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CDS Member News and ArticlesProfessional News Articles : : ON PRACTICE MANAGEMENT by Janyce Hamilton : Business growth coach encourages dentists to use intuition Business growth coach encourages dentists to use intuitionMay 7, 2009 Twenty years ago, Frances Vaughan defined intuition as “A way of knowing in which we often do not know how we know what we know.”1 An intuition-related study published in a 2009 issue of The Journal of Consumer Research2 reports that those who carefully deliberate decisions could in fact be making less precise judgments than people who trust their gut instinct. In the article, the authors, including Loran Nordgren from Northwestern University wrote that “People who deliberated on their preferences were less consistent than those who made non-deliberative judgments.” The take-away message if you are a dentist? Don’t over analyze your decision to lease a different space or buy that new equipment—or at least factor in how you feel. According to Lynn Robinson, MEd, a Wellesley, MA, business and personal coach and the author of five books, the latest of which is Trust Your Gut: How the Power of Intuition Can Grow Your Business, talked about what dentists should know. The InterviewJanyce Hamilton (JH): Dentists tend to be wired from the left brain, which is known for its expert processing of hard facts of science. They are surgeons and they cure disease. Why would this “intuition” stuff be of interest? Lynn Robinson: There is science behind it. Many scientists believe we have two brains: the one between our ears, and the lesser known, but equally important one in our gut. They communicate with each other. When your head gets upset, your stomach takes notice and vice versa! Generally one of the ways people think about intuition is that you have knowledge around an area, like a dental practice, you also have subconscious knowledge that helps you make a split-second decision. This is not just emotion only. I teach “Trust Your Gut” workshops, but we need both facts/logic AND intuition to make a good decision. A survey of CEOs revealed 62 percent relied on intuition rather than financial issues, competitive analysis or other metrics when making business decisions. JH: Let’s say a dentist wants to lease, buy or build a practice. How would intuition get factored into the decision-making process? Ms. Robinson: To open your dental practice, your left brain looks at your budget and the surrounding practices. Everything looks perfect! Then your right brain, the intuitive side, says, “I don’t have a good feeling about this.” Now you have all the facts and figures lined up on the practice, but something doesn’t feel right. You move on. Two months later, the building next door is torn down and an eyesore is erected in its place, which would have brought down the appeal of your practice, had you located it there. The gut feeling to back away was probably that you read something or heard something on the news about buildings for sale on that road. It may not have been important to you at the time but you had stored it away somewhere in your subconscious mind. JH: So, intuition or trusting your gut is not being “psychic?” Ms. Robinson: Intuition is quick and ready insight. We all get it in different ways. Intuition often comes as a feeling, a dream, a physical sensation or even a sense of excitement or energy around something. Your readers might want to think back to a successful decision they made in the past. What were the clues that indicated the positive outcome of this choice? That’s where intuition comes in. JH: It seems that hiring would be the time when a dentist should listen to his or her instinct about a person, which goes beyond references and resumes.
Ms. Robinson: One of my clients had to hire a chief financial officer. He found someone that he and his team liked. He checked his references and everything was fine. He really liked him, but something kept stopping him from offering this man the job. After doing a more extensive background check they learned that he had embezzled money in two different states! Before learning this, my client kept saying, “I felt let down, like a deflated balloon every time I thought about hiring him.” JH: Do you know of doctors who used the “gut check” technique for hiring?
Ms. Robinson: Before dentists or doctors trust a sales rep of products or equipment or hire someone to supervise people, there are a few gut-test questions they should ask themselves. For hiring, ask “Will she get along well with my team? Will the patients like her?” Check in with your gut and feelings. If your reaction says the decision is dissonant in some way, of course that must be considered. JH: Beyond evaluating another person, can a dentist use this to help decide his or her own career moves?
Ms. Robinson: Absolutely. A doctor I was talking with this morning was thinking of retiring. She said her logical choice would be to stay in her job four more years for the payoff of a big pension. I told her to think about “four more years” and see what if felt like. She almost started to cry and felt a headache coming on! “I can’t stay four more years but I need the money,” she said. Then I told her to imagine herself retired and doing something elsewhere every day. She said, “Oh my gosh, I feel such a sense of relief. It’s a palpable sense that feels better.” It was almost like a weight was lifted off her chest. She decided to trust her intuition and give her notice by the end of the year. JH: In this down economy, can dentists use a gut feeling to make marketing decisions? Ms. Robinson: I have a technique that I teach in my practice and use for myself. I ask every morning, “What three fun or interesting things can I do today to help me grow my business?” The answers might not come immediately, but they come to me at some point during the day. If I think of a thing that’s a chore and is not exciting, I don’t do it. But if I feel excited and happy about the idea, I’ll do it. The idea might be as simple as a thought to have coffee with a colleague to something more in depth, like revamping your Web site. Trust the impulse. If it feels overwhelming, break it down into smaller steps. We all have different skill sets in terms of marketing your business. For one dentist it might be teaching at a dental school. For another, it might be speaking to groups about dental health. Or, maybe a dentist thinks it’s fun making calls and giving interviews to reporters so there’s articles on the practice in the paper. You have to do things in keeping with your own personality. If you do the three things to grow your business each day, at the end of the workweek you’ll have done 15 things that week that have helped you over the course of the week for your business. And again, if you are not excited about one of the three things, it’s probably not a highly profitable idea since it doesn’t hold your interest. If it feels like work, or a drag, I don’t do it. Maybe you feel, “I’d rather write a letter to my former patients than make cold calls.” JH: You certainly seem to have a lot of energy. Does not ignoring your feelings about decisions prevent energy loss spent to denying them? Ms. Robinson: The Greek root of the word enthusiasm is “entheos,” which means guidance from within. If you are following your energy, you are following your guidance from within. Does it matter all that much if it’s some immeasurable source versus an amassed history of wisdom, experience and knowledge of facts? I simply don’t do things that are draining and boring—they aren’t happiness producing, and thus are unlikely to be profitable. It’s guaranteed to be interesting. Twenty five years ago I started this coaching business. Every day I make a living this way. Next month, I fly to Japan to teach 2,000 people how trust their intuition. My own intuition has paid off! JH: Any last bit of advice? Ms. Robinson: If you have challenges in the practice, ask yourself open-ended questions around them. Do not ask yes-or-no questions. So, it’s not “Should I hire Mary?” It’s “How can I increase productivity at the front desk?” or “How can I communicate more effectively with my hygienist?” Conclusion
Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, said “Balanced emotions are crucial to intuitive decision-making.” To balance your emotions and prepare to do a gut-check around a decision, Ms. Robinson says put calls on hold, shut the door, close your eyes and take slow deep breaths. Ask yourself how you feel about a person or a decision and see what results, be it thoughts or feelings or something else hard to describe. Now, add together the facts and figures, along with how you feel. Reference
1. Vaughan FE. Awakening Intuition. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press; 1979.
Janyce Hamilton is an award-winning Chicagoland freelance dental writer and editor. Send suggestions for topics to be covered, or any comments on this column, to review@cds.org. |
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