Dental News - Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part II: CAPS & CLIMB

Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part II: CAPS & CLIMB

Dr Anna Maria Yiannikos

Tue. 14. February 2017

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Today, I will share with you the knowledge I have gained within the past 25 years of managing and evolving my clinic so you can always be one step ahead and avoid mistakes I have made in the past. The third very important tip that I am going to share with you today in order to be and remain successful at your clinics is how to regain your power.

We learn a lot of things during our studies in the dental schools. We learn how to make the best fillings with great contours and biocompatible materials; how to treat a tooth that needs a root canal therapy, but do we really learn anything on how to find the best employee that will make our life and daily routine easier?

Firstly we should make a job analysis by listing the CAPS of the candidate. If we do not take the time to complete this process, we will not know from the beginning exactly what we are looking at and by this we will increase the risk of making the wrong choice.
If, for example, we go to the supermarket without our shopping list, what will we end up doing? We will most probably buy unnecessary things or even forget the things that we went in the beginning there for. My point here is that when we decide that we need to hire an employee we should know upfront what we are looking for, otherwise we might make mistakes that will cost us money and time!

Let’s have a look now what does CAPS stand for:
– Capacities: The mental and physical abilities required to do the job. How smart and how strong (physically capable) must the successful applicant be?
– Attitudes: such as customer service, orientation, team player, reliability, honesty, willingness to follow rules, problem-solving, loyalty, safety-consciousness, ability to follow through—Imagine having a receptionist who, although she is doing the job without a mistake, complains about everything all the time. Is that a person that you would love to have as part of your team?
– Personality: traits such as competitiveness, assertiveness, attention to detail and sociability—Also search whether the person will manage his or her personality to get the job done, since as social scientists declare about 60 per cent of our personality traits are inherited and most of them are set by age nine. In other words: personality can’t be taught and it doesn’t change much over time.
– Skills: Expertise required to do the job—Skills are the easiest job requirements to identify. We could do that by asking the candidate to perform certain tests. For example, if we are trying to find a receptionist we could ask her to translate an article, or through role playing to check how she responds in certain scenarios.

Have always in mind the quote ‘we hire them for the skills but we fire them for their attitudes’!

So finally we found our A-star employees and now what do we have to do in order to keep them?
The fourth very essential tip of today’s article that I would love to share with you is the different ways that we can use to retain our A-star employees.

Apply CLIMB to retain your team!

Now let’s explain a little what does exactly the acronym CLIMB stands for:
– Challenge: Studies have shown that the main reason that our employees resign is that they are dissatisfied with their tasks. That’s why we should give them challenging duties to accomplish. And what will the result be? They will feel useful and they will find it difficult to leave from a job that offers them different and unique experiences.
– Loyalty: Be human with your employees and do not be afraid that you will lose your power. Show interest in their problems and lay back in times that they cannot handle any more pressure.
– Investment: Invest time and money to them so they will feel appreciated. During my lectures I get regularly the question that we reward them by giving them bonus and still they are not motivated enough, what shall we do? My answer here is that you must renew your reward system regularly.

Sometimes you can give them cash (as bonuses) or maybe you can offer them other kind of incentives, like buying them a free trip for vacation on Christmas, for example. Research has proven that the more powerful and effective incentives are the ones that are specific, tangible and non-cash.

Also please remember to ‘Reward not the best in sales but the best’ A major mistake that we usually do is to only reward the ones that bring money to our clinics. Instead we should reward the best in our practices, the ones that are completing their tasks in excellence unconditionally to what this task is.
– Measurement: Conduct a fair performance appraisal every six months.
– Building: Demonstrate your commitment to them by showing them opportunities of career development.

During the next issue we will analyse two new tips that will reveal new opportunities and potential of our dental clinics. Till then, remember that not only are you the dentist in your clinic, but you are also the manager and the leader.

You can always send me your questions and request for more information and guidance at:
dba@yiannikosdental.com or via our Facebook account.

Looking forward to our next trip of business growth and educational development!

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BURGOS, Spain: The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana in Burgos in Spain has released a new open access dataset comprising 712 measurements of primary teeth from 52 Spanish children in the Ratón Pérez Collection. Developed through a citizen science initiative, this resource now places Spain among the countries with the most extensive and rigorously documented reference collections for the study of modern childhood dentition.

Comparative diameters of primary teeth. (Image: Dr Marina Martínez de Pinillos)

The project, led by Dr Marina Martínez de Pinillos together with Chitina Moreno-Torres and Dr Leslea J. Hlusko, is the first open reference collection to provide raw dental measurements of modern primary dentition donated by individuals who supplied detailed biographical information under strict ethical criteria.

The dataset includes mesiodistal and buccolingual crown dimensions, as well as crown indices and crown areas of primary incisors, canines and molars. “All measurements were taken following standardised odontometric protocols, ensuring data accuracy and comparability with both modern and fossil samples,” Dr de Pinillos explained in a press release.

Ratón Pérez Collection as a reference for primary dentition

Created in 2014, the Ratón Pérez Collection currently houses more than 5,000 naturally shed primary teeth, donated mainly by families from Burgos. The collection has been approved by the Bioethics Committee of the University of Burgos and has been fully anonymised.

The collection is particularly valuable because each tooth is associated with contextual information, including the donor’s age, sex, diet, gestational period and geographical origin. “The combination of scope and high-quality documentation makes it an indispensable reference for research in anthropology, human evolution, paediatric dentistry, forensic sciences, bioarchaeology and biomedicine, providing a robust and up-to-date comparative framework for studies on child populations,” Dr de Pinillos commented.

Relevance for dentistry and related disciplines

Tooth collection sites in Spain. (Image: Dr Marina Martínez de Pinillos)

For anthropologists and researchers in human evolution, the dataset offers an essential comparative framework for assessing fossil teeth and investigating evolutionary patterns within the genus Homo. In paediatric dentistry, it can help establish current standards for tooth size in children, support the assessment of dental development and morphology and assist in detecting potential developmental anomalies in the primary dentition.

In forensic sciences, the resource provides reference values that can improve age estimation and make the identification of subadult individuals based on dental remains easier. In bioarchaeology and biomedicine, it delivers a robust, ethically managed comparative framework for the analysis of past and present populations, supporting studies on growth, health and environmental influences reflected in primary teeth.

The data article, titled “Dataset of tooth size measurements from the deciduous dentitions of 52 Spanish children. A reference collection for science”, was published online on 29 November 2025 in Data in Brief, before inclusion in an issue.