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Dr. Naved Fatmi: Team Mistake
67 Plays1 year ago
This week on Dental Fuel, listen in as Dr. Fatmi dives deep into the art of team building! Learn why chasing personality over years of experience can be a game-changer for your practice. Your next all-star team member might be just a conversation away, even in the least expected places like the grocery store!
Remember, the one who seems the smartest in the room often has the most to learn. Get ready for an enlightening session on cultivating a team that's eager to grow, thrive, and revolutionize your dental practice.
About the Guest:
Dr. Naved Fatmi is a highly regarded dentist based in the southern area of Boca Raton, Florida. An alumnus of the University of Florida, graduating in 2009, Dr. Fatmi has a robust professional background in dentistry. He has successfully opened and managed multiple practices, growing his ventures to five practices, though he currently owns three. Alongside his role as a practicing dentist, Dr. Fatmi is involved in academia as a faculty member at Palm Beach State College and offers lectures at the University of Florida on the business aspects of dentistry. His commitment to his profession extended to serving on the board of the College of Dentistry, holding the position of chairman in the tenure from 2015 to 2025.
Episode Summary:
In this enlightening episode of Dental Fuel, host Tanya Sue Maestas engages in a deep dive with Dr. Naved Fatmi, exploring the less-discussed intricacies of scaling dental practices and building effective teams. This conversation is a treasure trove for dental professionals seeking insights into expanding their practices while fostering a culture conducive to growth and learning.
Dr. Fatmi shares his journey from purchasing his first practice to the lessons learned from challenging partnerships, leading to his decision to independently manage multiple practices. He highlights the significance of personality match in team formation, preferring team members from diverse backgrounds with a shared eagerness for knowledge over those with extensive dental experience but limited growth mindset. Furthermore, he reflects on the evolution of patient management and the importance of being open to learning from team members at all levels.
The dialogue transitions into an intimate look at the operational structure of Dr. Fatmi's practices, emphasizing teamwork, consistent feedback mechanisms, and the empowerment of each staff member through inclusive decision-making processes. Dr. Fatmi's ethos centers on creating a collaborative environment where learning is continuous, and excellence is a shared pursuit.
Key Takeaways:
- Successfully scaling dental practices often involves overcoming initial challenges and learning the importance of matching personalities within partnerships.
- Building a successful dental team doesn't always require deep industry experience but rather individuals with an openness to learning and adapting to new practices.
- Structured leadership involving regional and operational management ensures checks and balances while promoting progressive team improvement.
- Encouraging feedback and collaborative decision-making among all levels of staff members, from dental assistants to doctors, contributes to a healthier and more efficient practice environment.
Connect with Dr. Naved Fatmi: @drnavedfatmi
Connect with Ignitedds: @ignitedds
Connect with Tanya Sue Maestas: @tsmaestas.dds
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Transcript
Introduction to Dental Fuel Podcast
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.
Scaling Dental Practices: Challenges & Mistakes
00:00:15
Speaker
Dr. Naveed Fatmi shares how he decided to grow and scale his practices and the challenges and mistakes he faced in growing teams within the practices and how personality comes into play. As you were scaling your practices,
00:00:30
Speaker
Well, first of all, I would love to know what year, you know, after having your first practice, did you decide to kind of grow that and scale that practice?
Dr. Fatmi's Journey: From Partnership to Solo Practice
00:00:40
Speaker
Um, my first practice I bought in 2012 and then we bought, I bought another one with another partner, which didn't go well in 2014, 13 and another one for the partner. So again, it goes back to personality, right? Yeah.
00:00:56
Speaker
one person ends up take on and I'm young at the time I was the first practice was a 28 and I'm 31 32 I'm jumping in and partnership and again, you don't know what you don't know. And so it's not a good move. And then 2016, 17, I just said, I have to do this myself. Like you can't be with a group. So 2017, I bought the second one in 2020 though.
00:01:24
Speaker
And that's where I saw the most growth, the most profitability, because it was under my control. The decision wasn't based on five people or two people. It was just slow and predictable. And to me, slow means six months a year to somebody else still might need five years. So that's a different angle of looking at it. Time is relative. Time is relative, right? So there's other people out there like it took you
00:01:52
Speaker
six months to a year to get a $2 million, $2 million practice. There's probably groups out there that can do that in three months. I can't. I need that full year plus two minutes later.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of what I was hinting at, you know, building an appropriate team and some team mistakes that maybe you encountered coming along.
Building a Diverse Team: The Key to Success?
00:02:13
Speaker
It's about the person, you know, it's about sharing a vision. But what were some of those challenges that you had in building the team and these different practices, aside from maybe those partners that didn't really work out?
00:02:24
Speaker
I really based my team, picked my team according to personality. We've hired people from the spa industry, we've hired people from the chiropractor office, we've hired people from the grocery store. But they're willing to learn and they're willing to want knowledge, but sometimes as informed as somebody who's a dental assistant that's coming into the front desk that's had 10 years of dentistry. But they want to grow and learn, let's use an example as a software,
00:02:54
Speaker
at a meeting with my marketing team today, and this was one of the discussions we had. Software is constantly changing. Dentistry and technology is constantly changing. So if we don't have an individual who is going to want to learn the upgrades and the way to do new things on customer service, how we used to answer the phone and track five years ago is very different today than five years ago. When that lead comes in,
00:03:22
Speaker
What was the cost of lead five years ago? And what was the cost of lead today? I think we can make a whole other show out of that. For sure. Without diving into it. So somebody who's willing to learn his open-minded is the best hire from doctor now, right? The doctor to the office manager too. And that's my personal opinion. So they could say I'm the resume of youth.
00:03:46
Speaker
completed these excellent courses, you've graduated from the school, great, but now in real world, as you know, it's a new world. So if you're not gonna, even a doctor, let's use him or her as an example, where she comes into her practice, and there's a hygienist who's been there 15 years. Don't you think that doctor can learn something from that hygienist? Oh, absolutely, yeah, okay. So if you're not open-minded and you're closed off and you are actually hurting yourself,
00:04:15
Speaker
we're hurting the business you're working with, and we're hurting the staff because they want to grow. They want to do what's best for the patient. That's so interesting that you've mentioned that. When I started at the FQHC that I'm at, I had just come out of my AEGD, and the assistants that are here, or one that has been here, has had a ton of experience. So extractions that I would get stuck on or whatever it may be that I get stuck on, they would be like, hey, you know,
00:04:44
Speaker
I hope it's not out of place, but I'd like to suggest this. You know, I've seen kind of this kind of help out. That's super helpful. You know, they worked with ton of different dentists. They've seen a ton of different techniques. So they're ready for what's next. And I feel like being open to learn from whoever it is in a dental practice is huge. And really, I think builds on that kind of camaraderie and teamwork that you have in a different practice.
00:05:07
Speaker
I think you just hit it on the spot. A dental system was able to help you as simple as he or she is not doing the extraction for you, but they're showing you tools. You're probably like, well, I've never seen this. I've never seen it. I've never utilized this. And then you're how many years out? Four.
00:05:27
Speaker
So you're that perfect candidate, right? You're that perfect individual because you're open-minded. So you're going to get that little bit of knowledge that she gave you, put it in with your knowledge, and take care of the problem. You can scale that up to place in an appliance. You can scale that up to injectables. You can scale that to anybody you want. But that's exactly what guys like me and owners like me are looking for in a group practice or equity model. That's the partner I like.
00:05:58
Speaker
that is never too smart or never too arrogant to say, hey, I know the person who knows everything, in my opinion, knows at least.
00:06:07
Speaker
That's very true. Well said. How do you kind of have checks and balances with such a large team in ensuring, one, they're kind of still believing in the vision and practicing in a way that you hope to see your practice run, but also ensuring that they're content with the way that they're practicing in their everyday lives? I love that.
Management Strategies for Team Alignment
00:06:30
Speaker
That's one of the things we're constantly working on, right?
00:06:36
Speaker
80% of my job in the 20% is clinical dentistry. We currently have, and the way I have it set up, we have a regional manager and then under her there's three practice administrators. But with my regional manager at the same level, there's an operational manager. So we can sit in the white board and draw out things. We want to do this, we want to do that. But if you don't have somebody on the floor actually doing it and implementing it,
00:07:07
Speaker
That's the job that the operation is managing. It's never going to get done. We know that, right? We can talk about production and collection and procedures and events. But if someone's not on the floor and asking the staff on a daily, on a weekly basis. Hey, we talked about, let's use an example, that every time a patient checks out, the next hygiene is set. Is someone actually physically going in the office and watching that process?
00:07:35
Speaker
Did we write a group text and a group email for everybody to do it? That's never gonna happen. So they have the regional, the operational manager, and then underneath is each office has a practice administrator or a manager, whatever. So we call them practice administrators and they're responsible for their own office. That's their practice. And under that is, you know, I think traditionally everybody has dental assistants, hygienists, and doctors.
00:08:05
Speaker
And that keeps the checks and balances. So we have weekly meetings on the leadership side, right? With the regional and the operational. We have bi-weekly meetings with all the practice administrators, monthly meetings with the doctors. So if you think what you're bringing to the table every time, and it's the meetings, it's not, hey guys, do this, this, this, and this. It's almost feedback from the team. Hey, so the Boca office did this and the Boyne office did this and Lakewood did this.
00:08:34
Speaker
This worked here, but this didn't work here. So we're learning from each other. So, you know, I'm blessed and lucky enough to have the comparisons. And again, we don't know it all. So we're constantly taking courses. We're constantly learning my, my operations, uh, manager Patrick who is on, uh, see courses every week, every two weeks on bringing new stuff to the table.
Empowering Team Collaboration
00:09:01
Speaker
And my reason was Lisa and she's the one that comes from the big group. And we don't make decisions on an individual basis. So there's a table discussion. We're making decisions on the office as a chair. So very, very team up. That's our culture. So if you're going to join, you have to be ready for taking
00:09:25
Speaker
criticism, being part of the team, being in meetings, it's not just come in, do a dentistry, and go home. That's not what it was. I think that's great that no matter how large you know you're scaling, that you still have that, you know, intimate interaction with all those who are involved, all those different parties in different areas. And you all collaborate together to see kind of what's working, what's not working, and figuring out a way to continue to improve. I think it empowers the team, right? So if you're working in a setting, and you have a say in that setting,
00:09:56
Speaker
you're going to perform better. So we have a hygienist whose we have hygiene meetings every month also. So as a group of the hygienists decide to do this new way of doing things or scheduling patients a certain way, I have an input in it, but I didn't make that decision. Right. Yeah. We all did it, right? Yes. So I think that makes it easier to implement to follow through and actually be successful on an overall level.
00:10:25
Speaker
That's a great way to have checks and balances. I think that that's great. Hopefully others in large practice settings similar to yours are implementing something similar.
Episode Conclusion & Preview
00:10:34
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Dental Fuel. Join us next week in our last episode where Naveed shares his experiences on the Florida State Board and some excellent expert advice. You can follow him on Instagram at Dr. Naveed Fatmi.
00:10:48
Speaker
And don't forget, you can follow us on Instagram, at DentalFuel, and at IgniteDDS. Have you checked out Dental Masterminds yet? You can learn more about Ignite Dental Masterminds at IgniteDDS.com slash Masterminds.