An Unexpected Source of Team-building

Peter Gardell

14 years ago

An interesting thing came to my mind this week. I took Dr Skramsadt's advice, and arranged to have a videographer come to the office to film for my updated Web site. This made me do a few things to prepare. My office is only a few months old and I thought it was looking good, but I wanted to bring it up a notch or two. I got the staff involved by having them go shopping on a day I was out of the office to get some new things for the walls. I made sure that those going asked the hygienists who are not normally in that day for ideas for their rooms. We are changing seasons, so it was needed anyway. I walked through the office with everyone. And instead of running through the place to either get in on time or running out the other way to get out early, we actually looked at the waiting room, the front desk area and the treatment rooms. The question asked were, would you want to be treated here, and would you want to come back. I needed to go through with the staff since I am color blind and have no appreciation for what color goes with what. Turned out to be a great team-building exercise. Was good for communication, and gave the people a feeling of ownership on how the practice looks. People noticed and made positive comments. We told them what we were doing and why we were doing it. And the staff took pride in the fact that they made a difference. For internal marketing you want to get the patients motivated, get them excited. Some of the patients asked if we were accepting new patients, and of course are answer is we are always looking for good patients such as you!