Dos and don'ts for team building and assigning targets

Delegate performance targets to staff

Many dentists complain about their teams, but often the problem stems from a lack of motivation or engagement. If staff members simply go through the motions every day, with no sense of purpose or clearly expressed performance expectations, their role in your practice will probably seem like "just a job" to them. An excellent way to solve this problem is to create and assign performance targets.

Be specific -- and realistic. Calculate what it will take -- number of referrals and new patients, case acceptance rate, collections percentage, etc. -- to reach your overall growth objectives, then break those goals down to numerical annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily targets. Assign these, including deadlines, to appropriate team members.

Don't handicap their performance. You can't expect team members to automatically know how to reach their targets. Provide proper training. Also make sure the systems they will use are updated, efficient, and free of bottlenecks. Otherwise, both you and your staff will end up frustrated.

Roger P. Levin, DDS, is the chairman and CEO of practice management consulting firm Levin Group. You can connect with Levin Group on Facebook and Twitter (@Levin_Group) to learn more strategies and share ideas. Also, check out Dr. Levin's free practice management videos at www.levingroup.com/gp.

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