Communicating what you want

Recently I received an interesting question. It was about how to get dental assistants to do what you want without coming across as bossy or demanding.

I’ll be the first to admit that team management is not my absolute strongest point but a few thoughts came to mind.

The first is not to try to train staff when you are working on a patient. Under the pressure of working on a patient attempts at staff training can come off as rude or harsh.

My best times for staff training are at a weekly meeting or when we had some down time. I was relaxed and there was no time pressure.

“Melissa, I’d like to try something different when we do a new patient examination. Could you please always do XY and Z before I come into the room? You can? Thanks that will be such a big help.”

The second thing is that once you decide to do something is to stick to it. Don’t decide to do X, then do Y tomorrow. Inconsistency will undermine all efforts at staff training.

The third thing is when what you want is not happening, don’t bottle it up and then explode:

“Why aren’t you doing X, Y and Z? We agreed you were going to do that.”

Instead you need to find a quiet and peaceful time and go over what you want done in a peaceful and non-accusatory manner.

I hope these three tips help you.