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
Team Resistance and Getting Buy In with Anthony Do
One of the biggest leadership mistakes is making your "why" about you, not your team. In this episode, Dr. Anthony Do of Red Oak Family Dentistry returns to share hard-earned lessons on leadership, motivation, and creating a culture that makes your team want to stay. Learn how to become a leader people trust, find fulfillment in your career, and build a loyal team that's invested in the long-term success of your practice!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- The truth about your “why”
- What true leadership looks like
- A simple exercise to get real team buy-in
Text us your feedback! (please note: we cannot respond through this channel))
Check out www.relevanceonlinemarketing.com if you want to get the same great marketing results as Dr. Etch. Mention DPH and get your first month FREE!
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
I help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Join the DPH Hero Collective and get the tools, training, and support you need to transform your practice:
- Team and Doctor Training for every aspect of Practice Management
- Comprehensive Training: Boost profit, efficiency, and team engagement.
- 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.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
Okay, we've all been there. We've chased big goals. We're always pushing for more production and sometimes we just get there and we realize that focusing on the numbers instead of our people can lead to burnout instead of fulfillment. Today, Dr Anthony Doe shares a fresh perspective on leadership that will have you rethinking what it means to motivate your team, Instead of just relying on those vague mission statements or the policies that don't stick. You're going to learn how to lead in a way that makes your people want to show up, want to do great work and stay at your practice for the long term. Stay tuned.
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. Hey, welcome back to Dental Practice Heroes. I'm your host, Dr Paul Edgerton, and very excited for my guest today, somebody I very much respect and a member of a private mastermind that I've been part of and someone who has taught me a lot about systemization and running a practice and just an all-around, very just, intelligent person. And, second time on the podcast, the owner of Red Oak Family Dentistry. It's in McKinney, Texas. Welcome back to the podcast, Dr Anthony Doe. What's happening, Anthony?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me back, man, super excited. I think last time we talked I don't know how long ago a year or two years ago or something. Lots has changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as it does, and in the life of a dental practice owner it changes fast. I guess if it's changing that's a good thing, though If it's not changing that means you're kind of stagnating. Yeah, you know, if the listeners haven't heard that episode, tell the listeners about you, your journey into practice ownership, red Oak Family Dentistry and just that whole timeline, because you've got a large practice now but it didn't start large. So talk about that progression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just real quick. Started 2014, seven ops, 2,500 square feet, worked on it. A couple of years later started to grow and was like man, I can't see all these patients Then got an associate and then grew out of that and then expanded into another 2,500 square feet next to me and now we're 15 ops and basically I'm three docs in the office right now and I work three days a week. We're like a seven to seven practice and so as the office grows, you know that people come in and out and the question is how do you keep the practice staying the same despite things fluctuating and, at the same time, failing and trying to get back up and not causing too much damage, but then also learning about yourself, because in the end, when you get to the top of the mountain, you ask yourself what was the point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I can really relate to that because I mean, that's what I feel like my whole practice journey has been is chasing things that essentially like I think I wanted, and then getting them and saying that didn't do what I thought it was going to do for me. Now going all the way back to when you like opened this practice. What was your vision for the practice back then, and has that changed over the years?
Speaker 2:So, when I first started the practice. I remember when I was speaking with my EOS coach and with EOS if you listen to the last episode, I'm really big into EOS and I still do it. But the number one thing that they always ask is what is your why? And with the discovery meeting, what was discussed was hey man, why are you doing this, you doing this? And so for me, the thing that resonated for me was not the I want to be the best dentist in McKinney or I wanted to be the shining beacon of oral health. It wasn't anything like that For me, it really was I want to make sure that my employees or my team members were fulfilled, and the core focus or the why that I came up with at the time was to have and to be with a supportive work family.
Speaker 2:Really simple, something that the staff can say and repeat, so that any time that you do anything in the office, it is in concert to have and to be with a supportive work family. And so if you're doing anything and it was against that you knew you were doing the wrong thing. And so, as I've gone on, I've refined that, because even that didn't resonate with people. I had the problem of putting in systems, thinking that they were going to work out well, only to have them crash and burn and fail and then asking why and I thought that why that I can imbue into people would be like, yeah, you know, I should probably verify this insurance really well because I want to be with a supportive work family. You know that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Would it be accurate to say that being with a supportive work family is not motivating enough to verify the insurance correctly? Correct yeah.
Speaker 2:Correct Because the thing correctly Correct. Yeah, correct, because the thing is they're empty words. And there's one thing that I've learned and I've coined this for myself and I live by it. It's called the husband gift fallacy, and I'm pretty sure you've committed this too as well. It's when I buy my wife a gift that I like. So you buy a gift for your wife, you like it, not your wife likes it, you like it. And you give it to your wife and you're like do you like it? And she's like, yeah, it's great, it's not what I want, but it's fine, right. And then you're kind of angry because you put a lot of thought into it and she gives you less than stellar response, and now no one's happy.
Speaker 2:So we do that to our team members. We give them things that we think that they want and they don't want it. And then we get angry or resentful when they aren't head over heels over our altruistic ways, if that makes sense. I sent this person to an expensive CE thing and guess what? They quit the next day. What the heck Stuff like that. Oh, I gave this person a raise and they're still acting that way. What the heck.
Speaker 2:And it's the same thing. You're giving them something that they don't want. You didn't ask them what they wanted, and so that's why, like, creating these whys are kind of just empty spinning wheels sometimes, because it's your why, it's not their why, it's your why, and so that was the part that I kept failing on that, this thing that I'm feeling. I'm hoping that they feel too, and what it came down to is it's something I wanted more for them than they wanted for themselves. The team members in my office have families and they have kids, and they want to be able to go to their kids if they're sick, right, without feeling resentment or feeling guilt tripped, and to have to decide to choose between their job and their loved ones, and to have to decide to choose between their job and their loved ones. And so, despite the why that I create to be a supportive work family which is what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2:It's like hey, susie over here has a kid, let's just all be a family. Okay, be a family, because Susie is just not a dental assistant in the office. She's got a family. She's got a husband, maybe she's got a grandmother that's sick. Whatever, you don't know, you only know her as the cog in the wheel, and so there was no policy that I could do that could appease anyone. It seems as though that it was a complex system that required something that was beyond a physical policy to solve, that. There was something higher than a culture that I had to imbue in our human beings in order for them to be cool. That Susie, susie's kid, is sick and she's not coming in today, and can you be cool with that?
Speaker 1:So, as a practice owner, trying to get our teams to do the things that we want them to do so that we can get the business results that we want, I mean, what does leadership look like to you in a dental practice? What does leadership?
Speaker 2:mean. It's a very difficult definition to come up with. There clearly is a difference between, let's say, the word leader and the concept of leadership, because anyone can be a leader. You can be like the crappiest business owner and people will still follow you. Why? Because you pay them good, yeah, right. But the question is now not what is a leader? Because we can say clearly see, bad people can be leaders. What is leadership? What is good leadership?
Speaker 2:In the book the Idiot, which talks about Dostoevsky's experience of almost being killed, is that he says beauty will save the world. So, in the same way of talking about leadership which is ethereal, nebulous, can't really describe it the same as beauty. Here's how he described it the thing that is beautiful. That which is beautiful is two elements. One is when I am next to this thing, I am whole and I am well. And the second thing is the thing that I am next to, in which I am whole and I am well. It is timeless. Right? Is your dental practice beautiful? When you go into your dental practice, do you have a sense of wholeness and wellness? And is what you feel timeless? Because, like, let's say, I wanted to open a practice, then I want to open another practice and I open another practice, and then I want to make it bigger and I want to hire more people, and then I want to make more production. Is that the thing that you do make you whole and well, and it is timeless? Arguably not. I've been there Because once I hit that production, it's not timeless. I did it, I'm done. There's a timeliness, yeah Right, not beautiful.
Speaker 2:Leadership can't be taught, it has to be practiced. And so leadership this is my definition of leadership it is one who suffers the love for beauty. To do the right thing is painful. To not chase the thing that you so desire, which is fame and maybe multiple practices or whatever. It's very painful to the ego To say you didn't hit your mark in terms of your production and being like, okay, well, I think it's okay because Susie can go see her kid when she's sick. I think that decision, while it's not monetarily, is the best. It makes me feel whole. And then when you tell Susie that hey, it's okay, that's the mark of leadership, because you did the thing, you did it. And so, yes, you can be a leader, anyone can be a leader, right, but to me, leadership is that to suffer the love of beauty, that which makes you whole and well and that which is timeless.
Speaker 2:So how do you make this actually work? Here's what I do. If you want to be a leader, obviously a leader needs to have followers. The way you get your followers is to create a small group of people, a leadership team. Okay, four to six people. And here's what you do you give them a piece of paper that says what are your wants, your personal wants, your professional goals and your deal breakers, and you have them write it all out. And when they write it all out, you read them and then, as you read them, you commit to your leadership team that every decision that you make will be in concert to what they wrote. Then there'll be your followers, then you'll be a leader and then they will take your lead as they lead their teams. So hope that helps.
Speaker 1:What about the lead? You're going to do everything that the leaders. It's in concert with them, it's in line with the leaders at your practice. Are they also doing the same exercise with their departments and stuff like that? Correct, and then is that feasible?
Speaker 2:So it is not feasible. I will not be able to hit all your wants and goals, okay, but I will do everything I can to avoid your deal breakers. Every decision that I make will be always in mind of what you wrote. You're only human, but that commitment alone is enough for people to say, hey, I think this person is someone I can trust, and if you actually do the thing, you're a leader.
Speaker 1:So when did you do this exercise with your team? Last year something like that. What have you felt as far as like the difference after you did this exercise and you now had these set of things to operate within?
Speaker 2:Words like I'm going to die at Red Oak forever come to mind. I will live for Red Oak. I will do anything for Dr Doe, right, because I'm doing the thing for them. I didn't have to write a policy, I didn't have to memorize anything, I didn't have to do anything, I just said, basically, every quarter we revisit this thing and I go am I still doing what I committed to? Hey, did you get that personal thing you wanted? Did you get that trip you wanted? Hey, professional goals, am I setting things up? Can I help you? Most importantly, am I doing any of these deal breakers? And so then they know that I'm on their side, they're feeling it. And then when I make a decision, and they see it and it's in concert to what they wrote, again, I did the thing and now they're following me. Now it's not possibly not like the most monetarily advantageous thing to me, 100% Right, but everything is temporary in life. So, yeah, what are we here to live for, you know?
Speaker 1:Well, you know what else is. I'm thinking, as you're saying it, as far as like monetarily, and I think we all, as practice owners, we get these metric systems, you know, we get the things that read the metrics and it shows, like, where we are in the percentile of other practices and we feel like we've got to maximize every little thing. Where I think I've shared this with my coaching clients is if you build a leadership team and they can take a lot of the stress and the stuff that you don't like at your practice off your shoulders and make your life better, it is worth the extra money that you will have to pay these people to reward them for what they bring as far as value into your practice. So you're not maximizing your wealth that way. But it's not all quantifiable, correct?
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot more to, and that's what I almost wish when I look back on my practice journey is that I maximized everything. I burnt the candle at both ends and we just ran like crazy at the expense of, I think, like our mental health and just the way that we felt about the practice, and it was almost like there's part of me that thinks it gave me like PTSD from like I would. I remember going into the practice on a Sunday night just to pick something up Right and feeling like sick to my stomach when I walked through that door Right and I'm like what the hell is going on. And I think it's because we were probably, like you said, focused. I was focusing on the wrong thing, I wasn't focusing on virtue, I was focusing on vice, I was focusing on greed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you said it right. There are things that count, that can't be counted is what they say. This is one of those things, but it counts, it matters, but we're all busy doing the thing that we can count, which is the production and the money.
Speaker 1:So what's your plan for the future? What's the future at Oak?
Speaker 2:You know, I gosh, I have mulled over, especially with people selling their practices, and it's quite tempting and you know, you see all these numbers and you're just like oh gosh. And so for me you choose what you believe, and I'm choosing to believe this is that it's the thing that makes me feel whole and well, that the practice is the thing that it just keeps going on perpetuity, and it's one of those things where I it's a personal development thing.
Speaker 1:We know a lot of people in the space that have sold and, magically, all of them are still in their practice, right? I can't think of anyone that's exited. Yeah, yeah, at least young people, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it says something, but yeah, I don't have like a number, I just have this goal that I will never meet. As CS Lewis say always on approach but never arriving, yeah, so that type of thing and that brings me peace because I'm not chasing things and hoping that I get it, it's just the journey.
Speaker 1:I think there's a lot to learn from that man. Well, anthony, thank you so much for taking time with the listeners and I hope you gave some people some things to think about as the way they're leading their teams, Because I think we can all say good practices, successful well culture, practices that people want to be in that tend to draw in tons of patients, always have a good leader at the helm, and I think you've given a really cool perspective on leadership today and how to practically use it in practices. So, dude, thanks so much for coming on Always a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity.
