April 7, 2025 • 17 mins
Great dental practices share one essential quality: exceptional team communication. Yet many offices struggle with ineffective meetings that drain energy rather than build momentum. Drawing from 13 years of practice management experience, I reveal how my team transformed frustrating, head-spinning meetings into productive sessions that actually strengthen our culture.
Remember when your practice was small and communication seemed effortless? Those casual, unstructured catch-ups worked beautifully until your team grew beyond 7-8 people. Suddenly, meetings became chaotic—discussions wandered aimlessly, people disengaged, and you left feeling more confused than when you started. Sound familiar?
Through years of trial and error, we've discovered five game-changing elements that revolutionized our team meetings. These strategies have transformed our meetings from dreaded obligations into powerful tools for team alignment and practice improvement. The results speak for themselves: team members leave feeling connected and energized rather than drained and frustrated. You'll discover practical ways to implement these changes regardless of your practice size or current meeting structure.
The quality of your team meetings directly reflects the health of your practice culture. If your meetings aren't currently building that culture, it's time for a meeting makeover. Try these proven strategies and experience the difference a well-structured meeting can make in your practice's communication, collaboration, and overall performance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
When I think of the best running practices, a common
theme that often appears isgood communication between the
team.
The practice absolutely mustgive the employees the format,
the opportunity and the avenuesto communicate with each other
and work together if they wantto collaborate and they want to
become better and become ahigh-performing office.
And it really might surpriseyou, but a lot of offices don't
(00:23):
even have team meetings and alot of offices that do.
They're missing a lot ofelements that make these
meetings really effective, andthat's what I'm going to talk
about today.
It is time to up your game inthe meeting department.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we help you create and manage ateam-driven practice with
systems so that you can stressless, work less and make more.
(00:47):
I am your host, dr Paul Edgison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I want to show you how to run abetter practice and have a
better life.
So you may have noticed that Ireleased this episode just a
little late.
Usually I release at midnighton Sunday night, but I didn't
(01:08):
get a chance to this weekbecause I was out of town and I
didn't get home until midnighton Sunday night and, dude, I
didn't really feel like doing itwhen I got home.
So my kids had spring break andwe me and my wife and some
other couples we went for a fourday weekend in Vegas.
And that was tons of fun Stayedat Aria, did some shows, did a
lot of gambling.
I lost my ass bad at thecasinos, like I always do, and
(01:35):
every time I go there I say I'mnot going to do it.
And I do it every single timeand it's always like I lose a
ton of money in like a two hourspan when I get really drunk on,
like the third night.
It's so predictable I don'tknow why I do it.
But then we came home from thatand then we went to Turks and
Caicos, which I've never beenbefore.
It was just as gorgeous aseverybody says.
The white sand beaches, thewater is like teal blue.
And something else I noticedabout Turks and Caicos is that
(01:59):
when you tell people you went toTurks and Caicos, or if you
tell somebody you're at Turksand Caicos or you're going to
Turks and Caicos, or if you tellsomebody you're at Turks and
Caicos or you're going to Turksand Caicos.
They often say, oh, cool mustbe nice.
Do you ever get that frompeople?
Must be nice, it must be niceto take a vacation at Turks and
Caicos.
Must be nice that you get to dothese fancy things.
And I just started to noticethat a lot of people said that
(02:19):
about Turks and Caicos to thepoint where I started like
thinking I don't want to tellpeople I went to Turks and
Caicos.
I mean it didn't feel like thatbougie and like fancy when I
was there.
I mean it was more expensivethan going to, like, mexico but
I didn't feel like I was likesome stuck up prick or anything
like that.
But everyone says must be nice.
And in typical like highanxiety, paul Edgerton, let's
overthink everything andoveranalyze it.
(02:40):
I started to overanalyze that.
What does must be nice mean?
Is that like a backhanded,passive, aggressive, like you
know you're bragging, you knowI'm gonna let you know you're
bragging?
Or you're kind of a snob Likewhat does that mean, you know?
So it's the point now that I'mgoing to work tomorrow and part
of me doesn't even want to tellmy team I went to Turks and
Caicos because there's somethingthat everybody thinks about
(03:03):
Turks and Caicos.
That I'm not understanding.
But I'm almost to the pointwhere, when people say must be
nice, I want to respond like itis nice.
You know what's really niceabout it.
You don't have to have yourvacation with a ton of poor
people.
Everyone there has money.
You know what I mean?
Like that's what it feels like.
I feel like they're telling meI'm being a snob, so I don't
know if you ever had thatexperience.
Oh well, okay, let's get to themeat of the episode.
(03:26):
We're talking about meetingstoday.
Now, when I opened up my startuppractice in 2012, we had
meetings all the time, and thereason we had them all the time
is because, if you have astartup practice, there's a lot
of time at the beginning thatyou don't have a single patient
in the practice, which is likefun and scary.
But it's fun because you get tocommunicate and kind of grow
your systems and build yourculture and you're kind of
(03:49):
figuring out how to take thetraining wheels off.
Essentially, you're likerunning a practice like, hmm,
what do we do here?
You figure it out.
It's fun.
But as your practice grows, youeventually get to a point where
your schedules are pretty busyand you can't just have these
impromptu meetings and you haveto start scheduling them.
And this is what we did.
We would have them like onceevery other week and we would go
out to dinner somewhere afterwork.
(04:10):
You know, this is like on a day.
It was like our Thursday.
We closed at 3 pm that day.
I think it was like our lastday of the week, I can't
remember exactly what it was butwe would go out to like a late
lunch dinner and we would alljust talk and we just would talk
about what's going on at thepractice.
There was no format, there wasno kind of agenda.
It was just let's just talkabout what's going on, what's
going well and what's not.
(04:31):
And that worked really well.
Like a lot of things do at yourpractice, when you have a
smaller team I'm talking aboutlike less than seven, eight
people.
Once you start to get pushedpast that, that's when you have
to start relying on systems,because your team reaches this
critical size that it no longerworks just like flying by the
(04:51):
seat of your pants.
You have to create protocolsand systems and what we realized
is that as we got bigger, webrought on an associate.
We might've been about 12 to 15people at this point, we would
start having these meetings andthey would just I mean you would
leave the meeting, your headwould hurt the amount of
discussion and the questions andwhat people were saying and the
(05:12):
arguments and you're just like,oh my gosh, my head's spinning
Like that was the worst meetingever, and the meeting shouldn't
feel like that.
When you have a meeting withyour team, you should always
walk away feeling like, wow,that was really beneficial, that
was.
I feel like we communicated, Ifeel like we really.
(05:33):
I feel like we really hash somethings out.
I feel connected to thesepeople.
And we started to have thesemeetings where we just didn't
feel that anymore.
So we brainstormed as a team, aswe often do, because it is a
collaboration running a dentalpractice with a team, it is a
collaboration, it's not just youat the top and we decided to
change a few things and changethe way we did our meetings and
change our format.
We did this over many years.
I mean, we're coming up on 13years into this practice and
(05:56):
we've changed a lot of things inour meetings.
But what I want to share withyou today is five things that I
think have worked exceptionallywell with our meeting structure,
because I think you canincorporate these into your
meeting structure and just trymaybe one or a few, or try them
all and see if it works.
Try this shoe on and see if itfits.
So, like I said, our freestyleteam meetings.
They weren't working.
We were going off on tangents,people weren't really engaged,
(06:17):
some people were bored, boringdiscussions, and the other thing
that really bothered me is thatas our team grew, some people
weren't brave enough just tostand up and talk, so we needed
to change some things.
So here are five importantelements I think every meeting
should have.
All right, the first one beginevery meeting with an icebreaker
, a game and some recognition.
Okay, so like what do I mean bythat?
(06:38):
Icebreakers?
We used to do these when we hada small team.
We would go around andeverybody would say something
like hey, I wanna appreciatethis person.
I noticed they did this andit's just some recognition.
We used to do some icebreakerswhere people would talk about
it'd be a funny question andeverybody would go around and
say their answer it's justgetting to know people better
know little things abouteverybody.
(06:59):
We've done things where eachperson has written down two
things that nobody knows aboutthem.
And then we pick one out of ahat and everyone tries to guess
who it is.
I mean, there's a million thingsyou can do, but you want to
start off on a positive foot, sostart with an icebreaker.
You can do these fun games Likethey're all over TikTok.
I don't plan this stuff.
My team does it.
So as far as like beer pong, tolike races on the chairs down
(07:21):
the hallway, the team loves them.
Sometimes I'm just like I don'teven want to be part of this.
This is uncomfortable for me.
I don't want to do these funparty games.
I don't know, maybe I'm justlame, or maybe I'm just too
anxious, but who knows, startedoff on a fun, positive note and
this is always an opportunity atthe beginning of the meeting
for you to give some recognition, for you as the leader to stand
(07:42):
up and say this is what thepractice is doing right now and
you know last month we had agreat month.
You know, I really want tofocus on this this month.
And talking about who you are,you know, I really feel like we
are the best practice in ourcommunity.
I feel like we're the bestpractice in the whole entire
United States and I want thepatients to continue to feel
that I love when we getfive-star reviews like this one.
Read some five-star reviews.
(08:03):
So, starting off on a positivenote, that is the first part.
And if your team gets too big,where this part of the meeting
takes too long, now you might bewondering how long are my
meetings?
They're actually an hour and ahalf, but we have to block out
two hours in the middle of ourday Because we're split shifted.
We go from 7 am to 8 pm.
(08:23):
The only time we can do it isthe middle of the day, so we
block out two hours, buttypically they end up being an
hour and a half.
So if you find that yourmeetings, these beginning parts,
are going too long becausepeople are spending too much
time in these icebreakers, youcan do like where you only ask a
few people.
We've done where we had thatlittle gator where you open them
up and you press the teeth down, and gator where you open him
up and you press the teeth downand if you press that one tooth
down he bites you.
Then you have to say theicebreaker.
(08:44):
So it's kind of another fun wayof doing it.
I've got 35, 40 people, wecan't go around the room and
everybody says one thing It'djust take forever.
So make sure you use that firstpart in the meeting for positive
stuff icebreakers, games andgiving recognition to your team
because that's what they do itfor they want to be publicly
recognized.
And you've got to start off ona positive note, because
(09:05):
meetings tend to get reallynegative and sometimes we spend
so much time we'll spend 90% ofthe time being negative and
we'll forget that only like 2%of the time that we're at the
practice.
Negative things even happen.
You know, most of the time it'spretty positive All right,
number two breakouts go beforethe team part.
Positive All right, number twobreakouts go before the team
part.
So you will reach a certainsize in your practice and I
(09:26):
think as soon as you get tothree people per department like
three assistants, threehygienists and three people
working on your front end is youwant to start having breakouts
where you spend the majority ofyour meeting just meeting as
different departments and nottogether.
And the reason you want to dothis is because so much of
meetings and when you do it as agroup, so much of it doesn't
(09:48):
apply to everybody and it justcauses people to doze off and
not be engaged and it makes itthis boring process that nobody
even wants to show up to and nowhas a bad attitude going into
it which affects the quality ofyour meeting.
So you want to do thesebreakouts at some point in your
meeting.
Now, we used to do this.
We used to do the whole teampart together.
This would take like 20 minutes.
(10:08):
I talked to the whole team, myoffice manager would talk to the
whole team, we'd have somediscussions and then we would
break out into departments andthen we would come back together
.
What we found the introduction,like I talked about the ice
break, the games and therecognition we do that together,
but then we do our breakoutsand then we come back together
for the whole team part and whatwe found is that during our
(10:28):
breakouts we can often address alot of the things that we would
have brought up to the wholeteam but really didn't need to
be part of the whole team.
So if you're going to dobreakouts which I think you
should be, if you have the teamsize for it, if you have at
least three people in a position, do it before you bring
everybody together to talk toeveryone as a collective team.
All right.
Number three make sure thatsomebody is taking notes on the
(10:49):
meeting, that they will postsome meeting notes on, maybe,
your Slack channel or whateveryou're using to communicate with
your team.
And then make sure at the nextmeeting, at some point you've
got to review the notes from theprevious meeting.
You've got to review the actionitems to say, hey, how did we
do this?
Man, we went two or three yearsat one point not noticing that.
Hey, you know, I feel like wetalked about this like two
(11:11):
months ago.
I feel like we talked aboutthis last month and it was like,
why do we keep talking aboutthe same things?
It was because we would talkabout it and then we'd kind of
forget about it and then it'llcome up again in the next
meeting.
We'd be like, dude, we didn'tdo anything about this.
So now me, make sure that wereview the previous meetings
action items to say, how didthis go?
Do we need to change anything?
Do we need to pivot anything?
Do we need to bring this backup and discuss some more?
(11:33):
Because that's how you moveforward.
All right.
Number four your meeting needsto have rules, and where do.
You need rules around, you needrules for getting in the weeds.
That's when people will getinto tangents and you're just
like, oh my God, what in theworld are we talking about?
You need rules for havingconstructive conversation and
you need rules for coachability.
So let's talk about those threeRules for the weeds.
(11:55):
This is when you someone goeson a tangent, says, oh, what
about this?
And you start talking well, Ithink this or this and this, and
they're like well, what aboutthis?
And then, before you know it,you're like dude, what did we
even start talking about?
You know, so everyone has toknow that sometimes you will get
in the weeds and it's your jobas a leader to call out when we
are in the weeds and we willreturn back to the original
(12:16):
discussion and that's just theway it's going to go.
I Just the way it's going to go.
I have a gavel.
It was gifted to me by my teamas a joke, but we use it and
when we get in the weeds, weclick, clack, clack, clack that
thing and we, hey, we're in theweeds.
Let's rein it back in.
What were we talking about?
You can lose so much discussionand I think often, as leaders.
We're too timid, we want to benice, we want everyone to
(12:37):
contribute and we don't want tostifle anyone's contributions.
But sometimes, if we let ourteam get in the weeds, it's not
a fun meeting and it's notproductive.
And again same thing happens.
People don't want to come tothese things.
People don't bring a goodattitude because they're boring.
They're like oh my God, thishurts my brain.
All right, constructiveconversation.
You need to have rules aroundthe way that we will talk about
(12:58):
things.
Okay, we don't point fingers atpeople, we don't point blame at
people.
We talk about the issue, wetalk about what happened and we
talk about solutions.
We want to be a team that canbe honest with each other and
can be candid, but sometimespeople's feelings get hurt and
that's just going to happen.
So sometimes we have to say,hey, hold on, let's say this a
(13:19):
different way.
Hold on, put pause, let's takea deep breath here, because
sometimes these conversationsget a little heated and so it's
not about blaming people.
So you want to set these groundrules.
This is what you expect fromyour team.
I don't expect anyone to beblaming anyone.
I want to talk about theproblems.
I want to talk about theproblems.
(13:40):
I want to talk about solutions.
I don't want to blame people.
Okay, coachability, we need totalk about that.
This is going to be we're goingto talk about negative things.
We're going to be talking aboutthings that aren't going so
well.
That doesn't mean we're doing abad job.
It just means we're coachable.
It means we're getting better.
We've never reached the apex ofhow good we can be at our craft
.
We will always be growing andalways be improving.
That is what it means to becoachable.
So people cannot get defensive.
Now are people going to getdefensive?
(14:02):
Yeah, they are Absolutely.
They always do.
But we need to say, hey, we'rebeing coachable, we're a
coachable team.
These are the ground rules.
This is how you have a meeting.
You don't have to talk aboutthese every time, but you need
to set them at some point.
All right, number five you needto put a period on every single
discussion.
I have noticed in my careerthat tons of times we get a lot
(14:22):
of times we get in the weeds.
We will get to a point where wenever come to a clear solution
because there isn't a clearsolution to a lot of issues.
So sometimes you got to say,hey, you know what we spent a
lot of time talking on this, let.
Sometimes you got to say, hey,you know what, we spent a lot of
time talking on this.
Let's take a vote.
Or you say you know what, wespent a lot of time talking
about this.
This is how I want to try itthis month.
We're going to revisit thisnext month.
Is everyone cool with thatPeriod?
Don't leave things.
(14:43):
Well, I don't know, we'll thinkabout that and we'll maybe talk
about that next time.
No, take the lead as the leaderand say, hey, this is how we're
doing it.
Put a period on it.
We're going to talk about itnext month.
And everybody on your teamneeds to know whether they think
that's the way to do it or not,the best way they need to
commit to doing it, because theonly way that we can know if it
(15:06):
worked or not is if everybodycommits.
This is how we're doing it thismonth.
Let's revisit this next monthand see how it goes.
So those five things beginningevery meeting with icebreakers,
games and recognition.
The breakouts go before theteam part.
You want to review the lastmeeting action items.
You want to have rules for theweeds, the constructive
conversation and thecoachability of your team and
(15:28):
five.
You need to put a period onevery single discussion.
If you incorporate these thingsinto your meetings, you will
have much better meetings and,like I said, you should be able
to feel the quality of yourmeeting after the meeting.
It should feel good, like youconnected, like you feel like
you are part of a team that isdoing something and moving
somewhere.
If you don't feel that, askyour team if they felt that as
(15:49):
well and find out why Meetingsshould be good for your culture.
They shouldn't hurt yourculture.
So try those things out and seehow it goes.
Hey, if you have goodexperience with this, shoot me
an email dentalpracticeheroes atgmailcom.
Let me know how it worked foryou.
Thank you so much for listening.
I very much appreciate youlistening to the podcast and, if
you like this, I would so verymuch appreciate if you left a
(16:09):
five-star rating on ApplePodcasts.
It really means a lot to me andhelps more people find
When I think of the best running practices, a common
theme that often appears isgood communication between the
team.
The practice absolutely mustgive the employees the format,
the opportunity and the avenuesto communicate with each other
and work together if they wantto collaborate and they want to
become better and become ahigh-performing office.
And it really might surpriseyou, but a lot of offices don't
(00:23):
even have team meetings and alot of offices that do.
They're missing a lot ofelements that make these
meetings really effective, andthat's what I'm going to talk
about today.
It is time to up your game inthe meeting department.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we help you create and manage ateam-driven practice with
systems so that you can stressless, work less and make more.
(00:47):
I am your host, dr Paul Edgison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I want to show you how to run abetter practice and have a
better life.
So you may have noticed that Ireleased this episode just a
little late.
Usually I release at midnighton Sunday night, but I didn't
(01:08):
get a chance to this weekbecause I was out of town and I
didn't get home until midnighton Sunday night and, dude, I
didn't really feel like doing itwhen I got home.
So my kids had spring break andwe me and my wife and some
other couples we went for a fourday weekend in Vegas.
And that was tons of fun Stayedat Aria, did some shows, did a
lot of gambling.
I lost my ass bad at thecasinos, like I always do, and
(01:35):
every time I go there I say I'mnot going to do it.
And I do it every single timeand it's always like I lose a
ton of money in like a two hourspan when I get really drunk on,
like the third night.
It's so predictable I don'tknow why I do it.
But then we came home from thatand then we went to Turks and
Caicos, which I've never beenbefore.
It was just as gorgeous aseverybody says.
The white sand beaches, thewater is like teal blue.
And something else I noticedabout Turks and Caicos is that
(01:59):
when you tell people you went toTurks and Caicos, or if you
tell somebody you're at Turksand Caicos or you're going to
Turks and Caicos, or if you tellsomebody you're at Turks and
Caicos or you're going to Turksand Caicos.
They often say, oh, cool mustbe nice.
Do you ever get that frompeople?
Must be nice, it must be niceto take a vacation at Turks and
Caicos.
Must be nice that you get to dothese fancy things.
And I just started to noticethat a lot of people said that
(02:19):
about Turks and Caicos to thepoint where I started like
thinking I don't want to tellpeople I went to Turks and
Caicos.
I mean it didn't feel like thatbougie and like fancy when I
was there.
I mean it was more expensivethan going to, like, mexico but
I didn't feel like I was likesome stuck up prick or anything
like that.
But everyone says must be nice.
And in typical like highanxiety, paul Edgerton, let's
overthink everything andoveranalyze it.
(02:40):
I started to overanalyze that.
What does must be nice mean?
Is that like a backhanded,passive, aggressive, like you
know you're bragging, you knowI'm gonna let you know you're
bragging?
Or you're kind of a snob Likewhat does that mean, you know?
So it's the point now that I'mgoing to work tomorrow and part
of me doesn't even want to tellmy team I went to Turks and
Caicos because there's somethingthat everybody thinks about
(03:03):
Turks and Caicos.
That I'm not understanding.
But I'm almost to the pointwhere, when people say must be
nice, I want to respond like itis nice.
You know what's really niceabout it.
You don't have to have yourvacation with a ton of poor
people.
Everyone there has money.
You know what I mean?
Like that's what it feels like.
I feel like they're telling meI'm being a snob, so I don't
know if you ever had thatexperience.
Oh well, okay, let's get to themeat of the episode.
(03:26):
We're talking about meetingstoday.
Now, when I opened up my startuppractice in 2012, we had
meetings all the time, and thereason we had them all the time
is because, if you have astartup practice, there's a lot
of time at the beginning thatyou don't have a single patient
in the practice, which is likefun and scary.
But it's fun because you get tocommunicate and kind of grow
your systems and build yourculture and you're kind of
(03:49):
figuring out how to take thetraining wheels off.
Essentially, you're likerunning a practice like, hmm,
what do we do here?
You figure it out.
It's fun.
But as your practice grows, youeventually get to a point where
your schedules are pretty busyand you can't just have these
impromptu meetings and you haveto start scheduling them.
And this is what we did.
We would have them like onceevery other week and we would go
out to dinner somewhere afterwork.
(04:10):
You know, this is like on a day.
It was like our Thursday.
We closed at 3 pm that day.
I think it was like our lastday of the week, I can't
remember exactly what it was butwe would go out to like a late
lunch dinner and we would alljust talk and we just would talk
about what's going on at thepractice.
There was no format, there wasno kind of agenda.
It was just let's just talkabout what's going on, what's
going well and what's not.
(04:31):
And that worked really well.
Like a lot of things do at yourpractice, when you have a
smaller team I'm talking aboutlike less than seven, eight
people.
Once you start to get pushedpast that, that's when you have
to start relying on systems,because your team reaches this
critical size that it no longerworks just like flying by the
(04:51):
seat of your pants.
You have to create protocolsand systems and what we realized
is that as we got bigger, webrought on an associate.
We might've been about 12 to 15people at this point, we would
start having these meetings andthey would just I mean you would
leave the meeting, your headwould hurt the amount of
discussion and the questions andwhat people were saying and the
(05:12):
arguments and you're just like,oh my gosh, my head's spinning
Like that was the worst meetingever, and the meeting shouldn't
feel like that.
When you have a meeting withyour team, you should always
walk away feeling like, wow,that was really beneficial, that
was.
I feel like we communicated, Ifeel like we really.
(05:33):
I feel like we really hash somethings out.
I feel connected to thesepeople.
And we started to have thesemeetings where we just didn't
feel that anymore.
So we brainstormed as a team, aswe often do, because it is a
collaboration running a dentalpractice with a team, it is a
collaboration, it's not just youat the top and we decided to
change a few things and changethe way we did our meetings and
change our format.
We did this over many years.
I mean, we're coming up on 13years into this practice and
(05:56):
we've changed a lot of things inour meetings.
But what I want to share withyou today is five things that I
think have worked exceptionallywell with our meeting structure,
because I think you canincorporate these into your
meeting structure and just trymaybe one or a few, or try them
all and see if it works.
Try this shoe on and see if itfits.
So, like I said, our freestyleteam meetings.
They weren't working.
We were going off on tangents,people weren't really engaged,
(06:17):
some people were bored, boringdiscussions, and the other thing
that really bothered me is thatas our team grew, some people
weren't brave enough just tostand up and talk, so we needed
to change some things.
So here are five importantelements I think every meeting
should have.
All right, the first one beginevery meeting with an icebreaker
, a game and some recognition.
Okay, so like what do I mean bythat?
(06:38):
Icebreakers?
We used to do these when we hada small team.
We would go around andeverybody would say something
like hey, I wanna appreciatethis person.
I noticed they did this andit's just some recognition.
We used to do some icebreakerswhere people would talk about
it'd be a funny question andeverybody would go around and
say their answer it's justgetting to know people better
know little things abouteverybody.
(06:59):
We've done things where eachperson has written down two
things that nobody knows aboutthem.
And then we pick one out of ahat and everyone tries to guess
who it is.
I mean, there's a million thingsyou can do, but you want to
start off on a positive foot, sostart with an icebreaker.
You can do these fun games Likethey're all over TikTok.
I don't plan this stuff.
My team does it.
So as far as like beer pong, tolike races on the chairs down
(07:21):
the hallway, the team loves them.
Sometimes I'm just like I don'teven want to be part of this.
This is uncomfortable for me.
I don't want to do these funparty games.
I don't know, maybe I'm justlame, or maybe I'm just too
anxious, but who knows, startedoff on a fun, positive note and
this is always an opportunity atthe beginning of the meeting
for you to give some recognition, for you as the leader to stand
(07:42):
up and say this is what thepractice is doing right now and
you know last month we had agreat month.
You know, I really want tofocus on this this month.
And talking about who you are,you know, I really feel like we
are the best practice in ourcommunity.
I feel like we're the bestpractice in the whole entire
United States and I want thepatients to continue to feel
that I love when we getfive-star reviews like this one.
Read some five-star reviews.
(08:03):
So, starting off on a positivenote, that is the first part.
And if your team gets too big,where this part of the meeting
takes too long, now you might bewondering how long are my
meetings?
They're actually an hour and ahalf, but we have to block out
two hours in the middle of ourday Because we're split shifted.
We go from 7 am to 8 pm.
(08:23):
The only time we can do it isthe middle of the day, so we
block out two hours, buttypically they end up being an
hour and a half.
So if you find that yourmeetings, these beginning parts,
are going too long becausepeople are spending too much
time in these icebreakers, youcan do like where you only ask a
few people.
We've done where we had thatlittle gator where you open them
up and you press the teeth down, and gator where you open him
up and you press the teeth downand if you press that one tooth
down he bites you.
Then you have to say theicebreaker.
(08:44):
So it's kind of another fun wayof doing it.
I've got 35, 40 people, wecan't go around the room and
everybody says one thing It'djust take forever.
So make sure you use that firstpart in the meeting for positive
stuff icebreakers, games andgiving recognition to your team
because that's what they do itfor they want to be publicly
recognized.
And you've got to start off ona positive note, because
(09:05):
meetings tend to get reallynegative and sometimes we spend
so much time we'll spend 90% ofthe time being negative and
we'll forget that only like 2%of the time that we're at the
practice.
Negative things even happen.
You know, most of the time it'spretty positive All right,
number two breakouts go beforethe team part.
Positive All right, number twobreakouts go before the team
part.
So you will reach a certainsize in your practice and I
(09:26):
think as soon as you get tothree people per department like
three assistants, threehygienists and three people
working on your front end is youwant to start having breakouts
where you spend the majority ofyour meeting just meeting as
different departments and nottogether.
And the reason you want to dothis is because so much of
meetings and when you do it as agroup, so much of it doesn't
(09:48):
apply to everybody and it justcauses people to doze off and
not be engaged and it makes itthis boring process that nobody
even wants to show up to and nowhas a bad attitude going into
it which affects the quality ofyour meeting.
So you want to do thesebreakouts at some point in your
meeting.
Now, we used to do this.
We used to do the whole teampart together.
This would take like 20 minutes.
(10:08):
I talked to the whole team, myoffice manager would talk to the
whole team, we'd have somediscussions and then we would
break out into departments andthen we would come back together
.
What we found the introduction,like I talked about the ice
break, the games and therecognition we do that together,
but then we do our breakoutsand then we come back together
for the whole team part and whatwe found is that during our
(10:28):
breakouts we can often address alot of the things that we would
have brought up to the wholeteam but really didn't need to
be part of the whole team.
So if you're going to dobreakouts which I think you
should be, if you have the teamsize for it, if you have at
least three people in a position, do it before you bring
everybody together to talk toeveryone as a collective team.
All right.
Number three make sure thatsomebody is taking notes on the
(10:49):
meeting, that they will postsome meeting notes on, maybe,
your Slack channel or whateveryou're using to communicate with
your team.
And then make sure at the nextmeeting, at some point you've
got to review the notes from theprevious meeting.
You've got to review the actionitems to say, hey, how did we
do this?
Man, we went two or three yearsat one point not noticing that.
Hey, you know, I feel like wetalked about this like two
(11:11):
months ago.
I feel like we talked aboutthis last month and it was like,
why do we keep talking aboutthe same things?
It was because we would talkabout it and then we'd kind of
forget about it and then it'llcome up again in the next
meeting.
We'd be like, dude, we didn'tdo anything about this.
So now me, make sure that wereview the previous meetings
action items to say, how didthis go?
Do we need to change anything?
Do we need to pivot anything?
Do we need to bring this backup and discuss some more?
(11:33):
Because that's how you moveforward.
All right.
Number four your meeting needsto have rules, and where do.
You need rules around, you needrules for getting in the weeds.
That's when people will getinto tangents and you're just
like, oh my God, what in theworld are we talking about?
You need rules for havingconstructive conversation and
you need rules for coachability.
So let's talk about those threeRules for the weeds.
(11:55):
This is when you someone goeson a tangent, says, oh, what
about this?
And you start talking well, Ithink this or this and this, and
they're like well, what aboutthis?
And then, before you know it,you're like dude, what did we
even start talking about?
You know, so everyone has toknow that sometimes you will get
in the weeds and it's your jobas a leader to call out when we
are in the weeds and we willreturn back to the original
(12:16):
discussion and that's just theway it's going to go.
I Just the way it's going to go.
I have a gavel.
It was gifted to me by my teamas a joke, but we use it and
when we get in the weeds, weclick, clack, clack, clack that
thing and we, hey, we're in theweeds.
Let's rein it back in.
What were we talking about?
You can lose so much discussionand I think often, as leaders.
We're too timid, we want to benice, we want everyone to
(12:37):
contribute and we don't want tostifle anyone's contributions.
But sometimes, if we let ourteam get in the weeds, it's not
a fun meeting and it's notproductive.
And again same thing happens.
People don't want to come tothese things.
People don't bring a goodattitude because they're boring.
They're like oh my God, thishurts my brain.
All right, constructiveconversation.
You need to have rules aroundthe way that we will talk about
(12:58):
things.
Okay, we don't point fingers atpeople, we don't point blame at
people.
We talk about the issue, wetalk about what happened and we
talk about solutions.
We want to be a team that canbe honest with each other and
can be candid, but sometimespeople's feelings get hurt and
that's just going to happen.
So sometimes we have to say,hey, hold on, let's say this a
(13:19):
different way.
Hold on, put pause, let's takea deep breath here, because
sometimes these conversationsget a little heated and so it's
not about blaming people.
So you want to set these groundrules.
This is what you expect fromyour team.
I don't expect anyone to beblaming anyone.
I want to talk about theproblems.
I want to talk about theproblems.
(13:40):
I want to talk about solutions.
I don't want to blame people.
Okay, coachability, we need totalk about that.
This is going to be we're goingto talk about negative things.
We're going to be talking aboutthings that aren't going so
well.
That doesn't mean we're doing abad job.
It just means we're coachable.
It means we're getting better.
We've never reached the apex ofhow good we can be at our craft
.
We will always be growing andalways be improving.
That is what it means to becoachable.
So people cannot get defensive.
Now are people going to getdefensive?
(14:02):
Yeah, they are Absolutely.
They always do.
But we need to say, hey, we'rebeing coachable, we're a
coachable team.
These are the ground rules.
This is how you have a meeting.
You don't have to talk aboutthese every time, but you need
to set them at some point.
All right, number five you needto put a period on every single
discussion.
I have noticed in my careerthat tons of times we get a lot
(14:22):
of times we get in the weeds.
We will get to a point where wenever come to a clear solution
because there isn't a clearsolution to a lot of issues.
So sometimes you got to say,hey, you know what we spent a
lot of time talking on this, let.
Sometimes you got to say, hey,you know what, we spent a lot of
time talking on this.
Let's take a vote.
Or you say you know what, wespent a lot of time talking
about this.
This is how I want to try itthis month.
We're going to revisit thisnext month.
Is everyone cool with thatPeriod?
Don't leave things.
(14:43):
Well, I don't know, we'll thinkabout that and we'll maybe talk
about that next time.
No, take the lead as the leaderand say, hey, this is how we're
doing it.
Put a period on it.
We're going to talk about itnext month.
And everybody on your teamneeds to know whether they think
that's the way to do it or not,the best way they need to
commit to doing it, because theonly way that we can know if it
(15:06):
worked or not is if everybodycommits.
This is how we're doing it thismonth.
Let's revisit this next monthand see how it goes.
So those five things beginningevery meeting with icebreakers,
games and recognition.
The breakouts go before theteam part.
You want to review the lastmeeting action items.
You want to have rules for theweeds, the constructive
conversation and thecoachability of your team and
(15:28):
five.
You need to put a period onevery single discussion.
If you incorporate these thingsinto your meetings, you will
have much better meetings and,like I said, you should be able
to feel the quality of yourmeeting after the meeting.
It should feel good, like youconnected, like you feel like
you are part of a team that isdoing something and moving
somewhere.
If you don't feel that, askyour team if they felt that as
(15:49):
well and find out why Meetingsshould be good for your culture.
They shouldn't hurt yourculture.
So try those things out and seehow it goes.
Hey, if you have goodexperience with this, shoot me
an email dentalpracticeheroes atgmailcom.
Let me know how it worked foryou.
Thank you so much for listening.
I very much appreciate youlistening to the podcast and, if
you like this, I would so verymuch appreciate if you left a
(16:09):
five-star rating on ApplePodcasts.
It really means a lot to me andhelps more people find
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