Dentists are my tribe

Dental practice guru, Dr Marc Cooper, started his career as a periodontist, academic and researcher, and went on to become a practice management consultant and ultimately founded the Mastery Company. He welcomes dentists who have “strong core values, a driving intention to deliver quality care and an intense desire to be successful”. Dental Learning Hub asked him a few questions about his work, approach to life and thoughts on dentistry.

Question: In a nutshell, what is your philosophy to life and business?
Marc Cooper: Integrity is superior ordinate so give your word and keep it. You are not bound to your past, your psychology or your mind. You can transform possibility into reality. Never, never, never give up. Thou before thee.

Question: What made you move from being a periodontist, academic and researcher to becoming a practice management consultant and ultimately founding the Mastery Company?
Marc Cooper: The straightforward answer is I wanted to use my life to make a powerful and lasting difference in the lives of dentists, so they could in turn make a difference not only for themselves but for the people they serve. It’s rarely the dentistry that causes problems for dentists. Rather, it’s running the business of practice where they feel unable. It’s operating their practice as a business where dentists have nearly all their problems and concerns.

I spent time in dentistry and the dental industry from dental school, graduate school, master’s degree, private practice, practice management, numbers of open programs for dentists and staff, participating in national and international conferences, staying in touch with the advances, having dental clients for over 20 years, and ultimately realizing that dentists are my 'tribe'.

Enabling dentists to master the business of practice, to become effective leaders, capable managers and powerful owners became my mission. My unique methodology is to transform dentists to become more effective at running their practices as highly successful businesses. Twenty five years, working with thousands of dentists and their staffs, depending only on word-of-mouth marketing, both my longevity and my success fully authenticates my commitment.

Question: What are the main things that you have learned and experienced in your own career that you aim to communicate to dentists when you coach them?
Marc Cooper: Many dentists believe that if they knew exactly what to do, that alone would make them successful. But what you do isn’t what makes the difference. Most dentists know what to do, but what they do doesn’t work. What I have learned, and what is central to my work is not just informing clients of what you do. My work is also about shifting who they are being in the practice. Being has a tremendous influence on the success of what you do so what makes me unique is my ability to impact who dentists are being in their practice so that what they do works.

Question: The recipe for a successful dental practice: is there one and has it changed since you first began your consulting and coaching 25 years ago?
Marc Cooper: Everything has changed and yet nothing has changed. Computers, practice management software, Websites, digital radiographs, 8 pixel imaging, CAT scans, implants, veneers, lasers, CEREC machines, microscopes, cadaver bone, local antibiotic treatment, connective tissue grafts, and the list goes on and on. But the principles of generating a successful practice remain the same; operate consistent with your core values, have an authentic and meaningful purpose, incite and carry out a focused mission; be a leader worth following, be an owner who is unconditionally committed to the long term; and be a manager who not only gets the work done through others but develops people through work. So in that regard, nothing has changed.

Question: In North America, what are the emerging trends of business and management in dental practices today?
Marc Cooper: Most practice management is based on small business models that work moderately well for dental practices run as a solo, independent businesses. These management models are founded on individual ownership. They are based on the thinking of “I, me, my.” Since they are bound in their thinking to “I,” most practices are limited in their ability to be highly creative, entrepreneurial, dynamic and team oriented.

My work is developing dentists to think and operate from “we,” at the staff level through our exclusive models of building Executive Teams, that takes the senior staff and develops them as a executives responsible for particular areas of the practice. And, another area that is unique in our consulting is developing Management by Accountability, which is significantly different than management by job description. At the ownership level, we create and maintain Mastery Virtual Boards, where we develop a group of dentists to operate as a governing Corporate Board of the participants’ practices.

And lastly, nearly all our practice management consulting is delivered online and phone-line so the dentist doesn’t have to travel, the costs are greatly reduced since there is no direct costs nor loss of production,  and we can have a much higher frequency of interactions with the client.

Question: Are there any books or digital resources that you find particularly inspiring?
Marc Cooper: I use the Web primarily for research and what I learn from the digital world is specific to what I’m working on at the moment. I mostly read and I am an avid reader. I read about one book a month. I have several reading lists for clients depending on who they are and what programs or coaching engagements they are in. I have book recommendations I send out each quarter. But if I had to list my top five they would be Good to Great, Built to Last, The Last Word on Power, The Art of Possibility, and Predictably/Irrational. Right now I’m reading Simplexity. Other good reads on management are Courage, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and Who Moved My Cheese. For marketing I suggest The Fred Factor, Selling the Invisible and Free Prize Inside.

Question: What did you enjoy most about writing ‘Mastering the Business of Practice’ and why?
Marc Cooper: Writing enables me to work in another domain of expression that helps me more clearly distinguish my knowledge. Writing, therefore, allows me to more effectively transfer my knowledge to others. By moving from thought to writing, rather than thought to speaking, to say it in the written word so my market can understand it, allows me to see more clearly and deliver it more powerfully. Writing Mastering the Business of Practice was not leap of faith since I have been writing a weekly newsletter for over a decade. Currently, we have well over a thousand dentists reading our newsletter in 29 countries. Since our newsletter comes in electronic form at no cost, it can be forwarded to others and each week it is forwarded to hundreds more dentists throughout the world.

Marc Cooper is President and Chairman of The Mastery Company. He has been a consultant to the health care industry for over 25 years, at the practice management level as well as at the corporate and organizational levels. Dr Cooper has been an academician, basic science researcher and practicing periodontist. For the last seven years, The Mastery Company's work has focused primarily on dentists in private practice using its exclusive online technologies and transformational methodologies. He is co-inventor of Mastery online practice management surveys and assessments - proven tools for dentists to appraise the performance of the human assets of the practice - staff, patients and themselves. In addition, he is the author of two books, Mastering the Business of Practice and Partnerships in Dental Practice; Why Some Succeed and Why Some Fail.

Marc Cooper writes regularly on topics relating to successful dental practice in his e-newsletter. Below is a collection of some of his latest articles:

• Accountability
• Results
• How leaders speak
• In search of excellence

Send your comments and questions to editorial@dental-learninghub.com

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