What if you could inspire real change in your patients? What if, instead of just giving advice, you could help them take ownership of their oral health? Coaching is a powerful way to make that happen. It’s more than just giving instructions – it’s about guiding and empowering patients to take control of their oral health.
Imagine patients who are motivated, engaged and committed to lasting change. Through coaching, you can move beyond instructions and have meaningful conversations that inspire action. This article will show you how to think like a coach, ask the right questions and help people build better habits. Get ready to transform the way you support your patients – one conversation at a time.
What You Will Learn:
- Coaching empowers patients by moving beyond instructions to collaborative conversations that inspire self-directed change.
- Effective coaching requires active listening, empathy, asking open-ended questions, and providing ongoing support and accountability.
- Asking questions rather than giving advice fosters trust and empowers patients to take ownership of their oral health.
- Patients are often more motivated to change by recognizing the hidden costs of their current behaviour rather than the rewards of a new habit.
- Helping patients connect oral health to their personal values increases long-term commitment to positive habits.
- The GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) helps structure patient goals for better clarity and follow-through.
- Tools like habit stacking and temptation bundling make it easier for patients to integrate new behaviours into their daily routines.
Understanding Coaching
Coaching is a collaborative process that facilitates self-discovery and personal development. It involves guiding individuals to identify their goals, recognise obstacles and devise actionable plans to achieve desired outcomes. The purpose of coaching is not to recommend solutions to a specific problem. It is to nudge coachees toward finding answers by asking the right questions. Coaching focuses on eliciting insights from individuals, which fosters a sense of ownership and intrinsic motivation toward change.
In the context of oral health, coaching transcends merely instructing patients on proper oral hygiene practices. It entails engaging patients in meaningful conversations about their oral health goals, exploring underlying behaviours and collaboratively developing personalised strategies to enhance their oral well-being.
Qualities of an Effective Coach
To effectively adopt a coaching role, oral health professionals should embody certain core competencies:
- Self-Awareness: Assess your current communication style and identify areas for improvement. Reflect on how you engage with patients and consider adopting a more collaborative approach.
- Active Listening: During patient interactions, focus on truly hearing your patients’ concerns without interrupting. Show that you understand by reflecting back their words and emotions. This builds trust and makes patients feel heard.
- Empathy: Strive to understand people's experiences and emotions related to their oral health. Show them that you genuinely care about their experiences and challenges. Empathy fosters a supportive environment conducive to positive change.
- Effective Questioning: Pose open-ended, thought-provoking questions. Encourage patients to reflect on their habits and motivations. Help them uncover their own reasons for change rather than just giving instructions.
- Implement Coaching Techniques: Gradually incorporate coaching strategies – as outlined below – into patient consultations to facilitate behaviour change. Help patients define achievable goals and break them into manageable steps and mini-habits.
- Support and Accountability: Offer ongoing encouragement. Hold patients accountable for their commitments. Help them stay on track by checking in regularly and celebrating progress.
Deep Dive: Coaching Techniques for Oral Health Professionals
Integrating specific coaching techniques can significantly enhance patient engagement and promote healthier behaviours. Let’s walk through some of them.
1. Practice humility
For people who are expert in their field, the temptation is big to tell patients what to do. But telling hinders relationships, because when you tell people what to do, you assume they’re incompetent or lack information and that you’re the expert. “Asking” fosters better relationships. When you ask people for their input, you humble yourself and empower them. As Edgar H. Schein explains in Humble Inquiry, this nourishes long-term, productive interactions.
“Humble inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”
– Edgar H. Schein
When you ask instead of tell, your patient can lead the conversation, and that builds trust. If you hear something you didn’t know or even something you didn’t want to know, you’ve still learned from the exchange. Telling shuts down communication. People hurrying through the workday do ask questions, but often their questions are biased toward action and are not humble inquiries. Adopting a humble attitude toward what you know and what you don’t know forms the foundation of an effective coaching conversation.
“The culture of ‘Do and Tell’ does not teach us how to change pace, decelerate, take stock of what we are doing, observe ourselves and others, try new behaviors [and] build new relationships.”
– Edgar H. Schein
2. Listen actively
Active listening involves giving full attention to the patient, observing their verbal and non-verbal cues, and responding thoughtfully. This technique fosters a deeper understanding of patients' concerns and motivations, enabling tailored guidance.
Summarizing your patient’s words on the surface appears straightforward, yet it can be powerful in helping the person understand their true motivations.
Observing patients as they discuss their concerns can offer you at least as much information as the words they speak. By noticing hesitations, emotional shifts or changes in tone when the patient tells their story, you can share the emotions you observe and explore their meaning.
“Reflective statements and questions provide an active replay of not just their behaviors but also the beliefs, fears, disappointments, betrayals, conflicts of values and desires prompting their actions.”
– Marcia Reynolds
Be sure to allow patients to express their emotions without judgment, since these observations often provide important revelations, and judging them may cause them to withdraw. According to Reynolds, coaches should do the following when engaging in active replay:
- Use the patient’s words to recap or paraphrase, then validate them.
- Drill down to the main points of the patient’s story.
- Notice changes in temperament when summarizing.
- Provide emotional safety for the patient.
After reflecting back what you've heard to ensure understanding and validate the patient’s experiences, you may need more information to move forward. You do that by asking the right kind of questions.
3. Ask the Right Questions
Coaching is about nudging patients toward finding their own answers. Effective questioning encourages self-reflection and empowers patients to explore their behaviours and motivations. Open-ended questions facilitate deeper discussions and uncover underlying issues affecting oral health. The goal is to help patients reframe their initial problem and place it in a larger context. You may prompt your patient to examine their thinking by asking:
- Do you know where your doubt is coming from?
- What is based on an old story you no longer need to tell?
- What is in your control to do now?
- What will you regret not doing a year from now?
In The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier suggest you follow up with the “AWE” question: Ask, “And what else?” By asking it, you generate greater understanding, improved mindfulness and enhanced self-knowledge, which increase the potential for meaningful two-way communication. The AWE question grants you more time to shape the conversation in a productive way, Stanier explains. It enables the patient to discuss candidly whatever is on their mind. The AWE question moves you away from turning into an “Advice Monster.” Instead, it helps you remember to listen before you speak.
4. Motivation: Move Away From Pain
Coaches often unsuccessfully try to motivate clients to undertake a shift by focusing on the reward. Yet as coach Marion Franklin explains in the podcast, “Shift Happens”,moving away from pain is a stronger motivating force for 90% of people; only 10% are deeply motivated to move toward pleasure.
“It’s usually a negative impetus that’s really going to get someone to move. So we are looking for what is their pain point, and what happens so often is that they are not aware of just how bad their current situation is.”
– Marion Franklin
As a coach, you can help your patient understand just how unsustainable their present situation really is. Ask them first how their current behaviour or situation benefits them. Next, flip it around and explore the costs. Have patients name one cost, and then repeat the question to help them uncover additional costs they may not have been aware of previously. Deeper inquiry helps patients gain introspection and realize that the costs of maintaining the status quo far outweigh the benefits.
Franklin has found that the obstacles people name to justify inaction are often not the real reason they are stuck. Helping patients imagine a situation where the obstacle they have in mind doesn’t exist can be deeply revealing.
For example, imagine a patient who brushes only once a day. A coach-like approach might begin with curiosity: “What do you like about brushing once a day?” The patient might say it saves time or that they don’t feel the need to brush more often. You can then flip the perspective: “And what are the downsides?” Initially, the patient may mention plaque buildup, but deeper inquiry reveals bleeding gums, cavities and potential long-term damage. By guiding the patient to uncover these hidden costs themselves, they become more open to change.
Similarly, a patient who avoids cleaning the interdental spaces may see it as a hassle. Instead of simply telling them to use interdental brushes, you may ask: “What’s the benefit of not cleaning interdental spaces?” The patient might say it saves effort. Next, help the patient explore the costs: “What happens when you don’t clean them?” As the patient reflects, they recognize issues like food getting stuck, bad breath and early gum disease. By shifting the conversation from instruction to self-discovery, oral health professionals help patients build lasting motivation for better habits.
By guiding patients through this structured reflection, they realize on their own that the costs of their current habits outweigh the benefits. This increases their motivation to change, rather than feeling like they are being lectured.
5. Identify the "Why"
Helping patients discover their intrinsic motivation – their personal "why" – is crucial for sustainable behaviour change. When patients connect oral health practices to their values and desires, they are more likely to commit to positive habits.
You will want to discuss with patients how improved oral health can enhance their overall well-being, boost confidence or prevent future health issues. Linking oral care to their broader life goals can strengthen motivation. Encourage patients to identify specific, meaningful reasons for maintaining good oral health, such as setting a positive example for their children, avoiding discomfort, or enhancing their appearance for social and professional interactions. Additionally, help patients visualise long-term benefits, such as preventing gum disease or avoiding costly dental procedures, to reinforce the value of consistent oral care. By making the connection between daily habits and long-term rewards tangible, patients are more likely to stay committed to their oral health routines.
6. Use Effective Goal Setting
Your role as a coach is to help patients set realistic goals. The GROW model is a structured framework for setting and achieving goals, originally developed by Sir John Whitmore in the 1980s as part of his work in performance coaching.
“Goal, Reality, Options, Wrap up…That structure always seems to work if you want to have a really effective coaching session which goes beyond simply providing feedback.”
– Max Landsberg
7. Implement Proven Habit Change Tools
Habit change expert James Clear offers two habit change tools you may want to coach your patients to adopt. One of them is temptation bundling. The idea is to link something you enjoy to something you dread or find boring. For example, imagine a teenage patient who brushes sloppily and consistently fails to meet the recommended two-minute duration. Instead of nagging them to brush longer, you may ask, “Do you enjoy listening to music?” If the patient answers in the affirmative, you may suggest, “Pick a two-minute song you love and make a rule: You can only play it while brushing.” Over time, the patient instinctively associates brushing with an enjoyable experience, reinforcing the habit without resistance.
“With temptation bundling...you can get the short-term benefits of indulging and the long-term benefits that result from practicing good habits consistently.”
– James Clear
Another habit change tool is temptation bundling. Identify a current habit, something your patient does every day. Next, find a way to link the new habit your patient wants to establish to an existing one. The goal is for the existing habit to start triggering the new habit. For example, may you have a patient who wants to make interdental cleaning a daily habit. You may want to ask, “What’s something you do every evening without fail?” If the patient says they always watch their favourite Netflix show, you may suggest, “Keep your interdental brushes next to your remote and make a rule: You can’t start your show until you’ve cleaned your interdental spaces.” By linking interdentals to an existing habit and bundling it with an enjoyable activity, the patient effortlessly integrates the new behaviour into their routine.
Conclusion
When you think like a coach, patient conversations become more meaningful. You’re not just telling – you’re guiding, supporting and helping patients uncover their own reasons to change. With simple shifts in how you listen and ask questions, you can boost motivation and build stronger patient relationships. Small changes in your approach can lead to big changes in patients’ health – and that’s a win for everyone."
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