I don’t remember who first told me about this “rule” but I use it daily and cannot encourage you enough to do the same. The Six Foot Rule is simple – if you come within 6 feet of any person you need to make eye contact, smile and compliment them if at all possible. The Six Foot Rule is simple but not easy to do consistently and well. As with many things in life, The Six Foot Rule takes intention and daily practice but the rewards are huge if you and your team can commit to following this simple rule. It’s hard to explain how the rule works and the impact it has but I’ll give it a go if you’ll bear with me…

I’ve purchased and taken over several offices. Some have been great and others have been not so great when it comes to office culture and patient happiness. I’m sure you’re wondering, to the point of being hung up on it, what makes patients happy or sad so I’ll tell you what I’ve seen based on a significant amount of experience.

First let’s look at some things that make patients happy and create an awesome office culture:

• being seen on time
• finishing the appointment on time
• getting good results (as judged by the patient/parent)
• taking the braces off when you said you would or before
• cleanliness
• validation
• effective and accurate billing
• nice and friendly doctors and teams
• good music (as judged by the patient/parent)

Now let’s look at some things that make patients and parents unhappy:

• not seeing patients at their appointed time
• excessive breakage
• randomly rescheduling patient appointments
• regular appointments that take forever
• having to visit the office too often
• unhappy team members
• attacking the patient or mom (as judged by the patient/parent)
• unhappy doctor
• poor results (as judged by the patient/parent)
• treatment going overtime
• not doing what we said we would do
• messing up billing
• dirty office

I’ve taken over offices where the treatment was good and the culture was good. I’ve taken over offices where the treatment was bad and the culture was bad. But I’ve also taken over offices where the treatment was terrible to my eyes as an orthodontist but the patients were very happy and convinced they were getting great results and telling all their friends so. I’ve also taken over offices where the treatment looked pretty darn good to my tooth nerd way of thinking but the office culture was terrible, the patients/parents were very unhappy and they told everyone who listened how badly the orthodontist sucked. Probably the single biggest factor that I’ve seen when it comes to patient/parent dissatisfaction is going overtime in treatment by an orthodontist who is essentially holding patients hostage in pursuit of ideal. But that’s a topic for another day… Back to The Six Foot Rule and how it’s implemented.

A few years ago I took over a very large office with massive overtime issues, habitual lateness and less than optimal results on top of serious hygiene, breakage and compliance issues. The patients were mad, the parents were really mad, the staff was unhappy and I had my work cut out for me. I ended up doing Braces Vacations for all the overtime cases I couldn’t get to an endpoint quickly and worked my A$$ off for a couple years to right the ship, but before I could do any of that I had to gain the trust of the team, the parents and the patients. I gained that trust with daily, severe application of The Six Foot Rule. How? I just made a point of smiling constantly and speaking to every single person I encountered – patient, parent or team member – while finding something to compliment each on.

No matter how my day was going.

No matter how many problems I was dealing with.

No matter how I felt.

No matter how upset the person was and no matter that they didn’t smile back at me, I persisted in my pursuit of The Six Foot Rule day in and day out.

It’s not hard to compliment people but I know being complimentary doesn’t come easily for those of us who were belittled for so long by our professors. To be effective, a compliment has to be genuine and it must allow the other person to talk about themselves. That’s everyone’s favorite topic! Because I know many orthodontists struggle with this, here are some examples of compliments to get you started… but please make up your own that suit you and your personality once you get the hang of this:

• “Nice shoes! I’ve got to get some of those. What kind are they?”
• “I really like your glasses. Where did you get those? Glasses are so much cooler now than they were when I was a kid.”
• “I really like that dress. It looks like summer!”
• “Great watch. What kind is that? Where did you get it?”
• “What an awesome handbag. I’m glad my wife isn’t here or she would want one like that!”

So it took a few weeks of drudgery and enduring upset people in the example office, but eventually patients and even parents would smile when they saw me coming towards them. It’s hard not to smile when someone is smiling at you (and I am always smiling) and it’s even harder not to smile when someone compliments you (and you know I love to find things to compliment people on) so the patients, parents and the team members were at my mercy and had no choice but to smile back at me! It’s hard to be unhappy with a real smile on your face so, over time, the culture of the office changed and the vast majority of people came to be happy. Life is better when you’re happy! But you can’t stop once you have climbed to the top of Happiness Peak. You have to keep on keeping on and smile every day and compliment people (including team members) every day and do all those things that make people happy. Let’s review the things that make parents and patients happy:

• being seen on time
• finishing the appointment on time
• getting good results (as judged by the patient/parent)
• taking the braces off when you said you would or before
• cleanliness
• validation
• effective and accurate billing
• nice and friendly doctors and teams
• good music (as judged by the patient/parent)

Now, stop reading this stupid blog and go out there and make some people smile. You’re awesome and I know you can do it!!