Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite!
Spiffy Tiffy and Dynamite Dana wax poetic about a topic coming up quite a bit in offices these days: teamwork and morale, and how to make it the best possible. Together, they touch on the following:
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.
on the Dental A Team podcast.
The Dental A Team (00:32)
and you guys, I'm so excited for Consultant Takeover. Guys, that was me attempting to sing into this microphone for you, and I hope you loved it. Today, Consultant Takeover, grab your pens, grab your notebooks, bringing in the heat today. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Tiffanie and you are here on the Dental A team consultant takeover where the traveling Dental A Team consultants take over the mic and share tips and tricks from hundreds of offices nationwide. And today I have with me, Dynamite Dana.
Dana, you have been on a roll. have been podcasting for, ? my gosh, almost an hour now, honestly. And your tips and tricks have just been mind blowing. Your verbiage was awesome on the last one. I freaking loved it. So now I set you up to like have to wing it to bring it here on this one. You're welcome. I just, as I was speaking, Thank you so much for podcasting with me today. ? we all know K does a million solos. I've done a few, I think we've all done a few solos, but it's just so much more fun when we have
at least two people on here to kind of chit chat with. I feel like we're on video, we're talking, we're like two pals just chatting and we're gonna just be two pals chatting about the normal everyday conversation of teamwork and morale. Because that's what brunch talk is, right? I was kidding, I'm just kidding. That is not brunch talk. But that is today, teamwork and morale. I think...
I think everything we talked about today has been super relevant, but I really, really think teamwork and morale has been coming up a ton for practices. think. I think employment is different today than it ever has been in our history. And I think teamwork and morale is at the center of that. Morale means more to team members today than it ever has before. We're in the day and age of if it doesn't feel good, we're not doing it. And I can't.
disagree with that on a lot of levels. And so I struggle with some of practices too. They're like, I don't understand. I'm like, I don't get it either, but I feel the same. If it doesn't feel good, do I really want to do it? And those are the choices that we're all making every single day. And so I think there's a lot to be said for teamwork and morale. And Dana, have you seen it in practices recently too? Yeah. I mean, I have very few practices where this hasn't come up. And I think, ?
One thing I always like to point out when it comes to this is this is something that takes a ton of work that takes a ton of constant focus. Oftentimes you think, okay, I'm just going to do this office event, or we're going to go out one time, and we're going to bond this one time, and we're going to put in a little bit of effort this month, and then it falls off, or we think that's enough, and teams cycle with this, right? We tend to see
Morale stay really high. And then, know, 90 days later we see it dip again. And so it is catching it before it dips. Right. And to do that, we have to just make it a constant focus. Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. Now question for you. I have my opinions, but I want to know your opinion as well. Teamwork and morale often lies on, ? it ends up in the hands of your leadership or your doctors, your owners, but do you, who do you feel like is responsible for teamwork and morale in a, in a business or a practice?
I think everyone. think ? team, right, is in teamwork and it takes all team members being willing to work together, being willing to face challenges, being willing to grow, being willing to step up and look for opportunities to push other team members to increase that morale, even if it is recognizing when somebody helps you out and saying thank you. I think it can come from anybody. I think team members look to leadership to set the tone.
But I think team members own a piece of it just as much as leadership does. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And that's what I was thinking too. As we're going on this topic, we start out as like, can we do to set the morale? But then I'm thinking, well, we talked about ownership just on a podcast we just recorded. And I think that that is huge here too, being able to own what we bring and what effects, positive or negative, we have on the teamwork and the morale of the practice.
I know I get into my cycles, everything in life is cyclical and we'll always end up back in the same places, right? Unless we make a change and that's the definition of insanity. And I think that's why people go crazy. They're like, well, I can't stay in the same place anymore. Like, well, there's like small changes you can make, don't have to make a whole life change, but there are small things. And so I know I go through these phases and I'll get to the point where I'm like, what the heck? Like with travel, right? I'll go wild and I'm like, shoot, I can't do this anymore. Like, no, that's.
probably not what it is. Like what is my ownership in this, right? I think, well, what is the LA team doing? How are we, how are they making it exciting? Or Kiera will say, let's add in like more fun events. Like Kiera, that's not always it. Sometimes it's just that like we have to take, I have to take a look at what I've been doing. How have I been contributing? How have I been helping the other consultants to feel amazing at what they're doing? How have I been investing and pouring myself into our company and what
We're putting out because that's ultimately how I'm going to feel best about my position and whatever I'm doing. And I know I feel better. I think everybody does. I feel better when I give somebody else compliments and I feel better when I say, thank you, Nicole, to the cash register lady at the store. And she's like, my gosh, thank you for knowing my name. Like you have a name tag. Like I talk about those things a lot, but it really does make it helps build me up so that I think I bring a different, I think I bring a different vibe and a different morale.
to the team when I can identify why I'm stuck in a space and make that change for myself compared to coming and showing up and expecting the rest of you guys to change me, right? If I come in a bad mood, I expect you guys to bring it up and you to put in the teamwork and the morale to make me feel better. It doesn't usually, doesn't usually work that way, right? But when I can show up and know I'm in a funk and how am I going to change that by being
better for you guys, it often will change it for me.
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. In 2021, my goal was
I would always, and I started it just with like my friends and then I expanded it to pretty much everyone. And my goal was if I thought something nice, if I looked at my friend's earrings and I thought, they're so pretty, I was to say it. So that was my goal for 2021 when I thought those things that I actually had to force myself to say them. And I went into it being like, I want people to hear these good things, right? I want them to hear the things that I think.
truly, truly what I got from it was far more immeasurable. Like giving that joy and giving that gave so much back tenfold probably than the person hearing it. And so ? I think about that when it comes to morale, that if I can leave my, ? you know, negative things outside and I can show up and I can be positive, or if I feel disconnected that I'm the one that reaches out or
It is truly, truly will make a difference and team members will really have a big impact on that. Yeah, I love that. That's brilliant. And you do give the best compliments. I know you always show up with that. You really truly do stick by that. If you think something, you'll say it about that thing, which I love. It makes everybody feel good. So I think that's brilliant.
We all have our piece to play in teamwork. love that you said that like team is literally you're part of the team and it's in the word teamwork. So I love that. And then morale is, think morale is a combination of the work that we all put in. And you said at the beginning leadership sets the tone. think number one person who sets the tone is your doctor owner. So who's the like big Kahuna who's everybody looking to. And then it goes down from there, um, down your leadership ladder. I know if.
An office manager is responsible for morale and our doctors like, man, I don't really feel like being here. I don't really, I don't love dentistry. I don't want to, I don't want to be here every day. I hate my hours. I wish I could do more surgery. Your office manager, pep rallying, running around, trying to make everybody happy is not going to fix the situation. Regardless, they're still looking towards you doctors. So just make sure that you guys and even associate doctors, think not.
Owners, think you have a huge piece to play in the morale as well. I know I've heard, ? you know, his day is done. So he just gets up and leave. doesn't check with anybody. But then my owner doctor checks to see if dental assistants need anything like show up. That's the biggest piece teamwork and morale is just showing up. Be your best selves, ? give more out than you expect to get back and understand the part and the piece that you play in setting the morale. If the morale is off your teamwork.
will fail, right? If your morale is off, people don't want to help each other. Your teamwork is like one, I'm out for myself one for one, right? If your morale is high and people understand how fun it can be to work for you, work out your practice or your business, then your teamwork is going to go up. They're more likely to say, Hey, how can I help? Hey, Dana, you seem down today. Like what can, what can I do? Do you just need to chat? Are you good? Whereas if morale is low.
I'm low too, so I might not even notice that Dana's down today. I might not even, I might not be in a space to pay attention because I'm just looking at myself. What do you think, Dana? Yeah, I love that so much because I feel like, again, they're going to look to leadership to set the tone. And so if leadership comes in with that positive, if leadership is looking in ways and oftentimes,
I hear when I hear offices say, I don't have team members that take initiative. We lack initiative. I always want to say, then let's take a look at your morale, your culture, because that's probably right where that's coming from. Yeah, I totally agree. I do hear that a lot. I don't have team members. I just need to find team members who are willing to take initiative and do what's hard. I had, I use myself as an example all the time because I really like to evaluate myself, number one, but I really like to look at like who I was and who I've become. And I think
My coworkers and my, doctor that I know sometimes listen to this, but I know I do have my office manager from years ago. She listens to our podcasts often. And I hope, I hope she listens at the right time is because she played just a huge piece in helping to mold the person that I am, regardless of how well or how well we did not get to get, get along. but I remember when I was in my early, in my early twenties, I.
I hated this. hate even saying it sometimes, but it's like so funny and so embarrassing at the same time. So we had like a refrigerator with water bottles in it. Right. But then we, my doctor loved these Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. Okay. He wanted the practice to smell like a bakery. And I'm like, I, we are a dental practice. We are not a bakery. So this is ridiculous. Number one in my mind. Right. I was just like, this is psycho. That's not off the sugar.
He's like, he's like, get the only sugar free ones. So I'm like all day telling people like, no, they're like, getting cavities drumming up business. I'm like, no, they're sugar free, but like they still will cause cavities. It was such a thing. It was a debacle. It's fine. But in my early twenties, I was like, I'm not that like, that's not part of my job to make the cookies and to do the water bottles. Like I have worked here.
long enough, I've worked here for five, six years, however long, and I was like, I'm not doing these stupid things anymore. This is no longer me. This is that person over there. And I remember my office manager at the time was like, if you're not willing to do the tedious tasks, then how do you expect someone else who's quote unquote underneath you to want to do it too? She would go in and clean the bathroom. She would go in and change the toilet paper. She would make sure that the
? front lobby was clean, she would go and like she'd have a magic erase marker on the walls because there's scuff marks and so much so that what it did was it made the rest of us like, ? you're not, let me do that. Like we would jump up and go do it because she was that kind of a leader. So I think being the leader, one thing I've learned in my tenure within, you know, adult life, we'll say,
is that if you're not willing to be the leader that's willing to do the small tedious tasks that are quote unquote beneath you or that you don't want to do, you can't expect anyone else to do it either. So that sets the tone and the morale 100%. And if you're waiting for people to see the scuff and get up and do it, you already saw it. Why not just do it? Right? And I think that that's a huge piece in my personal life at least. ?
of morale that I learned was you're gonna get better results if you're willing to be the leader. That's the difference between a leader and a manager is really leading to the result that you want rather than sitting around and waiting for someone to take the initiative of something that you already saw wasn't being done. Yeah, and the time and the thought that you put into every time you walk by that Scalfmark, my team members haven't taken initiative and done that.
Nobody has noticed that or done that, right? The amount of time and energy that you've put into even thinking about that scuff is a fraction of what it would have taken you just to clean it up. Amen. I love that. And we all know that I am not about wasting time nor energy. So do the thing. Just do the thing. I know we talk about say the thing that's making it hard to say, do the thing that you don't want to do. Do the hard things so that other people will learn how to do it too.
I think teamwork and morale, I know you guys probably walked into this thinking we were going to have all of these tips and tricks of like, do this, do that, do this, buy this, do this event. And you can do all of those things, but I think at the bottom of it all, and the end of the day is just edifying one another, being good people, doing the things that you don't want to do so that other people learn how to do it and really owning your stuff. So gosh, Dana, tell me if there's other action items you see, but I think I'm taking your.
I'm stealing your own, stuff. use this on another podcast and I loved that. And I think it's so relevant. Own your stuff. If you're not in a space of good teamwork or morale, figure out why and change that. How can you break the mold of who you are? Show who you're showing up or how you're showing up today. How can you break that mold, break that chain of insanity, that cyclical phase? So own your stuff. How can you break the mold and then.
just do the hard things, do the things that make you a better leader and set that tone for your practice. Yeah, I love it. Sometimes I think it has to take these huge moving mountain things, right? And it truly is, truly, truly is placing the sands in that anthill or whatever analogy you want. It's those little things. It's the thank yous. It's the, that was fantastic. It's the, my gosh, our
you know, front office is the best at what they do. It's those little things that push teams to grow together, to work together. It's just the small things. Yeah, I love it. So make yourself a goal like what Dana had. I loved that 2021. If you saw something, you said it. I love that. Make it a goal for the practice. think that's brilliant. If you see somebody doing something well, make sure that you say it out loud. We tend to keep those things inside or I think we're too busy. Just do it. So.
I love it. Thanks, Dana. Thanks for being here with me today. That was a fun one to do with you. I loved it. Thanks. You're welcome. Alrighty guys. That wraps up the Dental A Team podcast consultant takeover. Let us know what you think. We love hearing from our listeners. Truly, truly love it. Drop us a five star review or email us over at Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you next time
Kiera Dent (16:48)
Dental A Team listeners, I hope you loved revisiting this episode as much as I did. I hope that you found the nuggets, the pearls. You can see why we re-released this one because I truly want you to take away the best of the best of the best of the best. This episode truly hopefully sparked some new excitement, gave you some new ideas. I know sometimes when I go back and I look back on things that I've learned in the past, I'm able to re-implement because like that famous quote says, no man steps into the same river twice because neither he is the same man.
nor is the river the same. You are not the same as you were before, nor is your practice the same as it was before. Different things, different ideas, same principles. And I really want to highlight and hopefully you took today that sometimes all we need to do is simplify and put into place or to refine things that we've already been doing really, really well. If you love this episode, don't keep it to yourself, share it with a colleague or leave us a review and help more practices find the Dental A Team podcast. As always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.