Heather Driscoll: Good afternoon, everybody! And, welcome to this week’s session of The Strategic Thinker. I’m here with my colleague Melissa Thomas, and we’re excited to talk about culture today, one of the more popular topics, right Melissa?

Melissa Thomas: Very true, people always speak about culture and what does it really mean, right?

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. What they tend to share is that they’re usually very committed to it, but there are times that it’s working really well and maybe times when it isn’t working so well. So I’m going to share some slides to kind of guide our discussion, and before we dive too deep into our topic around culture today, I just want to remind everyone that each week we have a session of The Strategic Thinker, it’s actually an opportunity to support really our main mission and vision of Spark, which is to help dental enterprises grow their value. So, we do that by focusing on the things that drive value in dental group practices and all of those focus areas are actually derived from our dental practice Value Matrix. And so, we have 4 quadrants that we tend to focus on. And, like we said, we’re going to be talking about Culture today. Melissa is always one of my favorite people to talk with because Melissa, I think you have probably the most unique personality in the fact that you have such good balance in all 4 of these quadrants.

Melissa Thomas: For an accountant, you mean. I have a great personality for an accountant (laughs). 

Heather Driscoll: (laughs) Yeah you do have a great personality for an accountant, but also uniquely talented, so I always love it when we get a chance to talk. Alright, so today we’re going to talk about culture. And, we’re going to start by asking ourselves, “Do you define your culture or is your culture defined for you?” And Melissa, what do we mean by this? How have you seen this show up?

Melissa Thomas: Well, it’s interesting because it seems like there’s always a “cultural champion” right? And, they can be a positive one or a negative one, and it just seems to be that the most influential person, especially in a dental practice, their positivity is infectious. And, they’re influencing, if they’re a culture champion. But, the reverse is totally true as well, if they’re really a “negative Nancy” and really in a bad place, that’s so infectious too. So, those influential people are super impactful in helping to infiltrate your culture or define it for you if you haven’t defined it.

Heather Driscoll: You’re exactly right. I can’t probably even count the number of times that we’ve worked with a practice and they’ve shared stories about specific team members who are really strong in their contributions, but maybe not always strong in a positive way, to your point. And so, we kind of started using the phrase that people need to use their powers for good, right? And so, sometimes you have team members who are really uniquely skilled, maybe it’s their clinical skills, or they’re really fantastic with the patients, but they’re not quite as good of a teammate or team member. Or, maybe they have trouble holding themselves accountable to showing up on time, or being positive in team meetings. So, you get to a point where you really have to question, “Is their impact more positive or negative?” And, defining your culture really helps to do that for you. Alright, so the way we define our culture is really by starting with our core values. So, what do they look like, and what don’t they look like? Melissa, you and I have talked several times about the stance of not just figuring out what they are, but what they aren’t, right? And, you have a few really helpful tips and tricks about the process and thinking through these questions. So, share a little of your experience here.

Melissa Thomas: Sure, so I think that, to your point, what aren’t they really helps to solidify in their mind a true example of it, right? So, you can say your core value is “fun”, and that means that you always want to have a positive outlook and you want to have some enjoyment though the day. But, it doesn’t mean you’re going to sacrifice patient care for a little bit longer of a lunch, right? It doesn’t mean you’re going to extend your lunch hour in the effort of “fun”. So, making sure that people can really draw the line. I think, as human beings, we want some sort of guard rails, right? We don’t want to be so confined to, “This is exactly what you do for every single experience,” but knowing a safety guard rail to stay within. So, I think that’s really helpful to know what it is not.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. And, I’ve heard you say before, “Helping people figure out what they can live with, and what they can’t live with,” because there are certain things that are accepted as long as they’re within your guard rails, to your point. And, then there are certain things that are just kind of non-negotiable. They are things that you know you can’t live with. They wouldn’t be accepted. They’d be more destructive than positive. And, being able to really articulate those things is important.

Melissa Thomas: And, even in the beginning of it, most people’s core values are in some way displayed in their website or what not. And, so I think it’s even important when you’re bringing on new team members that they know that immediately and what that looks like, because if they can’t live with it, maybe they don’t need to be interviewing at this place. Or, if their values don’t completely align, it’s not going to be a long-haul employment for them.

Heather Driscoll: Yep, absolutely. And, I think usually what happens is that we see practices define their core value and they’re probably in their handbook or on a poster or, if we’re really lucky, they show up in things like their website, but they don’t take the next step really, which is defining what the behaviors look like to support those core values. So, we have a really pretty simple exercise that we’ve used multiple times and that we’ve encouraged other people to use. And so, talk to us a little about the flip chart exercise Melissa, to really help people to find their culture. 

Melissa Thomas: Sure. In the true vein, I think this is your quote Heather ingrained in my mind is, “People support what they help create.” And so, really taking the opportunity to let your team define the values and what they mean. And, of course, if you’re there to help facilitate, you can guide the conversation in the right way, really help course-correct if it’s something that the value is not. But really helping them understand, having them come up with the ideas, right? That’s so much more impactful if you hear it from their mouth. And, they’re not going to go back on something they said. There’s some power in, “Well you did say that this is what this looks like, right?” And, hopefully you never have to use that on them. But, that’s the whole power in the exercise. And, I think the biggest key there is once you’ve really helped define, once the team has felt like they’ve had a chance to collaborate. And making sure each member of the team gets to speak, you’ve always got more vocal team members. But, being able to call on each team member to really kind of help understand what does that value mean to you? Then, at the end of the exercise, you can really say, in an effort to really ask for agreement to make sure everybody’s aligned, “Who can’t live with these? If you can’t live with it, why not? Or, what would you change?” Really kind of getting a verbal promise to live by those values.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. So, truly as simple as gathering your team together, using something easy like a flip chart, clarifying the purpose of your exercise, right? So, for your example, writing your core value at the top of your flip chart, and really having each person define what that looks like. How would that show up every single day? And so, one of our core values is fun, which I love the fact that you picked that one in your example, but I know fun to me looks a little bit different than fun to other people, right? And so, I appreciate the opportunity to get that insight and input, because if it was just left up to me, fun might look like a bowling party every 6 weeks, right? And maybe the people on my team would be like, “You know, what would actually be fun is if we had a potluck once a month,” or whatever it might be. And so, I think the exercise not only helps you to define the behaviors that ultimately are going to help your culture flourish and grow, it’s also kind of nice as a leader to get that clarity and insight. It takes some of the pressure off of you to have to figure out what people are looking for and what makes them feel most comfortable. And, to your point, what they can’t accept as well.

Melissa Thomas: You don’t have to come up with all of the ideas, right? And, there’s power in them coming up with those, but as well as you learn something from them. Well it seems like every dental practice loves food, right? So, that’s always an easy way to invoke some fun. But, maybe they really like Mexican food and they don’t really like the pizza parties. So, really just understanding those simple things can bring so much morale and boost and really just ingrain that positive culture too.

Heather Driscoll: Yep, absolutely. And, I know we used “fun”, because honestly it’s fun, right? But, there are things that really start to chip away at teamwork and team effectiveness. So, for instance, if one of your core values is integrity, maybe for some people integrity means showing up on time every single day, not putting your fellow team members in a bind because they’re having to cover for you for the first 5 or 10 minutes. And, knowing those kinds of things and how important they are to your team members is really important. I think it really helps people to kind of self-manage when they hear from their peers how important certain behaviors are, or how detrimental certain behaviors are. I think it really helps create a culture of accountability as well. 

Melissa Thomas: I love that you used the word “integrity”, because I think so many of those can be defined differently based on how people were brought up, or I know sometimes I’m guilty of assuming a word means a certain thing and I’ll Google it and make sure. Is that the definition? Did I use it correctly? And, really helping make sure everybody knows what it means in that role. And then, you’ve got all the different roles in a dental office, and being able to hear from what it means at the front desk vs. what it means for a clinician vs. what it means for hygienist in their day-to-day. And, it’s just important to get all those roles’ perspective, too.

Heather Driscoll: Yep, absolutely. And I love the fact that you commented earlier that once you have these behaviors defined, it’s so much easier to make agreements around them. So, if someone then is straying from what’s been agreed upon, the conversation gets a little bit easier, because we can say, “Hey Heather, I thought we agreed that it was important for all of us to be here on time, and I noticed you’ve been struggling with that a little bit.” So, it helps you to come back to the core values and the culture, it helps you when you’re having more challenging conversations, or when you’re making positive decisions as well. Whether it’s to add more team members, or change hours of operation, if you have that foundation, decision making becomes a little bit easier.

Melissa Thomas: So true.

Heather Driscoll: Alright. So, probably one last important thing to note is that this is an exercise that should be done more than once. Often what happens is the people who were there at the beginning have the opportunity to help define things, but it’s not something that lasts forever. We have to revisit our values, we have to revisit what our culture looks like and how it lives and breathes each day. And, as our team members grow and change, and as we add team members and additional locations, it’s really important to come back to that foundation. And, not that your values necessarily change, but the way they show up each day might. And, that’s really what defines our culture, the things that happen every single day and whether they’re having a positive impact is really probably more within our control than we think. Alright, so that’s this week’s tips though The Strategic Thinker. Hopefully everyone had a few things they could take away and implement with their teams. We’ll be back again next week, and in the meantime if you’re looking for some extra insight on Spark, you can go to SparkDentalNetwork.com. And so, Melissa thank you so much for joining me today, I always love our time together. And, we’ll see you soon.

Melissa Thomas: Bye!

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