How does Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto thinking apply across a dental practice beyond just selling?
Selling is one checklist among many that the practice needs. Gawande’s research, drawn from aviation, surgery, construction, and finance, shows that any task involving a complex sequence of events benefits from a documented list of the must-not-miss steps. In a dental practice that means a clinical procedure checklist for every routine and advanced procedure, an operational checklist for opening and closing the office, a phone qualifying checklist for new patient calls, a financial qualifying checklist for the fee conversation, a case presentation checklist for the consultation itself, and a follow-up checklist for the days and weeks after. Each list reduces error rates, surfaces the steps that get skipped, and makes new staff productive faster. Practices that adopt the checklist mindset tend to keep going past the original selling list and end up systematizing the rest of the operation. Everything improves at once. The doctor sleeps better.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.