Balancing Stability and Plasticity

It’s a mediocre world out there — which means mediocrity is the norm — simply average. 

Are you worried about corporate intrusion in your market? The DSOs, DMOs?

Are you worried about the pressures of insurance reimbursement reductions?

Are you worried about the ever-increasing demands of team members?

Are you worried about maintaining or growing your practice during the recession?

Then don’t be average!

When I see articles in “Dental Economics,” “Dentistry Today,” or listen to any of the dental podcasts, I hear about the averages. The average case acceptance, the average overhead, the average length of time employees stay on a team. . . sad.

It’s discouraging and there is nothing healthy about these averages. 

I spend much of my time around doctors in our Performance Coach Program, where the average is exceptional. Imagine what that does to your mindset. The average overhead is less than 50 percent. When comparing averages, the average dentist is working twice as hard as a Schuster Center Doctor. 

The average case acceptance is more than 90 percent. This means the average dentist is spending 3 to 4 times as much on marketing to attract new patients compared to a Schuster Center Graduate.

The average team member used to stay in a practice for three years. Now it is less. For Schuster Center doctors, teams tend to stay intact and pursue mastery by adopting a shared mission for the practice. It becomes something that transcends itself in the pursuit of serving others.

In short, they reach their full potential or self-actualize.

To be self-actualized is to be completely understanding of your potential and confident in your abilities — driving achievement in personal life goals.

The Schuster Center program is a school built around laying the foundation to transcend money worries by establishing a lower overhead practice, getting control of time and creating systems to organize your team around delivery of an outstanding service — only then will a doctor be able to realize their full potential. 

In short, we help you make more by being, not only more profitable, but through helping patients get healthier and having a process for case presentation. 

When these elements are in place, we can prove that case acceptance goes up dramatically. So, once you make money, you need to have a way to keep it, and then grow it. Money systems are put into place in the first module of our program because when the money isn’t right, nothing seems to be right.

These needs: money, time and organization, all basic level needs in a dental practice, but they also are the driving force behind the behavior and personality of the doctor, the team and even the patients. If you don’t like what’s going on, look to what needs you’re trying to fill. 

Self-actualization is a level of being that occurs after lower-level, or basic, needs are met. This supports confidence in one’s abilities to achieve success, and additionally promotes better “psychological health” by having a strong sense of satisfaction with one’s life and direction—promoting more positivity in life and minimizing negative emotions. . . all-in-all, creating better well-being for an individual.

Of all the studies around personality and personal success and fulfillment, two traits stand out — stability and plasticity.

Stability is the protection of goals, protection of your opinions or the way you see the world, and strategies to control your own impulses and negative behaviors. These include a mix of disruptive impulsivity, non-constructive thinking, and lack of authenticity (such as, my life lacks direction).

Plasticity is the general tendency toward exploration and the creation of new goals, more openness in mind and risks, as well as developing new, creative strategies. The traits that most closely correlate with plasticity are growth, curiosity, expressivity and creativity. People with strong plasticity traits take on new challenges easily, explore the unknown, and they are not only comfortable with it but are more attracted by it.

Plasticity has been linked to many unwanted side effects of ego development, manipulation and scorched earth to succeed in some instances. Which is why stability and plasticity are both needed for becoming an integrated whole person!

 A self-actualized person exhibits characteristics that balances stability and plasticity. These two meta traits are required for healthy functioning. These characteristics lead to achieving a personality that makes one self-accepting, positive in relation to relationships with others, autonomous, purposeful, and growth minded. 

So how do you become a self-actualized person? 

How do you promote self-actualization in your patients and your team?

How do you balance and align the stability and plasticity in your own behavior and your life?

Through bi-monthly mentor facilitated calls, customized tools and two three day retreats a year, Performance Coach is the program Dentists need to get back on a track with a practice based on health, excellence and delivering humanistic care. 

But it all begins with the Dentist/Leader implementing strategies in the practice and in life that give the potential for higher states of being.  

I’ll end where I started, Performance Coach doctors are a community of dentists that move into the realm of self-actualization through control of basic needs, profitability, time, organization and team, allowing them to live a life in alignment with purpose, fulfillment, and massively increased wellbeing. That impacts every aspect of one’s life.