3 ways to hold your dental team Liable

Liability is giving people the tools to help them develop as professionals so that they can do their jobs. It’s up to you as the boss to make this happen.

Hearing the word “accountability or liability” makes employees nervous. They believe it involves assigning blame or providing excuses. But it doesn’t and it can’t. Playing the blame game doesn’t help anyone.

True Liability is giving people the tools to help them develop as professionals so that they can do their jobs. Unfortunately, most leaders don’t understand how to instill a sense of liability in their teams. But if you want to have a great team, one that runs like a well-oiled machine, liability is key. And it begins with you.

Three ways to increase team liability

Developing accountability within your team will never happen on its own. You must take the steps to build it in your staff.

Follow these strategies for increased team accountability:

Consistently check the deadlines

Whenever you assign a task, you must give a deadline. Whether you need it today, or months from now, you must provide a due date. Why? Because tasks without deadlines usually go to the bottom of the pile of everything else that needs to be done. For example, cutting gauze and making cotton rolls is a day to day task but it too comes with a deadline as to never leave the task for last minute. Managing the inventory, counting the buffer stock and ordering new material comes with a deadline to avoid any last-minute confusion.

Measure tasks- If you just ask someone to communicate better, that cannot be measured. However, if you specifically ask your front desk person to ensure that the specialists and associate doctors know when a patient is waiting past his or her appointment time, that task can be checked. Instruct your team that certain things need to be done daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. It will be quite uncomplicated to measure what gets done at the end of these time periods.

Analyze the results- If your team doesn’t understand your expectations, you’ll never get the desired result. Be clear with your staff about all the tasks. This means communicating exactly how many items you want to order, specific dates and time you’ll need, a profit and loss report on your desk, or personally demonstrating your new inventory system. Also, let your team members know that if they have trouble they should report back to you immediately.

Once you create accountability in your team, everyone will know what is the responsibility of each individual expected and the team members will operate together and independently with confidence, alerting you only when they need your help.