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
The Most Expensive Issues in Your Practice Are the Ones No One Talks About
Ever feel like your checklists are getting longer while your problems get louder? We shine a light on the quiet force that stalls growth in so many dental practices: the truth everyone knows but no one says. Borrowing the concept of “mokita,” we explore how unspoken issues infect culture, erode patient experience, and drain profit—then we show you how to end the silence without blowing up your team.
We walk through a simple, repeatable framework for tough conversations: Ask permission, State how you feel, Share the issue clearly, and Seek to understand. You’ll hear how this approach lowers defensiveness, creates psychological safety, and replaces gossip with honest dialogue. From chronically late hygiene schedules to front desk friction, we unpack how to distinguish a process problem from a conversation problem, and why addressing the latter first makes your systems actually work. Real-world examples reveal how a single candid talk can outperform a dozen SOP tweaks.
By the end, you’ll have a practical script for tackling your biggest cultural bottlenecks and a weekly challenge to surface one mokita and resolve it. Expect fewer energy leaks, stronger accountability, and a smoother, more profitable practice that runs on trust. Ready to lead with clarity and courage? Listen now, then share the first hard conversation you’ll start today—and subscribe for more tools to build a team-driven practice.
Join us for Free Live Trainings and Community Discussion in the DPH Hero Collective on the DPH App. Click Here to Join!
GRAB THE FREE PLAYBOOK HERE - Discover 30 proven strategies top-performing dentists use to increase profits, cut clinical days, and finally enjoy the freedom they originally built their practices for.
https://www.dentalpracticeheroes.com/playbook
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.
You know those problems in your practice that everyone knows about, but no one actually talks about? Maybe it's the assistant that's always late. Maybe it's the hygienist who doesn't help turn the rooms, or it's that front desk drama that everybody tiptoes around. We as the leaders, we put in new systems, we have more meetings, we throw another checklist at it, but nothing really changes. Because of the fact of the matter is, the problem isn't the system, it's the conversation that never happens. Recently, at our dental practice heroes mastermind retreat that we had in Dustin, Florida, our theme of the weekend was it's not the system, it's the conversation. And that was our theme of the weekend because what I was trying to stress with all the people in this mastermind is that our job as the leaders is to draw out these conversations that need to happen. We have to communicate with our team, and there's so many things that we're just scared to bring into the light. I want to share an example with you about a New Guinea culture and this tribe or whatever it is, they have a word for something. They call it a Mokita. Now, it's not a drink, it's not a mojito, it's a mokita. And what it translates to is essentially the truth that everyone knows about, but no one talks about. So an equivalent of English, like the expression of the elephant in the room. What is the elephant of the room? Now, this culture, they assess the health of their community based on the number of mokitas that exist, because Mokitas only exist when nobody talks about them. So the more things that you're afraid to bring up, the sicker the community is. And let's face it, most dental practices, we've got way too many mokitas, right? You don't talk about these things because you might be afraid of conflict or because you're scared of how someone's gonna react. But unresolved truth does not go away. It just leaks out. It shows up in gossip and resentment and quiet quitting with our team. So today we're gonna talk about systems, we're gonna talk about silence, and we're gonna talk about my ASS framework to get those mikitas out into the open so that we can lead and build a culture that aligns with our vision and create a highly profitable practice. Now, you're listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we help practice owners build profitable team-driven practices that run smoothly and give them absolute freedom. If you want to lead a team that communicates openly, takes ownership, and actually solves problems, well, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Paul Etcheson, a two-time author, a dental business coach, and I'm an actual practicing dentist. And I own a large practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. Now, today we're gonna talk about how to surface those unsaid things in your practice so that you can turn that tension into trust. Now, a few years ago, I remember we had this recurring issue at my practice. We had a certain hygienist that just never seemed to stay on time, no matter what we did. We had checklists, right? We had the systems in place, we had perfected and tweaked our schedule, but no matter what we did, this person struggled. They couldn't keep on time. So finally, I sat down with this hygienist and I said, Hey, something's not working here and I want to talk to you about it, but I don't want you to feel like I'm blaming you. I know that you're working hard and I appreciate everything that you do here. I'm not here to criticize you. I'm just worried about how this is affecting our patient experience. And I can tell you that single conversation did way more than any system could have done because it wasn't the system, it was the conversation. It's not the system, it's the conversation. Remember that phrase because systems they can't fix what the silence protects. Most broken systems in a practice are really just unspoken tensions. We can put the systems in place, but if we don't have the conversations around them, the accountability conversations, the discussions that are inviting our team into fixing the issues, we are stuck. So before you change another SOP, I want you to ask yourself is this a process problem or is it a conversation problem? Does a conversation need to be had? And most of the times, yes, the conversation needs to be had. So let's talk about the ASS, the ass framework for difficult conversations. If you want to address these moquitas in a healthy way, I want you to use this framework. This is what I do when I have difficult conversations with my team. And what is a difficult conversation? You know, it really depends on who we're talking to. You've got people on your team that you can just show up and be very bold with and say, hey, this is what it is. Tell me about it, what's going on. And you have other people that you need to be a little bit more delicate with. You know who they are, but you're gonna go into this conversation. It's difficult and it's important. You got to have it, you got to be willing to have it as the leader. And the more you have these conversations, I assure you, you'll get better at it. All right, so A S S S, ass with three S's. So let's talk about this. The first step, A, ask permission. You're gonna go grab somebody, you're gonna say, Hey, can I talk to you about something? You're just going to ask them to let them know that you want to have a formal conversation about something. Okay, you start this conversation, and that's the first S. State how you feel. And what I want you to do for this step is often we have an idea of how this conversation could go negatively. We have an idea of what this person may feel, how they might react to it. So I often like to go into these conversations by just stating the obvious, you know, letting them know that I'm nervous to have this conversation. I'll say something like, hey, I'm nervous to have this conversation with you because I don't want you to think that I'm blaming you. I don't want you to think I don't appreciate you. I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I'm just gonna state that I'm nervous to have this conversation and state kind of what my intentions are and what my intentions are not, because I want to frame it right at the beginning of the conversation is that I am not here to attack you. I'm here to have a productive conversation. All right, the second S is gonna be share. You're gonna share the issue clearly. You're gonna talk about what happened. We're not pointing fingers, we're not making assumptions about the other person's intentions or their merit. We're just gonna share the issue clearly. This is what happened. So, for this example, I'd say something like I noticed that you're often running late in your schedule. And when we run late in hygiene, it affects everybody, affects the assistants, the doctors, but most of all, it's affecting our patients' experience. And now the third S seek, seek to understand. You hear me talk about getting curious all the time. We want to ask, what's your perspective on this? What do you think is going on? So that's it. Four steps. You're gonna ask permission to have the conversation, you're gonna state how you feel, you're gonna share the issue clearly, and you're gonna seek to understand. Ask, state, share, seek. No defensiveness. We want to go in, we want to have a productive conversation. We don't want to induce defensiveness in the person. We're just curious and we just want clarity. So we want to open the door to have a dialogue with this person. And as soon as you ask this person what's going on, they tell you we want to validate their experience. They might be overwhelmed. They might feel like they don't have the skills to stay on time. They might think that we're asking them to do too many things in the amount of time that they have. No matter what it is, validate them. I totally understand. I get where you're coming from. I get it. Because when we do that, we make it safe and we want to create a safe practice. So when we can open the door for a dialogue like this and we can keep it safe, a few things are gonna happen. Your team, they'll start to bring you problems before they blow up. And people on your team, they're gonna start taking accountability because they know they can. They feel like they can share things with you, they can take accountability and they won't be attacked. They're they feel heard, they know that you're gonna validate their experience, they know that you're gonna be understanding and reasonable. And then these what I call energy leaks in your practice. An energy leak is when people are gossiping, when they're complaining to each other about things at the practice, or when they're avoiding talking about issues, all these energy leaks, these stop happening because people know it's safe to bring up things that are bothering them in the practice. Now, having these conversations, they're always gonna be uncomfortable at first, but that is the price that you will pay as a leader to create a healthy culture. And the fact of the matter is, is you're either gonna pay for it one way or the other, you're gonna pay for it in short-term discomfort while you have this conversation, or you're gonna have long-term team dysfunction, which I assure you costs a lot more headache and stomach lining. So here is your challenge for the week for me. I want you to find the moquita in your practice. You don't have to think very long, you know what it is. All right, decide that one moquita that you've been putting off talking about, that one topic that everybody knows about, but nobody wants to bring up. And I want you to have that conversation. Use that AS framework, validate their experience, and notice how much lighter the air feels afterwards. You've had these difficult conversations before. And when you can have them using the framework in a way that results in success and safety, you'll get a lot more comfortable having these because you're confident in your ability to discuss these things. And this has the long-term trickle-down effects of creating an awesome team culture. And if you want help on how to have these conversations for a specific thing in your practice, or if you're ready to build a culture at your practice where people actually talk things out instead of talking about each other behind their backs, that is what we do at Dental Practice Heroes. Reach out to us. Let's talk about coaching options, let's talk about what's possible for your practice. Set up a strategy call with me, dentalpracticeheroes.com/slash strategy, and I will have a very low pressure conversation with you all about your practice and all about your goals. I'm gonna give you some free advice and I'll tell you about what coaching options we have if I think that we can help you get to your goals faster. All right, thank you so much for listening today. If you get a chance, write a five star review on Apple Podcasts. I'd really appreciate it. I'm really trying to grow those reviews. It helps more people find the podcast, and it just kind of makes me feel good inside. I hope you do. All right, thanks so much for listening, guys. We will talk to you next time.
