I was reading a post recently on a dental Facebook group which asked the question, what is the number one frustration for dentists? And as you can imagine, sometimes with a post like that, lots of people want to put their two cents in. Do you want to know what the number one thing was? It was relating to staffing. And now I don’t know the circumstance of all the people who posted, but I read through there was 100 plus comments, and I was looking for themes, and staffing was a really strong one. And I’m going to deliver a message to you. If you go, yeah, that’s me. Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I’m going to deliver a message that you may not like, like if you think that staffing is the number one problem at your practice, and most of the comments were more or less staff, not good quality, not doing what they’re meant to do, etc, etc. Guess whose fault that is. And I’m sorry to be so blunt, but actually it’s yours as an owner, it’s my fault, because I recruited them. I was the one who set up the ads, and maybe I didn’t do a very good job. I was the one who set up the recruitment process, and maybe I didn’t do a very good job. I was the person responsible for training this person. I was the person responsible for setting the culture in the organisation and weeding out the people who are not part of the culture.
You may think that’s tough. I interviewed a guy on my podcasts recently. Podcast is practice growth, HQ, and the interview was with a guy called Matt O’Neill, whose business was ranked the number one place to work in the entire state. He was in South Carolina. And I can tell you, like, you don’t get to be that by going, Oh, staff are my number one problem. He had quite the opposite. He was like, every time somebody leaves, that’s costing me about four times their salary to bring them back, and so therefore he was doing everything he could to make his place the best place to work.
There’s a book by Jaco Willink called Extreme Ownership, which basically says the same thing, Navy SEAL guy. Fascinating book. If there’s a problem with staffing in your business, I’m sorry, but actually it’s your fault. It’s my fault. As the owner, I get sometimes we need to blow off steam. But the reality is, if you look across your team, you’re like, well, that person’s not too good, and that person’s not too good, and so on. Well, I’m afraid you know, as the saying goes, when you point the finger forward, there are three fingers pointing back, so just be aware it comes down to you. If you’ve got a problem, it’s down to you to fix it. See you next time.