Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
High Standards Create Strong Teams with Katherine Eitel Belt
Courageous conversations are the difference between tension and trust in your practice. In today’s episode, Katherine Eitel Belt, CEO of LionSpeak, shares her framework for establishing clear expectations, empowering employees, and building trust through effective communication — all while retaining your top employees.
With her actionable strategies and tips, you’ll be able to maintain high standards, strengthen relationships with your team, and address conflicts with confidence. If you’re dealing with tardiness or performance issues in your practice, tune in to learn how to master courageous conversations and become a better leader!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- What are courageous conversations?
- Coaching versus courageous conversations
- How courageous conversations transform a workplace
- The ARCH framework for courageous conversations
- Effective conflict resolution strategies
- The importance of feedback
Learn more about Katherine Eitel Belt and LionSpeak:
https://www.lionspeak.net/
Download your free guides on Courageous Conversation!
https://www.lionspeak.net/courageous/
Text us your feedback! (please note: we cannot respond through this channel))
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
I help dentists create thriving practices that make more money, require less of their time, and empower their teams to run the office seamlessly—so they can focus on what matters most.
Join the DPH Hero Collective and get the tools, training, and support you need to transform your practice:
- Comprehensive Training: Boost profit, efficiency, and team engagement.
- Live Monthly Webinars: Learn proven strategies for scaling your practice.
- Live Q&A Sessions: Get personalized help when you need it most.
- Supportive Community: Connect with practice owners on the same journey.
- Editable Systems & Protocols: Standardize your operations effortlessly.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DPHPod.com to learn more.
Is the fear of driving employees away keeping you from addressing key issues like tardiness or performance? It's true that it's hard to find quality employees right now, but that doesn't mean these important conversations should be ignored. In fact, it's probably hurting your business. Today, catherine Itel-Belt is here to share her simple yet effective framework for navigating these tough conversations. Stay tuned for tools and insights that will help you maintain high standards without risking team morale.
Speaker 1:You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you create and scale your dental practice so that you are no longer tied to the chair. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach and owner of a $6 million group practice in the suburbs of Chicago. I want to teach you how to grow and systematize your dental practice so you can spend less time practicing and more time enjoying a life that you love. Let's get started. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I am your host, dr Paul Edgerson. I am joined by somebody very special today, someone I'm very excited to have on. I have the founder and CEO of LionSpeak, catherine Itel-Belt. She is an international speaker, author and performance coach best known for helping professionals develop courageous, unscripted conversations with patients, clients, co-workers and audience. Welcome to the podcast, catherine. Good to see you again.
Speaker 2:Oh, you too so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and this is a live podcast recording. We do have the members of the DPH Hero Collective here. So today I want to talk about what you're calling courageous conversations, which I love that name, because it really does involve courage to have these conversations. Talk about what is a courageous conversation, what that means to you.
Speaker 2:You know, the root word of courageous is core. It's the Latin core, which means heart. So it does require courage, but courage that comes from an authentic, heartfelt space where, even in conflict, we come at it wanting both parties to feel that they are winners or they're winning and are uplifted. So it's so interesting, paul, because I think there's sort of an epidemic right now in our industry, and maybe even the world, in that there seems to be this disbelief that we can hold a standard, whether that's in the professional setting, where you know we all, as leaders, need people to step up and do certain things in a certain way, or achieve certain results, or show up to work on time, or whatever the thing is. You know we need patients to follow our protocols or our procedures and or even in a family, you know we need our kids to do certain things, or you may have some boundaries you need a partner to respect. So in life we have these standards that we want to put forth and want to hold strong, but there seems to be a disbelief that we could hold a high standard for ourselves or for our company and uplift the relationship at the same time that we're talking about that standard. So, in other words, I'm told all the time.
Speaker 2:Well, catherine, I'd love to have a courageous conversation with my hygienist or with my office manager, or with my sterile tech or with my spouse, but especially at work, I'm really afraid that if I have a courageous conversation, if I hold my line on a standard or a boundary that I'm going to drive that person away, I could potentially lose that person and not have the ability to replace them, which creates a real problem for my productivity and my business success. I think a lot of us need to raise our standards, not just hold our old standards, which we're not even doing very well right now, but actually raise our standards, and it's easier than you think. It's just that we haven't learned the simple skills to do it. That's it, and so I hope that breathes some hope into you know, I think, what we feel a little defeated, like you know, we couldn't ask someone to be on time because we might lose the relationship, and it's just not true. We just need to know how to do it in a way that uplifts people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I love that you share that, because it's just not true. We just need to know how to do it in a way that uplifts people. Yeah, you know, I love that you share that because it's. I think a lot of dental practice owners are going through that right now is the labor of art. It's not that great. There's it's hard to find people to replace. So then we are torn between should I address this issue or maybe I should just let it go, because I kind of don't have any other options. If this person does, if it does hurt the relationship and they do walk, or if this does create a bad work environment, what do you see as a difference in a practice and maybe that's having these conversations poorly but still having them versus a practice that's not having them at all? I mean, is it still like having them poorly is just as bad as not having them at all, or is it could be even more damaging?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's one is more damaging than the other, but they both have a bad outcome, in my opinion. So, first of all, I think most people know what we're unsatisfied with, whether we say it or not. Most people know, or they have a sense of it. They have a sense that we're irritated. They have a sense that we're, at a minimum, we're not excited about how this relationship is going or what the outcomes are. So people often have a sense of it anyway, even when we're avoiding it.
Speaker 2:On top of that, we do damage to ourselves, we stagnate the relationships and we stagnate our business growth when we avoid important conversations.
Speaker 2:All of us came into this and started a business or got into a leadership position within a business because we had some sort of a dream, some sort of a vision, some sort of a place we wanted to land, that we thought I'm going to take the chance and roll the dice and see if I can do this, see if I can create this, build this and drive this business to this place I'd like to be.
Speaker 2:And those are very different for all of us, but we sometimes get, often get sidetracked because then we have to. We need a team to help us do that. And once we introduce more than one person into the dynamic, there's going to be differences of opinion, the dynamic. There's going to be differences of opinion and perspective there's going to be, and I believe that relationships aren't really growing if we aren't having those conversations. It's in the having of those conversations, constructively, that relationships actually grow stronger. It's not in the absence of them. They grow stronger and get better and we get back on the road to the thing that was exciting to us in the beginning.
Speaker 1:I love you sharing that because it's I think we look at practice owners and we think of often that should we maybe relax a little bit and not be so micromanaging, or is this an issue that's large enough to be dealt with? That requires a conversation. So would you have any advice for owners who are saying am I just being too on my team and do I need to relax a little bit, versus should I address every little thing that bothers me? That's not meeting my standard.
Speaker 2:So let me answer that two ways. The first is there's a difference between coaching conversations and courageous conversations. So the way we structure what we teach is that you should have ongoing coaching conversations happening with every employee all the time. But the different than a review these are. We're working on one specific thing. It's the next thing for them. Whatever we mutually agree is the next thing, and I am their accountability piece. I am the piece that says what are you doing toward this goal? Well, first of all, what is the goal? Secondly, what are you doing towards it? How can I support you? What resources do you need? What support do you need? What accountability do you need? What problems might get in the way and how can we anticipate those and head those off at the pass for you to be successful? The second part of the question is around courageous conversation. So sometimes we could coach people, we could be coaching them on something, but they're still showing up late to work three days a week, right, or whatever, and so would I address that Without a doubt.
Speaker 2:So I contend that all our irritations and all our upsets are usually a result of one of two things Either we never had an agreement around this thing, we never had a clear agreement. There was a missing agreement. In other words, or we had an agreement, we both agree, we had an agreement, but one of us has broken it. And the minute someone breaks an agreement, I'm on it. I'm on it to say I just want to clarify that we understand the current agreement about what time work starts and that we both have the same definition and clarity around that. Right, I mean, I'm on it right away. And if someone says, yeah, it was just a one-time thing, my daughter was sick when we left this morning. I had to find someone else to care for her. You know, I'm going to be reasonable about that. If it's consistent, then I've been on it.
Speaker 2:And so by the time we're at three or four, we're already having a conversation about how can I support you to either align with this agreement or to determine that you cannot align with the agreement right or with the standard. And so it's always centered around an invitation to join us. It's never my conversations, whether it's a coaching conversation or a courageous conversation, it's never centered around you have to do anything. I'm demanding that you do anything. I really do think if you have ongoing coaching happening in a positive way and you're ready to have courageous conversations, you've learned a process to have them. We teach a simple four-step process. If you have those skills, you're not so afraid of it. Actually, it is not that uncommon for people clients who've been in coaching relationships with us to say I actually find myself looking forward to these conversations.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Because these conversations here's why really good, courageous conversations actually remind people they were never a victim to begin with. They were always an empowered human being and we're treating them that way. We're respecting their choices. We just want to make sure that they know what the choices are very clearly. They know what the choices are very clearly. We have to create clarity and inspiration. Think about that.
Speaker 2:So I coach speakers as part of my job. I say from the stage you do not want to create confusion in your audience, right? You want to leave them feeling clear about the next steps for them that you're wanting to inspire in them. And you want to inspire them and I'll tell you. The only way you can know that you're clear is that the other person could give that information back to you in a way that you went yep, that's it, that's 100% it. You know what are we building in my company? I hope that if you ask someone that worked for me, they could give you an answer that I would say, yep, that's it, that's what we're building right there. That's the goal, that's the vision. You know. If you said what are the most important values or standards that Catherine has in her company that you've agreed to. I would hope that they could tell you what those were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it sounds like a lot of these issues that we run into could be resolved if we're just having these conversations more often, so that there's just not so out of the ordinary. Yeah, but I think the issue we run into is that for us as dental owners and people without probably the proper skills to do it is, we more or less don't like the unpredictability of having these conversations, because sometimes they work out great, depending on who's on the other side of the chair and how defensive they're going to get and how well they can accept criticism or just have these sort of conversations. But then for somebody who might put up a little bit of a stance and feel like there's not as much safety there, we don't know how to navigate that, so we just avoid having all of them, which makes every conversation that we have so much more weight on it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, it's stressful. You so much more weight on it. Exactly, yeah, it's stressful. You know I don't really ever think about my conversations as criticism. All I think about is it's my job to be clear, what we're shooting for, what the standards are. You have a choice. You're in full control here. I've made the choice that this is how I want it in my practice. This is how, at least for now, until we decide something, is better. But for now I've decided this is the best. This is how I want to handle this with patients. These are the financial arrangements we want to make with patients, and nothing outside of these three. Unless you get my approval, I want you to follow the guidelines we've been trained on with Catherine's team on how to communicate this to a patient, and I'm asking for anyone who works in this position to follow that framework that we've been trained on. So we have consistency, because consistency is a standard here.
Speaker 1:I think it's great because we're not taking, like the agency away from the employee.
Speaker 2:We're not taking agency away. That's wrong.
Speaker 1:And we're not trying to control anyone. We're not taking agency away. That's wrong and we're not trying to control anyone. We're just being clear about what we want and the requirements that it's going to be to be part of this team. Some of us are so scared to have a high standard for our employees, but in my experience from having my team for the past 13 years is that people love, they feel value, they feel competent, they feel empowered. Once you hold them to a high standard and be consistent about it, it's not like, oh, that sounds like so much more work.
Speaker 1:I would rather have the job where there's no standards and there's nobody watching over my shoulder, and I would beg to differ. I think most people will appreciate one, maybe like from the outside, in saying I don't know if I would like working at a place like that, but once they're part of it, they're going. I love this Because it does it makes them feel good on the inside. Now my question for you would be we probably are very good at having these conversations get derailed very quickly because of certain things that we're doing. What is like a framework that listeners could use to go into these, to make sure that we keep safety in the conversation, to make sure we don't elicit defensiveness, and that we can make these conversations more or less predictable, so that we have them more and we're comfortable having them.
Speaker 2:So we never got these skills right. Most of us didn't get them at home and most of us didn't take a class in it, although you can take classes in it, but most of us didn't and most of the people working for you didn't. So is it any wonder that we're struggling? All of us were struggling. So here's the framework that we use Now. First of all, you got to come from a strong mindset. You're not speaking, you're not using this framework from an emotional platform of fear. I'm afraid, if this doesn't go well, I might lose this person and I can't replace them. That's an emotional platform of fear. So you've got to write your own internal ship. Leaders go first. They do this work first. If you're feeling angry and frustrated, you got to get on top of that and you have to master the skills to be able to shift your internal perspective and step onto confidence. And so, from there, there's a simple four-step framework, and we call it ARCH. So I always think of it as the bridge between this disconnect, this gap of frustration, and resolution. So the A stands for a couple of things. Well, let me just say, if I'm bringing this to Paul, the first thing I'm going to do before I even step into the framework is I'm going to say, paul, hey, thanks for giving me a couple of minutes. I wanted to talk to you today about the amount of periodontal therapy programs that we're converting in your daily work with your patients and we're falling short of the. You know, I've looked at some charts and sometimes you're probing, sometimes you're not. So you know, sometimes you're following the protocols we've set forth and sometimes you're just not meeting those. So I want to talk about that, I want to clear up what's expected and I want to talk about where your relationship with that. But before we get started, I'm curious Paul, how are you feeling about your ability to follow the protocols we've set forth for periodontal standards with patients and to fulfill on that standard? How are you feeling?
Speaker 2:So before I jump in, I always want to put my toe in the water and see what's the temperature here, because whatever Paul says is going to be helpful to me. It's like Paul's going to reveal his cards before we ever even start playing the game. So if Paul says well, I'm really glad we're having this conversation, because I've actually been really struggling with it and I have been thinking a lot about it, I know I'm not meeting the standard, and I've actually got a couple of ideas that I think would help me meet the standard, and so I'm glad we're talking about this right. So how big is our gap? It's really small. That's helpful to know. But if Paul says I have no idea what you're talking about I always follow the protocols I don't even know what you're talking about right Immediately. I know our gap's pretty big and so it's probably going to be a lack of clarity, it's probably going to be a lack of training or something there that I'm going to need to shore up.
Speaker 2:So I always start with listening first Set the context, but listen first, take a stab at that, then I go into the framework. So then I might say you know, thank you for sharing your perspective. That's so helpful to me, and I want you to know, as we get into this conversation we start poking around here that one of the things I most appreciate about you is the depth of relationship and trust that you have with your patients and that they have in you. I value it and I think your ability to do that is actually pretty extraordinary. It and I think your ability to do that is actually pretty extraordinary, and I just want you to know that I see it and I honor it and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:And would you agree? It's important for any practice to have some standards that any clinician for sure, but really any employee but for sure a clinician would know, so that they could decide if ethically, morally, clinically, they align with it. That that would be the first thing we would have to make sure we do, that you and I align with the standards I'm setting forth, because I want you to know that I respect that if you didn't agree with these standards, this wouldn't be a good fit. We're going to be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and I would never want you to do things you did not morally or ethically feel were right. Would you agree with that? That's important that we establish that. Okay, so Paul and I are now in ARCH, we're on A and we just made we are getting ready to step into where we don't agree and where Paul's not doing what I want from a place. We agree. We agree. This is important.
Speaker 1:What was the A, Catherine? What was the A?
Speaker 2:So the A is agreement. So I affirmed something about, I appreciated something about you. It also stands for where in this issue, do Paul and I agree? So I try to find something like if you were late to work and that's what we're talking about then I might say would you agree that it doesn't make sense for a business like ours to have people coming and going at a variety of times and that on the days when we're all here on time and our meeting starts on time, those days tend to go better? Would you agree with that? We tend to get our lunch and we tend to stay on time and we start on time. Would you agree with that? A reasonable person I mean, I've got nothing for crazy, but if they're a reasonable person, then you know this will work and they might give you some attitude. They might say well, of course you know, and I just go okay, good, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:And then I move into R, and R stands for resolution or request. So I'm either going to make a request I have a request, paul that you read through our protocols again or that we read through them together and that you jot down any places where you either don't agree and have some issues with it or need some verification or need some data on it to convince you that's fine, or maybe you're just struggling to meet and I'd like for you to just highlight those. So I have a request or I don't know how to solve this. I'm coming because we need to, but I actually don't have the answer. Sometimes you don't have the answer, like you don't have the answer to get them to work on time, like I don't know what that's going to be for you. So I'm actually just here to create a resolution. Either you're going to try and I'm certainly willing to help you in any way I can and the standard stays the same.
Speaker 2:A lot of people think that the way I communicate I've had people say it seems like you're so soft and smooth. They think I was born that way, which I wasn't. This was a learned skill and if I can learn it, you guys can learn it that I'm soft on my standards and actually the reverse is true. I think I have higher standards than a lot of the clients we work with in terms of how people do work for me. It's just that I don't. I'm not interested in threatening people into it.
Speaker 2:So the R sometimes is a resolution we're negotiating and I'm helping to do that. There's lots to that R. That's where the real work is happening. But at some point I always remind myself in R we're either trying to figure out there never was an agreement here, or we did have an agreement and someone's broken it. So you know, this is an interesting time.
Speaker 2:My husband and I are not far off politically, but we are on slightly different sides of a lot of the issues, some of the issues. So you can imagine an election year. It's an interesting conversation around our space and on debate nights we weren't having good luck on those nights. And so if the relationship's important to you, you don't want that conflict to just be unresolved. And so this year we realized we didn't have an agreement, that it wasn't going well in the past and we were ending up feeling ways we didn't want to feel and having conflict unresolved we didn't want to have.
Speaker 2:And so we talked about what were some of the agreements that we could put in place on debate night and we laughed that one of the first ones was no wine at dinner that night, because it just didn't help things, you know. So sometimes it's something simple as that, but it was also. Could we watch the debate without any side commentary? Could we just watch it come to our own conclusions and then decide either later that night or the next morning when we wanted to talk about our views and our perspectives? It worked much better.
Speaker 2:So what we realized in that our part was that there actually was no agreement in place for how we were going to respect each other's views and have a rich conversation that built people up rather than tore them down, and so that's what I'm talking about. And, as we recognize, we weren't trying to patch up an old agreement and create a new resolution. We never had one to begin with, and so that's what you're trying to do in R and then C is to clarify before you leave, to make sure that everybody's on the same page. It's really easy for two people to hear the resolution differently, and so just bringing clarity to it and making sure we're all on the same page and then leaving it with hope, leaving it with a feeling of gratitude for the conversation and optimism for the new future you've created. However, whatever you decided yeah.
Speaker 1:That's great, I mean it's. I think it's just we are just lacking any way to go into this. And I think, what's important, I love the example you share, because we don't need an agreement when everybody is doing the same thing, just when, like, if two people are agreeing very much politically, there's really no agreement that needs to be happening, because but then it's like when we're working in a diverse workplace, you know and I'm not talking about demographically, but with just people with different ideas. It's important we're all going to be coming from a different place, of how we are raised and how we handle conflict, and we have to realize that people don't handle conflict the way that we do, and we need to have these tools that help us do these things. I love that you have this frame.
Speaker 2:And I think we need to teach our people. You know, I think managers, they say, spend 50%, 40 to 50% of their time. Managers are spending fixing problems that people should be able to fix for themselves, but they don't know how to do it.
Speaker 2:And so we accept that. They come into our office and they say, oh, I'm so mad, she hurt my feelings and she's so disrespectful to me and if she's going to be here, I'm quitting. And so we think it's our job and they think it's our job, and we've convinced them that it's our job to go fix their stuff. We train a lot of new managers and one of the things that we talk about is the ability to coach someone to solve their own and to solve this in a way that felt good to you and good to them, and for me to coach you toward that outcome. Well, doesn't that make more sense. Reasonable person is going to say, probably not like it, but they're going to say, yeah, probably does, and then to say, okay, so I'm going to be right beside you, I'm going to help you, but I'm going to teach you a framework that I've learned that has been really helpful for me, and I'm going to be right beside you and it's going to grow you and it's going to probably grow that relationship and any future relationship. You find yourself and now, if I've been coaching with this person and I already know that they aspire to become management level or they aspire to a raise or they aspire to advancing their career in any way. Then I'm going to say and remember in our last coaching conversation Paul, you mentioned that someday in the future you're hoping to maybe be one of the leads in our hygiene department or our administrative department, and this will absolutely be one of the skills that you'll need to master to be looked at for a promotion like that. So let's start now, right.
Speaker 2:And so I stopped solving their issues. I don't wanna be their mom, I wanna be their coach and their boss, and I wanna be the boss that they look back and say that was the best boss I worked for. She grew me, she believed in me. Boss I worked for. She grew me, she believed in me, she challenged me, she saw the best in me, she wouldn't accept less.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I always felt she trusted me and had my back, you know. And so every leader here that's listening to this can do this. We just have to go. First, we have to learn it, first we have to model it, and then we have to expect it. And you can, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I would share that. You know, when I'm starting a coaching client, they always we have the team fill out an anonymous survey. Yeah, and there is one question on there that is almost unanimously yes, and it's do I wish I got more feedback from my leadership. Every single person I've never came across I mean rarely do I come across an office they're like no, I'm good with the amount I'm getting. Everybody wants more.
Speaker 2:We're passionate to change that. Wouldn't it be great if, in the future, we had done such good work, paul, that we had people saying no, I'm good, I get good feedback. I mean this generation, these last two generations that we've been working in the workplace with. They do not respond to supervision. Supervision is a dead baby boomer industrial age idea. We don't need to supervise. We don't need to. In other words, we don't need to scan our environments for what's wrong and what's broken.
Speaker 2:What they respond to is coaching. So we need to scan our environments for where is their untapped potential, untapped potential and speak to that and coach to that they respond. So I've heard people say you know these low work ethics and there's low loyalty, and I call BS. What I think is there's been low leadership and we have not adjusted to the ways that will call this generation to higher standards. All human beings love to feel they have purpose, they have impact, they have influence and they have done good work most people and so we just have to learn how to have conversations that inspire that in them and then we benefit. We reap the benefits of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Well, tell the listeners where they can learn more about you and what other products that you offer through LionSpeak.
Speaker 2:You know what, for a lot of years I did practice management consulting, but we no longer do that. We have narrowed our focus to communications coaching only. So we coach on patient communications, telephone skills, treatment, presentation, financial conversations. We coach on team dynamics, obviously, team culture. We do a lot of team retreats and we train a lot of leadership teams and then we also train speakers and trainers as well. So communications coaching whether you're communicating to a patient, a team or an audience and you can find more information about us at our website, obviously, which is lionspeaknet. Lionspeaknet and all of those services are there. We have a great couple of new products. We have an on-demand video series on Courageous Conversations, and I'm authoring a book that will be out Q1 of next year on Courageous Conversations, and I'm authoring a book that will be out Q1 of next year on Courageous Conversations.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited about that, yeah, and then we also have a leadership academy. That is virtual 12-month curriculum for new leaders and managers so very excited about those, and the videos are on demand. You have access for a year, comes with a workbook and small little modules. You can take your whole team through it or just your leaders and your team, but I think the whole team can benefit from it. And I would love to share a resource with your listeners In this download there's a document called the Four Reasons why People Don't Do what we Want them To Do and what To Do About it.
Speaker 2:So that's a really great document. And the other one is a little sheet about courageous conversations. On the left, it has a mindset piece Down at the bottom. It has these two rules of engagement listen first and don't talk backwards. And then it has the ARCH formula on the right and it's all in one document so you could print it out, talk to your team about it. I would hope that you'd print it out and put it on your bulletin board at home and talk to your kids about it. I think the world would be a better, healthier place, safer place if more people knew how to have these conversations where we have different perspectives, with dignity and with grace and non-judgment, and I think they'd be a lot more successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. I have a 14-year-old girl that has a lot of friends. Yeah, and man, is that tough to navigate with all these girls? They are so like none of them deals with conflict in a way, and then they do it all via text. So when they start getting upset with each other, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And me and my wife are just there. Oh my God, what do we got to do with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've got to teach them. And the first thing we have to do is model it and you could have that around that conversation of her choices, around the texting and the reality that you're inviting her into and the leadership you're inviting her into Because it exists. You know, it'll just be her choice about what outcomes she wants.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that, and what kind of leadership role? Yeah, that's the inspirational piece. So the resource all you need to do is go to lionspeaknet, slash courageous, and we will send you that, those resources that give you a link.
Speaker 1:That'll be in the show notes too, listeners, yeah. So let's take a few questions. If anyone wants to throw a question into the chat, I have one. How do you approach longer tenure team members about following the rules we are trying to establish for new team members, like being on phones and clocking out during lunch when leaving the building? It's hard to find good employees these days, but certain people can't be above the rules either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would use this ARCH formula with them. I would not wait. First time I saw it that evening afternoon. I'll pick your time during the day, but that day, you know, certainly by the next morning. I would just want a quick conversation. I would just go into it optimistic and very positive and I always step into those conversations originally with me taking the responsibility, not them. So I'm never going into it pointing fingers at them. I'm going in pointing fingers at me, saying I wanted to have a conversation real quickly with you, obviously one of my longest, most appreciated employees, and I value our relationship.
Speaker 2:And I noticed yesterday that you were on your phone during working hours and I feel concerned that I may not have done fulfilled my responsibility in being clear about the standard.
Speaker 2:And so I want to take an opportunity because it's not fair for me to feel frustrated or to feel irritated if I've not been clear about what the standard is, how to meet it and why it's important to me. So what you know what is negotiable is if you have an emergency, they can call the front desk and absolutely, if you need to be on your phone, we would totally understand. Anything short of an emergency during working hours would not be acceptable, and the expectation for a seasoned employee is to obviously show and model for our new employees the standards that we hold in the practice. And so one of the standards is if I did not make it clear, I want to do that now so that you can decide if this is something you can meet and we can have a discussion. If you feel you can't and I'm not judging them, I'm really saying was I clear? Oh, if I'm not, let me be clear. And how do you feel? I mean, do you feel that's a standard you can meet?
Speaker 1:What is the follow up to if they say you know, I don't see what the big problem is with me being on my phone. And I think this phone one's a great one, because I feel like this is like a discussion is as old as time, yeah yeah, I would say I totally, I totally get it, and I can appreciate if you don't feel that it's that important.
Speaker 2:The reality is, this is my business and for me it is For me it is. So I want you to know 100%. I have no judgment around that. I don't think you're bad and I'm good, or you're you know wrong and I'm right. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, for whatever reason, it's important to me. I love that and I own the business, and so I want you here. I value you and it is a standard that is non-negotiable, and so I'm just asking if you think you can meet it, and I'm hoping you'll say yes.
Speaker 1:Follow-up question is that do we have to go into it with this idea that if we're going to bring it up, it has to be non-negotiable?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I think a lot like a good example of things. Sometimes it seems non-negotiable, but the time work starts probably isn't negotiable. It might be sometimes, but in a lot of instances it's not. So let's say, work starts at 745. So I have a client.
Speaker 2:In the past I've had a client who one of their longtime hygienists. He loved her, patients loved her, the team loved her and she'd never been late. But all of a sudden she's late like two days a week and it's just you can tell she's just struggling. So finally he's like I got to talk to her but I cannot lose this woman. And I said, well, of course you can't, we're not going to lose her, but we got it Something's up. So we talked about it, I coached him on it and I said call me when you know, after you have the conversation, let me know how it went. And so he did. And he's like well, I'm really glad I talked to you and I'm really glad you reminded me just to be open about interesting ideas, about how she could meet it. Because when I said, just remember to be open to any interesting ideas and he goes well, I will, but there's nothing much negotiable about.
Speaker 2:When work starts. It starts at that time and I'm like I know, but I'm saying I don't know what she's going to bring. Just be open. So he said I'm really glad you said that. I said why, what happened?
Speaker 2:He said, well, she revealed to me that she was getting a divorce and up until now she hadn't felt good about revealing that. But up until this divorce, the separation with her husband was happening. He took the kids clear across town to a private school in the mornings. Well, once they separated, she's now doing it and so a couple of mornings a week she's struggling to get back across traffic to get there on time, and she just hadn't been ready to tell anybody about it.
Speaker 2:So I thanked her for sharing that with me, told her I would keep it confidential, and she said you know, I do have a crazy idea and I don't know you can say no to this and I won't be, you know, offended.
Speaker 2:Her idea was that on the mornings that she was late, they all met for their morning meeting in a team room and they had a big monitor that they, you know. She said I've got my phone on a holder on my dash and if I promised that I would not leave the day without checking my patients for the next day, checking the charts and being, you know, looking at the schedule and being prepared. Could I, if I can see that I'm not gonna make it, can I come in on Zoom just until the school year ends? Can I come in on Zoom so that I can still hear what people are contributing at the morning meeting and I can still contribute about my patients? I said what did you say about that? He said I told her that I absolutely loved the idea that my concern was that others would want to do the same.
Speaker 2:I was thinking the same thing and I said what did you decide? And he said I decided that I would talk to the team about it and that I would say this was a one-time exception for this individual in this circumstance, to the end of May.
Speaker 1:Clarity.
Speaker 2:And that was it, and so that just is a good example non-negotiable on the time, negotiable on how we fulfilled it, and so I'm always open for creative ideas. At the end of the day, I have to make decisions around what I think is acceptable and not acceptable, and so that was a great example. So, yeah, I think some things are very negotiable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, catherine. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You're welcome, and I hope there's some people listening and say you know what. I'm going to stop putting off that conversation and just force something that's something you could commit to. Just commit to doing it, you know. Commit to doing it and getting better at it. Because, man, I think if you could nail this at your office and model this for your employees and teach it to your employees, gosh, what an organization we would have.
Speaker 2:Life is better. Life is better. It's not such a struggle. Oh my gosh, it's just not such a struggle. I mean, there's one thing we've got to do every day, and that's communicate. You're never going to get away from it, and so just learn to do it a little bit better. It's not that hard and it's really worth it. The results are really worth it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree, those links will be in the notes. Check out Catherine's stuff at linespeaknet and. Thank you so much, catherine. This was a really great episode. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I always love being on your show. I'll come anytime.
