Introduction Before Specifics

Dental Team Roles and Team Role Mindset Videos

4Blocks - Introduction, Background, and Examples

We’re always talking about transparency. In one sense or another, it comes up all the time in the Growth Model. It’s just that important. What’s great about transparency is what can be daunting about it at first: it means that everyone is aware of what’s going on. In short, we must be aware of things in order to understand them and work on them, and awareness is the product of transparency.

Shared awareness is so valuable that it’s worth working through whatever issues the prospect of operating more transparently might bring to light (so to speak). Four Blocks (or "Big Four") is a great example of the calm clarity and ability to improve that is created by reinforcing awareness on your team.

In Four Blocks, each role in the office is broken down into four outcome areas each role is responsible for. Everyone in a dental practice does a million things each day, but it would not help corral any of the complexity to merely list all those tasks.

Rather, clarity happens when we give each team member a way to keep outcomes in mind, and to connect those outcomes with the habits that lead to them. Four Blocks(or Big Four) is a mnemonic device that helps everyone keep clear, front-of-mind awareness on what they need to do and how they need to do it by reinforcing that all outcomes must fulfill the core responsibilities of each role, and that all of these are about taking care of patients and supporting your teammates in doing the same. The clarity of 4Blocks vanquishes indecision and the dread of unclear expectations.

The first and most important responsibility for all team members without exception is Face-to-Face. We’ve covered it before, but it bears repeating: building and growing great relationships with patients (and teammates!) is absolutely crucial for a successful practice. Mindfully prioritizing Presence (or "Face-to-Face") is the best way to ensure that creating, maintaining, and strengthening those connections are a front-of-mind goal for everyone on the team. To make the acronyms more memorable, Face-to-Face (or "Presence") may appear in the middle or the end, but it's always everyone's "job #1."

An example of the 4Blocks for Front Desk is represented in the acronym PAFF2. The letters stand for:

• Phone
• Appointments
• Financial
• Face-to-Face

All tasks and responsibilities for the Front Desk are organized under these headings. Seems simple because it is. But that simplicity mustn’t be taken lightly. It’s about clarity, and creating a way for the team to listen and speak about the functions, task, responsibilities, and expectations they must meet on a daily basis in order to give great care to patients. The 4Block Roles introduce shared language and shorthand to discussions about personal, individual, and team performance, and make it easy to course-correct and improve.

It's a simple, powerful step toward facilitating training and constructive conversations about role performance, and it is crucial in creating a culture of constant and never-ending improvement.