Episode 171. I Can't Find the Right People to Hire...Here's Where I'd Start

"I can't find good people." If you've said those words lately, you're not alone. 

But what if the problem isn't really finding the right people? 

In this episode, Beth challenges one of the biggest beliefs in dentistry and shares why great teams aren't built by luck—they're built by leaders who know how to develop them. 

If you're tired of carrying the practice on your shoulders and wondering if great employees even exist anymore, this episode will leave you feeling hopeful, empowered, and ready to lead differently.

HEY THERE! LET'S CONNECT...I'D LOVE TO GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER!

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Transcript

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Well, hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Dental Life podcast. I want to start today with a conversation I've had more times than I can count. I'll be coaching an office manager. And somewhere during the conversation, if I ask, so tell me, what's your biggest challenge that you're dealing with right now? Almost without fail, she'll lean back in her chair, let out this exhausted laugh that we all know, and she'll say, it's finding good people. It's not budgets, it's not insurance, it's not dealing with difficult patients, it's not even the doctor. It's finding good people. And honestly, I don't blame her. Hiring has become hard, really hard. People ghost interviews now. They accept the job and then never show up for their first day. Or they come in and they interview, and you think, oh, I've found a unicorn, only to discover three weeks later they spend more time on their phone than they do helping patients. If you've experienced that, you're not crazy. You're not imagining it. It happens. But after a coaching call a few weeks ago, I found myself thinking all about that phrase on the way home all night for several days, finding the right people. And I started asking myself, what does that even mean? And I challenge you to ask yourself to think about that, really answer the question. Because it's one of those things we all say, kind of like, I'm so busy, but busy doing what? Or I'm overwhelmed. What are we overwhelmed about? Sometimes we say these phrases so often that we stop asking ourselves what we're actually trying to communicate. So today, I want us to slow this one down. Because I don't think finding good people is actually the problem. I think it's covering up a much deeper one. And I have a feeling by the end of this episode, you might look at hiring a completely different way. So let's get started. Welcome to the Dental Life Podcast, where we explore how you can have both a successful career and a meaningful personal life in and outside of your practices without sacrificing one for the other. I'm your host, Beth Highland, former dental office manager, Turned Certified Life and Health Coach, and I'm here to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities that come from being a dental professional. Let's get started. Can we talk about finding the right people for a minute? Because it feels like that has become the conversation in dentistry. Everywhere I go, every office manager I coach, sooner or later they say the same thing. They say, Beth, I just can't find good people. And every time I hear that, I find myself thinking, what do we actually mean by good people? Because I think that's where the whole conversation starts. So before we go any further, can I ask you something? When you say, I can't find good people, what are you really saying? Think about that for just a second. Because I don't think you're talking about resumes. I don't think you're talking about what's uploaded to Indeed. I don't even think you're talking about interviews. I think what you might be saying is, I can't find people who care as much as I do. You're looking for ownership, for initiative and pride. What you really want is someone who notices that overflowing trash and does something about it without being asked. It might be that you're thinking, I'm exhausted from carrying this whole practice. You don't need just another employee. You need another adult who shares the emotional load and stops adding to yours. Or you're thinking, I'm tired of training people who just leave. When you're thinking you're tired of hiring someone, spending weeks training them, answering the same questions over and over, and then just to have them quit. That is frustrating. And you think nobody wants to work anymore. Here's the translation of that. I've hired people who weren't a good fit, and I'm starting to believe there just aren't any good people left. That is a very understandable conclusion, but it usually isn't an accurate one. You might also be thinking, I'm tired of feeling like I'm the only one who actually cares whether this practice succeeds. Or maybe this one, I'm tired of carrying everyone else's responsibility. I'll tell you something. We talked about that on a recent podcast. Years ago, I used to think being a great office manager meant I was supposed to carry everything. If someone forgot, I'll just do it. If someone called in sick, I'll cover it. If someone wasn't following through, I'd remind them. And I'd remind them again. And if it still didn't get done, well, I'd just do it myself. Does that sound familiar? I thought that was leadership. Looking back, that wasn't leadership. That was exhaustion wearing a name tag. And I wonder if that's where some of us are today. When we say we can't find good people, are we really saying I can't find someone who cares as much as I do? Because that's very different. Very different. You see, when I hear an office manager say, I can't find good people, I don't hear frustration with hiring. I hear someone who's looking for relief. They're hoping the next person they hire will finally make their life easier. That when they walk in, they see what needs to be done, they take initiative, they work hard, they communicate well, they solve problems. And then suddenly everything will get lighter. Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, seriously. If you know where those people are hiding, let me know because I'd like to interview them too. But here's what I want you to consider. What if, just what if, what if you've been asking the wrong question? Instead of asking, where do I find the right people? Maybe the better question is, what does the right person actually look like? Because if you can't define what you're looking for, how would you ever know when you found it? So let's talk about that. Because I think once you define what right actually means, everything will start to change. So what does the right person look like? It's not what they do, it's who they are. Because I think that's where most of us as office managers get stuck. We know what we don't want. We don't want the person who's always late, we don't want the person who's negative, we don't want the person who's on their phone all day, we don't want the person who waits to be told every little thing. We can make a list of those people all day long. But what do we actually want? We did something years ago that still makes me laugh. We built our ideal team member out of these random dental supplies. We found these old X-ray hangers, beat up instruments, impression trays, anything we could glue onto this poor woman. By the time we were done, she had eight arms, three brains, roller skates, and a cape made out of this patient bib. It was hilarious. Looking back, we weren't building an employee. We were building some kind of superhero. But in all seriousness, let's imagine you and I are sitting down together to write a job description. Not the boring ones that say answer the phones, schedule appointments, verify insurance, collect co-pays. Those are job duties. I'm talking about the person behind those duties. So I'd ask you, tell me about the best employee you've ever worked with. Not necessarily the most experienced, the best. What made them so great? And I know what happens next because I've asked myself this question hundreds of times. Nobody says, well, she was really good at entering insurance claims. Nobody says she could schedule a crown prep like nobody's business. Instead, they say things like, I could count on her. She just figured things out. She took ownership. I never had to remind them. She cared. She worked hard. She stayed calm when everything was falling apart around her. Isn't that interesting? The qualities we value the most have almost nothing to do with dentistry. They're human qualities, they're character qualities. And I started thinking about all those answers. I realized they all fit under two big umbrellas. The first one, mental strength. The second, an incredible work ethic. So let's talk about mental strength first because I think people misunderstand what this means. Mental strength doesn't mean you're tough all the time. It doesn't mean you never cry. Doesn't mean you never get frustrated. Believe me, if that were the definition, there would not be a dental office in the country. Mental strength isn't something you're born with. It's something you build every time you choose to face a challenge instead of letting it defeat you or instead of just ignoring it. Every challenge you work through is another rep that makes you stronger. Every challenge you navigate, every difficult conversation you have, every time you manage your mind instead of letting it manage you, you are building mental strength. Because in dentistry, there are gonna be challenges. That schedule is gonna fall apart. The patient, they're gonna be upset, the doctor is gonna be stressed, two people are gonna call in sick, the scanner will quit working, the insurance company gonna deny that claim for the fourth time. All of that happens before lunch. Can I get an amen? Mental strength is being able to experience all of that without becoming all of that. It's saying, okay, this isn't the day I planned, but let's figure out what needs to happen next. It's being able to recover, to adapt, to solve problems, to keep moving, not perfectly, just intentionally. Then there's work ethic. And honestly, I think work ethic has gotten confused with being busy. They are not the same thing. You can be incredibly busy and accomplish very little. You've probably worked with that person. Maybe you've been that person like me. They're always moving, always talking, always doing something. But at the end of the day, you think, what exactly did they do today? Work ethic, it isn't about looking busy. It's not about being busy. It's about taking responsibility. It's about creating results. It's about doing what you said you were going to do. It's about noticing something that needs attention and handling it. It's about asking questions instead of pretending you understand. It's about finishing what you start. It's about being the kind of person people don't have to chase. Here's something I think we've gotten backwards. We tend to confuse being busy with having a strong work ethic. They are not the same thing. A strong work ethic isn't about looking busy, staying late, or constantly saying how overwhelmed you are. It is simply about creating results. It's seeing what needs to be done, doing it well, finishing it efficiently, and moving on to the next thing. It's not dragging out simple tasks. It's not going through the motions, it's making meaningful progress every single day. Now, here's something I think is really important. Can you teach someone how to answer the phone? Absolutely. Can you teach them the practice management software? Of course you can. Can you teach them your systems? Every single day. But it's a lot harder to teach them to care. It's much harder to teach ownership. It's much harder to teach someone to be resilient when life gets messy. But here's what I need you to know. It's not impossible. It can be hard, but it is very possible. Those qualities, that's what separate average teams from exceptional ones. So here's a little exercise I'd love for you to do. Grab a piece of paper sometime today. At the top of it, write the right team member. Then make your list. Don't think about skills, think about qualities. How does this person show up? How do they communicate? How do they handle pressure? How do they treat people? How do they respond when they make a mistake? What kind of teammate are they? Write every single thing down because once you define what you're actually looking for, something really interesting will happen. You stop hiring based on a feeling. You stop hiring because they smiled in the interview and had dental experience. I love asking myself one simple question. What else might be true? It's one of the fastest ways I know to get unstuck. So when you catch yourself saying, I have to hire someone with dental experience, ask yourself, what else might be true? Could I hire someone who's mentally strong and has an incredible work ethic and is hungry to learn? Because here's the thing: there was a day when none of us knew anything about dentistry. I remember early on, I couldn't even spell amalgam. And when someone said prophylaxis, I thought, that sounds disgusting. I hope I don't catch it. But someone taught me, dentistry can be learned. The willingness to learn, that's the part I'm looking for. You approach the situation from a totally different perspective. You start hiring with intention. But there's one more step, and this is the next step. I'll be honest with you, it might be a little uncomfortable. It certainly made me really uncomfortable the first time I asked myself this question. Because once you've defined the right person, there's only one place to look next, and that's the mirror. So you've defined what that right person looks like. They have mental strength, they have an incredible work ethic, they take ownership, they're coachable, they care. Now, I'm gonna ask you to do something that I had to do myself, and don't give me a side eye. I want you to hear me out. I want you to take that list and hold it up like a mirror. Not to your team, to yourself. I know. This is the point where some of you are thinking, Beth, I thought this episode was about hiring. It is, I promise. But I've learned something huge over the years. The quality of your team is directly connected to the quality of the leader they're following. I've not always been that leader. Now, before anyone sends me an email, I'm not saying every bad hire is your fault. Some people simply aren't a fit. Some people don't want to grow. Some people are gonna disappoint you no matter how much time, how much coaching and encouragement you pour into them. That's life. But here's what I am saying: leadership starts with us, it always does. I want you to take that and feel so empowered with it. So let me ask you a few questions. When the day falls completely apart, how do you respond? When two team members call in sick, when the doctor is asking for some random something again, when the hygienist needs you, when a patient is upset because they've been waiting 20 minutes, when the insurance company has you on hold again another 45 minutes, and someone just told you the compressor is making a funny noise. How do you show up? Do you become the calm in the middle of the storm, or do you become part of the storm? I've been part of that storm many times. But here's something I've noticed: stress is contagious, but so is calm. Think about that. One person's emotional state can spread through an entire practice. Have you ever walked into a room where someone was angry? Nobody had to tell you. You felt it. But the opposite is true also. When someone stays grounded, it settles everyone else. That is mental strength, not pretending everything's okay, but refusing to let chaos decide how you're going to show up. So now let's talk about work ethic. This one isn't nearly as glamorous as people make it sound. Work ethic isn't working through lunch every day. It isn't answering emails at 10 o'clock at night. It isn't sacrificing your family to prove you're committed. That's not work ethic. That is rooted deep in burnout. We've all had those days where we were busy from the minute we walked in, and by five o'clock we wondered, wait, what did I actually get done today? That's activity. Work ethic creates results, and those are two different things. You do what you said you were going to do, you honor your commitments, you finish what you start. You're not always working on something. You own your mistakes, you learn from them. You don't spend your day waiting for someone else to solve your problems. And I'll tell you something. One of the greatest leadership lessons I've ever learned, I've told you this before, that was realizing my team wasn't listening nearly as much as they were watching. I could stand in front of them and tell them how communication is so important, but then I would avoid difficult conversations. If I did that, what did I really teach them? I could tell them accountability matters, but if I made excuses every time I dropped the ball, what did they learn? I could tell them to stay calm under pressure, but if I lost my patience every time the schedule got behind, guess what became normal? Here's something I say all the time. People don't do what leaders say. They do what leaders model. And that's why this matters so much. Because if I say I want someone who takes ownership, do I? If I say I want someone who's coachable, am I? If I want someone who has mental strength, am I building mine? Because here's the truth: you can't expect from other people what you're unwilling to practice yourself. Now, I don't want this to become one more opportunity to beat yourself up. That is not what this is about. This isn't about perfection, it's all about awareness. It's about asking yourself, where am I already leading well? I want you to celebrate that. Seriously, we don't do that enough. And then ask yourself, where's one area I could get just one percent better? Not 50%, not becoming a completely different leader by Monday morning. One percent. Imagine giving yourself this next quarter to practice that one thing. Not to be perfect, just to get a little stronger every week, a little more intentional, a little more consistent. Can you imagine? Imagine the confidence you'd have by the time January rolls around. I want you to picture yourself six months from now. You walk into the practice on a Monday morning. The schedule could be a mess because let's be honest, that's dentistry. But instead of feeling overwhelmed, you feel equipped. You know how to lead yourself. You know how to lead your team. That's the leader I want you to become. Maybe it's in having the conversation you've been avoiding. Maybe it's following through on something you said you were going to do, but it's still on your project list. Maybe it's staying calm the next time the schedule blows up instead of letting everyone borrow your stress. Maybe it's asking for help instead of carrying everything yourself. And remember at the beginning of this episode when I said I used to think leadership meant doing everything myself. I really believed that. I thought if I just worked harder, stayed later, fixed all the problems, reminded everyone, covered every mistake, then somehow everything would magically work. You know what really happened? I trained everyone around me that I would catch that stuff. I remember thinking, and I would say it out loud, somebody's got to keep all these plates spinning in the air. I can't let one drop. Apparently, I decided that someone was me every single time. I unintentionally created dependence instead of ownership. That was a hard lesson to learn. Leadership isn't rescuing people, leadership is helping people become stronger. And that's why I think we've been asking the wrong hiring question. Because maybe, just maybe, you're not looking for the right employee. Maybe you're becoming the leader who can recognize one, who can develop one and inspire one. And that's where I think the magic really happens. Because once you become that leader, you start seeing people differently. You stop asking, can this person do the job? And you start asking, is this someone willing to grow? Those are two totally different questions with two different outcomes. I want to answer the question that kept bouncing around in my head after that coaching call. Do you actually find great employees or do you create them? I think you already know my answer. But what's your answer? Do you find great employees or do you create them? When I first started thinking about this, my immediate answer was, well, both. Of course, you have to hire people. Of course, there are people who are simply not a good fit. No amount of coaching is going to create work ethic in someone who has absolutely no desire to work. No amount of leadership is going to make someone care if they simply don't care. And those people do exist. But I think we've given hiring far too much credit. Because here's what I know: every exceptional employee I've ever worked with didn't walk into the practice knowing exactly how to become exceptional. They grew into it. Someone believed in them, someone coached them. Someone expected excellence from them. Someone refused to let them settle for average. And somewhere along the way, they became exceptional. Then I started thinking about my own career. Goodness knows I wasn't born knowing how to lead a dental practice. I certainly wasn't born knowing how to have a difficult conversation. I absolutely wasn't born knowing how to stay calm when everything around me felt like it was falling apart. Those were skills. I learned them. Sometimes the hard way, sometimes by making spectacular mistakes, sometimes by wishing I could rewind the clock and do the whole conversation all over again. That's how growth works. So why do we expect the people we hire to walk through the front door already fully developed? We don't expect a new assistant to know every clinical procedure on day one, no matter how many checklists we give them. We don't expect a new hygienist to know every preference the doctor has on day one. So why do we expect leadership qualities to magically show up without leadership? I think that's the disconnect. We're trying to hire finished products instead of developing people. Now, before you think I'm telling you to lower your standards, please don't. I'm actually suggesting the opposite. Raise them, be crystal clear about what excellence looks like. Talk about it, model it, celebrate it, coach it, protect it, and most importantly, be it. Because people can't rise to a standard they've never seen. Think about the best leader you've ever worked for. What made them different? I doubt it was because they gave amazing performance reviews or because they had the perfect interview questions. I'll bet they made you want to become better. You wanted to do a great job because of who they were. They challenged you. They believed in you. They gave you feedback you didn't always want to hear. But somehow you knew they were there to support you. They didn't rescue you, they developed you. And isn't that what we all hope to become? The kind of leader people will grow under. I think that's one of the greatest gifts you can give another human being to leap them stronger than when you met them. That's leadership. Here's something else I've been thinking about. Imagine two office managers, both the exact same job, both interview from the exact same pool of applicants, both hire someone with similar experience. But six months later, one employee is thriving, the other is struggling. Why? Was one applicant secretly better than the other? Well, maybe, maybe not. Maybe one walked into an environment where expectations were clear, where feedback was normal, where accountability wasn't punishment, where learning was encouraged, where people were trusted, where leadership was consistent. And maybe the other walked into confusion, mixed messages, frustration, assumptions, constant firefighting. You know what people become in those environments? More confused, more frustrated, more reactive. Environments matter. Culture, that is important a lot. And it's actually the most empowering part of today's conversation because you may not control who applies for the job. You don't control the economy. You can't control what other practices are paying. You don't control how many people ghost interviews, but you do control the environment people walk into every single morning. You can control the culture. You can control the expectations. You can control how you communicate. You control whether people feel safe to ask questions. You can control whether accountability is consistent. You control whether you're becoming more mentally strong yourself. That is a lot of control. More than I think we sometimes give ourselves credit for. You know, one of the biggest lessons I've learned over the years is this the thoughts we think determine the leader we become. If I believed nobody wants to work anymore, I'm going to interview differently, I'm going to onboard differently, I'll coach differently, I'll notice every mistake, I'll expect disappointment, and before long, I've created evidence that my thought was true. Listen, that's how our brains work. But if I ask, if I believed what else might be true, if I thought there are good people out there, and my job is to help them become great. Now, I'm going to interview differently. I'm going to ask better questions. I'll set clearer expectations. I'll coach sooner. I'll have the hard conversations. I will celebrate growth with them. I'll stop looking for perfection and start developing potential. With the same hiring market, I'll have a completely different leader and completely different results. So here's what I'd love for you to do this week. Go back to that list you made. The qualities of your ideal team member, mental strength, work ethic, ownership, coachability, growth. And then ask yourself one simple question. How can I create an environment where those qualities grow and flourish? Because I have a feeling that's where you're going to find the people you've been looking for. Not because you've magically discovered better applicants, but because you became a better leader. And here's a thought I want to leave you with today. Maybe, just maybe, you're not looking for the right people. Maybe you're becoming the kind of leader the right people are looking for. I want you to think about that this week. And imagine if you made that your focus over the next three months, or maybe even the next six, not trying to fix everyone else, not hoping the next hire changes everything. Just becoming a little more mentally strong, a little more intentional, a little more effective every single week. Imagine the confidence you'd have walking into January. Not because life got easier, but because you became the kind of leader who could handle whatever life and dentistry put in front of you. And look, it fills my heart to know you spent this time with me. And I thank you so much for that. And if this episode made you think of another office manager who's been saying, I just can't find good people, would you do me a favor, send it to her? Because I think this is a conversation our profession needs to have. And if you're thinking, Beth, this is exactly the kind of leader I want to become, you're gonna love what I'm building. I have an announcement coming soon. My new office manager mastermind group membership. It is gonna launch this fall. You can go over to my website and get on the wait list because that's what it's all about. Not just building a stronger practice, becoming a stronger leader. Have a fabulous week. I'll see you in my free Facebook group Beyond Dental Burnout and on next week's episode. Bye. Hey, have you had a chance to download your free copy of my mental hygiene checklist yet? Visit Beth HeilmanCoaching.com to get your copy. It teaches you the practical skills you need to achieve the same level of excellent mental hygiene as your dental hygiene. Don't miss out on this valuable resource for both your personal and professional growth.