Do you find yourself with a to-do list rather than a fully functioning leadership team? This episode is all about the Dental A-Team’s bread and butter: scaling leaders. Kiera shares how to transition out of micromanaging in a way that you and your team can get behind, whether you’re working with people who’ve worked in your practice for years, or starting fresh.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope you're having a great day today. I hope that you just love what you get to do. I hope that you realize, gosh, you're so lucky to be working in a day and age like today. I know we can sit here and we can talk about all the problems. We can talk about how this patient did this and this team member did this and my gosh, this happened and Kiera, the cashflow this and you wouldn't even understand. I haven't taken a vacation for four years. I hear you.
And I just want to remind you that good and bad coexist. We can see the good just as much as we can see the bad. And the greatest way to combat anger and fear is to look at gratitude. We can also talk about what were all the great things that happened. You have all these amazing patients today. You had a team who freaking loves you and fills your schedule for you. You showed up today and patients were just magically there. You were able to walk in and you're cash flowing positive. I hope that that's your day. And if it's not, let's talk because cash flow.
? it's my biggest pet peeve and I Dennis to always be freaking wealthy because when you are successful financially, your team is happier, your patients are happier because we're not stressed out all the time. So that's my big rant. Let's chat. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm obsessed with making your life easier. We're obsessed with positively impacting you in the greatest way possible. And I love helping dentists get the happiness, fulfillment, success that they're seeking and doing it for you and teams. So
That's what I'm here for. Welcome, welcome, welcome. If you love our podcast, please like, subscribe, share this, leave us a review. That's how we're able to help more practices just like you get to the success. We're all here. Like the world of success. Imagine it's like this boardroom. It's, it's infinity. Everybody's welcome and everybody should have that. And that's what I'm here for. There is more money in this world than we can ever count on. And all of us are entitled to it. All of us have access to it. And I want everybody to rise to the top and help each other get there. And that's what we're about. So
With that, I wanna just help you. I think this is a great one. I think leadership is such this like, tricky topic. Like, my gosh, I don't even know what leadership is. And so today I wanted to kind of break down like, stop managing people and start managing leaders. And this is like leadership 101 for you. So just gonna kind of walk you through. If you're still managing every single detail.
of your practice, you don't have a leadership team, you have a to-do list. And that's a bold statement. And that's even a statement for myself. And sometimes you might have a leadership team and you just need to let go. Also speaking to myself, but hey, if that applies to you, please email me. I love a good pen Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Please tell me I'm not alone out there, but truly, are you managing every detail? Are you managing your leadership team? So I just want to walk you through some three simple little steps of how to stop managing tasks.
and leading through an empowered team. was talking to our COO and she said, know, Kiera, you've got to be able to work through your team. Meaning you don't do it all yourself as a leader. You work through that team. And I think as CEOs, as owners of practices, we often don't work through our team. actually just do it all. And that creates a burnout that creates stress. It does not create a self-sufficient leadership run team. And that's what Dental A Team's obsessed about doing is let's build these self-sufficient leadership teams. And this is a blueprint to stop micromanaging
and start scaling leaders. Are you on board? I hope you are. This is something I freaking love because for me it's hard. Like it's a real life thing. Like I feel like I micromanage a lot. I feel like I don't scale leaders. I feel like I get in their way. I feel like I've grown a lot. I feel like I've also had to be the person. So it's kind of built in his habits. And so I think it's a space where like we oftentimes think do I need to hire a new leader? And I think sometimes, yes. Like when I look at office managers,
We can grow them. Dental A Team is really, really great at actually developing office managers and helping you know what it is. So before you go and hire someone brand new, I would definitely recommend growing them, seeing if they've got the skillset. And if not, then let's go hire this person. But I think when you're, when you go from this micromanaging to do list to bringing on leaders, it's going to be a let's identify and develop internal leaders for you because a lot of times they're just sitting right in front of you.
I was just at an event the other day and one of our team members was there and like not even on my radar of leadership. And I was like, wow, that person has been sitting right in front of me. So I think sometimes we think the grass is greener rather than just really like we got a freaking green pasture right in front of us. Let's just develop them. So you can test people out. And the way you start to look for leaders on your team is who naturally takes the initiative, who does this just on their own? And can I help grow them?
and help them like earn trust with me. And then can I do one-on-one coaching? So for me, I like plant little projects like, hey, you take this on and I'm watching to see does this person take the initiative? Do they follow through? Do they have the traits that I'm looking for in a leader? Do they have my trust? And if they don't, that's great. They're a great team member. But if not, like I can do one-on-one with them. Also the way you develop, like if you identify about this person, they're not quite to leadership. You can do one-on-one coaching with them. You can literally hire a Dental A Team to help coach and train your leaders.
We do this all the time. Give leadership books, have a book club with them, have clear responsibilities, what's their job description. And then we promote based on ownership mindset, not tenure. And that to me is something so hard. And I just wanna talk about it like, how do we do this? Because a lot of people feel like I've been here for a long time. And I will tell you the best and easiest way to do this is to actually put out the job description for who you're hiring and send it to your team and see who wants to apply for it. Because then the tenure people might look at that and like,
And someone told me that, like, yep, open that job description and close it right back up because surely don't want to do all that. They're a seasoned team member, but they don't want to take it on. So that's your easiest way to be able to promote for that ownership mindset and leadership of who actually wants it rather than just who's been there for a long time that quote unquote feels like they deserve it. Just because people have been there for a long time does not mean that they're a great leader. And I hope you hear that. And this is how you micromanage because a lot of times people put leaders into place with massive air quotes that aren't leaders.
They're just bodies with a title and you're still having to do everything. Right? People write, see, it should not cost you more time or more money. They should actually give that back to you. So if that's not the case for you, you don't have leaders, you have doers and you need leaders. So I think when you, um, there's been plenty of practices that I've worked with where we've taken team members on the team, given them some leadership guidance. So we teach them how to have one-on-ones. We teach them how to have hard conversations. We teach them how to look at the books. We helped them learn.
how to actually like be a leader of your practice. And people are like, you turned my office manager around. Like they're now an office manager. And a lot of times it's not that they weren't great. They just didn't even know. If I would have had a coach and a mentor as an office manager, I would have been 10 X the manager that I was. And that's coming from Kiera Dan. I think I'm pretty dang good. And I take a lot of initiative, but I just didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know how to run a business. I hadn't looked at this before. I didn't have the experience with it. I just got thrown in because, hey, I'm Kiera. I know I can figure this out.
but a lot of times it's very costly. So give them the coach, give them leadership books, give them a mentor, give them a job description and KPIs and see them rock. So I would definitely look at that. And so if you're managing everything or you feel like you're doing a lot, is there a team member on your team today that shows leadership potential? And could you start mentoring, testing them out, seeing how they do to see if they're your person before we go higher? Number two, step two is going to be we wanna make sure leadership roles are
very clearly defined with authority and accountability. So something I see that happens often when people put leaders into places, they don't give them authority and the doctor actually undercuts them. And I know I've done this to my team. So team, if you're listening, I'm very sorry because I know I've done this to you and you've got to have clarity and autonomy for leadership to work. So what it means is we've got to have scorecards and KPIs with decision-making rights. So who actually can make decisions on this? And if you're the only person that's doing it, you've got to put into place
what your decision making is and who I like panic saying this. Literally I'm like looking down stressed out right now to say this. You have to accept that people aren't going to do it the way you would do it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. I like things a certain way. I'm very aware of that. I'm like, even my husband, told me he's like, Kiera, it's been so nice. Like we had some friends coming over and usually I'm very particular about like what we're doing for dinner and how we're doing it.
I've been so busy, he's like, I just initiated and I'm so tired. I'm like, that's great. Thank you. Like, and I think when we realize like, what are the decisions really truly you have to make? I've got a doctor who loves picking out the prizes for her prize box. She's pediatric. And yet that's something that you could delegate, you could elevate and you could get some time back. I'm not here to say you can't do the things you love, but I am here to say like, you've got to give autonomy, you've got to give clarity. Otherwise you're always going to sit here.
So if you can't give that up and you're so obsessive about every single detail so much even as the prize box, the leadership might not be your jam and you might need to just be a manager and hire somebody who's a great CEO to run your business. And I'm not saying that vindictively or that you're not good enough. It's just truly like, what's your skillset for it? So you've got to have clear roles with authority and accountability. So KPIs, decision-making rights. You've got to have what the lead owns and what they don't. So this way you're not crossing in. We have an accountability chart and I swear it's like,
call it our holy grail of the company. I have to look at them like, okay, who is making these decisions? It's not Kiera who is doing this and setting them up for success, letting them fail, letting them make the decisions. Sure, if it's going to like make us go bankrupt. So I say if it's a financial, a legal, those are like the main two things that I really have decision-making rights over that I'm gonna trump all day long. The rest need to be having autonomy with it. And then also our theme this year is outcomes over activity. So.
Make sure that we have meetings where we're reporting on the outcomes, not the activity. So what's our KPA scorecard show us? I don't care that you got 200 things done today. High five. I'm super proud of you. Did we hit goal? Did we make overhead and are we profitable as a business? Like, and did our team love our day? And did we have a great patient experience? Like, I'm so happy that you did the billing, but like that falls under the outcome of profitability and overhead. Like those are just parts of the business that we've got to do. And so
Really when our OMS and our doctors and our people see their role clearly, like even in our organization, when we rolled out the accountability chart and we have it set, we've got specific KPIs and we started tracking on measures, the team starts to move. There's fewer daily interruptions. Things can move forward and I'm not having to make as many decisions anymore and the leadership team is able to make them smoother, faster, easier. Now, I'm not perfect at this. I have a lot of pieces in here. There might be better leaders out there.
But I will tell you growing leaders on your team, developing them and helping doctors and teams work, then only team a second to none. Like this is what we do. Me as a CEO of a consulting company, yeah, it's been tricky. Cause I'm like, I don't have the freaking playbook. I know how to do your practice. I know how to do your life, but doing our business has been hard. But I will say as you're building this, and if you're listening today, you've got to have a scorecard for each leadership role that has their job description, their KPI and their decision-making authority of what they can or can't do.
that clarity is going to create confidence in your team. This is something easy to build. I mean, we've got AI, we've got Dental A Team, we can help you guys with all of this. Those are pieces that you're going to do. And then after that, you're going to do step three, which is coaching the leaders, not the team. And this, ugh, like I sit back in my chair, like I feel stressed out to say these things to you. I think this one actually is pretty tricky for somebody who's founder led, who's been very involved with all the team. You move into a space where,
You just now work with your leaders, not the rest of the team. And ? I think this is where leadership can feel lonely. I think this is where you can feel like, but I don't know all my team members and you don't anymore. And as you grow and evolve, you actually need to move on because what happens is if you still lead the rest of the team, you actually bypass your leaders and you undercut them.
you've got to route feedback and issues through them. And that's like a hard redirect because you're so used to being the person who answers it. So pull out your little accountability legend, look at it and be like, okay, thank you for asking me that question. This is the person who needs to do it. We play popcorn in our team of, all right, we have a question for this, who does this? And we have them answer until they know who to go to. And it's just a redirecting and a reworking for everybody. And just say like, hey, I know we've like shaken our team like a snow globe. Everything's kind of falling into place and I wanna make sure people have clarity.
because clarity creates confidence. So then we have our leaders. And then you actually have, I do weekly leadership meetings and we do monthly. And I realized like, that's my time to coach my leaders. So can I give them books? Can I do book clubs? Can I help them? And then you have one-on-ones either weekly or monthly to really develop them as leaders, to track in on their KPIs, to look at their issues, to resolve issues for them. And you literally train them how you want them to treat their team.
So hey, what I'm doing with you, I'm meeting with you weekly, I'm reviewing your KPIs, we're looking at our quarterly objectives, making sure that's moving. And then any issues you've got with proposed solutions, let's work through those. You develop your leaders who then can go develop their teams. And I will tell you that I've got several doctors who have built incredible leadership teams, and it is done through this and they coach the leaders. And some of them have even said like, I don't even know half my team anymore. And what I tell those doctors and I tell myself is,
you still get to surprise and delight in areas that doesn't undercut your leader. You can still be the fun boss. You can still do highlight shout outs to your team members. I still write shout outs to our team of where I've seen them do different things, but the dynamics do change. And I think you have to realize if you don't want to be the micromanager, the office manager, if you will, you do need to develop leaders and you need to let them be leaders and you need to give them that power, that autonomy, that growth. And if you can do that,
you are going to be able to grow. So this is where we do really truly going from having a to-do list to having a leadership team. So quick recap of steps would be identify your internal leaders and start developing them into it. Then we define the roles very clearly with KPIs, job descriptions and decision-making authority. And then we coach them on how we want them to lead the rest. And that coaching piece...
I think yourself, make sure that your coach is a great leader too. This is what I love in our consulting is we do coach doctors and teams. We help doctors show up as great leaders and like, how are you undercutting your team and vice versa? Hey team, how are you undercutting your doctor? How are you not showing up for them? This is what they need from you. And I think having that mediator often can really, really help you out. But I think like coach the leaders, coach yourself, make sure you've got it. What books do you have? What things can you give them? What resources, what courses, like giving them a consultant that can help them.
that's been there, done that, done it successfully. How do we have these uncomfortable conversations? How do we get our core values? How do we shift culture? Those pieces, you've got to lead them to be able to do it. Leadership is a journey, not a destination. And so when you scale, you do stop having touch points and management of every person, but you start managing the right few. Leadership should be managing of five people. So if your team's five people, rock on, keep managing. If you're bigger than that, you need to start building a leadership team.
Even at five people, definitely recommend still having an office manager who helps you because you're busy drilling and filling. You don't have time to do all these little touch points that they should. So I think for you, if you're feeling like you're still carrying the weight of your whole team, even if you've got a leadership team and you need them to start to level up, to deliver for you, it's time for you to lead leaders and to develop leaders and to make sure you got right people, right seats. Sometimes you might have a leadership team, but you're still doing everything. You don't have a leadership team. You've got doers.
And so how do we actually have a leadership team and what things do you need to change to allow leaders to be there? And what things does your team need to do to truly let you and like trust the outcomes and the processes that they're going to deliver for you? It's a two-way street. So teams listening and doctors listening, your doctors got to trust you to deliver and consistently deliver. Doctors, got to trust this team to deliver and consistently deliver. Both you want the same thing. And so really coming together, having those conversations and reading five dysfunctions of a team, getting into those uncomfortable spaces.
is going to help you. So if you need help on leadership or building this infrastructure, I don't know how to get there or gosh, I'm like there, but I still need my leaders to have growth. I need growth. We coach doctors and teams. And this is why, because both sides of the coin are important. Both sides are necessary and both sides need different things. Visitors, you got to look online. You got to forecast. You got to grow your leaders. Leaders, OMS, team leads. You got to hit those KPIs, those metrics. You got to get your team and your department to row in that direction.
These things are not, I think innate, they're trained and they're learned. And so reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. This is things, share this with someone who's going through this. I know every single one of you today has a doctor struggling with leadership or a team member struggling with leadership. Share this with them. This is how we help grow each other. This is how we help positively impact the world. Give this to a colleague, share it in a post. You guys read those Facebook posts. They constantly are complaining about this. Please share this.
Say like, hey, this is a really good tactical way of how to develop leaders, how to stop micromanaging, how to truly grow into that. And I would love to help anybody. We do complimentary practice assessments. We'll review your practice, give you tactical, tangible advice, whether you work with us or don't. So reach out. I'd love to just like give you a roadmap of where you are and you leave that meeting. Every single time I do that meeting, people leave with clarity, with confidence of where they need to go. So reach out. I'd love to help you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.
And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.