Creating a Vision for Your Practice

If you like to project yourself as a no frills, hard-hitting lady (just as I do), you might be backing away from some of the softer elements of leadership, because the last thing you want is to appear vulnerable and emotional with your team. It can be difficult for a woman in a leadership position to show sensitivity for fear it will be perceived as weakness. I remember the first time Dr. Jim Pride, our founder, broached with me the subject of leading with vision. My response was, "Even if we are a California-based company, I don't want to link hands and sing Kum Ba Yah!"

As I matured in my role of leader, however, my respect and acceptance of the softer elements of leadership became more and more profound. What I've come to understand is that a woman entrepreneur not only needs to know where her business is going operationally, but she also needs to take the time to explain her direction and invite her staff, customers, and others to come along, which strengthens her message. So, yes, I now believe you can be a black-and-white, hard-hitting leader who creates and communicates through vision and values.

Every modern theory of leadership starts with the same "step zero": creating a vision that really works. For example, authors Kouzas and Posner of The Leadership Challenge observe the following: "Despite the sometimes humorous references to 'the vision thing', no serious contemporary treatment of leadership would suggest that a leader should be concerned only about short-term performance and not about the long-term creation of value. It's an accepted fact of a leader's life." And "No matter what term is used [to describe the leader's vision]—whether purpose, mission, legacy, dream, goal, calling, or personal agenda—the intent is the same: leaders want to do something significant . . ."
Ken Blanchard echoes the same message in his new book, Leading at a Higher Level. He says: "Why don't more leaders have a vision? We believe it's a lack of knowledge. Many leaders . . . say they just don't get the 'vision thing'. They acknowledge that vision is desirable, but they're unsure how to create it."

The need for vision holds true in every dental practice. In your day-to-day activities, as you try to inspire dental assistants to hand you the right instruments, financial coordinators to collect at 98 percent, patients to accept ideal treatment, and labs to get your cases back on time, those requests communicate to others HOW you want the job done. It is only through your vision that you can provide the WHY, i.e., the reason for your team, patients, and business partners to do what you want them to do. A secret of the universe is: The WHY provides passion. The HOW (without the WHY) creates drudgery. Giving yourself and others the meaning behind the tasks you and they perform imparts value to those tasks. Without clearly, explicitly knowing and embracing the meaning behind what we do, our actions can be merely mechanical and uninspired. I dare you to examine your own practice life and ask yourself which of your tasks feels like a drudgery. How would you recognize such tasks? Anything that is introduced by the words "I should"—I should be a better leader, have more staff meetings, inspire my hygiene staff, etc.—can feel like an "eat your spinach" moment. I would bet those "I should" tasks lack a clear, compelling vision. All of us want to know that our work is for a noble reason and purpose, and the vision is what gives our life and work value.

When I refer to vision, I'm not talking about fluffy slogans, such as, "I want to help all the little children of the world." You can tune in to any beauty pageant and mock contestants saying the same thing, knowing they are just trying to score points with the judges and not stating what they themselves truly, passionately want out of life. Your vision must be deeply, personally meaningful to you and not merely politically correct rhetoric. Defining the true vision of what you really want for your professional life is incredibly liberating. It is exhilarating to realize that you can create your practice in a way that gives you significant purpose. There is a common tendency for a woman to think of her life and practice as simply a vehicle to serve others. However, a woman must serve herself, also. Serving your patients with your dentistry and providing jobs for your staff are the result of serving yourself—by practicing the kind of dentistry you want to do, living a comfortable lifestyle, providing a good education for your children, securing a comfortable retirement, etc. Your practice vision focuses on you and on the goals and values that you want most to achieve through your work.

To identify the vision that you truly desire requires courage. I'm inspired by the meaning of this word as it applies to vision. "Courage" comes from the same root as the French word "coeur," meaning "heart." So, we can think of courage as driving the heart, not the head, into something. Approaching your vision with courage means making it emotionally gripping and compelling—to you, and then to your team, patients, and others whom you want to embrace it.

Creating Your Special Vision

In order to create a compelling vision, here are three key steps for you to follow:

1. Define a significant purpose.You can't achieve your ideal practice until you know precisely what it is. In clarifying your purpose, ask yourself some basic questions, including: What kind of dentistry do I want to do? What outcomes do I want to achieve? Why do I want to achieve them? What type of patients do I want to have in order to do the kind of dentistry that I want to do? What qualities do I want my staff to possess? What kind of service do I want to provide that will complement the type of dentistry I want to do? Your answers will provide a blueprint for a purpose-driven practice.
   
2. Paint a compelling picture of the future (one that you really, really want). It's amazing how many women dentists are so consumed with the day-to-day operations that they haven't stopped to identify where they want to be down the road. Ask yourself: What do I want success to be for me in one, five, and 10 years from now? The answer can't be, "Hopefully, I'll be doing the same thing I'm doing now, with very little change." The future is like the horizon. As you sail closer to it, the horizon remains in the distance. This is why Dr. Pride so often said: "Success is not the end of the journey, but the journey itself." As you achieve your goals, you need to be setting new ones for the challenges looming ahead.

Also keep in mind that the vision for your ideal dental practice may never be 100-percent fulfilled. This does not mean you have failed. Your vision will have done its job if it moves you forward to levels of success that you never thought were possible.

1. Establish clear values that change as your vision evolves and that guide your decisions daily. One of the most important lessons I've learned as a long-term leader is that business values shift dramatically throughout a person's career. It's desirable for the character values that make us good people, such as honesty and integrity, to remain unchanged throughout our lives; however, our business values do indeed need to change. If you attempt to run your practice on the same values that you had straight out of dental school, your vision might sound something like this: "I'd like to do dentistry on someone, not get yelled at, and get paid for it." Ten years into practice, your key values may have shifted to: "I'd like to have a practice that's balanced and efficient in order to provide me with an excellent income and also allow me to spend significant time with my family." Five years later, your key values might create a vision that has shifted to: "I'd like to invest in the latest and greatest in state-of-the-art-technology and use my practice to express my clinical creativity." All of those visions can be valid because as the leader is growing and changing, her values are shifting. Rather than fear new horizons, a leader can gain significant fulfillment by recognizing a shift and creating a new vision along with goals and strategies to support it.

A common flaw in women dentists, as I mentioned above, is to base their practice on the values of being liked and accepted by others. If you are attempting to run your practice on the value of service to others because it's what you think your patients and team respond to, you will not have the passion required to make your vision a reality—because you've left your self out of the equation. If you wake up every morning wanting to hit the snooze button, chances are there's something lacking in your vision. Re-examine it to be sure it reflects what you, personally, deeply desire for your fulfillment and happiness.

Getting Your Team On the Bus

In developing a team of individuals banded together towards a common goal (your vision), each one, by his or her very nature, has a personal vision. The practice vision becomes the mother ship, the vehicle that all team members can hitch a ride to, in order to accomplish their individual, personal goals. While your vision should not be set by a democratic process—you don't need your staff's permission to set the purpose and goals of your life as a dentist—you do, however, need your team to consider how their own personal goals can be accomplished within your vision.

For example, a classic practice vision could sound something like this: "Our mission is to provide excellence in dentistry with warmth, caring, and humor in an environment that leaves everybody smiling. Our patients enthusiastically appreciate our level of care and therefore commit to a lifetime of oral health and pay us the highest compliment by referring. We accomplish our goals as a team of unique individuals who genuinely care about the process and results. Excellence in everything is expected and applauded."

This practice vision can be a vehicle for the leader to accomplish her very own personal goals, which could include supporting her family, allowing time for outside interests and hobbies, and providing the profitable environment to practice the kind of dentistry that she desires. If the practice vision is accomplished, the staff members can look forward to accomplishing their personal goals, which might include being well compensated so that they can provide the environment for the home life and outside interests that they truly would like to have.

Committing Your Vision to Writing

If you are the only person in the world who knows about your vision, then it is more like a hallucination. It must be committed to writing so that it will be real to you and communicable and engaging to others. In developing a full, precise, written statement of your vision, include the following three aspects:

Practicing Your Dream

Once you have a written, formal vision, the strength of it doesn't come from merely framing and hanging it in your reception area. The strength comes from it being a guiding principle and filter for everything that you, your team, and your patients accomplish in your practice. The mark of an excellent vision is how many times it is referred to daily, i.e., in highlighting excellent behaviors and results, as well as in correcting ineffective attitudes and outcomes.

The first time that patients should get the impression your practice is guided by a vision is in your marketing, in their first phone call to your practice, and in your welcome packet and new patient evaluation.

The first time that staff members should have an awareness your practice is guided by a vision is in your employment ad, interview process, job descriptions, and training plan. I.e., your vision should be pervasive. It should be the background music, setting the tone for all of the team's and patients' encounters with your practice from the outset.

Dancing to Your New Tune: "Me and My Vision"

What I love about vision is that once you've created something you can truly feel passionate about, it becomes as attuned to you as your shadow. When you're making tough decisions, such as "Is it okay to let a key staff member arrive late for huddle every day?" or "Should I invest in a very expensive piece of equipment?" you need never feel lonely again. Now you have your vision to keep you company. You can say to a staff member, "I understand that you're arriving late every day to get your kids to school. And it violates our vision." Or you can say to the salesperson on the convention floor, "I'm interested in purchasing this equipment because it supports and promotes my vision." Your vision gives you a guiding principle to aid you in decision-making and support you in moving your life and practice forward.

Being a woman leader that has to confront, communicate, create, and collaborate is risky business. Without a vision, the risk increases tenfold. Protect yourself. Find the ideas and words that communicate what you're passionate about, then wear your vision like a suit of armor, protecting you against all threats and displaying your honor to the world. That's your vision.

Amy Morgan is CEO and lead trainer of Pride Institute.

Originally published in Woman Dentist Journal , January 2008