Why "Loyalty" Is Keeping Your Company Stuck with Jordin McEntire

INTRO

In this episode, I sit down with Jordin McEntire, Executive Coach and Fractional COO at the DEO (Dentist Entrepreneur Organization) and CEO of Entire Management. Jordin has spent 18 years in operations and management, running multi-location practices with some of the largest dental organizations in the country before building her own company helping businesses across industries scale through better systems, leadership, and talent development.

Most conversations about talent stop at hiring. This one starts where they end. We talk about what happens after you get people through the door: how to diagnose the health of your team and culture, how to build pay bands and career pathways so your people know exactly what growth looks like, and how to decide whether someone needs to be coached up or coached out.

Jordin also walks through her five performance levels for evaluating talent, how to have hard conversations (including letting people go) in a human way, her Heal-Deal-Do approach to change management, and why AI should be treated as an enhancement to your people, not a replacement.

If you have ever lost a great team member and didn't know why, or held on to a bad fit longer than you should have, this conversation gives you the frameworks to fix both.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• How to diagnose your company's talent and culture health beyond just the data
• How to build pay bands and pathways with clear entry, mid, and expert tiers
• Why seniority is not the same as competence, and how to break that trap
• The "skill vs. will" framework for putting the right person in the right seat
• Jordin's five performance levels for evaluating talent objectively
• When to coach someone up versus coach them out (and why you can't do both)
• How to fire someone in a human way so it never comes as a surprise
• The Heal-Deal-Do method for leading your team through change
• How to position AI as an enhancement for your team, not a replacement

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• The Talent Bank — Jordin's assessment framework for evaluating the health of your culture, retention, and compensation
• Pay Bands & Pathways — A tiered structure (entry, mid, expert) that gives every role clear KPIs, skills, and growth milestones
• Skill vs. Will Framework — A diagnostic for whether performance issues come from ability, motivation, or the environment
• The Five Performance Levels — New Enroll, Needs Improvement, Strong Contributor, Strong Contributor Well-Placed, and Strong Contributor Do More
• Heal, Deal, Do — Jordin's approach for working through the internal blockers that stop leaders from taking action
• "People don't quit hard, they quit unclear" — The retention principle behind clear roles, frequent check-ins, and honest conversations
• Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman — A book on designing customer experiences that create loyalty
• The DEO (Dentist Entrepreneur Organization) — Community, coaching, and resources for dental entrepreneurs
• Free Leadership Self-Assessment — Reach out to Jordin for the self-analysis tool she shares with new leaders

CONNECT WITH JORDIN

Website: https://www.entiremanagement.org/
LinkedIn (Jordin): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordin-mcentire/
LinkedIn (Entire Management): https://www.linkedin.com/company/entire-management/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordin.mcentire/
Dentists: Find Jordin at the DEO — https://deodentalgroup.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Higher to Scale podcast. I'm your host, JP Forno, and today I'm super excited because we're going to cover a part of the talent journey that we don't get to cover enough, and that is what happens after you get someone through the door, right? How do you grow talent? How do you manage talent? How do you make sure that your environment is set up for their success? So let me tell you a little bit more about today's guest, Jordan McIntyre. So Jordan has been in operations and management for over 18 years. So she originally cut her teeth running multi-location dental practices with some of the largest DSOs in the country. And today, she's an executive coach and a fractional COO with the DEO, the Dentist Entrepreneur Organization, as well as the CEO of the entire management, where she helps businesses across industries build systems, teams, and leadership that they need to scale. So I actually met Jordan at the DEO Operations Intensive in Dallas, which was an event tailored to dental group or expiring dental groups. And it was all about optimizing their operations. And once I heard Jordan speak on stage, I had to have her on the podcast because she was talking about very practical and implementable methods and practices and frameworks to make sure that your operation is running like a well-oiled machine. So in this episode, we're going to be covering things like how do you diagnose the health of your current team. We are also going to be talking about how to structure pay bands and building career pathways for your team, how to let people know exactly what growth looks like inside the organization, how to decide when to coach someone up versus coaching someone out in your business, and ultimately how to lead your team through change. There's going to be a ton of framers and methodologies. So grab a notebook and without further ado, enjoy the episode. Jordan, thank you so much for doing this. Uh I'm so excited for having you. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Awesome. So for the listeners out there, we I met Jordan at a recent event that I was in in Dallas. It was the DEO Operations Intensive. And for those of you who don't know, DEO is the dentist entrepreneur organization. And I was blown away by all the content that was there. I was, I'm I'm not so much as a why kind of guy, I'm more of a how type of person. And it was like flooded with a lot of resources, a lot of templates, a lot of like best practices on how to manage an organization, let alone a dental practice. And so I learned a lot from everybody. And after I heard you on stage, Jordan, I kind of like just reached out to you and be like, hey, you have to be on the podcast because I love how you think about like teams and stuff. Uh so thank you so so much uh for joining us. How was that event for you? I think like it was a lot to pack in like two and a half days.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Absolutely. It was a lot to pack, but it's a lot to unpack as well. So I think operations is one of those things. We're the we're the junk tour, everything falls there. So it was awesome. I I really enjoyed it. I appreciate you coming up and speaking to me after. So I'm excited to kind of unpack a little bit of that here and share some of that.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

So awesome. And so uh what our focus with this podcast, as as we've we've said before here, is how do you scale through people, right? And we think that out of the many levers that you can pull inside of a business, people is one of like the best ones you can master, and perhaps even the most rewarding if you do it right. It also can be the most challenging if you don't know. And the pillars of what we talked about is usually like uh how do you hire and how you train people. But we we haven't talked that much about like what happens after you get them through the door and how do you like manage, how do you make sure that they're set up for success, how do you grow them? And so I I want to preface by saying that I I hope that we could talk a lot about that part of the business uh and and tap into your experience when it comes to that. But before we do that, I would love it if you could just like introduce yourself for people who haven't heard um about you, or how or just like the best way to get to know your trajectory and what got you to where you're at today.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, absolutely. So um, yeah, so I'm Jordan McIntyre. I have been in operations, it's crazy as it sounds. I've been operating and managing for 18 years now. Um, so I actually started and knew I was gonna be in dentistry in about fifth grade. Um, I knew I was gonna land there. So I've worked a little bit of everything. So medical, retail, um, all the things I've dipped and dabbed into, um, but kind of landed in dental overall. So yeah, I've been managing for 18 years. So that's been the junk tour for 18 years, is how I say it.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, you're probably one of the few people that actually follow through with like that question of what do you want to do when you grow up. Um, I think I wanted to be a hotel owner or something like that. Like I I just stayed at a hotel that was all inclusive in Cuba one year for New Year's, and I'm like, I want to be a hotel owner. And then I learned what it takes to be one, and I'm like, I'll probably something else.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Um yeah, well, at first I was like, I'm gonna be a dentist, and then um I did some research. I was like, oh man, no, they have like a lot of debt and suicide rate. And so I changed to like, I just want to be a dental assistant and really support dentists from you know, preventing them from hurting themselves in fifth grade. That was a project I did. So uh full transparency though. I didn't think I was gonna get into entrepreneurship. Um, I was your operator that was like, I'm good, like I'm I am your corporate, I'm gonna follow it through. Love my corporate job until I didn't. Um, and then I just really started my own management company. I started coaching and consulting with the DEO. Um, I've opened up a dental assisting school in Hawaii. Um, I've done a company that does like support teams. So I manage and support like operational um call centers and my management company helps like small businesses um really help get off their feet and scale. So it kind of aligns directly with what you're doing with talent, um, just on the business side of things.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

So yeah, and it's amazing because like I got a chance being in the audience to meet a lot of the dental practice owners and their office managers. It's interesting just to see how different their brains work one from another. But um also I think that they like anybody who starts a business or starts a practice, their their ambitions and dreams are tied to the outcomes of that business and having someone knowing how to do things and how to like make it clear and simple of what the next steps are is like a godsend. Um, and at the end of the day, like I think that with your like business, you get to have that same level of support and help with like multiple people. You get to scale a little bit of the value that you're having. Absolutely. Um, and beyond dentistry, I'm imagining like a lot of the things is pattern recognition and how practice is run. Have you seen a lot of the things that you learn in the world of dentistry apply to you know any type of business out there?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Oh, yeah. So I always say like leadership, management, business, it's just an ecosystem. So the longer you've been in it, you start picking up on pattern recognition, and that can apply with any company. Um, and that's really what where my heart kind of went to was like, wow, these are things that really can apply anywhere. Um, and it really started with like my brother was getting into construction. Um like, oh, I can help you with that. And so as I got my confidence in doing those things, I was like, this applies to anything. Um yeah, it definitely is a copy paste pattern recognition for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

So let's start with like perhaps one of like the first types of pattern recognitions that like a founder should think about. And I want to talk about like when you go into like a new business, even though it might be in the niche that you are experienced with, the first thing I'm imagining that you're doing is the diagnosis, right? So when it comes to talent, how do you diagnose a company's current state of affairs? Like how how talent is being managed, or like the people component of a business. So how do you go in and diagnose that for companies?

SPEAKER_01 7:43

You know, that's a wonderful question. Um, one of the things that I say, and I don't know if you kind of went through this growing up, but with children, I'm like, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. Um, it's it's the same thing in business, right? So if I can get into the business and I see what's happening, um, I'm not the person that I always say like data gives like x-rays, right? Data shows you what's happening, but that's just a part of the diagnosis. I actually need to get in there. I need to see the team, I need to hear what's happening. Um, I need to feel it because a lot of these things are like you could feel it's off and that people are just in the wrong spaces. Um, so I'll actually do a little bit of the data dump, but then I actually go on site and I want to see and talk and just see how the interaction day-to-day goes. Um, but I can typically tell within really the first 30 minutes of being in a room um what's happening with the culture and what's happening with the people.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

And so, what are some of the data points that like from the x-ray standpoint, what are some of the data points that you look at that tell you a little bit of the part of the story?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Absolutely. So, one of the things that I would say, like if I'm thinking of, okay, as a business owner, what are some of the things to say if it's healthy or if I'm not healthy? I actually created an IP for this, but I call it the talent bank. Um, so inside of the talent bank, you can actually do an assessment for your culture and for your business. So, some of the questions that I'll ask, it's kind of like it's not a disk assessment because disk is really personality. It's not a Kobe because that's like your the way that you work and handle things. Sure. This is more of like how is the culture in your business? And so it talks about your retention, how many team members have left, how many team members do you have? Um, and then we obviously look at the data. So, what are you paying your team in in comparison to like the benchmarks or the broadbands that are around you? Are you overpaying? Are we underpaying? Um, and depending on that, it kind of tells me the type of leader that you are just by looking at those few things. And then once I know the kind of leader you are, then I get into the weeds of how do we solve the problems.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

And I think this is harder to like map out because a little bit has to do with intuition. I believe that intuition is your internal, you know, cognitive capability, recognizing patterns that you probably don't put into words, but you're like, I've seen so many operations that I could just identify how someone reacts to when I ask this question or when the boss walks through the door, how do they, what is their body language look like? Um is there anything that you've been able to like map out to be like, oh, this is the other part of the equation that tells me a little bit about the vibe of the place?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, I mean, honestly, with the vibe, it's gonna be outside of just your regular intuition, there's a few things that you can look at. Number one is if you were to just go say hi to the team, are they are they excited to speak with you or are they nervous that somebody from the outside is coming in to talk to them? Um, typically when teams get nervous at a consultant or somebody's coming in to evaluate the business, then they fear change in your group. And any business has they have to be okay with innovation. They've got to be okay with evolving. So if your team is afraid of that, um, that's a first sign that there's some kind of fear that's driving this performance. People do what you want them to do because they have to. Um, they're not doing it because they want to. Um, and so that's typically the first thing that I would pick up on. Um, another thing that I would say, like when you're looking at talent and looking at people, is like when you're in the building, are they are they excited to talk to the person sitting next to them? Do we have any conversations that's happening in the business? Or are they just coming in, clocking in and going home? Um, and if you give them no direction for their future, they have no clarity on where they're going. Like they don't know what their future holds, they don't know what a career looks like, they don't know what they could potentially earn inside of your company, uh, you're gonna lose them, especially good talent. You'll lose them.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

And I think that it's I used to do consulting a little bit after um my first corporate job. I did consulting for a while. And I felt like as a consultant, it's a little bit easier to be come out like an like an impartial judge, right? Like you can come in, I have no bias, I just make want to make sure that you guys are successful. So like I had a little bit of an easier time getting people to talk to me and tell me a little bit about the challenges and stuff like that. But if I am a leader of a company and I want to get the same pulse check from my team and get the same diagnosis, number one, I might have blind spots. And number two, people might not volunteer information as you know freely as they probably would a consultant. So what how what would you say, or how would you advise somebody listening to this that wants to understand the pulse check of their business as far as people are concerned? How should they go about this so that they don't miss key pieces of data?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Honestly, the the best advice that I can give, um, I mean, I've managed pretty large teams and to have a pulse check on your team is so important. Like you've got to know what their future holds. You have to know what their interests are. Um, and so if you're if you as a leader have no idea what the person that you hired, what their personal and career goals are, you fail. Um, and I just flat out say that as a leader. Like you have to know because their career goals are tied to their personal goals in some way, shape, or form. Does not mean you need to be their best friend, but you do need to know how their career ties with their personal life. Um, so I start with that. And I always say people don't quit hard. They actually quit unclear. So if people are quitting and people are leaving, it's just because you're not clear. So if we can clear things up and you clear up their job description and you do frequent check-ins and you do one-on-ones, you have the hard conversations, um, you'll retain the talent you want, but you'll coach out the ones that you don't want.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

So speaking about that roadmap, right? I think that that out of the two or three conversations that you had at the event, one of them was uh around pay bands and pathways. I think it was the title of the of the conversation. And so I I really liked it because it made it very binary of like how do you decide um or how do you communicate even just what growth looks like inside of an organization? Can you speak a little bit about that framework? How do you set it up and how can someone adopt it inside of their own companies?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah. So the payment and pathways, the way that you want to think about it is everybody has everybody has a seat that they're in. And are they entry level? Are they mid-level? Are they expert level? Where are they at on that on that tier? And knowing where they sit in that tier, well, Jordan, how am I going to know where they sit in that tier? Would be, okay, well, what are the tiers for that role that you have in your in your company? So what is what makes an entry-level team member? Okay, what KPIs or what standards say that this is an entry-level person? Okay, what KPI, what standards would say that this is a mid-level, and what would say they're an expert? If you know what that is, then you can evaluate your team member and put them in that tier outside of feelings, outside of personal, just true, this is the tier that they fit in. Um, then when you know what tier they're in, you have to ask yourself, what are their goals? Are there goals to become an expert, or do I just want them to be the expert? Um, and so then if they're if you are paying them like they're an expert, but they're really an entry-level team member, I talk a lot about how do we have that conversation with them to get them to understand off the competency checklist, like you're actually an entry-level team member, and how do we get you to this expert status?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And so I guess that this takes a pre-step from the company standpoint to just to determine what KPIs are for each position. I think that every time that you put a job description out there, if you don't outline the KPIs, I mean you're already like having a losing battle because you have like no clarity on how success looks like for them. But how do you make the differentiation between like okay, between a junior mid-level and expert level, these are the KPIs that you want to hit? Do you also include the skills that you should have and at what level you should have them? Like you should be capable of doing this, not just reaching this KPI. I don't know if that makes sense, right? But like, how do you separate like competencies versus KPIs? I love it. Uh, and the reason, and just just so to preface this, and the reason I ask is because sometimes a KPI is multiple people involved together driving this, right? Versus a skill is a little bit more individual and it's a little bit, I guess, fair for the person you're evaluating. So just wanted to see if you had like a different thought process.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, so there's there's a few steps to this. So once you get through, like, okay, is my role clear? Like, are is it is each tier clear? Yes, each tier is clear. Great. Now you have to say, okay, with each of the team members, do they have the skill and do they have the will? Um, skill would mean like, are they able to do the job that we're doing? Like what skill sets do they bring to the table? Um, your entry-level team members are typically your team members that are like, hey, I'm just here to do my job, come in, clock in, clock out, hand you a report, and I'm out of here. Those are like your entry-level team members. Then that's their skill. Then you got your mid-level that's like, hmm, like I'm gonna go a little above that, but I really don't want to dedicate everything to this. And so you those kind of sit in the middle. And so you know that the skill set matches the middle tier. And then you got the experts. And the experts are the ones that might challenge you, they might have different opinions, they bring ideas to the table. Um, they're the people that you're like, you know, I've never wanted to hand anything off, but I should probably trust you with this. Those are like your experts because if you, if they're in an expert tier based on their skill, if you don't feed them, they actually start to go backwards. And then they become like a needs improvement. They become your problem because they're not being challenged, they're not being taught anything. So you it's so important to know like where are their skills, not just the KPIs that they can deliver, but where are their skills? Um, in those entry, mid, and expert tiers, if you don't know where your team sits, um, you you're at risk of losing some really good talent.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

And so, for example, like if someone's at the expert level, when you say like we need to feed them more responsibility, scope, and stuff like that, does that also mean, okay, now you've graduated from this role and now you have opportunities to be entry level or something that's a little bit more senior within the is that kind of like how that is it linear like that or is it more horizontal? Like, how do you when somebody hits that expertise ceiling, like what's like what's next here? Um, how do you view that? Is it like that kind of graduation or lateral movement, or how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

It's a good question. You know, I always say we're humans, right? So think about from the dawn of time, um, since we were born. We we want to evolve, we want to grow, we want to learn. Um, so if you have someone that's sitting in an expert seat, they will become a beginner at something else soon. And so why won't why wouldn't you want that to be with your company? Why wouldn't you want them to start learning something new with you? Um, because you know that they have the skill and they have the will to become an expert at whatever they do or put their minds to. So it's okay to start that circle again. It's okay to take that expert talent as long as you're now you see someone in a mid-level that you're like, hmm, they want to be an expert. So I'm gonna train up my mid-level to become this expert, and I'm gonna take my expert to now become a beginner at something else. And then you just keep repeating this cycle, and then that's how your retention stays there, um, and you're able to grow the talent from with it.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

And I think that I like that for two reasons. Like, number one, the reason I like this is because it forces the entrepreneur to build a big enough boat to fit everybody's ambitions in it. Like, so if you don't have a company that lends itself to have that sort of growth map for your people, you're gonna start turning your A-star players. And so, does that mean like, hey, that's why like a lot of the conversation was like, we need to open more locations and that will open up bandwidth or or responsibilities for the people that can grow and stuff. So I like that it kind of like puts a little bit of fire underneath you to like make sure that you're driving an organization worth belonging uh into. Um, but the other reason that I liked it is because you made a you made a comment about this on stage, and I'm all about meritocracy. Like when I we're hiring people, I don't care if you went to school, what your degree is, sexual orientation, religion, anything that you could think of that people might judge you for. I don't care. I just care that you're a good culture fit, a good competence fit, and a good, and this is a career fit for you. And I think that what you mentioned is that that level has nothing to do with seniority. But everybody like that has a business tends to fall into that trap of associating seniority with competence level. How often do you see that problem in the companies that you work with? And what do you do to reverse that?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

And honestly, it's one of those um you have a tenure team member, and we often relate, like, hey, this is my best person because they've been with me the longest. And that's the hardest thing to break because loyalty is hard. Um, and when someone's loyal to you, you you want to get back to them, you want to provide for them. However, the way that I've gotten entrepreneurs and business owners to shift their mindset is I think that's awesome that they've been loyal to you and that they've gotten you here. Congratulations. Like you wouldn't be here if they weren't there. I I see that, appreciate that. However, with where you want to go, if they were going to get you there, why aren't we there? And so that one question if like, if they were gonna get you there, why aren't we there? Starts the conversation. Um, and oftentimes those tenure team members, either we like didn't invest in them. And so their growth stopped. They stopped at mid-level because we didn't know how to develop an expert, or we stopped at expert because we were afraid for them to get new at something else. And so they're stuck. That's their ceiling. Um, but we have to be able to continuously build our company. And how are we going to do that? Is by constant evolving. And so you you've got to be able to be okay with making change. You have to have hard conversations. And sometimes I've seen teen your team members that are like, yeah, I have no interest in doing that role. Like, bring somebody in. I am not doing that. I've given everything to this guy. Like, kudos to him for having big dreams, but I'm not interested. Um, and that's okay. But because we had the conversation, they belong in their seat, and we brought someone in that belongs in that seat.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So yeah, and I have to know where they sit. And I think that to your, I mean, to your point, like I try to tell people, and myself included, is you're always in a pursuit of firing yourself from your job so that you can make space for something else. And it's not like, oh, somebody's coming in to take my job. I saw that a lot in corporate. I'm like, good, I want them, because like if no one takes my job, my boss is gonna be afraid of promoting because you have a gap in of performance and output if you just vacate that role because I had ambitions. And so what I would see is that people were refusing to promote stars, not because they were bad, but because they had no succession plan. And so I was like, you have to make sure that you're you're designing for growth, even though you're not at that stage where you're growing, like having that foresight.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

And I've even had managers, like after I've done some of these presentations, like I've had managers that have come up and I'm like, oh my God, like I am that person that you're talking about. I am that teenager, like I'm in this role, but I do not perform at that level. Like, what do I need to do? Like what classes do I need to take? And those are the ones where I'm like, okay, if they have the will, they just don't have the skill, that means we owe them an investment. Like we need to invest in them. We need to give them these tools and resources. But if they're like, yep, not doing this, but I'm not going anywhere. And then if they're a problem, um, then you have to realize you got to make some hard changes for your company to get to the next level.

unknown 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

And I love how you phrase it though. Like it this is helpful to start the conversation. Like a lot of people think, like, oh, if I answer the question, like, hey, they were supposed to get you to your end goal and they haven't, like people automatically will think, like, oh, I'm getting fired. But it's not, it just starts the conversation. It's like, okay, we can course correct so that you can become the person, or we bring someone who has that ambition and there's more career match there. But it doesn't necessarily mean, oh, we're gonna ax everybody who's doesn't want to like 10x their compensation in the next five years, like whatever, right? Like it starts the conversation as long as you're looking yourself in the mirror as an entrepreneur and as a people leader.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Wanted to ask you about like the whole pay band stuff, because I think that what you were doing when whenever you talk about like here's the junior level, here's the mid-level, and the expert level, is you were using a lot of examples, right? Like, so for a front desk person, you have like an entry level of 18, like $15, and then a mid-level of 18. And then and everybody was saying, like, oh, I'm from California, I'm from New York, like this doesn't work for me. It's like it was like an ill for illustrative purposes, but for someone who wants to get like really technical, like, how does someone determine their pay bans? Is it just a matter of doing like research in Glassdoor and Indeed, or is it a matter of like comparing it with a peer? Or do they look at their own numbers and say, like, okay, I don't care what the market is saying, this is just what works for our business. Like, what's the best approach to have like a sound pay band strategy?

SPEAKER_01 25:23

That is a like honesty is such a deep question. So I say to every company, you um, depending on how big your goals are, is how big you need to think about this question. So if you're comfortable being comfortable, go with the market analysis, go with what's around you, fit into fit into that market because it's working, it's proven that it's working. So do a market analysis, find out you know, what's your competitors around the area, that works. If you're someone that's like, I want to shake up the market and I'm trying to think outside of the box, um, I look at what's untouched. Because if there's, if you're losing, for example, if you're losing phone calls, if you're losing leads that are coming through, if you don't have a closer on your team that can close deals and finish sales, like it depends on what's untouched. If there's so much potential untouched, pay good talent. Um, and you know what's funny is like the DEO will tell you the example is I when they started hiring coaches, like they were like, oh man, like she's expensive. Can we bring on this coach? Like, can we do this? And by doing that, like the ideas came, the untouched came, and we started the COO and virtual DSO and all these things in a matter of a year. Um, by them just saying, you know what, there's so much untouched and let's touch it. Um, and that's the example I say when you build your broadbands is based on where your goals are and where you want to go, but do a market analysis, find out what the broadbands are. If you are underpaying them, um, first thing I say is get really clear roles and responsibilities and then match the compensation with that um and fix that. If you're overpaying them, then elevate your talent or put people in the right seats.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I love that sort of like mindset. I think that this is completely unrelated, but some it gave me like the same sort of like uh feeling is uh they were interviewing John Mayer in a podcast and he was talking about his decision of leaving alcohol to and his pursuit of excellence and his craft. And he the question that he asked himself is like, okay, let's pretend that this is a bar for like your potential from one to a hundred. How much of that potential do you actually want to go for? And for him, it was like it's a hundred. And so, like, if you if your ambition is like, I want to like optimize, I want to fix everything that's wrong with my business, I want to make sure that everything is taken care of, I want to be a world class in your case in your case dental group or business, then I have to put you know investment dollars into it to bring the people who require me. I mean, sure, don't go out of like in debt trying to bring it, you know what I mean? But like just work within your your means and your potential. But like you have to take that risk if you want non-mediocre results, if you want that 100% of your I guess outcome. I I guess that what what I notice sometimes, Jordan, with people that are making that transition is like, okay, I want to go for gold. I want to bring A-star talent in. And they start putting job descriptions out there for roles. The current team tends to have like a visceral reaction towards that because they're like, oh, you're bringing somebody in that does the same thing that I'm doing, kind of, and like it's like three times what I'm paying. Like, how do you like work through that to make sure that as you're trying to go for gold, you're not creating internal turmoil? Or if it is, like, how do you have that conversation with them and explain? Or do you adjust salaries internally? Like, how do you think about getting that A-star talent without like losing the faith that the people have in you uh in your current organization?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

I feel like as a leader, your vision has to be so clear. And when I say clear, I mean like I'm thinking ocean blue with the sand on the water and a yellow bathing suit, like clear to where if you're saying it, they can see it. So if you have a vision for your company that I want to go to this level and these are the imperatives that we need to take, and this is what we're missing, they should be expecting that you're gonna have to bring in tools and resources to get to that spot. If your vision is unclear and everyone thinks everything's okay, and all of a sudden you're looking for different talent, it creates insecurity inside of them. And so as an entrepreneur, we're running a million miles an hour. And so we're not taking the time to stop and think about those feelings and those thoughts because you're like, well, I didn't make them feel that way. Um, well, the post did. And so it's being able to slow down, be clear about your future, make sure they know what that looks like. It doesn't mean they need to agree with your decisions or approve on your decisions, but the vision should be so clear that when they see it, they're like, I think I know why he or she is doing that. I think I know why that's happening. And that solves a lot of those, those kind of feelings and problems.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Gotcha. I want to transition to something that you mentioned uh on one of our conversations. And it was this concept of like coaching up or out, right? Like, so a big part of managing talent, which was one of the pillars we talked about, um, is coaching and understanding how to have conversations with the people that are part of your team. What's your overall philosophy when it comes to coaching and what's like that difference between coaching up or coaching out inside of the businesses you work with?

SPEAKER_01 30:41

I think that that is such an untouched space, um, especially for owners. So if you're a leader or you own a company and you're managing business, it's so hard to take the time to just sit down and have a conversation, especially when it's uncomfortable. So one of the things I always say as a leader is practice the uncomfortable conversations. If you're a new leader, if you're a new manager and you're just getting into it, you cannot wing it. You have got to practice those conversations. Um, and so I remember as I got into management, like I would, I would practice having the conversations in the mirror, I would go through it with myself. Um, and I would critique myself, I would record myself. I'd figure out I used to talk in pitches and do all these crazy things until I figured out like Torrin, it's just a conversation, it's just a person. Um, and so one of the tools that I learned early on is to start the conversation with the endpull. And so being able to say, like, hey, you know, JP, I'm gonna sit down and have this conversation with you. I'm gonna be honest, it's not a comfortable conversation with me. But the outcome of this conversation that I'm hoping for is that you walk away with more information for you to make a decision about your career that is going to set you up for success. Um, and so he now knows my end goal is for him to be successful, but maybe that's not with us. But I started with the end in mind, which made the conversation a little easier to start.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

And I think you start with something that's a little bit disarming by saying, like, hey, this conversation makes me a little bit uncomfortable to have, because they immediately just be like, you know, there's a human, you bring in the human component to that dialogue once you open up like that. Um, and so, but what's the difference between like that's that might be an example of like coaching someone out based on like facts of the business, but what what's the flip side? Like, how what do you mean by coaching someone somebody up?

SPEAKER_01 32:32

So it's an analogy I learned and it works. And I have force month the managers that I work with, then this is one that we're like, I always tell them you're gonna love me in the beginning, you're gonna hate me in the middle, but you'll love me in the end. Uh, the hate in the middle part is this part. It's where I force them to make decisions about their talent. So if you're telling me that this is a needs improvement, and then you move this needs improvement to a strong contributor, but then all of a sudden they're back in a needs improvement, this is a coach out moment. Now, if you have a needs improvement, strong contributor, well placed, they're thriving, and then they're kind of going down, then we got to coach them up. But you can't do both. You can't coach up and coach out at the same time. You've got to make up your mind. Is this someone that has the skill and the will to coach up? Or is this someone that's not matching the skill, they don't have the will, and we need to coach them out. Um, and when we start coaching them out, we now have a succession plan, we now know what their backfield is gonna look like. Um, there's an improvement plan that we go through. Like, you should never start with coaching out. That's like the worst thing you can do as a leader. Um, but if you do it right, it's the best thing. But if you coach up and you see potential and you're actually developing them, um, it's the best thing that you can do. But you can't do both at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

And are those levels or tiers what you typically use in in all businesses? Can you walk us through kind of like how you see the the needs improvement, like just the layers of um of performance? And I don't know if that's universal for your practice or like, but but how does that work or how do you structure those?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah, so think of it like you've got a graph. Okay, you've got a graph, line in the middle, line on the side. So, and then what you want to think of is you have low performance and high performance on that graph. Inside of that graph with your low performance and high performance, you have four boxes. So you've got your like new enroll, which means like, okay, they're less than 90 days. We're just still dating, we're trying to figure each other out. So we're new enroll, you get a pass. Then once you graduate from new enroll, we say, okay, I think this person is going to be a strong contributor. Strong contributor means they do their job, they're doing well, they're meeting expectations, but we don't really know if they're well placed yet, because we don't know if this is the right seat yet. And we don't know if it's a strong contributor, do more. So you've got your new enroll, and then you will have your needs improvement, you have your strong contributor, and then strong contributor well placed, and then strong contributor, do more. And so it's really important once they get out of that new enroll. Are they a needs improvement before after that 90 days? And if so, is it a coach out moment, hire slow, fire fast, have conversations faster? Um, so are they that person or are they strong contributor? We just don't know where they're gonna sit yet. But those five levels is typically where I evaluate the talent.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And is this language that you communicate to them? Like right now, you're at this level with like with this color green, like you know exactly where I'm at at that, or is that just like something internal that like the owners look at?

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Um, I communicate. So I absolutely and let them know where they're at. Again, blue ocean. Um, I can tell everyone to think of the color blue, but we might think baby blue, teal, we all have different versions of blue. But if I'm very clear with them, like, hey, you're out of your 90 days, here's what a strong contributor would would be doing. Um, these are the marks where you're at. This is what I'm seeing. I still have you in this bucket. What do we need to do? What do I need to do? What do you need to do to get you here? Because you told me that your end goal is here, and I can't get you there if we don't work on these things. Um you tie it all together.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

It seems like one of the tools that or the frameworks that you're using for determining like performance is this is this a skill issue or a will issue, uh, which basically works under the assumption that it's in the control of the employee, like either upskilling or changing like their attitude or their approach to the work. What happens when you determine? Because I I used to use that framework, and then I think like there's something missing for other scenarios. And it was like number three was the environment, right? Or the structure that you're working in. That's when, oh, the dental practice or the business or the service company didn't set up this environment for you to win. And then it's more of like, oh, we need to change this, we need to get a new tool, we need to get you a better manager, or we need to get you some, you know, XYZ infrastructure, right? Like, so the does that play a part in how you're setting this up? And and if so, like, how do you have people like make sure that they look at themselves in the mirror, making sure that they have an environment that's promotes high performers, essentially?

SPEAKER_01 37:17

So there's two buckets you want to look at. So your skill and the will is more of like, did we do we have the right person in the right seat? That's really what that's evaluating. When you start talking through turnover retention, are we the problem? Um, I always have leaders look every turnover, you're not allowed to blame it on family. You're not allowed to blame it on everyone. You're just not allowed. And and it because uh I will give credit where credits to a regional partner I worked with, force that in me. Like, Jordan, those are all reasons. I need you to dig deep, dig deep, dig deep. And it constantly made us own like, did we evaluate correctly? Was this a hiring problem? Was this a culture problem? Did we just have them in the wrong office, the wrong location? Um, you know, it's it's important to know your personalities and to know where they fit. Because, like, for example, I do a lot of sign-off interviews because they could be amazing in one practice, but be a problem child in another because the environments are two different environments. Um, so looking at your turnover and looking at that will tell you if you have an environment or culture problem, you just have to talk about it. Every turnover that you have, you have to get in a room, you gotta have uncomfortable conversations and you gotta fix it.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

I like that whole part of like, is just are you in the right pond, sort of thing? Because I think that people naturally say or I guess rule out specific characteristics of people, saying that they're negative all the time, but it depends so highly on context. Like, I like an ex an example that I could give often is aggressiveness. People would say, like, like as a parent or as a counselor, like, or as a customer service representative, maybe aggressiveness is is not the best trait. But if you're like a courtroom litigator, or if you're like a soldier, maybe aggressiveness is an asset, right? And you might want to have somebody in your corner that has a little bit more of like that behind them, right? And so I think that different roles, different cultures have a different place for different people, and it's your job to make sure that they're equally matched. Um, you just have to be attuned to the people that you're bringing in on board.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Um also have to be fair. Like if you know that you have like you, if you know your team. So if you know you're you have a team where you set really high standards and you drive all day, you're go, go, go, go, go, and you've got someone that's literally telling you, like, I'm done at FiberHock, I'm out of here, work life out, don't set them up for failure. Like you have to know what you're looking for and hire the people that you're looking for and know if their personality fits what you're looking for. You could love them, you could think they're the best person in the world, but if they don't fit the avatar that you're looking for, then don't set them up for failure because there is a company, there is a role, there is somebody out there that that avatar would be perfect for.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Yeah, 100%. We see it like because my my company helps people with virtual assistants, and virtual assistants tends to be like a so all-encompassing role. You can have somebody help you with projects or doing marketing, collateral, or bookkeeping. And I I tell people all the time, is like a virtual assistant can do multiple different types of roles, but there's two main constraints. Number one is time, you can only fit 40 hours worth of work in a work week, and the other one is profiles. Like someone who's really good at bookkeeping, sometimes they don't tend to be the best at sales conversation. You know what I mean? Like they're they're different profiles. And if they're it's like the whole quote of like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree, right? Like, you want to make sure that you're not setting them up just the way their strengths are set up. Um, so I think that's important. All right, I wanted to ask about like, okay, let's say for example, let's assume that our environment is dialed in, our culture is dialed in, but there was like a reason why this person hasn't evolved from that needs improvement or is coming down for a needs improvement, and you have made the difficult decision of let someone go. I think firing for people is like such an uncomfortable thing that they just keep bad performers inside of their team and they have this toxic relationship just because they want to avoid hard conversations, uh, or they do it in just like an awful way that ruins your reputation, makes you feel like a shitty person. Like not a lot of people learning business school how to fire someone, right? So, how how do you go about it in a human and effective way? And what do you tell people that think that they're not good at it yet?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

I mean, I always say that's that's the one part of your job when you get into management that it is hard. Um, and so I I just, you know, don't shut your code. It is hard. But I think you have to change your perspective from okay, yes, it is hard, but how am I benefiting this person from this? How am I benefiting the other families that are depending on this business to keep running? Because if you have one person that's standing in the way of talent that you might lose, like if you went back and looked at your turnover, I guarantee you that you've lost good talent because of the person that you're trying to hold on to. So why is it so hard to let go of the person that's causing you to lose really good people? Um, and and I always say, like, think about why you're making this decision. You're making this decision because it's impacting other individuals, it's impacting your ability to provide for these families and provide for your family. Um, and so make the decision confidently and just have the conversation as long as you've been clear with remember, people don't leave hard, they leave unclear. And so that happens when you're firing people. They're like, I had no idea this was coming. That's when it sucks to fire people. Um, it sucks to fire people when they're like, I didn't know this was coming, and they get all angry. But if you had the conversations and you've documented the conversations and you've given them all your time, tools, and resources, they should be expecting the conversation. Like you, they should know that conversation. I know you're firing me. Where's my check? Like that is how clear that should happen. Um, but people are so afraid to have conversations leading up to the firing. But if you do, the firing gets a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

And I think that if you did it in a way where you're like like we talked about, they have clarity on like here are the levels, here's where you're at, here's your performance improvement plan, here are the KPIs that you need to hit numerically. We sit often because it's not like we set it in January and then we just reviewed them when we were letting you go. It's like you look at them like weekly or whatever, then it's like, okay, yeah, I mean, there's it's binary at that point, but you can still have the human conversation, you know, on top of it. But it is like this is why, and it shouldn't be a surprise. And think of it as like that analogy of like everybody's on the same boat, and you're not gonna sink the ship for one person that you need to remove, right? This boat is carrying everybody's livelihoods.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

You know what's funny? And I said this in an event, and I'll say it, and everyone kind of was like, Oh, she did not just say that. It's just like on an airplane. What do they tell you when you're on an airplane? If we go down, parents take a mask first and then give it to you. Why? Like, because it's important that we survive. It's important that your company survives. It's important that you guys make these decisions because you have other people relying on you. You have other families relying on you that do care, that are showing up, that are performing. So it's not fair to them because you're afraid to have hard conversations. Hold on to that person. So practice the conversation, get a coach, talk through it. Um, and once you do it a few times, get clarity, go through what I call the talent bank, have all that stuff in place that when you have the conversation, you're confident to have that conversation. You put your mask on first before you do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

I like that. A lot of what we talked about is I'm imagining you as a fractional operator that comes into businesses, or like you've you've seen a lot of different types of areas of improvement, let's just say, in the companies that you work with. I'm imagining that course correcting is not just like here's a new plan, here's a new sets of actions, this is what we're gonna implement. Come Monday morning, there's like still there's the people component, right? And so what I think that what I remember was the toughest part whenever I was doing consultant was not the strategy, was not the diagnosis, it was a change management of like changing behaviors, changing motivations, making people feel authorship in the changes that were being made so that they were implement, like if I'm a business owner and I've already recognized what I'm doing wrong and I've already identified a course of action, the course correct, how would you advise me to deal with the change management in an effective way so that we could make sure that these changes see the light of day?

SPEAKER_01 45:51

You know, believe it or not, so the reason when I got into like coaching, um, that when we started the fractional COO work is because of this very problem. So anyone can tell you what to do. And 90% of the business owners or leaders, they know what to do. It's the doing it that's hard. It's the doing it and following through on it that where where this gap starts. Um, so the first thing I always say is prioritize it. So if there is something that's on your mind, maybe it might take a coach, it might take someone for you to brain dump on for them to like, okay, here's what's happening. Step number one, prioritize this. Let's let's get clear on what the problem is. Because maybe what you think is the problem isn't the problem. Um, so I would make sure you're really clear on that. And then once you've gotten really clear on it, then I find out what's standing in the way of you making the move. And oftentimes I find it's something internal, like it's something they feel or they believe, or somebody told them, or a past situation that happened. And you just gotta heal from it. I say heal and deal. We got to heal from it, we got to deal with it, but then we got to do it. Heal, deal, do. Um, and so you just gotta you gotta work yourself through it. And then once you heal from it, you deal with it, and then you do it. And then you're like, oh. Um, but you gotta do one thing. And then so when typically what I'm telling people when I leave, I'm like, just one thing, just do one thing. Because if you can do one thing, you now have the confidence to do the next thing. I just need one thing, and that's kind of where we start.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Yeah, it's kind of like when you go working out, it's just just go to the gym, just do five minutes and then you find yourself doing more. Or if you're an author, write one page a day and then that's it. That's your low-stakes action. I often think like I mean, not to diminish the role of a consultant or a fractional CEO by any means, but just the presence of having someone that's accountable for things to be implemented just changes the whole thing. Like, I don't know if this is a bad trait from or like what it says about me, but like I find that having a personal trainer is 90% just somebody being there making sure that I'm not like messing around in my phone in between sets. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, so it's not that they're giving me some insight of like the secret way of doing a bench press that nobody else knew or anything. Like, right, they're they it can be as easy as helping me count reps and spotting me when I'm like when the weight's a little bit heavy. I think that that just having some if you're gonna enact change is assigning somebody that's responsible for this to be executed, it is what's the cheat code and and that spotter might be a good analogy because you might be like, I'm a presence that's gonna hold you accountable. And if I see that you're a little bit struggling, I'll spot you. But just me being there just like forces people. But if you don't have that, you have to kind of like engineer that, I think, internally to make sure you're enacting change.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, you know, it's funny because a lot of leaders, it's a pride thing. I mean, I did it as a leader myself, and when you're managing, you're like, I have all the answers, I I can solve all the problems. It's a confidence thing. You need confidence in order to make change. So it's really hard for you to reach out to ask for help to say, hey, how would you look at this situation? How would you handle this? Um, I didn't start thinking that way until I got into an executive room. And the moment I got into an executive room, they force you to. Like you're yelling, you're frustrated, you're like getting out of the room and then you're gonna go have drinks together. It's the weirdest thing. But it was until I got into that room where I started to realize like, this is why these people are in this room. It's because they're okay challenging each other. They're okay asking these hard conversations, they're okay with not doing things the way they've always done things. Um, and I really think as a leader, if you're managing people and you're leading to scale, you have got to be okay with being uncomfortable. And you're not gonna know what that looks, sounds, or feels like if you don't get yourself in a room with other people that do. It's really important.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Yeah, and uh, and part of those kinds of like realities when you get to that leadership is like whenever you're looking at enacting change, like people might not they they they're afraid of maybe not the destination or the change, they're afraid of the transition. And so it's your job to make sure that you explain to them here's what we could do before that we can't do anymore, but here's all the good things that we can do now that we couldn't before because of how things were set up. And I think that being like that emotionally intelligent to how that conversation just um just helps to be more effective as a leader. And and I I guess segueing from that, like one of the biggest reasons why fear are coming up in like people teams is like what's happening with like technology. I I was sitting down with so many dental groups, and I I I think that's so many like it was probably like 15 or 20 tools that everybody was using. One that dials, one's that books, the other one that does insurance stuff, the other that like it was like we have like 20 tools at any given moment. And like a lot of the conversations were like a lot of people are afraid that they're gonna be replaced or displaced, or there's not gonna be space for them. Um, a lot of that is reality, a lot of it is just fear-mongering that you see online. But so how are you, as a people leader, as an operator, are you thinking about AI in in your in your teams? And how are you having those conversations with the people in the teams?

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Um, it happens daily for us right now. Um, and the reason why is because you're right, it's taken over the space. So AI is kind of taking over spaces, it's taken over thoughts. Um, here's how I think about AI, and this is why I tell my team AI can't if you allow it to replace you, it can replace you if you allow it to. But that's that would be your choice. What AI can do is enhance you. So if you start to learn it and use it, and now you're moving faster, you're thinking clearer, you're building faster, you're bringing ideas to the table, you're you're you're learning from it, it's enhancing you. You're actually gonna skyrocket past those that are are not using it. But if you allow it to replace you, um, then yeah, it will replace you. But you you have to make your mind up and just say, you know what, this isn't a replacement, this is an enhancement. Um, it's just like when you take supplements, right? It's not a replacement. You still gotta eat, you still gotta do the meal, you still gotta do the work, still gotta go to the gym, uh, but it enhances you. It's the same thing. That's how I truly feel like AI is meant to be an enhancement, not a replacement.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

I think that that goes the other way too, right, Jordan, in a sense that it's a magnifier for your operations in general. I mean, like if you have like bad workflows and you add AI on top of it, you're just scaling the wrong wrong things. Right. And so like you're you're you have to like clean the house before you implement these kinds of things. It's the same sort of like principle with like with people. Um how have you seen people get in front of this? Like, do they set aside some time to train people? Do they bring experts? Do they do test projects or stuff like that? Like, how are how what are some of the interesting ways that you've seen people get more comfortable with this injection of AI into their workflows?

SPEAKER_01 53:09

You know, believe it or not, the ones that are doing it right are the ones that's taken AI. And they're allowing AI to complete the tasks that took them too long to do. And so what they do now with that time that they get back from okay, AI, do this task, manage my calendar, get this done, book these appointments, whatever it is that it's doing, put these slideshows together, marketing, whatever, whatever it's taken care of for you, that's time that you now have back. Well, what was the problem in society leading up to AI? It's always been a people problem, it's always been a leadership problem, it's always been we can't retain our people, we can't do this. Okay, well, congratulations. AI now just took all that busy work off of you. So go strengthen your skills with the people, go talk to the people, go develop your people, go spend time with them. And if we put our time into that, then the people can keep driving it while the AI does the task type of things that we they do better than us, anyways. Um, and I think that people need to start thinking that way and shifting their mind. I have time back. What am I gonna fill this time with? And fill the time with dumping back into people work, especially if you're an operator or a leader.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Yeah, how to be strategic about that kind of work. It's it's the same as like I think that with uh with how strategic you can be of where AI sort of like belongs, because for example, I read a book, it was called uh Never Lose a Customer Again, and it was by this guy named Joey Coleman, and he opens up the book with the experience that he had, oddly enough, going to the dentist. And he was saying how like for most people, they dread going to the dentist because they associate so many bad experiences. But this time he went, he was new in town, and he just was blown away by the experience that this person has curated. Like the way that as he walked through the door, people said hi to him by his first name. They followed up after he got home. Like, did you take your meds? How are you feeling? You should be feeling a little bit swollen by now. Like, do you need any like just the experience architecture that comes behind it? That's something that like you can spend time, energy, and effort now in in curating and dedicating. Now that all the other stuff that was more admin, repetitive got taken care of, or is in the process of getting taken care of a little oversight is you get to like spend time on the patient experience, which is what Emmett was talking about in the close of that keynote. Yeah. Um, and to your point, I mean, like we look at things like nurse shortages. I when COVID was like windling down, we were looking at about a hundred thousand nurse shortage that you know the USA hospitals needed to be fully staffed. But when you took a closer look at why that was, you started seeing that 60 to 70 percent of nurses' times went to admin stuff. And I we're like all that stuff can be displaced. You don't need to like saturate the market with lower competence labor. It's the opposite. Now you get to go for like the best competent labor and then leave the rest of technology. You don't have to like make up that big of a difference.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Well, what sucks is think about like where we kind of started this conversation of knowing, like, you know, your avatar. Nurses typically fall into that personality where like they're nurturing, hence a nurse. They want to be with a patient, they want to be there and have those conversations and care for them. And now we got them stuck behind a computer, we got them doing all these task-related things where they're going home and they're exhausted. They can't even nurture to their own family now. So it's one of those, but now AI can take that and allow your nurses to go have those connections, go have those conversations, go do that. Um, we were talking through even earlier in the podcast of like, hey, the hard conversations. Guess what? AI is not going to have those hard conversations for you. AI is not gonna do the one-on-one conversations to to save a key player and invest in that. They're not going to do that. They're not gonna make the judgment call on like, is this person in the wrong seat? They might be able to give you an analysis, like, hey, they're a flight risk or calling out, or this happens. They can do that, but they're not gonna be able to make that true judgment call. I'm like, I think I just had this person in the wrong seat. And maybe if I move them, I'm gonna get a different result. Um, so I really encourage people to like stop being afraid of it, adapt to it. We thought that's the same thing about computers, and now we use them every day. Um, don't let it replace you, just let it enhance you.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

Yeah. Or to your point, like sell that compelling vision, like it will come better from like the leader of the company than from a computer. For for us, for example, we had to re-reimagine what virtual assistants look like and be like, hey, what are the things we want them to be AI enabled so they can be like a good um executor of AI workflows or or monitor, um, someone that can monitor AI workflows. But beyond that is like, what are some of the things that you want to still keep a human touch in? Like the client patient-facing relationships, or there's things that you're just like from a structure standpoint, you still need to keep human. Like I've seen a lot of the insurance stuff, like they won't pick up from a robot, you have to have a human on the other line. Yeah, but like just beyond that is just like what are the strategic points where it's still like important for it to be a human and optimized for the rest?

SPEAKER_01 58:20

I don't know about AI, my best assistant. So I'm like, you know what? As an operator, I have the best assistant ever now. So that's that's really how I think about AI is I have a really good assistant now. And that's that's AI. But it's not it's not replacing the operator, it's just being an assistant.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Awesome. So I have one more question uh to ask you, but before that, I just wanted to ask you like what are you up to right now? Where can people find you? If people are hearing this and being like, I'm struggling with my operation, I need a Jordan to come in. Like, what what um where can people find you and connect and interact with you?

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Yeah, so I'm actually at this kind of pivot in um in spaces right now. So obviously, like really devoted into the DEO right now. So if you're dentists, anything dental related, find me there. I'm happy to help. Uh, we've got a ton of resources. If you're outside of dentistry, maybe you're a leader, you're just looking for that coach space. Um, maybe you are an owner. We're like, I just want my team to like be inspired and feel like they can do this and get somebody else out here. Um, my management company, I do book events, I do go out and do speaking events, I do do trainings on leadership, things like that. So if you can go, entiremanagement.org is where you can find that. Contact us at entiremanagement.com. You can go to all those places, send us a message. Uh, my team, it's not AI, it is a team, it is a person. Um, she will book it, she will do a discovery call with me. And I I really just get to know you. Um, and if I don't feel like I can truly add value with where we're at in that space, um, I won't waste your time or your money, but I will definitely make time available um to help whoever I can help. So find me tiremagement.org. I'm there, come reach out. Um, I'll help you there. Dentists, go to the DEL. I'll help you there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Awesome. I will and I would put um all this in the show notes for you to see and have it be easier. Uh, and then the last question I wanted to ask, it's a little bit more of a meta question, but I wanted to see if you can give at least one piece of advice for anybody who wants to become a better leader of people. What would that be?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Yeah. Um, anyone that wants to become a better leader of people, truthfully, uh, I'm gonna tell you to invest in yourself first. So if you really want to become a better leader of people, start becoming the best version of yourself first. Take the time, make an investment, go to the classes, go to the courses. Um, there is an assessment that I do give leaders because I really needed one early on in my career. And I was lucky, I say, to have a mentor that happened to be my boss that really challenged me on things that I thought were right and moved me in places when I wasn't in the right seat. So there is an assessment that based on that and what I've seen and the managers that I've helped, um, that I'm happy to share. It's a free resource. So if you just kind of want that first self-analysis to diagnose it, reach out. I'll send it out. Um, but I really encourage you guys, like I wish I would have done it earlier on in my career. I probably would have saved a lot of other careers. Um, but I I really encourage you to invest in yourself first, that you can show up and provide that for the team.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

I love that. It's going back to what we talked about of putting the mask on first. Um, so I really like that principle. Uh Jordan, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for for spending this this hour with us. Um, we'll we'll make sure that people are um are able to find you in the show notes and that we put a little bit of the concepts and principles out there into the world. But thank you so much for for your time and energy in this um in this episode and and hope people enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

So there you have it, everyone. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jordan as much as I did. I know that I walked away from that whole session with a page full of notes of things that I can implement inside my own organization. So I hope you were able to take some notes and find different things that you can implement as soon as possible as you're growing your company and scaling your teams. As always, we're gonna leave the show notes in the description as well as different ways for you to get in contact with Jordan if you want some extra help as you're scaling your businesses and experiencing a little bit of the growing pains that comes with building a team. So, as always, thank you so much for tuning in and see you on the next one.