Creating a SMART Dental CEO Mindset!

by Shawn Peers, Dental Peers

SMART
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Happy New Year!

I hope the Holiday Season was enjoyable for all of you and that you managed to find ways to spoil your team members as well as your family. All the better if they spoiled you too!

For many, this is the time of year we envision the “new and improved” versions of ourselves. We will start exercising regularly, eating better and looking after ourselves. Such is the joy of New Year’s resolutions!

Inevitably, most of these resolutions will fail. One of the reasons they fail is they are so broad and lofty that it is practically impossible to measure any success we might have.

Perhaps some of you may have resolved to improve the business operations of your dental practice, to be a better dental CEO! I have to say that, as an MBA graduate, I cannot help but applaud you for having such a goal.

But the question is: how do you determine if you’re moving toward success with that endeavor?

The problem is a resolution to simply become a better dental CEO is, essentially, a goal without clarity. To truly embark on such a journey, you need to begin with goals that adhere to the old adage of setting SMART goals!

We are likely all familiar with the SMART acronym the idea that new goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound. To become a real dental CEO, you need to be able to set SMART goals that will move you in that direction. Simply resolving to “think like a CEO” does not qualify as a SMART goal.

Instead, break down some of the elements that will move you in the direction of becoming a true CEO. We discussed one of the most important aspects in a previous blog when we talked about the importance of delegating tasks to team members rather than trying to do them all yourself.

When we consider this, we can see how it can be considered a SMART goal. If we identify the tasks we want to begin delegating, we have a SPECIFIC goal. We can certainly see how well we are doing at assigning tasks to team members, so it is MEASURABLE.

I hope we can all agree that learning to delegate tasks is an ACHIEVABLE goal! You may have some obstacles in your personal mindset that you will have to overcome, and we will discuss some of these in upcoming blogs; however, once you do move past those obstacles, assigning new responsibilities to your team members should be something you can achieve.

Given the responsibilities you will be assigning to team members remain important to the success of your practice, what you are doing is certainly RELEVANT. And you can easily create deadlines by which time you would like to see other team members running with these new responsibilities, so you can clearly set a TIME to achieve this goal.

Remember just like improving your health, the goal to becoming a better dental CEO is not something that needs to be achieved all at once. You simply want to keep moving the needle in the right direction and, before you know it, you just may arrive at your destination!

So, begin to think about some of the elements you may need to change to become a true dental CEO and consider whether they are consistent with the establishment of SMART goals. Make a list of those elements (and we will discuss some in future blogs) and set yourself on the path to running the business side of your practice like a true CEO!


About the Author

Shawn Peers is the President of DentalPeers. DentalPeers is one of Canada’s oldest, continuous operating buying groups exclusively for dentists.

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