Where have all the flowers gone?

We've had a ton of rain this month...the farmers struggling again with the elements; the things over which they have no control.  Makes me think of the many parallels to dentists.

A hunter seeks out opportunity, secures it and hunts again.  The farmer on the other hand, seeks out good soil, works to understand the envrionment, plants a variety of crops, nurtures them, culitvates, and fertilizes them.  The hunt for new patients is not fun for many.

To the farmer dentist, the concept is to build relationships but at the execution level it's a different story.  Some things they cannot control like the economy but others they can, like who they bring on board, how they nurture and cultivate them be it team or patients;  choosing to stick with what they believe in their souls or buying in to what they're told and sometimes it's by their teams.

A recent client (a veteran) wrote recently about the absolute joy in connecting with a new client who shared his valuing.  It wasn't that they chose the optimal treatment.  It was simply that he felt he could speak openly ...be his authentic self and learned a lot about this person in  less than an hour.  He felt connected - juiced. " Where are the people who are more like that" he asked.

Same fellow described the ugly front tooth of many years he saw on his near perfectly qualified receptionist.  So he fixed it, for nothing and hired her without inquiring as to why an attractive gal would let it be. 

With a big heart, you can hear her become the patients insurance agent - happily navigating the system for every person and affirming dentistry is expensive...too expensive; believing managing insurance is customer service.  What is she nurturing?

Looking back, Doctor believes he's had a number of sympathetic (not empathetic) people whose view of customer service had to to with managing insurance.  Sounds OK until we look a little closer.  Nothing of the values alignment between doctor to team has been explored; what they stand for (the soil), nothing of the alignment of values with patients (the environment) was being explored and so they planted seeds of the insurance dependent variety expecting it to produce.  In the absence of discussions of what people hoped for their future..only the here and now mattered; hence following the insurance agenda and making a farmer at heart in to a hunter. 

Doctor had it in mind to plant a certain crop (those seeking health and a partnership) and the team another thus attracting dependency relationships and external decisions via insurance...under the guise of customer service. 

Weeds spread, can take up a lot of time and choke out the flowers.  So busy they became with getting remedial care approved and paid for, they have no time to cultivate the flowers...don't realize they are even there.  The farmer grows weary with poor harvests.

Where have all the flowers gone?  Maybe they can't spring up for all the distractions of coping with the weeds.  Or maybe, there are new cultivating methods to be explored.