A New Day at the ADA: Principles and Priorties for Shaping Our Future

A NEW DAY AT THE ADA: PRINCIPLES AND PRIORITIES FOR SHAPING OUR FUTURE

Last November when I began my tenure as the ADA’s executive director, I recognized that my experience as a clinician, volunteer leader, educator, and dental school dean had culminated in this new opportunity to give back to our profession. Although my new role brings a different set of responsibilities, I am grateful for how our Association empowered me to be my best in every phase of my journey. Ultimately, I want to build a next-level ADA where the members of today and tomorrow can say the same.

I am charged with creating an organization that serves its members so they can provide optimal care to their patients and thrive as professionals. But just as the practice of dentistry has evolved over time, so have the needs and expectations of those we support.

We are living in a time when technology grants us greater authority on how and when we engage with content, whether we’re searching for information online, watching a new-release movie at home, or reading (perhaps listening to a podcast about) the news on our phones.

Technology has also changed everything about how dentists work – from treatment modalities to practice management to how patients find and communicate with their clinicians. In the era of all things accessible and on-demand, the user is at the center. The ADA membership experience should be no different.

Over the last 163 years, the ADA has built a trusted reputation as the leading voice for the dental profession. We’ve provided tremendous value to generations of dentists, and we stand on a solid foundation. Our future relevance hinges on some key principles:

• Sustainability, both in our membership and financial position • Global presence that ensures that our Association and its offerings remain top-of-mind for the dental community around the world • A sharp focus on our members, their expectations and their needs

For the ADA, meeting the needs of the 21st century dentist requires us to assess our current ability to do so and to change if we need to – even if it means letting go of what has worked in the past. It also requires us to take risks – not those that jeopardize our organization, but that instead empower us to play to our strengths. This approach reminds me of what former Disney CEO Bob Iger writes in his 2020 memoir: “Companies must innovate or die.”

When so much is shifting, limiting ourselves to the way we’ve always done things could mean limiting what’s possible for the future. For the sake of our relevance, also fulfilling the key principle of innovation is not solely as aspiration; it is a necessity.

You may have heard me state in other editorials and presentations, is that Iger’s experience exemplifies what can happen when a respected brand takes a gamble to meet a paradigm shift. He was aware that in an ever-changing world, even a company of Disney’s stature risked failure if it stayed the same.

The term “strategic incumbency” comes to mind in this exact situation for our own ADA. It means as established firms’ ability to dynamically convert age, size, and tradition into the key advantages of market power, trusted relationships, and deep insights. Companies that encompass this value are the ones that reinvent themselves, their strategies and how their business models, to create new opportunities. Akin to Disney, can our ADA possess this ability?

I guess the real question is not whether we can possess this ability but more along the lines that if we don’t, what will the ADA be, or more critically, what the ADA may not be.

Disney took a bold step and created avenues of their own to deliver their content. This is testament that they removed their content from the usual streaming services and place it all on their new Disney+ streaming service. This change directly meant a loss of immediate revenue from these streaming services, in order to create their own and greater future. This was a bold move, but they recognized their customers were no longer the customer of yesterday and the customers of today uses their own personal devices, such as cell phones, tablets, and other personal devices to receive the content they want it, how they want it and when they want it. That is the consumer of today.

The ADA is not in the entertainment business, but Disney is an example of a company that created strategic incumbency and how focusing on the customer through innovation, will drive the future.

I believe the ADA has the ability to do just that and create its own strategic incumbency.

Thus, the ultimate question is do we have a membership problem or do we just have an operation that is using methods and processes that are no longer effective in today’s changing market and consumer demands? Using a thought process of strategic incumbency, I believe that membership engagement and support can grow.

While I am looking and evaluating all aspects of the ADA, I have three immediate priorities as follows:

• Re-establishing a more effective and agile, membercentered ethos within the Association’s governance • Expanding capacity throughout the tripartite and in dental education to enhance member services at all levels • Developing a robust digital experience that puts the vast array of ADA resources, products, and services at members’ fingertips

This may lead us to a new though process learned by so many progressive companies; if innovation requires changes that a system cannot make efficiently, if at all, the answer is to change the system altogether. As we discussed prior, the five key values to a future of any business success is customer focus, global presence, sustainability, innovation and nimbleness.

We know that we can achieve customer focus, global presence. However, sustainability, is driven by innovation, which cannot be limited due to a lack of nimbleness.

Nimbleness, after all, is the key principle upon which all others are predicated. Relevance is the most at stake if any entity – even more for our association – is not agile enough to strategically adapt to evolving realities. Successful business entities are critical on their innovation, sustainability and are tightly focused on their mission. And for our ADA, the mission is always to help our members succeed.

Welcome to what will be the new ADA.

Dr Raymond A. Cohlmia Executive Director American Dental Association

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