North Texas Dentistry Volume 9 Issue 3 2019 ISSUE 3 DE | Page 20

staffing update
DARE TO BE
EXCELLENT
by Audra Morris
R
ecently, I attended a training on the book Dare to Lead
led by its author Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW. She is a
research professor at the University of Houston, where
she holds the Huffington Foundation – Brené Brown Endowed
Chair at the Graduate School of Social Work. She has spent 20+
years studying courage, shame and empathy as well as writing
five #1 New York Times bestsellers: Dare to Lead, Braving the
Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of
Imperfection. Her TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability”, is one
of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world. Her most
recent work is the Netflix documentary “The Call to Courage”.
I first discovered Daring Greatly a few years after I started my
business and learned so much from her words and research,
especially how she defined courage and vulnerability (not a weak-
ness but one of the surest signs of strength). When I saw, last
20 NORTH TEXAS DENTISTRY | www.northtexasdentistry.com
year, she was publishing a leadership book based on the aspects
of Daring Greatly, I was so excited to get my hands on it.
I have since learned some valuable lessons on daring leadership
and how to enhance job satisfaction and team cohesion ― all of
which can lead to a more connected team and a better patient
experience. Here are some of the lessons I am trying to incorpo-
rate into my small business and may be useful to the dentist prac-
tice/small business owner.
First, there is perfectionism and then there is excellence. Perfec-
tionism will wear down a person because it is unattainable.
Reaching and attempting for excellence is a much more attain-
able goal, both personally and professionally. Each person on the
team can contribute his or her own definition of professional, and
maybe even personal, excellence. All of those definitions of pro-
fessional excellence could become the values for the team or the