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
Is Your Team Lazy? or is it YOU? How to Drive Profits through Engagement
Tired of feeling like you're the only one who gives a crap?
This week, Dr. Paul breaks down one of the real causes of burnout—not just for you, but for your team. It’s not about working too hard. It’s about feeling like none of it matters.Discover how powerlessness creates disengagement, resentment, and culture rot—and how a simple shift in leadership style can turn your team from reactive employees to proactive owners.You'll learn:This is how you build a team that solves problems without you.
- Why your team might be checking out (and it's not laziness)
- How to give people real ownership without losing control
- The one-on-one question that sparks instant engagement
- How to create “collaborative ownership” across your practice
🔗 Apply for the DPH Legendary Mastermind: dentalpracticeheroes.com/apply
🎯 Learn about 1-on-1 coaching: dentalpracticeheroes.com
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
So here's the question why do some team members light up when they talk about their work and some other ones look like they're just counting the minutes until the end of the day or the lunch? Are they just a bad hire? Are they lazy? Or is something deeper going on, something that we, as the leaders, might be accidentally creating in our practices? Today I want to talk about one of the biggest causes of team burnout and disengagement that almost nobody ever talks about. It's the disconnect from having meaningful work and having control, because when people feel powerless or if they feel unheard at your office, they check out and when that happens, the culture tanks and the production stalls and you just feel like you're trying to push people uphill and you can't figure out why you are the only one that gives a crap at your office. Have you ever felt like that? Honestly, everybody, including you, feels drained, and the good news is it's very fixable and it's very easy to fix.
Speaker 1:Now you're listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson. I'm the author of two books on dental practice management, I'm a dental coach and I'm an owner of a large five doctor practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. I am somebody who practices just one day a week and I want to show you how you can have a team-driven practice so you can practice less and live a better life. We often talk about burnout. Burnout is that buzzword where everyone's like, man, I'm burning out, I think I'm burning out, I think I'm working too hard all this stuff and a lot of practice owners. We think burnout is caused by too much work. But I've been there. I've been at that burnout point and I've felt it and it's a crappy feeling. But when I think about it, it wasn't entirely about too much work. I mean, sometimes it can be, but more often for me it was that the work that I was doing felt pointless. No matter what I did, it didn't make a difference. No matter how much effort I put in, it didn't change anything. I was always banging my head against the wall and being like why am I even trying? Why do I try so hard? Nobody notices, nobody appreciates it and nothing changes.
Speaker 1:So there was this research from back in the 70s that I often like to reference, and it's called the Whitehall Studies. So what this was is they ran some studies in Britain and looked at organizations like a government organization, like a big bureaucracy. And they said, okay, let's look at the health of the people at the bottom of the organization and the people at the top, and who's going to have better health, who's going to have more stress and all this stuff. And what they thought was that people's health at the top would be worse. I mean, they have more stress, they have more responsibility. But what they actually found was the opposite. It was the people at the bottom that had more stress, that they had worse health. And what they looked at and they said, man, that is really surprising. Let's get some more information, let's figure out what's going on here. So I looked into it and what they found is that it came down to a lack of control.
Speaker 1:When people don't have control over their work environments and they feel like nothing they do affects the outcomes, they're just told what to do. They're a cog in the wheel. There's no creativity, there's no decision making. That causes the highest rate of stress and highest rate of depression. So it wasn't the top level executives, it was the people at the bottom with the lowest control.
Speaker 1:So think about that in the context of your practice, your front desk team. They're constantly, you know they're reacting to the schedule. They're reacting to upset patients. The phones are ringing off the hooks. Your assistants they're like cleaning up everything after you. They're taking care of everything, making sure the day keeps on going. So a lot of their work is reactive. So we want to create an environment in our dental practices where it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I remember back in the day that my front desk they were just really getting burnt out and what it was is we just said man, after COVID, people just got so mean. Everybody is upset, everybody is complaining, like the patients I'm talking about, and they felt like, no matter what they did, they were just getting yelled at all day and I was just like dang like, what is that about? That really sucks. I hate that they're feeling like that. Think about what I said no matter what they did, they got yelled at, so they had no control over it. It didn't matter if they did a good job, bad job, whatever Patients were pissed off Is what we did. Is I on how to handle upset patients? This is a module in our online training that we have, if you're interested. But we train them how to handle upset patients and it's a two-step process and when we taught them how to do that. They got their control back. They're like, wow, this works. It helped them to feel better. They didn't feel that burnout anymore because they felt like they were back in control. If somebody wants to get upset with me, I can handle the situation. I'm just not at the whims of this upset patient complaining about their insurance or whatever the heck they are. So we give them back their control.
Speaker 1:And when I think about my personal burnout, I mean it was just like, no matter what I did, it was never enough. It's just like I felt like I was always unappreciated. I felt like there was always issues going on at the practice. I couldn't handle them enough and, no matter what I did, people were telling me that you know, we need you more here, we need you to be more like this, we need you to do more of this. And I'm just like dude, I can't do all these things at once. So it makes you want to throw your hands up in the air and just say screw it. That's what your team does as well. So if you don't have intentional systems to give people ownership and a voice at your practice and this could very possibly be one of the worst foundational elements of the culture of your practice. So this is important.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about powerlessness, because that's what we're really exploring here. What does powerlessness feel like? When you feel powerless, you start to go through the motions. You don't care. You might have a team that's not improving on the systems, even though you're talking to them, you're trying to get them to improve it, but they're just not doing things the way that you want them to do, because maybe one that's the way it's always been, or two, they just don't really care to change the ways, because it doesn't matter what they do anyway. They feel like that. Or you might be feeling like you're the only one who gets it, you're the one who does everything, you're the only one who but it's probably not that they don't get it they just don't care because at some level, it makes zero difference what they do. They feel like that, they tell themselves that story and they have found evidence at your practice that that is true.
Speaker 1:I remember a long time ago when our front desk was maybe only four or five people large. Right now we've got like 10 or 11. But we had somebody who was great and she slowly started dropping the ball and I brought her into my office and I really just had this sense that she was going to quit. I really felt it and I asked her. I said hey, what's going on with you? I just sense that there's something wrong. And she's just like no, it's fine. And I could still sense that there's like she's not telling me something. So I continued to prod, I said you know what? I just I'm sorry if I'm feeling this way, I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but just my intuition is telling me that something's upsetting you and I really want to help you whatever it is, but I can't help you if you don't tell me about it and you don't share it with me. And that's when she shared.
Speaker 1:She felt like we were just bringing a lot of policy down on the front desk and we were just shoving things down their throat that we need to do things this way, and she had a lot of ideas of some different ways we could do it, but nobody was listening. We weren't really listening to this person. We were just saying, no, this is how we want it done, and not including the team. So that just goes to show you is that people don't want to be told what they do. They want to collaborate. So that's what I learned in that is hey, you know what? What do you think we should be doing? Hey, I'm game for trying anything, let's try it. So this is what I like to call collaborative ownership. This is the fix. It's not really delegation, it's not entirely delegation, but it's saying we're going to give our team control over how their work is done. We're going to let them build something with us instead of just doing what we tell them to do. So they're not just going to do what we say.
Speaker 1:And that might freak some dental owners out. You might say, well, I can't do that. I mean they're going to tank my practice. I beg to differ. I think you can try anything for a month If your team has an idea and you can say, hey, this is what we want to try to do. What do you guys think? What do you always want to try? Let's try it. Try it for a month. Think about that. That's a fraction, one over 12. If you do it for one month out of the year, you're going to see what is that? 8.3% of your practice, I mean you'll probably see less of your practice and over that course, because not all of your patients are coming in on a consistent basis, but 8.3% of your practice. Now how many of that 8.3% are you really going to piss off? You were trying something. It didn't work. Very, very little of them. You might see piss off a few of them. That is not going to tank your practice by pissing off a few people. That might be 8.3 of your practice.
Speaker 1:See how it goes and improve on it. Discuss it with a team. How did this go? What can we do better? So this is why the communication things come up. As a leader is, we often had these issues in our practice and we look for policy. What can we do to make this better? But in reality it's a communication issue. If we could just get more communication, maybe some more one-on-ones with our team, we could ask better questions and get the team to collaborate more. We would find solutions. They might not be the best solutions, they might not be the most ideal system, but do they meet the goals? And if they do meet the goals, did they come from the team? Because if they did come from the team, the team is going to be bought in on it. They're going to want to do it.
Speaker 1:Think about when you tell your team how to do something. When you tell your team how to do something, sometimes they follow the rules, but they're real, like deep down, like in this. They might not even be aware of it, but at some level they want to prove to you that what you came up with doesn't work and the way they've been doing it before is better. And they're trying to show you why this is not going to work, because they don't want that system to work. They don't like that system. But what if you gave them the goal? What if you identified the goal and you identified the problem that you're trying to solve and you open the floor to let's hear some ideas. What do you guys think we could do? And the team came up with an idea. How much more engaged do you think that team is going to be in carrying that system through to see if it works? Because, instead of trying to prove it's not working, they will do everything they can to make that work and they will follow that system.
Speaker 1:You don't have to redesign every system for your team. You've got to engage them in what we're doing, and this is a lot of what we teach in our leadership with Dental Practice Heroes and our coaching and our programs is we teach you how to get these questions and draw this conversation in your team, because this is truly what gets behavior change is getting the team on board. It's not only about having the right systems. We can know the best way to do things, but if we can't get our team to do it, it doesn't mean any. It doesn't mean jack.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about what this looks like in a practice, because I want to give you some tangible steps here. We let our team own their departments. We are giving them the freedom and trust to come up with solutions and address things. We are supporting them. How can I help you? How can I support you? What can I do to help? We're talking about the goals. We're talking about the issues, but all the solutions, those are a collaboration with you and your team. It's a collaboration with the team leads and their departments, things like that. We're involving people in the decision making.
Speaker 1:So anything big, any big decisions changing to policy, changing scheduling templates, anything that you want to do you want to involve to some extent the people that are affected to help you make that decision. When you do that, you're going to get better ideas, but you're also going to get better buy-in, and this is why meetings are so crucial Meetings with the full team, meetings with departments, meetings one-on-one with each of your leads. Lead meetings with your whole lead department, your leads meeting with their departments one-on-one. These meetings are so crucial because this is where the collaboration happens. You can't collaborate if you're not communicating. So you've got to set these things up, you've got to put them in your schedule so that you don't skip them.
Speaker 1:And every quarter, typically after every quarterly meeting, every department has what I call a mini quest or a mini mission. They've got one thing over the next quarter that they are to improve upon they're supposed to improve on the cancellation percentage, getting that down. They're going to improve on getting more new patient conversion. They're going to improve on dealing with upset patients. There's one focus, one big focus that they can all focus on and band together as a team and get better at it.
Speaker 1:So if you did this at your practice, what do you think would happen? Like what happens when people now have a voice at their work, where they can express their creativity and they can contribute, and it makes a difference. Well, the engagement's going to go up, the personal ownership of every single person in your practice. That's going to increase. The complaints go down and the culture now shifts from reactive to proactive. People are now solving issues without you having to hold their hand for every little thing. So if you can create a culture like this at your practice, problems all those little things they start to just work themselves out because your engaged team is talking about what's not working and what can be done better. And when people feel like they're builders they're not just employees that's when everything can change.
Speaker 1:So here is your challenge for the week. For me, I want you to pull aside a few team members, one-on-one with them this week, and just ask them if you could fix or maybe change one thing in your department. What would it be and how would you do it? And don't jump in, just listen. That is where the magic is going to start. You're going to listen and see what they say and, like I said, this is exactly the type of shift that we help practice owners make in our mastermind that we got coming up in September.
Speaker 1:Two spots left in our mastermind. We're kicking it off in September. Come join us. We also have one-on-one coaching options. You can go to dentalpracticeheroescom to learn more about that. If you're interested in the mastermind you want to apply, go to dentalpracticeheroescom slash apply. So, final thoughts your team they don't need pizza parties and ping pong tables, okay. They just need to feel like they have meaning and they have value on your team. And you do that by giving them a say, you give them a mission, you give them goals and you listen to their input and you collaborate with them. So that is how you build a culture that's not just productive but proud. They will be proud of where they work and that's the kind of practice that is worth showing up for, and that's what I want for your practice. So thank you so much for listening and I hope this week you go in and you start changing the culture of your practice for the better by communicating and engaging your team. Thanks so much.
