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10 Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition | 7/2016 BUSINESS By Lina Craven, UK Practitioners’ expectations of the kind of manager they want for their practice vary considerably in terms of experience and skills. How guilty are you of promoting a nurse or receptionist to a management role without determining the skills gap and providing the necessary train- ing? It is a common scenario in our industry. Practitioners have a responsi- bility to their teams and to the financial success of their practices to appoint someone who either has the necessary skills or has the capacity to learn them in the ap- propriate time frame. How realis- tic are your expectations and how can you ensure your management role results in success? Creating and managing realistic expectations Expectations are difficult to control and impossible to turn off. According to Brazos Consulting, “Expectations are deeper and broader than ‘requirements’. Ex- pectation is your vision of a future state or action, usually unstated but which is critical to your suc- cess.” By learning to identify and influence what you expect, and by ensuring it is clearly communi- cated, understood and agreed with your manager, you can dra- matically improve the quality, impact and effectiveness of your business. Expectations are created by many different circumstances. It may be something you said or the way that you said it, something you or someone else did, or an expectation of your prospective manager based on his or her pre- vious experience. The vital point here is that expectations, whether right or wrong, rational or other- wise, are not developed in a vacuum. You should consider in- stances when you were let down by your manager and ask yourself how that expectation was derived. Was it based on an agreement with your manager after a discussion or was it based on something you said or thought in passing? In retrospect, you may wonder how realistic that expectation was and why you thought your manager was in the strongest possible posi- tion to fulfil it. In my experience, the follow- ing scenarios are typical of how un- realistic expectations are created: • The practitioner is busy and needs someone to take charge. He or she chooses the “best of the bunch”, hoping he or she will learn on the job. • The new manager has his or her expectations of the job and these are often unrealistic. • No detailed job description or ob- jectives are ever provided. No on- the-job or any other type of train- ing is provided; the practitioner simply assumes the manager will learn as he or she goes along. Manager versus clinician How to manage expectations of the management role and turn it into success ©GeorgeRudy/Shutterstock.comAD