94: Chaos To Amazing Results Part 4 with Host Ken Kaufman and Guest Jodi Evans, COO of National Dental Partners

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You have this natural talent, this unique ability. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of DSO Secrets. This is Ken Kaufman, your host for today. And I'm excited now for the fourth episode in a row to have Jody Evans, the COO of National Dental Partners. Jody, thanks for joining.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here as always.

Now we've had a really interesting three parts to this four part series so far. The theme being taking chaos and turning it into amazing results inside of our organizations and here in dentistry as we're building our group practices and or DSOs. And you've taken us through these amazing steps. And I just wanted for the audience's sake, if you missed any of the other episodes we talked about first assessing the level of chaos in your organization and then gaining an awareness of who's on the team and then who they're interacting with and then getting into building the vision for the team and the individual. And again, I'll say this, I love the fact that the vision is 100% around who is the customer that is going to be served, what are their needs and how are you going to help them solve the problems they're facing. And that is 100% how you build the vision with the team and then it's creating this predictable platform that creates a playbook. And you have these amazing questions. I'm just going to read these off really quick where you go through and you ask your team these questions. Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How are we going to succeed? Or what does success look like? And then what is most important right now? So it takes you through this process of identifying how you can have the biggest impact and then prioritizing based on that biggest impact, which is amazing. And now that this playbook is built, there's these last two pieces we're going to talk about today. Why don't you take a minute, go ahead and introduce us to this next step. Once we've got this really cool playbook built. What is the next step in getting to creating these amazing results?

So we're talking about leadership cadence. What's your cadence of accountability? And it was interesting because about a couple years ago, I had a team member come up to me and say, you know, one of the things that's interesting about being on your team is the accountability level is so high. And I said, well, tell me about that, because I don't feel like I'm following up and being like, hey, have you done this? Have you done this right? And that's how sometimes I think about accountability. And she said, no, it's just part of your culture and your structure. She goes the way that you have things structured. I know, like, I need to be transparent about where I'm at and be able to explain, like, what's happening and why out to the team. So anyways, that was, like. That hit me, and so I actually started to write down, okay, I need to capture this and understand it better, because my team members are feeling it, and they're feeling it from a place of positivity, accountability, from Oz Principle. I love the way that they define it, but it's empowering people to see it, own it, solve it, and do it. And so how do you create a culture where your leadership team feels empowered to do those things and that you're not really getting in the way, but still understanding what's happening? And I think there's a fine balance between those two. I think sometimes we all question ourselves of, am I micromanaging, or am I too hands off? You know, and so just, I don't. I don't know if I have that balance perfect, but I've definitely created some cadences and gotten feedback that it's very beneficial to the team that they feel empowered. At the same time, they feel very accountable for what's happening.

Interesting. So can you break down what are some of the key principles that you operate off of and what are some steps that our listeners could maybe use as they're thinking about, again, finding that right balance that you talked about between micromanaging versus being so aloof and disconnected that you're not bringing momentum and value to your team and helping everybody fill that right level of accountability? What are some tips and tricks you'd have for listeners?

So the first thing is I'd have a weekly cadence with your team members that are working on, let's say, playbook results. Right? A weekly cadence on what's working, what's not. In these meetings, I recommend that they get to A place where they're ready to talk about the issues, where there's misalignment or disagreements on what the best outcome should be. And so really trying to create an environment where we're talking about, you know, getting the best result and we're, we're having healthy conflict around that. And then also a place where we're talking about the priorities. So in a weekly meeting, your team members should be bringing to you, here's the priorities I'm focused on. Is that still the right priority? And that might sound, you know, a little bit redundant, but when you are in a fast growing organization, when there's high potential for chaos, those weekly meetings, you'll be surprised how fast the team can get derailed. Not because they're add, but because the organization is right. And so you may have an executive pinging them and saying, I really need you to go this direction. It's really important. And so they may start going that direction. And so by them coming back to this meeting, this cadence, like, hey, what are we working on? Okay, now why did that become the priority? Right, let's get it back to what is the highest priority? And in the playbook, you try your best to prioritize the best you can, but this meeting gives you permission to come back and to reprioritize as needed. And you'll find that your teams will need that. So reprioritizing, getting aligned, and then making sure that you guys, that you as a team agree on the outcome and the way to get there.

Interesting. So I want to talk about those elements. So when you talk about helping your team first of all build priority and then reprioritize, what does that look like? Maybe. Could you share an example? When within a short period of time, a team you were working with got way out of alignment from a prioritization perspective, what did it look like and how did you get everybody reeled back in to the right focus of priorities?

So I actually was just recently in a meeting and I had the director and the project manager there and I said, okay, you know, we do our positive focus and had a little moment of celebration. And I said, okay guys, so what are you guys struggling with now? Or where are you at? Because I can look at their face and I could just see like, okay, they're in a, they're overwhelmed. They go, we're overwhelmed. Well, I heard that first, said, okay, great. What are you focusing on? Well, I've had this HR issue pop up. I've had this and I've realized like, this isn't Organized yet, and they're pointing to a story, and I'm looking at the priorities, and it's like on number five, right? And so I go back to say, okay, well, let's look back at our priorities. This is our first priority. How is that going? Oh, I wasn't paying attention to that because I got so consumed in this other issue that that priority has been put on hold. And so then what happens when your team is doing that is they're really juggling all five in their mind and feeling like they're failing. So when we're able to go, let's go back to our first three priorities, we know this is important. This fire over here is burning and it's really loud and there's a lot going on. But let's go back to our top three. If we just focused on those top three and we let this over here, either, you know, with that case, it's like, hey, let HR do their part at the same time. Can you just let that be for a minute and come over here and work on these three first? Now, how do you feel? And as we prioritize those top three again and talk through what it meant and what they needed to do, they felt like they could actually achieve what was needed. Whereas when we started the meeting, it was like, I am failing. But they were feeling like they were failing because they were focused on five things instead of the top three. And so that re centering get your team into momentum, it gets them to a place where they feel like, oh, okay, yep, I'm back on what I need to do. If I don't solve this problem number five down here this week, it's okay. It's just as permission and refocus.

So I think some listening to this might say, wow, weekly, do my employees really need to be brought back in and re centered on the biggest priorities on a weekly basis? What would your response be to that?

Maybe it's more opinion, but my response to that is it's for them, it's not for you. So it's not whether you have confidence in what they're doing. It's do they have confidence in what they're doing? And when that slows down, everyone loses. And so, you know, I'm good with asking them too, hey, we're going to have this meeting. Are things. Are the priorities we're working on, Are you feeling momentum around those and do you need to have the meeting? Right. But typically the answer is yes, because leadership, especially if you're leading leaders, is a very lonely position. And there's not a lot of people that they can collaborate with that can really help them prioritize. And so I find that, yes, now it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be an hour for sure. But I find that that level of engagement gives leaders a lot of momentum. And I think the ROI from that is huge. What you get back, right, because like for that one it was a director and a project manager. Well, that's 80 hours of work that they have clarity on now that they're gonna go spend it in the right way and come back. So that was worth my 30 minute meeting to get that eight hour or, sorry, 80 hours of return of focused, concentrated work.

That's a, that's a powerful concept. 30 minutes is a leader to make sure that you're getting the, I don't know if the right way to say it is maximum output, but you're, you're empowering your employees to try to create the best outcomes they can during, you know, in how they use those 80 hours. I think that's when you look at it like that. Yeah, when you look at it like that, it feels like, wow, 30 minutes is worth that investment to make sure it's going the right way. And then generally speaking, do you find that when you re engage for this reprioritization, how often do you find that employees, and even at leadership level, at a director level or VP level, how often do you find that they get distracted away from and get pulled in other directions and don't make progress on their top one or top three priorities?

It's interesting because I do the one on one and then we have an agile where it comes back around. So it's two reminders in a week. I find that typically that level of communication really supports them and helps them get done what they need to get done. So. But I do find that if I skip the weekly cadence and I just, you know, every Monday, hey, how we doing that? Typically there's been a bigger fire in their mind that's come up that needs to be taken care of. And that's really the discipline that we're trying to create is letting fires burn and fixing what's most important, not always what's urgent. And that's a, it's a tough thing to do. And again, in a fast growing environment because there's urgency everywhere and it can be coming from executives and it can be coming from people that are like, okay, I have to do this because, you know, and so they need that buffer that says you know what, you're doing the right thing. Keep focusing on the priorities or permission to reprioritize if there truly is something they need to address. When they're forced to make that decision on their own, they typically feel very vulnerable and very much like they're taking a lot of risk on their own. So they need to know that the leadership has their back, that they're being supported in their decisions. So I think the. Yeah, it's maximum engagement.

Interesting. I like that. And, and going back to the whole original thesis that you created here, which is there's a pathway and a pattern for taking chaos and turn it into amazing results. Each employee has their level of chaos going on and to the degree they're acting out of alignment with whatever you've set as priorities, they're feeling that chaos and frustration and, but trying to deal with whatever fires and issues are coming up. And I like that because I think a lot of our employees, they're so anxious to do well and they're so anxious to please that sometimes putting out the fires creates more of a short term bang for the buck, if you will, or that good feeling of hey, I'm doing great versus this project that's going to take six months to do. And I'm like, like week after week just slowly making progress on it. So have you seen that where sometimes it's a little more attractive to run after the fires from that perspective?

Absolutely. There's a huge emotional kickback from being a hero. Right. And so that's a great way to say it.

You said that so much better than I just did.

No, it's just, that's it. Right. There's just this ping that you get. There's, I'm sure there's a chemical, you know, reaction that takes over that's dopamine high or whatever and, and you're really helping them resist that. Right. As a leader and to say I know that would help with this relationship or I know that that would help you feel good about yourself because you could do that quickly and you could say, here's what I did from start to finish this week. But you're in this position because I need you to have the capability of taking it out to your point over a six month period without getting that kickback, you know, but that, that can go into celebrating those milestones too to help with that. But for sure it's not the same em high, if you will, that you get from putting out fires. And it's not bad to put out fires, it's just that those fires can't interfere with the bigger picture of what they're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, that's right. Because quickly they can get consumed in more administrative, you know, these fires that pop up, and we're not making the overall progress that we were hoping to as a company, as a dso. So is there anything else before we move on into. Because you brought up the cadence for celebrating milestones, anything else on this cadence for accountability that you'd like to dive into and have our listeners understand?

The only thing that I would add, because I do get sometimes some kickback on the level of cadence that I have with the team, and twice a week, people are like, you know, that's a lot. And I understand that. But I go back to going far together versus going fast alone. Right? So we say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I think the cadence is also going far together versus pushing your team to go do something really hard, fast, and alone. So I also think this cadence brings you together as well and says, hey, we're going together, and we're gonna go far together. Instead of throwing the team member out there and saying, you go chase that, and I'll meet you at the end. A lot of times they leave a lot of important people behind when they run that fast. And so you're helping them remember that, hey, this is a together thing. You need other people, typically, to get the projects done that I'm working with and my directors are working with. They need a lot of people in order to get it done. So, anyways, that's another reason to keep that cadence.

That's awesome. All right, so if we've got that part somewhat wrapped up, I know there's a lot more detail and a lot more context to that. Why don't you take us into this cadence for celebrating milestones, and how do you even pick what a milestone is? And I'm sure our listeners would be really interested to hear some of the key principles you use for this part of getting to amazing results.

So one of the things that we do in every meeting is our positive focus, and that is really time to celebrate what happened this week in the business that you're proud of and that you're excited about. And I do that before every meeting. It's a culture that we have here at NDP is really around making sure that we take time to do a positive focus about what's working. So that's the first one on celebrating, but the second one is I'm really intentional around Having a playbook celebration and involving the entire company, making sure that we are celebrating what we've accomplished. There is a town hall cadence that we have that Ken and the team have set up where every eight weeks we're meeting together and we're celebrating what we're doing and then an end of the year celebration to again, bring everybody with us. You know, if you open up a new location, not everybody is going to feel that or understand that, but they should all be celebrating that because it is a combined effort of the team in order to get to that place. And so really bringing everybody in and letting them take time to own those results, because part of accountability is also owning the results and sitting in that and saying, okay, we did that as a team, or I helped lead that or whatever. That's really important because it increases your team's confidence that if they can recognize what's been accomplished, they can see the possibilities. But if they don't recognize it, they blow past that and they go, yeah, yeah, that was easy. What I'm really excited about is what's next. They actually are moving forward with lower confidence. And so the celebration increases their confidence to move forward to a bigger vision. So that's. There's a cadence there. We do the positive focus, we do town halls, we do end of year celebrations. And then I'm really big on bringing the teams together for mini retreats and taking time to do a positive focus at that point and then celebrate them as a person, celebrate the team, and then talk about how we want to move forward. And that's a good reset. Just the day to day can be intense.

Yeah, this is an interesting concept and I dare say that as leaders, we miss on this more often than we should because this is some of the lowest hanging fruit, meaning, hey, here is what we're going to accomplish and then having your sort of milestones along the way of here's what we've got done, here's what's still coming, and then saying, here, look, we just accomplished everything we set out for leaders. We get to define what success is for employees. If we what my point is that I, and what I just learned from what you said is as leaders, if we don't tell our employees when it's time to celebrate and what they're celebrating for, they will generally put themselves in a bad place and just keep saying, I need to get further, no, I'm not celebrating. I want to get this done now. I want to get this done. And it can ultimately start creating, creating chaos in the organization. And employees that are frustrated and out of momentum. Is that a fair way to characterize that?

Yeah, that's a great way to say that. You'd be surprised how. How important it is that they own their results, and people are really uncomfortable with that. You would think that everyone wants to celebrate. They're excited to celebrate. They want to stand up and say, okay, this is really cool. Look what we did as a team. But in actuality, they're very resilient, resistant to that. And as I tell a lot of people that I'm coaching or working with, it's. It's. Step into your light. Like, that's really what I say. I was like, step into light. Like, there's. There is something unique and amazing about what you've done, and you need to own that. And if you don't own that, if you play small, we can't get where we need to go. And so celebrating creates that cadence where they're forced to do that. Now, an introvert may want to be celebrated differently, but they have to be acknowledged because it allows the team to also acknowledge the work that they've done and the contribution that they've had. And now they know what they can trust you with and rely on you for, too. So there's. There's a deeper thing at work there when you. When you slow down and celebrate.

Yeah, this is. This is such a powerful concept. I'm. I'm actually a little blown away by it because I was just starting to think about leaders that I know we tend to think our job is to keep pushing and driving forward, and sometimes we even struggle. And most entrepreneurs struggle to stop and say, hey, look, let's go ahead and celebrate now, because we're always on to the next thing. We're pushing to try to achieve and working with our teams to achieve the next thing. And it's really cool because as leaders, we get to choose. We have this choice to say, here's what we're going to do, and we accomplish it. And now let's celebrate. We get to define what success is in our organization and then let everybody participate in that. And it's one of our great, probably greatest responsibilities that I think sometimes we overlook.

Yes. And it's. Yeah, it's interesting because I think that people think that that would make the team slow down. Right. Oh, they're gonna get comfortable. They're gonna feel so good about themselves. What if they ask for a raise? Like, I think there's a lot of, I don't know, just misperceptions about what celebration looks like, But I've seen the complete opposite. They'll actually do more. They feel validated, but then also like, yeah, right, we did do that. What is next? Like, I want to be challenged more. What's next? What's out there? Like, it actually shifts them to a place of, I really am excited about the future now. And, yeah, it empowers them in a way that only brings a ton of momentum to everybody else.

Yeah, it goes back to, you know, the whole reason that our organization uses the positive focus concept. It comes down to when Emmett was engaged in the Dan Sullivan content at strategic coach. And he. Dan Sullivan teaches so clearly this principle that as individuals generally, we're always down on ourselves because we always have this ideal that we're trying to achieve. And even if we've just done amazing things, we don't allow ourselves to celebrate. We immediately then look and say, oh, but I still need to get there. I still need to get to that next place. And what's interesting as humans is we keep moving the mark forward. We never allow ourselves to achieve what we've established as our ideal. As soon as we get there, we just keep moving. Like I said, the benchmark. And so the element of positive focus is so powerful. Is there anything else or maybe is there. Do you have an example you could share of maybe a good or a bad experience you've had where maybe there was a group that didn't celebrate and some negative that came out of it versus some. Some of the positive outcomes that you've seen.

Like.

Like down grassroots level, you've seen an employee who's really turned around a corner because of this cadence of celebration.

Sure. So I have seen. So on the negative side, I haven't always celebrated this success. And I have been driven to the next level. The next level. Almost to the. Almost to the point of an extreme where it was like, that's nice anyways. Right. Behavior, and saw that turn on me very, very quickly and the reason why. And it turned on the people involved as well. Because what happened was their mindset started becoming like, hey, I'm not really that important to you, and they were important to me. And I didn't slow down enough to make that so clear that it couldn't be misunderstood and lost a lot of trust and had to regain that. And that's a painful way to learn it, but it was also a great way to learn. It's like, how do I slow down and make sure that they're aware of how I really feel about what's Been accomplished. So it's not a game. I really did feel very grateful and I was aware of their strengths, but what surprised me is they weren't. And I was like, oh, slow down. Like, they're not sitting here understanding and seeing what I see. Because sometimes as a leader, you get to see the big picture. You get to see the contribution of each part and how that made up this huge success. They don't necessarily see that. So me not calling that out created chaos. Right. Interesting, dramatic chaos. It was sad and it was difficult and I. But it was great learning. On the flip side, I've seen, you know, I've seen people turn incredible corners and be able to grow and become rock stars by that Celebration piece. By both. Right. The high accountability and the high celebration. Sure. I'm excited. I mean, I have three of my team members that were previously directors on my team are now serving on the executive team. And a lot of those conversations were, hey, I need you to step into your light. Like, I. We need to look back and celebrate. And they were able to start owning their contribution at a higher level. And so they were starting to contribute at a high level. And that was really. That's. That's where Celebration really allows, you know, the team to benefit from this great talent that's. That's here around us. So. Yeah.

Well, that's fantastic. So, I mean, I. This has just been an incredible, you know, four part series that we've done today, specifically talking about how to create that cadence of accountability and then that cadence of celebration and how if we don't do it, if we don't do these two steps, we'll just spin right back. Even if we follow all the other steps, we'll spin back into chaos with our employees and less engagement and everything else. Any final parting words as we've gone through this experience of unpacking? Because some of these things, Jodi, they just come so naturally to you. And I think you probably take for granted that, I mean, what you've done here and what you've created is very, very powerful. Is a powerful framework to be an amazing leader that can drive amazing results. And by rooting out all this chaos. Any insights just as we've gone through unpacking this that you want to share with the audience as we're wrapping this whole series up?

I think the only thing that I would just end it was my favorite quote. If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. I think that's just at the end of the day, by myself, I really don't do much. And so maybe that's why my, why I have passion around going together. I need people and I appreciate people. And so I get excited about getting them in momentum because that's what I need. So as a leader, you really need them. If you really need people to accomplish, if your vision is bigger than just what you can do by yourself, then I hope this helps you.

Oh, that's amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough for having been part of the DSO Secrets podcast here for the last several weeks going through this series, I think our listeners have gotten tremendous value. And for those of you that have questions or would like to hear some other examples in those things, we invite you to come over to the DSO Secrets Facebook group. Everybody's welcome. And we welcome the questions and comments and everything along that. And again, I just, again, so much gratitude to you, Jodi, for what you've done and how you've been transparent because some of these have been lessons learned by doing it the wrong way. Like all of us, where we've made the mistakes along the way. But thank you for being willing to be vulnerable and transparent and share this. It's a powerful framework. Thanks again to all of you for listening. And until next time, as Emmett always says, keep smiling.

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