Whom do you serve?

Editor's note: The Coaches Corner column appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

Whom do you serve?

I invite you to take a few moments to ponder this question. I'll bet you have a quick answer, though: My patients, of course! Seems self-evident, yes?

But I submit there are other people you serve first. For example, have you ever thought of yourself as a servant to your staff?

I have.

Robert K. Greenleaf founded the concept "servant leadership," an extraordinarily influential philosophy of leadership and management that states:

1. A person must serve before leading.
2. A true leader always remains a servant first.

This method creates trust among followers. This is very different from the prevailing "my way or the highway" concept of leadership.

I am making the assumption that we consider ourselves the leaders of our offices, not simply in terms of our technical mastery but of the systems we use to manage and lead people.

How do we develop our skills as leader-servants?

The lifeblood of our office is the staff meeting. In it, we put into practice the concept of servant leadership writ large. Our philosophy rests on the perspective developed by many visionary theorists: that service businesses are first and foremost businesses of relationships. Our staff meetings are the tool that we use to assess and improve relationships with each other and with patients. It is the place where I practice my servant skills. Since we rotate the job of facilitator -- the person in charge of keeping the meeting on track -- other staff members get to practice their servant skills as well.

Our meetings are fluid and lively. If you were to attend one, you'd be impressed with its frankness, humor, and free-flowing ideas. But in reality we have a deeply thought-out structure with 11 essentials:

1. Punctuality
2. No interruptions
3. No titles, no privileges (an ideal place to practice being a servant)
4. No hanging back, no monopolizing
5. Written agenda
6. Issues and "good stuff" -- It is here where we elicit the thoughts and feelings of every staff member. It functions as the barometer for the morale of our organization.
7. No defensiveness -- Establishing a no-defensiveness ground rule is necessary for the issues and good stuff portion of the meeting.
8. Support the facilitator
9. Leadership training (an ongoing task)
10. Teach communication skills
11. Encourage humor

Week after week, year after year -- indeed, as we enter the second decade of this immutable office fixture -- our staff meetings keep us fresh, enthusiastic, and open to the possibilities that present themselves each day. Sure, folks have come and gone, but mostly they stay -- patients and staff alike. Sure, I've taken my lumps and swallowed my pride. But my staff knows that I am a human being. They know they can be honest, that they can vent. And they know I'll be equally honest to them. They want to work, and they have stayed in my employ for an average of more than 10 years.

Our cohesion is not lost on our patients, who experience an office run with an efficiency borne out of a unity of purpose they can sense. But by me serving my staff, they can -- we all can -- better serve the people we care about the most.

Alan Goldstein, D.M.D., F A.C.D., is a member of the Dental Coaches Association, an organization of dentists and professional coaches who are committed to bringing professional coaching to the dental profession. Learn more by visiting www.dentalcoachesassociation.org.

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