Rarely have I seen things as seemingly difficult for people in dentistry as I see them now.
There are two people I see in dentistry who are in distress.
The first has no idea of the distress that they're in and is sleepwalking towards catastrophe. I have sight of lots of these people through different aspects of my work, the most telling of these is the new graduates, 64 of whom sat in our practice last week. Most of them have no insight into how dentistry will change in the next 5 years, how the workforce will alter, or how working patterns will alter.
How the possibility of being economically viable in dentistry will change out of all sight within the next 5 years. How technology and the workforce change, and the two mixed together, will change dentistry out of sight.
The other people are the ones who know they're in distress, the second big group. I have never ever seen as many people who know they are in distress in dentistry as they are now. People are waking up to the fact that what we did before just doesn't work, the way we did dentistry before, the model that we developed, the high-grossing principle, with the majority of the skills. Working with a practise who paid their bills so they could keep their growth is completely and utterly gone. The ability to run a practice now, to uplift people and to create value within your team and your group, is fundamental and critical for survival (not even prosperity).
I'm working with Chris Barrow now a lot as we continue to develop our new business education division and portfolio within The Campbell Academy, and in the conversations that I have with Chris, it's extraordinary how our perspectives come together.
Chris has been coaching for 30 years or more in dentistry, has been in and out of thousands of practises, but has never actually been a dentist.
I have not been coaching for 30 years, but I have been and been in and amongst dentistry for that time.
The two different perspectives come together to provide a synergy and understanding of what's happening in practise that I believe is quite unrivalled.
I used to be the chairman of the local dental committee in Nottingham.
I used to chair the oral health advisory Group.
I was a founder member of the board of the British Association of Surgical Dentistry (it’s now oral surgery).
I was secretary of the East Midlands British Dental Association.
I was the elected member of the General Dental Practice Committee for the East Midlands.
I watched a lot of dental politics and knew a lot of people's practices.
I had insight into what was going on over 25 years ago, from then until now.
Everything has changed, but the pace of change now is quicker and quicker and quicker.
The skills that you need to navigate the new world are not the skills that you use to navigate the old, as I keep saying again and again, “you have to kill the person you were born to be to become the person you want to be”.
Blog Post Number - 4553
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