Last year, in January, we had a meeting of our Senior Leadership Team at The Campbell Clinic Group to set a strategy forwards for the next 1, 2 and 3 years.
Within that meeting, we investigated the current dental market, the current economic situation, and political factors which may affect our business, before looking at our business in detail.
We examined what opportunities existed, what problems were present, and what solutions we could have.
In short, we looked at the best possible way for us to continue to survive and thrive in dentistry.
We set some targets for growth and for profit and identified some areas where we could make some wins. We divided this out across the different people in the group and set forward on the projects.
But the meeting came just a few weeks after I had been given a wonderful present by Hayley — my friend, colleague, managing director, and right‑ and left‑hand woman.
The present was a Lego Millennium Falcon (Hayley knows the type of thing that I like).
I ‘stole like an artist’ from someone else and decided to build the Millennium Falcon in the practice during the year to demonstrate our progress towards completion of the projects for those 12 months.
This was an idea stolen from Capital One, the bank in Nottingham where my sister‑in‑law used to work, who built the Death Star in a similar way.
What then happened was that I had the genius idea of delegating the job of building the Millennium Falcon to a member of the team.
We started the process: they divided it into 25 build sections, and I would present it at our two‑weekly Tuesday meetings.
Several things happened to make sure that didn’t go to plan.
- The projects we worked on didn’t actually run in two‑week cycles. Projects ebb and flow — sometimes you’re winning, sometimes you’re losing, sometimes you have to readjust to get where you’re going, so it was hard to build the Falcon in a way that was representative of how the projects were running.
- The person to whom the project had been delegated left the practice and went to pastures new. Therefore I had no one to delegate the project to (or so it seemed).
- What I did then was ‘run into the burning building’ and say that I would build the Millennium Falcon myself and present it at the meetings — which of course I never did.
The reason I didn’t build it is because I was doing other things and it would always fall down the list of priorities because it wasn’t part of my main job.
Of course, what I should have done was redelegate that project to someone who was good at it, who had the space for it, and who could do it with pride.
That’s the key to delegation.
It’s the key to projects.
It’s the absolute key to getting sh*t done.
It started to run and run, and then it was due to be completed because almost all of the projects were completed, to one degree or another, by January when we had our second meeting, and so we could present it to the team.
As the stress got greater to complete the Lego Millennium Falcon (not really huge stress), I redelegated the project.
I gave it to my son Callum, who works part‑time in the business while he’s at school, doing video editing and work in The Academy.
Callum loves building Lego.
He completed it in two days.
It’s perfect, and the picture of it is attached to this.
When I say it’s perfect, it’s absolutely perfect except for that aqua‑blue tube, which is supposed to attach to the back of the Falcon, but it can’t, because while it was at home being built, I inadvertently dropped the tube on the floor and it was eaten by my little sausage dog to the point where it can’t be attached.
The projects and the Falcon are incomplete — but they are much more complete than they would have been had the work not been delegated.
Projects never run to plan.
No battle plan ever stands contact with the enemy.
And they never really finish. There are always bits that are not what you expected, or bits that are “dropped on the floor”.
But we are a lot, lot further on than we were a year ago.
Do you get it?
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