Mark Topley helps dental practice owners and managers identify who is responsible for burnout and its consequences to build calm, high-performing teams.
Most practices have a wellbeing initiative of some kind.
A wellbeing lead, a mental health first aider, a fruit bowl in the staff room nobody quite trusts.
And most owners have a frustration running alongside it, usually about a younger team member who’s off the odd Monday, increasingly with the explanation that they need to protect their mental health.
The two feel unrelated, but they’re the same problem – nobody’s quite sure who’s responsible for a team’s energy.
Wellbeing isn’t a programme you bolt on. It’s a by-product of two things, how a place is led, and how the people in it look after themselves, and it has two owners.
The conditions are the leader’s job. The choices are the individual’s.
Almost all the confusion comes from collapsing it to one, either the leader who tries to fix everyone single-handed and burns out doing it, or the cynic who calls it all personal and none of their business.
Both are wrong, in opposite directions.
