Data – A tool not the strategy - Without any doubt ‘data’ is great.

Without any doubt ‘data’ is great.

As a Principal, it is likely that either in isolation or with your management team you make powerful decisions on finance, marketing, customer experience treatment co-ordination and operations each and every day.

In making these potentially ‘game changing’ decisions do you draw on your previous experience, industry trends and/or gut instinct? Or do you draw guidance from objective data sourced from your practice management software, your leadership management tools and your lead generation records?

You may even go one step further and filter the seemingly endless data sets into a simple set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

I haven’t met anyone in business who hasn’t had some understanding of the power that data can add to their business. Without question, you should track a wide range of data across your business. If you can measure it, you can track it, refine it and improve it. Undeniably, collecting ‘clean’ and reliable data and analysing it in a consistent way is part of 21^st Century management.

Therefore, data is a fundamental ingredient in decision making, figuring out where to focus resources and on which specific projects.

Data is not however, the be all and end all of your business success. The data on its own has no inherit meaning – it can never provide the ‘why’ as it doesn’t take into account likeability of the practice, your personal values, the culture that you are trying to create within your team, or your customer’s personal feelings when they interact with your brand.

The difficult job of truly transforming a business is underpinned by your ability to explore these places where data alone can’t reach. The trick is to not collect data for collection’s sake, but to explore alternative avenues in order to evaluate these other areas. Often that requires time and space, and on occasion a ‘Coach’.

Some time ago I worked with a principal dentist who employed someone specifically to collect data for that practice, for a total of three days a month. With all the will in the world, they would not have been able to develop the business how they wanted by doing this. Not only was this process creating a larger workload and costing the practice for the privilege, but it was having very little impact on the practice.

Practice data alone cannot be used to guide the success of the practice. In order to fully utilise the facts and figures recorded however, they need to be put into context. Hours spent analysing data are wasted if the bigger picture is not taken into consideration. Looking at the industry as a whole will help you to identify where changes should be made within your own practice, and effective leadership in this area is then needed to ensure the success of the business. The practice goals and long-term plans must be agreed upon and set out independently, and once you have embarked on the journey you set out, then the collected data can demonstrate whether or not you are travelling in the right direction. The numbers provide an effective tool to help manage and control the growth and development of your practice, but do not dictate the strategy you need to adopt.

So, consistently collect and analyse data! Certainly, the right data at the right time will facilitate the success of your finances, marketing, patient experience, treatment co-ordination and operation’s; but ensure you control your relationship with data. Make the time to reflect on the bigger picture. Why did you start this dentistry game? Why are things not as you expected? What’s next – and what do you need to do differently to get there?

At the end of the day, you’re highest priority as a practice Principle is your patients and providing the best clinical care you can. In this business, the biggest steps are nearly always taken by those who can hold onto the ‘why’, while using data to adjust the ‘how’.

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