Having a strong mission statement and vision alignment are two important factors to creating a strong culture at dental practices and dental organizations.
Hackensack, N.J.-based Max Surgical Specialty Management promotes diversity among its leadership group, creating a feeling that everyone at the organization is accepted and celebrated.
Margo Freedberg, DMD, medical director of Max’s Clinical Advisory Board, and Akeyla Brown, DDS, Max’s clinical director for DEI and community engagement, recently connected with Becker’s to share how oral surgery and dental organizations can build and promote strong cultures.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are some of the most important aspects when building a strong culture?
Dr. Margo Freedberg: A practice needs to have a strong mission statement and a strong set of values that they adhere to. Values like integrity, respect and inclusivity. You need to have compassion and kindness. You need to listen to your people. A diversity of perspectives and thoughts in your leadership is really important. The best teams, in my opinion, are built on diversity and different points of view. Your team is not just you and your patient. Your team is you, your dental assistants, your business office. There’s a lot of people that make up the team. Practice culture is built on the team of trust and integrity and being accountable. You have to have open communication with your team and listen to them.
I think the challenges in oral surgery in particular is there’s less women and minorities in our field. Women may be more comfortable dealing with problems talking to a woman in leadership, than they will be talking to a man, it goes both ways too, I’m sure. I think it’s nice to have options. It’s important to include women and minorities and just all breaths of life of different cultures.
Dr. Akeyla Brown: If everyone aligns on a vision and that vision is altruistic in nature, doing the right thing for everyone on board being the patients, staff and colleagues, I think that that fosters a really good culture because you’re doing the right thing. It’s easy to develop a really great culture because it’s considerate of everyone. I think also developing a good culture is to expect and desire diversity in whatever form that comes, and then to just really be cognizant of respecting one another and our experiences and how different we all are. Creating a safe environment where people can discuss their needs and also present their differences and be accepted and celebrated in order to present the best product possible. Those are elements that are important to developing a great culture, and I think that we definitely do that at MAX.
