6 THE ADA PRACTICAL GUIDE TO LEADING AND MANAGING THE DENTAL TEAM Talk the Talk: Arming the Team With the Verbal Skills They Need Solid verbal skills are the foundation of any successful practice. Each member of the dental team, dentists included, needs to have the ability to communicate effectively, both internally (among coworkers) and externally (with patients and referring dentists), in order for the practice to operate efficiently and effectively on a daily basis. Dental Drama #3: My team should know how to better communicate with patients. Patient communication is one area where strong verbal skills are essential. Sounds simple enough, right? The problem is that effective communication practices are not natural for everyone, and a lack of verbal skills is a surefire way to foster unnecessary drama in the dental practice. Think back to your dental school days. Were you expected to intuitively know how to do a crown prep? On the contrary, most likely you were taught a meticulous technique by an expert, slowly gained speed and reliability and ultimately mastered the process over a long period of time by practicing over and over. Of course, today, after having done the procedure countless times, it’s likely second nature to you and takes you a fraction of the time to complete. Verbal skills should be thought of in the same way. They are technical skills that are taught, learned, honed and perfected by repetition over time. As you likely learned in dental school, acquiring proficiency (let alone excellence) in any mechanical skill “naturally” is not simply ambitious — it’s likely impossible. So, examine the various types of communications that take place within the dental team as well as with patients and prospective patients. The hygiene team went through years of schooling to learn their trade, but that doesn’t automatically make them skilled in interviewing patients. The front desk team is trained in office software and processes, but that doesn’t automatically give them the skills to answer phones in the most effective way possible regardless of patients’ questions or financial concerns. This is where issues arise: when a dentist expects the staff to “just know” what to say and do without providing guidance or professional instruction. Identify areas where the staff may be lacking and provide them with ongoing continuing education, in-office consulting or access to online classes to help them acquire the expertise they need to improve and be successful. General training in verbal skills as well as coaching on specific tactics such as case presentation, addressing insurance issues and financial concerns, asking for patient referrals are all ripe opportunities to strengthen the communication proficiencies of the dental team. What else can you do? Distribute scripts in the beginning of training to demonstrate how to effectively communicate with patients. Encourage role playing amongst the staff so that they can take what they learn from the scripts and practice on each other. This will help them improvise and find their own ways of personalizing what they’ve learned, which always helps communication come across as more confident and genuine. It is generally well worth the time, money and effort to invest in team training. Not only will it better illustrate the dentist’s goals to the staff, but it will arm them with the tools to meet those expectations — and to better communicate with each other and with each patient.