Dental Practice Heroes

Confronting Underperformance: Why You Can't Always Be the Nice Boss

• Dr. Paul Etchison, Dr. Henry Ernst, Dr. Steven Markowitz • Episode 594

Share episode

That dreaded, “I need to talk to you about something?” It’s a conversation no one looks forward to, but every owner has to deal with. Whether it's an underperforming employee or tension in the office, this episode will give you the tools to address issues that can make or break workplace culture.

You’ll learn how to confront underperformance and team conflict head-on, prevent problems before they spiral, and get your team back on track. Plus, we also share a quick test to help you decide if it's time to let an employee go!

Topics discussed in this episode:

  • Why owners are part of the problem
  • How to address underperformance and employee complaints
  • The do’s and don’ts of handling team conflict
  • Dr. Henry’s method for getting honest feedback
  • Your role as a leader in shaping team culture
  • How to decide when to let someone go
  • The green, yellow, red performance framework

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.

Paul Etchison:

We've all kept an employee around for too long. Some of us just might have one in our practice right now, and the longer we avoid it, the more damage it does to the rest of the team in the practice. So today we're talking about how to confront underperformance and team conflict head on. You'll learn why you can't always be the nice boss, how to get honest feedback from your team and a simple test to help you decide if someone really belongs at your practice or it's time to say goodbye. You won't want to miss this one. Stay tuned. You are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we teach dentists how to step back from the chair, empower their team and build a practice that gives them their life back. I'm your host, dr Paul Etcheson, dental coach, author of two books on dental practice management and owner of a large four-doctor practice that runs with ease while I work just one clinical day a week. If you're ready for a practice that supports your life instead of consuming it, you're in the right place. My team of legendary dental coaches and I are here to guide you on your path from overwhelmed owner to dental practice hero. Let's get started.

Paul Etchison:

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host, dr Paul Edgison. I'm joined with my DPH coaches, dr Steve Markowitz, owner of a six practice group on the East Coast, and Dr Henry Ernst, 18 op. Practice in the Carolinas. All two days or less dentistry. We are not dentists that practice a lot, but we're running our businesses. So today we're going to talk about a personal kind of like personnel issue. It's the hard part about dentistry and being an owner is the people stuff, the staff things, and we're talking about that situation where we know a team member is underperforming. We've got team members letting us know about it and here we've got this team member. We say how do we approach this? Because we know we're going to hurt their feelings and we want to make everything right. We want everyone to work together, but just sitting in your office and being like damn it, why can't they just all get along and do what they're supposed to do? Doesn't get it done.

Steve Markowitz:

And, steve, with 152 employees, I think we'll kick it off with you Every day we deal with that kind of stuff and just to clarify, there's so many different situations where this shows itself and this situation is the person underperforming in their job or is it that the people around them they're not getting along or they're not seeing it? What are we trying to answer here specifically?

Paul Etchison:

yeah, I would say, you know, just for sake of giving more direction, I would say let's start with underperforming. So underperforming.

Steve Markowitz:

This should be the easiest, because we should have very clear expectations on every role. In our office, we should be having consistent discussions and meetings and one-on-ones or check-ins so we give the employer, the team member, the opportunity for us to share where they're at. The problem is that we're, as leaders or dentists, never consistent enough doing those things, so they kind of fall through the cracks. And then when we start to see these little things that are signs that things aren't going well, we ignore them at first and then we're dealing with them when they're these giant holes and everything is on the fringe of breaking because we weren't consistent and disciplined enough to do it all the right way along the way.

Steve Markowitz:

But this stuff happens. That's how we work and we're dentists and this is the life that we chose. So how do we deal with it? The first thing we need to do is we need to create a situation where we can sit with this person and, if they're underperforming, review their job description and what the expectations are with them. And what the expectations are with them To this is Dave Ramsey. To be kind is to be clear. So we need to have them see exactly what we're seeing for the expectations of their job.

Paul Etchison:

I think a lot of people listening and a lot of dental owners are saying I don't want to start with the expectations. What else can we do?

Steve Markowitz:

I mean even before that you need to have-.

Paul Etchison:

I don't want to set clear expectations. How can I fix it?

Steve Markowitz:

That's perfectly fine. Then you're going to enjoy chaos, and that's perfectly fine. You need to accept it. I'm okay with that. The reason why you don't want to set clear expectations is because you are uncomfortable and you're being selfish as the leader, as the owner. You're saying my feelings of discomfort are more important than me. Being honest with this person, who I want to be great, you're not telling them that they're underperforming because you want to make them feel like crap. You want them to be better at their job. By not telling them that you are not allowing them to meet their full potential. So you're a selfish asshole. Don't do that. Full potential, so you're a selfish asshole. Don't do that. Be honest with the people that you're supposed to be serving, that you're supposed to be employing and supposed to be developing.

Paul Etchison:

I love that. Yeah, we have to set the expectations. It's a must, non-negotiable, so continue. I wanted to interrupt you because I know a lot of people go through that. They don't want to set the expectations, they don't want to have the conversation.

Steve Markowitz:

Yeah, and that's perfectly okay. Don't be the owner, don't be the boss, and that's okay too. I don't think that that's a negative. If you really don't want to do those things, don't do them. But then don't take on the responsibility of the business owner and say I want all the reward but none of the responsibility. That ain't going to work and that's where you get yourself into a lot of trouble.

Paul Etchison:

We need to start with setting the expectation.

Steve Markowitz:

Setting the expectation, understanding what you want that person to do and then, in the kindest way possible, share with them what you're seeing. The first way to change behavior is to have that person see things the way that you see them. So you can start with do you see it the way I'm seeing it? I'm going to share this, do you see it differently? And then let them share and then show them. Show them how you want it to be done, and then watch them do it. And if they can't continually meet expectations or if it's a capacity thing, then we need to either put them in a different seat if they're a good values fit, or we owe it to them to not have them do that job. It's not fair to them, or the rest of the people on the team.

Paul Etchison:

Now let's do the second one. The second situation was someone not getting along. So we first talked about not meeting expectations. Now this was somebody. This is Dr Steve. We can't stand Cassandra. She is out of control. We get that a lot. She's vaping in the bathroom.

Steve Markowitz:

It doesn't necessarily need to be me at this point, but I think perspective is so interesting. Think perspective is so interesting. I would recommend any leader or any manager to not just you can't take just one person's perspective. You need to go in there and see for yourself what actually is happening and then you can learn and most often that person is right. But learn what's actually happening and then guide that conversation between those people, if you're able to do it.

Steve Markowitz:

So if someone comes to me and says Paul's being a jerk, I'm like, okay, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to sit there and listen. I'm going to tell them. If you're telling me this, I need you to know that I'm going to do something about it. And then, before they even open their mouth because I don't want them just to gossip to me we're going to. If this is big enough for you to bring it to me, it's big enough for me to want to change it, I'll set that expectation. And if they still share and want to talk, then I will then go and find and listen from my own perspective and get my own information.

Paul Etchison:

And then the three of us, if I have to, the three but I don't want you to tell the person what I said about them. I just want you to fix it. I don't want them to know I said bad things.

Steve Markowitz:

Then you don't want it to get better, and that's okay too, but we aren't here to make things better. It's either not painful enough to make it better or you just want me to feel a certain way about that person. Those are the two things.

Paul Etchison:

So my options are don't tell me or we're going to talk about it. I remember where you and I were having a conversation not too long ago about a similar thing, and you said that you tell your team that if they don't want to do something about it. You said something along the lines of if you tell me, I'm going to do something about it, if you don't want me to do something about it, go tell your pillow.

Steve Markowitz:

Talk to your pillow. That's what we said. Yep, talk to your pillow. That's what we say. Yep, talk to your pillow. I love that we're in a workplace. This is a professional setting. I know that our offices are unique because we spend so much time together, but it's a professional setting. We need to be professional, and guess what professional people do? They solve issues. So that's what we're going to do.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, I love the way you say that, henry. What's this bring up for?

Henry Ernst:

you. I love it, steve. Great information. I feel like I'm just going to take a real world example. So you know our practice is not like Steve's. I mean, we have about 35 team members, so you know there's always stuff that happens once in a while and maybe and what I've found in my experience over the years is these things tend to bubble, and they tend to bubble up all at once for some reason, and so we had an issue about two months ago. This is how it happens. Hygienist you've had for years is like my right hand. She's been with us about 11 years now. She came up to me and the classic line here it is I have to talk to you about something as soon as we hear that. We're like oh crap.

Henry Ernst:

It's going to okay, and it was like on a friday night I'm like, okay, let's go. And so I was done with dinner with my family, I'm like, and I just called, I said hit me with it, no pleasantries, just hit me with it. And then basically, you know that there's stuff going on and stuff like that, and um, so what I did is I had there's a survey company, I think it's called Survey Hero, and you can put out anonymous surveys very important anonymous, right. So I basically just put out a notice to the team. I said listen, you know, I always want to make sure we're providing the best care and providing you with the best work environment possible. So we're going to put out some surveys there. And it was really great, actually, because I got some really good feedback and stuff I wasn't even thinking about, but there were.

Henry Ernst:

So there was about three team members that were all kind of doing things here and there that they shouldn't have been doing, and so it gave me the chance to just sit down with everybody. Some of them were really quick, like hey, paul, you're doing a great job. People said lots of great things about you. You know, keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, you're welcome, steve, you know, just so you know, in our surveys and I always start with the positive you know, hey, you've been doing some great things and this and that, and I appreciate your attention to detail. However, you know some of your teammates and this is important when they hear it like that some of your teammates have said that you're hanging out in the break room too much. Teammates have said that you're hanging out in the break room too much. You know, sometimes you're not helping with sterilization and you know what, when you do that, it forces work on everybody else and it's not fair. And then I give them a chance. You know, do you feel like you're doing that and just have the one-on-one and everything else that you were already describing? So, in this instance, make it a positive. Make it where, hey, let's talk to everybody about it.

Henry Ernst:

And the people that are getting to like I think I heard on one of your podcasts, Paul, I really love that you're talking about how things get to red, yellow and green. Yeah, that was from a recent book I read. Yeah, so the person that's getting to that red level, they just are more stern Like listen, we can't have this anymore. You can't hang out in the break room anymore. You have to stay on task and if this is going to continue, then the next step is we're going to have to talk about your employment future here. So address it. If you don't want this, then you're not going to be a practice owner, because this is going to happen.

Henry Ernst:

And if you're one of these clients that we talk to here and there that are like I want to grow and I want to do what you did and I want to, you know, okay. Well, with great power comes great responsibility. You know you're going to have issues like this that are going to come up, and the other point that I'll make is keep those standards right. Don't be the wishy-washy dentist. There's too many wishy-washy dentists and I see these in coaching clients, where they're keeping around team members way too long. They're just letting things string out and they're letting it string along. And I think I think I mentioned on the podcast too the two questions you should always ask is if I had to hire this person again, would I? And if they told me they were leaving tomorrow and quitting, would I be upset? The answer is no to either one of those. They need to go now. They're messing up your team and they're a cancer. I like that.

Paul Etchison:

That's a good little test. It reminds me of, like just how us as owners. We don't typically say what we want and we're always going to get what we tolerate. But what we see with a lot of what I see with some coaching clients is that all of a sudden these things bother them and all of a sudden they're going to start talking about them and then, when they bring them up, their team is going to bring up every inconsistency in the way that they treat their team because it has been so inconsistent.

Paul Etchison:

And I'm not saying that there's no better time to start being consistent than today, you know, but when you first start doing this, you're going to get a lot of pushback with being consistent with your team because you haven't been. So sometimes the reprimand or just the conversation about what's going on should be led, like Steve said, with a department wide or saying, hey, how do we do things here? What can we agree about? Because, like you said, like coming down from the top and saying this is the way we do things, that's good too, but it's better to get a social agreement with your team saying, hey, what can we all agree on? What is fair?

Paul Etchison:

Coming around like certain issues, like showing up on time calling in sick, you know, not finding somewhere to not finding childcare, I don't know. There's like so many situations that come up, it's becomes hard to be consistent. But what I'm saying is when we have the biggest issues is when we just decide. One day I'm going to start caring about this. I kind of turned my my eye to it and I turned my cheek to it for a very long time, but today I care and I'm going to tell you about it, and I'm going to do it in a not nice way, because I'm really pissed off now.

Steve Markowitz:

Yeah, and we give people a microphone. And what I've learned recently if you give people a microphone, they're going to speak into it. And what I mean by that is if there's a situation and me as the owner, someone who's supposed to have all of the authority and put them in quotes, and I go and ask someone what'd you think about this person doing this or what'd you think, and I just I gave them the platform to say everything crappy they feel about that situation and now I need to do something about it. So what I think is a solution to that is there's a reason to have meetings, and If something is important, it'll make it to the meeting. There's a reason to have one-on-consistent one-on-ones If something is important, it'll make it to that one-on-one. If, after every single thing, we're going up to our hygienist friend and be like what do you think of that? And they're like well, that person's this, this, and then they're like shit, now I got to do something about it no-transcript want is a silent practice where nobody's talking about the problems.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, but I wonder what you think about this. So if your team knows that if they bring you something it's enough for them to complain about Maybe they just want to vent, or maybe they don't want to vent, but they're going to come tell you about something and they know you're going to do something about it and they know that you're going to involve them, such as like a three way conversation, like hey, if you're going to complain about this first to me, let's have it, let's all talk it out. Does that create something psychologically unsafe in which they don't want to now bring you the problems?

Steve Markowitz:

Yeah, 100 percent at first, because it's going to be different and that's a different culture. But if you're consistent with that, then it will become. This is how we do things. So when you're first trying to create this team member accountability or behavior accountability yeah, at first they're like, oh, I can't tell him because this is going to lead to something that is different and I don't want to have those.

Henry Ernst:

But if I am consistent enough with how we handle those situations, ultimately they'll know it, they'll be more able, and maybe two people said something and then what happened were some of the immature employees would come out like with pitchforks and torches who said this and they try to seek them out, right? So the team has to understand that it's for the greater good of the office and that's why I feel like recently, in the last year or two, I've really loved the anonymous survey thing and even if you make it like a normal cadence every six months, just send them out there and you can. Even I threw them all into chat GPT and had chat GPT organize them really well and it had, like this person was mentioned this many times and stuff like that. So I think that's really important. And I think the other thing that I'll say and again, I feel like I'm being like the bad person on this podcast today no, sometimes like the Sopranos, right, sometimes you have to make a statement, right, and I feel like maybe I don't know I feel like we're pretty good.

Henry Ernst:

I feel like we fire somebody, maybe once a year in the last like three or four years, and I think every time that happened, you feel good about it afterwards. I mean, I know that sounds crazy. But you feel like you know what this person that they're always talking about it's not here anymore. They're not here tomorrow. I won't hear anything else ever again.

Henry Ernst:

And I worked through this process with a coaching client who again kept an employee way too long and I talked this person through this like, do you think this person's good? Do you think this? You know all these. And after that it was almost like a come to Jesus moment, like why am I keeping this person here? Like, thank you. And what happens is the moment you get rid of somebody like somebody like that, the team has more, you know, appreciation and respect for you and they see that you've got the greater good of the office in mind because you're going to get rid of it. And, like I said, maybe I'm being the bad person here, but don't be afraid to just get rid of somebody if they need to be getting rid of. That's not even a sentence.

Steve Markowitz:

Henry, and it's for the greater good of that person, and I think that's really important. When you sit and have these conversations, how do we create safety in these really uncomfortable situations? We lead with. The reason why we're having this conversation, paul, is because I want to make sure we're upholding our values, but I also want to make sure you're going to be the best person that you can be in this position. And we started with like why are we doing this? We know it's going to be uncomfortable, but it's because we want to make you better, and we set that intention and it will lead to more like is it okay if we have this conversation now? Yes, okay, let's do it.

Henry Ernst:

The team has a lot of respect for you. Also, when you make the blanket statement, you know, like state of the union, like listen, you know we, just so everybody knows you know Paul's not going to be with the practice anymore. We've severed our relationship. I'm really happy with all the things that Paul did for the practice over the years. I don't want anybody it's my rule, I always say it I don't want anybody saying anything negative about Paul. I won't tolerate it, you know, and I don't want you to, you know, have any kind of things like that going on. I wish Paul the best and done. My team kind of makes fun of me because I'm not joking. We have about four or five employees or ex-employees that were fired, that are patients of the practice. So somehow or another, like I managed to make that smooth thing and they still respect me to come as a patient.

Paul Etchison:

That's awesome and I think that's a testament to showing like the way that you treat people. I think we run into a lot of owners where we say, oh you know, should I fire this person? I don't know if I should fire them. And, like you mentioned talking with that coaching client, I just want to point out, if you're consistent with the way you treat your team and you start addressing these issues like Henry, you mentioned the green, yellow and red If you start addressing issues when they're at green level and you address them at yellow level and then you get to red level, there is no question whether or not that person belongs on your team anymore.

Paul Etchison:

They have had many opportunities to perform. They have had many chances where you've told them what is expected and what they should be doing, and if they're not doing it, it's time to go. And I think most owners you may not know this, but everybody on your team wants to do a good job. They really do, and I would go as far to say it's people doing a bad job 95% of the time. They think they're doing a good job and they just don't know the rules. They don't know what the game that we're playing and that's your job as the owner to set those boundaries and create that.

Henry Ernst:

Yeah, I'm getting older man. I keep saying it. Like this new generation, they need a lot more handheld holding and stuff like that. And I am getting older man. You know I went to get a haircut the other day and the the at the end of the haircut the lady was like you want me to do your eyebrows too? I'm like what I have turned into that man? That's growing like eyebrow hair in weird areas I trim my eyebrows.

Steve Markowitz:

I thought it was like half price for you, Henry.

Paul Etchison:

That's exactly what I thought he was going to say.

Steve Markowitz:

Well, you're doing half price. There's less hair here.

Henry Ernst:

I'll take the discount?

Paul Etchison:

Sure sure, but yeah man, I actually I was like, oh yeah, sure, go for it. Henry is a great looking guy. Henry's in great shape. If you guys never seen Henry, henry goes to the gym all the time. He went on vacation with his daughter and people were posting thinking he was his daughter's boyfriend, you know.

Henry Ernst:

That was Bert Kreischer. That thought that you know the comedian Bert Kreischer. Yeah, oh, that's so funny.

Paul Etchison:

You know what I think you got to tell that story and then we're going to close on that again, do?

Henry Ernst:

you want to tell the story. So my daughter, julia, is an influencer and she got invited to Dana White's power slap event in Las Vegas. You know, all expenses paid. So I went as her plus one. I felt like so cool.

Henry Ernst:

So the night of the event, you know we're in this like VIP area and there were so many like famous people, you know. And so we're standing there at the buffet and Julia's talking to Bert Kreischer and Bert Kreischer's wife. Bert Kreischer's a pretty popular comedian. He's on Netflix a lot. He's the guy who always has his shirt off. And so I'm standing there and they're talking to Julia and I introduce and blah, blah, blah, I just introduced myself as Henry. And then Julia's talking about her dad, her dad, her dad. And then Bert Kreischer goes well, where is your dad? And I looked back and I said I'm the dad. And then I whispered in his ear and I said did you think I was her sugar daddy? And he goes well, fuck, yeah, this is Vegas. Well, I don't know if I hell. Yeah, this is Vegas. I don't we have to explicit that, but that's exactly what he said, that's so funny my daughter, julie, was mortified.

Henry Ernst:

yeah, from that point on the rest of the night I feel like she wanted me to have a name tag that said dad, yeah.

Paul Etchison:

Yeah, it is Vegas. Well, hey, if you guys are thinking about like having this be your year for your practice, where you're going to take off more time, you're going to make more money and just get things less chaotic, get some help from one of our coaches. We know what we're doing and we can share all this knowledge and experience with you, so check out our coaching packages at dentalpractice.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Dr. Paul Etchison

Host