Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
Beyond Words: When Your Actions Contradict Your Values
Leadership's echo effect shapes dental practice culture far more than we realize. As practice owners, even when we're not actively leading, our behavior creates rippling effects that influence team dynamics long after we've left the building.
True practice culture isn't what you declare in mission statements or team meetings—it's the accumulation of every feeling your team members have about working in your practice. These feelings develop through countless small interactions where your actual behaviors either reinforce or contradict your stated values. A deep sigh when interrupted, multitasking during conversations, or inconsistently holding people accountable all send powerful unspoken messages that can undermine everything you claim to stand for as a leader.
Ready to create a practice that runs smoothly with less stress and higher profits? Consider joining our September mastermind where we'll help you build leadership skills and systems that create positive cultural echoes throughout your practice.
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
Are you spending enough time leading? Most people would answer no. I know I need to be leading more. But what we fail to realize as practice owners is that even when we are not actively leading, our behavior has a residual effect on our teams and if we aren't careful it can have a big negative effect on our culture. You see, culture isn't what you say it is. It's just not that easy to declare your culture at any given moment, but rather it's the sum, it's the full effect of all of the feelings that your team has about your practice, and those feelings are still happening a long time, even after you've left the office for the weekend. You see, your leadership has an echo. All of your behaviors leave a residue on your culture and on your team. And if you're not careful with what you do say or the way that you say it, that echo can destroy the quality of your patient care and completely change the way it feels to be a member of your practice. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. How can we better control the echo of our leadership?
Speaker 1:Now you are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host, dr Paul Edgison. I'm the author of two books on dental practice management, a dental coach and the owner of a large group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. I am here to teach you how to create a practice, through leadership and systems, that is hands-off, managed by the team and that gives you an amazing life with amazing profits, all while taking amazing care of your patients. So if you are interested in being the best practice owner, you can you are in the right place, all right. So I want to share a story that reflects this idea of our behavior having an echo.
Speaker 1:I remember back about 2018. Now we were a five-op office. We just expanded to 11 operatories, so we doubled the size of our practice. We doubled the size of our team and we started seeing a lot more patients because we went from five to 11 chairs. So the practice had changed a lot in a very short period of time. Now I used to sit in my office and I was often overwhelmed. I was busy. I was still seeing patients three days a week and it was really hard to get to the things that I needed to get to and, honestly, there were a lot of areas of the practice that were really neglected because I just wasn't getting to them. This was before I learned how to lead and delegate and create the leadership systems that I have today, so this is long before that. So I remember this.
Speaker 1:One day I was sitting at my desk in my office and I'm reviewing the notes from the previous night. So I'm going through the notes, making sure that everything was in there, seeing if there's anything that I wanted to add. And this was like the first task of the day. Now I have a million other things to do, so I'm trying to do this as fast as I can. Sudden I hear a knock at the door. And the second I hear that knock.
Speaker 1:I know it's always somebody to bring me something and I have enough to do, so I say come in. And who is it? It's my assistant, Jacqueline. Now Jacqueline knows when I am typing. She is not to interrupt me typing. I cannot stand it. My team knows this. You don't say anything to me while I'm typing. You wait till I finish what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:So she was doing that very politely, just standing there waiting for me to finish what I was typing so that I could look at her. I just finished it up and I took a deep breath and I let it out and I turned and looked at her and said what's up? And I could tell, right when I did that, that something changed in her. And I said what? And she goes nothing, nothing. And I was just like what, what is up? Like what is your problem? Because I could tell that something was wrong. It wasn't a normal thing. So then she goes no, forget it Anyway. So and I said no, I want to know what you were just about to say. So then she paused for a second and she looked me in the eyes and she took a deep breath as well and she said I know you say that, your, but when you take a deep breath like that and let out that big sigh and then look at me and ask me what I need, it doesn't feel like you believe that.
Speaker 1:And right when the words left her mouth, I was floored. She was so right. I mean, here I was. I'm someone who says hey, my office door is always open, come to me if you need anything. I want to support you, I want to do this and that.
Speaker 1:And here she comes in to ask me something, in to ask me something, and I'm acting like a little entitled brat. I'm so annoyed that another disturbance is coming, and so she points this out to me. And the thing was, I'm thankful that she pointed out to me, even though at that moment I did get defensive. I was like, dude, I'm really busy, I'm really overwhelmed, don't you understand? You know what I am overwhelmed, but that doesn't excuse my behavior. And the thing is, how many of my other employees had come into my office and just asked me for something or brought me something or told me about a patient, and I threw body language and signals like that that said, you know what Don't bother me. So I can sit there at our team meetings and talk about our core values of being open and creating a safe environment. But the fact of the matter is, my behavior wasn't congruent with that, and my behavior, right there, was having a lasting echo on the team. It was causing them to feel like I wasn't there for them. It was causing them to feel like I didn't care, I didn't have the time for them, and that wasn't my intentions at all. But let's face it as leaders, we aren't judged by our intentions, we are judged by our actions. So I'm glad that she called me out on it. But this is what we do often, as practice leaders, we're not trying to be rude, but the echo of our behavior is rude. So just being busy it's not a good enough excuse. Your team does not hear your intentions, they only hear your actions. So what are some other behaviors that maybe you experience or you do at your practice? I'll share a few more of mine Gossiping or being negative about patients.
Speaker 1:I remember we had a consultant come into our practice and she was just observing, okay, and we had the morning huddle and we're looking at the schedule and I go, oh, mrs Jones, oh, my God, I hope she does not come today. And everyone was like, yeah, oh, we hate Mrs Jones. And I didn't think anything of it. This was one of those really big pain in the ass patients. But that consultant pulled me aside later in the day and said hey, would you like if your team talked about patients the way that you talked about Mrs Jones there? And I said you know what? No, but Mrs Jones, she's different, she's different. And she said if you don't think it's okay to talk about a patient like that, you can't be talking to patients like that. So that's another example. There's the echo of my behavior. What does it say to my team. When I am comfortable talking, saying negative things about a patient, all right.
Speaker 1:Another one when we don't follow through. Have you ever told anyone on your team that, hey, yeah, I'll get that to you or I'll get that to you by the end of the week. Yeah, I'll get that to you or I'll get that to you by the end of the week. And then you don't do it. You know you miss that promise. If you don't follow through on your promises, that erodes trust. The echo of that behavior is that you can't count on me, you can't trust me. So if you want to be trusted and be someone that your team can count on, you need to make sure that you follow through on everything that you say.
Speaker 1:Another one that I see often in my coaching clients and maybe you can relate to this is that we, as practice owners, we are very loose on our management and our holding of people to the behaviors that we want from them. Until we have a big opening in our schedule and we're not very busy, and then we're going to the front desk to see have they called anybody to fill these holes? Have we followed up on any unscheduled treatment? So we get pissed off because of this one thing and then we start walking around finding every little thing that people aren't doing. That is when everybody's like, oh shit, we better get in busy mode because Doc's pissed off again. And what's the echo of that behavior? We want to hold people accountable to the behaviors that we want, but at the same time we need to be consistent. We can't just pick and choose. Sometimes we're going to hold them to it and sometimes we're not.
Speaker 1:Another one you ever get upset that team members are maybe late to the morning huddle? Maybe they're late coming back from lunch? Yeah, I'm sure you do. Well, doc, are you ever late to morning huddle? Are you ever late coming back from lunch? So we need to realize that, as the leader our behavior has, so we, more than anybody, need to be on our best behavior at all times. Right, we need to be consistent. We need to be the same every day, hold people to the same standard every day and not lose ourselves to our emotions when we're having a bad day. We need to be consistent If we want to be the type of leader that the team can bring things to and they share things to. They share their mistakes so we can learn from them.
Speaker 1:That means when somebody comes to you, you need to stop what you're doing and give them your full attention, because the fact of the matter is, you might be thinking that you're being efficient and you're multitasking, you're getting multiple things done, but that's not the echo that your team hears. Your team hears that they don't matter to you and you're too busy for them, and more so than anything else. We are so quick to call out bad behavior but so slow to call out good behavior. I want you to think about what are some things that you are doing to your team and what are some echoes and what are some unintended consequences that you may not like that are happening in your practice. It doesn't hurt to ask to say, hey, I'm really trying to focus on being the best leader I can. Is there any behavior or anything that I'm doing that might have some unintended consequences or that the team maybe sees in a negative light, that I might not be aware of, that you would be willing to share with me? And I guarantee you there are some. Everybody has these.
Speaker 1:Now your team is probably going to tell you some things that you don't want to hear and you might want to get a little defensive about it, but you need to make sure, as a leader, that you don't get defensive about it because, remember, if you get defensive, what is the echo there? The echo is that it's not safe to tell you things. You need to listen, thank that person for taking the risk and sharing it with you and just be better going forward. Every little thing we do matters and it's that one little echo. And if you repeat it every single day, that becomes your culture. All those positive little echoes becomes a positive team culture. That feeds on itself and becomes something very special.
Speaker 1:And when you see a behavior in your team members that you don't like, try looking in the mirror and see if there's some possible chance that maybe you're doing something or saying something that's making that behavior okay. I challenge you to that. And if you're looking to have a practice that runs itself with very little stress, high profit and allows you to take a lot of time off, that runs itself with very little stress, high profit and allows you to take a lot of time off, please consider joining our mastermind. We are kicking this off in September and oh my gosh, the people that have already signed up. I'm so excited for this group that we're building. I know everybody that joins this group is going to have some amazing results next year and, gosh, I hope that you are one of them. So thank you so much for listening today and we'll talk to you next time.
