DRI Fails

Last week’s episode probably sounds like a beautiful pipe dream….so today, Dr. Kuba asks the hard question, “Can you really truly pass things off to team members?” She and Bethany discuss the times where tasks are passed off and teams either fail to accomplish them OR are not equipped to complete the task successfully. In this episode, Dr. Kuba and Bethany discuss how to ensure that the right people receive the right tasks. The DRI program can work, but it requires a well thought out plan. 

👉Or watch the episode YouTube DRI Fails Episode

DON’T FORGET the plethora of resources on The Hub. Check out our highlighted HUB documents for the week! 

HUB HIGHLIGHT

Sample Consent Forms Bundle

This bundle gives your practice ready-to-use consent forms that help improve patient communication, protect your practice, and save your team time. 

New Employee Onboarding Bundle

Check this bundle out if you want a strong onboarding process that helps new team members feel more confident, prepared, and productive from day one.

📣MAY CONTENT IS AVAILABLE!! Don’t miss it! Learn all about protecting your practice from potential risks. Become a subscriber TODAY!  

Don’t forget!! Free and paying subscribers will have the ability to access our FREE WEBINAR “CUSTOMER SERVICE ON STEROIDS”. It is meant to be free training for the whole team, so become a free OR PAID subscriber today! 

Don't forget to check out our social media for more
Managing Dental Drama FB
Managing Dental Drama IG

Connect with the Managing Dental Drama Community!
Managing Dental Drama Membership Club Sign Up

Wait! There's More!
We want to hear YOUR voice!
Text a 2-minute voice memo to 214.326.4605 with your questions, comments, real-life examples, or tips for a chance to have YOUR voice on the air!

Interested in the Leadership Summit?
Friday, September 18, 2026 from 8:30 – 4:30
Inquire or register TODAY:  HelloBethany.com

Transcript

00:09
 Are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama? If so, then

00:09
 you've come to the right place. Join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr. Reena Kuba as we dive into the solutions we've

00:17
 created and the mistakes we've made while managing dental drama. Let's get started. 

00:24
 Hello. Uh those of you who are listening and not watching can't see, but I am and Bethany is

00:32
 proudly uh showing off our mugs that say it's not me, it's you. So if y'all

00:40
 remember back what, twoish years, three years when we were in our big whenever the tour was going on. So we were all like had Taylor fever

00:48
 and uh we coined I'm not the problem, it's you. It's you.

00:54
 And then here you go. these mugs that I found in a random grocery store and I was like they listened to the podcast and made them more.

01:02
 Where are my royalties? What does it say? Why doesn't it say dot dot dot kuba? Yes. Um they did not give me

01:08
 credit for the the quote. Um anywh who I think funny enough you noticed it. This matches what I was wanting to talk about.

01:17
 Yes. So last episode was um how do we DRRI uh not DYI DRI

01:27
 uh what was it again directly responsible directly directly responsible individuals individual

01:35
 okay that's why we call it DRI or why I call it IT you're it who's the it on this project like who is owning this who's the owner of this task right

01:44
 so we talked about the advantage antages of farming out tasks to your teammates to foster

01:53
 um the uh importance they feel the connection they feel to the practice being able to share their ideas they

02:01
 feel value that we are relying on them for ideas. So now I want to kind of continue the conversation and the

02:08
 question I had for you after was I know there are probably a lot of meaty scenarios juicy the drama drama drama.

02:19
 Uh that's what I want to talk about now is like DRRi failed if you will.

02:25
 I love it. So first out takes but how have you seen this happen in an office and whether they were the DRRi or

02:33
 not right but maybe indirectly the doctor was kind of going how can I build up this person whether said employee

02:42
 asked for a raise and doctor's going how can I or whether they had a change in team and one person left and now this

02:49
 person's the one who's there and you're like hey what all can I pile on this person um so and Where have you seen

02:57
 those fail? And be like, uh-uh, that didn't work. And hoping to glean a couple of things out of this. Number one, I'm sure we've all had a situation like that. So, it's kind of like, okay,

03:08
 good. It's happening to somebody else,

03:09
 too. They're just fun to listen to when it's not your own. And, um, uh, the other is in light of the last podcast.

03:17
 Okay. are might we gain some pearls here to help us be more effective in identifying our DRRi and making sure

03:26
 we're setting them up for success as well as ourselves and I think real world examples always help with that for sure.

03:31
 Um so I asked you to kind of dig back through your experiences and and kind of just things that you can think of. I think you had a couple.

03:39
 Yeah. Well and in all honesty when I think about the fails my mind tends to go to like two extremes.

03:46
 one is, "Oh man, I really want to to put more on this person's plate, but I'm not sure that the capacity is there." So,

03:55
 that's one extreme. And then if you flip the scale all the way to the other side,

04:00
 it's the person that is taking things on their plate and feeling like they're

04:07
 doing a great job with them. So, they're very confident and you're like, "It is not working." But they don't think that.

04:14
 And to me, those are kind of the two extremes.

04:17
 I I feel like I see that almost on a daily basis in our practice.

04:21
 I really do. Um, and so it's like, how do you Is it just not easier to be like,

04:27
 never mind. I'm it. I am it. I'm going to do the dentistry. I'm going to do everything because it's my name on the

04:35
 door. It's my dental loan. And I can't farm it out because the people that I want to give it to and when you say

04:42
 capacity capacity in like literal capacity like you can only work part-time limitations.

04:51
 That's where Yeah. Or is it capacity that you do not have the skill set and you will never have the skill set no matter how much training we do. It's just not in your wheelhouse.

04:59
 Um and then is that person or do they not have the capacity in that they don't have the drive?

05:06
 Yeah. they're smart enough but they don't have the drive to do it. So that you know we see any of those you know but honestly the ones that are

05:14
 the most difficult are the ones where there's not the mental emotional capacity to like they're

05:24
 they're good at XYZ and they will never be good at ABC. either there's a lack of

05:34
 social awareness and so they're just awkward and and so we can't give them tasks that require too much communication like

05:42
 they're just a good like grunt worker person and that's their ceiling. We talk about there's, you know, an employee ceiling and it's such an uncomfortable

05:51
 topic because the fact of the matter is we want every team member to live out their fullest potential,

06:00
 but everybody's potential level is different.

06:03
 It feels like we're judging somebody. It does. That's that's why it's difficult for me because I'm just like I have this

06:09
 task but I know that um there's we're we're we myself and one

06:17
 other person talked about it the other day. we have this software that we are triing out and she's like this could be really good for us because it could show

06:25
 us this this this this and I said are you planning on working more because you see the value in that the other person

06:32
 that I can see that gets the value and could strategically utilize it does not seem motivated by much.

06:41
 Yeah. She'd rather just coast. Yeah. Um the ones that do seem like, "Oh yeah,

06:46
 I'll learn it. I'll do it." I don't think we'll ever be able to be strategic. And when I say that, I feel like I sound like a total bee. Where anybody listening to this is going,

06:56
 "Well, how dare you?" Like, why are you thinking that so and so is not smart enough or can't be trained or can't be whatever. The only answer to that is

07:05
 because I know you and I've seen your work and I've seen the variety of things that we have asked you to do and the things that you have excelled at and the

07:13
 things that never the bell never went off. Yeah. Um, so yeah, is that judging?

07:18
 Maybe I consider it like being strategic on my end going what have I seen and

07:24
 what similar situations that Yeah.

07:29
 Anyway, so you're you're you're basing it off the ex your experience with that individual. And you're right,

07:38
 it's so uncomfortable even speaking about it now because first and foremost,

07:42
 I want to always acknowledge that Even if we recognize somebody's limitations, let's call it limitations,

07:51
 it doesn't mean that they're not valuable.

07:53
 Exactly. But I think that's where people get sensitive. People feel judged.

07:59
 People feel like I'm being put in a box and all of that. And my goal is always to say, I want you to be successful.

08:06
 Yeah. and in everything you've shown me so far, that type of uh project has never been successful in your hands.

08:17
 And so, at what point do I have to go out of my way to say, "Well, let's train you up here. Let's let you do these first three steps or let's" or can I

08:24
 just be efficient and move along and be like, "I know you think you are." Yeah.

08:30
 You know, you can manage this, but I've not seen evidence to that. And so it's going to be on you to show me evidence of that if anything has changed.

08:38
 Yeah. Um because I'm running a business here.

08:40
 I only have so much I only have so much capacity on my own plate. Yeah. To do certain things.

08:45
 So I think um I just wanted to clarify that capacity meaning are we talking about a literal like I don't have time to do this capacity? Are we go are we

08:54
 going at it from a um I mean I'm kind of lazy. I don't like to learn new things and I want to just stick in my wheelhouse and and and I

09:01
 wouldn't say that that's lazy. That's not maybe that's not the proper one for that. But there are people that are lazy that are going I just don't want to.

09:08
 Yeah. They're content with what they've got on their plate. They don't want anything more. Yeah.

09:12
 And I think those are certainly limitations that we have to respect ultimately.

09:17
 So let me at least let you dive in and kind of go through your examples if you don't mind.

09:21
 Yeah. Um so let's let's continue down the path of this.

09:26
 you have a team member that has um capacity limitations, meaning that they're you've tried to hand things off.

09:35
 They're unsuccessful in that person's hands. There's expectations that you have of this person that they chronically do not achieve. And now

09:45
 you've got this message of you should have directly responsible individuals.

09:49
 And in your mind, you're like, I can't I can't pass anything off to this person. Um, so an example that I'm thinking of,

09:59
 um, I was doing a training recently and it's a smaller team and so it's like we don't have many people to farm out tasks 

10:08
 to and we're again I was brought in for practice growth. So we've had several phases that we're working through. Right now we're in the marketing phase and I

10:17
 put a lot of work into researching what this practice could do to get new patients into their practice. and I am recommending more of a grassroots

10:25
 marketing approach for them to preserve cash flow for other things. And so grassroots marketing is we're out

10:33
 participating in events, we're dropping off goodies to referring offices, we are networking with other professionals,

10:43
 and with it being a small team, everybody's got to take a little bit of that. I can't put that all on the practice

10:50
 owner. That's too that grassroots marketing campaign is going to be overwhelming for a singular person. Like we have to divvy up and figure out who

10:59
 can do what. And so my client said to me, "I really wish that I could hand this and this off to this team member.

11:09
 We'll call her Susie. I wish I could hand it off to Susie." And but he said to me, he's like, "I just don't know

11:16
 that that's her specialty. I don't know that that's what she can do. she's really good at organizational tasks, but

11:23
 she's not good at, and he had several things that he listed that she was not good at. And so, we went through the whole marketing plan, and we had to sit

11:33
 here and we, you said it earlier, we want this person to be able to be successful with what we give her from

11:40
 this marketing plan. And so, we went through the list of, well, could we pass u, you know, networking drop offs where

11:48
 she drops off goodies? could we pass that off to her? Like, no. Remember,

11:52
 communication wise, she's she doesn't pay attention to social social cues. She can be a little bit

12:00
 awkward in communication. Um kind of all over the place in the way that she communicates, I'm really nervous about doing that cuz if we're going to spend

12:08
 money on these drop offs, I want it to be good conversations that happen. I'm like, "Yep, let's eliminate that." Well,

12:14
 could she participate in community events? Like, we're going to sponsor this 5K. Could she man the booth of that? Well,

12:22
 no. Again, that's communication heavy.

12:24
 So, no, she can't do that. So, we're X X X going through that list. And finally,

12:29
 we got back to, well, let's think through what gifts we're going to be dropping off. Um, there's, you know,

12:35
 some uh fire station and police drop offs and all of that. I'm like, okay,

12:39
 let's think about what we're actually dropping off. Could could it be as simple as she's going to pick up the goodies and then some another team member is, you know, passing them out?

12:49
 No, she's not really good at, you know, super detailed things. Then we realized,

12:55
 we had an epiphany where this person is incredibly artistic, creative,

13:03
 um, just has a gifting for seeing things very visually. And I was like, "Hey,

13:10
 let's actually capitalize on that.

13:12
 Rather than dropping off bagels to the fire department, let's drop off little,

13:18
 you know, firemen emergency kits that are super cutely packaged and has, you know, little instant coffee in it and,

13:30
 you know, Advil and, you know, just let's play up on her creativity so that whatever we drop off makes an impact cuz

13:37
 it's really beautifully done or packaged well. So, we actually pivoted the marketing plan slightly to capitalize

13:47
 on that person's creativity and being able to really lean into her for that. Could she do nine out of the 10 things?

13:54
 We determined no that she couldn't. That doesn't mean that there's not value that she can bring. We just had to get creative in what that could mean for

14:03
 this particular person. Tell me what your thoughts are on that.

14:07
 I love that. And that's, you know, so as far as the impact then far more impactful,

14:15
 I I think, you know, for nine out of 10 firemen, they're going to be like, "Oh man, this looks really great. I can take this. Who brought this? This is unique." Yeah.

14:22
 You're probably going to have one that's like, "Where are the damn bagels?" You know, I would have preferred that than this Advil. I've got my own Advil,

14:27
 right? But for the most part, like, at least it's going to capture everybody's eye and go, "Oh, what is this?" Yeah.

14:34
 That's what you want out of a marketing thing. That's exactly what you want is to generate a buzz around it.

14:40
 And um so even her probably creating and coming up with a gift tag for the basket like

14:47
 you know the the cute catchy phrase or whatever and like oh we were planning on just doing a ribbon on it. Well, no. Let's do a tag

14:56
 that looks like a fire hat or a fire hose and in the water comes whatever.

15:01
 Like, so that that way she still feels important, but we've set her up for success. Absolutely.

15:06
 And we're going to have a better product. Yeah. Now, if you hadn't found that,

15:10
 then fine. Maybe marketing is not where she's going to excel. You know what? 10 out of 10 things were big X. Forget it. But we're going to find something else.

15:17
 Like in this process of thinking about what she would and wouldn't be good at,

15:22
 Yeah. We've discovered that she would not be good at anything communication related. Now, is she one that is a

15:30
 sponge and wants to absorb and understands that communication's not her strength? Could you try to find things

15:38
 that you know would she maybe has said, well, I would like to get better at this. Yeah.

15:46
 Or is it like, please don't bother me with this. I'm just never going to be good. It's going to bring me too much anxiety and I might quit if I'm expected to do things like this. Yeah.

15:54
 Or do you have like maybe the fire department is one where when you go there really isn't anybody to talk to and connect with. They may be there,

16:01
 they may not. Just dropping off the baskets may be good enough to engage with the gifts are cute enough. If it's something beyond bagels and it's a nice

16:09
 little branded gift, there's very little communication then. And so maybe she'd be ready to do that.

16:15
 But in thinking about her and her strengths and her weaknesses,

16:19
 hopefully you're going, "Okay, this whole category is not her, but it will be good when we need to do this, this,

16:27
 or this." Um,

16:30
 or it may be like, "Nope, really all you're good at is the check-in, checkout job that you have." I I don't know.

16:37
 Which again to me is a way to still utilize that person that you feel like maybe has a low ceiling for that

16:45
 category of marketing. Maybe you are like 10 out of 10 things she can't do with marketing. Okay. But can she take

16:52
 something off of somebody else's plate because that person will be good at marketing and very essential to marketing and over these next, you know,

17:00
 6 months of heavy marketing, we need her to be freed up. Okay. Is there anything we could take off her plate that we can

17:07
 pass along to Susie and Susie can do those things?

17:11
 Yeah. So maybe Amy was doing the referral letters like corresponding with Well, maybe Susie can do that. She don't have to interface with anybody. She has

17:19
 to look at the clinical notes and reply back and she can handle that. Great. Well,

17:23
 now Amy's freed up because now she doesn't have to spend her Monday mornings doing those referrals and now she can go run and do marketing during

17:31
 those times. So that's really important is trying to figure out where you can put people.

17:37
 Um, so how did it work out in that office though? What what ended up happening?

17:40
 So exactly how it went. She is actually super creative. Now this is pretty recent. Um, but she will be the one that

17:49
 we came up with a list of all these gift drop offs which was a part of the original idea is that we could potentially do that. But I had presented

17:57
 lots of different options to this team and our job was to narrow down which marketing we wanted to do. So because she's so creative and even they pulled

18:06
 out pictures and showed me things. I'm like this is gorgeous stuff that we actually just tweaked the marketing to

18:13
 where we focused heavier on gift drop off opportunities knowing that we could capitalize on her strengths and not just

18:21
 so that she felt included. I felt the team felt those gifts are actually gonna make a really good impact.

18:28
 And she was happy though. She was happy to be tapped into that side.

18:33
 Oh, she was already starting to like you could tell just the fire was lit for her cuz she was starting to look up ideas and be like, "Oh, look, we could do this

18:40
 and that." So, she you could tell it was a natural thing for her cuz she immediately jumped in and was putting these packages together in her mind. And

18:49
 so I definitely think it was a win for the practice and nobody else on the team had that natural gifting that she had.

18:56
 And so it was something as simple as we just tweaked and went heavier into the gift side of the marketing rather than

19:04
 doing too much community. We're still going to have some community involvement, but we actually lightened that and went heavier on gifts.

19:12
 So I think it's going to work out beautifully for them. I think even and you I mean maybe maybe I'm out in left fields here, but to me just the fact

19:20
 that knowing that she's creative, maybe she's the one then that's also doing the email campaigns of like when you have to send out if you if you're deciding you're going to send out a newsletter.

19:29
 Um in our office, our person that does that for us, like she's the one who came up with the idea, let's do this newsletter,

19:37
 um she puts cute things in it. her weakness is the uh grammar

19:44
 and the verbiage sometimes it's it's doesn't make sense. Okay. Well, she does 90% of it and then she tags in my

19:52
 husband because he's the grammar king who, you know, is like a period goes here that you spelled there, you use the wrong version of there and like whatever

19:59
 you catch all those things and then so she just has to tag in with him to say, "Hey,"

20:05
 does this look okay?" But 90% of the newsletter she's done,

20:08
 I have never had to remind her to do newsletter, right?

20:11
 I didn't even know for a long time we were doing said newsletter. I didn't know. And then somebody said something about, "Oh, your newsletter was so cute." I'm like, what are you talking about? My office had no idea.

20:21
 That though is when you're like chuding,

20:23
 I have made it here that like my team is excited about doing this.

20:27
 They are proud of the practice they work in. They're proud of the things we have coming up this month.

20:33
 Um, the person who's doing the newsletters is also the person who comes up with the activities for the month,

20:37
 like if we're going to have a pajama day or a right whatever day. And so she wants people to know that that's happening.

20:45
 Yeah. And so we know that the people at our front desk aren't super chatty, right?

20:49
 They like to get people in and out. Our patients want to get in and out. They don't want to be stuck chatting at the checkout. Yeah.

20:55
 Um so this person knows that Sally at the front is not going to be the one,

21:01
 don't forget pajama day if you come next month, blah blah blah blah. She's not going to do that. And so then Susie gets frustrated going, "Well, nobody wore

21:09
 their pajamas. Y'all didn't tell anybody. You know what? I'm going to tell people in my newsletter. That's what I'm doing." She's been doing her own newsletter for the last couple years. I

21:18
 think I want to say the first half year or year. I had no idea we were sending out a newsletter.

21:23
 That's the beauty of it though is that often times you can set things in motion that then just continue because it becomes a part of what this person

21:32
 contributes to the practice and you don't have to blink an eye or think about it.

21:37
 So then back to what we said in the last episode of okay, but what if she leaves? Mhm.

21:43
 I didn't even know we had a newsletter to begin with. Do we even need said newsletter?

21:47
 Right. And sometimes a task might leave with a person, but if it was this extra thing, this extra

21:56
 initiative that y'all you guys were doing that wasn't pivotal to the practice. Then it's like sometimes if a person leaves and the task leaves with

22:03
 them, it is. We just close that chapter and if somebody becomes interested in that again, great. If not, then prior to

22:11
 that person leaving, we build in redundancy. Who's going to take who has capacity? Capacity meaning the time, the energy,

22:19
 the willingness, and the skill to then continue that task on. And we're training that person up before Susie

22:27
 leaves. So, um, yeah, I think even if you've got people with low capacity, either time, energy,

22:36
 enthusiasm, or skill set, uh,

22:40
 intelligence for whatever this task is that you're wanting to pass off to them.

22:44
 If you've got somebody with low capacity, be creative and see what can you figure out what they are

22:51
 proficient in or even expert in and see if you can tweak your task to fit that person. If not, can they take something

22:58
 else off of somebody's plate that does have the capacity for that and then that still serves a purpose? I do want to switch over to the other extreme.

23:07
 I was about to ask you, I was like, give me more drama. Like, what what else have you seen fail?

23:12
 Um, or somebody struggle with like the the goal was, okay, yes, we're going to we either need somebody to or this person wants a raise or whatever it is,

23:22
 and let's give this person these things. and then it went south. What?

23:28
 So I I think with the one end, you know,

23:32
 we've got a person that we would love to be able to handle handle some tasks but either can't

23:40
 can't has low ability to do that, not trainable enough to do that. On the

23:47
 other end, I almost think of the word like overconfidence.

23:53
 They believe that they're contributing to the practice in a way that is in their mind overinflated.

24:00
 And let's talk about awkward. Talk about awkward. How do you I what I describe to my kids with that is

24:09
 you think you are on the uh the end zone. You're in you're in the gold zone.

24:18
 In my mind, you're on the 10 yard line,

24:20
 the opposite. So it's like you think you're about to score a touchdown and here we go, we got this. And I'm like,

24:27
 and I've had some employees like that. I've actually had to say, you know what,

24:30
 like I it just over inflated self self sense of self. Yeah.

24:36
 And I don't want to be the one to crush you.

24:41
 Have to, right? But however, yeah. How do we say, okay, in your mind, you are about to score and the rest of us are

24:48
 like, we're over there. like you've got a long way to go, sweet pee, until you get to that end zone. Um, so how do we I

24:57
 don't think I'm Are we watching the same game? Are we Do we both have the same understanding of football that this is going to be some work to get to the other end? It's not just like Hail Mary,

25:06
 Hail Mary. Like where where are the dots not connecting here? That we've got some work to do.

25:12
 Yeah. Um, and that is awkward. It is so awkward and and it's often times harder

25:21
 to tackle. It's almost like the person that has the low ceiling for whatever task you want them to take in a lot of

25:29
 ways often times they're very aware of their inadequacies and they've spent their whole life

25:38
 almost downshifting like oh I I I don't need to try that because I'm not skilled in it. Not all the time, but a lot of

25:46
 times there's a natural awareness of their lack.

25:52
 And so when you don't give them something or when you take something away from them and and replace it, it's almost like they're like, "Yeah, kind of

26:00
 saw that one coming." You know, it's the opposite end where there's overconfidence. There's you you say,

26:08
 "Hey, you're on the 10 yard line." And they're like, "What?" like they can't even see it because they're so confident

26:15
 in the in their skill set. And so it is not only incredibly awkward, but it's difficult to help that person to see and believe what you're seeing.

26:25
 I find that person far more challenging and far more irritating, I think,

26:30
 because I'm one who's naturally like on the other side going, I don't know that I'm capable of scoring a touchdown.

26:38
 Yeah. And people are like, "No, no, no.

26:41
 You can. Yeah, you're not going to be the one to be able to throw the ball.

26:45
 You're that's not your skill set, but maybe you're going to block here so that so and so can get through the line and

26:53
 and get down there." So you you figure out where you could be strategic in helping this process happen. I think for

27:01
 me, the people that are like, "I got this."

27:03
 I just start going, "You do? Why were you just naturally skilled? Okay. Yeah, you've

27:11
 got some natural skill where you run fast, but honey, there's more to the game than running fast. If that's what you think that that's the only thing that you need to get a touchdown,

27:22
 you've kind of missed that there's a whole field behind you. There's a whole another team. There's all these different strategies. There's rules. And

27:30
 you think you run fast, and you think that you've got this game in the bag.

27:34
 And I think for me, I I personally find that personality irritating cuz I'm like, why are you so confident? And why

27:40
 are you so narrowminded that you think that running is the only skill set here? Yeah.

27:46
 If that was it, everybody would be running and we would all be making touchdowns. So like,

27:52
 am I over complicating this or are you under complicating it and you have no idea?

27:58
 And I would say this is very common right now generationally.

28:02
 Yes. Yes, it is. I didn't want to be the one to say it, but you said it.

28:05
 No, I said it. I'll go there because I would say a lot of the dental field is

28:11
 filled with 20 to 30 year olds and they are coming out of a generation where

28:20
 they were puffed up. Everything they did was great. You are so valuable. You are you are and this was parenting strategy.

28:29
 You know, we go through all these gen different generations of parenting strategies. And at that time, it was the everybody wins a trophy mentality where it's like just praise,

28:39
 lots of positive praise for your kids.

28:41
 And what it created is 20 to 30 year olds that really have a hard time believing that they've done anything wrong.

28:50
 They believe they're God's gift to the planet because mom always told me that. And everything I did earned a trophy.

28:57
 You always won. you never lost. And what that creates is these very confident individuals,

29:05
 but misplaced confidence in many situations.

29:07
 Why do you say that? Cuz the two people I can think of that I've worked with in the last couple of years that stand out in my mind as I find you exceedingly

29:15
 irritating for those reasons. Neither one, not that I know a ton about their parents and how they were raised, but

29:22
 what little bit I know, they weren't trophy kids.

29:25
 So it's like then why? where did this come from that you were so uber confident? Um, and I I think another

29:33
 contributor is social media where you are only looking to resources that confirm what you believe.

29:42
 Yeah. Yeah.

29:43
 And so if you um if you are an RDA and you um I don't

29:51
 know your like in our office we told you you need to do chronal polishing and I told you your polishing didn't look good and you cannot accept that.

30:02
 Mhm. Okay. Like it's not that big a deal.

30:04
 Just learn how to polish better. I'm trying to show you something. How dare you?

30:08
 Yeah. Well, I think they're going to forums where they're meeting other people who are just like, "Who else polishes? I don't polish. I don't polish. Polishing stupid. Polishing is

30:15
 whatever." And so now you've believed whatever it is. A stupid example. Maybe that's not the right example. But I think that is more the problem is

30:25
 I would say if you are 40 or older, you're still of where you

30:32
 probably went to the library to look stuff up and you had to talk to other mentors and other people in the field to get to supplement what you didn't know.

30:42
 So if you were a dentist, you had to supplement that by talking to other practice owners. you had to talk to other dentists and learn your craft a

30:50
 little bit better because you learned a lot of the basics in school. And I feel like if you're 40ish and under, you

30:57
 probably had a lot more resources at your fingertips where if you went to Professor Smith and you didn't like the

31:05
 way Professor Smith told you your wax up looked or whatever, you just turned and you went to, you know, uh,

31:15
 Wikipedia and you saw that these waxups are still okay because blah blah blah blah. And so then you were like, "Dr.

31:24
 Smith's an idiot. I'm not listening to Dr. Smith. He's rude." Yeah.

31:28
 And you went a different direction. Or whether you were an RDA or an RDH or whatever it was, and you didn't like what somebody said to you,

31:36
 it was it was you had enough other resources that could fluff up and corroborate what you wanted to hear. Yeah.

31:44
 Um and I think those people are the more far more difficult.

31:48
 Yeah. So the example you had, if you don't mind sharing.

31:52
 No, I think yeah, I really think that's relevant and we need to think about this with with the example that I'm going to

31:59
 share because you're exactly right. We if we find even not even Wikipedia, if we find anybody on the team that

32:07
 reinforces the way I'm doing it or what I think, it can persuade us not to look

32:14
 at the opposite or the person that's opposing us. Um, so one of the examples that I'm thinking about with

32:23
 overconfidence, I've got a practice owner that has a gentleman on his team that joined with the goal of leadership.

32:33
 He wanted to, you know, grow in the practice and loved, you know, came from

32:40
 outside the dental field but had a good business mindset, wanted to really grow as a pivotal part of this practice. The

32:49
 practice owner herself has goals of potentially even multiple locations in the future.

32:55
 Okay. So, it's it's it's a u male joining the team and a female doctor. Correct. Okay. Yes. Sorry, I Yeah.

33:03
 Yeah. So, she she's a practice owner.

33:05
 She's brought in this young man to grow the business, um, support the business

33:12
 in an effort of potentially even having multiple locations. And this gentleman wants to be able to oversee all of those those locations. So,

33:25
 the gentleman is very confident. So again, not a dental person, but came into the field having some business

33:33
 sense about him and I think met the

33:41
 task of learning the business side of it, but I think he didn't really understand he didn't understand

33:48
 dentistry. He didn't understand patient care. He didn't understand how to

33:55
 communicate patient care needs to somebody and getting them to move forward and all the complexity of the

34:02
 psychology behind how you get a patient to advocate for themselves and move forward. He was good at like, oh, I want

34:10
 to do marketing and I'm really good at marketing. And so he he understood some of the business growth side, but the

34:18
 whole dentistry side of it was new for him. And it's almost like he dismissed that as unnecessary

34:27
 and he was focusing so heavily on the business side of it and which is important and we're glad we have you to handle those things.

34:37
 However,

34:38
 you are not at the end zone because you manage the marketing. There are so many other sides to this practice. Yeah.

34:46
 And marketing is one of them and it's important that we get patients in the door. Yeah. But that's not where it stops. No.

34:52
 Then you've got to get the patient through and keep said patient. Right.

34:56
 And you're not going to be able to do that unless you understand each step of what happens in the practice.

35:01
 Exactly. That that managing a practice and in the future managing multiple practices is going to require that you understand every facet of that business.

35:13
 Because marketing is important, but if you're losing every patient out the back door and nobody nobody's moving forward with treatment, well then you've missed

35:21
 it. Now you're just spinning your wheels running in circles, getting more and more new patients to the practice and you're not realizing that you're missing

35:30
 a gaping wound in the practice. But in his mind,

35:35
 he had arrived. He he felt like he was contributing in such a powerful way to

35:42
 the practice that he wanted that title of leadership from the practice owner.

35:49
 He wanted her to really acknowledge him as a vi really important part of the

35:57
 practice success. And for her, she was thinking, "Yes, absolutely. He's doing some really great things, but there's so

36:04
 many other areas that I need him to learn." And so anyway,

36:12
 I've struggled with that cuz I'm like,

36:14
 does he have the capacity? We go back to our other opposite side. Does he have the capacity to learn? Absolutely. He's

36:22
 obviously very smart, intelligent, has learned so much in his, you know, short couple of years that he's been with this practice owner,

36:33
 but I don't think he fully realizes all that he's missing and the importance of

36:39
 those things. And so for him, he's ready to leap off to the next level. And the practice owner is like, I'm not seeing

36:48
 it. And so there's a true impass where he wants more responsibility and she's

36:55
 hesitating giving it to him because she feels like they're at an impass and he's not seeing what he's

37:02
 missing. So that's tell me your thoughts on that situation. No, I I think that is very difficult.

37:08
 Then how do you tell somebody what you do is important but it's only one piece of the puzzle and have you noticed that there's more to the puzzle or are you

37:16
 just like really proud that you've connected your one piece and we think we're done. Um, I had

37:23
 honestly that's a um a practice I worked for years ago and I think there was so much frustration from the team

37:33
 from everybody on the team from clinical to business office because the manager and they were like what what does she do

37:40
 exactly? Well, I think she had worked in banking before and so she managed his accounts and took care of the deposits

37:48
 and I don't know what else is involved with the banking side of it. Whatever.

37:52
 Maybe she dealt with the CPA and got them the reports they needed and things like that. Um, she did do some, you know, like she handled payroll and

38:00
 submitting that. She handled keeping track of everybody's continuing education classes. So, some admin stuff. Yeah.

38:08
 Uh, corrective conversations if these two employees were fighting and then she'd pull them in to try to figure out how to solve it.

38:16
 How to solve that. And hence, she was the office manager.

38:20
 Well, the longer I had been there, I'm like, because I still remember there was something where a patient was upset at

38:27
 whatever. And I was like, well, I said this, but the assistant did that. I can't remember all the nuances of it.

38:36
 So, she went in. In my mind, you're the manager, so she went in and then she came back and she's like, "Oh, well, the patient's upset because of this, this,

38:44
 this." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know. I told you that as well. And that's when I

38:50
 realized I was like, she has no clue that the issue is the dad wanted whatever he wanted at that point. I want

39:00
 you to do the kid's crown, but I didn't want sedation because I don't want to pay for it. And I'm saying, well, I can't do that

39:08
 because I'm not going to papoose your kid because it's not. So, it was something like clinical like that. But she didn't understand the clinical.

39:14
 She didn't understand that because she didn't understand the clinical. And then if we had um where we wanted to uh I

39:22
 remember we moved offices like he had he built a new office. Well the way we had the

39:30
 you know uh the instruments were in this order because of the layout of this office. This was the central area. Your new office is a whole different layout.

39:40
 So that's not going to work anymore. M so it's creating a lot of problems because you know where the boss said

39:47
 well I specifically made extra storage and ster in the sterilization area so that way it's easy for op rooms and

39:57
 hygiene rooms to have one central area to get stuff well that works on paper but in the old office we didn't have a centralized area

40:05
 we had it this way which means now that's not going to work for the flow right it means we're going to have to figure out a new flow. But you just saying,

40:15
 "Well, this is the centralized area. I don't see why this isn't going to work."

40:19
 And now manager's coming over and she's like, "Well, he said this is the centralized area." Yeah, lady, we heard him.

40:27
 But she can't connect because she was never on the floor. Yeah,

40:31
 it actually I remember I had been there maybe a year at that point and I was like, I see the problem because I used to be an RDA so I I get the float. can I take over this project?

40:42
 And he was like, you're going to take over this project? And I'm like, she's not equipped whatsoever. She has no

40:50
 idea. She doesn't even know what a scaler is. She doesn't know what an explorer is. She's not equipped to do this. Yes, she's the manager,

40:59
 but it's kind of the wrong title for her, right?

41:02
 Because you are the I don't know what you are. you're the head of business relations for him,

41:09
 right?

41:10
 But you weren't able to have a conversation to get a patient at ease,

41:14
 you can't help the front with the new um software that's come out to integrate with Dentric. And so at that point, was

41:22
 it Weave or was it Yappy or whatever it was? She has no idea. She's never sent out paperwork. She never imported paperwork. She didn't know how to make

41:30
 an appointment. You've been manager of this office for 8 years and you don't know how to create an appointment. Yeah.

41:36
 Well, you can't manage and oversee the front. And now when they're going, we have this problem. And Mary thinks this

41:43
 is the way we should import the paperwork. And Jenny's like, no, that's a stupid way of doing it. And now clinical person's like, actually that

41:51
 doesn't help us back here either because the way you've imported it, we can't access it easily. And now doctor needs this information and we've got to go through five steps to whatever, right?

41:59
 Like, but manager can't manage any of that because she's clueless, right?

42:03
 So, you're not the manager cuz the manager to me implies you know the ins and outs of the software of how we want

42:10
 to schedule of how we want this flow to work. Yeah.

42:13
 And then you're helping manage all of those things to go what is the right solution for us.

42:19
 Yeah. or even let's say she never had a opportunity to observe clinical

42:25
 appointments assist anything like that at least expose yourself to go I I'm not

42:33
 seeing why this centralized location is a problem so let me just spend time couple hours out on the clinical floor

42:40
 watching let me see how they move and why they move be cur first of all be confident enough to admit I don't know this and overconfidence.

42:50
 Yeah,

42:51
 that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. We're here. We're here at the goal line.

42:55
 That's when you're overly confident. And overly confident means you're not humble enough to realize I don't know this. I

43:02
 need to know more about this and I can't just lean on my laurels and what I've always done historically and just

43:12
 repeat what the doctor has said. I've got to dig in on this and realize I don't know enough about this category.

43:18
 So, let me invest time in it or let me schedule meetings with each of my RDAs

43:26
 15 minutes to go walk me through. Show me how do you come and get your tray?

43:32
 How do you take your tray? How do you walk me through? Let me see how you do it. Okay, now let me see how you do it.

43:37
 Now, let me see how you do it. Ask questions. Be curious. It's the overconfidence like I don't need to know that. I I know enough to know that this

43:45
 should work. Period. Well, obviously he said this is what he want. He built this office specifically like this.

43:50
 Y'all need to make this work. That's not a that's not managing. That that's barking. Like I don't know what you're doing. Like you're just being a parrot back there. But

43:58
 you're not effective in coming up with the solutions. And to me, that's what a manager should be doing. So, yes, you've got part of it where you might be able

44:07
 to put I think her part of where she thinks she's managing the situation is if she's going, "Okay, Mary and Susie,

44:13
 y'all don't agree with where things should go. Talk about it." Yeah.

44:18
 And then she's sitting there kind of half listening to it and now she thinks, "I've managed the situation, right? You didn't do anything, CP." Like,

44:25
 they're still arguing and what's the final solution, right?

44:28
 And you can't weigh in because you don't know anything.

44:31
 Yeah. So, I can think of the other person that was really irritating to me.

44:36
 Um, and she she did she came in and she was an RDA and she'd been an RDA for maybe two years and she thought she was

44:45
 really gifted with special needs patients.

44:49
 I mean, you are, but maybe you're and it was her two years had been spent in uh not even a full general dental office,

44:57
 but temping in general.

44:59
 So maybe you're the one who was the most patient with the special needs in those capacities, but you know what? Everybody in a pedo office is comfortable with

45:08
 special needs. It's what we're trained to do. Yeah.

45:10
 So we train our staff. So you came come in here and you're trying to teach us on how to to treat and we're all going,

45:17
 "What are you doing? We already know this." Like,

45:20
 right. So, and then to where she'd go toe-to-toe with my manager who's a hygienist who's been a hygienist for 14

45:27
 years, but nine of those years have been with me in this office. Yeah. And you're going to argue with her. Yeah.

45:33
 How do you have so much confidence? You don't even know what you don't know. Right.

45:38
 So, I guess your point is people that are like, "Oh, I've got this. I deserve this title. I deserve this pay. Look at how important I am." Maybe you are, but

45:47
 are you? That's the question. We can't assume that we are. We've got to pause

45:53
 and ask the question of and if I'm not seeming valuable enough to my practice owner or to my manager, to whoever it is

46:02
 to take on this task or if there's a hesitancy there with them, I've got to figure out why rather than just being like, ah, they're just being, you know,

46:11
 they just don't want to pass things off.

46:13
 They're all they're just being cheap. They're just being whatever. No chance. Well, it's the same thing that I've said before about this was years ago. I don't know

46:20
 if you remember this. We were doing a class and it was on documentation and the RDAs in the back were like, "Oh, our doctor doesn't like us to do that. The

46:28
 doctor likes to do the charting themselves or likes to do the notes themselves." And I was like, "What?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah. Doctor likes to

46:35
 do that." I was like, I don't know you and I don't know your doctor, but most of us don't want to do that, but we do it because our teams have not figured

46:44
 out how to do it efficiently and effectively. Yeah.

46:47
 And she just looked at me and I was like, "Well, tell me, for example." And so we went through it. I was like,

46:50
 "Okay, tell me how would you document this conversation?" We did a role play and I was like, "Everything she documented, I was like, "See, that to me is garbage." Yeah. Sorry.

46:59
 And in her mind, she'd been an RDA for 12 years and she couldn't believe that.

47:03
 I'm like, "This note is garbage. That's why your doctor doesn't let you do it. Yeah. I had an assistant once that said to me,

47:10
 "Oh, you like to do your own like whatever I was calling out and charting." And this back when we saw paper charts and so she was like, "You like to do your own." And I looked at her and I was like,

47:20
 "No, I don't like to do it. It's none of y'all do it right. And I'm tired of repeating myself." And maybe I'm not the best trainer or the best teacher. Like

47:29
 maybe I haven't done my due diligence to tell you stop doing it like that. I need you to listen to what I'm saying and I need you to do it this way.

47:37
 Way, right?

47:38
 But she just assumed you like it. You prefer to do it. Because I just kind of kept going here.

47:43
 I got it. I got it. Um even the other day my we sat down to do an IV case and I I can over here and the anesthesiologist is like, "Hey, what

47:50
 side do you want to start on? I want to start on the left side." I go in and I hear them saying, "Oh." And the anesthesiologist goes, "Oh, I thought

47:58
 when she wanted to start on the left side, that meant that we put the bite block on the right side so she has access to the left side." My main RDA

48:07
 was like, "No, we're putting the" And I I came in and I just said, "No,

48:11
 anesthesiologist is right. I like to start on the left. We were trained in residency. You start on the lower left. I've always liked to start for 20 years.

48:18
 I like to start on the lower left."

48:20
 And assistant had no idea because she's always done whatever she wants to do.

48:23
 She's so uber confident about what I'm saying. Yeah.

48:27
 And I didn't want to crush her in that moment, but I I just kind of was like, "Huh, what?" No, actually, Dr. You know, Dr.

48:34
 Anesthesiologist, you're right. I prefer to start on the left. Yeah.

48:37
 So, no, you were right. The bite block goes on the right. So, I didn't say to assistant, "You've never gotten it right." But just me saying, "No, no,

48:43
 that is what I meant that I wanted to start on the left." Yeah.

48:47
 I don't know how else to make that more clear. Like, it's actually exactly what I said, right? But then that's where I'm like,

48:54
 well, maybe I'm not clear enough. Maybe I'm not Maybe I use weird lingo. Maybe every other dentist she's ever worked

49:01
 with starting on the left meant put the bite block on the left. I don't know. Yeah.

49:05
 I don't know the answer to that. All I know is that's not what I ever want.

49:08
 Every time we start on the right, I don't like it, but I shut my mouth and do it. Right.

49:11
 So, she's just interpreted that as this is the way you prefer it. Yeah.

49:16
 Assuming that that's correct information until she heard otherwise. Yeah.

49:21
 Yeah. Yeah, it's to me and again I all of your assistants I think are precious and I don't think any one of them are

49:30
 overly confident to where it then impedes them. No. No. We've weeded out those people.

49:36
 They weeded themselves out because they're in their mind they're always like the doctor doesn't appreciate them. Yeah.

49:42
 And I'm like you're right. I don't I don't appreciate your attitude and your overconfidence and something that you should

49:51
 you've never worked in peds. So you should come in with the mindset of I don't know what I'm doing here. I know a lot about dentistry,

49:59
 but I don't know anything about peds. Let me be a sponge and soak this in.

50:03
 You've come in with the attitude of I know dentistry and I've had 50 different doctors work with me and nobody's had a problem but you.

50:11
 Okay. Well, I guess I'm the outlier, but to me, you don't have the skill set for pediatrics yet. We're all here happy to teach you and get you groomed up.

50:21
 You're your own roadblock that you think you already know it. Yeah. Yeah.

50:25
 So, I feel like we see that with people who come in from outside, like if I have an ortho assistant or she's been an

50:32
 ortho assistant somewhere else, I feel like we see that a ton with general dental assistants. Mhm.

50:37
 Oh, I've worked with kids for years, but in a general practice, which is different, completely different. Yeah.

50:43
 Some of my worst assistants were ones that had been like, "Oh, I've been in general for 14, 15 years. We saw a lot of kids, so I'm equipped to see kids."

50:50
 You're those were some of the worst because they came in with this confidence. Yeah.

50:54
 I think we see it a lot like in the other example where you've got somebody coming in from outside the industry,

50:58
 whether they were medical and they were verifying, you know, they worked for Sigma.

51:03
 Yeah. So they feel like they know a lot about insurance and then they come in or they were a medical assistant and so in

51:10
 medical it's it's norm for the assistant to do XYZ like I need you to do more than that. That's not going to cut it here.

51:18
 I think you're right. I think there's not only just whether you've been in dental or not, you need to have a natural curiosity towards how to

51:26
 chronically be doing things better, but especially if you're coming outside from outside dentistry into it,

51:34
 just fully appreciating that there's a lot to learn. Whether it was you're coming from insurance and you're still going to be working in insurance, but

51:41
 it's different because you're working at it from the provider standpoint rather than the insure the insured company standpoint. Same thing if you worked in medical and you're coming into dental,

51:51
 there are tons of differences. It's completely different. Yeah.

51:54
 The only the only same thing is that there's a patient.

51:57
 Yeah. Everything else is everything else is different.

52:01
 Yeah. So yeah, I would say those are the two extremes that we've got to be be mindful of with the DRRi.

52:07
 The the problems that can happen with it is we may have to pivot. If there's somebody on the far left end of the

52:15
 spectrum that maybe isn't super um equipped or has the skill set to do things, we may have to kind of shift

52:23
 things around to find something that works for them. And then on the opposite end, and this is more for people who

52:32
 believe that they've arrived, that they are good at everything. I would say reconsider and make sure that you've got

52:40
 humility that person. Please don't be that person. There's not one of us who know who's good at everything. There's not one of us. And so

52:47
 if that's you, please figure out how to get, like you said, humble because you're you're irritating. Mhm.

52:53
 Um and then the one who who the please be aware.

53:00
 I guess in either case, awareness goes a long way.

53:03
 It does. Yeah. That solves a multitude of potential problems.

53:08
 Thanks for joining the conversation today. We hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone, but we also hope that you're walking away with

53:17
 some really great tips and tricks to try in your practice.

53:21
 We value your feedback, so please take a few moments to rate and review the podcast. Finally, we want to make sure

53:30
 that we're covering the topics that matter to you. So, track us down on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and

53:37
 let us know what topics you want us to cover. As always, please know that we are rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama.