Three steps you must make to change

By Denise Ciardello

Change – it’s inevitable! Nothing stays the same. Just glance around your vicinity, starting with your clothes. Ladies, are you wearing a skirt and heels to work? Men, are you wearing a coat and tie? It hasn’t been too long ago that this is what all professionals wore to work every day. How about your hairstyle? We recall decades by their hairstyles —beehives of the ‘60s, shags of the ‘70s, and the big hair of the ‘80s.

How did you get to work today? Did you have to walk or hook up the horse and buggy, or did you travel by car? Economical or not, old or new, dream car or not, your trek to work took much less time than if ol’ Bessie had to pull your wagon.

We live in an ever-changing world. Our usual route home may become congested with traffic or construction, so we may decide to find a new way. We don’t like the change but it gets us where we need to go in a timely manner. So why are people so resistant to change? Humans are creatures of habit. For many it’s the fear of the unknown that keeps us in a rut. We’re comfortable. This is the way we’ve always done it. James Bertrand stated, “Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking, we can get on with creating the future.” Those are pretty powerful words. If Thomas Edison had been afraid of change, this article would be written by candlelight instead of efficient fluorescent lighting.

Whenever someone says that they do not like change, my first inclination is to look for that person’s cell phone. It’s been years – no decades – since I’ve seen the brick with the spiraled cord attached to a box. People usually have a Blackberry, iPhone, or at the least a flip phone. So that change must have been OK. What did we do before cell phones? Home phones are all but obsolete because most people use their cell phones exclusively. These are changes we chose to make life easier.

How do we make a change that we know we need to make, but we don’t know where to begin? In Alan Deutschmann’s book, “Change or Die,” he describes the three steps when making a change:

1. Relate – You form a new relationship that will give you hope and persuade you that this is a reasonable endeavor. This is a role model, mentor, or new source of knowledge that will provide you with the methods or strategies to make this change occur.

2. Repeat – You learn, practice, and master this new skill until it becomes automatic. You do not even think about the steps anymore. Change requires a good coach or mentor to give you guidance, Deutschmann states. Most times you have to be trained to make a change.

3. Reframe – You change your way of thinking about the way you do something.

“New hope, new skills, and new thinking.”

How does this relate to you? What change have you wanted to make in your life but you haven’t taken that first step? Or perhaps you’ve fallen back into the normal, more comfortable way. Do you want to kick a vice such as drinking, smoking, or gambling? There are meetings held all over the world for these addictions and sponsors to help get you through the tough times. If you’re carrying a bit more weight than you’d like, possibly a call to a weight loss company such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig is in order. Wishing for a healthier lifestyle? A professional trainer or nutritionist can encourage your success. Bad drivers can attend defensive driving courses, and of course there are counselors for families, couples, teens, grief, codependence, domestic abuse ... the list is never-ending.

How does this relate to your dental office? Take a good look at it, a really good look. What would you like to change? Would you like more new patients? A marketing firm might be in order. There are thousands of companies to help you build the perfect website or spruce up your old one. They will even ensure that the SEO, SEM, keywords and all those special computer needs are met. Quite possibly there is something amiss with the daily operations, the harmony is off, or it just doesn’t feel like the team is all rowing together. A practice management consultant could bring it all together.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s the first step toward growth. We all need mentors, trainers, or coaches. Being afraid of the unknown only keeps us from what we could become or what we could achieve. Deutschmann states that we resist change unconsciously because it invalidates years of behavior. Were ledger cards really a bad method? No, they were the best we had at the time. But then along came the computer, offering more secure and efficient systems. Change is OK. Change is good. Change is inevitable. The question is, “Are you the brake or the gas?”

Denise Ciardello is a respected professional in the dental consulting industry and a co-founder of Global Team Solutions, a practice management consulting firm specializing in team building and team training. She can be reached at [email protected] or (210) 862-9445.