If you fear complaints or being sued, read on.
We love
working with people who want to learn and who believe that incremental changes
make a big difference.
I am
contacted by dentists and team members on a daily basis for many reasons, and
often because they are
·
stressed,
tired and short of money.
·
Fearful
of complaints and being sued
·
Frustrated
they are working very hard not earning enough
·
Confused
by their patients who choose the cheapest rather than the best.
·
Their
practice is underperforming or failing
·
Realising
they need more than clinical skills.
·
Desperate
to learn how to become more confident and better communicators
We run amazingly
successful workshops, including, Patient Centred Sales- BEST CHOICES (PCS-BC)
that deliver incredible results for our delighted clients.
Many people
who ask about (PCS-BC) because they want a script and they believe a script is
the best way to become a more effective communicator. We focus on successful
outcomes and not on scripts and telling you what to say. Effective communication
is less about what you say and more about what you understand, and you can only
understand by becoming an effective listener.
There
are four types of listening
·
Listening
to ignore
·
Listening
selectively
·
Listening
to respond
·
Listening
to understand
Listening to ignore is when you are not interested
in what your patient has to say. The content may not seem relevant to you, you
may disagree with their interpretations of events or their beliefs. You may be
preoccupied with your own thoughts and not have enough bandwidth to listen to
what the other person has to say. For whatever reason you are not interested
and not listening. With this type of listening there is no understanding, and
probably little respect or relationship.
Listening selectively is when you are listening to
what someone else is saying and filtering the words picking out the information
that you want and ignoring everything else. Often this occurs when you are
listening for information that supports a previously held belief or diagnosis. If
you listen with this style you will miss all the cues and have a narrow and
distorted understanding of a situation.
Listening to respond occurs when you actively want to
agree or disagree. You will pay particular attention to what is said, wait for
the pause and respond to what has been said. There is a big problem with this
type of listening, you miss most of what is said because you are preoccupied with
constructing your killer response, again like selective listening you will only
have a narrow understanding of the other person based on your map of reality.
Listening to understand. This is true listening and when
you listen in this way you have the opportunity to build rapport, connection, empathy
and co-create solutions. When you listen to your patients with this style of
listening you will make life-time relationships, patients will respect your
suggestions, follow your treatment recommendations and you are highly unlikely
to get sued.
Which listening style do you use most often?
Listening
to understand is a skill and requires practice here are some key pointers to
help you.
·
Make time listening to understand takes
time, ensure that your schedule time in your appointment book to give your
patients ample time to think and talk. This is a patient care coordinator role.
·
Pay
attention to the psychogeography. Firstly,
wherever possible have conversations with you patients in a non-clinical room
or if you don’t have a non-clinical consultation room, use a non-clinical area
of your surgery. Rather than sitting opposite your patients which can often
feel confrontational sit along-side them or with your chairs at a slight angle
to one another. Make sure chairs are at the same height and it will probably
make a difference to your patients if you are sat on their right or left, let them
choose which chair they sit in.
·
Pay
attention to body language. People like
people like them and words only account for 7% of communication. 55%
communication is body language. Become like you patients wherever possible, by
paying attention and following their body posture. If they lean forward, lean
forward, if they cross their legs cross your legs, if they wave their hand
anti-clockwise, wave your hand anti-clockwise. This may seem strange to you at
first; and psychologists and sociologists, report that gesture matching is a
normal human process when people are in rapport and is a precursor of effective
communication and trust. You can learn
more about the power of rapport on our course, speak the same language as your
patients.
·
Open questions. There are two types of questions
closed, which require a yes or no answer e.g. “Are you happy with the colour of
your teeth?” Closed questions may be quick and expedient and give you very
little information. Open questions give your patient free range in their
answers, and the answers are comprehensive as a result. “What do you like best
and least about the colour of your teeth?” Open questions take longer to ask
and longer for the patients to answer and contain vital useful information.
·
Allow your patients time to
think. When you
ask open questions you patients will need time to consider and formulate their
answers, give them time to think. It may be tempting to fill the silence with
another question or a suggested answer. Keep it zipped and give your patient
the time and space to formulate their answers. It can be useful to pay
attention to your patients’ eyes. When they are searching for answers and
formulating replies their eyes will often dart from side to side or they will
blink frequently. If this is happening stay quiet and be patient.
·
Summarise. It is essential that you
understand what the patient has said. Verify understanding by checking in “What
I have understood is….” When you do this, it is vital that you use precisely
the words the patient has used.
·
Keep your tongue still. When you speak in your head your
tongue makes micromovements. The internal dialogue can prevent you from being
present and listening to your patient, if you keep your tongue still the
internal voices go quiet. A great technique to keep your tongue still is to
imagine that you are holding an imaginary single drop of oil, between the tip
of your tongue and your incisive papilla.
“Seek first to understand then to
be understood”
S
Covey
Be
curious, become a listener who wants to understand. Use these tips and share your
results with me.
If
you want to learn more about what we offer for dentists who love to learn visit
our Eventbrite page.
