Heather Driscoll: Alright, well good afternoon everybody. Welcome to this week’s session of The Strategic Thinker. I’m here with my awesome colleague Dr. Jason Howell, dentist extraordinaire. How are you doing, Dr. Jason?

Dr. Jason Howell: I’m doing fantastic Heather, it’s so good to see you and welcome to everybody who’s tuning in.

Heather Driscoll: It’s nice to see you too. Well, I’m really excited about today’s topic, and I’m actually going to share my screen here, because as everybody who’s been tuning in regularly knows, The Strategic Thinker really is an extension of Spark. And, Spark is a group of small group dental practices that are focused on finding ways to continue to drive value within their dental group practices. So, we do that really by focusing on our foundation, and that’s something called The Dental Enterprise Value Matrix. And, the value matrix is actually composed of 4 different quadrants, and what we found is that over the years of experience and insight, typically everything we talk about and everything we focus on tends to fall into one of these 4 quadrants: Cultural, Financial, Personnel, and Process. And, what Dr. Jason and I are going to talk about today, honestly probably focuses on each of the 4 quadrants, and so whenever we find something like that, that really extends into each of the areas that helps to drive value, we know that it’s worth visiting about. And, Dr. Jason’s the perfect person to help with that today. So, we’re going to talk about a question that we get asked pretty regularly, and that’s really how non-doctor leaders can really effectively lead doctors. So, one of the things that tends to happen in group dental practices is that the founding doctor ultimately ends up producing in the beginning, and bringing the group to a certain level of productivity and success. And, eventually kind of migrates away from a clinical role as the group is growing. But, realistically as that process takes place, there’s a whole bunch of other people along the way that end up having leadership roles. And, trying to figure out where everybody fits, and how everybody can be effective, is a lit bit of a work-in-progress. So Dr. Jason, you’re a doctor leader and a practicing dentist, any initial thoughts on our topic for today?

Dr. Jason Howell: I think it’s a fantastic topic, and I will tell you in my career, and not only within my own practices but in practices that we’ve worked with, this used to be one of the largest stumbling blocks, I would say, on transitioning as you’re growing your dental group or growing your dental enterprise. How do we effectively create leadership within our teams and allow the doctors to still be able to do what doctors do? And, as you mentioned, it really comes into play when some of the lead doctors have started reaching a point where maybe they’re either slowing down or transitioning out of practicing, and for a group to really continue to grow, we have to have the infrastructure of leadership among the team members to take it to the next level. I’m excited to discuss this, and I hope it will be a great topic for a lot of those out there.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. We often hear people say that buying dental practices or opening dental practices is easy, it’s really finding the leadership both from a non-clinical standpoint and a clinical standpoint to keep them running and productive and successful. That’s really where the challenge lies. So, I’m excited to dive a little bit deeper into this topic. So, Dr. Jason and I thought it would be helpful if we just shared our perspective of non-clinicians leading clinicians because interestingly enough, these are our jobs on any given day. So, my job as a non-denist is really to help dentists be successful. And, Dr. Jason’s job as a dentist is certainly to take great care of our patients, and also to help lead other doctors to be the best version of themselves. But also Dr. Jason, throughout your career, you’ve really had a lot of experience with this non-clinical leader-doctor relationship so I’m excited to dig in.

Dr. Jason Howell: Yeah, you’re right, as a practicing dentist it’s always interesting for me when I’m working with other dental groups is to take off that practicing dentist hat. And, now I’m in somebody else’s office, I’m not the practicing dentist, and to look at it from a different perspective of how, as a dentist, how can I empower the team to take the leadership and ownership so that the dentist themselves can actually do the work that we’re there to do and take care of the patient. So, it’s very exciting. 

Heather Driscoll: Alright, so we’re going to start with bullet point #1, and I think this might be the most important piece of our topic today, and that is just acknowledging the reality, right? So, the reality is I’m not a dentist. Most likely, in this lifetime, I’m not going to be a dentist. I always say, in my next life I’m going to give it a try (laughs). But, probably this one, I’ll just stick with what I know. And so, acknowledging the fact that I’m not a dentist, and making sure that the dentists I’m leading understand that I know that, and I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m not a dentist. And, making sure that they understand that I’m never going to cross that line, I think is probably first and foremost, job #1 for my role. What about you, Dr. Jason?

Dr. Jason Howell: Yeah, and for me it’s acknowledging that I am the dentist and primarily I’m there to take care of and serve our patients, but at the same time I have a dental team there that wants to accomplish the same thing, and they are looking to me as the dentist to be the leader in the practice. So, I’ll have a lot of dentists tell me, as we grow our dental groups, “I just want to come in and I would like to just do dentistry all day long.” And, that’s fantastic, most of us would, but the reminder to them is that it’s part of the job, but also part of the job is that you are a leader in the dental practice. And, that involves more than just coming in, seeing the patients, and doing the dentistry. How do we lead our teams? How do we empower our teams? How do we grow our teams? And, for the teams, what I find is that they want that leadership, they want that direction, they want someone to set expectations. Because, ultimately they really want to do a great job and please or make the doctor happy with their performance. Without that expectation placed in front of them, without the conversations that we’re going to have and talk about, “How do I become a leader in the practice?” The team tends to go in multiple directions, and then I’ll see the leaders get frustrated of, “Why is my team not doing better?” And, we’ll have those conversations of, “How often have you taken time out of seeing the patients to help grow and build your team to do what you’re asking them to do?” 

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. So, the reality is we both have roles as leaders, and depending on which chair we sit in, we have a little bit different vantage point. And, we have different skill sets to be able to help our teams be successful. But, it’s a really powerful partnership when it works well. So, the next thing really is to help provide clarity to each other. So, one of the things I recognized early on was that if I had a better understanding of the things that were important to the doctors I was helping to lead, that worked really well for our relationship. So, getting that clarity about some of the goals you have for yourself, and some of the areas that maybe are a little bit more challenging for you as a dentist, and maybe a little bit of clarity on where you want to see yourself in the next year or 3 years, getting clarity on what you want to accomplish. But, then also sharing from my point of view some of the things that I’m responsible for as a leader, and some of the things I’m hoping to accomplish myself. Sometimes, it’s really truly just that lack of clarity and maybe a little bit of confusion as to what we’re trying to accomplish that gets in the way of a really successful partnership. 

Dr. Jason Howell: That is exactly right. And, for dentists to be able to have clarity with the team leader and the other team members on what their ultimate goals are, what they want to achieve, and for me to be able to provide clarity to you. Because, the lack of clarity is what tends to create the most confusion I see. And, here’s the key part of it: it involves communication and conversations. And, we forget that a lot of times. And, it’s not one conversation, it’s multiple conversations. So, this is where we get into… at least me and my teams, our at least monthly or weekly sit-downs or get-togethers or during lunch, just to review things. So, I always tell everybody, the more often that we can talk and communicate, this clarity becomes for us, it just becomes second-nature. But, I see in so many practices that, “I don’t have the clarity from the dentist of what all is going on at the front desk?” Or, all the challenges you may have as a team leader, and then I forget to have those conversations, and the expectations I’m putting out there aren’t met. Or, for the team leader to be able to provide me clarity on, “What are some struggles that maybe the dentist, hygienist, team in the back is maybe not doing that’s making the job for maybe the business assistants more difficult.” And so, we have to have the clarity. And, that’s what it comes right back around to the whole full circle, that we actually are all leaders in the practice. Each one of us is a leader, and it might have a different look and a different role, but without the leadership of each area, it just becomes…. I never want to see it become 2 or 3 practices within a practice. I want it to be one cohesive team operating at such a high level that we all know what’s going on. And, that’s clarity that provides that.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. And, I love how you brought up communication, because doesn’t that seem to be kind of the magic bullet for everything, if we just stay committed to effective communication? So, once we have that clarity, I think one of the greatest things that can happen with the practice leader and the doctor leader is that you become accountability partners to each other. So, I know over the years, sometimes this has taken on a little bit of a clinical and patient-experience look and feel, but in some ways it’s not at all about a clinical experience. So, I know that there have been times that doctors have said to me, “Hey, I’m trying to make sure that I’m really doing a good job of comprehensively looking at every patient, every time. And, if you see things I’m not doing, would you please point them out to me? So, it might be something as simple as if we have a patient who has missing teeth and I didn’t diagnose a replacement, would you mind pointing that out to me?” Well, that’s really different than me saying, “Hey Dr. Jason, you should have diagnosed an implant, or a partial.” Right? That doesn’t feel good, and honestly that’s not right, in my book. But, being an accountability partner to help you get more consistent and more comprehensive because you’ve asked me to, well that looks really, really different. The other might be, “Can you hold me accountable for being present and a good participant in the morning huddle?” Or, something very non-clinical, but really imperative as far as leadership goes. And, the flip side is true as well. You might come to me as the doctor and say, “Hey Heather, I really need you to be more consistent with making sure that our team members come on time, and they get their end-of-the-day checklists done, and that we really are committed to our monthly meeting cadence.” Whatever it might be, it’s a 2-way street, but can be a really great partnership if there’s a level of accountability built in. What do you see in this area?

Dr. Jason Howell: Yeah, you used a key phrase, you used a permission statement, right? And, that is the key is that to develop this accountability partner, we each have to ask to be held accountable and we have to ask a permission statement. So, I would say, “Heather, would you mind, or can I get your permission, that we’ve discussed how we want to run things, when I see something that might be lacking, do I have your permission to come to you and have a conversation that we could discuss on what we’re going to do better?” Or, sometimes I’ll say to my hygienist, “Sarah, I’m going to give you permission that if you see me not treatment planning the way we have set up in our practice, how I like to treatment plan. If you see me being lazy, which is basically what it comes down to sometimes, I give you permission to ask me why I’m not doing what I’ve agreed that I would do.” So, I’ve put onto my team that I’m accountable for X, Y, and Z, and I give them permission that if you don’t see me doing what I have promised I will do, by all means, please ask me about it. And then that way, we go right back to having a conversation, getting clarity, and then holding each other accountable. And, it’s again my job/your job, well as leaders… we’re all leaders in the practice. We’ve all taken on accountability, we’ve all taken on clarity, and we’re all there to support each other. And, this is so important because we all get tired throughout the day and throughout the weeks, and having an accountability partner… and I encourage my team, the hygienists to have accountability partners, the front desk to have accountability partners, myself and team leader… but it all goes hand-in-hand as long as we’re on the same page, and that’s where the clarity comes right back in.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. So, that clarity and accountability leads us really to our next little strategy which is making sure that we’ve agreed to focus on the positive, but stay committed to continuous progress. So, one of the things I hear when there’s a little bit of a challenge with non-clinical leadership and clinical leadership, I guess, is it feels like they just really can’t find their groove, right? It’s like the only time they’re really interacting is to share the things that aren’t working so well. And so, one of the things I think you can do early really is, within your partnership, commit to focusing on the things that are working. Because, all of us can just naturally gravitate to the things that don’t go so well, but if we really force ourselves to stay focused on the positive, celebrate progress. But, then of course, just as quickly, making sure that we use that confidence from doing something well to figure out what we could do even better. It’s just this forever, real, comprehensive commitment to a partnership that we celebrate together, but that we also recognize that on any given day there’s opportunity to keep doing things even better. And, not just for ourselves, but for our team. And, you’re really good at this, Dr. Jason, I always find you just naturally drifting more toward the positive, and then recognizing where we can continue to improve. So, what are your thoughts on this?

Dr. Jason Howell: It’s such an important topic. And, density is a hard profession. You can ask any dentist, or any team member, to name 2 or 3 things that didn’t go so well last week, and we can name them quickly. Ask them to name 1 or 2 positive things, and we all sit and wonder, “Well, let me think about it.” But, the fact of the matter is there are so many positive things that do happen throughout the day that we forget to acknowledge those and encourage each other. So, a long time ago I really, really had to work on this. And, over the years it’s gotten better and better. And, one thing I do as a doctor is at the end of the day before I leave and before everyone else leaves, I make sure and take time with each individual and simply say, “Hey, you did a great job today.” Or specifically, “You did a great job with Mrs. Smith.” And, acknowledge them for something that did go well. Because, in dentistry we tend to forget the great things we do and focus on some of the negative things. Myself and my team leader, this is where we really hold each other accountable as well, to remind ourselves - you know, we’re kind of in the trenches together and we have a really tight relationship, and so when things don’t go well, we really try to get together and hash out what could be better - but we want to remind each other, “You did a great job up front. Thank you for taking such great care of the team.” My team leader and I tend to have someone in the morning huddle - and that’s a great time - pick someone randomly in the morning huddle and acknowledge them for something great that happened yesterday. And, start the day on a positive note. And also, that gives the team member a sense of… they get some praise, which everyone loves, but at the same time, in their mind, they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t even really know that anybody noticed.” Sometimes it’s just us thinking that nobody notices the great things. And so, I would encourage all the teams to start the morning huddle with one random piece of something great that happened yesterday.

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. One of the things that I always appreciated early on in my relationships with doctors is just really acknowledging those private conversations publicly. So, having a team say, “Hey Sarah, Dr. Jason was telling me what a fantastic job you’ve been doing using the risk assessment.” Oh wow, when Heather and Dr. Jason get together, they’re not just finding all the things that we’re doing not so well, but they’re also really, truly acknowledging our great behavior and our commitment to exceptional care. So, one of the things I found early on was that you could really strengthen your relationship with your non-clinical leader by just having each other’s back publicly like that, having the team see you as a united front, especially when you’re focused on the things that are really, really positive. Making sure that they know that we’re talking about the good things, the not so good things, and we’re going to be tackling both of those things moving forward together. 

Dr. Jason Howell: Right, absolutely.

Heather Driscoll: Right, so that sounds really fantastic, but we all know that during the course of the day, things don’t always go perfectly and on any given day it feels like one of us should have been doing something maybe we weren’t. And so, when the sea gets a little bit bumpy, and it feels like things are a little bit stressful, our last strategy really is always to refer back to #1, acknowledging reality. And, the reality is I’m not the dentist, so I can’t have the same experiences you have, and I can’t carry the same weight that you carry, but I can figure out how I can be a good partner to you. And, on the flip side, what does this look like for you, Dr. Jason?

Dr. Jason Howell: I think as we’re talking through all of these what becomes very clear - and what I’ve tried to do in my practices and we try to teach within our practices - is that the more that we as a dentist help coach and develop the leaders within our practice, encourage them and provide the accountability and the clarity, the more that our leaders within our practice can help almost balance the burdens of any other thing going on. And so, what I find is that when I go into dental practice, if I see that the team leader and the doctor have a really, really good working relationship, and the doctor has relinquished some of the control or leadership, basically I’m not here to fix, manage, and control every single thing that happens with every team member, and I’m able to delegate and grow my leaders and my team, that what happens is that the day-to-day running of the practice tends to be much more smooth because I don’t have every team member coming to me for every single problem. They actually step back and take a look at the practice as it was their practice, they own the practice, and what would they do? I always tell them, “What would you do in any of these situations if it were your mom, dad, sister, brother, your friend, or your loved one?” If they can approach these scenarios in a loving, kind way, they will actually make very, very good decisions. And, I need to put my trust in those. And so, the reality is that doesn’t happen every day, but the other reality is if it’s not happening and it’s not getting to that point, I am the roadblock as the dentist. And so, I would encourage a lot of the doctors out there to get with their team leaders and say, “What can I do better to empower you to help grow your leadership?” And, allow them to help grow the team as leaders. We just sometimes as doctors want to take on the ownership of every single thing that’s going on in the practice, and that’s not why we have our team. Our team is there to help us make the world better, make our lives better. We just have to sometimes give up that control and trust that they’re going to do the right for the right reason at the right time. 

Heather Driscoll: Absolutely. Well, awesome. Thanks, Dr. Jason, for joining me today. I always thing that it’s unfortunate in some ways that leadership isn’t a line item on a financial report or your practice management software. Because, I really, truly do believe that the more effective you are as a leader, the more consistent you are with your patient experiences, and ultimately the more productive you are, and then translate that into positive financial outcomes as well. I haven’t found a report that generates leadership effectiveness, but with these tips I can guarantee you leadership improves. So, anything you want to add in closing?

Dr. Jason Howell: No, I appreciate you taking time, it’s always great to be with you, and I always learn so much when I get to talk with you. So, thank you and thanks everyone for being here.

Heather Driscoll: Awesome. Well, hopefully we’ll see you all again on our next episode of The Strategic Thinker, and if you haven’t had a chance to jump on over to SparkDentalNetwork.com , some really great resources there as well. Thanks, Dr. Jason! See everybody soon, bye!

Dr. Jason Howell: Thank you! Bye.

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