October 1, 2025 • 19 mins
Imagine losing a team member who's been with you for years. Beyond the obvious recruiting costs, you're facing a cascade of hidden consequences: the training burden on your remaining team, eroding morale as staff wonder if they should be looking elsewhere, and patients noticing unfamiliar faces at every visit. That's the reality of turnover, and it's far more costly than most dentists realize.
Drawing from my own practice experience—nine years of remarkable stability followed by a challenging period of departures after COVID—I've discovered that reducing turnover doesn't require complex systems or extravagant perks. It comes down to three fundamental principles that are surprisingly easy to implement but transformative in their impact.
Recognition sits at the heart of retention. When I committed to giving each team member two specific compliments weekly (what I call "filling buckets"), I was shocked to discover how many quiet contributors I'd been overlooking. Creating systematic appreciation—sharing patient reviews, implementing token recognition programs, celebrating achievements—transforms recognition from an occasional afterthought to a cultural cornerstone.
Regular one-on-ones provide the psychological safety team members need to express concerns before they become resignation letters. These structured conversations aren't just problem-solving sessions; they're relationship-building opportunities that demonstrate you value each person's perspective. I've consistently found that periods of team unrest coincided with lapses in these critical meetings.
Finally, investing in your team's growth and creating a workplace where people genuinely enjoy their colleagues builds remarkable loyalty. People will tolerate significant workplace challenges when they love the people they work with and feel they're continuously developing professionally.
Ready to transform your practice into one where people want to stay? Visit dentalpracticeheroes.com to schedule a strategy call. We'll discuss your specific challenges and explore how our coaching program can help you build the team-driven practice that gives you more freedom, profitability, and peace of mind.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Etchison (00:02):
Now I want to share a story with you guys.
If you've been listening tothis podcast since it started in
2017, you know that I used togo speak and I used to talk a
lot about low turnover.
I mean, I was like the lowturnover guy that's how I was
like branding myself.
I had a practice that was likefive years old at the time and I
hadn't had a single personleave and we went almost like
(00:24):
nine years without havinganybody.
I mean, we had, like somepeople that might have moved
away and we had one girl thatwent to nursing school but
nobody left.
Like we had such a good culturethat nobody wanted to leave the
team.
We had such a good team and wehad a team of man I mean we were
probably 20 plus people.
But I remember speaking atVoices of Dentistry and this was
my first speaking engagementand I talked about the idea of
(00:44):
psychological safety and theevidence I was giving that this
works was showing that I had ahuge team and I didn't have a
lot of turnover.
And then somebody came after meand spoke and they made like a
jab at me.
They said, hey, if you haven'thad any turnover at your
practice, that's not somethingto brag about.
That's bad leadership, and Istill disagree.
I don't think that's true.
(01:05):
I think that was greatleadership on my part.
I think I was doing great.
But, truth be told, after COVIDhappened, well, I got my ass
handed to me with turnover.
So maybe I was just due, maybeit was karma, I don't know.
But what I want to share withyou is that I did things that
kept my turnover really low, andturnover was not something that
(01:27):
I was experiencing in mypractice for the first like nine
years practically.
So it was really easy for menot to understand what a problem
it is and how harmful it is.
So for me, early in my career,we had very low turnover and
then, after COVID, I got to seea period of really high turnover
, which a lot was pandemic, alot was the labor market, but a
(01:48):
lot of it was honestly the waywe were running the business.
It was my leadership, to behonest.
So that's what we're going tobe talking about today how can
you drastically reduce yourturnover at your practice and
not in the sense of all thatfluffy stuff I'm talking about
how can you make sure that yourteam stays?
And I think it's a lot easierthan you think and I think a lot
of the consultants and speakerson the circuit.
(02:09):
They really overcomplicate thisand I think it comes down to
three basic things.
I'm gonna share with you todaywhat those are.
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast,
where we teach dentists like youhow to run a team-driven
practice so that you can makemore money, take more time off
and spend more time with yourfamily or just doing whatever it
(02:30):
is that you love doing.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago, and ifyou are looking to practice
less days and have more peace inyour life because of the way
your dental practice runs,you've come to the right place.
All right, let's do it.
So why does turnover hurt so bad?
(02:53):
And I see this attitude on theFacebook forums.
A lot People are like just hiresomebody else, everybody is
replaceable, nobody cares, don'ttolerate that stuff.
You get what you tolerate and Iget it.
I do agree with that.
You do get what you tolerate,but I don't think the solution
is often letting people go Likethat whole like being slow to
(03:14):
hire and quick to fire.
But it does hurt.
The turnover kills us.
I mean the costs are huge.
We have to recruit in dentistry.
I mean now more than ever Backin the day.
I mean now more than ever Backin the day.
I mean like 10 years ago weused to line people up and like
we were the badasses.
We were like we've got thestuff that you want.
(03:36):
We would interview people oneafter another and it would be
like tell me why you think youdeserve this job, and like we
had that good stuff thateverybody needed.
And now we're like okay, do youhave a heartbeat?
Do you think you could actuallyshow up for an interview?
And if you came to theinterview and we gave you a job,
could you actually show up toit?
Get your ass in here.
You got a job, you can starttomorrow.
So the turnover costs are thebig recruiting.
(03:58):
A lot of it's that, but a lotof it is also in the training.
It's in that slow drag that itcreates on your team when they
have to train others.
And there's a ton of moraleloss when people start to see
their friends and their peers atwork.
They're leaving and they'relooking at that like where are
they going?
You know, they still keep intouch.
(04:19):
They're like texting each otherlike, hey, where are you
working now, how is it overthere?
So you got these people thatare like, oh yeah, it's great
over here, so much better thanover there with Etch, etch sucks
, and that can turn into like apoach fest.
But I guess I didn't do this tosomebody, but I had like three
people come from another officeat one point because I hired
(04:40):
somebody and then they broughttheir friends.
I didn't reach out to solicitthem, I didn't encourage it, but
I didn't necessarily discourageit either, because I really
needed the people.
So now in retrospect, karmacame back.
That happened to me once before, but I would never reach out to
people to try to poach them.
But if they weren't happy there, they're not staying where
they're working.
So if they're going to goanywhere, I'd rather they go
(05:01):
with me.
I mean, I could use some goodemployees.
I think we all could.
But losing people on your team,it can really create this ripple
effect and just drag your teamdown and it just doesn't look
good.
It doesn't look good from apatient perspective.
I remember so many times thatI've had a patient look up to me
and they say, you know what'sweird?
I don't recognize anyone inthis practice anymore.
(05:21):
What happened to everybody?
And I would be like, hey, likeeverybody's still here.
We just grew our team.
We're just growing really fastand, dude, like we still got,
like we opened in 2012.
We've still got so many of thepeople that have been there
since the beginning.
I mean, I've got so many peoplethat are passing their 10 years
coming up.
So we've got good culture inour practice and I think that's
a testament to what I'm going toshare with you today.
(05:42):
So, main point is there's a lotof hidden costs that come from
starting over with a new hire,because they take a long time to
train, even like the mostsimple things.
I mean just to learn yoursystems and to learn like your
culture.
I mean those are things thatyou can't train on.
You can't train on culture.
I mean you can say what youwant, but they have to
(06:03):
experience it to see, like, whatdo you do when this happens?
What do you do when thepatient's upset about this?
How do you take care of people?
You just can't train for thosethings because they're just
random.
The new team members got toexperience them.
They just have to be part ofthe team when those things
happen.
So it takes a lot of time toget people developed to that
level and get people trained up.
(06:24):
So when we do, we want to keepthem.
So I hope at this point in thepodcast you're starting to think
and starting to feel thatturnover is a little bit more
detrimental to your practicethan maybe you thought before.
So let's talk about why peoplereally leave.
I mean, a lot of people willleave because they just don't
get any recognition for whatthey do.
(06:46):
Now, on the flip side, it is soeasy to not notice and not
acknowledge them.
I remember one time when myteam was smaller maybe they were
like 15 or something like thatI made a commitment to give each
person two compliments eachweek.
It was this thing that I calledfilling buckets and it comes
from this book that my daughterhad.
It was called something aboutfilling buckets, but it's this
(07:07):
idea that everybody has aninvisible bucket above their
head and that's how they'refeeling.
If they're feeling good, theirbucket is full.
If they're not feeling good,their bucket is empty.
Now, when you give somebody acompliment, you recognize
something about them, you showthem gratitude, you fill their
bucket a little bit, but whenyou fill somebody else's bucket,
that also fills your bucket,and the idea being well, if all
(07:31):
of our employees' buckets arefull, they can fill the buckets
of our patients.
So I just said I am going tofill the buckets of my team at
least twice a week for everysingle team member, and I made a
chart to keep in my doctor'soffice and wouldn't you know, I
thought I gave a lot ofcompliments to my team.
When you start tracking it, it'sa lot less than you think and I
guarantee you, if you do this,you're going to have the same
(07:53):
experience.
You're going to find out thatthere's some people on your team
that you don't even noticebecause they're so quiet and
they're just sitting there andthey're flying under the radar.
But then we have these someemployees that every time they
do something good, they're goingto tell you about it.
Hey, dad, guess what I did?
Hey, high fives, like they'revery vocal about it.
So it's really easy torecognize those people, but it's
(08:13):
easy to overlook the more quietpeople.
So when you keep track of this,you'll see that and you can
give more effort to giverecognition to the quiet people.
Now, why else do people leave?
They leave because of a toxicculture.
And where does a toxic culturecome from?
It comes from lack ofcommunication.
It and where does a toxicculture come from?
It comes from lack ofcommunication.
It comes from all of thoseconversations that we can never
(08:35):
pull out into the open.
So when we don't have theconversations with our team
about the things that areupsetting them, that's when they
start to have resentment foreach other, and resentment
builds and builds.
And then the gossip shows up.
And I'll tell you, this is whatI always see in offices with
gossip.
I think gossip is a symptom ofa lack of autonomy.
(08:58):
When somebody feels like theyhave no autonomy, they don't
have any control over what'sgoing on in their workplace.
This is the psychological waythat people react.
To get some control back, theystart saying bad things about
people, start saying bad thingsabout the office, and the reason
they don't have any autonomy orpower is because no one's
really asking what their opinionis on things.
(09:19):
Nobody's asking them what'sgoing on, nobody's asking them
for suggestions and the issuesjust keep getting brushed under
the rug, and that's what leadsto resentment and eventually
gossip.
So you need to give your teamautonomy and this is why you
need to talk to your team.
You need to solicit thoseconversations, you've got to
take the time to ask forfeedback, you've got to ask them
(09:40):
how are things going.
And this loops back into thatpsychological safety thing.
That's what I was talking aboutat the Voices of Dentistry
conference when I was talkingabout the low turnover.
It was psychological safety theidea that your team feels safe
to bring things up, that theyfeel safe to say they need more
training, they feel safe to tellyou about things that went
(10:01):
wrong because you're not goingto make them feel bad or guilty
about it, which this is one ofmy leadership principles.
That's part of the first phaseof the OmniPractice program that
we go through with all of ourclients.
We teach you how to do aone-on-one, how to properly do
them, what kind of questions youshould ask, what kind of
attitude do you need to bringinto these short meetings so
(10:21):
that you can have theseconversations with your team and
give them the autonomy and showthem the gratitude that they
deserve and I can't tell you howmany times I have shown the
power of one-on-ones to a client, so they're so powerful.
If you want one single thingthat you could take from Dental
Practice Heroes and never, everforget it, it is that
one-on-ones are the mostpowerful thing that you can do
(10:44):
in your practice if you do theprinciples correctly.
And the principles I'm talkingabout is things like
psychological safety.
There's a few other ones, tooas well, but you just got to do
these things and don't overthinkit.
Just do it, because I rememberin my practice, like every time
we went through these phaseswhere there was just this
(11:04):
feeling of discontent, there waslike tension.
We could feel it.
You feel in the room likeyou're in a meeting and you know
something's going on in yourpractice.
I mean don't act stupid.
You could feel these things Alot of times.
We want to act like we don'tknow because we don't want to
address it, but you know whatI'm talking about, you can feel
it.
So all those times that I feltlike that, I could look back and
say you know what?
(11:25):
I don't think we've doneone-on-ones in a really long
time.
Have I been communicating withmy team?
Have I been talking to my teamand asking them?
Have I been building therelationships with my team and
just seeing how things are goinggoing and nine times out of 10,
I was really busy and I justhadn't done it.
Lately I've been locked in myoffice and I'm not spending the
time managing my practice, doingthese very basic things that
you have to be doing.
(11:46):
So this is why, as yourpractice grows, you start to
build a leadership team so youdon't have to be the one
worrying about doing this andyou make sure that they do this
one-on-ones with theirdepartments on a regular cadence
.
That's how we do it now at thepractice.
My leads do this.
I don't do this anymore.
I do one-on-ones with my leadsbecause I can't do one-on-ones
with 35 plus people.
But, like I'm saying, there's alot of times in my practice
(12:08):
career it got bad and showed upin the culture and the way
people were feeling Okay, otherthan gratitude and communicating
with your team via theone-on-ones.
What else can we do to retainand protect our team and keep
them together?
You've got to invest in them.
You've got to invest in theculture, in the leadership of
your practice.
You've got to train yourleaders.
(12:28):
If you have a leadership team,I can tell you we just did this
the other day with ourleadership team.
We all took a conflictmanagement training and we went
through.
We had a facilitator, werole-played some situations that
are going on in the practiceand I know this is gonna make a
big difference in our practice.
So even taking your team likefull team to CE events, that's
(12:49):
another way you can invest inyour team.
You train them in your team.
They wanna do a good job, theywant to learn things.
They wanna say how do you playthis game that is dental
practice management?
How do you play this game thatis dental practice management?
How do you win the game ofanswering the phone the best way
?
How do you win the game ofpresenting treatments so
patients get healthy?
Your team wants to be good atthese things.
So you got to provide thistraining and they're going to
(13:10):
appreciate you for that andthey're going to be so much more
engaged in your practice.
So you got to make sure thatyou're doing all these things,
because when you get a teammember, that's upset.
They don't feel valued, theydon't feel like they're growing,
they don't feel like they haveautonomy in your practice.
They start looking for anotherjob and when they are at that
(13:32):
point where they're looking foranother job, they might as well
be gone because they are nolonger contributing positively
to the culture.
At that point they might bejust doing the bare minimum, but
they are not doing good thingsfor your practice.
You want that person out ofthere or you want them to value
the job that they have.
So if you're on my team andyou're listening to this and
you're like, well, I've beenlooking for a job for six months
, would you do me a favor andjust please leave?
We don't want you.
We want people that are thereand want to be there and we want
(13:55):
people that contributepositively to our culture.
All right, anyway, I know I'mall over the place today, all
right.
Next, we've got to createsystems for recognition.
Now I gave you the fillingbuckets example.
Here's a few other examples.
We have a Slack channel withour team and one of them is for
posting all the five-starreviews.
Now, I don't post everyfive-star review.
(14:18):
I just know that, as a practiceowner, I get an email when we
get a five-star review.
My team does not get an email.
They don't get to see it unlessthey actually go look for it.
So I want to post thesefive-star reviews.
I post all the ones wherepeople write nice things and it
makes them feel good.
They see that we're affectingpeople, that people are happy
with what we're providing, and Ilove it when the patient uses
(14:44):
someone's name or gets reallyspecific about what they loved.
Now, another thing we do forappreciation is we do these
appreciation tokens.
So every month, every teammember gets three tokens and
they are to give that tosomebody else.
When somebody does somethingnice or does something to help
them, they want to explicitlyrecognize.
They appreciated that.
So they hand them this tokenand they say thank you.
Now, at our team meeting eachmonth, everybody turns in their
(15:06):
tokens.
So and they get some ticketsfor it, they get raffle tickets.
So whoever has the most tokenswill get the most raffle tickets
and is more likely to win aprize, because we do a raffle
and we give away prizes likeAmazon gift cards, starbucks
gift cards, things like that,and then everybody gets their
three tokens back and we do itagain the following month.
And then I mentioned theone-on-ones.
(15:26):
That's another opportunity foryou to show some recognition,
some appreciation for your team.
That's part of what we teach inour program.
That's one of the parts ofdoing the proper one-on-one.
So, lastly, we want to make ourpractice a place that people
want to stay at.
Make it fun.
Make it fun to do thingstogether.
Set up social functions so thatyou can learn how to play
(15:47):
together.
One of the things I remember inthis book that I read I don't
remember where it was, but itwas that people will stay at a
job that they just freaking hateway too long, like way longer
than they should, because theyjust freaking hate way too long,
like way longer than theyshould, because they just love
the people that they work with.
So if you can give your team anopportunity to get to know each
other outside of work and hangout, that's awesome for your
(16:09):
culture.
I mean, my team hangs out witheach other all the time.
They're all friends and I lovethat they all get along.
It makes me feel like I've gotthe right people on the right
team.
I love it.
And learn how to inspire yourteam.
Learn how to train yourself asa leader.
There's so much leadershiptraining that I put on Dental
Practice Heroes and all theprograms that we do.
We've got tons of videos forall of our coaching clients that
(16:30):
are created by me and I thinkthey're very to the point.
You can get through all of theleadership ones and the culture
ones in probably two to threehours.
So learn how to inspire yourteam.
And this episode was really notabout this, but it's on my mind
right now is another thing aboutturnover is you've got to make
sure you build your onboardingsystems and your training
systems in your practice so thatwhen you do experience turnover
(16:52):
because you're going to, itdoesn't hurt you so bad.
You don't want to have that oneemployee that knows how to do
everything and nobody else knowshow to do it, because if you
lose that employee you'rescrewed, and I've seen this
happen to dentists.
They lose that reallywell-trained office manager
person and there's nobody tofill the shoes.
So this episode is really justabout retention.
(17:13):
We want to retain our team andwe're not just talking about
culture and it's not only aboutculture, I mean, we're talking
about the profitability of yourpractice.
So I want you to think aboutwhat is one thing that you could
do this week to make your teamfeel more valued and supported.
Maybe you'd try that fillingbuckets exercise, maybe you do
(17:35):
some one-on-ones, maybe youlearn how to be a leader and you
put the systems into yourpractice so that you can finally
have a team-driven practice andyour team can take more
autonomy and more responsibilityand feel good about that.
And if you want help on how todo this and how to create this
type of practice so that you canhave a ton of time off and a
lot of freedom in your life, Iwant to talk to you on the phone
(17:55):
.
Can we do a strategy call?
Would you go todentalpracticeheroescom and get
on my calendar?
It is a very low pressure thing.
I will let you know about ourcoaching options and I will hear
what's going on in yourpractice and I will give you my
best advice at that point.
So, at bare minimum, you'regoing to learn a lot from me
just by having a conversation.
So reach out to me there,dentalpracticeheroescom.
Thank you so much for listening.
(18:15):
Have a great week, everybody.
We
Now I want to share a story with you guys.
If you've been listening tothis podcast since it started in
2017, you know that I used togo speak and I used to talk a
lot about low turnover.
I mean, I was like the lowturnover guy that's how I was
like branding myself.
I had a practice that was likefive years old at the time and I
hadn't had a single personleave and we went almost like
(00:24):
nine years without havinganybody.
I mean, we had, like somepeople that might have moved
away and we had one girl thatwent to nursing school but
nobody left.
Like we had such a good culturethat nobody wanted to leave the
team.
We had such a good team and wehad a team of man I mean we were
probably 20 plus people.
But I remember speaking atVoices of Dentistry and this was
my first speaking engagementand I talked about the idea of
(00:44):
psychological safety and theevidence I was giving that this
works was showing that I had ahuge team and I didn't have a
lot of turnover.
And then somebody came after meand spoke and they made like a
jab at me.
They said, hey, if you haven'thad any turnover at your
practice, that's not somethingto brag about.
That's bad leadership, and Istill disagree.
I don't think that's true.
(01:05):
I think that was greatleadership on my part.
I think I was doing great.
But, truth be told, after COVIDhappened, well, I got my ass
handed to me with turnover.
So maybe I was just due, maybeit was karma, I don't know.
But what I want to share withyou is that I did things that
kept my turnover really low, andturnover was not something that
(01:27):
I was experiencing in mypractice for the first like nine
years practically.
So it was really easy for menot to understand what a problem
it is and how harmful it is.
So for me, early in my career,we had very low turnover and
then, after COVID, I got to seea period of really high turnover
, which a lot was pandemic, alot was the labor market, but a
(01:48):
lot of it was honestly the waywe were running the business.
It was my leadership, to behonest.
So that's what we're going tobe talking about today how can
you drastically reduce yourturnover at your practice and
not in the sense of all thatfluffy stuff I'm talking about
how can you make sure that yourteam stays?
And I think it's a lot easierthan you think and I think a lot
of the consultants and speakerson the circuit.
(02:09):
They really overcomplicate thisand I think it comes down to
three basic things.
I'm gonna share with you todaywhat those are.
Now you are listening to theDental Practice Heroes podcast,
where we teach dentists like youhow to run a team-driven
practice so that you can makemore money, take more time off
and spend more time with yourfamily or just doing whatever it
(02:30):
is that you love doing.
I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison.
I'm the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago, and ifyou are looking to practice
less days and have more peace inyour life because of the way
your dental practice runs,you've come to the right place.
All right, let's do it.
So why does turnover hurt so bad?
(02:53):
And I see this attitude on theFacebook forums.
A lot People are like just hiresomebody else, everybody is
replaceable, nobody cares, don'ttolerate that stuff.
You get what you tolerate and Iget it.
I do agree with that.
You do get what you tolerate,but I don't think the solution
is often letting people go Likethat whole like being slow to
(03:14):
hire and quick to fire.
But it does hurt.
The turnover kills us.
I mean the costs are huge.
We have to recruit in dentistry.
I mean now more than ever Backin the day.
I mean now more than ever Backin the day.
I mean like 10 years ago weused to line people up and like
we were the badasses.
We were like we've got thestuff that you want.
(03:36):
We would interview people oneafter another and it would be
like tell me why you think youdeserve this job, and like we
had that good stuff thateverybody needed.
And now we're like okay, do youhave a heartbeat?
Do you think you could actuallyshow up for an interview?
And if you came to theinterview and we gave you a job,
could you actually show up toit?
Get your ass in here.
You got a job, you can starttomorrow.
So the turnover costs are thebig recruiting.
(03:58):
A lot of it's that, but a lotof it is also in the training.
It's in that slow drag that itcreates on your team when they
have to train others.
And there's a ton of moraleloss when people start to see
their friends and their peers atwork.
They're leaving and they'relooking at that like where are
they going?
You know, they still keep intouch.
(04:19):
They're like texting each otherlike, hey, where are you
working now, how is it overthere?
So you got these people thatare like, oh yeah, it's great
over here, so much better thanover there with Etch, etch sucks
, and that can turn into like apoach fest.
But I guess I didn't do this tosomebody, but I had like three
people come from another officeat one point because I hired
(04:40):
somebody and then they broughttheir friends.
I didn't reach out to solicitthem, I didn't encourage it, but
I didn't necessarily discourageit either, because I really
needed the people.
So now in retrospect, karmacame back.
That happened to me once before, but I would never reach out to
people to try to poach them.
But if they weren't happy there, they're not staying where
they're working.
So if they're going to goanywhere, I'd rather they go
(05:01):
with me.
I mean, I could use some goodemployees.
I think we all could.
But losing people on your team,it can really create this ripple
effect and just drag your teamdown and it just doesn't look
good.
It doesn't look good from apatient perspective.
I remember so many times thatI've had a patient look up to me
and they say, you know what'sweird?
I don't recognize anyone inthis practice anymore.
(05:21):
What happened to everybody?
And I would be like, hey, likeeverybody's still here.
We just grew our team.
We're just growing really fastand, dude, like we still got,
like we opened in 2012.
We've still got so many of thepeople that have been there
since the beginning.
I mean, I've got so many peoplethat are passing their 10 years
coming up.
So we've got good culture inour practice and I think that's
a testament to what I'm going toshare with you today.
(05:42):
So, main point is there's a lotof hidden costs that come from
starting over with a new hire,because they take a long time to
train, even like the mostsimple things.
I mean just to learn yoursystems and to learn like your
culture.
I mean those are things thatyou can't train on.
You can't train on culture.
I mean you can say what youwant, but they have to
(06:03):
experience it to see, like, whatdo you do when this happens?
What do you do when thepatient's upset about this?
How do you take care of people?
You just can't train for thosethings because they're just
random.
The new team members got toexperience them.
They just have to be part ofthe team when those things
happen.
So it takes a lot of time toget people developed to that
level and get people trained up.
(06:24):
So when we do, we want to keepthem.
So I hope at this point in thepodcast you're starting to think
and starting to feel thatturnover is a little bit more
detrimental to your practicethan maybe you thought before.
So let's talk about why peoplereally leave.
I mean, a lot of people willleave because they just don't
get any recognition for whatthey do.
(06:46):
Now, on the flip side, it is soeasy to not notice and not
acknowledge them.
I remember one time when myteam was smaller maybe they were
like 15 or something like thatI made a commitment to give each
person two compliments eachweek.
It was this thing that I calledfilling buckets and it comes
from this book that my daughterhad.
It was called something aboutfilling buckets, but it's this
(07:07):
idea that everybody has aninvisible bucket above their
head and that's how they'refeeling.
If they're feeling good, theirbucket is full.
If they're not feeling good,their bucket is empty.
Now, when you give somebody acompliment, you recognize
something about them, you showthem gratitude, you fill their
bucket a little bit, but whenyou fill somebody else's bucket,
that also fills your bucket,and the idea being well, if all
(07:31):
of our employees' buckets arefull, they can fill the buckets
of our patients.
So I just said I am going tofill the buckets of my team at
least twice a week for everysingle team member, and I made a
chart to keep in my doctor'soffice and wouldn't you know, I
thought I gave a lot ofcompliments to my team.
When you start tracking it, it'sa lot less than you think and I
guarantee you, if you do this,you're going to have the same
(07:53):
experience.
You're going to find out thatthere's some people on your team
that you don't even noticebecause they're so quiet and
they're just sitting there andthey're flying under the radar.
But then we have these someemployees that every time they
do something good, they're goingto tell you about it.
Hey, dad, guess what I did?
Hey, high fives, like they'revery vocal about it.
So it's really easy torecognize those people, but it's
(08:13):
easy to overlook the more quietpeople.
So when you keep track of this,you'll see that and you can
give more effort to giverecognition to the quiet people.
Now, why else do people leave?
They leave because of a toxicculture.
And where does a toxic culturecome from?
It comes from lack ofcommunication.
It and where does a toxicculture come from?
It comes from lack ofcommunication.
It comes from all of thoseconversations that we can never
(08:35):
pull out into the open.
So when we don't have theconversations with our team
about the things that areupsetting them, that's when they
start to have resentment foreach other, and resentment
builds and builds.
And then the gossip shows up.
And I'll tell you, this is whatI always see in offices with
gossip.
I think gossip is a symptom ofa lack of autonomy.
(08:58):
When somebody feels like theyhave no autonomy, they don't
have any control over what'sgoing on in their workplace.
This is the psychological waythat people react.
To get some control back, theystart saying bad things about
people, start saying bad thingsabout the office, and the reason
they don't have any autonomy orpower is because no one's
really asking what their opinionis on things.
(09:19):
Nobody's asking them what'sgoing on, nobody's asking them
for suggestions and the issuesjust keep getting brushed under
the rug, and that's what leadsto resentment and eventually
gossip.
So you need to give your teamautonomy and this is why you
need to talk to your team.
You need to solicit thoseconversations, you've got to
take the time to ask forfeedback, you've got to ask them
(09:40):
how are things going.
And this loops back into thatpsychological safety thing.
That's what I was talking aboutat the Voices of Dentistry
conference when I was talkingabout the low turnover.
It was psychological safety theidea that your team feels safe
to bring things up, that theyfeel safe to say they need more
training, they feel safe to tellyou about things that went
(10:01):
wrong because you're not goingto make them feel bad or guilty
about it, which this is one ofmy leadership principles.
That's part of the first phaseof the OmniPractice program that
we go through with all of ourclients.
We teach you how to do aone-on-one, how to properly do
them, what kind of questions youshould ask, what kind of
attitude do you need to bringinto these short meetings so
(10:21):
that you can have theseconversations with your team and
give them the autonomy and showthem the gratitude that they
deserve and I can't tell you howmany times I have shown the
power of one-on-ones to a client, so they're so powerful.
If you want one single thingthat you could take from Dental
Practice Heroes and never, everforget it, it is that
one-on-ones are the mostpowerful thing that you can do
(10:44):
in your practice if you do theprinciples correctly.
And the principles I'm talkingabout is things like
psychological safety.
There's a few other ones, tooas well, but you just got to do
these things and don't overthinkit.
Just do it, because I rememberin my practice, like every time
we went through these phaseswhere there was just this
(11:04):
feeling of discontent, there waslike tension.
We could feel it.
You feel in the room likeyou're in a meeting and you know
something's going on in yourpractice.
I mean don't act stupid.
You could feel these things Alot of times.
We want to act like we don'tknow because we don't want to
address it, but you know whatI'm talking about, you can feel
it.
So all those times that I feltlike that, I could look back and
say you know what?
(11:25):
I don't think we've doneone-on-ones in a really long
time.
Have I been communicating withmy team?
Have I been talking to my teamand asking them?
Have I been building therelationships with my team and
just seeing how things are goinggoing and nine times out of 10,
I was really busy and I justhadn't done it.
Lately I've been locked in myoffice and I'm not spending the
time managing my practice, doingthese very basic things that
you have to be doing.
(11:46):
So this is why, as yourpractice grows, you start to
build a leadership team so youdon't have to be the one
worrying about doing this andyou make sure that they do this
one-on-ones with theirdepartments on a regular cadence
.
That's how we do it now at thepractice.
My leads do this.
I don't do this anymore.
I do one-on-ones with my leadsbecause I can't do one-on-ones
with 35 plus people.
But, like I'm saying, there's alot of times in my practice
(12:08):
career it got bad and showed upin the culture and the way
people were feeling Okay, otherthan gratitude and communicating
with your team via theone-on-ones.
What else can we do to retainand protect our team and keep
them together?
You've got to invest in them.
You've got to invest in theculture, in the leadership of
your practice.
You've got to train yourleaders.
(12:28):
If you have a leadership team,I can tell you we just did this
the other day with ourleadership team.
We all took a conflictmanagement training and we went
through.
We had a facilitator, werole-played some situations that
are going on in the practiceand I know this is gonna make a
big difference in our practice.
So even taking your team likefull team to CE events, that's
(12:49):
another way you can invest inyour team.
You train them in your team.
They wanna do a good job, theywant to learn things.
They wanna say how do you playthis game that is dental
practice management?
How do you play this game thatis dental practice management?
How do you win the game ofanswering the phone the best way
?
How do you win the game ofpresenting treatments so
patients get healthy?
Your team wants to be good atthese things.
So you got to provide thistraining and they're going to
(13:10):
appreciate you for that andthey're going to be so much more
engaged in your practice.
So you got to make sure thatyou're doing all these things,
because when you get a teammember, that's upset.
They don't feel valued, theydon't feel like they're growing,
they don't feel like they haveautonomy in your practice.
They start looking for anotherjob and when they are at that
(13:32):
point where they're looking foranother job, they might as well
be gone because they are nolonger contributing positively
to the culture.
At that point they might bejust doing the bare minimum, but
they are not doing good thingsfor your practice.
You want that person out ofthere or you want them to value
the job that they have.
So if you're on my team andyou're listening to this and
you're like, well, I've beenlooking for a job for six months
, would you do me a favor andjust please leave?
We don't want you.
We want people that are thereand want to be there and we want
(13:55):
people that contributepositively to our culture.
All right, anyway, I know I'mall over the place today, all
right.
Next, we've got to createsystems for recognition.
Now I gave you the fillingbuckets example.
Here's a few other examples.
We have a Slack channel withour team and one of them is for
posting all the five-starreviews.
Now, I don't post everyfive-star review.
(14:18):
I just know that, as a practiceowner, I get an email when we
get a five-star review.
My team does not get an email.
They don't get to see it unlessthey actually go look for it.
So I want to post thesefive-star reviews.
I post all the ones wherepeople write nice things and it
makes them feel good.
They see that we're affectingpeople, that people are happy
with what we're providing, and Ilove it when the patient uses
(14:44):
someone's name or gets reallyspecific about what they loved.
Now, another thing we do forappreciation is we do these
appreciation tokens.
So every month, every teammember gets three tokens and
they are to give that tosomebody else.
When somebody does somethingnice or does something to help
them, they want to explicitlyrecognize.
They appreciated that.
So they hand them this tokenand they say thank you.
Now, at our team meeting eachmonth, everybody turns in their
(15:06):
tokens.
So and they get some ticketsfor it, they get raffle tickets.
So whoever has the most tokenswill get the most raffle tickets
and is more likely to win aprize, because we do a raffle
and we give away prizes likeAmazon gift cards, starbucks
gift cards, things like that,and then everybody gets their
three tokens back and we do itagain the following month.
And then I mentioned theone-on-ones.
(15:26):
That's another opportunity foryou to show some recognition,
some appreciation for your team.
That's part of what we teach inour program.
That's one of the parts ofdoing the proper one-on-one.
So, lastly, we want to make ourpractice a place that people
want to stay at.
Make it fun.
Make it fun to do thingstogether.
Set up social functions so thatyou can learn how to play
(15:47):
together.
One of the things I remember inthis book that I read I don't
remember where it was, but itwas that people will stay at a
job that they just freaking hateway too long, like way longer
than they should, because theyjust freaking hate way too long,
like way longer than theyshould, because they just love
the people that they work with.
So if you can give your team anopportunity to get to know each
other outside of work and hangout, that's awesome for your
(16:09):
culture.
I mean, my team hangs out witheach other all the time.
They're all friends and I lovethat they all get along.
It makes me feel like I've gotthe right people on the right
team.
I love it.
And learn how to inspire yourteam.
Learn how to train yourself asa leader.
There's so much leadershiptraining that I put on Dental
Practice Heroes and all theprograms that we do.
We've got tons of videos forall of our coaching clients that
(16:30):
are created by me and I thinkthey're very to the point.
You can get through all of theleadership ones and the culture
ones in probably two to threehours.
So learn how to inspire yourteam.
And this episode was really notabout this, but it's on my mind
right now is another thing aboutturnover is you've got to make
sure you build your onboardingsystems and your training
systems in your practice so thatwhen you do experience turnover
(16:52):
because you're going to, itdoesn't hurt you so bad.
You don't want to have that oneemployee that knows how to do
everything and nobody else knowshow to do it, because if you
lose that employee you'rescrewed, and I've seen this
happen to dentists.
They lose that reallywell-trained office manager
person and there's nobody tofill the shoes.
So this episode is really justabout retention.
(17:13):
We want to retain our team andwe're not just talking about
culture and it's not only aboutculture, I mean, we're talking
about the profitability of yourpractice.
So I want you to think aboutwhat is one thing that you could
do this week to make your teamfeel more valued and supported.
Maybe you'd try that fillingbuckets exercise, maybe you do
(17:35):
some one-on-ones, maybe youlearn how to be a leader and you
put the systems into yourpractice so that you can finally
have a team-driven practice andyour team can take more
autonomy and more responsibilityand feel good about that.
And if you want help on how todo this and how to create this
type of practice so that you canhave a ton of time off and a
lot of freedom in your life, Iwant to talk to you on the phone
(17:55):
.
Can we do a strategy call?
Would you go todentalpracticeheroescom and get
on my calendar?
It is a very low pressure thing.
I will let you know about ourcoaching options and I will hear
what's going on in yourpractice and I will give you my
best advice at that point.
So, at bare minimum, you'regoing to learn a lot from me
just by having a conversation.
So reach out to me there,dentalpracticeheroescom.
Thank you so much for listening.
(18:15):
Have a great week, everybody.
We
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