Your Morning Huddle: The 10 Most Valuable Minutes in Dentistry

All right, another pop quiz for you. You know I love my pop quizzes. What's the fastest way to boost production, boost morale and leadership in under 10 minutes? Spoiler. It's not a new tool. It's not a new hire, it's not a new app. It's not a marketing campaign. It's your morning huddle. We talk to doctors all the time. It's like this is the first thing to go when you get busy. It's the most important thing that you can do every single day. Yes, that huddle, the one you've been skipping, rushing, or have to in because it feels like just another meeting. But when that huddle is done right, it becomes the heartbeat and a direct lever for growth. Welcome to the Next Level Practice podcast. I'm Kelly Damer, and today we're talking about the most underutilized leadership tool in dentistry. It's the morning huddle. Our founder here at Next Level, Gary Katie, has said it best. If you want your team to act like owners, give them a reason every morning. So this episode is going to be your blueprint for using the huddle to do exactly that, set the tone. This isn't the dreaded morning huddle. We've heard that right? The hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go. We want this huddle to actually drive accountability and create the kind of energy that patients feel the moment they walk in. So let's get into it. All right, first and foremost, in today's episode, we're going to tackle the thing I hear most, why skipping your huddle is actually costing you more than you think. Then we want to go over the five minute leadership reset that realigns your entire team. And we're going to finish out with what to say and what not to say to make your morning huddles powerful, not painful. The morning huddle isn't just a logistics meeting. It's truly a leadership moment. This is a great opportunity for you to set the tone for the day. We recommend doing a motivation. When you start every morning huddle, follow it up with some wins, get your team contributing as well. And then we want to review what worked well yesterday, where opportunities lied yesterday, what's on the docket for today, what gaps do we have to close as well as tomorrow? We wanna look ahead and be proactive in also closing those gaps. When I say gaps, I specifically mean maybe it's in a patient communication, or maybe it's specifically in the schedule with what we might need to do to improve some production and hit our Goals. It's time to command the room. It's your team's chance to recommit to the mission. And it's where every day starts, with clarity, not chaos. First things first, if you don't have a morning huddle in place every single day, 15 minutes, huddle up with your entire team. It's important. Second thing, look where there's maybe not full integrity around that morning huddle. Yes. The most common thing I hear is, oh, we haven't, we've kind of gotten away from doing our huddle. The second thing I hear is that the doctor shows up late to the huddle. If you're a doc who's showing up late to your huddle, cut it out. It's telling your team that that time is not important or valuable and that's sending the wrong message every time. And then number three, find a way to make it positive and uplifting again. We talked about wins, we talked about that morning huddle motivator that you're starting off with. And also we recommend maybe rotating who's leading, rotating different pieces of the huddle get your team involved. So it's not just top down communication and becoming something that's mundane and routine. We want to shake it up sometimes. We want to, we want to change what's happening so that we have a different listening and we can drive results with that method. So again, I want to specifically go into the key elements of a great huddle. Gary, Katie style. The the first, celebrate wins, recognize yesterday's victories, big or small. Then you want to review today's schedule, Spot holes, red flags, opportunities, assign ownership, who is leading, reactivations, treatment follow ups, collections. You know, maybe you've got patient birthdays happening or anything that you want to cover to really create that unique patient experience. Elevate the energy. Positivity isn't optional. It's the fuel for your day and then reaffirm your purpose. So this is the first time I'm bringing up purpose today. And if you haven't heard me talk about vision, purpose and values, you can go back a few episodes ago, we discussed it. But it's really important to remind the team the why you're there, why you're doing what you do. It's all around patient care. And that's why the numbers are so important. It's our scoreboard for how successful we are living our purpose. I met with a doctor about six months ago and he was very honest in admitting that morning huddles had fallen off. Monthly team meetings had fallen off. You know, the team was really in a set of a state of survival and also very reactive. And we got back to implementing those morning huddles in his practice going through the Morning Huddle worksheet that we recommend and his practice had same day treatment closing rates at that time that were under 30%. But after a few months of consistent morning huddles with roles clarified and goals set, they actually increased that rate to 57%. Why? Because the team showed up, they took ownership, they prepared to win, and they weren't just surviving. So let's recap. The Morning Huddle is the most overlooked profit lover in your practice every single time. It's what's building culture, creating clarity and uniting your team. Leadership isn't a daily act and the Huddle is your moment to lead. Make sure that this meeting is in every single time, no matter what and you're showing up on time. Are you ready to build the perfect huddle? Go ahead and download our Morning Huddle worksheet in the show notes below. You can go ahead and click that link. I am Kelly Dmer and this is the Next Level Practice Podcast. See you at the Huddle same time, same place, tomorrow morning.