Bad Apples Holding Your Orthodontic Practice Back? Act Now!

[00:00:06] Welcome to The GrowOrtho Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Zach Dykes, joined by Dr. Bryce Gilliam, 2024's 40 Under 40, America's top young dentist, co-host of the TV show Making Modern, available on Macs, and owner and operator of Elevation Orthodontics. Welcome to the show, Dr. Bryce.

[00:00:28] What's up, my man? Thank you so much for having me. This is like the highlight of my day.

[00:00:32] I am glad that you're here. I love our conversations. You're actually in the trenches. You're practicing as an orthodontist, and this isn't just theory. This is hard one insight that you're bringing to the table.

[00:00:45] And today's topic is bad apples in the team. And Dr. Bryce, I know that this is one of the harder things to talk about, but tell me your thoughts on bad apples within your orthodontic team.

[00:01:01] Yeah, this is one of my least favorite parts about being a business owner. And it's something that you have to get comfortable with as the business owner and as the leader. You have to get used to identifying where those bad apples are and then actually taking the steps necessarily to weed them out. Because if you do not, they will taint the whole batch. I promise you that.

[00:01:25] If you are passive aggressive about it, it's not going to fix itself. If you hold it into yourself until it explodes, it's not good. And your whole team is looking at you and seeing what is acceptable, how far they can push things. And I think that is huge to know.

[00:01:44] So what are some patterns of negative behaviors that we should be observing within the whole construct of the practice?

[00:02:22] You want to make sure that you're bad apple.

[00:02:31] But all of those are like key indicators that they could be your bad apple.

[00:02:37] Yeah, because when gossip takes precedence over work and constructive things, it's just like poison.

[00:02:47] Like it's just going to keep spreading. It's like the plague. You don't want to have that on the team.

[00:02:54] So talk a little bit about monitoring work ethic and performance. Like what are some things that we could be looking for within our practice?

[00:03:04] If you're talking about trying to identify a bad apple, you want to make sure that you monitor their work ethic and their performance.

[00:03:10] And this comes from a bunch of different like built in components.

[00:03:15] And you want to look for declining productivity, whether that means that they used to be able to manage a whole column by themselves.

[00:03:23] Now they're needing a lot of help. That doesn't make sense.

[00:03:26] You should you should be more efficient as you get more experienced. Right.

[00:03:30] A lack of initiative. So if you notice that you see things that need to be done and they see them as well, but they're continually, continuously not doing them.

[00:03:41] That may show that they're disinterested.

[00:03:43] So you want to make sure that you're doing everything that you can to to give them the chance to show that initiative again.

[00:03:52] And then also you want to make sure that there are no recurrent rule violations.

[00:03:58] You know, this may be something as small as being late for work or tardy.

[00:04:02] Right. So if they're if they're five minutes late every day or if they leave for lunch 10 minutes early every day,

[00:04:11] these may be problematic things.

[00:04:14] So you just want to be you want to be cautious of those because those may lead to poor work performance.

[00:04:19] Everybody likes to leave work early when they can.

[00:04:22] But when it is at the detriment and it's a daily thing, they're not getting anything done and they're wanting to leave 30 minutes, an hour early.

[00:04:32] Oh, well, I need to go do this or whatever.

[00:04:34] Like that is a huge red flag within your practice.

[00:04:39] And I think the same thing about evaluating your team dynamic is is very important as well.

[00:04:45] You want to know if that person has had a bunch of conflicts with other teammates.

[00:04:50] And typically, if if you're if your mentality is, man, I have a hard time dealing with this person, this person, this person.

[00:04:58] Maybe you're the problem. Right.

[00:05:00] And so you've got to look at it that way and then ask your team, you know, ask them, say, is is this is this person, you know, isolating themselves?

[00:05:09] Are they stirring the pot?

[00:05:13] Are they not being helpful?

[00:05:14] Most of the time, your team will give you an honest response.

[00:05:18] You don't want someone that is always looking to pick a fight.

[00:05:22] And a good way to just kind of feel this instantly is when that person walks into the room.

[00:05:29] How do you feel when they show up to work?

[00:05:31] If it's that little they're here today, I wish they would have called out.

[00:05:36] That's a good indicator that something's bad.

[00:05:39] That's right. That's actually a very, very good thought process, because there's so many times that, you know, I used to work at other places and I would see people come in and I'd be like, they're here again.

[00:05:50] And that's really funny.

[00:05:53] An attitude towards the practice.

[00:05:56] Like, I think that is a killer right there where we talked, you know, last episode about internal marketing.

[00:06:02] You know, you're an influencer for the practice.

[00:06:05] But if the attitude towards the practice is bad, oh, man, it's only going to get worse from there.

[00:06:12] Yeah. And when you think about attitude toward practice, I really want you to start thinking about are they disrespectful to leadership?

[00:06:17] And that doesn't necessarily mean you as a doctor.

[00:06:20] So think about it like this.

[00:06:22] A lot of times when you are the doctor, everyone is nice to you, right?

[00:06:26] Because you're the one that pays the bills.

[00:06:27] You're the one that is the top of the practice.

[00:06:30] But you have other people that are in leadership roles.

[00:06:34] Sometimes they disrespect them, whether it's your office manager, whether it's your clinical lead, whether it's your front desk lead.

[00:06:40] Those are people that you want to make sure that you are really protecting and noticing if there is a level of disrespect.

[00:06:47] But then also you want to make sure that they're not blaming other people all the time as well.

[00:06:53] So, again, this goes to, you know, having responsibility for your own actions or accountability.

[00:07:00] And so if they're saying that, oh, my performance is bad because of X, Y and Z.

[00:07:04] Well, if that's if X, Y and Z is another person, then that's not really a justifiable reason why your performance is bad.

[00:07:11] Yeah. And it goes back to that spot checking that you talk about a lot.

[00:07:15] It's like if this these behaviors are starting to crop up and you're spot checking, you can nip it in the bud.

[00:07:22] You can try to get them back on course.

[00:07:24] And we're going to talk about that a little bit more in just a minute.

[00:07:27] Listening to feedback.

[00:07:28] I think when people are in this mindset, when they're in the bad Apple mindset, they are not going to listen to feedback.

[00:07:35] They're not going to take anything.

[00:07:37] It's there's nothing wrong with me.

[00:07:39] I'm perfect.

[00:07:41] Yeah, that's that's actually right.

[00:07:43] Whenever you start talking about feedback, what I really want you to take from the feedback idea is the feedback from your your staff, your other teammates.

[00:07:52] But then also this is one that very few people actually think about is the feedback from their patients.

[00:07:58] If you ask a patient, how was that experience with so and so?

[00:08:02] A lot of times they'll tell you they'll be truthful.

[00:08:04] They typically don't want to hurt people's feelings.

[00:08:06] So they'll be a little nice.

[00:08:07] But if if that person has a poor attitude over and over again, they will let you know.

[00:08:12] I've had patients that said, listen, this lady, I don't want to work with her again because of X, Y and Z.

[00:08:17] And, you know, that's that means a lot.

[00:08:20] Right.

[00:08:20] When a patient is willing to tell you as a business owner that she doesn't want to work with X, Y and Z because of, you know, rudeness or bad behavior or whatever it is, you have to internalize that.

[00:08:33] And you have to be grateful that the patient actually brought that to your attention.

[00:08:36] Yeah.

[00:08:36] You don't want to rise from Monsters, Inc on your staff.

[00:08:40] You know, like when people call up, it's just like, ah, what do you want?

[00:08:44] You know, you don't want that energy because you want people to be excited about coming into your practice.

[00:08:51] You don't want them like, oh, my God, I got to see that person today.

[00:08:55] It's the same that I was talking about earlier.

[00:08:57] You don't want that feeling from anybody.

[00:09:00] You want people excited.

[00:09:01] Oh, I get to see Dr. Bryce and their team.

[00:09:04] And we're going to talk about all of these cool things that we've been up to.

[00:09:07] They need to be electric about this.

[00:09:10] So, Dr. Bryce, what are some steps that we can take to address bad apples within a practice?

[00:09:17] I got five of them.

[00:09:18] The first one is to document all the issues.

[00:09:21] So, if you have that tendency to have people tardy, write it down, right?

[00:09:27] My second one is that you have to provide immediate feedback.

[00:09:32] And the reason why this is so important is because if you wait, one, you start to get frustrated about it.

[00:09:39] You start to notice it.

[00:09:40] And it starts to build up this resentment.

[00:09:42] But then, two, it doesn't give the staff member a time to correct the behavior.

[00:09:49] Like, if you tell them instantly, it gives them instant feedback for them to be able to instantly correct that behavior.

[00:09:55] And then, three, you've got to set clear expectations.

[00:09:59] You've got to make it where they know exactly what you want and what you desire the goal to be and keep it consistent.

[00:10:07] My number four thing is you have to actively monitor progress, whether that means that they're doing good, whether that means that they're doing bad.

[00:10:16] You have to set up intervals that you're going to sit down and you're going to talk about that behavior.

[00:10:22] You're going to say, hey, look, I've noticed that you've done really well in these things that we've been coaching you on or you've been doing really bad.

[00:10:29] At that point, you can start to determine if that person is going to improve or if they're going to continue to spoil it for everyone else.

[00:10:37] And then, five, you have to be ready to make those tough decisions.

[00:10:44] I say it tongue-in-cheek because this situation is always difficult.

[00:10:48] I don't care if that person is your best player on your team.

[00:10:55] If they cannot consistently follow the rules or they have a bad attitude, then it doesn't matter how good they are.

[00:11:03] They're going to bring the whole morale down and it's going to be detrimental to your whole business.

[00:11:09] To the point of providing quick and immediate feedback, it's always when you are correcting something, you do it in private.

[00:11:17] And when you're praising something, you do it publicly.

[00:11:20] And when they do something right, you have to reinforce that good behavior.

[00:11:27] You call out that good behavior.

[00:11:29] It's like, hey, you're on time today.

[00:11:31] Thanks for being here.

[00:11:32] You know, you make that person feel like, oh, this is what it feels like to be appreciated.

[00:11:39] I want to keep doing more good things so I can keep this feeling going.

[00:11:44] And it's not an everyday thing that you have to do, but they're going to do more and more and you can do a little less and less, you know, appreciating saying it out loud because then it becomes an intrinsic value that, hey, that's the standard that I'm living up to.

[00:12:00] And, you know, if they need correction, you bring them off to the side like you talked about.

[00:12:05] And it's just that way you're setting them up for success because that at the end of the day, you want them to succeed.

[00:12:12] The more that they succeed, the more that you succeed.

[00:12:15] So it is a very cyclical type of success.

[00:12:19] And I think that that's what as doctors or as business owners, we have to know that and be cautious and always focus on those things.

[00:12:28] So let's say we've got a team member and we're going to use the bad apple example here.

[00:12:32] There it's this beautiful honey crisp apple.

[00:12:36] It's shiny and you start turning it around and then there's just this one black spot.

[00:12:42] It's just nasty.

[00:12:44] It's this bruise.

[00:12:45] And you're like, well, the rest of it's pretty good.

[00:12:48] I could I could eat around that.

[00:12:50] Like, how do you address like a team member that has just one of those little things?

[00:12:54] They might be five or 10 minutes late or something else.

[00:12:57] Like, how do you go about dealing with someone like that on the team?

[00:13:00] This is what most of us deal with.

[00:13:02] Right.

[00:13:03] We don't deal with something that's just a disaster or a terror.

[00:13:06] It's it's more of the they're just slightly off or they just do something that's slightly a rules violation.

[00:13:13] Right.

[00:13:14] And this is the most difficult to deal with because you like this person.

[00:13:18] This person is actually good at what they do, but they don't follow all the directions.

[00:13:22] So the first thing that you have to do in this situation is you have to correct the behavior because you have to cut out that little dark spot, because if you don't, that will leak over to every single other teammate and either cause resentment or it will cause some type of unhappiness in the workplace.

[00:13:41] Whenever you're doing this, I want you to be very, very even keel.

[00:13:47] Think about it in.

[00:13:48] This is for the betterment of your entire practice.

[00:13:51] And so you give them the opportunity to correct that behavior.

[00:13:55] You point it out.

[00:13:56] You do it in a very positive but private way.

[00:14:00] And you say, this is these are my expectations.

[00:14:02] I need you to change or adapt.

[00:14:05] And if you do not, then you have to be willing to make the tough decision and say, listen, you are not doing what we need you to do as our team and our brand.

[00:14:15] And we have to let you go.

[00:14:17] And your other teammates will respect you for that.

[00:14:20] They will also become more aware that you're willing to do that.

[00:14:25] And so I think it really sets a great example.

[00:14:28] You look at children and they need that consistency with rules.

[00:14:36] They need structure.

[00:14:37] And we're the same way.

[00:14:39] We're just literally big four-year-olds when it gets down to it.

[00:14:43] And when you are not addressing that, your whole staff is going to see it.

[00:14:48] Your culture starts to degrade.

[00:14:51] And it's like, oh, well, you're playing favorites at that point.

[00:14:54] Like, I'm here every day and the people that are there early and ready to go and they're working their tail off, they're going to be like, well, I feel like I'm not getting the most out of this.

[00:15:05] I could be late.

[00:15:06] And then they're going to start being late and start, you know, you have to hold everyone to the same standard of excellence and don't waver.

[00:15:14] I think that will be a huge thing.

[00:15:17] And in the long run, your practice is going to run so much better.

[00:15:21] And I promise you, your practice is not going to be ultra successful or under successful, which I don't know if it's under successful as a word, by one person.

[00:15:35] And just remember that no one person is bigger than the goal.

[00:15:41] No one person is bigger than what you're trying to create.

[00:15:46] And unfortunately, sometimes we get in these situations where we feel like we have to have this particular teammate.

[00:15:54] Well, if this particular teammate is not adhering to the rules, it may be time to really think about moving on from that person.

[00:16:03] Imagine a boat that has a hole on one side.

[00:16:07] Everybody on the team is paling out the water.

[00:16:10] And the other teammate is at the end of the boat and it's like, ah, I'm glad there's no hole on my side.

[00:16:15] That you don't want that kind of person on your team and you need to address those things.

[00:16:21] That is our episode this week.

[00:16:22] If you want us to answer a question you have about growing your practice, fill out the Google form in the episode's description.

[00:16:30] And Mark Twain said it the best.

[00:16:32] The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

[00:16:35] So go out there and get started by making the change you want to see in your practice today.

[00:16:41] This has been Zach.

[00:16:42] I'm Dr. Bryce.

[00:16:43] Thank you for listening to the Grow Ortho podcast.

[00:16:46] Small bay, guys.