Dental Tribune U.S. Edition

XXXXX Dental Tribune U.S. Edition | March 2012A4 Ad Mistakes were made: When to let them go or when to clean them up I can virtually guarantee that you and everyone on your team have made at least one major mistake in the past six to 12 months. By Sally McKenzie, CEO McKenzie Management Sally MCKEnziE is CEO of McKenzie Management, which provides success- proven management solu- tions to dental practition- ers nationwide. She is editor of The Dentist’s Net- work Newsletter at www. thedentistsnetwork.net, the e-Management Newsletter at www.mckenziemgmt. com and The New Dentist™ magazine at www.thenewdentist.net. She can be reached at sallymck@mckenziemgmt.com or (877) 777-6151. If you read my articles regularly, you might have noticed that I dedicate a fair amount of space to telling you how you should be addressing shortfalls in your practice systems. In this column, I’m taking a little different approach. I want you to plan a party. Now, this isn’t just any party. This is a “screw-up party.” I have to give author Bill Bartman credit for the term, and I really like the con- cept. The idea is that you embrace the mistakes, you acknowledge the weak- nesses, and you celebrate the fact that you have “screwed up.” I can virtually guarantee that you and everyone on your team have made at least one major mistake in the past six to 12 months. Mr. Bartman refers to an employee who made a $10 million contract er- ror. The company managed to whittle it down to $1 million, which most of us would still consider a huge blunder. But the point Bartman makes is that if he were to have crushed the employee, who is otherwise very good, he would have shut down the flow of creative problem solving and new ideas, not just from that employee but from others as well. The “chilling effect” as we know it happens when speech or conduct is sup- pressed because of fear of penalization. Frequently we find employees are too paralyzed to take action. They are afraid of making mistakes. They are afraid of being reprimanded. They are afraid of disappointing or angering the den- tist. They have to secure approval on everything from the way they answer the phones to the way they punctuate a sentence. Consequently, the practice is virtually immobilized because no one has permission to think, to improve sys- tems or, as the case may be, occasionally screw up. Celebrate the blunders Dentists, being notorious perfection- ists (a quality that patients dearly ap- preciate), are keenly focused on doing everything right. Understandably, you are mortified when you or members of your team make mistakes, even though you fully understand that to err is hu- man. Like everyone else, some days you and your team are simply more “human” than others. Yet, it’s through mistakes that you and your practice have grown, and perhaps once a year, throwing a party to celebrate the blunders rather than stuffing them in the closet, hoping they go away and never embarrass you again is something to consider. It’s easy to celebrate how great you and your team are and the successes. But what about the tough challenges, the hurdles and the many things that went wrong that you and your team had to face? The fact is that, while the experiences ” See MISTAKES, page A5 PRACTICE MATTERS