom so to speak. Think first what you want to get done based on the overall direction of the business and then give responsibility and roles to individuals based on this. Try to avoid doing it the other way, meaning I have these people, what am I going to get them to do. Define the roles first based on where you want the organisation to go….

In any organisation but particularly in dental practices there are very historical roles for staff members. These may well still be relevant but I think you can step back from these, consider and challenge all the responsibilities that need to be fulfilled within a practice. This is really making sure your resource is being allocated to the key strategies.

By doing this you are allocating that precious resource of peoples’ time, focus and attention behind the key strategies.

Money. Any money that you spend must be allocated to these strategies and not to other things. When other opportunities come up for investment it can be exciting, but really think carefully. Is this aligned with our broader strategy? If it is, then great. If not, say NO!

You really only have so much money and people, so ensure they are all focused behind the key strategies that will take you where you are wanting to go.

To summarise, once you have your vision, values and strategy, you must communicate and allocate. This is not a one off thing. It is ongoing. Consistently communicate and allocate so that the team see it is real. They will follow suit and ultimately this will mean that your customers will also become clear about what you stand for as a practice.