>>E-Myth
Articles
Why
Most Dental Practices Don't Work & What to Do About It:
An Exclusive Interview with
Michael Gerber
Michael Gerber has helped thousands of small
business owners beat the odds. He has shown them that anyone
can dramatically improve the performance of their business,
while at the same time, liberating themselves from what Gerber
calls "the tyranny of routine" which so many practitioners
and small business owners suffer from on a day-to-day basis.
We at Strategies for Success wondered what advice America's
number one advocate for small business owners would have for
our readers. So we asked our editor, Susan Love, to talk with
Gerber about what steps dental practitioners should take to
create a business that works for them.
 Your
work with small businesses is legendary. In your best-selling
book, The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work And
What To Do About It, you explode the myth that businesses
are started by entrepreneurs. Can you elaborate?
 The
truth is that most businesses - including just about every
one of those owned by the readers of this article - are started
by technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure,
rather than by true entrepreneurs. And by that, I mean that
the dental practitioner starts his or her own practice with
the mistaken belief that knowing how to do the work of a dental
professional is sufficient to build a successful dental business.
Unfortunately, as many of your readers have already discovered,
it isn't enough. Not by a long shot.
Dentists
acquire the technical skills they need in dental school. How
would you prepare them for the business of dentistry?
I
would have taught them in dental school about the work of
building a business that works rather than leaving them to
learn it on their own. In my new book, The E-Myth Manager,
I talk about the three kinds of work that need to be done
in any organization, large or small; the work of the entrepreneur,
the work of the manager and the work of the technician. In
the case of most professional practices, there is no entrepreneurial
work being done at all, the work of the manager is delegated
to an office manager, and the professional, in this case,
the dentist, is consumed by the work of the technician. What
I call, "doing it, doing it, doing it." Unfortunately,
all that does is create more of the same. And the only thing
the dentist does is get older.
What
do you recommend?
customed
to, the interested dentist do what every small business owner
needs to do, come face-to-face with the question of what is
work? Not just the work of the practitioner or the technician,
but the work of a successful enterprise. You see, there's
an entrepreneur inside of every dentist just waiting to come
out. And there's also a manager. The problem is that few dentists
ever stop to talk to these two because they're so consumed
with the routine of being a dentist. You see, the entrepreneur
isn't interested in the practice of dentistry. He's interested
in the enterprise of it. And the true manager isn't interested
in the practice of dentistry either, but in the business of
it. It's only the technician-in this case, the dentist - who's
interested in the practice of dentistry. And that's how it
should be - but not at the expense of the enterprise and the
business. So that's why I say that if you free the dentist
from "doing it, doing it, doing it" he or she will
suddenly come face-to-face with the extraordinary opportunity
to build a dental enterprise and a dental business, rather
than a dental practice. The difference between the two, the
enterprise and the practice, is the difference between being
liberated from work and simply going to work.
Is
that what you mean in The E-Myth when you talk about going
to work ON the business, rather than just IN it?
Absolutely.
The true tragedy of it is that few dentists really understand
the profound price they're paying by failing to discriminate
between the three forms of work - the work of the enterprise,
the business and the practice. But, once they do discover
this simple truth, they can dramatically improve their current
practice. First by turning it into a stunningly original and
effective business. And finally, for those who are truly committed,
into an amazingly successful enterprise.
Are
you saying that a dentist should give up the practice of dentistry
in order to build a successful business?
No,
not at all. What I am saying, however, is that the dentist
who owns a practice needs to come to grips with the whole
opportunity, not just a part of it. And what I'm also saying
is that the dentist who fails to do that is leaving an extraordinary
amount of money on the table. Not to mention the great joy
he or she could get from building a professional enterprise
that gets the job done on a much greater scale than any practice
could produce which depends upon the dentist and his or her
direct support staff to do it. And that's all The E-Myth is
really saying. That a business which depends upon the dentist
to do it, isn't a business at all. It's a practice. And a
practice in any other name is a job. Unfortunately, for most
dentists it becomes the worst job of all. Because the dentist
can't get free of it. So The E-Myth is about options. How
to build a dental practice into a dental enterprise that works
without you, rather than because of you.
Any
closing thoughts for our readers?
Just
that your practice can mean more than just work. A great deal
more. But to appreciate what I mean by that, the dentist has
to be open to the opportunity. And the opportunity is right
there waiting to be taken advantage of by any dentist willing
to do it. Interestingly enough, once the entrepreneur is awakened,
all kinds of remarkable things happen. In fact, I strongly
believe that it's the entrepreneur sitting inside of every
dentist who will reinvent the profession of dentistry, not
the technician. It's the entrepreneur who makes the world
happen. Who turns the impossible into the possible, and then
chases the impossible again. Who knows what would happen if
the entrepreneur in every one of your readers was awakened?
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