Silencing the voice

Build your relationships first….then your dentistry. ~ Bob Barkley

Month: December 2017

Silencing the voice

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Bob Barkley commonly said that dentists who graduate from dental school tend to leave there with a combination of a superiority complex and paranoia. The superiority complex evolves because dental students are sheltered from seeing some of their clinical dentistry fail  (an issue Bob struggled through and which ultimately led him toward the creation of his legendary disease control program), and paranoia, because the world view that a young dentist acquires in school is so distorted (as an outcome of being free of the economic and psychological stressors of private practice), that when they finally do arrive in the private sector, they can easily become shell-shocked.

Bob’s comments were made in 1973, but there is still a lot of truth in his observations. Dentistry can be very frustrating, as well as financially and emotionally threating to dentists. Add to this that many patients experience dentistry in similar ways, and you can have a ‘perfect storm’.

At times, the ‘perfect storm’ requires some kind of adaptive response. And different dentists develop different coping strategies in trying to manage it. Some experience the pain associated with these frustrations, check their fears at the door, and grow past them to become masterful helpers and healers. Some retreat into self-protective cacoons full of rationalizations and blaming. Others leave the profession entirely as the mismatch between what they are experiencing and who they are at that point in time is too much for them to overcome. Some bury their pain in substance abuse or extreme  recreational distractions. And far too many take their lives during moments of total dispair.

Finding the balance between the pain of growth and the pleasure of accomplishment through a growing self-regard is key.

It was a favorite topic of L.D. Pankey, and it lead to a small revolution in dentistry.

Living with the constant anxiety that the practice of dentistry can produce, is to be constantly followed around by a little voice in your head. And that little voice knows all about your weaknesses; it knows all about your mistakes; and it knows just how to play with your insecurities and how to masterfully mobilize yourself against yourself.

That is not a good place to be, much-the-less live, day-in and day-out.

And that is not a good situation for your patients either.

One of the most common adaptations we make to these situations is to become a chronic people-pleaser.

We need to cover the A/R.

We need to make payroll.

We need to service the debt.

We need to make financial adjustments for the new baby at home.

So we smile and try to look our best at all times. We put on a facade that everything is always just fine.

We say, “I am doing great, how are you?” twenty times a day, while we think, “If I can just get through today, tomorrow might be better.”

We pretend that we know more than we know, while we pretend that we are more successful than we are.

We build up the walls, and then very cleverly learn how to function behind them -seemingly without detection.

But the intuitive ones know.

They can tell.

And we know that the wall is what is holding us back.

SO WE NEED TO STOP PLAYING PRETEND AT SOME POINT.

We need to find a way back to ourselves.

Because we need it.

Because our patients need it,

And because our spouses, kids and communities need it.

Developing a truly relationship-based / Health-centered practice is the best way that I know of to square that circle.

And that is because it helps us to align who we are with what we do.

And that feels good,

because others respond favorably to it.

And it promotes your growth, and that makes us more human, which makes us more effective helpers.

And truly serving others with our whole heart is the place where happiness and fulfillment lies.

Aristotle said so.

L.D. Pankey said so.

Bob Barkley said so.

And that is a good place to be.

Each of us has more wisdom inside of us than we can possibly know. And the trick to gaining access to that wisdom lies in quieting that anxious disempowering voice in the back of our heads, while pushing though our challenges toward growth and toward abundance.

Are you ready for 2018?

Paul A, Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

 

It’s all about Trust

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When we meet a new patient for the very first time, what matters the most?

1. Showing we are skilled, experienced, and capable?

2. Showing we are trustworthy and likable?

Most of us, due to our heavy left-brain oriented education and training (and therefore left brain bias), assume expertise, experience, and competence matter most to patients. And this is simply because WE value them highly and to a large degree wear our knowledge like ribbons and badges of honor.

After all (our thinking goes), if patients are going to trust us, they first need to know that we have the skills to properly address their needs – right?

This line of of logic feels comfortable to us. It also supports our ego, and it makes us feel more safe and less vulnerable when we quickly claim the superior social status “expert” role in a relationship.

But in spite of our feeling more comfortable in approaching people this way, it is problematic on a behavioral level -particularly when we want a person to make an expensive, time consuming, and often emotionally threatening decision.

This is because how others INITIALLY judge us has very little to do with whether or not we seem by them  to be skilled or competent. Instead, most strangers to us (and typicallly within the first 7 seconds) subconsciously ask themselves only one question upon meeting us:

“Can I trust this person?”

So, a sense of trustworthiness (meaning warmth and likability at this point) trumps credentials and even experience IN THE VERY BEGINNING of a relationship. This holds true because from a brain evolution perspective, our lower brain’s functional needs must be met before the higher brain functions can kick in (where the finer aspects of discernment occur).

But our natural likability can quickly lose its impact in a dental office environment, especially when there’s no substance behind the initially warm and seemingly safe surface. And THAT is when our care, skill, and judgement comes in to play. Once we have allowed our patients to ASSUME we are trustworthy, then we must PROVE it.

We must EARN their trust.

It is sometimes helpful to think of trust as a two-sided coin, with ‘Trust’ on one side, and ‘Distrust’ on the other. And that when we are talking about trust, we are really talking about how our patients manage their vulnerability.

So, on the ‘Trust’ side of the coin, the person is subconsciously saying to themselves, “I will trust my safety, and maybe even my heath to the actions and thinking of this person, something about it feels ok to me.”

On the other hand, when a person is functioning on the ‘distrust’ side, they are saying to themselves, “Something is not right here, and I am not sure what it is, but I am not going to allow this person to get  too close to me emotionally or physically.”

Now, you can see that our credentials on the wall and even our staff’s gushing descriptions of our abilities will mean next to nothing to a new person in our practice until we have demonstrated that we are able to build and maintain great helping (from their perspective) relationships with them, and they feel safe.

So how do we do this? How can we consistently project likability and trustworthiness with new patients? By properly using the Co-discovery process on an emotional level.

And what is the most important thing to “co-discover” in the beginning?

How they FEEL about what they remember, what they know, and what are learning.

(Notice that I did not say “that they have a 5mm pocket in the disto-facial of #30.)

We emotionally co-discover how others feel by listening more and talking less.

We emotionally co-discover by asking open-ended / non-leading questions.

We emotionally co-discover by maintaining eye contact and observing how they are responding. Relief? Surprise? Guilt? Shame? Fear? Despair?

And we then support them, and make them feel  emotionaly safe by stopping to acknowledge and explore what they are feeling and why. And then when we do speak, we don’t offer advice until we are asked.

Often times, what people seek the most is feeling understood.

Remember that.

Listening, observing, and exploring in this fashion, along with the delaying of advice-giving until the most emotionally appropriate time, shows that we sincerely care about them as a person, via DEMONSTRATING DEFERENCE, and by honoring THEIR SENSE OF AGENCY with regard to being able to make good decisions.

Consequently, this approach strategically avoids the creation of a co-dependent relationships. And this is because when we offer advice prematurely, we make the conversation about us, our knowledge, or our capacity to rescue and cure, while inadvertently diminishing the patient’s sense of autonomy.

Napolian famously said, “If I had enough ribbon, I could conquer the world”. And by that he meant, if he could fool his soldiers into thinking that they were great by giving them medals and ribbons, he could manipulate them into doing almost anything he wanted them to do.

But it didn’t work out that way for Napoleon.

And nor will it for you if you want to built trust and facilitate better decision-making.

Put away the ribbons,

Put away the medals of honor and distinction.

Put away your need to be recognized as an expert.

And just listen and learn.

That’s Co-discovery at its very core.

Paul A. Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

 

Five Reasons to Become a Quitter

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Being human, we all tend toward thinking that life should unfold in a straight, predictable, trajectory. And sometimes, when this does not happen, we feel like life is unfair, or that we have somehow been victimized. But more often than not, we are looking at life through a distorted lens, a lens which often confuses us, and therefore delays good decision-making.

Bob Barkley was a master story teller, and at the turn -of-a-phrase. And one of his more common paradoxical statements was, “There needs to be  more negative thinking in dentistry”. But when Bob said this, he was not referring to conventional meaning, rather he was referring to the need to be constantly aware of the negative things we do in our practice and life every day which undermine our true purpose.  Hence, Bob was referring to the need to eliminate unproductive thinking, or thinking which was causing self-inflicted damage to our practice.

In other words, Bob Barkley was telling us that sometimes we need to become quitters. Sometimes we need to quit repeating behaviors, decisions, and putting ourselves in situations which are not growth-enhancing for ourselves and our patients.  We need to stop doing things which drag us in the opposite direction of our Vision.

So, just for the fun today, let’s play around with Bob’s counter-cultural mindset; let’s start thinking of ourselves as occasional quitters. Here are five places you might want to become a quitter:

1. Quit something because doing so is the only pathway for you to get where you want to go. Yes, it’s ok to stop doing things which no longer bring you joy and satisfaction, as long as the decision causes no harm others.

For me, one of my biggest quitting moments was when I decided to quit taking dental insurance assignment, and stopped “participating” in the numerous dysfunctional relationships I had walked into when I bought my practice.  This one decision -from that day forward- caused me to become more patient-centered than any other decision I have ever made. That is because it caused me to reconsider every aspect of how I interacted with my patients and whether or not it was being perceived BY THEM as being helpful. And I was very motivated to do this  because I knew that if I did not fully own that mindset, my practice and vision would not survive.

On that day, I decided to become a free market capitalist, although I would have never described it in those terms at the time. I threw my business directly into the middle of the real economy, and the real marketplace, and I progressively abandoned the third party assistance which always seemed to come with a high emotional price tag. And that one decision subsequently stimulated innovation, learning, and growth. It learched my practice forward in fits and starts toward my vision of creating a truly relationship-based / health-centered practice.

Another critical, and nice side benefit of my “quitting”, was that almost all conflicts with patients regarding money immediately disappeared, as the fog of third party language and behavior was lifted from every interaction. Suddenly every decision clearly became more values-centered. Suddenly, we were much more easily perceived as being on the same team with our patients. Simultaneously, the insurance companies were seen for what they truly were: interlopers extracting profits, damaging trust, and often misdirecting the proper path toward increased health.

2. Quit because not doing so will impair your ability to evolve in the direction of your gifts, talents, and aspirations. This is one of the true benefits of going through a “values clarification” and philosophy development process. This is because who you are, what you believe, and what you are willing to fight for, naturally bubbles to the surface. And acknowledging these truths is the first critical step toward quitting behaviors which undermine them.

3. Quit because what you are doing isn’t working. Perseverance isn’t everything, in spite of the cultural meme telling us “quitters never win”. Sometimes you can be doing the right thing, in the wrong way, at the wrong time, or you can be doing the right thing in the right way, at the wrong time.

Step back.

Regain perspective.

Stop if something isn’t working, and use your creative mind to synthesize a better solution.

Therefore, quit when necessary, because quitting doesn’t always mean you have compromised your values, it can often mean that you are acting more intelligently.

4. Quit because it will build your confidence. Often times, putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations is the catalyst we need to stimulate significant personal growth. And when that personal growth occurs, we gain a new perspective about ourselves. We realize that we are stronger, smarter, and more resilient than we had ever known before.

Quitting makes growth happen.

5. Quitting creates space for more creative living. Let’s face it, life is complicated and convoluted, and  it seems to be becoming more so by the day. If we do not step back and prune off certain aspects of our lifestyle (commonly known as “saying no” – or quitting), we have no time or space left to continue our growth and development. A rose bush metaphor is helpful here: Always prune in the fall for a bud-filled spring.

So, consider becoming more of a quitter and a “negative thinker”, to more efficiently evolve into the person you are meant to become. I believe that applying this approach to living will make all of the difference in the world.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments, LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

 

 

 

Overcoming Confirmation Bias

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“You say my teeth are severely worn down, but I think they have always looked like that.”

“You say that I have cavities because of my diet, but my family just has soft teeth.”

…………………………………………

‘Confirmation bias’ refers to our tendency to search for -and favor- information which confirms our beliefs, while we simultaneously ignore or devalue information that contradicts our beliefs.

As dentists working with patients, we are at risk of allowing these mental short-cuts to override good decision-making and therefore undercut our patient’s health if we fail to counterbalance this bias.

We see this happen all the time. We examine a patient, describe and/or show the issue to them, maybe even get them to agree to do something about it, and then they fail to follow through.

Why?

Often this happens when confirmation bias kicks in…they eat lunch later in the day and nothing hurts…their spouse tells them at dinner that they can’t see anything wrong…they know a friend who recently had a bad dental experience over a similar issue.

We are all a bit mentally lazy, and consequently it is almost unnatural for us to formulate a hypothesis and then test various ways to prove it false. Instead, it is far more likely that we will form a lazy hypothesis based on previous experiences, opinions of influential others, cultural influences, or unsupportable fears and seek out information which supports it.

Bob Barkley brilliantly developed a system which effectively allowed him to finesse his way around confirmation bias. He called it Co-discovery, and it was based on the truth that what an individual learns for them-self is always much more powerful and influential than anything they are told.

Yes, it took more time for Bob to do it that way, but it led to an agreement to proceed with proper care much more often than not, and it is “yes” that moves people toward greater levels of health.

Bob Barkley spoke to this issue brilliantly when he said, “No greater risk of failure can be run than that of attempting to use traditional patient management procedures in a health oriented restorative practice. Examining and treating a patient’s mouth without prior attitudinal development is an error of omission for which the dentist pays handsomely with time, energy, stress, and money.”

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, @2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

It’s All About Growth

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If I were to select one word which is most closely associated with a successful Relationship-based, Health-centered practice, it would be the word growth.

What kind of growth?

Personal Growth.

Interpersonal Growth.

Care Team Member Growth.

Effectiveness and affectiveness of team growth.

Patient growth – in knowledge and sophistication of their attitudes and commitments toward dentistry.

And of course -practice growth.

Notice please than I did not mention a word about teeth or techniques. I didn’t mention a word about technology, or what you must physically own to achieve growth. And that is because growth is not a material thing, it is a spiritual thing.

Growth can be promoted, or it can be impaired by the way we think, and consequently the things that we do and say day-in and day-out.

And what we do repeatedly is driven by what we believe…what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about others, and what we believe about the purpose of dentistry.

In other words, dentistry is driven by our philosophy…our world view…our perspective of things, and therefore what it all means to us.

Avrom King said that it all boils down to these three questions:

1. Who am I?

2. Why am I here?

3 What is it that I am trying to achieve?

All three are philosophical questions. And all three lead us to answers which directly influence almost everything else.

If we do not understand who we are on a values and beliefs level – what Mac McDonald recently referred to as “the deep structures of ourselves” – we cannot predictably lead ourself in any desired direction. And as a result of that, we can not predictably lead others in a desired direction either.

So, you can see that in a world where our personal perspective is one of little personal agency, it is easy to assume that we have minimal value. And in a world of minimal personal value, everything starts to look scarce, and everything starts to look scary, so we are tempted to take short cuts; we are tempted to grab what we can for ourselves now.

If we believe the world is flat and that there is nothing that we can do about it, then we are likely to stay on shore, drown or feelings of disempowerment with a little too much wine and whining, and achieve little. And along the way we will attract toward us those who think and behave similarly – because like attracts like- King’s law in action.

We tend over time to create a practice in the exact image of what we believe. And it could be a version of heaven or hell that we create. And all of that happens because we chose to grow – or not.

How much growth is happening in your practice? Can you see the green shoots of enthusiasm and creative change all around you – the evidence of constant renewal? Or do you see an ossified structure struggling to maintain the status quo – and within it people who are down, frustrated, and thinking that they have no other choices?

Who are you?

Why are you here?

What is it that you are trying to achieve?

Philosophy Matters.

And that is why L.D. Pankey and Bob Barkley constantly talked about it.

Paul A, Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

Its All About Growth

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If I were to select one word which is most closely associated with a successful relationship-based, Health-centered practice, it would be the word growth. What kind of growth?

Personal Growth.

Interpersonal Growth.

Care Team Member Growth.

Effectiveness and affectiveness of team growth.

Patient growth – in knowledge and sophistication of their attitudes and commitments toward dentistry.

And of course -practice growth.

Notice please than I did not mention a word about teeth or techniques. I didn’t mention a word about technology or what you must physically own to achieve growth. And that is because growth is not a material thing, it is a spiritual thing.

Growth can be promoted or it can be impaired by the way we think, and consequently the things that we do and say day-in and day-out.

And what we do repeatedly is driven by what we believe…what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about others and what we believe about the  purpose of dentistry.

In other words, dentistry is driven by our philosophy…our world view…our perspective of things, and therefore what it all means to us.

Avrom King said that it all boils down to these three questions:

1. Who am I?

2. Why am I here?

3 What is it that I am trying to achieve?

All three philosophical questions. All three lead us to answers which directly influence almost everything else.

If we do not understand who we are on a values, priories, and beliefs level – what Mac McDonanald recently referred to as “the deep structures of ourselves – we can not possibly lead ourself in any desired  direction predictably . And as a result, we can not lead predictably others anywhere either.

So, you can then easily see that in a world where our personal perspective is one in that we believe we have little personal agency, It is easy for us to assume we have minimal value. And in a world of minimal value, everything looks scarce, and everything starts to look scary.

If we believe the world is flat and that there is nothing that we can do about it, then we are likely to stay on shore, drown or feelings of disempowerment with a little too much wine and whining, and achieve little.

And we will attract toward us those who think and behave similarly – because like attracts like.

So you can easily see how one can create a practice in the exact image of what we believe. And it could be a version heaven or hell that we create.

And it all happened because we chose to grow – or not.

How much growth is happening in your practice? Can you see the green shoots of enthusiasm and creative change all around you – evidence of constant renewal? Or do you see an ossified structure struggling to maintain the status quo?

Who are you?

Why are you here?

What is it that you are trying to achieve?

Philosophy Matters.

And that is why L.D. Pankey and Bob Barkley constantly talked about it.

Paul A, Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

 

How to Hire the Right People – Bill Lockhard Jr DDS

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Hire The Right People

Realize that hiring the Right person is more
important that training the Wrong person. Take the time, even if it takes a few
weeks, to go in depth with the person. Get to know the things they don’t write
in their resume. Character and Competence of each member of the team are the
essential ingredients of trustworthiness and win/win agreements. Character because you can’t separate
who you are from what you do. Competence
because you need to be committed to continuous improvement in technical,
conceptual, and interdependent skills. Determine if the person’s habit
patterns, motivations, values, and lifestyle fit well with the culture of your
organization. It is important to have shared values, philosophy and a
commitment to excellence and integrity….plus a compatible behavioral style.

Telephone screening by receptionist – voice quality, vocabulary, attitude, experience,
positions held and reason for changing job. If acceptable invited for office
interview.
.Second interview by team – candidate is
introduced to doctor and spends ½ day in office observing and goes to lunch with
team members. If acceptable, invited for interview with doctor on another day
after doctor discusses with team concerning their opinion.
Third interview with doctor – this is a relaxed co-discovery interview not an
interrogation.
Questions:

v Why did you select this career and what would you
like to have that you don’t have now? What areas did you enjoy and what
compliments and what complaints did you experience?

v Tell me more about why you are changing jobs. What
was your biggest disappointment and biggest achievement in your career so far?

v What changes did you initiate? What are 3 of your
strengths, what areas would you like to grow/develop?

v How would you describe success?

v What do you really value and believe in?

v What are you willing to do to achieve success? What
are you not willing to do?

v Please describe your former management style; what
qualities important?

v What are your personal goals, what are your
professional goals?

v If hired, how long would you expect to perform at
this job?

Doctor discusses the philosophy, vision and purpose
of the practice.

Doctor describes management style and employee
traits we are looking for.

Fourth interview by Clinical Psychologist – if acceptable to doctor, candidate completes a
behavioral and psychological profile and mailed to Psychologist to clarify
compatibility with team members.
Decision to hire by team and doctor – the final decision rests mostly with the team
members. When the team makes the choice, they will be committed to help the new
member to be successful. M.
William Lockard, Jr. DDS

Our Beliefs Shape our Perceptions

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I am not a big follower of Tony Robbins. He is a little too much circus for me – a little too much drama for the sake of emotional appeal. But recently, I bumped into a Robbins quote which was spot on, “Its not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.”

As humans we are by design mentally lazy. We are preprogrammed to try and recognize patterns of behavior around us so that we can quickly categorize situations and therefore respond more efficiently – particularly when we perceive what is happening to be a threat to us on some level.

A large part of this mental strategy is mediated through stories that we tell ourselves. And they are commonly stories about what others think of us, why others do certain things, or what others REALLY meant when they said this, or did that.

Often times we craft these stories to help justify our agendas or to protect our self-esteem, “Mrs, Jones obviously does not care about her mouth, this is the second time she has canceled this big appointment… Today’s planned production is ruined! Now what am I going to do?”

These self-stories are an example of what Sigmund Freud called “projection”. They allow us to quickly attach meaning to what we are experiencing. Research shows that we like stories that make sense to us. We like stories which fulfill a recognizable pattern. And now the neuroscience even tells us that we get a hit of dopamine every time we recognize a familiar pattern – we are chemically rewarded, and this all has a lot to do with the way brain function evolved over time.

This is why we make up stories to explain bad or undesirable things which happen to us, even when we don’t really know the cause. These stories then prompt us to make adjustments, and to develop strategies where we to try and out-think others.

But there is a problem. People do not behave rationally much of the time; people are not rational beings who then feel, they are feeling beings who then think.

In truth, people are predictably unpredictable, so good luck with your counter strategies as they may just lead you to telling more stories, and creating more and more elaborate solutions, which then lead to more unpredictable outcomes, “Why don’t we send him a reminder text to at 5:00 AM?”

The most predictable pathway to more predictable behavior is through relationships – meaningful, helpful ones that is – from THEIR point of view. If a person FEELS that you sincerely care about them, If they FEEL that you sincerely have their best interests at heart, if they FEEL that your truly hear them, and that you understand their fear and you are willing protect them from harm -then you have a game, then you have influenced someone with principle-centered personal empowerment. And then you get to do “the big case”, because the person will be doing it for themselves and while feeling somewhat safe about it all.

So think about it … No, FEEL about it. Try to feel about it the way they feel about it,  and then tell them what you are doing, “Mrs. Jones, I am sensing that something is wrong, is there anything that I can help you with? Are there some unaddressed concerns that you have regarding what we have discussed? I really don’t want you to feel like we are pushing you toward doing something that does not yet make sense to you. We are really just trying to help.”

And hopefully you are.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

 

 

 

 

 

How to Move Past Old Beliefs

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2018 will represent the beginning of my thirty-fourth year of practice, and it represents a lot of time and experiences as well. Over this time, I have had opportunities to both be student and teacher. And it all began with being brought up within a certain system – a dental school learning system which had a certain philosophy and approach toward the transfer of knowledge and testing of competency. My initial experiences occurred at the University of Michigan just like my father and my uncle – his brother – before him.

Each dental school comes up with its own system of education – but to a large degree most are quite similar. So as a community, most of us have had similar experiences with slightly different highs and lows. Our similar educational experiences has much to do with the creation and maintenance of our professional culture – a shared set of thinking patterns as well as assumptions, and feelings about the work that we do and the way things are trending for us on a personal level.

These experiences and feelings are sometimes paradoxical, as some learnings are still valid while others have become counterproductive or significantly outdated. So the challenge soon becomes continuously trying to figure out the current best way to do things – and the best way to think about things. Because if we fail to do this -and often- we can easily become a slave to our old beliefs without even realizing it.

So how do we best approach this challenge? Adopting a concept from Zen Buddhism known as ‘shoshin’, which means “beginners mind” is helpful. Shoshin refers to letting go of our preconceptions and focusing on the creation of an attitude of openness when studying a subject.

Shoshin is helpful because there is a danger which can acccompany expertise, as becoming an expert in a given area can easily lead us to mental laziness and cognitive bias; it can block us from considering information which disagrees with what has worked well for us in the past… it can rather insidiously undermine our ability to grow and adapt to the rapidly changing knowledge, technology, and marketplace which surrounds us.

The concept of shoshin is best when used with our entire Care Team through the creation of a learning organization – represented by a practice culture which encourages innovative thinking, respecting and supporting one another and strategically collaborating to create new outcomes, test out application of new knowledge, and forge new directions.

Three leadeship strategies which will support shoshin in your practice are:

1. Let go of your need to be the primary source of knowledge about everything in the practice. Micromanagment kills creative innovation. Instead, encourage each team member to become a recognized entrepreneurial expert in the areas of their strongest knowledge and interest. Find ways to funnel resources to them in a timely fashion to suppprt their learning and growth. And find ways to empower them, encourage them, and to get out of their way.

2. Let go of your need to come out on top of every discussion (this applies to working with patients as well). If you are having a conversation and someone makes a statement that you disagree with, try releasing the urge to correct them. Instead approach the topic from a place of curiosity, “Isn’t that intesting – can you share more with me about why you feel this way?” Such an approach opens up the opportunity for us to learn something new, and it may even cause them to learn something new as they explain an issue that they may have previously approached too dogmatically in the past.

3. Assume you are an ignorant person  – because you truly are about many things- and particularly about how others feel, about how others come to make certain priorities in their lives, and about what motivates them. The key here is to recognize this truth, remain humble, and therefore discipline ourselves to listen carefully for meaning when others are speaking.

If you approach running your practice with a beginner’s mind, you will not only learn more quickly, but you will make fewer inaccurate assumptions, and therefore make fewer mistakes. And you will also find that your relationships with others will deepen and become more and more effective over time.

Shoshin is a great great leadership mindset, as Bob Dylan tried to teach us as well, “ah – but I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now”.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2017

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dentistry’s Co-dependent Relationship with Insurance

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Some great questions were recently posed by Kevin Daugherty DDS in relation to my “The Tail that Wags the Dog” commentary here on Codiscovery.com:

Q: Is it my imagination or does organized dentistry promote the dental insurance industry? Why is that? What happens to dental insurance if all dentists stop accepting assignment of benefits? Do they not lose control over dentists profit margins?

A: Dentistry as a whole has been in a co-dependent relationship with the dental insurance industry almost since day one. And the same can now be said for some dental schools and educational programs as well.

What at first appeared to be a win-win-win has -in my view- turned into a win-lose-lose, with the final “lose” disguised as a “win” due to the use of intentionally deceitful language, clever marketing, and shady review practices.

The primary carrier in the country- run by dentists- was supposed to be a non-profit collaboration created solely for the benefit of patients. Now, it has clearly evolved into a government-like organization that has self-preservation and self-reward as its primary purpose, although it is still shrouded in patient-centered language which deceives most of the public.

This has all created a largely false economy in dentistry, where the primary source of income is streaming from third parties. So the game evolved into: How do we get more out of the third parties? And of course, the third parties responded with counter-tactics.

So yes, we are locked into a relationship like a sober wife married to an alcoholic husband who buys them booze to keep them happy and off our back while rationalizing it all as being normal because everyone around us is doing it as well.

We dentists hold the key to our own freedom. But it requires learning how to function in the marketplace without crutches – without addictions…learning how to connect with our patients more deeply and significantly, so that their insurance plan coverage largely becomes irrelevant…and learning how to professionally promote ourselves so that people who are in alignment with our Purpose know about us and move toward us – in spite of all the dysfunction in the marketplace.

That is what I am trying to point out here. The path to freedom is never easily fought, but freedom is the only pathway to having a truly patient-centered practice and for many, a deeply fulfilling career.

Paul Henny DDS

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