Gene St. Louis explains why dental/medical practices struggle to hire and benefit from practice coaches, attributing problems mainly to resistance to change (from doctors or staff) and mindset/attitude issues. He emphasizes that good coaches focus on patient interest first, avoid ego-driven one-size-fits-all programs, and teach changes organically to build momentum and staff buy-in.
Let's talk about why a practice struggles with hiring a coach. First and foremost, it's usually either the doctor doesn't want to change or the team doesn't want to change, or the doctor's fearful that the team won't change. But yet I find what happens is it's about a mindset, it's about an attitude. And sometimes what I see is offices are not celebrating their successes, what they're doing right. The doctor or an office manager is the first to point out, sometimes, hey, we need to do this better or this isn't going right. We're not celebrating our successes. That's the first thing. Think about anyone that you know in sports, the Olympics, they have coaches and they have coaches because those coaches guide them and teach them what they can do differently to improve their performance. It's the same thing with a practice coach. Are there bad ones out there? You betcha. Are there good ones? Absolutely. And part of those good ones are people that take a lot of pride in what they deliver and they don't have an ego about them in the sense of, you must do my program, you must do my systems, only my systems. There's a method to it. The method is really looking at the practice and seeing first and foremost what is in the best interest of the patient. If what you're going to change is in the best interest of the patient, by all means you should do that. All of us want to do what's in the best interest of our patients. Secondarily, is it more efficient to make the change? And if it is, you do that. And the reason being is because being efficient and being of the right mindset helps to create momentum and change organically. You don't have to shove it down someone's throat. You just have to organically teach them. The biggest mistakes I see with practice owners is they don't hire coaching or coaches to do any kind of training. And so what the staff is left to is pulling out of things out of their toolbox that they used in other practices throughout their journey before they came to you. I was faced the same way when I was a staff member. I wanted the doctor to succeed, but I could only use the tools that were in my toolbox. Once those tools were used up, I didn't know what else to do. And one practice is not created like all practices. One neighborhood is not like every neighborhood. So you have to be creative. You have to be really looking at this with eyes open. And I think the biggest successes in our firm with, with our clients is when the client has a great mindset, positive attitude, embraces the change, and understands that the journey is not going to be kicking and pulling your staff along the way. The staff does like change. They like to learn things. Some staff are stuck in their ways. I'm not going to lie about it. They don't want to change at all. But aren't we all like that as humans? We get comfortable in our own little corner and we don't want to change. And that's okay until we learn the why. If we know the why that we're doing this in the best interest of the patient, that's the success. So I hope you will dig deeper into what we're about and we can have a conversation with you.
