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763: Leadership for the Restorative Dentist – Kirk Behrendt DOT Fest Exclusive

What is the number-one enemy of teeth? Sometimes, it’s the dentist! Esthetic dentistry is rising in popularity — and harming many patients. To highlight the difference between esthetic and healthcare dentistry, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Christian Coachman, founder of Digital Smile Design, to explain why esthetics has its place, but shouldn't be the priority. Cosmetic dental procedures won't improve your patients’ health! To change the way you think about cosmetic and healthcare dentistry, listen to Episode 762 of The Best Practices Show!

 

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Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • Keep work in a container.
  • Know who you are as early as possible.
  • Find the right people and get them in the right seats.
  • Dentistry is a sport. Take care of your mind and body.
  • As a leader, you are responsible for your team culture.
  • Go all-chips-in on building an amazing team and practice.
  • Consistently perform huddles and check-ins with your team.
  • Prioritize your core values and find ways to keep them alive.
  • Think ahead and have quarterly and annual planning sessions.

Quotes:

“This is the thing that probably changed my life two years ago. Nothing has changed my life more than this, as far as the concept of leadership. Someone said this to me not too long ago. It was probably around two years ago. They said, ‘You're not really a leader until you develop other leaders that develop other leaders.’” (1:28—1:50) -Kirk

“Here's typically what we see. We see good practices. They're actually really good at managing other people, but the culture is a mess. They’ve got one hygienist they don't want to talk to because he or she rode a broom to work and doesn't like working with other people, but they produce $32,000 a month, and sell dentistry all day long, and they know every patient. And typically, the dentist doesn't have a good sense of self and how they're going to organize their time. Now, that can change. This does not exist: an amazing culture with mediocre team engagement and poor self-management.” (8:12—8:55) -Kirk

“The thinking is the most important piece to being an entrepreneur. The problem is never the problem — it's how you think about the problem. People come in and go, ‘I'm working five days a week. Delta Dental is killing me.’ It's not Delta Dental that's killing you. I had a woman come up to me in New York. This is my favorite story on this. She got mad at me because I did a day on cancellations, and she said, ‘I've got one for you. How do you fix cancellations on a Sunday?’ I didn't know what to do. I'm a wuss. I'm afraid of conflict. What would you say to a woman who confronts you on how you fix cancellations on a Sunday? . . . So, I thought of anything I could think of, which is, ‘Why do you work on a Sunday?’ She said, ‘Well, that's the only time my patients will come in.’ So, is the problem the cancellations, or is the problem how she thinks about what she does? When you undervalue what you do, people will always undervalue who you are.” (9:24—10:27) -Kirk

“I have only one regret in my life. I wish I would have gone back and learned who I was earlier in my life.” (13:25—13:34) -Kirk

“Spend every dollar you can on every personality test possible — as early in your life as possible — to figure out who you are and go all-chips-in on your strengths.” (14:00—14:10) -Kirk

“Wake up and do 30 minutes of cardio because cardio is beneficial for the body early in your life. But what is it really beneficial for as you get older? Your brain. I ride a Peloton almost every single morning, and it's not for the cardio. It's for the crazy stuff that's accumulated in my brain. My wife tells me, ‘That is so gross,’ on the floor. Like, ‘Look at all that.’ It's crazy stuff. It's the crazy juice that's in my brain that gets out in 30 minutes of cardio.” (18:36—19:04) -Kirk

“When I get seven hours of sleep and an hour of cardio . . . you can throw anything at me. I'm going to be okay. I can be calm. When I don't have that sleep and I don't have the cardio, everything affects me at a higher level. It's extremely agitating. It also affects my mindset.” (20:03—20:24) -Kirk

“I heard this probably 25 years ago, and I've never not thought about it every single day. Every day you take a shower, I want you to ask yourself this question. Am I earning this, or am I taking it? Because when you “take” a shower, it's a different feeling than when you earn it. There's nothing better than being super sweaty knowing, ‘That was the hardest part of my day, and now I've earned this shower.’ My goal is five days a week, I want to earn it. I'm going to take two, but I'm going to earn five. So, just a simple mindset because dentistry, again, is a sport.” (21:14—21:49) -Kirk

“I believe strongly, now more than ever, that work has to fit into a container. We're now in a digital age where the rules have gone out the window. We can work whenever we want. We can work around the clock. You can now pipe into Open Dental and Eaglesoft on the weekends. You can find out what's going on. Work has to be in a container for you and your team members. I'm not a mental health expert, but mental health is real. The dangerous part that we see with mental health is that too much is on your plate. Too much is in your brain. I believe in files closed. There's got to be a point in your life — it doesn't have to be perfect — you’ve got to go home and go, ‘Files closed. I'm not thinking about it.’ And expectations have to be clear about what happens after hours. People try to call me after hours. I never pick up. Team members, I tell them, ‘If you ever get a text from me, don't answer it.’ I may text you in the morning, but I never say, ‘Hey, can you get back to me?’ type of a thing. You have to keep work, somehow, in a container.” (21:55—22:57) -Kirk

“Pete Dawson said that you can run a great dental practice on 48 weeks a year. When you get better at it, you can run it on 45 weeks a year. He was a big fan of sequestering weeks. He said, ‘Go into your schedule and mark out several weeks. And then, train your practice to work on the remaining weeks.’ He called that blue time. He said, ‘The best moments of your life will never happen at work. You'll have some of them at work, but your favorite moments will be when you're away from work.” (23:09—23:42) -Kirk

“I think “coverage” is the dumbest word I've ever heard. I go, ‘Why don't you take time away?’ ‘Our patients need coverage.’ ‘I'm like, ‘Coverage? Coverage for what? Do they need blankets? Do they need umbrellas? What do they need?’ ‘Well, I have all these patients. They need coverage.’ ‘No, you don't. Do you have a friend who's an oral surgeon?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you have a friend who's a GP that could cover your patients?’ And you also know this: the more comprehensive you are, the less problems you have.” (24:16— 24:42) -Kirk

“The more you know about who you want to be, patients can be trained. We teach people how to treat us. We teach them how to behave. We teach them how to pay. We teach them what hours we work. I think it's very healthy.” (25:14—25:28) -Kirk

“The rule of 32 for a great restorative dentist is that's the max. You can only do 32 clinical hours, or something is going to give. It might be your health. It might be a relationship. You can make a great practice on 32 clinical hours.” (25:49—26:04) -Kirk

“I'm a big fan of rituals. Your life doesn't have to be perfect. But in your own personal life, you have to have a set of rituals.” (26:44—26:51) -Kirk

“Sixty-one percent of dentists say that their number-one problem for the rest of their careers will be one thing. What is it? It's the biggest problem in dentistry right now: finding, keeping, growing, and developing people. It's going to be your biggest challenge ever. I encourage every dentist — you should always learn clinical dentistry. But you should go all-chips-in on how [to] build an amazing team because it'll change your life. Part of it is recognizing that they have a life too.” (30:27—30:56) -Kirk

“So many people are working evenings. I go all over, and people say, ‘I'm open in the evening.’ I'm like, ‘Do you have kids?’ ‘Yes. Well, I have to be open in the evening.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because that's what time my patients come in.’ Now, let me just go there. People always go, ‘Well, I have teachers.’ Okay. I love teachers. I think teachers and military should go first at the airport, not A-listers. We should have a special line for them. We have a dentist. His name is John Obouter. You can call him. He said, ‘I can't do 7:00 to 3:00 four days a week. I have teachers in my office.’ I always say data removes all emotions. I go, ‘John, I want you to tell me how many teachers you have.’ Guess what? He went into Eaglesoft. Guess how many teachers he had? Eleven. I said to John, ‘You work days that teachers don't. Right?’ ‘Yes, a lot of them.’ Those are teacher VIP days. Call all 11 of them and say, ‘We value what you do. This day is Teacher Day.’ Guess what he has more of in his practice now? Teachers.” (33:21—34:26) -Kirk

“We subject ourselves to limiting beliefs, and our lives are on hold forever, and you miss thousands and thousands of hours of stuff that matters. So, I think part of it is, what are you building?” (34:26—34:38) -Kirk

“I see 64-year-old dentists building $4 million buildings. That's the dumbest thing ever. I'm like, ‘How old are you?’ They go, ‘Sixty-four.’ I go, ‘How much is this?’ ‘Four million dollars.’ ‘Why?’ They go, ‘It's an investment.’ I'm like, ‘You should purchase an RV.’ Because if you purchase this at 64, where are you going to spend the rest of your life?” (34:50—35:14) -Kirk

“When you have the right people, you can produce twice as much, in half the time, with a quarter of the stress. We have practices all the time, they have amazing months. I'm like, ‘Holy moly. What happened?’ What do you think they all say? It's all something of the same sort. They never say, ‘I'm really good at dentistry right now. I've been doing this DOT thing. I'm really good now.’ No. They always say, ‘I got the right person. I've got an amazing team now. Things just work better.’” (36:02—36:31) -Kirk

“Leadership in a restorative practice is hiring the right people and putting them in the right seats. It'll change your life. You only hire people for two reasons — not four. Not six. Here's the first reason. They share your core values. You have a set of values — they're behaviors. They're verbs that are non-negotiable, and they share the same values. The wrong people, they're not bad people. They just don't share your same values. Your least favorite people don't care about the same things that you care about. You could try to rehabilitate somebody who doesn't care about you. But that's a waste of time. I did it for years, trying to get people to care about things. But they would say “I” and “me” at the beginning of sentences. It was hard, and it wasn't their fault. It was my fault.” (36:39—37:24) -Kirk

“Nothing frustrates a great team member than when you consistently tolerate a bad one. Great team members will go, ‘I can't do this anymore. I can't do this. You need to do something.’ So, that happens. You’ve just got to have a conversation. That's why I'm a big fan of the onboarding process. You should always have a 3-3-3. It's really easy. It vets this out. You should have a standardized onboarding process in which people have to learn things in three days. And it's simple. Like, where did the doctor go to dental school? What are our hours? How many team members? Tell me a little bit about the practice. It's a simple test that at the end of three days, they pass it with flying colors. Your best team members are going to pass that in two days. Your best one is going to go, ‘This is super easy. Can we go on to the next thing?’ Then, there's something they have to do in three weeks. By the end of three weeks, you're going to have to be good at this, this, this, this, and this. And I've got a program for you. At the end of three months, you're going to have to be proficient at this, this, and this. That way, you don't get into a conversation about subjective, ‘You're not fitting.’ The best team members need a clear line of sight in order to succeed. So, my encouragement is create a 3-3-3 so that they already know whether they're doing the right thing in their onboarding.” (39:30—40:48) -Kirk

“We teach here at ACT Dental, “today is the day”. It's really simple. I learned this from a friend of mine that owned several businesses. He came in and observed our business many years ago. He's like, ‘Why do you put up with that?’ I had a team member that was very difficult to deal with. He goes, ‘Okay, I'm going to teach you a concept. It's called today is the day.’ He sat next to me while I did it because I was scared to death. I brought this team member in, and I go, ‘Hey. Today is the day.’ Then, they always say, ‘For what?’ ‘Today is the day. I want you to go home. I want you to have a great meal with your family. I want you to think about your future here. Don't say anything right now. I want you to go home and I want you to tell me if you really want to be here. Because if you want to be here, I'm all in. If you're not, it's totally cool. We'll keep this between you and I. We'll unwind. I'll help you find another place.’ I was so scared to have that conversation. It took about 60 seconds. That employee left. Guess what happened when they came back? Walked right in. What was their answer? ‘Nope.’ ‘Great. The story between you and I just needs to stay between you and I. I'll help you unwind. We'll make this perfect.’ It was one of the greatest things I had ever learned in my whole entire life . . . Now, you do have to have core values in place. So, that's an opportunity, because this person, single-handedly, will take out your entire team and make you hate going to work.” (41:08—42:35) -Kirk

“Any dentist who goes, ‘Yeah, I have 12 and I have the perfect team,’ just walk away from them. That doesn't even exist. Even Jesus had staff problems. You're always going to have people that are all over the place, and what you're going to do is do a check-in to see how you can grow them or help them grow.” (43:48—44:06) -Kirk

“Eighty percent of your problems in a restorative practice exists in your Function Accountability Chart. That is, who does what? What is their role? If you told me about your practice and told me about the problems that you have, I could probably sequester it to a person or a thinking issue. It's a role that's not working in your practice. You probably don't have the right person in the right seat, or it's not clearly defined, or you don't have a Function Accountability Chart at all.” (44:36—45:05) -Kirk

“Everybody has got to have a morning huddle that's really well done. If you don't have a morning huddle, that's because you don't believe it's valuable or you don't do it well. I can't imagine going to see a surgeon, a dentist, or any professional that didn't meet with their team to clearly discuss what was going to happen today. You also have your weekly team meeting where you land the plane for two hours and you work on the business instead of in it.” (47:40—48:05) -Kirk

“I believe, personally — and I found this firsthand to be absolutely true — that every team member needs a check-in on a regular basis. I would encourage it once a month. Now, I have this agenda. We give it to a lot of our practices. The team members run it. It's 30 minutes. All you have to do is show up. The team members run it. You don't do anything. Stop doing reviews. Stop doing all of these appointments to talk about your raise. If you do a regular check-in, team members are going to run it really well, and they're going to tell you a lot.” (48:15—48:46) -Kirk

“Here's how [check-ins are] done. The first thing you do is schedule the next one because that's the one that gets missed first. When is the next time we're going to meet? Next month, 30 minutes. I let them go through personal high, personal low. They don't have to tell me anything. I'm not asking you, as a team member, to tell me anything. I'm just going to leave space for it. The first couple of times you do it, team members won't tell you anything. They'll be like, ‘No, everything's great.’ Then, after they've been here for a year, they drop a bomb on you. You'll go, ‘Oh my gosh. I did not need to know all that information.’ But what you're doing is you're cultivating vulnerability-based trust. They're starting to trust you with their lives.” (48:47—49:28) -Kirk

“As an employer, you either care or you don't care. You could say, ‘I care.’ If you're the restorative dentist who says, ‘I care,’ then show me what you do that proves what you just said is correct.” (49:48—50:06) -Kirk

“You're also mitigating future tension [by doing check-ins]. Have you ever had a great team member stop you in the hallway and go, ‘I'm sorry. I've got to give you my notice today,’ and you're like, ‘What happened now?’ Everyone tells you to do an exit interview. But that's after the fact. If you're doing check-ins, this is going to be a blip on the radar six months to a year before it happens. They're going to tell you, ‘I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because of this.’” (50:30—50:56) -Kirk

“Here's my favorite question to ask when somebody gives you something that's pretty heavy. I'm a big Brené Brown fan. She's a big fan of check-ins, and I love this question. I actually use this at home quite a bit. A lot of times, when people are challenged, we say, ‘How can I help you? I want to help you.’ This is a great question. What does support look like from me? And they'll tell you. Don't guess. I came home one day, and my son was coming out of the garage — I love my wife. My son was like, ‘Dad, don't go in there. She's so mad.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ It's one of those things where you come in and you go, ‘Okay, what's going on?’ And I use the Brené Brown thing. I go, ‘Okay, what does support look like from me?’ She goes, ‘Can you pick up the dog crap, please?’ I was like, ‘I can do that,’ because we have people coming over. Sometimes, you just don't know what's going on. ‘What does support look like from me?’ Great opportunity.” (51:13—52:13) -Kirk

“You’ve got to have a quarterly planning session and an annual planning session. A quarterly planning session is when you land the plane, and you think about what's going to happen for the next 13 weeks. You can do an annual plan, but your quarterly plan has to be reflected in your annual plan. Human beings can only stay focused for 90 days. I was the person who tried to create 92 goals for 2025, and it was just exhausting.” (52:14—52:41) -Kirk

“Your business, and every business, has to have a set of core values. If I could go back, this would be another thing I would do earlier, is have a set of values.” (53:04—53:14) -Kirk

“Thirty percent of your life will be spent at a place called work — 30% of your life. I want to go to work and laugh. I want to come to work, and I want to enjoy it.” (53:33—53:44) -Kirk

“The whole point of your core purpose is to motivate and lead your people. It's the glue that holds everything together.” (54:19—54:24) -Kirk

“Level four leaders get people to follow them. Level five leaders get people to follow a cause. I never want anybody to follow me. I want to be here as an instrument on the team, but I want them to do it for their own reasons.” (54:54—55:11) -Kirk

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:17 Create other leaders that create other leaders.

4:15 Work on your culture.

5:45 Know your annual patient value.

8:12 An amazing culture requires amazing management.

9:14 It’s all about your thinking.

13:24 Know who you are as early as possible.

16:28 Take care of your physical health.

21:50 Keep work in a container.

25:39 The rule of 32, explained.

26:43 Create rituals in your life.

31:24 Get rid of your limiting beliefs.

35:49 Get the right people in the right seats.

44:29 The Function Accountability Chart, explained.

47:30 Have morning huddles and check-ins.

52:13 Have a quarterly and annual planning session.

52:57 Give life to your values.

54:09 Have a core purpose.

54:50 Last thoughts.

Kirk Behrendt Bio:

Kirk Behrendt is a renowned consultant and speaker in the dental industry, known for his expertise in helping dentists create better practices and better lives. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Kirk has dedicated his professional life to optimizing dentistry's best systems and practices.

Kirk has been a featured speaker at every major dental meeting in the United States. His company, ACT Dental, has consistently been ranked among the Top Dental Consultants in Dentistry Today's annual rankings for the past ten years. In addition, ACT Dental was named one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States by Inc Magazine, appearing on their Inc 5000 list.

Kirk's motivational skills are widely recognized in the dental industry. Dr. Peter Dawson of The Dawson Academy has referred to Kirk as "THE best motivator I have ever heard." Kirk has also assembled a trusted team of advisor experts who work with dentists to customize individual solutions that meet their unique needs.

When he's not motivating dentists and their teams, Kirk enjoys coaching his children's sports teams and spending time with his amazing wife, Sarah, and their four children, Kinzie, Lily, Zoe, and Bo.
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