Three Morning Meeting Mistakes And How to Correct Them

It can be the most important 10 minutes of your day. When a morning team meeting is done smartly and effectively it can help you sidestep roadblocks, capitalize on opportunities and set a productive tone for the day. When it's not, it's unhelpful and counterproductive. You know you are doing mornings meetings wrong if…

1. You don't do them consistently, or with consistent focus. Many practices, I am still surprised to find, don't do regular morning meetings. Some do them occasionally, but when they do they tend to be unfocused. This is a huge waste of an invaluable resource: the "hive" intelligence of your team. The roles on a dental team tend to be compartmentalized—everyone working nose-down in their little world. The morning meeting is a simple and necessary opportunity for everyone to get out of their compartments for a few minutes and share what they know in a strategic team-based way.

2. You make it a lecture instead of a discussion. A good morning meeting is not about having the dentist or the office manager go over a list of items for the day. It's not about the team just showing up and listening. A good morning meeting is an informative and energetic participatory event where nobody takes a back seat and everyone shows up prepared to contribute their own information and insights.

3. You try to cover too much. A morning meeting should not be a rundown on every patient you are going to see that day; to do this right would take an hour at least. This may be one of the reasons some practices don't do morning meetings—they think they don't have the time. Instead, you should be focused on identifying and strategizing about just a few patients—the exceptions and the opportunities.

What are the roadblocks that could come up today and how do we deal with them? What are the possibilities that are worth some extra attention? For example, a patient in hygiene who could use some extra time so you can work on get them started on a journey to comprehensive care. A really good morning huddle will involve everyone, include some on-the-spot brainstorming and take no more than 10 to 15 minutes.

If you are interested in going deeper on this subject with your team, I have made that easy too; it's the subject of one of my Lunch + Learn lessons. It's a 10-minute video with supporting resources that outlines exactly what you need to do to have productive morning meetings. Take time to watch it with your team and find out how to get the most of the first 10 minutes of each day in the practice.