Have you ever had a team member who was afraid to talk to patients or was not outgoing or building connections with your patients? I have had several team members like that throughout the years.
Unfortunately, many team members who aren’t naturally outgoing or warm assume they have a disadvantage. However, the truth is introverted team members and team members who struggle to make connections can excel in the dental practice if you give them the right training, tasks, and direction. Here’s how to help those team members thrive.
Identify the personality types of your team members.
When people struggle to make connections, the first step to help them is to identify your team members’ personality types. Identifying personality types helps you understand many things about team members, including how they make connections with others.
I recommend using the DISC profile to identify personality types. Within DISC, there are four personality types. There is the D type, which stands for a dominant personality style. They tend to be the leaders and are okay with taking risks, but they also can come off as pushy. Then there is the I type, which stands for the influence personality style. They tend to be more outgoing and the life of the party. People with the I personality tend to not be very good at following through.
The S style, which stands for steadiness, tend to be more sensitive with strong feelings of connection to other people. On the flip side, people with S personality types tend to be taken advantage of more often because they're so kind and loving. Finally, you have the C type, which stands for conscientiousness. People with C personalities are very detail-oriented. These are people that typically are going to be accountants or that may be surgeons. On the flip side of the Cs is sometimes they are very serious and sometimes they are really slow to make decisions.
Personality assessments can be very insightful and instructive, so we even administer them within our Delivering WOW Accelerator Program, as well as for our coaching clients in our Mastermind. It's been insightful to get feedback from doctors saying, “Now I understand why my hygienist, who's very outgoing, struggles with writing chart notes.” As team members start to understand their behavioral style and team members understand each other better, you can assign tasks accordingly.
Delegate tasks with each team member’s personality in mind.
As we start looking at behavioral styles and the roles of our team members and the roles that they occupy in our practice, it's really important that we understand where they are in terms of a natural behavioral style.
I remember in the early days of my practice, I wanted to have social media implemented. We ended up giving that task to someone who had an S-style, so they were a calm natured, introvert. But they struggled with one of the key parts of our social media strategy, to collect patient video testimonials. There were great creating posts but were uncomfortable asking patients for video testimonials. We decided to switch it up and gave that part of the task to a team member that had more of the I-style. That person was very outgoing and loved talking to people. All of a sudden, it was easy for her to make that connection and get those video testimonials.
Once you start to assign tasks according to your team members’ strengths and put them in the area of their natural behavioral style, you'll see the results that start to happen in your practice. Then, give them training on tasks that fit their natural strengths so they can get better and better. The more you do this, the more your team will work better individually and together.
Build your team with diversity in mind.
Take a look at the personality styles across your team. The best teams have balance. Start looking at building out your team with diversity of personality styles in mind. Think about what you have a lot of and what types of people can fill the gaps in your practice in terms of behavioral styles.
If you have a team that is full of I-types, you're going to have a lot of fun in your practice because there's going to be a lot of extroverts. However, consider that flip side of it, where if you're having too much fun, you need somebody to be serious, get things done, and make sure that everyone is being held accountable.
As you grow your team with diversity in mind, you will be able to build a better, stronger team. You will also be more able to put people in positions that match their natural tendencies, making everyone more likely to succeed.
Are you ready to train dental team members who are not good with patients?
If you haven't yet tested behavioral styles in your practice, I highly recommend doing so. Then, direct tasks and training to the activities that fit your teams’ natural strengths. If you want help, get in touch with my team and we can help.
In the meantime, join our free Dental Boss Movement group on Facebook. Inside that group, you will be able to mastermind and share with dentists and team members to help you grow your practice quickly.
