Building your career as a dentist or practice owner is like playing a computer game, you must complete and win at one level before you move to the next.
I have been coaching dentists for 18 years and seen so many try to take short cuts to success and it never works. short cuts are costly in time, money, and stress.
There are 5 levels to success, they need to mastered in the correct order if you are going to live the successful career you dream about. Your competency and accomplishments at each level will determine the outcome of your future. Experience shows that the most successful highly respected dentists have spent time and money developing each level, no short cuts. Hard today makes tomorrow easy. As you are planning your personal development plan, in addition to planning your clinical skills training, consider each of these 5 levels.
The 5 levels are.
1 Your knowledge
2 Your skills
3 Your network
4 Your resources
5 Your reputation
If you are going to build the career or practice you dream of the fast track is to get comfortable being a beginner. work with your coach and clinical mentor seeking out your blind spots, make those things that you are unconsciously incompetent in areas of conscious incompetence, then you can learn and develop skills so they become conscious competencies and then with practice unconscious competencies, before you start the cycle again.
1 Your knowledge.
This is what you learn at dental school and will very quickly realise is insufficient for your career, so you keep learning. If you are wise as well as clinical skills you will learn non-clinical skills such as advanced communication, business, and resilience.
2 Your skills
Your skills develop only when you put your knowledge into action and practice practice, practice. much evidence indicates that mastery is 10,000 hours which is about 10 years. A young pair of hands cannot create the results that an old pair of hands can. no short cuts here you must spend hours on a phantom head, and with 1000’s patients to hone your skill.
3 Your network
As you develop your knowledge and skills your network will develop. Make a point of sending time with the people you want to become. Young dentists brought up in the digital age often overlook the value of face-to-face meetings and conferences preferring the isolation of digital communication. There is no substitute for getting out there and meeting people face to face. I have been career coaching young dentist for years and those that find their perfect jobs and are happy are those who find the jobs that weren’t advertised, they were head hunted within a network. It is knot what you know or who you know, it is who knows you.
4 Your resources
As your knowledge, skills, network grow your access to resources grow. Resources can be dental kit, it is also time, money and most importantly introductions to other people.
5 Your reputation
Finally as your knowledge, skillsm network and resources grow, finally so will your reputation, and this reputaion will be built on solid foundations.
As you think about these levels, you can use them to help you decide what job offers to accept. Would you be better of accepting a Job A that pays a higher % and has fewer opportunities to learn, develop your skills or should you take Job B a position that pays a lower % where you are supported in your learning, mentored, introduced to a network of skilled clinicians and practice owners, encouraged to be coached in your own development?
Think of your career as a computer game, and become competent at each level before moving on.
