Posted on March 21, 2018

We all have goals in our lives, and so do our patients. These goals may include learning a new technique, losing weight, saving money, or attaining a healthy attractive smile. And it is easy to assume that the gap between where we are now, and where we want to be in the future, is caused by a lack of knowledge. It is also easy to assume that the same issue exists with our patients…that they just need to be informed more…that they “need to be educated” more.

But the reality is that knowledge alone rarely influences or drives behavior. In fact, new information may actually undercut progress toward change.

How so?

It all comes down to our personal and cultural bias toward ‘cognitivism’ – the belief that left brain objective facts and truths cause people to learn and therefore change.

But it simply does not work that way.
Learning something new and being exposed to new information are two VERY different things. Carl Rogers brilliantly explored this topic in his landmark book, ‘Freedom to Learn’, a book about the importance of experiential learning.

In many cases, the constant exposure to new information can be a clever way for us to avoid taking action. We studiously watch the news every night, but do nothing with the knowledge. We take course after course, but on Monday mornings, the routines and rituals resume. We even see patients bounce from one “second opinion” to another, seemingly stalemated.

In situations like these, we and our patients often claim that we are preparing or researching for the best answer, but such thinking is often just a rationalization to ourselves that we are moving forward when in actuality we are going nowhere, coddled in our bubble of the latest and greatest information steaming from the world’s greatest thinkers.

Acquiring knowledge and failing to apply it has become a multimillion dollar info-tainment industry in dentistry. And the fun locations, great socializing and food can all be expensed!

But what happens at the end of the day? A record number of CE credits to brag about? Another notch on the belt for studying under the latest guru?

Carl Rogers taught us that the highest levels of significant learning must include personal involvement at both the affective and cognitive levels, be self-initiated and so pervasive that it changes attitudes, behavior, and in some cases, even the personality of the learner.

New behavior emerges out of new beliefs, which are anchored in our values, and which create new meanings which then shape our habits.

It is our habits – not our knowledge which shape our lives. And it is habits -not knowledge- which shape the lives of our patients as well.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, © 2018

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

Posted on March 16, 2018

“The less a service is perceived to be a ‘need’ the more profitable it can be provided to those who ‘want’ it.”

Avrom E. King

The insurance industry’s philosophy toward dental care is that it represents the servicing of ‘needs’, and that each ‘need’ can then be reduced down into various identifiable procedure codes.

This process represents the use of a concept known as “reductionism”, and insurance companies must use reductionism to bring dentistry into the marketplace AS IF it were a commodity, and NOT the professional services it truly is…professional services which are highly dependent upon the care, skill, and judgment of the treating doctor (and completely UNIQUE to each and every doctor).

Once dental services are brought into the marketplace AS IF they are a commodity, the competitive market forces can be leveraged to drive down the COST of services to patients.

Notice here, that it is not the dentists who are bringing their services into the marketplace, it is a third party, functioning as a MARKETER of their services who then takes a slice of the action for themselves for playing the role of “middle man” in a doctor-patient relationship.

None of this would be possible if we dentists failed to agree to allow others to market our care, skill, and judgement AS IF it is only a commodity. So, this begs the questions, “Are we just the personification of a commodity? and “Do we really want to be doing this to ourselves?”

How can we set a fee which is truly commensurate with our care,skill, and judgement if we can’t set the majority of our fees in the first place? And if our fees do not properly support the level of our care, skill, and judgement we routinely provide, do we even have a viable business model?

Obviously, we can’t sustain our practice at a high level if our fees cannot support it. In that case, we must eventually reduce the quality of our service to be more commensurate with the level of reimbursement we are receiving.

That is why I said “no” to “participation” twenty years ago, because HEALTH IS NOT A NEED (it is a want and a self-directed process), AND DENTAL CARE IS AN EXPERIENCE AND NOT A COMMODITY.

On this topic, Bob Barkley famously said, “Dental health is peculiar. The rich can not buy it, and the poor cannot have it given to them. I can make people more comfortable, more functional, and more attractive. But I cannot make them more healthy. I can teach them how to become more healthy, but whether they remain that way will be up to them.”

If we continue to accept that we are just “providers” of a commodity, and allow insurance companies to mediate our transactions, then we have no choice but to accept the situation for what it is – a codependency relationship that we have chosen to participate in. And hence, we must stop the whining, and work on how to fine-tune our servitude to the various insurance companies.

But they if we view our work as being something entirely different- as being facilitators of health, then we can break free of all of this dysfunction, and start to move back toward professionalism, and move back toward creating the freedom to practice in ways we know are best, which in turn bring about much more joy and prosperity in our lives.

Paul A. Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2018

Read more on www.Codiscovery.com

Posted on March 9, 2018

When I launched CoDiscovery.com in early 2008, I solicited for contributing writers, as I envisioned the site as being a growing, forward-looking collaborative resource and not just as a monolithic retrospective. One of the many writers who approached me was a young, deeply talented and gifted Andrea Beerman from Westwood Hills, Kansas.

Andrea was a rising star: High School Valedictorian, dentist, Visiting Faculty Member at the Pankey Institute, speaker, marathoner, missionary worker, practice owner, and a general all-around inspiration.

Losing Andrea in 2013 sent shock waves through dentistry- still felt. It laid bare the paradox of personal strengths and courage which coexist against our weaknesses and blind spots. Many of us similarly struggle with our fallenness.

Today, I would like to share with you a piece of inspiration Andrea shared with me. I feel blessed that Andrea touched my life- albeit briefly. Andrea was a “third level thinker”, she not only understood herself and others well, but could also separate herself from both, observe, and comment brilliantly about what she had learned.

BECOME WHO YOU ARE

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”       Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love this quote from Emerson and understood it with greater depth as it reconnected me with one of my personal Core Values -originality. It reminds me that it is my natural state to follow my own mind – my own unique ideas.

Personally, I know I struggle when I try to do things like others. In these instances, I feel like I am not being my authentic self.

Sometimes, I have found myself conforming or doing something “the way it’s always been done”, because it seems quicker or easier. I don’t have to face the truth or something that may take me to my learning edge if I do things in a rote way. I do not have to make time to enter the “classroom” of silence to know more clearly the path to choose. In these moments, I know I am not realizing the sacredness of my own mind and spirit.

With this quote, I am reminded to continue to trust and tap that potential – the beautiful, unique spark of Life within me. A friend and mentor of mine encouraged me to find a picture of myself when I was a child and put it somewhere I would see it everyday. I now keep it in front of me, because sometimes I forget who I am in the midst of my busy days. Of course I am a dentist, but the truth is, deep down – I am still that little girl. That same bright spirit, eager to live fully, and embrace life. All I wanted then was to be loved, accepted and understood. What do I want now? If I answer honestly, I’m not sure the answers are different.

When I see her picture it makes it really easy for me to forgive myself for all the times I came up short and for the mistakes I’ve made along the way. I see her innocence when I look at this picture, and remember I am truly doing the best I can with what I know.

So I have this picture on my desk – to help me remember who I am and what I really want from life. What I’ve learned – it also reminds me of the truth about others – you, my patients, family and friends.

Beneath the layers of life, lie our bright spirits. I am at my best – in patient interactions and with my friends and family- when I can see others for who they truly are. I think E.E. Cummings said it best when he said, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

I wish you my very best in your journey.

Andrea

Posted on March 1, 2018

”I have had enough”, wrote Gordon J. Christensen, “where has my profession gone?” Perhaps you have occasionally wondered the same thing. Or, perhaps you have been too busy to notice, as you try to keep things moving in the right direction in a dramatically changing marketplace.

Regardless, only the most recent of graduates will be  unable to recognize the dramatic changes over the past 30 years.

The deprofessionalization.

The industrialization.

The depersonalization.

The manipulation.

The cynicism.

The growing distrust.

The concurrent technological advancements

What is one to make of it all? And where is our profession headed? Is it “gone”?

These are not new questions, as they were on the minds of Pankey, Barkley, King, Wirth, and others more than 50 years ago. And the counter-questions they would all pose were:

Where do YOU want to end up as the marketplace inevitably evolves more and more in a reductionistic  direction?

Where does YOUR heart lie?

What are YOU committed to?

And do YOU have the will to see YOUR commitments through?

There is one truth here: Dentistry has always been changing. And some will ride the current meta-trends to great degree of financial success. Others will bob about like a sail-less boat on a turbulent sea. And others still, will find counter-cultural, or hidden opportunities to explore, and advance.

I have just returned from the annual meeting of The American Academy of Resorative Dentistry. (And thank you again Brian Vence for inviting me). No reductionistic thinking there, just an amazing group of dentists pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and what is most helpful to others.

No manipulation.

Pure professionalism.

Highly personalized.

Health-centered.

Our future is largely what we make if it, and driven by how we think of  it. About this, George Orwell famously wrote, “People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome”.

How are things playing in YOUR future memory? Is your profession “gone”, or are you renewing it every year with amazing new discoveries, which will ensure that YOUR preferred will never be lost?

Paul A. Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, © 2018

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

Posted on February 20, 2018

Life is full of paradoxes, seemingly self-contradictory statements or situations which ultimately are found to be true – and the practice of dentistry is no exception.

One of my most favored paradoxes of late is the fact that every relationship-based / health-centered practice must develop a written Philosophy Statement, which can critically function as the practice’s constitution.

Bob Barkley said that creating and writing this Statement represented the single most important thing that a truly patient-centered practice can do.

But therein lies paradox #1:

Even though writing a Philosophy Statement is essential, it is only valuable if it is a “living” document created by individuals who truly believe in what it represents. In other words, a Philosophy Statement is a SYMBOLIC representation of how the team feels, and consequently what they are willing to struggle to attain (including how they chose to live). And because a Philosophy Statement is symbolic, the words themselves are somewhat meaningless – particularly to others except through their EXPERIENCING of what they mean.

And this is where we left brain-leaning dentists can easily get hung up, as most of us have been enculturated in the behavioralist tradition, where we believe that people are reactionary, or should predictably respond to our logic.

This mindset, particularly when activated by an emotional, facilitated Philosophy Statement creation process, causes us to want to tell the world and recite it to our new patients like the Gettysburg Address.

But at that moment, it is wise to pause and recall the truism, “No one is more dangerous than the newly anointed”, as too often in those situations, what we intend with our actions is often perceived very differently by others.

So this brings us to paradox #2:

“I learned that the less I told my patients about my philosophy of dentistry, and what I could do for them, the more interested the patients became in really thinking about themselves and accepting responsibility for their health.” – Robert F. Barkley

So the less we tell patients -the more they learn IF we create an optimal philosophy-influenced environment for that learning to occur. And the less we verbally tell patients about OUR philosophy (but instead focus on allowing them to experience it), the more the they will “acquire a philosophy of their own” which is in greater alignment with their clarifying values.

And it is through THEIR philosophy that the desire for a preferred future emerges, along with the will to see it through.

Paul A Henny, DDS

Thought Experiments LLC, ©2018

Read more at www.codiscovery.com

Posted on December 26, 2017

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

Posted on December 21, 2017

“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