all articlesJuly 12, 2009
Overconfident Dentists
Columnist and a business consultant Francisco Dao, explains, “Self-confidence is the fundamental basis from which leadership grows… At the end of the day, leadership is about having the confidence to make decisions.” Thus, losing a balance in self-confidence will inevitably lead to poor decision-making.
Decision Making in good times:
You’re experiencing an influx in new-patient turnout, your practice is selling twice as many treatment plans this year as it did last year, and your staff has become especially productive. In such times, it’s almost natural for us to lose our sense of objectivity and attribute the recent prosperity to our glorious leadership ability. Consequently, we tend to look at businesses through rose-colored lenses and our ability to assess risk goes out the window.
The key to decision-making in good times is to be particularly objective in every situation to avoid unnecessary risk. This is a difficult practice because when everything is going our way, it’s intuitive for us to accept speculation as part of our business strategy. In many ways, overconfidence can be more far more damaging to your business than lack of confidence.
Decision Making in bad times:
Your new-patient flow has slowed down, old patients are sending complaint letters, your employees are quitting, and your practice is barely breaking overhead. In such a time, (need to say) it isn’t easy to remain positive, much less confident. We begin asking ourselves questions like, “Is this my fault? Which decisions brought me to this? Should I have listened to others? What needs to be done?”
More over, while in the hot seat of leadership, we also tend to conclude that our business is the only one doing poorly and our confidence dwindles. Don Moore, an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, says confidence or lack of is misleading and slightly out of whack with reality.
Overconfidence, which could be your undoing when things are going extremely well, is key to your success in tough times. In tough times, you need change, which needs to be introduced with bold and difficult decisions. BNET’s Andrew Tilin points out, “Confidence experts say that in stressful times, leaders need to be level-headed and courageous. Be brutally honest with yourself and others, and get comfortable with making changes and even going against the grain.”