Episode 794: Your Org Chart Is the Scaffolding of Your Practice

 Tiff and Denae sketch out what it takes to sketch out an organizational chart for your practice. These charts are a tangible outline of how your business operates, and can answer such questions like Who do I report to?, Who do I look to for certain information? and If I need something outside of my department, where do I go?

An effective org chart for your practice empowers people in their positions to really perform in their seat. Tiff and Denae give advice on how to go about creating one the DAT-approved way.

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:01.284)

Hey, Denae, I'm so excited to be here with you today. I have picked some really fun topics for us. I tell you all the time that I handpick my topics specifically for you and play to your biggest strengths. And this one that we're doing right now is super fun. I'm really excited to do it with you. I actually just did a coaching call with you with one of your clients a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it was really, really fun how you helped him build out his org chart. And the most amazing part to me about that call

 

was that he didn't even, I didn't even see that you were going that direction until you started going down that road, but he didn't even see the importance of it until after you had explained it. And it was just really cool to watch it all kind of come together. And then a couple days later, he was so excited about it. I remember getting the text message with the picture of his finished org chart and just like so excited to tell you that he had finished it. So I thought today it would be really fun for us to go through.

 

Denae Black (00:50.455)

Yep.

 

Tiffanie (00:57.364)

That again, like how do you suggest building on an org chart? What does that look like? And just so you guys know, everybody out there listening, Denae is a whiz when it comes to business period. I think business and numbers, I think that is your forte. I think you do a lot of things really, really well. But when it comes to business structure and seeing the black and white of the scaffolding of what a business needs to look like to operate, but then also to grow, is Denae's superpower.

 

It's incredible. So, so you guys know, and you can trust the information you're getting today. That's where her background really, really thrives and is so strong. Um, dental in general is your like background, but man alive, but listening to you talk about business really makes me excited about business. So take us through today. What are your best kept secrets on getting.

 

an organizational chart for a business together, specifically dentistry, right? But I think that this kind of baseline information for anybody who's out there listening, I know we've got a lot of chiropractors who have listened in the past, and I have a lot of friends and family members who listen all the time, who have all walks of businesses. And I think this one today is something that really can stretch beyond dentistry and specialty within dentistry and go to any business. So.

 

Danae, welcome. I'm so happy you're here with me. How are you today? Are you excited for this one? Yeah? I know. I saw you light up on that video call we did a few weeks ago. And then when this one came up as one of our topics we needed to do, I was like, I'll handpick in this one for Danae. So number one, I think the biggest question for me, why do you?

 

Denae Black (02:20.516)

Thank you.

 

Denae Black (02:24.51)

I'm doing good. I'm doing, I'm excited to talk org charts, that's for sure.

 

Denae Black (02:40.089)

Thank you.

 

Tiffanie (02:44.212)

Org charts excite you so much, and why should our listeners be excited to create an org chart for their business?

 

Denae Black (02:51.242)

So the reason I like org charts so much is because I'm a really big visual person and I'm really big on accountability. And an org chart or an organizational chart is gonna help give you a structure of how your practice or your business is gonna actually be able to operate. So there's no confusion. There's no confusion on how many seats you have on your bus. And there's no confusion on what each one of those people are doing to help ensure

 

Tiffanie (03:11.812)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (03:21.216)

you're all rowing in the same direction. It helps, they help outline your support system. So not necessarily who do I report to, but who do I have in the organization, in my role, to be able to go to when I need help or when I need support. So I like it because it gives you a structure. It gives you a visual so that everybody on your team knows how many seats you have.

 

Tiffanie (03:28.506)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (03:48.31)

and what everybody in the practice is doing in order to help you guys move this boat.

 

Tiffanie (03:54.428)

Mm-hmm. I love that. I love that. I remember when I was working in my most recent practice here, which was, gosh, almost seven years ago at this point. It was a long time ago, but I remember we took this entire course on how to build out an organizational chart. And at first we went into it, I was like, this seems so crazy. Like, how is this an entire freaking course? But it was so much. It was so much information, so much

 

fun and it was just this giant puzzle. I remember taking a giant poster board and my doctor was the one that was supposed to be like doing it all and I'm in the other room learning other stuff and he's like Tiff you got to get in here like I can't even wrap my mind around how this is going to work and it was just so cool to put all those puzzle pieces together and we took it from this big giant poster board we did little sticky notes so we could move it around and really figure it out.

 

But it was really fun as a team member for me to see those pieces, like you just said, the like scaffolding of the practice and the positions that we had in the practice and how they all intertwined. So who do I report to for sure? Like who's my next in line? My support though, like you said, was the biggest piece. Who could I look to for the information? Or if I needed something that was completely outside of my department, who did I go to? And that was huge.

 

That was huge specifically for me and my practice because I was the go-to for literally everyone. Hygiene, dental assistants, front office, doctors, like everyone came to me even though I wasn't the office manager at the time. I was the go-to person. So when I saw that laid out and I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait for the dental assistants to see that this is the person.

 

Denae Black (05:16.366)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (05:34.5)

who does the ordering and she's the one who answers that question or hi, Genesis to see like, I have nothing to do with your hours and filling your schedule, but like, I'll help. It was just really cool. So the way you laid that out, I think that is perfect really being able to see who can support you in your position. But then also when you have a question that's outside of your department or your spectrum, you can look to those people. You can look at the chart and see exactly who's responsible for that. You have a marketing question, go to the marketing person.

 

don't go to the doctor. And so I think it helps to funnel a lot of conversations and a lot of questions to the correct people as well. I love that.

 

Denae Black (06:10.918)

It does, absolutely. And it empowers the people that are in that position to do their position. Because people know to go to them and they never feel like they got the rug pulled underneath them or somebody went above them when it's super clear who sits in what seat.

 

Tiffanie (06:14.466)

Yeah.

 

Absolutely.

 

Tiffanie (06:26.432)

Yeah, totally, totally. And then building it out too, where you can see exactly like, how does that position win? So I know when we built ours out, we had all the positions, which I'm going to have you go through in a second. But then we also said like this, the expected outcome for this position is this. And then it was like, oh my gosh, like how freeing is that to be able to see, this is how I win. And when I go above and beyond that, that's above and beyond, but this is how I know I totally won my position.

 

So how do you, Danai, when you're having, because you do these a lot with, I mean, we all do. A lot of our clients are working on org charts. It's part of our operations manual as well, our operations manual intensive that we do, like our courses, all of those pieces. So a lot of our clients, if not all of our clients, have worked on an org chart, but how do you go about having your clients do it? Like you're trying to explain to somebody who's maybe even never seen an org chart before, where do they start? What are they doing?

 

Denae Black (07:22.902)

So typically what I say is create your org chart based off of the seats that you need. So if you have a front desk, how many people do you need? Not people, scratch that. How many positions do you need at the front desk?

 

because, and I say positions, because you could be a smaller practice and have one person that's managing your accounts receivable and your treatment planning and your scheduling, right? Maybe it's one person that's wearing those three different hats, but you wanna create your organizational chart to where you've got the different positions or seats. And then,

 

Tiffanie (07:46.317)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (07:54.927)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (08:07.146)

then go in and fill the people after the fact. So you could have one person sitting in three different seats, but it helps you visually see what are they doing? And it will also help you visually see how can you scale.

 

Tiffanie (08:13.782)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (08:21.312)

Okay, so I'm thinking, I'm thinking even before you title that person, you kind of need to think about what that person's duty is. So you were, I think, front office was a perfect place to give, to lead by example, right? So if you're presenting treatment plans, right, so there's somebody who presents treatment plans, there's somebody who schedules, which could be the same person, it could be treatment planning and scheduling, there's somebody who's answering the phones and checking in.

 

somebody who's checking out and collecting, somebody who's like sending claims, right? Dealing with insurance. So I'm thinking as you're talking, I'm thinking if we know those basic duties, there's a lot of things you guys, the doctors don't get ahead of yourselves, there's a lot of things that go into each one of those positions. But if you know the basic overarching goal, right? Duty of that seat, of something that needs to be accomplished, I'm thinking it's probably easier than right, to say like, okay, and then go in.

 

and label them because I feel like a lot of times we come in hot and heavy and we're like, well, we have an office manager and this is what my office manager does. But that's not, I feel like that's the opposite, right? So if we come in and we just say office manager, we got doctor, office manager, and then dental assistants and hygiene, like you're still, you're not doing it as Danae is saying by position or seat. Now you're doing it by the people that you have. So when we break it down,

 

Danae, what's the best advice you have for really being able to see that and break it down by what the business needs and forget about the people that are in the seats right now.

 

Denae Black (09:57.238)

So my best advice is think long-term. Don't think what you have right now, think long-term. What do you want or how do you want your practice to be structured long-term? Create your organizational chart based off of that. So taking the front office example, if you have...

 

Tiffanie (10:12.005)

Mm-hmm.

 

Denae Black (10:16.318)

You know that you need three major areas covered at the front desk, insurance, scheduling, and treatment coordinating. Those are three major positions that you need at the front desk. But if you know long term, five years from now, 10 years from now, you're going to need to be able to do that.

 

Tiffanie (10:20.463)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (10:32.426)

You're only going to have one person that's managing all of that. Now all of a sudden you have one seat that is responsible for all of those duties, and then you can create their titles from there. But truly create it based off of your long-term vision for your structure, and then start filling in the seats from there. It is my biggest example or recommendation.

 

Tiffanie (10:55.916)

Yeah, I love that. I think that's great because you can take it then. And I think, even before I say what I was going to say, like write down, I like the sticky note idea and I like being able to move them around, but maybe even just write down on a bunch of sticky notes, like all of those different things that you want accomplished for your patients and your patient's best patient experience of your practice. They're, you know, paying easily. So how are we making sure that happens? They know their benefits and their information. They're

 

Accounts are clean and they're scheduled. So how do you break that up? Right and maybe even putting the sticky notes and guys when you do those like sticky note when you do the sticky note exercise Sometimes those sticky notes will sit on top of each other once you figure that out So you might have those all those overarching positions and then you might see like okay Well with my practice the size of my practice and then the patient base that we have the scheduling and the treatment planning are one Seat so I'm gonna put those sticky notes together

 

And then maybe checkout and billing and AR are one seat. So we've got two people accomplishing all of the pieces that my practice needs and that's okay too. Or you might be such a large practice that you're like, gosh, we have six doctors and we've got to duplicate that amount of people in the front office and each doctor needs a scheduling coordinator and a treatment coordinator. Like that's where it gets bigger. Like what Dene is saying, where you're gonna be able to scale it. So once you have all of those pieces together,

 

Backoffice is much easier, right? You've got your dental assistants, your hygienists that kind of all doing the same things. But I want you guys to also remember the marketing. Like I mentioned, who's paying bills? And that could be you, but it still needs to go on the org chart so that it's seen and it's visual. And that also, I think, to Demi's point helps you scale. So if you're putting those things on, now you have your financial coordinator and your HR, right? So who's paying bills and who's doing payroll, who's doing all the HR stuff.

 

could be your name there, but then later down the road, when you're growing and you're scaling, is that something that you can then put someone else's name in there? Would it make more sense for someone else to do it when you're busier? Same with the marketing, that might be your office manager, it might be you, but later on the road, is it gonna make more sense for someone else to be in there? So, Denae, like you were saying, if you've got those seats and those positions, so we've got all the positions laid out, now we can say, okay,

 

Tiffanie (13:19.516)

who do we have in our practice currently and where do they sit? Like where do they belong? And I think that helps us figure out the duties and the expectations for the individual, which then leads into all of the other pieces. I think practices, and this could be an over-assumption, I think practices struggle a lot with job descriptions. They struggle a lot with being able to tell people what are they supposed to do every day.

 

What's their checklist? And I think one of the reasons that they struggle with it is because they can't see the big picture from a black and white standpoint, like an org chart. And if you start with the org chart, then the rest of it kind of falls into place.

 

Denae Black (14:02.802)

Yeah, absolutely. It's a visual. That's ultimately what it is, is it's putting down visually how are you structured and what is everybody gonna be specifically doing? What part do they play in this orchestra or in this play? So it's truly that. And a lot of times organizational charts can get, they get a bad rep, because then it makes you feel like you're top down. But at the end of the day, what I stress to people is,

 

Tiffanie (14:05.725)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (14:11.74)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tiffanie (14:18.893)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (14:26.121)

Okay. Yeah.

 

Denae Black (14:31.938)

The minute that you lay that paper down, everyone's on the same level. It's not about one person being more important than the next person. It is truly just about supporting each other and making sure that it's really clear what part each one of you guys play every day. Sports do it, right? There's not an NFL team or a NBA team or an NFL team that does not have a structure behind their team and how it's designed and it works.

 

Tiffanie (14:39.151)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (14:48.748)

Yeah.

 

Denae Black (15:00.35)

So there's no difference in business. We want a visual, we need something that's gonna help us visually see who are our players and what do they do.

 

Tiffanie (15:09.008)

For sure, I totally love that. And I think something that I've noticed is if a doctor or an owner, business owner of any sort, doesn't believe in what they're trying to portray to the team and they sway at all, the team doesn't trust it and they won't believe in it. So if you believe in the chart, you believe in the structure of your organization, you believe in getting to these goals, your team will stand behind you too. It's all about in the delivery.

 

So I think to Denae's point of not everybody believes in it, they feel like it's top down. If you feel that way, that's what you're gonna portray. And if you don't feel that way, but your team does, you're gonna stand behind it and you're gonna continue to invite the team to understand more and more and more, and they're gonna get on board. They may not be on board the first time or the first second, just like you may not be on board the first time you listen to this podcast.

 

But the more you listen to it, the more you talk about it, and the more you see the clarity that it can bring, the more on board you're going to be. And I love that you said about like a sports team, right? The sports team, I think sports teams are so easy for us to recognize and relate to, right? Because most of us at some level have played or watched sports in general. But I think, gosh, I think of your daughter in cheer, like.

 

There's no way they don't have an organizational chart in that. Brody, you know, my son plays lacrosse, your daughter plays lacrosse. Like there's no way. And they're all equals on the field. Brody doesn't get as much playing time as a lot of the other positions, but that's not his position. And he's totally okay with it because he sees the organizational chart, right? He sees how those players are laid out and the important pieces that each team member brings.

 

to the end goal of winning that game, right? And I'm sure your kids are exactly the same, like Brody with baseball, and I know your kids have played baseball, and all the sports, you guys do volleyball, like all of those pieces, the kids get it. And I think we all get it, and we all see it. There's plays, you know, people who do acting, like you're not all gonna be that main character, right?

 

Denae Black (17:16.004)

Yep.

 

Tiffanie (17:31.712)

but you still have an incredible supporting role. And for you to understand when you're going into acting, what that role provides for the play is huge. That's an organizational chart. We're just not calling it that in every aspect of our lives, but it's the same thing, it's the same idea. So if you can get behind it, you can understand the value that it will bring not only for your business.

 

your growth, right? Denae, like Denae said, building it out by position for today, building it out by position for tomorrow, what you wanna see your growth, that's gonna help you scale and be able to see where you can take your business, but it's also gonna help your team to understand where you are and how they can accomplish the goals within their position. So I love it. Start with the positions and the seats. Do not...

 

start with the people. So you've got to like clear your brain and pretend like you have no team members. All my employees are gone today and it's just me and if I could build my perfect practice what would the positions in my practice look like? What would they be doing and where would they sit? And then from there

 

Once you get that done and you figure out what all of those different levels will look like, that's where you can say, okay, I have a team again. These are their names. These are their strengths and their weaknesses, and this is where they're going to best be suited. Dene, where do you feel like, I feel like big or small practices can do this easily, but how long do you usually say it will take to get like round one of an org chart completed for

 

We'll say a medium practice. We'll just slice it right in the middle.

 

Denae Black (19:11.194)

Um, I think that depends. I think it depends on how clear your roles are on how clear your job descriptions are. If everybody's kind of got their hands in this, in the cookie pot, right? It might take you a little bit longer. It might take you upwards to four or five hours to finish it. But if you have a pretty clear idea of the different roles in your practice, honestly, you should be able to get it done within an hour.

 

Tiffanie (19:16.88)

Okay.

 

Tiffanie (19:25.018)

Yeah.

 

Tiffanie (19:29.334)

I'm sorry.

 

Tiffanie (19:38.5)

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, I like it. Okay. So my number one action item that I, as you're talking, think of is to give yourself the dedicated time. Like no one, you take your watch off, right? My watch goes off constantly and I'm like, Oh, what is that? What is that? Take your watch off, put your phone in the other room, give yourself the dedicated time. No one can bother you. I like Denae's four to five hours. If you can block off like a half a day, maybe even three hours where you're just literally...

 

powering through and you're just being creative, because this is a very creative space, block that out. So give yourself a few hours, block it out where no one can get to you, there's no other responsibilities, it's not in between patients. You're like done with patients, you don't have to go back to patients, maybe it's the end of your day, I don't care if it's the end, but do not have to go back to patients. When you are in that creative space, hopping back over to dentistry is gonna be really difficult.

 

So give yourself that dedicated time, couple hours, three, four, five, something like that, and start with your positions. So forget you have a team, start with what your ideal practice and business would look like, and then move on from there. Keep in mind, you're gonna do many iterations of this, not only over the years, but potentially just the first couple times of getting an org chart together and really feeling solid with it. Be patient with yourself and you guys.

 

As always, if you need help, I told you we are experts at this. Dene just walked you through the whole thing. She is incredible. She's done a million of them. If you need help, I want you to reach out to us. Whether you're a current client or a future client, we truly are here to help and serve everyone. And if you email us over at hello at thedentaleteam.com, we can get you resources for it. We've got templates for this. We've got ideas. We've got newsletters. We've got all kinds of things.

 

If you're not yet a client of ours that we can send over to you, if you are a client, get on that freaking phone with one of us, whoever your consultant is, text us now if we haven't gone through this with you and get on the phone with us. So give yourself that dedicated time. Start with your seats, your positions before entering any names or I would say titles, and then go from there titles and names to add the people back in.

 

Tiffanie (21:50.668)

and reach out to us when you need help. You guys, even if you're on your third or fourth iteration and you're like, I just don't feel like it's complete, you want us to take a look at it, send it over, we're happy to do so. Like I said, we've done this with most, if not all, of our clients in our own personal coaching lives. So let us know, Denae, is there anything you can think of that I left out of those action items that would be super beneficial for them?

 

Denae Black (22:14.142)

I think the only other thing I would add is add it to your calendar to review once a year. Always take another look, just reevaluate and say, is this still what my structure looks like at least once a year? So if you already have an organizational chart, maybe add a task to carve out some time and reevaluate it, just make sure this is still the structure that I need to support my business.

 

Tiffanie (22:36.7)

Love that I love it. Okay, you guys you heard it from the name. She is the business queen of our freaking consulting team I'm telling you that right now. She is a whiz if you work with her You are so lucky if you don't work with her yet Reach out if you're my client and you want to work with her and you need help with your org chart I'm more than happy to have to may jump in on any of our calls and help us today

 

Thank you so much for being here. Again, hand-picked, and this was a really good one. I think this was fun. So thank you so much for giving us your time and for being here with me today. All right, guys, you're welcome. All right, everyone, go block out that time. Put it on your calendar to review next year. Start with your positions. Start with your...

 

Denae Black (23:10.51)

Of course, thanks, Tiff.

 

Tiffanie (23:20.488)

and then put people in there and reach out to us. Hello at the dental 18.com. If you loved this, like I know you did, and if you get your org chart done, like I know you will, I want you to drop us a five-star review. It really helps us to get out to the dental community. And as you guys know, our listeners, one of our biggest things in this world that we're trying to do is reach as many people as we can in our community to help you guys live your fullest and best lives. That's what we're here to do. So drop us a review so everyone can find us and so that we know.

 

This was valuable for you. Thanks guys, we'll catch you next time.