Core Values and Practice Success
Marc B. Cooper, DDS, MS
What is the core of your practice? You are. How is the core expressed? It is expressed as values—core values, a direct expression of who you are. Without core values clearly and solidly established at the heart of a dental practice, the practice is limited in its performance.
When core values exist as platitudes, neither honored nor upheld, the essence of the practice is weak and shallow.1 When core values do not rule, the practice lacks the necessary backbone and energy to confront challenges effectively and take authoritative action. It is fundamental to and critical for practice success that the dentist and staff members respect and adhere faithfully to the practice’s core values.
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WHAT ARE CORE VALUES?
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More than 1,000 articles have been published in the business literature in the last 50 years addressing core values and their effect on business. These values clearly are recognized as the bedrock of any successful business.
Ask yourself, "What are my core values?" The answer to this question is found through reflection and contemplation.2 You cannot find these values outside yourself. No consultant, adviser, book or blog can give you the answer. There are no "right" core values. They are at the heart of who you are, determining how you live your life. They shape your thinking, your actions and your relationships. They provide a rigorous system of guiding principles and tenets that determine your philosophy of practice and of life. They are the values that you hold inviolate, as was stated repeatedly by Collins and Porras3 and Blan-chard and Miller.4
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REVEALING YOUR CORE VALUES
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As part of my firm’s particular consulting method, we ask our clients first to complete our online value inventory,5 which enables them to identify their core values thoughtfully. In a survey of 1,000 readers of our online newsletter from around the world conducted in May and June 2007, we asked readers to select their top five core values. We invited them to choose from a list we compiled from several sources,6-8 with two additions we considered fundamental and critical to dental practice: responsibility and excellence. We measured the percentages of readers who chose particular values as one of their top five, and the results were as follows:
- – integrity (72 percent);
- – excellence (39 percent);
- – honesty (37 percent);
- – compassion (30 percent);
- – responsibility (29 percent);
- – respect (26 percent);
- – caring (26 percent);
- – commitment (25 percent);
- – service (23 percent);
- – doing the right thing (21 percent).
These results were universal, no matter what corner of the world we surveyed. Integrity, excellence, honesty, compassion and responsibility consistently showed up in the top five spots.
Having consulted in other industries—including Fortune 100 companies, third-party insurers, hospitals and hospital systems and even Silicon Valley start-ups—I have not seen these core values predominate as strongly or consistently as they do among dentists in private practice. Also, having consulted in other countries, I have found that the core values of dentists were essentially the same regardless of their nationality.
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A CORE VALUE TEST
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Once our clients select their core values, we ask them to run their choices through a series of questions based on the work of Collins and Porras9 (Box
). If a value achieves a "yes" to all of the questions, it can be considered a core value.
There is a well-established assertion that when business owners, regardless of the nature of their businesses, hold their core values as the foundation of their operations, owning and operating a business is much less stressful and markedly more successful.10 Our observation of hundreds of dentist-owned practices during the last 25 years fully validates this assertion.
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INSTALLING CORE VALUES INTO THE PRACTICE STRUCTURE
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Core values are the most immediate and unfettered expression of who you are.11 Although dentists all might use the same words—"integrity," "excellence"—their individual interpretations sometimes differ, making their core values idiosyncratic.
Once a client’s core values have been selected and passed the test, we ask the client to express those values as beliefs. Because we realize that a single word such as "integrity" or "excellence" has different meanings for different people, having clients express their core values as beliefs enables them to define more precisely what they really mean.
Consider the example of one of our clients, a highly regarded, tenured general dentist whose practice has a heavy emphasis on advanced restorative dentistry. These values made it past the defining questions for this dentist:
- – integrity;
- – courage;
- – respect;
- – improvement;
- – excellence;
- – service;
- – profit;
Here are the dentist’s expressions of his core values as fundamental beliefs:
- – integrity—We are honest. We do what we say we will do.
- – courage—We have the courage to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do.
- – respect—We treat our patients and each other the way we would like to be treated.
- – excellence—We strive for excellence in all we do. Good enough is not good enough.
- – improvement—We strive to get better at what we do every day.
- – service—We are here to serve our patients at a level higher than they ever have experienced.
- – profit—It is absolutely necessary that we are profitable—because without profit, we can serve no one.
After clients have articulated their core values and expressed them as beliefs, we ask them to present the values and beliefs to their staff members and seek feedback and comments. We recommend that the dentist ask staff members, "What does this particular value mean to you, your job, the practice, the care of patients, our team?" When people share the same core values, it generates affinity, kinship, trust and a sense of belonging to a team.3 When they do not, there is commonly dissension, friction and a lack of relationship.
Only when core values are reinforced continuously do they exert ongoing influence. Core values gain power when expressed, and expression of beliefs is an effective means of communication and reinforcement.
Once the core values have been identified, expressed as beliefs and mutually agreed on with staff members, we ask our dentist clients to formulate their practices’ purpose and mission on the basis of their core values. We also request that they look closely at their employment policies and governing policies to ensure that these values are infused in the structure of the practice and upheld. In essence, we ask our clients to build their entire business, leadership and management structures directly on the foundation of their core values.
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CONCLUSION
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My firm’s findings strongly support the claim of many business experts that successful businesses stand with and inside their core values. In my experience, dentists with successful practices abide by their core values rigorously and faithfully. They express those core values as beliefs, then extend and expand these beliefs to generate the purpose and mission of their practices.
My observation of successful practices is that core values dominate the decisions, policies, behavior and even the kind of dentistry demonstrated in a practice. Dentists cannot build successful practices with someone else’s values or beliefs. That is why a consultant, adviser or coach cannot give the dentist the right answers; those live only inside the dentist.
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FOOTNOTES
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Dr. Cooper is the president and chairman, The Mastery Company, P.O. Box 1806, Woodinville, Wash. 98072, e-mail "mcooper{at}emisar.com". Address reprint requests to Dr. Cooper.
The author thanks Dr. Ron Wilkins, Salt Lake City, for his contributions to this article.
Disclosure. The author reported no disclosures.
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REFERENCES
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- Siedman D. How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything ... in Business (and in Life). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley; 2007.
- Chappell T. The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good. New York: Bantam; 1996.
- Collins JC, Porras JI. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: HarperCollins; 1997.
- Blanchard K, Miller M. The Secret: What Great Leaders Know—and Do. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler; 2004.
- The Mastery Company. Mastery Program: Core Value Survey. "http://ebiz.netopia.com/mastery/corevaluessurvey/". Accessed Aug. 15, 2008.
- Devero AJ. Powered by Principle: Using Core Values to Build World-Class Organization. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse; 2007.
- Whiteley AM, Whiteley J. Core Values and Organizational Change: Theory and Practice. Hackensack, N.J.: World Scientific Publishing; 2007.
- Hardy J. The Core Value Proposition: Capture the Power of Your Business Building Ideas. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Trafford Publishing; 2006.
- Collins JC, Porras JI. Vision Framework: Core Ideology Breakout Session. "www.jimcollins.com/pdf/Vision_Framework.pdf". Accessed Aug. 15, 2008.
- Collins J. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don’t. New York: HarperCollins; 2001.
- Collins J, Lazier WC. Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business Into an Enduring Great Company. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall; 1995.
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WHAT ARE CORE VALUES?
REVEALING YOUR CORE VALUES
