Episode 809: Up Your Leadership Skills

 Tiff and Dana continue on the leveling up of positions around the practice. In this episode, the focus is on office managers (or business managers or whoever functions as your go-to for team members). The consultants chat about what’s often seen as the more challenging side of this position, aka people-ing (guiding accountability, training, communicating, etc.). The give insight on:

• What continuing education can look like

• What to do if you’re burnt out with growth

• How to streamline HR aspects

• And more!

Episode resources:

Reach out to Tiff and Dana: [email protected] 

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:03.15)

Back at it again with Dana, my favorite podcasting buddy. And I don't say that lightly because I do love podcasting with Kiera as well. So hopefully, hopefully she understands. But this is our time together. I feel like I talk to everybody else all the time. I get you one on one only when we podcast and we are going to rectify that we will put it on the calendar. People can hold us accountable to it. But Dana, how are you this morning? I know we just recorded an awesome podcast. I can't wait for everybody to hear but how are you doing?

Thanks for spending your time with me. What's your life like? How's Dana? Thanks so much for having me, Tiff. I agree with you. I love this time and space with you. And I do feel like, yeah, this is our kind of connection time. And in a virtual company, it's cool that we get to do these things. It can still stay really connected, even though we're all just kind of all over the place. So. Oh, my gosh. I totally agree. I totally agree. Yeah. And it's fun because like,

Today, I know I got home last night and my boyfriend's like, so do you have tomorrow off? And I was like, absolutely not, I'm podcasting with Dana. He's like, you've been gone since Monday. I'm like, I know, but this is the life we live. So like not only are we a virtual company and you and I are in the same state, but powers apart, we were like states apart just yesterday. So it's really fun and it's really cool and it grounds me and I love it. So I love that we can do Friday podcast. Thank you for being here for that.

Um, I wanted to pick your brain. This is a tough one. We've done a lot of like level up and like, how can, um, different spaces of the practice really just like integrate themselves more and really just do a little bit more. And honestly, I look at it as I'm constantly looking at how can I, how can I contribute more to my team? Like, how can I honestly, I look at this all the time, like, how can I make Dana's life easier? How can I make Kira's life easier? How can I, how can I do things that help them to.

see a different space or transfer what I've learned on the road to people who aren't on the road all the time. So I think that's kind of where we're coming from this month. So I hope that that's been portrayed in our podcast, that it's like, how can I expand what I'm doing to really help the community and my team even more? And today's a little bit of a tougher one. I thought for you, I'm picking your brain on really the office manager space and more business.

The Dental A Team (02:25.038)

business manager, regional, or whatever it is that you're calling it in your practice, but that person who's our centrally located entity in the practice for our team. And Dana, I mean, this one's an expansive one, because I feel like, gosh, we look at it, we're like, an office manager, like, oh my gosh, I do so much already. I know we've been there. We've been there. So my goal is always efficiency. And my goal is to really look at how could we make the office manager space

feel easier, but give more to the team. And Dana, I'm just opening it up. Like, this is just a good discussion. What are you thinking as far as that office manager space and really what we could do more of? Yeah. And I love that you said this one is a tough one because it is. And I feel like if you're in an office manager position, that's because you truly know dental, right? Like, you know what you're doing on the dental front. You know all of the...

front office tasks, you know what it takes to like get in there and make the business work, right? Like, you know, those things, you know, the dentistry and I feel like the biggest the the other side of office manager, which I actually think is probably the bigger side or the tougher side is the people, right? Like the interacting with people's like holding team members accountable and interacting with with humans, right? I think is one of the hardest spaces that there is.

And so that's the side of office manager where I feel like we already know the dentistry, that's why you're in that position. So focusing on leaderships, focusing on soft skills, focusing on building accountability, focusing on those and looking for training avenues, communications class, right? All of those pieces that I feel like then you can take back and you can train your team and you can get them communicating better.

Those are where you can level up as an OM because I feel like OMS truly like you've got the dentistry down. That's why you're there. So looking for ways to level up the other side, right? And that is that team. Team interaction leadership piece. Yeah, I love that. I think you're totally right. And I think I love that you said that like looking for communications course or getting the getting the training in those other areas because the biggest question I get, especially from office managers, is like what?

The Dental A Team (04:41.23)

what dental courses can I take? Like what convention can I go to? What can I do? Where can I learn? And I love that because I think office managers are leaders who are like constantly looking to grow. But I think what we fail to remember in the in the dental industry is that it doesn't have to be dental related. It just has to be growth. And so a lot of that communications leadership, that personal development, where you grow yourself as a person,

grows you as a leader grows you as an office manager and makes it so that you actually are contributing more to your team and you're taking stuff back and you're leading by example. And the consistency in which you lead is how you grow within your practice and and you give more back to them. So I love that I love the communications course. I know I took a ton of communication stuff and

and treatment planning and all of these different pieces and really learning how to read people and grow people. And it helps a ton. And I think in our coaching that we do now, in the consulting we do with a lot of practices, I know we poured a ton of that information into our practice momentum pieces, but we also do that a lot with our one -on -one clients. So I know you do a ton of virtual and I know you do travel, but I know you do so much of that for the office managers, Dana, while you're...

consulting. And I know I take a lot of that into the coaching. I don't know how many times I've heard and Dean, I'm sure you hear this all the time, but I constantly get the, oh my gosh, I could do that with my husband. Or oh my gosh, I might be able to get my kids to clean their room by using that. I'm like, absolutely. And your team, like your team is going to level up and your kids will level up because I think communication is communication. Relationships are relationship. And like, it just looks a little different.

right, but we're communicating and we're relationshiping the same, no matter what aspect it is, it just, you're just using different words and you're using different feelings and maybe a little bit of a different approach, but it's kind of all the same. So I love that you said that I love the personal development. I think some of the pieces people miss are like podcasts. So our podcast, right is fantastic for that. I know for a lot of

The Dental A Team (06:59.726)

that personal development into our podcast as well. But there are other podcasts out there to their own growth, development and leadership and really soaking that up and YouTube, you know, YouTube subscriptions, Tony Robbins, different people like that, that are not maybe tied to the dental industry, but are pouring a lot of that leadership mentality into that space is a great place to grow and book. Dana, you are like, you are like our book club queen.

You are consistent to a theme, you're always there, you always show up, you've always read or listened to the book and I love it. And I want to know because I think book clubs are really cool. And I know we do it and I do it too. But Dana is like, I can count on no matter what Dana is going to be there. And Dana, what do you feel like since we've started that in our company? How do you feel that that has helped grow you even in your consulting or just personal? Like, why do you why do you keep showing up? Why do you love it?

Yeah, yeah, book club is one of my favorite days of the month. I think that that is why I think because yeah, consistently reading something even if it isn't based on leadership, right? Even if it is based on gratitude, it gives me an analogy to talk to a doctor about being appreciative and being grateful for the team members that help get them to their goals, right? So I can always take something away for coaching for my clients to help boost my teams.

And so I think just reading a variety of things, whether it's leadership based or it's personal growth based, because I think, again, like you said, I'm constantly using my kids as, I was just working on communication with an office manager and talking about how you have to sometimes alter the way you communicate based on the team member in front of you. And I use my kids as an example because it's like my one kiddo, right?

I have to be pretty firm with when I'm talking. My other one that firm touch doesn't work. He just like shuts down and like doesn't want to communicate with me. And so I, you're right. I use this. And I think take things from books like that, even if it isn't truly leadership and look at ways that you can apply the things that you're learning, even as a personal growth to what you do with team members. Yeah, I love that. And I think one of the,

The Dental A Team (09:23.086)

spaces that's really cool for us is that we get the opportunity to take the information we've learned and then tell somebody else about it, right? Have discussions, train somebody, use it in our coaching and in our like leadership development. So I think there's so many people and I know I've always been kind of a reader and like soaking up that knowledge and that Tony Robbins style stuff, right? But I didn't always have an outlet to discuss it.

So I think for us, even if we're not doing book club within Dental A team, which we are, us reading those books, getting that information, and then having the conversations and the training with our doctors and office managers on the one -on -one helps us to talk through the theories and to like, it helps us use it. So I think office managers go read the book, go listen to the podcast, but also I think it's really good.

and smart to have a group of people that you're having those conversations with. And caveat, it might not be your team. You are in a leadership position because you're probably a little bit different than a lot of the team. You may have a leadership team that's ready to get on board with the Book of the Month Club and do these things with you, but you might not. In most cases, I'm gonna just be blunt here. You're not going to have that space in your practice. It's just, it's not a reality and that's okay.

Find that space outside, whether it's your girlfriends that like you guys could all just or guy friends, whatever. Well, you guys could all come from different industries and different backgrounds, but these, this style of learning and personal development and growth is useful in all of those facets. So even if you have a group of friends that you guys are listening to these podcasts, I know Joe Rogan has awesome podcasts, like there's all these different facets that you can listen to or read and then discuss.

with people because I think that helps us to solidify whatever it is that we learned so that we continue to use it. Otherwise, I felt like, Dana, and I don't know if maybe this is just me, I felt like before I had this coaching where I was consulting and I was talking to you guys about it, it kind of went in and I didn't know what to do with it. And then it went away. And I would read a book a year later and be like, oh my God, this is the best book I've ever read or listened to a podcast. And I'm like, this is the most amazing thing. And then I realized,

The Dental A Team (11:42.67)

I definitely listened to this a year ago, or I've already read this book, but I wasn't using it. Dana, do you feel like that is what's the theme for yours? Am I just I mean, I am kind of crazy sometimes.

No, absolutely. I totally agree with you. And I think that that's why I have really been drawn to book club because then it's like, I can take the things that I learned and I can instantly implement them. And so I think that a little bit of that is the key to this is if you listen to a podcast, or if you read a book, or if you take a course, even if it's just you to pick one thing, right, even if it's you pick the biggest thing that you learn, or your biggest takeaway, or something that would be easy for you to do, and go implement it.

Go utilize it, go practice it, go live it out because that's what makes it stick, right? And you can go to courses and you can do all of these things, but then if you don't actually turn it into action, right? That's where the impact happens. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. Okay, I love that. So personal development, make it leadership style. And then also you guys, for those of us that get a little bit like burnt out on...

learning and on growing and you get to the point where you're like, when am I done? Well, guess what, you're never done. So just like, deal with that, however you have to but throw in some fun things too. I know, for a long time, Kira and I would book club on the side, like, fun little books that like, we could just not have to think about while we were doing the other one. So I feel like there's everyone in your life is built to serve a certain purpose in your life and figure out who those people are.

Figure out who your leadership style people are that you can have these conversations with and you can grow with. And then figure out who are your fun people that you're like, girl, I just need like a fun, I don't know, two sisters on a beach vacation book. Like, read that with me and figure out who those people are and build those cohorts and really build those people that you can lean on, those groups of people that will help to grow you.

The Dental A Team (13:39.726)

because sometimes you better look outside your practice and outside of your position. That's why you're in a leadership position, because you're the type of person that will dedicate this even outside of the practice. And I think that's a huge way for the office manager position to really be leveled up is to put the dedication into yourself and growing yourself so that you're a better leader within your practice. I think aside from that, or along with that, I should say,

really with the leadership style is like make sure you've got a coach like make sure you've got somebody else to lean on that maybe isn't as close to you as your friends or your team. Coaches really help we all have worked with coaches before as well if not currently and it really just helps to have that perspective sometimes I know with my practice earlier this week I was the person that could say the things to my doctor.

that the people in her life, even the closest people to her, were treading lightly on or weren't able to say. I was the person that could be like, no, I hear you, I understand you. And this is what I'm seeing through the cracks where everybody else was like, oh, it's fine, you're fine. And like petting, you know, which is great to an extent, but sometimes you need that person that's willing to say the things that other people won't. And if you're in a space where you can hear it and fantastic and move forward with it.

That's what coaches are really great for. I know we do that for a lot of our clients. And I know a lot of our clients and ourselves have used coaches in the past as well. So that's all kind of bundled up there. HR pieces, like nobody wants to actually talk about that. I know I don't, but I think that's a huge space too to help level up, make sure you're doing all of the things in.

within HR that you can. I know there's still a lot of doctors, Dana, that we talk to all the time that are running payroll. And I'm like, why are you running payroll? It's probably not right. Like 40 % of the time, you probably got mistakes. Some of you may be fantastic, and you may love doing it. But why office managers are we not handling that? Because you're getting the questions when things are wrong. But Dana, what else in the HR world? I'm thinking,

The Dental A Team (15:52.366)

401k is like managing those pieces and those conversations. What else are you seeing in there? I mean, I think just making sure everything's documented, right? We have a lot of conversations. We have a lot of verbal interactions with team members, but just making sure that at the end of the day, we have those things documented and we're staying up to date with them. I think to, if the doctor is still handling payroll, handling those things, putting trackers in place that make it easy and that make it that like you can also help.

Right, so if we are doing an overtime tracker, we're doing a PTO tracker, we're making it super easy for the doctor that's doing the payroll, that's not something that we take on, but all of those HR pieces, just making sure we've got streamlined processes, then I think just really ensuring we've got things documented, because that's where I find in HR that we get a little bit, not lazy, but we don't always stay on top of it. No, I totally agree. I totally agree. I've actually got, I'm an office manager tech,

me yesterday. And she's like, Do you remember when you you were here? This girl's first week? Do you remember how she was then because I'm writing up now her dismissal to get ready to fire her and she's trying to document everything and I'm like, well, girl, I've been with this practice for four years and I can tell you you're the first one that's like documented really well. So while I might remember what it was like, I don't think you can use any of it. It is huge, especially.

When you're coming into a practice or when you do have to have those hard conversations with people and you're like trying to reference things well now it's a feeling because there's no there's no written documentation. So I totally agree. I think that's huge. I think that's huge. And then I thought too marketing pieces. I know there's still a lot of doctors that are the people they're the ones in the practice that are communicating with the marketing team. I see emails go through that the doctors like, hey, can we change this on the website? How are you?

the one doing this, like your brain, I need you to be dedicated to the patients. I need doctors, I need you to be in those mouths. Like I can't drill a tooth, but I can ask a marketing company to change something on the website. What are the things that our doctors are still doing that are pulling attention, brain thoughts, or gosh, I know I used to go insane because I'm like waiting on the doctor to do something, some admin thing.

The Dental A Team (18:16.814)

I'm waiting and waiting and I can't do my piece till it's done. And sometimes it was like that where I'm like, why hasn't the website changed? Like, oh gosh, I haven't done it yet. Please do it. Or I could just streamline it and do it myself. And I think that's the space as well. So I think personal development, leadership, coaching, get those pieces, figure out what avenue you love. I know we coach on a lot of things. Obviously we do dentistry. Obviously we do systems and protocols. We have trained.

from the ground up. I've trained people outside of dentistry, Dana's trained people outside of dentistry to be office managers. That's one of my funnest spaces, honestly, I love it. So find your avenue, figure out what it is that you're looking for, and find the person that's going to help you with that. Find your cohorts, get that leadership personal development in there, and then look you guys as well.

At all those HR pieces, are you doing everything? Are you documenting everything that you could be? Do you need help with that? We've got forms, we've got ideas, we've got all the pieces. You can always reach out, let us know what you're doing. We can try to find holes, like all those pieces, always reach out. And then also look at the marketing pieces. Are you handling most of it? Because you're handling the trends, you're looking at what's working, what's not working. Why would you not be the communication person as well? So.

I think bundle all those pieces together and it's a really, those are really good spaces for you to see where you could take what you're doing and maybe make it a little bit better. Maybe make it feel like you're contributing a little bit more in learning and growing yourself and see how that might look. Dana, that was a good one. That was a good brainstorm and I loved your ideas on the leadership aspect. Thank you for that. And if you were to say, I think,

today, out of the books that you've read in our book club and listen to or whatever. What book do you say today, office managers, go read or listen to this? What which one would you choose? Oh, man, there are so many. That's a tough one. I didn't even prep you. I didn't tell you it was coming. For office managers there. Tip this is hard. Okay, there's probably two. I'll go with two. Can I narrow it down to two? I'll

The Dental A Team (20:29.646)

I'll accept that. All right. Okay. I think office managers leadership as a whole, I think extreme ownership is top of my list. And then in dentistry, specifically when it comes to leaders, I think unreasonable hospitality is a pretty close second for me. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah. Unreasonable hospitality was a good one. And you guys, my listeners know Dave Mogadam. I know we've done a couple interviews with him and I just did one recently with him and he actually introduced us to that book.

He sent it to me last year, I think it was for my birthday. I know they had read it and it was right around my birthday and it was so sweet. He he sent, shipped it off to me. So I love that book. It's so good. Awesome recommendations. I think you're totally right. And I think I would agree with you. I think those are the two that I would, I would dive into as well. So go dive into them, you guys, find your avenues, find your people, find your coaches, find all of the spaces that you're like, gosh, this really serves me and fills my soul, my bucket. And also it's going to serve my position at my practice.

Look at the HR pieces, look at the marketing pieces. What can you snag from the doctor that you could do and actually make your life easier is always my point. I don't know if I could just take this from you, but my life is actually easier because I'm not waiting on you anymore. Are there those spaces where you could take back some of that control and that power? So find it, Dana. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Thank you for brainstorming through that. Go read the book, you guys. Let us know.

know how we did. Drop us a five star review and drop us a review when you've read the book. We want to hear from you guys and any questions, any documentation pieces that you might need, any of those things, just reach out at hello at the dentaleteam .com. You guys, we help our team respond to those. If you request any information, you actually do get a consultant that helps you with that. So reach out to us. Let us know how we can be of a better support to you and we'll catch you next time.