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Dr. David Rice: Team Mistake
58 Plays2 months ago
Is Everyone Smiling But You? Join Dr. David Rice and Tanya Sue Maestas on Dental Fuel as they explore the pitfalls of people-pleasing and unveil insights from Dr. Rice's new book! Discover strategies to establish clear expectations, foster accountability, and cultivate a supportive team culture in your dental practice. Don’t miss this enriching conversation to elevate your practice management skills!
About the Guest:
David Rice is the founder and CEO of Ignite DDS, an organization dedicated to helping dental students and young dentists navigate their careers with confidence and expertise. He is also a seasoned clinician with extensive experience in restorative and cosmetic dentistry. David practices part-time at East Amherst Dental Center in Buffalo, NY, where he initially started as an associate, then became an owner, and now returns occasionally. Apart from his clinical and teaching roles, David is a prominent educator, frequently collaborating with top dental education institutes like Pankey, Dawson, and Spear.
Episode Summary:
Welcome to an insightful episode featuring David Rice and Tanya Sue Maestas as they delve into the intricacies of building effective and positive team cultures within dental practices. Rice, a seasoned dentist and founder of IgniteDDS, shares his experiences and lessons learned throughout his journey, providing a deep dive into common challenges and strategic solutions in team building and practice management. This conversation is a must-listen for dental professionals eager to enhance their practice cultures and achieve higher levels of success.
In this episode, David Rice opens up about the pitfalls of being a people pleaser early in his career and the importance of establishing clear expectations and accountability within a team. Through personal anecdotes and professional insights, Rice emphasizes the need for strong vision, mentorship, and the willingness to make tough decisions for the betterment of the practice. The discussion also touches on the impact of toxic environments and methods to cultivate a supportive and thriving workplace. Tanya Sue Maestas complements the dialogue with her own experiences and strategies, making this episode a rich resource for dental practitioners.
Key Takeaways:
- The Importance of Clear Expectations: Establish defined roles and responsibilities to prevent being taken advantage of and to maintain control over your practice’s culture.
- Value of Consistent Team Meetings: Regular huddles and meetings, whether in the morning or at any suitable time, are crucial for maintaining team alignment and preparing for upcoming tasks.
- Handling Toxic Environments: Understand what drives each team member and foster open communication to manage and ideally eliminate toxicity within the workplace.
- Role of Mentorship: Having mentors and coaches can significantly aid in navigating the challenges of practice management and personal development within your profession.
- Building a Positive Culture: Create a supportive environment where every team member feels valued, understood, and is motivated to contribute positively.
Connect with Ignitedds and Dr. David Rice: @ignitedds
Connect with Tanya Sue Maestas: @tsmaestas.dds
Learn more about 90 Day JumpStart : https://ignitedds.com
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Dental Fuel, the podcast that focuses on what no one else is talking about. Mistakes. The dental world is full of before and afters and no one is talking about the middle. Dental Fuel brings you the unspoken in-between. Welcome back to another episode of Dental Fuel. Dental Fuel is brought to you by 90 Day Jumpstart, a program to help you increase production and break free from financial stress. David has experience in working with different teams. In this episode, David and I discuss the importance of building effective dental teams and leadership. David also opens up about the pitfalls of being a people pleaser early in his career. Something that I'm hearing is that you have surrounded yourself with people who have helped you.
00:00:44
Speaker
And I think that that's really important for for all dentists to remember. um But I think that it's also important to, you know, be there to help others as well. And this is especially important when you are building a team and a culture in your practice. And that can be really challenging, you know, finding the right people to fit that mold that you're trying to set forth in your practices or scale those practices. Are there any mistakes that you made in building different teams that you have learned from and have grown from? Definitely. I would say in the beginning for me, um I know this doesn't sound hard to believe for a lot of you who know me well, but I was a real people pleaser. So as a young dentist, i I wanted everyone to be my best friend. I wanted everyone to like me.
00:01:32
Speaker
And when when I did that, i i I lost control because not everybody will live up to an expectation um unless we clearly define it. they're just Not everyone's going to be just a good person because. So people took advantage of the fact that I was a nice person and took advantage of the fact that they could get away with things. And over time I learned I had to be more clear. I had to have a really strong vision. I had to be willing to create accountability and you know maybe say goodbye to some people in my life who weren't helping with the direction. And they were good lessons. They were really hard ones to live out the first time I had to do that. But um again, good friends and good mentors around me helped me through it and realized that, hey, if they can do it, I can probably do it too.
00:02:24
Speaker
You mentioned that you have had a coach for a really long time. Did your coach help you along the way with issues like this? Um, a little bit, not as much as I would have wanted. I think my coach was very much here are the things you need to do. Go do them. And I think I wish that that coach would have been more of, let me show you how to do it. as opposed to just go do it and then hold me accountable to it. So that's a lot of how we've shaped our 90 days is to say, look at some of the stuffs really hard and it's really new. So let's walk with you until you feel really good about it. So that was, that was one I think I wish I would have gotten a little more help on, to be honest. Hmm. Interesting.
00:03:15
Speaker
ah And would you encourage others who are thinking of maybe getting a coach to seek out a coach, and how does one do that? 100% seek out a coach. i would I would do exactly what you know your patients are doing. I would ask people you know who are already working with the coach, or I would ask people you trust in the industry um to narrow that pool because we're living in a world today where there are a lot of armchair quarterbacks and supposed experts and I'm sadly here to tell you that 80% of them just are not. 20% are amazing and they'll blow your mind with how they can help you but most
00:04:01
Speaker
or just you know We have this big bullseye on our back as dentists, so most are just kind of chasing us all the time. so Ask people you know and you trust, people who are maybe highly successful doing the things that you think you want to do. and um Then don't ask too many other people. It's just going to cloud your judgment and muddy the waters and you're going to get too many opinions from too many people. David, you have worked with a ton of different groups and a ton of different people. And I know that you have seen and have encountered toxic environments, toxic people. How do you handle that?
00:04:42
Speaker
um First, credit to Anastasia because she is is ah as much as um my better half as a mentor to me in this space, and she has taught me to just kind of unplug myself. so i'm i I've gotten pretty good over the years of saying that out loud to certain people who don't take the hint, but largely I just say, hey, thank you so much for the opportunity. um I'm going to take a pass and and just move in a different direction. So this probably will surprise some of you. I'm a part of very few Facebook groups because they're not helpful for me. I know they're not helpful for most of you. So I unplug and I stick around with the ones that have some integrity. And ah my circle is very tight these days. um
00:05:33
Speaker
I've, it's funny when you, your parents tell you growing up like, Oh, if you leave this earth with like five great friends, it's going to be the coolest, you know, greatest thing in the world. And you're like, Oh my God, five great friends. I've got a hundred great friends. But as time goes on, you really start to understand who the best people in your life are, what makes them the best people and and how to just, you know, be friendly, but not friends with all the others. What would your advice be for those who are in a toxic workplace and maybe are trying to build a positive culture and have that toxicity in their practice? And maybe they have, you know, a say in what that culture or, you know, maybe they have a say in the management and are able to fire them. How do they do that? Or how do they manage those tough conversations?
00:06:16
Speaker
Sure. Um, if you have any kind of say in the matter, I would try to learn what, what matters most to everybody who's on that team. They're everybody's driven by something. So rather than have sort of a universal assumption of what's important to people, spend some time with each person and understand what they really, really value. And then I would sit down with them one-on-one and I would share, Hey, You know, I would love this to be an amazing place for us to come to work every day. i'm I'm guessing you would too. And then if you frame your conversation around what's most valuable to them, so you're helping them to get more of what they want, then odds are they're going to help you get more of what you want. And if you can do that as an entire team that takes some trust, then I would hold a team meeting.
00:07:09
Speaker
I would kick the team meeting off with, um, bring tissues for this, by the way, um, with help no no tissues, David, we've been there, you but we've right we've been there, but kick it off with like, um, everybody's got to say something that they admire about somebody else. Cause sometimes it's easy for us to get lost in the, in the negative stuff. We remember like all the things that didn't go well. And then once everybody's feeling really good, start talking about the big picture. Hey, who do we want to be? how How do we want to come to work? How much do we want to love this? What should that look like? And then when everybody's in that really great frame of mind, you can create it together and then build in a plan that says, okay, so we're going to commit to it. And what happens if I, David Rice, back out of my commitment? What do we do? And then everybody on the team has to kind of go through that process.
00:07:59
Speaker
it's It takes time, it takes trust, but it really, really works and it will really elevate your culture to one when I think of character, which I think is so very valuable. How often would you recommend that teams, practice teams, should be meeting?
00:08:18
Speaker
Okay. Minimally once a quarter, but in my perfect world, you meet every morning. It could be 10 minutes. And then once a month you meet for a little longer period of time. And then once a quarter you meet for a little longer period of time. And then once a year you start predicting what's going to happen the following years. And those all tie together. And if you want that recipe, just reach out to me. I'll, I'll send you what we've done in our practice for 28 years. Were you or are you a big proponent of morning cuddles? Huge. Yeah, I i honestly.
00:08:58
Speaker
You can have a very good practice without a morning huddle. It's extremely difficult to have an elite practice without one. There's so many moving parts. And so I'm a huge fan of morning huddle. And for those of you who say like morning's really hard, pick a new time, but just meet every day for 10 minutes. Could be midday, could be end of day, just find time. You can do it. Yeah, we we don't do a ah morning cuddle here because Well, I wouldn't make it. But we do do a little like afternoon recap and kind of ah prepare for the next day. And I feel like that is more beneficial for us here and just the practice that we have. ah you know We're just a little bit smaller. We're rural. It's different. ah But it works really well. And it kind of keeps us on our toes. And we know what's coming up the next day. And it's not a surprise. And we're not coming through the door that following day, the following week. And you know just kind of hanging on for dear life, we kind of anticipate
00:09:52
Speaker
what's on the schedule for the next day. And I think that that's really big just to have everyone kind of in sync and moving forward together as a team. I think so. And you hit it right on the head, right? We call it a morning huddle because that's, you know, kind of historically what it's always been, but why the morning? It could be any time of day that works for, you know, you as a team, just make sure you're getting together. David, and our conversation today is is going very quickly. And I always feel that when I speak to you and I have the opportunity to ask you a ton of questions, which I always have, um you're like an onion. You got a lot of layers to you. You don't smell, but you have a lot of layers to you. And it's always it's always great to peel those layers back and just kind of learn and get some insight from you, um especially, you know, like I mentioned, since you have that bird's eye view, you've worked with so many different teams and people.
00:10:39
Speaker
and really know how to help others out. But I do know that this past year was was a really big year for you and you released and and launched a book. And I would love if you would tell us a little bit about what that book's about. Thanks, I did. It's called, Is Everyone Smiling But You? It's a feeling I'm guessing most people have had. I know I did. That was sort of the you know the genesis of it all. And the book is really about how to take a step back not just in dentistry, but in life and figure out who you want to be when you grow up.
00:11:12
Speaker
who you want to have in your life as you do that. And then it really becomes a playbook for how to do it, you know, one step at a time. And it's, um, it's a little bit of, it's a lot of personal stories. It's a little bit of, um, the process. And then it's also a lot of bit of, you know, stop the read, do these things and then move on, which have always helped me as a reader. So I'm hoping it's going to help a lot of people too. Oh, it will. it's ah It's a great read. It's a friendly read, which is nice. um Sometimes books can be hard to read, especially, you know, in this day and age, it's hard to keep focused. So it's a really good one. And I encourage everyone who's listening to ah take a look at it and take a read. And I think that you will find a lot of value in it.
00:11:56
Speaker
David closes out our conversation next week with some expert advice. Be sure to tune in. If you're looking to find financial control, systems control and clinical control in your office, the 90 day jumpstart is for you. Dr. David Rice can help you reach your goals with 90 day jumpstart. Grow your profit, not your stress. Be sure to connect with us on social media at Ignite DDS and at Dental Fuel. If you'd like to listen to more Dr. David Rice, you can find him on his podcast, Dentistry Unmasked with Dr. Pan Maragliano.