"Transform Your Team" The Growth Masterclass: October 2021

Hello and welcome to the Growth Masterclass. I'm your host, Dr. Brian Laskin, where we of course are walking through this great book, Bounce Back From Anything by best selling author Gary Katie. Now, Gary couldn't be here this month due to an emergency, so I'll be playing a recent conversation that we had on team Transformation from our last Upgrade Day with Upgrade Dental. Now. I thought this discussion would be very appropriate to our exploration of chapter two from Bounce Back from Anything because as stated in this chapter, 75% of dentists are methodical humanists. In other words, they care deeply and primarily about people. So let's dive right in and talk about those amazing people that make up our teams. How we can effectively assemble and lead our teams to accomplish great things. Hello everybody. Welcome to another Upgrade Day webinar. Super excited to have everybody here, especially our honored guest, Gary Katie from, who's the CEO of Next Level Practice and.

Just.

Has forgotten more about practice management than pretty much the rest of the consulting industry. And also, by the way, just an amazing, inspirational human being. So Gary, thank you so much for being here. Honored to have you as part of Upgrade Day.

Yeah, thanks Brian. Thanks for creating this and thanks for being such an innovator and a leader in our industry and really changing the direction and really elevating our profession. And that's why I love talking with you because you really see what's possible in, you know, elevating the discourse of dentistry and really making it an honored profession and a profession that we could be proud of and really like elevate how we operate day in and day out in a dental practice. I really appreciate this opportunity, of course.

Yeah. And I, you know, I think we share that passion of, you know, really making dentistry as fulfilling on the great profession that it can be. And you know, I think, you know, this, this particular track I'm super excited about, which is the team. Right. Team performance. I think that it's. And your presentation, you know, this presentation is all about transform your team. I love this. From high maintenance to high performance. Right. I think we all can look at the people that we go, oh, that, that person's high maintenance and high performance. Right. And so, you know, I know you guys just do all sorts of great things at Next level practice. So, so what do you mean when you're talking about transforming your team from being high maintenance to high performance?

Well, you know, it. I have a lot of empathy and compassion for dentists because you, they leave dental school and they're not really set up as leaders, as managers. As marketers, as bankers, as CPAs. I mean, right, it's like you're set up and then you have to be this like amazing clinician and then you have to be a great inspiration to people. And the business model that's set up is not set up so that there's accountability, responsibility. And then, then our doctors are not set up to really, they're inspirational but they don't know it. And then, you know, they don't understand the difference between leadership and management. And all this, this cocktail leads to a high maintenance team where if you find yourself having to repeat yourself 10,000 times or if you have a team member that's like sitting there and just collecting a paycheck and you want them to really take ownership of their area of responsibility or, you know, in today's world, even having someone show up for a job interview is completely ridiculous and you can't find good people today. So in the heart of this session, we're going to get to the root cause of the matter so that doctors and practice owners and team leaders can actually put their arms around how to do this. We're going to go over three particular things that allow you to move from a high maintenance. High maintenance. All that means is you have to, they're not, your team's not self managed. They don't know why they're there. They don't know what to do, they don't know how to do it on a consistent basis. And you have to keep telling them what to do on a regular basis. High performances, they're saying to you, get out of my way. You're, you're going too slow and we really need to start, you know, moving, getting more associates because you're slowing us down. That's what high performance looks like.

It's kind of like pushing versus being pulled, right? Is that kind of what.

Oh, Brian, I mean that's what a great picture. You know, if you find yourself like there's that Greek God that is like, they talk about it, I can't think of the visual but like it's discrete God that's pushing a boulder up a hill. If you're in that realm, you're high maintenance. If you're using the momentum of that boulder to carry you through, then you know you've hit high performance. So there's a, there's a mindset here. There's a, there's a business model here. There's structure and systematic processes. Now here's one of the key things here, Brian. The reason why all these elements are so important is it's because our defaults are, we're humanists, we care deeply about people. So that turns into people pleasing, which turns into acquiescing or avoiding, which turns into the cascade of a team that's, that's really running the show. Rather than you running them, they're running you because there's more of them and most of us as leaders. I don't know about you, but I'm a perfectionist, non confrontational guy who wants people to like me. And I find that most dentists fall under some form of that.

Totally. Yeah, completely. And also then they look back and go, why does my team act entitled? It's like, right? It's like because you fed that monster. Right? Completely. And I think at this moment in time, which, you know, it's an oversense cliche right now, but, but the reason why I said it anyway is that I just heard some statistics that 50% of hygienists are looking at switching practices right now and over 10%, I believe, of hygienists have left the profession. And we have a complete crisis when it comes to not just having high performance team members, but just I think a lot of dentists are probably like, I just need somebody in the seat. And, and I think that you and I agree that that's not the way to go. Let's get a high performing team and then add people to that. Right?

And yeah, let's look at the cascade of hiring fast and firing slow. That's typically how it's got gone. You know, when you're in fear and scarcity and you need a body in that position, you throw someone that may not be aligned to your values. Let's say that your values are integrity, show up on time, do what you say you're going to do. And you just, just because somebody showed up and you need a warm body in that seat, you throw that person in. Here's what happens. It's actually a bigger cost than, than a benefit of putting that person in.

Why?

Because the rest of the team that have been loyal to you for all those years are now overworked, they're frustrated and they're actually doing the work of that person so they have more work to do. And then, so the opposite actually happens. And then here's the other thing. You can never go from high maintenance to high performance because you're enabling this dysfunction because of the circumstances. What we're saying is, let's stop the madness, let's interrupt the process and let's build this Right from the start so that you don't keep perpetuating the problem by throwing people into a situation and then having even your existing people go, I don't want to work here complete.

And that's what I found is that when you do have a culture of high performance that they won't stand for somebody who's not a high performer. Right. So it's a self propagating thing either way. Right. Either you're either you're being led by high maintenance people or high performing people, but it's a conscious decision you have to make.

Well, yeah, the easiest way to kill off a World Series championship team is throw a B or C player on it because everybody plays down to the lowest player. All boats lower to the lowest player because you're giving permission to play that way. I don't know about you, like I'm not a good tennis player, but when I play a poor tennis player, I just kind of hit all over and it's going all around. But when I play a really good tennis player, I pay better attention. I go back to the fundamentals. I can actually hit with a person that's pretty talented. But if I'm playing with a person who's like doesn't care, I just play down to it and it's a waste of my time.

Yeah, there's a. I don't know if we've discussed this before, but Hussein Bolt when he won the, at the Olympics when he beat all the world records, what was interesting, that numbers two and three also beat the world record. And they went up to them and said like, how did you guys beat the world record? They were like, I don't, we're just trying to catch Hussein. Right. The lead dog sets the pace. Right. Or else, or else there's. They're hanging out in the back.

Well, you know, in the line with running, Roger Bannister in the, in the 1920s said I can run a four minute mile and beat it. No one ever did it. He did it and then everybody else did. So this concept of if you want to keep high maintenance people, enable, enable that and you will stay high maintenance. How do you interrupt this? So that's what we're about to talk about. How do you interrupt this and infuse, you know, take what, what's urgent, which is running on the treadmill with no off switch and interrupt it with what's important. And when you put what's important in place, your experience of going to work is different. The valuation of your practice is different. You having to Herd cats goes away. Your, your case acceptance goes up, your patient retention goes up. Your attract. When your energy, when the energy of your office is loving energy rather than anger or resentment or frustration. That is, that's push energy. Get away from me. We can't handle more versus loving energy, which is, excuse me, attraction, energy.

Completely, totally agree. So how would you rec. What's a good place for the people watching this to start? Like, if they're looking at this going, I want to convert from a high maintenance to a high performing team. How should they start? Get going.

Yeah. The first thing is I would make sure my money's right. You got to make sure if your money ain't right, Bry, you can't join the fight. And if you're in fear and scarcity.

If you're like, you're like the Muhammad Ali for dentistry, by the way, I love that. Your money ain't right. You can't join the fight. I love it.

Spoke like a, I was going to say smoke like a bee and sting.

Like, float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. That's.

Yes, there you go. And you know he's rope a doping, right? And for millennials, this was a boxer in the 70s and 80s. All right, that's Muhammad Ali. So, you know, here's the thing. You have to make sure your money's right. And so you getting out of fear and scarcity, not enough will get you off the treadmill of slapping in patience because you got to slow down. You slow down before you crank out. Like, I, I was delivering this to a client and he was saying, like, look, I, I need to throw somebody into the mix because I can't keep up. Well, make sure your expenses are clean. Make sure you're, you know, how much money you need to make to slow down before you go forward. You have to interrupt the patterns that you've been doing. So make sure your money's right. That's real simple. Look at your expenses, figure out how much you need to make, and then what we do is we, we, we, we reverse engineer the revenue that's needed. So if you want to do a million dollars, you want to work, take four weeks off work four days a week, and you have one doctor, one hygienist. You have to do 5,000 a day on the high and the doctor schedule, a thousand in the hygiene schedule. You can actually slow down and know how much enough is and not keep slapping people in. That will give you the space and the room to do what I'm about to share with you. Which is the first thing you need to do is create your practice as an irresistible product that your internal customer buys from you every day. So I'm going to say that again. Treat. There's two customers you have as a practice owner. You have your internal customer. That's your team, and you have an external customer that's your patients. When you take care of your internal customer, they automatically go out and take care of your external patients as long as you have a systematic process in place. So in order to slow down, you figure your money out. Now you package the practice as an irresistible product. What do we mean by that? Well, this works now in, you know, in the age that we're in post pandemic, it also. We had a reinvent in 2015, 2016, BRI, and it's when there was more millennials working in dental practices than there were baby boomers. This is key to note why? Because millennials do not have the loyalty of baby boomers. So we had to reinvent and re approach the practice in a new way to make sure we attracted millennials and kept them. Because millennials would just, you know, the baby boomers, when you paid me a check, I felt like a slave to you. And I would just work my tail off. And I was dedicated to. And it was like old school thinking. The millennials go, their parents, they saw their parents as mid managers being fired, unemployed throughout their career, feeling the pain of that. They go, you don't bow to the man. You do what you want. And then that's how they live their life. It's really incredible. So we had to get really good at getting longevity with these guys. And this is how we did it. The first thing is they don't work in widget factories. They don't work in widget factories. Let me explain. They work in places like Patagonia. Patagonia is dedicated to clearing open spaces. They have a high purpose. They don't sell jackets. Yes, they sell jackets, but they wrap jackets in. We're gonna, we are gonna keep open spaces. Hiking, biking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's their mission. All they did was wrap a jacket in this mindset. You get what I'm saying here?

100%. Well, first of all, I want to, like, I want to slow you down because you just spewed so much great stuff that I think people gonna have to listen to that, like half speed to capture it all. Like getting your money right first. And then you went through how to do that. And I think if you haven't got your money Right. Reach out to Gary to figure it out. Because coming, you can't come from a place of creativity when you're coming from scarcity. And that's exactly what you're talking about. Like you have to get, you don't. You have to not worry about the payroll and of your office to functioning if you want to break through to have a high performance team and attract and retain those. And I agree completely with you on kind of this and the timing. I didn't even think about it in those ways. But the way I look at it, you know, managing is telling people what to do and holding them accountable and that kind of thing. Leading, as you said, is like setting a goal and beating the drum. And this is a mission bigger than what we're doing day to day. And that I think that millennials want to be led, they don't want to be managed. And I think that because we in dentistry typically are used to managing people, we go, what the hell's wrong with these millennials? Right? Yep, there's nothing wrong with them. I find them, they're like phenomenal, high performing people. But you need to give them a bigger calling than suck and spit. Right?

You got it. And then I love hanging out with you, Brian, because you pull out stuff and you recap stuff for people to process. So thanks for doing that because you got me excited. I'm like, I gotta slow my roll here and chill. And I love how we just did that. So I'm just like in a zone now. That is powerful. So thank you for that. And then, yeah, where there is next is. And by the way, this is designed for control freaks, perfectionist and non confrontational people, dentists, 95% of dentists, perfectionist. You have to be a perfectionist. You have to control the environment so that you know you can do what you do. And it's non confrontational because when somebody puts up something you want to you, you know, you don't want to deal with that. You want to be liked and respected. I totally get it. So I designed this in a way where Brian said it's a pull strategy versus pushing things on here. I want to give you a thought process bride right here, which is really important. This is the paradigm shift. She convinced against her will is of the same opinion still. She convinced against her will is of the same opinion still. When you attract people that have caring, loving in their hearts with a high purpose aligned to your purpose and as a practice owner now you have a receiver of education, training systems, processes that you don't have to bump into. Under a high maintenance environment, you're just taking a person, but you don't even know. Yours. So most practices, Brian, don't have a declared vision, purpose and value. So I want to really highlight that here. This is a tangible thing. A vision is the impossible possibility. So I'm just going to use a rural practice in the middle of New London, Ohio. Josh and Natasha Merrill. 2500 people, you know, stuck wanting to sell to a DSO. They come to me and they go, hey, I want to do this. The first thing we did was he goes, I've been trying for 10 years to write a vision, purpose and values. I said, tell me what your picture is. He started describing it and this is how simple it is. If it's not simple, it doesn't work. His vision is that New London, Greater New London is access to complete health living. So he turned his practice from a drill Phil and Bill PPO mill to a whole body health practice that offers living life better and living life longer. You see, because that is the endpoint that dentistry delivers. So often people are in the means rather than the end. What people buy, whether it's a team member or a patient, is is they buy the impact of the service that you're providing. Sort of like Patagonia. Warm coats allow you to hike in cold weather, right?

Oh.

So you see how it's all connected and strategically laid out. So here's Josh. This is the story about this. You know, New London, New London, Ohio has access to complete health living. Our purpose is to inspire people to live life better and longer. And, and the values are he creates patients as heroes. Health is greater than disease. Excellence, respect and optimism. His entire team can speak that whole mantra. They live it, they be it. It doesn't live on the wall. Calligraphy, you with me on this?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. I think, you know, we like to say we live and die. Fire, hire, reward, do the opposite of rewarding based on a core value. So that's all that matters, right? And so, you know, if you're not, if you don't like, you know, optimism was one of those, I love that as a core value because there's some people that just are not optimistic. Great. Go be pessimistic somewhere else. Right? And I think of the dentists that have come to me over the years and they're like glowing with pride that they haven't changed a team member in 25 years. And I go, who do you have to fire? Because it's somebody, right? Or who doesn't Exemplify which one of your core values. And I think that's the key, is not just putting it on the wall, but really living them and holding and saying, this is who we are. Not when we show up at work, but when we go home, Right. With our kids, with our family, when I'm having a beer on the weekend or on a boat or whatever, it's like, these are who we are. We are optimistic people. Right. I think that's key. And being able to tell that, I think, goes to what I think what you were talking about before, which is attracting people through that sort of, like, loving energy because you're exemplifying the core values that you're preaching, right?

Well, totally. And watch this, Bry. Now, let's say somebody's. They're usually optimistic, but now they're pessimistic. The way the manager manages is they go, here's our vision, purpose, and values. What I've been seeing from you is a certain way of being that really isn't aligned to our core values. Here. Let's read the core values. And then tell me how, like, when you yelled at this person because blah, blah, blah, fits inside of these core values. And now it's not a person reprimanding it. It's the reprimand of just bringing somebody back to center of the alignment of the values and the purpose behind the work. The other thing is, I want to give some tips here. I think it's really important. Once you have this built, then in your morning huddles, you just how you keep it alive, and it becomes the fabric and thread of a culture. Here's what happens. You say, how did we demonstrate optimism yesterday? How did we inspire people to live life better and longer? Oh, we sold four sleep cases yesterday. They literally did. They sold four sleep cases one day at 7,500 bucks a pop. Yeah. And guess what that does. That's 30 grand. But it's also like changing a person's life. They don't have to wear a CPAP anymore because they're wearing a vivo system, stuff like that. And then the other piece I want to highlight here that's really important is recruiting associates in rural areas is the hardest thing to do on the planet. And we do it all the time. Why? Because associates want to practice the way they had a picture practicing. And they think that, like, oh, I'm going to lose them to DSOs. Yeah. Because it's drill fill. And Bill, there's this associate, Maggie, Dr. Maggie, who just graduated, her husband works at the Cleveland Clinic, New London, Ohio is an hour away. She does the interview, observes the practice and she goes, I am so mad right now. She tells to Dr. Josh and he goes, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? She goes, I have to commute past 150 practices, one hour to and fro work because I love this place and I would not work in any other place.

That's amazing. That's fantastic. Yeah. And I feel like that dentist is going to be way more committed and also propagator of making that culture like leveled up and just exemplifying the core values and yeah, that's fantastic.

Oh, and guess what happened. We have one of these. We have a job description on a team called the lead Pioneer. The lead pioneer brings initiatives to the internal team and the external team, the patients. So we have a dream program. A dream program is where the person fill each team member fills out 100 dreams. And that's not easy to do. And these aren't goals. Not like I weigh 200. This is like I'm traveling to Alaska and catching a salmon and cooking it on a grill while the sunsets. This is taking my family on a Disney cruise. Like these are dreams. Right. Then we have a bonus system which you'll find in my book Million Dollar Dentistry. A step by step bonus system. Yeah. Thank you. And this bonus system is outlined in there again reverse engineering how much time you want to work, how much money you need to make, how much you need to do per month, how much you need to do per day, how much you need to do per person per day. Now they own that this is also how you go from a high maintenance to a high performance. Because now they can own a measure in their area. You create intrapreneurs and then you reward them. As long as you collect enough per month, you reward them per day. And it's calculated per day. And it's a game changer. And what this woman did, Brian, is she now is heading up the dream program. So now it's going to be, you know, when you have an accountable person. And guess what she did. She wants to bring complete health to New London. She set up a 5k, 5k run walk in their community to bring complete health awareness. This is her second day in the business.

Oh, that's awesome.

She does not have a license yet. We're waiting for a license. So she's training and we said, look, would you like to be the lead pioneer? She said yes. She read the job description. She, she went and looked at all the educational videos. The Monthly videos we have on Lead Pioneer. She picked one and has the initiative done already. That's how you create. Now watch this. A new associate coming in who typically thinks they don't matter and they're going to do single surface fillings. She's leading the initiatives of the mission, vision and values of this practice.

Oh, it's amazing, you know, and again, you spewed out so much gold there. Like from rewarding employees daily versus, oh, on the end of the month. Right. To coming up with a whole list, that dream list that you're doing. All you're doing is finding out how can I motivate people right from their value system, not mine. I mean, I hope that people re watch this to three times to kind of capture all the gold you went through right there. That was beautiful stuff. And, and then. And read Million Dollar Dentistry. It's a fantastic book filled with wonderful gold like that. And no. So I mean, how cool is that? Like now I'm thinking like, I need to start a 5k. Like how, why haven't I started a 5k in my community? Right? I mean that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the type of creating creative thinking that I think is what really drives a high performer. Right. To your point with millennials now, today, and not just millennials, but I think it's, I feel like I've been sort of doing this thinking lately, like maybe millennials are just the next evolution of mankind where they don't have to worry about the scarcity because they're living in this abundant world right now and they're like, you know what? I don't want to be managed. I can lead and I want to be led. I want to have a higher purpose. And I think that regardless of the reason why, doing things like giving a new associate the space and the ability to come up with something like a 5k in your. I mean, you can't buy marketing like that. Right. And it's probably is going to end up making them money because they'll have other sponsors on the 5k and stuff. What a great example.

She's already got Patterson on board. I mean, I can keep going.

I want to support it.

What I want to highlight one thing you said that was really important, Brian. I really want to bring it to the forefront here. You spoke about somebody who has been proud of having the 25 and 30 year old, 30 year team member, right. And you're like, you just maybe been putting up with them or just like setting Dormant. My wife always says, you know, if your palms aren't sweating every day, you are not really challenging your comfort zone. And so I always appreciate that, you know, and I want to talk to you about something that was a breakthrough around people who have been around for a long time and, or this is also appropriate where if you just purchase a practice, and I invented this because I saw that somebody would buy a practice, they would have an existing team there, they would have all this debt. Brian. Right. And they had this vision of how they wanted their practice to run, but who's dictating? It was the former team and whenever they tried to put new initiatives in, it got killed off. So all this person had was a bunch of debt and a job inside of a business that they thought they owned, but it was owned by the bank and the team. Does that make sense?

Well, first of all, right now is the first time I think since recording in this little office, inspired by you, by the way, to like do a whole new recording studio in my office. But, but I'm glad that I have poor lighting right now. Cause I'm probably turning red with anger. Cause I've been there, right? I had the employees and to be clear, if you have a 20, like if I. And I have employees that I've worked with for over 20 years, like that person deserves to be celebrated because we're winning the super bowl every week, right? That person has been a high performer for 25 years. I don't think you can have a team of 10 people where you have 25 people that are highly performed for 10 years. And if you do, your name is NASA or something, right? In dentistry, I think it's very difficult to have people who are truly high performers, they that just stick around that long, right? That's just not the way the world works. So I completely agree with you. And to your point about that new dentist coming in, I was there. This is not a story I share very often, but the only reason why I got over being non confrontational is when I bought my first practice, I had one hygienist who was pregnant and she delivered right after I. Right after I bought the practice. And so she was on maternity leave. To keep the long story short, when she came back, I asked my attorney, when can I fire her? Because everybody in the practice was complaining that she hurt them so much. And he said never. He said never. I'm like, well, not a decade never. And so every day people would tell me, with her sitting right there, how, how horrified they were that she was back because she hurt them so much. So I took her to lunch every day to discuss how every, she was hurting everybody. And after day two she would cry and talk and she's like, why don't you ever say anything nice? I'm like, all I'm doing is reporting what everybody else said. After two weeks she left and found another job and her friend who had worked for me during her maternity leave came in and worked for me and was with me until she died. And I, I think that gets you over the fear of non confrontation because I was literally hearing the patients complain and I was more afraid that the patients would leave than her at that point. So I got lucky because I had somebody who was so bad that the patients noticed. But most people aren't that lucky, right? Most people, it's this irritant where you're just, they're just making everybody else in the office mad and they're just dragging you down. And I firmly believe that if you go in the average practice and you fire the right person and you hire the right person, that office would just.

Yep, yeah. It's brilliant insight, Brian, from somebody who lived in it. And I lived in it. I've only done this for 27 years and I've done 6351 practices. So I have done this a few times. And you start seeing patterns and it really starts with doctors. See doctors. And I am going to say people and I am not going to pick on docs right now because I never do. I have the heart and compassion for doc. But what we do as human beings is we make the unacceptable things acceptable. So I want to challenge the viewers now. Look in your life and see where you've given your power away and where you made something that's so unacceptable to you acceptable. And you just like go, well, I got it. It's just the way that it is. I've just accepted it in my study club. Every other doctor is dealing with the same thing that I'm dealing with. So you know, it's just going to be that way. And I'd say I'm going to, I'm looking at you right now and I'm saying make the unacceptable unacceptable. See, there's, there's a default mechanism that gets created by making the unacceptable acceptable, Brian. Because you really don't have to be responsible for anything. It's like it lets you off the hook. It's like this is just the way it's going to be. And I'm going to say turn up the gas in the kitchen. Put your booty on that, on that flame and start moving forward. Because here's why. Your life depends on it. The quality of your life depends on it. The asset that you're going to sell at the end of your career or throughout your career, if you're going to get multiple units or whatever it is, make the unacceptable. Unacceptable. Let me give you a five step process, Bry, that's going to help get people to play on your playing field versus you playing on their playing field.

Oh, amazing. I can't wait to hear.

I'm going to give you five simple steps here. It's a game changer. I, Everything I do, I systematize. Why? Because the pattern default pattern of human beings either want to be perfect, they want to be liked, they don't want to confront. So when you have that, you have to have a system that you can follow so you can get past where you get stuck. All right, so that's, that's my whole. Everything I do, Brian has that strategy. The more you can automate things, the more you can systemize things and it takes the human element out of it which wants to kill it off and be non responsible. That makes sense, right?

Absolutely, yes.

Okay, so five simple steps to getting your team playing on your playing field. And here's what it means to you. You're going to have people following your lead. You're going to have people following through consistently. You're going to have an increase in case acceptance and increase in patient retention and an increase in new patient acquisition. You're going to have more days off. You're going to have more vacation days. This is all connected to this one thing. So listen up. Here it is, Number one is you sit. So I want to set up the environment. Don't have this conversation in what I call the home playing field. If you do your meetings in a lounge, don't do it in the lounge, do it in the reception area. If you want to take them out and it's nice, take them out in the backyard and have a conversation. You got to bring break. What we call Broca. Broca is in the prefrontal cortex. That is the theater critic that says. We've heard this before. So that's number one.

I want to. I want to re. Sorry, I don't want to. I don't want you to go on. Because I couldn't agree more with, with, with you on that.

We even.

I've got an 8,000 square foot building with three levels. We oftentimes will rent a room in a hotel for $100. It only costs $100. Right? Completely game changing. Get people out of the environment, out of any environment that you ever go to with your practice. So I love it.

Yeah. Thanks for solidifying that. Step number now. Step number one, team. I know it might seem weird. We are here at the beach. We are here at a hotel. We are here at the back of Panera. And I want to have a conversation with you that I never had before. You might have heard this before, but I am never me never coming from this place like this. And the first thing I want to do is start by acknowledging the heck out of you. You've been dedicated, you've been unflappable, you've been, you know, loving to patients, you've been a partner to me. You've changed people's lives. Lisa, thank you. Brittany, thank you. Brian, thank you. Ryan, thank you. Amber, thank you. And you look them in the eye and you make sure that that acknowledgement is received. The second step is I'm taking responsibility for how I've been leading this practice. You want a leader who shows up on time, finds out what's most important to you and helps you get more of it. Gives you systems and training and processes that I haven't been able to give to you. You want to know who to go to? It's unclear. Do you come to me? Do you come to Betty, who's the manager, who's the leader? What do you do? It's just been unclear and I'm owning what has happened up until this moment. I want to let you know going forward, the train is leaving the building. I'm going to take a new level of responsibility as leader and I'm going to be implementing what we call the complete health model in our practice. It's where the oral systemic connection is an education process. The product we're going to be offering is not drilling, filling and billing anymore, but it's going to be a whole body health purpose behind our work. On a good day, we're going to save smiles here. On a great day, we're saving lives here. Change lives. A life changing business. And I want to invite you all to come with me. I know you didn't sign up for this with me and I know you didn't sign up for this leader, but I'm inviting you to participate. Amber, are you on the bus? Ryan, are you on the bus? Brian, are you on the bus? Brittany, are you on the bus? Are you on the bus? Going forward, are you going to come with me? I'm asking for your agreement. And really if you don't want to, it's completely fine because I have to be responsible for you because where we're going is not where we've been and what got us here is not going to get us there. So we're not going to be operating from the same playing field. And, and I feel responsible for letting you know this so you can have a choice in the matter. And they all say yes. And then you take out a notepad and you say, what are you going to need for me to come on the bus? Oh, I need this, I need that, I need this. And you just listen, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. They need more money, they need this. You just write it all down and say thank you. Starting right now, we are now going to be playing that game. So be ready to receive the collaborative support and love that I'm going to give to you in the direction so that you know where we're going and how we're going to get there.

Oh, I love it. It's, I mean I think of, you know, for the dentists that are, I think listening, going, that this sounds like a very difficult conversation to have think about. If you're on the other end of receiving that it would be, it would excite you. Right. I mean I think that that's, I'm a firm believer that communicating in a way that you want to attract the right people and repel the wrong people. Right. And that's exactly what that does. Amazing.

Yeah. And docs, I get it. Like what I have this thing called crucial conversations. This is a form of a crucial conversation. It's designed for the non confrontational, it's designed for the people pleaser, it's designed for the doc that, that doesn't usually have clear communication. And we know post pandemic here, Bry, people are getting really straight, they're not messing around anymore. And you need to get straight with yourself first. Like what's acceptable to you, what's not acceptable? Then once you get that and you have a vision, purpose and values and you now have this line in the sand conversation, the next thing that comes up, Brian, in moving somebody from a high maintenance team to a high performance team is this. What if they don't do it? What if they said yes and they're still operating like back there? We got that figured out because we only had 6,158 times to practice. This times 10 team members in each practice. So you know, this is how you fix that. It's Called having a culture of management by agreement. So let me distinguish what an agreement is. Every upset or inefficiency in a practice, Brian, is rooted in one of two places. There's either a missing agreement or a broken agreement. So every upset or inefficiency, there's either missing agreement or broken agreement. Missing agreement is. I thought the huddles was 7:45. They thought it was 8O'. Clock, they're showing it up at 8. I'm showing up at 7:45. No agreement to what the real time is. Right? So that's missing group. Broken agreement is Everybody knows it's 7:45 and people are showing up at 7:57, 67, 77, 80. If that's a time, you know, they're just like doing whatever they're doing. And here's the thing, the attention and agreement to time is manifested over other things like implementing systems and processes. We use time because it's tangible. And so who's going to do it? The team? What are we going to do? Show up on time or early earliest? In my world, early is on time. 7:45, sitting there ready to go for our morning huddle. And by when is the third aspect of an agreement by when who? You what huddle? 745. By when? Starting today we're going to have a huddle. While starting tomorrow, I'm telling you today and tomorrow we're all going to be here on time at 7:45.

Love it. I think it's like the anti speed limit, right? Because like if the speed limit's really 55, why do they not pull me over when I'm doing 60, right. So I might as well do 80. That's my excuse. Right? But yeah, I think it's. And if you are going 55 on the highway, everybody's looking at you going, what's wrong with them? That's, that's the way morning huddle times are probably in a lot of practices. I can tell you right now, if I was a cop, I'd be pulling over everybody going 55 and a half miles an hour, right? Then people would drive. But you know, it's got to be a reasonable thing too, right? Because what you just said is you get the agreement on the front end that this is a reasonable thing. And then I love it. I think it's amazing.

And what this fixes is she convinced against her will is of the same opinion. Still, I'm asking you, if you agree, you say yes. Now I'm managing that agreement and you're creating it the same is true with the measures. Are you willing to fill the doctor schedule to 5,000 and the hygiene schedule to $1,000? Because that's what I need in exchange for the salary I'm investing on you. And when you do that daily and exceed it, you're going to get paid even more. So now all of a sudden, everything is an ask, an agreement. And then doctors are not the senior most person in the practice. During when the practice is running, the team leader manages the agreements, not the doctor. Doctor does two things. Leads and leadership is inspiring and influencing. The manager measures, monitors and makes agreements. Right? And the team has a culture of what is known as agreements. High performance team operates with integrity. Integrity in this context is not good, bad, right or wrong. It's I gave my word to something and I either did it or I didn't do it. Now there's going to be people that are going to show up to this huddle bride that are going to be late. What there is to do is see, when you show up on time, you keep your word. When you don't keep your word, you have to honor your word. And how you do that is, I promised that I was going to be here 7:45. It's now 7:50. I'm five minutes late. I want to acknowledge that I'm late all the time. I used to be late three hours. Now I have this distinction. But I don't jump on a call like you. Especially like, I can set my watch by you. I actually have to get there early, But I'm built back to back. I can have excuses forever, but I was not on time. And if I don't honor your time because you and your team were there at that meeting, Brian, and I wasn't, what happens is, you know what happens to the listener if I just jump on and go, hey, Brian, how you doing? The listener goes, this guy doesn't give a crap about me and what I. He doesn't care about me and my time. I was here on time, my team's here on time. He just, he just dishonors it. This is the root source of creating trust between people. And look, if your case acceptance isn't great and you're seeing patients a half hour late, they listen to you a half hour late in what you're presenting to them on what you want them to get because you didn't acknowledge the lateness. We have people managing time. So time is a key factor in managing and keeping agreements. So do you follow me so far, Brian?

100%. And I also want to point out a magical piece that you put in there that you kind of went over quickly again, which is, I think a lot of the dentists who are non confrontational, listening to this, the way you have it, the structured, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the dentist acknowledges that, acknowledges if there has been a lapse in leadership and setting the bar high enough, then says, this is what we're doing. But then the team leader is the one who's actually doing the managing on the back end. So the confrontational piece, there's really not a confrontation because everybody has agreed to it. And then it's on the team leader just to go, oh yeah, by the way, remember we acknowledge it. I mean, so it's like all you're doing is you're actually taking this confrontational piece and turning it back on the person that broke it, which is amazing. Love it.

Yeah. And here's the good news. It puts the responsibility in the lap of the people, not on the doctor. And then the first line of defense is not the doctor, but the team leader. The team leader holds the agreements. And a lot of doctors that may not have a team leader, you just have someone double as a team leader, treatment coordinator and team leader. By the way, I love that combination. 90% of the time you're the team leader, I mean the treatment coordinator. So because you're making and keeping agreements with patients, who's going to do it? What are you going to do by when you get it done? The muscle of agreements. How much is it the agreement to that? What time does it take the agreement to that, all the agreements. It's an agreement machine when you're presenting cases. And it's an agreement machine with the internal customer, which is the team. Once you teach your team how to receive agreements. So this is the other part of making a keeping agreements. You can't just be the sender of agreements. You have to teach your team how to receive agreements. So when they hear the word agreement they go, oh, who? What? And by when? So now you have a culture of agreements, senders and receivers. Now here's what happens. How do you deal with the reprimand if they don't do it? We have another system in process. It's called the AID system. You'll hear me use acronyms a lot just so we can remember it. AID stands for Lisa. I asked you to be on time for the huddle at 7:45 and you weren't on time. I just want to, you know, how does that fit inside. Running the practice after I had that line in the sand conversation with you. What, you know, I asked you, do I want to go back to the agreement? Do you agree to be there at 7:45? Yes. So now you just take the ask. Very light touch. Now, Lisa, it's been five days since you've been late and you haven't really acknowledged that. And by the way, this is the team leader managing all this, not the doctor. And by the way, team leaders love this because they didn't have a mechanism and a structure. This is the handpiece for a team leader. Like the doctor can't work out without a handpiece. Brian. That team leader cannot work without a management by agreement tool. So it's I asked, I insist, is I now? Hey, Lisa, this is number three. I got a demand that you either line up or we have to talk about writing you up. And I don't want to put this into your employment file, but that's enforcing this. And then S stands for suspend. I have to suspend your employment or not have your employment. And that is not okay with me. Is it okay with you? And by the way, each of these meetings, you want to have everything in writing. Send me an email on what we talked about. Send me an email on what we talked about. Skysistemand. Now you have a paper trail, date stamped and timestamped so that you can control the communication. So that when it comes down to enforcing, there's no question why they're in the position they're in because they've written it up the whole time. Now, what you said one more thing, Brian, then I'll shut up. You said when you fire one person and hire one person, that's when all boats rise. Sometimes you can save firing a person by doing this escalation because then what happens is when you have a defiant person, they start lining up with the vision, purpose and values and the team, and they start doing their work. Everybody can see that because they know who, when you say white, says black, and when you do white, they do black. They know that, but when they see that person doing it, they go, oh, crap. This place isn't the same place that it was before. You know, Brian had that line in the sand conversation. So, yeah, this is powerful stuff, man.

Yeah. No, and I've. I agree. I've. Some of my best employees have been ones that I thought was. I was convinced that we're going to have to get let go. Then we have the conversation and they turn around and they're. It's. It's like a Light, like the light bulb gets clicked on and they just become amazing. Right. And I'm going to make a request, though, that you change the name of team leader to agreement Machine. I like that you're talking about the agreement machine. I'm like, oh, that's a. That would be a. That'd be a great title for, for an employee.

I like it because, you know, that's really what their number one job is, is what are the agreements around? You know, a team leader has a very hard job, Brian. They're between. They're the bridge between the practice owner and really getting done with the practice owner needs and wants and then bridging the gap of getting the team mobilized. A very difficult job. And nobody's really even trained them how to do it. They were just good at what they've done and they've been elevated to that position. That's why I have a lot of compassion and empathy for that role. And I have a whole methodology built around what we call management 2.0, because we start out with practices that are doing 5, 600,000, and we get them over to 2 million. And now guess what's happening. They're running a $2 million corporation. And it's like, you can't be a mom and pop shop and run a $2 million business. It just doesn't work. You need tools, skills, structure, all the things we're talking about here today.

That's fantastic. So I lost count. Did you go through all five points?

I think it did.

Let me.

The five.

Could you go through them again?

It's acknowledgement, it's take responsibility. It's what got us here isn't going to get us there. I'm inviting you to play. Getting agreement.

That's great. Fantastic. Yeah, well, yeah, I think it's so, any. Any other sort of last tips for practices and how to. To transform their team to. To be high performance.

Yeah. It all starts with you. No one wins alone. You know, if you've been a puppeteer, if you've been, you know, working the puppeteer, you're the Geppetto of dentistry and you're just sick and tired of being tired. Or if you have one practice and you want to go to 3, 4, 5, 6, you want to scale. If you don't have an infrastructure in place and you don't have enough A team players, and you don't have a way to transform your culture. I see all these DSOs, Brian. A lot of them are coming to us now where they don't have infrastructure around people and they don't have people as their number one asset. And in today's dental world, if you don't have that, if you're a small dso, it's going to be very difficult to scale because then you're going to have to put all your money and your management fee into trainers and forcers and pushers and police men and women and firefighters and you just can't be profitable. So whether you have one rural practice in the middle of Machias, Maine or Hays, Kansas, or you're grappling with the exodus in New York City, Chicago and LA of patients and team members, this is the core of rebuilding post pandemic, which is turn your team from a high maintenance science project to think of. We did this course by the way, once at the LA Porsche driving school. So we delivered the course, Bri, I love to have fun. We delivered the course and then we raced Porsches. And you know I love German engineering, so you too could have German engineering. But here's the thing, don't be blaming your team, don't be blaming pandemics. Look in the freaking mirror, see what you have unacceptable that you've made acceptable. Make it unacceptable and then get into action. That's the game plan here.

Well, that's fantastic. Now Gary, I mean, great info, you're a wealth of knowledge to the entire industry and thank you for sharing with us.