Many private practices employ a 32 clinical work week. Seeing patients 8 hours per day for 4 days per week allows most dental teams that fifth day off. This opportunity for a third off day per week both adds to your team’s quality of life and helps reduce burnout in what can be a grueling profession. We here at ACT recommend a slight variation to this schedule. Let’s call it the 30-2 hour work week. In this model, you offer 30 clinical hours to your patients with 2 hours every week for you and your team to temporarily lock the doors and perform a 2-hour team meeting.

Dr. Barrett Straub

October 28, 2024

The Paradox of Success suggests that the very skills, beliefs, and behaviors that brought you to your current level of achievement won’t necessarily help you maintain or grow that success. In fact, sometimes past success can even stand in the way of future progress.

Dr. Barrett Straub

September 30, 2024

Leadership can often feel like an abstract concept, but the Salt Shaker Theory of Leadership offers a simple, effective way to understand and improve your approach. This theory, popularized by restaurateur Danny Meyer in his book Setting the Table, uses a salt shaker as a metaphor for leadership consistency and correction.

Dr. Barrett Straub

September 16, 2024

One of the most challenging aspects of dental practice leadership is determining the right level of involvement when you’ve delegated a task or priority to your team. It’s a delicate balance that can shift depending on the situation and the team members involved. Both micromanaging and being too hands-off can be detrimental, but finding the ideal middle ground is often more difficult than it seems. In this article, I’ll share some insights into both extremes and offer some red flags to help you assess if you’re leaning too far in either direction. First and foremost, leadership is hard. Human nature complicates it further—none of us wake up intending to be overbearing micromanagers or overly relaxed, unclear delegators. Despite our best intentions and knowledge of leadership principles, our desire to be effective, respected, and yes, even liked, can lead us to act in ways we never intended.

Dr. Barrett Straub

August 19, 2024

As I write, our entire ACT team is traveling here to Milwaukee for our quarterly planning meeting. Our strategic rhythm parallels the process we coach our clients through and there is a very specific reason for this rhythm. What is the 90 Day Pause? Neuroscience has indicated that businesses, and the humans that run them, get sidetracked and need to pause about every 90 days. This is intentional and very important. Without the pause, evidence shows we move farther and farther from our intended business goals. Why? Because life happens and over time it becomes more challenging to see the bigger picture while one is working day to day in the business.

Dr. Barrett Straub

August 05, 2024

Working toward being 100% Out of Network? There are some habits you should adopt now. All too often we see dentists work toward going OON using the same habits and behaviors they developed while practicing as a contracted PPO provider. This doesn’t normally work very well. Why? Fee for service dental patients have no financial incentive to be your patient. They represent a true consumer and will demand a higher level of service and attention. If you are on the path to insurance independence or wanting to start this journey, work to develop the following habits before dropping your PPOs.

Dr. Barrett Straub

July 23, 2024

In our last installment of the Leadership Corner Blog, “The Worst Advice I got in Dental School,” I introduced the three leaders in your practice: the Entrepreneur, the Boss, and the Clinician. If you are the practice owner and wondering who these three are in your practice, the answer is you. All three are you!

Dr. Barrett Straub

June 25, 2024

“Just do good dentistry and the rest will take care of itself.” We all heard this same advice in dental school. At the time it was comforting as it allowed me to continue to simply focus on attaining clinical skill. However, as I approach my 20 year dental school reunion, I can confidently say this is poor advice. While the intent comes from a good place, the application is certainly flawed.

Dr. Barrett Straub

June 11, 2024

There is a saying we often use here at ACT, “You can’t fix the place while it is flying.” Obviously, but we see dentists every day wondering why progress is so hard to achieve. Yet these same frustrated dentists are seeing patients around the clock, rarely setting aside time for team meetings much less time for them to think strategically. Quite frankly, dentists can’t work ON their practice while they are working IN the practice. There is a certain mindset needed for successful day to day operations of your practice and a completely different mindset to think strategically about the long term vision for your practice and the path to get there. I experienced both these mindsets last week. Let me share.

Dr. Barrett Straub

May 20, 2024

It happens to all of us. A key team member quits. Someone you thought you were tight with, someone you thought would be there forever. Someone you thought was all in and completely committed to you and your practice. They pull you aside and let you know they are moving on to another practice, one they feel is a better fit for their life. Ouch.

Dr. Barrett Straub

May 06, 2024