Teamwork: Are You Ready to Play in the Premier League of Dentistry?
In dentistry, the word team is used frequently. We talk about our “dental team,” “the hygiene team,” “the reception team,” but if we’re honest, many practices are more like a collection of individuals working on the same patient rather than a genuinely connected, integrated, high-performing team.
Think about a top-flight football or rugby team. Everyone wants to be part of the championship squad. They want to lift the silverware, win the medals, enjoy the prestige, the financial rewards, and the reputation that comes with being part of something excellent.
But here’s the reality: it’s not just about turning up on match day.
The Championship Team Metaphor
If you want to play in the Premier League, you can’t just appear on a Saturday afternoon expecting to score the winning goal. Championship players commit to the whole journey:
• Training in the cold, wet, and dark of winter evenings.
• Turning up to strategy sessions and tactical briefings.
• Building trust with their teammates through shared meals, conversations, and social time.
• Learning and embodying the team philosophy and the winning strategy.
• Supporting the team even when they’re on the bench, not on the field, cleaning other people’s boots.
• Reflecting together on wins and losses, and continually improving.
This is what it means to be part of a team that wins.
Now, translate that to dentistry. If you want to work in a practice that is award-winning, respected, stable, supportive, and financially predictable, where patients trust and recommend you, then you too must play full out as a team member.
That means more than just turning up on the days you’re booked to work, doing your bit, and disappearing. That’s the equivalent of turning up for the match without ever having trained.
True teamwork in dentistry looks like:
• Participating in team training, even when it’s outside your comfort zone.
• Engaging fully in clinical and non-clinical team meetings, not just being a silent observer.
• Collaborating, ensuring smooth, anticipatory working relationships between clinician, nurse, manager, reception and other clinical colleagues.
• Communicating clearly, so you can support team colleagues and they can support you.
• Taking time to understand the practice vision, philosophy, values and strategy, and finding your place within it.
• Thinking not only about what the practice gives you, but about what you contribute to make the practice the kind of place you’re proud to call home.
If, one day, the opportunity arose for you to buy into or purchase the practice, would you be able to say you were part of creating something excellent? Or would you simply have been a match-day player? Would you want to buy the practice and become the team captain?
Jane’s Six Magic Questions on Teamwork
Let’s explore teamwork through six essential questions. These questions invite you to think deeply, not just as an individual clinician, but as part of a wider system: Answer these 6 questions from 4 perspectives, patients, team( Individual roles and the whole team), practice, and stakeholders.
What are your answers?
Every team and practice will have different answers.
Does your perception of being part of a team align with the rest of the team?
- Teamwork – What does it mean?
- Teamwork – What’s essential about it?
- Teamwork – What is important about it?
- Teamwork – What is the value and usefulness?
- Teamwork – What is the purpose?
- Teamwork – What must never be true?
These are some sample answers below – not definitive, just ideas.
- Teamwork – What does it mean?
- For patients: It means seamless, joined-up care where they feel held by a coordinated, caring group of professionals. It means they trust not just their dentist or hygienist, but the whole practice.
• For the practice: It means alignment, shared purpose, and everyone moving in the same direction.
• For the team: It means supporting one another, anticipating each other’s needs, sharing information, and celebrating each other’s successes.
• For stakeholders: It means recognising that your actions impact others and that your success is interconnected with theirs.
- Teamwork – What’s essential about it?
- Patients experience consistent, high-quality care only when every handoff is smooth and every interaction reflects shared values.
• The practice thrives when strategy, communication, and delivery are unified.
• The team needs trust, clarity of roles, and commitment to shared learning.
• Stakeholders need to feel they belong to something bigger, that their contribution matters and is recognised.
- Teamwork – What is important about it?
- For patients, teamwork builds confidence, loyalty, and advocacy.
• For the practice, it enhances reputation, efficiency, and financial resilience.
• For the team, it creates psychological safety, reduces stress, and strengthens morale.
• For stakeholders, it provides reassurance of professional growth, security, and the satisfaction of shared achievement.
- Teamwork – What is the value and usefulness?
- Patients benefit from coordinated care, predictable, reliable quality care and treatment that feels effortless.
• The practice benefits from reduced errors, better retention, and a strong culture, fewer complaints, increase team retention.
• The team benefits from shared knowledge, mutual support, and smoother workflows, become more skilled and successful.
• Stakeholders creates a compliant low risk practice, high quality and safe for all.
- Teamwork – What is the purpose?
- For patients: To deliver excellent, consistent, compassionate care.
• For the practice: To achieve its vision and strategic goals sustainably.
• For the team: To work as a unit that is greater than the sum of its parts.
• For stakeholders: To be efficient, effective, compliant, safe and sustainable.
- Teamwork – What must never be true?
- Patients must never feel like they’re moving through a disjointed conveyor belt, explaining their story repeatedly because the team isn’t communicating.
• The practice must never operate as silos where departments or individuals pull in different directions.
• The team must never allow blame culture, disengagement, or absenteeism from the ‘training ground’ to become the norm.
• Stakeholders must never become isolated, or ignored.
The Wider Stakeholders
Teamwork doesn’t only affect those within the four walls of the practice. Stakeholders and emotional stakeholders—family members, suppliers, referring dentists, community partners, regulators, and even your own families—are influenced by the quality of your teamwork. A cohesive team creates stability, reputation, and trust that ripple far beyond the surgery.
A Final Thought
In elite sport, teams win championships, not individuals. The star striker is only as good as the defenders who protect the goal, the midfielders who supply the ball, and the coach who sets the strategy.
The same is true in dentistry. To create practices where patients flourish, professionals thrive, and businesses succeed, every member must commit to more than match day. It’s the training, the communication, the shared vision, and the willingness to do the muddy winter sessions that make champions.
Ask yourself:
• Are you just turning up for match day?
• Or are you fully part of the team that’s building something extraordinary?
If your team is not performing as well as it could or should be, I am here to enable you to create a top of the league team.
Book a conversation with me to discuss your situation. www.IODB.co.uk
