Achieving success: moving beyond the comfort level

Understanding the stages of growth, saturation and transition is the first step to setting meaningful career goals. While this concept is fairly new in dentistry, it is not new in other commercial enterprises. Business managers and owners have known for decades that growth stagnates after a period of time. At that point, a new infusion of energy and a reformation of the business's objectives and methods are needed to launch forward into the next phase of growth. Transition management in dentistry represents periods of growth that are followed by saturation and a comparatively rapid changeover to a new practice form. Saturation occurs when the clinical capacity of a practice is exceeded by the needs of a growing patient base. The key transitions in the career of a dentist are those from school to practising, and practising to retirement. A great number of dentists (due to low motivation, the comfort level or poor management skills) never reach the saturation point during their practising career. For these dentists, starting out and retirement are the only transitions that will ever apply to them. Dentists evaluating transition options must first identify which career stage they belong to since their objectives will be different at each stage. Dentists in the growth phase should focus on practice management and achieving saturation before attempting a transition. Since transitions like start-up, retirement, partnerships, associateships and buy-ins have pivotal roles in the life cycle of a practice, transitions must be managed carefully to achieve successful results.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)