Latest / My Dental Playbook / 041 These 2 Habits are Killing Your Team
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_01: Always assume the best.
- 0:01SPEAKER_01: No one wants to do a bad job.
- 0:03SPEAKER_01: And then number two, any errors are errors of misunderstanding.
- 0:07SPEAKER_01: And just these are two rules that if you go into every conversation with these two rules in place, the conversation goes way better.
- 0:14SPEAKER_01: All right, welcome back to another episode of My Dental Playbook.
- 0:17SPEAKER_01: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird, along with my friend Dr.
- 0:19SPEAKER_01: Blake Hamblin.
- 0:20SPEAKER_01: We're diving deep into his practice for world domination.
- 0:24SPEAKER_01: He's 10X is new patients and he built a new office.
- 0:27SPEAKER_01: He went from 20 to 200 new patients.
- 0:29SPEAKER_01: And we've been documenting the fun and some of the not fun things.
- 0:33SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that is not fun is when you have to deal with problems in your office, especially around your team.
- 0:40SPEAKER_01: But there are some golden rules on how to deal with your team.
- 0:45SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
- 0:45SPEAKER_01: Blake is going to share those with you today.
- 0:47SPEAKER_01: And I believe in these wholeheartedly.
- 0:49SPEAKER_01: I try my very best to do these.
- 0:51SPEAKER_01: At times it's really hard.
- 0:53SPEAKER_01: There are times, but if you follow these two golden rules, you will have better relationships with your team.
- 0:59SPEAKER_01: You'll have better relationships in your home, and you'll have better relationships with your vendors, like marketing companies and stuff like that.
- 1:06SPEAKER_01: Um, these are amazing rules.
- 1:08SPEAKER_01: Now, before we get into these, I'm gonna call out a lot of dentists struggle with these a lot.
- 1:13SPEAKER_01: And I know this from personal experience.
- 1:15SPEAKER_01: And so um I wanna dive in with these with you, Dr.
- 1:19SPEAKER_01: Blake, before we do.
- 1:20SPEAKER_01: I don't want to miss our sponsor, Cherry.
- 1:22SPEAKER_01: If you don't use them, you're missing out.
- 1:25SPEAKER_01: They are absolutely amazing.
- 1:28SPEAKER_01: Dr.
- 1:28SPEAKER_01: Blake uses them in his office.
- 1:30SPEAKER_01: He uses Cherry with every patient.
- 1:33SPEAKER_01: He presents a monthly payment and makes up about 25% of his collections.
- 1:37SPEAKER_01: And it's helped him go from doing about$200,000 a month to over$500,000 a month in collections.
- 1:44SPEAKER_01: And he's absolutely crushing it with it.
- 1:46SPEAKER_01: It works really well.
- 1:47SPEAKER_01: There's a discount code down below.
- 1:49SPEAKER_01: We have a whole training on it.
- 1:50SPEAKER_01: You can check that out.
- 1:51SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you use cherry.
- 1:53SPEAKER_01: And even if you don't use cherry, use something because it'll help you grow.
- 1:58SPEAKER_01: Right now, this you've got to have patient financing.
- 2:00SPEAKER_01: So, all right, let's jump into this.
- 2:02SPEAKER_01: Two golden rules.
- 2:03SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna give the two rules and then I want to talk about how you came up with these.
- 2:07SPEAKER_01: So, number one, always assume the best.
- 2:10SPEAKER_01: No one wants to do a bad job.
- 2:13SPEAKER_01: And then number two, any errors are errors of misunderstanding.
- 2:18SPEAKER_01: And just these are two rules that if you go into every conversation with these two rules in place, the conversation goes way better.
- 2:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 2:27SPEAKER_00: So I'll lead with uh I don't have any original ideas, uh, and I want to give credit where credit is due.
- 2:34SPEAKER_00: Uh, these are these are rules that my mentor uh has kind of beaten into my skull uh because I I need these rules.
- 2:43SPEAKER_00: I need these rules with my team, I need these rules with my wife, I need these rules with my kids, um, and I can very quickly get to they they want to sabotage this place and and they don't care, right?
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: And and that's generally not true.
- 2:59SPEAKER_00: And I think at the end of this we'll talk about when you do have to drop the hammer.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: But these two rules have meant a ton to me and have uh really changed how I approach a lot of conversations, and we've all been there, right?
- 3:13SPEAKER_00: Like we don't problems don't frustrate us, it's old problems that frustrate us.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: It's it's the fact that we've asked Julie 35 times to make sure that when she unlocks the door, that she keep that she flips the switch so it stays unlocked.
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: Like we've asked, you know what I mean?
- 3:30SPEAKER_00: And and we we get so irritated and we believe that it's because these people don't care.
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: And it's just not true.
- 3:36SPEAKER_00: Uh and these are rules that honestly, if you could call me every day and just remind me of them, it would make me a better person.
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I struggle with these daily, but they're great rules nonetheless.
- 3:48SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about why we struggle to implement these rules.
- 3:52SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a book called Leadership and Self-Deception.
- 3:55SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever read it or not, but it's an amazing book.
- 3:58SPEAKER_01: And what it talks about is putting people in the box.
- 4:01SPEAKER_01: And so he uses the example of his wife.
- 4:03SPEAKER_01: So he starts the story.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: He's laying in bed with his wife, and the baby, they have a newborn baby, and the baby's crying.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: And his first instinct was go help the baby and get the baby not to cry.
- 4:14SPEAKER_01: And then he and then he went through and said, Wait, why isn't my wife getting the baby?
- 4:19SPEAKER_01: Why is she so lazy?
- 4:21SPEAKER_01: I know no one ever's ever thought like this, but this is what he he admitted to.
- 4:25SPEAKER_01: And so he's like, Why is my wife being so lazy?
- 4:27SPEAKER_01: You know, she's not, you know, I have to wake up and go to work tomorrow.
- 4:31SPEAKER_01: And so he goes through this whole thing.
- 4:32SPEAKER_01: And then he said, I started to treat my wife the way that I put her in that box.
- 4:38SPEAKER_01: And guess what happened?
- 4:39SPEAKER_01: She started to show up like the person I was treating her as.
- 4:43SPEAKER_01: And it caused a lot of problems in our relationship.
- 4:46SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I stepped back and I was like, wait, my wife really isn't that way.
- 4:50SPEAKER_01: She was just really tired because she was up with the baby, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 4:54SPEAKER_01: And so he then goes through and starts talking about at work when someone doesn't have the resources, they don't have the proper time, or they don't have the proper training to do the job.
- 5:05SPEAKER_01: We then go, well, they must be not smart, they must not be capable.
- 5:09SPEAKER_01: And when you put somebody in that box, once you put that thought in your head and you put them in that box, they actually start to behave that way.
- 5:18SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- 5:20SPEAKER_01: The book is amazing.
- 5:21SPEAKER_01: It's very humbling, to be honest with you.
- 5:23SPEAKER_01: Um, and what it it it these two rules that you just gave.
- 5:27SPEAKER_01: So assume the best of people.
- 5:29SPEAKER_01: So I always say, um, we can always question, we can always question our methods, like how we do things, but don't question the motives.
- 5:39SPEAKER_01: Once you get to questioning someone's motives, like, why is Dr.
- 5:42SPEAKER_01: Blake doing that?
- 5:43SPEAKER_01: He's trying to scam me, he's trying to do this, he's trying, once that happens, the relationship's over.
- 5:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
- 5:50SPEAKER_00: I I think that like a lot of this stuff goes into another thing that's not my idea, but uh it it leads right into what's uh a framework of of what's called omission and commission.
- 6:02SPEAKER_00: And we we have kind of like uh a vernacular within DSI that we talk this way.
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: But um the beautiful and I and I I do omission commission with every new hiring, and then I do omission commission directly after any team member might be let go, right?
- 6:18SPEAKER_00: And the reason I do is because I want them to I want to remind people that they're in charge of their future.
- 6:24SPEAKER_00: And so these two rules play directly into that, where we talk about omission, and those are things that are missing, right?
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: Those are things that uh could be improved.
- 6:34SPEAKER_00: You don't you don't have enough cassettes to be able to see the patients that we have coming through the door, you don't know how to set up the room correctly, you don't have enough iPads to get consent in a timely manner, like like things that are missing.
- 6:49SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful thing about omission is that it's 90-10.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: 90% of the responsibility responsibility relies on on uh on me, and then 10% of the responsibility is just you coming to tell me or the leader that this thing is missing.
- 7:06SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to do this, right?
- 7:07SPEAKER_00: And then we can fix that problem.
- 7:09SPEAKER_00: Now, co-mission is a totally different thing.
- 7:11SPEAKER_00: Co mission is when you're choosing to do something, and the beautiful thing about co-mission is it's zero one hundred.
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: You get to choose 100% of these things.
- 7:21SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna gossip with your team members about the person who's always late or whatever?
- 7:26SPEAKER_00: Are you going to choose to leave the trash on the floor even though you walk by it 15 times?
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: Like those little things.
- 7:34SPEAKER_00: And it just reminds it reminds people that they're in charge of their future.
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: And I always say, I will protect, I will protect the practice for you, but if the time comes, I will protect it from you.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 7:45SPEAKER_00: And it just lets them know that you're in charge of your future.
- 7:48SPEAKER_01: That's really, really good.
- 7:50SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then how do you deal with a situation where someone's underperforming, but then you go to talk to them and you realize they're underperforming because they don't have the resources or they don't have the training or they don't have the time.
- 8:06SPEAKER_01: They you you ask them, we do this as leaders all the time.
- 8:09SPEAKER_01: We ask somebody to do two contradicting things.
- 8:12SPEAKER_01: So six months ago, we said, do this this way.
- 8:14SPEAKER_01: And then six months later, we go, do this other thing this way, and both can't be true at the same time.
- 8:21SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you work through that with the team?
- 8:23SPEAKER_00: And I I found the best leaders are the most curious people because what you do is you just ask a lot of questions, and this is where I've got to improve so much is I can quickly just go and start throwing stones and arrows at people.
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: Whereas I think the best leaders go in and they say, Hey Gary, I've noticed this is happening, and I I think we both understand that the expectation is that we're able to do XYZ thing.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: Can you explain to me why that's not able to happen?
- 8:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's really good.
- 8:54SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, it's because the iPads are broken.
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: Well, nobody's told me that.
- 8:57SPEAKER_00: How long have they been?
- 8:58SPEAKER_00: Well, the past five months.
- 9:00SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, that's great.
- 9:02SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
- 9:03SPEAKER_01: Yep.
- 9:04SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I really, really like that.
- 9:05SPEAKER_01: I like that framing, and um, it allows you to a lot of room to be able to respond correctly.
- 9:13SPEAKER_01: Because there are times your third point on this was like once you do these two things, once you assume the best, everybody wants to do a good job, and that any errors are an error of just misunderstanding or misalignment.
- 9:25SPEAKER_01: But once you get all those clear and a person's just sandbagging, it becomes like uber clear.
- 9:30SPEAKER_01: You're not guessing.
- 9:32SPEAKER_01: And I that's what I love.
- 9:34SPEAKER_01: And I one other framework that I've learned that helps with this is telling stories that saying that I might be wrong.
- 9:42SPEAKER_01: So I did this today.
- 9:43SPEAKER_01: I said, hey guys, I might be totally wrong on this, but I feel like this is something that might be happening.
- 9:50SPEAKER_01: Are you guys seeing that too?
- 9:52SPEAKER_01: And by saying it's a not, it might be a wrong story, is fine.
- 9:56SPEAKER_01: It allows everybody else to frame their story, and then it allows you to come to a really quick conclusion, especially with a group of leaders.
- 10:03SPEAKER_01: Um, that is another like framing of that, it's same, same kind of thing where you're you're not assuming, you're asking.
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: And where where I know I can get the most frustrated and what is when I try to like teach people or tell people things, I found that when if we can go on a a mission of co-discovery, that's when real change happens.
- 10:25SPEAKER_00: Like when people can understand when when you can use your words effectively to guide them to the answer you already know, but you can just help them take the next step.
- 10:36SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, yeah, like this is the decision.
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: And you're just sitting there nodding your head and you're like, Thumbs up.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
- 10:46SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you you that's ultimately what you want to do is you want to change their mind to what your mind is.
- 10:52SPEAKER_01: And at times you need to change your mind to what their mind is, but they don't know how to articulate that to that to you because you hold all the power in their relationship.
- 11:01SPEAKER_01: So they don't know how to express, like, hey, you told me to do this this way the first time.
- 11:06SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
- 11:07SPEAKER_01: Like, um, so you have to you have to keep playing that.
- 11:10SPEAKER_01: I kind of look at it like a game.
- 11:12SPEAKER_01: You have to keep playing that game over and over and over again.
- 11:15SPEAKER_01: Um, and then what ends up happening, um, and this happens with your kids, your wife, your people will bring you things when they know that they're not gonna have their head chopped off.
- 11:26SPEAKER_01: So, hey, I just noticed that the iPads haven't been getting changed and I figured out why, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 11:31SPEAKER_01: And you're like, oh, that's awesome.
- 11:34SPEAKER_01: Um, that you found that.
- 11:35SPEAKER_01: And now that you're bringing it up and you reward it with positive feedback, that's how you know you're doing this right.
- 11:42SPEAKER_01: The way to get that to stop, I've learned, is someone brings you bad news and you absolutely just dunk on them and just ah, and they're like, nope, never again.
- 11:54SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying anything, and I'm just gonna do my job like a robot.
- 11:57SPEAKER_01: And you end up in no one wants to tell you anything.
- 12:00SPEAKER_01: And and that's I think a lot of dentists and a lot of entrepreneurs too, but dentists, especially because they're doing dentistry all day, uh, get stuck in that, and then their teams get stuck in that.
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 12:11SPEAKER_00: And that that's where that first rule of like assume the best.
- 12:14SPEAKER_00: Uh and we've talked about that, the like the junk the Jocko video of good.
- 12:19SPEAKER_00: It's it's when a problem comes, okay, good.
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: Or okay, this is gonna be this is actually gonna be a good thing, right?
- 12:27SPEAKER_00: And then where where's the gap, right?
- 12:30SPEAKER_00: Like I I feel like there's so many books, you know.
- 12:34SPEAKER_00: I think there's a book called Gap, right?
- 12:36SPEAKER_00: Like it's like like what there's a there's a misunderstanding somewhere.
- 12:42SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we sort through the misunderstanding?
- 12:44SPEAKER_00: And everything is relationships, like learning like the best the best dentists that know how to communicate with patients, they could they usually can communicate well with their team, they're usually pretty good leaders, they're usually all those things because it's just relationships.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: You're just building relationships with people.
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: And and I I heard a podcast the other day, and it was like the worst, the worst thing that you can do is get to the point to where you have a negative outlook, outlook on on humanity.
- 13:12SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's what I feel like so often when we get so frustrated and we assume the worst right away, it's because we have a never negative outlook on just general human beings.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: Man, it's just driving in trash Houstonians, they just can't drive, right?
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, that's not true.
- 13:30SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's because we don't have enough infrastructure, and there's you know, there's they're they're working on two lanes of the highway all the time, you know, type of deal.
- 13:39SPEAKER_00: And so there's a misunderstanding of what the expectation should be.
- 13:42SPEAKER_00: You need to you need to plan on a 40-minute drive no matter what.
- 13:45SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
- 13:46SPEAKER_01: So and I can I can contest that.
- 13:48SPEAKER_01: Um, uh not contest, I can uh witness to people from the Northwest, Seattle, Oregon, they do not know how to drive, and that is a lot of their problems.
- 13:58SPEAKER_01: Um I moved there from California, California, everybody's very offensive, and everybody's changing lanes, and you go to the fast lane if you're going fast, and you go to the slow lane if you're going slow.
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: I went up to the northwest, and the fast lane is the speed limit lane, and they don't merge.
- 14:14SPEAKER_01: And it anyways, um, whole separate subject, but let's talk about really quickly and close it out with okay, so then you drop the hammer.
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: So what happens?
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: So you go to you go to the team member, you you assume the best.
- 14:29SPEAKER_01: No one wants to do a bad job.
- 14:30SPEAKER_01: Hey, we saw that this happened.
- 14:33SPEAKER_01: What happened?
- 14:33SPEAKER_01: We want to know why it didn't turn out that way.
- 14:35SPEAKER_01: And any errors that we're gonna see, we're gonna assume that it's just a misunderstanding, that we're just not aligned.
- 14:42SPEAKER_01: And so I'm not throwing accusations at them.
- 14:44SPEAKER_01: But then just this person keeps doing the same thing over and over and over again.
- 14:49SPEAKER_01: You said drop the hammer.
- 14:51SPEAKER_01: So then what does that mean?
- 14:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I think we often know what the future of our employees are before before anybody.
- 14:59SPEAKER_00: Like we know, we know that Sally's not a good fit.
- 15:01SPEAKER_00: We just don't want to believe it, right?
- 15:04SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's it's going to that person and and again, a lot of what we've been talking about is just being transparent with people.
- 15:11SPEAKER_00: Like going to the person and just saying, hey, hey, Sally, I know we've talked about this, and it it feels like a thousand times that we've talked about this.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: But is there confusion around the process behind XYZ?
- 15:23SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, I got it.
- 15:24SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 15:24SPEAKER_00: Is there a reason why it's not happening?
- 15:26SPEAKER_00: No, I just I was got busy and I forgot okay.
- 15:28SPEAKER_00: Well, I really don't want to have this conversation again.
- 15:32SPEAKER_00: And then, like, we've always talked about stop talking.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: I really don't want to have this conversation again.
- 15:37SPEAKER_00: And they get the point, right?
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: And then at that point, like you get to make the decision as the as a leader of would would you be better off without this person or hiring someone else or XYZ thing.
- 15:49SPEAKER_00: But I think when you realize that it's not a it's not there's not something missing, and I still do believe that they they want to do the best.
- 15:58SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I think there's a very there's a very few handful of people that are just narcissists, and like you're never gonna be able to like trust them and assume the best type of deal.
- 16:09SPEAKER_00: But I think most people you can assume they want to do the best.
- 16:13SPEAKER_00: Um, and the the issue is it's like they don't know, well, do I do I finish this thing or do I go get the new patient in the lobby?
- 16:19SPEAKER_00: Like they have struggle, they struggle balancing that thing, and at a certain point you've got to decide if that's helping or hurting your business, right?
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: And you make a decision from there.
- 16:30SPEAKER_01: I love that.
- 16:30SPEAKER_01: Here's a framework too on um how to help you with that.
- 16:33SPEAKER_01: It's a quote that I um got from um very famous guy, Warren Buffett.
- 16:38SPEAKER_01: Listen to what he said.
- 16:39SPEAKER_01: He said, You're only looking for three qualities in people, and this applies to everything enthusiasm, intelligence, and integrity.
- 16:48SPEAKER_01: But if they don't have the third, then the first two are malicious.
- 16:53SPEAKER_01: I will say one more time.
- 16:54SPEAKER_01: I'll read this one more time.
- 16:55SPEAKER_01: It's really good.
- 16:56SPEAKER_01: If you figure this out, because integrity is the most important thing, but the integrity is the hardest part to see.
- 17:01SPEAKER_01: We always see enthusiasm and intelligence first.
- 17:04SPEAKER_01: So watch, if you're only looking for three qualities enthusiasm, intelligence, and integrity.
- 17:10SPEAKER_01: If they don't have the third, then the first two are malicious.
- 17:13SPEAKER_01: Because without integrity, being super smart actually is not, you don't want that person around you because they're they're gonna steal from you.
- 17:20SPEAKER_01: And it's like I see this all the time with Dennis.
- 17:21SPEAKER_01: They're like, my office manager that I knew for 20 years was stealing$20,000 a month from me every single month for the last third, 20 years.
- 17:30SPEAKER_01: And it was because they were enthusiastic, they were smart, but they didn't have integrity.
- 17:34SPEAKER_01: And so, but integrity is really, really hard to figure out if people have.
- 17:39SPEAKER_01: It takes a long time to work with somebody to go, oh, okay, this person has a lot of integrity, or they don't.
- 17:45SPEAKER_01: So I think that ties in back to what your point is is as you're having these conversations, you're looking for people as we hire enthusiasm, intelligence.
- 17:55SPEAKER_01: And then over time, it's like, do they have the integrity to respond the way that we need them to?
- 18:01SPEAKER_01: And if not, then the enthusiasm and intelligence don't matter.
- 18:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so good.
- 18:06SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna keep that in the back pocket because I could use that often.
- 18:11SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep, that's good.
- 18:13SPEAKER_01: This is a good episode.
- 18:14SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being transparent, working through these problems.
- 18:17SPEAKER_01: And I know this is a uh a really uh useful topic.
- 18:20SPEAKER_01: If you're still listening uh at this point, it means you like it, you like the content.
- 18:24SPEAKER_01: So we really appreciate you guys listening.
- 18:26SPEAKER_01: And we have a mastermind for you.
- 18:28SPEAKER_01: We we want the real ones in there.
- 18:30SPEAKER_01: And if you're still listening, you are them.
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: And uh the link's right down below.
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: And it's only$299 a month.
- 18:37SPEAKER_01: And you get to come and ask us questions.
- 18:39SPEAKER_01: We have about eight docs in there, and everybody's really growing.
- 18:41SPEAKER_01: So if you want to grow and you say, I want to do this stuff that you guys talk about, but it's not working, come jump in the mastermind.
- 18:48SPEAKER_01: There's no contract or anything like that.
- 18:49SPEAKER_01: We'd love to get to know you.
- 18:50SPEAKER_00: I can't all right.
- 18:52SPEAKER_01: Have a good one.