Day 6: Why Your Team Isn't Improving

Too many practices rely on performance reviews to improve their team. But what if those reviews are costing you productivity? 

In Day 6 of The Flow Protocol, Dr. Dave breaks down why delayed feedback slows growth and how fast, frequent feedback triggers team performance.

In this episode: 

•  Why reviews alone don’t drive better results. 
•  How real-time feedback sharpens performance and eliminates costly mistakes. 
•  How a feedback-rich culture drives profitability and reduces turnover. 

Press play on Day 6 and start turning better feedback into better business results.

Transcript

A dental employee's performance review is not feedback. It's an autopsy.

And I say that as someone who believes in reviews.

I ran them myself for years and still think every practice owner should meet with each team member quarterly—and every new team member every 30 days for the first 90 days.

In this climate, I think of it as turnover prevention.

But no matter how good that conversation is, it's a look in the rearview mirror.

You're talking about work that finished weeks ago.

We would never tolerate that kind of delay in the operatory.

During a crown prep, the bur changes pitch. The margin reveals itself. The tissue responds.

Every second gives you information.
Every second lets you adjust.

Now imagine finding out three months later whether your margin was any good.

You would never work that way.

Yet that's how most practices run their teams.

People can work for months with no real signal about whether they're improving or just staying busy.

Then the owner wonders why the same corrective conversations keep happening.

There's a reason for that.

Fast and frequent feedback is one of the most powerful performance triggers we know.

Human beings improve faster when they can see the result of their action soon enough to change the next one.

Clear goals—which we talked about yesterday—are only half of it.

A goal tells attention where to go.

Feedback tells you whether you're getting there.

One without the other is a guess.

So keep the quarterly reviews.

Just stop asking them to do a job they were never built for.

Development happens in the quarterly.

Improvement happens in the moment.

And the best in-the-moment feedback usually isn't:

“Good job.”

Or:

“We need to talk.”

It's more often a question:

“What worked here?”

“What would you do differently next time?”

Hand someone the fix, and they'll need you the next time.

Ask the question, and their judgment grows.

This fast and frequent feedback can't just run from the doctor down—or you'll stay the bottleneck.

You need your assistant to flag the delay.

The hygienist to catch the scheduling pattern.

The front desk to tell you what patients are really asking for.

When everyone can see and everyone can speak, the practice begins correcting itself in real time.

And you stop being the only set of eyes in the building.

My question for you today is:

How long does someone on your team wait to find out whether they did the job right?

This is Day 6 of our 30-day series called The Flow Protocol.

Tomorrow, I'll be back with a skill we should have learned in dental school:

Challenge-Skills Balance Management.

That's our next performance and profit trigger.

We'll see you then.