Five steps to mastery

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As a dentist you are probably striving to do your best, attending clinical courses, buying new equipment, improving your practice etc and if you are going to become a master at what you do you need to go through these 5 stages

Stage 1 Unconscious incompetence

In stage one, you don’t know what you don't know, or ignorance is bliss. This stage on the path to mastery is the most destructive and will have the most detrimental effect on your career and personal life. In this stage you accept the status quo and there is no quest for self-improvement or development. For some dentists there is imbalance in their careers and they stay in this stage when it comes to building a practice, business development, communication skills, and team development and happily move on to the second stage for their clinical work.

Stage 2 Conscious incompetence

In stage two you become conscious about how much you don’t know about an area of your practice, clinical or communication skills. This may be precipitated because you have had a complaint, you are in financial difficulty, you have a dispute, or a staff member leaves. Unlike stage 1, stage 2 can be uncomfortable, recognising that you have made mistakes and don’t know all that you think you should, can be embarrassing, frustrating, depressing, and it can also be exhilarating and fascinating as you recognise that you are at the beginning of a journey of exploration and learning. As you step in to conscious incompetence, you have a choice; you can deny that there are areas of your practice, clinical or communication skills that could be improved and ignore all the warning signs. Do this at your peril. Or you can step in to stage 3.

If you are committed to improving your practice and your practise, I would encourage you to do regular assessments of your performance. Our clients use the Brilliant Practice Evaluation (BPE) on a monthly basis. Please use this link to evaluate your practice performance. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Brilliant-Practice-Evaluation-BPE

Stage 3 Conscious Competence

In stage 3, you are learning new philosophies, techniques, and approaches to your clinical skills, business, and communication skills. As you learn new habits, they are not immediately second nature, they require you to practice, repeatedly evaluate your results, revise and hone your approach. In stage 3 it is normal to feel frustrated, you know what you want to achieve, and it can often feel that progress is slow, you may feel despondent if things don’t work perfectly first time. For some this learning curve is too steep and too hard, not for you, you know that this is part of the process. “I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me. You learn more in failure than you do in success” JAY-Z

Stage 4 Unconscious Competence

Stage 4 is another blissful state, you have become skilled, so skilled that you no longer have to think about what you are doing, your mind and hands are on auto pilot. You have practiced so hard for so long that your skills are second nature. And yet, before you know it stage 4 becomes stage 1 and if you are to continue on the circle of mastery, you must start to self-evaluate and step back in to stage 2 and get conscious about how much you don’t know and start the process again.

As dentists I recognise that we are very good at following this process with our clinical work, making our composites, crowns, and endos etc better. Our PDP plans ensure that we have a program of improvement and have identified the courses and training we need to support us. Unfortunately, business skills, communication skills, team development and sales skills are generally overlooked.

In the last week I have been introduced to two dental practice owners who are clinically highly qualified, and their businesses are on the point of failing because they did not learn about how to build a dental practice, they ignored the signs and chose to stay in stage 1 unconscious incompetence. Having buried their heads in the sand, they are now in danger of losing their practices. Curiously both of these dentists said they did not know Dental Business Coaches and Mentors existed or that there was anyone available to teach them how to run a successful dental practice, and that they wished they had met me sooner.

We work with GDC registrants before they set up their practice and once it is established, helping our clients make their good practices great, avoiding expensive, stressful, time consuming mistakes.

If you are thinking about setting up a practice,  or know of someone who is planning to open a practice or who has one and is struggling, pass on our details and call us today on 07989 757 884 to find out how we can make practice ownership simple.