Orthodontic EXPERT Shares Top Team Building Secrets

[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 Making Modern TV Show, available on Max, and the owner and operator of Elevation Orthodontics. Dr. Bryce, welcome to the show.

[00:00:31] Thank you so much for having me, man. That's an awesome introduction you gave me there.

[00:00:35] I am so excited to have you on. You know, this isn't just theory. You're in the trenches each and every week practicing orthodontics, and I am stoked to get into today's topic, and that is team dynamics. So team dynamics is huge, and I kind of just wanted to just open up the floor and you just kind of roll with it, and I'll kind of interject as we go.

[00:01:01] I think team dynamics is one of the biggest hurdles or challenges that we face as orthodontists and business owners in general. I mean, there's so many things you're dealing with, so many personalities. You're dealing with so many outside-of-work problems or even successes, and you kind of have to blend those together to create this amazing culture, this amazing experience for your patients.

[00:01:24] But then it also has to be amazing for you as the doctor or as the teammate, right? Because you're with these people almost more than you're with your family.

[00:01:34] So you want to make sure that every day you come to work, you're not stressed out about it. You're not thinking, oh my gosh, I got to work alongside X, Y, and Z.

[00:01:41] It's like, heck yeah, I get to work with these people. I love it, and I love them. It's a great situation.

[00:01:47] If you're dreading being around somebody, that's going to not only show in how you interact with them, but your whole entire team, and it's going to pull down your efforts as well because you're not having a good time.

[00:01:59] You're not able to perform well with them.

[00:02:02] And it's just as simple as that. Every time that you have that negativity, even if it's in the back of your mind, it shows through.

[00:02:10] You can only fake the funk for so long before you start expressing that outwardly, and then whether that's your patients are noticing it, whether that's your other teammates that are feeling the effects of it.

[00:02:22] It's just really negative all the way around.

[00:02:24] How would you go about building trust and respect for your team so you're not falling into that weird, funky mess?

[00:02:32] Building trust and the respect is absolutely important and a must-have to start off any type of good, healthy relationship.

[00:02:42] You may have to build trust in different ways.

[00:02:45] For some doctors, that may mean that you have to lead by example, meaning that you may have to get there 30 minutes before the day starts, just like all the other employees.

[00:02:55] And you have to go and be the janitor and do those things, right?

[00:02:58] That's okay. That's great.

[00:03:00] I know that a lot of doctors don't like to show up, but about 15 minutes before and they leave like 15 minutes early.

[00:03:06] So maybe that's not the long-term goal that you want.

[00:03:09] So you have to figure out other ways to kind of gain their trust and gain their respect.

[00:03:13] I guess one of the easiest ways to gain their trust is to have their back.

[00:03:18] So let's say, for example, we have a patient that is kind of rude to them or disrespectful.

[00:03:25] It's your role as the leader to step in and kind of intervene and make sure that they feel safe and they feel protected.

[00:03:32] And I'm not saying that you have to go in and be a bully and be mean to the patient or anything like that because we know that the patient is typically right.

[00:03:40] But you also have to put your foot down and say, hey, you're not going to disrespect my team.

[00:03:46] You're going to treat them with respect and you are going to kind of act nicely with them.

[00:03:53] And I think that goes a long way for just building that rapport.

[00:03:55] Yeah, because if you are letting your employees get railroaded, essentially, they're going to feel like, oh, every day I come in here, there's the potential of that to happen.

[00:04:07] And if you're taking up for them, that is going to win so much respect and trust that you are going to take care of them, that they will come to bat for you when situations come up as well.

[00:04:20] Loyalty is a big deal in my practice.

[00:04:23] And honestly, the way I think about it is even if my teammate is wrong, I will not throw them under the bus in front of a patient.

[00:04:35] I will not embarrass them in front of the team.

[00:04:38] I will have that self-correcting moment aside and I will save face in front of everyone and make sure that they feel safe because I need that loyalty.

[00:04:50] Because I expect it and I also want to give it as well.

[00:04:53] I really feel like that is a leader's role.

[00:04:56] That's instead of being a boss, a boss pushes and, you know, gets people to do whatever they want.

[00:05:02] And a leader pulls.

[00:05:04] He's pulling the team.

[00:05:06] And having those just simple things like respecting your team, because it goes both ways.

[00:05:12] People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

[00:05:15] And when they have that team buy-in, you're going to be able to do so many awesome things within your practice.

[00:05:22] Spot on, man.

[00:05:23] So let's talk about establishing clear roles and expectations with your team.

[00:05:28] There's, you know, from small practices up to larger practices, there's a lot of moving parts.

[00:05:32] So how did you go about that within your practice, Dr. Bryce?

[00:05:36] You got to be clear.

[00:05:38] You got to be concise.

[00:05:39] And you have to let them know what your expectations are.

[00:05:42] So you want to be clear about the role that they're in.

[00:05:44] You want to make sure that they understand the requirements.

[00:05:47] But then you also want to know the expectations, right?

[00:05:50] So if you expect them to be there 30 minutes before work starts every single day, that's what they should know.

[00:05:57] They should know that it's just clear.

[00:05:58] And they know how to meet those expectations.

[00:06:03] I think that one of the things that we do, or at least I did early on in my career, is I assumed that if I explained it to you, then that was all-encompassing.

[00:06:17] Like, you know, I told you one time, what I really found helpful is when you're starting to practice, you have a lot of free time.

[00:06:23] So what I would do is I would go in there and I would write down every single person's role and my expectations for that role.

[00:06:31] I would create it like it's a living document, and I would change it as we go.

[00:06:35] Because, you know, the same things that are important in my expectations at year one are going to be much different than what they are at year 10, right?

[00:06:43] So we have this living document that you can now give to your new hirees.

[00:06:48] You can give to your teammates when you want to do a refresher.

[00:06:52] And listen, the expectations are clear, they're concise, and they are exactly what they should be so you can hold them accountable.

[00:07:00] And when people have those clear expectations, it builds consistency where you're able to say, hey, this is kind of slipping.

[00:07:09] This is what the standard is, you know, and making sure that people understand that because they can't read your mind.

[00:07:17] I know my wife gets on to me all the time.

[00:07:19] I'm like, oh, well, I thought you told that.

[00:07:21] And she's like, I'm not a mind reader, Zach.

[00:07:23] You've got to tell me these things, whatever it might be.

[00:07:26] And I think that's an easy thing to do when you've got all of these things.

[00:07:31] You're playing firemen all day, putting out fires.

[00:07:34] But if you establish those roles, make clear expectations, you're setting up not only the individuals, but your entire practice to come along with you and co-labor and make that thing actually happen.

[00:07:48] I mean, you're absolutely right.

[00:07:50] When you think about it, you've got to row the boat in the same direction, right?

[00:07:54] If one person's putting their rudder down, that's going to spin the boat off track.

[00:07:59] And so everything that you do has to be like in cadence.

[00:08:03] We have to have this cadence and you have to have this sense of consistency.

[00:08:08] I think that that's what we're all striving for in business, no matter if it's an orthodontic practice or if it's a dental practice or if it's just business in general.

[00:08:17] You want to consistently provide a service or product that people know and can rely on and count on.

[00:08:24] Take McDonald's.

[00:08:25] The reasons why McDonald's is so like known across the globe is because you can walk into a McDonald's here in Pensacola, Florida.

[00:08:34] You could go over to Japan and it would be almost exactly the same thing.

[00:08:40] The burger would taste the same.

[00:08:41] The service would be the same.

[00:08:43] And that's what you're wanting to establish within your practice.

[00:08:46] And that leads us to the next point, having that open communication and transparency.

[00:08:50] Whenever you're talking about transparency or openness, I think it's so important because when you're talking about it, you're giving your team a sense of inside of your brain or inside of your thought process.

[00:09:06] So now you're becoming more human to them.

[00:09:08] You're not a boss.

[00:09:09] You're just more of a leader.

[00:09:11] And whenever you are a leader, you can bring people along with you, like you said earlier.

[00:09:16] And I think that it's super important to just kind of explain what your ideas are, where you're going.

[00:09:24] One of the things that I personally use a lot is whenever we're making big changes, I say to my team that this is my lifelong dream.

[00:09:33] I've sacrificed a lot of time and effort and money to get us there.

[00:09:38] And so I would hope that you guys would care about me as much as I care about you, and we can push this ball together.

[00:09:47] And it makes it so much more simple.

[00:09:49] But you have to actually step out in that uncomfortable area and be transparent with your team to a point where they feel you as a person and can really support you.

[00:10:03] Yeah, because it's going to be uncomfortable.

[00:10:06] Running a business usually is going to be uncomfortable.

[00:10:10] Doing anything right is usually uncomfortable because that is growth.

[00:10:15] You think about an eagle with her babies, and there comes a point where they need to get out of the nest.

[00:10:21] And what do they do?

[00:10:22] They make the nest super uncomfortable.

[00:10:25] And being a good leader, you have to communicate these things with your team and consistently doing it.

[00:10:32] It goes back to what we've been talking about.

[00:10:34] Consistency is key.

[00:10:36] And they're not going to be able to read your mind.

[00:10:38] And I know I've worked with a lot of different bosses over the years.

[00:10:42] The ones that are open and are just genuine, I would wade through a river of fire for them.

[00:10:52] To your point, it makes so much sense because now you're dealing with a person, right?

[00:10:58] You're dealing with a person that you can see yourself being in that same situation that they need help.

[00:11:02] And sometimes as bosses, as leaders, to ask for help is a much better approach than if you were to say,

[00:11:14] I need you to do this or I pay you to do this, you do this.

[00:11:17] If you say, hey, will you help me out?

[00:11:20] It comes from such a different place and a different perspective.

[00:11:24] And then whenever they intake that or internalize that, your team is what I'm saying.

[00:11:29] Whenever they internalize that, it gets so much better results.

[00:11:33] A thousand percent.

[00:11:34] It's kind of like George Washington.

[00:11:36] He was on the battlefield.

[00:11:37] He wasn't just sitting in the back.

[00:11:39] And there's times where he had holes in his jackets from bullet fires.

[00:11:42] There was horses dying under him because they got shot.

[00:11:46] He was in there and his troops respected that.

[00:11:49] And that's what we need to do as leaders, as practice owners, is be right there with them.

[00:11:55] And you're going to see some amazing.

[00:11:57] And again, it's going to be uncomfortable, but you're going to see so much team buy-in from all of that.

[00:12:03] Now, talking about team buy-in and giving feedback, I think this is something that a lot of doctors kind of struggle with is measuring performance and giving constructive feedback.

[00:12:18] Because sometimes it might be too harsh.

[00:12:20] I know I'm a people pleaser, so I've had to get over the, oh, well, I don't want them to be my friend or whatever.

[00:12:30] But giving that constructive feedback, how have you set that up within your practice?

[00:12:35] So this could be a tricky situation because sometimes it's not in your nature to be harsh or direct or it's not in your nature to give a bunch of compliments or whatever.

[00:12:47] So you have to figure out what works best for you.

[00:12:49] But what I've learned is if we do those things that we've talked about earlier, building that trust, building that rapport, being transparent, then they know it comes from a good place.

[00:13:00] And I think you can deliver almost any information or any comment to anyone if it's coming from a good place.

[00:13:07] And I think so. If you if you think about it from from I'm coming from a good place, I want you to get better personally, but I also want the office to get better.

[00:13:18] You can deliver even even tough stuff in a way that's it's easy to receive.

[00:13:25] Personally, what I do is I always start off with telling them something good that they've done.

[00:13:31] I do like to to break it down in ways that it's not a it's not a bash session.

[00:13:38] It is more of a hey, we're here together as a team to be better.

[00:13:42] And I'll also point out things that that directly relate to them getting better that I could also do to be better.

[00:13:49] I think another thing is that we fail to do a lot of times is the consistency of when we give this feedback.

[00:13:57] Right. I don't think that we should wait till once a year to give feedback.

[00:14:00] I don't think that we should necessarily give instant feedback in those fiery moments where we see someone messed up.

[00:14:08] What I do think is if we do it quarterly, that gives us enough time to plan out a list of things that they've done really well or things that we can improve on.

[00:14:18] You do it quarterly. They know it's coming quarterly.

[00:14:20] That's frequently enough that they can mentally prepare to know that, hey, Dr.

[00:14:25] Bryce is not going to bash me. He's literally just trying to get us to be better.

[00:14:28] And so they can they can mentally be prepared to be less defensive.

[00:14:34] And so quarterly is where I found to be the happy medium or the happy or the sweet spot for our type of feedback and and performance evaluations.

[00:14:45] And I love that because you have at this point, you should have the respect and the team buy in.

[00:14:51] And they know your heart. You've been transparent and you're coming in there to elevate them to the next level.

[00:14:58] You want to see them succeed and being honest with them like the compliment sandwich.

[00:15:05] Here's a compliment. Here is the problem, the solution.

[00:15:08] And then another compliment is a good way to to at least start it.

[00:15:13] But I think that's a huge thing. And I want to talk about jump into the next thing is empowering and entrusting your team.

[00:15:21] If you do not empower them and trust them, you're not going to get anywhere.

[00:15:26] Right. It's hard to scale if you are the one man show.

[00:15:29] And I guess I've always adopted this personality of if I surround myself with awesome people or help them become awesome, that just helps me become even better.

[00:15:40] Because if you're the leader and everybody on your team is a superstar, then what's it just makes you look like even more of a superstar.

[00:15:48] Right. So if you have taught them, you've made clear expectations of of their roles and what you require of them, you've built that trust.

[00:16:00] Now it's time to empower them and give them some autonomy.

[00:16:04] That autonomy allows them the ability to think critically.

[00:16:08] It allows them to take ownership in what they're doing.

[00:16:11] So a lot of times personally, what I do is I just tell them what I want the outcome to be.

[00:16:16] I don't even actually tell them how to do it.

[00:16:19] I'm actually not concerned with how it's done.

[00:16:22] That way it gives them the freedom to express themselves in to what we're trying to do, but get the outcome that I want.

[00:16:31] One of my biggest fears is for me to explain something to someone of how to do it.

[00:16:37] And they only do it the way that I tell them to do it, even if there's a better way.

[00:16:43] So that's why I am not too big on how they're going about doing it and more about the why and the final outcome.

[00:16:52] Question. I know a lot of orthodontists are more technical minded.

[00:16:57] How do you get past that that kind of mentality to allow more creativity in the workplace?

[00:17:05] That's a great question, because, you know, we're trained to be hypercritical or very, very detail oriented and do it a certain way.

[00:17:14] And whatever way you feel comfortable with, keep doing that and make it and put it on repeat and you'll be successful.

[00:17:19] Right. That gets that consistency that you're looking for.

[00:17:22] I think that you have to always think about things in scalability.

[00:17:25] Right. You as a provider can only see and interact with so many patients per day and to get a little bit larger, even if you're not trying to get larger, there's ways that you can free up some of your time, whether it's to dedicate to your family, whether it's to dedicate to a charitable cause or whatever.

[00:17:46] But you have to be able to delegate some of these things, which comes from empowering your team.

[00:17:52] And I think that goes hand in hand to our next side of things is encouraging team collaboration and cross training.

[00:18:01] A lot of times it's the front office versus the back office or this role versus this role.

[00:18:08] How have you kind of broken that system that we see not just in orthodontists, but a lot of different organizations?

[00:18:15] How have you done that in your practice?

[00:18:17] Yeah. Inherently, it's like this eternal battle between the front and the back.

[00:18:22] I don't know why it always is like that, but what I've tried to incorporate in my practice to kind of stop that or at least deter it is once or twice a month, I will cross train my team.

[00:18:36] So, for instance, my TC will handle all of the front desk duties.

[00:18:41] My office manager will go and do the TC stuff.

[00:18:44] My front desk will go and do sterilization for the back.

[00:18:48] I'll have my back come to the front to answer phones and things like that.

[00:18:53] That way, they all know the other person's role.

[00:18:56] They all know the difficulties that come from that role.

[00:18:59] And they all know the stresses that come from that role.

[00:19:02] So, whenever there's this idea that they want to start this infighting, they know and they can appreciate and respect the other person's position.

[00:19:12] And it kind of curbs that.

[00:19:14] It kind of makes it where they all know what each other does.

[00:19:18] So, they don't actually have as much infighting as you would think.

[00:19:24] I love the idea.

[00:19:27] Since doing that in your practice, do you see the handoff of responsibilities going a lot quicker because they understand better how the roles work in tandem?

[00:19:38] Exactly. I do.

[00:19:40] I see not only that, but the communication between the front and the back is so much better.

[00:19:46] And we have weekly huddles where we talk about stuff, about just kind of efficiencies and things like that.

[00:19:53] And what's really great is I've seen since we've been doing that, those individuals from the front communicating with the back and figuring out those inefficiencies, figuring out those ways to be more effective.

[00:20:05] And they'll just talk through it because they kind of have an idea of what the other person is doing.

[00:20:10] I also think it's great for when people are sick or they're on maternity leave or they're out for holiday vacations or whatever.

[00:20:18] You don't really notice a huge drop-off because we've had some of this cross-training and we do it periodically.

[00:20:25] And I think that if you make it a periodic thing, it makes it where whenever there's a time for an emergency, like someone's sick, someone's hurt, someone's injured, someone has to leave.

[00:20:35] You don't really fret about it because you're prepared.

[00:20:39] I'm curious how, like this is just one instance, but when you bring in new ideas or different things you want to try, HIP might have been one of these.

[00:20:49] But how did you go about overcoming resistance within the team, like with these new ideas?

[00:20:55] Yeah.

[00:20:56] Okay.

[00:20:56] All right.

[00:20:56] So resistance is going to happen.

[00:20:58] I think that's the first thing that as business owners that you have to be aware of and be prepared for the pushback, right?

[00:21:07] Because most people are resistant or reluctant, reluctant to change.

[00:21:14] And whether it's good change or bad change, you get comfortable in your current setting.

[00:21:20] And so whenever you deliver new news or a change or some type of implementation that you're going to improve upon, you may start to get those wide-eyed looks.

[00:21:35] You may see that the rest of the day the team is pouting.

[00:21:39] And if that's the case, that's okay.

[00:21:41] You've got to give them time to process it, to kind of come to grips with what you're asking for and how it's changing and how it could potentially affect their lives, those type of things.

[00:21:53] You've got to remember that as the leader, you've probably been thinking about this for months, weeks or months.

[00:22:00] And then you're springing it on most of these people.

[00:22:02] They're hearing it for the first time and you're expecting them to say, yes, okay, we're all on board.

[00:22:07] But the reality of it is the unknown is scary to people and that's going to be their first reaction.

[00:22:14] It's probably going to be like a little pushback.

[00:22:16] So know that that's going to happen.

[00:22:19] That's the very first thing that you have to know.

[00:22:21] Even taking the golden rule here, like do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.

[00:22:27] Like if there was a huge change coming down the pipe for you, you would want there to be some runway on that.

[00:22:34] You wouldn't just want to be like, all right, drop of the hat.

[00:22:36] We're changing everything.

[00:22:38] And you're expected to do it that day.

[00:22:40] Like having those things in place and having, again, transparency in place that, hey, we're about to make this change.

[00:22:48] This is why I'm doing it going back to, you know, the way you kind of get team buy-in.

[00:22:54] Like all of these things go in tandem with one another.

[00:22:57] And you can even go to what we're about to talk about, setting tangible goals that work within these new processes that you're wanting to do.

[00:23:06] So whenever you're having resistance, it's because one of fear or they don't know if they're going to be able to succeed in that role.

[00:23:13] Right.

[00:23:13] So if you can if you can make it more fun and offer a tangible or reward for like tangible goals, then it makes that fear turn into energy.

[00:23:28] Energy turns in to focus.

[00:23:31] Focus turns into success.

[00:23:33] Right.

[00:23:33] Right.

[00:23:33] And so what we're really trying to accomplish is setting the goals to I'm going to talk more about the rewards, but setting the goal has to be something that's obtainable.

[00:23:45] There's nothing worse than setting a goal that you can't get to.

[00:23:50] I mean, for instance, if like you do 100 cases of Invisalign and you say, hey, next year I want to do 500 cases.

[00:23:56] Well, that's probably not going to happen.

[00:23:59] I mean, it could, but it's probably not.

[00:24:01] So if you're given rewards based upon that, then your team is going to look at it and say, this is impossible.

[00:24:07] So why would I work harder?

[00:24:09] Why would I push myself and put that extra energy into it if I know that I can't achieve it?

[00:24:14] So whereas I would make the goals lofty, you got it.

[00:24:19] You got to have high goals.

[00:24:19] You got to have high standards.

[00:24:21] Make them achievable or obtainable.

[00:24:25] And then you'll see so much more success.

[00:24:28] And then if we're talking about the reward, what are some good rewards?

[00:24:34] Like not every single person is motivated by money.

[00:24:38] Right.

[00:24:38] Believe it or not, it's that's not everyone's primary motivation.

[00:24:42] Some people, you know, prefer gifts.

[00:24:45] Some people want just some free time.

[00:24:49] Some people want to go and take extra courses and stuff like that.

[00:24:53] So what I do personally is I have my office manager in a very casual way ask the ladies periodically what they would like.

[00:25:03] Like what would be a great reward?

[00:25:05] What would be a good gift?

[00:25:06] Like if we hit every number that we could ever create, what would you guys like to do?

[00:25:12] And then we actually get rewards that they want.

[00:25:16] Right.

[00:25:17] And so it seems so silly.

[00:25:19] But if you give people the prizes, the rewards and the bonuses that they want, then they're going to want to achieve that.

[00:25:30] Yeah.

[00:25:30] And then the same thing about about bonuses.

[00:25:33] You got to be careful.

[00:25:35] I never want people to think that bonuses are just you get them just because you get them.

[00:25:41] Um, so everything that you do, uh, young doctors, old doctors, it doesn't matter.

[00:25:46] Everything that you do from a bonus and reward system has to be performance based.

[00:25:51] If you do extra, you get a bonus.

[00:25:54] If you do more or better or what we're asking, maybe you get a reward, but you don't get a reward just for doing the normal stuff.

[00:26:05] I mean, if we're not making any of our goals, if we're not doing any of that kind of stuff, you're not getting a bonus.

[00:26:09] Um, and that's just, and I make it very clear, um, because again, transparency is the key.

[00:26:18] Um, so that's, that's one caveat that I want to say to any bonus or reward structures.

[00:26:24] You cannot give it without merit.

[00:26:26] Even with like children, you set up, Hey, if you clean your room, you do all of these things.

[00:26:32] There's a smaller reward.

[00:26:34] If you get good grades for a whole semester, that's a bonus, you know, and you're setting up

[00:26:39] things that they can achieve.

[00:26:41] I'm using kids in this instant, but within your practice, you've got to be transparent.

[00:26:47] Like we keep talking about and just like, Hey, if we do X, Y, and Z, this is going to be the

[00:26:53] things that you're going to be able to get.

[00:26:55] And that motivates a lot of people instead of, well, I got to go in.

[00:27:00] Cause Dr.

[00:27:02] Dr. Gilliam, he's just, you know, he's been riding me so hard, but it's like, Hey, if you

[00:27:08] answer, you know, 98% of your phone calls today and you get so many patients booked, like that's,

[00:27:16] that's a huge shift for the practice.

[00:27:18] Cause that's the ultimate goal is the shift in the practice.

[00:27:21] And just being smart about your goals, I think is a huge thing.

[00:27:26] And we keep talking about transparency and transparency is King and all of this kind of, kind of hit a

[00:27:33] little bit.

[00:27:33] I know we've been hitting it throughout all of this, but, uh, take it a little bit further

[00:27:37] on that.

[00:27:38] Again, the transparency thing where it really comes to fruition is you want them to know

[00:27:44] what you want, right?

[00:27:46] You want them to know what the outcome is going to be.

[00:27:48] Uh, your team needs to know where we're going.

[00:27:53] And so by giving them that it gives them the idea that they know, um, how Dr.

[00:27:59] Bryce wants things to work, those types of things.

[00:28:02] Uh, I have a friend who he is a, he's a big, big advocate for just being transparent.

[00:28:09] And he's, he says, listen, guys, you know, um, that you can go to other practices to work.

[00:28:16] You can go and be an assistant.

[00:28:18] You can go and be an office manager at other offices.

[00:28:20] Uh, you can actually change careers.

[00:28:22] You know, I've dedicated my entire life to this office.

[00:28:26] Um, and I can't, so I need your help to be, you know, with me to get this job done.

[00:28:33] If not, then, you know, I think that you have to go into correcting the resistance.

[00:28:38] Um, and, and I think that that's one of the things that, that is really, that's, that's tough, but you have to be strong enough to know that your business model and your, um, effort has been, you know, it's a lot of sacrifice.

[00:28:56] So you've got to make sure that you are protecting that at all costs.

[00:29:00] You're spending so much time in school and then so much money to get in your practice and time away from family and friends and things that would be more fun, quote unquote.

[00:29:13] But when you're, let's say this, you're meeting resistance from a team member, someone is, it's just a J O B to them.

[00:29:21] They're just there to pull a paycheck.

[00:29:24] How do you go about addressing that immediately in, in that circumstance?

[00:29:29] It's tough.

[00:29:30] Um, so each person is going to be a little different, right?

[00:29:33] People, people respond to things a little bit different.

[00:29:35] So hopefully at this time you've built the rapport and you know, you know them well enough.

[00:29:40] Um, the first thing that I like to do is I like to understand why are you pushing back?

[00:29:45] Like, what is the resistance?

[00:29:46] What are you afraid of this or do you not like this?

[00:29:48] And it's not necessarily saying that I'm going to change my mindset.

[00:29:53] I just want to know if there is something that I'm missing because I can't see it from every single person's point of view.

[00:30:00] So maybe there is something that I'm missing.

[00:30:02] Let's assume that I'm not, um, I'm, I'm not, I'm not missing anything.

[00:30:07] So the next thing that I ask them, I literally say, um, do you feel like you are giving me 100% effort, uh, toward this goal?

[00:30:18] And a lot of times if you sit there and you don't say anything, they will respond back with an answer.

[00:30:25] It will either say, yeah, I feel like I have, or no, I really haven't been giving you the whole effort.

[00:30:32] And then at that point, if they say yes, and you know that they haven't, then that's a whole different conversation that takes you down the other path.

[00:30:38] If they say I've been given about 50%, um, what I always do, I say, okay, well, can you commit to giving me 100% effort on this particular task?

[00:30:51] And if they say anything other than yes, you need to really consider going separate ways.

[00:31:00] Because if they're willing to tell you that they're not going to give you 100%, what, what are we doing?

[00:31:09] Like if I don't give you 100% of your paycheck, it's going to be awkward, right?

[00:31:14] Right. So if they're telling me that they're not going to give me 100%, I think that no matter how good they are, no matter how important they have been in the past,

[00:31:24] I think it's time to immediately, uh, move in a different direction from that particular person.

[00:31:30] Like think about it as like an NBA team.

[00:31:34] You can have all of these stars on your team and like, yeah, they are a quote unquote family, but at some point people get traded, people sign different deals, they go to different places.

[00:31:47] But if they're not giving their all, it's time to make a change.

[00:31:52] You know, if they're, if they're willing to look you in the eye, I think that's, that's a huge thing.

[00:31:57] Look you in the eye and say, yeah, I'm not willing to do that.

[00:32:00] You, you've got to, you got to make some big, big changes there.

[00:32:05] And that's a them, a them thing and not a you thing, you know, and your whole entire staff already knows that that person is like that.

[00:32:16] And they're, they're waiting to see how long are you going to let that go?

[00:32:21] And is that going to be in the new culture?

[00:32:23] So you always end up falling to your lowest common denominator, right?

[00:32:27] And so if, if you have a person that just keeps giving resistance that doesn't, that goes unchecked for, for so long, it's, it's going to bring the morale down.

[00:32:37] There's no doubt about it.

[00:32:39] It's, it's just, there's too much negativity in, and no matter how much positivity the other team brings, there's always going to be that outlier.

[00:32:46] And then they're going to look at the outlier and either start resenting, resenting that person, or they're going to start resenting you as a leader for not handling that correctly.

[00:32:55] And so to, to me, I would rather just kind of nip that in the bud really, really quick and just get, get it over with and then move on.

[00:33:04] And I would say nine times out of 10, you, after that initial shock of it happening, you feel so much better and you can actually progress to the place that you want it to be a lot faster.

[00:33:16] And your team will thank you for that.

[00:33:18] They might not say it, but there, it might be a shock for a week, but they're going to move on and they're going to line up with the vision that you're casting.

[00:33:28] And that's, that's huge.

[00:33:30] And that kind of brings us to our last section and I'm going to kind of just set it up and I'm going to let you take it.

[00:33:35] Dr. Bryce here.

[00:33:36] So we're talking about promoting participation, engagement, and presence in the practice.

[00:33:42] Yeah.

[00:33:43] Those are three huge things.

[00:33:45] And, and, and, you know, I think it all starts from, uh, again, that ownership, that autonomy that you've given them like that, that in itself, when people know their roles, when people know their expectations and you give them that trust and empower them, then they start feeling like this is my practice.

[00:34:07] There's nothing better than when I hear, um, our, our new hires start using the term ours and, um, and theirs is talking about different practices and stuff like that.

[00:34:20] So whenever they're saying our practice and how we do it and things like that, that means that they've bought in right there.

[00:34:26] They're in there.

[00:34:27] Our culture is good.

[00:34:29] They're starting to show that ownership that we're looking for.

[00:34:31] Uh, that will inherently have them to take the initiative to do, uh, more, be more engaged, be participating in things and be more present at work.

[00:34:42] And then the second thing, which may actually be a little bit, a little bit bigger or a little bit more direct is as the leader, as the owner of a practice, do things that your employees are passionate about.

[00:34:57] Like for instance, if you were going to do community, a community event, if the community event is something that your team is passionate about, they're going to be much more likely to have a good time, enjoy it, post about it, be engaged, less pushback because it's something that they love.

[00:35:18] Right?

[00:35:18] So my team in particular loves animals.

[00:35:22] So maybe the, um, community event we do is go to an animal shelter and volunteer there for a little bit.

[00:35:30] Yeah, it's outside of dentistry, but it's still, it's our community that we're trying to build up.

[00:35:34] And if it's something that they're passionate about, then it will be something that they'll enjoy doing.

[00:35:41] And it will be less like pulling teeth to get them to do it.

[00:35:45] Um, actually think I got that from a hip, a hip person.

[00:35:50] Um, miss Carrie gave me that advice and I, and I think it's brilliant to just find stuff that your team is passionate about is it goes a long way.

[00:36:00] That is huge because you actually get that buy-in from them because you are going after a thing that they care about.

[00:36:10] And it's not tied to, you're going to get money because we're doing this.

[00:36:14] It's like, you are passionate about this thing.

[00:36:16] You care about animals or whatever it may be.

[00:36:19] It might be an orphanage.

[00:36:21] It might be a school function, whatever it may be.

[00:36:24] They're going to be so much more invested than, oh, well, we're going to go do X because we've done it for 20 years.

[00:36:33] And everybody just like, uh, you can tell like the whole room deflates from that.

[00:36:38] You can switch it up and do something that people actually care about.

[00:36:42] And then another thing that you're actually doing like indirectly is you are, are building that, uh, an additional layer of trust because you are supporting them personally.

[00:36:53] You're supporting them with, with things that are important to their life outside of work.

[00:36:59] And once you can get to that point, now you're starting to really build that loyalty because, you know, Dr. Bryce, our leader cares about us more than just being an asset, um, in, in his practice.

[00:37:14] And then the last one is recognizing achievements and milestones within the practice.

[00:37:21] Talk a little bit about how you do that.

[00:37:23] Yeah, I think that this is kind of brings it all together.

[00:37:26] And so to, to make sure that you can encourage people to engage and to be present at work.

[00:37:31] And I think that it's very important to just kind of say, great job.

[00:37:37] Sometimes you just need to say, I am proud of you as, as adults, you don't hear.

[00:37:41] I'm proud of you.

[00:37:43] Uh, very often anymore as kids, you hear it often.

[00:37:46] Your, your parents will tell you, or someone will tell you, coach will tell you, but as adults, you very rarely hear.

[00:37:52] I'm proud of you.

[00:37:53] Good job.

[00:37:54] And so I think that it's very important to publicly address achievements or, or milestones.

[00:38:00] And you can, you can do it a bunch of different ways that I think are really engaging and really fun.

[00:38:06] You can do it, you know, have a team meeting and say, Hey, um, team member, a did a really great job with X, Y, and Z.

[00:38:13] That helps two ways.

[00:38:14] It gives, um, team member, a, a really, a boost of confidence that they're doing the right thing.

[00:38:20] But it also, those ones that are really competitive in the group, they also want to get that recognition too.

[00:38:27] Um, the next thing that you could do, you could have, um, you could send it out on your social media.

[00:38:32] Hey, uh, Tim, Tim or a crushed it this week doing X, Y, and Z.

[00:38:37] Um, or you could have like plaques around the walls or around the office that just kind of highlights your employees, highlights your staff.

[00:38:45] And again, you know, you've got pictures of them on the wall.

[00:38:48] It just shows that you care about them as, as teammates and people.

[00:38:52] When you vicariously reinforce the things that you want to see in the practice, it automatically brings up even the lowest denominator closer to those, those things that you're looking for.

[00:39:05] Those attributes, those actions.

[00:39:08] And like I said, people want to be recognized.

[00:39:10] I know here at HIP, we have like a shout out thing.

[00:39:14] We, we, you know, when someone does something great, uh, you know, shows the company's like core values in their work, they get shouted out in our Slack channels.

[00:39:23] And it's something simple.

[00:39:25] It doesn't take a lot, but when you are the one getting shouted out, you're just like, man, I feel like I'm being seen.

[00:39:31] And that's what people really want.

[00:39:33] They want to feel seen and appreciated.

[00:39:36] Wow.

[00:39:37] Well, thank you, Dr. Bryce, for being a part of the grow ortho podcast.

[00:39:41] We've got so many more of these awesome shows.

[00:39:44] If you want to check out more content like this, make sure to subscribe on YouTube and podcast services around the world.

[00:39:52] We'll be back with another one.