We are all going through a very difficult situation and unfortunately we do not know how long it will last. Whether we are talking about large clinics, whose burden related to supporting employees and administrative aspects is extremely heavy, or about doctor-owners or employees whose care for patients is amplified by the impossibility of helping them, we are facing a crisis and we owe it to ourselves to get through it correctly.
It is our social and professional duty to be a permanent support in creating a state of normality and in maintaining the balance we need so much in these moments. And the first step is to start from inside the business we own or of which we are part.
Dental practices and clinics are currently closed and clarifications for future actions in this regard are still awaited. What is to be done?
How do you manage internally the changes that occur, as a manager or doctor-entrepreneur?
Communicate. Understand. Keep calm. Turn them into a team every day.
Regardless of how long this situation lasts, it is very important to communicate clearly and transparently with your team, to understand and accept the difficulty some on the team have in being 100% with you, and to maintain the level of calm for productivity now and afterwards. It does not sound easy and it is not — but these are key elements that will help your entire team get through these difficult moments and support with fresh strength the return of the clinic's activity.
Communicate.
Centralise the information around you and establish a personalised way of discussing with the team all the changes that occur, and that implicitly generate modifications in your clinic as well.
Be transparent and honest, however hard it may seem. It will help people understand and become aware of the seriousness of the change.
Assure them that you are doing everything your material and non-material resources allow to offer them professional safety for as long as possible — and tell them this. They need the promise of effort first of all, in order to have the possibility of a favourable result. They need perspective. Only then can they be motivated to stay with you in this extremely difficult period. After all, effort is shared in good times and bad.
Understand.
We are all in a stage of stress, worry, and questions for which we seek or try to form answers. Understand your team's fear first of all because of the different mindset. As a manager or entrepreneur, your first filter of thinking is a professional one, while theirs is an emotional one. Therefore, your mission is to try to understand the team members who react emotionally, who do not succeed from the first reaction in empathising with the involvement you need, and to help them understand that their involvement now influences the continuity of a business of which they need to remain part.
Do not condemn the fear of any team member, because each has a certain emotional involvement and their own way of reacting to external stress factors. The human side is the best support in the present situation, even if the current context will generate in various forms a reduction of the team.
Another mission of yours is not to feed this manifestation of "fear of tomorrow." Your team's morale must be protected from such influences, because in crisis or deadlock situations, a herd spirit can very easily be triggered. Speak pointedly with whoever you believe needs your support.
Keep calm.
Your calm is the most important, because it is transmitted, it is taken as an example, and it motivates.
Regardless of administrative changes, business figures, and authorities' announcements, in front of your team you must be a model, a leader, a constant source of calm.
It is good for us all to be informed, and the current situation certainly generates this behaviour in people. Staying at home exposes every team member to all the news in the press; that can frequently reset their morale.
Turn them into a team every day.
Your moral support for them can turn into an effort you will have to make constantly. Uncertainty, insecurity, changes, and a duration no one can anticipate generate new states every day.
If you do everything you can to keep them united, not only involved, they will encourage one another, motivate one another, and take as an example a majority behaviour that predominates.
Having a team even when you do not have an open clinic also helps you charge yourself with optimism, with motivation to withstand the period — both for yourself and your business, and for them.
These recommendations for internal team management come from the success of those who have implemented them and do not turn you into your team's counsellor, but into the support pillar you all need. Implementing them creates a boomerang effect and you will guaranteed enjoy the result of a devoted team.
In the short term we have this crisis, but in the long term it is our duty as entrepreneurs to form or to format human and material resources in order to return to the mission of existing for patients.