Welcome to Dental Unscripted

Welcome to Dental Unscripted, a podcast brand that meets doctors wherever they are at in their professional journey. We talk about starting a practice, buying a practice, and running a practice. We cover a lot of ground on this channel!

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Dental Unscripted

Stop Expecting Better Results From Your Team
When You Haven't Given Them Anything to Work With

Most practice owners we work with come to us frustrated with their team members. Production is flat! Things keep falling through the cracks. The front desk "should just know" what to do to make things more profitable. And the practice owner's 'go-to' move is some version of "I need better from you" directed at a team member who has no idea what "better" actually looks like!

So here's the uncomfortable truth we discuss on the podcast. You can't hold someone accountable to expectations that were never set. If your team doesn't have:

                                        
• Clear agreements
                                        
• Defined responsibilities
                                        
• Actual systems to follow

You don't have a people problem. You have a leadership problem. And the fix isn't hiring and firing. It's building.

The Four Layer Framework That Comes Before Accountability

We break this down with every client we onboard. There are four things that need to exist before you earn the right to hold anyone accountable. Skip any of them and you're just yelling into the void.

1. Agreements (Culture)

This is the foundation. Before you talk about tasks or performance, the whole team needs to agree on who you're all going to be. That means sitting down together and defining the non-negotiables: positive attitude, open-mindedness to training, honest communication, showing up prepared. These aren't rules you impose. They're commitments the team makes together. Get the agreement first. Then you have something real to point back to.

2. Job Descriptions (Clarity)

Here's what we find in almost every practice we walk into: everybody thinks everybody is doing everything, and the reality is that critical tasks belong to nobody. A job description answers three questions: What needs to be done? Who is accountable if it doesn't get done? When are they making the time to do it? If you can't answer all three, you don't have a job description. You have a wish list.

3. Systems (Capability)

Once you've assigned responsibilities, the next question is: can this person actually execute? Systems close that gap. And "system" doesn't mean complicated every time. It means: is there a defined process, does the person truly know it and understand it? Also, is there a time built into their day to do it? If you don't have a time, then you probably don't have a system.

4. Accountability (The Payoff)

This is the part every owner wants to skip to. Once you've set the agreements, defined the roles, and built the systems, you've created clarity. If someone still isn't performing, you have a documented, specific, defensible case that it's a person problem, not a process problem.

The "Betty Jo" Problem No One Wants to Talk About

Let's be real: many practices are run by a front office admin who is, functionally, the operations manager. But she learned the job from whoever sat in that chair before her. Only the owner is going to care about this business more than anyone else. If you're not designing the workflows, you're outsourcing your business strategy to someone who was never equipped to carry it all.

This Takes Longer Than You Want It To

Building "real leadership" infrastructure is a one to two year body of work. Research suggests it takes 66 days to lock in a new behavior. If you follow this progression (agreements, job descriptions, systems, accountability), the growth follows. The practices we see grow from $1M to $1.6M did it because the 20% of tasks that used to fall through the cracks stopped falling.

This post is based on a recent episode of the Dental Unscripted podcast. Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn host the show through [NEXT LEVEL CONSULTANTS](https://nxlvelconsultants.com). You can listen to the full episode at [dentalunscripted.com](https://dentalunscripted.com).